“Can’t do or won’t do?”
“Can’t do, won’t do, whatever. We don’t have them.”
“I thought site plans had to be submitted to get building permits.”
He took another look at the clock. Only nine minutes to quitting time now. He was probably thinking he still had to throw away his newspaper.
“You a resident of Crystal Waters?”
“I used to live there. I want to check an easement.”
He leaned his bulk back. The chair groaned. Oak is strong, big grained, but if it’s stressed too much, it’ll give up. Just like people.
He picked up his newspaper and started folding it. “Crystal Waters is like a separate country. They convinced the mayor their security would be breached if we had their prints.” He snorted, shaking his head. “You people. Always special needs.”
“I told you, I don’t live there now.”
“Whatever.” He dropped the newspaper into his wastebasket and shifted his girth. He was preparing to stand up.
The clock ticked loudly, echoing off the gray metal of the desks. A site plan would have been good, but only to double-check what my fear already knew, and I did have the microfilm photo. I went out, letting the door slam, and up the stairs.
It had stopped raining, but the air was hot and thick and gray, as if it were holding the drops suspended, ready to unleash them in one sudden torrent of fury. To the west, lighting crackled in the dark sky, signaling the next storm front that was about to come through. I unzipped the driver’s-side plastic window and drove back to Gateville, parking across the road from the entrance. I got out and waved at the guard who had moved out from between the pillars. He was the same one who had come out with Stanley earlier. He waved back in recognition but remained by the gate, watching me.
I held up the photocopy of the Assembler photo and studied the brick wall across the street. There was no bus shelter there now, nor had there been when I’d lived at Gateville with Amanda. But I wasn’t looking for that, I was looking for the fragment of the ornate shape in the upper left corner of the picture.
I found it right away, as I knew I would back at the library. It was the finial atop the marble column to the right of the entrance to Gateville. I moved a few paces until I was looking at the exact perspective the photographer had used.
Thunder crackled then, and the sky let go, pelting me with hard, cold rain.
I stood unmoving, letting the rain hit. There was no doubt. Across the road, immediately to the right of the entrance column, the repaired lamppost stood gray and indistinct, ghostlike in the downpour.
Right where those kids had stood in the newspaper photo.
Ten
Monday night rush hour traffic jammed the four inbound lanes on the Eisenhower, every driver frantic to beat the next wave of the storm slinging in from the west. The radio said it was still ninety-four degrees at six o’clock. I was soaked from standing in the rain at Gateville, the inside of the Jeep was dripping like an Indian sweat lodge, and the closest I was to air conditioning was the 7 Series B.M.W. in the next lane, driven by a suit talking on a cell phone. I wanted to kill him but supposed it was because I was angry about other things.
I’d called the Bohemian’s office as I raced away from Gateville. The British-voiced secretary said he was on another call and was already late for a dinner engagement-a dinner with important people, she added. I told her to stuff a candy bar in his face and tell him to wait, then hung up before I got even more personable. Finding out I’d been handled had not made for a mellowing afternoon.
I got to his building at seven o’clock. In the elevator mirror, my damp hair, soaked T-shirt, and paint-splattered Levi’s made me look like a guy who didn’t have any money. Or one who had too much.
The reception area was empty, but the Bohemian’s secretary, whose name I didn’t know but decided must be Griselda, materialized at the side door before I could drip much on the oriental carpet. She must have heard the elevator chime. She led me back to the conference room, left, and returned with a roll of paper towels, all without uttering one articulated word. No doubt she was smoked by my tone on the phone, though it could have been she was afraid I’d cause the furniture to mold. I dried off my hair and blotted at my T-shirt with the paper towels.
The Bohemian came in five minutes later, resplendent in formal black trousers with a silk stripe down the side, a pleated white shirt with a high collar, and a black bow tie with enough irregularity to it to show it had been hand-tied. Guys in his crowd don’t wear clip-ons. He looked every bit the man off to an important dinner, as Griselda had said. If I’d worn that outfit, people would assume I was a waiter in a French restaurant.
“Vlodek.” He said it as a necessary pronouncement of fact, without enthusiasm, like something he’d discovered stuck to his shoe. He sat down without offering to shake hands.
I pushed the damp picture of the kids at the bus shelter across the table. It left a wet streak. “That was target number two.”
He barely glanced at it. “The children don’t take the bus anymore. A van picks them up at their homes. That shelter was torn down in 1982.”
“You knew the significance of that site. It wasn’t just some damned lamppost, outside the wall.”
He shrugged. “I checked the old Crystal Waters blueprints. As I said, the shelter was torn down in 1982.”
“Your bomber was telling you he can blow up kids.”
He leaned forward abruptly, both meaty forearms on the table, and glared. “I know no such thing. You can’t assume that’s the message he was sending.”
“Let the police decide.”
“He’s been paid, Vlodek.”
“We think he’s been paid.”
“That’s right. Thanks to you, we cannot be sure. However, I continue to believe the matter is over.”
“Like 1970?”
He leaned back. “Exactly.” His wide, Slavic eyes didn’t blink.
“You said you checked the blueprints for Crystal Waters. I went to the Maple Hills Building Department today. They don’t have site plans for Crystal Waters.”
“For security, I have the only set.” He folded his big hands. “Why were you looking for them?”
“To verify the location of that.” I pointed at the picture of the bus shelter. “I want to see those prints.”
“For what?”
“For the next strategic target.”
The skin around his eyes tightened. “Strategic target?”
“That lamppost was not a randomly chosen little reminder. It was a strategic target, as you well knew, blown up to send a very specific, and frightening, threat: He’ll kill children.”
“We’ve done what the man demanded, Vlodek. We’ve paid.”
“An installment. If getting five hundred thousand is that easy, he’ll be back for more.”
He looked out the window at the rain beating against the glass. “When do you want to look at the prints?”
“Now.”
He pulled an antique gold pocket watch out of his trousers pocket and flipped open the lid. “You may look, but you must leave them here,” he said, closing the lid with a soft click. “I have to leave. I’m expected at a fund-raiser for our junior senator.” He stood up and looked down at me. “Wendell Phelps, your former father-in-law, will be there.”
“Tell Wendell I send my love.”
“Indeed.” He moved to the door but paused, and the corners of his mouth twitched. “Trick or treat,” he said as he went out.
Griselda brought me the big roll of plans, then went out again and returned with a thermal pitcher of coffee, a pale blue Wedgewood cup and saucer, a little china basket of cream containers, and a bowl of white crystals that could have been sugar or could have turned me into a toad. I gave her a winning smile and told her I didn’t use sweetener. She frowned and left. I poured the coffee and unrolled the blueprints.