‘Yes, but you’ve still got to do the deal.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Arthur said. ‘The buyers are lined up and waiting and they’ll eat right out of my hand.’
Lorraine booked into the Chicago Hyatt, where the room was pleasant and well-furnished, and called Abigail Nathan at once. Her voice sounded young, and when Lorraine explained that she was working for Mr Feinstein in connection with her son’s estate, she immediately said she was free that evening or Lorraine could call the following morning. It was already after ten and Lorraine asked if she could come at nine the next day.
She planned an early night to be refreshed and ready for Mrs Nathan, so she showered, booked an alarm call for six and went straight to bed.
Rooney let himself into Lorraine’s office and crossed to check the answerphone: the light was flashing, and the new message indicator was displaying the figure twenty-two. He replayed the messages to discover that only one was legitimate, from Feinstein. On the remainder the phone had been put down. The caller’s attempts to alarm Lorraine had, however, intensified, and there were ominous silences, sometimes heavy breathing, and, on the last, what sounded like six blasts of gunfire. This was clearly intended as a threat, and Rooney was certain that the caller believed their identity was known to Lorraine.
He picked up the plastic bags he had come to collect, turned off the lights and left the building.
Back home, Rosie was cooking up a storm, trying out a new recipe for pork tenderloin with a complicated pink sauce, and was red-faced and flustered. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done with this sauce — I put enough cornstarch in it to hang wallpaper, but it’s not thickening like it should,’ she said, waving a wooden spoon.
‘Whatever you serve up, honey, will be fine by me.’
He went to get a beer, and they jostled each other for space in the small, but well-equipped kitchen. ‘Go on, go sit down. Table’s already set,’ Rosie said, pushing Rooney away gently.
He plodded out with his beer, then turned back to her. ‘Usual creepy messages on her answerphone,’ he said.
‘Probably Jake.’ She laughed.
‘Yeah, probably,’ he said. He was on the point of telling her about the gunshots, but decided to wait until after dinner, not wanting to spoil the meal she had taken such trouble with: Rosie worried enough about Lorraine as it was. Almost as soon as they had finished eating, however, Rosie’s former AA sponsor called and asked if she would help him out at a meeting where he needed someone to sponsor a young girl.
‘Do you mind, Bill?’ she said. ‘I know I said I’d stay home this evening, but if someone had been too busy to sponsor me, I never would have quit drinking.’
‘And you would never have been working for Lorraine and I would never have met you.’ Bill smiled. He knew that Rosie had a genuine desire to put something back into the organization that had changed her life. ‘Go on out — I’ll go through this stuff of Lorraine’s.’ She dropped a kiss on top of his head, got her coat and hurried off, with a promise not to be too late.
Left alone, Rooney spread out the catalogues and thumbed through them, looking for the painting Lorraine had mentioned. He found no record of it. He flicked through Decker’s notes of dates and times for each gallery he had visited, saddened by the task — the boy had been so organized, such a good find for the agency, and it was dreadful that he had died in such a terrible way, so young and, as his voluminous notes testified, so eager to prove himself. Rooney kept on flicking backwards and forwards, matching catalogues to Decker’s notes on the galleries, then saw something that made his blood run cold.
In Decker’s neat handwriting was a name and address — Eric Lee Judd, employee at Nathan’s art gallery. Rooney sat back and drank some beer. He couldn’t be mistaken. He knew it had been a long time, but it was a name he would never forget. When she had been drunk on duty, Lorraine Page had shot a teenager. The boy’s name had been Tommy Lee Judd.
Rooney put in a call to Jim Sharkey’s home, but he was out on a case so he left a message asking him to call. It was after nine and he wondered if it was too late — bad district to go calling on anyone late in the daytime, never mind at night, but he mulled it over, and drained his beer. To hell with it, he thought, why not? His adrenalin buzzed like old times — it was too much of a coincidence, and he wondered if he had just solved the mystery of Lorraine’s unidentified caller.
Half an hour later, Rooney was heading towards the eastern suburbs of LA, having packed a shooter — he wasn’t taking any chances. Like Decker before him, he had a hard time making out the numbers of the houses on the side-street near Adams and, like Decker too, he passed the Lee Judd bungalow and had to reverse back to it down the street. Lights blazed, so he knew someone was at home. He got out, took a good look around, locked the car and walked up the drive to the front door. He rapped hard and waited several minutes before knocking again. This time he saw the outline of a figure shuffling towards the door through the dirty glass.
‘Who is it?’
‘Bill Rooney. Mrs Lee Judd? Is that you? I’m Bill Rooney — used to be Captain Rooney, you remember me?’
The front-door chain was eased off, and she peered through, fear on her big moon face.
‘It ain’t bad news? Please, God, you ain’t come with bad news?’
‘No, Mrs Lee Judd, no bad news, not this time, but I need to talk to you.’
The door opened, and the woman looked up with frightened hazel eyes. Her dyed blonde hair showed two inches of dark root growth, and mulberry lipstick ran in rivulets round her flaccid lips. She was grotesquely overweight and her body gave off the distinctive stale smell of sweat. ‘You ain’t lying to me, are you?’
‘No, ma’am, I’m not lying, but I need to talk to you.’
Rooney stared at the photograph. The boy was wearing the jacket with the yellow stripe down the back, his face half turned towards the camera. Unlike the other children in the photograph, Tommy took after his mother and was pale-skinned, while all his brothers and sisters had the dark colouring of their father, Joshua Lee Judd.
‘Tommy’s been gone a long time now,’ she said sadly.
‘Yes, a long time, Mrs Lee Judd, but never forgotten.’
She shook her head. ‘You don’t forget a boy you’ve given birth to, no matter what he done, or what they say he done. He was my youngest, you know?’
‘I know. Can I sit down?’ he asked.
‘Sure, you want something to drink?’
‘No, nothing.’
She eased her bulk into a worn armchair, and Rooney sat opposite her.
‘So, how have you been keeping?’
‘My legs give out on me — knees all swelled up — and they say my heart’s beatin’ too hard or something, but I’m near sixty.’
There was a terrible tiredness about her, which made her seem much older.
‘How’s your family?’ Rooney asked kindly.
She sucked her teeth. ‘Joshua upped and left with some little girlfriend of his daughter’s — may the good Lord forgive him, for I sure don’t. I had six mouths to feed, and all he could think of was having his way with an eighteen-year-old. Some husband, some father.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Saved me from gettin’ beat on regular, and good riddance, but sometimes he could be a real sweet-hearted man — it was just the liquor turned him mean. I’ve heard he’s straightened out, got himself a regular job — not that he sends me no money — and got himself another couple of kids too, so I don’t press for payments. I know it’s takin’ from the mouths of his new family, and you always got to put them first.’
‘You’re a good mother.’