An Evil Shadow (15 page)

“Have you told him?”

“Not yet.”

“Then you mustn’t,” Val said, wishing he could bite
his tongue off. The hurt on Angie’s face drove a nail through his heart.

She stepped back. “I thought you still loved me? I
know I love you.”

“I do. I never stopped loving you. I’ve longed for the
chance to try again. But right now it could mean putting your life in danger.
Those men I shot are evil. They have evil friends. They take reprisals against
the family of anyone who defies them.”

Angie said nothing for a few moments. Her face had
lost its radiance. “I’m your wife. If they’re serious about coming after me, it
won’t much matter under whose roof I’m living.”

“They might not know you’re my wife. Other people have
made the same mistake. Besides, there’s no furniture in my place.”

“No furniture?”

Val told her about the warning he had received and the
form it had taken. “For the moment, it would be best if you stayed with
Marcus.”

She took his hand. “Can’t you forget about being a
policeman? Go back to designing signs.”

“Too late for that.”

“This is all Marie Duval’s fault.”

“She has nothing to do with it. It was my decision to
go skulking around St Francis parish. I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled I
am that were going to have a child, but promise me that for the next few days
you’ll act as though you don’t know me. Try to remain in the house as much as
possible. Keep all the doors and windows locked.”

“Val, you’re frightening me.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to. Maybe I’m overreacting
because I’m going to be a father. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll detail
some men to watch the house.”

Angie nodded.

“I’ll explain it to Marcus,” Val assured her. “He
won’t much like it, but that’s too bad.”

“Okay. Don’t do anything stupid. I want my baby to
know its father.”

“I guarantee it.” He drew her to him and sealed the
bargain with a kiss.

Immediately his wife left the station house Val called
the sergeant in and told him he wanted his wife followed home and an around the
clock watch put on her. He was to be informed by him of the slightest problem.

Val sat at his desk for a long time. He thought about
Angie and the baby; he thought about Marcus. He even thought about Duval. The
sooner this was over, the sooner they all could get on with their lives.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Val ordered a dozen oysters on the half-shell on the
balcony of a restaurant on St Charles. He squeezed lemon juice over them and
added a couple drops of Tabasco to each. He took his time over them as he
watched a freshening wind stir up the canopies of the live oaks lining the
street. A streetcar, its interior brightly lit, rattled past, heading for Lee
Circle. It was cool on the balcony, the air loaded with the scent of hibiscus
and bougainvillea, and Val was tempted to order a bottle of wine, drink a toast
to his wife’s pregnancy, and forget all about Jackson for a few hours.

Instead, he paid his bill and headed out. The warrant
for Logjam was a month old and no dealer could stay out of sight much longer
than that before his customers migrated to a new supplier. Logjam would have
resurfaced by now.

The first place he visited was a washout. So was the
second. He moved on to a zydeco joint. It stank of flat beer and stale smoke.
The customers paid him little heed as he nursed a Canadian Club and ginger at
the bar. He hadn’t long to wait until he spotted who held the concession. The
bartender handed three customers a complimentary book of matches each as he set
down their drinks. Two of them already had cigarettes lit, their lighters
squared neatly on top of their cigarette packets.

Val called him over.

“I’m looking for a friend of mine.”

The man eyeballed him. “A guy like you has no
friends.”

“His name’s Logjam. Have you seen him recently?”

The bartender wiped the zinc counter with a sponge
cloth. “Never heard of him. Does he come in here?”

Val set his shield on the bar. “Have you a light?” he
asked.

The bartender wasn’t fazed. He picked up the leather
wallet and pretended to have trouble making out the lettering.

“Bit out of your jurisdiction,” he said finally.

“Must be your lucky night then.”

“Guess so.” The bartender closed the wallet and handed
it back to Val.

“Being a cop is more a state of mind,” Val said,
pressing the bartender’s hand against the surface of the bar by bending his
middle finger back on itself. “See what I mean.”

The man blinked rapidly. “He hasn’t been around for a
while.”

Val exerted extra pressure. “Where do I find him?”

“Try the Perfumed River. Vietnamese restaurant on
Calliope. Don’t tell him who sent you.”

Val released his grip and left.

MacLean’s steak was just the way he liked it. Prime
Texas beef, cut thick, and shown the inside of a hot skillet just long enough
to seal the exterior. It was the first meal he had truly enjoyed in over a
month. The British had turned pussy when it came to eating beef and his chef
had stocked the yacht’s galley with French meat. Not that theirs was any better.
No wonder all the women he met in Paris looked as though the Allies had just
liberated them from Belsen.

