Marked Man (23 page)

And now the Halloween Man had pulled it, too, giving her all his attention, giving her a dollar, just tossing him a stupid Milky Way like tossing a scrap of gristle to a dog. Ricky was too angry, too full of jealousy and resentment to sense the danger in the Halloween Man’s strange sudden interest in little Chantal, the way he used her name over and over, the way he told her his name when he had never told it to Ricky, the way he held her hand in his a little too long. Ricky should have sensed the danger, but his radar was overwhelmed with the bitterness, all of it purchased with a single dollar. Or maybe, to be truthful, filled to overflowing with the acid of resentment, he did sense the danger and just didn’t care.

“F
OR SOME REASON,”
said Richard, wiping his eyes with his forearm, “it wasn’t so much fun going to the Halloween Man anymore. And then, once, when we were there together, he told me to stay put while he took Chantal inside the basement to see something. When she
came back outside, she was beaming, like she had just gotten the greatest gift in the world, and she wasn’t, she wasn’t, she wasn’t going to share. She never wanted to share.”

“What did he give her?” I said.

“A lighter. Gold, heavy. She wouldn’t even let me try it. After that, I didn’t feel like going back, so I didn’t.”

“But Chantal did?”

“She used to show me the candy he gave her and laugh at me because I wasn’t going anymore. And there was also the lighter, which she hid in her drawer and played with in the house whenever Mom wasn’t around.”

“The gold lighter the detective found.”

“That’s right.”

“What happened when she went missing?”

“I don’t know exactly what happened. But as soon as it happened, I knew it was the Halloween Man, that Teddy.”

“Did you tell anybody?”

“Not right then. How could I? I had taken her to him. I was responsible. Mom and Dad would have killed me, would have thrown me away.”

“You were nine,” said Monica. “You didn’t know.”

“But I did, didn’t I? And suddenly, with Chantal gone, things changed at home. It was no longer, ‘Keep still, Richard. Keep quiet, Chantal is dancing.’ It was, ‘Oh, Richard, our sweet Richard, stay home, Richard, stay safe.’ They kept hugging me and showering me with attention. They wouldn’t let me go out anymore, which was fine, really, because with Chantal gone, it was my home again and I was the star. Me. And you know the truth? I didn’t want her to come back.”

“Did you hate her so much?” said Monica.

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“You said you didn’t tell anyone right when she disappeared. Did you ever tell anyone?”

“The detective. He took me aside and promised not to tell Mom and Dad anything I said, and I told him.”

“Detective Hathaway.”

“That’s right. And he was good about it. He never told that it was all my fault. He said he would find the Halloween Man for me, but he never could.”

“Okay, Richard,” I said. “I think that will do.”

“That’s all?” he said.

“That’s all. Thanks.”

He looked at his sister, a desperate fear etched on his face. “Are you going to tell Mom?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” she said, still kneeling. “You were nine years old.”

“Don’t tell Mom.”

“You can’t keep living like this, you just can’t. We have to clean up this room, we have to get you out of this house.”

“I like it here.”

“You can’t stay like this. You just can’t.”

“I want to.”

“Oh, sweetheart, Richard, sweetheart. Look what he did to you. Look what he did to all of us.”

I left them there, brother and sister, agoraphobe and shadow dancer, left them in that room, in tears, in tatters. And Monica was right, he did do this to them, to all of them. Not to mention what he did to Chantal, or was doing. Because I was thinking that maybe Monica had been right after all. Maybe when that bastard left with all the stolen money, he left with Chantal, too. Just taken her, taken her to his new life, to do with her as he would, with no concern and no consequences. At least not yet, not until now.

Because I was going to find him. I was going to track him down and find him. And find Chantal, too. As sure as that tattoo was on my chest, I was going to find him and make him pay. And I knew just where to start.

But first it was time to deliver a message.

I picked the most
unlikely place possible. Dirty Frank’s. The name says it all. And you should see the bathrooms. Yeesh.

