“Quiller’s dead.”
“Yes. But the records still exist.”
“Okay. And that’s why you’re here?”
“My father had an affair with the Ursini girl. When she finished with the competition he gave her a scholarship to Yale. She met another, age-appropriate man, George Laurel. When my father found out he had Laurel killed.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Oh yes. Quite sure.”
“He told you all this?”
“I need you to deliver a message to my father,” she said. “I need you to explain to him that it would be in his best interest to step down.”
“Really? You have talked to the man, haven’t you?”
“If... he does not accept this request, I would like you to help us in other ways.”
Whoa. Detective work is often dubious, but this was the first time I’d ever been asked to take a life. I think that maybe that truth was writ large across my face.
“You could be a rich man,” the lady offered.
I moved my hand away from the gun because if I pulled it out there’d be three, or four, dead bodies to clean up and cart off.
“How much?” I asked with complete insincerity.
She spoke a number.
“I’d like to be rich,” I said, this time truthfully. “Really I would. Your father’s never mentioned this George guy you’re talking about, and when I asked him if Quiller had anything on him, he said no.”
“Of course he did,” the lady said, balling the words up in a sneer. “He’s a murderer.”
“Patricide is also murder,” I pointed out.
The lady looked directly into my eyes. The effect was chilling. I looked up at the gunsels behind her.
“Don’t worry about them,” she said. “They’re loyal to me.”
“Will you be telling anyone else about this?”
“You think I’m a fool?”
“I think you have a brother.”
“No, Mr. Oliver, my brother is a follower. I don’t bother him with the details of what must be done.”
I believed her. I wanted to shoot her. Instead I took in a deep breath.
On the exhalation I said, “I’m going to need half up front.”
“So you can take it and run?”
“In a way,” I agreed. “I mean, once he’s dead, people are definitely going to look at me, look for me.”
Cassandra Ferris-Brathwaite went to some deep inner place reserved for psychotics and the infinitely wealthy. I silently swore that I’d never again take a case like this. Grandma B was right about her boyfriend and his world.
“Ten percent,” she said, and I knew that I was reprieved.
“In cash. Here. Tomorrow at six.”
Giving me a curt nod, she ascended from the swivel chair without needing the aid of her arms. Aged Aphrodite.
“My men will be here then,” she said.
I followed the entourage to the door and then watched them head down the hall.
I had twenty-four hours.
31
I literally staggered back to Aja’s chair and sat down hard. The springs were still juddering when there came a knock on the door.
Pistol in hand I went to an awkward corner, pointed the gun at the midpoint of the door, and said aloud, “Who is it?”
“Olo.”
It took a moment for the name I’d coined to break through the fear.
“Olo?”
“Yes, Joe, it’s me.”
When I opened the door and saw my Mel-provided bodyguard I wanted to hug her, I really did. She saw the embrace in my posture and I think she would have allowed it. But I held back.
“Did you see them?” I asked.
“I heard you talking in here,” she said. “I waited by the door in case of trouble. And then, when they came out, I went down around the corner until they were gone. That was Cassandra Brathwaite, wasn’t it?”
“You know her?”
“Int-Op has done work for her before.”
“I thought I was dead.”
“Feels kinda good when you come out the other side, doesn’t it?”
“I can see why Melquarth likes you so much.”
I kept a fifth of sixteen-year-old hundred-proof single-malt Laphroaig Scotch in my office. Oliya joined me in a shot.
“How did it go with Monica and her man?” I asked while pouring the second hit.
“She was nervous all the way until we got to Mookie’s. But the minute they saw each other they were fine. Better than that. They started taking off each other’s clothes in the back seat on the way to the lawyer’s.”
“Makes you wanna think twice before falling in love.”
“What’s next, Joe?”
“I need to go out of town again.”
“I’ll come along.”
“No. I want you to watch over Aja and her great-grandmother.”
She took me in with her eyes and then nodded.
In the morning I called Minta Kraft.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Minta, Joe Oliver here.”
“Mr. Oliver.”
“I need to talk to Mathilda.”
“Have you heard from her?”
“No. I’m calling because of what they’re saying about her husband.”
“She’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can that be? You’re the one that drives her around.”
“When she didn’t come down for breakfast, I went to her room and she was just gone.”
The story sounded true enough — as far as it went.
“If she calls will you tell me?” I asked.
“Yes. And if you hear from her please let me know.”
Three hours later I was on a flight to Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky, birthplace of the incomparable Muhammad Ali.
There I encountered a smiling redheaded young woman standing behind a counter. Her name tag read SHAWNEE. Shawnee managed the local car rental concession at the far end of the small airport.
“I need a car,” I told her.
“What kind you want?” she replied, a big smile on her face.
“As small as you got.”
“We have a six-year-old Volkswagen. That’s the smallest. It’s in good shape ’cause nobody hardly ever wants it.”
It took about four hours to get to the tiny town of Peanut in southeastern Kentucky. The Wikipedia entry still described it as a coal miners’ town with a mostly Black population. Main Street was paved and quite lovely, but many of the roads that led away from the downtown were still dirt lanes.
Across the street from city hall was a big glittery cube that encompassed an entire country block. It was, and is, the most anomalous piece of architecture I’ve ever seen. It could have been a beached spacecraft as far as anyone might know.
I went into the city hall, finding what once might have been called an effeminate Black man sitting behind a small oak desk in a large atrium, alone.
“May I help you?” the pecan-colored dandy asked. His suit was very yellow and his shirt a cobalt blue. The slant of his satin white necktie reminded me of a smile made vertical. It brought the grin out in me.
“Yes, I’m looking for a young woman named Mathilda Prim.”
“Oh,” he said exhibiting some surprise. “Mattie. I haven’t thought about her in some years. What’s your business with her?”
“Is she in town? The last time I saw her she was in Long Island, New York, but she said that she spent some part of the year down here.”
“What’s your name?” the little seated man asked.
“Joe. Joe Oliver.”
“I’m Peter Southbrook.” He stood and held out a hand for me to shake.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Southbrook.”
“You too, Mr. Oliver.”
We stood there for an awkward moment, as if maybe the conversation was over.