The Heaven Stone

by David Daniel

  “They should plant him upright,” a voice murmured at my ear.

  St. Onge stepped up beside me, buttoning his raincoat with slow fingers. Water was beaded in his moustache. “With all that pretty hair sticking up like golden grass,” he said. “Give society something for a change. God knows he didn’t while he was breathing.”

  “Be charitable,” I admonished.

  “Charitable my toe. Castle never was, except when it suited him.”

  “I guess you didn’t idle yesterday away at the beach.”

  “I spent it working, same as today.” His coal-chip eyes measured me. “I’m curious to see who his friends and enemies were.”

  “Put me down as none of the above,” I said.

  “Look at this crew. You know what their net worth must be?”

  I shrugged. “Death’s the great equalizer. We all end up in a Cadillac. Any word on prints yet?”

  “Andover’s supposed to call me.”

  A priest began intoning, and the old altar boy in St. Onge emerged and he shut up. My eyes continued to rove, looking at faces and wondering if their owners felt the ambivalence I did. Once in awhile, without trying not to, I checked Lauren’s face.

  Standing farther away, at the fringe of the crowd, were Castle’s personal assistant and his chauffeur. In mourning garb they looked like damp, overfed crows.

  “You know those two?” I whispered to St. Onge, nodding.

  He squinted. “Yeah, I know them,” he whispered back. “Oscar Loomis is the little guy with the big talk.”

  Loomis, okay.

  “Used to be a nag-rider, but he found his skills paid more off-track. The missing link is named Kaboski. I think he went swimming after they drained the gene pool. Between them they got a sheet you could wind a corpse in.”

  “What were they up for?”

  “What weren’t they?”

  “Could you be more general?”

  “Shut up, will you? What’re you, an atheist?”

  By the time the ceremony ended, the rain had practically quit too. St. Onge began to circulate, shaking hands, doing what cops do. A lot of the job is visibility and knowing people who might be useful down the line. I took a pass on the festivities. I wanted to get hold of Ada. Yesterday when I had called her I had reached only her machine. I quit leaving messages after the third time.

  On my way back to where I had parked I spotted the Trouble Twins leaning against a car which was in front of mine but was not theirs. They were probably going to ask me to sign the guestbook. Actually I had been hoping to ask them a few questions, perhaps over a beer. Seeing me, Loomis rocked onto the balls of his feet. The heavy guy—Kaboski—stood glumly still, watching me with cold, deep-set eyes. He had his hands in his coat pockets to keep from scraping them on the ground. The pockets bulged like sacks of onions.

  I grinned winningly. “Here to do a few grave rubbings?”

  “Wanna talk to you,” Oscar Loomis said, stepping away from the car and coming over to block my path. He was wearing a stone gray fedora. Under the black coat if he didn’t have a white tie on a dark shirt I was going to be disappointed. He said, “We heard you were at Mr. Castle’s domicile the night he passed away.”

  “When I found him, he’d already cashed out,” I said, returning the euphemism. “I squealed for the heat from there.”

  “Funny you were there at all.”

  “Funny you weren’t,” I said. “Castle wasn’t paying you for your twinkling wit.”

  Loomis touched the scar tissue on his forehead. “That’s another funny thing,” he said. “I get a call that afternoon saying Mr. C. wants a business associate picked up at Logan—only when we fucking get there, there’s no such party. You know anything about that?”

  I frowned, remembering that the state police had confirmed the airport trip to the Andover detectives. “Castle called you?”

  “The message service.”

  “You didn’t confirm it?”

  “We get messages all the time. What’s it to you? I still wanna know what you were doing there.”

  “A case I’m working on. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Yeah? Suppose I make it do with me.”

  “Come on,” I said equably, “this isn’t a day for hassles.” I moved to go around him, but he barred me.

  “I’m making it one,” he said.

  I sighed. “I bet you were tough in the third grade.”

  Kaboski, who had kept back, came forward in a ding-toed shuffle, like the punch-drunk boxers Anthony Quinn used to play, only he wasn’t playing. He had his hands out of his pockets. I braced as he moved alongside Loomis.

