“Twill told me that I better call you. I used the special number you said we could call to make the connection. I hope you don’t mind.”
“You in trouble?”
“No.”
“Tatyana in trouble?”
“Not right now. Her boyfriend, Vassily, was in with these smuggler guys. They grabbed him but Tatyana got away. She called me and I met her at the airport and we flew here.”
I closed my eyes and wondered. Was there a celestial bull’s-eye on the top of my bald head?
“Do you speak French, son?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Tatyana there?”
The phone made a rustling sound and then a lovely young voice said, “Hello?”
“Tatyana.”
“Mr. McGill.”
“I thought I told you that I didn’t want you to get my son killed.”
“I was alone and broke. I only asked him to send money.”
“What was your boyfriend into?”
“Army weapons. He was selling them in North Africa.”
“Were you a part of it?”
“I didn’t even know about it until we moved here.”
“Were you a part of it?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me now, girl.”
“I was not part of it. I went out to drinks with him and his friends. I knew the men he worked with but I did not do anything about selling weapons.”
Family, I once read, the gateway to disaster.
“I’m gonna give you a number,” I told the femme fatale who had somehow become like blood to me. “The man’s name is Eric Pardon. I did him a favor once. He owes me. Call him in one hour. He will do what has to be done and send you guys home when the time is right. You understand?”
“Thank you, Mr. McGill.”
“Don’t thank me, girl. You know I’m only doing this because of Dimitri.”
“I know. You’re a good man.”
“I’m a fool.”
ERIC PARDON WAS an old friend. One of the few I had from my days on the other side of the proverbial tracks. He was French but worked for the United States government for a while. He employed me more than once to plant false information on threats to U.S. security. When he was compromised I helped him restructure the evidence so that he was deported rather than shot and planted in an unmarked grave.
I LEFT ERIC a voicemail and trusted that he’d do right by me.
TALKING TO DIMITRI, and helping him somewhat, lightened my heart a little. He was in too deep with Tatyana, but there was nothing I could do about that. Hell, I couldn’t even solve my own lady problems.
This last thought made me laugh. At the same moment the office buzzer sounded. Something about the synchronicity of the chuckle and the electric hum made me wary. I waited until the buzzer sounded again before opening the drawer in my desk that contained the monitors for the various cameras in and around my office.
Pale as ever, and even shorter than I, Lieutenant Carson Kitteridge stood looking up at the one camera watching him that he knew about. He was wearing a dark-gray suit that he bought in the late eighties.
He pressed the button again.
I got up from my desk and made it all the way to the front before he troubled the buzzer a fourth time.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” I said upon opening the door.
“LT.”
“You comin’ in or am I under arrest?”
“Somebody heard something,” he said. “They thought that it might have been a shot.”
“Yeah,” I said speculatively, “I heard something myself about an hour or so ago.”
“Can I come in?”
“Why? I already implied that I have no firsthand knowledge of a firearm being discharged.”
“Business.”
I shrugged and stepped to the side.
Kit walked in and we took that long familiar walk.
“SMELLS A LITTLE like gunpowder in here,” he said when he was seated in the chair next to the one Ira Lamont had inhabited.
“I don’t smell anything.”
The good policeman was looking around the floor, for blood spatter no doubt. Then he raised his gaze.
“Is that painting new?”
“Mardi made me put it up. Said that my office was too austere, something like that.”
Lieutenant Kitteridge could smell a lie better than a discharged weapon but he had other business to transact—lucky for me.
He sat back and crossed his right gray leg over his left.
“There was a body found buried in the compost heap in the People’s Garden behind St. Matthew’s Church,” he said, looking into my eyes.
“Down in the East Village?”
“Alphabet City.”
“So?”
“It was Shawna Chambers-Campbell,” he said, “the sister-in-law of Cyril Tyler, the man who sent the police after you on that extortion charge.”
“Whatever happened to that investigation?”
“I’m it.”
As a rule I don’t share information with the police. Cops have an unerring tendency to turn whatever you say against you. Silence is always the best defense. Kit was a good cop and therefore my enemy despite any comfort we had with each other. No matter how much I helped him, no matter what he might have owed me, Carson Kitteridge would see me in prison if he could.
Regardless of this, I had a case to solve and did not believe I could do it on my own.
“Do you have a picture of the deceased?” I asked.
He took a morgue photo from his pocket and handed it across the desk.
I noted once again how much more natural she looked in death.
“Someone looking very much like this woman came to my office a few days ago and said that she was Chrystal Chambers-Tyler. She wanted to hire me.”
“For what?”
“She said that her husband wanted to kill her, that he’d probably murdered his previous wives.”
“Her or her sister?”
“If this is who you say it is she was using her sister’s name.”
“Did she have proof?”
“No.”
“Why did she think he wanted to kill her . . . or her sister?”
