Burtell put the car in gear and turned toward the narrow lane that led up past the condominium. The lights were coming on here and there in the condominium, and he wondered if the two women lived there or somewhere farther back in the neighborhoods. He drove past the Greek’s car, which sat motionless and dark, seeming to have an intelligence about it, a mute and incomprehensible cunning like one of those crusty bayou cockroaches that lived in the layered armor of the palm trees. Jesus Christ.
“What do you think?” Kalatis asked as they watched the taillights of Burtell’s car climb the lane and disappear.
Faeber was cautious. “He seemed sure of himself, that he had it under control.”
“I think he was squirming,” Kalatis said. “Maybe he hasn’t got the guts to go through with this.”
“Go through with it?”
“If we don’t call it off. If we go through with it.”
Faeber suddenly felt as if he had missed part of the conversation, that he hadn’t picked up on something crucial. Confused now, his mind scrambled to sort it out But he chose to say nothing else. He simply sat there wondering what in the hell was operating behind the black eyes of Panos Kalatis.
Chapter 17
Driving home, Graver went over and over the disturbing evidence Paula had laid out during the past two hours. There was no mistaking she had uncovered a breach in security that could have disastrous consequences. It was an intelligence director’s worst fear, and the bad news was compounded by the fact that an old, good friend seemed to be involved, if not at the very heart of it.
In truth, this was something Graver still had not accepted, though he had given Paula every indication that he had. It simply was unbelievable. He was going to have to think himself into it. Like a mathematician, he possessed the problem and the theorem, but he had yet to construct a formula of proof. And he would have to see that formula played out, step by step, before he would be able to bring himself to see Dean Burtell as a traitor.
The sticking point was motivation. Graver knew Burtell like a brother, and the motives seen most often in circumstances of betrayal simply did not figure into the equation. Greed? Dean liked to live well, but his affinity for upper-middle-class comforts hardly added up to avarice. Sexual obsession? Graver knew enough about human nature to know that that sort of thing could be held in secret for decades, even lifetimes, but often, if not always, there were indications, hints, of this proclivity in other aspects of the personality. But not in Dean Burtell. Revenge for imagined or actual wrongs? Burtell had never uttered a word along these lines. That, too, commonly exhibited itself sooner or later in someone who felt it strongly enough to seek it. Conflicting ideology or philosophy? Not a factor.
But supposing Burtell had changed, and one of these elements had become an obsession for him, obsession enough for him to betray everything and everyone for it. Would not Graver have noticed the change? Even if Burtell had managed effectively to disguise the motive, would Graver not have noticed something, even some other alteration in his behavior? How could he possibly have missed it? Had Burtell, like Tisler, suddenly acted contrary to character without anyone seeing even minor indications of something amiss-in either of them?
Graver had to admit that Paula’s line of deduction was artful and well constructed, but it did not seem to track with the human factor, an understanding of which also required a kind of sixth sense. Surely there was something here that didn’t add up. Surely, in this instance, appearances-the appearance of Burtell’s involvement-were deceiving. But then that was the problem, wasn’t it? Appearances had been deceiving. And now Graver, while accepting the axiom in the first instance, wanted to force it onto the second. It was the everlasting danger of counterintelligence, mirrors arranged to create the appearance of an infinity of the same image. Graver was on unstable ground, and it scared him.
He stopped at a seafood restaurant on Shepherd and the hostess took him to a small table for two by a window. Graver had not eaten at so many tables for two in his entire life as he had in the last six months. It was a constant and ironic reminder that dining, like sex, was an activity that, ideally, was expected to be done in pairs.
After ordering a dinner of fried shrimp and a bottle of Pacifico beer, he took out his pocket notebook and jotted down a few points that Paula had made that he wanted to rethink. Taking notes was an old habit that was hard to break, and he collected his thoughts much better in the company of old habits.
When his food arrived, he put away his notebook and ordered a second Pacifico. As he ate, he let his attention wander to the other diners, imagining the relationships of the people at each table. It was a favorite diversion, but one that he forced on himself now in a deliberate effort to take his mind off Burtell. It was not an entirely successful endeavor. When he finished eating, he did not order coffee, but quickly motioned to his waiter for the bill, paid it, and left.
As he was walking out to his car, he felt the pager on his belt vibrate. He looked down at the number, and then turned around and went back into the restaurant. There was only one pay telephone in the anteroom outside the rest rooms, and it was occupied by a young man in his twenties, a post-modern boulevardier with an attitude. He wore his black hair in a ponytail and was dressed in a fashionably baggy tan suit with a black shirt buttoned at the neck, no tie. When he saw that Graver was waiting, he turned his back and kept talking. He was telling the person on the other end that he and a friend were going to a few clubs after dinner and why didn’t she catch up with them at Tocino’s at ten-thirty. Oh. Why? Well, tell him something. Tell him you’ve got a girlfriend who’s sick, throwing up all over the place, and you have to go see about her. What? Well, tell him…
Graver took out his shield, opened it, reached over the man’s shoulder, and dangled it in front of his face.
“Give me five minutes,” he said. The young man flinched and turned around slowly, his eyes fixed in cautious surprise. “Tell her you’ll call her back in five minutes. It’ll give her time to think of something.”
The young man did as he was told, then pressed down the hook with one hand, and gave the receiver to Graver. “Jesus,” he said with mocking respect, his machismo requiring some kind of disparagement to cover his loss.
“Thanks,” Graver said.
Neuman answered on the first ring.
“Everything all right?” Graver asked.
“Oh, sure… I just need to see you for a few minutes.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m just finishing a hamburger at a diner called Sid’s, off Montrose.”
“I know where it is. I’m not far away. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
When Graver got to the diner, Neuman was sitting in his car in front where he had parked to one side under an old mimosa. Graver pulled up beside him, and Neuman got out of his car.
“The place was too small to talk inside,” Neuman explained through Graver’s window.
Graver came around and each of them leaned against their cars. Though the night was clear, the air was damp, and heavy with the sweetness of the honeysuckle that grew in great clumps, frothy white with blossoms, against a board fence that disappeared around behind the diner.
“What’s on your mind?” Graver asked.
Neuman was holding his car keys and jangled them gently as if to get himself started.
“Well, first of all I checked out Tisler,” he said. “Thoroughly. Went after hidden income possibilities, real property-he’s got a little rent house in Sharpstown. Had it a couple of years. Paid minimum down, fifteen-year mortgage, and he’s plunking away monthly payments. I checked business involvements, savings accounts, all the banking possibilities. Nothing. Toys: vehicle and boat registrations. Nothing. I did all this in Peggy’s name too. And in Art’s middle name, Sydney. And in her maiden name, Mays. Nothing. If he had an extra income he wasn’t stupid about taking care of it I don’t know how far you want me to go with this. Background checks next? Whatever.”