Joe D. thought about this for a while, then ordered his legs to unbend. Once standing, however, he felt himself wavering, and gratefully leaned on Arnot’s desk. His lock-picking tools were spread out at his feet next to the shopping bag Carmine had given him. He stared at these objects for a while. Picking them up seemed beyond his current competence. He checked his watch again, hoping he’d misread it the first time. He hadn’t. It was 7:15. Time flies when you’re having hallucinations.
It’s amazing what the brain is capable of even when pulverized. A moment after consulting his watch Joe D. remembered that he was supposed to meet Alison and another couple at a restaurant at 7:30. He even remembered the name of the restaurant. Caroline’s. He commanded his legs to return him to the floor, where he gathered the tools into the shopping bag. There didn’t seem much point to closing and locking the cabinet. If it was Arnot who had decked him, then Arnot would obviously know about the missing reports. If someone else had done it, then Arnot might as well find out right away that the statements were gone. Might be interesting to see what he did with this information.
The office was almost completely dark now, illuminated only by the faint glow of a street lamp outside the windows. Joe D. stood up and carefully crossed the room. He was aware of the possibility that his attacker might still be in the building. But he doubted it. Whoever had hit him hadn’t seemed to mind that he was still alive and probably wouldn’t have a change of heart now. Anyway, Joe D. knew he was in no condition to defend himself.
He located a bathroom down the hall from Arnot’s office. He found a switch and flicked it on. The light sent an electric current zapping through his brain of such painful intensity it could make the most ardent death penalty advocate a foe of capital punishment. He steadied himself for a moment, and then stood before the mirror over the sink.
He’d expected to see the Elephant Man and discovered instead his old familiar mug. No sign of bruises, blood. He was almost disappointed. Then he twisted his head to either side and could just barely make out the lump. It didn’t look too bad either. He dampened a paper towel and very cautiously dabbed the matted hair. He examined the towel and saw that he’d succeeded in wiping off some dried blood, which was surprisingly black. He spent another few minutes dabbing away at the lump until the towel stopped picking up much blood. He tore the towels into smaller pieces and flushed them down the toilet. He tucked in his shirt, splashed some cold water on his face, and took a second look in the mirror. He’d had better days, he concluded, and a few worse ones. Very few.
Walking down the sweeping staircase was a challenge. He took the steps one at a time, pausing every few steps to steady himself. By the time he reached the bottom Joe D. felt he could tackle anything. Well, at least he felt he could hail a cab and direct it to the restaurant. Which is what he did after locking the front door of the New York Art Alliance.
Caroline’s had been favorably reviewed two weeks earlier in the New York Times, so Joe D. wasn’t surprised to find it packed when he arrived a few minutes after 7:30. The maître d’ looked at him the way New Yorkers look at homeless people, with a mixture of pity, revulsion, and outright scorn. Joe D. should have been tipped off that something was strange about his appearance, but in his experience maître d’s at expensive restaurants always looked at their patrons as if they lived on the sidewalks.
He was told that his “party” was already seated and was directed to a table towards the back of the restaurant. Unfortunately, this meant navigating a small forest of tightly packed tables, a difficult task under ordinary circumstances but close to impossible now. Twice Joe D. had to grab onto chair backs to steady himself. He hoped no one noticed.
Alison’s expression when she spotted him gave a more accurate reflection of the way he looked than the mirror had fifteen minutes earlier. She and her friend, Pamela something-or-other, were seated against the wall, facing out. Pamela’s husband, Richard, had his back to the dining room. Pamela and Richard were both lawyers, Joe D. recalled. What he couldn’t recall at the moment was how Alison knew them or if he’d ever met them before.
Alison’s horrified expression intensified as he approached; he was tempted to check his fly. He managed to sit down next to Richard. Never had sitting felt so good, so necessary.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, but judging by the way the three looked at him, he might have announced that he had contracted typhoid on the way to the restaurant.
