House Secrets (13 page)

“Now that’s a good point. We bring along a couple cans of gas and top off the tank before we start the car.”

Carl sat there a minute, thinking about Jimmy’s idea. He started to light another cigarette, but stopped. He didn’t want to have to listen to Jimmy bitch anymore about his sinuses.

“I don’t know,” Carl said. “You really think they’ll buy he left his car on?”

“Hey, I told ya. They did with that couple in Montana.”

“I thought you said it was Idaho.”

“Montana, Idaho, what’s the fuckin’ difference!”

DeMarco saw Emma inside Paolo’s, seated at the bar. She was talking to a beautiful woman with long, chestnut-colored hair in a lowcut formal dress, the lady looking as if she’d just escaped some black-tie affair. The woman—it was probably because of the way her hair was
styled—reminded him of those fifties movie stars, someone like Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner. When Emma saw him and excused herself, DeMarco could see that the woman was disappointed.

He and Emma took seats at a table near the front of the restaurant that had just been vacated by another couple. DeMarco thought of making a crack about women hitting on Emma in bars, but decided that wouldn’t be smart. Instead he said, “So who do you think is following me?”

“I know who’s following you,” Emma said. “They have IDs with the names Jerry Fallon and Tim Reed, but their real names are Carl van Horn and James Suttel. They’re bottom feeders who freelance for the CIA.”

“The CIA!”

“Yeah.”

“Holy shit. So maybe Lydia was referring to some big shot at Langley when she said someone powerful was helping her husband.”

“Maybe. There are people at the CIA capable of doing anything.”

“You think Colin Murphy might be involved?”

Murphy was the current director of the CIA.

“No,” Emma said.

“Why not?”

“Because these incidents that helped Morelli’s career began back in 1992. Since that time, there have been seven or eight directors of the CIA and Murphy wasn’t at the agency until two years ago.”

“So if it’s not Murphy then it’s gotta be one of the old guard over there, one of the career civil servants who’s been there forever and is high up the food chain.”

“That’s possible. But it’s also possible these two men aren’t working for the CIA at all. Like I said, they freelance. Anyone could have hired them. What did you learn in New York?”

DeMarco told her.

“So the man’s a rapist.”

“Wait a minute. My godfather just said—”

“Nonsense. You know what Lydia told you and it sounds like her husband’s blackmailing Janet Tyler using her fiancé, and he probably silenced Marcia Davenport in some similar way. And now this godfather of yours . . .”

Emma said “godfather” like Harry Foster was Vito Corleone.

“. . . confirms that Paul Morelli can’t keep his hands to himself.” DeMarco shook his head. “It’s not that cut and dried, Emma, and you know it. All the evidence against Morelli can’t even be called circumstantial. It’s too unsubstantial to be called circumstantial.”

DeMarco thought that was pretty clever; Emma didn’t.

“You need to talk to Lydia again. You need to find out who’s helping the senator and why she’s coming forward right now.”

“Emma, can you even imagine Mahoney’s reaction if he knew I was running around trying to prove Morelli’s a criminal?”

“I don’t care about Mahoney’s reaction.”

“Of course you don’t. You’re rich, you’re retired, and you have a pension.”

“That’s irrelevant,” Emma said.

“For you it’s irrelevant,” DeMarco said.

When DeMarco just sat there, Emma poked his leg under the table with her foot. “Well, what are you waiting for? Call Lydia. Set up a meeting.”

“Are you nuts?” DeMarco said. “What if her husband’s there?”

“Her husband’s in Miami. He’s the keynote speaker at the National Hispanic Business Association convention. And he’s delivering his speech in Spanish, I might add.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because I read more than just the sports section of the
Washington Post
,” Emma said. “So go on. Set up another meeting with Lydia.”

DeMarco didn’t move. He did not want to get cross-wired with Mahoney over this.

“Joe, we’re talking about a man who may become the next president of the United States.”

Goddamnit, she was right. As usual. DeMarco pulled out his cell phone and started to punch in Lydia’s number, but Emma said, “No, use the pay phone.”

Lydia’s phone rang a long time before she answered, and then it took DeMarco quite a while to set up a meeting for the next day because she was drunk. In fact, it had sounded to him as if she was on the verge of passing out.

He returned to the table. “She was wasted,” he said to Emma. “She could barely talk.”

“Maybe alcohol is the only way she can find peace,” Emma said.

“Yeah, and maybe she’s a delusional lush.”

“But she agreed to meet you?”

“Yeah, tomorrow morning. She said her husband wouldn’t be back until four so at least I don’t have to worry about running into him. Which reminds me: I do not want those two CIA guys, or whoever the hell they are, to see me talking to her.”

“Oh, I think I can help there,” Emma said.

They watched DeMarco exit his house and then stand on the sidewalk until a cab arrived.

“Here we go,” Carl said, starting the car.

“Yeah,” Jimmy said, “and do not lose this cluck today. We’ve lost him twice in two days, and there’s no way in hell I’m telling Eddie we lost him a third time.”

“You got that right,” Carl said. He turned the wheel to the left, to pull away from the curb, but before he could a FedEx truck parked next to him and prevented him from leaving.

“What the fuck!” Carl screamed. He looked over at the FedEx driver, a big black son of a bitch. The guy was reading the address on a package. Carl rolled down his window, waved his arms at the driver, and when the guy didn’t see him, he pressed down on the horn. The driver glanced over at him and made a just-a-minute gesture, then went back to reading the address.