Couldn’t fault their wine though. He had bought two
dozen crates of Chateau Rothschild ‘83 while in Paris and had made Moncoeur a
gift of one of them. The guy had the good sense to serve a couple of bottles at
dinner.

He rubbed his mouth with a napkin as he studied
Moncoeur across the table. Was the old man turning pussy on him too?

“You’re suggesting that we go ahead and pay the
cocksucker fifteen million dollars?” he boomed. “No fucking way. Not one red
cent. Jesus, he stood to clear five as it was.”

Moncoeur remained perfectly composed. He took a sheet
of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket, unfolded it and pushed it across
the table. “My sentiments exactly, until the latest fax arrived, shortly before
six this evening. Sent from a public telephone jack point at the airport this
time. He’s upped his demand an extra five million because of what happened to
his parents.”

MacLean read it carefully. He always made it a habit
never to rush a document. It was a practice that had paid handsome dividends
over the years. Not that there was much to read in this case. The threat was
concise and exact. The consequences too appalling to contemplate. Enough to
have him
reaching inside his jacket
for his acid pills. He slipped one into his mouth and read the fax again.

“I see your point,” MacLean said as he chewed. Two
small patches of white appeared high on his cheeks. “Maybe we should be
grateful that an extra five million is all he’s asking. How the hell did
Jackson come by this information?”

“He’s obviously considerably more resourceful than we
took him for. And he knows that moving
the
deadline up twenty-four hours greatly reduces our chances of finding the
sonofabitch first.”

“Smart doesn’t begin to say it.” MacLean waved the
sheet of paper in the air. “He doesn’t mention how he wants the additional five
million to be paid.”

“Presumably the same way. Canadian Treasury Bills.”

“What does Kellerman have to say about this?” MacLean
was very aware of the need for secrecy, but it complicated the decision making.
It had been eight years since they had all been in a room together.

“He doesn’t know about it yet. I’m certain he’ll agree
that to pay up is our only realistic option.”

“So be it. I’ll notify our banks to transfer the
Treasury Bills first thing tomorrow.”

“Why are you smiling? I don’t see any humor in this.”

“I do. Twenty million is one hell of a tab for a steak
and a bottle of wine. Without even a quick fuck thrown in.”

Moncoeur grinned, but was clearly irritated. MacLean
enjoyed disturbing his sense of propriety with deliberate displays of
uncouthness. He went on. “I wonder what his plans for collection are. The
handover is when an extortionist is most vulnerable. It would nearly be worth
parting with twenty million just to be given a chance to put a bullet in him.”

The phone in Clements’s office rang at exactly
seven-thirty. He allowed it to ring five times before picking up. He brought it
slowly to his ear, but didn’t say anything.

“Troy Pollack here. You found the package?”

“Yes.” Clements’s answer was barely audible.

“Now you’ve had time to think about it, I’m sure you
see the sense in cooperating. That
is
what you have decided?”

Clements had managed to replace his son’s picture in
its frame before his wife noticed its absence. He had hidden the money in a kit
bag at the bottom of his office locker. “Yes.”

“Wonderful news. I’m sure your son will sire several
fine grandchildren for you. If the first’s a boy, they should call him John,
don’t you think?”

“What is it you want?”

“Just what I told you earlier. Information on what
Bosanquet is working on. Who he’s been talking to, where he goes, what’s his
next move. I want to know if he has eggs for breakfast, which side of the bed
he sleeps on.”

“He doesn’t confide in me; he plays it close to his
chest. So far he’s told me practically nothing.”

“Then you’re going have to find a way to make him open
up.”

“There’s one thing ...”

“Spit it out.”

“He’s been running some names through the criminal
database. But they might not be what you want.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

Clements unfolded the printout. “There are four names:
Howard Woods, a drug dealer; Bobby Deal, a known associate; Roland Galen; and
Philip Lausaux, a charity organizer.”

“Galen, what had the computer to say about him?”

“He’s a struck-off medical doctor who was caught
running an illegal abortion clinic.”

“What address do they have for him?”

Clements picked up a change of tone in the man’s voice.
Galen must mean something to him. ‘Nothing current on him. Deal is dead.”

“What about Woods?”

