Hitch felt his fine midday meal roiling in his stomach. The martinis threatened to rise with it into his throat. He looked for a switch to lower a window, but found none.
“An old friend of yours is in town,” Myles said, startling him.
“Who?” Hitch asked, a little tremor in his voice making him sound, even to his own ears, like an ailing owl.
“Elena Rosario — but please, don’t ask any other question to which you already know the answer.”
Hitch looked over at Dane, who hadn’t moved.
“Mr. Dane has questions for Ms. Rosario,” Myles said.
“Look, I haven’t seen her in ten years. She won’t talk to me about anything, so I can’t help you. I didn’t even know she was back — someone told me she might have been the veiled woman at the funeral yesterday—”
But this protest was cut short when Myles, in a move Hitch never saw coming, jabbed him hard and fast in the ribs with an elbow that seemed to be made of steel. Hitch’s breath expelled in a whoosh and he doubled over, eyes tearing as he held his side.
Hitch felt the gun at his hip, and for a brief second he thought of using it, of pulling it out and blowing a hole right through Myles’s fucking head, and then through Dane’s dead eye, but he looked up to see that Dane had turned his face toward him, and the impulse quickly faded.
“As much as I enjoyed that,” Dane said, “he won’t be able to play his part this evening if you injure him too badly, Myles.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Oh, don’t apologize. As I said, I quite enjoyed it. Perhaps now, Detective Hitchcock, you will be so good as to refrain from interrupting.”
Hitch said nothing.
“Mr. Dane has questions for Ms. Rosario,” Myles began again. “Mr. Dane will need your assistance in order to obtain her full cooperation.”
Hitch opened his mouth and drew breath to speak. He felt the ache in his ribs and stayed silent.
“You know where Detective Frank Harriman lives, is that correct?” Myles asked.
Hitch nodded. “Went over there after a hockey tournament once.”
Dane said, “Of course. You attended college on a hockey scholarship, as I recall. What a wreckage you’ve made of yourself since then. I confess I’m rather amazed that you can still manage to skate.”
“I can skate.”
Dane smiled at the hint of defiance in Hitch’s voice.
“Tonight you will visit Detective Harriman’s home,” Myles said.
“I’ll see him at the game tonight — my team plays his.”
Myles looked over at Dane. Dane nodded. Myles slapped Hitch across the face, hard enough to make Hitch’s head snap back against the seat.
“Are you paying attention now?” Myles asked.
Hitch rubbed the heated mark on his face, but nodded.
“Tonight you will visit the Harriman home before the game. Ms. Rosario is staying there.”
Hitch grew wide-eyed.
Dane leaned forward. “Your reaction interests me, Detective Hitchcock. Is it one of surprise? Anticipation? Or fear?”
“Surprise. Like I said—”
“Yes, my hearing is fine, thank you.” But he studied Hitch in a way that made the detective call upon whatever shreds of courage were left to him in order not to shrink back. After what seemed to Hitch an eternity, Dane smiled, released him from his gaze, and turned to Myles.
Myles immediately said, “I have further instructions, Detective Hitchcock. I will give them to you in a moment.” He picked up a cell phone and handed it to Hitch. “First, call your bank.”
“My bank?” Hitch said.
“Apparently his own hearing is suffering,” Dane said.
Hitch cringed, expecting another blow. When it didn’t come, he began dialing.
“No,” Myles said. “The other bank. Where you keep the account the Internal Affairs Division will have difficulty tracing to you.”
Hitch hung up, and — hands shaking — dialed again.
“Use the automated, self-service system to check your account balance.”
Hitch froze. Myles took the phone from him and entered all the required information, including the account number and the phony Social Security number Hitch had used to establish the account.
Myles handed the phone back just in time for Hitch to hear the mechanical recorded voice say, “Your account balance is four dollars and fifty-two cents.”
All color drained from Hitch’s face.
“Shall we save some time?” Myles said. “Or would you like to hear what has become of your airline reservations?”
“Tsk, tsk,” Dane said. “After all our years together? Not even a kiss goodbye? I feel so used, Detective Hitchcock!”
“Has Mr. Dane ever treated you unfairly?” Miles asked.
Hitch shook his head.
“No?”
“No.”
“Has he ever required you to do anything that you could not easily do?”
“No.”
“Has he ever failed to richly compensate you for the risks you took on his behalf?”
“No.”
“Then you will not hesitate to be of service to him in this small matter, will you?”
“No,” Hitch said miserably.
“Do you begin to see that if certain parties were made aware of the extent to which you have helped Mr. Dane and shown readily available documentation regarding the rewards you have received in his service, you would soon find yourself in prison?”
“Yes,” Hitch whispered.
Myles paused, then said, “And do you see that it would be extremely unwise to fail him, or to return his generosity with double-dealing, or to in any way disappoint him?”
“Yes,” Hitch said, tears rolling down his face.
“Then please pay the strictest attention to the instructions I am about to give you.”
As Myles spoke, Dane reached over to Tessa, moving his long white fingers along the inside of her thigh. She sighed in pleasure and moved closer to him, reaching for his belt buckle.
Hitch noticed none of this, and later, when the sounds they were making intruded on his concentration, he forced himself to keep his eyes on Myles Volmer, so that when the limousine stopped and he was left standing at the side of the road, near the open door of his own car, he had an imperfect idea of what had taken place between Whitey Dane and Tessa Satel, but a perfectly clear understanding of what he must do that evening.
38
Thursday, July 13, 4:10 P.M.
Las Piernas Police Department Crime Lab
After talking to Soury, Frank had spent an hour or so looking over Lefebvre’s notes. The Wheeze stopped by his desk and gave him a note saying that Larson wanted to talk to him, but when he called the lab, he just got Larson’s voice mail.
He went downstairs to see if he could find him. He took a quick look around, but didn’t see the lab director. He walked by Larson’s office, but the door was closed. Frank knocked, but didn’t get an answer. Frank wasn’t surprised — he seldom saw Larson in his office. Larson spent most of his time at meetings or in the lab itself.
He decided to talk to Koza, the questioned documents examiner. Koza told him that the business card found on Lefebvre was Elena Rosario’s, but that an address and phone number had been handwritten on the back. Frank had the Randolph case files with him and thumbed through one of the folders until he found an old interview with Elena. Elena’s old home address and number matched those on the business card. Another dead end.
He stopped by the lab director’s office again.
“Looking for Dr. Larson?”
He turned to see the toxicologist standing at the end of the hall. She was fairly new here, had only worked for the lab for about six months. He couldn’t recall her name, and he was too far away from her to read it off her ID badge.
“Sorry,” she was saying, “Al went home sick. One too many mocha lattes, you ask me. Paul Haycroft asked me to send anyone who was looking for Al to talk to him.”
Frank still wanted to take a more careful look through the folders Professor Wilkes had given him, and that would take plenty of time. But at the toxicologist’s suggestion, he decided to talk to Haycroft again as long as he was down here — he had more questions about the Amanda lab work. The toxicologist told Frank he could find Haycroft working on a set of latents in the fingerprint-identification area.