‘The request was in the name of a John Rydley Evenge, but the clerk who handled the transaction doesn’t remember him. That branch of Chase Manhattan is huge and they issue hundreds of cheques like that every day.’
‘But aren’t they obliged to report cash transactions, because of money laundering?’
‘Only for large sums. In this case, the amount was relatively small. Plus, the name of the payee was on the cheque. It would have been another matter if it had been made out to the bearer.’
‘Great work, James. But I need to ask you another favour.’
‘Go on.’
‘I need you to do a couple of things for me, legally but not officially, if you get my meaning.’
‘Sure.’
‘Do you have two or three bright girls on your team who can provide protection for someone when they’re off duty?’
‘If I say it’s for you, I’ll find plenty. It seems you left quite an impression around here. Where is this person?’
‘Room 307, Saint Vincent’s Hospital, on Seventh Avenue.’
‘I know it. When do you need it for?’
‘Half an hour ago.’
‘Roger. You said a couple of things. What’s the other?’
‘Do we have any journalists we can trust?’
‘There are a few who owe me favours.’
‘Then maybe you could ask them to write about the shoot-out I was involved in the other night. Tell them to report that Miss L.G. was hit by mistake and that she died as a result of the wounds she sustained. Do you think that’s possible?’
‘There shouldn’t be any problems. I’ll let you know.’
After hanging up, Jordan stood there in the middle of the lobby, thinking about what Burroni had just told him, but above all about what he hadn’t told Burroni.
He hadn’t told him about the cheques in Lysa’s apartment, even though they were just like the one James had investigated. For the moment, he preferred not to involve him in that story. To do so would mean throwing Lysa to the wolves.
There was something much more important that had emerged from Lysa’s confession. Or rather, two things.
One was that, in all probability, Julius Wong was innocent of the murders of Gerald and Stuart and the abduction of Campbell.
The other was that Lord’s passenger had not fired at the wrong target.
The bullet hadn’t been meant for him, but for Lysa.
CHAPTER 45
The yellow cab that had brought Maureen from the East River Heliport dropped her outside 80 Park Avenue. She paid the fare, got out, and was about to enter the lobby when she came smack up against the massive figure of Mr Hocto. She had been thinking about Thelma Ross’s terrified reaction at Saratoga Springs, and hadn’t noticed him.
Hocto, his bodybuilder’s physique contained in the usual dark suit, addressed her in a soft, kindly voice. He had a foreign accent that Maureen could not quite place.
‘Excuse me, Miss Martini. Mr Wong would like to have a word with you.’ He indicated a big dark sedan waiting at the kerb with the door open. ‘Please, come this way.’
Without a word, Maureen followed Hocto to the car. Her first instinct had been to refuse the invitation, but her curiosity as to what Wong wanted of her gained the upper hand.
As she slipped into the leather seat next to Cesar Wong, Hocto closed the door after her then went around to the front and got in behind the wheel.
Wong was in a sober made-to-measure suit, his smile like a blade in his waxy face.
‘Good evening, Miss Martini. I’m infinitely grateful to you for agreeing to talk to me. I know you don’t have a very high opinion of me.’
He made a little gesture with his hand to forestall any reaction from Maureen.
‘I shan’t attempt to justify myself. I know perfectly well what I am and what I can expect from people. Since I was young I’ve always tried to be more feared than loved. That may have been my mistake. Especially with Julius . . .’
This statement did not require any comment and Maureen did not make one.
‘You don’t have children, Miss Martini. I know it’s a cliché but I assure you it’s true: when you have children, your outlook on life changes, no matter how hard you try to stop that happening.’
There was no trace of emotion in Cesar Wong’s voice, but he was staring straight ahead of him in an exaggeratedly meaningful way. In the meantime, the car had pulled away from the kerb and joined the evening traffic. Wong had presumably asked Hocto to drive around the block while the conversation lasted.
Wong turned to look at Maureen. ‘My son is innocent,’ he said, with an unusual amount of urgency in his voice.
‘Aren’t all children?’
Wong gave a slight smile. ‘Don’t let what I’ve just said deceive you. I’ve done many questionable things in my life, but I like to think that whatever I’ve done, I’ve always kept my wits about me. The fact that Julius is my son has never blinded me to his failings.’
He took an immaculate handkerchief from his jacket pocket and dabbed at the corners of his mouth.
‘I know he’s sick. He has serious personality disorders that have caused us a certain amount of trouble in the past. I managed to keep him out of prison by a miracle on a couple of occasions, but I never thought he could ever go so far as to murder someone. Besides, that’s why I hired Mr Hocto. It was his job to keep an eye on Julius and make sure he didn’t get in too deep. On the evenings when the murders were committed, Julius was at home. He might have evaded Hocto once, but three times? I find that very unlikely.’
‘Why don’t you make Hocto testify at the trial, then?’
Wong’s expression was that of a man forced to explain something to a child. ‘Miss Martini, I am what I am and Mr Hocto has a past he’s not proud of. And among the sins of his youth is a sentence for perjury. Plus, he’s my employee. It wouldn’t take a DA to demolish his testimony – the cleaner in your mother’s office could do it.’
