“Nothing has. Where is Isabeau?
“On her way.”
“Felicidad, what happened?”
“It was nine o’clock. She was working, making a delivery or something, whatever it is she does for you...?”
“And?” Marley asked, breezing by the implied question.
“A black pickup truck pulled up and someone shot her from the window with a shotgun. A drive by at very close range. Libertad ducked at the last instant, which saved her life, but what did she do for you? All she would tell her family is that she drove a delivery truck, but she was a trained medical assistant. She could have gotten a better job than truck driver! What did you have her do that was so dangerous?”
Felicidad’s tone changed as she began asking questions, becoming more urgent and accusatory. “Nothing bad, I assure you,” Marley said.
“Then tell me what it is! Why is it a secret? Why is someone shooting at her?”
“It’s a secret because it has to be. Libertad understands. If she hasn’t told you, you’ll have to trust her. I’m sorry. I know it’s frustrating.”
Felicidad gave Marley a disgusted look. Just like that, they had become enemies. “You think you can do whatever you want with other peoples’ lives. You think you can just decide because you have money! I know her truck was full of blood. Blood! The police know it, too. What do you say to that?”
“What are you doing?” Libertad’s mother Esme had joined them. She wagged her finger at Felicidad. “Libertad is a good woman and Marley is her friend. You should treat her with respect.”
“Mama—“
“Htt!” Esme said, which was enough to settle the subject, apparently. “Marley, it’s good to see you again. Libertad likes you very much.”
“I consider her my friend, too.”
“You didn’t do anything to get my daughter shot, did you?”
“Oh, I sincerely hope not.”
Marley noticed Albert staring into the far corner of the room and turned to follow his gaze. There, sitting all alone, was Phillip.
Libertad’s family moved closer to them. One of the men, a short, muscular man with a salt and pepper mustache, said, “Gunmen broke into your house the other day, didn’t they? They burned it down.”
Esme and the others gaped at Marley open-mouthed. “Is that true?”
“It is, I’m afraid. And the car bomb on the waterfront this afternoon was another attempt to kill me.”
There was a general uproar at this, and the whole family moved away from Marley as though she was radioactive.
Felicidad’s voice cut through the commotion. “That’s why you come in here with a bodyguard? Did my sister know about all this?”
“Of course she did. And this isn’t a bodyguard; he’s my nephew, Albert, who drives for me.”
Everyone looked at Albert, and he felt the ought to say something that wasn’t a joke. “I only met Libertad once, but I like her. I hope she comes through okay.”
The man with the mustache pointed toward Albert’s right hand with his chin. “What happened to your hand?”
Albert held it up, at once self-conscious about it and determined not to be give in to the urge to hide it. “I made a bad decision. And I should probably point out that I haven’t actually done any bodyguarding.”
Felicidad didn’t think much of that. “Maybe you should have been with Libertad, then. She’s the one who needed you.” This time, no one scolded her.
Esme leaned forward, clasped Marley’s fingers in her own chilly, fragile hands, and said, “Mother Mary watch over you.”
It was a dismissal, and Marley led Albert away from the family as they drew toward each other. Philip was still sitting alone in a corner, staring at his hands. Marley sat on one of the steel and fake leather chairs beside him, and Albert sat beside her.
“Oh!” Philip said, startled.
“What brings you here, Philip? Not feeling poorly, I hope?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I...”
“What happened? Come along, dear. Don’t hold it in. Tell me.”
Philip rubbed his nose and looked up at the ceiling. “Someone shot at one of our Educatorium meetings. Janet was hurt.”
“What?” Marley clutched at his arm. “When did this happen?”
“Just as the evening meeting was starting, around six-thirty or so? Merry had just arrived—late, as usual—and we’d sat down to start our planning session, when bullets started coming through the wall.”
“How do you mean?”
“You’re super-interested in this, aren’t you?”
“It’s not idle curiosity, dear. Did you see who shot at you?”
