The Hanged Man

by T. J. MacGregor

  As they stepped outside the room, Young whispered, “We’re sweeping the building for bugs. I think Fletcher’s people may still be listening in.”

  No surprise, Sheppard thought, and followed Young to the door of the men’s room. “I found the cabin,” Sheppard said.

  An odd, indecipherable expression flickered across Young’s face. “And?”

  “It didn’t yield much.” He pulled the evidence bag from a windbreaker pocket. “Both items were in the fireplace, in the ashes.”

  He held the bag up to the florescent light so that Young could see the butt of the cigar and the remains of the blackened photograph. Young took the bag, turned it around in the light.

  “Any idea who he is?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Forensics find anything?”

  “We won’t know until tomorrow sometime.”

  Young pocketed the evidence bag. “You need backup for tomorrow night at the Elbo Room?”

  The act of pocketing the bag punctuated the end of the discussion for Young about what Sheppard had found at Rae’s secret cabin. But Sheppard wasn’t ready to end it. “No, I don’t want backup. And I wasn’t finished. Mira described a guy with graying hair—not Steele.”

  “That’s it? That’s all she got?”

  “She feels the affair ended some months ago.”

  “That isn’t much to go on, Shep.”

  “She gets what she gets.”

  “There’s one possibility we haven’t really considered about this mystery man you’re meeting with, Shep.”

  “Just one?” Sheppard replied dryly.

  “He could be the guy who killed Steele.”

  Sheppard had considered the possibility—and dismissed it for the same reason he dismissed it now: it felt wrong. He couldn’t explain it beyond that. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m going to back you up tomorrow night, Shep.”

  Sheppard shook his head and leaned back against the wall in the hallway. “I do this alone or I don’t do it at all.”

  Young looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. Then he laughed, a loud, robust, incredulous laugh that echoed through the hallway. He rocked forward, into Sheppard’s face, his eyes drawn closely together, as dark and impenetrable as a dense forest.

  “Let’s get something straight here, Shep. If I want to back you up, I’ll back you up. If I see fit, I can yank you off this case so fast it’ll make your dick spin. We understand each other?”

  Sheppard’s anger shot out of him, as abrupt and extreme as Young’s. He sank his index finger into Young’s chest. “Then go to it. I don’t need this goddamn shit. Take the case, Gerry, and good fucking riddance.”

  Young stepped back, Sheppard’s arm fell to his side. For a long, tense moment, neither of them spoke. People passed them in the hall, rookies in some training class. Then Young hissed, “What the fuck’s with you, anyway?”

  “Hey, I could ask you the same question.”

  Young’s eyes dropped to the floor. He drew his fingers back through his thinning gray hair and shook his head. “It’s too complicated to go into.”

  Sheppard had the distinct impression that Young wasn’t talking about the investigation, that there was, in fact, something else involved here. Something very personal. But he wasn’t about to prod.

  “This isn’t the guy who killed Steele, Gerry. I can’t tell you how I know that, but I do. I also know that if you’re there, he’s going to sense it and things will get fucked up. He’ll bolt. We’ll lose him.”

  Young folded his arms across his chest, the corners of his mouth plunged. “So now you’re psychic, huh?”

  “Let me do it my way.” He showed Young the ELF and reiterated what Pikolo had told him the other day.

  “Then wear it tomorrow night,” Young said. “And call me as soon as you get in.”

  Just that fast, the issue of backup had been settled. “I’ll call you,” Sheppard said and started to turn away. But Young wasn’t finished.

  “We answered a call last night at Pier 66. There was a coral snake in Lenora Fletcher’s penthouse suite.”

  “Looks like Fletcher has some enemies we don’t know about.”

  “Unfortunately, it didn’t bite her.”

  “You’re a sick fuck, Gerry.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  Sheppard left with the ELF device in his pocket and a thousand questions in his heart.

  Lenora Fletcher stood at the crest of the sand dune and glanced up and down the beach, a hand shading her eyes. She spotted Evans down near the water’s edge, a frail man walking with the aid of a cane. Other than several fishermen standing on shore, the beach looked deserted.

