The Glass House
Page 9
“Why? Was there a sale on frames?”
“There was one, but I missed it by a week. My kind of luck, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, that kind of thing happens, Arnie.”
“To others, seldom—to me, all the time.”
“Yes. Arnie, can you take a look at the poster. Do you remember this group of musicians?”
Arnie leaned forward so that he was almost on top of the poster. Yslan wondered what good the glasses did if he had to be so close. Then Arnie smiled. “Yeah, I remember. They were great.”
“How so?”
“They paid up front—great.”
“Do you remember anything else about them?”
“The Path, they were called the Path—or at least that’s what they called themselves then.” He took off his reading glasses.
“Classical groups change their names?” Yslan asked as she rolled up the poster.
“All the time—helps them get away without paying the promoter.”
“What?”
“Nothing—a joke, just a joke, jeez.”
Yslan thought for a second then asked, “Why the Path? Why that name, do you think?”
“Classical groups need to sound, you know, hip.”
The word “hip” sounded archaic coming from this man’s mouth—archaic, white, fifties.
“Do you know where we can find the Path?”
“You fans?” Before Yslan or Emerson could reply, he continued, clearly happy that this was no more than fans wanting info. “Hard to find them in stores—ain’t that many record stores left. Online I guess, if you’re lucky. That’s it? That’s all you want to know? Thanks for coming—”
“No, Arnie, I mean find them. The actual musicians of the Path.”
Arnie deflated. “Nope. Haven’t got a clue how to find them.”
“How do you communicate with them?”
“E-mail.”
“We’ll have to have our people look at your computer.”
“Okay. Do I get a loaner? I’d love an iPad.”
“No you don’t.”
“Hey! That’s not fair; I’m cooperating here.”
“Yes you are, but you’re dealing with the federal government—and they’re not always fair. Our guys are outside, they’ll be right in.”
Emerson and Yslan headed towards the door, where Yslan stopped and turned back to Arnie. “How do they pay you?” The little man’s face crinkled into a smile. “Cash? They pay you in cash, Arnie?”
“A man has to make a living and classical music—”
“Isn’t that popular anymore,” Yslan completed his thought. “Do you happen to declare this cash to the IRS?”
The man smiled and shrugged. His narrow shoulders almost reached his ears as he said, “I’m such a small fish, who would notice?”
“I would, Mr. Levine,” Yslan said.
“Now it’s Mr. Levine. Was Arnie before, but now it’s Mr. Levine.”
“Right,” Yslan said, “So, Mr. Levine, maybe we can help you keep your secret.”
“That would be good, since I’m cooperating. And you’re a nice person.” Then as if it were a revelation he announced, “Hey, I’m a nice person—”
“Yes.” Yslan returned to the desk and spread out the poster again. “Put on your reading glasses, Mr. Levine.” He did. Yslan pointed to the man holding the Andrea Amati cello. “Tell me everything you know about this man.”
“The Freak?”
“Why do you call him that?”
“Because he looks like a freak—so the Freak.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know how we can find the Freak?”
“No idea where to find WJ.”
“WJ?”
“Yeah, that’s all I’ve ever known him as—WJ. He comes, gives me the cash, plays the concert, then poof—gone.”
“What does WJ stand for?”
“For WJ I guess.”
Yslan stared at Arnie for a moment, then picked up the poster, turned and headed towards the door, where she said to the waiting techs, “He wants a loaner for his computer.”
They all—except Arnie Levine—had a good laugh about that.
“Very funny. You folks are really a hoot. Yessiree bob.”
Something about the slurring of the s in “yessiree” made Yslan turn back.
Arnie smiled at her, a big sarcastic smile. “A real pleasure doing business with you people,” he said.
She hadn’t noticed that he was missing a front tooth before.
“Now get your ass outta my office.”
“Sure, Arnie. But, you know, you ought to get that tooth replaced. That space in the front of your mouth mars your perfect beauty.”
“Will do, officer, just lend me the twenty-five hundred buckos.”
“Twenty-five hundred dollars?”
“Front teeth—they have to screw in. Twenty-five hundred buckos.”
• • •
Back on the street, Arnie Levine’s phrase “twenty-five hundred buckos” kept going round and round Yslan’s head. She walked right past their parked car.
“Hey! Car’s back here.”
“Yeah I know that, but—”
“But what?”
“I don’t know what—but it’s something.” Twenty-five hundred buckos, she thought, twenty-five hundred buckos.
• • •
Yslan awoke with a start and switched on the bedside light. She grabbed her BlackBerry and quickly found the prison photos of Martin Armistaad taken three days before his escape, two of which had him smiling a big tooth-filled smile. Then she called up the video of her interview with him. She fast-forwarded to the one moment Martin Armistaad smiled at her, and there it was—he was missing a front tooth.
She grabbed the phone and called Emerson.
“What?” he answered, his voice deep with sleep.
“We’re going to Leavenworth.”
