by R.J. Ellory
‘The point?’
‘Yes, what is the point of me sitting here listening to something that you cannot substantiate or prove?’
‘Because I want you to do just that,’ Duchaunak said.
‘What?’
‘Substantiate and prove everything I’m telling you.’
Harper laughed, more an expulsion of nervousness than a laugh.
‘I need your help bringing all of this together,’ Duchaunak went on. He leaned back, and as he leaned back Harper realized that the man was perfectly serious.
‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
Duchaunak nodded. ‘I am.’
‘You want me to help you . . . help you do what exactly?’
‘Something is going to happen, something big I reckon, and from everything I can tell it’s going to happen before Christmas. I need your help finding out what it is.’
Harper frowned. ‘I don’t get it.’
‘It isn’t rocket science, Mr Harper. These people – Walt Freiberg, Cathy Hollander, whoever else might be involved – they’re going to pull some kind of job before Christmas. We don’t know what it is, we don’t know who else might be involved . . . all we know is that it’s going to happen, and realistically, facing the fucking music if you like, the only real hope we have of finding out ahead of time is you.’
Harper said nothing in response.
Duchaunak sat motionless, staring right back at him.
‘Me,’ Harper said eventually. ‘The only hope you have is me.’
‘Right.’
‘Then you have no hope at all.’
‘Is that so?’
‘That is fucking so,’ Harper said. ‘I didn’t come here to work undercover bullshit for the New York police department for Christ’s sake. I came here to see my father in St Vincent’s after somebody fucking shot him. Don’t you figure I’ve got enough to deal with here considering he’s supposed to have been dead for thirty years already.’
‘I think—’
‘Frankly, Detective, I don’t give a rat’s ass what you do or do not think. I’m here for as long as I need to be, as long as it takes for him to die, or to come out of ICU and say something to me, and then I’m going all the way back to Miami to pick up where I left off, to come to terms with the fact that my father—’
‘Is one of the most highly regarded and successful bankrollers in New York’s criminal hierarchy. He funds these things Mr Harper, he puts up the money for these actions, and Christ only knows what he’s managed to rake off of the top in payback. Your father is—’
‘Dying in St Vincent’s, Detective . . . and that’s as far as I want to take it.’
‘Mr Harper . . . if lying and cheating and robbery and murder are an art then your father is Velazquez.’
Harper frowned. ‘You what?’
‘Velazquez,’ Duchaunak repeated.
‘Who the living fuck is that?’
Duchaunak smiled. ‘Don’t play the fool, Mr Harper.’
‘I’m not playing anything, Detective, I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. Who is this Velazquez? He’s another of these people, another of these criminals my father and Walt Freiberg are supposed to be involved with?’
‘Velazquez was a painter, a seventeenth-century Spanish painter,’ Duchaunak replied.
‘Velazquez the painter? Jesus, why the hell didn’t you say you were talking about the painter?’ Harper’s tone was sarcastic and sharp. ‘Now . . . hell . . . now it all makes complete sense.’
‘I was drawing an analogy, Mr Harper. I think you know exactly what I was saying.’
‘You were saying that if murder and robbery and whatever the hell else were an art, then my father was Velazquez, right?’
‘Right.’
‘And without any ability to prove this, is that slander or libel or both?’
Duchaunak leaned back in his chair. ‘What do you think of Cathy Hollander?’
‘What do I think of her? I don’t think a great deal, Detective.’
‘I think she still works for Ben Marcus.’
‘And you’re telling me this because?’
‘Because if Cathy Hollander is still working for Ben Marcus then there is every possibility that some further harm may be done.’
‘Further harm? You’re saying that this Ben Marcus might have had something to do with the shooting?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Fuck me, Detective, what the hell is this? For Christ’s sake, is there anything that you do know?’
‘I think there is a power struggle going on.’
‘Between?’
‘Your father and Ben Marcus . . . and now your father is in St Vincent’s I believe there will be a power struggle between Ben Marcus and Walt Freiberg. I think there will be a war over the New York territories. Where two sides want the same thing and in order to get it they go out and start killing one another.’