Squatting on the corner of Thirteenth and Pine, Dirty Frank’s was what was officially known as a dive. An ancient refuge for bearded bikers and frail, chain-smoking art students, it had low ceilings, ratty booths, a steady surly clientele, and a brilliant jukebox that still spun classic 45s. The place was always thick with smoke and the alluring scent of poor hygiene and spilt beer.

I was late on purpose, to let the ambience sink into his pale, soft skin. I found him sitting between two drunken bikers at the bar, a glass of wine in front of him.

“I didn’t know they served red wine in this joint,” I said.

Lavender Hill, in violet velvet, sniffed with disgust. “They don’t,” he said. “This is ox piss mixed with lamb’s blood, flavored with iodine.”

“The house specialty,” I said.

“Charming place you picked.”

“Only the best for you, Lav. I thought this was a nice anonymous place for conducting our underhanded business.”

“Anonymous maybe for you, Victor, in that suit—burlap, is it?—but I don’t quite fit here, or haven’t you noticed. If you had clued me in to the type of establishment you were directing me to, I would have worn my black leather catsuit.”

“I hate to admit it, but I’m sorry I missed that.”

“Oh, you would have been charmed, I’m sure. Meanwhile I’m drinking this awful concoction, the smoke is making my eyes tear,
which is hell on the mascara, and the Neanderthals on either side of me are preparing to get into a puking contest.”

One of the bikers, the man behind Lav’s back, lifted his head up off his arms at the comment. “What’d you say?”

“I wasn’t addressing my comment to you, sir,” said Lavender Hill. “Be a dear and crawl back into your beer. One thing this establishment has going for it, Victor, is the very real possibility of a barroom brawl. Nothing gets the blood stirring like a good barroom brawl.”

“I’m not a barroom-brawl kind of guy.”

“I figured that out.”

“But I wouldn’t take you for a brawler either.”

“You wouldn’t take me at all, trust me. Maybe we should find ourselves someplace more private to talk? Ah, there’s an empty booth.” He slid off his barstool. “Care to order us a round of beers? The swill they call wine, I’m afraid, is too vile for imbibition.”

I watched him mince his way to a booth with a filthy table and torn seats. The bartender came over and watched along with me. It was quite a show. When he reached the booth, Lav looked down, his head shaking with sorrow. He took out a handkerchief and dropped it onto the seat before finally easing himself down upon it.

“A friend of yours?” said the bartender, a nice-looking woman in a black shirt.

“A business acquaintance.”

She eyed the still-full glass. “He didn’t like the wine.”

“Not especially.”

“I can’t imagine why. It’s fresh out of the box.”

“His tastes are a bit too refined for his own good.”

“Maybe yes,” she said, “but he sure smells nice.”

“A pitcher of Yuengling and two glasses,” I said as I slipped a ten onto the bar.

Lavender was sitting at the booth, trying to find a spot upon the table clean enough for him to rest his elbows, trying and failing. He looked up at me, exasperation writ clear on his face, and then dropped his little hands into his lap. I sat across from him and leaned forward over the table.

“I understand you’ve been in touch with my client.”

“There has been communication. I don’t know how he got my number”—wink—“but he did, and as of late we have been in frequent contact. Has he spoken to you about our discussions?”

“No.”

“Then how did you learn of it?”

“Joey Pride.”

“Ah, yes, the recalcitrant Mr. Pride. It was quite difficult to find him after what happened to his friend.”

“How did you track him down?”

“I have my ways.”

“Did you talk with him in person or on the phone?”

“He was not willing to meet me face-to-face after the unfortunate death of his friend.”

“It wasn’t unfortunate,” I said. “It was a murder.”

“Are the authorities certain of that?”

“He was shot in the head.”

“Ah, quite gruesome. Not a suicide, perhaps?”

“Shot in the head twice. After being shot in the knee. And there was no gun at the scene.”