  “I don’t like you, rat-ass,” he said.

  “There’s a lot of that going around,” I said. “Take two bullets and call me in the morning.”

  I started past them when Kaboski’s furry fielder’s mitt of a hand dropped on my shoulder. I pivoted, grabbed a thumb, and yanked it up in a come-along hold that had him tap-dancing in surprise. He tried to knee me, but I stomped on his other foot, rooting him to the ground with pain.

  Loomis I had not accounted for, but I should have. He had the rod out in a second, aimed right at my face. It was a reaction as automatic as the twitching of a mule’s ear to shoo a biting fly. The gun was no collector’s item. It was a blue-black Saturday nighter, the sort they stamp out in case lots in some Florida factory. I could see its castings and knew it would be studded with rust on the bottom of the river a day after it punched a sloppy, lethal hole in someone’s head. Mine maybe. I kept the big guy moon-walking, trying to put him between me and the gun, trying to think. Loomis was fidgeting like a kid who has to pee. “I’m gonna pop you, sonuvabitch!”

  “Smart,” I said. “I’m dead and five hundred witnesses make you both pen pals the rest of your lives.”

  He wasn’t stupid. He had done time before. He glanced toward where the funeral crowd was dispersing, drifting back to their vehicles. A flicker even passed across Kaboski’s cold eyes as if back in there someone had discovered fire. The gun disappeared, and I let go of the thumb. Kaboski clamped hold of it with his other hand and began to massage it. The three of us stood there, breathing hard. In a moment the hearse eased by, big tires swishing on the wet pavement. We caught our reflections in the dark glass, like an intimation of mortality. When the other cars had gone, we had all quieted. I briefly considered my idea of buying them a beer, but I had had enough excitement for one day. I opened my car door. “Peace?” I said.

  Oscar Loomis pointed a finger. “Screw peace. Sleep with the light on, Jack. I see you again, you’re gonna wish I didn’t.”

  “Alas,” I said, “I was wrong. It was your twinkling wit.”

  26

  WHEN I GOT BACK to the office, a man was leaving a message on my answering machine in a precise, dry voice. I picked up and asked him to hang on while I shut off the machine.

  “This is Rasmussen,” I said. “I didn’t get your name, sir.”

  “Are you Alex Rasmussen?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is John Potter from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Boston office. You mailed us a letter on Monday last, I believe.”

  I managed to recover enough from shock to confirm it. Five o’clock traffic on the X-way moved at warp speed compared to the government’s customary pace in handling paperwork. “Thanks for calling.”

  “We take inquiries such as yours, which request data on recent immigrants, very seriously. Do you mind if I ask the reason for your request?”

  “As I said in the letter, general information.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to need more than that. My office is responsible for investigating possible instances of discrimination. I’d never authorize the release of information without knowing why it’s wanted.”

  And I knew by his tone that he wouldn’t. “Mr. Potter, I think you’re going to find that those people I listed were victims of an extreme form of discrimination. All, or most of them,
” I said, “are dead.”

  “That’s quite a serious claim, sir! Would you care to—”

  His rush of words grated to a halt. The crispness wilted from his voice. “I’m … I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  I filled him in briefly. I don’t know if he took notes, or even believed me. He did not ask questions right away, so I said, “Can I get that information now?”

  “I’ve already assembled it. I checked it first thing. Now, however, I think I had better check on your information.”

  He was careful, was Mr. Potter. Efficient. I thought of giving him Ed St. Onge’s number but decided the timing was not good. Instead I offered Lieutenant Nate Rosenheck of the Houston Police. Potter said he would seek to verify my story, and if it was borne out, he would call me back.

  “One other thing,” I said. “Would there be photo documentation for any of those people as well?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have a group portrait.”

  “Group?”

  “The individuals you listed, with one exception—this man Khoy—all arrived in the U.S. on the same flight from a refugee camp in Thailand.”

  You could have knocked me over with a rice cake. “And Khoy wasn’t in the group?”

  “In March of 1986, those individuals landed at San Francisco Airport to start their new lives. I’ve got a copy of their arrival portrait right here. Khoy is in the photograph though.”

