I shrugged. “I’m the one that pulled my gun and tried to arrest him.”
“So, who’s he protecting you from?”
“I don’t know; Osgood, maybe Diaz.” The food arrived, and the usual turned out to be chicken livers with onions, bacon, and fresh mozzarella. Dorothy would have been pleased. “Billy Carlisle is a Philadelphia drug chemist, but William White Eyes has a romance with the West, a west of which Cady and I may be emblematic.” I reached out with my broken finger and gently tapped the leather surface of the ledger. “I think this is going to be a very detailed record of William White Eyes’ business dealings with Toy Diaz.” I took another bite of the usual. “Anyway, we have to go see an Indian.”
Katz picked up his fork and cleaved off a section of his salmon salad. “We need that third note.”
I nodded and chewed. “That’s why we’re going to see the Indian.”
The swans and fish the Indians were throttling were still shooting water into the air of Logan Circle when we got there. Katz pulled the unmarked car into a no-parking zone in front of the Four Seasons and cut the engine. As we got out, I waved at the same doorman who had waited with me after I’d been ejected from the back bumper of the Expedition. “Hello, Sheriff.”
“Howdy, Lou.”
We’d gotten to know each other pretty well while I’d bled on his sidewalk. He came over from his official station and assisted me with the door. “How you feelin’?”
“Fit as a fiddle and ready for love.” I reached over the top of the car. “Asa, you still have that photo of Billy Carlisle?”
Katz pulled it from the file on the seat and handed it to me. “Lou, you strike me as a guy who doesn’t miss much.” I held up the photocopy. “You ever see this guy?” He glanced at the photo. “Some very bad people on both sides of the law are looking for this kid. I’m just trying to bring him in safe.”
Lou really looked at the photo this time. “Yeah, I seen him.” The old man tipped his hat back and looked over toward the fountain. “’Bout ’n hour ago.”
Vic was first. “Are you kidding me?”
“Crossed the street against traffic and sat over by the fountain for a while, then moved on.”
“An hour ago?” He smiled at Vic and nodded. She turned back to me. “Why the fuck would he do that?”
I looked at the Logan Circle noble savage in profile. “He changed the note.”
I thanked Lou, and Katz gave him a card and told him that if he saw the young man again to give the police a call immediately. We crossed with the traffic and pulled up in front of the Indian that represented the Delaware River. Vic walked a little past us and placed her hands on her hips. “Christ, it does look like Henry.”
I sat on the bench. Katz sat beside me, his suit looking better than it would have on a mannequin. “So?”
“I would imagine it’s taped to the underside of the seat. Why don’t you look?” He stooped down, reached beneath, and pulled something off.
Vic walked back. “Why this bench?”
“It was the one your mother and I sat on after I questioned the guard at the Institute.” She nodded and didn’t say anything, and I started wondering how far the competitive mother/ daughter thing went. “I think he’s been following me since I got here, the night Cady was hurt.” I looked at Katz. “Aren’t you going to dust that?”
He ignored me, thumbed a fingernail under the flap to break the seal, and opened it to reveal the same stock as the others.
I leaned over for a look, but Vic kicked my boot. “You and my mother come to the park a lot?” I raised an eyebrow and kicked her back.
Katz handed me the note. “I’d say your assessment that he changed it after we took the ledgers is correct.”
It was typewritten with the same dropout “O.” SEE PAGE 72. LOOK WEST, YOU CAN FIGHT CITY HALL.
12
Katz said he would catch up with Gowder and then meet me with the ledgers at the Academy later so that Henry could have a look at them. I wanted to get over to the hospital, but it was late in the afternoon and I had run out of time. I needed a shower and could get dressed at Cady’s for the reception, thereby killing two magpies with one stone. When Vic and I got there, Lena was gone and so was Dog. There was a note on the counter, along with a roasted chicken and a six-pack of beer in the refrigerator.
Vic sat on the stool. “You don’t think we’re looking for William White Eyes.”
I pulled two of the longnecks from the refrigerator. “No, at least not as a killer.”
“Osgood?” I opened both of them and handed one to her.
“I don’t think so, but I’ve been wrong before.”
“Diaz?”
I took a sip of my beer. “He’s a killer.”
“You don’t think that he and Osgood could have kissed and made up?”
“Toy Diaz does not strike me as the forgiving type.”
She took a sip of her own beer. “The assistant DA could be a pretty convenient partner in crime.”
I thought about it. “I think they’re in cahoots.”
She laughed. “Cahoots, Jesus…” She slugged down the rest of her beer. “It is pretty convenient that Toy Diaz appears to be flying around under the radar, and all the inconvenient people in Osgood’s life are meeting with the pavement.”
“Including Cady?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me it didn’t cross your mind.”
I shrugged. “Devon was very convincing.”
“I would be too if somebody was trying to tear off my head and flush it down a public toilet at Citizens Bank Park.”
“I was a little more civilized than that.”
She nodded and placed the tip of her tongue at the bottom of a particularly pointed canine tooth. “Yeah, I’ve seen you in those moods; I bet the meeting was very civilized.” She stood and stretched, her black T-shirt rising and exposing the flat, toned muscles of her midriff. I looked away, but I was pretty sure she’d seen me looking. “I need a shower.”
“Me too, but you go first.”
She had taken the second bedroom upstairs, so I collapsed on the sofa and noticed the blinking light on the answering machine. Vic had stopped on the landing and was looking through the glass of the cupola at the cables that rose from the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. “Cady’s not involved with this.”
Not for the first time, I studied her profile. “You mean in cahoots?”
She grinned. “Yeah.”
I took one of my shallow breaths. It didn’t hurt as much. “I think Osgood put the pressure on Devon, and Devon tried to put the pressure on Cady. I think Cady discovered Devon’s laundering scheme through William White Eyes and was going to drop a dime on them. I’m just trying to figure out why she didn’t do it.”
“You still think Devon hurt Cady.”
I nodded and watched her as she stood there looking at the flat light on the powder blue bridge. “I think if it’d been Toy Diaz, we’d have already been to a funeral.” I cleared my throat and voiced what had been on my mind since I had heard the message on her cell phone. “How could she let herself get involved in an abusive relationship like that?”
“You mean the daughter you raised?” I didn’t say anything. “It can happen to anyone, that’s the point.” She still looked up at the skyline, and her hands slid across the railing as if she were petting the city. She nodded a sad smile, looked down and watched me for a few moments more, and then disappeared.
I was left with the answering machine. There were people back in Wyoming who were desperate for information about Cady and me. I started to reach across and press the button, but the energy eluded me again. I slumped against the cushions and pulled my hat down, thinking that a short nap might do the trick.
