The Collectors (15 page)
A
NNABELLE’S HOTEL ROOM
overlooked Central Park, and on impulse she decided to take a walk in it. Her hairstyle and color had changed once again. She was now a brunet with short hair, parted on the side, a look that matched the passport photo Freddy had made for her. Her clothes were typical New York, meaning black and stylish. She rambled through the park trails hiding behind a hat and sunglasses. Several people she passed stared at her, perhaps thinking she was someone famous. Ironically, Annabelle had never sought fame. Her whole life she had clung to the comforting shadows of obscurity where a talented con could find professional traction.
She bought a soft pretzel from a street vendor and carried it back to her room, where she sat on the bed and looked through her travel papers. Leo and she had parted company at the airport in Newark. Freddy was on his way out of the country already. She hadn’t asked either man where they were going. She didn’t want to know.
After arriving in New York she’d contacted Tony. As promised, Annabelle had made arrangements for him to fly to Paris. After that, he was on his own, but with excellent if fake identification and travel documents and millions sitting in a readily accessible account. She’d given him one final warning: “Even though he never saw you, Bagger will know I needed some con really expert with computers, and you have that reputation. So lay low for a year or so out of the country. And do
not
flash the money around. Get a small place, dig in, learn the language, and lose yourself.”
Tony promised her that he would do as she advised.
“I’ll call and tell you where I end up.”
“No, you won’t,” she’d told him.
She still had three days before Bagger’s money was due back and he discovered he’d been conned. She would have given half the money back to be able to see his reaction. He would probably kill all of his IT and money guys first. Then he’d stalk through his casino with a pistol, popping off senior citizens playing the slots. Maybe a New Jersey SWAT team would swoop in and do the world a favor by putting the bastard out of his misery. Probably unrealistic, but she could always fantasize.
Her escape route would take her through eastern Europe and then Asia. That would last about a year. After that, it was on to the South Pacific, to a little island she’d discovered years ago and never been back to for fear of it not being as perfect the second time. Right now she’d be happy with almost perfect.
Her share of the take was currently parked in a series of offshore accounts. She’d live off the interest and investments the rest of her life, maybe occasionally dipping into the principal. She might even buy a boat, albeit a small one, and sail it herself. Not around the world; short excursions around a tropical cove would be just fine with her.
She had debated whether to send Bagger a note of triumph, but in the end decided such bravado was both unworthy of her and the con she’d pulled. Let him spend the rest of his life guessing. Paddy Conroy’s little girl wouldn’t be high on his list of usual suspects because she was certain Bagger didn’t even know Paddy had a daughter. Annabelle’s relationship with her father had been truly unique, and he had never held her out to the con world as his child. Leo and a few others they’d worked with had eventually discovered the truth, but that was all.
Yet this time her picture
had
been captured on numerous Pompeii casino cameras. And she knew Bagger would take those photos and run around the con world paying people or even torturing them to get an ID on her. Every con she knew would cheer what she’d done to Bagger. Yet there might be someone who looked at the photo and let her name slip if Bagger threatened enough.
Well,
she thought,
let him come. He might find it a little harder to kill me than he thinks.
It wasn’t the size of the dog in the fight, it was the size of the fight in the dog. Ironically, it wasn’t her father that had told her that; it was her mother.
Tammy Conroy, despite her criminal ways, had been a good woman, and a long-suffering wife to Paddy. She’d been a cocktail waitress before tying her life to the charming Irishman, who had an endless supply of funny yarns and could sing any tune in a voice you’d want to keep listening to. Paddy Conroy dominated any room he was in. Perhaps that was why his potential as a con had never been fully realized. The best cons, you never even knew they were there. Paddy apparently didn’t care, believing that his Irish luck, pluck and smile would save him every time. And it had, mostly. But it hadn’t saved Tammy Conroy.