‘I know what a war is, Detective.’
‘Well, if you want my opinion, that’s what I think is going to happen.’ Duchaunak shook his head slowly and leaned back in the chair. ‘There’s a history here, a long history. The way business has been done in New York for the last twenty or thirty years is changing, and changing fast. This isn’t the same city, on the surface or underneath. Used to be that we had to deal with murders and robberies, the usual criminal trade. There were drugs, but not drugs in the quantity we have now. Now there are black gangs, drive-by shootings, Hispanics and Puerto Ricans, even organized crime from Europe, places like the Czech Republic and . . . Christ, only last week we dragged someone in for a killing and he could not speak a word of English. He was Polish. Had to have a translator from the Polish Embassy. You get that? He was here, right here in New York, came into the city on a forged passport and visa just to kill someone who was interfering with a cocaine trade that was being controlled in Warsaw. That’s the city we now have. Your father, Walt Freiberg, Ben Marcus . . . these guys are dinosaurs, they’re old school. Their time has long since gone. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were involved in a war amongst themselves to hang onto the last remnants of their original territories. And I think you’re going to find yourself right in the middle of it if you don’t leave New York. But then I’ve told you that a few times already, and you seemed determined not to listen to me.’
Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.
‘Your mother,’ Duchaunak said.
‘What about her?’
‘She was Evelyn’s sister.’
‘Yes, you know that . . . you went and talked to Evelyn, remember?’
‘How’d she die?’
Harper felt uncomfortable again, almost as if he was fighting everything that Duchaunak was telling him. His viewpoint would be challenged by something Duchaunak said, he would counter it, undermine it, and before he had time to reassemble his mental defences there was another barrage on its way. Three days before he’d been on his way out to Blackwater Sound. Now he was fencing with a New York police detective.
‘She died of pneumonia,’ Harper said.
Duchaunak nodded, smiled with his mouth but not his eyes.
‘What?’
‘Nothing, Mr Harper, nothing at all.’
‘Something about my mother? You’re implying by your expression that there was something else about my mother’s death.’
‘I am?’
Harper raised his hand. ‘Enough of this,’ he said quietly, and then he started to rise from his chair.
Duchaunak reached out, touched his forearm and indicated the chair. ‘Sit down, Mr Harper. Sit down and listen to what I have to say.’
‘Fuck you,’ Harper said. His tone was direct, unwavering.
‘Just a minute or two longer . . . a minute or two longer for me to tell you a story, Mr Harper . . . just a little story, okay?’
Harper paused for a moment.
Duchaunak nodded, smiled with some degree of sincerity.
Harper sat down.
‘Tell you something about child abductions.’ Duchaunak placed his hands palm to palm on the table, and when he spoke he moved his hands as if to emphasize each phrase. ‘Child abductions,’ he repeated. ‘Children being taken from public places. Fairgrounds are good, open-air shows, aquariums, zoos, places like that, right? People go there, usually a man and a woman together, man and a woman who could pass as a couple, in some cases are actually a couple. They take clothes, wigs, make-up, all sorts of stuff; things to change the way a kid looks so they can get the kid out of there to a waiting car. One thing never changes, though.’ Duchaunak looked up at Harper. His expression was designed to solicit a response.
‘What thing?’ Harper asked.
‘The kid’s shoes.’
‘The kid’s shoes don’t change?’ Harper asked.
‘Right. Place like that these people wouldn’t necessarily have a specific child in mind. They’d scope out a likely target, follow them, wait for the parents to be elsewhere, and then the child would be gone in the blink of an eye. They bring clothes, wigs, all sorts of things like I said, but for some reason they don’t bring shoes. Could never predict the size of the child’s feet, and so they never brought shoes.’
‘And?’
‘And therefore a kid would go missing, the parents would freak, alert security. Security would close the gates, call the police, parents would be taken to the exits, and everyone would be asked to leave slowly. Parents would stand at the gates and identify the kid by their shoes.’
