The Killing of Bobbi Lomax (23 page)

Marty hoped he didn’t take too sharp a breath. ‘Do you know a Mr Hartman?’

‘Mr Hartman?’ said Ron.

‘Cliff Hartman?’ said Rod.

Cliff.

‘Have you ever met this Mr Hartman, Rod?’

‘Oh no, Clark and any other dealer would never let us meet their sources. They keep us well apart,’ said Rod.

‘In case you cut out the middle man.’

The brothers both smiled.

‘Do you know if he lives locally?’

‘I don’t think Clark ever said,’ said Rod.

‘Thank you, gentlemen. You’ve been very helpful. Could I just ask you one more question? Do you have any idea who might want to kill you?’

‘Kill us? What on earth makes you say that?’

‘The car bomb was parked outside your premises. Deliberately, we believe.’

The twins looked at one another, shook their heads. ‘No, Detective. We don’t know anyone who would want to kill us.’

‘We live our life in a good way.’

‘Sometimes that’s the problem,’ said Marty.

Marty gathered up all the documents, paid for their breakfasts and left the Rooks sitting at the table. Identically silent.

Marty was barely two steps out onto the sidewalk when he saw Al, smiling, standing next to a cruiser. A large, bald man in his forties in back.

‘Who’s he?’

‘Meet Red Faber.’

‘Red Faber?’

Al held his right thumb up. ‘Mr Fingerprint, actually Thumbprint. Same name as the old White Sox pitcher under Comiskey. Hard to forget. Parents must have been a fan, ’cos this guy sure ain’t him. Red’s dead. This one’s beat up, but alive. Come see for yourself.’

‘White Sox. Thought I knew the name from somewhere.’

‘I saw it on the investors list,’ said Al.

‘He’s an investor?’

‘Yeah, small used bills only,’ Al laughed.

‘All untraceable.’

‘You got it. He invested four K.’

Al pulled Red out of the cruiser.

‘How did you get that black eye, Red? Stood too close to a bomb, maybe?’

‘You can’t arrest someone for having a black eye.’

‘Yeah, shame.’

‘He says he was in a bar fight in Callaghan’s. You know, over the county line.’

‘I know.’

‘I called the manager. You know him? Mikey.’

‘Sure.’

‘There was no fight in there anytime in the past week or so. Unusually.’

‘Maybe he had a run-in with his old lady and just doesn’t want to admit she won. Let’s see your hand.’ Marty grabbed the guy’s right hand. Scratches visible on the knuckles. ‘You got a couple in. How many she land?’ Marty looked at the guy’s face, at the yellowing eye. ‘Not that many, huh? Why was that, surprise? Is that what happened? You jumped this Hartman character for Lomax someplace he weren’t expecting you . . .’

‘I don’t know anybody called Hartman.’

No, but the rest of it was correct, huh.

‘Shoved the paper in his face. Got him to sign. Is that all you used?’

‘Nope.’ Al took out a .45 from the back of his waistband. ‘He might have had help from his little friend. Loaded. One in the chamber.’

‘Expecting trouble, Red? Something tells me you’re going downtown. And maybe straight to jail if that violates your parole. He on parole?’

‘How did you guess? Rap sheet as long as your arm,’ said Al.

‘I told him,’ Red nodded towards Al. ‘That’s my old lady’s.’

‘Except there was no old lady anywhere around. No women’s clothes in the wardrobe. Nothing. So, the law assumes the gun’s yours. She got it registered, your old lady?’

Red didn’t answer.

‘He was halfway out the drive with the car all packed up when I got there.’

‘Someone warn you we might be coming, Red? Tell you to run? What happened, didn’t get the message in time?’

‘I dunno what you’re talking about.’

‘Model citizen, huh?’

‘Not according to his rap sheet. I don’t know where he got the four K to invest, but I doubt it was his army pension.’

‘He got army bomb experience?’ said Marty.

‘Wasn’t in any of the bomb units. But, ’Nam? Who knows what went down over there,’ said Hobbs.

‘Who told you to run? Was that Lomax?’

