The Shadow Box (20 page)

Afterward, he went into the bathroom and closed the
door. As he toweled himself off he looked in the mirror,
grimaced, and began to have one of those listen-you-ass-
hole conversations with himself. He did not get very far
because he heard Megan's voice, outside in the bedroom,
saying, ”Wha—what? Oh, no. Oh, God.” She was, he assumed, getting new instructions from the mother ship.

Fallon stayed in the bathroom, gathering himself, com
piling in his head the list of explanations he would now
demand of her. No more oblique little references, no more
mystical bullshit. That done, he opened the door and
came out.

Megan was gone.

Of course she was. Why should that have surprised him?
The last he heard of her, from somewhere downstairs, was
an agonized groan and the sound of her jacket being
zipped.

That, Fallon swore, was it.

He would absolutely, under no circumstances, have any
thing further to do with that fruitcake. He'd just had the
worst and emptiest sexual experience since Onan. He'd
been a victim of date rape. And first she'd done her best
to try to mess up his head. So why did she take off? Why
didn't she stick around and really make a night of it by
grabbing the Python and blowing his brains out?

The gun. The Colt Python. What was that business with
the gun?

“Three,”
he imagined, meant that it had killed three
times. That came as no great shock. It doesn't have to
mean, however, that the man he took it from was a triple
murderer. In New York, street dealers rent these
things
out for the night. The going rate, according to Moon, is
forty dollars. But if you use it in a crime you pay another
sixty dollars and that's only if you don't shoot it. Those two were just street bums out looking for a score. That's
all they were.

What did “But not you” mean? That he wasn't one of
the three? That's too obvious. Maybe she was saying that
she knew it wasn't him who killed with it. She could tell
that by the taste. Think of all the money that's been wasted on ballistic tests and on fluoroscoping hands to see if they
bore traces of powder. Think of all the innocent men rot
ting in prison because their lawyers never thought of
bringing Megan in to lick the murder weapon.

She's even better if she gets to touch your chest.

“Two.”

Fallon's first thought was that she meant Uncle Jake
and Bronwyn. But he refused to give her that much credit
and, besides, she immediately said, “No . . . more than
that” and then, “Hundreds.”

He must have caused a plane crash somewhere along the line. And then gone into denial.

Uncle Jake was right. She started lobbing soft ones and quickly worked her way up to hand grenades. But nothing
she said or did was in the least bit impressive. The physi
cal part least of all. Okay, she found the Python but it
was in his night table. Open enough of them and you'll
find a few guns. You didn't find one? No sweat. You can do just as good an act with an old condom wrapper. You
hold it against your forehead and say, ”I feel
...
a
woman. She is
...
hungry. She is
...
searching.”

It's all a scam. It has to be.

She shows up here again, she's going out on her ass.

Chapter 15

Doyle had those same three days
in which to
think about his lunch with the Giordano brothers. He still
found much of it hard to believe.

But parts of it, certainly, left little room for doubt.
There was no question that Mohammed Mizda and the
jailed Jamaican worked for this man. Parker, along with
some fifty other men, most of them illegal aliens, none
of them Boy Scouts, almost all from third world coun
tries. In addition to this small army of thugs, according
to Mizda, Parker is said to have retained a number of
Americans who were specialists in the black-bag arts of
wiretapping and burglary. The Pakistani, however,
rarely came in contact with the latter and had no real
knowledge of their mission.

What seemed indisputable, however, was that Parker
had sent Mizda and the Jamaican, among others, after Mi
chael. He had done so either at the behest of Lehman-
Stone, which meant Bart Hobbs, or on instructions from
someone at AdChem.

It had also been established that Mizda, before being
brought here from Pakistan, had been in the pay of that
AdChem subsidiary, first as a guard with those camel caravans and then as a disciplinarian of sorts. His people
were warned that if they stole from the camels that were

bringing back the gold, Mizda would stake them out in
the Pakistan sun, place a large copper bowl on their
bellies, put two thirsty rats under it, and let them dig their
way out.

This gem was related by Mohammed Yahya. He told it
as he spooned chocolate ice cream into his mouth.

It was not so much that Doyle doubted the story. Parker
had not recruited Mizda for his love of humanity. But it
just didn't seem the sort of detail one volunteers when
one is hoping not to be tortured any further. Given his
admission that he tried to murder Michael, the Giordano
brothers were feeling less than lenient toward him as it
was.

Mohammed Yahya, more likely, had simply thrown it
in. Perhaps he's seen it done. Perhaps he's done it himself.
God knows what else he had invented, but claimed that Mizda had said, in his zeal to impress Fat Julie Giordano.

On the other hand, he said that Mizda knew nothing of
Jake Fallon's murder. Was it therefore unrelated? He said,
further, that Mizda had no knowledge of any involvement
by anyone at Lehman-Stone or AdChem. That it was strictly
this Parker character. Which is, of course, impossible.

Unless . . .

Unless Parker had reasons of his own. Could it be,
Doyle wondered, that Parker is running an outlaw security
firm that has been robbing AdChem blind, diverting its
products to the black market. If so, however, he would
surely need someone on the inside. Someone who could
doctor their production and inventory figures so that the
shrinkage wouldn't show. That would explain the need for
black-baggers. But how would Lehman-Stone fit in? What
is Bart Hobbs's role in this? Mohammed Mizda had no
idea.

No use asking him again. No good asking to take a
deposition from him either because, if Fat Julie's past be
havior is any guide, he's probably in the hold of some
cargo ship by now. Sealed in a fuel drum. Ready to be
deep-sixed far out at sea lest we discomfort Marty Hen
nessy by having him bob to the surface at the foot of
Wall Street.

Fat Julie had smelled big money.

All those counterfeit drugs.

But Doyle found Yahya's claim so extravagant that
it
rendered his overall credibility moot.

Half?

Half of all prescription drugs are counterfeit? Half of
two hundred billion dollars?

“Okay,” Johnny G. had said afterward on the sidewalk
outside the restaurant. “Say it
isn't
fifty percent. Say it's
five percent. That's still ten billion dollars which is, to
give you an example, about twice the size of the whole
movie industry. And with counterfeits, your costs are real
low so maybe ninety percent of that is pure profit. There's
also not that much risk. You get caught . . .”

Fat Julie tapped a finger against the table, then cupped both hands in the manner of a poker player breasting his cards. Doyle recognized the gesture. It said, “Never tell
everything. Always keep something in your pocket.”

It was the second time he'd done that. The first was
when
Johnny G. wondered aloud why Bart Hobbs needs
so many homes. The question came as he was flipping
through his notebook to see if he had forgotten anything.
It had no apparent relevance to the subject at hand. But it
clearly had significance because Fat Julie waved that finger
at his brother again.

Whatever.  

In the end, at least, he agreed to wait a few days before
saying anything to Moon. No use getting Moon's blood
up. There were too many things that needed to be sorted
out first.

That Sunday, Doyle had taken a taxi home.

On arriving, the first thing he did, other than checking
the labels of Sheila's prescription bottles, and flushing the
contents of two of them, was to place a call to Arnie
Aaronson.

Arnie was his investment counselor. He handled Mi
chael's portfolio as well. Before going into business for himself, however, Arnie had spent twenty years at Merrill-
Lynch, was still well connected, and knew his way around
the pharmaceutical industry. Upjohn and Pfizer, in fact,
were part of Doyle's portfolio, and Arnie had urged him
to hold them.

As for AdChem, come to think of it, Doyle didn't re
member them even being listed. He asked Aaronson,
whom he had awakened from a nap.

“They're not,” Aaronson told him. “Not on the big
board. They're listed on the Frankfurt exchange.”