“No. The shooter was in the alley. He had some kind of machine gun—I don’t know much about firearms—and he shot through the garage door and the dry wall into our room. And now I’m saying words like shooter like I’m a character on a TV show.”
“Was Janet the only one hurt?”
“No one was hurt. The bullets went right along the top of the wall over our heads. But before the shots had even stopped, Janet had jumped up and run out the door to see who was shooting at us. She saw a vehicle pulling away, and someone inside fired a second... volley? I guess? We found her lying on the patio with blood all over her. God, I thought she’d been shot in the throat, but a couple of shotgun pellets had passed through her jaw.”
“It must have been terrifying.”
“She’ll be okay. The police questioned all of us about a black pickup with a broken taillight, but I can’t imagine who that could be. I mean, why would anyone even bother with our group? We never do anything!”
Marley kept her expression calm. “I can’t imagine either.”
“She doesn’t have insurance, of course, because the government said she had to get it and God forbid she would ever… but I guess they’re used to that here. I didn’t realize.”
“Have you been here the whole time?”
“She won’t see me,” Philip said. “I don’t even want to see her, but I came down here because she doesn’t have any family on the West Coast, and I thought I ought to. But she doesn’t want me to visit. I don’t...” He sighed. “I don’t think she sees me as a human being.”
Marley patted his hand. “Having met her, I’d say it’s possible she doesn’t see anyone as a human being.”
“I’m over it,” Philip said with finality. “I’m sitting here out of a sense of duty, but I don’t even like her. She sure doesn’t like me. I’m sick of the whole scene. You know, when I first signed up with the Educatorium, I thought we would be doing some good in the world, you know? I thought I would be learning how to take action, stand up to the corrupt powers of the world.”
“But you’re not?”
“Mostly we plan future meetings. Hsing always has ‘reservations’ about anything we plan, and Merry always lets her postpone a protest until we can talk it over more. Filing court papers, sure, but actual protest? It’s never the right time.”
“That doesn’t sound like Janet at all.”
Philip held his breath for a moment. “No. It doesn’t. She tried to convince us to take action, to destroy some machinery or set fire to something, but she could never overcome Hsing’s basic inertia. Janet did things on her own.”
“Like what?”
“I never found out. Sometimes she’d disappear for a few days and she’d come back looking all smug, and we were sure she’d been out there doing. I even approached her separately to get her to take me along, but she never would. She just took me...”
Bitterness and embarrassment cut off the end of that sentence, so Marley finished it for him. “To her bed. You became lovers.”
Philip snorted. “Except ‘lovers’ has the word ‘love’ in it.”
Albert broke in. “Where was she last Sunday night?”
“Is that the night that lawyer was killed?”
Albert nodded.
“You know, not long ago I would have said she couldn’t have don
e it. She couldn’t have murdered someone. Now I’m not so sure. She has this way of looking at you as if you’re a smear on a pane of glass, and she can’t wait to wipe you away. Anyway, I don’t know where she was. She wasn’t with me. She didn’t show up for any meetings for, like, a week. The one you crashed was her first day back. She didn’t say where she went. Never does.”
Marley tried to keep her tone light. “What makes you think she went somewhere?”
“That’s usually what happened. She’d vanish and no one would know why or where.” He rubbed his hands on his pants. “But you know what? I’m done with all of it.” He tugged at his hemp shirt as though he wanted to strip it off and throw it in the trash right that moment. “I’m going to reinvent myself. Do you think I could go emo? It suits the way things have been going for me lately, and I could really pull off that look.”
Marley smiled at him. “How old are you, dear?”
“Twenty-two.”
“You’re old enough to become whatever you want to be.”
Philip liked that answer. He stood, slung his pack over his shoulder, and headed for the exit.
“We’d better get going, too, Albert. I feel a conversation with the police coming close, and I don’t want that. Not yet.”
