“There were tapes in Garcia’s apartment,” I said. “They showed women, dead and dying.”
Neddo had the decency to look troubled.
“Yet he was here, in New York,” said Neddo. “Perhaps he had outlived his usefulness and fled. Maybe he planned to use the tapes to blackmail the wrong people, or to secure his safety. It may even be that such a man would take pleasure from revisiting his crimes by viewing them over and over. Whatever the reason for his coming north, he does appear to provide a human link between Santa Muerte and the killings in Juárez. It’s not surprising that the Mexican authorities are interested in him, just as I am.”
“Aside from the connection to Santa Muerte, why would this be of concern to you?” I asked.
“Juárez has a small ossuary,” said Neddo, “a chapel decorated with the remains of the dead. It is not particularly notable, and no great skill was applied to its initial creation. For a long time it was allowed to fall into decay, but in recent years someone has devoted a great deal of time and effort to its restoration. I have visited it. Objects have been expertly repaired. There have even been new additions to its furnishings: sconces, candlesticks, a monstrance, all of far superior quality to the originals. The man responsible apparently claimed only to have used remains left to the ossuary for such a purpose, but I have my doubts. It was not possible to make a close examination of the work that had been done — the priest responsible for its upkeep was both secretive and fearful — but I believe that some of the bones were artificially aged, much like the skull that you brought to me that first evening. I asked to meet the man responsible, but he had already left Juárez. I heard later that the Federales were seeking him. It was said that they were under instructions to capture him alive, and not to kill him. That was a year ago.
“Across from the ossuary, the same individual had created a shrine to Santa Muerte: a very beautiful, very ornate shrine. If Homero Garcia came from Juárez, and was a devotee of Santa Muerte, then it’s possible that he and the restorer of the ossuary were one and the same. After all, a man capable of intricate work with silver might well be capable of similar work with other materials, including bone.”
He sat back in his chair. Once again, his fascination with the details was clear, just as it had been when he spoke about the preacher Faulkner and his book of skin and bones.
Perhaps Garcia had come to New York of his own volition, and without the assistance of others, but I doubted it. Someone had discovered his talents, found him the warehouse in Williamsburg, and given him a space in which to work. He had been brought north for his skill, out of reach of the Federales, and perhaps also away from those for whom he sourced, and disposed of, women. I thought again of the winged figure constructed from pieces of birds and animals and men. I remembered the empty crates, the discarded shards of bone that lay upon the worktable like the remnants of a craftsman’s labors. Whatever Garcia had been commissioned to create, his work was nearing completion when I killed him.
I looked at Neddo, but he was lost in the contemplation of Santa Muerte.
And even after all that he had t old me, I wondered what it was that he was keeping from me.
My cell phone rang as I was nearing the hotel. It was Louis. He gave me the number of a pay phone and told me to call him back in turn from a landline. I called from the street, using my AT&T calling card to reach the number. I could hear traffic in the background, and people singing on the street.
“What have you got?” I said.
“The pimp running Sereta was called Octavio. He went to ground after she was killed, but we found his nephew, and through him we found Octavio. We hurt him. A lot. He told us he was going back to Mexico, to Juárez, where he came from. Hey, you still there?”
I had almost dropped the phone. This was the second mention of Juárez in less than an hour. I began joining the dots. Garcia may have known of Octavio from Juárez. Sereta fled New York and entered Octavio’s ambit. When Alice was found, she probably told them what she knew of her friend’s whereabouts. Garcia put out some feelers, and Octavio got back to him. Then two men were dispatched to find Sereta and retrieve what was in her possession.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll explain when you get back. Where’s Octavio now?”
“He’s dead.”
I took a deep breath but said nothing.
“Octavio had a contact in New York,” Louis continued. “He was to call him if anyone came asking about Sereta. It’s a lawyer. His name is Sekula.”
In Scarborough, Rachel sat on the edge of our bed, cradling Sam, who had at last fallen asleep. There was a patrol car outside the house, and the Scarborough cops had boarded up the shattered window. Rachel’s mother was beside her daughter, her hands clasped between her thighs.
“Call him, Rachel,” said Joan.
Rachel shook her head, but she was not responding to her mother.
“It can’t go on,” said Joan. “It just can’t go on like this.”
But Rachel just held her daughter close and said nothing.
14
Walter Cole got back to me the next morning. I was still asleep when he called. I had faxed him the list of the numbers called from Eddie Tager’s cell phone and asked him to see what he could do with them. If he had no luck, there were others I could turn to, this time outside the law. I just thought Walter could get the information more quickly than I could.
“You know that tampering with mail is a federal crime?” he said.
“I didn’t tamper. I mistakenly assumed that it was addressed to me.”
“Well, that’s good enough for me. Anyone can make a mistake. I have to tell you, though: I’m running out of favors I can call in. I think this is it.”
“You’ve done enough, and more. Don’t sweat it.”
“You want me to fax this to you?”
“Later. For now, just read me the names. Take them from around one A.M. on the date I marked. That’s about the time Alice was picked up on the streets.” Someone must have contacted Tager to tell him to bail Alice, and I was hoping that he had called that person back once he was done.
