"What does he want, Margie?"
Her pinched look stayed.
"All right," Paine said.
He pulled himself off the desk. As he stepped into the hallway Jimmy Carnaseca was there, pressing the Velcro tab down on his camera bag. He had a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his other hand, a spurt of steam rising from a corner where the plastic lid was pried up. "Got to catch somebody cheating on somebody," he grinned, moving past. "Don't let anybody mess with that thing on my desk."
"Sure, Jimmy."
Paine was alone in the hallway. He looked at the wall and suddenly it was moving at him, looking to squeeze him back until he was caught. Then it would come at him, pushing, pushing, until all the air was gone-
A tomb.
He closed his eyes tight and gently moved the panic away from his mind. In a moment, he was breathing easily. His hands unclenched. They were cold, covered with sweat. His forehead was covered with sweat, too. He took a deep breath and looked at the far wall. It was only a wall again, made white-yellow by the lights overhead.
Okay, Jack, he thought. Okay.
He walked into Barker's office.
There was stenciled lettering a half-foot high on the door. It said "Robert Barker," in script. Inside, Barker was yelling, but the yelling abruptly stopped. The door opened and Margie hurried out, dipping under Paine's arm.
"Go on," she said.
Barker was in his chair with his back to him, facing the window. Jimmy had explained that the room was set up strategically. Barker faced away from you; you walked around the desk and the audience began when you were standing with your back to the window. You sat down in a low chair and Barker looked down at you. He was not as big as he looked. His suits were cut a little large, the shoulders padded; he had had his head shaved to look older and tougher. His shoes had heels laid a little higher than normal. He wore thick glasses though there was nothing wrong with his eyes. He was manicured and tailored to perfection, the knot in his tie so sharp you could cut yourself on it. He favored a large ring on his right pinky, a round sapphire surrounded by brilliant diamond chips. He kept the nails on his fingers longer than they should be. He was an illusion, but the illusion worked.
"You wanted me," Paine said from the doorway, to Barker's back.
"I don't want you," Barker said from behind his chair. "I sent for you."
A thin plume of ochre smoke rose from Barker's Dunhill cigarette, and finally Paine went all the way in.
He walked past the dark green plants, perfectly kept by Margie; the bookcases with leather volumes that had never been touched, the cases jutting out far into the room to make it seem claustrophobic on the visitor's side though in fact the place was huge. Music played softly through hidden speakers — Rachmaninoff, a piano sparring with a full orchestra, strangely muted by the lowness of the volume. A chair was left in the pathway, deliberately, so that the visitor had to step around it, coming close to Barker's high-backed lounge chair and desk but not touching it.
Paine negotiated these obstacles and stood finally on the other side of the desk, in the light from the window. "What do you want?" Paine said, standing.
"Sit," Barker said.
Paine sat down in the low chair, and Barker loomed judiciously in front of him.
"How many cases do you have at the moment?" Barker said.
"Just this Grumbach business."
"Just what is it you do around here?" Barker inquired mildly. His hand was cocked at an angle, holding his thin cigarette so that the smoke went up at just the right angle away from his face, as if he was posing.
"What is it you wanted?" Paine answered.
"Didn't you hear my question?" Barker said. "I asked: Just what is it you do around here?"
"I work for you," Paine replied evenly. "I work in your freak show."
Barker leaned back into the softness of the chair and put his cigarette into his mouth. He drew on it slowly, said nothing.
"How old are you?" he asked finally.
Paine sighed. "Thirty-six."
"How long would you have been on the police force if you weren't here now?"
Despite rising anger, Paine began to count years in his head.
Barker answered for him: "Fourteen years. Six more and you would have been up for retirement. Here's another question. What would you be doing if you were not working for me?"
Paine was silent.
"Come on now," Barker said, waving his cigarette in front of him. "Give me an answer."
"I'd be cleaning your toilets."
A moment went by, and then Barker began to laugh. The cultivated titter he usually affected was overcome by great bursts of throaty noise. It was the kind of laughter a rude man in an audience makes when a juggler drops one of his tenpins. Barker leaned forward, his hand on his chest; he was wheezing with laughter. He put his delicate hands on the desk before him to steady himself. Eventually, his face relaxed.
"Thank you," he said, leaning back, "for saying what I'd hoped you would."
Paine started to get up.
"Sit down, Paine," Barker said.
Despite his anger, Paine released the hand rests and sat back down.
"I don't like you at all," Barker said. "In many ways, you're the biggest loser I've ever taken on. A failed police career, failing marriage, in and out of alcohol treatment centers and psychological counseling." Barker held up a manicured finger, searching for the phrase he wanted. "And yet here you are, working for me, because no one else will have you. Isn't that marvelous?"
Paine said, "I don't like it much, either."
Barker smiled, threatening to break into his laugh again. "Paine, I couldn't care less if you like me or not. To me you're just another of my-"
"Cripples?" There was something hot inside Paine that wanted to boil out. But that was what Barker wanted. With effort Paine let the moment of heat pass.
"Perhaps one day you'll clean my toilets," Barker said, swiveling his chair toward the invisible speakers that were now bringing the Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto to a muted halt, "but now you do other things for me. While you were playing with Jimmy Carnaseca I took a telephone call of yours, from a Ms."-he looked down at a slip of paper in front of him-"Meyer. One of Grumbach's daughters, as you should already know. Her younger sister spoke with you at length this morning about signing one of our contracts." Barker didn't look up, but creased the slip of memo paper between his fingers. "Ms. Meyer said she has the signed contract for you, and that her sister left instructions that you stop by the Mallard Hotel." He swiveled completely away from Paine. The hidden stereo, its tape rewound, once again started on the Rachmaninoff piece. "She said her sister committed suicide this morning."
FOUR
"Y ou have a letter for Mr. Paine?"
The lobby of the Mallard Hotel was crowded, but the desk clerk recognized him, anyway. "Aren't you Mr. Johnson?"
"My name is Paine." He showed the clerk his driver's license and a credit card.
The clerk was gone a minute, then returned emptyhanded.
"Sorry, nothing for Mr. Paine. But there's another letter for Mr. Johnson."
"I'll take it."
"But you said-"
"Now I'm Mr. Johnson. Get the letter."
He held a five-dollar bill out on the end of his fingers like a Christmas ornament. The clerk returned with an envelope. He hesitated before taking the money.
"The Mallard is a good hotel, Mr. Paine."
"And I'm a good customer," Paine said, taking the envelope firmly from him and dropping the five-dollar bill on the desk.
When he got to his car he opened the envelope and drew out three photographs. There was nothing else. He spread the photos out on the seat. They were not the same as the others. These were three head shots of three different men. All of them looked like car salesmen. They looked like three salesmen for the same Plymouth dealership.