been stowed somewhere already, he thought-and she was as cheerful as any first-time bushwhacker, fresh off the boat from St. Thomas. She could easily have been from Pittsburgh or Minneapolis, come to St. John looking to spend some money and drink a few of Billy’s more exotic beverages. This was a woman Billy had some experience with- under the worst of all possible conditions. He had personally hosed her down when she needed it most.
“Hello, Billy,” she beamed.
“Hello,” he replied, more than a little tentatively. Walter had clued him in, but it was still a little difficult for him. It didn’t make any sense to him. What would he do, he thought, if somebody from Jersey, someone from his past-when he was another person, with another name-what would he do if they just walked into his bar and said, “Hello, Billy.” Shit, Walter must know what he’s doing.
Walter turned in his seat, smiled broadly at her and said, “You look terrific, Tucker. I’m really glad to see you. Ike, Billy, Helen, I want you to meet my friend, Tucker Poesy.” She smiled to each, greeting Billy as if he was a perfect stranger. This girl’s got balls, he thought.
“Nice to meet you,” Helen said.
Ike’s warm, toothy smile, and a tip of his Cleveland Browns cap-Helen was sure he wore it to both honor Jim Brown and annoy her-did not obscure his immediate, first reaction. Boom! It just happened in his head. The old man couldn’t help it. He saw Isobel Gitlin, right there in front of him, clear as day on the water. Now, that girl had been nothing but trouble for his friend Walter. God only knew what damage this one had in store. Some people, Ike was sure, spent their whole lives waiting for something, for someone. Other people spent their lives running away from it-from somebody, most likely. He knew Walter was special-among the cursed, sad to say-and there was nothing he could do about it. He had one foot looking and the other running. Cursed, thought Ike, truly cursed. Still, his ancient, creaky bones and wrinkled face wished Gloria would hurry up and come.
“What’ll you have?” Billy asked Tucker. She leaned in on him, so only he could hear her. “I eat and drink for free,” she said. He nodded his acceptance. It was the least he could do.
“I’m starving,” she said, loud enough for all to hear. Then she ordered a steak-the biggest rib eye on Billy’s menu. “Is that prime beef?” she asked. Billy just looked at the floor. He made no effort to respond. “Fries and salad with that,” she said.
“What are you drinking?” he asked, practically unable to look her in the eye.
“How ’bout a big bottle of your best champagne. You know, the one that goes for a hundred and seventy-five bucks a pop.”
“I don’t carry that.”
“Well, order some. I may be here awhile. In the meantime, a Corona will do.” Billy walked away thinking he was getting off cheap.
Walter and Tucker Poesy sat in Billy’s all afternoon. She ate her steak and drank her beer. He nibbled at a fruit and veggie plate Helen prepared for him and sipped his usual. He had given up all pretense. He talked business, right there at the end of Billy’s bar. A couple of times he thought about it-uneasy thoughts-but what the hell. Ike really was right. He was retired. There were no rules anymore. He was no longer working for Conchita Crystal. This was all on him. He bore the load. They killed Harry and he had become the Cowboy.
He had it now. Almost the whole story, from beginning to end. Well, not quite. A few details still stumped him, especially the very beginning. Whatever he still didn’t know didn’t matter, at least for now. He wanted Tucker to get it the way he had. He didn’t want to tell her. He was afraid she might simply take his word for it. He wanted her to figure it out for herself. So, they talked about details, not the wider picture. He put his part in. He told her how someone had approached him with the job. He still did not mention Conchita Crystal. Walter had been protecting clients for forty years. Even if he wanted to, he wasn’t sure he could reveal one now. But it didn’t matter. It was what happened, the order of events, the puzzle and its pieces. No puzzle had to be perfect. Chita was a piece that could be left out. He told Tucker about Harry’s Aunt Sadie, and went over his discovery of Bergen op Zoom and how fortunate he was to have a contact in Holland-his old friend Aat. Finding Harry turned out to be the easiest part. He told her about Devereaux-about Il Localino. It rankled him still. Just the mention of it flushed his face. She had to notice. Devereaux knew he was on the job-knew even who hired him.
