Clawback (7 page)

Nobby fucking Leeson.

Bad memories washed up. Nobby Leeson was an ex-Marine rockhead I’d had the extremely poor judgment to take on as a partner in a job a few years ago. He tried to double-cross me, things went south, there was a sniper duel…well, the details don’t matter. Leeson was dead, and I thought I’d left his bad karma behind long ago. But now here he was, laughing at me from the grave.

At least it was just my name. No address, no other detail, no job title—I was surprised Leeson didn’t fill in something like, “Silas Cade, Hitman Accountant—Attn. FBI!” But even the name was too much, as Clara’s sleuthing had revealed.

I saved the file to my computer—I’d have to study it later, to see if Leeson the Fuckhead had recorded other useful data, like on my competitors—and ran through the remaining search results to see if there was anything else on me. Nothing, fortunately.

Sipping the coffee, wincing a bit, I tried to think of any way to eliminate Leeson’s data trail. Unfortunately once something was on the internet it was basically there forever. Like a recent college grad discovering in job interviews that he really shouldn’t have posted all those
hey-I’m-drunk!
photographs on Facebook, I was trapped by the tenacious packrat permanence of the web.

Maybe it was time to lose the phone number and switch to an anonymous email address hosted by some hacker haven in Russia or Moldova or something. Nobody really uses voicemail anymore, and
IDTheft.com
’s customer service couldn’t be any worse than Verizon’s. But then I’d have to advertise the new contact information…just thinking about the logistics, I finished the rest of the coffee without even noticing. Too daunting.

I went to get a refill.

“How’s the novel coming?” the bartender asked, pouring from a scorched glass pot.

“What?”

“Everyone in here with a computer, they’re working on a book.”

“Oh.” I handed over a five and waved off the change he halfheartedly made to return. “Actually, I was looking at naked women.”

He laughed, which meant I’d tipped too much. “At least you’re honest about it.”

“This place doesn’t have a payphone, does it?”

“Not for ten years. At least. What happened, lose your cellphone?”

“Nah, I wanted to call my drug dealer.”

This time he wasn’t sure if I was joking.

“Just kidding.” I took the coffee back to my table, sat down and found the new throwaway. I had another appointment to set up.

I switched on the new phone. While it powered up, I noticed I was still carrying the mail I’d collected from the PO box yesterday, before the call from Clara. I uncrumpled the flyers and glossies and envelopes on the gritty table.

The phone beeped ready, and I dialed.

“Hey, Walter,” I said. “How’s the fishing?”

“Who wants to know?”

“The fish?”

While we talked, I sorted the mail. USPS service notice, cancer charity solicitation, credit card offer—I guess the financial crisis is solved, if they’re trying to sign
me
up again—Gall’s catalog,
Shotgun Digest
renewal…

And a hand-lettered envelope. Addressed to Silas Cade.

“Got to go,” I said, cutting Walter off. We’d already confirmed a time. He hung up.

I never get personal mail.

Even my foster parents, still in their same old house in New Hampshire. They have the address, and they never use it. I send them a Christmas card every year, but I do it through “letter from Santa” forwarding—mail a preaddressed envelope to North Pole, Alaska, in November, and they’ll postmark it “North Pole” and send it on. It’s for gullible children, of course, fooled by their duplicitous
parents, but works great as a blind forwarding service. At least if you need to mail just one letter a year.

Which is about right for keeping in touch with the people who raised me.

I examined the envelope, found nothing suspicious and carefully tore it open from the bottom end. A plain sheet of paper, ink-jet printed.

Hey Little Brother—

Okay. Um.

I put the paper down, drank off the coffee and read it again.

A brother?

He’d added contact details: an address in Pennsylvania, an email, a phone number. I checked an online map, found Derryville in the mountains east of Pittsburgh, near Latrobe. I also found Dave Ellins himself, on a local auto-racing website and some fan blogs. Dave raced cars, just like he said, on backcountry tracks. Photos showed his vehicle, which was low and dangerous looking, all custom metal and roll-bar framing, covered in dust.

Did he really think I lived in Las Vegas? It was just a mail drop. If he knew anything more about me—anything at all—he’d be looking for angles.

I had to wonder exactly what kind of “ideas” he was talking about.

Of course, my first thought was:
oh shit.
Someone has tracked me down and is running some kind of scam, trying to lure me out. I admit I’ve made a few enemies along the way—they all deserved
what they got, naturally, but not everyone achieves satori about that sort of thing.

But the blogs hadn’t just posted pictures of Dave’s cars, they showed the man himself. I clicked on several, staring at the slightly higher resolution.

He looked just like me.

T
he Thatcher Athenaeum turned out to be a private library in a grandly maintained Beaux Arts building. Walking up from the subway, I noticed its obvious architecture from a block away. Closer, I could see a pair of ten-foot outer doors folded back, their wrought iron shiny in the drizzle. Overhead, the institution’s name was carved into an original lintel.

I’d never heard of the place.

Clara met me at the door and led me in, past the guard’s desk. Ceilings of plaster relief painted in gold soared above carved oak bookcases. High windows let in murky light, illuminating tables that looked as if they’d been taken from a sixteenth-century abbey. Three men and one woman sat apart from one another, at work, intent and quiet.

“I have a spot on the mezzanine.” Clara kept her voice low. I noted the hair pushed behind her ears, small platinum studs, the curve of neck into shoulder.

“I’m impressed.”

“Thanks.”

“How can you afford membership? I mean—”

“No, you’re right. Even if I had the thirty thousand annual fee, I probably wouldn’t have made it through the screening.”

“Old money, then.”