“What happened to you?” Alison whispered after a few moments.
“Didn’t you get my message? I had to work late.”
“But your eyes, they’re completely red. And there’s…isn’t that blood down your neck? And your hair…your shirt…”
How come I didn’t notice that my eyes were bloodshot? Joe D. chided himself. And how could I have missed the blood on my neck?
“Are you all right?” asked Pamela. Joe D. looked at her—a tiny but very beautiful woman with long, lustrous black hair—and found himself unable to answer. It wasn’t only that he couldn’t decide if he was in fact all right or not. It was just that his lips wouldn’t move.
“I think I’d better get you out of here,” Alison said. “I’m sorry,” she told her friends.
No problem, they said, clearly relieved, and recommended that Alison take Joe D. to an emergency room. Joe D. searched Alison’s face for annoyance or anger and was gratified to detect only concern. “I love you, Alison,” he said, and from the reaction of the others at the table he realized that this statement was viewed a bit strangely. “I do, I really do,” he protested.
Alison stood up and helped him out of his chair. She held his elbow as they re-navigated the restaurant. Outside she found a cab and helped him into it. “Lenox Hill emergency room,” she told the driver.
“No way,” Joe D. said, and gave him their address.
“You need to see a doctor.”
“I need to sleep.”
“There’s a huge lump on your head.”
“Look, which is it?” the driver said.
Joe D. repeated their address, and Alison just collapsed back into the seat.
Seventeen
It wasn’t a restful night for Joe D. or Alison. She insisted on waking him every hour to make sure he didn’t have a concussion. They’d been through this once before, when Joe D. had been brained on Fire Island, so Alison considered herself something of an expert. Joe D. told her that sleep deprivation would kill him faster than a concussion, but she was adamant, even setting the alarm every hour so that she didn’t miss an opportunity to inflict torture.
By morning the lump felt a bit better and Joe D. was exhausted. Alison figured that he was out of the woods, having survived the night, and fell into a deep sleep.
Joe D. made a pot of coffee and drank most of it. Though the lump was less sore to the touch, his head still ached ferociously, as if he had a bad hangover, the kind that makes you swear off alcohol for good. The kind of hangover that makes suicide seem like an appealing remedy.
He retrieved the newspaper from the hallway and tried to read it. But the words wouldn’t sit still on the page. He thought about yesterday instead. Concentrating as hard as his stunned brain would allow, he pieced together the minutes leading up to his blackout. He’d found the checks made out to the Caribbean League. He remembered that the amounts were hefty, though he couldn’t recall them exactly. He remembered turning over one of the checks to see who or what had endorsed it. That’s all he remembered.
No, he’d seen something else. He closed his eyes to focus better, but a fireworks display appeared behind his eyelids. He opened his eyes. Words began to drift into his consciousness like skywriting, and evaporated just as quickly. “Trustee.” He remembered that word, and grabbed a pen and a slip of paper to write it down. “Bank” had been on the back of that check too. He wrote it down. No other words floated by, so he got himself another cup of coffee, draining the pot. When he sat down he wrote the words “trustee” and “bank.” Then, his
hand seemingly acting on its own, he wrote “Cayman” beneath the two words. He didn’t know where “Cayman” had come from—perhaps it had gone directly from his subconscious to his fingers—but, having written it, he knew he’d seen it on the back of the check last night.
Joe D. stared at the three words for a while. The check had clearly been cashed by a bank in the Cayman Islands. A trustee of some sort had endorsed it. Joe D. couldn’t recall the actual signature, if there had been one. It might have been a stamp. Since the Cayman Islands are in the Caribbean, it didn’t seem too unusual that the check had been cashed there. This was a bit disappointing. On the other hand, hadn’t Arnot told Estelle Ferguson that the grants were for Caribbean-American arts activities? Didn’t Caribbean-American mean Caribbeans living in the US? And Estelle had told him that she sent the checks to a New York City post office box. How did they get from there to the Cayman Islands?
