Last Chance for Glory (24 page)

The question of the day, he told himself, is Kosinski’s question: What’s in it for Marty Blake? Sure, Billy Sowell’s life, if you can call the way he lived a life, was taken away, was actually stolen. But when you look around and see the misery out there, Billy Sowell’s life and death come to no more than a quick blip on an overloaded screen. The rest is all ego.

A phrase drifted up—blood in the water. Just the faintest taste of an organism in distress. Marty Blake had never hunted anything more dangerous than facts, but he knew, as he sat in his car, that the potential ferocity of his enemy was as important to him as all the rest of it put together. He recalled seeing a film in which a young Masai warrior proved his manhood by facing a lion with a spear. The kid had been shit-scared—you could see it in his face—but he’d done it and survived. Afterwards, he stood before the photographer, proudly displaying his two trophies: the skin of the beast he’d killed and the four parallel scars running across his chest.

As he opened the door and stepped into the heat, one final thought occurred to him: Where’s the glory in giving the spear to Bell Kosinski? If you want to wear the lion’s hide, you have to hold the spear yourself.

Blake hustled across the street, wasted no time stepping into the air-conditioned showroom. He was wearing his best off-white linen jacket over a dark gray silk shirt and he didn’t want to get either sweated up.

“May I help you?”

The gray man in the gray, three-piece suit fit the room perfectly. His name was Regis Dodd and he was exactly what he appeared to be. Or, almost what he appeared to be. Dodd, Blake had come to know,
did
sell tombstones. He played no part in Eternal Memorials’ other business, but his original name—the one he’d been born with—was Mikhail Kasprazk.

“You don’t remember me?”

“Sir? Have we met?” The salesman leaned closer, peered at Blake for a moment. “Oh yes, Mister Blake. Nice to see you again. It’s been quite a long time. I don’t suppose you’ve come about a memorial?”

Blake shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint you, Regis, but my loved one is healthy at the moment. Maybe next time.”

“I see.” Regis Dodd’s expression never changed. His bloodless white skin echoed a droopy mouth and pale, watery, eyes. Dignity, Blake guessed, was what he strived for; death-warmed-over is what he actually achieved.

“Mr. Patel is in his customary place. Through the workroom. I assume he’s expecting you?”

“You assume right.”

As Blake made his way through Eternal Memorials’ storage room, he quickly prepared himself for an encounter with the great man. The great genius. There was a story about Gurpreet Patel, a story that’d been circulating for so long it’d come to assume the power of fact. According to the rumor, Patel had survived as long as he had because the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, and the Department of Justice all used him for operations that were too hot to go through their own computers. In return for his cooperation (and discretion), they protected him and gave him access to all but the most sensitive information.

Blake didn’t know if the rumors were true or false, deliberately refused to make a judgment. Reasoning there was no way he could be sure and it didn’t matter anyway. Because nobody (at least, nobody Blake
knew)
could gather information as quickly as Gurpreet Patel. He didn’t use the telephone lines available to home hackers; Patel claimed he could tap into the special networks set up by the telephone companies to serve corporate giants and government agencies. He further claimed that he had access codes for every large data base in the western world and more than a few for the Far East.

Some of it was bullshit, Blake assumed. It had to be. But Gurpreet Patel had never failed Marty Blake. Assuming he’d taken the assignment. That was the other thing about Gurpreet Patel, the part that had to be prepared for. Patel had his own ethical standards. He rejected as many jobs as he accepted, and there was no way to predict what he’d do in advance. You had to carefully kiss his ass while you carefully spelled out the details and carefully hoped for the best.

Blake took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

“Yes?” The single syllable was deep and resonant, even through the closed door.

“It’s me, Gurp. Marty Blake.”

“You must please to say the password.”

Blake reached for the doorknob, then withdrew his hand. Knowing it was going to be locked. He took another breath, wished he’d used his other option, that he’d gone to Joanna’s bounty hunter, Vinnie Cappolino. Vinnie had the connections, but lacked the patience (and the subtlety) necessary for financial investigation. Both he and his partner preferred straight lines.

“I didn’t come for a gravestone,” he shouted. “I came for the bloody mausoleum.”

