— You won the last hand, Freddy, Burrows said, addressing the ceiling as he reclined against the sofa‘s curled back, — but you haven‘t told me the consequences of seeing you after the final round of raises. I was tapped out, so you put in for me. Now I owe you.
— I want you to answer Peter‘s question about the two missing officers.
— Who?
— Sampson and Montgomery, Marks provided helpfully.
— Oh, them.
The commissioner was still staring absently at the ceiling while Reese Williams, her legs curled up under her, watched the scene with an enigmatic expression.
— There‘s also the matter of a motorcycle cop shooting a man named Jay Weston, which caused the accident Sampson and Montgomery were dispatched to investigate, Marks continued. -Only there was no investigation; it was strangled.
Everyone in the room knew what — strangling an investigation meant.
— Freddy, Burrows said to the ceiling, — is this also part of what I owe you?
Willard‘s eyes were fixed on Reese Williams‘s unexpressive face. -I ponied up a ton of money for you to see me, Lester.
The commissioner sighed and finally relinquished his gaze from the ceiling. -Reese, you know you have a rather large crack up there.
— There are cracks throughout this house, Les, she said.
Burrows seemed to consider this for some time before saying to the other two men, — Be that as it may, there will be no cracks in the information shared here. Whatever I share with you gentlemen is strictly off the record, not for attribution, and however the hell else you want to say it. He sat up abruptly. -Bottom line: Afterward I will not only repudiate the statement, I‘ll go out of my way to prove it false and to run into the ground those who claimed I did say it. Are we clear?
— Perfectly, Marks said, while Willard nodded his assent.
— Detectives Sampson and Montgomery are currently fishing on the Snake River in Idaho.
— Are they really fishing, Marks asked, — or are they dead?
— Jesus Christ, I talked to them yesterday! Burrows said heatedly. -They wanted to know when they could come home. I told them there was no rush.
— Lester, Willard said, — they‘re not in Idaho on your dime.
— Uncle Sam has deeper pockets than I do, the commissioner conceded.
Willard was watching emotions crossing like clouds across Burrows‘s face.
— Precisely what piece of Uncle Sam?
— No one told me, and that‘s the truth, Burrows grumped, as if no one told him anything of any real importance. -But I remember the representative‘s name, if that‘s of any help.
— At this stage, Willard said heavily, — anything might prove useful, even a pseudonym.
— Well, dammit, no one tells the truth in this town! Burrows lifted an accusing finger. -And let me tell you two right now that no police officer of mine shot your Mr. Weston, of that I‘m damn sure. I conducted my own investigation into that allegation.
— Then someone was impersonating one of your police officers, Willard said calmly, — to point everyone in the wrong direction.
— You spooks. Burrows shook his head. -You live in your own world with its own rules. Christ, what a tangled web! He shrugged, as if shaking off his consternation. -That name, then. The man who made the arrangements for my detectives said his name was Noah Petersen. That ring a bell, or was he just blowing spook smoke up my ass?
Bourne had parted company with the lurker, as his cousin‘s cousin had first ensured that both truckers were inside the building, unloading crates, then furtively led the way into the building through the service entrance. Grabbing hold of the truck‘s rear door handle, he vaulted up, grabbing on to the rim of the top and rolling his body onto the truck‘s roof. By climbing onto the refrigeration unit, he was able to reach a concrete abutment on the building‘s facade, by which means he gained the setback along the second floor. Using the spaces between the concrete slabs, he picked his way farther up the building‘s side until he got to the third-floor setback, where he repeated the procedure until, reaching up, he levered himself over the parapet onto the tiled floor of the roof garden.
Unlike the architecture of the building itself, the garden was a delicate mosaic of colors and textures, perfectly manicured, fragrant, and shaded from the glaring sun. Bourne, crouching in a patch of the deepest shadow, breathed in the heady scent of lime as he studied the garden‘s layout. Save for him, the roof was deserted.
Two small structures were cleverly integrated into the garden‘s design: the door down into the building and, as he discovered, a toolshed for the staff who pruned the trees, plants, and flowers. He headed to the doorway, saw that it was protected by a standard circuit-breaker alarm. The moment he opened the door from the outside, the alarm would be triggered.
Backtracking to the toolshed, he took a pruner and a wire stripper to the parapet. There, at the crevice where it met the tiled floor of the roof, he found the wires that connected the garden‘s lights. Using the pruning shears, he cut off a six-foot length of wire. As he walked back to the doorway, he stripped the insulation off both ends.
At the door, he felt above for the alarm wire, stripping off two sections of the insulation and attaching the bare ends of the length of lighting wire he‘d cut to the bare alarm wire. When he was certain the connections were secure, he cut the alarm wire midway between the jerry-rigged splices he‘d made.
Cautiously, he opened the door only wide enough to slip inside. The splices had worked; the alarm was silent. He crept down the narrow, steep staircase to the third floor. His first order of business was to find Arkadin, the man who‘d lured him here, so he could kill him. The second was finding Tracy and getting her out.
Tracy was standing by the window, looking out at the chaotic street, when she heard the door open behind her. Assuming it was Noah, she turned back into the room, only to confront a man with a shaved head, a goatee, black shot through with white, a ring of diamonds in the lobe of one ear, and a tattoo of a fanged bat on the side of his neck. With his wide shoulders, barrel chest, and thick legs, he looked like a wrestler or one of those mutant extreme fighters she‘d seen once or twice on American TV.
— So you‘re the one who brought my Goya, the Bat-man said as he sauntered over to the table where the painting lay in all its grotesque grandeur. He had a way of walking, a rolling gait one saw only on muscle-men and sailors.
— That‘s Noah‘s, Tracy said.
— No, my dear Ms. Atherton, it‘s mine, the Bat-man said in grating, thickly accented English. -Perlis merely bought it for me. He held the painting up in front of him. -It‘s my payment. His chuckle was like the gurgle of a dying man. -A unique prize for unique services rendered.