THIRTY
Simone stood up abruptly and went to stand at the window with her arms crossed.
“Do we have to do this? You have your killer. Can’t you just leave it at that?”
I shook my head. “No. You know we can’t.”
Bat was frowning from me to Simone and back again. “What’s this?”
Carmichael snarled. “Yeah, go on, Walker, tell the whole damned story! Tell it how it really was!”
Hirschfield sank back into the sofa. “Are you sure about this, Lacklan?”
I nodded. “It has to be told. If these people are to move on, there can be no skeletons left in the closet.”
Simone sighed. “Fine, go ahead.”
“It was the one thing that I just couldn’t get to fit. If Ivory had planned the murder in advance, and meticulously enough to entrap Bat into putting his prints on the gun—and gone to the extreme of taking latex copies of those prints to leave in the bedroom, as he clearly had—the big question remained: why did he not simply kill her at home, in her bed? Why did he not do it the way he made it seem he’d done it?”
Hirschfield was frowning. “And?”
“That night, Sarah was due to go out to hear Bat play at the Blue Lagoon. It was Bat’s night off, but he was going to go in anyhow because…” I smiled at him. It was not a happy smile. “Because you had a big soft spot for Sarah, didn’t you?”
He nodded and smiled at Simone. “It was hard not to.”
“But things were reaching a crisis point between Sarah, her lovers, Carmichael, and above all Simone. She went to Simone’s to pick her up, but they got talking. I imagine, Simone, that she had recently confessed to you how she felt…”
She spoke to the window, as though we were not there, and she were reciting the words for the storm outside. “I begged her not to go to the club, not to pick up any more men. She agreed. She said she was tired of the whole charade. I asked her to spend the night with me. She said she couldn’t, that before she took that step, she had to end it with Charles. It made me crazy that she could fuck these men, night after night, without it meaning anything, without it troubling her conscience, but she could not be with me, with the woman she truly loved. And all because of her respect for this piece of human excrement, who had been abusing her and exploiting her for years!”
“So you decided to confront him.”
“Yes.”
“You persuaded her to come with you. It was still early at this stage, probably no more than eight or eight-thirty in the evening, at the latest.”
Carmichael went crimson suddenly and screamed at me, “These bitches threatened to kill me! Me! After everything I had done for her! After all the love and care I had given her! I adored that woman! I loved her! And they threatened to kill me! Me!”
He folded over and buried his face in his hands. He looked suddenly very old and tragic, convulsing in his chair, making ugly noises in his throat.
“You pulled your .22 on him, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “I told him it was over, to stay away from her. She begged me to stop. She believed that we could solve the whole thing by talking, by being nice to each other, that we could all end up being friends.” She snorted with contempt. “After all the years she had been married to this monster, she still didn’t realize what kind of a man he was. I knew that he would never let go of her, that he would never leave us in peace, unless he was in fear for his life. I told him to leave us alone, or face the consequences.”
“But you miscalculated, didn’t you, Simone? You misjudged him, you misjudged his influence in this town, and you misjudged her, too. He went for you. He pulled a gun on you—on both of you—and you had to run for your lives. You believed still that he didn’t know about Solitude, because you didn’t know that Ivory was in his employ. So you went home, to wait for Carmichael. You hoped he would turn up to confront you, and you would have the opportunity to kill him and claim self-defense. And Sarah made the last of a long string of fatal mistakes. She needed to get away from you all, and she went to spend the night at Solitude.
“But Carmichael, out of his mind with rage, called Ivory and told him to do it then, that night. To find Sarah and kill her. Ivory called her on her cell and asked where she was. Who knows if she told him to come over and keep her company or not. People behave in strange ways when they are afraid. The way it looked in the house, they had sex that night. Then he killed her, with the gun he had prepared with Bat’s prints, loaded the body into his truck, and brought it here. Once in the bed, he shot her again, through the quilt. And that explained another thing that mystified me, why the bullets had gone right through and penetrated the mattress. Of course, her belly had already been perforated with the first shots.” I shrugged. “The rest we know already.
“Carmichael pretended to find the body, reported it to his friend Jackson, and a few days later, Bat was arrested and placed in the frame.” I paused a moment. “One of the things that confused me for a long time was the way that, even though you hated Carmichael, Simone, you were careful at first not to incriminate him. Then I realized why. Because if you incriminated him, you also incriminated yourself.”
Hirschfield nodded. “Very nearly a perfect murder.”
“Yes, but unfortunately for you, Carmichael, and Jackson and Ivory, I happened to be on my way to New Orleans, and I happened to pick up a copy of The Advocate.”
“And am I glad you did, sir!”
Simone was still staring at the storm outside. “So where does all this leave me?”
I shrugged. “For my part, I think you have paid a very high price for your stupidity. Your behavior was reprehensible and adolescent, but love doth make fools of us all. I just hope you learned your lesson.” I turned to Hirschfield. “I am pretty sure that the DA will be grateful for a swift, uncomplicated prosecution of this case. What do you think?”