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The door popped open and Blake stepped into Gurpreet Patel’s personal nightmare. The four walls of the windowless room were covered with a continuous mural depicting an anonymous city after a nuclear holocaust. The artist, at Patel’s direction, had painted it so that the room’s floor appeared to be in the center of the city, a tiny oasis from which devastation stretched in all directions. Smoke issued from countless fires; water spouted from ruptured mains; charred bodies littered the streets. On the ceiling, white storybook clouds floated above a dozen soaring vultures in an indifferent azure sky; at ground zero, a black, marble desk sat in the center of a grass-green carpet.

“Welcome, Marty Blake. A glass of plum wine?”

Gurpreet Patel was so old as to appear ageless. His long, snow-white hair framed a full, equally white beard. Above the beard, his cheeks and forehead were a deep mahogany, his eyes large and dark.

“No wine, Gurp. I’m working.”

“Espresso, perhaps. Freshly brewed, of course.”

“Fine. Espresso.” Blake watched Patel disappear through a door in the back, a door so carefully worked into the mural that it was all but invisible until it opened. Patel’s IBM R/6000, fifty grand worth of speed and memory, sat on a table against the wall. Blake hadn’t worked with a machine that powerful since coming out of college and the sight made him jealous.

“You see? It did not take so long as all that.” Patel appeared in the doorway bearing a silver tray laden with two tiny cups and saucers, an equally tiny sugar bowl, and a steaming espresso pot.

“It shouldn’t, considering the fact that you saw me coming. That your video surveillance units cover every inch of the building.”

Patel frowned. “You have spotted them?”

“Didn’t have to. I’ve been here often enough to judge your character.”

“Ha! Bloody well said, Marty Blake.” Patel filled the two cups, added sugar and a twist of lemon peel without asking. “Let’s drink to the success of your enterprise.”

Blake drank, smiled. “The success of my enterprise depends on you, Gurp.”

“I am sorry to hear that, Marty Blake. You should not put all your eggs in one box.”

Blake started to correct the Indian, noted the confident smile, thought better of it. “It’s not the information, Gurp. I could get the information myself, but it’d take me three months.”

“Ah, yes.
‘Ars longa, vita brevis,’
as they say.”

“‘Art is long, life is short,’” Blake dutifully translated. “The long and the short of it according to Horace.”

“Quite. Now, in deference to this singular truth, we must get immediately to working. If you would please to tell the story.”

Blake took his time about it, carefully detailing Billy Sowell’s life and fate, before outlining his strategy and naming his targets. Patel listened closely, frowned in all the right places, groaned when Blake described the final atrocity.

“Infamous,” he declared when Blake was through. “You know something, Marty Blake? I have never before worked on a murder. I am very much looking forward to it and I will lower my fee accordingly. For you and for Mister Sowell I will charge only ten thousand dollars.”

“Three.”

“Monstrous.” Patel’s eyes widened, flashed fire. “You are insulting me with your bloody western arrogance. In the truth, it is not a wise thing to do.”

“It’s an easy job,” Blake said, unperturbed. “I could do it in a few hours if I had your access and that IBM.”

Patel glared for a moment, then his face softened. “Well, it is not, after all, so terribly difficult. The briberies must have occurred soon after the murder. That limits the dimensions of the search. Still, if the briberies were paid with something other than money, we may have a bloody hard time finding them. I will do this job for nine thousand dollars.”

“Gurp, have I ever haggled before?”

“Yes, Marty Blake. You have haggled me every single time. Unmercifully, I might add.”

“That was just for fun.” Blake sipped at his espresso, let the bitter coffee bite his tongue. “But this time it’s different. This time there’s no rich corporation to put up the money and I haven’t worked in a year, so I’m dead broke. All the money’s coming from the lawyer and his pockets just aren’t that deep. Believe me, Gurp, I checked him out myself. Max Steinberg’s credit is worse than Saddam Hussein’s.”

“Eight thousand. And I do it as a boy scout. For the damn good deed of it.”

“It’s not a good deed if you get paid.”

“Please, Marty Blake. I am not a Judeo-Christian. Do not trouble me with your ethics.”

Blake leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his skull. “Take the three thousand, Gurp. We’ll talk about the rest of it after the search.”

