“Yeah. No dummies. Not only that, Burtell took my people on one hell of a road trip. The man’s definitely got a technique.”
“I guess that doesn’t surprise me. Where is he now?”
“Looks like he’s going back home. They’re still on the streets, but that seems to be what he’s doing.”
“Were you able to get the taps in place?”
“Yes, but only after he left for his meeting. I’ve had to pull a lot of people in for this. The logistics haven’t been easy.”
“Okay, fine. I appreciate it.”
“That’s pretty weird about Besom,” she said.” You sure they’re going to do another autopsy?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“What do you think?”
“What the hell am I supposed to think? As a coincidence, the two deaths are pretty hard to buy, but every time I let my mind dwell on the alternatives… well, what I come up with is just as outrageous.”
Arnette didn’t speak for a moment and then she said:
“Marcus, listen to me. Trying to understand what the bad guys of this world are doing is like gazing at the stars. By the time you see their light it’s all over, it’s past tense, and they’ve long since gone on to something else. All you’re left with is the evidence of what they were doing a million years ago. You can’t wait for all the facts to come in to start figuring things out, baby. You’ve got to use your imagination if you want to get a jump on the physics of iniquity.” She paused again. “Believe me, anything you can dream up, no matter how outrageous, is already happening. The thing is, most people won’t figure that out for a long time to come. And that’s exactly what the bastards are counting on.”
Now it was Graver’s turn to be silent, and when he finally spoke all he could think to say was, “When can I see the pictures?”
“You want to come over here early in the morning?”
“What time?”
“Seven-thirty.”
“I’ll be there.”
Chapter 33
“It can’t be very much of an insurance company,” she said, throwing her fourth cigarette into the water. They were sitting on the dock of one of the marinas, their legs hanging over the side above the water, looking across the bay at one of the yacht basins, the strings of lights draped across the masts of the sailboats, the slightly different colored lights strung along the basin’s docks. “I called 800 information, and it wasn’t listed. Can’t be much of a company.”
She picked up the pack of cigarettes beside her and took out another one.
“Here, give me one of those damn things,” he said. He hated seeing her like this. It only meant more trouble for him, every time.
“I think they were cops,” she said, blowing smoke away into the soft breeze.
“Just because it was about Synar?”
“‘Just’ because?” She turned and looked at him. He was only wearing jeans, no shirt, no shoes. She had called the service they used, and he had called her right back. She figured she had gotten him out of bed. She would rather have gotten him into bed. She guessed he just threw on his jeans and came like that “I hardly remembered the goddamn name the first time she called. Then finally I did.”
He smoked. “These are nasty little things,” he said, holding the cigarette up and looking at it in the gloaming darkness. “This is one of those ladies’ brands isn’t it? Little thin things.”
“Jesus!” She was exasperated. Don was always calm. He was so macho. Some guys acted macho, wore it like they wore their cologne, put it on just before going out and then washed it off in the shower afterward. But Don never acted anything. He was macho and never even seemed to notice it, which was like catnip to women like her. He was one of those guys who always knew just what to do in every situation. It had something to do with survival instincts, or something primitive like that, that had gotten bred out of most modern men, the suburban Happy Hour kind of guys. Don C. was always going to take care of himself; he knew exactly how to do it without even thinking. And he could take care of other people, too, if he wanted to.
“You sure you didn’t tell them anything?” he asked.
“Not a damn thing.”
He smoked the cigarette, slumped on the edge of the pier, swinging his feet a little. He could hear the basso moan of one of the big ships standing off in the bay. Jesus, he liked hearing those ships.
“If they were cops, I guess I don’t understand what they were doing looking for Synar,” he said. The Probst case was closed down over a year ago. What was happening here?
“What if there is a real Colleen Synar?”
“Naw,” Don said. Faeber’s people were supposed to have taken care of that. Now he wondered if they had. That greasy Greek was going to have to hear about this.
Don scratched the hair on his stomach with a thumb. She looked at him. Here he was, his wavy hair kind of wild from being in bed-she guessed he had just run his fingers through it-and even slumped as he was, unconcerned about how he looked, she could see the rows of muscles in his stomach, the lumpy divisions of the different muscles in his arms and shoulders, swinging his feet like a kid. It made her wet just sitting by him.
“Well,” he said, “don’t get too worked up about it If they come back-and I don’t think they will-but if they do, just stick with your story. There’s nothing they can do about that, no way you can get in trouble, as long as you don’t go making up any more than you’ve already told them. Hell, you can’t be expected to know any more than that. Just stick to your story.”
That was kind of smoothing it over, but there was no need in getting her worked up about all the what-if’s in this situation.
Heath didn’t know anything about the arrangements with the police department or anything about that whole operation, or that it even existed. All he had told her back then was that if anybody ever called looking for a Colleen Synar that she was supposed to tell them exactly what she apparently told them. On the other hand, it was decided that they would use his real name. The Greek told him they had it one hundred percent covered but, if for some unforeseen eventuality they had to have a real person to prove there was flesh and blood behind the information, then they wanted him to cover. He was good at that and could handle it. Of course, he got a bonus for allowing them to use his name for this “remote risk.” A one-time chunk. Now it looked like that unforeseen eventuality had happened. He was going to have to think about this real hard. It was time to talk to that goddamn Greek. If he didn’t know what was going on here, he’d better get his greasy ass in gear and find out. If he did know what was going on, then old Don C. wanted to know why he hadn’t been warned.
“I’m not responsible for her not being a real person,” Heath said.
“No, hell no,” Don sympathized. “Just tell them to piss off.” He dropped what was left of the shitty little cigarette between his bare feet into the water.
“Yeah, I don’t even have to talk to them.”
“Shit, no.”
She was quiet for a while, and the water sloshed lazily against the pilings underneath them.
“I tell you what,” she said, dropping her own cigarette into the water now, “for a long time I just took the money and didn’t think about it. I mean, it’s not like it’s drugs we’re dealing with here. I wasn’t going to get busted. And the money’s been so damn good, you know, unbelievable. But, I don’t know, this now…”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
He didn’t like the sound of this too much. They had worked together a little over two years and everything had been fine. He had never allowed her to learn any more about him than his obviously bogus contact name. She didn’t know where he lived or even what he drove. She had always been able to get everything he had requested. She was smart enough to follow the security procedures he had taught her and even smart enough to expand her own little network-the pyramid idea of acquisitions was something she snapped to pretty quick-but she wasn’t that
