The Wolf in Winter

by Connolly, John

  “Yo, taxi!” he said.

  Through the wipers and the rain, Special Agent Ross, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, grimaced at him. His lips moved soundlessly as Angel joined Louis. Angel cupped a hand to his ear.

  “Sorry, ‘mother-what?’ ” said Angel.

  The second time, Ross shouted the word, just to make sure.

  THEY SAT TOGETHER IN Henry Public, at 329 Henry. Each ordered a Brooklyn Brown Ale. It seemed only right, given the neighborhood. They were almost alone in the bar, given the hour.

  “I’ll pay,” said Ross, as the beers were brought to their table. “It’s bad enough that I’m sitting with you. I don’t want to be accused of corruption as well.”

  “Hey, wasn’t this how that Fed in Boston got caught, the one who was tight with Whitey Bulger?” said Angel. “One minute you’re just enjoying a drink with friends in Southie, the next you’re doing forty years.”

  “To begin with, we’re not friends,” said Ross.

  “I’m hurt,” said Angel. “Now how am I going to get my parking violations fixed?”

  “That’s the fucking NYPD, knucklehead,” said Ross.

  “Ah, right,” said Angel. He took a sip of his beer. “But suppose I get ticketed in DC?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You know, you swear more than the Feds on TV.”

  “I only swear under stress.”

  “You must be stressed a lot.”

  Ross turned to Louis.

  “Is he always like this?” said Ross.

  “Pretty much.”

  “I never thought I’d say it, but you must be a fucking saint.”

  “I believe so,” said Louis. “He also has his uses.”

  “I don’t even want to know,” said Ross.

  He took a long draft from his bottle.

  “You been to see him?”

  “Parker?” said Louis.

  “No, the new pope. Who the fuck else would I be talking about?”

  A look passed between Angel and Louis. Angel wanted to go up to Maine, but Louis had demurred. He believed they could be of more use to Parker in New York. He was right, of course, but it still sat uneasily with Angel. He was deeply fond of the detective. If Parker wasn’t going to pull through, Angel wanted to be able to say his goodbye.

  “No,” said Louis. “They say he’s dying.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “Is it true?”

  “He’s like a cat: he has nine lives. I just don’t know how many of them he’s used up by now.”

  They let that one sink in while they drank.

  “What do you want, Agent Ross?” said Louis.

  “My understanding is that you’re turning the town upside down trying to find out who shot him. I was wondering how far you’d got.”

  “Is this an attempt at an information exchange?” said Louis. “If so, you’re about to be gravely disappointed.”

  “I know who you were seeing in Hunts Lane,” said Ross.

  Louis’s left eye flickered. For him, it was an expression of extreme surprise, the equivalent of someone else fainting. Ross caught it.

  “How fucking inefficient do you think we are?” he said.

  “Is that a rhetorical question?”

  “You want to see my file on you?”

  Louis let that one pass.

  “How long have you been watching him?” said Angel.

  “Ever since he got back into town,” said Ross. “How’s he looking? We haven’t been able to get a clear shot of him. The last pictures we had of him, he wasn’t doing so good.”

  “He’s probably still having a little trouble dating,” said Angel.

  “Was he involved?”

  Ross watched them both, and waited. He was very patient. A full minute went by, but he didn’t seem perturbed.

  “No,” said Louis, eventually. “Or not directly.”

  “Were you planning on bringing him in?” said Angel.

  “We’ve got nothing but stories. We do hear there’s money for whoever pushes the button on him, though.” His gaze flicked back to Louis. “I thought you might be looking to cash in.”

  “You got the wrong guy,” said Louis.

  “Clearly.”

  “Were you listening?”

  “I wish. He hasn’t left that old store since he took up residence. There’s no landline. If he’s using cell phones, they’re throwaways. He conducts all his business away from the windows, which means we can’t pick up vibrations, especially with all those drapes.”

  “So?” said Louis.

  “My understanding is that he’s been making informal approaches, looking to have the contract lifted. Is it true?”

  Again Louis waited awhile before answering. Angel remained silent. If this was to be an exchange, it was for Louis to decide how much to give and what he wanted in return.

  “That’s true,” said Louis. “You considering offering him a deal?”

  “Our understanding is that he holds a lot of secrets.”

  “He’ll bleed you for every one he reveals, and you’ll never get him to testify.”

  “Maybe we don’t want testimony,” said Ross. “Maybe we just want details. It’s not just about putting people behind bars. It’s about knowledge.”

  Angel thought of the list of names now in Louis’s possession. It might be worth something. Then again, it might be worth nothing at all. The truth, in all likelihood, lay somewhere in between.

  Ross finished his first beer and held up the bottle, signaling the waitress for another round, even though Louis had barely touched his first drink.

  “I heard he tried to bring you into his fold,” Ross said to Louis. “Way back in the day.”

  “Not so far back,” said Louis.

  “You didn’t bite?”

  “Like you, he seemed to be confused about what I did for a living.”

  “And you didn’t like him.”

