and your direct superior. You killed him, Weaver. What am I supposed to think? I'm your superior now-should I worry that if you smell something you don't like I'll be next on the slab?'
It hadn't been time for questions yet, though, so he made a show of frustration, claiming he had meetings to attend. 'Reorganization. Restructuring. Cleaning up your goddamned mess.'
On the way out, he'd whispered to Lawrence, 'Strip him to his birthday suit and give him the black hole.'
Lawrence, with his bloodshot eye, betrayed a moment of disgust. 'Yes, sir.'
The black hole was simple. Strip a man naked, give him a little while to become comfortable with his nakedness, and, after an hour or so, turn off the lights.
Blackness in itself was disorienting, but on its own it had no impact. It was just blackness. The 'hole' came sometime later-hours, maybe minutes, when the doormen, wearing infrared goggles, returned two at a time and beat the hell out of him. No light, just disembodied fists.
Take away time, light, and physical security, and a man quickly wants nothing more than to sit in a well-lit room and tell you everything he knows. Weaver would remain in the hole until tomorrow morning, by which time he would welcome even Fitzhugh's presence.
Back in the office, he read through Einner's report, delivered after their travels to Paris and Geneva. Despite Milo's attack on him, Einner insisted that Milo could not have been responsible for Angela's death. 'He had the opportunity to switch her sleeping pills, but not the motive. It became obvious that he wanted to find her killer more than I did.'
In a blue font, Fitzhugh added his own assessment-'Rampant Speculation'-to Einner's report, then typed his initials and the date.
A little after four, someone knocked. 'Yes? Come in.'
Special Agent Janet Simmons opened the door.
He tried not to let his irritation show. Instead, he thought the same thing he'd thought during their first meeting-that she might have been an attractive young woman if she hadn't put so much effort into appearing otherwise. Dark hair pulled severely back, some navy suit with too-loose slacks. Lesbian slacks, Fitzhugh secretly called them.
'Thought you were still in D.C.,' he said.
'You got Weaver,' she answered, gripping her hands behind her back.
Fitzhugh leaned back in the Aeron, wondering how she'd learned that.
'He came to us. Just walked his ass through the front door.”
“Where's he now?'
'Couple floors down. We're giving him the silent treatment. But he's already admitted to killing Tom.”
“Any reasons?'
'Fit of anger. Thought Grainger had used him. Betrayed him.'
She reached the available chair, touched it, but didn't sit. 'I'll want to talk to him, you know.”
“Of course.”
“Soon.'
Fitzhugh rocked his head from side to side to show that he was a man of multiple minds-not schizophrenic, but complicated. 'Soon as possible. Be sure of that. But not today. Today there's no talking. And tomorrow, I'll need a full day alone with him. Security, you know.'
Simmons finally sat in the chair, her wandering eye gazing over Manhattan while her good eye locked on to him. 'I'll pull jurisdiction if I have to. You know that, right? He killed Tom Grainger on American soil.'
'Grainger was one of our employees. Not yours.'
'Beside the point.'
Fitzhugh eased back in the chair. 'You act as if Weaver's your nemesis, Janet. He's just a corrupt Company man.'
'Three murders in a month-the Tiger, Yates, and Grainger. That's a bit much, even for a corrupt Company man.'
'You can't seriously think he killed all of them.'
'I'll have a better idea once I've spoken to him.'
Fitzhugh ran his tongue over his teeth. 'Tell you what, Janet. Give us another day alone with him. Day after tomorrow-Friday- I'll let you sit in on the conversation.' He held up three stiff fingers. 'Scout's honor.'
Simmons considered that, as if she had a choice. 'Day after tomorrow, then. But I want something now.”
“Like what?'
'Milo's file. Not the open one-that's useless. I want yours.”
“That'll take a little-'
'Now, Terence. I'm not giving you time to misplace it, or take out all the juicy stuff. If I'm waiting to talk to him, then I better have some interesting reading.'
He pursed his lips. 'There's no need to be aggressive about this. We both want the same thing. Someone kills one of my people, and I want him scratching concrete for the rest of his life.'
'Glad we're agreed,' she said, though gladness left no mark on her face. 'I still want that file.'
'Can you at least wait ten minutes?”
“I can do that.'
'Wait in the lobby. I'll send it down.'
'What about the wife?' she asked as she stood. 'Tina. Have you questioned her?'
'Briefly in Austin, after Weaver made contact, but she knows nothing. We're not bothering her anymore; she's been through enough.'
'I see.' Without offering a handshake, she walked out, leaving Fitzhugh to watch her march in her lesbian slacks through the maze of cubicles.
He lifted the desk phone and typed 49, and after a doorman's military opening gambit-'Yes,
“Steven Norris, sir.'
'Listen carefully, Steven Norris. Are you listening?”
“Uh, yes. Sir.'
'If you ever send a goddamned Homelander upstairs again without clearing it with me first, you're out of here. You'll be guarding the front gate of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad wearing a George Bush T-shirt instead of body armor. Got it?'
2
She'd taken a room on the twenty-third floor of the Grand Hyatt, atop Grand Central Station. Like any room Janet Simmons worked in, it quickly became a mess. She despised hotel blankets, stripping them off immediately to make a pile at the bottom of the bed. To this, she added the extra pillows (one was more than enough for her), room service menus, the alphabetical book of guest services, and all the sundry extras that overflowed the bedside tables. Only then, finally cleared of distractions, could she sit on the bed, open her laptop, and start a new Word document to transcribe her thoughts.
Simmons didn't like Terence Fitzhugh. There was the irritating way his eyes measured her bustline, but that wasn't it. What she hated was his sympathetic frowns, as if everything she said was a piece of revelatory, disappointing news. It was pure Beltway theater. When she stormed his D.C. office after the murder of Angela Yates, he gave her that same kind of treatment, with an 'I'm going to get right on top of this, Janet. Be assured.'
She'd expected nothing, and so it was a shock when an envelope arrived the next afternoon at her office at 245 Murray Lane. A highly censored, anonymous surveillance report on Angela Yates. And there it was. At 11:38 p.m. Milo Weaver entered her apartment. Surveillance was paused (no reason given-in fact, there was no reason listed for the surveillance at all). By the time the cameras were on again, Weaver was gone. An estimated half hour later, Angela Yates died from barbiturates. A single window of opportunity, and there was Milo Weaver.
Later, at Disney World, she'd found a frightened but stubborn wife and a cute, sleepy kid, both puzzled by the
