Recoil (7 page)

“Anna has a right to hear this. Come on in.”

She stepped into the room and pushed the door shut behind her.

Gillespie was opening his briefcase on the arm of a chair. The room had been built for a nineteenth-century millionaire; it was all deep rich woodwork—glass-enclosed bookcases, wainscoting, Dutch doors onto the garden, an Italian Renaissance chandelier. It was huge for a study; Frank was not a large man but he dominated it, and very few men had that quality.

Gillespie drew a single sheet of paper from the briefcase. “Name, vital statistics, fingerprints. Photograph in here as well.”

“On Edward Merle?”

“No, sir,” Gillespie said. “They'll probably be changing his name again, giving him a new identity, relocating him, all that. It would take quite a while to get that information. I think this is faster.”

Ezio said, “Then spill it.”

“The government knows the four witnesses are targets. They've put all four of them under wraps.”

Ezio's voice became sharp. “We know that, Charlie.”

Gillespie smiled. “Sure. The government assigns caseworkers to look after these witnesses, shepherd them along, get them resettled. You know how it is. Now I managed to get this information from our contact in the Witness Security office because I asked for it. She wouldn't have volunteered it—I don't imagine it would have occurred to her.”

Ezio spoke through his teeth: “You don't imagine
what
would have occurred to her, Charlie?”

Gillespie put the sheet of paper on the desk and put the photograph on top of it. “The name and picture of the agent who's assigned to take care of Merle. His name's Glenn Bradleigh. We find Bradleigh, we've found Merle. And I don't think Bradleigh is trying to hide. Why should he? He ought to be easy enough for your people to find. Start them looking in the Los Angeles area.” Gillespie picked up the photograph and looked at the face. “You find this man, he'll lead you to Edward Merle.”

She looked at Frank. He was walking forward, a hard shine on his eyes. He took the photograph gently out of Gillespie's hand. “I like a man who uses his head.”

“Yes, sir. I'm glad it worked out. I wasn't sure she'd be able to get us the name but she came through.”

“You're all right, C.K.” Frank turned to Ezio and put the photograph in his hand. “Find him.”

CHAPTER FIVE

California-Arizona: 3–6 August

1

E
XPLAINING IT TO RONNY WAS THE WORST PART. RONNY SAT
on the motel bed watching both of them. Mathieson said, “I know it sounds kind of comic book. But it happens all the time. Glenn Bradleigh has more than a thousand families just like us on his roster.”

Ronny only watched him; it unnerved him. Jan was hugging herself and Mathieson went to the air-conditioner under the window. “You could hang meat in here.” He switched it off. Jan gave him a brief distracted smile.

The boy's puzzled eyes searched him: Ronny wanted to understand but it was a lot to absorb. “What was this thing you testified to?”

“Bribery. Frank Pastor was involved in a real estate lawsuit. It wasn't a criminal trial, it was a civil suit, but if he lost it he might be liable for fraud charges. And there was a lot of money involved in the case—hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“He wanted to buy the judge, to make sure he'd win the case.”

“Which side were you on? Whose lawyer were you?”

“Nobody's. I wasn't involved in the case.”

“You just said you used to be a lawyer, though.”

“I was trying another case in another courtroom in the same building. I went into the men's room to wash some of the subway dirt off my hands and I happened to walk in just when Frank Pastor was slipping an envelope to the judge in the back of the men's room. They didn't realize I'd seen the envelope change hands.”

“How come?”

“They were around behind the row of stalls. I happened to see it in one of the mirrors over the washstands. It was an accident—a total coincidence. Things happen like that all the time but they're always hard to believe when you try to explain them later.”

“They believed you, though, didn't they? They must have, if Pastor went to jail.”

“It was my evidence that triggered the investigation, but they had a lot more to go on than just what I happened to see in the men's room.”

“How come you knew who this guy Pastor was?”

“Everybody in New York knew him by sight in those days. You used to see him all the time on the television news, his picture in the magazines, all that kind of thing. He was a spokesman for some sort of antidefamation league and he was always in the public eye.”

