The Wrath of Angels (18 page)

Epstein seemed distracted, almost as though he were in some discomfort.

‘Are you okay?’

Epstein waved a hand in dismissal. ‘An unfortunate incident on my way here, nothing more. I was paying a visit to the Stanton Street Shul, and a man not much younger than I called me a “mockey bastard” as I passed him. It’s been many years since I heard that term used. It troubled me: the age of the man who said it, the obsolescence of the insult. It was like stepping back to another time.’

He recovered himself, stretching as though the memory of the insult was a physical thing that he could force from his body.

‘Still, ignorance has no sell-by date. It’s been a while, Mr Parker. It seems that you’ve been busy since last we met. I continue to follow your entertaining career with much interest.’

I had a suspicion that whatever Epstein knew about me, he hadn’t gleaned from the newspapers. Epstein had his own sources, including the senior FBI agent named Ross at the New York field office, a man whose responsibilities included maintaining a file with my name on it, a file that had come into existence following the deaths of my wife and child. A lesser man might have felt paranoid; I just tried to make myself feel wanted instead.

‘I wish that was reassuring to know,’ I said.

‘Oh, I’ve tried to help you here and there, you know that.’

‘Your help has nearly got me killed.’

‘But think of the life-changing experiences that you’ve had as a result.’

‘I’m still trying to avoid the most life-changing one of all: dying.’

‘And making a success of it, I see. Here you are, alive and well. I await the reason why with much curiosity, but first, let us eat. Liat has prepared food for us, I believe.’

And although she could not have heard him, and his back was to her so that she could not read his lips, the woman called Liat emerged from the kitchen at that very moment carrying a tray covered with stuffed cabbage and derma, a selection of sweet and hot peppers, three kinds of knishes, and two bowls of salads. She moved another table close to ours so that we would have space to eat.

‘No fish,’ said Epstein. He tapped a finger to the side of his head. ‘I remember these things.’

‘My friends think I’m phobic,’ I said.

‘We all have our peculiarities. I knew a woman once who would faint if someone sliced a tomato in front of her. I have never been able to discover if there is a medical term for it. The closest I’ve come is “lachanophobia”, which appears to be an irrational fear of vegetables.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘I must confess that, on occasion, I have used it as a way to avoid eating broccoli.’

Liat returned with a bottle of Goose Bay Sauvignon Blanc, poured each of us a glass, then a third for herself. She took the glass with her and sat on the counter, her legs crossed before her. She placed on her lap a book, a copy of Norman Maclean’s
Young Men and Fire
. She did not eat. Neither did she read, although she opened the book before her. She was watching my lips, and I wondered how large a part she was playing in this particular game of Epstein’s.

I tried the wine. It tasted good.

‘Kosher?’ I asked. I couldn’t quite keep the surprise from my voice.

‘You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise as it’s remarkably palatable, but yes: it’s from New Zealand.’

So we ate, and talked of families, and the troubles of the world, and steered scrupulously clear of darker matters until Liat came to clear the table, and coffee was brought with a separate jug of milk for me, and always I was conscious of how she kept her eyes on my lips, all pretense of not watching me now set aside. I noticed that Epstein had turned slightly so that she would be able more easily to see his lips as well as mine.

‘So,’ said Epstein, ‘why are you here?’

‘Brightwell,’ I said.

‘Brightwell is . . . gone,’ Epstein replied, leaving the ambiguity to hang between us; not dead, but ‘gone’. Epstein knew better than anyone the nature of Brightwell.

‘For now?’ I said.

‘Yes. We might have achieved a more permanent solution had you not shot him to death.’

‘It was satisfying nonetheless.’

‘I’m sure that it was. So is hitting a cockroach with your shoe, until it starts to crawl again. But what’s done is done. Why bring him up now?’

So I told him the story that Marielle Vetters had passed on to me, leaving out only the identities of those involved, and any reference to the town in which they lived.

‘An airplane,’ said Epstein, when I was done. ‘I know nothing about any airplane. I will need to consult. Perhaps others have heard. What else do you have?’