  She removed her flats and padded across the warm sand, grimacing as grains stuck between her toes. She disliked the beach, except from a distance, as something to look at. The idea of sunbathing or swimming in salt water held no appeal whatsoever. Hal used to kid her about being squeamish of critters—sharks, insects, snakes.

  She wondered where he and the other two had gotten the coral snake. Just the thought of it brought a chill to her arms. The hotel management, probably anticipating a lawsuit, had moved her immediately to another suite, their most secure suite, they assured her, with three nights free of charge.

  Evans saw her before she reached him and lifted his cane in greeting. He’d gotten some sun since she’d seen him last and looked almost healthy. “You’re up and around early,” she remarked.

  “Down here, the sun wakes me. Didn’t you get my phone message?”

  “I didn’t pick up any of my messages last night.”

  As they walked up the beach, she told him what had happened. He didn’t speak immediately. “So they’ve definitely targeted you, Lenora.”

  “Sure looks that way. But tomorrow night Indrio is meeting with a local cop at a bar on the beach. I intend to be there. He’ll know where Hal and Manacas are.”

  “You want company?”

  “Thanks, but I can handle myself just fine, Rich.”

  He chuckled. “There’s never been any doubt about that. Indrio might recognize you, but he’s never seen my face, so I might provide a necessary cover.”

  Fletcher hesitated, then detoured. “I’d like an honest answer about something, Rich.”

  He raised his eyes from the sand and smiled. “I know, I know. You’ve spent the last few days mulling over our conversation and you want to know what I’m up to, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  He glanced out at the ocean, nodding to himself. “I used to believe I’d die fast, from a bullet or an accident. Given my druthers, it would be preferable. No pain, no time to think about what I would have done differently in my life. But that isn’t how it worked out. So now, there are certain favors I’d like to repay before I die. Through Hal, I can repay two of them.”

  “By using Hal’s ability to get rid of someone.”

  “Yes, that’s one of the favors. The other favor involves you. If you allow me access to Hal once you find him, I’ll make sure that you become the director of the Bureau, then attorney general. I don’t doubt you’ll eventually get there on your own merits, Lenora. But I’ll hurry the process along.”

  She knew he could do exactly that. But could she believe him? More to the point, could she afford not to believe him? “How long would you need him for?”

  “Twenty-four hours at the most. I could work right from my condo.”

  “And what guarantee do I have that you wouldn’t turn me over to Hal?”

  She expected him to protest, to act shocked. But he merely shrugged. “None. I’d be a fool to try to convince you of anything that went contrary to your own beliefs. But I’d have nothing to gain by your demise, Lenora, and everything to gain by your position in the Bureau.”

  Of all the things he might have said, this smacked of the sort of logic that had ruled Evans’s professional life. It convinced her he was be
ing honest, at least as honest as he could be at this moment. And in her business, it didn’t get much better than that.

  “Okay,” she said. “Then we have a deal. But I want to do tomorrow night alone, Rich. You’re safer staying in the background.”

  “I understand. Call if you need anything. We have a number of people down here who can help, Lenora. You don’t have to bring any of them in alone, especially Hal.”

  Fletcher hooked her arm through his and bussed him quickly on his cheek; it felt like dry paper.

  Chapter 22

  Lightning burned blue across the sky, thunder rumbled like some discontented god, it had begun to sprinkle. But impending rain hadn’t deterred business in the Elbo Room this Thursday night.

  When Sheppard walked in at nine-forty-five, music blared from the jukebox, the air smelled of smoke, people jammed the bar. He waded into the thick of the crowd, hoping to find a vacant table. No such luck. He returned to the bar and eased his way to the front, where he ordered a cranberry juice with a slice of lime.

