Win

Chapter 26

I sit in the passenger seat of a parked tow truck driven by a man named Gino. I know his name because the name is sewn in red cursive on his work shirt.

“So now what?” Gino asks me.

I am watching Elena Randolph, the woman who purportedly dated Arlo Sugarman at Oral Roberts University, through her storefront window at the CityGate Plaza in Rochester, New York. The other strip mall tenants include a psychic, a tax service, a Dollar Palace (cue my shudder), and a Subway (cue my double shudder). According to the flashing neon sign, Elena Randolph’s beauty parlor or hair salon or whatever terminology they now use for such establishments is called Shear Lock Combs. I don’t know whether to applaud or put a bullet through the sign.

Elena Randolph’s 2013 Honda Odyssey has the vanity plate DO-OR-DYE. I frown. I wish Myron were here. He enjoys these sorts of puns. He and Ms. Randolph would, no doubt, get along.

“We just gonna sit here?” Gino asks.

My phone rings. It’s Kabir.

“Articulate,” I say.

“No calls,” he says.

I am not surprised. We’d been monitoring Mrs. Parker and Mr. Rowan since I’d left a little more than an hour ago. My hope was that they were lying to me and once I left, they would reach out and warn Edie and Billy that I was searching for them. But alas, that didn’t happen. Onward.

“Anything else?”

“I did some research on Trey Lyons. You were right. Ex-military. Works security in a variety of countries.”

I consider that. “Put two more men on him.”

Trey Lyons will be a festering problem if I don’t take care of it soon. How had he put it in the van? He can’t let me live, and I can’t let him.

I check my watch. It’s half past three p.m. and Shear Lock Combs — the name is growing on me — doesn’t close until five. Enticing as the prospect of chilling with Gino for the next ninety minutes may be, I choose to forgo the pleasure and get moving.

“Wait for my signal,” I tell Gino.

“You’re the boss.”

I step out of the tow truck and head toward the salon’s door. When I enter, all eyes turn to me, though some do so via mirrors. There are three chairs, all in use. Three women clients in black chairs, three women beauticians. Two more women lounge in a waiting area. The coffee table is blanketed with gossip magazines, but both waiting women prefer their phones.

The ladies all smile at the male interloper, save one. Elena Randolph is tall and slender. Despite being sixty-five years old, she wears tight slacks and a sleeveless top, and it works well enough on her. Her hair is gray and spiky, her face birdlike, her expression harsh. Reading glasses hang from a chain around her neck.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

“We need to talk,” I say.

“I’m with a client right now.”

“It’s important.”

“We close at five.”

“No, sorry, that won’t do for me.”

There is what some might call an uncomfortable silence, but as I think we’ve established by now, I find no silences uncomfortable.

The fleshy redheaded beautician working the chair next to Elena’s says, “Uh, I can finish Gertie for you.”

Elena Randolph just stares at me.

The redhead bends down to an old woman whose hair is covered in tinfoil. “I can finish you up, can’t I, Gertie?”

Gertie shouts, “Huh?”

Elena Randolph slowly puts down a comb and scissors, places both hands on Gertie’s shoulders, bends down, and says, “I’ll be right back, Gertie.”

“Huh?”

Elena’s eyes shoot daggers at me. I deflect them with a smile that could best be described as disarming. She marches out the door so that we are now both in front of the window of her salon. All eyes stay on us. No one goes back to work.

“And you are?” Elena asks.

“Windsor Horne Lockwood the Third,” I say.

“Am I supposed to know you?”

“I believe you spoke to my assistant Kabir on the telephone.”

She nods as though she expected this. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“It would be wonderful if we could just skip this part,” I say.

“Pardon?”

“The part where you say you won’t talk to me and then I start my barrage. It really is such a waste, and in the end, you will cave.”

She puts her hands on her narrow hips. “Are you a cop?”

I frown. “In these threads?”

That almost makes her smile.

“Tell me about Ralph Lewis.” I hand her the scan from the yearbook with the medieval band. “You two dated at Oral Roberts University.”

Elena doesn’t so much as glance at the page. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I sigh dramatically. I had hoped to avoid this, but my patience is wearing thin. I raise my hand and snap my fingers. Two seconds later, the tow truck pulls into the lot and stops behind her Honda Odyssey. Gino jumps out, slips on a thick pair of gloves, and pulls a lever to start lowering the flatbed.

“Hey,” Elena shouts. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“That’s my main man Gino,” I say. “He’s repossessing your car.”

“He can’t—”

I hand her the orders. “You are in heavy debt, Ms. Randolph. On your vehicle. On your house.” I point to the salon. “On your place of business.”