“That’s very likely. He has two officers murdered by a Burgundy PD Detective. It’s an ugly mess and the brooms will be out.” He glanced at Simone’s back. “If you are prepared to act as a witness for the prosecution, there’s a good chance they won’t press charges against you.”
She nodded.
Carmichael made a noise of disgust. “How cozy, how convenient.”
I studied his face a moment. “A lot of people are dead because of your greed, your avarice, and your vanity, Carmichael. Frankly, you’re lucky to be alive. I suggest you just exercise your right to silence, while Hirschfield calls the sheriff.”
He glowered at me sullenly, but said no more after that.
Epilogue
Over the next forty-eight hours, Hurricane Sarah, the biggest and most violent in recorded history, steadily blew herself out. The flooding was unprecedented and the cost of the destruction was off the chart. As Bat and I watched the last blustery gusts drag the debris of planks and slates and refuse containers across the old, cobbled streets of Burgundy, and as the last shreds of tattered cloud drifted across a sky that was slowly turning to blue again, I wondered what Ben and the elite of Omega had made of it all back in Washington.
I was pretty sure that to them it was a series of statistics, of notable facts, a marker on their road toward their clinical, mindless utopia. What it was not, was a good woman murdered because a damaged, twisted man could not bear to lose her, or her property. It was not about a broken heart, a lonely woman aching for a lover she could never have, it was not about a solitary soldier of fortune who had glimpsed for a moment a fleeting vision, a dream of love and home. For them, it was not about three human beings, imprisoned by their dreams and their needs, trying to hold on to the things they loved, or break free from the things they had grown to hate.
For Omega, Hurricane Sarah was the first loud alarm announcing that the old order was dying, and the new order, their new age of power, was coming.
But their new order was not here yet.
Fortunately, my car, the deadly and silent Zombie, was not dragged into the bayou. I was able to
recover it, and once it had dried out, the damage proved to be superficial, and, a week after the storm had finally subsided, Bat and I shook hands outside the Soniat, because British guys like Bat don’t embrace other guys, and said our farewells.
“You know my address now, you have my phone number, stay in touch. And if you ever get arrested again, don’t even dream about calling me, you son of a bitch!”
He laughed noisily. “Don’t worry. Once is enough for me. I’ll keep my nose clean.”
As I headed down Route 61, I slowed and almost stopped at Simone’s house. I’d heard from Hirschfield that the DA was not going to press charges against her. Carmichael had pleaded guilty to all charges, and had given up his challenge against the new will, so she had been granted probate. She was now a very rich woman.
I thought for a second or two that it would be good to see her, and say goodbye, but for some reason I kept going. Some things you can’t go back to. They have their moment, and it’s best simply to remember them as they were at that time, and not try to hold on. In the end, all you can do in life is keep going, keep moving forward, searching for something you may never find, and make the most of whatever comes you way, while it lasts.
I cruised down through the flooded wastelands that flanked Route 61, and then through Baton Rouge, like the Zombie knew where it wanted to go. I didn’t mind, I was happy to follow. As we crossed the Horace Wilkinson Bridge, I even began to smile. I poked a Camel in my mouth, flipped the Zippo, and lit up. Then, I switched on the radio. They were playing the Eagles, Desperado, a classic.
I had no idea where Marni was, or where my search for her would lead me, or even if she ever wanted to see me again. But right then, as I cruised along the I-10 toward Houston, Texas, listening to the Eagles, I didn’t mind letting her do the searching for a while, if she felt so inclined. Personally, I had a promise to keep with Dr. Katy Glendinning, regarding the next time I was in town. And it was a promise I was pretty keen to honor.
BOOK 4
THE HAND OF WAR
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.
John Milton, Paradise Lost
One
His face was deceptively flabby. You’d be forgiven for thinking he was a weak man. But there was steel in his eyes. He watched me without emotion, observing me from his large, black leather chair. Through the plate glass window behind him I could see the morning sun, molten copper on the East River, and the Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island. I had told him my story—my edited version of the story, minus the murder and the conspiracies—about how Marni was like a sister to me, we had lost touch over the last few years, and now I was trying to get in contact with her again.
He raised an unruly eyebrow and heaved a big sigh.
“Mr. Walker, I don’t really see how I can help you. I am not at liberty to release Dr. Gilbert’s contact details.”
“I don’t expect you to, Mr. Staines. But if Marni’s address to the conference is on Friday 18th, she will be here for at least a week. What I was hoping was that you could get a message to her for me, and then perhaps she could contact me.”
He spread his hands and made an unhappy face. “Mr. Walker, this is the United Nations, not a hotel switchboard. I have an international conference to organize…”
I interrupted, fighting down the pellet of anger in my belly. “Mr. Staines, I hear you. You are not interested in the personal problems of the speakers at your conference. That’s fine. But it so happens that her father was killed and my father stepped in as her surrogate dad. We grew up together like brother and sister. All I am asking is, will you see her before the conference?”