Maureen did not understand where he was going with all this. ‘You’ve already hired one of the best lawyers around to defend your son. Where do I fit in?’
‘That’s precisely what I was about to ask you. I know almost everything about you, Chief Inspector Martini. I know what happened in Italy and I know why you came to America. I also know you were involved in the investigation that led to the arrest of my son, although I’m not sure exactly how . . .’
His words made her feel exposed, as if she was naked in the middle of a crowd of strangers. At that moment, the car pulled up again outside 80 Park Avenue, and Cesar Wong aimed his frozen, inky eyes at Maureen.
‘What exactly can I do for you?’ she asked without averting her gaze.
‘Just as you helped to get my son arrested, in the light of what I’ve told you, I’d like you to help prove his innocence.’
‘You may be overestimating me, Mr Wong.’
‘No, I think you may be underestimating yourself, Maureen. I know people’s weaknesses. I’ve built my fortune on that knowledge. And I don’t see many in you.’ His voice grew softer. ‘Help me, Miss Martini. I won’t offend you with the lure of money, because I know you don’t care about money. I assure you, though, that in some way I’ll be able to repay you. I don’t yet know how, but I assure you I will.’
The door opened on her side. Hocto was standing outside, on the dark sidewalk, holding the door for her.
Maureen put one foot out. ‘I’m perfectly prepared to believe that, Mr Wong, although I can’t quite see what I can do to earn your gratitude. I’m not even sure I want to. I don’t have anything against your son but, by nature and by training, I’m a person who tries to get at the truth, even if it’s not always the simplest or most comfortable thing. I’ll think about what you’ve told me. Have a good evening, Mr Wong.’
Maureen got out of the car and walked to the door of her building. Without logic and perhaps without reason, she was assessing positively what Cesar Wong had said.
On the way up in the elevato
r, she continued to think about this curious encounter. She did not wonder where Wong had got his information from. Knowing not only the facts, but the background to the facts, was vital to someone in his line of work. And the world was full of people who were very sensitive, as he himself had said, to the lure of money.
She entered the apartment, to find it deserted. Her mother was out, and as she didn’t like having live-in staff, Estrella had finished her work at seven and left.
Maureen stood for a moment in the entrance, where she had seen Cesar Wong for the first time. Then, after a moment’s reflection, she headed for her mother’s study.
Once there, she went straight to the elegant wooden desk in the middle of the room.
On the malachite surface she immediately found what she was looking for: a big folder with the name Julius Wong on the heavy green plastic cover. Maureen opened it. As she had anticipated, it contained all the documentation her mother was using to prepare her defence.
Maureen sat down at the desk and went through the material. There were copies of the statements, medical reports, lab tests. After about an hour, she had examined everything.
If her mother, like all lawyers, was a good tightrope walker, this time she would have to perform amazing feats of acrobatics to avoid a death sentence for her client. All the evidence pointed to him. The presence on the various crime scenes of a man with a limp in his right leg – Julius had had an operation on his cartilage and ligaments recently. The robbery committed, along with the other victims. The MO of the homicides, perfectly in keeping with the psychological profile of Julius Wong, who had been accused on several occasions of sexual violence, assault and paedophilia, not to mention excessive use of alcohol and narcotics.
His DNA matched the semen found in Chandelle Stuart’s vagina. Even the warehouse where he had tried to turn Alex Campbell into a grotesque parody of Snoopy belonged to his father: the planes it contained had been bought by Cesar with a view to donating them to the city after restoration.
The only thing still unclear was the motive. The investigators speculated that it was an old grudge dating back to the robbery, maybe over how the money had been divided, a grudge that Julius Wong had harboured for years until it had finally exploded.
And yet . . .
My son is innocent . . .
She could still hear Cesar Wong’s voice, monolithic in its certainty. She felt an instinctive revulsion for people like his son, but one of the main tenets of the job she had chosen was that you should never be swayed by personal bias but keep as far as possible to the facts.
My son is innocent . . .
There was one possibility in a hundred that it was true, and a thousand possibilities that Cesar Wong had lied. She remembered her mother’s words –As far as I’m concerned, a person is innocent until proved guilty – and with a sigh got up from the desk and left the study.
She hesitated for a moment by the kitchen. Not only did she have no desire to eat – above all, she had no desire to eat alone. For a moment she thought of calling Jordan, telling him about her encounter with Cesar Wong, and maybe suggesting they discuss it over dinner. But as soon as the helicopter had landed, Jordan had seemed anxious to dash away on his bike. She remembered all too well his furtive behaviour the evening they had dined together at Martini’s, when that phone call had come. As a woman, Maureen had understood immediately that behind his embarrassment there must be something that meant a great deal to him, emotionally speaking. Basically, Maureen knew nothing about him, did not know if he had a wife or girlfriend. She liked the man, she regarded him as a friend, and did not want to create any embarrassment in his private life with ill-timed phone calls.
She went to her bedroom, took off her shoes and lay down on the bed, savouring this moment of idleness. She even put off the pleasure of a shower until later.