He read me the list of names, but I didn’t recognize any of them. Most of them were men. Two were women.
“Give me the women’s names again.”
“Gale Friedman and Hope Zahn.”
“The second one, was that a business or personal number?”
“It’s a cell. The bills go to a box number on the Upper West Side, registered with a private company named Robson Realty. Robson was part of the Ambassade group, the same one that was looking after the apartment development in Williamsburg. Seems like Tager called her twice: once at four-oh-four A.M., and once at four-thirty-five A.M. There were no more calls from his cell until the next afternoon, and her number doesn’t show up again.”
Hope Zahn. I pictured Sekula in his pristine anteroom, asking his coldly beautiful secretary not to disturb him — No calls, please, Hope — while he sized me up. Sekula’s days were numbered.
“Is that any help?” asked Walter.
“You just confirmed something for me. Can you fax that info to my room?”
I had a personal fax machine on the desk in the corner. I gave him the number again.
“I also checked the cell phone number that G-Mack gave us,” said Walter. “It’s a ghost. If it ever existed, there’s no record of it now.”
“I guessed that would be the case. It doesn’t matter.”
“So, what now?”
“I have to go home. After that, it all depends.”
“On what?”
“The kindness of strangers, I guess. Or maybe kindness isn’t the right word . . .”
I headed out for coffee and called Sekula’s office along the way. A woman answered the phone, but I could tell that it wasn’t Sekula’s usual secretary. This girl was so chirpy she belonged in an aviary.
“Hello, could I speak to Hope Zahn, please?”
“Uh, I’m afraid she’s out of the office
for a few days. Could I take a message?”
“How about Mr. Sekula?”
“He’s unavailable too.”
“When do you expect them back?”
“I’m sorry,” said the secretary, “but may I ask who’s calling?”
I decided to rattle their cage a little.
“Tell Hope that Eddie Tager called. It’s in connection with Alice Temple.”
At the very least, if Zahn or Sekula checked back with the office it would give them something to think about.
“Does she have your number?”
“She’d like to think so,” I said, then thanked her for her time and hung up.
Sandy Crane was a little concerned about her husband, which meant that the week was turning into a real collection of firsts for her: the first promise of money in a while; the first mutual joy she and her husband had experienced since Larry had finally succumbed to senescence; and now concern for her husband’s wellbeing, albeit tinged by a considerable degree of self-interest. He hadn’t yet returned from his visit to his old war buddy, but he occasionally spent nights away from home so it wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary. Usually, though, his absences coincided with horse races in Florida, and rarely now did he embark upon a journey with the sense of purpose he had shown the day before. Sandy knew that her husband liked to gamble. It worried her some, but so long as he kept it within reason she wasn’t going to raise a fuss. If she started complaining about his spending, then he might in turn decide to curb her excesses, and Sandy had few enough luxuries in her life as things stood.
Sandy wouldn’t have put it past the old fart to try to cut her out of the deal entirely, but her fears were allayed slightly by the knowledge that Larry needed her. He was aged and weak, and he had no friends. Even if that stuck-up sonofabitch Hall agreed to play ball, Larry would need her by his side to make sure that he wasn’t taken for a ride. She was still a little surprised that Larry hadn’t called the night before to let her know how things were going, but he was like that. Perhaps he’d found a bar where he could bitch and moan for the night or, if Hall had agreed to play ball, where he could get himself a mild drunk on to celebrate. Even now, he was probably sleeping it off in a motel room between trips to the john to empty his bladder. Larry would be back, one way or another.
Sandy sipped a double vodka — another first, this time of day — and thought some more about what she might do with the money: new clothes, for a start, and a car that didn’t smell of old man stink. She also liked the idea of a younger guy, one with a firm body and a motor that purred instead of sputtering like the failing engines of the men who currently serviced her occasional needs. She wouldn’t object to paying by the hour for him, either. That way, there was nothing he could refuse to do for her.
The doorbell rang, and she spilled a little of her vodka in her rush to rise from her chair. Larry had a key, so it couldn’t be Larry. But suppose something had happened to him? Maybe that bastard Hall had allowed his conscience to get the better of him and had confessed all to the cops. If that was the case, then Sandy Crane would plead dumber than the special kids in the little bus that passed by her house every morning, the strange, spooky people inside waving at her like they thought she gave a rat’s ass about them when they really just creeped her out worse than snakes and spiders.
A man and a woman stood at the door. They were well dressed: the man in a gray suit, the woman in a blue jacket and skirt. Even Sandy had to admit that the woman was a looker: long dark hair, pale features, tight body. The man carried a briefcase in his hand, and the woman a brown leather satchel over her right shoulder.
“Mrs. Crane?” said the man. “My name is Sekula. I’m an attorney from New York. This is my assistant, Miss Zahn. Your husband contacted our firm yesterday. He said he had an item in which we might be interested.”
