CHAPTER 27
What do you mean, you don’t know where Gage is?”
Edward Wycovsky stood in front of Kenyon Arndt’s desk, glaring down, his hands locked on to his suspenders. His vulturelike head was unmoving and his black eyes unblinking.
Arndt knew that a few weeks earlier he would’ve risen to his feet in fear and then humbled himself as if before a high priest or lesser god. But not now-for he’d discovered that the spreading stain of crime and death had made them equals.
“Didn’t you hear what I asked you?” Wycovsky said, his forefinger now aimed down at Arndt like he was a dog who’d soiled the carpet.
No, that wasn’t it, Arndt thought. He knew they’d never be equals, for he’d never have the kind of power in the law firm that Wycovsky possessed. Rather it had been their positions relative to the dead body of Tony Gilbert that had established them in a new orbit and would hold them there despite their differing weights and densities. And he had a little red badge of courage on his forehead to prove it.
Arndt fixed his eyes on Wycovsky’s rigid face and tight jaw.
“Your people let Gage get away,” Arndt said. “And without Gilbert around to tell him how to do it, I’m not sure Davey Hicks-”
“Who?”
“Davey Hicks, his number one helper, can do it alone. He seems to be all thug and no brains.” “What about Abrams?”
Arndt made a dismissive shrug. “Where can he go? He’s one of the most watched men in America. All you have to do is call the Federal Reserve press office to find out where he is and where he’s going.”
“I don’t need the sarcasm. Our clients have a lot at stake in this.”
“I’ll have to trust you on that since I don’t have a clue who they are.”
And Arndt didn’t care. It was merely out-of-focus background to his immediate need.
“And it’ll stay that way,” Wycovsky said.
“But I do have a thought.” Arndt pointed at the computer monitor on his desk. “The local media is saying that police in Albany haven’t been able to reconstruct Gilbert’s movements on the night of his murder.” He paused for a moment of setup. “But we can. And Gage’s movements, too.”
Wycovsky’s eyes narrowed. “And? ”
“The link between Gage and Gilbert is a bounty hunter named Strubb.”
Arndt reached into his top desk drawer and pulled out a DVD. He leaned down and inserted it into his computer drive, and then angled the monitor so Wycovsky could see it.
“This is a security camera video of Gage and Strubb and a kid Strubb hired. They’re walking from the garage into the lobby of the Adirondack Plaza Hotel a few hours before Gilbert was killed.”
A gray-scale image of the reception desk appeared on the screen, along with an expanse of carpet and a semicircle formed by a sofa and two wing chairs. Seconds later, the three came into view.
“That’s Gage in the middle,” Arndt said. “Strubb is the guy behind him.”
“Why are they so close together?”
“They’ve got Gage in handcuffs. After they searched his room for documents that Hennessy’s wife supposedly had given him, Strubb went to meet with Gilbert at a leather bar-”
Wycovsky squinted at Arndt. “Gilbert? Gilbert was a queer? ”
“No. Strubb is. Hard-core. Black harnesses, chaps, biker hats, and studs. Gilbert had some kind of fetish that made him want to hire these guys. Sort of a master and slave thing, without the sex.”
“How did you-”
“Davey Hicks. He’s one, too. He put together the pieces of what happened. He heard that Gage pushed Strubb around and threatened to put him back in prison if he didn’t make Gilbert lay off. Strubb leaned on Gilbert. He refused and then Strubb and two other guys took him for a ride, and things got out of hand.”
Wycovsky smirked. “I saw the news, they killed him.”
“But they did a few things to him first.” Arndt jerked his thumb upward. He smiled to himself as Wycovsky winced. He imagined his boss’s butt cheeks clenching.
“Hicks is certain that the details of what they did to Gilbert can be deduced from the autopsy report,” Arndt said, “but the police haven’t released it to the press.”
Wycovsky didn’t respond for a few moments. He just stood there, frowning.
Arndt suspected that Wycovsky was watching his imagination play out the nightmare of the attack. Arndt wished he had some sort of mental probe so he could determine whether Wycovsky’s fantasy of what had happened was a product of his personal terrors or was instead a form of wish fulfillment. It wasn’t hard for Arndt to imagine Wycovsky wanting to do physically what he did psychologically to the junior members of the firm.
“I may have underestimated you,” Wycovsky finally said.
Arndt smiled as if in satisfaction, but said to himself, Not in the way you think.
“Whenever we need to take Gage out of the game,” Arndt said, “we’ll just finger him for Gilbert’s murder. It won’t stick in the end.” He grinned at his wordplay. “But he’ll be out of our client’s way for a while.”
CHAPTER 28
A persistent, rhythmic thumping and the rattle of the front door against the loose frame drew Faith out of the shadows of sleep into a predawn gray. By the time she’d climbed out of bed and made it into the front room, Jian- jun had opened it. Standing across the threshold from him was a young woman wearing a military surplus coat. A battered scooter was parked behind her on the bare yard, the motor silent, but the headlight glowing into the haze.
The woman whispered two sentences, then fell silent as her eyes widened at the sight of Faith, who wondered whether her surprise was provoked by the fact that this white ghost standing in the darkness hadn’t fled like the rest of the Westerners had done in the days after the earthquake.
Jian-jun turned around, following the woman’s gaze.
“What is it?” Faith asked.
Jian-jun pointed back over his shoulder.
“She says that a couple of the rebels have found where I hid my parents. But out of respect for my grandmother, they haven’t turned them over to the mob.”
Jian-jun walked over to where Ayi Zhao was still asleep on a cot and sat down next to her. He touched her on the shoulder. Her eyelids fluttered, then she looked up. He told her what had happened as he helped her to her feet.
Faith gestured for the woman to come inside.
Jian-jun introduced her in Mandarin only as Xiao Mei, Little Mei, and Faith only as “the anthropologist.”
Faith knew the unspoken question behind Little Mei’s eyes, for she’d heard versions of it throughout her career: for what was an anthropologist, but a spy in plain sight, a psychoanalyst of families and of relationships and of culture using obscure methods to discern the function behind the structure and the living reality behind the camouflage of appearances-at best to objectify people, and at worst, to strip them naked.
Little Mei’s blank expression and averted gaze seemed to Faith to be those of a sister or girlfriend who suspected she’d been discussed in therapy and whose secrets had been exposed and dissected Except today those secrets were political and the consequence of exposure wasn’t shame or embarrassment, but death.
They all understood that there’d be no time to argue filial piety to a mob. Appearances would be everything.
“I’ll show myself,” Ayi Zhao said, then looked from the woman to her grandson. “That will give the children time to escape.”
Jian-jun shook his head. “The army may view your arrival as a provocation. We can’t take the chance that
