The Wrath of Angels (28 page)

‘She spoke to me only of your wounds,’ he said. ‘Nothing more. And I did not ask her to sleep with you, in case you were wondering. She did that for her own reasons.’

‘I
knew
you got laid,’ said Louis’s voice from behind me. He turned to Walter. ‘I knew he got laid.’

‘I didn’t know he got laid,’ said Walter. ‘Nobody tells me anything.’

‘Shut up, both of you,’ I said.

‘You might also be interested to know that she believed in you from the start,’ said Epstein. ‘It was I who had doubts, not her. She had none, but she indulged an old man’s fears. She said that she knew from the moment she took you inside herself.’

‘God
damn
. . .’

‘I told you to shut up.’

‘So,’ said Epstein. He stood, and buttoned his jacket. ‘We move forward. You’ll talk to the woman today?’

‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’d prefer to speak to her in person, her and Scollay. Along the way, though, I may stop off to meet with a lawyer in Lynn.’

‘Eldritch,’ said Epstein. He didn’t look pleased to be speaking that name.

‘I’ll be careful what I tell him.’

‘I suspect that whatever we know, he already knows more: he and his client.’

‘My enemy’s enemy –’ I said.

– ‘may be my enemy too,’ Epstein concluded. ‘We don’t share their aims.’

‘Sometimes I think we do. We may even share some of their methods.’

Epstein chose not to argue further, and he and I shook hands.

‘We have a car waiting for you outside,’ I said. ‘Louis will escort you back to Brooklyn.’

‘And my young friends?’

‘They’ll be fine,’ I assured him. ‘Well, mostly fine.’

I planned to fly up to Boston a couple of hours later. Louis and Angel would drive up in a day or two, along with their toys. In the meantime, I went back over what Marielle Vetters had told me, because there was one detail of her tale that stood out, and only because it conflicted with another story I had heard many years before. It might have been nothing, a piece of misremembering on my part or on the part of the man who had shared the tale with me, but if Marielle Vetters genuinely did not know anything more about the location of the plane it was possible that I could find another means of narrowing down the search area.

It would just mean talking to a man about a ghost.

A
div and Yonathan trudged south through the wilds of the Jersey Pine Barrens. They had been driven for what seemed like hours over rough terrain before eventually being dumped in the woods. The man named Angel had suggested to them the direction in which they should walk if they wanted to get to Winslow or Hammonton, but they had not been sure whether to trust him and, to tell the truth, Angel had seemed a little vague about the directions to begin with.

‘I don’t like nature,’ he told them, as they stood under his gun, birds calling above their heads. ‘Too many trees. And garter snakes, and bobcats, and bears.’

‘Bears?’ asked Adiv.

‘
And
garter snakes,
and
bobcats,’ said Angel. ‘Don’t get too hung up on the bears.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they’re more scared of you than you are of them.’

‘Really?’ said Yonathan.

‘Really,’ confirmed Angel. He thought for a second. ‘Or maybe that’s spiders. Well, happy trails.’

The doors closed, and Adiv and Yonathan were abandoned in a spray of dirt and mud and twigs. Now it was growing darker, but at least they had found a road, even if there were no vehicles upon it and they could not yet see any signs of artificial light.

‘I thought they were going to kill us,’ said Adiv.

‘Perhaps you’ll be more polite in future,’ said Yonathan.

‘Perhaps,’ admitted Adiv. ‘And perhaps you won’t go pointing guns at the wrong people.’

They walked on. All was quiet.

‘We’re bound to find a store or a gas station soon,’ said Adiv.

Yonathan wasn’t so sure. It seemed like they’d driven far into the wilderness, and it had taken them a while simply to find something that was more than a trail. He just wanted to be out of the woods before night fell in earnest. He hoped that the rabbi was okay. It was one thing to be personally and professionally embarrassed as they had been, but if anything were to happen to the rabbi . . .

‘At least they left us with some quarters for the phone,’ he said.

Adiv checked his pocket, and came out with the four coins. He clutched them tightly in his fist, kissed the back of his hand, then opened it again. He stopped and examined them more closely, squinting in the poor light.

‘What is it?’ said Yonathan.

‘Sonofabitch,’ said Adiv quietly.

