The Killing Kind (19 page)

“Like the movie director,” he explained when he at last came to the phone. “Ernst, you know?”

“Any relation?”

“No, but I directed traffic a couple of times.”

“I don't think it counts.”

“You used to be a bull?”

“That's right.”

“How does the PI world pay?”

“Depends how fussy you are. There's plenty of work out there if you're prepared to follow errant husbands and wives. Most of it doesn't pay too well, so you have to do a lot of it to make ends meet. Why, don't you like being a cop?”

“Sure, I like it okay, but it pays shit. I'd make more money emptying garbage cans.”

“Different version of the same job.”

“You said it. You asking about Epstein?”

“Anything you can give.”

“I ask why?”

“Trade?”

“Sure.”

“I'm investigating the suicide of a girl who may or may not have had some contact with Epstein in the past.”

“Name?”

“Grace Peltier. CID III up in Machias, Maine, have it.”

“When did she die?”

“About two weeks ago.”

“What links her to Epstein?”

I didn't see any harm in turning up the heat under the Fellowship, if I could. Anyway, Lutz's interview with Paragon was contained in the case records.

“The Fellowship. It was one of the organizations Epstein was making moves against. Grace Peltier may have met with its figurehead, Carter Paragon, shortly before she died.”

“That it?”

“There may be more. I just got started on it. Listen, if I can help at all, I will.”

There was a pause for at least thirty seconds. I thought the phone had gone dead.

“I'll trust you, but just once.”

“Once is all I need.”

“Officially, it's homicide. We've ruled out robbery as a motive, and a possible connection to the firebombing of the Jewish League for Tolerance is currently under investigation.”

“Neat. What are you leaving out?”

Lubitsch lowered his voice. “Postmortem found a puncture wound in Epstein's armpit. They're still trying to get confirmation of what was injected into him, but the latest guess is some kind of venom.” There came the sound of papers shuffling. “I'm reading here, okay, but it's neurotoxic, which means that it blocks transmission of nerve impulses to the muscles, overstimulating the transmitters”—he stumbled on the next words—“acetylcholine and noradrenaline, causing paralysis of both the”—more stumbles—“sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, resulting in sudden and severe stress on the body.”

Lubitsch took a deep breath.

“In layman's terms, the venom caused acceleration of heartbeat, increase in blood pressure, breathing difficulties, and muscle paralysis. Epstein suffered a massive heart attack within two minutes. He was dead within three. Symptoms—and this is strictly on the QT, you understand?—are systemic, usually associated with spiders. Basically, unless someone comes up with a better theory, the perp took Yossi Epstein down, squatted on his chest, then injected him with a huge dose of spider venom. They're guessing black widow, but the tests aren't complete. Plus, the perp took a patch of skin from his lower back, a couple of inches of it. Now is that weird shit, or is that weird shit?”

I put down my pen and looked at the garbled notes I had written-on Rachel's telephone message pad. “Anyone else interested in this?” I asked.

“What is that sound?” replied Lubitsch. “Why, it's the sound of somebody stretching the bounds of professional courtesy.”

“Sorry,” I said, “but I take it that's a yes.”

Lubitsch sighed. “Minneapolis PD. Possible connection to the death of a doctor named Alison Beck one week ago. She was found with black widow spiders sealed up inside her mouth.”

“My God.”

“Uh-huh.”

Lubitsch seemed to enjoy my response, because he continued: “ME reckons the spiders were subdued with carbon dioxide, then inserted into her mouth as they were starting to revive. Only one widow survived: the rest bit each other, and bit her. The increase in her blood pressure triggered a stroke, and that killed her.”

“They have any leads?”

“She performed abortions, so they're rounding up the local crazies-while trying to keep most of the details from the press. Seems like they had a bitch of a job getting her out of the car.”

“Why?”

“Whoever killed her filled it with recluses.”

Pudd.

I thanked him, promised him a return call, and hung up. I logged on to the Internet and in less than two minutes a picture of Alison Beck was on the screen in front of me. She looked younger than she had in the photograph in Jack Mercier's study; younger and happier. The reporters had done a pretty good job of nailing deep background sources, even to the extent of speculating that Alison Beck's death might have been caused by a spider bite. It's hard to keep details like that quiet.