I had made a copy of the list of names that Marielle had given to me.

‘The woman’s father took this from the plane,’ I said, as I slid the photocopy across the table. ‘It was part of a cache of papers in a satchel under one of the pilots’ seats. He left the rest in the wreckage, according to his daughter.’

Epstein took his wire-framed spectacles from his pocket and carefully hooked the ends over his ears. He had a way of appearing frailer than he was, a pantomime of squints and grimaces. It was a role he played even with those who knew better than to be taken in by it. Perhaps it was just habit by this point, or maybe even he could no longer separate the deception from the reality.

Epstein was not a man who tended to show surprise. He had seen too much of this world, and something of the next, for them to hold too many secrets from him. But now his eyes widened behind the magnified lenses, and his lips moved as though he were repeating the names to himself as a kind of litany.

‘Do those names mean anything to you?’ I asked. I had not yet told him about Kenny Chan, and the earlier fates of his wife and former business partner. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Epstein, but I saw no reason to give him all that I had learned, not without something in return.

‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘This one.’

He showed me the paper, his finger resting halfway down the page beneath the name Calvin Buchardt. ‘He worked quietly for a number of liberal causes for many years. He was involved with the ACLU, Searchlight, NAACP, as well as anti-authoritarian movements in South and Central America. He was a textbook white male with a conscience.’

‘I didn’t find his name in any of my searches.’

‘You might have found him had you looked for “Calvin Book”. Only a handful of people knew his real name.’

‘Why the secrecy?’

‘He always claimed that it was for protection, but it was also a way of distancing himself from his family legacy. His grandfather, William Buchardt, was a neo-Nazi of the most virulent kind: a supporter of appeasement in his youth, and an ally of segregationists, homophobes, and anti-Semites throughout his life. Calvin’s father, Edward, refused to have anything to do with the old man once he reached maturity, and Calvin took that a step further by acting as a discreet supporter of the kind of institutions that his grandfather would have put to the torch. It helped that he had a little wealth to his name.’

‘Then what’s he doing on this list?’

‘I suspect that the answer lies in the manner of his passing: he was found gassed to death in a parking garage in Mexico City. It emerged that Calvin was more like his grandfather than his father after all: he had been betraying his friends and their causes for decades. Labor leaders, civil rights workers, lawyers, all given over to their enemies because of Calvin Buchardt.’

‘Are you telling me that he killed himself in a fit of remorse?’

Epstein carefully repositioned his coffee spoon.

‘I expect that he did feel remorse at the end, but he didn’t kill himself. He’d been tied to his car seat, and his tongue had been removed, along with all of his teeth and the tips of his fingers. He had made the mistake of betraying lions as well as lambs. Officially, his remains were never identified, but unofficially . . .’

He returned his attention to the list, and emitted a small
tsk
of distaste.

‘Davis Tate,’ he said.

‘That one I know something of,’ I said.

‘A preacher of intolerance and calumny,’ said Epstein. ‘He’s a hatemonger, but like most of his kind he lacks a logical consistency, and any kind of backbone. He’s rabidly anti-Islamic but he also distrusts Jews. He hates the president of the United States for being black, but lacks the courage to reveal himself as a racist, so he codifies his racism. He calls himself a Christian, but Christ would disown him. He and his kind should be prosecuted for hate speech, but the powers that be get more exercised about a nipple showing during the Superbowl. Fear and hatred are good currency, Mr Parker. They buy votes in elections.’

He took a sip of wine to wash Tate’s name from his mouth.

‘And now you, Mr Parker? I can only assume that you did some digging of your own, and found something of interest to yourself among these names.’

‘This woman, Solene Escott, was the wife of a man named Kenny Chan,’ I said. ‘The numbers beside her name correspond to the dates of her birth and death. She was killed in a car accident, but that plane went down before, not after, she died. Her death was planned. Brandon Felice, a little farther down, was Kenny Chan’s business partner. He was killed in the course of a gas station robbery not long after Escott died. There was no reason to shoot him. The thieves were masked, and they’d got their money.’

