The Negotiator: A Novel of Suspense

by Brendan DuBois

  “Wanda Briggs?”

  “Yes? Who are you?”

  I just stood there. “I was Clarence’s boss.”

  She bit her lower lip, and her body shuddered, like she had just taken a punch to the gut. “Come in, then.”

  “Thanks.”

  She led me to the living room, which was tidy but which also had some kids’ toys scattered around the carpeted floor. I took a settee and Wanda sat down on an opposite chair, crossed her legs. A couch, coffee table, two comfortable chairs, and flat-screen television filled out the room. There were numerous photos of Wanda and her twin sons hanging from the wall, and on the shelving containing some books and knick-knacks.

  There were no photos of her ex-husband, Clarence.

  “Well?”

  “I’m sorry to say that Clarence is dead.”

  She folded her arms. “I know that.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Carla, his younger sister.”

  “When?”

  “A few days ago. Clarence didn’t show up for the boys’ Little League awards ceremony. And he didn’t call, or text, or show up the next day to apologize. That’s when I knew, deep in my gut, that he was dead. Carla just confirmed it. He adored Sean and Dennis. We would have never hurt them like that. Oh, I was hoping that maybe he was in some sort of accident, a coma or amnesia, but really, what are the chances of that?”

  “Pretty slim.”

  As she talked, her voice went up and down in octaves, like it was deciding to find one level to work on, and her eyes wandered as well. Then she snap-focused on me and said, “So how do you know he’s dead?”

  “I was there when he was shot.”

  She closed her eyes. “Did … did he suffer?”

  “No,” I said. “It was instant.”

  She opened her eyes. “When?”

  “A week ago.”

  “Where?”

  “Chester, Vermont.”

  “Never heard of it. What happened?”

  In this quiet little suburban oasis of supposed domestic bliss, it seemed obscene to haul out the memory of what happened a week ago, but I did it anyway.

  “Clarence and I were at a job. I was asked to evaluate a stolen painting, and then assist in the negotiation of its sale. As we were working, the man I was dealing with opened fire and shot Clarence, killing him instantly.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, opened them up. They were steady and unflinching. “How did you get out?”

  “Out a second-floor window.”

  “Was it open?”

  “After I tossed a chair through it.”

  “And Clarence’s … body?”

  “Gone.”

  “His SUV?”

  “Gone as well. I don’t think we’re going to locate his body. The gunmen were … thorough.”

  “I see. Ask you a question?”

  “Absolutely?”

  “What the fuck took you so long to come here?”

  “Three things,” I said, feeling my face flush. “I was trying to save my own life, I was trying to track down the man who killed him, and I was too chicken to come here right away.”

  “But you’re here now. Why?”

  “Because I was tired of being a chickenshit, and because I wanted to see how you were doing.”

  Her gaze was steady and unyielding. “Is that all?”

  “No. The guy who killed your husband—”

  “Ex-husband,” she corrected.

  “—who killed Clarence,” I went on, “said later that I had something valuable that belonged to Clarence.”

  “And do you?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  I now noticed that the hum of the interstate was felt and heard throughout the house. I couldn’t spend a night here, never mind live here.

  “Who’s the guy who shot Clarence?”

  “A man named George. Initially he said he was just an old-time art collector from small-town Vermont. Later he presented himself as a representative from the Department of Justice. I don’t know his real name or background.”

  She crossed and recrossed her legs. “Now what?”

  “I’m curious … did Clarence ever say that he had something valuable in his possession?”

  “You looking to steal it?” she said, voice sharp.

  “No, I’m looking to know what it is, so it’ll end up in your hands.”

  She looked away, squirmed in her chair, and I think I knew what was going on: Wanda was trying to decide whether or not she could trust me. I suppose I could have pled my case, but I decided to sit still and keep my mouth shut.

  Wanda turned back to me, eyes watery. “Clarence … said you were the best boss he’s ever had. Smart, reasonable, well-paying … you were the best.”

  “So was he.”

  “Hunh,” she said. “He was a man of the streets … not those thugs who break into houses or run drugs or steal cars. No, he just was big, hard, and wasn’t afraid of violence. And he moved in rough circles. The ones that make shady deals, that don’t pay taxes, don’t live in what they call the civilian life. And when you came along, he couldn’t believe how fortunate he was.”

  I started to say something, and Wanda kept on talking. “The thing is, that wasn’t enough. I wanted him to do something legit, something he could talk about with his sons. He said he would do that … one of these days, but Clarence also said the job with you was his last one, so he could keep on supporting me and the boys. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “I talked to him, over and over again, about what it meant to have him out there, and he always said, ‘No worries, hon, I got it covered. I ever end up dead, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve got set up for you.’”

  “Like what?”

  “Like he didn’t say.” She quickly brushed at her eyes with her right hand. “So now he’s dead. No insurance policy. Nothing. Not even a body to bury. That means I gotta wait before the will gets sent to probate. And what am I going to do now? Get a job at McDonald’s or an Irving gas station?”

  “You’ll be taken care of.”