Sandy didn’t know whether to curse her husband’s name or applaud his foresight. It depended on how things worked out for them, she supposed. The old fool was so anxious to ensure a sale that he’d contacted the people who’d sent the letter before he even had his hands on both the box and the paper it had once contained. She could almost picture him, a sly grin on his face as he convinced himself that he was playing these big city folk like they were violins, except he wasn’t that smart. He’d given too much away, or raised their expectations so high that they were now at her door. Sandy wondered if he’d told them about Mark Hall, but immediately decided that he hadn’t. If they knew about Hall, then they would be standing on his doorstep, not her own.
“My husband isn’t here right now,” she said. “I’m expecting him back any moment.”
The smile on Sekula’s face didn’t falter.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind if we waited for him. We really are anxious to secure the item as soon as possible, and with the minimum of fuss and attention.”
Sandy shifted uneasily on her feet.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m sure you people are okay and all, but I don’t really like letting strangers into my house.”
The smile seemingly etched on Sekula’s face was starting to creep her out like the smiles of the kids on the bus. There was something blank about it. Even shit-for-brains Hall managed to inject a little humanity into his hammy grins when he was trying to sell some deadbeat an automobile.
“I understand,” said Sekula. “I wonder if this might convince you of our good intentions?”
He leaned his briefcase against the wall, snapped the locks, and opened it so that Sandy could see the contents: a small stack of dead presidents lined up like little Mount Rushmores in green.
“Just a token of our goodwill,” said Sekula.
Sandy felt herself grow moist.
“I think I can make an exception,” she said. “Just this once.”
The funny thing about it was that Sekula didn’t want to harm the woman. That was how they had remained hidden for so long, when others had been hunted down. They did not hurt people unless it was absolutely necessary, or they had not until Sekula’s investigations had added a degree of urgency to their quest. The subsequent recruitment by Brightwell of the odious Garcia had marked the beginning of the next phase, and an escalation in violence.
Sekula was a longtime Believer. He was recruited to the cause shortly after his graduation from law school. The recruitment had been subtle, and gradual, drawing on his already prodigious legal skills to track suspicious sales and to ascertain ownership and origins wherever necessary, gradually progressing to more detailed explorations of the shadowy, secret lives that so many people concealed from those around them. He viewed this as a fascinating endeavor, even as he came to understand that he was being used to target the individuals for their exploitation rather than to assist in any prosecution, public or private. The information gathered by Sekula was utilized against them, and his employers amassed influence, knowledge and wealth as a consequence, but Sekula quickly discovered that he was untroubled by this realization. He was a lawyer, after all, and had he entered the arena of criminal law he would surely have found himself defending what most ordinary people would regard as the indefensible. By comparison, the work in which he was engaged was initially morally compromised in only the faintest of ways. He had grown wealthy as a result, wealthier than most of his peers who worked twice as hard as he, and he had gained other rewards too, Hope Zahn among them. He had been directed to employ her, and he had done so willingly. Since then, she had proved invaluable to him, personally, professionally, and, it had to be admitted, sexually. If Sekula had a weakness, it was women, but Miss Zahn fed his every sexual appetite, and some others that he didn’t even know were there until she discovered them for him.
And when, after a number of years, Sekula was informed of the true nature of their quest, he could barely work up the energy to be even slightly surprised. He wondered, sometimes, if this was an indication of the extent to which he had been corrupted, or if it was always in his nature, and his employers had recognized it lo
ng before he himself had. In fact, it had been Sekula’s idea to target the veterans, inspired by his discovery of the details of a sale conducted through an intermediary in Switzerland shortly after the end of the Second World War. The sale had passed unnoticed amid the flurry of deals in the aftermath of the war, when looted items changed hands at a frightening rate, their previous owners, in many cases, reduced to a coating of ash on the trees of eastern Europe. It was only when Sekula gained copies of the records of the auction house from a disgruntled employee aware of the lawyer’s willingness to pay moderately well for such information that the entry was revealed to him. Sekula was grateful to the Swiss for their scrupulous attention to detail, which meant that even deals of dubious origin were all recorded and accounted for. In many ways, he reflected, the Swiss had more in common with the Nazis in their desire to document their wrongdoings than they might like to admit.
The entry was straightforward, detailing the sale of a fourteenth-century jeweled monstrance to a private collector based in Helsinki. Included was a careful description of the item, sufficient to indicate to Sekula that it was part of the trove stolen from Fontfroide; the final sale price agreed; the house’s commission; and the balance to be forwarded to the seller. The nominal seller was a private dealer named Jacques Gaud, based in Paris. Sekula carefully followed the paper trail back to Gaud, then pounced. Gaud’s family had since built up their grandfather’s business and now enjoyed a considerable reputation in the trade. Sekula, by examining the records of the Swiss auction house, had found at least a dozen further transactions instigated by Gaud that could charitably be described as suspicious. He cross-checked the items in question against his own list of treasures looted or “disappeared” during the war, and came up with enough evidence to brand Gaud as a profiteer from the misery of others, and to effectively destroy the reputation of his descendants’ business as well as placing them at risk of ruinous criminal and civil actions. Following discreet approaches, and assurances from Sekula that the information he had obtained would go no further, the house of Gaud et Frères discreetly released to him copies of all the paperwork relating to the sale of the Fontfroide treasures.