Bad Bird (v5)

by Chris Knopf

  “How many included Lavigne?” asked Sullivan.

  I didn’t know.

  “I don’t know. I’ll look.”

  We pooled our ignorance and suspicions for another hour, till I wearied of it and left. I drove from the HQ down to the shoreline, then traveled on Montauk Highway into Southampton Village, where I turned right and drove all the way to the ocean. I parked at the end of Little Plains Road, where they had a parking lot and access to the beach for anyone lucky or rich enough to own property in the Village, and sat staring at the ocean and smoking twice my daily allotment of Marlboro Lights.

  The ocean was active, with bigger-than-normal breakers that left a messy froth between the waves. The sun was behind me, soft and warm, though the air was still holding on to the hard edge of winter. A couple walking on the beach crossed in front of me. The man threw something ahead of him and a tiny dog streaked in and out of view in full-out pursuit. The woman put both arms around the man, which made it harder for them to walk, but neither seemed to care. He reached over and smoothed her hair, then used his own arm to support her as they trudged lovingly over the sand.

  I wanted to get out of the car and jump in the ocean, but I didn’t have a bathing suit with me. The water was still fiercely cold, and the crisp breeze on wet flesh would have felt like an arctic windstorm. I settled for getting out of the car and standing fully clothed in the wind and simply looking at the surf, and at the colossal houses perched atop the dunes, one of them Kirk and Emily Lavigne’s.

  Of all the shocks my nerves had borne in the last few days, this was arguably the worst. The sight of that bald agent sliding the fund-raiser photo across the table, his fingers pinning the four corners to the table, was stamped into my memory.

  A person lives with what she knows, and what she believes. They’re not always the same thing. Father Dent loved telling me that if I knew for sure there was a God, I wouldn’t need faith.

  There was almost nothing I was entirely sure about, based on knowledge, faith, or belief. But I would have to be sure about Kirk Lavigne, because otherwise there truly would be no meaning left in the world and nothing to mourn if it all just turned to dust and blew out to sea.

  There was still plenty of day left when I got to my office. I hadn’t done what I’d really wanted to do before leaving the Town HQ—dive into police archives to check out Clinton Andrews’s story about the three men—because then I’d have to tell them about Billy, and then explain the connection to Eugenie’s photos, and why I went to see Andrews in the first place. The prospect of starting that boulder rolling down the hill made my stomach clench.

  Instead I killed the rest of the day on a research project for a complicated credit card fraud case I’d taken back from Alicia, which I later regretted giving up. At one point I had a question for her, but she said only Burton could answer it. So I called him on his secret direct line that goes to his desk in Manhattan, where he ran his grown-up business—a four-thousand-person firm specializing in corporate tax law. After he helped me with my original question, I asked another.

  “Ever deal with industrial espionage?”

  “That’s a bit rarified for our criminal clientele,” he said. “Peeping toms are the closest we get to spies.”

  “Not in the tax business, either?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps. I’m not privy to every case.”

  Burton’s never shown his face at a fund-raiser, even though he’s often the principal donor, so I wasn’t sure he’d ever met his neighbors on the water, a stone’s throw from Burton’s house if you had a really good arm. So I asked.

  “Do you remember Kirk and Emily Lavigne?”

  “The people for whom you wrote up the irrevocable trust?”

  “With your immense help, yes.”

  “I’ve run into Kirk a few times in the city, but only to say hello. We did a fair amount of work for his investment bank.”

  “So what are the chances he’s involved in industrial espionage?”

  I told him about my lovely chat with Ms. Li and Mr. Fells. The line was quiet while Burton considered the question.

  “On the face of it, zero to none. But we’ve learned not to trust anything on its face. People thought Bernie Madoff was a great philanthropist.”

  “Would the feds know that Kirk gave away most of his money to the trust?”

  “Yes, if they wanted to. The Justice Department can know almost anything it wants. All it takes is a subpoena, and judges around here hand them out like penny candy.”

  “So presuming they know that, why look at Kirk? What could possibly be his motivation?”

  “Blackmail, revenge, to protect a loved one, sociopathology, to name just a few.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  “Neither do I, but you asked.”

  I thanked him and got off the phone, slightly miserable over the conversation, which I’d intended to be reassuring. As I went back to my research, I realized I’d just violated the tacit confidentiality agreement with the DHS by bringing up Kirk Lavigne and espionage in the same breath, which made me feel even more miserable. I continued to plug away at the research, even as my thoughts were interrupted by imagined interrogations wherein I tried a variety of defenses, none of which held any water, ending with me in solitary confinement in a basement in Azerbaijan.

  Of course, if they came after me for this one little breach of confidentiality, they’d have to have tapped my phones. Landline and cell. I assumed they had. And were monitoring my e-mail and, for all I knew, following me around.

  I needed to invent another word. One that blended outrage with paranoia.

  Now that I was in the right mood, it seemed like a good time to call the FBI.

  “Ig,” he said, answering the phone.

  “How many people think you’re saying ‘ick’ when you answer like that?”

