by Curt Weeden
“Most people are.”
If Russet were afraid of Almiras then this had to be one menacing fanatic. “I’d like to meet Arita Almiras. How would I find him?”
“Don’t know.”
“You don’t know? But he runs the organization you belong to.”
“It’s not the kind of society where we elect officers and have meetings. We’re connected by what we believe—about savin’ babies. Far as I know, most of us in the society have never seen Almiras.”
Seemed impossible until I remembered the wizard in The Wizard of Oz. Intimidating until Toto pulled back the curtain. What I needed to do was find the Almiras Society’s home base and then part the drapes. Exposing Almiras might be the only way to keep him from nipping at my heels—or chewing off my head.
“Do you know what he looks like?”
“No. He has a couple of assistants. They’re the ones who send us information about special assignments.”
“What kind of assignments?”
“Usually ones the society pays for.”
“Did you get paid for your trip to the Wayside Motel in Orlando?”
“Conrad probably already told you about all that,” Ida incorrectly guessed. “Yes, we got paid—but not much.”
“Why were you sent there?”
“To watch you. At the time, it was me who was working for the society—not Conway. When he got tangled up with the woman you was with—well, that got things off track.”
A flash of anger and sorrow wrinkled Ida’s face.
“How could Almiras possibly know we’d be at the Wayside Motel?” I asked, not expecting Ida would answer. She didn’t need to. I was beginning to unravel the mystery on my own.
“Don’t know. We just do what we’re told. Once you left the motel, my orders were to follow you as long as you was in Orlando.”
“Did you?”
“Not right off. Got interrupted for a time after Conway and me had a disagreement of sorts.”
I said nothing about how the Kyzwoski disagreement had cost me part of a night’s sleep at the Wayside. “After you checked out of the motel, you tracked me down.”
“Caught up with y’all at the jail when you was meetin’ with Dr. Kurios’s killer. But you was on your own a lot of the time before then. Almiras was unhappy about that from what I was told.”
“And after Orlando?”
Ida’s remorse choked her up momentarily. Her feelings for Conway obviously still ran deep. “That’s when I convinced the society to use Conway to keep tabs on what you was up to.”
“You didn’t go with him to New Jersey?”
“Stayed here with the kids. Conway drove his truck up north, and did his work with a video camera the society gave him.”
Ida’s expression told me she was about finished. “Thank you for being so honest, Mrs. Kyzwoski,” I said.
“Tellin’ you all this ’cause of what happened to Conway. I think he done a lot of things that ain’t right. I want to make up for whatever he done that’s wrong. Plus, you didn’t tell the police why Conway was in New Jersey. So, I owe you somethin’.”
“I understand.”
Ida hoisted herself out of her chair. “Don’t think you do, Mr. Bullock. Understand, I mean. That’s as much as I can say right now.”
“Well, thank you, ma’am.” I followed Ida to the torn screen door. “Just one more thing. Arita Almiras—I never heard a name like that before.”
“It isn’t the man’s real name. Arita and Almiras are angels. Don’t know what Arita means but Almiras is supposed to be the angel who’s the master of bein’ invisible.”
“Thanks again for giving me your time,” I said with sincerity. “I hope I have an opportunity to meet Mr. Almiras. He and I have a lot to talk about.”
“If you get the chance, you shouldn’t let it pass. It’s what the society’s motto says.”
“Motto?”
“In Christ’s language, it goes: Occasio aegre offertur, facile amittitur.”
I spun around. “What did you say?”
“Occasio aegre offertur, facile amittitur. Means an opportunity is offered with difficulty but lost with ease. Ever hear that before?”
“Yes.” A bolt of electricity ran up my spine. “Yes, I have.”
Chapter 20
Ten minutes after leaving Paradise Mobile Estates, we were lost again. Yigal pulled into a run-down, two-pump gas station hoping a grease-coated attendant might get us back on course.
I rolled down my back window. “Which way to Charleston Airport?”
The attendant said nothing.
“The airport,” I repeated. “How do we get there?”
The attendant moved closer to the car and looked inside. When one of the station’s floodlights gave the man a decent peek at Twyla, he blurted out directions through a mostly toothless grin.
“Thanks,” I said, and Yigal started pulling away.
“Hold it!” the attendant yelled. He was still holding the passenger-side door handle.
“Something we can do for you?” I asked.
“Wasn’t you on TV? That wiener thing—”
It was more than I could take. I shrugged off the attendant, shut the car window, and told Yigal to head for the airport. Fast.
“You’re famous, you know,” Yigal informed me.
“You are, Bullet!” Twyla chimed in. “Isn’t it something what a sausage can do?”
Yigal nodded in agreement and asked, “Why the airport?”
I could have told Yigal that the conversation with Ida had given me new coordinates in my search for who really killed Benjamin Kurios. But I said nothing that might lead to a long, protracted discussion.
“I need a favor,” I said to Yigal.
“Okay.”
“I have to get back to New Brunswick. Unexpected Gateway business.”
“You’re not goin’ to Florida?” Twyla squealed. I couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or elated.
I gave her a reassuring pat on her shoulder and kept on talking to Yigal. “If I can get a flight out of Charleston tonight, I’m going to leave Twyla in your hands.”