‘Okay,’ Harper said. ‘Okay. Fair enough. Good advice for when I have kids and someone abducts them.’
Duchaunak laughed. ‘That was not the point of telling you that.’
‘Oh? No? You’re sure? I thought you were handing out pearls of wisdom—’
‘I told you that for a reason.’
‘Okay, good . . . you had me worried for a moment. And what was the reason for telling me this?’
Duchaunak smiled knowingly. ‘Vincit omnia veritas.’
Harper tilted his head to one side. ‘And what the fuck does that mean?’
‘It’s Latin.’
‘That’s what it means?’
‘No, that’s the language.’
‘So what the fuck does it mean?’
‘It means that truth conquers all things. There is always one thing that you cannot hide.’
‘Right . . . yes, okay. Thin, a little weak with the connection there, but I get the point.’
‘Okay, so you get what I’m saying?’
Harper shrugged. He wondered how close Duchaunak was to the edge. ‘And that relates to me . . . how exactly?’
‘These people – Walt Freiberg, Cathy Hollander, Larry Benedict, Marcus, Neumann, all of them—’
‘My father?’
‘Your father too, Mr Harper, very definitely your father. There is a single, simple fact that cannot be hidden despite all the gestures, the suits, the fancy restaurants. There is something here that cannot be avoided.’
‘Which is?’
‘The truth of who they are. The fact that they’ve been stealing whatever they’ve set their hearts on, Mr Harper, stealing like there was no tomorrow.’
Harper and Duchaunak looked at one another in silence.
‘And then there’s Garrett Sawyer,’ Duchaunak eventually said.
Harper shook his head.
‘Assaults, two of them. One in June ’56, another in October of ’74. Possession of an unlicensed weapon in December of 1966. Things like that.’
‘Garrett Sawyer shot himself in the head Detective.’
‘Did he?’
‘What the fuck is this now? Of course he did. I found him for fuck’s sake!’
‘I figured you did. I’m not questioning the fact that you found him. I’m just questioning whether or not he actually shot himself in the head.’
‘You ever see someone who’s shot themselves in the head, Detective?’
‘As a matter of fact yes, several times, Mr Harper.’
‘So you know better than I. It’s not exactly something you can mistake for a bad case of the flu, right?’
Duchaunak smiled. ‘No, Mr Harper, it’s not, but I believe that murder is something that can be relatively easily mistaken for suicide.’
‘You’re telling me that Garrett Sawyer was murdered?’ Harper shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
Duchaunak didn’t reply, merely sat there looking back at Harper.
Harper felt his heart beating in his chest a little faster, felt agitation and emotional disturbance. ‘Now I figure you’ve said enough,’ he said quietly, and as the words left his lips he rose once more, stood with determination. ‘I am gone.’ He took the cashmere overcoat from the back of his chair and put it on. ‘Even now I am walking away from here, leaving this coffee shop, calling a cab and going back to my hotel.’
‘Cathy Hollander,’ Duchaunak said. ‘Or Diane Sheridan, or Margaret Miller?’
Harper closed his eyes, breathed deeply. ‘You . . . you are a sad and difficult person, Detective. You need some help. Some kind of professional help. Is there no service that’s provided with your line of work, someone you could talk to, someone that could help you make sense of this madness?’
‘No, Mr Harper, there isn’t.’
‘No kind of health plan you subscribe to?’
‘Humor ever the last line of defence, eh?’
‘I’m not smiling, Detective.’
‘Go speak to Evelyn.’
‘Evelyn? What the hell would I want to go speak with Evelyn for?’
‘The truth. The one thing that they cannot hide. Ask her about your mother. Ask her how your mother died, Mr Harper . . . ask her to tell you the truth about what really happened twelfth of October 1975. Tell her you spoke with Frank Duchaunak and he told you to ask her how Anne Harper was just like Marilyn Monroe. You go ask her about that and see what she says.’