‘Declined.’ Epstein read the word written beside Felice’s name. ‘And is that a letter “T” after the word?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘What does “T” stand for?’

‘Terminated?’ I suggested.

‘Possibly. Probably. Is the husband still alive?’

‘He was stuffed into his own safe and left there to rot, surrounded by his wealth.’

‘Do you have a narrative in mind?’

‘Kenny Chan struck a deal to have his wife and partner killed, but the deal came back to bite him in the end.’

‘Poetic justice, perhaps. You say his wife was killed in an accident?’

‘Accidents can be made to happen, and there were no witnesses. What do you know about a company called Pryor Investments?’

‘I may have read the name, but no more than that. Why?’

‘Pryor Investments was closely involved with the sale of Kenny Chan’s company. The police investigating Chan’s death were discouraged from bothering Pryor. It seems that he may have links to the Defense Department.’

‘I’ll see what we can find out,’ said Epstein.

He carefully folded the list, placed it in the inside pocket of his jacket, and stood. ‘Where are you staying tonight?’ he asked.

‘My ex-partner, Walter Cole, offered me a bed at his place.’

‘I’d prefer it if you stayed here. It may be that I’ll need to contact you urgently, and it would be easier to do so if you remained with Liat. She keeps an apartment upstairs. You’ll be quite comfortable, I assure you. One of my men will remain nearby, just in case. I take it you were shadowed here?’

Epstein was familiar with Angel and Louis.

‘They’re outside.’

‘Let them return to their beds. They won’t be needed. You’ll be safe. I give you my word.’

I called Angel on my cell phone and told him the plan.

‘You happy with the arrangement?’ he asked.

I looked at Liat. She looked at me.

‘I think I can live with it,’ I said, and hung up.

The apartment was more than comfortable. It occupied the top two floors of the building, the rest being given over to storage. It was decorated in a vaguely Middle Eastern style: a lot of cushions, a lot of rugs, the dominant tones of red and orange accented by lamps in the corners instead of a central ceiling light. Liat showed me to a guest bedroom with a small private bathroom next door. I showered to cool myself down. When I came out, the lights were off downstairs, and the apartment was quiet.

I put a towel around my waist and sat by the window, looking out on the streets below. I watched couples pass, hand in hand. I saw a man arguing with a child, and a woman remonstrating with them both. I heard music playing in a building nearby, a piano étude that I could not identify. I thought it was a recording until the player stumbled, and a woman laughed in an easy, loving way, and the man’s voice answered and the music ceased. I felt like an outsider here, even though I knew these streets, this city. It was not mine, though. It had never been mine. I was a stranger in a familiar land.

Liat entered the room shortly before midnight. She was wearing a cream nightdress that ended above her knees, and her hair hung loose on her shoulders. I had been sitting in darkness, but now she lit the bedside lamp before coming to me. She took my hand and bid me rise. In the lamplight, she examined me. She traced the scars of old wounds, touching each one with her fingertips, as though taking an account of the toll on my body. When she was done, she placed her right hand against my face, and her expression was one of intense compassion.

When she kissed me, I felt her tears against my skin, and I tasted them upon my lips. It had been so long, and I thought: accept this small gift, this tender, fleeting moment.

Liat: only later did I discover the meaning of her name.

Liat:
You are mine
.

I woke shortly after seven. Beside me, the bed was empty. I showered, dressed, and went downstairs. The apartment was quiet. When I entered the kitchen, a middle-aged man was preparing the day’s food, and in the restaurant a woman in her sixties was serving coffee and bagels to a short line of customers. Where Epstein and I had sat the night before, an elderly couple now shared a copy of the
Forward
.

‘Where is Liat?’ I asked the woman behind the counter.

She shrugged, then fumbled in her apron and produced a note. It was not from Liat, but from Epstein. It read:

I left the restaurant. One of Epstein’s young men sat at a table outside, drinking mint tea. He didn’t glance at me when I appeared, nor did he try to follow. I had coffee at a bakery on Houston, and thought of Liat. I wondered where she was, and I thought that I knew.