The Eighth Day (6 page)

A tiny sneeze burst from the realtor, a little chime of noise.
Chw!

“Bless you.”

She smiled in a half-embarrassed way and turned to leave. But when he didn’t follow her, she hesitated in the doorway. “You like this room, don’t you?”

“Actually,” he said, “I was wondering about the computer.” He made a brief inclusive gesture. “What happens to it when the house is sold?”

“Oh, it will be auctioned off at an estate sale,” she told him, fishing a Kleenex out of her purse and dabbing at her nose. “I think Laws’ is going to handle it.”

“And the filing cabinets?” Danny asked, idly opening a drawer and glancing inside.

“As I said—”

Legal-size. Alphabetized. Neat little labels.

“ ‘Everything must go!’ ” she exclaimed in a cheery voice.

“Right.”

She turned on her heel, and he had to follow her.

They toured the upstairs bedrooms and took a peek at the attic, which was virtually empty. Then they returned to the ground floor and went outside. As Adele relocked the doors, she asked, “What do you think?”

Danny smiled his approval. “It’s really nice, but . . . what about the basement?” Might as well be thorough.

The real-estate agent gave him a bright smile. “If you’d like,” she said, and led him around to the back. Kneeling to work the combination lock on the basement doors, she looked up in sudden concern. “You’re not superstitious, I hope.”

Danny gave her a puzzled look and shook his head.

“Mr. Terio . . . passed away . . . in the basement,” she explained.

“Really!”

“It was in the newspapers,” she confided. “Suicide.”

Danny winced.

“Some people are nervous about that kind of thing,” she told him. Then the lock came open, and Danny stooped to help her with the doors, which opened with a shriek of rusted metal. The realtor took the lead, descending the steps with exaggerated care, then snapped on an overhead light that flickered weakly. “I should really change that bulb,” she muttered. And she was right. The basement was gloomy and colorless. “Anyway, this is it. You can see it’s a nice
space
! Lots of room for shelves—or you could finish it and put in a pool table. Are you married?”

Danny shook his head. “Not yet,” he mumbled, and took a few steps into the long rectangular room. Slowly his eyes adjusted to the artificial twilight, and he found himself staring at the ruined construction in which the previous owner had ended his days.

“The workbench is a good one,” Adele gushed, hoping to distract his gaze. “Solid as a rock and—I haven’t asked, but I’m sure it conveys.”

Danny nodded without really listening. He wanted to examine the construction (or what was left of it), but something held him back. An arc of adrenaline sparked through his chest, and suddenly the room seemed terribly stuffy. For a moment, it was almost as if he couldn’t breathe.

Then the real-estate agent turned on her heel and began to mount the steps to the outside. “Well, that’s about it,” she chirped.

Danny was relieved to follow her out to where the Mercedes was parked. On the way, they passed an open trash container, and he saw that it was half-full.

“Oh, lord!” Adele exclaimed. “Do you think the service will pick it up if I call them?”

“Probably.” He flipped the lid closed and pulled it along behind him. The container had wheels and a handle, but dragging it over the gravel and out to the curb was tough going.

Returning to the real-estate office, Adele used her cell phone to call a taxi. Then she gave him a sheaf of information about the house, with her card stapled to the outside folder. Finally, she offered Danny her hand and a bright smile. “Think it over,” she told him, “and let me know if you have any questions.”

It took him nearly an hour to get back to the apartment, but when he arrived he found a UPS Next Day Air package sitting outside his door. It was the book that he’d ordered from Alibris, and he carried it inside with him. Tossing the package onto the desk, he found a fax waiting for him on the floor, where the machine had ejected it.

It was from the information broker in Daytona. The first page was an invoice for “Business services: $425.15.” The fifteen cents made him wonder, but the second page had what he was looking for: a list of long-distance calls that Terio had placed in the last month of his life. The list included the time, date, and duration of each call, along with the subscriber’s name.

It was a short list, though Danny saw that there had been a flurry of contacts the day before Terio died—and that all the calls went to one of three places: Oslo, Istanbul, or Palo Alto.

This unlikely juxtaposition gave him pause. Palo Alto and Istanbul were like Helen Keller and Sly Stallone. Throw Oslo into the mix, and you added . . . Uncle Scrooge. What could they possibly have in common?