Yigal’s eyes twinkled. I knew he was picturing one hundred and one things his hands could do, some of which were illegal in South Carolina.
“Listen,” I implored. “This is very important. If I bail out, I want you to promise me you’ll finish the drive to Orlando. No side trips. No distractions.”
“I can do that,” Yigal said with far too much enthusiasm. “Yes, I can.”
I turned to Twyla. “Try to understand something. I’m on the line here. You have to be in Orlando tomorrow and ready to start work on Monday.”
“I know. I’m so excited!”
I leaned forward and breathed into Yigal’s ear. “This is all on your shoulders. Can I count on you?”
“Yes, you can.”
In the deep recess of my exhausted brain, I heard Manny Maglio growl. I recoiled into the backseat. “On second thought, this isn’t a good idea.” A flight from Charleston to New Jersey tonight would give me all day tomorrow and Saturday to chase the leads I had picked up in Ida’s trailer. On the other hand, riding another six hours in the rear of Yigal’s car, pulling an overnight in Orlando, and depositing Twyla in a safe location would keep Maglio off my back. I was five seconds from telling Yigal to forget the airport when Twyla said, “Getting the job at Universal is the best thing that ever happened to me. Nothing’s going to stop me from starting work on time. Nothing.”
There was a zeal in her voice that pushed me into saying, “All right.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was standing at the Delta counter listening to an agent tell me that if I cleared security without a hitch, I might make an 8:49 that would get me to Newark with a stopover in Atlanta. I took the ticket and phoned Yigal that the flight was a done deal.
I had no trouble with security until one of the TSA workers yelled, “Hey, mister! Didn’t I see you on TV?”
I raced toward
the Delta gate.
A half-hour flight delay and a long limo ride from LaGuardia to New Brunswick put me in bed at three a.m. My alarm woke me at eight thirty and after a quick shower and a cup of coffee, I was on the phone. First call was to Yigal whose cell dumped me into his voice mail. I tried the lawyer’s office and got a recorded message informing me that Gafstein & Rosenblatt wouldn’t open until nine. My anxiety began to spike.
The next call was to Quia Vita’s Manhattan office. A receptionist gave me the usual runaround. Judith Russet was tied up.
“Tell her Rick Bullock’s on the line.” The receptionist put me on hold, but not for long. Russet picked up, her icy tone laced with fury.
“Proud of yourself?” she asked.
“What?”
“I’ll give you this. After our last conversation, I started thinking maybe you didn’t have the disk. I should have known better. From the start, this was about more than extorting a few million dollars, wasn’t it? It was about playing me for a fool.”
I huffed out half a word, but Russet rolled on.
“No more games. We want confirmation the money made it to your account.”
“What money?” A meaningless question since I already had the answer. Whoever was selling Le Campion’s disk wasn’t treading water. The auction for the Book of Nathan CD was apparently over. Quia Vita had cast the winning bid and was about to acquire the motive for Benjamin Kurios’s murder.
“Come on, Bullock,” Russet shot back. “There’s no point in keeping up this ridiculous pretense. We did what you asked. Sent five transfers of five hundred thousand dollars for each of five installments of Le Campion’s notes you emailed us. There’s a total of two point five million sitting in your Cayman Island account.”
“When did you wire the money?”
“We’re done with the first half of our arrangement. You got your asking price. Give us the disk and we’ll make our final payment.”
Both Abraham Arcontius and Russet had spelled out how the deal was to be done. So, I wasn’t surprised by what I was hearing—only surprised by how fast the sale was being transacted. “I don’t have a Cayman Island account.”
“For the love of God, you’re a millionaire! And we’re ready to double what we’ve already paid you. What more do you want? Give us the CD. If it’s the real thing, you get another two point five million.”
“Don’t wire another dime. Not until you hear what I have to say.”
“When you’re finished with your charade, let me know.”
“I told you before—I don’t have the damn disk. I never did.”
Russet came through with such force that my phone seemed to vibrate. “You’re still trying to convince me you’re the crusading public defender? You are who you are. A low-life extortionist!”
“I have nothing to extort with,” I yelled. “My only interest in the disk is how it might help a homeless man.”
My rejoinder brought Russet back from her boiling point. “And the only thing I’m interested in is the Book of Nathan disk. Your little campaign for justice means nothing to me.”
“I don’t believe that. Didn’t from the first time I talked to you. You’re not the type to let an innocent man get the ax.”
“You’re using the man who killed Benjamin Kurios as a cover, which makes what you’re doing even more disgusting.”
“Goddamnit. I don’t have the Book of Nathan disk. And I doubt Miklos Zeusenoerdorf ever killed anybody.”
“This conversation is over.”
And it almost was until I threw back two words that kept Russet from slamming down the phone.
“Arita Almiras.”
Russet said nothing, but I could hear a slight wheeze.
“That’s why I called you this morning. To ask you about Almiras. Some way, somehow, I think he’s connected to the Kurios murder.”
I heard a mix of surprise, confusion, and maybe even a sprig of concern. “You’re moving into very, very perilous territory.”