I turned off the computer and called Rachel, since the meeting was due to break for coffee at eleven. “Anyone have time to look at that card yet?” I asked.

“Well, a big affectionate good morning to you too,” she replied. “Truly, the love is gone.”

“It's not gone, it's just distracted. Well?”

“They're still looking at it. Now go away before I forget why I'm with you.”

She hung up, which left me with a choice: either do nothing, or try my luck with the Minneapolis PD. Unfortunately, I had no contacts over there and I didn't think that my natural charm would get me very far. I tried calling Mercier again but got the brush-off from the maid. With nothing else to do until later that evening, when Rachel and I were due to attend Cleopatra at the Wang, I dressed, took a Paul Johnston novel from Rachel's shelf, and headed down the stairs to kill some time along Newbury Street. There was a comic book store on Newbury, I recalled. I thought it might be worth a visit.

Al Z, it emerged, had already made the arrangements for our meeting. As soon as I stepped into the street, a car door opened and a huge shape emerged from a green Buick Regal parked across the street.

“Nice wheels, Tommy,” I remarked. “Planning to take the boys to Disney World?”

Tommy Caci grinned. He was wearing a sleeveless black T-shirt and skintight black jeans. His trapezius muscles were so huge he looked like he'd swallowed a coat hanger, and his massive shoulders tapered to a tiny waist. All things considered, Tommy Caci resembled a walking martini glass, but without the fragility.

“Welcome to Boston,” he said. “Al Z would appreciate a courtesy call. Get in the car. Please.”

“You mind if I make my own way?” I asked. Nothing would persuade me to get in the back of that Buick, no matter how much Tommy smiled. I'd prefer to walk blindfolded down the fast lane of the interstate. I didn't like to think of some of the trips people had taken in that car.

Tommy's smile didn't falter. “Easier this way. Al don't like to be kept waiting.”

“I'm sure. Still, how about I take some air and follow you on over?”

Tommy shrugged. It wasn't worth getting rough over. “You want to take some air, that's fine with us,” he said resignedly.

So I walked over to Al Z's office on Newbury Street. Admittedly, the Buick shadowed me every step of the way, never going above a couple of miles an hour, but it made me feel kind of wanted. When I arrived at the comic book store, Tommy waved at me and the Buick shot away, scattering tourists from its path. I rang the buzzer, gave my name, then pushed the door and walked up the bare stairs to Al Z's office.

It hadn't changed a whole lot since the last time I was there. It was still bare boards and peeling paint. There were still two gunmen inside the door, and there was still nowhere to sit apart from a worn red sofa against one wall and the chair behind Al Z's desk, a chair currently occupied by Al Z himself.

He wore a black suit, a black shirt, and a black tie, and his gray hair was slicked back from his skull, making his thin face look even more cadaverous than it usually did. A pair of hearing aids were visible in his small, pointed ears. Al Z's hearing had been failing in recent years. It must have been all those guns going off around him.

“I see you broke out your summer wardrobe,” I said.

He looked down at his clothes as if seeing them for the first time. “I was at a funeral,” he said.

“You arrange it?”

“Nah, just paying my last respects to a friend. All my friends are dying. Soon I'll be the only one left.” I noticed that Al Z seemed pretty certain he was going to outlive his friends. Knowing Al Z, I figured he was probably right.

He gestured at the sofa. “Take a seat. I don't get so many visitors.”

“Can't understand why, this place looking so welcoming and all.”

“I got Spartan tastes.” He smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Well, this is just my lucky day. First a funeral, then it turns out I'm a stop on the Charlie Parker Goodwill Tour. Next thing you know, my dick will drop off and my plants will die.”

“I'll be sorry to see your plants go.”

Al Z stretched his long body in his chair. It was like watching a snake uncoil. “And how is the elusive Louis? We don't hear much about him now. Seems like the only person he kills for these days is you.”

“The only person he ever killed for was himself,” I replied.

“Whatever. The only reason you can still take the subway when you visit New York is because your associate will whack anyone who makes a move on you. I think he'd even whack me if he had to, and I consider myself to be a pretty nice guy, all things considered. Well, most things considered.” He shook his head in bemusement. “Now what can I do for you, apart from letting you walk out of here alive?”

