I watched him thinking, watched him see his whole cover-upunravel from one loose tag of yarn. He didn’t like it, I could see that in the set of his jaw, but he came to thesame conclusion. He nodded. He gathered up his crutches and used them to heavehimself out of that chair. He glared at me.
He didn’t offer any more threats, not with the camera andmike. He didn’t offer to shake my hand, either. I returned the favor.
“Report every day.”
“I’ll report whenever I have something. Right now, I don’thave a single word that isn’t matched on paper here.” I waved at the file,still spread across my desk.
And that was God’s own truth. Like I said earlier, I didn’thave a clue.
He shook his head again, turned to the door, and then turnedback, awkward on the crutches. “This time, don’t burn up all the evidence.”
Then he finally left. He didn’t even slam the door behind him.The man did have at least a littleself-control.
I sat there for several minutes, staring at the door. Not thatI expected him to come busting back through it, Bureau SWAT team at his heels.I just needed to sort through everything that had happened in the maybe tenminutes since I’d felt him coming down the hall. He’d left me with more jigsawpieces, for sure, but I thought they didn’t all belong to the same puzzle.
First, he’d mentioned John Doe’s “package” before he’dmentioned nailing Kratz. I’d been watching his face when he said it. That toldme Bycheck’s priorities. They weren’t mine.
That bit at the door, I didn’t think it was just apathological need to take the parting shot. He wanted that package, to the point where I thought if he had tochoose between getting his hands on whatever John Doe was carrying or gettinghis hands on Kratz, Bycheck would choose the package.
I couldn’t tell if those were the Bureau’s priorities as well.I had to think they were. Me, I wanted Kratz.
Another thing, I’d kept sniffing Bychek’s signature. It hadseemed a bit . . . odd. Powerful, disciplined — traces that Icould probably use to identify his training. But there’d been something else. Ishifted my brain a few degrees sideways to another angle and got it.
Religious.
Which was odd in its own way. A lot of religions don’t welcomeus. Some hate us outright, branding wizards and witches as pawns of Satan, burnthem all, that sort of thing. They want magic banned. That crowd is heavy onthe fundamentalist Christians, Jews less so, with Muslims it varies. Buttolerance definitely ranks as a minority opinion. I think it’s a matter ofprofessional jealousy, myself, or a turf war.
Religions use magic.How do people think those charismatic preachers work their congregations? Howdid Moses and Aaron whip Pharaoh’s wise men and sorcerers? How did Elijah bringGod’s fire down on the sacrifice? All the miracles, Old Testament or New, theyreek of magic. Calling it God’s Power doesn’t change the substance.
Religion is magic.The priests just don’t want our competition.
So Bycheck was religious? I thought more about his signature —the subtleties, the flavor. Not Catholic or one of the Christian Orthodoxgroups — all of them seem to add a grace-note of incense to their aura. Eventhe austere Dominicans, the guardians of doctrine, do it. Not an ecstatic sect,Muslim Sufi or mystic Christian, you can taste that God-mad joy a mile away.No, this came through as cold and dry, something old-school Calvinistic andholier-than-thou. You know the kind: “You’ll burn in Hell forever if you don’tbelieve exactly as I believe.”
I shrugged to myself. That was his problem, not mine. I pickedup the phone and dialed a number from memory, a cell phone she probably carriedwith her in the shower, Detective Sergeant Nefertiti Cash. We needed to comparenotes on our friendly neighborhood G-Man.
V
I had to drive out to a client’s place the next day — norain for a change, a beautiful fall day with the leaves still burning brightyellows and reds and purples against a clear blue sky once I got out of thecity and its brown pall of pollution. Yeah, I had other projects going onduring this mess, other clients.
I’m not going to mention them all the time, just like I’m notgoing to bring up Maggie’s name in every other sentence, just like I’m notgoing to sing rhapsodies about every meal I ate and count the fifths of JackDaniels I killed. And like I warned you, some of these details are faked, orstolen from other cases. You’ll see why.
Anyway, I hauled my fat carcass out to the old Lincoln,checked the car for any little surprises Kratz might have left, and grunted myway into the driver’s seat. I spared a sneer for Special Agent Bycheck once I’dsettled my butt. As if a fat man wouldn’t understand handicap access. You evertry to squeeze over three hundred pounds into a Toyota? I need the seat shovedway back for some clearance under the steering wheel, and I’m not particularlytall. So I’d had the old beast fitted with extensions for the brake and gaspedals — adaptive equipment, just like a wheelchair lift.
Anyway, I had this job out beyond the horse-car lines.Considerably beyond. Think of it as maybe one of those Hudson River estatesabove the Tappan Zee Bridge, places for rich folks who didn’t need to commutein to the office every day. They liked to think they were “old money,” notdot-com millionaires or other nouveauriches but inherited wealth and aristocracy.
Most of them, my client included, you didn’t want to look tooclosely at the real source of thecash. You’d find things like bootleg liquor from Prohibition, railroad cartelsor stock swindles in the Gilded Age. For the real “old money” you might reachall the way back to profiteers from the Civil War, selling defective musketsand bad gunpowder, wormy biscuits and salted horse-meat to the Union Army. Fineupstanding citizens, all of them.
Yeah, I didn’t care much for my client. But then, I spent overtwenty years as a cop. Like I told you, that shows you a