  “How?” she demanded.

  “Because I’m going to make it right.”

  A few moments passed as she wiped at her eyes a couple of more times, and said, “How?”

  “Not sure,” I said. “But it’s going to happen. Clarence … before he worked for me, did he exclusively stay in Rhode Island and Massachusetts?”

  “No … he’d travel a lot. Wouldn’t say where, but I figured it was in the Northeast. He was never gone that long, and he didn’t pack like he was going on an airline. Just driving distance.”

  “Anything stick out from those trips?”

  “Well … sometimes he’d come home late, most of the time laughing, and buzzed that he had gotten some job done. Then he’d want to wake me up and tell me stories, have me make him breakfast … and then … you know, crawl back into bed and get reacquainted.”

  She paused in her telling, and I gently pressed her. “But was there one day that was different?”

  She slowly nodded. “Yes … three years ago, just before we split up. He came home late … practically snuck in. He had dried blood on his shirt and coat. Not his, thank God … but he didn’t make the kind of fuss that he usually did. Just quiet. Stripped off his clothes, took a shower, went to bed … slept nearly a full day. And later, he said, no more traveling for a while. Said it had been dangerous, he had … what was it? Oh, yeah. He had gone off the reservation. He had seen his opportunity and took it.”

  Wanda clasped her hands together. “He stayed home for about a month. I mean, stay in the house, not even go out for a drink or to buy me dinner. Nearly drove me and the boys crazy, and then he did a little pick-up work, and then started working for you. And then … well, w
e split up.”

  “But he never said what he had done that night.”

  “No.”

  Horns were blaring outside from something going on at the Interstate.

  “Since … he didn’t come home, have you gotten any strange phone calls? Somebody in the neighborhood? Maybe an attempted break-in?”

  “No, nothing like that. But that’s not surprising.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Clarence insisted I take back my maiden name … like he wanted me to cut whatever legal ties I had with him. So I’d fade in the background.”

  Interesting. And time for a quick change of topic. “His sister, Carla. What’s she like?”

  A quick burst of laughter. “That ice queen? A bitch on wheels, that’s what she is.”

  “But you do know where she works, right?”

  She waved a hand. “Oh yes, the high and mighty Eff Bee Eye. Hunh. You think she pissed Mountain Dew and shit Skittles, the way she carries herself. She’s just a glorified secretary, an admin person, but she always held herself like she reported to J. Edgar Hoover himself.”

  “J. Edgar Hoover is dead.”

  “Then whoever’s running the show, whatever. But she … she’d see Clarence every now and then, for family get-togethers, birthdays, Easter … and it always ended the same way. They’d get into a fight and—no, that’s not right. No, she’d always pick a fight with Clarence, show how better she was. Always tried to tell him in so many words to leave the life, if not for her, then at least the family.”

  “I’ve spoken to her some,” I said. “She says she hadn’t seen Clarence in three years. Is that right?”

  “Yeah, right after we split up, and he moved out.”

  I thought about the last time I talked to Carla, and said, “Do you know where she is? Have you talked to her lately?”

  “No and no.” Wanda paused. “Do you know where she is?”

  “Yeah, she’s in some trouble.”

  “Gee, too bad.” But there was a smile on Wanda’s face.

  I looked again at the family photos, my eyes drawn to the twin boys, photos from infants to them now as burly eleven-year-olds in Little League uniforms.

  “Your split up … I’m sorry, what caused it? I mean, I know Clarence, well, I know he had a wandering eye.”

  Another short laugh. “Hah. You mean a wandering dick, that’s more like it. No, that’s not what split us up. It was his choice.”

  That surprised me. “Excuse me? That’s not what I heard.”

  “Really? Then whoever told you that was lying. Sorry. Look, I could overlook a few things. His job, for one. And how hard it was to get blood stains out of his clothing. But that’s the life he chose, and I chose to be with him. It meant good money, trips to Aruba and Disneyworld—both Florida and California—and Catholic schools for the twins. So if he picked up a little strange on his trips, all right … I made it clear that he needed to be protected so he didn’t bring anything home, and that whatever he did, it happened while he was away. Not home, not in this part of the state.”

  That really caught my attention. “I’m sorry, Wanda, I heard that there was an argument, a fight, that you fired a shot at him after coming home early one day and finding him bed with two women.”

  “Didn’t happen that way.”

  “You mean there wasn’t a fight, and there wasn’t a gunshot?”

  “Christ, yes, there was a fight—we always fought, we were like water and oil, the two of us—but I can’t remember what it was over. I can tell you one thing, it didn’t involve him being in our marriage bed with two bimbos.”

  I kept a steady look at her. She said, “Okay, there was also a gunshot, but it didn’t mean I was trying to kill him. It was an accident.”

  “How?”

  Her face reddened. “It was a hot August night. We came back late from some party. We have these A/C units that cool down the whole house. One here in the living room, one in the boys’ room, and one in our bedroom. Clarence was supposed to turn on the one in our bedroom before we left, but he forgot.”

  “I see.”

