Twenty
Stanley had been frantic when I called him from California, insisting I return immediately. “Santa Rosa, Michael Jaynes, give all that to Agent Till,” he’d said, breathing hard into the phone. “I need you here.”
I caught the next flight back to Chicago and landed at nine fifty that night.
Even without his pale blue uniform, Stanley was easy to spot in the crowded terminal. He was pacing back and forth by the entrance to the parking garage, his lips moving silently. He looked like a man trying to talk himself into a heart attack.
“Thank God you’re back.” He moved to take my duffel. We tugged; I won, and hung on to it as we moved up the walkway to the garage.
“Boy, was I glad when you called,” he was saying. “I didn’t want to keep leaving you messages, but the Board is expecting me to handle it all.” He spoke in a rush, like there were a thousand words in his mouth, each fighting to get out first.
He led me down one of the aisles to the blue full-size Chevy vanwith the wheelchair lift that he’d driven to Ann Sather’s restaurant. We climbed in, and he started the engine.
“I told Mr. Ballsard we’ve got to stay on our guard, but he’s not listening. He thinks it’s over.”
“He thinks it’s Chernek?”
Stanley nodded. He threw the van into reverse, took his foot off the brake, and gave it too much gas. The van lurched backward, cutting off an S.U.V. creeping toward us, looking for a space. The driver hit the brakes, honked, and shot his fist out the window, a finger in the air. Stanley, oblivious, jerked the shifter into drive and punched the van forward.
“Slow down, Stanley, and tell me what you know.”
“I don’t know squat.” In the halogen lights of the garage, his knuckles were white on the wheel as he steered the big van down the tight curve of the exit ramp. “Just that Mr. Ballsard seems so sure it’s over.”
At the bottom, he shot across several lanes without looking, rocking to a stop at an open pay gate. I told him to pull over after he paid, so we could talk. And live. He steered off to the side and put the van in neutral.
“Start with what you heard from the police.”
“Mr. Ballsard got a heads-up from Chief Morris that the Feds were going to arrest Mr. Chernek on a charge of embezzlement.”
“Who made the charge?”
“Miss Terrado. She used to live at Crystal Waters with her parents. She sold the house after they died.” He reached for a folded newspaper on the floor between the front seats and handed it to me. “This morning’s Tribune. It says Miss Terrado is accusing Mr. Chernek of stealing two hundred thousand dollars from her accounts by putting it into a phony investment.”
“Could it be true?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know about things like that.”
“Take a guess.”
“We should get going. I need to be home.” He put the van into drive and pulled out of the garage exit. I held my questions, deciding my chances of survival were greater if I didn’t interrupt while he drove.
He didn’t speak again until after he’d turned onto Fifty-fifth Street. “You can imagine, in my job, I hear stuff.” He sounded reluctant, like he felt he was ratting out his own brother. “Most of it’s baloney, just gossip, but did you notice the empty desks at Mr. Chernek’s office?”
“Hard to miss. I heard he was losing clients, and that his staff was leaving, but I also heard that’s normal when the stock market is rocky.”
“I’ve been at that office plenty, Mr. Elstrom, and I can tell you, there used to be people crawling all over those offices, crowding the aisles.” He looked over at me. “You notice his reception room?” The van drifted toward the shoulder.
“Watch the road, Stanley. Yes, I noticed.”
“Anybody ever waiting when you went in?”
“I came late in the day, both times.”
“Doesn’t matter. That reception room used to be packed with people waiting to see Mr. Chernek or one of the associates. No more. And then there’s the mail.”
“The mail?”
“You know we inspect the mail at Crystal Waters? Examine the envelopes, and irradiate anything that looks suspicious?”
“For anthrax?”
“That, and other stuff. We got a service that picks up every day, nukes anything we don’t like the look of. I can’t help noticing a lot of the Members have started getting envelopes from new investment companies like Paine Webber, Salomon, Merrill Lynch. Places that do what Mr. Chernek does. And people from those places have started coming to Crystal Waters for appointments at night, too, with the Members that used to use Mr. Chernek.”
“People blame their investment advisors when their portfolios tumble. They look for a change.” I shifted on the seat to look at him. “Do you really think losing clients gives Chernek a motive for extortion?” I remembered when I’d asked the same question of Leo.
Stanley kept his eyes straight ahead, his mouth closed. He wasn’t ready to take that step. But his silence was loud.
I turned back to look out the windshield at the taillights speeding past Stanley’s now-sedate thirty-five miles an hour. We drove in silence for several minutes until he turned north toward Rivertown.
“What am I going to do, Mr. Elstrom? What if Mr. Ballsard is wrong, what if it’s not Mr. Chernek, what if there’s another bomb?”
“Have you talked to Till?”
“All this just happened yesterday afternoon.”
“Call him. Ask if we can come in for an update.”
“Then what?”
“That depends on Till. Where’s Chernek now?”
“I suppose at home.” Stanley pulled up in front of the turret. “I almost forgot. How was California?”
It was only that morning that I’d drunk peppermint tea with Lucy Vesuvius. It seemed like it had been a year ago.
“I found Nadine Reynolds. She goes by the name Lucy Vesuvius now. Michael Jaynes has been sending her bits of money ever since he left California in 1970, but she says she hasn’t seen him.”
“Do you believe her?”
“There’s more. The lady at the store in Clarinda told me that a man named Michael, or somebody else, calls every few months, inquiring about Nadine Reynolds. Lucy didn’t admit that.”
He cut the engine. “What do you mean, ‘or somebody else’?”
“Something about the Michael Jaynes lead doesn’t add up.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, Stanley.”
“So you think it could be Mr. Chernek, too?”
I opened the van door, grabbed my duffel, and got out. “I thinkyour bomber could be Michael Jaynes. And yes, it could conceivably be Anton Chernek. But I also think it could be Bob Ballsard, some other Member, or anybody else who’s gotten into Crystal Waters in the past few months. So I also like ‘or somebody else.’ Call me when you get us set up with Till.” I gave him a wave as he started the engine and pulled away.
I pulled out my mail from the tin box, unlocked the door, and went in. The turret smelled like the inside of a varnish can. I opened a couple of the slit windows, turned on a fan, and ate a peanut butter sandwich standing up while I read through my mail. An unstamped City of Rivertown envelope smelling of coconut was under the electric bill. On city stationery, Elvis had written, “Absolutely no pink roof will be allowed,” and had drawn two quick circles around the rendering of the turret in the upper right-hand corner. I wadded it up and threw it toward the garbage can. I missed.
With the Bohemian a suspect, and Ballsard convinced the matter had ended, I was probably out of a job. Maybe that was a good thing.
I finished the sandwich, washed my hands twice to get rid of most of the smell of coconut, and went up to the third floor. As I opened windows, I noticed a dark sedan parked down on the street, in the shadows past the streetlamp. Lovers, I thought, watching the submarine races on the river.
I needed that kind of youth, that kind of optimism. I sat on the cot, threw my clothes toward the chair, and dropped my crowded head onto the pillow. I’d had too much to think.