He dropped the coins into Yonathan’s hand before switching loudly to Hebrew. ‘
Ben zona! Ya chatichat chara! Ata zevel sheba’olam!
’ He shook his fist in the general direction of the southeast, then slapped the back of his right hand hard against his left palm.

Yonathan pushed the coins around with the tip of a finger.

‘Canadian quarters,’ he said. ‘The bastard.’

D
avis Tate couldn’t get the smell of nicotine out of his mouth and nostrils. He felt as though he were coated in filth outside and in, even though by then the man in the corner was long gone from the bar. They hadn’t even seen him depart, and only the newspaper and the brandy – largely untouched – confirmed that he had ever been there at all. His presence had made Tate profoundly uneasy. He couldn’t have said why exactly, apart from that momentary pause in the tapping of the man’s fingers when Tate joked about his mortality, but he was certain that he and Becky had been the focus of the stranger’s attention. Tate had even gone so far as to corral their server while she was removing the empty brandy snifter from the booth and wiping the table clean with a cloth that stank of bleach. He could see Becky watching him, puzzled and unamused, but he didn’t care.

‘That guy,’ Tate said to the waitress, ‘the one who was sitting at this table: you ever see him in here before?’

The waitress shrugged. If she were any more bored, she’d have been horizontal.

‘I don’t remember,’ she said. ‘We’re midtown. Half the people who come in here I never see again.’

‘Did he pay cash or credit?’

‘What are you, a cop?’

‘No, I host a radio show.’

‘Yeah?’ She perked up. ‘What station?’

He told her. It didn’t register.

‘You play music?’

‘No, it’s talk radio.’

‘Oh, I don’t listen to that shit. Hector does.’

‘Who’s Hector?’

‘The bartender.’

Instinctively, Tate looked over his shoulder to where Hector was updating the food specials on the chalkboard. Even in the midst of his labors, Hector found time to wink at Tate again. Tate shuddered.

‘Does he know who I am?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the waitress. ‘Who are you?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s get back to the question. The guy who was sitting here: cash or credit?’

‘I get you,’ said the waitress. ‘If he paid credit, you could ask to see the slip. Then you’d know his name, right?’

‘Right. You should be a detective.’

‘No, I don’t like cops, especially not the kind that come in here. You sure you’re not a cop?’

‘I look like a cop?’

‘No. You don’t look like anything.’

Tate tried to gauge if he’d just been insulted, but gave up.

‘Cash,’ he said deliberately and, he hoped, for the final time, ‘or credit?’

The waitress wrinkled her nose, tapped her pen against her chin, and did the worst impression Tate had ever seen of somebody pretending not to remember. He wanted to shove her pencil through her cheek. Instead he took ten bucks from his pocket and watched it disappear into the waitress’s apron.

‘Cash,’ she said.

‘Ten bucks for that? You could have just told me.’

‘You gambled. You lost.’

‘Thanks for nothing.’

‘You’re welcome,’ said the waitress. She picked up her tray, with the brandy snifter and the stranger’s copy of the
Post
on top of it. As she tried to pass him, he took her arm.

‘Hey!’ she said.

‘Just one more question,’ said Tate. ‘Hector, the bartender?’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s gay, right?’

The waitress shook her head.

‘Hector’s not gay,’ she said.

‘You serious?’ said Tate. He was shocked.

‘Sure,’ said the waitress. ‘Hector’s
really
gay.’

As he and Becky prepared to leave, Tate kept thinking about the kid, Penny Moss. Becky couldn’t be serious, could she? After all, she was talking about knowledge of a crime yet to be committed, about the abduction and murder of a girl, but to what end: to foment unrest, or to boost his ratings? Both?

‘You’re part of something much larger than yourself, Davis,’ Becky told him. She was paying their tab, the fag bartender chuckling to himself as he ran Becky’s credit card, the waitress leaning against the bar, whispering to Hector while he worked, a feral smile on her blunt, graceless face. They’d given up on trying to get her to come over to the table to take Becky’s card. Tate was sure that she was telling the bartender about his earlier conversation with her. He hoped that Hector wouldn’t think Tate was queer for him. He had enough problems.

The waitress giggled at something Hector said to her, and covered her mouth to reply as she saw Tate watching her. You’re trash, Tate thought. You were bred for this work, and you won’t be smiling when you see the tip. Not that he ever intended to set foot in this place again, with its stinking customers and its weird vibe, as though the bar were a portal to another realm, one in which men performed unsavory acts on one another and women degraded themselves by association with them.

