by Blake Banner
“That is surprising.”
The inspector gave me a curious look. “I don’t know what common practice is in these cases, but you’d expect…”
“Unless the value of the work he was doing was not as great as they are making out. On the other hand, she is the head of the department and in charge of the project.” I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that what we saw was little more than a review of existing technology.”
Costas looked from me to Dehan and back again. “Not a motive for murder, then?”
I shook my head. “Not what we saw, no.”
He hesitated. “What are your conclusions, so far?”
“We haven’t any, so far. We have three major questions: Where is Agnes Shine? How did she get hold of that gun? And who is Mohamed?”
His face went rigid. “Mohamed?”
“Yes, Mohamed.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand. I mean, I can only repeat your question. Who is Mohamed? How have you come up with this name?”
I watched him carefully as Dehan said, “He is somebody who was in touch with Dr. Robles, and seems to have been threatening him.”
“With what?”
I said: “With exposure?”
“Exposure? What kind of exposure?”
“That’s what we don’t know. Can you offer us any insight into that?”
“No. I mean, how would I?”
“You were friends.”
“But not that… I mean, not close enough to know anything that might be exposed!”
I spread my hands. “That’s where the investigation is at the moment, Costas.”
He stared at the floor a moment. “Yes, I see. Well…” He stood and took his coat from the back of his chair. “I’ll let you get home. Thank you for meeting with me.”
I stood. “If, as his friend, you should think of anything that could help us, however unrelated…”
He nodded. “I know the routine, Detective. Thanks again.” He turned to the inspector. “John, thanks again for your help.”
He left and closed the door behind him. We heard his feet on the stairs and after a moment, the inspector raised his eyebrows at us. “Would you mind telling me what that was about?”
Dehan still had her elbows on her knees, turning her hat over in her hands. She glanced at me. I said, “I wish I knew, sir.”
He shook his head. “Uh-uh, that won’t do, John. When you subject the Assistant District Attorney to that kind of treatment in my office, and he takes it, I am entitled to know why!”
I sat. My ankles were cold and I could see amber droplets of rain spattering the window overlooking Storey Avenue. Suddenly I wanted to be at home in front of the fire, smelling something good coming from the kitchen. I sighed.
“Truthfully, sir, all I can tell you is that there seemed to be a portion of Dr. Robles’ research missing, that Dr. Meigh and Dr. Shine were close friends, but Dr. Meigh lied about it, that Dr. Robles frequented a night club on West 26th Street, in Chelsea, most Saturday nights, that somebody called Mohamed threatened to join one of his classes and that ADA Costas Varufakis is hiding something, but I have no idea what. That, right now, is the extent of my knowledge.”
He stared at me a moment, then waved his hands in the air and shook his head. “Fine! Fine! We could probably all do with going home and having a good night’s sleep.”
I looked over at Dehan. She looked as dead beat as I felt. “Unfortunately, sir,” I said, “we still have to go dancing tonight.”
TEN
We arrived on West 26th at midnight. Dare 2 Dream was located discreetly on the top floor and sported a vast terrace, a lawn, palm trees and even a swimming pool, all under a glass dome annexed to the bar. There was no music as such. It was more as though some electronic god had gone into paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia and we were trapped inside his chest. There were a lot of people, and most of them were bouncing. The ones that weren’t bouncing were leaning into each other’s ears and shouting, then nodding at each other with faces that seemed to say, I have no idea what you just said.
As we squeezed through the press of bouncing, squinting people, I began to notice a third group. These were dressed mainly in black leather. It was not overt, but if you were looking for the signs, they were there. Mainly they were in dark corners, behind palms or partly concealed by groups of voyeurs.
Dehan grabbed my head and leaned in close to my ear. “Is it a gay club? I can’t work it out!”
I shook my head and put my mouth to her ear. “No! It’s a dare to dream club. Whatever you’re into! What Mo would call bacon, lettuce and tomato!”
She shouted back: “You think they cater to straight, monogamous chicks?”
“I hope so. Come on, I need a drink.”
We pushed toward the bar, which was made of translucent blue glass, and found a spot where I could hail the barperson. The barperson had a small knitting needle through her nose and dead people tattooed on her arms. She wiped the space in front of us and said, “Get you?”
“Two Bushmills, straight up.”
She poured them swiftly and efficiently and said, “Forty bucks!”
I handed her fifty and said, “Is Mohamed in tonight?”
In my peripheral vision, I saw Dehan stare at me. Barperson took my money and frowned. “Pal, there must be five hundred people here right now. How the hell would I know?”
I shrugged, and on an impulse I said, “Ali said you knew him.”
“Ali? Mohamed? What is this, Isis revenge? Gimme a break, willya?”
She took the money to the till and rung it up. Dehan leaned over to me and said, “Have you gone crazy?”
“I’m testing a theory.”
The barperson came back with my change. She handed it to me and said, “Ali? What’s this Ali like?”
“Spanish, pretty, short hair…”
“Talks too much?”
I laughed. “Yeah.”
“She said I knew Mohamed? What else she say?”