  “There wasn’t a great deal to like. Even less now, seeing as so much of him has rotted away.”

  The second beers arrived, but no one reached for them. Angel sensed that they had reached a crucial point in whatever negotiation was unfolding, although, as far as he could tell, there didn’t seem to have been much obvious progress of any kind. Angel wasn’t built for negotiation. That U.N. job just got further out of reach every day.

  “I’ll ask you again,” said Louis. “What is it you want from me, Agent Ross?”

  He fixed Ross with his gaze, like a snake mesmerizing an animal before striking. Ross didn’t blink. He’d taken the “three guys having a beer approach,” and that hadn’t worked. He must have known that it wouldn’t, but it never hurt to try. As Angel watched, he transformed himself, sitting up straighter in his seat, his face tightening, the years seeming to fall away from him. In that moment, Angel understood why Parker had always been so careful around Ross. Like Cambion, he was a creature of concealment, a repository of secrets.

  “I came to warn you that I won’t tolerate a campaign of vengeance, even for your friend. I won’t tolerate it because I’m concerned that it might interfere with my own work, with the bigger picture. For every man or woman you kill, a potential avenue of inquiry closes. That’s not how this thing works.”

  “And what is the ‘bigger picture,’ Agent Ross?” asked Angel. “What is ‘this thing’?”

  “The hunt for something that’s been hidden away since before the appearance of life on earth,” said Ross. “An entity, long buried. Is that big enough for you?”

  Angel picked up his beer.

  “You know,” he said, “maybe I will have this second one after all.”

  He drained half the bottle.

  “And you believe in the existence of this ‘entity’?” said Louis.

  �
��It doesn’t matter what I believe. What matters are the beliefs of those who are looking for it, and the havoc they’ve created, and will continue to create, until they’re stopped.”

  “So you want us to step back and do nothing?” said Louis.

  “I’m not a fool,” said Ross. “Doing nothing isn’t an option where you’re concerned. I want cooperation. You share what you find.”

  “And then you tell us if we can act on it?” said Louis. “That sounds like the worst fucking deal since the Indians got screwed for Manhattan.”

  “It also sounds like a good way to end up in jail,” said Angel. “We might as well just sign a confession in advance. We tell you what we’d like to do, you say, ‘Hey, that sounds like a fucking great idea. Be my guest!’ and next thing we’re all staring awkwardly at one another in front of a judge.”

  “He has a point,” said Louis. “No deal.”

  To his credit, Ross didn’t appear particularly surprised or disappointed. Instead, he reached into his pocket and removed a manila envelope. From it he slid a single photograph and placed it on the table before them. It showed the symbol of a pitchfork, crudely carved into a piece of wood. Louis and Angel knew it immediately for what it was: the sign of the Believers. Parker had crossed paths with them in the past, Angel and Louis too. The Believers hadn’t enjoyed the encounters.

  “Where was it taken?” said Angel.

  “At Parker’s house, immediately after the attack. Now do you understand why I’m asking you to tread carefully?”

  Louis used the edge of his bottle to turn the photograph so that he could see it more clearly.

  “Yes,” he said. “I understand.”

  It was Louis’s turn to produce an envelope from his pocket. He handed it to Ross without comment. Ross opened it and glanced at a typewritten list of names, places, and dates. He didn’t need Louis to tell him what it meant.

  “From Cambion?” said Ross.

  “Yes.”

  “Why did he give it to you?”

  “He thought I could act as the go-between in his contract difficulties.”

  “What did you get in return?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Ross folded the list and returned it to the envelope.

  “Why are you giving this to me?”

  “It’s what you wanted, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now you don’t need to cut a deal with him, and you can call off your surveillance.”

  “Leaving him at your mercy.”

  “I don’t have any mercy for him.”

  “Should that concern me?”

  “I don’t see why.”

  Ross balanced the envelope on the palm of his right hand, as though judging its weight against the cost to his soul.

  “You went to Cambion because you thought he knew something about the hit on Parker,” said Ross. “I’ll bet a shiny new quarter that he gave you a taste of what he had, but you believe there may be more. Negotiating on his behalf was part of the deal. Don’t bother telling me if I’m warm. I wouldn’t want you to feel compromised.”

  “I’m a long way from feeling compromised, Agent Ross,” said Louis.

  “But now you’ve got nothing,” said Ross.

  “Except a clear run at Cambion, if I need it, right?”

  The envelope stayed on Ross’s palm for a few seconds longer, then vanished into his pocket.

  “Right,” he said. “And Parker?”

  “If it leads us to the Believers, I’ll let you know through the rabbi, Epstein. Otherwise, you stay out of our affairs.”

  “You’re an arrogant sonofabitch, you know that?”

  “At least you didn’t call me uppity. That might have caused serious friction.”

  Ross stood and dropped a fifty on the table.

  “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen,” he said.

  “Likewise,” said Louis.

  “You’re sure you can’t help with parking violations?” said Angel.

  “Fuck you,” said Ross.

  “I’ll hold on to your number anyway,” said Angel. “Just in case.”

