“Yes?” he said.
“Nick Stefanos. Buzz me in, will you?”
“Certainly. Would you like me to meet you?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll be right up.”
We exited the elevator at the tenth floor and followed the carpeted hallway. Pence opened the door on the second knock. His eyes widened and both hands reached out. He pulled Jimmy Broda through the door and into his arms.
The old man shut his eyes and mumbled something as they held each other. Their faces crushed together. I stood in the hallway, my hands shoved into my pockets, and looked down at my shoes.
“Please, come in, Nick,” Pence said finally over the boy’s shoulder.
“I can’t right now,” I said. “But call me later at my apartment. There are some things you need to know.”
“Your compensation. Of course.”
“That, and other things. Good-bye.”
Before he could object, I pulled the door shut from the outside. I stood there for quite a while and listened to the muffled cadence of their voices on the other side of the door. Then I stepped away and walked slowly down the dimly lit corridor.
Early Monday morning I dialed the number for Ned’s World in South Carolina.
“Ned’s World, how may I help you?”
“This is Roy Lutz,” I said, “regional director for Panasonic, confirming my lunch appointment with Ned Plavin. Is he in, please?”
“I’ll see if he’s at his desk. Hold please.” A click, some whale music, then another click. “I’ll transfer you now.”
A gravelly voice answered after two rings. “Roy!” Plavin said with forced excitement. “I didn’t know we were on for today.”
“This isn’t Roy,” I said.
“Well, then, our lines must have gotten crossed-”
“Our lines didn’t get crossed. This concerns the Kotekna VCR deal that got soured up in Washington, D.C., over the weekend.”
“I’m not familiar with any ‘deal’ in Washington,” he said thickly. “Who is this?”
“If you’re not interested in what I have to say, hang up now. If you are, I’ll continue.” There was a silence whilesilence he thought it over. “Can we talk on this line?”
“Go ahead,” he said.
“I’m not sure what you’ve been told about the events of this past weekend. I suspect you know only part of the truth. I’ll condense it for you. I was one of the group that stopped the deal in the warehouse. We took the merchandise and the money. I kept the money. I traded the merchandise back to your people in exchange for a boy they were holding.”
Ned Plavin cleared his throat. “My people?” he said. “Who did you give my goods to?”
“Jerry Rosen,” I said. I watched my cat chase a large bug that was crawling across the rug to the safety of the baseboards.
“Do you have any proof of this?” Plavin asked.
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t trust Rosen,” I said. “I want this all to be over with, now. I want Rosen out of Washington. And I don’t think you want a business partner who plans on going solo with goods that you bankrolled. He’s the proverbial loose cannon, Ned. Do something about it.”
This time the silence was longer. My cat trapped the bug under its paw, examined it, then walked away. The b ug continued on its path to the wall.
“I’ll look into it,” Plavin said. “If what you say is true, I’ll act on it.”
“Do it quickly, Ned. Good-bye.”
I hung up the phone and lit a cigarette. I dialed the number for the Connecticut Avenue store and got McGinnes on the line.
“What’s happening, Nick?”
“Too early to meet me for a cocktail?”
“Hell, no,” he said. “But things are a little hectic right now. Andre didn’t post on Saturday, or today. Louie’s ready to can his ass. I don’t think I can get out till eleven.”
“Eleven’s fine,” I said.
“Where?”
“La Fortresse, in the back.”
“La FurPiece?”
“Yeah, Johnny. La FurPiece.”
THIRTY-ONE
The bartender was fanning out cocktail napkins with a tumbler when I entered La Fortresse sometime after eleven. I passed him with a nod and walked towards the back room.
McGinnes sat at a deuce, halfway into a cold bottle of beer. He saluted mockingly and shook my hand as I sat down. I put the briefcase on the floor, between our feet.
“What’ya got in there,” he asked, “a bomb or something?”
“Something like a bomb,” I said cryptically.
He waved a hand in front of his face and finished the beer left in his bottle. Our fine-skinned waitress came over to the table. Her white shirt had a start-of-shift crispness. She smiled.
“What can I get you, Nick?”
“A Coke,” I said. “Bottled, please, not from the gun. Thanks.”
“One more for me, darling,” McGinnes said, pointing at his bottle. He frowned at me. “You on the wagon, man?”
“No.”
The waitress brought our order. I poured from the bottle to a glass full of ice and waited for the foam to retreat. By the time I took the first sip McGinnes had killed much of his second beer. Some of his straight black hair fell across his forehead as he set his bottle down.
“You seen Andre?” McGinnes asked.
“Yeah.”
“He’d better drag his black ass back to work. The man is in some shit. And you know what it’s like to work with Void, full time? That shit-for-brains can’t close one deal-hell, he can’t even close his fly.”
“Andre’s not coming back, Johnny,” I said. “He’s dead.”
McGinnes’ mouth opened, then the corners of it turned down. One tear immediately fell from his left eye and rolled down and off his cheek. He swept the bottle off the table with the back of his hand, sending it to the floor. Foam poured from its neck. McGinnes made a fist and dug knuckles into his forehead.
Our waitress came back into the room. She saw the bottle and McGinnes, then looked at me.
“Bring him another,” I said. She nodded and left quickly. She returned just as quickly, set a fresh beer in front of McGinnes, picked the old up off the floor, and left the room. McGinnes stared straight ahead with watery eyes and slowly shook his head.
“You stupid bastards,” he muttered. “You stupid, stupid bastards.”
I waited until he looked at me again. “Andre and me,” I said carefully, “and a couple of guys from his old neighborhood interrupted the tail end of Rosen’s drug deal on Friday night. The idea was to heist the money and the drugs and trade the drugs back to them for the boy. Andre was to keep the money. But Rosen’s people turned out to be gunslingers. When it was over, most of them were dead. Andre died quickly.” I drank some soda. “On Saturday morning I got the boy back. He’s safe, Johnny. He’s with his grandfather.”
“That’s it, huh?” he said emotionally. “The boy’s safe, Andre’s dead, you and me just walk away into the sunset.”
“Nobody will touch us,” I said vaguely. “I fixed it.”
“You fixed it,” McGinnes said, and snorted. I slid the briefcase along the floor with my foot, until it touched his own. He looked down, then back at me.
“There’s a hundred and twenty grand in that case,” I said. “It goes to Andre’s mother. I think that’s what he was planning to do with it, regardless of the outcome. Do me a favor and see that she gets it.”
“How much did you skim?”
“I took ten, to keep me on my feet. Until I figure out what’s next.”
McGinnes chugged the rest of his beer and slammed the bottle on the table, loud enough to cause the waitress to poke her head back into the room. He signaled her for another. She served it without l ooking at either of us.
“So, Nicky. Was it worth it?” McGinnes squinted at me. His voice shook as he spoke.
“I don’t know.”
“How did it feel to deliver the kid?”
I thought about it and said, “It felt good.”
“You know what I mean,” he said impatiently. “Did you find your parents, too? Did you say good-bye to your grandfather?”
I stood up and reached into my pocket. I found a five and dropped it on the table.