I shrugged. “She told me to talk to you.” I turned to Dehan. “What else did she say, honey?”
Dehan winked at the barperson. “She said you would help us, and that you were a tia buena.”
She shrugged her tattooed shoulder and shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you’re hot.”
Now she gave a bashful, lopsided smile and pointed toward a palm by the door to the dome. There was a table in the shadows beside it with several people sitting there. “He usually sits over there. You know what he looks like? Big, six three, tattoos like mine. Got short hair and very blue eyes.”
I shook my head. “Not an Arab?”
Barperson’s laugh was scornful. “No, dude.” To Dehan she said, “Name’s Heimdall. I get off at three.”
Dehan grinned. “Carmen. I’ll be around.”
“Carmen, that’s nice.”
We elbowed and shouldered our way through the crowd toward the palm. Dehan was tugging on my sleeve. I looked back at her and mouthed, “Wait!”
When we got to the table by the palm, the music wasn’t as loud. There were four guys sitting there. Two were on stools, the other two on a padded bench against the wall. One of those was huge. He had the tattoos, very short hair and even from where I was standing, I could see his eyes were a very pale blue. He had on a gray, string-sleeved vest and one of his massive arms was around another guy who must have been half his size and half his weight, and was wearing false eyelashes and very red lipstick. They all looked up as we arrived. They seemed more interested in Dehan than in me, but the interest was not all that friendly.
I jerked my head toward the big guy. “You Mohamed?”
He lounged back with his mouth slightly open. “No, I’m Thomas fuckin’ Aquinas. Who the fuck are you, apart from the guy who’s gonna…”
I held up a hand. “Before we get there, Robles sent me with a message.”
“You’re a lying f
uckin’ bastard.”
“Yeah? Maybe I am at that. How about we go out to the lawn and talk about it out there?”
“Yeah?” He looked at his pals and they all laughed. “How about I break your arms and legs and throw you off the fuckin’ roof?”
“How about you try? Either way, let’s do it outside.”
He got to his feet and before he could reach for me, I moved to the door and opened it. Dehan stepped out onto the terrace and, as he came around the palm, flexing his muscles, I pulled my jacket back just enough for him to see the butt of my Colt. I smiled sweetly at him and jerked my head at the door. “Outside, Mohamed.”
“What the fuck…?”
“Outside.”
He went out after Dehan and his friends made to follow. I pointed a finger like a gun at them and said, “Scram!” Then I followed Mohamed out and let the door close behind me. The noise was less: a mild throb in the background, behind the hiss and hum of the traffic in the street below.
Dehan had moved to a table by a heater and was sitting, sipping her drink, watching me curiously. Mohamed was still standing, facing me as I approached him. “Who are you, man? What’s the deal with Robles? I ain’t spoken to him since…”
“Since what? Sit down, Mohamed.”
He narrowed his eyes a moment, then moved to the table and sat. He stared at Dehan, calculating, then looked at me. “Since he deleted me from Telegram. Who are you…?”
I grinned. “You’re asking, but you’ve guessed already, haven’t you?”
“You’re cops. I don’t know what that son of a bitch has said to you, but he told me to leave him alone and I have left him alone.”
“You threatened to join his class. You knew how that could affect his career.”
“Hey, man!” He spread his hands and hunched his shoulders. “Words! It was a lovers’ spat. I was hurting. Lovers say that kind of thing. But when I realized he was serious and it was over, I left it.”
“What did you want from him?”
“I wanted him to come out. I just wanted him to admit to the world that he loved me. Is that a lot to ask? Instead it was always this big macho act. Until he got behind the bedroom door. Then the whole story changed. He’d get on his knees and beg like a dog if I told him to.”
“I don’t need the details.”
“Your loss.”
“No doubt. Who else was in his crowd of friends?”
“Oh, you want me to be a snitch?” He looked at Dehan. She smiled at him. He looked back at me. “What is this, Trump’s little private army? Out to exterminate the deviants? Start with the college professors and purify the race?”
I shook my head and showed him my badge. “I’m Detective Stone. This is my partner, Detective Dehan. We have no interest in your sex life, Mohamed, but I’m afraid I have to tell you that Dr. Jose Robles was murdered last week, and we are trying to find his killer.”
His jaw sagged in a tragic echo of his expression when he first spoke to me. Arrogance was now replaced by shock, and that slowly began to give way to uncomprehending grief. His lower lip curled, his eyes became puffy and wet. His voice became a twisted whine.
“Why…?” He looked from Dehan to me again, wanting an answer, suddenly like a child denied its most treasured toy. “No… Why…? Not Jose…!”
He sat with his hands limp on his lap and his head thrown up to the glass dome, making a strange guttural noise designed to persuade a disinterested, uninterested, heartless god not to steal away his dreams. I sighed and glanced at Dehan. Her expression was hard to read. I said to Mohamed:
“Come on, we’ll take you to the station and give you some coffee. I need you to make a statement.”
He shook his head. “No. I want to be here, with my people. My friends. I’m not going anywhere. If you want to ask me questions, you’ll have to ask them here.”