He looked at the names. In Istanbul, the subscribers were identified as Remy Barzan and the Agence France Presse. The Palo Alto calls went to someone named Jason Patel. And the calls to Oslo were to a number belonging to Ole Gunnar Rolvaag at the Oslo Institute. None of the names meant anything to Danny, but Turkey had come up before—and recently. He looked out the window, trying to remember. And, after a moment, he did. It was the secretary at George Mason. She told him that Terio had been on sabbatical until a couple of months ago. And that he had spent the time “in Ankara or some such place.” And Rome.

So the calls had something to do with his studies,
Danny decided. That much seemed obvious, because Palo Alto meant Stanford University and Istanbul—well, Istanbul was probably where Terio had been doing his research. The stuff about Islamic mysticism and the Dark Writing (or whatever the hell it was).

Then, again: the Agence France Presse was a news agency, and if Terio was spreading lies about Belzer’s client, the AFP was certainly capable of disseminating them. So maybe that was a lead, after all.

As for Oslo . . .

It occurred to him that maybe he ought to call one or more of the numbers and see what he could find out. But no. Most of the time, Danny knew, you only got one kick at the dog. Better to wait and see what he could learn. And in the meantime, he could think about a pretext for calling.

Besides,
he thought,
Belzer might want to weigh in on that.
In fact, he ought to call Belzer. Report in. Tell him what he’d found out.

But not yet. The first thing he should do is call the estate agent, a guy named Howie Culpepper at Laws’ Auctions. His phone number was in the brochure that Adele had given him, and he answered on the first ring.

“Culpeppah!” The auctioneer had a good-old-boy accent and a stuttery laugh. When Danny asked him if he could buy the computer and the filing cabinets from the Terio estate, the older man fired off a laugh that morphed into a long curve of regret. “Sorry, pod’nah—wish I
could
. But I cain’t! I just
cain’t
! No way I can break up a lot before the liquidation date.”

“You’re sure?”

“Damn sure! ‘Gainst
all
the rules.”

“ ’Cause I really need a computer and some filing cabinets,” Danny told him. “And I thought—you know,
used
, they’d be cheaper than buying them at Staples.”

“Yeah, well—you’d probably get quite a deal, but . . . you’re just gonna have to wait.”

“Till when? When’s the auction?”

Culpepper mumbled into the receiver, and Danny could hear him turning the pages in a ledger of some kind. Finally, he said, “Here we go . . . October first. High noon—out in Manassas! You want, I can send you a list of what we’ll have—and a map to the site. That he’p you out?”

Danny said that it did and gave the man his address. Then he hung up and glanced at his watch. It was almost twelve-thirty—which meant that it was nine-thirty in San Francisco. A good time to call, but . . . he was scheduled to work. In fact, he was supposed to be at the gallery from one to five, and the last thing he wanted to be was late. Even if it was only ten minutes, the guy who ran the place—a neurotic Brit named Ian—would sink into a passive-aggressive pout that could last all afternoon. Not that he’d say anything. He’d just simmer with unhappiness until the atmosphere turned toxic.

Still, there was time, if he was quick.

Taking Belzer’s business card from his wallet, he dialed the telephone number that was the card’s only content. Then he listened as a phone began to ring. When the lawyer answered, the clarity was astounding. It wasn’t as if he was in the next room; it was as if he was in Danny’s head.

“Ciao.”

“Hi, it’s . . . Dan Cray.”

“Ah.
Dan.
Goooood.”

“I thought I’d check in. Got a couple of things to report.”

“Already?” Belzer said approvingly. “You
are
quick.”

Danny told him about the list of toll calls he’d obtained from “a source in Florida. Terio made a few phone calls just before he, uhhh, locked himself up in the basement. You want me to follow up?”

“How do you mean?”

“These people he called—I could try to interview them.”

“Noooo,” Belzer replied. “I don’t think you need to do that, Dan. If you’ll fax me the list, I’ll take it from here.” The lawyer gave him a number with a San Francisco area code.

“I’ll send it as soon as we finish talking.”

“Perfect,” Belzer said.

“So I went out to his house,” Danny told him.

“Whose?”

