Part 19 (1/2)
I made sure the woman from the agency was clear enough on her work to leave her alone for a while and took Tessa into her studio to talk. She frowned when I finished.
”I don't like being so vulnerable here.”
”Me either,” I said with feeling. ”If it's any comfort, I don't think my marauders would bother you.”
”I want to get a better lock system installed. One that's more secure than those padlocks you have out front. And I think you ought to pay for it, since it's due to you that the place was vandalized.”
I expelled a loud breath. ”You're going to choose it and I'm going to fund it?
No, thanks. You chose a numberpad system that seemed relatively easy to bypa.s.s.”
She frowned again. ”How did they do that?”
I shrugged. ”The pad itself hadn't been tampered with, so my best guess is with UVsensitive ink. They spray the pad, then after you go in, they s.h.i.+ne an ultraviolet light on the pad. The keys you've touched are clean, see. Then they just have to try those numbers in different combinations until they get the right sequence. If that's the case we could reset the combination-but we'd have to remember to touch every number on the pad each time we went in. A magnetic card lock would be less vulnerable-but you have to remember to carry the card with you all the time. Anyone can break a padlock, but you have to stand there with equipment, which makes you more vulnerable to a pa.s.sing squad car. Or to Elton. He's keeping an eye on the joint for us.”
”Oh, for G.o.d's sake, Vic! An alcoholic street dweller!”
”He's not usually fallingdown drunk,” I said with dignity. ”And his drinking doesn't stop him from using his eyes. Anyway, I'll ask Mary Louise to look into it. If she has time.”
My voice trailed away into doubt. Mary Louise seemed more than just too busy to work for me right now. She seemed scared.
Tessa was too absorbed by her own needs to notice my hesitation. ”Daddy thinks I should-we should-get a system like Honeywell's, that notifies a central computer of an unauthorized breakin.”
”Your daddy could well be right. But the guys who came in here wouldn't have triggered anyone's alarm system.”
We thrashed it around inconclusively, until the woman from the agency came to get more direction.
I tried the Baladines a couple of times during the afternoon, but only got Rosario, the maid, who said, Robbie not home, Robbie away, Missus away. The third time I called I asked for one of the precocious swimming daughters. I remembered they had names like street signs, but it took me a while to come up with Madison and Utah. The intersection where bad deals are done.
I didn't introduce myself in case there was a parental warning out on me.
Madison had seemed alarmingly forthcoming in her remarks when I was out there two weeks ago. She didn't disappoint me today.
”Robbie isn't home. He ran away, and Mommy's out looking for him. Daddy is furious, he says when he finds Robbie he'll make sure he toughens up, we've been soft on him too long.”
”He ran away? Do you know where he'd go?” I hoped there was a sympathetic grandmother or aunt someplace who might stand up for Robbie.
That's why Eleanor had taken off, Madison explained, to go to her mother's in case Robbie was hiding there. ”We're going to France on Sat.u.r.day, and Robbie better be back before then. We're renting a castle with a swimming pool so me and Utah and Rhiannon can practice. Do you know we're having a swimming meet here on Labor Day? If Rhiannon beats me in the backstroke, I am going to be so sick. Robbie would never beat me, he's too fat, he can't do anything with his body. Like last summer when he fell over his feet playing football at our cousin's. He got his feet tangled up in his shoelaces. He looked so funny, me and my cousin Gail laughed our heads off. Robbie was up all night crying. That's something only weak girlie girls do.”
”Yes, I remember,” I said. ”You didn't even cry when a fire truck ran over your cat. Or did you cry because the nice s.h.i.+ny engine had a smear on it?”
”Huh? Fluffy didn't get hit by a fire truck. That was Mom; she ran over her with the car. Robbie cried. He cried when she killed a bird. I didn't.”
”You're going to be a credit to Dr. Mengele one of these days.”
”Who?” she screeched.
”Mengele.” I spelled the name. ”Tell BB and Eleanor he has an opening for a bright young kid.”
I tried not to slam the phone in her ear: it wasn't her fault her parents were bringing her up to have the sensitivity of a warthog. I wished I could take some time off to look for Robbie, but I had more to do here than I could figure out.
Such as what to do about Veronica Fa.s.sler's call from Coolis. In the morning I'd take another trip out there, but for right now I could try to get the doctor who'd operated on Nicola Aguinaldo at Beth Israel.
