Patton, whose face was now turning a dark purple.
I said, 'Uh, Garth, I think it might be a good idea for you to set Mr. Patton back down on his feet. He seems to be having a bit of difficulty breathing, and it could be difficult for us to go on about our business if you're arrested on a murder charge.'
'You're a mealy-mouthed fuck,' Garth said to Peter Patton in the same mild tone as he released his grip and the other man staggered backward, gasping for breath, and finally collapsed over the top of his desk.
'Come on, Garth,' I said tersely as I quickly opened the door and tugged at my brother's sleeve. 'I think it's time we went back to corporate headquarters for a strategy conference.'
Garth stood staring at the gasping Patton for a few moments, then abruptly turned and stalked past me out the door. I left the office, slamming the door shut behind me, and hurried after Garth as he headed toward the private elevator.
6
If Garth was at all concerned about what had happened on the ninth floor of the Blaisdel Building, he certainly didn't show it as we walked back along Fifth Avenue through the wall-to-wall sound of Christmas music created by competing groups of Salvation Army bands, steel bands, all-purpose bands, and enterprising soloists tootling or sawing away on everything from tubas to double basses to kazoos. Rainbows of light splashed over the sidewalks, spilled by shop windows crammed full of Christmas displays of every description. Fuller-bodied music seeped out of the churches-the
In a way, I wished it wasn't Christmas; it just made our job, our dilemma, more depressing.
On the other hand, I reminded myself, if not for the fact that it was Christmas, we would never have learned of a little girl who was lost somewhere, hurt and in need. And taking care of such business was really what Christmas was supposed to be all about.
True, Garth seemed distant and distracted-but I knew it was because he was thinking about Vicky Brown, not pondering whatever consequences might arise from his having roughed up and threatened Peter Patton. I was distracted by thoughts of Vicky Brown as well, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that I was being distracted by a lot more things than Garth was; I'd decided that the problem had to be attacked immediately, and the air cleared.
'I need to talk to you,' I said as we entered his third-floor apartment in the brownstone and I tossed my parka over a coatrack in a corner of the wood-paneled foyer.
'I know,' Garth said evenly as he took off his overcoat, hung it over my parka, then preceded me into the living room. 'You want a drink?'
'No.'
Garth's apartment, except for the furnishings, was virtually identical to mine, and now he went to the wall of glass at the south side of the room, gazed out into the brightly lighted night. 'You weren't happy with the way I handled Patton,' he said, his voice slightly muffled by the glass. 'You didn't say anything, but I could see.'
'There are a few things I'm not happy with, Garth,' I said curtly. 'Like, say, your little excursion into the bowels of the Blaisdel Building. What the
'Well, I wasn't trying to get into the freight elevator-that part of their story was bullshit, intended to put me into an even worse light if the decision was made to press charges; it's arguable as to whether going into the basement of a building warrants a trespassing charge. I could have been looking for a men's room.'
'Is it just my imagination, or have you failed to answer my question?'
'I wanted to try to find out if they had a security alarm system in the building-and, if so, how good it is. They do, and it's state-of-the-art. The interesting thing is that the shops all have their own individual security alarm systems. The best one isn't for Nuvironment or any of the other office complexes up there.'
'The penthouse?'
'Yeah.'
'Are you sure the state-of-the-art system just covers Blaisdel's triplex?'
'I'm sure. And they have security guards to oversee the security system; that's how I got caught.'
'Well, that's not all that surprising, is it? Henry Blaisdel isn't exactly John Doe.'
'I never said it was surprising. You asked me what I was doing down there, and I told you.'
'I still don't understand what you thought you were going to accomplish.'
'I wasn't trying to accomplish anything but what I did-check out Blaisdel's and the building's security system. Those people in there have Vicky Brown-or they know where she is. Have you forgotten that?'
'No, Garth, I haven't forgotten Vicky Brown. But there is the possibility, however remote, that Patton is telling the truth.'
'That isn't a possibility, Mongo.'
'He admits talking to Valley, and he didn't have to do that. Craig Valley was mad as a hatter, so any direction he pointed us in has to be suspect. He arranged to bring the dirt into this country, sure, but he could have been acting for somebody else; that would make sense if it's true that he blamed Nuvironment for his troubles, which is Patton's story. Patton flat out denies knowing anything about the dirt, Vicky Brown, or William Kenecky.'
'He's lying.'
'How the hell can you be so damn sure? You were skulking around in the basement while I was talking to the man. And I don't want to hear about your damn nose.'
Now Garth turned away from the window and stared at me for some time. Shadows moved in his brown eyes, and he seemed to be searching for words. 'I can't explain it any other way, Mongo,' he said at last as he came over to me and laid a hand on my shoulder. 'I think it may have something to do with the nitrophenylpentadienal poisoning. I really can't describe to you what I was feeling and sensing while I was zonked out on that stuff, except to say that certain things about certain people became instantly clear to me. That still happens to me; I just know certain things. I knew that anyone you talked to in Nuvironment was going to lie to you even before you went up there. I sensed it.'
'You know what that's called? Prejudice.'
'You call it what you want, Mongo,' he said quietly, taking his hand off my shoulder and moving away. 'But I knew you weren't going to get any cooperation, so I figured my time would be better spent seeing if there was a way for us to get in there without anybody finding out about it. If Patton takes us through, he'll make sure we don't find what we want; if he offered to hire us, it was only so he could keep track of us-or to see if you were open to a bribe.'
'That had occurred to me, Garth.'
'Your visit served to warn him. Now, any records they have pertaining to the dirt and its dump site are going to disappear. We should have waited until tonight and tried to break in.'
'Before we even tried to talk, and just because you thought you smelled evil when we walked into the lobby?' I said, making no attempt to mask my increasing impatience and rising anger. 'You've got to be kidding me. Let me tell you something, brother. I'm getting just a bit tired of this new mystical, soft-spoken barbarian number of yours. I know I don't have to remind you that you're not a cop any longer-and if you were, I'm sure you wouldn't have acted the way you did up there; you wouldn't have engaged in a potentially illegal act of entry, and you wouldn't have manhandled and directly threatened Patton. Now you've put us both into a potentially vulnerable position. I don't know how hard Patton wants to push things, but if he does want to make trouble I suggest that your former employer, namely the New York Police Department, will lift our licenses faster than you can say Lieutenant Malachy McCloskey. I just don't see how losing the means to make our livelihood is going to advance our present cause.'
Garth flushed slightly. His eyes flashed, and he abruptly pushed back a thin strand of his wheat-colored hair before sweeping his arms around him in a gesture: the contents of his apartment, and mine, and the building itself. 'Mongo,' he said tightly, 'there was a time not so long ago when all of this shit that we have now wouldn't have mattered so much to you-not when compared to what's happening to Vicky Brown. Now you're worried about us
