He pulled a little plastic cylinder out of his pocket. At one end was a button, which he pushed. The engine stopped. Then he pushed the button, and it started again.
“Over a hundred yard range,” he said.
I took it out of his hand, killed the engine and reached past him to open the hood. It was easy to see the fresh wiring running from a proverbial black box into the electronic ignition. I yanked it out.
“Cool, huh?” said Ackerman.
I wanted to smack him with it, but he looked like a kid more excited about making a bomb than sorry for blowing up the basement.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“I want to talk to you. I was about to wave you over when you started playing stall ball.”
“You just happened to follow me out of Manhattan. Coincidence.”
He smirked.
“Hell, no. I’ve been following you since we first met. Took you long enough to notice.”
“That doesn’t make me happy,” I said.
“’Course not. Why would it?”
“Fucking Judson.”
“That’s what I want to talk about. Fucking Judson. I’m sick of living like a mushroom. Kept in the dark and fed on bullshit.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I’ve been following you, but I haven’t been reporting anything back. Not exactly. I make it up. Like when you went to visit Angel Valero, I said you were sitting in a bar in the Village. Judson’s always willing to believe you’re sitting in a bar.”
“How come?” I asked.
“You drink a lot.”
“How come you’re not reporting the truth?”
He ran a hand over his slicked-back hair, then over his face, stopping to rub his mouth. An extravagant gesture of ambivalence.
“I don’t know, Marve’s okay, I guess. He told me we’re a team. It’s just hard to play on a team when you don’t know what the game is. I got a brain, obviously,” he added, pointing to the tangle of multicolored wires in my hand, “but all he wants from me is muscle, which in your case is a little ridiculous, I think you’d agree.”
“So, what’re you proposing?” I asked.
“I just want to know what’s going on. Tell me and I’ll go away forever. Tell Judson to take this job and fuck himself with it.”
While we were talking, Eddie had leaped up into the pickup and was lying down on the seat, bored with the whole thing.
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just looked at Ackerman’s pale, sweaty face and downturned, close-set eyes, fleshy cheeks and boneless chin.
“Okay, here’s what I know,” he said, as if that’s what I wanted him to say. “Somebody whacked Iku Kinjo, the consulting babe from Eisler, Johnson, and you found the body. The cops grilled your ass but cut you loose, so you’re not a suspect. For a change. Since then, you’ve been working people who knew her, so I’m figuring you want to find the whacker. What I don’t know is why Judson’s so damn interested. Nobody else at Con Globe seems to give a shit. Though maybe they should. Who knows what the Jap girl was up to. Except for senior management, which doesn’t include Judson, no matter what he thinks.”
“Japanese-African-American. A little respect, please.”
He tossed his head, like he was shaking a bug out of his ear. “Sorry. You’re right. Tragic thing.”
I dug a restaurant receipt out of my pocket and wrote the Pequot’s address on the back.
“Meet me here tonight at seven-thirty. We’ll talk. Meanwhile, stay out of my rearview mirror.”
He nodded as he studied the receipt.
“Absolutely. You’ll never see a thing. I’m a ghost.”
He backed up, waving his hands in front of him, conjuring his shield of invisibility. I watched him until he’d turned and waddled furtively—if such a thing is possible—across the parking lot and around the other side of the coffee shop.
“Sun Tzu,” I said to Eddie. “Friends close, enemies closer. If you’re not sure, take ’em out to dinner.”
He perked up at the word “dinner,” so I tossed him the last of the Big Dog biscuits I’d brought along and got underway. When I reached the highway, I called Sullivan.
“I have Elaine Brooks’s fingerprints,” I told him.
“On what?”
“My arm. If that’s too technical a challenge, I also have her china coffee cup.”
“I’ll take the cup.”
Traffic thinned as I cleared Nassau County and the western reaches of Suffolk. The day had started out grey and dispirited, but lightened up considerably as we crossed the pine barrens, still partially charred from a big fire several years before. Fresh green growth clustered around acres of burnt stalks that would likely stand until the next fire.
When I was a kid my father would try to search out ways around the two-lane tedium of the Sunrise Highway, then the standard route out to the South Fork, by heading north, inevitably plunging us into the pine barrens. I knew this was a fruitless strategy, having actually looked at a road map, something my father was determined never to do. In those days that area was so devoid of life I’d imagine we were sailing over a dark sea on the way to the Hampton Islands.
According to my sister, the trip in and out of the City was a regular thing, though I barely remember my father’s apartment in the Bronx. She thinks I blocked it out. If so, all the better.
What I did remember was more than enough.
FIFTEEN
I HAD TO WAIT ALMOST an hour at the coffee shop for Sullivan to show up. I killed the time reading a book Randall gave me called something like
Randall’s book made me feel like a monk leafing through the
“Welcome to the twenty-first century,” said Sullivan, dropping down into the seat across the table.
“I could’ve used one of these back in the day,” I said, holding up the book. “Would’ve saved a lot of time.”
Sullivan scoffed.
“The more of this shit people have, the less time they got.”
“The law of unintended consequences.”
“Oh, it’s intended all right. Get everybody strung out on something that costs you more every year. Worse’n crack.”
I slapped the book shut.
“Whew,” I said. “That was close.”
He pointed at my coffee.
“Is that the cup?”
“It’s in the truck.”
I got up from the table, forcing him to follow. We scooped up Eddie and found the pickup.
“While I got you in a good mood,” I said, after giving him the cup, “I’m hoping you can let Honest Boy Ackerman back into town.”
The storm clouds behind his eyes darkened another shade.
“That chump.”