“Who?” she asked.
“No. I can’t, Tucker. But it’s not important.”
Once the narrative reached Amsterdam, Tucker filled in her side. Devereaux called her, in London, told her to meet Harry Levine and get the document from him. She never said, but Walter wondered if she would have killed Harry too. He meant nothing to her. Walter liked her. He liked her more the more he was with her. But she was a killer and she was the most dangerous of killers. She was what he had always thought of as a swatter. Like swatting flies, she could shoot anyone without asking why, without caring why-walk away without a second thought. Shooting people was what she did. The only question for Walter was, could she kill someone she knew, someone she had nothing against? Could she have killed Harry Levine? He’d never know. It turned out Harry showed up to meet her without the document. She didn’t do this well, and admitted as much to Walter. She scared Harry off and he lit out for Holland. Tucker said she got a call, from Devereaux, with Walter’s flight plans. She was there, waiting for him, when he landed in Holland. The rest was all her. She followed him to Bergen op Zoom and then all the way back to Amsterdam, spotted their little hideaway, and decided to make her move the next day. By then it was too late. Finally, Devereaux sent her to St. John.
“He knew you were coming back.”
“I came back to meet Abby O’Malley. Let me tell you something about her.”
Abby O’Malley’s phone records showed a million calls to Louis Devereaux. Walter saw the regularity with which she called him and asked his contact in the phone company to check back as far as he could. Sure enough, she had been calling Devereaux’s home phone for as long as they had records of her calls. It was easy after that. It didn’t take much to find out they both went to the University of Chicago Law School. A few phone calls to people there turned up plenty of information about a couple of distinguished graduates. Abby O’Malley and Louis Devereaux, together as a pair, went back decades. That explained Sean Dooley.
“You called Devereaux, didn’t you?” he asked Tucker.
“Sure,” she said.
“And you told him I was comfortably settled, with Harry Levine, in Amsterdam.”
“Right.”
“And you told him exactly where.”
“Of course, and that I wasn’t going to do anything about it until the next day. Oh, fuck!” shouted Tucker Poesy, still pissed at her own stupidity. Billy looked down the bar, in her direction. She waved him off. “Sorry,” she mouthed, since there was no way he could hear her from there unless she screamed again. Then she apologized to Walter too.
“Devereaux called O’Malley,” she said, having put two and two together and gotten four. “The sonofabitch. O’Malley gets her boy into action immediately. But he’s a fuck-up artist. You beat it out of him and then beat it out of there. All the while I’m sleeping in a hotel overlooking the canal around the corner.”
“I like that,” said Walter. “The canal around the corner. Sounds like a Dutch country and western song.”
He filled her in again on his travels with Harry. They had gone over this part in Puerto Rico, but Walter could never repeat things too much. Like an athlete, deep into an intense training regime, for Walter, it was the repetitions that were the key to success. The more a fact was scrutinized, the more certain he could be it was a fact. That brought them to St. John, and their first meeting. It seemed an uncomfortable moment for Tucker, but Walter was apparently undisturbed. She noticed that and it actually made her feel better. If he was cool with this, why shouldn’t she be?
“This is where Devereaux fucked up,” he said. “Can you tell me how?”
“Sure,” said Tucker Poesy, by now able to dissect this with the same detachment Walter had. “You were supposed to kill me. That fucking Devereaux-sonofabitch!”
“Exactly right, my dear girl. I was supposed to kill you. I’m sure you do your job very well, but messing around trying to fool me isn’t part of your job description. You were set up. Devereaux knew you were impulsive. He knew you’d make some kind of move on me-even though it made no sense. And he figured I’d kill you.”
“You didn’t have the document,” said Tucker. “He knew you didn’t have it. You would have been nuts to bring it with you. He sent me to get something he knew wasn’t there. But why did he want to get rid of me? Why did he want you to kill me?”
“He didn’t need you anymore. He either already knew where Lacey’s journal was, or was about to know. You