‘I’m not saying nothing. You can lock me up if you want.’

‘I love to make people’s wishes come true. Don’t you, Al?’ Marty nodded towards the cruiser.

‘You’re a regular fairy godmother, Mart.’ Al shoved Faber back in the car, banged on its roof and watched as it took off towards the precinct.

Al turned to Marty. ‘It might just be a weird coincidence, but Houseman’s got a bruised-up eye. At least he did the other day.’

‘Injury from the bombing?’ said Marty.

‘No, I thought so, but just thinking about it, it was starting to yellow. It had been there a couple of days at least.’

‘Well, this one is a few days fading,’ said Al.

‘Then I think the elusive Mr Hartman just moved well and truly out of the shadows.’

He had to know. Had to. And they had told him. Straight. Right between the eyes. And they had all laughed about it together. Everyone makes a mistake. Not him. Not Clark. What were the Rooks talking about? It wasn’t five large, it was $580,000. Gone. Just like that. Only quicker. And with it, part of his dreams.

He tried to focus on the call that should come later today. They would have had their time to pray, to seek guidance. He tried to tell himself that everything would be OK. That they would say yes, and that showing the Faith up for what they are, frauds, would compensate him for the loss of his LA dream and all his money. If today worked, he would make over two million bucks.

Two million.

Plenty money to repay Lomax and go start his own collector’s store wherever in the world he wanted to. But it was no good, he couldn’t stay in the store, couldn’t make small talk with the Rooks, not now. He could feel something beginning to overtake him. He had felt it before when he had become Rebecca, when he had dug deep into her soul and Elizabeth’s to write those letters. Had felt the conflict of the sister-wives. Felt their rage and now it was welling inside of him. Their rage, their hatred, mixing with his own. He could feel it sucking him in, like the booze and the vortex had sucked him into other worlds, other lives. He had to get out of there. He had to.

He’d parked in the rear car lot, so he could make a quick getaway and hopefully not bump into anyone on the street. He had just got to the car when he saw a flash of movement to his side, and someone jumped him.

Before he could even react he was being dragged into the rear entrance of the empty store next to the Rooks’. Then yanked up by the collar, and as he got to eye level with the big bald guy his head was knocked sideways by a killer right hook. He stumbled backwards and pulled the guy with him, the guy lost his footing and almost followed Clark to the floor. Clark landed heavily, but managed to shoot his leg out quickly, unbalancing his attacker, who slammed hard into the wall. Clark tried to scrabble to his feet, but he was too slow and before he was even up on his knees the guy was on his back, pressing his face down into the cement. ‘I’m broke, buddy. You picked the wrong guy. Check the wallet, there’s nothing in it.’ It was true: the wallet
was
empty, but he had a wad of cash tucked into his inside jacket pocket. Hopefully this Neanderthal wouldn’t find it.

‘He told you to pay the money back, didn’t he?’ said the thug.

Lomax.

‘It’s coming. I told him. These things take time. I’m not a magician.’

‘You don’t have any more time, Houseman. We’re sick of your excuses. He can’t pay us back until you pay him back.’

He slammed something down next to Clark.

‘Sign it!’

‘Sign what?’

Why was he asking questions? This goon would beat him to a pulp and probably enjoy it. Clark had been down in the den, at breakfast, had a drink. That was a lie, not at breakfast,
for
breakfast. He thought it must be making him irrational. The guy dug his knuckles into the back of Clark’s neck. Hard. Grinding Clark’s cheek into the ground. Shit.

‘That’s the uplift you promised him, plus a year’s interest, payable no matter what. You had your chance.’

He shoved a pen into Clark’s hand.

Clark stared at the flimsy paper, to where Arnold’s name clawed back everything he owed. And then some.

Cold steel at his temple.

He wrote the rest of the signature tiny, illegible. But its capital letters he wrote large. Large C. Large H.

Cliff Hartman. Just like all the other lines in the ledger Arnold had used. Why wasn’t he using that?

No more cold steel. Footsteps, moving away. An engine. A screech of tires as the goon pulled onto the street.