They went out to the car. Marley didn’t want to return home. Weathers would certainly feed the dog but he would never walk it, and there would almost certainly be a mess to clean in the morning. Still, she didn’t feel safe returning there.
Marley picked a downtown hotel at random and checked them in. Albert, thinking about Felicidad’s remark about being his aunt’s bodyguard, asked if it would be best for them to share a room just in case they were found anyway, but Marley brushed the suggestion aside. She hadn’t hired him to stand between her and danger.
They took adjoining rooms. Not only did Albert lock and latch his aunt’s door, he jammed a chair beneath the knob. “Call if you need me?”
“Absolutely, I will,” Marley answered. “Albert, did you notice? About the pickup truck?”
He nodded. “A shotgun blast from a pickup truck with a broken taillight? Is that why you had the urge to break it? So we would know it was Nora’s crew coming after Libertad and those hippies?”
“I don’t know. It does help us tell them apart from the SUV with the broken windshield that almost ran us down and, I think, was the source of the rats in that seafood restaurant.”
“The guys in the SUV are moving against Amos Quigley, trying to take his property. And Nora’s crew has started striking out at the people you meet as if you’re a gangster.”
For the first time Albert could remember, Marley looked startled. “A gangster, Albert?”
“As if,” he said quickly. “Obviously you’re not one. But you have an organization, and the ones on the street, or that you meet with in public, are going to be targets.”
Marley went to the window and looked out over the city. “I have been a gangster, of a sort,” she said. “Long ago, we had factions. We skulked and killed in secret. I didn’t expect Nora to escalate things so quickly.”
“I was surprised, too.” He edged toward the door. “It was unfair of Felicidad to say that to you.”
“What do you mean, dear?”
“When she said you thought you could do whatever you want with other people’s lives just because you have money.”
She turned back to him, her face very pale. She’d never looked so sad. “But Albert, I do that all the time. I wave money in front of people, make my arguments, and convince them do what I say. I needed a driver and hired you, didn’t I, when you were anxious for a job? Haven’t you felt the breath of a vampire on your throat, suffered a ghost’s despair, driven a car with a bomb attached to it, and exposed your belly to a werewolf? I needed your help and I dragged you into it with the promise of a paycheck, didn’t I?”
Her voice sounded strained, and Albert knew it wasn’t just the late hour. “Libertad and I both know the risks. We could quit if we wanted to. And I don’t know about your other employees, but I’d be willing to help you out even if you weren’t paying me. Not that I want you to cancel my check.”
“I wouldn’t even if you asked, dear. And thank you.”
“You’re welcome. We sure have a lot of suspects, don’t we?”
“Do we?”
Albert hadn’t expected that response. “I think so. Nora and her people are here, in town, and they’re willing to do violence. We may not have a motive to tie them to Aloysius but we can’t count them out. Janet hated him because he was working on Evelyn’s project. Stan hated him because he acted like an asshole. Zoe hated him because he slept with her and stole her little book of spells. He was selling something he shouldn’t have to George, and George’s wife was seriously hacked off about it. Whoever supplied him with those potions might have found out he was skimming. His only client, Evelyn, seemed to like him but maybe he told her that her project was nuts and she flipped out. Besides, I don’t like her. He was sleeping with both Inez and Sherilynne at work, which can’t be a good idea, not to mention Elaine...”
“Do you think Elaine’s a suspect now?” Marley was genuinely surprised. “I thought you said she wasn’t the type.”
“You were the one who said she had a temper. But yeah, everyone he slept with, pissed off, or worked against is a suspect, as far as I’m concerned. Why?”
“Oh, no reason.”
“Aunt Marley, do you know who cut my brother’s throat?”
She gave him a very frank look. “No, Albert. In all honesty, I do not know who cut his throat. Now get some sleep. In the morning we need to buy some new clothes and find Stan. Something tells me he’s much more important than he seems.”