“You motherfucker!” Carl screamed.

“Son of a bitch!” Jimmy yelled and he yanked open his door. “I’m gonna get the number on that cab,” he said, and took off running down the street.

No way, Carl thought, was Jimmy gonna catch that cab on foot, all the weight he was packing. Carl had to get this son of a bitch to move his truck. He threw open his door, the door banging hard against
the side of the FedEx truck, then he pounded on the truck with his fist.

“You black motherfucker!” Carl screamed, “Move this fuckin’ truck!”

“What did you say?” the FedEx driver said, looking at Carl, his eyes going all big.

Oh, shit, Carl thought. He hadn’t meant to say that. And this guy was
huge
.

“I said, move this truck,” Carl said. “Right now. It’s an emergency.”

“I’ll move this truck when you apologize for disrespectin’ me, you fat, four-eyed . . .”

“Thank you, Andre,” Emma said, and handed the FedEx driver a hundred-dollar bill folded so that he couldn’t see the denomination.

“I can’t take money from you, Emma, everything you’ve done for us. And anyway, I enjoyed it. ’Specially after that bastard started calling me names.”

“It’s not for you,” Emma said. “Buy your wife some flowers. When’s the last time you gave her flowers?”

Sheesh, Andre thought. It’s like all these women took some sorta make-you-feel-guilty class.

DeMarco met Lydia Morelli in Georgetown, on the walking trail that runs parallel to the C&O Canal. In years past, mules had walked along the banks of the canal towing barges from Washington to ports as far inland as Cumberland, Maryland. The canal still had a number of working locks, and for all DeMarco knew it still served some useful function, but whether it did or not, it was a pleasant place to walk.

Lydia was already there when DeMarco arrived, sitting on a wooden bench and staring vacantly down at the water trickling along the bottom of the canal. She was wearing a camel-hair trench coat over a white cable knit sweater and dark slacks. When she saw DeMarco, she stood up and walked toward him. She looked terrible: puffy, dark bags under her bloodshot eyes, her complexion sallow. It appeared as if she’d spent the night battling the invincible bottle and the bottle, as always, had won.

“Good morning,” DeMarco said, “and thank you for agreeing to see me.”

Lydia just nodded and took a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her coat. Her hands trembled when she lit the cigarette, and when she exhaled the smoke, DeMarco could again smell a slight odor of alcohol on her breath. She wasn’t drunk, maybe she’d only had one drink, but with the exception of Mahoney, DeMarco tended not to have much confidence in people who had bourbon for breakfast. They
started to walk down the path, DeMarco feeling hulkish beside her, being so much taller and broader than she was.

“Mrs. Morelli, I need to know—”

But she interrupted him before he could complete the sentence. “I can tell you’re not too sure about me but I can also see you’re starting to have some doubts about Paul. You wouldn’t have asked to see me if that wasn’t the case.”

She may have been an alcoholic but she was intuitive and she wasn’t stupid.

“Maybe,” DeMarco said, “but I need to know more. I need to know who’s been helping your husband and I need to know why, after all this time, you’ve decided to destroy his career.”

“You don’t need to know
either
of those things,” Lydia said, her voice testy. “They’re irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is that a corrupt, evil man is going to become president if you don’t do something to stop him.”

DeMarco stopped walking and took hold of her arm and spun her around, gently, to face him. “I don’t believe for one moment that this is about your concern for the country,” he said. “There’s something personal going on here, something between you and him. And you’ve known about the things he’s done—or the things you
think
he’s done—for years. So why are you doing this now and who’s helping him?”

Lydia shook her head. “I’m not going to give you his name.”

“Why not?”

“Remember when I told you that Paul only married me because of who my father was?”

“Yes.”

“When my father went down in flames . . .”

DeMarco didn’t know what she meant by that.

“. . . Paul was afraid, even as bright as he is, that he would never make it big in politics. But then, because of me, the devil danced in.”

The devil?

Lydia saw the expression on DeMarco’s face. “I didn’t mean that literally, Joe. I’m not a religious fanatic. Nor am I demented.” She
paused, then added, “But maybe if I were religious, none of this would have happened.

“But his name isn’t important. And the reason it’s not important is that you’ll never get to Paul through him. He never does anything personally, and you’ll never find a connection between him and Paul. What you need to do is concentrate on the women Paul attacked. That’s your best shot.”

This wasn’t making sense. Why wouldn’t she name this guy? She had said that it was because of her that Paul had met the man, but so what? Was she worried if she named him she’d implicate herself in some way? Maybe Lydia’s motives were self-serving and had nothing to do with her husband.

“Are you afraid of this man, Mrs. Morelli, is that why you won’t tell me his name? Are you afraid he might kill you if he found out?”

Lydia started to shake her head no, but then she said, “Maybe he would kill me. I don’t know. Sometimes monsters eat their young.”

Christ, another cryptic, useless comment. He didn’t know if Lydia Morelli just enjoyed being dramatic, if she was being intentionally evasive—or if she really was insane. But he did know that she was making him angry.

“Goddamnit, I need some help here! I need to know who this guy is to protect myself. And two men have been following me, men who freelance for the CIA, and I need to know why.”

“The CIA?” Lydia said, and then she laughed, although DeMarco didn’t know what he’d said that was funny. “I can assure you he isn’t connected with the CIA,” she said. “So I don’t know who’s following you, Joe, or why.”