A warning?
Like the nails in Gus’s head?
But why the landline?
Holy Christ!
Could it be?
Power and phone. Power meant lights, which meant seeing. And the phone? What did you do with a phone—especially an old landline phone? You listened and you talked.
No power and no phone.
No seeing, no listening, no talking.
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Or was he getting way too imaginative, way to enamored with his “message” theory? He knew damn well that falling in love with one’s own hypothesis could be fatal. Still, if these weren’t messages, what the hell were they?
Having switched off the flashlight, he stood again in the dark, holding the SIG Sauer pistol at his side, straining his eyes and ears. The utter silence gave him a chill. He told himself it was simply because the temperature was dropping and the air was growing damper. But that didn’t make him feel any more comfortable. It was time to get the hell out of there.
Halfway to Walnut Crossing he stopped at an all-night convenience store for a container of coffee. Sitting in the parking lot, sipping the coffee, going back over what had happened at Hardwick’s—what he could have done or should have done—endeavoring to organize some reasonable sequence of next steps, the thought came to him to call Kyle.
Prepared to leave a message, he was surprised to hear a live voice.
“Hey, Dad, what’s up?”
“Actually, too damn much.”
“Yeah? But, hell, you like it that way, don’t you?”
“You think so?”
“I know so. If you’re not being overwhelmed, you feel underoccupied.”
Gurney smiled. “I hope I’m not calling you too late.”
“Too late? It’s like nine forty-five. This is New York City. Most of my friends are just going out now.”
“Not you?”
“We decided to stay in tonight.”
“We?”
“Long story. What’s up?”
“A question, based on your Wall Street experience. Not even sure how to ask it. I spent my whole career buried in homicides, not white-collar stuff. What I’m wondering is, if an outfit was looking for major financing—let’s say for expansion—is that something that would get around on the grapevine?”
“That would depend.”
“On what?”
“On how ‘major’ a deal you’re talking about. And what kind of financing. And who’s involved. Lot of different factors. To get into the rumor mill, it would need to be big. Nobody on the Street talks about small stuff. What outfit are we talking about?”
“Something called the Cyberspace Cathedral—brainchild of a guy named Jonah Spalter.”
“Kind of rings a bell.”
“Any facts attached to that bell?”
“CyberCath …”
“CyberCath?”
“People in finance are big on abbreviations, stock-exchange names, fast talk—like they’re too busy to use whole words.”
“The Cyberspace Cathedral is listed on the stock exchange?”
“I don’t think so. That’s just the way the boys talk. What do you want to know about it?”
“Anything people say about it that I wouldn’t find on Google.”
“No problem. You working on a new case?”
“A murder conviction appeal. I’m trying to dig up some facts the original investigation may have ignored.”
“Cool. How’s it going?”
“Interestingly.”
“Knowing how you talk about these things, I’d say that means that you were shot at but not hit.”
“Well … sort of.”
“Whaaat? You mean I’m right? Are you okay? Somebody tried to shoot you?”
“He was just shooting at a house I happened to be in.”
“Jeez! That’s part of this case you’re on?”
“I think so.”
“How can you be so calm? I’d be going nuts if somebody shot at a house I was in.”
“I’d be more upset if he were aiming at me personally.”
“Wow. If you were a comic-book hero, they’d have to call you Doctor Cool.”
Gurney smiled, didn’t know what to say. He didn’t talk to Kyle that often, although they’d been in contact more frequently since the Good Shepherd case. “Is there any chance you might be coming up our way one of these days?”
“Sure. Why not. That’d be great.”
“You still have the motorcycle?”
“Absolutely. And the helmet you gave me. Your old one. I wear it instead of my own.”
“Ah … well … I’m glad it fits.”
“I think we must have exactly the same size heads.”
Gurney laughed. He wasn’t sure why. “Well, anytime you can get away, we’d love to see you.” He paused. “How’s Columbia Law?”
“Busy as hell, tons of reading, but basically good.”
“So you don’t regret getting out of Wall Street?”
“Not for a minute. Well, maybe for an occasional minute. But then I remember all the bullshit that went with it—Wall Street is paved with bullshit—and I’m really happy not to be part of that anymore.”
“Good.”
There was a silence, finally broken by Kyle. “So … I’ll make some calls, see if anyone knows anything about CyberCath, and I’ll get back to you.”
“Great, son. Thank you.”
“Love you, Dad.
“Love you, too.”
After ending the call, Gurney sat with his phone still in his hand, pondering the curious pattern of his communications with his son. The young man was … what? Twenty-five? Twenty-six? He could never immediately remember which. And for many of those years, especially the past ten, he and Kyle had been … what? Not quite estranged, that was too loaded a term for it. Distant? Separated by periods of noncommunication, certainly. But when the instances of communication did occur, they were invariably warm, particularly on Kyle’s part.
Perhaps the explanation was as simple as the summation offered by Gurney’s college girlfriend decades ago on the occasion of her breaking up with him: “You’re just not a people person, David.” Her name was Geraldine. They were standing outside the greenhouse in the New York Botanical Garden. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom. It was starting to rain. She turned and walked away, kept walking even as the rain grew heavier. They never spoke again.
He looked down at the cell phone in his hand. It occurred to him that he should call Madeleine, let her know he was on his way.
When she picked up she sounded sleepy. “Where are you?”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t. I was reading. Dozing a little, maybe.”
He was tempted to ask if the book was War and Peace. She’d been reading it forever, and it was a powerful soporific. “Just wanted to let you know that I’m halfway between Dillweed and Walnut Crossing. Should be home in less than twenty minutes.”
“Good. How come so late?”
“I ran into some difficulty at Hardwick’s.”
“Difficulty? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Tell you all about it when I get home.”
“When you get home I’ll be sleeping.”
“In the morning, then.”
“Drive safely.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
He slipped the phone into his pocket, took a couple of swallows of cold coffee, dumped the rest of it in a trash bin, and drove back out onto the main road.
Hardwick was on his mind now. Along with the uncomfortable feeling that he should have ignored the man’s instructions and followed him after all. Sure, there was a risk of one thing leading to another, a firefight with the shooter, official law enforcement agencies getting involved, BCI sniffing out Esti’s involvement, having to fudge the facts of their meeting in order to protect her, half-true affidavits, knots and tangles and snarls. But, on the other hand, there was the possibility that Hardwick might be coming face-to-face—or muzzle-to-muzzle—with more than he could handle.