This time Santa Claus was more than just late; he was missing.
The first thing I did was make myself instant coffee, using hot water from the tap in the kitchen, just to give myself time to calm down. I sipped at the tepid liquid, grimaced. Then I made a systematic search of his apartment for a note he might have left me. There was none. Next, I sat down at the telephone in his den and pulled out his list of the numbers of all the hospital emergency rooms in the city; there was no Garth Frederickson in any of them. I searched through his desk until I found his private phone directory, found the number I wanted, and dialed it.
Malachy McCloskey answered on the sixth ring. "Yeah," he mumbled sleepily. "What is it?"
"Lieutenant, this is Robert Frederickson."
It took a few moments for the words to register. "Frederickson? How did you get this number? Do you know what the hell time it is?"
"They've got Garth," I said tersely.
There was another lengthy pause, then: "Huh? Who's got Garth?"
"Nuvironment, Patton, that bunch of lunatic ex-athletes-whoever it is that doesn't want us snooping around, and whoever it was who scooped out William Kenecky. Now, I'm calling you because we said we'd keep you informed, and I'm calling you because I know you've been unofficially assigned by the department to keep an eye on us, but most of all I'm calling because I need you. I know there's a forty-eight-hour wait before you can file a missing persons report, but by then I'm afraid I may find Garth nailed upside down to a tree in Central Park. Can you help me out, put something on the wire now?"
"When was the last time you saw your brother, Frederickson?" McCloskey asked, fully awake now.
"Christmas Day. I left early the next morning, because we were pursuing different avenues."
"What were the avenues?"
"I went over to Jersey to check out shipping companies, to see if one of them had been used to bring in the rain forest soil. Garth was going to stay home and make phone calls to various suppliers who may have done business with Nuvironment. He was gone when I got home last night. I fell asleep waiting for him, and I just woke up a little while ago. He isn't here." I paused, took a deep breath, slowly exhaled. "I'm just a little bit upset, Lieutenant. It's kind of hard to get that image of Kenecky out of my mind."
"Take it easy, Frederickson. I hear you. Are you sure he's not sleeping over at his girl friend's house, or something like that?"
"His girl friend is vacationing in Barbados-and he wouldn't be sleeping over there anyway, not while we're working on this matter."
"What kind of suppliers was he checking out?"
"Plastics, glass, steel, what have you. I don't know where he planned to begin, and it wouldn't matter if I did; if he did come across something important, and got snatched as a result of it, whoever he talked to isn't likely to admit it. We're talking very nutty and dangerous people here, Lieutenant. I need your help."
"I'll put out an APB on him, Frederickson."
"That's not good enough, Lieutenant, because it's too much. Whatever screws these guys have left in their heads are pretty loose; they'll kill Garth if the police start making loud noises all over town." If they hadn't killed him already, I thought … but I couldn't bring myself to put that idea into words. I debated whether or not to tell McCloskey about Tanker Thompson, decided not to. Even if the police picked up Thompson, the man wasn't going to tell them anything-and it could goad Garth's captors into killing him. Thompson was just a foot soldier; it was the general who had to be found and put away. "You've got to move fast, but you have to go after the right people. If you're going to put out an APB, put it out on Peter Patton; I doubt very much that he's in Europe. Also, it's time for the big brass there-maybe along with the mayor-to have a chat with Henry Blaisdel. Somebody has to tell him that his people have gone too far, and that he'd better pull them back before it's too late."
"That's crazy, Frederickson. I'm not even sure how I can justify an APB. Now you want me to go after Patton, or risk offending one of the most powerful men in the world, just because your brother is missing?"
I took another deep breath, screwed my eyes shut. "You said we'd made you a believer."
"Believing something isn't the same as having evidence, Frederickson," McCloskey said in a strained voice. "You're asking me to make some very big moves without anything solid to back them up."
"You saw what they did to Kenecky. Do you want Garth to end up looking like that? I'm begging you, Lieutenant. I need help on this. I can't find Patton, or get to speak to Blaisdel, on my own, and they're the keys to finding out where Garth is right now. I know you can't make the big moves on your own hook, but at least you can go to your captain, lay out the situation, and then see what he'll authorize. I realize I'm asking for a lot, the same as I realize we're chasing shadows here, but I don't know what else to do."
There was a long pause during which I could hear McCloskey breathing, then: "You and your brother have been right about a lot of things, Frederickson. Your brother may still show up, but in the meantime let me see what I can do."
"I appreciate that very much, Lieutenant. How long will it be before you can give me some kind of answer as to what you can and can't do?"
"I don't know. How can I get in touch with you, Frederickson?"
"I'm going to be on the move, Lieutenant. You can leave a message with my answering service, or I'll be in touch with you. If you're going to be out, you can leave a number where I can reach you-if you care to."
"Where are you moving to, Frederickson?"
"At the moment, I'm not sure. I just know I can't stand to do nothing. I'll appreciate anything you can do, Lieutenant. Good-bye."
I hung up the phone and immediately went to the computer terminal in Garth's den. I punched up the code we had agreed to use for this case, but nothing came up on the screen except the word Nuvironment, and the names of Peter Patton and Henry Blaisdel; it was about as much as I had in my electronic file. I'd hoped there might be some indication of how he'd planned to proceed, what companies he had planned to contact first. Nothing. However, I understood the paucity of information; when you're in a hurry to stop the sexual abuse of a little girl, you get impatient punching information into a computer.
I shut off the computer, opened his desk drawer, and, in a way, found what I was looking for-but it was useless to me. The drawer was crammed full of photocopies of lists of various manufacturers and distributors, but there were no handwritten notations beside any of them.
And yet, as if by waving a magic wand, Garth had somehow picked, out of hundreds of possibilities, the right company or individual to lean on. He had hit pay dirt-or a land mine, depending on how you looked at it.
I closed the drawer, then clasped my hands against my thighs to stop them from trembling. As far as I could tell, Garth had left absolutely no indication of what he had planned to do, or where he had gone. It was unlike Garth-and contrary to both company and personal policy. Ever since we'd started working together, we'd always left bread crumbs for the other to follow, even while working on the most benign cases. Garth had violated procedure, left no tracks, and I wondered why. I hoped his lapse wasn't going to cost him his life.
Despite the fact that it was still very early, I called Samuel Zelaskowich, on the outside chance that Garth had picked up another lead from the botanist. To my surprise, he sounded wide awake; he explained that he did some of his best work in the early morning hours, and in fact had just returned from a five-mile walk. No, I wasn't disturbing him; no, Garth hadn't contacted him; no, he was sorry to say that he knew of no other consultants who had worked for Nuvironment. I thanked him and wished him a good day.