“Nothing current on him either.”

“I’ll phone you again in the morning,” the caller said
abruptly and hung up.

Clements sat with the receiver in his hand for a long
time. His stomach was nauseous and his bowels felt liquid. Eventually his eyes
focused on the computer printout still lying on the desk and he replaced the
phone.

He wasn’t thinking straight and almost missed seeing
it. His caller hadn’t asked for the details of the fourth man, the charity
organizer.

The Perfumed River was a new restaurant. The
three-dimensional dragon that entwined itself around the front window still had
a recently applied freshness to its red lacquer. Inside, black and gold dominated.
The wooden tables had been sprayed gold, the walls and silk screens were
predominantly black. The plates were black with a gilt border.

The staff had pulled the drapes and the floating
candle lights on each table did little to alleviate the gloom. A restaurant for
troglodytes. Val mustn’t have been the only one to feel that way because
business was slow, though the to-go trade seemed brisk.

He took a stool at the bar and ordered a drink. A
pretty Vietnamese girl in a clinging midnight-blue silk dress handed him a menu
and went back to taking orders. She wrote them on a pink pad. Roughly one in
four she scribbled on a white pad. Those customers paid for their orders up
front.

Val rose and walked through a beaded curtain, down a
short corridor and straight past the door of the men’s room. An emergency exit
opened out into a small courtyard. The air smelt strongly of damp cardboard and
stale cooking oil. Bars of light from the kitchens shuttered window made a
pattern on the cobbles. Having come from the restaurant, his eyes were already
acclimatized to darkness. He could hear the chatter of the Vietnamese staff as
they went about their duties. As he was considering what way to play it, the
kitchen door opened and a male Caucasian walked out with a mug of coffee in one
hand and a cigarette in the other. Before the door swung shut behind him, Val
saw that the man was Howard Woods. He was dressed in a white T-shirt and black
pants, and was unaware that Val was observing him. He sat on the bottom step of
the fire escape to enjoy his smoke.

“Logjam?” Val asked from the shadows.

Woods came out of the blocks like Carl Lewis. He
hurled the coffee cup at Val, dropped the cigarette and fled back into the
kitchen. Val
started after him. The
stone cobbles were slick with oil and water. He slipped and sliced his knee on
a broken beer bottle. Cursing, he scrambled to his feet. His trousers were torn
and his leg was bleeding. When he put weight on it, it was as though someone
had tried to wrench off his kneecap. He hobbled the few yards to the kitchen
door.

The bright glare inside the kitchen blinded him for a
second. He screwed his eyes up and caught the back of Logjam as he careened
through the swing doors leading to the restaurant. The heat from the stoves was
incredible. No wonder Logjam had felt the need to cool off in the courtyard.
None of the cooks, the kitchen porters, or the waiters made the slightest move
to obstruct Val on his way through.

Logjam was on the street and sprinting towards Lee
Circle. With his car parked two streets away, Val had no option but to hobble
after him. He collided into a middle-aged man and his wife. They simultaneously
yelled ‘Fuck you!’ after him.

His quarry darted across the street, weaving and
dodging through the traffic, then along the neutral ground of the streetcar’s
tracks. A car’s fender brushed Val’s injured leg as he attempted to follow. He
had to pull up to prevent the next vehicle hitting him square on.

It was useless. Logjam was too far in front.

A redheaded woman leading a small dog on an extendable
leash stepped out of an art gallery. Logjam didn’t have time to swerve. His
legs entangled in the nylon and he went down hard. The dog’s efforts to pull
away deployed another few yards of the leash, and wrapped it around Logjams feet
like Christmas ribbon. With fresh enthusiasm, Val rejoined the chase.

There was a yelp from the dog when Logjam landed a
kick in its ribs. The woman screamed and let go of the leash. Val was fifty
feet away. His leg was killing him, but he was going to make it.

He threw himself on top of Logjam. The dealer grunted
as all the impact knocked the wind out of his lungs. Val grabbed a length of
leash, wrapped it around his throat and pulled on it hard. The dog was barking
furiously and trying to sink its teeth into Val’s leg.

“Howard Woods?” Val breathed into his ear.

The man was too winded to answer. His lips were
turning blue and his eyes were bulging. The woman was making grabs for her dog.

Val slackened his grip.

“Okay! Okay! I give up,” Logjam yelled as soon as he
had sucked in some air. “You don’t have to fucking strangle me.”