Decker nodded, “Sure, that’s fair.”
The sales clerk clearly didn’t know what the word “sardonic” meant. Much of the Midwest seemed to have missed the concept, so Decker repeated, “Sure, that’s fair.” Then unable to resist he asked, “How about throwing in a portable DVD player?”
The salesman looked at him like he’d grown a second head.
He paid for the DVD player in cash as well and headed back to Steve’s.
Steve had set up a wooden desk against a soft white background. Decker reoriented the table so that the light from the kitchen window slanted across Steve’s lovely blue-black skin, then told him basically what he wanted him to say. Steve took it in and gave it a shot. It was quite good—centred and smart. “Okay,” Decker said, “let’s get a sound level then put one down.”
Yslan Hicks pulled out her cell phone. “The little prick claims he’s never seen or heard of Roberts.”
“Swell,” Harrison said from his Washington office.
“If Christ had turned this guy’s piss to wine he’d claim he did it himself.”
Harrison stared at the wall of his office. It was covered with data about Henry-Clay Yolles. “Do you want to bring him in and sweat him, Yslan?”
“I’d prefer to crush his nuts and throw him out that big window in his boardroom.”
“He come on to you, Yslan?”
“Does the pope wear a dress?”
“To the best of my understanding he does. So how do you want to play this?”
“I think Yolles is behind what happened to Decker.”
“Did you tell him so?”
“No.”
“And you’ve had no sightings of Roberts?”
“No.”
“Roberts has to approach Yolles somehow. So use Yolles as the bait.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” she said, glancing at her two guys. “Did you get anything on that guy at the bar back in the New York restaurant?”
“No.”
“I don’t like it, sir. There are too many loose ends.” She didn’t bother mentioning that some of the actions against Roberts didn’t align. She didn’t bother mentioning this since she wasn’t sure how they didn’t align or even exactly what she meant by things not aligning. It wasn’t her way of thinking—and she was more than a little puzzled that that word came to her. She realized with a start that she’d been thinking differently since she’d kidnapped Decker Roberts.
“Can I ask about—?”
“No. Just find Roberts, Yslan. We need him.”
“Because of the—?”
He hung up the phone. The immediate danger from the Pakistani jihadi had been dealt with. Two other witnesses clarified which one of these bastards had been telling the truth and which had been lying. But the danger had only been pushed into the future. He took out a folder that had now grown to a substantial width. There were dozens of other terrorist suspects that he was anxious to have Decker Roberts listen to—and then tell him which of their statements were true.
“It’s good Steve. Really good.”
“Thanks. It was fun. What’re you going to do with it?”
“Use it, Steve.” To get Henry-Clay Yolles to back off, Decker thought. “So here’s some cash for your time.” Decker handed him five hundred dollars. The young man looked genuinely hurt. For a second Decker thought he had not offered enough money, then he realized that Steve had done the work as a favour—a thank-you—and wanted no payment. “Sorry,” Decker mumbled. “How ’bout this then—I’ll take you out for dinner or whatever you like?”
Steve smiled that smile again and said, “For guys like you who liked Etta, I got just the place.”
Yslan sat with her team at their makeshift command headquarters. Down the way she could see the Byzantine Isaac M. Wise Temple with its peculiar minarets. Farther down was the historic St. Peter in Chains Cathedral. Lots of churches, she thought. For a moment she flashed on a report of the area that Decker Roberts lived in, the Junction—lots of churches there too. Why have houses of worship of different denominations and faiths side by side by side—all in the same area? she asked herself. Then an answer surfaced from a silent place in her heart—to contain the evil here. She knew that Cincinnati was the sight of many of the most vicious riots in the history of the United States. Several before and right after the Civil War—with Kentucky just across the river many people in Cincinnati were torn in their loyalties to the Union. Several times blacks had been attacked by anti-abolitionists and large riots had followed. But the worst riot had been eighteen years after the end of the Civil War, in 1883. It was famous in law-enforcement circles. Months earlier two men had been convicted of the murder of their boss but only one had been hung. The second was confined to jail, and the city rose as one angry thing in protest. Two deputies died protecting the jail—a statue of one, Captain John Desmond, stands proudly in the courthouse lobby. All told over forty Cincinnatians were killed and many score injured—but it was the remnants of the rioters’ rage that continued to scar the city. Yslan could still sense it.
With a shock she realized that she had never before felt or thought like this. Had it been her time with Decker Roberts that had made her so sensitive?
She didn’t know, but she no longer discarded it as a possibility.
So why all the churches? Go back to their nature. Of everything ask, what is its nature? What does it do?
Yslan flipped open her laptop and accessed her private NSA files. She had only a few synaesthetes in the entire country whom she considered to possibly have talents that could aid the NSA; one of them was serving time in Leavenworth Penitentiary. But she had a much longer list of silly synaesthetes—those with a gift that was quirky but not intrinsically useful. She quickly scanned the list and to her surprise found that one of those silly synaesthetes lived in Cincinnati and had been murdered three days ago.
“Let’s go,” she said, grabbing her coat.