As she lay there on the piqué bedspread, looking up at the ceiling, she felt strangely calm, without that sense of anxiety that had been with her like a crow perched on her shoulder ever since she had become aware of the terrible gift she had inherited.
She was calm and alert.
One by one, she thought about all the images that had come to her from the wretched life of Gerald Marsalis. The red-painted body, the demon’s face in the mirror, then the face of the blue woman distorted with pleasure, the curious sensation of having a penis, a child’s innocent drawing, Christopher Marsalis’s anger, Thelma Ross’s horrified face, the man with the bloodstained knife, the robbery and the Peanuts masks . . . and that menacing figure in the half-light of the landing, which faded just before he emerged into the light and revealed his identity . . .
Lying under that blue ceiling, which was part of the real world like everything else around her, at last and without warning, the flash arrived. She found herself sitting up on the bed, with the sensation that the mattress beneath her had unexpectedly sent up a huge burst of heat.
It was as if she had been carrying a fragmented image inside her – an image she had so far been unable to complete. Now, suddenly, the full picture was there, as clear as could be. Maureen felt like an idiot for not having seen it before.
Although she still didn’t understand why, she knew who had killed Gerald Marsalis and Chandelle Stuart, and caused the death of Alex Campbell.
CHAPTER 46
The darkness and the waiting were the same colour.
Sitting in the dark, Maureen had had enough of both to be scared of them. She had learned the hard way that sometimes sight isn’t exclusively physical, it’s also mental. Beyond the curtains in the place where she waited, beyond the windows, in the yellow glare of 1,000 lights, the dazzle of 1,000 neon signs, lay the madness they called New York.
On the low table next to her chair, there was a Beretta 92 SBM – a gun with a slightly smaller handle than usual, expressly designed for women.
It belonged to her mother.
She knew her mother had one, and had taken it from the drawer where it was kept, just before leaving the apartment.
She had cocked it before putting it down on the glass tabletop, and the noise of the bolt had echoed in the silence of the room like the sound of a bone cracking.
Gradually, her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness and she had gained some idea of the place where she was, even with the lights off. She was staring at the wall in front of her, sensing rather than seeing, the dark patch of a door.
Once, at school, she had learned that when you look intensely at a coloured surface and then take your eyes away, there remains imprinted on your pupils a bright patch of colour exactly complementary to the one you have just been staring at.
This cannot happen in the dark, however, since darkness generates only more darkness.
When the person she was waiting for arrived, light would suddenly flood the room.
After an apparently endless road travelled, after a long journey down a tunnel where only a few paltry lamps showed the way, two people would finally emerge into the light. The only two people in possession of the truth.
A woman scared by the knowledge that she had it.
And the man she was waiting for.
The killer.
As soon as she had realized who he was, Maureen had called Jordan but his cellphone was off. Jordan was the only person to whom she could have explained how she had got to the truth. The only other person who knew what was happening to her was his brother, but Mayor Christopher Marsalis was too anxious for revenge on his son’s killer to accept a far-fetched theory that might refute the overwhelming evidence against Julius Wong.
Any other person involved in the case, starting with Burroni, would have told her not to worry and to stay where she was, and then have shown up with nurses and a straitjacket.
She had looked in the phone book for a name and had found a telephone number and an address in Brooklyn Heights. She had called, let it ring for a long time, then hung up.
As she was leaving the apartment, her mother had come in, looking as b
eautiful and impeccable at the end of the day as if she had only just left home. Maureen embraced her, taking care not to let Mary Ann feel the solid bulk of the gun in the belt of her jeans, then kissed her on the cheek and looked her in the eyes. ‘You were right, Mother.’
A moment later, she had already closed the door behind her, leaving Mary Ann Levallier standing in the entrance, looking after her daughter as if she was possessed by an alien will.
Throughout the taxi ride, Maureen continued without success to call Jordan. Finally she made up her mind to leave him a message, explaining what had happened, where she was going, and what she was planning to do.
The driver dropped her at the address she had given him, on the corner of Henry and Pierrepont Streets. As soon as she got out of the taxi, Maureen had tried to take stock of the situation. Henry Street was lit for most of its length by round streetlamps with a soft, creamy light, but along the last stretch, for some reason, they were out. The first lamp on Pierrepont Street was about thirty feet from the corner, and the traffic at that hour was practically non-existent.
Good.
She couldn’t have arranged it better herself.
She had stood there for a while, protected by the cocoon of the dark, looking at the front of the large two-storey redbrick house, made gloomy by the darkness and its heavy imitation Gothic architecture. At any other moment, Maureen would have thought it excessive. Now, the external appearance of the building seemed wholly in line with this whole succession of absurd events.
The entrance was situated beneath a rectangular canopy, sufficiently wide to offer shelter from even the most violent storm. A small flight of steps led up to the wooden door, the upper part of which was a rectangle of frosted glass with stained-glass inserts.
Moving her hands over it, Maureen discovered that it had a purely aesthetic function and was not shatterproof. This greatly simplified things. The door presumably opened on a hall that led to the rest of the house. It was rather unlikely that it was protected by an alarm, because any idiot throwing a stone at the glass as a joke would have set it off.