“That’s territory I’ve been calling home for some time. Look, if Almiras is responsible for what happened to Kurios, then Zeusenoerdorf is taking a hit for something he didn’t do. I’m ready to go to the police, but before that happens I thought you and I should talk.”
“We’ll talk only if you prove to me you have nothing to do with the Book of Nathan.”
“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t prove I don’t have something that I’ve never had. Look, maybe you should do a character check. I’m not the money type.”
“We already did that.”
I was getting more of a once-over than a pole dancer at one of Maglio’s strip clubs. “Then you should know I’m telling you the truth.”
I could hear Russet take a deep breath—or maybe it was a sigh of resignation. “What do you want to know about Almiras?”
“He runs something called the Almiras Society. It’s connected to Quia Vita, isn’t it?”
“No,” she stated emphatically. “It’s a stand-alone group with no ties to my organization. None whatsoever.”
“Isn’t it true most members of that society are also Quia Vita members?”
“I have no idea.”
“I think you do. I just talked to a woman who wears both hats. She’s Quia Vita and she’s Almiras Society, which says to me that you’re blood relatives. So if the Almiras crowd gets implicated in the Kurios killing, Quia Vita’s going to be answering a lot of questions.”
I could almost feel Russet leaning into the phone. “I don’t know Arita Almiras. In fact, I don’t know anyone who knows his real identity. But this much is known—he has powerful connections and access to money. He’s someone who could do you considerable harm.”
Russet wasn’t just warning me to watch my step with Almiras, she was confirming my theory that the man could do damage to Quia Vita if he were exposed. “Suppose Almiras and company get charged with banging the brains out of this country’s favorite evangelist?” I asked. “What happens to your organization when it gets roped into that kind of investigation?”
Russet came back with an unexpected disclosure. “If Almiras had anything to do with Benjamin’s death, then he most likely would own Le Campion’s disk. That’s not the case.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we think he’s one of the people who’s been trying to buy the CD.”
This came as a surprise. I thought there were just two potential buyers—Silverstein and Quia Vita. If Russet were right, there was a third horse in the race. “You were bidding against Almiras for the book?”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re the first to put a down payment on the CD. Now we have exclusive rights. Another two point five million and the disk is ours.”
Russet’s right-to-life convictions were so rock hard that she had tunnel vision. But she was also smart. Too smart not to consider the possibility Quia Vita was being conned. “How do you know Le Campion’s notes haven’t been sold for two point five million a pop to anyone else looking to buy the Book of Nathan?”
“The notes themselves have value,” she answered. “For that reason, it’s possible others may have bought them. But the notes have little credibility without the book’s text to back them up. The text is encrypted and can’t be duplicated. Which means only one buyer walks away with the prize and that buyer is Quia Vita.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The seller appears to be more sympathetic to our cause than others who have an interest in the Book of Nathan.”
There were probably other guarantees plugged into the deal Quia Vita cut for the purchase of the full text. Whatever those were, Russet was convinced she was about to become the owner of Henri Le Campion’s translation. “When are you supposed to get the disk?”
Russet hesitated. She had already dispensed more information than I thought I could extract in a phone call. “That’s not something I’m going to discuss.”
“I told you—I don’t want the disk. I want whoever is milking
you for five million bucks. Whoever that is probably owns the foot that I need to kick down Miklos Zeusenoerdorf’s jailhouse door.”
“Sorry. I can’t take this any further.”
I had only one more card to play, but it was my high trump. “Let’s make a deal. You give me the specifics about when and where you’re going to pick up the disk and I tell you who Arita Almiras is.”
Russet went silent. Then: “There’s no way you could know—”
I hadn’t planned to put the spotlight on my theory so soon. However, as someone recently reminded me, opportunity is lost with ease. “Arita Almiras is Abraham Arcontius.”
“That’s impossible!” Russet shouted.
“I’m not one hundred percent sure,” I admitted. “But I’ve enough evidence to make a pretty strong case.”
There was an uncharacteristic rattle in Russet’s voice. “You don’t understand—Arcontius doesn’t have anything to do with the Almiras Society.”
“Why? Because he’s Arthur Silverstein’s trusted sidekick?”
“That’s not the—”
“He’s a mole,” I interrupted. “The fox in Silverstein’s chicken coop. Think about it. Arcontius intercepts information sent to Silverstein by his pro-choice friends and then uses it to map out his own society’s game plan.”
Russet said nothing, apparently weighing my words. When she resumed the conversation, her words were missing their usual sharp edge. “What are you planning to do—expose him?”
“I want Miklos Zeusenoerdorf freed,” I said. “If Arcontius gets outted in the process, so be it.”
Russet took a deep breath. “I’ll call you later this morning. There are people I need to talk to before we continue.”
Chapter 21
While waiting for my second conversation of the day with Judith Russet, I called Yigal Rosenblatt’s cell and was bounced into the lawyer’s voice mailbox—again. I left a message reminding him that if Twyla wasn’t gainfully employed by Universal Orlando on Monday at nine a.m., he would be learning a lot about radical reconstructive surgery.
Shortly before noon, Russet was back on the phone. What I heard was a woman who sounded like she had her moxie extracted.