“And if I find no irregularity? Will you then come to me and pay your debt?”

“You know I will. I have to, because if I don’t, you’ll freeze me out and I won’t have the pleasure of letting you bust my balls in the future.”

Patel thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “All right, okay. I will do it for only you. Three thousand will be my retainer. Now, you said to me that you haven’t worked in one year. There must be a bloody good story to explain that one, because as we both know, you are addicted to activity. I will fetch pastries and you will tell me all about it. That, Marty Blake, is the civilized way to proceed among friends who do business.”

“Thank you,” Blake said, “for sharing that with me.”

T
HE TRAIN WAS IN
motion. That was the good news. Gurp Patel was busy turning the economic lives of John McGuire, Judge of the Appellate Court, and Johan Tillson, bereaved survivor, inside out. Kosinski, as obsessive as Patel if Blake judged him right, was in the field, preparing for the second stage of the operation. All in all, it was as right as Blake could get it.

The bad news was that until Patel finished his research, there was nothing for Blake to do but sit on his hands, a clearly impossible task. What was it Patel had said about him? That he was addicted to activity? Alone in his apartment, he thought of Rebecca Webber and quickly realized that the only part of him that missed her was safely tucked into his briefs. Too bad. In some ways, he’d be happier if his memories made him miserable.

Tomorrow morning, he’d go out for a long run, pay a visit to the gym, pump iron until he was exhausted. Tomorrow night, he’d pace the floors of his apartment, wish again and again that his own fingers were tapping at Gurp Patel’s keyboards. By the end of the week, he’d be one step from insanity.

Compulsive, Blake thought, is what the shrinks call it. I have to stay busy, even if that means taking risks. The Curse of a Scheming Mind is what it
should
be called. If we can locate our prime target—the killer, the fixer, whatever you want to call him—before we approach McGuire and Tillson. … If we could actually tap his phone, see where the first call leads. …

Blake slipped out of his gym shorts, slid into his pants, pulled on a freshly laundered Izod knit. He thought, briefly, of Steinberg’s forty-five hundred dollars, the forty-five hundred he hadn’t given to Gurp Patel. That money was going to be used to buy the bugs and taps he’d need to do the job. Because the truth (which he hadn’t bothered to share with Bell Kosinski or Max Steinberg) was that he had no equipment of his own and couldn’t very well borrow Manhattan Executive’s without alerting Joanna Bardo. Of course, there’d be hell to pay when Gurp presented his bill; when he, Marty Blake, went back to Max Steinberg with his hand out.

Ten minutes later, Blake was sitting at his mother’s kitchen table, staring down at the scarred formica. He’d grown up with that blue marbeled pattern, had put any number of the chips and scars there himself.

“What’s with the scrapbook, Mom? I saw it open on the chair when I came in. It’s not like you.”

Dora Blake shrugged, busied herself with a strawberry cheesecake. “Sometimes it gets lonely. What could I say? It doesn’t happen every day, but when it does, I go back and visit the good times.” She hesitated, shrugged. “I wonder how many people can look at their lives and say, ‘This is exactly how I thought it was going to be. This is just the way I planned it.’”

“Christ, Mom, you sound like you’re eighty. Instead of fifty. It’s not your fault about Pop.”

“How do you know that?”

Blake didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he accepted a plate, scooped the strawberries off the top of his cheesecake, studied the odd look in his mother’s eye. “This isn’t what I came here to talk about,” he said, knowing she wouldn’t be diverted.

“I always thought I was gonna wait until you asked me.” She looked down at her hands. “But you won’t do it. You’re stubborn, hard-headed. And I feel bad enough to make you feel bad, too. It’s that simple.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“And smart-mouthed.” She leaned forward. “Addicted to cheap,
unearned
cynicism.”

“Damn,” Blake returned, “and I thought I was addicted to activity. I must’ve missed something. Look, Mom, before you get started. I came up to ask for a favor. I’d like Uncle Patrick to do something for me, something he won’t wanna do, and I was hoping you could get him up here. So he can look me in the eye when he turns me down.” Blake leaned back, crossed his legs, laid his fork on the plate. Just as if his heart wasn’t pounding in his chest.