“None at all,” Hauck said.
“You asked him?”
“He didn’t care to say.”
Pflug made a snorting sound and I turned to look at him. His face was still without expression and his eyes were still on me.
“Why not?”
“Greg could be… stubborn. I can’t claim to know his thoughts.”
“He say anything to you about his plans before he left?” Hauck shook his head. “What was his mood like?” Again the quizzical smile. “Was it stable? Did he sound depressed, elated, detached?”
Hauck hesitated, choosing his words. “It was stable- yes, and not depressed. Angry, perhaps, but not depressed.”
“Angry at what?” Hauck smiled and shook his head and said nothing.
“What are you into with Danes?” I asked. “What’s going on with you two?”
Hauck sat back and sighed, the picture of patience wearing thin. He folded his fat hands in his lap. “Really, Mr. March, I don’t know how else to say it: I am Greg’s friend. There just isn’t anything I can add to that.”
“No, of course not,” I said, and rose from my seat. Hauck leaned forward and Pflug pushed off the door and moved his feet apart and balanced himself.
“You’re leaving us?” Hauck asked. I nodded. “We haven’t worked out the details of my offer yet.” His eyes got smaller and his voice lost some of its softness.
“I don’t think I can accept your offer,” I said, and Hauck changed again. There was nothing subtle about it this time. His eyes narrowed to slits and his features took on a nasty, porcine look. His voice was flat and cold.
“I assumed from your questions that you already had accepted,” he said. I still held the crystal baseball. I tossed it from my left hand to my right and said nothing. Despite himself, Hauck watched it travel.
“I feel that I’ve been misled, Mr. March,” he said, and his face reddened to the collar line. “I really don’t think you appreciate the gravity of this. Perhaps it would be best- for all concerned- if you would reconsider.” He glanced behind me at Pflug.
“Which all is that?” I asked. “Are we talking about my family again?” I tossed the sphere from my right hand to my left. It was Hauck’s turn to keep silent, and he did. His gaze was icy. I moved toward the door and Pflug shifted, blocking my way. He smiled at me and unbuttoned his jacket and shook his head. I looked at Hauck.
“I’ve answered your questions, Mr. March, and it’s only fair that you answer some of mine.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I pursed my lips and nodded. And then I pivoted and lobbed the crystal sphere at Pflug, who was game but never had a chance.
I tossed it up above his head, and against his will his eyes flicked upward and his hands moved to follow and I kicked him in the balls. The breath came out of him in a sickening bellow and he folded up around his pain, but even as he did, Pflug lunged at me. He groped in his jacket for his gun and pointed his shoulder into my gut and I turned and took the hit on my left arm. There wasn’t much behind it and Pflug clawed at me with his left hand and snapped his head up, trying to connect. But his grip was loose and his timing was way off and I stepped away and hammered twice, hard, on the side of his neck with the side of my fist. Pflug went heavily to his knees. His eyes were rolling in his head, but still he flailed at me and dug for his gun. I threw my elbow into the center of his face, and his nose exploded and he went over backwards. He lay still, with his long legs bent beneath him.
I knelt over him and pulled a semiautomatic from under his arm. It was a shiny cannon, a Desert Eagle, and it weighed about fifty pounds. I turned to Hauck. He was standing behind his desk. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes darted from me to his black telephone and back.
I went to the desk and unplugged the phone and put it on the floor. I slid the clip out of the Eagle and put it in my pocket. My hands were shaking and I took some deep breaths and concentrated on keeping them steady. I checked the chamber. The shithead had a round up there, and I jacked it out and put it in my pocket with the clip. I sat again in the Windsor chair and put the gun on the desk.
“Sit down,” I said. Hauck sat. Pflug groaned and rolled on his side. Hauck and I looked at him. Hauck shook his head and swallowed hard.
“Wasteful,” he said. “You’ve damaged a valuable asset, and for nothing.” His voice was soft again, but not yet steady.
“Not for nothing, Marcus, but to make a point.”
Hauck’s eyes narrowed. “And that is…?”
“That you should keep your dog on a leash, Marcus. Because if he gets loose again, I’m holding you responsible.”
“Is that a-”
“Your little story about how he got out of hand is a pile of crap, and we both know it. He does what you tell him to do. For all I know, you even tell him how to do it.”
Hauck took another breath and started to speak but I cut him off again.
“But be clear on one thing: If I see him again- or anybody who works for him- around me or anyone I know, I’m talking to you, Marcus. Whether you sent him or not, I’m talking to you. You understand that?” Hauck was still and silent for a moment and then he nodded once. “And you’ll make sure that he understands?” Another nod. I stood.
“What about my offer?” Hauck said. I looked at him and didn’t know whether to laugh or spit. I settled on a bitter chuckle and headed for the door.
As I went past him, Pflug pushed himself to kneeling and launched himself at me. His movements were surprisingly fluid for someone whose nose was spread all over his face, but they were also slow and I had about a week to react. I twisted his wrist and kneed him in the jaw and sent him back down to Hauck’s geometric rug. He landed with a grunt and rolled slowly on his back.
I looked down at him and remembered George L. Gerber and his murdered dog out in LA, and thought about booting Pflug in the nuts once more. But his face was bloody, his wrist was bent and likely broken, and he was altogether too wretched. I picked up the crystal sphere, which had come to rest, unscathed, against the console, and I looked at Hauck.
He was still seated at his desk, with his fat hands clasped before him. His brow was furrowed and his mouth was a blister of concentration. His eyes were fixed across the room on the weathered stone face of Kubera. I set the glass ball on the table and closed the door behind me and left him there, waiting for a sign.
29
The Surrogate’s Court is at the end of Chambers Street, near Centre Street and in the wide shadow of the Municipal Building. It’s a frilly Beaux-Arts palace with a huge mansard roof, arched entranceways, Corinthian columns, and plenty of statues of dead city elders. The lobby is multicolored marble and lavish in its adornment, and the sweeping double staircase looks like something out of the Paris OpA©ra. I went through security, up one side of the staircase, and down a long hallway. I followed signs and asked directions, and the farther I went the less things looked like Paris and the more they resembled Motor Vehicles.
I found my way to a green high-ceilinged room and a table stacked with requisition forms. I filled out a form and went to the end of a very slow line. At the other end of the line was a file clerk named Larry. He was tall, thin, and dusty, and he might have been forty or seventy. He stood behind a high counter, at the head of a phalanx of filing cabinets arranged in long shadowed rows. He took my form without comment and pointed to a bench. I took a seat with the paralegals and junior associates who’d preceded me in line, and while I waited I took out my subway map.
That’s what it reminded me of, anyway. Intersecting colored lines, tick marks, lots of names and numbers- it could have been a diagram of the Fulton Street station. In fact, it was the time line I had drawn that morning- my graphic rendering of the little I knew about Gregory Danes’s disappearance and of the many questions I couldn’t answer. The theory was that in putting it down on paper, I’d see something I hadn’t seen before. It had worked for me in the past, but not this time. This time, it was the subway to nowhere. I unfolded the paper and took another look.
