“Pensacola PD found Amy McDonough hanging from her kitchen ceiling two days ago.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“There was no foul play. She left a note.”
“What'd it say?”
“One word — Sorry.”
“Shit.”
“With McDonough and Butler dead, there's no damning physical evidence that ties Demelian to Ruben's murder,” she said. “He'll walk on this one.”
“So he gets off free as a bird.”
“Weeeell, maybe not quite. Pensacola PD checked him out thoroughly. Seems the guy's not really an attorney. Did two years of law school, then dropped out. Never passed the bar. Been taking people's money for years under false pretenses, and hasn't filled in a tax return for years, either. You know how cranky the IRS can get when you don't do that. The DA says even with a plea bargain, Demelian'll do time, and plenty of it.”
It wasn't quite conspiracy to murder, but it was better than nothing. “Clare, if you were here, I'd buy you a … a … chocolate sundae.”
“Vin, please — I don't do phone sex.”
We both laughed. It hurt my face.
After we hung up I sat back for a minute and thought about Amy McDonough. I felt bad for her, but I felt worse for Ruben.
I took my mind off that whole painful mess by turning on the CD player and monitor. There was a plastic take-out knife in a drawer and I used that to slit the packing tape sealing the box. Inside was a letter and floor plan showing the footprint of each security camera in the areas I was interested in.
I read the letter and examined the floor plan. There were thirty-three security cameras covering the Pentagon's main cafeteria area, including the entrances and exits servicing it. Somewhere here in this box, there'd be evidence of a particular meeting between two parties.
I knew the day in question and could guess at the hour, but that would still mean thirty-three hours of recording to sift through to find it — if it even existed. If I was smart about it, less. I pulled a disk from the box. On its sleeve was written the camera's number, which told me where it was positioned and the area it captured on the accompanying floor plan, along with the date and time of coverage. I fed the disk to the player.
I was smart about it, but maybe not smart enough, which could be why it still took five and a half hours of watching the tops of people's heads to get through it all. At the end, I knew two things for certain. The first was that there were a lot of bald men working at the Pentagon. The second put me on a plane to LaGuardia to see that mutual friend Butler and I shared — the one he'd said wanted me dead.
As everyone knows, John Lennon lived at the Dakota Apartments building on Seventy-second Street in Manhattan, before he got himself shot outside the front entrance. If the place was expensive before the killing, prices at the apartment block afterward were murderous. Those New Yorkers, they love a gimmick.
I flipped my badge at the doorman, a big guy with puffy cheeks and a soft, round belly that filled out his uniform like a full vacuum cleaner dustbag. He checked me over — MA-1 flying jacket, jeans, boots, the remnants of a badly battered face, and a plaster cast on my hand. Reluctance to let me in was written all over him, but he had no choice. The badge of mine told him so, as did the uniformed guys with their hands on their hips leaning against the two federal marshal Crown Vics parked in the street behind me.
“Who you wanna see?” he asked, not sure he heard it right the first time. He cocked his left ear at me. I saw the hearing aid.
I said it louder the second time.
“Does she know you're coming up?”
“Damn well hope not,” I said. “You follow me?”
He gave me another uncertain look, then waddled up the front steps. Hip problems. An old guy like this should be propping up a bar somewhere, telling lies about his youth, not opening doors for rich people. “How long you been doing this job?” I asked.
“Since a year after the battle of Chosin — that was a real war, son, not like this bull crap we're fighting today. I've been working this door since after I got out of repatriation. That's more'n fifty years.” His nose was red with cold, his top lip slick with clear, running mucus. He inserted a key into a security board and gave it a twist.
“Thanks for your cooperation,” I said. I couldn't afford the sympathy, but I dug the note out of my jacket pocket anyway and palmed it to him.
“Gee, ten dollars. Now I can retire,” he said, examining it closely before stuffing it in his pants. With the clientele in this building, the guy probably earned three times my salary in goddamn tips.
As I waited for the elevator to arrive, I checked out the foyer. Like the building's exterior, it reminded me of food with too much garnish. There were cameras in the corners of the ceiling. Like so much about the building, I figured the old guy was just for show. After the John Lennon thing, the Dakota Apartments' residents would have taken their security a little more seriously. No doubt somewhere close was a bunker with a couple of young, bored guys, pieces strapped to their hips and a direct line to NYPD, watching folks come and go.
“You got the apartment number?” the doorman asked.
I had it written on a separate page in my notebook, which I showed him.
“Fourth floor,” he said as he turned and waddled back into the brittle, cold air outside.
The ornate elevator door opened and I stepped inside. The air smelled of warmed rosewood. I pressed the button and rode it to the fourth floor. The doors slid back. An old couple stood in the doorway. The woman looked familiar, though I couldn't place her. A fifties movie star, perhaps. Whatever, they both looked at me disapprovingly then stood aside, allowing plenty of room to let me pass in case I had something they could catch — like poverty, maybe.
I stepped into the hallway. More cameras in the ceiling, and, like before, not too discreet. The carpet was thick enough to roll in. I walked up to the door number duplicating the one in my notebook, and pressed the button. There was no spy hole, no need — not with those guys in the bunker somewhere killing themselves slowly on coffee and doughnuts, eyeballing monitor screens.
The door opened.
“Mind if I come in?” I asked. I didn't wait for the answer, stepping inside. The woman's mouth dropped open wide enough to make a dental surgeon's day. The doorman hadn't phoned ahead, which made mine.
“Special Agent Cooper,” she said unnecessarily. I knew who I was. And I had a pretty good idea who the woman holding open the door was too, though she was a somewhat different woman from the one I thought I knew. “You look awful,” she added after a second look, once I'd walked past.
“I fell,” I said, eyeballing the room. “Nice place.” It was, if you went in for expensive junk sales. Crystal chandeliers, silver candelabra, couches with carved claw feet, ottomans, Persian rugs, clocks, quilts, and old paintings of English fox hunts slugged it out for attention. Heavy burgundy brocade drapes hung above two vast ceiling-to-floor windows framing multimillion-dollar views of Central Park.
“I was just about to fix myself a drink,” said Dr. Freddie Spears. “You care to join me? How's the mission going?”
I saw my favorite brand keeping company with a number of other bottles on a liquor cabinet beneath a painting that looked like the English countryside except that it wasn't — a group of Native Americans were handing over a few beads to a couple of European types. “Sure,” I said. “Glen Keith with rocks. And I guess you could say the mission is still in the planning phase.” I was relieved — not about getting a drink, but about the mission's integrity. Spears knew as much as the newspapers about what had happened in Thailand: nothing.
The doctor moved to the cabinet. She was dressed in beige slacks and a fitted white silk shirt. Her feet were bare, toenails carefully manicured and painted pink. She was looking relaxed, all things considered.