Blood Hunt

good.” Duhart leaned back in his creaking chair, folding his hands over a gut that did not yet exist. “That’s why, like I say, you’ve come to the right person.”

“I’m not sure I follow.” Reeve had admitted that he wanted to know a little about Alliance Investigative.

“Because I’m not stupid. When I decided to set out in this game, I did some reading, some research. Foreknowing is forearmed, right?”

Reeve didn’t bother to correct the quotation. He shrugged and smiled instead.

“So I asked myself, who’s the best in the business? By which I mean the richest, the best known.” Duhart winked. “Had to be Alliance. So I studied them. I thought I could learn from them.”

“How did you do that?”

“Oh, I don’t mean I spied on them or asked them questions or anything. I just wanted to know how they’d gotten so big. I read everything I could find in the libraries, how old man Allerdyce started from nothing, how he cultivated friends in high and low places. Know his motto? ”You never know when you’ll need a friend.“ That is so true.” If he leaned back any farther in his chair he was going to tip it. “So, like I say, if you want to know about Alliance, you’ve come to the right guy. Only thing I’m wondering is, why do you want to know about them? They done you wrong, Mr. Wagner?”

“Do you believe in client confidentiality, Mr… Eddie?”

“Sure, Rule One.”

“Well, then I can tell you that, yes, I think they may have done me wrong. If I can prove that… well, that might put both of us in an interesting position.”

Duhart played with a cheap pen, handling it like it was rolled-gold Cartier. “You mean,” he said, “that we could both use information about Alliance to our separate advantages?”

“Yes,” Reeve said simply.

Duhart looked up at him. “Going to tell me what they did?”

“Not just now, later. First, I want to know what you know.”

Duhart smiled. “You know, we haven’t discussed my charges yet.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“Mr. Wagner, you know something? You’re the first interesting damned client I’ve had. Let’s go get a coffee.”

As Reeve had feared, the fedora was not just an ornament. Duhart wore it as far as the coffee shop on the corner, then placed it on the Formica-topped table, checking the surface first for grease marks and coffee spills. He touched the brim of the hat from time to time with his fingernails, like it was his talisman. He watched from the window as he talked about Alliance. Nobody, it seemed, had any dirt on the company. They operated cleanly and for a client roll that included most of the city’s top companies and individuals. They were the establishment.

“What about their structure?” Reeve asked. So Duhart told him a little about that. He had done his research, and he retained knowledge well. Reeve wondered if it was the police training.

“Have you ever heard of someone called Dulwater working for Alliance?”

Duhart frowned and shook his head. “It’d only take two seconds to check though.” He slipped a portable telephone out of his pocket. “You don’t happen to know Alliance’s number, do you?”

Reeve recited it. Duhart pressed some buttons and took another sip of coffee.

“Mm, yes,” he said at last, “Mr. Dulwater’s office please.” He waited, staring at Reeve. “Is that right? No, there’s no message, thank you, ma’am.” He cut the connection and put the telephone back in his pocket.

“Well?” Reeve asked.

“Seems he’s not in the office today.”

“But he does work there?”

“Oh yeah, he works there. And one other thing she told me.”

“What?”

“The name’s pronounced Doo-latter.”

“Let me put something to you,” Reeve said, after their second coffees had appeared, along with a slice of pie for Duhart.

“Shoot.”

“Say Alliance wanted some work done overseas. Say they hire a couple of PIs from another firm based overseas to do some surveillance work.”

“Mm-hm.” Duhart scooped pie into his mouth.

“Well, who’d have the authority to put that sort of operation together?”

Duhart considered, swallowing the pie with some sour black coffee. “I get your question,” he said. “I’d have to make an educated guess.”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, it’d have to be at senior-partner level, and for that they might even have to go to the old man himself.”

“His name’s Allerdyce, you said?”

“Yeah, Allerdyce. He plays his cards close, you know? He likes to keep tabs on everything the company’s doing, every operation. I know the names of the senior partners; Dulwater ain’t one of them.”

“So Allerdyce would have to sanction something like that?”

“That’s my guess.”

“Even if he didn’t actually originate the plan?”

Duhart nodded. “That what happened to you, Mr. Wagner? I mean, I notice your accent and all. You’re British, right? Did they come and do a number on you?”

“Something like that,” Reeve said thoughtfully. “Okay, Eddie, what about telling me everything you know about Allerdyce?”

“Where do you want me to start?”

“Let’s start with where he lives…”

SEVENTEEN

WORKING SHIFTS, Reeve and Duhart kept a watch on the offices of Alliance Investigative.

It wasn’t easy. For a start, parking outside was restricted to loading and unloading. Added to which, one person couldn’t cover all the angles: the main entrance faced one street, but the entry / exit ramp for the underground parking garage was around the corner, on a different street altogether. It took them the best part of a day to figure that Allerdyce never entered or left the building on foot.

Additionally, Reeve worried that he might not recognize Allerdyce. All Duhart had shown him were newspaper and magazine photographs of the scowling figure. Plus, neither Duhart nor Reeve knew what Allerdyce’s vehicle of choice would be. If a black stretch limo came crawling up the ramp, fair enough that was probably the boss. But it could just be a client. Tinted windows didn’t mean anything either. Like Duhart said, if you were going to see Alliance and you were a Washington “name,” you probably didn’t want people recognizing you.

In the end, they switched tactics and kept watch on Allerdyce’s apartment, but that was no more fruitful.

“Bastard’s got a house somewhere on the Potomac,” Duhart conceded that night. “Looks like he prefers it to the apartment.”

“Where’s the house exactly?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could we go look?”

“It’s pretty exclusive real estate.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning several things. One, people don’t have their name written on the mailbox or anything. They figure the postman knows who they are. Two, the houses are surrounded by lawns you could host the Super Bowl on. You don’t just cruise past and peer in through the window.”

Reeve thought about this. “It’s on the river?” Duhart nodded. “Then why can’t we