“Any idea how he’s connected to Gilpin?”
Neary snorted. “Yeah,” he said. “Gromyko owns the guy.”
“Owns as in…?”
“As in lock, stock, and barrel. It seems Gilpin is a big bettor, and a really stupid one, too. About a year ago, he got in over his head with his bookie- six figures over- and the bookie sold his paper to Gromyko. Gilpin’s been working off the debt ever since, doing what he does best. But you know how that goes. With a nut that size and the vig on top, he’ll never see the light of day. And it’s not like he can call the cops.”
Neary’s voice dissolved into static, and the connection dropped. I hung up the phone and waited for a call back and thought about Gilpin while I did. I thought about what he’d told me of his last conversation with his brother- about the loan he didn’t get- and I thought about Gilpin’s exhausted caged-animal look. I felt sorry for the guy. The phone rang; it was Neary.
“These people you’re talking to know a lot about Gromyko,” I said.
“Not enough for an indictment,” Neary said. “They tell me Gromyko’s a cautious guy. He’s not flashy and he keeps a close eye on things, and he doesn’t make waves unless he has to. But when he does, he’s thorough about it. Nothing floats back up.” I was quiet and Neary swore at an unseen driver.
“You have any more company?” he asked.
“Not today,” I said, and I told him about the van. It was his turn to be quiet.
“And you don’t think this comes from Gromyko?” he said finally.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I should go over and ask.”
“Ask nice.”
“Nice is my best thing,” I said. Neary snorted. “Ever hear of an outfit called Foster-Royce?” I asked him.
“It’s a Brit agency, and they work a lot in Europe. I’ve never dealt with them but I hear they’re pretty good. Why?” I explained how I’d come across the name, and Neary thought some more. “You think he hired them?” he asked.
“Could be, or could be one of their people came to talk to him about something. Nobody at Foster-Royce will tell me one way or the other.” Neary made a sympathetic noise and rang off.
I finished my coffee and called Nina Sachs and once again got no answer. I thought about driving over to see Gromyko, but I didn’t have nearly enough caffeine in me for Jersey just yet, and it was still too early. I went to the table and looked at the lists of phone numbers waiting for me there.
I filled my mug and switched on the laptop. I checked my e-mail, but there was no sign of the phone records I’d bought last week. I cursed to myself; phone records would make this a lot easier. I opened a spreadsheet and began to transcribe dates, times, names, and numbers from my notes and to match answering machine messages to the telephone numbers from the caller ID list. It was a tedious process, but coffee helped. I ticked and tied, and whenever I came across a number with no name attached, I consulted an online reverse directory to fill in the blanks. I hadn’t paid much attention to the numbers as I’d copied them down at Danes’s place- I’d just wanted to get them all, and quicklybut now, typing them into the spreadsheet, I saw a pattern.
Danes had gone on vacation just over six weeks ago, and the first of the fifty calls in his telephone’s memory was dated two days after he’d left. But the messages on his answering machine went back only three weeks or so. Almost thirty calls had come in during those first two and a half weeks. Had none of those callers opted to leave a message? Somehow I didn’t think so.
I recognized many of the numbers on the caller ID list, including Danes’s own cell phone number. It appeared over and over again, at regular intervals of three days, and always around the same time of day: 6 p.m. And then, just over three weeks ago, just before the first message had been recorded on his answering machine, it stopped appearing. I was pretty sure Danes had been calling in to retrieve and erase the messages on his answering machine. But I had no idea of where he’d been calling from and no more than a bad feeling about why he’d stopped.
I listed the names that owned the numbers appearing on Danes’s caller ID. It was a short list, and, other than Danes’s divorce lawyer, I’d already spoken to all the people on it. But the names on the list didn’t account for every call that Danes had received. Scattered across the six weeks of his absence, there were over a dozen calls that had registered on Danes’s phone only as PRIVATE, with no number or name associated. Telemarketers maybe. Or maybe not. I looked at the short list of callers and wondered again at how small his world seemed to be.
I drove a Buick across the bridge. Other than that, things were pretty much the same in Fort Lee: asphalt and bad traffic, all covered in rain. The little office building was still there, with its white bricks stained the color of tea. The smell was still bad in the tiny elevator, and worse in the fourth-floor hallway. And the girl was still there, with her white skin and tattoos and scary breasts, smoking behind her desk and watching TV. She looked at me with tiny, empty eyes. After a while recognition came.
“What you want?” she asked, and blew smoke at me.
“I need to talk to Gromyko.”
She looked at me some more and took a long pull on her cigarette. “Who’s Gromyko?” she said.
I sighed and shook my head. “I’ll be at the bar down the street.” The girl blinked at me and said nothing, and I left.
Roxy’s was empty, and dim enough that the dA©cor was mostly hypothetical. Amber lamps shone behind the battered black bar onto the bottles and the glassware and the chromed cash register, and the only other light came from the EXIT signs and through the small front window. There was a gray-haired guy built like a fireplug behind the bar, and a shadow at the far end that might have been a waitress. I bought a club soda and took it to a table by the window. I drank slowly and watched the rain come down. It took Gromyko an hour to get there.
The black Hummer pulled up in front of the bar, and the big blond guy who looked like a shark got out of the passenger seat, opened the rear door, and held an umbrella. Gromyko stepped out and said something to the shark, who nodded. He got back in the front seat and Gromyko crossed the pavement and came in.
He ignored me and went to the bar and spoke quietly to the bartender, who passed him a steaming paper cup and a napkin. Then he walked up front and sat down across from me. Raindrops beaded on his short blond hair, and his pale narrow face was still. He dunked his tea bag in and out of the hot water and looked at me.
“I did not expect to see you again,” he said quietly.
“Same here, but something’s come up.”
Gromyko took his tea bag out of his cup and put it on the napkin. He blew on the tea and swallowed some and looked at me, waiting.
“When I drove back to the city on Friday, I had some company. Two cars: a black Grand Prix and a brown Cavalier. Ring any bells?”
Gromyko sipped more of his tea. A tiny crease appeared between his canted gray eyes. “No.”
“How about a Ford Econoline van, light blue, with smoked glass and mud on the plates?”
He raised his head slightly, then turned and motioned through the window. The shark climbed out of the Hummer and trotted into the bar. Gromyko spoke softly and rapidly and I understood none of it. The shark nodded and replied and Gromyko dismissed him.
“Did he know something about this?” I asked, but Gromyko ignored the question.
“Why do you bring this to me?”
“I thought there might be a connection,” I said. “I picked up the tails after talking to you.”
Gromyko shook his head. “Did it not occur to you that that was simply the first time you noticed them?” he asked, and he sipped again at his tea. “There are more profitable ways for me to allocate my resources than to following you, and more pressing business for me to attend to.” He emptied his cup and crumpled it so quickly and completely that it seemed to vanish before my eyes.