by Seeley James
Three guys dropped into the pew in front of me, moving in unison, shoulder to shoulder. Two wore black armbands, but the third had a purposefully torn shirt. I recalled there was a ritual rending of clothes for close friends and family dating back to the book of Genesis. After a moment of meditation, they huddled to talk. Their suits were threadbare and outdated by ten years, probably the same suits they wore to their prom.
The guy on the right eyed me as he leaned in to his pals. He did a double take and twisted around to face me. He asked, “Are you Jacob Stearne?”
I nodded.
His pals craned around, examined me, then looked at each other, then back at me.
The first guy leaned over the pew and whispered, “You know who killed David?”
I shrugged and shook my head with heartfelt regret. “Were you friends of his?”
“From high school.” His pals nodded solemnly. “We joined the Marines together, the 3/2. Band of brothers.”
“Not like those other guys,” the chubby one said.
“Who?” I shrugged.
He glanced around the room as if we were spies in hostile territory. Mourners trudged past us with lead feet and sullen voices and filled in the pews. “After Iraq, he changed. He went to college with Zola and Blackson. They joined that lobbying firm.”
The first guy said, “But you’re going to find the guy, right?”
Mercury slid next to me. Whoa, brotha! Did you become a homicide detective while I was away?
My eyes snapped to my discarded god. His toga was soaking wet.
I said, What the hell happened to you?
Mercury said, I took a ritual bath. Didn’t you?
I said, Jews don’t take a ritual bath before a funeral.
Mercury said, No? Maybe I was thinking of the Hindus.
I said, Hindus don’t take a ritual bath either.
Mercury said, Oh really, Mr. Smarty-pants? Then why are they always flinging themselves in the Ganges? Oh wait. You’re right. My bad. Hey, don’t look at me like that, it could happen to anybody.
And Rome trusted their vital messages to this god. No wonder the Visigoths took them down.
When I turned back to the three guys, their eyes had been looking off in the direction of Mercury. In unison, their eyes tracked back to me. Then slowly, still in unison, they tracked the other direction. Satisfied our conversation remained confidential, they came back to me with expectation in their faces.
I said, “Montgomery County has their top homicide detectives on the case. They’ve taken my statement and they’re looking for the killer as we speak.”
“I heard they arrested you for it.”
“That simple mistake was cleared up when my attorney arrived. They’ve asked me to be available for further questions.”
“The cops only look for the most convenient suspect,” the chubby one said.
“You’re going to find out who hired the triggerman, right?” the first guy asked.
“No.”
“You saved us once,” the chubby one whispered. “You gotta do it again.”
“Saved you?”
Music blasted over the speaker system for a few beats before someone turned it down a hundred decibels.
The service commenced and proceeded in Hebrew. After missing a few cues, I gave up trying to follow along with the English version and just said Amen with everyone else. Lucky for me, the homily was in English.
Afterwards, the congregation filed out quietly, and we made our way graveside through trees whose bare branches stretched for the sky, ready for a horror movie. Gentle snowflakes fell as the dim light faded into a sunset obscured by clouds.
I stayed well back, uncertain of why I came.
Mercury stood on his tiptoes to see over the crowd. Where’s the river? Aren’t they going to set him on fire and toss his ashes in the river?
I said, You’ve got Hindu-on-the-brain. You need some cultural diversity.
Mercury said, What’s with the attitude, bro? I see enough of those Hindus at the gods’ convention every year, waving all their freakin’ arms around. Gives me the willies.
The band-of-brothers guys broke off from the main group and huddled around me.
“We need your help,” the chubby one whispered and looked around at the clouds and trees.
“David was onto something big,” the first guy said.
The guy with the torn shirt had yet to speak a word. I stared at him. “‘Something big’ is pretty vague. Care to explain?”
Mr. Silent didn’t speak or flinch, not even his eyelashes moved.
“It’s the company he worked for,” the chubby one said. “Duncan and Hyde. They’re into some heavy stuff, like mafia or something. I don’t know.”
A man in front of us scowled over his shoulder.
My new friends quieted and shuffled from foot to foot while examining the slush we were standing in. Closer to the grave, more prayers were offered and the crowd murmured Amen.
“Remember Lieutenant Koven?” the first guy asked. “The officer you were about to kill?”
A dim memory of threatening an officer in Nasiriyah bubbled up from the depths of my nightmares. But it could’ve been the power of suggestion. While the Army is made up of an overwhelming number of outstanding officers, there are a few no one would miss. Still, it’s a court-martial offense that can carry the death penalty. It’s reasonable to assume I would try to forget an incident like that. If these guys had witnessed that kind of crime and didn’t report me to their chain of command, they must’ve been on the verge of killing this Koven guy themselves.
Snowflakes coated our shoulders in pearlescent white.
“Nasiriyah was a long time ago,” I said. “What does this lieutenant have to do with Gottleib?”
All three of them stared at me as if I’d armed a grenade.
I waited them out.
Finally, the silent guy with the torn shirt spoke with a thick Hebrew accent. “Koven is harah.”
And then he spat on the ground.