“But if everybody knows these guys are gangsters, how come they're not all in jail?”

He glanced at Jan. “Sometimes it's very hard to get proof against them. They're very clever people.”

“Doesn't sound to me like this Pastor was so clever. He went to jail, right?”

Mathieson nodded. “I washed my hands and left the men's room. I suppose they'd seen me by the time I left, or at least heard me, but neither one of them came out of the back of the room. I went right to the phone and called the District Attorney's office. I had several friends there. I told them about the envelope I'd seen change hands in the men's room. It could only have been one thing—a bribe. People don't pass over harmless legitimate messages in secret like that. The District Attorney got a warrant from a criminal-court judge right away and they searched this judge's chambers about two hours after I'd phoned. They found the envelope in the desk because he was in court all morning and hadn't had time to get it away from his office.”

“What was in it, anyway? Money?”

“Seventy-five hundred dollars in cash. The envelope had both Pastor's and the judge's fingerprints on it.”

“Dumb,” Ronny said.

“Well they didn't expect anybody to find it, did they.”

“I still think it must've been pretty stupid for Pastor to do that in person. He could've had anybody deliver the money for him. Some flunky.”

“Normally he would have. But the judge insisted that Pastor pay him off in person. If anything went wrong—and something did—the judge wanted to be able to take Pastor down with him. He didn't want Pastor double-crossing him afterward. You understand, Ronny?”

“I think so. So they got caught. Did this judge fess up?”

“He might have, but as soon as he was released on bail he was killed. Shot to death on his own doorstep.”

Ronny drew air through his teeth. “Cripes.”

Jan said, “It's not a TV movie we're talking about, Ronny. These are real people. It's real blood and real pain …”

Ronny scowled at Mathieson. “They killed this judge to keep him from talking, right?”

“Yes. That's why sometimes it's so hard to get evidence against them—they make people afraid to testify.”

“But they didn't scare you, did they.”

“They scared me.”

Jan said, “Your father stood up and testified to the truth in open court. A lot of people told him he was crazy.”

At the time, he was thinking, it seemed the right thing to do.

Ronny said, “How come they didn't arrest Pastor for killing the judge, then?”

“Nobody could prove he'd ordered it done.”

They talked on. It was hard to explain to the boy; he'd grown up on adventure shows that always wrapped the villains up neatly in the fourth quarter-hour.

There was a discreet knock at the door—three raps, an interval, three more. Mathieson admitted Glenn Bradleigh. There were two men with him, lugging suitcases. They set the cases down and left without a word. Mathieson said, “It's still cold in here. You can leave the door open.”

Bradleigh crossed to the door. “No, we don't want to talk to the world.” He shut it and locked it.

“Talk about what?”

Bradleigh tossed a large bulky manila envelope on the bed. “Morning, Jan. Ronny. You folks are looking a lot healthier today. Had breakfast?”

“Mr. Caruso brought it on a tray for us.”

“Caruso's a treasure.” Bradleigh was snapping the latches of the suitcases. “We rescued as much of your clothes as we could from the house. One of the boys ran it through one of the dry cleaners yesterday. Had a lot of plaster dust but I think you'll find most of them pretty clean now.”

Jan got up and rummaged through the suitcases. She beamed at Bradleigh. “We didn't expect to see any of these again. Thanks so much …”

Bradleigh looked away. “Don't thank me. Don't ever thank me again for anything, all right?”

“Glenn, it wasn't your fault.”

Bradleigh wouldn't look at any of them. “We dug quite a bit of other stuff out of the house. Odds and ends, you'll want to sort through it—we've taken it to the FBI office downtown, you can claim the stuff later. Amazing the kind of things we found intact. A balsa-wood model airplane, believe it or not.”

She smiled; a sidewise glance at Ronny. “He put that away in the closet last November. He'd probably forgotten he ever had it.”

“I did not.”