“Oh, I see. Sloppy technique, that, but the training they give out today is simply appalling. So I guess murder indeed is the likely cause of death. Well, that is truly regrettable, though perhaps not as regrettable as this establishment.”

“Joey told me he’s not happy with the deal Charlie is proposing. He doesn’t want a fifth, he wants half.”

“How unsurprising. But I fear he might be looking for half of nothing. Your client’s initial enthusiasm for my offering has seemed to diminish.”

“He’s wavering?”

“Yes, unfortunately he is. This could be so clean, so beneficial to all involved, but the pathetic sap keeps on babbling about his mother.”

“He’s quite attached.”

“An unfortunate condition. Are you close to your mother, Victor?”

“Not really.”

“That means you are still too close for comfort. Come back to me when you resent her with a murderous passion that still boils your
blood decades after they buried her bones in the foul, swampy earth, and then we can talk. Oh, my, we have an uninvited visitor.”

“Where?” My head swiveled. All I saw was the bartender coming our way with a tray and our pitcher. “No, she’s just bringing the beer I ordered.”

“Not her. On the table.”

There it was, darting for my elbow. I pulled back quickly as a cockroach, fat and brown and quick, sprinted to the edge of the table, spun in a circle, and then stopped, its antennae waving slightly in the air. It started again, sprinting back the way it had come, when a pitcher of beer fell out of the sky and squashed the arthropod flat as toast. Two foamy drops of beer flew out of the pitcher and flopped onto the table.

“Here’s your Yuengling,” said the bartender. Thump, thump. Two glasses appeared. “You want another pitcher, just give me a holler.”

Lavender Hill stared at me with an amused glint in his eye. The brown in his irises pretty well matched the brown thing that had been scurrying around our table just an instant before. Lav laughed as he grabbed the pitcher by the handle and poured us each a glassful. As he poured, I could still see, through the beer, the lifeless blob adhering to the glass bottom.

“Sometimes you’re the pitcher,” said Lav, “and sometimes you’re the bug. I’d like you to talk to your client for me. Convince him that the deal is in his best interests.”

“Convince him to commit a crime, you mean. No thank you.” I took a long draft of beer. Funny, it tasted great, cool and crisp. Maybe they should squash a roach at the bottom of every pitcher of beer, sort of like the worm in the tequila.

“I have an idea,” said Lav with a disingenuous ingeniousness in his voice, as if he had just come up with the idea. “You could talk to the mother. I understand you’ve been in touch. You could advise her as to what you believe to be the most profitable, and safest, course of action for her son. You wouldn’t be advising Charlie to commit a crime, but you would be doing something that could quite possibly save his life.”

“If you want to lobby Charlie’s mother, be my guest, but it won’t do any good. She wants her boy to come home, that’s what this is really all about. And trust me, Lav, you don’t want to get in her way.”

“Oh.” A little smile played out on his pouty lips. “I think I can handle her.”

“Bring an army with you when you try, because you’ll need it.” I finished off my beer, slammed the glass back on the table, lowered my voice. “Who are you working for?”

“One of the things I get paid for is discretion, something you should learn.”

“Oh, I can be discreet when I want to, but things keep puzzling me. There were two paintings stolen from the Randolph Trust, the Rembrandt and a Monet. You’ve only asked about the Rembrandt. Why?”

“It was only the Rembrandt that was mentioned in the news.”

“Ah, but a smart guy like you, Lav, one who, as you’ve repeatedly told me, does his homework, would know enough to at least ask about both.”

“My collector is not interested in the other work.”

“I find that hard to believe. If he is as you described, then nothing would delight him more than scoring two masterworks in one illicit deal.”

“Who can plumb the fathomless depths of the obscenely rich? Fitzgerald was right, they are different from you and me.”

“Sure they are, they pay less taxes. But it was a little queer, your not asking about the second painting. It was as if your collector already knew that Charlie only had access to the one. How would he know that?”

“What he knows doesn’t concern me.”

“And how did you know to contact Ralph and Joey when it seemed your offer to me had gone nowhere? Why those two?”

