Palindrome (5 page)

“What?” Courtney looks confused. “What do you mean?”

“You bought that in a market in Morocco?”

“No, I said I
found
it.”

“Where, in a drug den?”

Courtney's face drops.

“That's a heroin vial,” I say. “Although I suppose in a cinch it could also be used to hold cocaine or meth.”

Courtney's face contorts. “I'm so sorry, Frank, I had no idea—­”

“It's okay.” I wave dismissively. “You washed it, I hope?”

He lowers his head into his palms, and his fingers dig into his scalp. “I'm so sorry, I was just trying to do something nice—­”

“Listen, forget it.” I take a big bite of scone and, with my mouth full, ask, “What were you doing in Morocco?”

He glances over at my daughter playing with his drug paraphernalia, shakes his head in disbelief. Finally sighs and explains:

“This was right after the Orange job. I was following fifteen pounds of top-­shelf ecstasy—­tipped off by an old friend. He told me that the DEA had been trying to get this guy for a few months, then he fled the country, and they gave up. I found his operation in the back of a dried fruit stand in Tangier but didn't get anywhere close to the drugs. As soon as I figured out I'd found them, a gentleman was kind enough to break my jaw and hit me in the kidney.

“They dragged me to some hotel room where a guy asked me questions in Moroccan Arabic and kicked me a few times in the face each time I answered, apparently displeased with my dialect. I learned Arabic from a Lebanese woman—­totally different language. Then he stabbed me in the thigh and left me bleeding on the hotel room floor. It's a miracle I managed to crawl to the phone.

“I spent a month in a hospital in Tangier—­not an experience I'd recommend. No AC, in the middle of a North African July. And that's to say nothing of the quality of care. Anyways, I finally got back to the city with nothing to show for my efforts but a few nasty scars and that interesting little vial, which my assailant left behind. Must have fallen out of his pocket during the beating.”

I click my tongue. “Tell me, how can someone who has
worked
for the fucking DEA not recognize a heroin vial?”

Courtney shrugs. “Finding drugs is just like finding anything else. I don't need to know anything about it except that I find it, tell my employers where it is, maybe take some photos, and am paid handsomely. Except with drugs my efforts take it out of circulation, maybe even save a few lives.”

“You're a regular Mother Teresa.”

Courtney raises an eyebrow—­his equivalent of a smile—­but it's gone in an instant. And then the time for small talk is over.

“So.” He taps his long fingers on the rim of his mug. “What have you got?”

He slides out of his jacket and lets it sink behind him on the chair, as if expecting the excitement of a new job to get his literal blood flowing. With the jacket goes the illusion of physical normalcy. His long head is perched on top of a body that looks like a bunch of twigs sewn together and draped in flannel. Whenever he stands up it reminds me of a praying mantis rearing before it kills something.

I summarize my encounter with Greta for him—­omitting only her physical description and the enticing offer I'd been unable to get out of my head all night, thinking maybe Courtney will accuse me of only saying yes as a personal favor to my shlong. But either I'm a bad liar, or Courtney is incredibly perceptive. Probably both.

“She's beautiful, isn't she?” Courtney says, depositing a forkful of lentils into the slot between his scraggly mustache and what could only generously be called a beard.

“What?” I act surprised and turn to check on Sadie to avoid making eye contact with him.

“She overpowered you with her beauty, obviously. If she weren't beautiful, you wouldn't have let her walk out of there without some more answers. Don't even bother denying it—­it's written all over your face.”

“Fuck,” I mutter. “Yeah, she's gorgeous.”

“Do you have the case file?”

I slide the thick folder across the table to him. He flips through it. I can tell when he hits the full glossy postmortem, because a deep, distant sadness fills his large, wet eyes. He shakes his head.

“Oh my. Tattooed face,” he says. “This is pretty ugly. I'm not sure I want to get anywhere near this.”

I smile to myself. He's trying to convince himself, not me. This is sick, sure, but he's seriously intrigued. Time to reel him in.

