“You’re still handsome,” she said. “I like mature men.”
The room was dusty — very much so. The mattress and sofa chair had been infested by mice, but the table lamp still worked and everything else was more or less unaffected by the passage of time.
Bill Williams had a very austere lifestyle. There was a small table that stood in for a desk, the stuffed chair, the bed, an empty bookcase except for a milk-colored plastic pitcher and cup, and a trunk placed at the foot of the headless bed.
“William would sit at that desk writing all night long,” Fawn said. “Back then we had a ramp set up so I could come down. He always stopped working when I came. We talked for hours sometimes.”
“Where was he from?”
“He never said. I asked him and sometimes I used to try and trick him into telling me. But he’d always say that he had no history before he came here. It seemed like some kind of joke.”
“Or a man who was hiding from something.”
“I used to think that,” Fawn agreed. “He was very secretive, but then he was generous, too.”
“You mind if I crack open the trunk?”
She shook her head. I got the feeling she was just happy for the company. I was, too.
The lock on the trunk was easier than the door but at first glance it hardly seemed worth the bother. One brown shoe, a wife-beater undershirt, and a frumpy old pair of green gardener’s pants was all the treasure it held.
I pulled up the desk chair and sighed.
“It was worth a try,” I said.
“William used to take me down to a café not far from here sometimes,” Fawn said. “He’d tell me that I could do amazing things if I put my mind to it. I’d have been happy if you found some clue that led to him.”
She reached over and plucked out the solitary shoe. Shaking it, a metal locket fell out.
It was at least a hundred years old, made from bronze and silver. The girl tried to pry it open but it didn’t want to come.
“Let me try,” I said.
It didn’t work for me, either.
“Corroded,” I said sagely. “There’s a Swiss locksmith in my neighborhood. Want me to take it there?”
“Does that mean you’ll bring it back?”
“Yes.”
“And can we go to that café and have coffee?”
50
Even with dropping the locket off at my neighborhood locksmith I still made it to the Harvell Club by two p.m.
“Good afternoon, Mr. McGill,” the young Korean receptionist said.
She was wearing white. All the employees of the club dressed in white. The walls on each floor were a different hue. The entrance, for instance, was all red, fire-engine bright, and loud. The fourth-floor library, where they served cognac, was sky blue from the ceiling to the floor. You had to look out of the window and down on the street if you wanted variety, either that or bring in a color wheel under your coat.
“Hi, Jeanie,” I said. “I have a guest coming in later on. He’ll be asking for a Beat Murdoch, that’s me.”
Jeanie had a long face that managed to exude beauty without being pretty; the kind of face that told you to put up or shut up. She smiled briefly and nodded. Members paid a lot of money to be idiosyncratic. I was who I said I was, and that was that.
There was a phone booth on the library floor. I used it to call Aura’s cell.
“Hello?”
“Hey.”
“What phone is this?” she asked. “It came up all sevens.”
“Harvell Club.”
“Oh.”
“Did you get the phone turned on in that apartment?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t use your name, right?”
“As far as they know Jasper Real Estate wants that line.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes,” she said, barely perturbed. “Do you want the number?”
“Can we get together for dinner tomorrow?” I asked, in some way hoping for another day.
“Maybe we should let things cool down for a while.”
I let those words settle for a moment and then said, “Let me have the number.”
I should have been happy that Aura was jealous of Chrystal. After all, that meant she wanted something, that she hadn’t stopped feeling for me. But that was weak consolation. This being the case, it was hard for me to ask the next question.
“Are you at home?”
“Yes.”
“May I, um, speak to Chrystal?”
There came a few seconds of muffled silence and then, “Hello? Mr. McGill?”
“Do you trust your husband?”
“I want to.”
“I don’t see how what happened to your sister happened without his involvement. Shawna sent your brother to try and get money out of him, I’m pretty sure of that.”
“Where’s Tally? I’ve tried his cell phone but it just goes to voicemail.”
“He’s sick, jaundice. They got him in a hospital in the Bronx.”
“Is he going to be all right?”
“I really don’t know. I’ll be happy to take you to him, but first I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“I’m going to call you this evening...”
The next call rang once before it was answered.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Tyler.”
“Mr. McGill.”
“Chrystal has agreed to talk to you.”
“Where is she?”
“It’s not that easy. You got two dead wives and her sister was murdered. She’s going to call you sometime this evening.”
“When?”
“When she calls.” I liked giving powerful men a hard time. But it also made sense to keep him off balance. If he was the bad man I suspected, he might make a mistake.
“Why should I trust you, Mr. McGill?”
“What does trust have to do with it? All you got to do is sit by your phone from six to midnight and wait for a call.”
I hung up on him. That felt good.
After that I went to a little alcove that allowed me a view of pretty much the whole library floor, including the elevator entrance, from a half-hidden vantage point behind a corner and a potted fern.
Usually I like lying in wait. That’s what detectives do, they sit and watch and wait. If you spend enough time in any one spot you begin to notice patterns. After mapping out the geometrical design of the activity of any room or street you start to see where the model breaks down. It is at this point that your job begins.
But that afternoon I was nervous, antsy. Not one connection in my life felt easy. My children and wife, Gordo and Aura, even my client didn’t fit in her proper place. There was a killer on the loose and I didn’t know what he looked like, nor was I certain about his relationship to the crime. Rather than setting a trap, I felt as if I were in hiding, afraid of some monstrous consequence to my helplessness and stupidity.
Such were my thoughts when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, the slender and yet elegant profile of my son.
Twill was wearing dark slacks and a light-green T-shirt. His shoes were also dark — fabric, not leather. He hadn’t taken the elevator. He’d probably charmed Jeanie into showing him the stairs. This maneuver would allow him to slip into the room and look around in much the same way that I might have.
I smiled because Twill was good, very good; but I was still better.
I watched him move around the periphery trying to suss out who might be the mysterious Beat Murdoch.
After moving forward with no real plan, Twill went to one of the small round pine tables in the center of the room and sat. From there he slowly and meticulously scanned the entire room. Toward the end of this intense study he came across my smiling face.
“Pops?” he mouthed.
I got up and sauntered over to his post.