Inherit the Dead (17 page)

The cold wind blew her down Main Street.

He drove to the far edge of town.

The two-story building fit its googled image. Perry circled the block, spotted the pine trees he thought Randy had hidden behind when he took those rear parking lot pictures of a creep and Angel, wanted to check the photos to be sure, but didn’t. Christo didn’t look at any of the photos. Then. He parked on Samadi Street, where he could see the front of the building. Surveilled its door to upstairs and the front windows of the espresso café.

Ten minutes came and went without anyone entering the expensive coffee shop. The café windows showed him three bored employees and no customers.

No one used the door to the upstairs rooms where lights shone in the windows.

He drove his car to the rear lot, walked around to the Main Street front. The doorknob to the upstairs suites turned in his hand and put Perry in a yellow-walled vestibule with brown wooden stairs. A sign tacked on the vestibule wall read:
NO HANDICAP ACCESS—SORRY!
A label that read
NEWSPAPERS
was stuck on a wicker basket on the vestibule floor.

That means the door probably stays unlocked. Anybody could drop something in the wicker basket any time of the day or night. Or into the steel box the size of an airplane carry-on suitcase bolted to the vestibule wall. The box lid had a flap big enough for a coffee table book to be dropped through and a built-in lock plus a padlock. The sign on the flap read:
MAIL SLOT FOR ALL SUITES IN BUILDING
.

Perry climbed the shadowed wooden stairs. Smelled radiator heat
and lemon floor polish. He reached the top landing, let the air and quiet settle around him.

Four doors waited, two on each side of the dimly lit hall.

Words on the two doors at the far end of the hall were readable. The solid door on the left held a handmade sign:
COFFEEHOUSE OFFICE
. Blue paint formed the word
SUPPLIES
on the also solid wooden door across the hall.

The two doors closest to the stairs were glass.

The glass door on the right held black lettering:
DISTRICT ASSEMBLY FIELD OFFICE.

Gilt lettering on the glass door across the hall read:
CYRUS TWEED.

Perry glanced into the government “district” office: low-bid desk and computer setup, gray file cabinets, colorful posters for Long Island, New York City, New York State. Three steel chairs waited in a line for someone to come sit behind the big desk.

The “Cyrus Tweed” door showed a woman sitting on the desk, her dress high on sleekly stockinged legs as she straightened the hair of the beefy man in the big chair.

Perry’s blitz entrance startled them. The beefy man jerked back in his chair as the woman whirled to scan the intruder. She wore hennaed hair to her jaw, red lipstick to match, makeup that triumphed rather than hid her forty-some years. The rusty-haired woman beamed seasoned sensuality.

Perry flashed on Angel in a steamy shower.

As the redhead slid to her well-shod feet, the beefy guy behind the desk bellowed: “Hey, we’re about to close up shop for the day, but how are you?”

“Here,” said Perry.

The woman said: “I’ll check on those constituent issues.”

She swayed past Christo on her way across the hall, gave him a crimson smile and the scent of musk.

The door closed behind her as Perry watched Cyrus Tweed watch her go.

The politician felt the stranger’s eyes on him, shot out his right hand: “Call me Cy, Cy Tweed. Cyrus sounds too—”

“Whatever,” Perry said as he claimed the visitor’s chair.

The mahogany desk matched the wood paneling hung with oil paintings, plaques, and spotless framed photographs of Cy playing golf
with
and sunset beach partying
with
and backstage rock concerting
with
and black-tie events
with
Hollywood stars and billionaires. One photo showed his colleagues on the floor of the state assembly applauding Cy. Portraits of him shaking hands with the current and other-partied former president of the United States hung on his wall. So did a photo of his wife and children.

Cy said: “And you are . . . ?”

Guy like this,
thought Perry,
his every breath is a lie.
Hit him hard, fast, straight.

The private eye said: “Angel.”

The politician peered around the man sitting in front of his desk to look through the glass of his closed office door and across the hall into the public official’s office where the redhead had gone, told his visitor: “I . . . I’m not sure what you mean.”