Mathieson was looking at the manila envelope on the bed. “Who are we?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Jason W. Greene.” Bradleigh emptied the envelope's contents onto the rumpled bed: documents of various shades and sizes. “Best we could do on short notice—we'd been putting these together for another family but they can wait. I'm afraid it'll make you both out to be older than you are but it's the closest we could do. The birth certificate on the boy is a flat-out forgery but we're slipping a copy of it into the Binghamton hall of records if anybody ever checks back that far.”

“Binghamton?”

“Right. Because you spent some summers there, didn't you?”

“Long time ago. With my uncle and aunt.”

“Then you knew the town a little, at least. We couldn't give you a background you knew nothing about at all. Jason W. Greene. Margaret Johnson Greene. Don't forget it.”

“What do I do for a living?”

“Your wife used to be a librarian. You were an investment counselor. All right?”

“That'd be hard to put over on anybody who knows anything about stocks and bonds.”

“You won't ever have to practice the profession. It's just part of the background, like last time. You came out here with a phony background as an insurance executive, remember? Letters of reference, testimonials, the works. It's all in that pile of papers. Read through it, familiarize yourselves with all of it. Memorize what you have to.”

“What's our program?”

“Like last time. Whatever suits you—whatever you folks think you can handle. We'll grease wheels to help you get started. After that it's up to you. If you start a business and it goes bust that's your own problem. We'll help with the relocation costs but we can't bankroll you beyond a few hundred a month for seed money. It'd be against policy and anyway we haven't got the funds.”

Mathieson pawed through the documents on the bed. “Massachusetts driver's license. I don't know the first thing about Massachusetts.”

“Don't have to. You apply for a new license, you turn in the Mass license. It's just to get bona fides on your applications. You did all this before, Fred.”

“It's been eight years. I'd forgotten a lot of this.”

“It'll come back to you.” Bradleigh lit a cigarette. “Think about it, let me know what you both decide. And incidentally I think you both ought to change your appearance. Jan, try a short haircut. Fred, I'd do a crew cut for a while and get one of those compounds that cover gray. You might think about growing a moustache.”

2

They brought him a typewriter and he sent brief letters to each of his clients. After lunch Caruso, a man whose face Mathieson always had trouble remembering, drove him several miles to a shopping center in Santa Monica. Mathieson changed ten dollars into coins in a bank; he made his calls from an outdoor phone booth while Caruso sat in the car keeping watch.

His first call was to Phil Adler. “Do you still want to buy me out?”

“Well naturally I'll do whatever you want, Fred, but I'm sure right now you don't want to have to be thinking about——”

“Is the offer open or not?”

“Well, you know, of course it is.”

“Draw up the papers. I'll take whatever you think's fair. A man named Bradleigh will conclude the deal with you, he's got my power of attorney, he'll be in touch with you in a few days to clean out my office and take care of the details.”

He finally got off the line and made the rest of his calls—the lawyers, the bank, his good-bye calls. Most of them had seen the news on TV or in the papers; he tried to keep his answers short and fend off their sympathies.

Finally he called the Gilfillans. Amy answered the phone. “Wait, I'll get the string bean and put him on the extension.”

In a minute they were both on the wire. Roger said, “How're they hangin', partner?”

“We've got to clear out, I'm afraid.”

“I know. No forwarding addresses, I reckon.”

Amy said, “Billy's going to miss Ronny.”

“It's worse on the kids than anybody else.”

“Like some kind of fuckin' divorce,” Roger said. “Listen, there's some clown hanging around up at your place. About your size and he's wearing that red and yellow sport shirt of yours.”

“Must be one of the government people,” Mathieson said.

“I told him it was a dumb thing to do, making himself a target like that. Man said, ‘That's my job, sir.' Just like one of them brave heroes in the movies. Stupid fuckin' idiot.”

Amy said, “Fred, you and Jan and that boy take real good care of yourselves, hear?” Her voice broke; he heard the click when she hung up her extension.