Tate hated New York. He hated the smugness of the place, the apparent self-assuredness of even the poorest of its citizens, the minimum wage flunkies who should have kept their eyes low and their heads down but instead seemed to have been infected by the city’s absurd confidence in its own rightness. He’d asked Becky to look into the possibility of broadcasting the show from somewhere – anywhere – else. Well, maybe not just anywhere. Jesus, he might end up in Boston, or San Francisco. Becky told him that it wasn’t possible, that they had an agreement with the studio in New York, that if he moved then she would have to move too and she didn’t want to leave the city. Tate had responded by pointing out that he was the talent, and maybe his wishes should take priority over the matter of her own convenience. Becky had given him a curious look after he said it, equal parts pity and something close to hatred.

‘Maybe you could talk to Darina about it,’ she said. ‘You remember Darina, don’t you?’

Tate remembered. It was why he took pills to help him sleep.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I remember her.’

He knew then that he would remain exactly where Becky, and Darina, and the Backers wanted him to be, and they wanted him here in the city, where they could keep an eye on him. He’d made a deal with them, but he hadn’t been bright enough to examine the small print on the terms. Then again, what would have been the point? Had he turned them down, his career would have been over. They’d have seen to that, he was sure of it. He would never have progressed, and he would still be poor and unknown. Now he had money, and a degree of influence. The drop in ratings was a temporary glitch. It would be arrested. They’d make sure of it. They’d invested so much in him that they couldn’t just cut him loose.

Could they?

‘You okay?’ asked Becky, as they walked to the door. ‘You look ill.’

Like the bitch even cared.

‘I don’t like this shithole,’ said Tate.

‘It’s just a bar. You’re losing touch with your roots. That’s part of the problem we’re having.’

‘No,’ said Tate, as sure as he’d ever been about anything. ‘I’m talking about this city. These aren’t my people. They despise me.’

Somebody at the bar called an order from the stool nearest the entrance – ‘Hey, Hector, I’m dying of thirst over here!’ – and the bartender ambled toward him, keeping pace with Becky and Tate. Tate felt Hector staring at him. He tried to face him down, and Hector blew him a kiss.

‘One for all your listeners,’ said Hector. ‘You come back, I got something special for you too.’

Tate didn’t wait around to hear what it might be, although the way Hector grabbed his crotch and shook it left him with a limited number of possibilities. As they reached the door, his eye happened upon the newspaper rack. All of the papers were already tattered and stained from use, but the stranger’s copy of the
Post
stood out as it was cleaner than the rest, and appeared unread. Something had been written across the top of the front page with a black felt-tip. It read:

Tate grabbed the paper and showed it to the bartender.

‘Did you write this?’ he asked. He was shouting, but he didn’t care.

‘What?’ Hector appeared genuinely puzzled.

‘I asked you if you wrote these words on the newspaper.’

Hector looked at the paper. He considered it for a time.

‘No,’ he said. ‘If that had been my message, it would have read “Hello, Davis, you homophobic asshole.” And I’d have added a smiley face.’

Tate tossed the paper on the bar. He felt very, very tired.

‘I don’t hate gays,’ he said softly.

‘You don’t?’ said Hector.

‘No,’ said Tate.

He turned to leave.

‘I hate everyone.’

He and Becky parted at the corner. He tried to discuss the writing on the newspaper, but she didn’t want to listen. She was done with him for the day. Tate watched her go, her tight black skirt clinging to her buttocks and thighs, her breasts high and round under her navy shirt. She was good-looking, Tate would give her that, but he no longer felt any attraction towards her because she scared him so much.

That was the other thing: she might nominally have been his producer, but he had always suspected that she was so much more. She had seemed to defer to Barbara Kelly on the occasion of their first meeting, but in the years that followed he had seen others defer to her, even Kelly herself. Becky had three cell phones, and even when she was in the producer’s chair, ostensibly keeping the wheels of the show oiled, one of those phones would be pressed to her ear. Out of curiosity he had followed her once from the hired studio after they had finished recording a show, keeping his distance, trying to blend in with the crowd. Two blocks from the studio he had watched as a black limousine pulled up at the curb beside her, and Becky got in. He had seen nobody else in back, and the driver had not emerged to open the door for her, instead choosing to remain invisible behind smoked glass.