He heard a noise from the bedroom and quickly made a fresh pot of coffee, which was still dripping when a haggard-looking Alison emerged a few minutes later.
“How do you feel?” she said groggily.
“Better. You look like you could use another twelve hours of sleep, though.”
“I feel like hell. Are concussions contagious?”
He wanted to talk about what he remembered from the day before, but held off. Under the best of circumstances Alison didn’t enjoy conversation before at least one cup of high-octane coffee. She flipped through the Times while the coffee dripped. When it was done Joe D. brought her a cup. She seemed to inhale rather than drink. “What happened last night?”
He told her as much as he remembered, culminating in his morning discoveries. The story perked her up quite a bit. “The Caymans are known for great snorkeling,” she said, and took a large dose of caffeine. “And banks.”
“Banks?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of like Switzerland. You can get a numbered account there, no questions asked. Good place for stashing money.”
“So the Caribbean League could be just a shell for Arnot to use to take money out of the Art Alliance and into his own pocket.”
She nodded. “The ‘trustee’ on the check was probably just someone at the bank authorized to cash and deposit the checks.”
“How can I find out more about these checks?”
“You can’t. That’s why people go to the Caymans in the first place. The sailing’s supposed to be good too, though I always get the Caymans mixed up with Tortola. One of them’s known for sailing, the other for snorkeling.”
Joe D. wasn’t in the mood to discuss water sports. “It had to be Arnot that brained me yesterday. What I don’t get is how he knew I’d be there.”
“Maybe it’s time to bring in the police.”
Joe D. shook his head, a big mistake. He could feel his sore brain rattle against his skull. “The cops still think Samson’s death was a random killing. And if I bring them in Franklin will fire me.”
“How come?”
“He doesn’t want publicity. And if he thought the police could help, he’d have gone to them in the first place.”
“Then maybe you should think about resigning.”
“What?”
“I don’t like this.”
“It’s part of the deal, Alison. You’re the one who wanted me to do this.”
“I thought you’d be doing corporate work, not breaking into someone’s office and getting the shit kicked out of you.”
“If you wanted a lawyer or accountant…” He could sense an old, familiar argument surfacing, and stopped himself from getting in deeper.
“I want you. But I want you in one piece.”
He could see tears forming around the edges of her eyes. “I’ll be careful. But I can’t back out now.”
Alison nodded, almost imperceptibly. “I need a nap,” she said, and left him for the bedroom.
Joe D. considered following her, but he’d had too much coffee to sleep now, and if Alison couldn’t sleep either they’d end up continuing this discussion, which would add to his feeling of overall misery. Joe D. didn’t particularly enjoy this part of his work either, the getting-hit-on-the-head part, but he also knew that for Alison it went deeper. She just didn’t see herself living with a guy who breaks into buildings for a living. Her idea of investigations was discreet credit checks and maybe the occasional stakeout. Helping him get started in his own business encouraged her to believe that he’d joined her world of young Manhattan professionals. The lump on the back of his head showed her how false this notion really was.
All during the rest of the morning his head slowly cleared, like fog lifting from a damp field. He remembered that he’d done something else yesterday before breaking into the New York Art Alliance. He’d gone to visit Arthur Rudolph.
Joe D. found the piece of paper with Arthur Rudolph, Junior’s name and telephone number. Maybe Arthur had contacted his son, or maybe Junior could fill Joe D. in on a few details about his father’s relationship with George Samson. Joe D. punched in the number. After four rings he heard the click of an answering machine picking up. “Thank you for calling. I’m sorry I’m unable to take your call, but if you leave your name and number, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Please wait for the beep.”
