'Believe me, I do. I also owe you. How much?'
'This? This was just a wake-up call. Consider this a freebie.'
Jack thanked the Australian profusely, assured him he'd call him back if he got stuck on his search, and hung up the phone.
Then he went to work on his new CylockHolmes program.
– '-'-'IT TOOK ONLY twenty minutes for Jack to narrow his list down to six companies he wanted to check out. It was easy to eliminate all the 'gravy' and 'gravel' and 'engraving' business that had popped up. Within minutes after he'd done that he had descriptions for the six he was interested in. There was only one that matched up exactly to the name on Kid's travel receipt, so Jack focused on that one first. It was a company called Grave Enterprises. The other five had addresses that automatically appeared alongside their names but there was no address for the company Jack was focused on. That fact alone made him certain he was on the right track.
He began using the various tools that CylockHolmes offered. He found a large number of vehicles registered to the company, all in New York State and New Jersey. He went into courthouse records to check the ownership of Grave Enterprises and found that it was part of another corporation, Migliarini Construction. The name rang a bell, although Jack couldn't initially come up with why. He then used his new computer program to run a search on Migliarini. It didn't take him long to understand why he knew the name. The more he searched, the more astonished he became. As he went along, he printed up anything that struck him as particularly relevant. An hour into his reading and research, CylockHolmes sent him to a list of newspaper and magazine articles as well as published books that had references to Migliarini Construction and its parent company, Joeva, Inc. At ten-thirty, he called the nearest Barnes amp; Noble. Whoever answered the phone told him they were open until eleven. Jack didn't even say thank you. He slammed the phone down, ran outside, and hailed a cab. He made it to the bookstore in fifteen minutes. By eleven-fifteen, he was back in his apartment, sitting in the leather living room chair under the Hopper painting, tearing through a book that had been published six months earlier called Future Crime: The 20th Century Gangster in the 21st Century.
By one-thirty in the morning, Jack knew he had what he was looking for. But to double-check he went to the computer and logged back on to CylockHolmes.
He made a few mistakes, wound up at a page that kept telling him to register again, but he finally got back on track. Under 'Search,' he typed in the name Eva Migliarini, a name he'd gotten from his reading. Information popped up immediately. He clicked on 'Business Records,' saw exactly what he expected to find. And then for his final cross-reference he tracked down two months' worth of her latest shopping sprees. There was nothing at all suspicious or seemingly illegal. But that didn't matter to Jack. All he needed was to match one particular item. And match it he did: he wouldn't have to call Raymond the computer whiz to get her Visa card number. He had her purchases. And on April 16, she'd bought two tickets for Bermuda. Jack looked at the receipt he'd taken from Kid's apartment. Same date. Same location.
Grave Enterprises, he thought.
Very fucking clever.
And you, too, Kid. Just as fucking clever. He could hear Kid's voice, as clear as if he were still standing in the room: She's got some really nasty friends and I don't think I want to piss them off just yet.
Nasty friends is right, he thought. But that didn't bother Jack, not now, because he was feeling even cleverer. Because when he finally closed his eyes and went to sleep at three in the morning, he knew he'd found what he was looking for: the first member of the Team.
He'd found the Mortician.
THIRTY-SIX
It was 11 a.m. and already feeling like a midsummer instead of late-spring morning. The air was warm and starting to buckle with humidity. Jack had had no more than five hours' sleep but he felt well rested and, unlike most of the New Yorkers who were already in a sweat-induced stupor, energetic. He was oblivious to the city's clamminess. He was oblivious to just about everything other than the fact that he was standing outside an elegant double town house on East Fifty-fourth Street, looking up at a tastefully engraved brass plaque on the front of the building that identified it as the Migliarini Funeral Home. Underneath that, in smaller engraved letters, it said: Joeva, Inc. The building blended in nicely with the rest of the ornate brownstones on the block. There were several foundations, one embassy, and a few private homes. This was a monied street and every penny showed on its surface. Jack was wearing a suit and tie now and he smoothed down the tie, straightened the front of his jacket, then buttoned the middle button. He gathered himself, went up the three steps to the funeral parlor in a surprisingly jaunty manner, and opened the front door.
He found himself in a subdued lobby. It all looked very… well, funereal. A receptionist eyed him, a look that conveyed her immediate condolences, then in a sympathetic and hushed tone asked if she could help.
'Yes,' Jack said, matching her semiwhisper. 'I'd like to see Eva Migliarini, please.'
'Do you have an appointment?'
'No,' Jack said. 'But tell her I'll only take up five minutes of her time and it's very important.'
'May I have your name, please? And may I tell her what it's about?'
'Jack…' He stopped himself suddenly. 'Sorry. Tell her that Kid Demeter is here to see her.' He fingered the painful lump on the back of his head and said, 'I think she'll know what it's in reference to.'
The receptionist picked up the phone and pressed an intercom button. In the same whispered tones, she passed along Jack's message and then waited for a response. It took a little longer than she expected so she gave a perfunctory smile to Jack while she waited. It was the look of someone who was used to smiling vacantly at grieving people. In a few moments, she nodded and murmured, 'Yeah, okay,' and hung up the phone. 'Ms. Migliarini said she can see you in about fifteen minutes. She'll buzz up when she's ready.' He thanked her politely, then she pointed to several chairs off in a corner and said, 'Please have a seat. I'll let you know when she calls.'
Jack sat facing the receptionist and realized he was nervous. He was tapping his foot on the black-and-white marble floor and the index finger of his right hand on the arm of the dark wood chair. He forced his foot to stay still and, to occupy his hand, he reached into a small bowl filled with matchbooks and pulled one out. The matches had a black cover with plain white lettering that simply said, 'Joeva, Inc.' For no particular reason, he put the book in his pants pocket, then did his best to bide his time and study the lobby.
It was all quite properly somber. Marble floors, two overly-elaborate Greek-style columns that looked as if they were holding up the ceiling but which, Jack was sure, were purely decorative rather than structural. There were five doors that led to other rooms. He assumed these were waiting rooms for groups of mourners. The walls were thick and soundproof because judging from the hearses waiting outside – Hearses! Those were the registered vehicles he'd seen on CylockHolmes, he was sure of it – there was at least one funeral in progress but he could not hear a word being spoken nor a note of music being played. Jack nervously fingered the matchbook in his pocket with his left hand and began tapping with his right again. Finally, he heard the receptionist's now familiar husky whisper carry across the room.
'She can see you now, Mr. Demeter. Just take the elevator down one flight.'
Jack nodded and rose. He sauntered across the room to the elevators – there were two – and walked into the one on the left when it arrived. He took it down one flight, pressing the button labeled 'B,' and when it stopped he stepped out.
The elevator door closed behind him and Jack found himself in a long, sterile hallway. The floor was covered in a cold-gray industrial carpet; the walls were almost the same dirty gray. There were no arrows pointing him in any particular direction and the two doors that he could see did not look as if they'd lead to any kind of executive office. He thought perhaps he'd misheard the receptionist, that she'd said go up one flight, then he figured he'd at least walk to one end of the hallway and check it out. He made a right and got about ten steps from the elevator. That's when he realized that the receptionist had not made a mistake. She'd sent him where they wanted him to be sent.
At the end of the hallway, appearing from around the corner, was a man in a gray business suit. The color of his suit, as well as his complexion, so matched the color of the hall that he almost faded into the background. Jack was fairly certain that this was the man who'd hit him when he was in Kid's apartment the day before.