“All right, who was in Dr. Robles’ crowd of friends, who used to come here?”
He ran the back of his hand across his eyes. “He used to come a lot with Ali. She was wild. I loved her. We used to joke that we were the Taliban. Ali and Mohamed. The terrorists. That was her joke mainly. She was like his beard. Then, more recently, just before we…” The tears spilled from his eyes and he shook his head at me, his eyes narrowed with resentment, his voice barely audible. “We could have been good, we could have been happy…”
I said, “A short guy, trim, in his forties, balding black hair, Mediterranean look?”
He nodded. “He was flaunting him at me. He was so cruel sometimes!”
“This guy have a name?”
“Most people don’t use names here.”
“But you knew Dr. Robles’ name. You knew everything about him.”
He shrugged. His face, his voice, were helpless, bewildered. “We were a couple. We were going to get an apartment. We were solid. I told him everything, and he shared everything with me. Then one day, it was just after we’d had a beautiful weekend together, he turned up with this… My god! He looked like a lawyer!”
“Think before you answer, Mohamed. Was this guy gay?”
“Well, if he wasn’t, he was sure putting on a good show! They were dancing and kissing like they meant it.”
I pulled out my cell, found a picture of the Assistant DA Costas Varufakis and expanded it so there was no information visible. I showed it to Mohamed. “This the guy?”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s him. Who is he?”
I put the phone away. “What’s your name?”
“Am I under arrest?”
“No, but you might be a witness to a murder. What’s your name?”
“Daniel Brand.”
“I need your phone number and your address, and I need you at the 43rd Precinct tomorrow no later than ten to make a statement. You understand that? You don’t show, there will be a BOLO out for you.”
Anger suddenly constricted his face. “Hey! Pal! I ain’t a criminal! You don’t need to threaten me. I’ll do my civic duty, OK?”
I nodded. “OK.” I went to stand, then stopped. “Just a couple more questions. Did he ever come here with another woman?”
He shook his head. “The only woman he came with was Ali.”
“Did he ever show any interest in buying a gun?”
I might have asked if he ate babies for breakfast. The look of horror transfigured his face. “Are you crazy? Jose was just totally, totally anti guns! He even hated bullfighting! And believe me, he was so Spanish! But he detested all forms of violence… unless they were consensual.”
I looked at Dehan. She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. I said, “OK, let’s go.”
We stood and made our way back to the bar. As we went through the door, Mohamed’s friends pushed past us and ran out to him. Heimdall didn’t see us leave.
Dehan didn’t speak in the elevator or in the lobby. She waited till we were out in the street and I was unlocking the car. Then she leaned on the roof, with the icy wind whipping her hair across her face, and said, “How? How did you know? How could you possibly have known?”
I opened the door and climbed in the car. She got in the other side and slammed the door after her. For a moment we were cocooned in a comfortable silence. I started the engine and pulled away.
“The simple answer is that I didn’t.”
“No, uh-uh.” She shook her head and wagged her finger in the negative. “No. No, sir. You knew, and I’ll tell you something else, you came here for the express purpose of meeting Mohamed, because you knew that he would be here. Deny it.”
I smiled. “I deny it. I had a hunch, but it wasn’t that hard to see, Dehan. You would have seen it too if you had stopped talking yourself in circles.”
“Talking myself in circles…”
She didn’t say it resentfully. She frowned like she was thinking about it.
I nodded. “Yes, you had two theories you were considering, the terrorist or jealous Agnes. But we realized almost from the start that Mohamed could not be a terrorist,
or an industrial spy in the employ of the Saudis. Two things stood out, on the one hand there was the fact that he had deleted the Telegram app, which we agreed he would not have been allowed to do if he was negotiating with Middle Eastern interests. And on the other hand, the nature of the message itself. It was a threat, for sure, but not a threat to kill or torture him. It was a threat by Mohamed to reveal his existence at Robles’ workplace. It was Mohamed’s existence that was the threat. Add that to Robles’ rather odd relationship with Agnes and it’s not a huge leap to a gay lover.”
She sighed. “So obvious…”
I shrugged. “Well, that and my razor-like mind.”
“Yeah, that too. So where the hell does that leave us? I am still no clearer, Stone.”
The roads were almost empty and we made good time. We crossed at the Madison Avenue Bridge and headed north on 3rd Avenue and the Boston Road. I didn’t answer her because I didn’t know how to. I had found a corner and a patch of sky in the puzzle, but it still didn’t make any kind of picture. There were two disparate parts to it: the sex and the science. And there didn’t seem to be any way to make them match up and make sense.
“It leaves us with a man,” I said, and Dehan looked startled because we had been quiet for almost fifteen minutes, “who stirred up intense feelings in people, feelings of love, devotion, anger, hatred and contempt. It leaves us with a man who did all of that through his public persona, while keeping his private self well hidden. His private self was, by all accounts, a brilliant scientist, about whom we know practically nothing. It leaves us wondering which one of the two got him killed.”
