Verlaine smiled with him.
‘So tell me a little about your man in the trunk of his car.’
‘His heart was cut out,’ Verlaine said. ‘Someone cut his heart out, and then replaced it in his chest. They drove him across town in the back seat of a beautiful old car, and then they put him in the trunk and we found him three days later. Right now we have very little to go on, but there was one thing. Whoever killed him drew a pattern on his back, a pattern that looked like the Gemini constellation.’
Feraud’s expression registered nothing. He was silent for some seconds, seconds that drew themselves into minutes. The feeling within the room was one of breathless tension, anticipatory and oppressive.
‘Gemini,’ he eventually said.
‘That’s right,’ Verlaine said. ‘Gemini.’
Feraud shook his head. ‘The heart was removed, and then replaced in the chest?’
Verlaine nodded.
Feraud leaned forward slightly. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I think you may have a problem,’ he said quietly, his voice almost a whisper.
Verlaine frowned.
‘If this is who I think it might be… well, if this is-’ Feraud looked up at Verlaine, his transparent eyes now sharp and direct. ‘You have a serious problem, and I do not believe there is anything I can do to help you.’
‘But-’ Verlaine started.
‘I will tell you this, and then we will not discuss this any more.’ Feraud stated bluntly. ‘The man you are looking for does not come from here. He was once one of us, but not now, not for many years. He comes from the outside, and he will bring with him something that is big enough to swallow us all.’ Feraud leaned back. Once again he closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Walk away,’ he said. ‘Turn and walk away from this quickly and quietly, and if you believe in God then pray that whatever might have been the purpose of this killing has been served. This is not something you should go looking for, you understand?’
Verlaine shook his head. ‘You must give me something. If there is something you know you must tell me-’
Feraud once again raised his hand. ‘I am not obligated to tell you anything,’ he said, his voice edged with irritation. ‘You will leave now, go back to the city and attend to your business. Do not come here again, and do not ask anything of me regarding this matter. This is not something I am part of, nor is it something I wish to become involved in.’
Feraud turned and nodded at the man to his right. The man stepped forward, and without uttering a word made it clear that Verlaine should leave. Confused and disoriented, he was shown to the door, and once out on the veranda he started walking back the way he’d come, again feeling that eyes were burning right through him, his heart thudding in his chest, sweat glistening his forehead – a sensation that he had somehow walked into something that he might seriously regret.
He reached his car and sat for a while until his heart slowed down. He started the engine, turned around, drove back the way he’d come for a good thirty minutes before he finally slowed and stopped. He got out and leaned against the wing of his car. He tried to think in something resembling a straight line, but he could not.
Eventually he climbed back into the car, started the engine, and drove back to the city.
The FBI were waiting for Verlaine when he reached the Precinct House. The dark gray sedan, the dark suits, dark ties, white shirts, clean shoes. There were two of them, neither of whom looked like they’d smiled since their teens. They knew his name before he reached them, and though they shook his hand and introduced themselves respectively as Agents Luckman and Gabillard there was no humor in their tone, nothing warm or amicable. Whatever this was it was business, straight and direct, and when they expressed their wish to speak with Verlaine ‘in confidence’ he understood that somehow he’d managed to step on the toes of something that he was regretting more and more as each minute passed.
Inside his office it was cramped. Verlaine asked if they wanted coffee; Luckman and Gabillard declined.
‘So how can I help you?’ he asked them, looking from one to the other as if there really was no discernible difference in their faces.
‘A body was discovered,’ Agent Gabillard started. His face was smooth and untroubled. He looked singularly at ease despite the awkwardness of the situation. ‘In the trunk of a car last Saturday evening a body was discovered. An attempt was made through your Prints Division to identify the victim, and that is the reason we are here.’
‘The security tag,’ Verlaine stated.
‘The security tag,’ Luckman repeated. He turned and looked at Gabillard, who nodded in concurrence.
‘The identity of the victim cannot be divulged,’ Luckman went on, ‘save to say that he was in the employ of a significant political figure, and was here in New Orleans on official business.’
‘Official business?’ Verlaine asked.
Gabillard nodded. ‘He was here in the capacity of security for someone.’
‘The significant political figure?’
Luckman shook his head. ‘The daughter.’
Verlaine’s eyes widened. ‘So this guy was babysitting some politician’s daughter down here?’
Gabillard cracked his face with a smile that seemed to demand a considerable effort. ‘This is as much as we can tell you,’ he said. ‘And the only reason we are telling you is that you have a very credible and distinguished record here in New Orleans, and we trust you not to communicate anything regarding this matter beyond the confines of this office. The man you discovered in the trunk of the car was attending to a matter of personal security for the daughter of a significant political figure, and with his death the case becomes a matter of federal jurisdiction, and as such your attention to the killing and any subsequent investigation is no longer required.’
‘Federal?’ Verlaine asked. ‘She must have been kidnapped then, right? You guys wouldn’t get involved if it was simply a murder case.’
‘We can say nothing further,’ Luckman said. ‘All we ask of you at this time is to turn over any paperwork, case files, notes and reports that have been made thus far, and we will speak to your captain when he returns and clarify the position we are now in regarding this investigation.’
Verlaine frowned. ‘So we just drop it? We drop the whole thing, just like that?
‘Just like that,’ Gabillard said.
Verlaine shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know whether to feel frustrated or relieved. ‘Well, okay. I don’t see there’s a great deal more we have to talk about then. Medical Examiner and County Coroner will have their reports. You can collect those from the respective offices, and as far as I am concerned I haven’t yet filed a report. Hadn’t even gotten the thing off the ground.’
Gabillard and Luckman nodded in unison. ‘We appreciate your co-operation,’ Gabillard said, and rose from his chair.
They shook hands again, and Verlaine directed them to the front exit of the building. He stood on the steps ahead of the Precinct House, watching the generic gray sedan pull away and disappear down the street, and then he turned and walked back to his office.
He wondered why he’d said nothing of the message he’d received, of his visit with Feraud. Perhaps nothing more than the desire to hold onto something, to keep something of this as his own.
John Verlaine stood for a time, thinking nothing at all, and then he remembered the words Feraud had said, and the gravity with which they had been pronounced:
Verlaine understood little of anything at all. This morning he’d woken with a murder case, and now he had nothing. He did not resent the FBI’s involvement; he’d been around long enough to know that every once in a while a case could be taken right out of his hands. This was New Orleans, heart of Louisiana, and one thing he knew for sure, as sure as anything in his life: there would never be a shortage of work.
THREE
Robert Luckman and Frank Gabillard had been partners for seven years. Working out of the New Orleans Federal Bureau of Investigation Field Office on Arsenault Street, they believed that between them they had seen it all. Under the aegis of the United States Justice Department they investigated federal offences – espionage,