“Why?”
“Because a new front tooth costs twenty-five hundred buckos.”
18
TEETH
THE PRISON DENTIST MADE THEM wait. Yslan took the time to check up at the office. There was a note that they were having trouble contacting Viola Tripping. Yslan tried Sora’s private line—there was no connection. Not no signal—no connection.
The elderly inmate who acted as a receptionist approached them and said, “The doctor will see you now.”
To Yslan the prison dentist looked more like a well-fed country vet than a DDS, although he had all the arrogance of a head of surgery at a big city hospital. “Look here, I’m an educated man—”
Yslan cut him short. “There’s no patient confidentiality between a dentist and a patient—especially a federal prisoner patient—if that’s where you are going with this.”
“I’ll need a lawyer to confirm that,” the large man said.
Yslan was about to respond when she felt Emerson’s hand on her shoulder. He whispered, “A word?”
Yslan turned to the dentist and said, “We’ll be back in a minute. Give me your cell phone.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want you making calls while we’re out there.” The man reluctantly handed over his cell phone, and Yslan stepped out into the hall. Emerson was leaning against the wall as relaxed as if he were on a street corner in the West Village. “Well?”
“He learns that we are here to see him.”
“Yes?”
“He makes it difficult for us to get an appointment, busy and all that.”
“He has patients.”
“Convicts don’t have busy schedules. They can be rescheduled; what else have they got to do?”
“Okay.”
“Then he doesn’t show up when he’s supposed to meet us.”
“Yes.”
“Then when we find him—”
“He’s not thrilled.”
“Then he is about to claim dentist-patient confidentiality.”
“Then wants a lawyer. Think he has some
thing to hide?”
“I think he has a twenty-five-hundred-bucko secret.”
“Get Homeland to access his bank account.”
“Already done.”
“And?”
“Two weeks before Martin Armistaad disappeared, one day before his tooth implant, the good DDS deposited ten thousand dollars in a three-year certificate of deposit at his local credit union.”
• • •
Without knocking they crashed back into the DDS’s office and handcuffed him to his dental chair. The man began to shout for help, but his cries were drowned out by the sound of the old-fashioned drill that Emerson operated with a foot pedal.
The man’s eyes grew huge as Emerson approached him with the spinning, chipped thing.
“Okay, okay!” he shouted.
Emerson took his foot off the pedal. The drill whined as it slowed—as if it were upset that it didn’t have the chance to grind into something.
“Good,” Yslan said. “Where did the money come from to pay for the tooth you implanted in Martin Armistaad’s mouth?”
“Who?”
Yslan shook her head, and Emerson started up the drill.
“Yeah, yeah, Armistaad, I remember him.”
The drill whined to a stop.
“Good,” Yslan said. “Now, where did the twenty-five hundred dollars come from?”
“Twenty-five hundred dollars?”
“Yes, the cost to implant a front tooth.”
“Is that how much it costs?”
Yslan looked at Emerson. “Are you as tired of this as I am?”
“Yep.”
Yslan stepped back and said, “Well then.”
Emerson hit the pedal hard. The drill seemed thrilled to be back in business.
“Okay, okay!” the dentist screamed.
“I repeat myself: Where did the money come from?”
“There was no return address. Not even a postmark. Just a note with a request to implant the tooth and ten thousand dollars.”
The drill once again whined to a halt, clearly upset that it wouldn’t be cutting into enamel—or perhaps gum tissue, if it was lucky—today.
“Who sent you the cheque?”
“No cheque.”
“No cheque?”
“Just cash and the tooth.”
There was a pause. Yslan looked at Emerson, then the two of them looked at the dentist. “You were sent the tooth?”
“Yes, and a note that said, ‘Use this tooth and make it fit tight.’ ”
“Why that particular tooth?”
“I have no idea.”
Emerson asked, “And did it fit?”
“Well no, not well, but I made it fit—tight.”
“By shaving down the tooth?”
“No. The note was specific. The tooth was not to be meddled with. So I trimmed the teeth on either side—quite a lot, actually.”
“That must have hurt.”
“Well yes, but Mr. Armistaad got an expensive new tooth.”
“Do you still have the note?”
“It’s in a safe deposit box.”
“Key.”
He indicated a set of keys on a small table. Emerson slid the entire key ring into his pocket, turned and headed out.
“Hey!” the dentist called out, rattling the handcuffs.
“Oh, yeah,” Yslan said. “When you prove to me that you’ve given that ten thousand dollars to charity I’ll send the key to the warden—and, by the by, I think your employment here is now formally terminated.”
“How am I supposed to send the money to charity while I’m handcuffed to this chair?”
“Hey,” Yslan said, “you’re an educated man—figure it out.”
• • •
As she caught up to Emerson she said, “Jason gave us the Amati cello; the Amati cello gave us the Path; the Path gave us the name WJ; Arnie’s smile gave us teeth—”
“Careful. It’s two different cases, isn’t it? What do Armistaad’s tooth and Harrison’s poisoning have to do with each other?”