“All right,” Albert said. “Good night.”
He shut the adjoining door, then locked, latched, and propped a chair against the exterior door to his own room. It was almost two thirty in the morning. As he undressed and got into bed, he thought about the frank and honest look his aunt had given him as she said she didn’t know who had killed Aloysius. He also remembered her telling him that honesty was the most dangerous trick you could play on someone.
He couldn’t figure out what it all meant.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Door, Opened
The front desk called them both at six o’clock the next morning. Marley awoke feeling refreshed and alert, if a little sore from the previous night’s hike. After this mess was all cleared up, she would need to book an hour with her sports massage person soonest.
Albert had a harder time of it. He wasn’t sore from the long woodland trek, but he was dry-mouthed and weary from lack of sleep. He wasn’t a soldier anymore; couldn’t he press the snooze button, metaphorically speaking? He glanced at the phone, wondering how he could arrange another call, and fell back to sleep.
“You’re up, aren’t you, Albert?”
He jolted awake, throwing off the covers. His aunt’s voice seemed to come from only inches away—he could have sworn he felt her breath on his ear—but his room was empty and the connecting door still shut. Another one of her tricks. “God, that is cruel. Cruel!”
The bathroom sink had wrapped cups beside the faucet, and he filled one with tap water and drank it down, over and over. Then he showered and dressed. His black suit jacket was a mess, but there was nothing he could do about it. Just as he was tying his shoes, his aunt knocked softly on the connecting door.
He opened it for her.
“Good morning, Albert. I trust you slept well?”
“Yes, but not enough.”
“That’s a problem of the young. You have so much life, but you spend too much of it dreaming.”
“You know, a real chauffeur would answer that with Yes, madumb in a weary voice.”
“You’re my assistant, Albert, not my chauffeur. That’s why I haven’t bought you a hat.”
He went to the bathroom, wet his fingers, and ran it through his unruly blond hair. It didn’t look good—
he knew that—but his aunt hadn’t complained and he didn’t care. He was going to grow it out. “We find Stan today?”
“First we find some food, then we find some clean clothes. Then we find Stan.”
They rode the elevator to the hotel restaurant. Albert ordered yogurt and granola with fruit on the side, claiming his stomach wasn’t ready for anything heavier. Marley ordered a bowl of corn flakes with a hard-boiled egg and toast. “I have the feeling it’s going to be a big day.”
“Do you ever have small days?” Albert asked as the waitress set coffee in front of them.
Marley found three messages on her phone. The first was from Weathers, informing her that, as of midnight, a pair of men had parked on the street in a van to surveil her safe house. Marley shared that news with Albert, explaining that it had only been a matter of time.
The second was from Naima, letting Marley know about the attack on Libertad. The information she shared was identical to what Marley had learned the night before from the family. Naima also said the facility had three days’ supply and could go for another six days on pig blood, but even that was pushing it, especially with a new resident. They would need to resume shipments before that time, and Libertad would not be back at work by then. Naima was already searching for a fill-in, but if Marley had any ideas, she’d be glad to hear them.
The third was from Frederika. She’d visited Ubeh in jail, as requested, just long enough to tell her not to talk to anyone without a lawyer present. Then she’d declared she could not represent her and suggested Ubeh engage another attorney. Finally, she explained that she had a lead on Stan, and please give her a call back.
“Well!” Marley dialed and held the phone to her ear. “Frederika sounds almost annoyed with me.”
“She did nearly get killed yesterday,” Albert pointed out. “That makes some people tense.”
“We both know that very well,” Marley said, then turned her attention to the phone. “Frederika! Good morning to you. How are you, dear?” Marley put extra sugar into every word. “Oh, I’m so glad. Albert and I are just enjoying a little breakfast out, before we start our day. At the Brasserie Margeaux. No, I’ve never been here before, either, but that’s sort of the point, what with the recent attempts on my life.”
A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark Page 24
