“Who did he say?” Michael asked.
“It sounded like ‘Lena.’”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Who the hell is Lena?”
“I don’t know.”
“That name mean anything to you? Lena?”
“Maybe it’s his wife’s name. Maybe Palumbo’s gonna talk it over with her.”
Michael looked at him.
“Well,” Georgie said, and shrugged.
“This is a terrible connection,” Sarah said. “Where are you?”
“At the office,” Michael said. “Shall I try it again?”
“Maybe I should call you back.”
“It’s cheaper from here, isn’t it?”
“Let me call you back, anyway.”
“Okay, good,” Michael said, and hung up.
She’d been dressing for dinner when he called, and she stood now in bra and panties in the largest guest room, hers through seniority whenever she and her sister were visiting together. There were four bedrooms in the house, all of them on the second floor, all with glorious views of the ocean. The master bedroom in particular, with its French doors opening on the sea, offered a vista to the south that encompassed miles of open water to Statia and St. Kitts. Behind the house, to the northwest, you could see all the way up the mountain to the houses surrounding the hotel on Morne Lurin, a spectacularly twinkling view at night. Sitting at the dressing table facing the window wall, Sarah dialed Michael’s office directly. Beyond the open French doors, the sun was beginning to dip toward the water, staining the sky in its wake.
“Organized Crime, Welles.”
“How do you do, Mr. Welles,” she said, “I wish to report a crime, please.”
“What is the crime, ma’am?” he asked, recognizing her voice at once.
“Reckless Abandonment,” Sarah said.
“No such crime, ma’am. We’ve got Abandonment of a Child, that’s Section Two-Six-Oh of the...”
“This is an adult,” she said. “The person abandoned.”
“An adult, yes, ma’am. Male or female?”
“Female, Mr. Welles. Very. Michael, I’m beginning to feel neglected. When are you...?”
“Ahhh, yes, Criminal Negligence, ma’am, Section One-Two...”
“When are you coming down here?”
“As soon as I can, honey.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. But I’ve got to keep at this. I may be onto something, Sarah. I won’t know till I dig a little deeper. Anyway, however this goes, I’ll be down for sure on New Year’s Eve.”
“That means we’ll only be together a day or so before we have to head home.”
“Two full days and three nights.”
“I still don’t see what’s so important about this. Did Scanlon cancel anyone else’s vacation?”
“Georgie had to postpone till tomorrow.”
“Then why don’t you leave tomorrow?”
“Then no one’d be here working the case.”
“What case?”
“That’s a secret.”
“Even from me.”
“Even from you.”
“Withholding Evidence from a Spouse, class E felony punishable by...”
“Move you,” he said.
“I love you, too. Please hurry down here.”
“As soon as I can, honey. What are your plans for tonight?”
“It’s my sister’s last night...”
“I know.”
“Yolande’s feeding Mollie right this minute. Heather and I are going into Gustavia for dinner, like grown-ups.”
“What are you wearing?”
“Later? Or right this minute?”
“Which would I like better?”
“Right this minute. But I haven’t got time.”
“Tell me, anyway.”
“Lacy white bra and panties.”
“Mmmm. High heels?”
“Not yet. Call me later, we’ll talk dirty.”
“What time?”
“Everyone should be asleep by eleven or so.”
“Why don’t you call me?”
“Okay. You’d better be alone.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
“Me too.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” she said.
“Later,” he said, and hung up.
There was laughter down the hall.
The place was so empty, it seemed to echo. About all that was happening in the criminal courts this week were a handful of arraignments in AR One and AR Two, and the processing of new arrests in the Complaint Room. Aside from a skeleton staff necessary to keep the wheels of justice barely grinding, the big gray complex on Centre Street was virtually devoid of personnel. Michael sat alone before the computer in the sixth-floor office. The calendar on the wall read December 28, the digital clock on his desk read 6:37 p.m. He’d give it a few more hours and then quit for the day, take a taxi uptown to Spark’s for a good steak. He felt as if he were the last man alive in a city demolished by the bomb. The laughter down the hall was gone now. There was the click of high-heeled shoes on the marble floor outside, fading. He turned back to the screen again.
Not all of the Faviola tapes had been computerized. There were more than eight thousand hours of conversation, and of these only a bit more than half had been transferred to computer disks since the trial ended this past August. The process was somewhat lackadaisical. Before the trial, the U.S. Attorney had incessantly sifted and resifted each and every conversation. The accumulated evidence had been used to send Anthony Faviola away forever, but there was nothing more that could be done to him. In fact, when Michael made his call to the Feds, they’d asked him what the hell he wanted with all that stuff? He told them he was doing background research, and they’d let it go at that. No one had expected any real explanation; everyone in law enforcement was well aware of the keen competition among agencies. Which was one of the reasons Sarah was in the Caribbean and Michael was here in New York looking for any reference to a person named Lena.
I’ll see what I can do, Palumbo had said. I’ll talk it over with Lena, and get back to you. That’s the best I can say right now. No promises.
Everyone in the DA’s Office felt certain that the moment Anthony Faviola got sent west, his younger brother, Rudy, took over as the new boss of the family. But Palumbo hadn’t said he’d talk it over with Rudy. In fact...
Michael switched on the tape again.
“Rudy, huh?”
“If you could talk to him...”
“Where you been, Jim?”
“What?”
Something derisive in Palumbo’s voice.
Where you been, Jim?
And then saying he’d talk it over with Lena.
So who the hell was Lena?
Frankie Palumbo was married to a woman named Grace. He had two daughters, one of them named Filomena — after his mother — and the other named Firenze, after his grandfather’s birthplace in Italy. Frankie was fifty-two years old and had never been to Italy, big surprise. There was no one named Lena in Anthony Faviola’s family. Nor in Rudy’s. Not a Lena in the carload.
So who is Lena, what is she? Michael wondered. And what the hell am I doing here in New York three days after Christmas, chasing Mafia ghosts on a computer, because my boss, my own personal boss of all bosses, thinks that if Rudy Faviola is not currently running the show, then we’d better learn damn fast who is.