Jerry Bagger had personally put a bullet into her brain when she wouldn’t rat out her husband. Paddy certainly hadn’t returned his wife’s loyalty. He’d fled when Bagger started to close in. Annabelle couldn’t even attend her mother’s funeral because Bagger and his men were at the cemetery waiting for someone to show up. That was years ago, and Bagger was probably still looking for her father. Over ten lousy grand, when the man spent more on his suits than that. Yet Annabelle knew it ultimately wasn’t about the money. It was about respect. And the only way you kept respect in Bagger’s world was by doling out five licks for every one you took. And whether somebody stole ten grand or 10 million of his money, Bagger would hurt that person if he could get his hands on him. That’s why when Annabelle ratted out the cons at the Pompeii, she had also called the police. With cops on the premises Bagger couldn’t break any knees. If the cons were smart, they’d clear out fast after they’d done their time or paid their fines.
Bagger might have been a walking caricature of a casino chieftain in a bad mob film, but one thing that wasn’t phony or funny about the guy was the easy manner in which he employed violence. If you conned other casinos, you went to jail. That was not how Bagger operated. He was a throwback to the days in Vegas when the way to deal with a pesky con was to first break the knees and then the head. His utter failure to bring his methods into modern times had led to his banishment from Sin City. While he hadn’t completely cleaned up his act in Atlantic City, he had gotten far more discreet about it.
With all that, in Tammy Conroy’s case, a ten-grand con wouldn’t have ordinarily led to death. But it wasn’t a simple case, because her father and Bagger had a long running war. Personally, Paddy kept out of Bagger’s casinos, but he sent waves of teams in to do the con work for him, including, finally, his then teenage daughter and a much younger Leo. That almost led them to being fish food in the ocean the last time they visited Atlantic City. Yet over the years Bagger finally made the connection with Paddy and his casino’s troubles. He eventually showed up on Paddy’s doorstep one night far away from Jersey. But Paddy wasn’t there. Some said he had a warning and cleared out. If so, he forgot to let his wife in on it.
There was no evidence linking Bagger to the murder, of course, and he’d had a million alibis, so no charges were ever filed in the case. However, some veteran cons with inside knowledge that Annabelle had talked to were absolutely certain as to what had happened. Yet even if they’d seen the deed themselves, they would never have testified against Bagger.
Having him so close to her over the last week, Annabelle found herself thinking about putting a gun against his forehead and firing. That would have evened one old score, but the forfeit of her life would’ve been the price. No, this way was much better. Her father had never liked the long cons, arguing that it took too much time and had too many potential pitfalls. Yet Tammy Conroy would have truly appreciated the artistry and the execution of this one. And if somehow her mother had made it to heaven, she hoped the woman would take a peek from up high when Jerry Bagger discovered he’d been duped into a wild, crafty ride with an admission price of 40 million bucks.
She picked up the TV remote and channel-surfed as she ate her pretzel. The news was the same as always, all bad. More soldiers killed, more people starving to death, more people blowing themselves and others up in the name of God. Done with TV, she picked up the newspaper. Old habits died hard, and more than once she found herself looking at stories and wondering how to spin the details into a successful, creative con. That was over now, she told herself. Nailing Bagger was the pinnacle of her career; there was nowhere to go except down.
The last article she read caused her to sit up so fast she spilled her pretzel and mustard on the bed. She stared wide-eyed at the small, grainy photo that accompanied the back-page story. It was a short tribute to a distinguished scholar and man of letters. There was no cause given for the death of Jonathan DeHaven, only that he had died suddenly while at work at the Library of Congress. Though he’d died some time ago, funeral arrangements were just now complete and burial was set for the next day in D.C. Annabelle had no way of knowing that the delay had been caused by the medical examiner’s inability to find a cause of death. However, with no suspicious circumstances uncovered, the case had been set down to natural causes and the body released to the funeral home.
Annabelle grabbed her bag and started stuffing clothes in it. Her travel plans had just been changed. She was flying to Washington. To say good-bye to her ex-husband, Jonathan DeHaven, the only man who’d ever truly captured her heart.
"O
LIVER!
O
LIVER.”
Stone slowly came to and sat up with difficulty. He was lying fully dressed on the floor of his cottage, his hair still damp.
“Oliver!” Someone was banging on his front door.