The beep came and went. Joe D. left no message. In fact, he had to remind himself to hang up, so riveting did he find this admittedly boilerplate message. He waited a few moments, then redialed the number and listened to the message over again. The voice was definitely familiar. Deep, rich, cultivated. Whose voice? Joe D. had never spoken to Arthur Rudolph, Jr. before. Then why did this voice sound so…
Then he knew. He called the number a third time just to be sure. He listened to the recording, but what he really heard were several of the pieces in this puzzle clicking into place.
The voice belonged to Howard Lessing.
Eighteen
Alison slept as Joe D. dressed. He left her a note saying he’d be back in a few hours and headed downtown for Joanna Freeling’s loft. He figured Howard Lessing—make that Arthur Rudolph, Jr.—would be there. They had more than likely spent Saturday night together, and spending the night in his shoe box of an apartment would have been a physical near-impossibility.
He rang the buzzer in Joanna’s grimy vestibule and waited, patiently this time, for her to make the journey from wherever she was in the vast loft to the intercom near the front door. “Yes,” she said a few minutes later.
“It’s Joe DiGregorio. I need to talk to Howard Lessing.”
There was a long silence. He wondered if she were checking with Lessing or just deciding on her own whether to allow the interview to take place. Finally, the front door buzzed open.
Joe D. climbed the three flights and began to regret coming here. It wasn’t only that his head throbbed with every step. It would have been far less cruel to confront Lessing alone, without Joanna present. Less cruel, that is, unless Joanna already knew that her boyfriend was the son of her uncle’s archenemy. In any case, Joe D. couldn’t wait until Monday to talk to Lessing. He needed to find out what was going on.
Joanna greeted him at the door wearing a floor-length red silk kimono. It was nice to see her in a color other than black. The robe accentuated her pale, delicate features and her long, slim figure. There was something very studied about the way Joanna looked. Joe D. guessed she never put on even a bathrobe without considering its effect on her appearance. “Follow me,” was all she said, and led him on a eastward trek through her loft to a small sitting area he hadn’t seen on his first visit. Lessing was lying on a sleek black couch. He was reading a newspaper but put it down when they approached. He was wearing a long white terry cloth robe. It looked freshly laundered.
“You don’t have to be here,” Joe D. told Joanna. “I need to talk to Howard.”
“I have nothing better to do,” she said slowly and rather ominously, Joe D. thought, as if she were auditioning this sentence as a subject of her next “painting.”
Disappointed, Joe D. took a seat across from Lessing, who was still reclining. The chair was a piece of stiff black leather slung between a pair of bent chrome poles. It looked uncomfortable, and it was. Joanna remained standing, her arms crossed as if a cold breeze were blowing in from the western zone of her loft.
Joe D. quickly debated between a accusatory confrontation and a gentler, inquisitive approach. In deference to Joanna’s presence he chose the latter. “Do you know anything about Arthur Rudolph?” he asked as innocently as he could.
Lessing immediately looked at Joanna, who looked back at him.
“I think you mean that question for me,” she said. “He was a business associate of my uncle’s. They both owned stores.” She made owning stores sound like slaughtering chickens.
Joe D. stared straight at Lessing, who had started breathing heavily. After a few moments he sat up.
“He’s my father,” he said with some defiance.
Joanna raised a hand to her mouth.
“Please, Joanna, try to understand. If I had used my real name, Rudolph, Arthur Rudolph, you wouldn’t have let me near you.”
Lessing—Rudolph—seemed to think that this was all the explanation that was called for. He sat back and crossed his legs at the knee, adjusting his robe in the process.
Joanna lowered herself into a chair next to Joe D. She moved with arthritic slowness. Her lips parted but nothing emerged.
“Why did you want to meet Joanna?” Joe D. asked. “Revenge?”
Lessing-née-Rudolph started to rise from the sofa as if to attack Joe D. for making this accusation. Joe D. started to get up too, and when Rudolph saw this he fell back into the sofa. “I didn’t want to meet Joanna. I simply met her.”
“A coincidence?”
Joanna actually looked hopeful for a moment.
Vanishing Act Page 11