Harper raised his hands. ‘I’m leaving.’
‘That’s what I want you to do. If you’re not going to help me get these people, then I want you to go back to Miami as fast as you can.’
‘So, I’m leaving right now. Something we can agree upon, okay?’
‘You know what I mean. Leave New York, Mr Harper . . . just for a little while, just ’til after the New Year. I’ll keep you posted, I’ll let you know what happens with your father, but for God’s sake leave New York—’
Harper turned and started walking. Ten, twelve feet from the table he heard the feet of Duchaunak’s chair scraping on the floor as he rose.
‘Leave the city, Mr Harper!’ Duchaunak called after him. ‘Trust me, you need to leave the city!’
Harper shoved the door open and walked out onto the street. The gust of wind and snow that caught him sent him back against the wall to his left. He snatched at the front of his coat and pulled it tight around his throat. He hurried to the junction and crossed the street, kept walking until he reached a convenience store with an overhead canopy. He buried his hands in his pockets, looked along the street for a cab.
Fifteen minutes later, hurrying up the steps to the entrance of the American Regent, the commissionaire held open the door and acknowledged Harper as he passed through into the foyer.
‘Mr Bernstein,’ he said, and nodded.
Harper paused, turned, frowned. ‘Harper,’ he said. ‘My name is Harper.’
The commissionaire smiled knowingly. ‘Of course, Mr Harper.’
And by the time Harper realized that the man believed him to be someone other than himself, he was near the desk, asking for his key, making his way towards the elevator.
Once inside his room he went to the window, watched as the snow came down thick and fast. The wind caught great swathes of flakes and hurled them this way and that, and Harper found himself transfixed by their random motion, the unpredictability of their patterns. And through the snow he could see the lights of New York, and it reminded him of the way the lights looked from the sea as he’d
cut out so many times before. The water turquoise and cerulean, the sky clear, a view all the way west to Joe Bay, the smell of salt clearing the nostrils, Key Largo and the Swash drifting away behind him . . .
Such things were his life, not here; here amongst the madness of obsessed police detectives, women with multiple names, people from his childhood bringing disturbance and disruption . . .
Harper thought to leave; to take the remainder of Walt Freiberg’s money and fly out that night. Go home, just like Duchaunak said; back to Miami, back to a world that appeared altogether safer.
But John Harper did not go. Knew he wouldn’t before he even considered it. Blood-ties perhaps. Perhaps not. The reason did not appear to matter. He found that he couldn’t leave; however hard he tried to believe Frank Duchaunak was right, he found he could not leave.
He needed to speak with Evelyn. He needed to know the truth about his own mother.
That, if nothing else, was reason enough to stay.
Dark grey Buick on the corner, no more than a block from the Regent. Don Faulkner reaches into his pocket and takes out a cellphone. Calls Duchaunak. Phone rings twice and Duchaunak answers.
‘Harper’s back in the hotel,’ Faulkner says.
Listens for a moment, shakes his head.
‘Frank . . . Frank, listen to me for Christ’s sake. Go home, eh? Just go home for a couple of hours will you? Get some sleep. I’ll keep—’
Faulkner falls silent, looks agitated, and then ‘I know, I know . . . all I’m saying is that I can stay here and keep an eye on him. You’ve been up for God knows how long. Just go and get a few hours’ sleep, okay?’
Faulkner nods. ‘Yes, okay. Yes, I will. If I say I will, then I will, okay?’ Closes his eyes for a moment, exasperated perhaps. ‘Yes, alright . . . okay. You go home, I’ll call you there if he appears.’
Listens for a few seconds more and then says, ‘Right, okay . . . tomorrow. I will see you tomorrow.’
Faulkner pockets his cellphone, reaches for a cigarette and lights it. He exhales smoke, shakes his head. ‘Crazy motherfucker,’ he says to himself. ‘Crazy, crazy motherfucker.’
Outside, beyond the windows of his car, the snow comes down in waves.
THIRTY