I hoped he didn't mean it. Al Z and I had had our run-ins in the past; at one point he'd given me twenty-four hours to live if I didn't find some money that had been stolen from under the nose of the underboss Tony Celli. I found the money, so I was still alive, but Tony Clean was dead. I had watched Al Z kill him. The only aspect of it that bothered Al Z was the cost of the bullet. A lot of Tony's men had died in Dark Hollow, due in no small part to the efforts of Louis and me, but Tony was the only made man to be killed, and since Al Z had killed him that took a lot of heat off all of us. We in turn had taken the heat off Al Z by returning the money Tony had stolen, with interest. My relationship with Al Z could have been used to define “complicated” in the dictionary.

Since the end of the Celli affair, Al Z had been keeping tabs on me. He knew enough about my business to learn that I was investigating the Fellowship and that, somehow, the man named Mr. Pudd was tied into its workings.

“As I recall,” I pointed out gently, “you invited me along.”

Al Z pretended to be taken aback. “So I did. It must have been a moment of weakness.” He immediately dispensed with the small talk. “I hear that you may be sticking your nose into the affairs of the Fellowship.”

“Why would that be of interest to you?”

“A lot of things are of interest to me. How did you enjoy meeting-Mr. Ragle?”

“He's a worried man. He thinks somebody is trying to kill him.”

“I fear Mr. Ragle may be about to suffer grievously for his art.”

He gestured at the two gunmen. They left the room and closed the door behind them.

Al Z stood and walked to the window, then stared down on the tourists shopping on Newbury, his basilisk glare flicking from face to face. Nobody died.

“I like this street,” he said, almost to himself. “I like its normality. I like the fact that I can step out onto the sidewalk and the people-around me are worrying about their mortgages, or the cost of coffee beans, or whether they just missed their train. I walk down there, and I feel normal by association.” He turned around to look at me. “You, on the other hand, you seem normal. You dress like any other mook. You don't look no better or no worse than a hundred other guys on the street. But you step in here, and you make me nervous. I swear, my fucking palms itch when I see you. Don't get me wrong; I respect you. I may even like you a little. But I see you and I get this sense of impending doom, like the fucking ceiling is about to cave in. The presence of your pet killers in Boston doesn't make me sleep any easier. I know you got a woman here, and I know too that you were eating with your friends at Anago last night. You had the beef, by the way.”

“It was good.”

“For thirty bucks, it better be real good. It better sing a fucking song while you chew on it. You talk business, or pleasure?”

“A little of both.”

He nodded. “That's what I thought. You want to know why I pointed Ragle toward you, why I'm interested in this man who calls himself Pudd? Maybe I figure, what can I do for Charlie Parker? Whose life can I turn to shit by letting you dig around in it?”

I waited. I wasn't sure where the conversation was going but the turn that it suddenly took surprised me.

“Or maybe it's something else,” he continued, and the tone of his voice changed. It now sounded a little querulous. It was an old man's voice. Al Z turned away from the window and walked over to the sofa, seating himself only a few feet away from me. His eyes, I thought, were haunted.

“You think one good action can make up for a lifetime of evil acts?” he asked.

“That's not for me to judge,” I replied.

“A diplomatic answer, but not the truth. You judge, Parker. That's what you do, and I respect you because you act on your judgment, just like me. We're two of a kind, you and I. Try again.”

I shrugged. “Maybe, if it's an act of genuine repentence, but I don't know how the scales of judgment are weighted.”

“You believe in salvation?”

“I hope for it.”

“Then you believe in reparation too. Reparation is the shadow cast by salvation.”

He folded his hands in his lap. They were very white and very clean, as if he spent hours each day scraping the dirt from the wrinkles and cracks on his skin.

“I'm getting old. I looked around at the graveside this morning and I saw dead men and women. Between them all, they had maybe a couple of years to live. Pretty soon, we're all going to be judged, and we'll all be found wanting. The best we have to hope for is mercy, and I don't believe you get mercy in the next life if you haven't shown it in this one.