The angry black slam poet was finishing his set as Decker and Steve entered the club. A trio of musicians graciously completed the young man’s unfinished thoughts with a fine discordant flourish that segued into the profound opening chords of Coltrane’s “Blue Train.”
Decker and Steve took a seat at a side table. Steve ordered a pitcher of malt liquor. As offhandedly as he could manage, Decker asked, “You got any friends in the newspaper business, Steve?”
“I work for a local TV station—so sure.”
Decker smiled and handed him a folded piece of paper. “Could you get this to them? They might be interested in it.”
“Mind if I ask what it is?”
“It’s a real estate item.”
“Sure. I got favours owed me all over this town,” Steve said, pocketing the paper.
“All over?” Decker asked.
“All over, Mr. Roberts,” Steve said with a smile.
Outside the unmarked club, in a rented Escalade, Emerson Remi watched the dot on his BlackBerry settle and remain still. A group of young black men sauntered past the Escalade and were about to cause a ruckus when Emerson turned his head toward them. The young men, seeing Emerson’s eyes, decided there was easier prey than the weird white guy in the dumb car.
Henry-Clay was on the phone to Congressman Villianne. “And I want more info on this Yslan Hicks, before the sun rises. Got it? Good—now go get it.”
He slammed down the phone and called MacMillan. “Where are you?”
MacMillan responded.
“Mr. MacMillan, I need you—and some of your guys, posthaste.” He hung up and looked out the window. The Treloar Building carved a tooth mark in the low-hanging winter moon.
The band was finishing its number as a pretty black woman, dressed à la the young Lena Horne, stepped up to the old-fashioned mic. She took the thing in her elegant fingers and a shiver ran through every man in the room. The drummer dumped his sticks and took out his brushes.
The girl’s voice was little more than a purr of sound and stirred the
hearts of everyone in the room.
“Like her?” Steven asked.
“What’s not to like?” Decker responded.
“Good,” Steve said. “She’s my honey, Hialeah.” Decker looked at him. “Her daddy liked the horses.”
Decker noted that the room had suddenly filled and every eye was on Hialeah. He thought, If this girl told them to jump over the moon, at least the men would give it a shot. Decker nodded and whispered, “Thanks,” for the good fortune to a god he didn’t believe existed.
“For what?” Steve asked.
“For her,” Decker said, but what he thought was, Thanks for the final piece.
Yslan showed the building manager the photos of Decker Roberts.
The man looked at the photos, then looked at Yslan.
“Have you seen this man, sir? It’s very important.”
“Well I think I have—but then again I think I haven’t.”
“What does that mean, sir?”
“Are these recent photos?”
“Very recent.”
“Then I don’t think I’ve seen him.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well I saw someone like that with the Realtor but I think he was younger—maybe this guy’s younger brother. He have a younger brother?”
“When did you see him?”
“Earlier today. Came to look at the dead guy’s apartment.”
Twenty minutes later—and without a warrant—Mr. T stepped aside as Ted Knight opened the apartment door and Yslan stepped in. “Give me ten minutes.” The men looked at each other—this was new, too.
Yslan stood alone in Mike’s apartment. She looked at the pieces of the broken statue on the floor, then pushing open the bedroom door she saw the computer peripherals statue of Mike. She felt surrounded by input—important input—that she couldn’t sort into any meaningful order. She closed the bedroom door, then headed toward the exit—completely missing the miniature statue on the windowsill of the Treloar Building.
Later that night Decker sat with Steve and Hialeah and made a request.
“No one’s going to get hurt?” Steven asked.
“No. It’s only something for Yolles Pharmaceuticals to think about.”
Steve turned to Hialeah and said, “Yolles Pharma has always rejected the idea that our community has health issues that need to be addressed—at least researched.”
Decker looked at Hialeah but said nothing.
“It’s just signs and stuff?” Steve asked Decker.
“Yes, Steve,” Decker said, “but there have to be enough people to make a statement.”
“You mean enough black people, don’t you, Mr. Roberts?” Hialeah said, her voice tight, angry.
“Yes,” Decker said, “black people to picket Yolles Pharmaceuticals.”
Hialeah stared at her beautiful hands for a moment. Decker was sure she was going to tell him to get the fuck out of her life with this racial crap, but then she looked at Steve and said, “Do you really believe this could do our community some good?”
“It was you who brought up the problem with Yolles Pharma. It was years ago,” Steve said.
“On the anniversary of our first date.”
“Yeah, you complained a blue streak,” Steve replied, his smile widening.
Hialeah turned to Decker and said, “And when would you like this little protest to take place?”
47
CINCINNATI, OHIO, TWO
“HE’S A RANK AMATEUR BUT WE CAN’T FIND HIM, IS THAT what you’re trying to tell me?” Yslan demanded.
Mr. T nodded and shrugged his enormous shoulders. Ted Knight said, “We’ve got people all over this town. We’ll find him.”
Yslan pushed her coffee away. “I prefer the hot black crap they call coffee in New York.”
“This is Cincinnati, German coffee.”
