I started back to the Jeep. He caught up with me.
“No way that was done with cherry bombs,” I said. I jerked open the door to the Jeep before Stanley could pull at it like a doorman, got in, and looked back out. His forehead sparkled with beads of sweat.
“Call the cops, Stanley, or I will.” I twisted the ignition key, fed the engine too much gas, and cut ruts into his precious green parkway as I lurched onto the highway.
Five
My cell phone rang at seven thirty the next morning, one minute after I’d switched it on. It was the Bohemian, and he didn’t take time to schmooze.
“You can’t go to the police.”
“Your bomber is sending you another message.”
“By blowing up a lamppost?”
“By showing you he can do it anyplace.”
“We must wait for his letter.”
“What if he doesn’t send one? He never did send a follow-up to collect money the last time.”
“We must wait.”
“Go to the police, or I will.”
“You think the Maple Hills police can solve this?” His voice rose.
“No, but they’ll pass it off to the F.B.I. or the A.T.F. They’ll check the soil around the lamppost for D.X.12 and start a professional investigation.”
There was a pause. “It was D.X.12,” he said.
“You know this already?”
“I had Stanley take a soil sample to a lab last night.”
“That kills your theory that the first bomb was aimed at the Farradays. Your bomber is targeting all of Crystal Waters.”
The Bohemian said nothing.
“The Feds might be able to trace the D.X.12,” I said.
“The police tried after the Farraday bomb. D.X.12 hasn’t been manufactured since the sixties. There are no sources to trace.”
“Then somebody’s got an old cache,” I said, “and that’s a clue you, Stanley, or I don’t know how to handle. The Feds might.”
“People will be ruined.”
“People will be dead.”
He gave an exasperated sigh. “Vlodek, ask yourself: Does he want to kill, or does he want money? He blew up a house when nobody was home. Now he’s blown up a lamppost safely outside the walls. He’s an extortionist, not a killer. He wants money. The lamppost increases the pressure, perfects his position. He’s priming us. He’ll send another note, we’ll pay him, and he’ll go away.”
“How can you be sure? He hasn’t contacted you for payment. He might just keep setting off bombs.”
“He will communicate. He’s a businessman. He wants money.”
The Bohemian sounded so cocksure: a bomber as businessman, rational, perfecting his position. It made it all the more chilling.
He went on, each word calm and well reasoned. “Our bomber knows publicity would ruin house values. That’s his lever against us. But it cuts both ways. He fears publicity, too. If this gets out, we’ll have no choice but to bring in the police, and that will end his chances for money. That’s why he won’t kill. This is a kind of blackmail, Vlodek. We must handle it ourselves.”
“We just wait?”
“He’ll contact us for the money.”
“And once paid, he will stop?”
“He knows our resources are not infinite. If he gets too greedy, he knows we’ll have no choice but to involve the authorities.”
“Is everything in your world always so logical, or are you justpracticed at making it sound that way?” I struggled to keep my voice as sure as his, to not let him hear I was furious with his calm logic-and furious with myself, because he was manipulating me, and I didn’t know how to stop it.
“The lamppost was a heads-up, a little notification. Obviously it will be followed by a money demand, with instructions.”
“What if you’re wrong? The police can give you security that Stanley Novak and his band of gatekeepers can’t.”
“Do you recall the two groundsmen digging in the hole yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“A tall man and a shorter one?”
“Yes.”
“Describe the shorter one.”
I thought for a minute and realized I couldn’t, at least not well. The tall man had drawn my attention; he’d done the talking.
“The shorter groundsman is from a private security firm,” the Bohemian said. “You didn’t see it, but he had a gun. There are others as well, acting as landscapers or contractors.”
“None of them did any good yesterday.”
“It was outside the gate.”
“The police need to see the note, and they need to know about yesterday.”
“Let me handle this, Vlodek.” He clicked off so smoothly it took a few seconds to realize I was listening to dead air. He’d flicked me off like lint.
I went over to the Mr. Coffee, thought better of it, and balanced my cup on the pile in the sink instead. I was already breathing like I was running uphill. I went outside to sit on the city bench facing the river.
The only thing worse than being a paper tiger is being the last one to realize it. I could growl in the air all I wanted, but the Bohemian had me pegged. He knew I wouldn’t call the cops.
Point One: I wasn’t a licensed investigator, or an attorney, but the Bohemian would have checked around, learned I always respected the confidentiality of my clients. Point Two: If I ever did go to the cops against the wishes of a client, I’d be ruined in the business I was trying to rebuild, and afterward, the best I could hope for would be a greeter’s job in a discount store. Point Three: Amanda’s three-million-dollar house was involved. She didn’t have much cash, just that big-buck residence and a fortune in art. Losing the house would jeopardize her ability to keep the artworks, and the Bohemian knew I’d go to any length to protect her.
Points One, Two, and Three were why the Bohemian hired me in the first place; he was sure of the control he’d have over me before he sent Stanley flashing a check. I could protest and threaten all I wanted, but the Bohemian knew I wouldn’t go to the cops.
But there was a Point Four: The sand was running out of the hourglass. The Gateville bombs couldn’t be kept quiet forever. A Board member would tell his wife to get the kids out of town; she’d tell someone, and someone else-a cleaning woman, a gardener working under an open window-would hear and sell it as a news tip to a radio station for twenty-five bucks. Word was going to get out, unless the bomber sent a note soon, he got paid, and he went away. Quickly-and for good.
Point Four was where my brain dead-ended: Why did the Bohemian think he could get the whole thing resolved before it became public, and why was he so certain that, once paid, the bomber would go away forever?
What did the Bohemian know?
I watched the river, but the river offered up nothing but empty eddies.
I got up. Maybe the answer was simply that the Bohemian understood money motives better than I. He was managing multimillion-dollar portfolios while I sniffed varnish, trying tocobble up enough for a roof and a hot water heater. I went into the turret for my gym bag.
Except for the trucks lumbering through town along Thompson Avenue, the streets were empty. It was nine thirty in the morning, too early for the commerce of Rivertown, too early for the pawnshops, video arcades, bars, and working girls. That would change when the lizards got the condo builders to start stacking young urban professionals along the Willahock. Then the latte emporiums, trendy clothiers, and organic-broccoli peddlers would come, daytime places for daytime people with daytime needs. Until then, Rivertown would stay a nighttime town.
And that was fine, at least until I could finish the rehab, get my zoning changed, and unload the turret. Because when the developers did come, the first thing they’d push over was the health center, to chase out the drunks. Yups won’t pay a half million for a condo if they’re going to be greeted mornings by some grizzled fellow in urine-stained pants, savoring an eye-opening splash of muscatel against their bricks because he couldn’t find his way back to his room.