where Jack’s car was waiting. A uniformed man held the door for him. Eddie gave him money.
“Nice day, isn’t it, sir?”
Eddie glanced up at the blue sky. It hurt his eyes. He drove away from the Palazzo with Jack’s heat on full blast and the icy feeling on the back of his neck.
He was out of the northeast and out of Armagnac before the obvious lines lit up in his brain.
The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.
Then he couldn’t get rid of them.
28
Karen de Vere knelt in front of the fireplace. She saw a half-burned canvas bag, warped computer disks, ashes. Mostly ashes. She pinched some in her fingers and sniffed them.
“Smell anything?” asked Raleigh Packer.
“The end of your parole.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re going back to finish your sentence. What else?”
He reddened. “Why? I cooperated, didn’t I?”
Raleigh was whining. Karen didn’t like whiners. “With no result.”
“I did everything you asked. I tried.”
“Try harder.”
“How.”
“Think of where he might have gone. You know him.”
“Yeah, I know him. He’s out romancing a prospective client, or sucking around for tips, or having a few down at the Seaport or some place like that. He’ll be back soon.”
Karen blew the ashes off her hands. Raleigh was wrong. Jack Nye was gone, period. She was left with a fireplace full of ashes, $230,000 in well-used currency, and no case against him. And a question: why had he run? She could understand running and not paying, or paying and not running; she couldn’t understand running and paying.
No explanation. No note with the money, not even his business card. Just a scrawl on the wrapper: “From Windward Financial Services.” Karen had compared it to samples of Jack’s handwriting, found it didn’t match. She wished she had a sample of Eddie Nye’s handwriting too.
“Are you trying to tell me that he’s taken off?” asked Raleigh.
“No interpretation required,” Karen said. She poked at the ashes with the toe of her shoe, saw something red and charred. She picked it up: a fragment of the cover of the
“Taken off?” said Raleigh. “And not coming back, you mean? The fucking bastard.” He pounded the wall, although not hard enough to hurt himself.
“I’m sure it’s nothing personal,” said Karen, dropping the fragment in her bag.
“The fucking bastard,” was Raleigh’s only reply.
Karen waited on a bench. A guard in a gray uniform sat at the other end, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. Through the closed office door across the room came a laugh that made her think of crows. Then the door opened and a red-haired man in denim came out. He reminded her immediately of Goya’s portrait of Charles IV of Spain. The guard rose. The red-haired man nodded toward her-it was almost a bow-and smiled. He had beautiful teeth but was missing a canine. He left the waiting room with the guard following close behind.
The receptionist said: “You can go in now.”
Karen entered the office, smelled a piney smell she didn’t like. She handed her card to the man behind the desk. He studied it. She studied him. He looked like Santa Claus gone sour.
“Take a pew, uh, Miss de Vere,” said Floyd K. Messer, M.D., Ph.D., sliding her card across the desk. “I haven’t heard of this agency of yours, but I made some calls and apparently it’s legit.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Messer blinked, sat farther back in his chair. “I’m a little pressed for time,” he said, “what with this bit of business we’ve got lined up for tonight. So if you’d tell me how I can help you.”
“What bit of business?”
Messer looked surprised. “Wasn’t there a lot of media outside when you came in?”
“I didn’t see any.”
Messer checked his watch. “They’ll be along. Just like vultures. Execution tonight, Miss de Vere. We’ll be going into a precautionary lockdown in forty-five minutes.”
“Who’s being executed?”
She’d surprised him again. “You haven’t heard of Mister Willie Boggs? I thought he was a national figure by now.”
“What did he do?”
“Found a way to wrap a lot of bleeding-heart lawyers around his little black finger.”
“I was referring to his crime,” Karen said, noticing the photographs of Messer posed with dead fish on the walls.
“Killed a liquor-store clerk in a robbery,” said Messer. “Or was with the guy that killed him. Or drove the getaway car. Can’t remember. It was a long time ago, Miss de Vere. Now how can I help you?”
“I’m looking for a former inmate of yours.”
“Name of?”
“Eddie Nye.”
Messer went still.
“What is it?” Karen said.
“Nothing.”
“You recognized the name.”
“Oh, sure,” said Messer. “I was thinking, is all.”
“Thinking what?”
“Thinking-that was quick.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ol’ Nails’s been gone hardly more’n a week and he’s screwed up already, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Not a record, fifteen minutes is the record, but quick just the same.” Messer glanced at the closed office door. “I take it you don’t know where he is.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“You think we know where he is?”
“Any information might help.”
Messer nodded. “What’s he done?”
“Nothing that I’m aware of. Why do you call him
Messer smiled at some memory. “It’s a long story,” he said. “If he hasn’t done anything, why are you looking for him?”
“The investigation concerns his brother.”
“Didn’t know he had one.” Messer swiveled around to a computer, tapped at the keyboard. “He a jailbird too?” Words popped up on the screen. Messer scrolled through them. “Here we go. Nye, J. M. Residence: Galleon Beach Club, Saint Amour, the Bahamas. Fancy-dancy. One visit and one visit only, and that was fifteen years ago.” Messer looked up. “What’s he done?”
“He’s suspected of various securities infractions.”
“Can’t picture Nails involved in something like that.”