“Terio’s. It’s a farmhouse.”

“I see.”

“There’s a computer—which could be interesting—and some filing cabinets.”

“Is there anything in them?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. They looked like they were full. I didn’t get a chance to read anything, but if you’re interested, it’s all going to be auctioned off October first.”

“That’s months from now!” the lawyer complained.

“I know.”

“Well, can’t we make some sort of . . . preemptive bid?”

“I don’t think so,” Danny replied. “I talked to the auctioneer, and—”

Belzer muttered something Danny didn’t understand. Finally, he asked, “Is that it, then?”

“For now? Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” Danny told him.

“
Bene
—so far, so good. Just keep me informed, and I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it. Ciao!” And with that, the lawyer hung up.

Danny put on his black chinos and the chartreuse Tommy Bahama shirt that Caleigh had given him for Christmas. Standing before the mirror in the bath, he inserted the gold rings through the top of his left ear. Then he slammed some gel into his hair, stirred it up with his fingers, and hit the stairs.

To save time, he drove the Bomber to the gallery—even though Ian didn’t like him to park it in the Wexler’s lot.
It’s the size of a goddamned aircraft carrier, Danny; it takes up two spaces. And it looks like hell.
Which was true. The paint job had begun its life as a metallic bronze, but over the years the color had faded to a matte brown. The plastic dashboard was cracked, the front seats were sprung, and the rearview mirror was held in place by globs of stickum dispensed by Caleigh’s glue gun. The car got twelve miles to the gallon (on the highway) and required two quarts of oil a week.

It was, in a word, totally incorrect—environmentally, aesthetically, and automotively. Even so, Danny liked it. A gift from his grandfather (who’d nursed it into its senior years only to be told by Danny’s grandmother that she would no longer ride in it), the car came without any monthly payments. And it had
that sound
. Turn on the key, and it roared—really
roared
—to life.

Of course, it was about as easy to park as a tractor-trailer, but if he could find a space, he’d gotten pretty good at it. He seemed to have an intuitive grasp of volume and dimension, so that he could whip into tight parking spaces with no obvious effort—sometimes turning Caleigh’s knees to water.

Swinging into the little lot behind the gallery, Danny left the Bomber next to Ian’s Z-3 Roadster. The effect was similar to parking a double-wide on Rodeo Drive—and Danny had to admit it gave him some pleasure.

Inside, he found Ian standing next to a fifty-ish woman, his chin propped on the back of his fist, the fist supported by an elbow resting on his other hand. The two of them were gazing at a busy little watercolor of a duck pond streaked with rain. Finally, Ian threw up his hands and muttered something about “circular composition.”

Time did not fly.

Danny spent about half an hour in the showroom helping a woman in a white linen suit find a painting that would “pick up” the vermilion in a swatch of upholstery material that she had with her. Ian couldn’t believe it, rolling his eyes as the woman held up the fabric to one artwork after another, including a Rauschenberg lithograph that went for five figures. After that, he spent the remainder of the afternoon crating up recent sales, filling out shipping forms—and feeling conflicted. Here he was, making nine bucks an hour, when he could be making ten times as much sleuthing for Belzer. But he knew better than to quit his “day job.” The PI business was unpredictable, and with him working solo like this, his lone client could put an end to the investigation whenever he pleased. And besides, Danny told himself, he didn’t want to stiff Ian, even if Ian wasn’t his favorite person (or even, for that matter, his favorite gallery owner).

At five o’clock, Danny helped Ian lock up and joined the commuting masses on a very slow drive out to Fairfax County. It took him an hour and forty-two minutes, but he eventually arrived at Chris Terio’s farmhouse. There, he got out of the car and, feeling like a criminal, went to retrieve the garbage bags from their container. Briefly it occurred to him that there might be a way into the house and, once inside, he could take a long, slow look at the late professor’s files. But no. It was one thing to pick up the guy’s garbage and quite another to go into the man’s house and paw through his files. As long as the bags were out by the curb, anyone who wanted them could take them. They were public property.

So it wasn’t like he was breaking-and-entering. On the contrary, though Danny himself had never done it before, Dumpster diving wasn’t that unusual. Every investigative firm had someone in its Rolodex who did the work.