  The mini cassette recorder in the pocket of his raincoat felt weighted and obvious. Ninety minutes worth of tape, ready and waiting. In his other pocket, he carried the ELF device.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder, a tall, scrawny guy, an Ichabod Crane with thinning hair and an ugly scar along one side of his face. “It’s not safe here, Sheppard. Let’s move down the street.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I get your name.”

  The man fidgeted, twitched. “The only thing that’s important is what I have to tell you about Steele. I’d rather not do it here because I think we’re being watched.”

  Outside the windows, lightning stripped away the blackness of the sky. Seconds later, thunder roiled. The lights in the bar blinked, the skies opened up, rain smeared against the glass. “We can go out the back way,” the man said hoarsely, his eyes still darting about.

  Sheppard didn’t budge. “Just who do you think is watching us?”

  “Probably one of Lenora Fletcher’s boys.”

  “Hey, man, for all I know, you’re working for her.”

  The man laughed, exposing a row of stained, crooked teeth. “Not fucking likely. You coming or not?”

  “Not without a name.”

  “Vic, okay? Call me Vic.”

  “And how did you know Steele?”

  “First I was his guinea pig, then I was his gofer. You need to know what I know, Sheppard.” His head seemed to swivel on his shoulders. “I really have to get outta here.”

  He turned quickly away and Sheppard followed, his hand inside his jacket pocket, resting lightly against his 9mm, a compact P239.

  They threaded their way through the crowd and stepped out into an alley behind the building. Sheppard raised the hood of his windbreaker, but it didn’t offer much protection from the rain.

  The wind whipped through the alley, driving the cold rain at an angle into his face. Vic, who wore no windbreaker or raincoat, seemed to barely notice the weather. He loped several paces ahead of Sheppard, hands thrust in his pockets, shoulders hunched slightly. He looked like some wino who hoped to find five bucks on the ground that would buy him a gallon of rotgut for the night.

  They rounded the side of the building and emerged on A-1-A. Rain swept through the glow of the crime lights, traffic had slowed to a crawl. Vic darted between the cars with the quickness of a snake, then hit the sidewalk on the other side at a swift trot. He didn’t slow down until he reached a brown Pontiac parked at the curb.

  Sheppard moved the tape recorder from his right pocket to his left, turned it on, zipped the pocket shut. Then he got into the passenger seat and Vic pulled sharply away from the curb, the wipers whipping across the windshield. A horn blared behind them.

  “Fuck off, asshole,” he muttered, glancing in the mirror. Then, to Sheppard: “We should be pretty safe as long as this line keeps moving.”

  “Safe from Fletcher, you mean.”

  “For starters, yeah.” He pushed in the lighter on the dashboard, slipped a cigarette from his shirt pocket, and cracked his window as he lit it. “You mind?”

  Yeah, I mind. But hell, it was his car. “No.”

  Vic inhaled the smoke as though it were oxygen, drawing it deeply into his lungs, then blowing it out softly, so that it sounded almost like a sigh. “Christ, now that we’re in here, I’m not sure where to start.”

  “Tell me about being one of Steele’s guinea pigs. That’ll do for starters.”

  The headlights of oncoming cars flashed like strobes in the windshield. The wipers continued their maddening, rhythmic swishing across the glass. Sheppard cracked his window to let out the smoke that drifted toward him.

  “In the late sixties, Andrew Steele did his psychiatric residency at Duke University. His specialty was parapsychology. He tested hundreds of volunteers for their psi-Q-----psychic potential. They ranged from students and stockbrokers to housewives and convicts. He found that as a group, cons seem to do better than average. He figured it had to do with living by your wits, living at the edge. Street smarts, in other words. He also found a high psi-Q among cops.”

  He braked for a light, tossed out his cigarette, checked the rearview mirror. The traffic ahead began to thin, the beach lay behind them now. “So go on,” Sheppard said. He shifted his body so the recorder was in a better position to pick up Vic’s voice.

  “Anyway, Steele eventually narrowed his research exclusively to cons. He published some of it, but the reaction in the academic community was real negative. Now a Harvard prof writes a bestselling book on alien abductions and who gives a slit?”