“I’ve made arrangements,” she says.

“Yes, with the old collection agency. But I’ve purchased your debt, and so now you owe me. I’ve examined your financial situation and feel that you are a bad risk, ergo, per my rights, I’m foreclosing on your assets as of right now. Gino here will take the Honda. I have two men who are at this moment padlocking the front door of your home. In ten seconds, I will open the door to your business and inform your customers that they will have to vacate the premises immediately.”

Elena Randolph’s wide eyes scan down the first page. “You can’t do this.”

I sigh, though this time with a tad less spectacle. “Your denials are tiresome.” I reach for the salon’s door. Elena shifts her body to block me.

“I don’t know where Ralph is, I swear.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“I would put my hand on my chest and say, ‘The truth,’ but I feel it would be over the top, don’t you?”

Elena is not in the mood. I don’t blame her. I’m not naturally a needler, but this is something else I learned from Myron. Needling keeps your adversary off-balance. “And if I don’t cooperate?” she asks.

“Really? Have I not made this obvious? Your car, your house, your business will all be mine. By the way, what’s the redhead’s name? I’m going to fire her first.”

“There are laws.”

“Yes, I’m aware. They favor me.”

“I know my rights. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“That’s correct.”

The flatbed reaches the ground. Gino looks at me. I nod for him to go ahead.

“You can’t...” Tears spring to Elena’s eyes. “This is bullying. You just can’t...”

“Of course, I can.”

I don’t enjoy this, but I don’t mind much either. People used to buy the “everyone is equal” rationale we Americans brilliantly sold throughout our esteemed history, though lately more and more get what has always been obvious: Money tilts all scales. Money is power. This isn’t a John Grisham man-against-the-system novel — in reality, the little man can’t stand up to it. As I warned Elena Randolph at the get-go, she will eventually cave.

I’m not sounding like the hero of this story, am I?

Is it right that the wealthy can wield this power over you? Of course not. The system isn’t fair. Reality is a bothersome thing. I have no interest in hurting Elena Randolph, but I won’t lose sleep over this either. She may be harboring a fugitive. At the very least, she has information that I require. The sooner I get it, the sooner she goes back to her own life.

“You won’t quit, will you?” she says.

My disarming smile returns.

“Let’s go sit in the Subway.”

“Subway?” I am appropriately aghast. “I’d rather have my kidney removed with a grapefruit spoon. We can talk here, so let’s get to it, shall we? You knew Ralph Lewis at Oral Roberts University, correct?”

Elena wipes her eyes and nods.

“When did you last see him?”

“More than forty years ago.”

“If we skip the lies—”

“I’m not lying. Let me ask you something before we get into this.”

I don’t like it, but it may take longer to express that point. “Go on.”

“You’re not a cop.”

“We’ve already established that.”

“So why are you after Ralph?”

Sometimes you play vague. Sometimes you go right for the throat. Right now, I choose the throat. “You mean Arlo Sugarman, don’t you?”

The remark draws blood. Conclusion: Elena Randolph knew that Ralph Lewis was really Arlo Sugarman.

“How did you—?” She stops, sees that there’s no point, shakes her head. “Never mind. He didn’t do anything, you know.”

I wait.

“Why are you after him? After all these years.”

“You heard about Ry Strauss being found.”

“Of course.” She narrows her eyes. “Wait, I saw your picture on the news. You owned that painting.”

“Own,” I correct. “Present tense.”

“I don’t get why you’d be looking for Arlo.”

“The art heist was not a solo job,” I say.

“And you think, what, that Arlo has your other missing painting?”

“Perhaps.”

“He doesn’t.”

“You haven’t seen him in over forty years.”

“Still. Arlo would not be involved in something like that.”

I try dropping the bomb: “Would he be involved in the abduction and murder of young girls?”

Her mouth drops open.

“In all likelihood,” I say, “Ry Strauss and an accomplice murdered my uncle and kidnapped my cousin.”

“You can’t think—”

“Did you meet Ry Strauss when he came to campus?”

“Listen to me,” Elena says. “Arlo was a good man. He was the best man I ever knew.”

“Cool,” I say. “So where is he?”

“I told you. I don’t know. Look, Ralph... I mean Arlo... we dated for two years at Oral Roberts. I came from a rough background. As a child, I was...” The tears start coming to her eyes, but she works hard to shake them off. “You don’t want to hear my whole life story.”

“Heavens, no.”

She manages a chuckle at that, though I hadn’t meant to be funny. “Ralph — that’s what I always called him — Ralph was kind.”

