reserved another book about Santeria in the United States, as well as one about ritual murder in the inner city.
As he rounds the corner of the BP Building he stops. Rebecca D’Angelo is standing right in front of him, looking into the window at a holiday display. She has her back to him, but she looks just as he remembers. She is wearing a navy blue wool coat, knee-high boots. Paris is just about to tap her on the shoulder when it appears as if she sees him reflected in the window. She turns abruptly around.
It is not Rebecca.
“Sorry,” Paris says. “I thought you were a friend of mine.”
The woman glares at him, then makes a rather quick retreat down Superior Avenue, toward Public Square, turning twice more to look at him.
Paris shakes his head. He jaywalks to the library entrance.
Why can’t I stop thinking about her?
He is halfway across the underground lot at the Justice Center when he hears a man call his name from the shadows. It is Hank Szabo, the front-desk attendant from the VA nursing home on East Twenty-third Street.
“Mr. Szabo,” Paris says. “What brings you down to the Justice Center?”
“Not sure, really.” Hank steps forward, into the fluorescent light. He is wearing a beat-up old pea coat, a nubby watch cap. “I was just coming up to see you.”
“What about?”
Hank lowers his voice. “I’m not sure if this means anything at all. But Demetrius did something.”
“Did something?”
“Yeah. Well, something kind of out of the ordinary for him.”
“And what was that, Mr. Szabo?”
“He did this right after you left. And call me Hank, okay?”
Hank shows Paris a two-year-old copy of Time magazine.
“And what is this exactly?”
“Magazine, of course. It’s what Demetrius did inside I’m talking about. Something he did all on his own.” Hank opens the magazine to page 15 and points to the bottom. “See there? See how that’s circled?” The number 15, in the lower right, is circled in a shaky red ink.
“Yeah,” Paris says. “Okay.”
“And look here.” Hank now flips to page 28. Same thing. Then he flips to page 35, where the page number is once again circled very carefully in red. A quick scan of the magazine shows that these are the only pages with circled page numbers.
“Mr. Salters did this, you say?”
“Absolutely. I watched him do it.”
“And it was right after I left?”
“Well, it was right after he was sedated,” Hank says. “Don’t know what you did, but you scared the fuckin’ shit out of him. Literally.”
“Sorry about that.”
“No big deal. We usually have one or two of the boys go nuclear by lunchtime every day.”
“And what do you think it means?”
“No idea. I looked at the pages, at the articles, but they didn’t seem to be about anything, so as I can figure. One is a story about Edie Falco. She was that lady on-”
“The Sopranos. Right, Hank. I’m just not sure why you think this has something to do with me.”
“Can’t say, for sure,” Hank says. “But Demetrius doesn’t hardly ever do anything. Ever. So, for him to pick up a pen is pretty weird. This took him almost an hour, you know.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Yeah. Well, kind of. Up until the drugs kicked in, he kept mumbling something under his breath. I got close, but not too close, if you know what I mean.” Hank taps the side of his nose. “But I could hear him saying something over and over again. Like a prayer, almost.”
“What was he saying?”
“Well, I’m not totally sure about this. But it sounded like-you’re gonna think this is crazy.”
Paris almost smiles. “Trust me on this one, Hank. Crazy is what I do for a living. What did Mr. Salters say?”
“Once again, I wouldn’t swear to this,” Hank says, looking around the underground lot, as if the very act of entering the Justice Center parking garage had automatically put him under oath. “It sounded like he was saying ‘secret garden.’”
36
Randi Burstein had never seen the man at the counter before, but she seemed to recall hearing the name somewhere. On the younger side of thirty-five, she thinks. Too well dressed to be a cop. Too handsome to be a civil servant.
Lawyer. Definitely.
Who else ever comes in here?
“I can get that file for you right away,” Randi says. “Going to need some ID of course. Social security number at the very least.”
“Of course,” he says, handing her a social security card. “May I ask you something…”
“Randi.”
“May I ask you something, Randi?”
“Sure,” she says, hopes awakening. In the fifteen years she had worked in the records office of the Veterans Administration, she had yet to meet a man she had seen, socially, more than twice. Now that she was over forty, and a few pounds south of svelte, the opportunities seem to be diminishing every day. But, still, hope springs and all. “What would you like to know?”
“Have there been other folks requesting these files lately?”
“Now, now,” she says, a little disappointed, but still happy to engage in banter with someone so handsome, someone so much younger than the usual fossils with whom she deals. “You know I am not permitted to tell you that.”
“Well, I believe that rule exists because no one ever asks as nicely as I just have.”
“That may be true,” she says, crossing the room, pulling out the file drawer marked Saar-Salz. She finds the file, then closes the drawer with a slightly exaggerated bump of her ample hip. She makes a quick photocopy of the requested file. “I am still not allowed to break it.” She lays the form on the counter, slashes an X with her pen. “Sign for me there, please.”
The man scribbles a signature with his own pen.
“Any special plans for New Year’s Eve?” she asks, retrieving an envelope from beneath the counter, hoping to keep the conversation going.
“Oh yes,” the man answers. “I’m going to have a party.”
“Well, that sounds like fun,” Randi says as she slips the photocopy into a manila envelope, seals it. “Big or small?”
“Huge,” he says. “In fact, I’m thinking of inviting the whole world.”
“That would include me, of course,” she replies, amazed at her boldness. Maybe it’s just the holidays, she thinks. Or maybe the two eggnogs at lunch. She lays her left hand atop the counter with great deliberateness. The hand that sports no wedding or engagement ring whatsoever. “What should I wear?”
The man pauses for a moment, dramatically lost in thought. “A black leather jacket,” he says with a smile. “I think you would look very sexy in a black leather jacket and a little white skirt.”
Two full minutes later, long after the man with the dark eyes and the darker lashes had left without a further word, Randi Burstein finds herself still standing at the counter, a little flushed, a lot intrigued, her mind giddily rummaging through her closets.