“I don’t know. Believing her story, or at least the money she paid me to believe her story, I went to her husband and asked why she’d be afraid of him.”
“What did he say?”
“That he wanted to hire me to find her for him.”
“Did you?”
“No. She didn’t tell me where she was staying, and I wouldn’t have done that anyway. So instead I agreed to tell her that he said he loved her and would never hurt her.”
“Did you deliver that message?”
“No. I never saw her again.”
“Where’s the real Chrystal Tyler?” the cop asked.
“Obviously she left Cyril. That’s why he wanted me to find her.”
“You think she’s dead?”
“Possibly somebody wants her that way. Maybe they’ve succeeded. I don’t know.”
“So what do you know?”
“I just told you. The woman you call Shawna most likely came to me saying that she was Cyril’s wife. She said that somebody wanted her dead. And now you tell me that she is.”
“I want this motherfucker, LT.”
“Yeah,” I said, standing up from my chair. “Good luck with that.”
“Aren’t you gonna help me?”
“You just informed me that my client is dead. What else can I do?”
“You can come down to the station for a debriefing.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Now.”
“I have to do something right now, Lieutenant.”
“I could arrest you.”
“Go right ahead.”
Kitteridge stood up.
“Are you making this hard just ’cause I’m a cop?”
“That’s part of it,” I said. “But the other thing is that I have things
to do. You want to question me, and I’m telling you that I’ll come down tomorrow.”
Kitteridge shook his head and turned away from me.
I followed him toward the exit.
47
I WASN’T REALLY Surprised to find Mardi working at her desk. She was devoted to me, but not particularly obedient. She smiled, and I did, too.
“Mardi,” Carson Kitteridge said. “You weren’t here when I came in.”
“Mr. McGill sent me out for something.”
“You’re working late.”
“He pays overtime.” That was true.
“You know, if you ever want an honest job I could probably get you an assistant’s position in my office. I’m due for a promotion.”
“Since that last job you did with Mr. McGill,” she said, oh so innocently. “Right?”
“This isn’t the kind of place for you,” the eternal cop said.
“It’s a thousand times better than where I came from.”
With a little help from me, Kitteridge had broken the case of her child-molester guardian. He knew what she was talking about. He had a whole file on the indictment, replete with home movies and firsthand journal accounts penned by Leslie Bitterman himself.
“I don’t know how you dazzle them, LT,” he said.
“Cult of personality,” I admitted.
He shook his head and walked out of the suite. He was leaving, but as with all cops he’d be back for more.
WHEN KIT was gone I pulled a chair up to Mardi’s desk and stared at her. For maybe half a minute she concentrated on the keyboard, though we both knew that she was a touch-typist.
“Can I do something for you, Mr. McGill?”
“Carson’s right.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You shouldn’t be working for me. The city gives benefits, and they’re able to protect their employees.”
“I don’t need protection,” she said. “I have you.”
“You don’t understand what I’m sayin’, girl. The kind of people who come here, around me, they’re dangerous. Killers, some of ’em.”
“A killer isn’t the worst thing out there.”
“Maybe not,” I agreed, “but if you got hurt on my account it would break my heart. That’s a fact.”
Her response was a beatific smile.
“What if I put you in a different office on another floor?” I asked.
“You need me here,” she stated as an indisputable fact. “I file your papers, get your coffee.”
“In a few years you could run a whole office if you went somewhere else.”
“But I don’t want that life. I like it here. I like it a lot.”
“That guy,” I said, “the one who called himself Peters. He came in here with the intention of beating me until I gave him what he wanted.”
“But you didn’t let him.”
“What if he overpowered me?”
“Then I’d call the police.”
“What if he came after you?”
“Get me a gun and teach me how to shoot.”
The first time I had ever been aware of Mardi Bitterman she’d asked Twill for a gun so that she could kill the man masquerading as her father.
“Remember the woman who came in here a few days ago?” I asked.
“The one who said she was Mrs. Tyler but was really her sister.”
“She’s dead.”
“What?”
“Murdered.”
“What happened?”
I told her everything, even Hush’s suspicions about the identity of the assassin. I didn’t need to ask her to keep it quiet; Mardi was a soundproof room unto herself. Her secrets were deeper and darker than anything I had ever known.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve been hoping for something to fall into place, a detail or a mistake on Cyril’s part. But there’s been nothing. So I think I’m going to have to try and set a trap.”
“Will that be dangerous?”
“Extremely. And that’s why I can’t spend my time being worried about you.”
“But, boss . . .” She had never called me boss before, “what you don’t understand is that being in this office with you is the best thing in the world for me. It makes me feel safe.”
“What does?”
“It’s the way you look at me, Mr. McGill,” she said. “That’s the way I want to be seen.”