Stone rose, stumbled toward the door and opened it.
Reuben stared back at him with an amused expression. “What the hell’s going on? You getting into the tequila again?” However, when he noted Stone’s obvious distress, he quickly turned serious. “Oliver, are you okay?”
“I’m not dead. I take that as a positive.”
He motioned for Reuben to come in, and Stone spent the next ten minutes filling him in on what had happened.
“Damn! You have no idea who they are?”
“Whoever it is, they’re well up on their torture techniques,” Stone said dryly, rubbing at the knot on his head. “I don’t think I can even
drink
water again.”
“So they know about the Behan connection?”
Stone nodded. “I’m not sure it was a total surprise to them, actually. But I think what I told them about Bradley and DeHaven was definitely new intelligence.”
“Speaking of DeHaven, his funeral is today. That’s what we were calling you about. Caleb is going, along with most of the Library of Congress. Milton’s coming too, and I switched my shift at the dock so I could go. We thought it might be important.”
Stone rose but immediately wobbled.
Reuben grabbed his arm. “Oliver, maybe you should just sit tight.”
“One more torture session like that, you’ll be attending
my
funeral. But the service today may be important. If only for those it happens to bring out into the open.”
The service at St. John’s Church next to Lafayette Park was very well attended by many library and government types. Also in attendance was Cornelius Behan with his wife, a tall, slender and very attractive woman in her early fifties with expertly colored blond hair. Her haughty air was intriguingly coupled with a wary, fragile bearing. Cornelius Behan was well known in Washington, and people continually went over to him, pressing the flesh and paying homage. He accepted it all with good graces, but Stone noted that he kept one hand on his wife’s arm at all times, as though she might fall without such support.
At Stone’s insistence the Camel Club members had scattered in the church so they could survey different sections of people. Though it was clear that whoever had kidnapped him knew of his involvement with the others, Stone didn’t want to give those people, in case they were here, a reminder that he had three friends who would make nice targets.
Stone sat in the very back, and his gaze swept the area with a practiced motion, until it stopped on one woman who sat off to the side. As she turned and flicked her hair out of her face, Stone’s gaze intensified. His previous training had made him highly skilled at remembering people’s features, and he had seen that profile before, although the woman he was looking at now was older.
After the service was over, the Camel Club members left the church together, stepping in behind Behan and his wife. Behan whispered something to his wife before turning and speaking to Caleb.
“Sad day,” he said.
“Yes, it is,” Caleb said stiffly. He looked at Mrs. Behan.
“Oh,” Behan said. “My wife, Marilyn. This is, uh . . .”
“Caleb Shaw. I worked at the library with Jonathan.”
He introduced the other Camel Club members to her.
Behan glanced at the church where the pallbearers were bringing the casket out. “Who’d have thought? He looked so healthy.”
“Many people do, right before they die,” Stone said absently. His gaze was on the woman he had spotted earlier. She had put on a black hat and sunglasses and was dressed in a long black skirt and boots. Tall and lean, she cut quite a figure amid all the grief.
Behan looked searchingly at Stone and tried to follow his gaze, but Stone broke it off before the man could do so. “I suppose they’re sure about his cause of death,” Behan said. He added quickly, “I mean, they tend to get these things wrong sometimes.”
Stone spoke up. “I suppose if they have, we’ll know about it at some point. The media usually ferrets those things out.”
“Yes, the journalists are rather good about that,” Behan said with mild distaste.
“My husband knows a lot about instant death,” Marilyn Behan blurted out. When they all stared at her, she hastily added, “I mean, because of what his company does.”
Behan smiled at Caleb and the others and said, “Excuse us.” He took his wife’s arm firmly and led her away. Had Stone detected a hint of amusement in the lady’s eyes?
Reuben’s gaze trailed after them. “I can only visualize that guy now with a pair of panties flying at half-staff on his dinky. I had to cram my fist in my mouth to stop from ripping a laugh during the service.”
“Nice of him to come today,” Stone said. “I mean, for being such a
casual
acquaintance.”
