Stone Cold (11 page)

CHAPTER 28

H
ARRY
F
INN QUIETLY ENTERED
the room, sat down in the chair and stared at her. The woman looked back at him, or through him, Finn was never sure. She had once spoken fluent English without a trace of any accent. But the multilingual lady had, perhaps out of growing paranoia, decided to mash four languages into one, creating a confusing amalgam of chaotic communication. He didn’t quite know how, but Finn managed to understand it. She would have accepted nothing less from him.

She muttered in his direction and he answered her blunt greeting in a few words. This seemed to please her, because she nodded appreciatively, a smile edging across her fallen cheeks. Actually she had known that he was here before Finn had even entered the room. She had explained this before as having felt his
presence.
He had a particular aura, she’d told him; a pleasant one, but distinctive. As a man who did not like to leave any trace of himself anywhere, this bothered Finn greatly. Yet how did one wipe away his aura?

As a child he remembered his mother’s tall, strong body with the hands of a pianist. Now she was shrunken, withered. He studied her face. It had once held a rare, fragile beauty, a loveliness that growing up he had always associated with the most beautiful of daylilies. This was because when he was a child, at night, the beauty receded and she became moody and sometimes violent; never against him, but against herself. And then Finn would have to step in and take charge. As early as age seven he had done this. The experience had made him grow up quickly, faster than he should have. Now the beauty was gone from her face, the body collapsed, the once lovely hands scarred and wrinkled in her lap. She was only in her early seventies and yet looked more than ready for the grave.

But she still could dominate him with her indignation, with her demand that a wrong be righted. Despite her physical disintegration her words had retained the power to make him feel the grief, the injustice she’d endured.

“I have heard the news,” she said in her strange talk. “It is done and it is good. You are good.”

He stood and looked out the window at the grounds of this place that he thought they still called a sanatorium. Stacked neatly on the windowsill were the four newspapers that she read every day, cover to cover, word for word. When the papers were done she listened to the radio, or watched the TV, until she fell asleep late at night. The morning would bring more news that she would devour. There was nothing in the world that she seemed to miss.

“And now you move on to the next,” she said, in a higher voice as though she feared her words might not reach him from across the room.

He nodded and said, “Yes.”

“You are a good
son.
”

Harry resumed his seat. “How’s your health?”

“What health?” she said, smiling and swaying her head. She had always done that, he remembered. Always, as though she heard a song no one else did. As a child he had loved that about her, that mysterious quality all children sought out in their parents. Now he didn’t like it as much.

“I have no health. You know what they did to me. You cannot believe this is natural. I am not that old. I sit here and I rot a little more each day.”

They had poisoned her, years ago, she had told him. They had gotten to her somehow, she wasn’t quite sure how. The poison was meant to kill, but she had survived it. Yet it was eating away at her, from the inside out, laying claim to organs one by one until there would be none left. She probably believed that one day she would simply vanish from the earth.

“You can leave. You’re not like the others here.”

“And where would I go, tell me that? Where would I go? I am safe here. So here I will stay until they take me away in the bag and burn me. Those are my wishes.”

Finn held up his hands in mock surrender. They had this same discussion during each of his visits, with the same result. She was rotting and afraid and here she would die. He could have articulated both parts of this conversation, so well did he know them.

“And how is your wife, and those beautiful children?”

“They’re fine. I’m sure they miss seeing you.”

“There’s not much left to see. Your little one, Susie. She still has the bear I gave her?”

“It’s her favorite. She’s never without it.”

“You tell her never to let it go. It represents my love for her. She must never let it go. I have not been a proper grandmother to them. I know this. But it would kill me if she ever let go of the bear. Kill me.”

“I know. And she knows. Like I said, she loves it.”

She rose on shaky legs, went to a drawer and pulled out a photo. In twisted fingers she clutched the item before handing it across to him. “Take it,” she said. “You’ve earned it.”

He slipped the photograph out of her hands and held it up. It was the same picture that Judd Bingham, Bob Cole and Lou Cincetti had seen before they died. Carter Gray, too, had gazed on this image before he was blown to the next world.

Finn traced the delicate line of Rayfield Solomon’s cheek with his index finger. In a flash the past came racing back to him: the separation, the news of his father’s death, the erasing of the past and meticulous creation of a new one, and over the years the devastating revelations of a wife and mother telling her son what had happened.

“And now Roger Simpson,” she said.

“Yes. The last one,” Finn replied, a hint of relief in his voice.