Before calling the hospital I looked inside my phone to see if the folks who broke in had planted a bug in it. When I didn't find anything unusual in the mess of wires, I went out behind the warehouse to inspect the phone junction box. There I found that the wires had been stripped and clipped to a secondary set of cables, presumably leading to a listening station. I tapped on them thoughtfully. Probably best that I left them in place. It wasn't a sophisticated system, but if I dismantled it, Baladine would get something less primitive, harder to find, and harder to circ.u.mvent.
Back inside, I let Andras Schiff play Bach on my office CD. I don't know if those old spy movies are right, that radios block listening devices, but the Goldberg Variations might at a minimum educate the thugs-who knows? I sat next to the speaker with my cell phone and called the hospital. The woman from the agency stared at me curiously, then turned a huffy shoulder: she thought I was trying to keep her from listening to me.
Max Loewenthal's secretary, Cynthia Dowling, came on the line with her usual efficient friendliness.
”I can't remember the ER surgeon's name,” I said. ”I should, since it's Polish, but all I remember is that it had a hundred zees and cees in it.”
”Dr. Szymczyk,” she supplied.
When I explained what I wanted, she put me on hold and tracked down the report.
Of course Dr. Szymczyk hadn't done an autopsy, but he had dictated information while he was working on Aguinaldo. He had described necrotic skin on the abdomen but hadn't mentioned any serious burn wounds. He had noted a couple of raw spots above the b.r.e.a.s.t.s that didn't seem connected to the blow that killed her.
Raw spots. Those could conceivably have been caused by a stun gun, so maybe Veronica Fa.s.sler hadn't been spinning a complete lie. I would bring fifty dollars for her with me to the prison in the morning.
I worked desultorily with the woman from the agency, but it was hard for me to focus on files. For some people, putting papers in order is a wonderfully soothing act, but I could make so little sense of the world around me that I couldn't make sense of my scattered papers either.
Late in the afternoon, as I was trying to remember what year and what file records about Humboldt Chemical belonged to, my office buzzer rang. I stiffened and had my gun in hand when I went to the front door. I was astounded to see Abigail Trant, her honeycolored hair and softly tinted face as perfect as when I'd met her two weeks ago. Her Mercedes Gelaendewagen was doubleparked on the street outside. When I invited her in, she asked if I'd talk to her in her vehicle instead. I wondered briefly if she had been dragooned into acting as a decoy but followed her to her trucklet.
”Do you know that Robbie Baladine has disappeared? If you know where he is, can you send him home?”
I blinked in surprise but a.s.sured her I hadn't heard from him for several days.
”Did Eleanor or BB send you to talk to me?”
She looked straight ahead, ignoring an angrily honking line of cars behind her.
”I came on my own initiative, and I am hoping you will honor my speaking confidentially to you. We are flying to France with the Baladines on Sat.u.r.day, along with the Poilevys, so Eleanor discussed Robbie's disappearance with me in a frank way, as it is affecting their travel plans. They both feel that you have encouraged Robbie to be disobedient. I don't know if that is the reason, but BB has been talking furiously about wanting to put you out of business or thoroughly discredit you in some way. Knowing something about his methods, I didn't want to call you-he might well be monitoring your phone calls. I think I told you when we met that he doesn't like to feel anyone is getting the upper hand with him: for some reason he thinks you are taunting him or undermining him in some way.”
I gave a snort of mirthless laughter. ”He's been making it almost impossible for me to run my business.”
A car shot around her from behind, giving her the finger and a loud epithet. She paid no attention.
”I had suggested to Teddy that Global try to make use of your agency, that it would be a good thing to support local talent. But he said you refused to take the a.s.signment.”
My jaw dropped so suddenly that my ears popped. ”You were behind that? Mrs.
Trant-that was extremely gracious of you. The trouble is, the a.s.signment as it came to me from Alex Fisher was to frame someone, a man named Lucian Frenada who was drowned over the weekend. I couldn't take it on.”
She sighed. ”That's so typical of Alex. I wish Teddy didn't rely on her advice so much-I think she often leads him astray.”
What a good wife, letting herself believe her husband was the innocent victim of bad advisers. But I wasn't going to ride her: she had gone out on a long limb for me with no reason for doing so. I asked her what made her put in a word for me with her husband.