He sighed again, noisily. “Yes.”
“Would it interfere an awful lot with your busy schedule to hand her a piece of paper with my name and telephone number on it, and say, ‘Please call him’?”
He was good at sighing. I guess he got a lot of practice because he sighed at every opportunity. That’s how you get good at things in life. Now he sighed again and held out his hand. I put my card in it and stood up. “Thanks.”
When I got to the door, he said, “Mr. Walker.”
I turned.
“I’ll tell her you were persistent and would very much like to hear from her.”
Something like a smile moved his jowls and just for a moment he looked like a kindly St. Bernard.
I nodded once. “Thanks again.”
I stepped out of his office and into what looked like a vast set for a Star Trek movie. The words ‘sterile environment’ seemed to be encoded into the architecture and the décor, along with an obscure, subliminal message about the destiny of mankind. It appeared to promise a future in which everybody would smile and all behavior would be ‘appropriate’, all genders and all races would be not so much equal as the same, though displayed in an appropriate rainbow of aesthetically pleasing variations on a theme. And that theme was to be inoffensive. Inoffensive to whom was not clear—a great abstract United Nations ideal, where nobody would ever disagree because nobody ever asked difficult questions. Because difficult questions could be offensive. And therefore inappropriate.
Especially if they were questions about the United Nations Ideal.
I stepped out into the early May sunshine and as I walked through the ugly, iron gates onto First Avenue, I hesitated and looked both ways, as though I were not sure where I wanted to go. It gave me a chance to spot the Omega men who were waiting for me. They were in the garden at the bottom of the steps that lead up to 43rd Street. I acted like I hadn’t seen them, crossed over the road to make it easier for them to follow me, and started walking toward the parking garage on West 40th, where I’d left my car.
I knew they’d parked up the road at a meter, where they could keep watch and follow me when I came out. So I stepped into the entrance to the garage and stood with my back against the near wall, where they wouldn’t see me, staring at the screen of my cell phone. A minute later they walked past. There were two of them. They had that unmistakable look of men who were clones of each other, who spent too many hours in the gym, having fantasies about living the 3D shooter dream, and not enough time looking into the eyes of dying men, or men who wanted to kill them.
I moved after them and matched my stride to theirs. They were dressed in off the peg Armani, because that was the uniform, and they drove a dark blue Audi, because that was what you drove if you were a black ops bad boy. They were the living embodiment of the UN promise. As they came up to their car I called out in my most pleasant voice, “Oh, excuse me!” and ran two steps to catch up.
They both turned. The nearest one was six-two and built like a brick shithouse. He looked at me with expressionless eyes in a pale, unfeeling face. That changed when I broke his knee with a short, sharp kick to the side of the joint. I didn’t waste time following up. I’d heard it snap and I knew he was out.
His pal was a bit taller and more athletic. He was gaping at his fallen comrade and at me. It is estimated that a person takes a full four seconds to react to an unexpected attack. It may be three in the case of a highly trained operative. If you count out three seconds, it isn’t hard to imagine how much damage you can do in that time.
I stepped in close and rammed the heel of my right hand up into his jaw. He said, “Oh…” like he’d suddenly gone dizzy, and his legs went wobbly. As he exhaled, I rammed my fist hard into his solar plexus and, as he doubled up, I took hold of his collar and the seat of his pants and rammed his head against the
side of his dark blue Audi bad boy car. In all it took about as long as he would have needed to react to my breaking his friend’s leg.
I knelt down beside that broken friend now and looked deep into his pale eyes. His skin was the color and texture of butter. He was sweating and trembling. I reached inside his jacket and pulled out his Glock. I released the magazine and put it in my pocket. I checked to see if he had any other weapons. He’d started to whimper, clutching at his knee. A couple of people passed and frowned at us, but when they saw the Glock they kept moving.
He was clean so I pulled his cell from his jacket and handed it to him. He took hold of it but I didn’t let go. I forced him to look into my face.
“Tell Ben to back off. The next pair of primates he sends to follow me I’ll kill. Get a job you’re qualified for, will you?”
I left him sobbing and dialing and went up to my car.
Ben was Omega’s mouthpiece. My father had been a big shot in the organization before he’d died; before Marni had killed him. And Ben had been his right hand man. When I’d buried my father at the family graveyard in Weston, outside Boston, Ben had tried to persuade me to join Omega, to step into my father’s shoes. But I knew by then that my father had grown to hate Omega and everything it stood for. Since that time I had been searching for Marni, not to exact revenge, but because on his deathbed, my father had made me promise to take care of her and keep her safe. She had not made it easy[1].
Marni was important to them because her research, and most of all her father’s research, if exposed, could bring Omega down. So Omega wanted Marni either on side or dead. Ben and I had finally reached an uneasy truce at their office in the Pentagon. At least I had allowed them to think we had. I would find Marni, they would give me any help I asked for, and in exchange I would try to persuade Marni to talk to them[2].
OMEGA SERIES BOX SET: Books 1-4 Page 54