That was the last of our discussion about Mardi leaving my employ. She was going to work for me and I was going to have to protect her. I shook my head and we both grinned.
“Okay,” I said, “but will you do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Go home now. Go home and leave me here to think.”
I TURNED OFF most of the lights in the suite and wandered around the rooms in stockinged feet—plotting. At eight-thirty the sun was still illuminating the city from the farther corner of the western sky. I felt like a foot soldier waiting for the command to go out and die for an idea that I barely comprehended.
I sat down in one of the vacant cubicles in the hallway leading from Mardi’s desk to mine. I put my big feet up on the Formica desktop, wondering about toes, claws, paws, and genetic history.
I sat there, speculating, until the phone rang.
It was as if I were waiting for that call, even though I had no reason to expect it.
“Hello.”
“Leonid,” said my wife of too many years.
“Yeah, Katrina. Why you callin’ the office at this time’a night?”
“I tried your cell phone but you didn’t answer.”
“Oh. Yeah. The phone’s in my office and I got my big feet out here in the hall.”
“What are you doing there?”
“Looking at my toes,” I said. “In the dark.”
“What’s wrong, Leonid?”
“I don’t know. Tell me why you’re calling.”
“Gordo.”
“Something happen?” I sat up straight, suddenly unconcerned with the mystery of evolution.
“Yes and it’s wonderful. He walked down the hall without his walker.”
“No.”
“Yes,” she said through laughter. “Elsa was right behind him, but he made it on his own. It’s been weeks since he’s been able to do that.”
“Yeah.”
“Leonid.”
“What, honey?”
“Come home.”
“Not tonight, baby. I have a serious problem to solve. More than one.”
“Does it have to do with Dimitri?”
I knew she would pick up on her baby’s predicament before long.
“Actually, no,” I said. “He’s in Paris with Tatyana.”
“Paris?”
“Our boy’s growin’ up.”
“That Tatyana Baranovich is nothing but trouble,” Katrina said.
“Just the way the McGill men like ’em, huh, baby?”
“When will he be back?”
“Few days.”
“With her?”
“No doubt.”
“I have to go,” Katrina said.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Give Gordo my best.”
“THIS IS Mr. Cyril Tyler’s private line,” prissy Phil said on an answering-machine recording. “No one is here right now to answer your call. If you care to leave a message, wait for the beep.”
No promise to call back. No thank you for calling. I was sure that Phil’s dreams were filled with the desire for unlimited power.
“This is Leonid McGill calling,” I said. “I’ve tried to get to you every way I know, Mr. Tyler, but you’ve snubbed me over and over again. So let’s try this: either you come to my office tomorrow morning or I go to the police tomorrow afternoon.”
I felt satisfied for the first time in many days.
Going down to the utility closet, I pulled out a folding cot, set it up in the aisle and stretched out. I was asleep be
fore my eyes were fully closed.
48
Dreaming is the true genius of man, my father told me one night after one motherfucker of a nightmare. I was six years old and the previous evening I had seen the fifties science-fiction classic The Fifty-Foot Woman. She was chasing me down Broadway. The streets were deserted and my breath was ragged enough that my lungs felt like tattered paper. When my father picked me up I was still screaming. I held on to him so tight that my arms and fingers ached. But I wouldn’t let go. Old Tolstoy carried me to his favorite chair and cradled me, waiting for the sobs and shaking to subside. When I was a little calmer he told me about dreams and genius. He didn’t try to lessen the effect of the dream itself. No. He accepted the fear, and so I did, too. He hailed my shuddering experience as brilliance.
That morning, on the cot in my office hall, I was more than half the way to consciousness but my eyes were still shut and the realm of dreams was close at hand. My thoughts were images instead of logical systems. There was a commune on an upstate farm and a cowboy hitching his palomino to a rail set out just for him. A man wearing a tuxedo but with the cowboy’s face came out through the swinging doors (the commune had become a saloon). The front wall of the establishment came loose from the rest of the building and fell on the two men. The horse was crushed but the fancy gentleman was standing in the doorway, and the broncobuster happened to be situated beneath an open window. They were both standing there unharmed, with dust from the heavy impact rising around them.
“Mr. McGill.”
Cowboys and communes (a word which rhymed with saloon). And then there were peas in a pod and dumb luck, two phrases somehow having the same meaning in my dream.
“Mr. McGill,” a different voice said.
I realized for the first time clearly how difficult constructing a poem must be.
I opened my eyes. Iran Shelfly and Mardi Bitterman stood over me. Their proximity—and me in a bed in a perpetually empty office space—threatened to become my second first draft of a poem that morning.
“Hey,” I said.
Iran had on a mustard suit and a yellow T-shirt, both closefitting, of course. The ethereal Mardi’s dress was cream and crowded with rose-colored roses. I inhaled through my nostrils, expecting the scent of those flowers to narcotize me.
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