Peter Pan
was open on its spine, pages ripped out, fluttering away across the lot. He picked it up, walked slowly, painfully over to the garbage. He wished he’d shown Sanford that day, maybe after his head had been stitched up, but he’d split out the side door right when Dentist Davies arrived. He could have asked Sanford’s opinion, would have found out earlier that it was a fake, not even risked coming here. But he had just wanted to get out of there.

It must have spooked them, him asking Dougie to use the
Peter Pan
as a lien to get some of his money back.

All that glitters isn’t gold
.

They must have thought he’d rumbled them somehow. Made them hasten their plan. Grab what they could and scram.

Trash or recycling.

He opened the trash can and threw
Peter Pan
in.

He couldn’t even remember getting back from LA the previous week. Or how he’d managed to drive himself down to San Diego and get himself through the airport and on a plane back to Abraham City. The booze on the plane was free, it wasn’t a Faith airline, so it was flowing for the ninety minutes’ flying time from San Diego.

He had checked in with Ziggy. The Faith hadn’t phoned all week. Today was their deadline. And now he sat, staring out the diner window, willing the phone to ring. Willing their call to travel through the airwaves and Ziggy to appear and urge him to the phone.

‘Hey man, what happened to your eye. You look all beat up.’

It was Kenny. He plonked himself down opposite.

‘Tripped over Jack’s skateboard.’

‘You got him skating already? Radical. Go Clark. Did you order?’

‘The usual.’

‘I’m thinking of going for the full rack of ribs. Chicken. Onion rings. The works.’

Kenny always went for the works when he knew Clark was paying.

It was a shame the diner was too quiet to try putting him in a trance again.

Clark pushed an envelope of cash towards Kenny.

‘Thanks, man. Appreciate it.’ He tucked it inside his back pocket. Kenny had run a few signed first editions down to Scottsdale. Some nice signatures, personalized. They’d made a few grand. Clark looked out the window.

‘What’s up?’

‘Just waiting on a call.’

‘A watched phone never rings. Isn’t that what they say?’

‘No. That’s a kettle. A watched kettle never boils.’

‘Hey look!’

Over on the counter TV they were running an advertisement for a documentary. ‘The Hitler Diaries, that’s some crazy shit, isn’t it? All that money for something fake. People are whacko.’

‘Why?’

‘Five million bucks or something.
The Times
of London and that German paper. How the hell would Hitler have time to write a diary during the war? I don’t have time to write a diary and I’m not invading countries and killing everyone.’

‘Churchill did.’

‘Did he?’

‘And more pages than that. And, if the buyer believes it’s real, then it is.’

‘Is it?’

‘That’s what they’re paying for, belief, not reality.’

‘That guy’s going to jail.’

BANG, BANG, BANG.

Clark turned to see Ziggy banging on the window next to them.

‘Jeez, what’s with him?’

‘The phone. I gotta get it.’

‘Maybe you should get a real secretary,’ said Gloria, refilling Clark’s cup.

‘He tried: they were all out of blondes.’ Kenny laughed loud at his joke.

Gloria wagged her finger out the window, to Ziggy. He frowned. Wagged back. She smiled.

‘Hey, what about your schnitzel?’

‘Keep it under the warmer, can you?’ said Clark.

He was up now, out of the booth. Heading fast toward the door. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. I might even order some pie.’

‘Really?’ She watched him as he ran out of the door and along the path towards the phone, Ziggy following behind.

Clark grabbed up the phone from where Ziggy had left it balanced carefully on top of the box.

‘Brother Clark? It’s Alan Laidlaw.’

Alan Laidlaw. It must be good news if he was calling. If it was bad news he would have expected them to get Peter Gudsen to call. ‘Disciple Laidlaw. How are you?’

‘Good. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the documents.’

‘Please do.’

‘We have sought the Lord Prophet’s guidance through prayer. We held a vigil here at the Mission last night. The Twelve Disciples prayed in unison throughout the night. This is a most difficult situation. The Lord may judge us on our decision for all eternity.’

‘Yes, Brother. He may indeed.’