“
Old
old. Family connections to the Astors would help.”

“I see,” I said, not seeing. “They have a special category, then? Youthful charm and energy, something like that?”

“I’m an employee.”

“Ah.”

Now it made sense. Hardly any bloggers made enough to live on, after all. Waiters used to be struggling actors; now most are struggling online entrepreneurs.

A walkway ran around an upper level. We ascended a carved wooden stair in the corner. Clara had taken over one of the alcoves, books and papers overflowing an ancient desk and chair.

“One of the perks,” she said, gesturing at the workspace. “I shelve books for eight-fifty an hour, every Friday. But I can sit here as long as I want the other days.”

“It seems…quiet.”

“I have roommates at home. This is better.” Clara opened her laptop and waited for the screen to light up. “Here we go.”

“What?”

“I already published the story.” She turned the computer my way. “Want to see?”

“That was fast.”

“Maybe not fast enough.
StreetWire
’s had something up since eight this morning.”

“York Hydro, all that?”

“Yes. Marlett’s death—someone really did make a killing on the killing.”

“So to speak.”

She grinned. “By the time the sellers realized they’d been taken, it was too late.”

I thought about Johnny. “Who was it, then?”

“You don’t know?” Clara looked surprised. “That was going to be my next story.”

“Sorry.”

“I was counting on—wait, I get it! You were trying to get me to do your job
for
you.”

I had to laugh. “Just like you.”

The athenaeum was as still as a bomb shelter. Sound died against the massive stone walls. We could have been in the Fed’s gold vault, eighty feet underground and dug into bedrock.

“How do you stand it in here?” I asked.

Clara stood up. “Want to see where I work?”

We went through a narrow door between glassed-in shelves holding old—really old—leather-bound books. Behind it a corridor of disappointingly mundane style led deeper into the building.

“I don’t know where Kimmie is,” Clara said. “Probably out on the fire escape.”

“Kimmie?”

“She does her buying right down in Union Square, even though I’ve told her the prices are totally ponzi there. But it’s her money, right? Come on.”

Down the hall were two rooms, both with metal shelves, some carts parked higgledy-piggledy and books everywhere. No people.

“Lockerby might be out there with her,” said Clara. “They both like their blaze.”

In the rain? “Isn’t that kind of…unprofessional?”

“Days get long in the shelving room. You need to liven it up. Speaking of which—” She moved some paper and uncovered an iPhone on one shelf, docked between two speakers. A few taps and Ninja Angel suddenly blared forth, echoing in the hallway.

I had to raise my voice. “Won’t that music bother your patrons?”

“No, the soundproofing’s good. Two-foot walls.” She cut some dance moves coming out.

Library science might have more going for it than I thought.

“What the
fuck
are you doing?”

I turned, fast. Saw wild hair, a glare, a rumpled jacket—and a long wicked knife, point up, gleaming.

“Yaaa!” A combat yell, automatic. In a half second I went low and kicked sideways, snapping my heel back as it extended.

Never go for a blade with your hands.

My foot struck his forearm, not the knife itself—luck probably, but hey, I’ll take luck any day—and it went flying. The man looked astonished and jerked backward, out of range.

“Stop it!” Clara’s voice cut through. “Stop! Lockerby!”

I kept moving, away from the knifeman, trying to watch him and Clara at the same time.

“Hey.” My attacker was rawboned and knobby, frowning as he stared first at me and then the knife on the floor. “What the hell was that about?”

For a moment the hallway was still. Ninja Angel hammered some power chords.

“Yeah, Christ, Silas,” said Clara. “What the fuck?”

I straightened up. “You, uh, know each other?”

“Lockerby’s the library’s restoration specialist.”

“Oh.”

She picked up the knife, holding it carelessly, like a folded umbrella. The thing looked designed to disembowel sharks. “I think he cuts leather with this.”

“Sorry. I’m, ah, kind of on autopilot around weapons like that.”

“No problem. I guess.” He looked at me dubiously, then took the knife back from Clara. “I was working at the bench, and when that pissant boy band started up all of a sudden, I about took my thumb off.”

“What?”

“I
hate
Ninja Angel.”

We sorted out introductions. Lockerby’s handshake was firm, not the bone-crushing assault I’d expected. I apologized, he apologized.

“Hang on,” he said, and went into the shelving room. The music stopped midchord, and a moment later something rawer and less intelligible came on, even louder. Bass thumped through the door.

“Oh, that’s
much
better,” said Clara. “Swedish death metal?”

“At least he’s old enough to tie his own shoes.”

Lockerby had his own room—a well-lit space, with a long worktable and racks of projects in various states of completion. I was surprised how many sharp, dangerous tools bookbinders apparently required: awls, knives, even small saws and a spokeshave.

“What’s going on?” A woman in her twenties looked in, carrying a heavy volume in both hands. She wore a dark blazer with brass buttons, a tie-dyed cotton blouse underneath.

“Hey, Kimmie.” And Clara went through the introductions again.

Kimmie set her book down and looked me over. “How do you know Clara?”

“Business connections.”

Lockerby filled two paper cups with water from a cooler by the door and offered them around. Kimmie and Clara shook their heads, so I took one.

“What business would that be?” he asked.

A buzzer sounded, painfully loud, saving me from answering. Kimmie sighed loudly and went out. I looked at Clara.

“Someone needs a book,” she said. “They’re waiting at the desk. Kimmie’ll find it for them in the closed stacks.”

“Ah.” I turned back to Lockerby, who dropped into a worn leather chair. He shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it onto the bench, and below the sleeve of his T-shirt I noticed a tattoo of two Chinese characters:
.