Lara turned to look out the windshield again. “This is scary,” she said. “Really, really scary.”
“The frightening part is not knowing what the hell lies behind it. Not knowing why. If I knew why, then I think some of the other stuff would fall into place. Motive at least would be an indicator of how they might be thinking.”
“They’?”
“Whoever the hell ‘they’ are.”
They passed under the Southwest Freeway. Graver was looking at everything, the side streets, the parking lots of restaurants, service stations, but trying not to let Lara see what he was doing. Suddenly he was seeing something suspicious in everything. Everything seemed to be a collusion between a car he had seen five blocks ago and the one he was approaching down the street, or the one parked on a side street with the one parked in the shadow of a service station.
“What is it you want me to do?” she asked, shifting in her seat “You want me to sit in the car during this meeting, is that it?”
“No, not in the car,” he said, pulling his mind back to the moment “I’ve got to meet a man named Victor Last. Last was an informant for me years ago when I was still an investigator. He was a good source, productive, but I haven’t seen him or heard from him in about eight years. Then late Sunday night, after the ordeal with Tisler was over, after Westrate had finally left the house, Last called me. Sometimes informants do that, years later. If you’ve had a good relationship with them, they crop up, get in touch with you. Since his call I’ve met with him twice. I met him at a tavern Sunday night, and then last night he showed up at my house.”
“At your house? Christ You didn’t know he was going to be there?”
Graver shook his head. “No. And he’s an intelligent man; he knew better than that. The fact that he did it anyway worries me. He never would have done it in the past. Last claims to have ‘Accidentally’ come across some information about a security breach somewhere in the police department. Thinks it might have been in the CID. But he was vague about the details. Now, I think, he wants to give me a little more information.”
“But you don’t trust him so much now,” Lara said.
“That’s right. Though maybe I should. I just find it hard to believe he happens to be at the right place at the right time.”
They were driving south on Montrose. There were only a few cars on the streets, and though there was no threat of rain, the humidity was high enough to make faint, hazy orbs around the streetlamps.
“So, what is it you want me to do?” Lara asked.
“I’m meeting this guy at a small restaurant called La Facezia?”
“In the museum district? Yeah, I know that place.”
“All I want to know is whether there’s someone watching us. Normally that would be a tricky thing to do. I mean, it’s a countersurveillance job. But there’s an odd intersection there that gives us an edge. Three streets come together, roughly in the shape of the letter “K,” forming three corners. La Facezia sits on the bottom corner. There’s another corner to the right, with a residence behind a high wall. Directly across from the restaurant, on the third corner, there’s an old brick apartment building. Two floors. There’s no security system. Front door’s always open.”
His right hand left the steering wheel, and he picked up a pair of binoculars that had been sitting beside him next to her purse. He handed them to her.
“I think they’ll fit in your bag,” he said. “They’re night-vision binoculars. Everything will look greenish through them, but you’ll get used to it.”
She took the glasses and held them up to the window and looked outside.
“I’m going to drop you off about a block from the restaurant I’ll watch you from down the street, make sure you get to the building safely. I want you to go up the stairs. On the second floor, opposite the landing, there’s a window that overlooks the intersection. You’ll have a clear view of the entrance of the restaurant and the sidewalk tables. You should also be able to see all three streets for quite a ways.”
“What do I look for?” she asked, putting the binoculars into her purse.
“Anybody hanging around, in cars maybe. Make a note-you have a steno pad? — of the kinds of cars you see, get license numbers if you can. Just be observant.”
“And what if somebody comes out of one of the apartments, wants to know what I’m doing?”
“Just flash your CID photo identification. Give them some bullshit about ‘security’ and ‘criminal intelligence.’”
She was quiet. He glanced at her as he slowed for the intersection of Main and the Mecom fountains.
“Are you okay with this?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m up for it,” she said, taking a deep breath and looking at him.
“But…?”
“No ‘buts’… It’s just… Well,” she said, raising her eyebrows in subdued surprise, “me doing this, this really is on the edge, isn’t it? I mean, it’s kind of like coming in on a wing and a prayer, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Graver said, turning onto the heavily wooded Cerano Street. “That’s exactly what it is.”
Chapter 35
Graver had been going to La Facezia for years, ever since the owner’s daughter had provided him with information on a protection racket in the Oriental restaurant business where her boyfriend’s parents owned several establishments. The restaurant was in an old stone building that sat on a neighborhood corner where three quiet, tree-shaded streets came to an intersection.
The restaurant had three faces which opened onto the intersection, and which accommodated an arbor- covered sidewalk with small bistro tables at which they served wine and coffee, but not meals, until one o’clock in the morning. Meals were served until ten-thirty, but only in the large interior dining room that was accessible through French doors that opened to each of the three faces of the arbored sidewalk. There were many other restaurants in this Left Bank-ish neighborhood of antique shops and bars near the museum district that was known as Houston’s “art community,” but only this one was so distinctive that when Graver sat down at one of its tables with a newspaper and a cup of coffee, he almost could forget he was in an American city. It was a family restaurant There was no music, only the low murmur of conversations and the clinking of tableware and glasses. The chic and trendy crowd went elsewhere, places where there was more “atmosphere.” Graver considered it a paradise, and since Dore had left he had gotten in the habit of eating here sometimes twice a week in the evenings when he didn’t want to be alone. He would bring a book, get a table near one of the doors that opened onto the sidewalk, and settle in for a two-hour dinner.
Now, though, he took a table on the sidewalk next to one of the stone walls covered in a felt of fig vine. This would afford them some measure of privacy, though only a few other tables were occupied. He ordered a cup of coffee from one of the owner’s several nieces who waited tables and settled back.
He didn’t have to wait long. Ten minutes later Last came sauntering around the corner and stepped under the arbor and joined Graver at his table. He ran his fingers through his long hair and smiled.
“You’re always surprising me, Graver,” Last said, looking around, nodding approvingly. “This is a real find, a very nice place indeed.” He looked at Graver. “I’ll bet you this is your ‘usual’ place, isn’t it?”
“I come here sometimes,” Graver said. The girl came and took Last’s order for wine. “What have you got for me, Victor?”
Last sat back in his chair and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. As he lit one, he looked casually around the sidewalk tables and then inside the nearby French doors at the empty dining room. He was wearing an expensive- looking linen sport coat with small brown and beige checks and a solid nut-brown silk shirt buttoned at the neck.
“Well, this did not turn out to be as, uh, easy to do as I’d thought,” Last said, his voice softening. “But I have a name for you. Your ‘mole,’ as it were.” He stopped as the girl brought his wine, thanked her, watched her go to another table, appreciating her hips, maybe even taking his time in order to whet Graver’s curiosity. He turned to Graver. “Arthur Tisler.” He lifted his wine, grinned, and took a long drink.
Graver could hardly contain himself. Goddamn it!
