I'd spent the last few days delving into the depths of the mind of Martin Gold. It was like walking downward in some endless cave. From the start Martin must have figured that if he hung this on Bert no one would ever contradict him. Not Jake, of course. Not Bert, who was on permanent leave, hiding from hit men among the artichokes. Not clueless old me. Not even the TN board, which, if informed of the loss, had nothing to gain by making a public fuss that would only attract attention to what was left of the 397 surplus. By blaming Bert, Martin would keep everything tidy.
And I could have gone along with that, Martin's scheme to save the world as I knew it. Unless Pigeyes caught him, Bert wasn't going to surface. Any day now Jake would discover that he'd developed a hole in his pocket down in Pico Luan, but so what? Self-preservation would prevent Jake from making an international scene. He couldn't start hollering, Where's all that money I stole? Trumped and taken, Jake would probably blame Bert too. It could work out for me Martin's way. In a couple months I could retire from the firm, vacationing when need be in Pico Luan.
But when I'd steamed out the shellacked doors of the Club Belvedere on Saturday and sat up all night hatching plans, I was gripped by ornery impulses. I'd developed the fixed intention to smite Martin and the whole smarmy scheme. Since then I'd hoped against hope at moments. I came here wanting Bert to tell me there was a galaxy of good intentions involved, some aspect that was wholesome, or at least excusable, which I hadn't seen. But he couldn't. Because that wasn't the case. And recognizing that, I found myself under the same internal momentum. Maybe I was still a cop on the street, committed to my own kind of rough justice. God knows, I never have played well for the team. But I was going to do it my way. Brushy hung there somehow in the balance, an indeterminate weight. Yet there was no reason, really, I couldn't make that work out. I kept telling myself that.
'Jake,' I answered at last. 'Jake's got the money.' That's where this was going. I was gonna be mean. Even so, the details were daunting.
'Jake! Whoa.' Bert brought his long hand to his jaw and rubbed it as if he had taken a blow. He was sitting there on the bench in the dim locker room, holding his socks, the only light borrowed from a single bulb burning in the john.
'Martin's covering for him, protecting the firm.' 'Jake,' Bert said again.
It struck me with an exactness that had completely eluded me before that if I was going to carry through with this, undermine Martin and pass out just deserts, I'd have to figure some way for Bert to return. Without that, it might come down to finger pointing. Martin and Jake could still call Bert the bad guy somehow. Why else was he running? Mystery Thief on the Loose. To make my version fully convincing, Bert had to be here to tell his story: he got the memo from Jake, gave the checks to Jake, listened when Jake told him it was all hush-hush. I couldn't imagine, though, how that could be engineered. Amid the dank atmosphere of the locker room, we sat in silence. One of the steam pipes eventually emitted a distinct clank.
'Look, Bert, I'm going to try to help you. I want to see you get out of all this, but I really have to put my thinking cap on. Just stay in touch. Make sure you call every day.'
The guy saw right through me. Not what was wrong. But something. That I had some stake. And he couldn't have cared less.
'Please,' he said quietly. He watched me there, his face buried in shadow but still rimmed by some eager hope.
When we were dressed, he took me to the back door and unlocked the bolt, the grate.
'Where you going?' I asked.
'Oh, you know.' His eyes floated away from me. 'Orleans is in town.'
God, he was lost. Even in the dark you could see him, swarthy and lean, in the grip of his sad hopeless love. He was being tortured and teased. Moth and flame. I thought to myself again, What is this? A character like Bert, you figure his gyroscope's wacky. But the head, the heart — who am I kidding? One man's rationality is another fella's madness. Nothing ever really adds up. Either the premises are faulty or the reasoning sucks. We're all of us pincushions, lanced by feelings, full of wounds and pains. Reason is the lie, the balm we apply, pretending that if we were just smart enough we'd make some sense of what hurts.
I'd already stuck my nose into the cold when I realized one question remained. I barred the door with the arm of my overcoat.
'So who moved the body, Bert? Who took Archie? Did Orleans?'
'Fuck, never,' said Bert. 'He'd freak.' Bert shook his head violently at the thought and repeated that Orleans wasn't up to something like that.
'So who?'
We stood on the threshold, eyeing each other, surrounded by the deep alley darkness and the harsh touch of winter, hovering with the unspoken improbabilities of our futures, everything that was simply unknown.
Thursday, February 2
XXVI
A. Step One
So. It was midnight. I was the only white man for a mile, a guy in an overcoat with a briefcase and a prominent urge to begin making plans. I stalked through the tough old neighborhood, headed in the direction of Center City, an exercise in fifty-year-old daring, striding from the rescuing glow of one streetlight to the next. A bus came along presently and I boarded gratefully and bucketed down the avenues with the winos and the workers returning from late-night stints. A few blocks from the Needle, I jumped off. Kindle County at night is not lively. The lights are on but the streets are empty; it has its own spectral air, like a deserted building, a place even the ghosts have fled.
I entered the lobby of the Travel Tepee, where Brush and I had agreed to meet. The big lobby was quiet; even the Muzak had been turned off for the night. I sat in an ugly easy chair with a horrible bold print and considered the future. Finally the lone registration clerk asked from behind the front counter if he could help me. From his tone, I thought he was pretty sure I was just a better-dressed derelict whom security would have to give the heave-ho. I went over to make peace, told him he had a Ms Bruccia registered, and picked up my key, then I sat down again, counting out the steps in my plan. I thought of waiting until morning to begin putting this together, but I was feeling edgy, compulsive, call it what you want. I was wide-awake anyway and a little reluctant to be with Brushy, now that I actually knew what I was going to do.
About two blocks down there was an all-night pharmacy, another Brown Wall's, built near the exit ramp of the Interstate, a place with a bus station air, a lot of downtown creeps hanging around near the doors, and a cop car parked right at the curb. I bought two pens — one ballpoint, one felt tip — and some glue and a pair of scissors. I asked at the counter if they had a coin-operated copying machine, but the answer was no, so I walked back to the hotel, waved to the desk clerk, and found a little phone alcove which had a laminate surface I could use for a desk.
I already had the rest of what I needed in my briefcase — the signature form I'd received at International Bank of Finance, the letter of Jake's I'd used as a model to forge his signature to the fax I sent from the Regency, and the copies of TN's annual report that I'd toted down to Pico. The report contains pictures of all the corporate officers, including Jake Eiger, and I'd brought copies along thinking Jake's photo might come in handy if I had to do any of a number of things I was then considering to get at the money, such as phonying up a passbook or some form of US ID.
The signature form was printed on onionskin with a schmaltzy heading in script: 'International Bank of Finance, Pico Luan, NA.' There were only four or five lines of information required, the descriptions written in all of the major Western European tongues. Using the felt tip, I filled in the account number that appeared on the back of the Litiplex checks, 476642.1 named the account owner as Litiplex, Ltd, Jake Eiger as president. Then just to remind