  “I thought you just said—”

  “That he wasn’t a new arrival. He was employed in California by a local assistance organization, helping new people to get settled. Now, if you check out, Mr. Rasmussen, I can fax the photograph to you along with the other data.”

  He seemed genuinely astonished when I told him I did not have a fax machine. I said that when he got back to me I would drive to Boston and pick up the materials in person.

  “You could save yourself a lot of aggravation with a fax machine,” he told me.

  “Yeah, well, it was either that or paper clips this month.”

  * * *

  So what did it mean that Bhuntan Tran and six others killed in distant parts of the country had all come to America together? Had they shared one experience too many? Known something they should not have? Possessed something deadly?

  I paced my little office, listening to the floor under the carpet creak, peering out the windows every few circuits. The sky was the dark, wet gray of an old chalkboard, and I kept looking up to see if any answers were written there, but school was out for summer. My mind fingered the antique jade my eyes had never seen. But that did not work somehow. Of the group, only one person apparently had any connection with jade. Suoheang Khoy.

  I got the case file and sat at the desk and began jotting numbers. Two of the Californians had been killed last July, and the third in October. Six weeks later, in Seattle a man named Keang Or had been found shot to death. The second Texas killing had been on May 19, five weeks before Bhuntan Tran had died. Seven deaths in twelve months. It was not a figure that jumped out at you. In D.C. you got seven in five minutes. But …

  The phone rang and I grabbed it. “Mr. Potter?”

  “Who? Alex, what are you doing?”

  It was Ada. “Hi. Waiting. Playing with figures.”

  “Hmm—like you were the other night?”

  “Cute. Numbers only, but my math’s lousy. I tried calling you yesterday.”

  “I know, I got my messages. I’ve been away. Now I keep wondering what a woman’s got to do to get a little attention.”

  “You don’t have to do anything.”

  “Meaning nothing will work?”

  “Meaning nothing won’t. Can you get away for a spin into Beantown if my call comes through?”

  “I wish I could.”

  “I’ll even rinse your tofu later,” I said.

  She laughed, but her voice sounded different. “The fact is, Alex, I’m still away.”

  “New York?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Apples, beans—I’ve got food on my mind.”

  “I’m attending a conference, this refugee advisory group I’m part of. What’s up, anyway? Have you learned something about Bhuntan’s death?”

  I did not want to miss John Potter’s call, so I said maybe and told her I would fill her in later. We murmured parting words that had an awkward ring.

  Potter did things by the book, but he did them. The call came at four-fifteen. Rosenheck had okayed me. Potter said he would have everything ready when I arrived.

  27

  THERE ARE FEW things deader than a twenty-five-story federal building after hours. Traffic and more rain had hung me up, but now the rain had stopped and Government Plaza had a nickel sheen that caught the rays of a brightening sky. The main entrance to the lobby was locked, so I wandered around outside for a few minutes checking doors before I noticed a cleaning van drawn up to the building. Two men were bulldogging a floor-stripping machine out of the back of the van. A uniformed GSA cop stood by, holding open a glass door. I told him I was expected by Mr. Potter.

  “Your name?”

  I told him.

  “He done axed me you been in. You just missed him.” The cop pointed in the direction of the ramp to the underground garage. “Might still catch him if you hustle.”

  My footsteps echoed as I descended the ramp. Gasoline spills made colorful splotches on the wet concrete, like small pieces of a rainbow that had fallen and been run over and was trying to reconstruct itself. When I entered the garage I paused. The place was mostly deserted, lit with yellow halogen lamps. By the far wall I spotted a man unlocking a gray Aries two-door. He had his arms full with a briefcase, folders and a raincoat, and when he had nudged open the door with his knee, he chunked everything onto the front seat. I started moving his way. He heard me and jerked around, the light from the lamps spilling off his spectacle lenses.

  “Mr. Potter?”

  He was middle-aged, his bushy eyebrows bunched with apprehension. People got mugged in parking garages, and worse. “Yes?”

  “I’m Rasmussen.”