  “Some do. They’re quickly corrected. It’s Jackie, right? Who else could it be?”

  “How do you explain a name like Ig?”

  “It’s short for ‘igloo.’ ”

  “I gave you that joke,” I said.

  “I know. You have a sense of humor, which I don’t.”

  “You do, too. Otherwise you wouldn’t steal my jokes.”

  “That’s a good point. Thank you for that.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So what sort of confidential information can I not give you today?”

  “See, that was a joke,” I said. “And you did it all on our own.”

  “I’d call it more of an ironical statement, wry, maybe, or even sardonic. The humor is derived from the tragic truth that lies at the core of the witticism.”

  “Have you been reading?”

  “I have. Also your fault.”

  “I don’t only call you when I’m looking for information, you know.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “Okay, I do. But I also like to hear your voice. It lets me pretend we can still be friends.”

  “Another tragedy, darling. You can be friends. I just find myself on a slippery slope. Better to feel merely exploited than tempted by forbidden fruit.”

  “You’re sounding very poetical,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m going to night school to get a master’s degree.”

  “In what?”

  “Poetry. Nineteenth and early twentieth century. American.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “Not by me. I owe it all to you. And your friends. I always felt like the dim bulb in the group. I don’t feel that way anymore. Even though I’m no longer in the group.”

  “That’s silly. You’re a smart guy.”

  “Not yet, but I’m working on it. So what’re you up to?”

  “I need some information you probably can’t give me.”

  “Most certainly I wouldn’t, even if every call that comes into our office wasn’t recorded and reviewed by internal affairs. Hello, boys. Meet Jackie Swaitkowski. She’s a lawyer simply uph
olding her constitutionally protected responsibility to her clients. Not in any way attempting to circumvent or contravene the legal process for obtaining classified information.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Amen,” he said, before hanging up on me.

  I flipped open my cell phone and called his.

  “Ig.”

  “How ’bout this?” I asked.

  “Better.”

  “Do you think Homeland Security is bugging my cell phone?”

  “I have no way of knowing, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “I’m not supposed to tell you what I’m about to tell you,” I said. “But since you’re the FBI, which also works for the federal government on matters of national security, I can’t see the problem.”

  “DHS might take a different slant on that.”

  “They interviewed me, Sullivan, and Ross Semple today. Until a few hours ago we thought it was related to the investigation of a Cessna air taxi crash that we thought may or may not have involved drug smuggling. We’d been told the NTSB was going to declare the crash an accident, though as far as we knew, they weren’t aware of the drug-running implications, and even if they were, it wouldn’t fall within their purview, unless they thought it contributed to the crash. But then we find out it’s just me they want in connection with what they think is domestic espionage. Apparently someone involved in that used my phone to call a number that must have been under surveillance, which won’t be all that surprising to you, given how I’m not first rate on keeping track of my purse or my phone, which you pointed out to me numerous times, drawing on your professional expertise, which you don’t have to remind me of now, though I’d forgive you if you did.”

  “Interesting story, but nothing I’m aware of,” said Ig. “And even if I was, I wouldn’t be in a position to discuss what would certainly be confidential information.”

  “The pilot of the Cessna was a woman named Eugenie Birkson. She was married to a guy named Ed Conklin, who did time for assault. No drug history, though she was also the daughter of Matthew Birkson”—I paused to give him time to write all this down—“who also did time on a host of charges, including theft of containers off the docks in Long Island City, hijacking tractor trailers full of cigarettes, and the distribution of controlled substances.”

  “I know nothing about any of this.”

  “Me and the boys at Southampton Town Police were just wondering if this was connected to the DHS inquiry. Just curious.”

  “How’s your buddy Sam doing?” Ig asked. “Still boozing it up like crazy?”

  “Still boozing it up, but not yet completely crazy.”

  “I liked his dog. Better than him.”

  “Eddie liked you, too. Of course, he likes everybody.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I can’t help you. But I hope you stay in touch. And if there’s information you believe would be important for the Bureau to know, anything relating to the security of our country, I know you’ll want to pass it along. In complete confidence, of course.”

  “You know I will. Speaking for all Americans, I sleep better knowing that you, Webster Ig, are watching over us.”

  “That means a lot to me. Thank you.”

  “When you get that MA, write a poem for me.”

  “I will. Bye-bye, Jackie.”

  I looked at my cell phone after he hung up, wondering if I’d actually just had that conversation. Completely sober, in broad daylight.

  15

  The next day I was on my way to Randall’s shop when he called to ask me to pick up some coffee beans.

  “Plain beans, please. No additives.” He said he had something for me, but only if I brought him a gift. “Since it’s your fault I’ve drunk up my whole supply.”

  It was early afternoon, but it always felt like night at Good to the Last Byte. Entering the shop was a little like crawling into a cave where the walls were covered in spiderwebs, only these were made of cords and wires, through which the sparkle of LEDs and the glow of LCD screens provided the ambient light. Randall called from the back room when the buzzer told him I’d come through the door. I went around the counter, tiptoed over the electronic rubble strewed about the floor, and felt my way down a narrow hall.

