Which made his reaction to the detective’s report even more surprising. Hamper Caisse called just as he was leaving for dinner with a client, and announced, “Stanstead’s vanished. I had a man on her, trying for an intercept. He lost her.”
Randall felt almost none of the expected gall and ire. Instead, as he waved for his wife to go on out to the car and grant him privacy, what he felt most at that particular moment was anticipation. “And how, pray tell, did he manage that?”
“He says she was on to him. I’ve used him before, the man’s a pro. He says she left home and went to work, carried nothing but her purse. He broke into her car, found nothing. Not a file, not a toothbrush. She came out of the charity office around four, went into a local café, never came out. A half hour went by, then he goes in, she’s not there.”
“She’s on her way down here.” Randall had never before resorted to violence. Never had a genuine reason. But he’d always wondered what it would be like to confront a threat that required a physical response. Now that the moment had arrived, he found himself tasting an almost erotic thrill. “And she’s got more information for Glenwood.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybes about this one.” Time for a decision. And action. He had heard stories about what Hamper Caisse would do if asked. Having such power at his beck and call left him slightly breathless. “All right. Leave that and come down. Tonight. I need you here.”
“You want me to track the girl in Rocky Mount?”
“I very much doubt,” Randall replied, “you’ll have the time.”
Marcus sat on his porch and watched the day fade. He wore a ragged sweatshirt and cutoffs and a sheen of drying sweat. His ears still rang from the mower he had bought off a neighbor for twenty-five dollars. The muffler had long since rusted away, and it roared like a weary machine of war. By the time he finished the two back acres, he was convinced he had overpaid.
The autumn twilight tarried longer than Marcus felt was natural. Streetlights glowed in faint mimicry of the sky’s final colors. Trees and neighboring houses gradually faded to dark etchings of their former selves. The air smelled of cut grass and smoke from backyard grills, and rang with the clamor of children playing in the street.
A small, thin shadow separated itself from the nearest tree, and an alien yet familiar voice said, “Your home looks most inviting, Mr. Glenwood. May I join you?”
Marcus rose to his feet, lifted by the sudden, unnerving jolt. He recalled a blank hallway in Washington, and solid steel doors leading into a whitewashed world of silent terrors. “Is that Dee Gautam?”
“Remarkable, Mr. Glenwood. Most remarkable.” The slender shadow approached and took on form, beginning with his smile. “You continue to surprise me. First I think you are nothing more than some American lawyer visiting our offices like another person would travel to the zoo. I look at you and I think, here is someone very comfortable in his living room with wall-to-wall carpet and big-screen television. Too comfortable to worry about strangers suffering someplace very far away.”
The steps did not creak as he climbed to the veranda. Dee Gautam stood smiling up at Marcus. “Then I hear that this strange American lawyer does not turn from a case he cannot win. No. He asks many questions and finds surprising answers. So I decide to come and see if he will listen to my warning, and I discover that this strange American lawyer lives alone in a neighborhood where almost all others are black.”
“Warn me about what?”
“May I sit down, Mr. Glenwood?”
“Sorry, of course, you surprised me, showing up like this.” He pulled over a second hickory rocker and set it so he could face the man square on. “You said something about-”
“Why do you choose to live here, Mr. Glenwood?”
Marcus seated himself, decided to let Dee Gautam chart the conversation’s course. For now. “My grandfather built this place for his wife. Back then the area was different.”
His visitor was so small he sat as a child would in the straight-backed rocker, sliding up to the edge so his feet could push against the floor. The chair drummed lightly over the uneven boards. “Still I am not understanding, Mr. Glenwood. Why are you choosing to live in this place?”
Beyond the reach of the porch light, darkness gathered and conquered. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Thank you, no. I am not able to stay very long.”
“My grandparents raised me. When they died, I kept the place. I’d come out here and work a little, but not enough. After an … accident, I decided to come back here to live. I’ve been restoring it ever since.”
Gautam’s hands reached out to settle upon the chair arms. In the half-light the pitted scars seemed to run the entire way through his wrists. “Please excuse me for the repetition, Mr. Glenwood, but I am trying so hard to understand. Why are you choosing to come back here?”
“You mean why do I live in what has become a black neighborhood?” When the little man simply rocked back and forth, using the chair and his entire body to nod, Marcus went on, “Some people resent my living here. Especially the young men who don’t have work. You see them gathered on some of the porches. They watch cars with white drivers, and give me this look like, well, like I don’t belong and never will.”
The nightly chorus rose so gradually it was only when he paused to sort through jumbled thoughts that he heard it at all. “But there are a few people who have made me feel more than welcome. Deacon Wilbur, my secretary, a few others. They … understand.”
“They accept your pain and your loss.”
Marcus found himself unwilling to meet the man’s gaze. “You’ve been checking up on me.”
“That is what makes a home, I feel. Finding a place and a people who accept you as you are.” The rocker drummed quietly for a moment. “This Deacon Wilbur, I have heard the name before. He is Gloria’s pastor, yes?”
“You told me you didn’t know Gloria Hall.”
“No, Mr. Glenwood, I said I meet many people. Which I do.” Dark eyes glittered yellow and alien in the porch light. “Look at it from my side, please. A stranger comes in and asks many questions. Many sensitive questions. Questions that, if answered to the wrong person, could hurt others who are helpless. You understand me?”
Marcus leaned forward. “Is there a direct tie-in between Factory 101 and New Horizons?”
“Rumors, Mr. Glenwood. Nothing more than rumors.” A pause filled by the cry of an owl. “Almost nothing. Gloria once told me she knew how to obtain proof. But if she indeed found this, I do not know.”
“Was she kidnapped?”
“This also I have tried to discover. Tried and failed. There is no information coming from Factory 101. None.”
“Who is in charge?”
Dee Gautam stopped rocking. “Ah. Yes. The most dangerous question of all.”
“Dangerous how?”
“People are trying very hard to keep this answer a mystery. I smell danger for those who search.” The smile was gone entirely. “I have a very good nose for danger, Mr. Glenwood.”
“Ashley Granger is trying to identify the owner.”
“Indeed I am speaking to Mr. Granger. He is a good man and must also take heed.” Dee Gautam rose to his feet. “You are a good man as well, Mr. Glenwood. I am here to be telling you to take great care.”
Marcus rose and followed the little man back across the veranda. “I’ve already met the New Horizons goons.”
As he descended the stairs, the light caught the top of Dee Gautam’s head, shining through his few remaining tendrils of hair and exposing the scalp beneath. For the first time Marcus noticed two long white scars running in parallel almost from ear to ear.
“Sometimes a person can focus upon the snarling dog and miss the bear farther back.” Dee Gautam fitted comfortably into the night. “Beware the bear, Mr. Glenwood. It will eat you whole.”