Jack processed her words, thinking it through. “So if he thinks I also figured it out without paying for it, then-”
“Then you’re next on his list.”
Jack took it a step further, wondering if that was what had happened to Paulette Sparks.
“Are you on the list?” he asked.
She massaged away the tension between her eyes. “I have even bigger problems.”
Jack took another good look at her. It was a safe bet that she hadn’t slept much last night. “Are you running from someone?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
Jack said, “Have you thought about going to the police?”
“No!”
“It’s just a suggestion,” said Jack. “Can we at least talk it out?”
“I can’t go to the police.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t. That’s not possible.”
“What if you were to tell me the killer’s name and then I went to the police?”
“No.”
“I have a friend in the FBI.”
“Absolutely no!”
Jack paused, confused. “The man killed Chloe Sparks. You think he might kill me. You look scared to death. Why are you protecting him?”
“It’s not him I’m protecting,” she said.
“Have you done something wrong, too?”
“No,” she said, almost laughing in frustration. “This is not about me.”
Jack leaned forward and looked her in the eye. “Are you afraid of him?”
Again, she was silent. Then suddenly she rose and said, “I’ve told you everything I can. You know the danger. Now please take care of yourself.”
“Sofia, you are an important witness, and you seem like a good person. I can help you get protection. I’ve done this many times before.”
She closed her eyes, struggling, then opened them. “You have no idea how complicated this is.”
“You’re right. I don’t. But let’s agree on this. We won’t do anything today. For now, we’ll just make you safe. You look like you could use some sleep. Do you have friends or family to stay with in Miami?”
“No one.”
“Do you have a hotel?”
She shook her head. “I rode the train all night from New York. I came straight from the station.”
He noticed that she had no luggage, but the heavy winter coat suddenly made sense.
Really on the run.
Jack helped with her coat, then grabbed a business card from his desk and wrote an address on the back.
“There’s a boutique hotel about three blocks that way,” he said, pointing. “The San Pietro. My out-of-town clients stay there and love it. Use my name. Tell the manager to bill it to my account.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Please. It’s right on the corner of Alhambra. A pink Mediterranean-style building with a barrel-tile roof and bougainvillea vines climbing up the walls. It will remind you of Sicily.”
That brought a smile-just a hint of one, but Jack could see that, trapped deep inside, was a beautiful smile that could have lit up a room.
“Thank you,” she said, as she surprised him with a kiss on the cheek.
“You’re welcome,” he said, and he showed her to the door.
Chapter 32
Jack caught up with Theo for lunch at the Royal Castle.
Northwest Seventy-nine Street and Unity Boulevard was Theo’s old neighborhood, a hardscrabble part of town where deadly race riots had made Liberty City synonymous with violence in the 1980s. Over the years, crime had shut down or driven away scores of mom-and-pop businesses, but Royal Castle hamburgers-palm-sized patties with pickles, onions, and mustard-have been served at the same location for over half a century. The orange bubble letters on the windows and vintage sixties posters on the white tile walls were a nice touch of nostalgia, though the world’s last existing Royal Castle restaurant did not have a spotless past. It had taken a civil rights protest march to bring down the sign on the counter that had once proclaimed WHITES ONLY. Theo’s great-uncle Cy had been one of the first persons of color to sit himself down on one of ten chrome stools at the red-and-white counter, and he’d been coming for lunch every Friday since.
Theo kept eating, but Uncle Cy was so happy to see Jack that he got up and hugged him so hard that the old man accidentally farted.
“Ooops, my bad.”
Theo nearly burst with laughter, and Cy slapped him across the back of the head, as if he were ten years old again.
“Ain’t funny. Gettin’ old sucks.”
“You can say that again,” said Jack.
Cy introduced Jack to the waitress, a striking young woman who looked like a young Vanessa Williams and whose name was Brandy.
“Brandy?” said Jack.
“Yes. Brandy.”
“A fine girl,” said Theo.
“And what a good wife she would be,” said Jack.
“Huh?” said Brandy.
Jack was feeling all of forty again, referencing a pop song that was almost as old as he was to a woman who wasn’t even old enough to know Red Hot Chili Peppers unless they were on her nachos.
“Jack, take my seat,” said Cy. “I gotta run. You can have that last burger if you want it.”
Theo snatched it from the old man’s plate and stuffed his face.
Cy swatted him across the backside of his head again. “The boy’s hopeless,” said Cy.
“This, from a man who just blew his trumpet at the counter,” said Theo.
Cy swatted at him again, but this time Theo ducked.
“Not even my aim’s what it used to be,” said Cy. “I’ll see y’all later.”
Jack placed an order with Brandy-two burgers for himself and three more for Theo. Theo slurped down a root beer as Jack told him all about the visit from Sofia. Theo was Jack’s unofficial investigator, so, technically speaking, telling him about Sofia wasn’t a breach of the attorney-client privilege. More important, Theo knew a thing or two about people on the run, and Jack needed some insight.
“You scared?” said Theo.