She nodded agreement, but she didn’t agree.
She didn’t agree because she’d seen the numbers in chalk in Harrison’s secret room. Armistaad is number 4 and he’s in the wind. Viola Tripping is number 3—and now no one answers her phone.
• • •
An hour later she was on the phone with Mallory. “Any answer from Sora, Viola’s caregiver?”
“No.”
“Have you been able to find the farm?”
“You folks at the NSA hid it even from yourselves.”
“I know. It was part of our deal with her.”
“Swell.”
“How’s Harrison?” she asked. The phone line momentarily went silent. “Sir?”
“Yeah,” Mallory eventually answered.
“So how is he?”
“Who knows?”
“The doctors should know!”
“They’re completely stumped—his tox report is gobbledegook. They’re at a complete loss as to what happened to him.”
“Well we know what happened; the barista put something into his coffee.”
“Yes, Special Agent Hicks, we know that, but the barista doesn’t know what it was and neither do we. All we know is that Harrison is in a living vegetative state.”
The horror of that sat between two of them. Finally, Mallory spoke. “He’s in his own world now, and the doctors don’t think he’s coming back to ours.”
Or he’s on his own path, Yslan thought, then without saying another word, she closed her cell phone.
• • •
Yslan slumped onto the sagging bed in her motel room. She was so tired of cheap motel rooms, but that’s all the federal government was willing to cough up for.
She flipped on her cell phone and quickly went through the pictures she’d taken in Harrison’s hidden room till she got to the one that showed the back of the nude photo.
She glanced at the catalyst formula and the Bible citation yet again, then went through the photos of the hidden room slowly, one at a time.
Clearly Harrison had found something about the Gifted that she hadn’t found. Some knowledge that she didn’t have. What he no doubt thought would lead to the End Times—when he would get to see his brother again.
She went through it again—chalk lines to Martin Armistaad and Decker and Viola, then arrows pointing to her in the Junction. Then there was the question mark beside the number 1. Someone she hadn’t discovered. Not one of her Gifted.
The question mark clearly indicated that Harrison didn’t know this person’s identity either.
If Harrison was right, then when all of them followed the chalk arrows and met up in the Junction—with her as the catalyst—something momentous would happen. Something that Harrison wanted to be part of. Something important enough—no, personal enough—that Harrison kept it secret from the agency, from everyone. Everyone except whoever owned the mysterious third set of prints in the hidden room.
Her phone rang. “Hicks.”
“We finally got something from his computer.”
“Harrison’s?”
“Who else?”
“What did you get?”
“A repeated visiting of a website.”
“Which one?”
“The synaesthetes’.”
“Yes, of course, we’ve known about that for—”
“He was corresponding through the website.”
Yslan was on her feet. “With whom?”
“We don’t know.”
“Well, what the fuck do you know?”
Back in Hendrick H. Mallory’s office, the tech looked over his shoulder. His boss stood very still.
“The password he used to correspond through the synaesthetes’ website.”
Yslan let out a sigh. “Great. What’s his password?”
The head of Homeland Security nodded to the technician, who said into the phone, “The number sign, then the numeral one, then a
n equals sign, then the name Seth. His password is #1=Seth.”
She hung up.
So did the tech, who looked to Mallory. “Something else, sir?”
“No, that’s enough for now.” When the tech was gone, Mallory said aloud, “That should prick the sides of her intent.”
• • •
Yslan immediately called Ted Knight. “It’s Yslan.”
“What time is—”
“Who cares? Send me the tapes we made at the safe house in New Jersey.”
“Of the Toronto cop?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“Now. Send them fucking now.”
Ten minutes later they arrived on her BlackBerry. She played back her first interrogation:
“A bloody murderer named Decker Roberts formerly of the Glencairn district of North Toronto.”
“Want to tell me about you and Mr. Roberts?’
“Nah—I think I’d prefer not to.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“No—but if you undo these cuffs I’ll find him.”
“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“I’m more than able to track down a felon, yes.”
“You didn’t track him down, you tracked down his son.”
“Seth.”
“Yes, Seth Roberts.”
“So you found the boy and waited for the father to show up. Did you case the place?”
Yslan clearly remembered him nodding in response to that question.
“What did you find?”
“A charlatan, big-assed fake! I mean dream healing—”
“You mean the guy who ran it was a charlatan?”
“Who else?”
“Name?”
“Couldn’t find a real name. Couldn’t find dick-all about him, really. Strange that. All I ever got was initials for him . . .”
When, five minutes later, she played it for Emerson, he demanded, “And you didn’t ask about the initials?”
“No, I was stuck on his claim that Roberts was a murderer.”
“That was—”
“Dumb, I know.”
Emerson looked at her closely, then said, “You’ve changed since you met that Decker guy. You’d never have missed that before.”