  “So we come back home and because the windows were closed, the bedroom was a fucking oven. I started bitching at him about being dumb, about being stupid, about having to sleep in a hot bedroom, and he said, ‘Christ, just shut the fuck up and take the A/C remote out of the drawer, turn it on.’ That went like that for … thirty minutes or so. I won’t get into any more of the details.”

  “All right, that’s fair. What then?”

  Her face reddened even more. “After a while he said he was tired of all this bullshit, that he was going to go to the drawer and get the A/C running, ’cause we were wasting all this time fighting, and by now, the place would be cool if the A/C had been turned on when we first got in. And I told him, don’t you fucking dare, I can’t trust you to do anything around the house, so he started moving around the bed, coming to the nightstand, and I beat him to it, opened the drawer, pulled out the remote, and pressed the switch.”

  I got it now. “You didn’t have the remote.”

  “No. It was a pistol.”

  “Wasn’t the safety on?”

  “It was a Glock. No safety. And it was loaded, with a round in the chamber. And I was drunk, and I didn’t see what I had in my hand, I just pushed and pulled with my fingers, and the damn thing went off. Nearly took off his head, went into the ceiling and up into the attic. Broke the bottom half of a plastic Santa Claus.”

  “Wake up the boys?”

  Her face was grateful. “Christ, no, thank God. They were on a sleepover. After the gunshot … Clarence and I cried some, hugged, and he said he was moving out the next day. And he did.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “Because … he said he was a dangerous man, a wanted man. The gunshot reminded him of that. And he wanted to protect us.”

  By God, so he had, I thought.

  We took a break while she got a glass of water, and she didn’t offer me anything—whether from forgetfulness or anger at who I was, I really didn’t care—and when she came back, I said, “Where’s his home?”

  “Dumpy little Cape over in Lynn.”

  “Do you have a key?”

  She sipped from her water tumbler. “No, but there’s a brick patio in the rear. Loose brick at the right corner, facing the woods. What, you going to look inside his house?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “George—the man who shot Clarence—he thinks Clarence had something valuable. Something I supposedly have. And I want to see if it might be at his house. Did many people know he lived there?”

  “No … he tried to keep it pretty quiet.”

  I looked at her and felt something odd burrow inside me, the thought of the love of a woman who would stick with you, stay by your side, and always look out for you and defend you, year after year, no matter the overdue bills, the flat tires, the oil heaters that break down, the laundry that needs to be done, the groceries that need to be bought.

  What would that be like? I thought. What would that be like.

  And it came to me, that it was a sort of loyalty, similar to what I was doing on Clarence’s behalf ever since he was killed, the loyalty of a man to his partner.

  “Anything more?” Wanda asked.

  “No … just directions to Clarence’s place in Lynn.”

  “Sure. I’ll write it down for you.”

  She put the water tumbler down on a coaster with Mickey Mouse’s head on it, and she started to get up, and then she sat down.

  “I see it now,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

  “See what?” I asked, although I saw some sort of light of recognition in her eyes, and I knew she had arrived at the same place I had gotten to, about five minutes ago.

  “Clarence … he came back from that last job, three years
ago. His sister Carla, she tries one last time to get him to leave what he does, and when she’s not satisfied, she never speaks to him again. That was three years ago. Just when he split up with me and the kids.”

  I said, “That’s what I think, too, Wanda. He had done something … notable. He had a sense he was always going to be in some sort of danger from that day forward. And he left you and moved away, to protect you the best way he could.”

  “Then this George … ”

  “Either he’s the wounded party, or he’s working for the wounded party. They want back what Clarence stole. But they moved too quick and too fast, and killed him.”

  “What could it be?”

  “I don’t know, but I will find out.”

  She reached over to the coffee table, slid open a drawer. Took out a pad of paper and a pen, scribbled some notes.

  “There. The address to his house in Lynn. Be careful, all right?”

  “I will.”

  I got up and she saw me to the door, and she said, “You’ve asked a lot of questions. Mind if I give it a go?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “Clarence said you were funny … a guy with lots of secrets. You had a few … made-up names, what you call ’em. Pseudonyms. He didn’t even know your real name, am I right?”

  “That’s right.”

  She opened the door, leaned against it. “What’s your real name? Will you tell me?”

  I did. Blame my weakness, or the moment, but I did.

  “A good, strong name.” She came over and kissed me full on the lips, then touched my cheek.

  “Go kill that fucker.”

  “On it,” I said, and I went out to the fresh Saugus air, now knowing what had really happened—that the trap in Chester baited with Rembrandt had not been set for me, but for Clarence.

  I had been so very wrong.

  I didn’t plan on being wrong again.

  Sixteen

  From Saugus to Lynn took about twenty minutes, with traffic a breeze, and I followed Wanda’s directions, which were clear and to the point. Lynn is what is called a North Shore community—meaning it was north of Boston—and it was mainly known for three things. One is its famed history of political corruption, which led to the second thing, a schoolyard jingle that goes, “Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin, you never come out, the way you went in.”