It had taken him years to track down Bingham, Cincetti and Cole. Yet he had finally located all of them, and that’s when the killing had started a few months ago. He had known the whereabouts of Gray and Senator Roger Simpson since they were public figures. But they were also harder targets. He had gone for the points of least resistance first. It made it more likely that Gray and Simpson would be forewarned, but he had built that into his equation. And when Gray had left the government, he had also left most of his protection behind. And even forewarned, Finn had managed to kill him. Simpson was next in line. Senators had protection too, but Finn was confident he would eventually get to the man.

When Finn looked on the life he had now as part of a family of five in a quite ordinary Virginia suburb complete with a lovable dog, music lessons, soccer matches, baseball games and swim meets, and compared it to the life he had as a child, the juxtaposition was close to apocalyptic in its effect on him. That’s why he rarely thought of these things together. That’s why he was Harry Finn, King of Compartmentalization. He could build walls in his mind nothing could pierce.

Then his mother said, “Let me tell you a story, Harry.”

He sat back in his chair and listened, though he had heard it all before—in fact, could have told it as well as she could now. And yet he listened as she spoke in her fractured, discordant collage of words that still managed to radiate a visceral power; her memories carved out an eloquent factual case that only truth could arouse. It was both wonderful and terrifying—her ability to conjure a world from decades ago with such force that it appeared to be occupying the room they were in with the agonized heartbreak surrounding a flaming pyre. And when she was finished and her energy spent, he would kiss her good-bye and continue his journey, a journey he carried on for her. And maybe for him too.

CHAPTER 29

“
C
ALM DOWN
, C
ALEB
,” Stone said. “And tell me exactly what happened.” Stone had pulled off the road on the way to Maine when he’d received Caleb’s frantic call. He listened for ten minutes to his friend’s breathless recounting of his face-to-face with Jerry Bagger.

“Caleb, are you sure he didn’t know you were lying? Really sure?”

“I was good, Oliver, you would’ve been proud of me. He gave me his card. Said to call if I had any other information. He offered to pay five figures.” Caleb paused. “And I found out her real name is Annabelle Conroy.”

“Don’t tell that to anyone!”

“What do you want me to do now?”

“Nothing. Do not contact Bagger. I’ll give you a call later.”

Stone clicked off and then phoned Reuben in Atlantic City, relaying what Caleb had told him. “Well, your information was correct, Reuben, Bagger
is
in D.C.”

“Hopefully this Angie gal will be even more informative tonight. By the way, where are you, Oliver?”

“I’m on my way to Maine.”

“Maine? Is that where she is?”

“Yes.”

“Why Maine?”

“Let’s just say our friend has some unfinished business up there.”

“Having to do with this Bagger dude?”

“Yes.”

Stone put his phone down and continued driving. Caleb’s car, though old and rotting, had performed well enough, though on no occasion had he been able to coax it past sixty. Hours later, the night well established, Stone crossed from New Hampshire into Maine. Checking his map, he exited off the interstate and headed east, toward the Atlantic Ocean. Twenty minutes later he slowed and drove through the downtown area of the place Annabelle was staying. It was quaint and filled with shops offering everything from touristy items to nautical gear, as many coastal New England towns did. This was the off-season though, and most of the visitors were long gone, having no desire to expose themselves to the coming Maine winter.

Stone found the B&B where Annabelle was staying, parked in the small lot, grabbed his duffel bag and went in.

She was waiting in the parlor for him, standing in front of the fire that flickered pleasantly behind her. The floors and doors here creaked; the smell was of a recently served dinner mixed with the aroma of centuries-old wood and the heavy bite of the ocean’s salt air.

“I got the owner to save us some supper,” Annabelle said. They ate in the small dining room, and a hungry Stone wolfed down the chowder, thick buttered bread and crispy cod while Annabelle merely picked at hers.

Finished, he said, “Where can we talk?”

“I got you a room next to mine.”

“Um, I’m a bit short of funds right now.”

“Oliver, don’t even go there. Come on.”

She got a carafe of coffee and two cups from the kitchen and led him upstairs, first to his room to drop off his small bag and then to hers, which had a tiny sitting room off the bedroom. There was also a fire crackling in the fireplace. They sat and drank the hot coffee.

Annabelle reached in her bag, pulled out an ID, a credit card and a wad of cash and tossed them to Stone. The ID had his picture on it and other pertinent information making him a citizen of the District of Columbia.

“Quick job from a guy I found. I used a picture of you I had with me. The credit card’s legit.”

“Thank you. But why’d you do it?”

“Again, don’t go there.”