“A little. She did say I could be next on the killer’s hit list.”
“Or he might just wait for you to die, now that you’re forty.”
“Go to hell.”
“So, you’re sure that the cause of everybody’s problems-yours, Sofia’s, Chloe Sparks’s-is all the same person?”
“I’d bet my Mustang on it.”
“It’s this Zorba guy?”
“Yeah. The Greek.”
“You know, it’s funny,” said Theo. “I once impressed the hell out of a chick by humming the theme from The Munsters and joining it seamlessly with ‘If I Were a Rich Man.’”
Jack pressed between his eyes, staving off a migraine. “First of all, I don’t even remember the theme from The Munsters. Second, ‘If I Were Rich Man’ is from Fiddler on the Roof, not Zorba. You’d know that if you were forty. And, third, why the hell are we talking about this?”
“Sorry. So, after talking to this Sofia, are you going to call the cops?”
“I was thinking about talking to Andie first.”
“To get protection for yourself, or to tell her what Sofia told you?”
“I’m still sorting that out.”
“Don’t you have some attorney-client issues?”
“The privilege starts to break down when your client is talking about a future crime.”
“Except that she’s not the one who is going to commit the crime. It’s someone else.”
Every now and then, Theo raised a legal issue that made Jack realize why his prison mates had called him “Chief Brief.”
Jack said, “It’s a gray area.”
Theo checked out Jack’s hair at the temples, searching for a pun, and for a brief instant another “forty” joke seemed imminent. He let it go.
“Meanwhile, Sofia is where?” said Theo.
“Hotel San Pietro.”
&n
bsp; “You want me to talk to her?”
“How could that possibly help?”
“You got me off death row. She might trust you better if she meets someone who trusted you and won the lottery.”
The server put the burgers in front of them. Jack poured ketchup on his plate as he considered Theo’s remark.
“That’s not a terrible idea,” said Jack.
Theo grabbed a handful of Jack’s fries. It never seemed to matter to Theo that he had his own plate of food. Jack didn’t even bitch about it anymore.
“Here’s the thing,” said Theo. “You could force her to go to the police or to go see Andie. But you know what would happen.”
“She wouldn’t talk,” said Jack.
“And if she won’t talk, you can’t get her in witness protection.”
“That’s the worst of all worlds,” said Jack. “She’s clearly afraid of this guy. If he thinks she’s talking to the police but I can’t get her protection, she’s dead.”
“So you have to convince her that she wants to tell the police what she knows,” said Theo. “Let me talk to her.”
“I want to think more about that.”
Theo finished off his root beer, sucking air through the straw.
“Meanwhile, what do you do about protecting yourself?” said Theo.
“I do keep a gun in the office.”
“When’s the last time you shot it?”
Jack had to think. “Been a while.”
“Dude, you need a bodyguard.”
“I can’t afford that.”
Theo put on his dark sunglasses, folded his arms across his chest, and flashed a Secret Service expression.
“No way,” said Jack. “I’m not going there.”
“Will work for tequila.”
“Theo, forget it.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, then downed his last burger in one bite.
Jack said, “Can you come back to the office this afternoon and help with the packing?”
“Not today, dude. I have a jazz bar to run.”
“You’re taking this personally, aren’t you?”
“Me? Nah. You don’t want me to talk to Sofia. Fine. You don’t want me to be your bodyguard. That’s fine, too. I’m just stepping away from the plate before it’s strike three.”
“Theo, come on.”
“Later, dude. Brandy, see ya, girl. It’s back to my life, my love, and my lady, the sea.”
“Huh?”
Jack let him go. Theo didn’t pout often, but ignoring it was the best strategy.
“Anything else?” said the server.
“Just the bill.”
Jack took it. Somehow, he had ended up paying for himself, Theo, and Uncle Cy. Only then did Jack realize that all the pouting had been a ruse.
Theo Knight, you are one smooth operator.
Jack drove his Mustang back to the office, and again he was having second thoughts. Ever since he had decided to buy the fastback, Miami had seen nothing but cloudless blue skies and seventy degrees. It was enough to make him long for his old convertible. Andie would have called it another “Jack Swyteck/grass is always greener moment.”
He parked in front of the office and went inside. The only light in the room was a hint of afternoon sun filtering through the closed blinds, but when he switched on the desk lamp, nothing happened.
“It’s broken,” a man said.
Jack started and turned to see a stranger in the shadows across the room. He held the lamp cord in one hand and a gun in the other.
“Not another step.”
Jack froze. He tried to place the accent, but he could only guess. Sicilian?
“Take whatever you want,” said Jack.
“Sit down,” the man said. “You and me need to have a nice long talk. About Sofia.”
Chapter 33
The accent, Jack decided, was Greek-the same voice he’d heard on the telephone outside the Smithsonian.
Jack was seated in the chair that was normally for clients, his forearms tied tightly to the armrests with the cord that the Greek had yanked from the lamp. The Greek sat on the desk, his gun aimed at Jack’s chest.
“You must be Anthony Quinn,” said Jack.