“When did you learn his real identity?”

“Before we dated.”

That surprises me. “He confided in you?”

“I was his campus contact in the underground. I helped him get settled, found the pseudonym, whatever he needed.”

“And, what, you two grew close?”

She moves close to me. “Arlo wasn’t there that night.”

“When you say ‘that night’—”

“The night with the Molotov cocktails and all those deaths.”

“Arlo Sugarman told you that?” I give her my best skeptical eyebrow arch, which is, modesty aside, a work of art. “You’ve seen the photograph of the Jane Street Six?”

“The famous one in the basement? Sure. But that was his last time with them. He thought it was just a prank, that they’d never really fill the bottles with kerosene. When he saw they were serious, he backed out.”

“Arlo told you this?”

“He told me Ry had turned crazy. He didn’t go that night.”

“There are photographs from that night.”

“None of him. There are six people, yes. But you don’t see his face, do you?”

I give this a moment. “So how come Arlo Sugarman never told the police?” I ask.

“He did. Do you think anyone believed him?”

“It could be he was lying to you.”

“He had no reason to lie to me. I was on his side anyway.”

“And I suppose he didn’t shoot Special Agent Patrick O’Malley either.”

Elena Randolph blinks and looks toward her Honda.

“Do you know about Special Agent O’Malley?” I ask.

“Of course.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“First tell that asshole to step away from my car.”

I turn toward Gino and tilt my head. He backs off.

“Arlo would never talk about that shooting. He’d just shut down.”

I frown, try to get back on track. “You and Arlo started dating?”

“Yes.”

“Did you love him?”

Elena smiles. “What difference does that make?”

Touché.

“Where is he now?”

“I told you. I don’t know.”

“When was the last time you saw Arlo?”

“At graduation.”

“Were you two still a couple?”

She shakes her head. “We broke up.”

“May I ask why?”

“He found someone else.”

I feel as though I’m supposed to say I’m sorry, but I don’t.

“So you saw him at graduation?”

“Yes.”

“And that was the last time?”

“That was the last time.”

“Did you hear where he went after graduation?”

“No. Those are the rules with the underground. The fewer people who know, the safer he is. My part in his life was over.”

Dead end.

Except it didn’t feel like a dead end.

“I have no interest in hurting him,” I say.

Elena glances inside the salon. Everyone is still staring at us. “How were you able to buy my debt so fast?” she asks.

“It’s not hard.”

“You own a Vermeer.”

“My family does.”

She meets my eyes and holds them. “You’re superrich.”

I see no reason to reply.

“I told you that Arlo left me for someone else.”

“You did indeed.”

“I’ll give you the name under two conditions.”

I steeple my fingers. “I’m listening.”

“First, you promise if you find him to hear him out. If he convinces you he didn’t do anything, you let him go.”

“Done,” I say.

It isn’t as though this promise is binding. I believe in certain degrees of loyalty and “my word is my bond” stuff. I don’t believe in all of it. I am bound by what I believe is best, not some false promise or faux loyalty. Either way, it is easy to say, “Done,” mean it or not.

“What’s the second condition?”

“You forgive all my debts.”

Confession: I’m impressed. “Your debts,” I say, “total more than a hundred thousand dollars.”

Elena shrugs. “You’re superrich.”

I have to say. I like it. I like it a lot.

“If the name you give me ends up being a lie—” I begin.

“It’s not.”

“Do you think there is any chance they are still together?”

“I do. They seemed very much in love. Do we have a deal?”

It’s going to cost me six figures, but I lose and gain that amount every minute when the markets are open. I am also philanthropic, mostly because I can afford to be. Elena Randolph and her salon seem like a worthy cause.

“We have a deal,” I say.

“Mind if we orally confirm that?”

“Sorry?”

She takes out her phone and makes me record my promise. “Just putting it on the record,” Elena says.

I almost tell her that my word is my bond, but we both know that’s nonsense. I like her more and more. When we finish the recording, she puts the phone back in her purse.

“Okay,” I say. “So who did Arlo Sugarman leave you for?”

“I didn’t understand at the time,” she says.

“Sorry?”

“It was the seventies. We were at an evangelical school. It just wasn’t...”

“Wasn’t what?” I ask. “Who did he leave you for?”

Elena Randolph picks up the photocopied image of the medieval group from her old yearbook. She points — but not at Arlo. She points instead at the lead singer on the far left. I squint to see the blurry black-and-white image better.

“Calvin Sinclair,” she says.

I look up at her.

“That’s why we broke up. Arlo realized he was gay.”