Need You Now

poetic justice when, years later, they’d nailed him as Tony Martin for the murder of Gerry Collins. Assuming, of course, that they knew he was really Tony Mandretti. Very few in law enforcement had that information.

Outside of law enforcement, even fewer had it.

A buzzer sounded, and a man dressed in a polyester business suit entered through a secure metal door. He conveyed all the warmth of an IRS auditor. “Mr. Lloyd?”

“Yes,” I said, rising.

He introduced himself as the warden, which told me right away that something was up.

“I’ve been advised that you’re here to see inmate Tony Martin.”

“That’s right,” I said. “It was my understanding that he is hospitalized.”

The warden drew a breath. “He was.”

“Was? Is he back in his cell?”

“No. I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mr. Martin passed away last night.”

If the warden was expecting the news to upset or move me in some way, I completely let him down. Not because I was cold and indifferent to the death of a confessed killer. Not because I couldn’t believe, or wouldn’t believe, that he was dead. My reaction-or lack of it-was for a reason he couldn’t have begun to fathom.

I positively knew it was a lie. A complete, bald-faced lie.

I thanked the warden for his condolences, grabbed my bag, and headed for the parking lot-before he could ask how I had known Tony Martin, or why I had come to see him.

9

T wo minutes after my return flight from Raleigh to Newark hit the runway, I powered on my BlackBerry. The usual flood of messages crammed my in-box. One was not so usual. Opening it required the use of a decryption algorithm to unravel the cipher. Even then, the message would have meant nothing to anyone but me: “They know. Meet me at Position Three. 4:30.”

Sunset was near as I crossed Fifth Avenue at Seventy-second Street and entered Central Park, and less than a half hour of daylight remained by the time I followed the long concrete crescent of sidewalk around the west side of the Conservatory Water and up to “Position Three.”

The Alice in Wonderland sculpture is one of the park’s most popular destinations. True to an original John Tenniel illustration from the first edition of Lewis Carroll’s classic, the work depicts Alice perched on a giant mushroom reaching toward a pocket watch held by the March Hare. Peering over her shoulder is the Cheshire Cat, surrounded by the Dormouse and the Mad Hatter, and finally the White Rabbit. It is an unusual bronze, not just because of the magical subject matter, but also because the artist intended for children to play on it. Thousands have answered the call, their busy hands and feet polishing parts of the statue’s patina surface smooth. This was a place I had visited as a child, in one of the handful of trips my family made into Manhattan from Queens. Burned into my memory was the look on my father’s face as he approached the granite circle surrounding the sculpture and read the engraved line from “The Jabberwocky,” a poem by Lewis Carroll: “ ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” Then he put his hands on his hips, faced my mother, and said exactly what you’d expect a native New Yawker to say: “What the fuck language is that supposed to be in?” It had sent a team of nannies from the Upper East Side hightailing it over to the carousel.

Years later, when I was asked to create a list of public sites in Manhattan to serve as potential emergency meeting places-“Position One” through “Position Five”-Alice made the cut.

The list was for FBI agent Andie Henning.

“I got your message,” I said, my breath steaming in the chilly air.

Henning turned at the sound of my voice. She was seated on the same bench that, years earlier, my mother had nearly fallen from in embarrassment. I sat at the opposite end. She was looking out toward the sculpture, her hands buried in her pockets, her leather jacket too short and stylish to be of much good in the long, cold shadows of a late afternoon in January. It was hard to tell in the twilight, but I would have bet that her lips were turning purple.

“Next time we meet at the zoo,” she said, fighting off shivers, “in the nice, balmy rain forest. Let’s make this quick.”

“Fine by me. Which they were you talking about in your message? And what exactly do ‘they know’?”

“BOS Corporate Security. They know you haven’t always been Patrick Lloyd.”

I froze. That was my biggest fear since I’d agreed to this assignment.

It wasn’t a job I had gone looking for. Eight months earlier, Henning had contacted me on the premise that an inside view of BOS/Singapore could uncover millions-perhaps billions-for the victims of Cushman’s Ponzi scheme. That was a serious upside. The downside was obvious. Get fired. Get blacklisted in the industry. But there were even bigger risks.

“How do you know they’re onto me?”

“The assistant director of BOS security called one of our field agents in New York. They have some kind of relationship that goes back a few years. Our agent didn’t give up anything, but he was able to string out the conversation long enough to figure out that BOS is determined to find out who Patrick Lloyd really is.”

My head rolled back, and the winter sky suddenly seemed even darker. “Shit,” was all I could say. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Stick to our agreement.”

“Meaning what?”

“So long as BOS hasn’t fired you, I want you to stay put.”

“What happens when I’m called up to the executive suite to answer questions like ‘Who is Patrick Lloyd’?”

“You can’t tell them about me; you can’t tell them why you went to Singapore; you can’t tell them anything about our agreement.”

“So that’s your position-I’m on my own?”

“We have too many positives working for us to bail out now. We know that Lilly is in New York. She followed you from Singapore, just as I predicted she would. It shows that she’s desperate, and that she trusts you. Expect her to make contact with you anytime now.”

“She already has.”

“Good. How did that go?”

I hesitated a little too long.

Andie groaned. “Don’t tell me…”

“She spent the night.”

“Men are so weak.”

“Yes, but I’m all you’ve got. And even though we don’t see eye to eye on Lilly, I do have something useful to pass along to you.”

“Talk to me.”

I tugged at the collar of my sweater to reveal the powder burn on my neck.

“What is that?” she asked.

I wasn’t convinced of her ignorance, but I indulged her for a moment, telling her about the SUV in Times Square and the threats that had come with powder burns.

“You should have told me about this immediately.”

“I got a little distracted. That’s right when Lilly showed up.”

“That’s no excuse. Forensics could have gathered gunpowder, other trace evidence. You’ve washed it all away.”

“Yes, I’m doing fine, thank you. Very kind of you to ask.”

“Sorry. What happened to you was unnerving, I’m sure.”

“Lilly got the same threats in Singapore. And more.”

“ ‘More’ in what way?”