“It’s shitty coffee is what it is.” She got to her feet and stretched her back muscles. She was thinking, What’s Decker’s nature? He’s a special kind of synaesthete, then she addressed the second part of Marcus Aurelius’ famous question from The Silence of the Lambs—that damned film again! “What does he do?” She asked aloud.
The two men looked at each other, not knowing what she was asking.
“Look. He’s not a cop or a PI with friends in a police department. He has to find support somewhere. Look what he’s already managed. So who’s helping him? So I repeat. What does Decker Roberts do?”
“He teaches acting,” Ted Knight said.
“He works on documentaries,” Mr. T added.
Yslan thought about that but it got her nowhere. Then she asked, “How did he manage to get things done in New York?”
“He contacted that actor Josh…”
“Near,” Yslan said, but she wasn’t looking at him.
“Yeah. Then he hid at that green-haired freak’s place in Queens,” added Mr. T.
“Yes, he did,” said Yslan. “One an actor and one on a production crew of a TV shoot.” Yslan turned back to the men. “What did he do before he was an acting teacher?”
“He directed theatre, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” Suddenly Yslan was in motion. “There’s a professional theatre in Cincinnati, isn’t there? That’s got to be his connection here.”
That evening’s Cincinnati Enquirer carried a lead story in its real estate section—“Treloar Building Ready to be Sold to Mystery Buyer.” Decker read the article in Steve’s tiny kitchen and went to high-five him when the younger man put forward his fist—pound. No more high-fives—now we pound.
Steve smiled, and before Decker could ask how he managed to get the article in the paper so fast said, “The editor owes me a favour.”
“Lots of people owe you favours, Steve?”
“You bet your white ass they do. So what else do we need to finish your business here, Mr. Roberts?”
Decker thought, All the pieces are in place. Now I need somewhere to mount the event. He said, “You know that weird building on Plum Street?”
“The synagogue?”
“Yeah, it looks more like a mosque.”
“It’s a synagogue in the old Byzantine style. That was the way they made them in the nineteenth century. Used to be hundreds of them in the world. Now the only one outside of Cincy is in New York City. The rest, Mr. Hitler took care of.”
“Didn’t care for the architecture?”
“Evidently hated it.”
“How do you know so much…”
“…about that synagogue?”
“Yeah.”
“My cousin’s the Shabbos goy over there.”
Decker stared at Steve. “Is there anything in this town you don’t know?”
“Nope,” said Steve, completely without arrogance. “If a black man’s going to prosper in a place like this, you have to know everything you can—and I know a lot.”
“You do. So can your cousin, the Shabbos goy, get us into the synagogue?”
“Sure.”
“And do you have somewhere else to live for a while?”
“Why?”
“This could get a bit dicey.”
“Who all are looking for you, Mr. Roberts?”
“Folks.”
Suddenly Steve was stern, “What folks, Mr. Roberts?”
“Feds,” Decker said as simply as he could.
Steve suddenly smiled. “Whoosh—thought it was someone serious.” He went to a cupboard and pulled down a suitcase, and for the first time spoke in full ghetto patois. “Black gent always gots a packed suitcase and cribs throughout the metro-poh-littan area.”
A half hour later Yslan and Mr. T had the terrified artistic director of the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park virtually on his knees with fear. After an initial and pathetically weak attempt to force Yslan to get a warrant, he handed over the theatre’s records, which went back almost forty-five years and were—naturally enough, being from a theatre—all stacked in boxes and not yet computerized.
In a box
marked 1993 they found what they were looking for—the program for a production of The Dwarf both adapted from the Swedish novel and directed by Decker Roberts.
“Great, and what do we do with that?” Mr. T demanded.
“We search out every name in the entire thing—everyone from usher to star.”
Across town Henry-Clay held the Cincinnati Enquirer real estate section in one hand while he stared at the Treloar Building and shouted into the speakerphone. “Find out who the hell is going to buy the Treloar Building and offer him double what he’s paying for it—and do it now.”
That night at the club Hialeah sang three songs, then stopped. The quiet in the room was palpable. They waited, literally on the edge of their chairs, for her next words. She allowed a long slow breath into the mic then said, “There’s a drug company in this town that needs to be taught a lesson.”
As the sun rose, Yslan met with her team to compare notes. A startling percentage of the male actors from the production were dead. “AIDS,” Yslan said. “Antivirals weren’t around in any number then. What else do we have?”
“The rest of the actors, well, they’re not actors anymore. Only one is even involved in the entertainment business.”
“Who’s that?”
“Guy named Steven Bradshaw. He works for a local TV station.”
“And he lives in Cincinnati?”
“Yep.”
“Where?”
Mr. T gave the address and Yslan ordered immediate surveillance.
“Anyone else?”
“Two of the ushers still work at the theatre. They’re both pensioners now. One of the carpenters and one of the fly men on the show still live in Cincinnati.”
“Find them and I want them interrogated. Take Roberts’ picture.”
Yslan looked down at the program. She quickly read the bios of the actors. Steven Bradshaw’s bio claimed that this was his first time on the main stage and he thanked Mr. Roberts for the opportunity.
She read the bio aloud.
“You want us to interrogate him?”
The Placebo Effect Page 24