  “Harvard gave a shit.”

  Vic laughed, a short, harsh sound that sent him into a coughing fit. “Good point. The academics weren’t crazy about Steele’s research, but the government took notice. By 1977, Steele wasn’t publishing; he was head shrink at a federal prison in Virginia. That’s probably where he made his connections with people like Fletcher.”

  “Like Fletcher or with her?”

  “Both, that’s my guess. In 1978, he went to work at Manatee Correctional and implemented Delphi. Fletcher was the federal watchdog. Manatee was their base, but Steele recruited from prisons around the state.”

  “And you were part of Delphi?”

  “Hell, I was their first recruit.” He lit another cigarette, eyed the mirror again, worried his lower lip. “A session with Steele was part of the intake routine when I arrived at Lake Butler.”

  “What were you in for?”

  “Drugs, theft, a shitload of charges.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “Whatever. I got seven years, did four and two years of parole. When I was sprung, Sheppard, I was pulling in seventy grand a year working for Delphi. I had a conch house in the Keys, drove a Mercedes, did just fine. Except that I felt more like a prisoner than I had in the joint. When Fletcher wanted answers, she wanted them yesterday. Basically, I sold my fucking soul.”

  “I’m not real clear on what it was that you did, Vie.” Or why the government would pay him seventy grand a year to do whatever it was he did.

  “I spied for the feds.”

  Like it was obvious what he was talking about. “I definitely missed something here.”

  When he glanced at Sheppard, the pupils of his deeply shadowed eyes suddenly glimmered like wet streets. “Delphi was about using psychics to obtain information. We did the dirty work. What the hell do you think I’ve been telling you?”

  “So you’re psychic?”

  “I’m a telepath. It started when I was a kid. Steele taught me what it was, Delphi taught me how to use it.”

  “Give me an example of how you used it for the feds.”

  Vie stabbed a thumb to his right and Sheppard realized they were passing Steele’s slice of paradise, the mansion dark and empty now. “We’re going to talk about her, too, Sheppard. About Rae.”

  “You were going to give me an example.”

 
Vic shifted his body, crushed out his cigarette, and fastened both hands to the wheel. “Okay. Let’s say there’s a political fund-raiser in D.C. Big party, lots of important people. Fletcher wants to know how some senator is going to vote on a particular issue. So she and I go to the party. During the evening, I stand a couple feet away from the senator and skim whatever’s at the surface of his mind. Then I give Fletcher the info, she or Hal or one of the others verifies it. That’s a simple example.”

  “Who’s Hal?”

  “One of the seven. I’ll get to him in a second.”

  “The seven what?”

  “There were seven of us in Delphi.”

  The seven tarot cards?

  “All of us were cons handpicked and trained by Steele, used by Fletcher, and funded by a shadow budget that probably originated with one of the spy organizations. Once we got out, Fletcher set us up in a life. We were like fucking indentured servants, okay?”

  Jesus, I’ve walked through the looking glass.

  Vic snapped his fingers. “Alice.”

  “What?”

  “Alice Through the Looking Glass. One of my favorite kid books.”

  Sheppard realized Vic had just read his mind. It spooked him so deeply he couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. He reached into his pocket and switched on the ELF device.

  Vic lit another cigarette. “That’s more or less how it works for me. I catch bits of the white noise that floats through people’s heads.” Another glance in the mirror. “We each had a specialty, I guess that’s what you’d call it. Telepath. Clairvoyant. Remote viewer. Lucid dreamer. Telekinetic. Whatever. They were innovative in how they used us.”

  “I was in the FBI for five years, Vic. I never heard squat about anything called Delphi.”

  “I’d be worried if you had. Even at its height, there were probably less than a dozen people who knew about Delphi. But it was one of the most generously funded covert projects of any kind.

  “But I’m telling you, it got old fast. I did it for five years and I was on complete burnout. By then Fletcher trusted me, so she sent me to the Caribbean for a break. I met a woman, got myself a new life, and here we are.”