'What about his operative?'
'O'Neill? Another crooked cop. He was good, I'll give him that. He was like a shadow, you never noticed he was there.' Jurgen smiles. 'Still, bottom line on Maritz, you can't believe a word he says. Inspector Bartel should have known that. But you know what cops are like – they stick together especially when they lie. Now if Maritz had done the Flamingo job, that would’ve been something else. But like I said, he wouldn't have dared. He knew if Jack found out, Jack would’ve buried him alive.'
Jurgen prefers my second drawing. He thinks my first makes him look too old. I offer it to him. He accepts on condition I let him comp me next time I come in. He says he'll post it among the signed photos of entertainers, ball players, and politicians that crowd the wall behind the bar.
As I'm about to leave, he asks if I'd be willing to make a drawing of his girlfriend.
'She's beautiful. You'll like sketching her. Thing is,' he winces a little, 'I'd like you to draw her in the nude. She's got a great body. I'll pay you well.'
I tell him I'll accept the commission, but it's not money I want in exchange.
'What do you want?'
'Information.'
He raises his right eyebrow, showing the same sweet, suave smile. 'I'll mention it to the lady,' he says.
I flex my fingers as I drive back to the Townsend. Five drawings since this morning. I'm done sketching for the day.
I check out Waldo's on my way through the lobby. The bar's barely half full. I stop by Reception to pick up my messages. There's just one, from Karen Lee.
Returning her call, I learn she's located Susan Pettibone.
'Easy search, Mr. Weiss. Your deposit will cover it. Once we got hold of her social security number, tracking her was a breeze.'
I don't ask by what manner of hacking her operative got hold of the number.
Susan Pettibone, she tells me, now calls herself Susan Ryan, is divorced, has two grown children, is an executive at Pitney-Bowes, and lives in Danbury, Connecticut. Karen gives me her home phone number and street address, then asks me not to reveal where I got them.
'We deal with out clients in confidence,' she says.
I watch TV for a while, then go down to Waldo's for a sandwich and beer. Then, missing Pam, I decide to take a walk following the same route we took the first night we went out together to Irontown to eat.
Approaching the Calista River, I pause to take in the tranquility of the city. It's after nine, a moonless night, and there's hardly anyone around, just an occasional night jogger fleeting along the embankment and sparse traffic heading for the Irontown clubs and cafes.
The river's glassy tonight, without a wave or visible current, slick like polished black marble reflecting the black, moonless sky. A row of well-spaced streetlamps, shaped like enormous candelabra, cast yellow light upon Riverwalk. In the distance, Eric Lindstrom's amazing twin towers, lit from within, soar like beacons from the cluster of old, granite-faced office buildings downtown.
I continue along Riverwalk with the Calista flowing silently below me beside abandoned railway tracks. Here finished steel and the components used to make it were hauled by barges day and night to and from the mills.
A sudden screech startles me. A high-speed train emerges from a tunnel on the other side of the river, then races along a trestle. In the distance I hear sirens, whether police or fire I can't tell. I look ahead. A single jogger's coming toward me. Otherwise the area's deserted.
As I reach the center of Riverwalk, I hear a car approaching from behind. Then the squeal of brakes. I turn just as a van pulls to the curb. Two men jump out wearing ski masks and black sweats. They grab my arms and drag me back. The jogger is coming abreast. When I call out to him for help, he pushed me roughly from behind. A moment later, I'm pushed and pulled toward an opening in the wall that bounds Riverwalk, entrance to one of the stairways that lead down to the river. I struggle frantically, but the three of them are too much for me. They drag me down a flight, throw some sort of sack over my head, pull it tight at my neck, then spin me around.
'Take my money,' I mumble through the sack.
No answer. The sack blindfolds me, it smells bad inside, and makes it hard for me to breathe. AS I try to twist free, they suddenly let go of me. Then one of them shoves me forward, another shoves me toward the third, and he in turn pushes me back. I can hear their light laughter as they toss me around, spinning me each time until finally in a fit of dizziness I fall to the concrete, landing on my face.
But that's not enough for them. They pull me roughly to my feet and start the roundelay again. I'm terrified. What do they want? Why are they doing this? Are they just having sport with me, or is there some underlying purpose?
Suddenly two of them grab my arms, while the third punches me hard in the stomach. I feel a sharp pain, double over, fall to my knees. I can feel the vomit rising. I choke on it, try to spit it out.
One of them, the hitter I think, kneels beside me. I can feel his breath as he brings his mouth to my covered ear.
'Stop nosing around,' he says, his harsh whisper cutting to me through the sack. 'This is a warning. Next time we'll break your hands. Then you won't be drawing any more pictures.'
He knows who I am! I've been targeted! This isn't a random attack! Then, as a set of memories floods in, I finally understand what this is about.
He pulls away. I sense the three of them standing above me, looking down. One of them kicks me in the side, then I hear their van take off. I lie still on the pavement until I'm sure they're gone, then pull the sack from my head.
When I get it off, I gulp for air… except the air around me isn't all that fresh, tainted by the smell of the river and the old iron smell of Calista streets. I sit up slowly, check myself. My side's sore but I'm sure nothing's broken. That final kick in the ribs was half-hearted at best. I taste a little blood, most likely the result of a split lip when I fell. Though grateful to find myself undamaged, I know I won't look pretty in the morning.
I grope about, get to my feet, make my way carefully up the concrete stairs. Back on Riverwalk, I go to the nearest lamppost and inspect the sack. It's tight yellow mesh, the kind used to hold grain. Two words are printed on it in block capital: BELSONS FLOUR.
Back in my room. I clean myself up. The cut on my lip isn't as bad as I thought. What the whisperer said was true – what I got tonight was a warning, not a beating, a warning to ‘stop nosing around,’ I know what that means: Keep my nose out of Flamingo. It's been twenty-six years. I ask myself: Who besides me and Mace still cares?
My phone rings early. It's Harriet informing me I have the day off. This morning the jury will visit the crime scene a the Museum of Natural History, no press allowed, and this afternoon Judge Winterson will rule on a defense proffer of new evidence.
I call Mace, tell him what happened.
'Can you ID the people?' he asks.
'No. Two of them were masked. It happened too fast. But I think I know who they are… or represent.'
'Who?'
'I'll tell you when I'm sure. Meantime, I'm not intimidated. Anyway, I'm calling you about something else.'
I pass on what Hilda Tucker told me about the obsessed grad student girl who lived in Tom Jessup's rooming
