“Belson told me about your lure theory.”
“Nothing wrong with it,” I said. “It’s a way to keep contact with them. We lose that and we got nothing.”
“Did you like this guy Prince?” Healy said.
“Hell, no,” I said.
“But you’re willing to die to catch his murderers.”
“I’m not willing to die,” I said. “I’m willing to risk it. I was supposed to keep him alive.”
“I know,” Healy said. “I know. How’s Susan feel about it?”
“She doesn’t like it, either,” I said. “But she knows I need to do this.”
“She understands?” Healy said.
“Yes.”
“Most women don’t.”
“Susan’s not most women,” I said.
“No,” Healy said. “She certainly isn’t.”
We hung up.
46
I made some fresh coffee and poured myself a cup and sat at my desk and sipped it. I kept my right-hand top drawer open in my desk so I could reach the .357 Mag in case of emergency. I brought my memo up on the computer screen and read it again. It was a surprising amount of information when you looked at it listed there. Proving anything was maybe an issue. I could go over to the Herzberg Foundation in Brighton and see what was shaking there. I could go talk to Lloyd the Lawyer, see if I could pry loose any information on the Herzberg Foundation, which I could then take with me when I went over there to see what was shaking. Normally you don’t get much out of lawyers, but maybe if Mort the Tort understood that he was sitting on at least two murders and two attempted, he might loosen up a little.
My office door opened. I put my hand on the .357. Quirk came in. I took my hand off the .357.
“You look like you just had a date with Renee Zellweger and things went well,” I said.
Quirk smiled, which was not common for Quirk. He got some coffee from the fresh pot and sat in one of my client chairs.
“Good news and bad news,” Quirk said. “Bad news: the plates on that Lexus were stolen, so we got nothing there. Good news . . .”
He smiled again. Twice in the same morning. He must have been ecstatic.
“We traced the tattooed ID numbers,” he said.
“So the hell with the Lexus,” I said.
“Went through the Holocaust Museum,” Quirk said, “in D.C. Epstein was helpful; got an agent to go over from FBI headquarters. They told us about a place in Germany where they keep a huge collection of Nazi stuff. We got hold of the American embassy. Needed a senator and two congressmen to do it, but we got them to send somebody up there, and she said that there were something like five hundred three-ring notebooks filled with names and tattooed ID numbers of everybody that was in Auschwitz. Every prisoner.”
“Imagine keeping track,” I said.
“Imagine,” Quirk said.
“And who had our tattoo?” I said.
“Fella named Judah Herzberg.”
“Hot dog!” I said.
“Listed as deceased,” Quirk said, “and a date: August 1943.”
“The people who’ve been trying to ace me must be part of something to do with him,” I said.
“How ’bout the Herzberg Foundation?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Them. I sent a memo to Healy this morning, copy to Belson. Lemme print it out.”
Quirk must have exhausted himself, smiling twice. He sat silently as I printed out the memo and handed it to him. He read it. And nodded when he finished.
“Amos Prinz,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
“In Auschwitz with Judah Herzberg,” he said. “And he stole the picture, and sixty years later his son is involved in the theft and attempted retrieval of the same painting.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So where does the Herzberg Foundation fit in?” Quirk said.
“I don’t know. Getting the painting back? Maybe. Revenge? Maybe. Justice or something? Maybe.”
“Think they’re the ones tried to kill you?”