“The missus seems a complicated piece of work,” Caleb commented.
“Well, she strikes me as sharp enough to know about her husband’s indiscretions,” Stone said. “I can’t believe there’s much love lost between them.”
“And yet they stay together,” Milton added.
“For love of money, power, social status,” Caleb said in a disgusted tone.
“Hey, I wouldn’t have minded some of that in my marriages,” Reuben shot back. “I had the love, at least for a little while, but none of the other stuff.”
Stone was now eyeing the lady in black. “That woman over there, does she look familiar to you?”
“How can one tell?” Caleb said. “She’s wearing a hat and glasses.”
Stone pulled out the photo. “I think she’s this woman.”
They all crowded around the picture, and then Caleb and Milton stared directly at the woman and took turns pointing.
Stone hissed, “Do you two think you could be a little more obvious?”
The funeral party headed to the cemetery. After the gravesite service was finished, people started heading back to their cars. The lady in black lingered by the raised coffin as two workmen in jeans and blue shirts waited nearby. Stone glanced around and noted that Behan and his wife had already returned to their limo. He scanned the surrounding area looking for folks to whom the administration of water torture might be a daily part of life. And you
could
spot such people, if you knew how to look for them, which Stone did. However, his surveillance turned up nothing.
He motioned for the others to follow as he walked over to the lady in black. She had placed a hand on the rosewood coffin and seemed to be mumbling something, perhaps a prayer.
They waited until she was done. When she turned toward them, Stone said, “Jonathan was in the prime of life. It’s so sad.”
From behind her glasses she said, “How did you know him?”
Caleb said, “I worked with him at the library. He was my boss. He’ll be very missed.”
The woman nodded. “Yes, he will.”
“And how did you know him?” Stone asked casually.
“It was a long time ago,” she said vaguely.
“Long friendships are becoming rarer these days.”
“Yes, they are. Excuse me.” She stepped past them and started to walk off.
“It’s so curious, the medical examiner couldn’t find a cause of death,” Stone said loud enough for her to hear. The comment had the desired effect. She stopped and turned.
“The newspaper said he died of a heart attack,” the woman said.
Caleb shook his head. “He died because his heart stopped, but he didn’t have a heart attack. The papers just assumed, I guess.”
She took a few steps toward them. “I didn’t get your names.”
“Caleb Shaw. I work in the Rare Books reading room at the Library of Congress. This is my friend—”
Stone put out his hand. “Sam Billings, nice to meet you.” He motioned to the other two Camel Club members. “The big fellow is Reuben and that’s Milton. And you are?”
She ignored Stone and focused on Caleb. “If you work at the library, you must love books as much as Jonathan did.”
Caleb brightened as the subject changed to his specialty. “Oh, absolutely. In fact, in his will Jonathan named me his literary executor. I’m in the process right now of inventorying his collection, having it appraised and then sold, with the proceeds going to charity.”
He stopped talking when he saw Stone motioning him to shut up.
She said, “That certainly sounds like Jonathan. I’m assuming his father and mother are dead?”
“Oh, yes, his father’s been dead for years. His mother passed two years ago. Jonathan inherited their home.”
It seemed to Stone that the woman was working hard not to smile at this last piece of information.
What had the lawyer told Caleb? That the marriage had been annulled? Perhaps not by the wife, but by the groom at the insistence of his parents?
She said to Caleb, “It would be nice to see the house. And his collection. I’m sure it’s very extensive by now.”
“You knew about his collection?” Caleb asked.
“Jonathan and I shared a lot of things. I’m not going to be in town very long, so would tonight be okay?”
“As it happens, we were going over there this evening,” Stone answered. “If you’re staying at a hotel, we can pick you up.”
The woman shook her head. “I’ll meet you on Good Fellow Street.” She quickly walked to a waiting cab.
“Do you think it wise to ask this woman to Jonathan’s house?” Milton asked. “We really don’t even know her.”
Stone pulled the photo out of his pocket and held it up. “I think maybe we do. Or at least we will soon enough. On Good Fellow Street,” he added thoughtfully.