Annabelle just stared into the flames while Stone studied her, debating whether to tell her or not.

“Annabelle, put your cup down.”

“What?”

“I have something to tell you and I don’t want you to spill hot coffee.”

A rare look of fear crossed her features as she slowly put down the cup. “Reuben? Milton? Dammit, I told you not to send them to Atlantic City!”

“They’re fine. This has to do with Caleb and he’s fine too. But he had an unexpected visitor today at the library.”

Annabelle seemed to stare right through him as she said, “Jerry?”

Stone nodded. “Caleb apparently played his part well. Bagger offered a lot of money for information on you.”

“How did he know to come to the library?”

“He found out you were married to DeHaven. It was a public record and these days that information is easily available on the Internet if you know where to look.”

Annabelle slumped back against the small sofa. “I should have just followed my damn exit plan. God, I’m so stupid.”

“No, you’re human. You came to pay your respects to a man you were married to and cared for. It’s normal.”

“Not when you’ve ripped off a homicidal nutcase like Jerry Bagger for forty million bucks it’s not. Then it’s just stupid,” she added bitterly.

“Okay, but you didn’t go to your island, your partner screwed up and Bagger is on your tail and he’s narrowed the gap decisively. Those are the facts we have to deal with. You can’t run now, because no matter how well you run, you will leave some sort of trail. And he’s too close to miss it. If you go to your island, all that guarantees is that when Bagger shows up at your door, you’ll be all alone when he kills you.”

“Thanks, Oliver. That really makes me feel better.”

“It should. Because here you have people willing to risk their lives to help you!”

Her expression softened. “I know that. I didn’t mean what it sounded like.”

Stone looked toward the window. “This is quite the sleepy town. It’s hard to believe someone could be murdered here. Where did it happen?”

“Right on the outskirts. I was planning to go there tomorrow morning.”

“Do you want to talk about it tonight?”

“You had a long drive and you must be tired. And, no, I don’t want to talk about it tonight. If I’m going to face this tomorrow I need to get some sleep. Good night.”

Stone watched her bedroom door close, then he rose and headed to his room, unsure of what the morning would bring.

CHAPTER 30

R
EUBEN DROPPED
over a hundred bucks for drinks and dinner with Angie, but he figured it was a good return on his investment for he learned some interesting things. The two guys who’d ended up in the hospital and the one who’d disappeared completely had evidently displeased their boss, Jerry Bagger. How, Angie was not quite sure, but it seemed to come down to money. Unfortunately, Angie didn’t know why Bagger had gone to Washington, only that it had happened all of a sudden.

I bet,
thought Reuben.

Over her third “Dark and Stormy,” a rum and ginger beer concoction that Reuben tried a sip of and almost retched as a result, Angie said, “Funny stuff going on around here lately. Got a buddy in finance for the casino. He told me he was under strict instructions to do everything he could to delay a routine Control Commission inspection of the casino’s books.”

“This Bagger guy in money trouble?”

She shook her head. “Don’t see how. The Pompeii Casino is like the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. It’s a gold mine, and Mr. Bagger is the smartest operator in town. Tough with a nickel, and he knows how to make a buck.”

“Something must have happened, then,” Reuben said. “Maybe the guys who got hurt and the one who disappeared screwed up somehow with some of the casino’s cash. Maybe they were ripping him off, and Bagger found out and brought the hammer down.”

“Mr. Bagger ain’t dumb. You don’t break knees anymore; you just sic the cops or lawyers on cheaters. So this must’ve been something really big, and he took it personally.”

“Cops looking into it?”

She looked incredulous. “Mr. Bagger knows what palms to grease. And do you know how much tax revenue the Pompeii generates for New Jersey?”

Reuben nodded thoughtfully. “He probably paid off the pair in the hospital. And the other guy’s not gonna be squealing to the police.”

“Dead men don’t talk, you’re right.” Angie had scooted closer to Reuben in the booth they were sharing. She patted his thigh with her hand and then kept it there. “So enough shop talk, tell me about yourself. Did you use to play pro football? You look big enough.” She squeezed his leg and leaned into him.

“Played some in college. Did a couple tours in Nam. Won some medals, collected some shrapnel.”

“Really? Where? Here?” She playfully poked a finger into his chest.

“Let’s just say I won’t be having any more children.” Reuben couldn’t believe he was telling this lie to a woman who obviously wanted to go to bed with him, but he had other things on his mind.

Angie’s jaw fell so far, it was in jeopardy of smacking the table.

“Check, please,” Reuben called out to the waiter as he passed by.