“If that’s supposed to be some kind of ethnic joke, Anthony Quinn was Mexican.”
“I think I knew that,” said Jack. “But when Paulette Sparks and I tried to find out who hired the homeless guy to meet me outside the Smithsonian, we were told that an old Greek man like Zorba was behind it all.”
He almost chuckled, as if he’d heard the comparison before, and then he started to fake his way through the lyrics to “If I Were a Rich Man”: “ya ha deedle deedle, bubba-”
“That’s actually from Fiddler-” Jack stopped himself, still unable to recall the theme from The Munsters. “Ah, the hell with it. Common mistake. So where’s your wheelchair?”
“Do I look like I need a wheelchair?”
He was an imposing figure, standing erect and broad shouldered. “About as much as I do,” said Jack.
“That little ploy worked out pretty well, didn’t it? I figure maybe one percent of the general population is in wheelchairs. Greater Washington area has-what, nine million people? That’s ninety thousand suspects. Threw the cops off the trail looking for a guy who can’t walk.”
Jack checked out the pistol. It wasn’t anything Jack recognized, but he was far from a gun expert. Even though it looked small, he was sure it could do the job at this range.
“You should put the gun away if we’re going to talk.”
“It’s a bad habit. Some people smoke when they do business. I point guns.”
“What do you want from Sofia?”
His expression turned complicated-a mixture of anger and nostalgia, Jack guessed, and probably many more conflicting emotions.
“I followed her here to Miami,” he said. “And then to your office.”
“I figured.”
“I saved her life. Those goons in New York would have killed her.”
“What goons?”
“Are you gonna pretend she didn’t tell you about the wiseguys who came to her bakery?”
“She’s scared and on the run,” said Jack. “That’s all I know.”
“She should be scared.”
“She is-of you.”
Jack’s words had truly seemed to pain him. Jack sensed an opening, perhaps a willingness to talk.
“How do you know Sofia?” said Jack.
“We were married a long time ago. In Cyprus. This was way before the Russians took over the island. I had some business problems, Sicilian style.”
“You mean organized crime?”
“I don’t mean a pizzeria. Crazy Sicilians threw me off a hotel roof.”
“You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Yeah,” he said, scoffing. “If you call losing Sofia ‘lucky.’”
“Sounds like you’re still angry about it.”
“You’ve met her. Imagine what she was like when she was twenty.”
Jack did for a moment, and he was starting to understand the man’s anger.
“We’re getting way off mission here,” said the Greek.
“Really, you should put the gun away.”
His face reddened, and suddenly he lunged at Jack and pressed the barrel of his gun to Jack’s forehead.
“Stop telling me what to do, and listen to me, Swyteck.”
Jack was afraid to blink. The Greek had his human and sympathetic side, but with the flip of a figurative switch, it was easy to see him putting a bullet between the eyes of Chloe Sparks, Jack Swyteck, or anyone else who got in his way.
“I could have killed you a long time ago. What does that tell you?”
Jack struggled for the right answer, but he wasn’t sure there was one.
The Greek said, “I take you out only when necessary. Don’t make it necessary.”
“Just tell me what I have to do.”
“I need your help with Sofia.
”
“I won’t help you kill her.”
He grabbed Jack by the hair and jerked his head back. “You think I would kill my Sofia before I kill you?”
Jack was sure the man was going to hit him, maybe even shoot him. But the Greek took a couple of deep breaths, got himself under control, and returned to his seat atop the desk, facing Jack.
“Why did she come to you?” said the Greek.
“She didn’t want to see me end up like Chloe Sparks.”
“I didn’t kill that woman.”
Jack didn’t believe him, but now was not the time to argue. “Sofia never said you did. In fact, she wouldn’t tell me anything about you. Like I said, she’s afraid of you.”
“Afraid of me? It’s your father and his new friends she needs to be afraid of.”
“What does my father have to do with this?”
“Grayson comes down to Florida, goes hunting with your father, and dies a sudden death. Next thing you know, Harry Swyteck is the nominee to become vice president. All right after I told Grayson I could make him president.”
“Wait a minute,” said Jack. “Are you saying that you sent Grayson the same message you sent me?”
“Not directly. I sent it to his wife.”
Jack thought back to the FBI telling him that his wasn’t the first message. Marilyn Grayson had obviously turned hers over to law enforcement.
“Did you tell her more than you told me?”
“Only after she responded.”
Jack bristled. He hadn’t heard anything about response.
“You two had a dialogue going?”
“Until her husband died, we did.”
“Did you end up telling her as much as you told Chloe Sparks?”
“No more, no less.”
“So why was it ‘necessary,’ as you say, to kill Chloe Sparks, but not Marilyn Grayson?”
“It’s one thing to know that President Keyes is controlled by a certain family from Sicily. It’s another thing altogether to know why.”
“You told Chloe why?”
The Greek shook his head. “She figured it out.”
“Does Sofia know why?”
“Sofia knows.”
“I presume that’s why those men came for her yesterday.”
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