  “Ever try cleaning this place up?” I asked.

  “Too late for that. The entire system is built upon interdependent variables. One false move and the cascading failures would bring down the World Wide Web.”

  “Where do I put the coffee?”

  “In the grinder over there. Make four cups.”

  He waited until we were slightly caffeinated to break the news.

  “Your death threat came from a semi-homeless schizophrenic in Massapequa, Nassau County, Long Island.”

  “Really.”

  “He goes by Sid Kronenberg or the Grand Khan, Archangel of the Universal Force, as prophesied by the Great Tree of Learning.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “He doesn’t have a fixed address or reliable means of support, but he does have an e-mail account, which he mostly uses to communicate with his daughter in Arizona when he’s not posting to the Grand Khan’s blog.”

  “You sure about this?”

  “These days, it’s virtually impossible to send an untraceable e-mail. Millions are spent by intelligence services all over the world to either figure out how to circumvent Internet security measures, or to catch people who’ve almost figured out how. But none of it is worth a hill of beans if the Sid Kronenbergs of this world wander away from their computers without logging off.”

  “Ah.”

  “The Internet café is in Massapequa, located between a strip club and a porn shop where you can also bet on the horses, ex officio, of course. It’s called the Hot Spot, and as I told you, all the monitors face the wall so you can watch porn or bet online in complete privacy. You can also pay cash, which most customers do. The kid who works the register said he doesn’t even look at the people who come in and out. Just takes their money and unlocks a computer, which locks up again when the allotted time runs out. Simple business.”

  “You went there?”

  “I called him on the phone.”

  “Oh.”

  “He did know Sid, however, mostly by smell. The kid told me it wasn’t unusual for him to get up and leave after only a few minutes online. If he was on e-mail, anyone could sit down, open a new address on Sid’s account, and send out a message. A death threat, for example, to you.”

  “Totally untraceable.”

  “Totally. The only way to catch him would be to run security cameras and have an alert on the Hot Spot’s IP address and Sid’s account and wait for the perp to try it again. You could be waiting a long time. The yourfriend address hanging off Sid’s account had only been used that once, so it could have been a spontaneous event, not to be repeated. You could also try a stakeout. What are the chances of that?”

  “In Massapequa? Not bloody likely.”

  Randall shrugged his broad shoulders.

  “Sorry. Best I could do.”

  “Don’t apologize. You did a lot. How about doing one more thing?”

  He gave his head a little bow.

  “Why not?”

  I moved him away from his computer and logged on to my e-mail account. Then I downloaded and opened Eugenie’s scanned photo of Delbert’s Beachworld Deli. I showed him where I thought there was a reflection of two men in the storefront window. He moved me back out of the way and started to manipulate the image, zooming in and out and fiddling with the contrast.

  “Am I seeing things?” I asked.

  “You’re seeing two guys reflected in the window, one taking the picture itself. But I told you …”

  “I know. What you see is all you get.”

  Randall started opening and shutting windows, clicking on little icons, dragging the image over grids, and doing all that other computer stuff that quickly makes me simultaneously dizzy and bored to tears. I thanked him again and asked
if there was anything else I could bring him.

  “I’ll call if I have any luck,” he said. “But keep your expectations in check.”

  I looked at the clock on my cell phone. Was two o’clock too early to have a drink? Not for Sam Acquillo. I pushed his speed dial button.

  “Now what.”

  “I need to kill some time in Southampton Village,” I said. “What do you suggest?”

  “It’s well after twelve. Time to shift from caffeine to alcohol.”

  “Interesting. Where would I do that?”

  He picked a spot and said he’d be there in twenty minutes. It was a ten-minute walk, so I burned the extra time window-shopping, which is the only kind of shopping that gives me any pleasure, even that fleeting. Ten minutes, tops. But it was good enough to get there after Sam, who was having his regular drink poured by a bartender who’d had plenty of chances to learn what Sam’s regular was.

  “Just tonic water for me,” I said.

  Sam was in his shop clothes, as betrayed by the sawdust sprinkled on his shirt and in his hair. I tried to brush it off.

  “Hey, I wanted that there.”

  “I’m confused, Sam. The more I learn, the less I feel I know. What does that mean?”

  “Maturity.”

  “I don’t mean about life in general, although there’s that. I mean this case.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Sam was a talented cabinetmaker and finish carpenter, but that hardly provided the level of intellectual stimulation a brain like his required. So in the evenings he did what he claimed to have done his whole life—read dense and complicated books on every subject imaginable: fiction, nonfiction, scientific and academic texts, classics and the recently released, usually in English, but sometimes in the original French or Spanish. He’d often pick a subject, like celestial mapping in Mayan architecture, and study it until he knew it well enough to chair the department. So it didn’t surprise me that he was well versed in the scientific, sociological, and legal issues surrounding recovered memory.

  I told him about my visit with Clinton Andrews, and Clinton’s three-man theory, and he gave me a general overview, then an off-the-cuff analysis of Clinton’s assertion, and came to the exact conclusion I had the day before.