“But you know who I’m talking about.”

“Did she send you?”

“I work for people who care about her.”

“Whoever they are, it isn’t
her
they care about. Me, I—”

“You’re a busy man. Your wife and kids. Your ‘whoever she is’ across the hall.”

“Gwen is . . . a really public-spirited citizen. Volunteers to run my local office.”

“You mean your office across the hall,” said Perry.

The vision rose in him and came out like the narration of a movie:
“You’re the fixer. All those groups who get mail here—left wing, right wing, Wall Street, union lovers, tree huggers, developers: all the groups are shells run by you and your
volunteer
. Gwen’s probably on what books they keep. You take money from
whoever
and funnel it to
wherever
—for a handling percentage,
sure,
that’s only fair, because you’re the guy who buys results without fingerprints. Sometimes it’s good: a Hollywood star wants to save the planet, so he gives the group you run a check and you pass most of it along to save the whales. Sometimes it’s a big-money boy who sends you a couple hundred thou’ to launder to the national groups who anyway barely need to explain the millions they spend to buy presidential campaigns.

“Plus the cash that gets dropped in that steel box. The real dirty money you wash. Say from a Mexican cartel giving you dollars to support tough-drug-law candidates so the illegal market stays intact.”

Cy said: “I never do nothing for guys like that!”

“Good to know you’ve got lines. Or at least a price that hasn’t been met yet.”

Perry shook his head. “I almost forgot about the coffee shop! No customers, but I bet it bangs out business on the books. Who owns it? Some corporate name? Just like who owns this building where the taxpayers and those political groups pay rent? Your own campaign always has the most dollars, plus you arrange contributions for other officials who do you favors you charge the big boys for. You get it coming and going.”

“You’ve got nothing on me!”

“Don’t make me try . . . What about Angel?”

“You can’t tell anybody about her! Is this about the pictures?”

“Have you seen them?”

“She said they were out there. I just wanted her to . . . ”

“What does she want?”

“She . . . She wanted more from me. For me to . . . to do more.”

“You mean . . . marry her?”

“I don’t—
No
. She said I was blowing a chance to do and be somebody important. Hell, here, like this, I’m bigger than anybody thinks. I am somebody!”

“And you have the thanks of a grateful nation.”

“Who are you? What do you want?”

Perry tossed his card on the desk, watched as it was scanned then scooped out of sight.

Cy said: “Those pictures . . . ” Again he peered toward the office across the hall. Said: “They can’t get out!”

“You’re not worried about your wife—you’re worried about your partner, that it?”

“Either one could ruin me. If one does, the other will, too.” Cy shrugged. “Alone, my wife would just force a quiet settlement.”

“But your
volunteer
. . . ”

“Gwen.” The elected state official shook his head. “Gwen has to believe—
know
—that she’s my . . . that she and I . . . If she knew about Angel, she’d burn down the house. She accepts my wife: that’s a . . . a carrying cost. But Angel . . . ”

“If you dump Gwen, she could cut a deal and send you to jail—”

“What I do is essentially legal!”

“Or just take the empire from you, make you her puppet instead of a partner.”

“She loves me enough to do worse than that. I’ve got to keep it that way. Those pictures, even though Angel left me—”

“When did Angel leave you?”

“When the clocks stopped.” He shrugged. “A week or so ago. Right after she figured out . . . what you figured out.”

Perry laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“I just left a man who doesn’t dare fuck the woman he has, and now I’m with a man who doesn’t dare
not
fuck the woman he has.”

“Is that other guy tied to Angel?” Cy smiled. “She doesn’t like amateurs.” He leaned across the desk to whisper: “Where is she?”

Perry leaned forward until their faces were barely a kiss away. “Missing.”

Cy paled under his tan. “How . . . What happened?”

“The cops found her empty car but not her.”

“Cops? Do they know about—I can squeeze the sheriff. Or State Police, locals.”

Don’t give him Gawain’s name!
Perry said: “As far as I know, no badges know about you and Angel.”

Cy stared into lost time.

