We Know

Jocelyn was in the vicinity again. "How you doing here?"

"Good, thanks."

She cleared and set down another plate. I sat cross-armed for a few moments before curiosity got the better of me. I stuck my fingers into the plate, licked them. Chocolate profiteroles. Something to the side of the plate was moist and firm. I fished it out of the sauce. Explosion of strawberry. I'd have to bring Induma here someday. If I got the chance. So many dates I'd planned in my head since we'd broken up. All those elaborate fantasies of reconciliation that I never acted on. Rarely did I go to a new restaurant, a garden, an art-house movie that I didn't think about having her with me.

I could hear the Voice breathing, the sound of it bringing my attention back to the situation at hand. "I'll play along," I said. "What's the other part of what Charlie wanted to give me?"

"You got one key. There's another."

"Another key. Okay." I set down my hands angrily. "Forget any keys, or cash, until I know what angle you're coming into this from."

"I knew Charlie."

"Knew him how? Tried to kill him? You're his twin brother? What?"

"I owe something to his memory. Do you know what it means to owe someone? After they're dead?" The voice trembled, ever so slightly, with emotion.

The white noise around us seemed to swell until I could hear each distinct element. "You're his son," I said.

"You're not nearly as clever as you think you are."

"Well, that's bad news," I said, "because I don't strike myself as particularly clever."

"Charlie had a lot of respect for Caruthers," the

Voice said. "He was going to try to help him. He told me he had something Caruthers needed for his election bid."

That Caruthers needed. My stomach sank at the name.

The Voice continued, "Charlie's only fault was…"

"What?"

I could hear the flicks of his fingernails against his scalp, nervously scratching. "He thought he could get money for it," he said.

"Two hundred thousand dollars, maybe," I said.

"Or maybe four. Half up front. Half later. But there was no later."

"Extortion money," I said.

"I suppose some people might consider it that."

"So Caruthers paid him some of the money, then brought down the hammer."

"I don't know who paid," the Voice said. "I don't know what it was. But money was delivered. And then he was killed."

It sounded like he was fed a version of the truth from Charlie, but was that version correct? The Voice had said he didn't want whatever came with that key; he'd been kept insulated from the hard facts, which made it hard to untangle reality from conjecture. But everything he'd told me pointed to Caruthers. Which, in turn, pointed to Frank.

I nudged the plate away. My mouth was dry. "How was Frank Durant mixed up in all this?" I asked.

"Frank Durant? Hell if I know. I do know that he and Charlie went back to the old days. Thick as thieves, those two."

His choice of wording did not seem accidental. In light of the night-vision goggles, I tried to keep my face impassive, but it was a struggle.

Fortunately, the Voice didn't seem to notice. He continued, "Charlie did this for me, but it turned into more. He wanted to do what was right. He wanted whatever he had to be made public."

"But his conscience only kicked in once he got double-crossed by Caruthers's buyers," I said sardonically. No response from the darkness. I added, "And you won't see it through."

"I can't. I can't be seen. It's not safe for me right now. This is all… It's all my fault."

"How are they into you?" I asked. Again no answer. I said, "So you have the other piece."

"No. Just the other key. There's another P.O. box, another item. He kept them separate. Insurance. But you can't carry insurance against these people."

"How do I get the key?"

"We swap," he said. "The money for the key."

"When?"

"Soon. I had to see if I could trust you first."

"Can you?"

"Yes."

"How are you reachable?" I asked.

"I'm not."

Jocelyn came back. "Bet you're done with that dessert?"

I waited patiently while she cleared, humming to herself. Then she said, "I'll be back in a minute with some coffee."

I waited for her footsteps to fade, and then I said, "So how do we do this? Voice? Voice?"

But I was alone, talking to the darkness.

Chapter 24

Slumped against the wall of the elevator, I ran through the ambiguities and half answers I'd gotten out of the Voice. For every question I'd knocked off the list, four more had popped up. After being led out of the darkness by Jocelyn, I'd asked the staff about my mysterious dinner partner. Of course no one had seen anything-the blind waitstaff at least had an excuse-but the host's goatee had twitched with a faint smirk that said he was exercising Swiss discretion.