I’d never heard the word before, but I didn’t need to look it up in my Hebrew dictionary.
I said, “Have you told the police this guy is a … whatever you said?”
“We went to see them,” the first guy said. “They weren’t interested. Called us conspiracy theorists. No one cares after they’ve convinced themselves the lie is the truth.”
“But you care,” the chubby one patted my shoulder. “David thought so.”
Mercury said, Oh look, the huddled masses turn to you in despair, isn’t that sweet? Doesn’t look like they were terribly prosperous after their brief stints as jarheads, so there’s no point in taking on their cause just to get me new worshippers. Let’s go get a warm cup of soup somewhere—like the Ritz Carlton. Now that’s where you should be evangelizing. We can get a better class of followers in that part of town. Ya feel me, dawg?
“Do you have any idea what David was worked up about?” I asked.
Two of them shook their heads. The quiet guy stared me down.
“Check out the company he worked for,” the chubby one said. “David wasn’t the first guy they killed.”
“You think Koven killed him?”
“Koven doesn’t have the stomach for murder,” the first guy said. “Someone did it for him. It was a contract killing.”
“Do you have any reason to believe that?”
“Koven is harah,” the quiet one said.
“You’ve mentioned that.” I stepped forward and turned to face all three of them. “Look guys, if you have anything, or can find anything, tell the cops.”
The quiet guy poked me with a finger. “I help you.”
“I don’t need help for something I’m not going to do.”
The chubby one stuck a card in my coat pocket. “Call that guy. David and I bought him some drinks one night and he started to tell us stuff, but they showed up out of nowhere and carted him off before we could make sense of what he was telling us.”
The three of them looked away in different directions.
The first guy’s gaze came back to me. “David got us together last week. He wouldn’t tell us what it was—wanted to keep us out of it—but he had a problem and wanted our help figuring out who could help. We thought of all kinds of people, cops, reporters, FBI, but he said any one of them could be part of the problem. We had to think outside the system. Then we remembered you.”
The chubby guy reached in his pocket and pulled out a clenched hand. He turned it over and opened it like a flower. In his palm lay a .50 caliber BMG cartridge which he presented like a sacred talisman.
The second presentation in twenty-four hours.
I looked at it. I looked at him. And back and forth three more times.
He didn’t explain.
The mourners said an Amen with a finality that indicated the burial was wrapping up. After the family tossed dirt in the grave, we formed into two lines with an aisle between. The bereaved mother tottered up the row, leaning her sad weight on a teenage boy. She spoke to people and they said kind words in soft tones, often in Hebrew.
Mercury said, When she gets near, you should say the right prayer, Ha-Makom yenahem etkhem b’tokh sha ar aveilei Tzion vYerushalayim. May the Omnipresent comfort you among all the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
I said, This isn’t one of your pranks, is it? Does that really mean what you said?
Mercury looked offended. Would I do a thing like that? I still feel bad about sacking their temple, homie.
Mrs. Gottleib made her way to where I stood. She stopped in front of me when she saw me and opened her mouth to say something. My Hebrew was nonexistent, but I concentrated really hard and did my best to get the prayer right. Before my first syllable came out, I realized she was not actually speaking to me.
She was screaming at me.
“How dare you! You, you … murderer! You’re the man who killed my David!”
CHAPTER 6
Pia Sabel stared aimlessly at the London skyline from her eighth-floor suite in the Four Seasons Park Lane Hotel, and decided it was one of those things in life that one must do: listen to Dad’s life lessons. If only she could go one day without one. Whether the lesson was relevant was irrelevant. Alan Sabel’s rumbling baritone ran on, something about allies and enemies. It was her own fault though; she should never have asked him why the Omanis refused her $20 million refund.
She couldn’t deny her adopted father understood the path to success. He’d gone from penniless grad student to billionaire before the police gave up on solving her parents’ murders. But his latest effort to download everything he knew grated on her nerves like steel wool on a skinned shin.
The last glow of daylight contrasted Parliament against heavy clouds as Pia shrugged her shearling coat over double layers. Alan kept talking about business relationships and trust. Then he paused to take a call.
Pia turned to the mirror and fixed her lipstick. Ready, she nodded to Tania. Her agents led the way to the elevator and waited while Alan finished the call. Agent Carlos joined her inside the lift and flattened himself against the wall. When Alan clicked off, he filled the remaining space with his large frame. Agent Tania glanced at the tiny, crowded box, gave Carlos a lingering glare, and indicated she would take the stairs. The doors closed and they whirred downward.
Alan Sabel looked down his nose from his six-foot, five-inch height at the new agent. “How is anger management going?”
“Hard, sir.” Carlos returned Alan’s icy stare. “My gut still tightens when someone tries to dis me by reminding me of where I came from—but then I think of where I’m going and I chill.”
“There’s only one opinion that matters around here.” Pia patted his shoulder. “You’re doing fine.”
When the elevator opened on the ground floor, Tania was waiting for them.
Carlos scanned the lobby before taking the lead, his head swiveling imperceptibly left and right.
