However Hyde reacted when he returned to his car, it didn’t matter. Furlong could call the Arapahoe County DA and show them what he’d found. He could invite Katy Cutler to a restaurant — one with good food — and show her what he’d found. He could dial up Amy Ito and ask her if she’d like the truth — a dubious prospect — and show her what he’d found. He could drop Ed Bostrom an anonymous note and let him be the hero. But Furlong wanted this one. He wanted to watch Hyde sweat. Part of himself enjoyed watching false fronts fall. He shared that same trait with Timothy Powers.
Next, lunch at the second-fanciest hotel in Glendale. Hyde sat at the bar. He ordered a beer and a sandwich. Furlong watched from a table, letting a cup of coffee grow increasingly cold. On stakeout days, Furlong remained vigilant against liquids. Hyde ate quickly. He paid with cash from a wad of bills, and then walked across Cherry Creek Drive South, Cherry Creek North, and into Shotgun Willie’s. Furlong gave Hyde a ten-minute head start and paid the thirty-dollar cover. Daylight outside, midnight inside. Furlong took a seat at a table, ordered a ten-dollar bottle of Coors Light from a seriously bored waitress.
Tyler Hyde had a ringside seat at one of the two six-sided dancing stages, each with its own 99.9 percent naked woman. The club smelled like cotton candy and sweat. An invisible deejay cranked “You Shook Me All Night Long” as if the party was going full throttle. Furlong and Hyde were the only customers, but Hyde’s attention was devoted to the dancer at his stage. She wasn’t dancing. She squatted on her pink pearlized heels, and her arms were wrapped around her rubber-band knees. They were chatting. Hyde occasionally took bills from his wad and scattered them at the dancer’s feet like confetti. She laughed. She listened. She smiled. She took off Hyde’s glasses, cleaned them with the only tiny scrap of fabric she was wearing, and laughed some more. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. This wasn’t about flesh. Or lust.
After Hyde’s three-song conversation with the dancer, he stood up and left. Furlong waited two minutes, tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the stage for his dancer, and followed. Hyde walked back across Cherry Creek and returned to the office — a “lunch” of just under three hours. Furlong waited. At five thirty, full dark in late January, Hyde drove himself home.
Furlong went to the foyer holding an empty box wrapped in frilly red paper with a bouncy white bow — one of many such props in his trunk. When the first person arrived, a young woman, he said, “Surprise gift I’m supposed to leave at 802. Buzzer doesn’t appear to be working.” The woman punched in a code on a keypad. Studied him. Furlong shrugged. He followed her inside. He pressed the button on the elevator for the eighth floor and gave the woman the most reassuring smile in the world. The woman got off at the third floor. “Don’t get me in trouble,” she said.
The doors closed. Furlong opened his phone and pressed play on the voice recorder, put it in the outer pocket of his coat.
The third knock on Hyde’s door finally brought a “Who is it?”
“Someone you want to talk to.”
A long moment. “Answer the question.”
“I have a proposition.”
An even longer moment.
“I can call the cops.”
“That would make my job easy.”
The door opened. “Fuck,” said Hyde, standing in the opening just big enough for his face. “You didn’t sip your fuckin’ beer one time.”
Furlong barged his way in, let the heavy door slam behind him. He dropped his prop gift on a side table.
“What the fuck is that?” said Hyde.
“A ruse,” replied Furlong. “I think you’re familiar with the concept.”
“Who the hell are you?”
Hyde backpedaled down a long hall to a small living room. On the far side, a nook kitchen. A sliding glass door led to a two-seater balcony. Hyde’s drapes were open. A copy of the Economist lay facedown on an ottoman in front of a comfy brown leather chair. A cup of tea steamed on the side table. Something lemon, thank god, not rooibos.
“I’ve emailed the police.” It was a lie. Furlong suddenly realized that it probably wouldn’t have been a bad idea to bring an extra human along. In case Hyde panicked. “Copied your boss at City Hall. Top brass with the whole rugby team too. The newspaper too.”
“About?”
Up close, Tyler Hyde was a portrait in perfection. He was old-school handsome. Good cheekbones, a perfect coif of thick blond hair. Blue eyes. A solid physique. There was a model-level asymmetry to his face. He looked preppy and youthful.
“It was a slick little trick,” said Furlong.
“What?”
“There was a moment on the feed when your image froze. What? Three seconds? And when you come back it looked so normal.”
Hyde shook his head. “No.”
“You appear to be taking notes. For what? Ninety more minutes? You appear to be engaged. It was kind of a gamble on your part, because what if you got asked a bunch of questions, right? Or even one? But you didn’t. It was a big meeting.”
“No,” said Hyde. The word came out not like a denial of Furlong’s assertions but as recognition that it was over. “I was right here.”
Hyde moved to the kitchen, still backpedaling. Was there a bone saw hanging out with the knives? Something he might grab for a garrote?
“When your part is done, then comes that weird freeze thing and you come back on and it’s a video of yourself. Pretending. I recognize the set.” Furlong jerked a thumb at the brown leather chair. “That must have been hilarious to sit there and record. Ninety minutes of pretending? There you are. Sitting, listening, taking notes. Occasionally nodding your head.”
“No.” This time the word came out desperate.
“You probably had to record that at least a few days ahead of time. It couldn’t be a last-minute thing, right? You needed a long evening meeting the same night Billy Duncan was in town. You needed to be ready.”
“No,” said Hyde.
“You could keep the look simple — you in a chair, right? Kind of a plain backdrop?”
Hyde looked confused. “What?”
“On the recording, your drapes are open. Sure, you recorded at night to be careful. But there’s enough of a reflection from the apartment building across the way to see the lights in your glasses. It’s not much, but it’s there. In that first section? It’s not there. No reflection. And if you’re trying to tell me you used three seconds of your frozen image to open the drapes, well, that seems like a bit of coincidence and awfully hard to do in such little time.”
“No,” said Hyde.
“Was Billy Duncan right? About the money business? Some money was missing?”
“Nothing.” Hyde slumped down on a white chair at a small side table off the kitchen. He looked defeated.
Maybe this would be easy.
“No? Nothing?”
“His algorithm.” Hyde spat the word. “Was wrong. It wasn’t about that.” He shook his head. Stared through the table to the center of the earth. Steeled himself. “He thought I should be more social. He wanted to find me a girlfriend. He couldn’t fucking believe.” Air quotes. “That I didn’t have Facebook, didn’t have Twitter or Instagram. Wasn’t on Tinder. That I chose to live quietly, that I did my job and went home. I am not some fucking piece of data.”