A sharp knock at the door.
She pulled back. I almost clocked her with my elbow as I hastily clutched the front of my shirt together.
I jumped off the desk and said loudly, in a voice strangely high-pitched, “Yes?”
“Mr. Carl,” said Ellie from the other side of the door. “Detective McDeiss called and said he was sending an officer over to pick up the evidence and take a statement. He also said that Mr. Slocum is in court today, and A.U.S.A. Hathaway told him – and this is a quote – ‘I never want to see his ugly face again.’”
“Ouch,” I said. “Okay, thank you, Ellie.”
“Do you need anything else?”
“No, that’s it.”
We looked at each other, Monica and I, and then we both turned our heads away in embarrassment. We had let something go a bit too far, and we both knew it. I started buttoning my shirt. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.
“Well, that’s that, then,” I said as I went to sit behind my desk and started retying my tie. “You can see it’s just a silly tattoo and it has nothing to do with your sister.”
“I suppose.”
“It was actually nice meeting you, Monica, and I wish you luck in the future.”
“That means you’re not taking the case.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Finding a missing person, especially one missing for decades, is not really my thing.”
“And you won’t be coming back to the club?”
“No, it’s not my kind of thing either.”
“So no more dates.”
“It wasn’t a date.”
“Oh, right. I guess that’s it, then,” she said, standing. “By the way, the Hathaway you’re meeting with today, is that the police detective?”
“No, she’s a prosecutor. Why?”
“Because it was weird hearing the name. The police detective who was investigating Chantal’s disappearance was a Detective Hathaway.”
My hands suddenly grew clumsy and the knot I was tying disintegrated.
“My parents still speak very highly of him. Detective Hathaway spent years looking for Chantal. He and my parents became very close. It was like he was one of the family.”
“You don’t say.”
“We haven’t seen him in a while.”
“How old are you, Monica?”
“Twenty-six.”
“And your sister disappeared how many years before you were born?”
“Two. Why?”
“Just thinking, is all.”
“Thank you for showing me the tattoo, Victor. I don’t know what it means, but I won’t annoy you anymore, I promise.”
I watched as she turned around, as she turned the knob, as the button popped and the door opened. I watched and I thought and I tried to make sense of everything.
“Monica,” I said before she was out the door. She turned around again, and she had that look of need and expectation on her face. “Maybe I ought to meet your parents. What do you think?”
My God, she had a beautiful smile.
31
“It wasn’t any trick to find your boy Bradley Hewitt,” said Skink. “A guy like that, he needs to let it be known that he’s a player. Lunch at the Palm, dinner at Morton’s, doing the stroll among the well-heeled and the powerful, and always accompanied by his three guys with their suits and their briefcases.”
“He’s got an entourage,” I said.
“That he does.”
“I want an entourage.”
“You couldn’t handle an entourage. And why is it the power joints all serve steak?”
“Like in the days of the dinosaur, the most feared are always carnivores.”
“You wants to know why the cemeteries are filled with indispensable men? Because they all eats steak.”
We were walking north, on Front Street, quiet and cobblestoned, with a few cars slipping back and forth looking for parking. Most of the city action was to the west, Old City and Society Hill, the bright lights, the bars. Front Street was staid and dark, close to the river and its mist, a street for the cozy rendezvous or the quiet conversation, a place to walk and talk unobserved.
“That was the public face of your Bradley Hewitt. Nothing of interest there,” said Skink. “But I don’t give up, it’s not in my nature. I keep following. And then, on a quiet Tuesday night, just like this one, I follows him down to the river, away from the crowds.”
“Entourage in tow?”
“It’s an entourage, so of course it is. Down toward the river, right here to Front Street, and then up a few blocks until he finds hisself a swanky little chew-and-choke just off Market. They all pop inside. A few minutes later, I slip close and scan the dining room. Nice, truly, red walls, marble floors, old school. And chowing down at a table is the entourage, enjoying the hell out of themselves. But no Bradley.”
“He was in the men’s room?”
“No extra plate at their table. He was somewhere else, and they weren’t invited.”
“Interesting.”
Skink slipped across to the east side of the street, and I followed. We began walking on the sidewalk behind a line of parked cars.
“So I find me a comfortable place and keep my eyes open and sees what I can see. It wasn’t long afore limos started disgorging their occupants on the curb like a string of Bowery drunks disgorging their stomachs, one after the other, splat, splat, splat.”
“That’s an image I could do without.”
“First a hot-shot developer what has been in the news, then a councilman what has been railing about developers, and then, wouldn’t you know it, His Honor hisself.”
“The mayor.”
“That’s right. I check again through the window, careful now with a cop standing outside. Not a one of them showing.”
“There’s a private dining room.”
“Of course there is. I waits until the night is over and everyone has left the joint, first the mayor and the councilman, then the developer, then Bradley and his entourage. I wait for the last of the fat cats to clear and the door to be locked. I keep waiting until the waitstaff starts slipping out, one by one. It’s no real trick to find the one I’m looking for. Someone with a hop in the step, the furtive glance, the twitchy fingers, the one that can barely wait to start spending the tips. And it’s a she, and not a bad looker.”
“Convenient.”
“I start following, but it doesn’t take long. She heads north, turns left on Market, slips into the Continental, the upscale joint in that old diner, finds herself a place at the bar. It isn’t long afore I find myself a place next to her.”
“What was she drinking?”
“Blue martinis. What is that all about? Looks like antifreeze, tastes like nothing. But they gets her in a jovial enough mood. Name is Jillian. Nice girl. She’s going through a phase. A few years she’ll be back in college where she belongs.”
“And what does sweet Jillian say?”
“She says there’s a private dining room in the wine cellar of that restaurant, a fancy room with frescoes on the ceilings and bare tatas on the frescoes. And every Tuesday night the mayor meets with his friends to conduct private business.”
“Making deals.”
“It’s the way the city works, right?” says Skink. “He’s not even shy about it. Pay to play. The mayor’s always running for something, always needs a little cash for the upcoming campaign.”
“Jillian tell you this?”
“Jillian didn’t know the details, of course she didn’t. When she was in the room, pouring the wine, they talked only about golf and the Islands.”
“But she knew the players.”
“Yes she did. And it seemed every Tuesday night Bradley was there with some other money boy looking to enter the game.”
“So Bradley Hewitt is the middleman, bringing together the mayor and the money for a nice little meal.”