When they reached the road, Alan called out and waved to a well-dressed man emerging from a limo at the InterContinental Hotel across Hamilton Place. The man returned the wave and shouted a warm greeting. They changed direction, crossing the lane, and met the man and a woman draped in fur and diamonds.
“Paul, you remember my daughter, Pia.” Alan spread his arms wide enough for a group hug. “Pia, this is Paul Benning, CEO of Esson Oil, and his wife, uh…”
With a glint in his eye, Paul took Pia’s hand. “You’ve grown to be quite a beauty.”
Before he could kiss the back of her hand, Pia pulled his hand to a more conventional position and shook.
“Alan, you not remembering?” The woman in fur spoke with a heavy Russian accent. She turned to Pia, extending her hand as if Pia would kiss the back of it. “Olga Benning, so nice.”
Pia took her hand and shook it. She turned to Paul. “What brings you to London?”
Paul glanced at Alan. “I’m going to the Future Crossroads Symposium this week and thought we’d swing through Harrods first.”
Pia grabbed her father’s elbow. “Good to see you again, Paul, but we’re running late. Olga, it was ‘so nice’.”
She wheeled her father around and quickstepped to the sidewalk. Darkness dropped like a shadow over the city. Street lights flickered on, store windows lit up.
“That was rude,” Alan said. “You could chat a little, be social.”
Pia picked up the pace. “What’s he really doing in London, Dad?”
“Same thing we are—clandestine meetings with politicians before going to Duncan’s symposium.”
“Tom Duncan isn’t involved,” she said. “It’s his younger partner, Daryl Koven.”
Alan stopped walking for a beat, scratched his chin, then doubled his steps to catch up. “So you’ve researched the symposium? That’s good. It shows initiative. But I’ve spoken to Duncan. He’s going to be there, and that’s what matters.”
“I’d like to meet him. Schedule it.”
Alan fired off a text. “Done. But next time, I’d appreciate being asked nicely.”
She considered his request as they walked. Why she was short-tempered with him eluded her no matter how often she reminded herself of his kindness.
He tapped her shoulder as if he’d just thought of something. “How did a junior partner like Koven get all these top CEOs to attend? I’ve never heard of him.”
“Timing,” she said. “It’s on the way to Davos.”
He snapped his fingers. “Spend three days at a symposium on the French-German border before going to the World Economic Forum.” Alan paused a moment. “Got to hand it to him, this Koven is clever.”
Carlos stopped at the corner in front of a traffic circle. Keeping his vigil, Pia and Alan slowed while Tania made her way past them and took the lead on the next street. In a carefully synchronized movement, Carlos fell in behind.
The Four Seasons is situated on a narrow triangular block with a dining garden for outdoor serving in the summer at the thinnest point. They walked up one side of the triangle and turned back around the thin point, allowing her a clear view of the well-dressed, thin man following them on the far side of the ice-crusted garden. Their tail had no choice but to pretend his destination was elsewhere up the street.
Pia’s group continued down Old Park Lane, passed the Rose and Crown, and around the corner. They crossed into Green Park, swimming upstream against a river of tired tourists returning from Buckingham Palace as an icy drizzle wet their faces. Tania pulled on a knit cap over her mass of wild, black hair.
Deep in the Park, they came to the Canada Memorial. A red granite fountain turned off for the winter, it usually featured a gentle flow of water across its angled surface.
It was a dark, untraveled corner of the park. A hundred yards south of them through a stand of trees,
Buckingham Palace lit up the fog and rain with floodlights. Three hundred yards north, the Picadilly hummed with traffic.
Pia puffed white breath-clouds and shuffled her feet to stay warm.
Carlos took up a position twenty yards away, his back against a tree. Tania inspected the area, then returned to Pia and her father.
“Pia, this guy is a big mistake.” Tania nosed at Carlos. “He’s been through training and still can’t do anything right.”
“We’re not going there.” Pia turned away.
“You know how this hurts me. My sister’s rotting in jail because of guys—”
“Enough.” Pia gave her a withering glance.
Tania stomped away to a position across the memorial from Carlos, covering the Sabels from the widest angle. She gave a cough and spoke in a soft voice over the comm link. “Is that your guy?”
Pia and Alan looked behind them as an older gentleman approached, his coat flapping open as he walked.
Alan said, “Only a senator from Minnesota would stroll through this cold with his coat unbuttoned.”
Twenty yards away, Senator Jeff Smith waved off his bodyguard. Nearing them, he extended his right hand to Alan while encircling Pia with his left. “Oh, it is so good to see you both. We live in the same town yet we never see each other anymore.”
Alan reciprocated pleasantries, draining Pia’s patience.
The senator turned to Pia. “Young lady, you’re amazing. You’ve accomplished so much—”
“I was born with every advantage,” she said. “Claressa ‘T-Rex’ Shields is ‘accomplished’.”
He searched for words.
She crossed her arms. “Why the cloak-and-dagger, Jeff?”
He pulled his hat off, exposing his thin gray hair to the frozen drizzle. “No need to rush into things just yet. Let’s catch up on—”
“I can tell by the tension in Dad’s posture that this isn’t going to be good. You have bad news; I want to hear it.”
