37
News of Gregory Danes’s death beat me back to New York, and so did news of my involvement in the case. There was a camera crew in front of my building when I got home, but they were slow or inattentive and I was inside before they could get out of their van. My voice mail was full.
There were a lot of messages from reporters, including three from Linda Sovitch. She was chatty and intimate and she called me John. She wanted to interview me for Market Minds.
There were messages from my family, too- from Lauren and Liz, who wanted to know that I was okay, and from Ned, to tell me that reporters had been calling him, that he didn’t like it, and that if I did talk to the press he’d prefer me not to mention any connection to Klein amp; Sons. It was touching, really.
Mickey Rich had called also. I called him back.
“They’re saying on TV that Paulie killed Danes,” he said. He sounded very old.
“That’s because they feel compelled to say something. Paul’s in custody- which is probably a good thing all around- but the police haven’t come to any conclusions.”
“Is he in bad shape?”
“Physically he seemed quite fit to me, but otherwise he’s not good. No matter how this shakes out, he’s going to need a lot of help.”
“Did Paulie… hurt you? I saw something on the news-”
“I’m fine, Mr. Rich. A little scuffed but nothing worse.”
Rich sighed and was quiet. “I’m going up there,” he said, after a while. “I mean, Joe would want it, and who else has he got if not me?”
He hung up and I went back to deleting messages. While I did I turned on the television to BNN. One of their reporters was standing in front of Pace-Loyette’s office building, annoying the guards and harassing anyone going into or out of the lobby. I flicked to an all-news channel, which just then was an all-Danes channel. They ran old clips of him addressing an investor conference, and with Linda Sovitch on Market Minds, and more recent, less flattering footage of him walking fast and looking furtive on Park Avenue.
Then the coverage switched gears into a recap of the story so far. I froze when they got to the part about the discovery of his body. Aerial footage of Calliope Farms was followed by a nighttime shot of the driveway and flares and state troopers, and of a gray Audi TT turning onto a road. My face was clearly visible through the window glass, and so was Jane’s.
“Shit.” My voice echoed in the apartment. I flicked the TV off.
My second-to-last message was from Marcus Hauck. He was quiet, cold, and very brief. “Call me.” The last message was from Billy. He spoke in a whisper.
“You said you’d find him and I guess you did, so I should say thanks. Maybe you could call me. I want to know what happened to him is all, and Mom won’t tell me or let me go online or even watch TV. The phone is ringing every five seconds, and TV people are outside, and she’s all freaked out. She and Nes are screaming at each other about I don’t know what. Mom’s taking me out to New Jersey in a while, to Grandpa’s place. Maybe you could call me there. I just want to know what happened.” He left me his grandfather’s phone number and hung up.
I took my sling off and worked my shoulder around. It was sore, but less so. I opened some windows and powered up my laptop. Then I sat at my table and spent the next half hour reading again through Danes’s phone records and through my own notes. When I was done I pushed my chair back and ran my hands through my hair.
“Shit.”
I called Nina Sachs’s apartment again, and again got no answer. Then I tried the Jersey number that Billy had left. It was busy and stayed that way for half an hour, and finally I gave up. I tried the I-2 Galeria de Arte in Brooklyn next. The phone rang for a long while before an irritated-sounding woman with a high-pitched voice picked up. She claimed not to know Nina Sachs and told me Ines was out. When I pressed, she suggested I try the gallery in SoHo. I called the SoHo number and someone picked up on the first ring, but whoever it was kept silent and hung up when I asked for Ines. After that the line was busy.
I went to the window and looked out at the street. The news crew was gone. The sun was fading and a wind had picked up. I pulled on my field jacket before I left, and clipped the Glock behind my back.
The I-2 gallery in SoHo was on Greene Street, near Canal. It was smaller than its Brooklyn cousin, a narrow space in a narrow brick building flanked by pricey shoe stores. It had a glass front and a glass door, and all the glass was covered by fabric shades. The door was locked and I pressed the bell. Nothing happened for a while and then a corner of a window shade was pulled back. It was Ines. She looked at me for a long moment and then she went away. I rang again and after minutes of nothing happening I rapped on the glass with my fist. The door buzzed. My pulse quickened and I went in.
The gallery was dim inside, lit only by the gray haze that filtered through the shades in front and by the chrome gooseneck lamp on the big black desk in back. The walls were empty and the bleached wood floors were bare; the ceiling was hung with shadows. The whole place smelled of cigarettes and plaster dust, and the air felt ten degrees colder than out on the street. My footsteps were loud and hollow.
Ines sat behind the desk, at the edge of a black wooden chair. She wore a green jersey dress, and her hair fell around her face. There was a wineglass on the desk, nearly empty, and a bottle of merlot, mostly gone. There was a round glass ashtray beside the bottle, with a cigarette burning in it. And beside the ashtray there was a small chromed semiautomatic.
I took a deep breath.
Ines leaned forward and her face came into the cone of light from the desk lamp. She was gaunt and sallow, and her huge almond eyes were painted with ash. Her straight strong nose was red at the end, and pinched-looking, and the creases on her forehead were dark and deep. And there were three parallel lines- angry red scratches- that ran from the bottom of her left ear to the left corner of her mouth. She looked up at me and made a wry face.
“You do not look well, detective,” she said. She was hoarse and tired-sounding.
“You and me both.”
“Yes. It has been a difficult few weeks.”
“I can imagine.”
Ines laughed bitterly. “Can you, detective?” She rested her long fingers on the edge of the desk. She stretched out one and nudged the butt of the gun.
“Where is Nina?” I asked.
“She took Guillermo…” Her breath deserted her and she stumbled over his name. “She took him to New Jersey, to her parents’ home. It was… too much in Brooklyn.” She took a hit off her cigarette, and the ember hissed.
“Is she coming back?”
Ines shrugged. Her shoulders were stiff and brittle-looking beneath the jersey. “I do not know her plans, detective.”
“What happened to your face?”
Ines shook her head. Her black hair was dull and heavy. “A household accident,” she said, and drained her wineglass. She stubbed out her cigarette and lit a fresh one.
“Was Nina part of it?”
She looked at me through a cloud of smoke. “Was Nina part of what?”
I shook my head. “Now is not the time, Ines. I know your taste in wine and your choice of smokes. The cop who’s running this case doesn’t, but he’ll know other things. He’ll pull prints off the wine bottle and DNA from the cigarette butts, and it won’t take him long. And the first comparisons he’s going to make are with you and Nina. So now is not the time to play around. Now we have to think about Billy, and it’s a whole different story if Nina knew about this.”
Ines sighed and her shoulders sagged. A look that might have been relief rolled across her face like cigarette smoke and vanished. “Dios mAo,” she whispered. “He is all I think of: what will become of him, what he will think of me. He is what this is all about.” She made her long fingers into a fist and slammed it on the desk. “A „Mierda!”
“Did she know, Ines?”
