“You drove a long way in the rain,” said Gurney.
“Rain stopped an hour ago.”
“No kidding. Guess I didn’t notice.”
“You look like your brain’s on another planet.”
“Then I guess it must be,” said Gurney with a sharper edge than he’d intended.
Hardwick showed no reaction. “That woodstove save you money?”
“What?”
“That woodstove, does it save you money on oil?”
“How the hell should I know? What are you here for, Jack?”
“Can’t a guy drop in on a buddy? Just to shoot the shit?”
“Neither one of us is the kind of guy who ever drops in on anyone. And neither of us has any interest in shooting the shit. So what are you here for?”
“Man wants to get to the point. Okay, I can respect that. No wasted time. How about you make some coffee and offer me a seat?”
“Right,” said Gurney. “I’ll make coffee. You sit wherever you want.”
Hardwick ambled to the far end of the big room and studied the stonework of the old fireplace. Gurney plugged in the coffeemaker and started the brewing process.
A few minutes later, they were facing each other in the pair of armchairs by the hearth.
“Not bad,” said Hardwick after a sip of his coffee.
“No, it’s actually pretty good. What the hell do you want, Jack?”
He took another sip before answering. “I thought maybe we could trade some information.”
“I don’t think I have anything worth trading.”
“Oh, yeah you do. No doubt about that. So what do you say? I tell you stuff, you tell me stuff.”
Gurney felt a surprising surge of anger. “Okay, Jack, why the hell not? You go first.”
“I spoke to my friend at Interpol again. Pushed him a bit on that ‘Sandy’s Den’ thing. And guess what? It was also called ‘Alessandro’s Den.’ Sometimes one, sometimes the other. That come as a big shock to you?”
“How could it be a shock?”
“Last time we talked about it, you seemed pretty sure it was all a coincidence. You don’t still think that, do you?”
“I guess not. There can’t be that many Alessandros in the sexy-photo business.”
“Right. So you got your little absinthe glass from Saul Steck, who happens to work under the name Alessandro for Karnala Fashion taking pictures of Mapleshade girls who shortly thereafter disappear. So tell me, ace, what the fuck are you up to? And by the way, while you’re explaining that, how about you explain the look on your face yesterday afternoon when you were staring over Holdenfield’s shoulder at that Karnala ad.”
Gurney leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and raised his coffee cup slowly to his lips. He took a few leisurely sips before opening his eyes. Still holding the cup in front of his mouth, he looked over at Hardwick. The man was in the identical position, his cup raised, watching Gurney. They traded small ironic smiles and lowered their cups to the arms of their chairs.
“Well,” began Gurney, “when all else fails, even the wicked sometimes need to fall back on honesty as the only way out.” Elbowing the potential consequences from his mind, he went on to tell Hardwick the whole Sonya-Mug Shot Art-Jykynstyl-amnesia story, including the ensuing text messages and his belated recognition of the brownstone bedroom in the Karnala ads. When he came to the end, he discovered that his coffee had gotten cold, but he finished it anyway.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Hardwick. “You realize what you’ve done to me?”
“Done to you?”
“By telling me all that shit, you’ve put me in the same fucking position you’re in.”
Gurney felt a huge sense of relief but didn’t think it would be a good idea to say so. Instead he said, “So what do you think we ought to do?”
“What do
The more agitated Hardwick got, the more relieved Gurney felt-because, perversely, it meant that Hardwick was committed to keeping his confession in confidence for the duration.
“I think if we solve the case,” said Gurney calmly, “the mess will take care of itself.”
“Oh, shit, yeah, sure. Why didn’t I think of that? Just solve the case! What a neat idea!”
“Let’s at least talk it through, Jack, see what we agree on, what we don’t agree on, get all the possibilities on the table. We may be closer to a solution than we think.” As soon as he said that, he realized he didn’t believe it, but to backtrack at this point would make him sound like he was losing it. Maybe he was.
Hardwick gave him a doubtful look. “Go ahead, Sherlock. I’m all ears, lay it out. I just hope that whatever the hell drug they gave you didn’t fry your brain.”
He wished Hardwick hadn’t said that. He got another cup of coffee and settled back in his chair.
“Okay, this is the way I picture it. It sort of looks like an H.”
“What looks like an H?”
“The structure of what’s happening. I just tend to see things geometrically. One of the verticals of the H is the established Skard family business-basically the worldwide sale of illegal, expensive forms of sexual gratification. According to your Interpol people, the Skards are a uniquely vicious and predatory crime family. Through Karnala, according to Jordan Ballston, they operate at the ugliest and most lethal S &M extremes of the sex business- selling carefully selected young women to wealthy sexual psychopaths.”
Hardwick was nodding in agreement.
Gurney went on. “The other vertical in the H is the Mapleshade Residential Academy. You already know most of this, but let me talk it through. Mapleshade treats girls with intensely disordered sexual obsessions, obsessions that lead to reckless predatory behavior. In recent years they’ve been focusing exclusively on that clientele and have become well known in the field-due to Scott Ashton’s huge academic reputation. He’s quite a star in that corner of psychopathology. Suppose the Skards became aware of Mapleshade and saw its potential.”
“Its potential for them?”
“Right. Mapleshade provided a concentrated population of intensely sexualized victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse. To the Skards it would look like-forgive my choice of words-the ultimate gourmet meat market.”
Hardwick’s pale blue eyes seemed to be searching for possible cracks in Gurney’s logic. After a few seconds, he said, “I can see that. What’s the crossbar on your H?”
“The crossbar connecting the Skards to Mapleshade is the man who called himself Hector Flores. It would seem that his way into Mapleshade was to make himself useful to Ashton, gain his trust, offer to do little jobs around the school.”
“But remember, none of the girls disappeared while they were still students.”
“No. That would have set off an instant alarm. There’s a vast difference between a ‘child’ disappearing from boarding school and an ‘adult’ choosing to leave home. I imagine he approached girls who were about to graduate, felt them out in a general way, proceeded cautiously, made specific offers only to the ones he knew would accept, then instructed them how to leave home without arousing suspicion, maybe even arranged for their transportation. Or that might have been handled by someone else in the organization, maybe by the same person who made the videos of the young women talking about their sexual obsessions.”
“That would be your buddy, Saul Steck-aka Alessandro, aka Jay Jykynstyl.”
“Entirely possible,” said Gurney.
“How would Flores have explained the need for the car argument?”
“He could have told them it was a necessary precaution, to make sure no one launched a mis-per hunt and located them with their new benefactor, creating embarrassment all around, ruining the deal.”
Hardwick nodded. “So Flores lays the big con on these wacko babes like he’s running a hot dating service-