  He relaxed then, and waited for me. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it,” he said.

  He had a plain face with hair like Harris tweed and watery brown eyes behind the Clark Kent glasses. We shook hands and he reached into the car and got a large brown envelope with a government frank in one corner. “Here’s what you’re after, along with the photograph.”

  I slipped the picture out and looked at it. “I marked who’s who on the back,” Potter said. “The quality isn’t the greatest.”

  It wasn’t, the picture having been photocopied and sent over the wire to INS’s fax machine. Still, the faces were discernible. Mostly they looked tired and uncertain, but grateful too. Suoheang Khoy stood on the end at the left, a handsome man, unexpectedly tall. Unlike the others, he wore American clothes, the sleeves of his U Cal sweatshirt pushed to the elbows on thin arms. I didn’t see any tattoos. I slid the sheet back into the envelope.

  “I appreciate what you’ve done,” I told Potter.

  “Perhaps it’s mutual. You won’t explain anything more?”

  “Later, maybe, if I can.”

  He fiddled with his car keys. “I apologize if I sounded uninterested on the phone earlier. I’m not. What you’ve already told me, Mr. Rasmussen, is serious business. The fact is I admire the pluck of people who come here to start a new life. If that’s what they truly want, it’s good for the country. I despair some days of America’s making it. I don’t know, there’s idiocy loose in the land, too much of it right up at the top. But…” he frowned, “this is still the best darn show in the world. If there’s any other way I can help, I hope you’ll ask.”

  I thanked him and he gave me a phone number that he promised would get me past the tape loops to him.

  It was six-fifteen when I headed for the artery, but as I waited for a traffic light near the base of the on-ramp, I had second thoughts. For as far as I could see, in both direc
tions, the lanes were plugged with traffic. At various points I could make out the twitchy flicker of a blue-and-white struggling through the mass. Deciding against injecting myself into that, I climbed down into the tunnel under Boston Harbor and headed for Logan Airport. The traffic was not much thinner and the air was life-threatening, but the run was shorter.

  I stashed the car in central parking, a vast structure out of Dante and Hieronymus Bosch, with sprawling decks of concrete held up by squat pillars, like color-coded circles in Hell. I got yellow H and hoofed across an overpass to the terminal. I found the wing where the auto rental agencies had their booths. The city directory listed as many rental places as roach exterminators, half the names starting with A and climbing all over each other to be first in the listings. I figured the firms with branches at the airport were my best bet. With a one-man gumshoe operation you’re playing percentages. Exhaustive is not in your dictionary; exhausted is.

  To a one, the agencies seemed to be manned (I don’t know how else to say it) by young women with Breck hairdos and the graciousness of Stepford wives. Invoking my tenuous link with the Lowell PD, I gave them Khoy’s name and, in a couple of instances, showed the picture, asking about rentals going back three weeks. It almost never works, but I wanted at least to cross the question off the list. The idea was that if Khoy was the killer and had been working his way east, he might have flown in. The report of a small white car on Prather Street the night before Tran died was the only wedge I had.

  Fortunately computers have made this kind of question easy to answer, and the answer I kept getting started to sound like an echo. “No, sir, I’m sorry, nothing for that spelling or anything close. Would it be under another name, sir?”

  I didn’t know. Changing names made sense only if someone was looking for you and you did not want to be found. For all I knew, Khoy had come here by train, bus, automobile, or thumb. Or he had not come at all. Maybe he was dead. I could almost empathize. After you fished a long spell without a nibble, you reeled in and changed bait. I got a cup of coffee and sat in the main concourse, watching people drag suitcases by like stubborn pets. A Rastafarian, with a custodian’s cap perched atop his dreadlocks like a small tent beset by snakes, emptied ashtrays, the kind where you pressed a button and the butts dropped into a stainless steel canister below, which he dumped into his wheeled barrel, all done to a private reggae beat. Our eyes met and he gave me a stoned smile, which I toasted with my cup. He had his sacrament, I had mine. When the caffeine kicked in, I deposited the cup in his barrel, visited the washroom in preparation for the trek home, and blazed my way back to yellow H.