Casually, I say, “Three hundred fifty grand is the bounty.”

He physically spasms, jerks up from the folder, and stares at me, as if trying to figure out if I'm serious.

“Already gave me fifteen for upfront and expenses,” I add. “Cash.”

He blinks a few times. His face says
that's life-­changing money.

“But . . . You mentioned that you don't totally believe her story. If she'd lie about what happened, how do we know she'll pay? Should we set up a managed account with a lawyer to make sure the money's there?”

I shrug. “She'd never agree to that. I can tell. And besides, it was just my gut feeling. Felt like she was omitting things. Maybe she just didn't think they were important.”

Courtney stares at me. “Start second-­guessing your gut feelings about ­people, Frank, and you'll cripple yourself.”

I roll my eyes. “Thanks, Mom. Look, in all likelihood it doesn't even matter. The tape probably isn't real, or it's ruined or trashed. We'll just get paid $15K to confirm that.”

Courtney takes a long drink of tea and pokes at his dwindling lentils.

“You don't believe that,” he says.

I glare at him. “Did you bring your own lentils here in Tupperware? You can't fucking do that.”

Courtney grins. And the only time he ever actually smiles is when he knows he's right about something. It's absolutely infuriating.

“If you really thought it didn't exist, you wouldn't have brought me on board. Doesn't take two of us to tell her we didn't find anything.”

I tap on the edge of my mug and shake my head. “I'm just trying to be realistic. This is probably a wild-­goose chase.”

Courtney inspects the depths of his tea for a moment then looks back up at me, brow knitted thoughtfully.

“Why would someone tattoo their victim and then record them as they died?”

“Because they're nuts. That's why.”

Courtney doesn't seem to hear me.

“Reminds me of something I read recently. They found an Egyptian mummy, from around 700 AD
.
Also a woman. She's presently on display in the British Museum. What's most interesting about her, Frank, is a tattoo on her thigh of an angel and the name ‘Michael' written beneath in ancient Greek. Michael is the most powerful of the angels. They think the tattoo was meant to protect her in the afterlife.”

I finish off my scone, glance over at Sadie to make sure she's doing fine. She appears to be buried in her book, but I wouldn't be surprised if she's been eavesdropping a bit.

“You're giving this guy Silas too much credit, Courtney. He's a nutter, plain and simple.”

“I don't see why you'd assume that. Thoughtfulness, subtlety and patience. These are an investigator's greatest assets. I don't see why I'd commit to work on a job with someone who displays such—­”

“Alright, alright. Forget it. Thoughtfulness, subtlety, whatever.”

For a moment we are each preoccupied with our respective drinks.

“Seems like there's no reason not to spend a few days checking it out, right?” I finally say delicately. “If the trail is too cold, or we get a bad feeling, just have to let her know. Maybe even give her five grand back so she doesn't smear us around town. I don't know about you, but I don't have anything better to work on right now. I closed out my last active case two nights ago.”

Courtney fiddles with a long raggedy hair protruding from his chin. He's clearly still trying to talk himself out of this.

“I don't generally like to jump into something with so many questions still up in the air. For one, why did she wait five years to hire someone?”

I don't want to admit it, but that thought never occurred to me.

“Maybe we're not the first.”

“Why is this worth three hundred fifty thousand to this woman?” Courtney fires back.

“Obviously, money is no object to her.”

Courtney polishes off his lentils.

“But you're right,” I say. “I guess we should probably speak to Orange. That's how she got my number. Try to figure out what the hell Greta's deal is—­what he knows about her—­before we get too deep into this.”

Courtney flinches at the mention of Orange. He points a knobby index finger at me, his face stone. “I refuse to deal with that hunk of human excrement again. If you think—­”

“That doesn't sound very
patient,
Courtney.”

He exhales loudly through his nostrils. I can imagine the conflict waging behind his pale half-­moon forehead as he replays our last encounter with Orange.