‘The Letter of Accession, Brother Clark. What’s to say there’s not another one out there somewhere?’

‘You mean the Jeremiah letter, not the Abraham letter?’

‘Yes, or even another one of these?’

‘Why would there be another one of those?’

‘We think this might be a fake.’

‘A fake? Absolutely no way that letter’s a fake. It came through Cliff Hartman, an exceptionally reputable contact I’ve used many times before, with no problems. He’s exceptionally thorough, famed for it.’

‘I don’t doubt it. But after we had sought the sanctuary of prayer, it gave us time to think clearly. Reflect. We had a round-table meeting afterward. We thought perhaps those in Reno might have worked this Letter of Accession and the accompanying letters into the hands of a reputable dealer like yourself and your colleague. Knowing that they would most likely find their way to us.’

‘No, Disciple Laidlaw. The letter and everything that accompanies it is a hundred per cent genuine. It’s been verified by two independent experts.’

‘Just like the Hitler Diaries.’

The fucking Hitler Diaries.

‘The Disciples have all been following the revelations about those. It makes us err on the side of caution.’

‘But these aren’t fake. They’re authenticated as genuine.’ Clark tried not to raise his voice.

‘For the past few months, the Hitler Diaries were authenticated as genuine, son. And now look. Who’s to say it’s not Reno feeding that newspaper reporter stories? And it’s them that have forged this document in the hope that we would buy it, and shame us, revealing to the world that we are engaged in some kind of cover-up to hide the origins of our Faith. Or disguise them.’

‘But if they’d have forged it, wouldn’t Reno have kept it themselves and been shouting from the rooftops that they were the true religion?’

‘No, not if showing us to be deceitful would be a superior game plan. Imagine, they humiliate us and then the document itself confirms them as the true religion. In doing so, they have destroyed us and elevated themselves to what they have always claimed to be . . . the Real Faith. It would be quite the master stroke.’

Wouldn’t it.

‘I would side with the experts, Disciple Laidlaw. They know their business. If they are wrong about this, what else are they wrong about?’

‘Perhaps that’s why, after what’s happened in Europe, so many libraries around the world are carrying out inventories of what documents and manuscripts they hold, compared to what ones they think they hold. We might be doing that ourselves soon.’

Clark felt a shiver down his spine.

He could already gauge the Faith’s answer, but polite ritual meant he had to ask. ‘What was the Disciples’ conclusion?’

‘We can’t proceed now, Brother Clark. We just can’t. Sorry to disappoint you. It’s just not the right time. I will leave the documents at the main desk, there’s a lockable closet there. Please just pick them up whenever it’s convenient.’

Clark had barely mumbled thank you when he heard the dial tone.

He felt short of breath, nauseous. He thought if he moved he would be sick, right there, over his own shoes. Keep it together. He picked up the phone and dialled Debra Franklin. It went straight through to voicemail. He waited for the tone and began to speak. He finished by telling her that the informant would have the documents couriered to her office this week. That they were extremely valuable and the informant would need the receptionist to sign for them. Clark would put a note in that the Faith were trying to buy these documents to cover up that Reno was really the heir to Robert Bright. But he wouldn’t write it in his own hand. He had a far better plan than that.

He wasn’t going back into the diner. He couldn’t. Couldn’t ever. He knew what he had to do. He had to destroy them, before they could use their knowledge to destroy him. The Faith thought they were all-knowing, all-powerful. They didn’t know shit. Clark would show them they knew nothing. No Lord Prophet or travellers from planet Lumina were going to save them. Not now. Not ever.

He jumped in his car and floored it.

People up ahead.

He slammed his brakes on, he could smell the rubber. He almost ate the steering wheel. ‘What the fuck?’ He looked up to see a trail of people crossing in front of him. A man led them. His hand up, guiding them across the road, and halting Clark. He stared in at him. Clark looked along the line of people, three women following the man, strange clothes and a trail of children in their wake. He looked back to the man. Robert Bright. Clark honked the horn, floored the gas, they scattered. When he looked in the rearview, there was no one there.