  CHAPTER

  XLVI

  Angel and Louis didn’t speak again until they were back in their apartment, as Louis was concerned that Ross might have decided to cover himself by bugging their car. A subsequent sweep of the vehicle revealed nothing, though. It didn’t matter; Louis hadn’t survived this long by being careless, and Angel really didn’t have anything better to do than sweep the car for listening devices, or so Louis told him.

  They were greeted on their return by Mrs. Bondarchuk, the old lady who lived in the apartment below theirs. Mrs. Bondarchuk, in addition to being their sole neighbor, was also their sole tenant, the building being owned by one of Louis’s shelf companies. Mrs. Bondarchuk kept Pomeranians, on which she lavished most of her love and attention, Mr. Bondarchuk having long since departed for a better place. For many years Angel and Louis had labored under the misapprehension that Mr. Bondarcuk was dead, but it had recently emerged that he had simply bailed in 1979, and his better place was Boise, Idaho—“better” being a relative term in an unhappy marriage. Mrs. Bondarchuk didn’t miss him. She explained that her husband had left rather than be killed by her. The Pomeranians were a more than satisfactory replacement, despite their yappy natures, although Mrs. Bondarchuk raised exclusively male dogs, and made sure to have them neutered at the earliest opportunity, which suggested to Angel and Louis that she retained some residual hostility toward Mr. Bon­darchuk. Mrs. Bondarchuk defended the noisiness of her Pomeranians on the grounds that it made them good watchdogs, and hence they constituted a virtual alarm system of their own. Louis took this with good grace, even though the building had the kind of alarm system that governments might envy, and that usually only governments could afford.

  Some years earlier there had been what Mrs. Bondarchuk continued to refer to as “the unpleasantness,” during which an effort had been made to access the building through hostile means, an effort that ultimately concluded with the deaths of all those responsible. It was an incident that failed to trouble the police, once Angel had explained to Mrs. Bondarchuk, over milk and chocolate cake, the importance of sometimes avoiding the attentions of the forces of law and order, such forces perhaps not always understanding that there were times when violence could be met only with violence. Mrs. Bondarchuk, who was old enough to remember the arrival of the Nazis in her native Ukraine, and the death of her father during the encirclement of Kiev, actually proved very understanding of this point of view. She told a startled Angel that she and her mother had transported weapons for the Ukrainian partisans, and she had watched from a corner as her mother and a quartet of other widows castrated and then killed a private from the German police-battalion ‘Ostland’ who had been unfortunate enough to fall into their clutches. In her way, as a Jew whose people had been slaughtered at Minsk and Kostopil and Sosenki, she knew better than Angel the importance of keeping some things secret from the authorities, and the occasional necessity of harsh reprisals against degenerate men. Ever since then, she had become even more protective of her two neighbors than before, and they, in turn, ensured that her rent was nominal and her comforts were guaranteed.

  Now, with Mrs. Bondarchuk greeted and the building secured, the talk turned once more to the events of that evening as Louis poured two glasses of Meerlust Rubicon from South Africa, a suitably wintry red. Flurries of snow obscured the view through the windows, but they were halfhearted and ultimately inconsequential, like the parting shots of a defeated army. Angel watched as Louis shed his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. The shirt was immaculately white, and as smooth as it had been before it was worn. It never failed to amaze Angel how his partner’s appearance could remain so pristine. If Angel even looked at a shirt, it started to wrinkle. The only way he c
ould have worn a white shirt for an evening and returned home without evidence of grievous use was to add so much starch to it that it resembled the top half of a suit of armor.

  “Why did you give Ross those names?” Angel asked. He spoke without a hint of accusation or blame. He was simply curious to know.

  “Because I don’t like Cambion, and I’ll be happy when he’s dead.” Louis swirled the wine in his glass. “Did you notice anything odd about Cambion’s little pied-à-terre?”

  “If I knew what that was, I might be able to answer. I’ll take a guess that you’re talking about the apothecary.”

  “You have a lot of room for self-improvement.”

  “Then you have something to look forward to. And, in answer to your question, there was only odd when it came to Cambion’s little whatever-you-said.”

  “I counted three soup bowls, one of them plastic. I didn’t count but two people.”

  “One of the bowls could have been from earlier.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “The place was old, and weird, but it was tidy. Apart from those bowls.”

  “A plastic bowl,” said Angel. “You think he has a child in there?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t think he and his boy Edmund are the only ones holed up in that old store.”

  “You planning on going back there to clarify the situation?”

  “Not yet. We’re prioritizing.”

  “On that subject: you gave Ross the list, but what did we get in return?”

  “We know that the Believers had nothing to do with the hit.”

  Angel wondered if the wine and the two earlier beers had somehow interacted disastrously, destroying some of his already threatened brain cells. Ross had shown them a picture. Had Ross been lying?

  “What about the photograph?”

  “The photograph is meaningless. It’s a false trail. These people, or whatever they are, they don’t sign their names. That’s for dime-store novels. You think I ever put a bullet in a man, then rolled up a business card and stuck it in the hole because it pays to advertise?”