"Mongo," Garth said in a soft voice that was tinged with sadness. "Meet me at the southwest corner of the Sheep Meadow."
"What's up?"
"Moby's dead. Somebody blinded him, sliced off his tongue, and cut out his heart. Henry called me. The police found your card in his pocket, and they want to talk to us."
Garth and I stood in silence at the edge of a copse of trees in Central Park, just inside a drooping band of yellow police tape, staring at the mutilated body of Moby Dickens. There was no blood on the grass, which, considering all the brutal surgery that had been performed on him, meant he had been slaughtered elsewhere and his body dumped here, where it was certain to be discovered at dawn by some birder, walker, or jogger. Moby Dickens wasn't Haitian, probably didn't know much of anything about Haiti, and couldn't have cared less about the CIA. His murder was apparently intended to send a personal message. To us.
"Jesus, Garth," I said, my voice cracking as tears rolled down my cheeks. "I gave him up. I did exactly what he didn't want anybody to do, which was to identify and describe him. I gave up his name, race, and occupation. I betrayed a client, and I might as well have painted a target on his back."
"You didn't kill him, Mongo," Garth said, putting an arm around my shoulders and drawing me closer to him.
"Oh yes, I did," I sobbed.
"What you did was a judgment call. You told Kranes about him in order to drive home a point. I'd have done exactly the same thing if I'd gone down there."
"Garth, I'm going to find and kill the sons of bitches who did this."
"What's going on, guys?"
I quickly wiped my eyes and put on a pair of sunglasses I'd brought with me before I turned to Henry Stamp, the NYPD detective who'd called Garth. Stamp was a stubby man with a wrinkled face and expressive green eyes that had remained burnished with kindness despite twenty-five years with the police, and all the things he had seen during that time. He was a good man, and both Garth and I liked him very much.
"His name is Thomas Dickens," I said to the detective in a voice that still cracked slightly. I cleared my throat. "He's a poet."
Henry Stamp turned to look at the naked, mutilated, heavily tattooed body lying on the grass at the edge of the trees. "A poet," he repeated in a flat tone.
"He also worked for the Sanitation Department. He's got an apartment down in the East Village."
"We know his name and address, Mongo. It was in his wallet, along with seventy-three bucks in cash. Your business card was in his pocket, and we were hoping you could shed some light. Obviously, robbery wasn't the motive. Somebody really took their time and did a number on this guy, then dumped him here. We're still looking, but we haven't found his heart. Whoever took it out must have left it where they killed him."
"They took it with them."
"How do you know that?"
"We've seen this kind of killing before. This is the seventh victim of a kind of voodoo hit squad that's been operating across the country for the past few months. I know how this will thrill you, hut the FBI is going to want to know about this right away. You should call them first chance you get."
The detective had been writing in his notebook. Now he stopped, looked at me. "Jesus, I hate the FBIs."
"Yeah, well," I said, choking back a sob, "into each life a little rain must fall. You'll be working with them on this."
"You care to elaborate a bit for me, Mongo? There have been six other killings just like this one?"
I nodded, swallowed hard. The sun was hot on the back of my neck, and my mouth was very dry. I looked away from the body. "Garth and I have been working for a Presidential Commission, investigating possible violations of U.S. law by the CIA in Haiti over the past few decades. The other victims were all Haitians who were potential informants or witnesses."
Stamp grunted. "This Dickens was Haitian?"
"No. He's American, born in the South. He spent most of his life in prison. I don't know how long he's been out. He was a member of the Fortune Society, so you can check with them for details. I suspect they'll want to make the funeral arrangements; if they don't, Garth and I will."
"So what's the connection between this guy and the Haiti thing?"
"There isn't any."
"That makes the two of you the connection between the six other vies and this one."
"I guess."
"I take it he was a client of yours?"
"Yes."
"What was his problem?"
"Nothing important-and nothing to explain this. Lou Skalin down at the Fortune Society referred him to us. I told you he was a poet, and he took his work very seriously. Somebody was plagiarizing his poetry-altering it slightly and submitting it to poetry journals under another name." I paused, glanced at Garth. He was staring at me impassively, watching and waiting to hear what I was going to say. "I told him we'd look into it sometime in the future, when we weren't so busy with this other thing."
The detective thought about it, shook his head. "A man comes to you because somebody is plagiarizing his poetry, and he ends up being killed in the same manner as six other victims who were all Haitian and linked to an entirely different investigation. That doesn't make any sense, Mongo."
"That's right," I said, again glancing at Garth. My brother was still staring at me, and he had raised his eyebrows ever so slightly. "It doesn't make any sense."
"That's it?"
"That's it, Henry. Sorry we can't be of more help."
Back in my office I stared down into my coffee cup, seeing Moby Dickens' face on the surface of the steaming black liquid. Rage had supplanted sorrow, and the strong coffee did nothing to wash away the taste of bile in my mouth.
"You kind of caught me by surprise back there, Brother," Garth said quietly from where he was sitting on the couch. "Why didn't you tell Henry the whole story? Kranes is the connection."
"Sure he is," I said to the black face floating in my coffee. "I want another crack at Kranes myself, and I don't want to have to stand in line."
"Mongo, have you thought this through?"
"Ah. A metaphysical query if ever I've heard one. You mean, do I appreciate the irony in the fact that I gave up Moby Dickens to a right-wing prick, and thus somehow marked Moby for death, but won't give up said right-wing prick to the police, who would then immediately move to apprehend the people responsible, all the way up the ladder?"
"You've thought it through."
"Now here's a poser for you. How many police, FBI agents, reporters, public relations spokesmen, and baying politicians does it take to change a lightbulb?"
"So many that we'd never see the light. I get it, Mongo. This time I'm going with you."
"For sure," I said, looking up at him and nodding. "I'll need your take on whether or not he's giving me straight answers. As far as the police and FBI are concerned, they're going to find Moby's poems and Jefferson Kelly's imitations anyway, if and when they search his apartment, and they can do with them what they want." I paused and took a deep breath, but my rage still burned. I abruptly swept the computer printouts and other papers off the top of my desk with my forearm. "Fuck this report. I'll give them a report. I swear I'm going to find out who killed him, Garth."
"And why he was killed."
"Yes."
"You think Kranes could be directly involved?"
"Anything's possible, but I can't see it."
"Maybe he whispered to his CIA buddies something to the effect, 'You've got a problem, and I've got a problem, and will nobody rid me of this potential embarrassment?'"