After my schmooze with Orange in the back of his Escalade, I called another PI I knew, asked if he could recommend a good tracker to help me find these Italian forgers. He gave me Courtney's email and assured me that he was the absolute best he'd ever worked with. When I explained the job to Courtney, I was totally honest: I didn't know exactly what was going on behind the iron grate of Midtown Fitness, but I suspected two of the usual suspects: gambling or drugs.

It was only after we found the two Italians and delivered them—­duct taped and not in the best spirits—­to Orange's place of business that we understood exactly what we were dealing with: Orange was a pimp. Worse than a pimp, actually. He ran a sex dungeon in Midtown, and all of the poor girls were Korean and Chinese immigrants who'd undoubtedly been brought to the States under false pretenses. The reason I never saw women coming or going? They were never allowed to leave. They lived down there.

Courtney had been so horrified at discovering the true nature of our employer that he'd refused to accept any payment for our seven weeks of work. Drug dens were one thing, he said, but he didn't do business with men who kept girls in cages. I didn't feel great about it either and apologized profusely for my naiveté, but I couldn't end up working seven weeks for free, dirty money or not.

“Court. We need to know what he knows about Greta.” I'm by no means an Orange apologist; he's an unequivocal piece of garbage. But pieces of garbage won't open up if you're going to ride in on your high horse, making demands.

Law of interrogation: Prisoner is infinitely more likely to talk if he trusts you. Surest way to earn his trust is to have an actual open mind, to not prejudge. So when I'm dealing with a scumbag, I try to fixate on one positive aspect about them.

In Orange's case, it's that I feel a little sorry for the guy. Last time we saw him, I realized he is totally miserable. Intensely lonely, horribly bored, his only passion is the art and artifacts that he collects to class-­up his palatial sex dungeon. Crazy as it sounds, I felt like he really wanted to be friends with me. And when Courtney refused payment, he seemed weirdly betrayed.

“I am
not
dealing with him,” Courtney repeats, shaking his head into his tea, again trying to convince himself, not me.

“But if anything, doesn't that experience reinforce how important it is to do our due diligence on clients?”

Courtney frowns into the grain of the wood tabletop. Then looks up at me.

“Didn't you promise Greta confidentiality?” he says. “That you wouldn't tell anyone she hired us?”

I pick up my coffee to hide a smirk. Courtney's will is weakening. I can hear the airy resignation in his voice. It's just too much money to walk away from. It's like throwing away a lottery ticket before scratching it. Get in that habit and you won't be in this line of work for long.

“Yeah but . . .” I say. “We gotta figure out what her connection to Orange is. If we take this case, we gotta talk to him.”

“Ugh . . .” Courtney rubs his temples with the pads of his index fingers. Too much money, and I'm making too much sense. He wants to say yes so bad. Though truth is, I knew I had him once he started talking about mummies. “You're right. There's too much that's weird about this whole thing. What's with the gloves? And the cash? Even if her family is fabulously wealthy . . . She walks around with fifteen grand in her purse?”

“She knew that cold, hard cash was what it would take to get us on board.” I smile. “I mean, you're on board, right?”

Courtney flares his nostrils and polishes off his tea.

“Yes. I suppose I am.”

I
DROP
S
ADIE
off with the Feinsods, a sweet family who lives right down Grand Street in a co-­op building. Sadie and I met Tammy Feinsod and their son Ben six years ago at some kind of toddler convention in a Lower East Side community center. Sadie and Ben have had playdates scheduled weekly ever since, and they really hit it off. It's gonna get weird when they hit puberty.

I tell Tammy I'll be gone at least a week and try to pay her. She refuses adamantly. I insist, telling her at least take two hundred for food and stuff. She won't take it.

“I'll try to call every night,” I tell Sadie at the doorway.

“You still haven't said where you're going!” she says.

I can feel my lips squirming. It's my body expressing how much it hates having to lie to her. I'll actually be in the city at least another day, while we find Orange and ask him about Greta. But things might get involved, messy. Don't want Sadie waiting outside school for a dead-­beat that's too busy getting some complimentary chiropractic work from Orange's pet gorillas to pick her up.