The private detective said: “Where would she go? Who is she afraid of?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. She was . . . too disappointed.”

“If she gets in touch, surprise her and do the smart thing: call me.”

“When you find her . . . Tell her I’m still here for her.”

Perry frowned. “You want her back even though she’s big trouble?”

“She’s worth all that. More.”

Perry left that office. Looked through another door’s glass and caught the redheaded woman sitting behind a cheap government desk staring back at him. He felt the weight of his cell phone on his hip. Envisioned the picture of Angel caught by a creep who saw and wanted and tried to capture the redeeming essence beyond her mere physical beauty, her sensual hunger. A creep like that, that strong of emotion, people killed for less. And the redheaded woman staring at him now, Perry’d seen that kind of jealousy paid out in too many
corpses, just like he’d seen the deaths caused by the tangle of desperations embodied in the politician named Tweed who could have found his courage in an explosion of violence in some curtained room.
But she can’t be dead, not Angel, not someone that vibrant. Not before I . . .

Don’t finish that thought. Any of those thoughts.

He walked down the long dark stairs into the dying light of the day.

Walking through that town has made you excited and furious and frustrated all at once, and it’s not just the waiting and following, but the feelings you’ve stored up like a hive of bees buzzing in your brain.

But you’re cool, no one can tell, walking slow, acting normal, smiling when people pass, some smiling back, no idea of the murderous thoughts that are going through your mind, thinking how you will do whatever you need to do, how you will not let anyone get in the way, the whole time tamping down the feeling that you are going to explode.

You watched the PI go to that garage again and then to see that politician, and you wondered what that could be about and if it will help you get closer to your destination—to your destiny. But you just get back into the rental car and drive down the lonely stretch of highway, driving as the sun sets and you hold on, clinging to the idea that soon, soon you will have it all.

P
erry cursed. Damn if he wasn’t in a foul mood, all this driving, all these unanswered questions and not any closer to finding Angel.

The East Hampton cop was still unavailable, so he’d decided to pay Norman Loki a surprise visit, tell him they’d found his daughter’s car but not his daughter. Not exactly good news.

Growing dark now as he drove back up to the Montauk house. His car seemed embarrassed to be asked to appear in such surroundings. A PI’s car that harked back to the glory days of Rockford.

Save Perry was no Jim Garner. Not even close. Past forty, he felt it, the driving, the garage brawl, the past two days of interviews had drained him, dealing with liars and, yeah, scum.

Scum like Randy Hyde. And now that politico creep, Tweed.

Would test the best of men.

Perry was not even close to his best, whatever that was. This acidic line of thought always led to the shame, the dismissal from the force and all the other cluster fucks of his life.

Being a cop, straight out, he’d freaking loved it. Was
proud
to carry the shield. His ex, Noreen, used to accuse, “You don’t bend Perry, you’re too . . .
rigid
.”

Not the first time he heard that. But it enraged him even now, like being honest was a crime. Fuck it, maybe he’d been
too
honest.

His buddies on the sheet, taking firstly nickel-and-dime crap, moving on up, and
fast,
to serious shit, serious dirt.

A
dirty
cop.

Hung that on him, Jesus H. Christ, not as much as a damn burger on the lam and Internal sneering:

“Count yer blessings, pal, you ain’t doing time.”

Doing time?!

Like having that jacket for the rest of his woebegone life, like that wasn’t a sentence?

His ex. Believe this? Saying to his daughter, who was all of nine years old then, “Daddy’s a crook.” Okay, not exactly Noreen’s words, but close enough.

You wanna talk criminal?

Yeah, her goddamn lawyer, that’s who.

Perry could feel it, all the bile and self-pity and, yes, fury he always tried so damn hard to keep under wraps rising. Damn, he was tired.

And now he had to deal with this damn lawyer with his damn house on the beach, and, like, did the guy even give a toss about his daughter? He hardly seemed upset last time he’d been out here.

Perry mentally composed himself, willed steel into his eyes, thought
Today, buddy—trust me—today you are going to give a damn!