“So you told Gelb where Iku lived, even though she made you all promise to keep it a secret.”
Zelda dismissed the thought with a sneer.
“Ridiculous. There are no secrets in this world.”
She used the back of her hand to sweep her half-eaten meal and the broken chopsticks off the table. There was more I could have said to her, but we both knew it was pointless. So I let myself out into the glimmering East End light, where I stuck my face in the freshening breeze and fled the evil banality that clung like mist to her grim fairytale home.
Hoping to hide from caller ID, I drove all the way back to North Sea so I could use the landline in my kitchen to roust Angel for the second day in a row—with any luck, jet-lagged and groggy from his trip in from the Coast.
“Who’s this?” he said.
“Sam Acquillo. How’re the nuts? Still working?”
It was quiet a moment.
“I told you not to call me.”
“I’ve never been good at following directions.”
“What do you want?”
“Your ass. Now that I’ve met the rest of you, it’s irresistible.”
“I told you I’d meet with you.”
“You did. I’m ready now.”
I tapped a Camel far enough out of the pack to pull it out with my teeth. I lit it with one hand, bending the match in half and striking it with my thumb, a move I learned in high school. The hell with rations, I thought. Not today.
“My patience has just about run out with you, Acquillo.”
“You remember where they found Iku?”
“Vedders Pond.”
“Meet me there at exactly twelve noon. That’s almost two hours from now.”
I hung up and finished my cigarette and made a pot of coffee, which I took out to the Adirondacks to drink while watching the morning sun burn off the haze and heat up the day.
On the way to Vedders Pond I listened to public radio, which was promoting a Mozart festival at Southampton College. That was a nice surprise. Mozart always had a calming effect on me.
I knew Angel would want to arrive a little early, so I got there a little earlier than that. The sun was reaching its high point of the day, so there was still plenty of light falling through the trees and glancing off the surface of the pond.
I lit a cigarette and sat down Buddha-style in front of the statuette of the Virgin Mary, who accepted the irony without remark.
Angel’s black Mercedes AMG showed up a few minutes later.
He had a sideman with him who looked a little like Frankenstein, tall as a tree with a squared-off jaw and crew cut. Everything but the little bolts in his neck.
“Hey, who’s your handsome friend? You guys going together?” I said, trying to set the right tone.
“Don’t mind if we stand,” said Angel, looking around the rocky, weed-infested lawn.
“I’d rather you sit. More friendly.”
He didn’t like it but he dropped his lumbering bulk to the ground and ordered his pet ghoul to follow suit.
“So, what’re you peddling?” he asked me, after getting semi-comfortable.
“That’s all the foreplay I get?”
“Enough of that shit,” said Valero. “What’s the deal?”
“Okay. Silence. That’s the offer on the table. You pay me whatever I think it’s worth to stay quiet about your conspiracy with Jerome Gelb and Iku Kinjo to,” I used my fingers to tick off the list, “threaten exposure of Con Globe’s fraudulent sale of the TSS division, in return for George Donovan agreeing to break up the company, and to sell the most valuable assets to you. How am I doing so far?”
“Depends on what you have to back that up,” he said.
“What about you?” I asked his silent partner. “What’s your opinion?”
He just stared at me.
“His opinion is he’s looking forward to ripping off your arms and legs,” said Valero. “But don’t let that distract you.”
“Okay,” I said. “You want back-up.”
I reached in the laundry bag and pulled out Iku’s computer. Angel frowned.
“It’s hers. You can see the little Eisler, Johnson sticker on the bottom.” I showed him. “It’s got her name and some kind of code. I’ve already had a night to go through the files. It’s all there. Even some of Ozzie’s ginned-up spreadsheets. Is that what you showed him before he killed himself?”
“Okay,” said Angel.
“Okay what?”
“Okay. What’ll it cost me to get that computer back?”
“You told me to start discounting. So I did, and got all the way to zero.”
“You don’t want anything?” he said.
“I’m not saying that. I don’t want any money. Just a single piece of information.”
“What?”
“Why did you kill Iku Kinjo?”
The tall guy started to stand, looking at Angel for the go-ahead. Angel leaned back against a tree stump and waved him forward.
“Get me that computer,” he said.
The guy was so long and awkward, it took him forever to get all the way to his feet, plenty of time for me to knock over the Madonna and retrieve Marve Judson’s gun. I pointed it at Angel’s head.
“Up to you,” I said. He opted to have Frankenstein retake his seat.
“Answer,” I said, now aiming the barrel of the gun at Angel’s chest.
“Gelb told me she was losing it, on the verge of blowing the whistle. He was freaking out, but I said it was just a case of pre-deal jitters. Happens to people. I’d already put the thing on hold when she stopped returning our calls. I figured she’d snap out of it. I’m a patient man. I could give it a month. After that, who needs her? We had the goods from Endicott. The only one who’d want to fight us was Donovan, and he was dead man walking, thanks to Iku. It’s all documented in there,” he said, pointing to the computer. “Which you probably know.”
I held up the laptop with the hand not holding the automatic.
“And you killed her for it,” I said.
He shook his shaggy head like the enraged bull he was.
“Gelb, that pinheaded geek, showed up at my house with her computer. He said people were nosing around his office, so it was safer here with me. He didn’t say where he got it, but when I heard the news about Iku the next day, I figured it out. I should’ve never got involved with that piece of crap, but that’s business.”
I could see it all starting with a phone conversation, or a harried meeting. Bobby Dobson telling Jerome Gelb some guy’s looking for Iku. The description fits Floyd Patterson. Alarms start to go off. Dobson says this couldn’t happen at a worse time. Iku’s having some kind of emotional breakdown. He tells Gleb that she’s fallen hard for George Donovan, and that her remorse over what she’d set out to do was about to drive her into the arms of the state’s Attorney General. Gelb is now really starting to panic. He tells Bobby that he has to see Iku, to talk some sense into her. In a rare display of character, the weak-willed Dobson holds out, though he gives up Iku’s disposable cell number. Gelb then hits the jackpot with Zelda. She gives up everything, including the location of Iku’s bedroom, right inside the patio door, which is completely hidden from the street and the other houses. He knocks, and in her semi-stupor she opens the door.
As the head of Eisler, Johnson’s Tokyo office for ten years, Gelb knew something about Japanese ritual suicide, but hadn’t counted on her putting up such a fight. After trying without success to slash her throat, as the practice dictates, he was forced to jam the knife straight up into her brain. A faked-up suicide was still a worthwhile misdirection, so he cleaned up as well as he could and staged Iku in the middle of her bed. Then he unplugged the