“Old friends of Charlie’s.”

“But they were more than that, weren’t they? They had a claim on the painting, too, and you knew it. And somehow you also knew about my father.”

“What is your point?”

“I think you’re working for someone who was involved in what went down thirty years ago. I think you’re working for someone who
doesn’t give a damn about the painting but is more interested in buying silence. And maybe it’s not enough to pay off Charlie. Maybe you’re required to silence the others. Like Ralph? And Joey, if you could only deal with him in person and not on the phone? Buy the witnesses or kill them off, either/or, just so that everything stays quiet.”

Lav clapped his hands sarcastically. “Aren’t you the clever boy! It is a rather cute theory, except that it is completely and slanderously wrong. If I had killed Ralph, it would have been quickly ruled a suicide, mark my words on that. And as for the painting’s not being of prime importance, false false false. All I care about, I assure you, is getting hold of that Rembrandt. That’s how I get paid, and I will get paid. Finally, as for silence being my client’s main goal here, I can’t tell what is in the recesses of my client’s mind, but I must ask why? I’m no lawyer, but I know enough to know that the statute of limitations has run on the robbery. Why would it be worth a couple of lives for the story to go away?”

I took a photograph out of my suit jacket, tossed it toward him. He picked it up, squinted at it, handed it back. “I never cared for children,” he said.

“Her name is Chantal Adair. The picture’s from thirty years ago. She went missing the same time as the Rembrandt. Never heard from since.”

He looked again at the photograph, bit his lip as he tried to figure it out.

“That’s what your client wants to keep quiet,” I said.

“Is she dead?”

“Maybe, or maybe just kept illicitly, like a stolen painting, kept in a locked room, looked at sparingly. Who knows?”

“But you’re going to find out, is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“Until the money is good enough for you to turn your back.”

“There’s not enough.”

“There’s always enough, Victor, you should know that by now.”

“I don’t think so,” I said as I loosened my tie and started unbuttoning my shirt.

Lavender Hill’s eyes darted around to check out the scene in the bar before he leaned forward. He watched as each button slipped out of its slit. When I showed him the tattoo, his eyes widened, he read the name, and then a huge smile cracked his hardened face.

“My, aren’t we full of surprises!”

“Why don’t we make a deal, Lav, you and I?”

“Oh, yes, let’s.” He rubbed his hands hungrily. “I’ve been wondering when we would start our delicate negotiations. We are of a like mind, I believe. I sensed that from the start. So, Victor, what are your terms?”

“I will mention your offer to Mrs. Kalakos, which is as far as I can go down that street, but she’s a smart enough cracker to get my drift and independent enough that she would make her own decision in any event.”

“Fabulous. You will also have to escort Charles and the painting to me if an agreement is finally reached.”

“I can only take him and the painting to the police.”

“I don’t trust him. For some reason I trust you. If a deal is reached, you will ensure that the painting and I get together like lost lovers. And, of course, by doing so, you’ll also protect your client from my murderous intentions.”

I thought on that a bit. Whatever Charlie decided to do with the painting, I realized, I would have to be part of it. He was just as likely to get himself killed as to get himself a big payday. I had promised Mrs. Kalakos I would deliver him home alive, and I couldn’t renege on that, partly because she terrified me and partly because there was a family obligation.

“Okay,” I said. “If that’s what he decides, I will help effectuate the transfer, but only for the purposes of protecting Charlie.”

“Splendid. And in return?”

“You will go to your client immediately and give him a message for me.”

“And what would that be, Victor?”

“You tell him I’m coming.”

Lavender Hill tilted his head for a moment and then let out a huge, acrid laugh. There was a warning in the laugh, but a real delight, too,
and it was loud enough to draw attention, which he never seemed to mind. After his laughter had subsided, the smile remained, even as he shook his head at me as if I were a naughty boy and he was amused at my naughtiness.

“I was completely wrong about you,” said Lavender Hill. “You are a barroom brawler after all.”