Elisha’s Bones (24 page)
Esperanza is mouthing something but I ignore her. I can almost see Manheim clenching his teeth and drumming nervous fingers on his desk. Probably what he’s weighing now are the merits of maintaining obtuseness.
“What do you want?”
I can respect a man who, seeing the world crumbling around him, makes a desperate lunge toward salvaging the situation. Manheim did a rapid calculation of the particulars, for he understands that I’ve nailed him. And his response is unadulterated survival.
“There are a lot of things I want. A nicer car, a lighter class load.” I pause, then say, “And to find out why you want me dead.”
For a moment I think I’ve lost him. Finally he says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There’s a hoarseness in Manheim’s voice that I can only attribute to anger.
I don’t feel like playing games. I could stay on the line and string him along, maybe drop Ernesto’s name, the dollar figure, the email address. I have enough of the pertinent information to, if not prove in court that he set up the hit, then at least unnerve him enough to force his hand. Instead, I’m feeling a sudden sympathy with Esperanza, and with all of female-kind: I want closure.
“If you’re interested in talking, I’m in the lobby.”
Before he can answer I end the call and, for good measure, cut the power. It wouldn’t do to have Mr. Reese try to call when I’m in the middle of holding my own against a man like Victor Manheim.
I barely have the phone back in my pocket before Espy grabs my arm. “What are you doing?”
I give her a wink. “I don’t have any idea.”
I’m trying to ignore the small fountain twenty feet beyond Manheim’s chair, but it’s difficult to avoid looking at it. An exquisite black onyx representation of the Egyptian god Anubis is sending a stream of water arcing from its muzzle, and I’m positioned at just the right spot for the water to appear to enter Manheim’s left ear and exit out his right. It’s all I can do to keep from laughing because, no matter who this man is, the illusion makes him seem anything but threatening. It’s equivalent to a public speaker imagining the audience in their underwear. I shift in my chair to change perspective and focus on the man who wants me dead.
By the time Manheim arrived, less than five minutes after our phone call, he had reclaimed the trappings of the consummate politician. He greeted me with a gracious smile and a handshake, as if we’re two old school chums reconnecting after several years, but I refuse to exchange pleasantries with Will’s, and possibly Al’s, killer.
We are semisequestered in a small oasis of comfortable chairs in a lounge area somewhere behind the Members Hall, only accessible by traversing a corridor barred to the general public.
A distinct odor of cigars lingers in the air, and this, coupled with the fact that it’s hidden in plain sight, gives the room a Masonic feel. I imagine this is one of the areas where the more senior representatives gather to unwind, to share in a camaraderie that transcends their respective political affiliations. With a start, it occurs to me that this is what I’d been expecting when Reese’s butler led me to the old man’s drawing room.
It bothers me that Espy and I are alone with this man, that we have been whisked away from the more public areas. Still, if I concentrate, I can hear the muffled sounds of people talking and milling about on the other side of the wall, which teases me with an unwarranted sense of safety. If Manheim has a gun equipped with a silencer, it is no help that we’re close to the main transit area. He could pop us both, and the gawking tourists would never know. And yet my impression is that, whatever his other work, the business that involves me is separated from his political service. He will not bring it to this place.
Manheim’s hands rest on the knee of his pressed slacks, and his expression is one of patrician warmth. Esperanza occupies a seat to my right, but beyond a perfunctory greeting back in the lobby, the Aussie has all but ignored her. This isn’t about anyone but Manheim and me.
“Can I ask what brings you to Canberra, Mr. Hawthorne?”
“You can ask, but I think it’s a waste of time. You already know why I’m here.”
At first he offers a smile and a head shake, but then his lips compress and the smile disappears. He leans forward and his eyes flick over me with undisguised distaste. “I’m going to have to ask you to remove your coat.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your coat, Dr. Hawthorne. I need you to take it off.”
I’m sure the look on my face conveys my puzzlement, yet Manheim seems unmoved.
“If you wish this conversation to continue, you will do as I ask.”
His body language leaves no doubt that if I do not comply he will end this meeting. And I’ve come too far to allow something unexpected, something seemingly harmless, to derail this train. I stand and slip out of my coat and then hand it to the Aussie when he reaches for it. He gives the thing a thorough pat-down, even turning the pockets inside out like a jail guard searching for contraband. The effort yields a few receipts and a half-empty pack of chewing gum, and he replaces these and then returns my coat. He looks at Esperanza.
“And you?”
Espy’s first response is to glower at him, but then she, too, seems to sense the tenuousness of the situation. Without a word, she slips out of her jacket and hands it to Manheim. He repeats the pat-down procedure, then returns the garment.
“Satisfied?” she asks.
“Hardly.”
He reaches a hand into his own jacket and I tense, waiting for the gun, even as I hold to my earlier assessment of Manheim’s willingness to act here. Too, for all its secluded feel, surely other people use this room. I am relieved when the item Manheim pulls from inside his coat resembles a small wand more than it does a firearm. Before I can get a good look at it, he leans close and runs it down my body, holding it about three inches from me. This lasts less than twenty seconds, after which he repeats the procedure on Esperanza. My guess is that he’s looking for some type of recording or eavesdropping equipment, and I’m more than willing to put up with the indignity, because Manheim’s careful approach indicates he has something to hide.
He returns the wand to his pocket and settles back in his chair. There is silence in the room for a while, broken only by the muffled sounds of activity filtering to us from other areas of the building. It takes me some time before I recognize the distasteful atmosphere as something familiar. In my younger days I hated having to prostrate myself before one grant board or another, dumbing down my research enough so that dour, unqualified people would loose the purse strings and give me enough money to dig in peace for a year. I feel the same condescension now coming from Manheim. And the problem is that, unlike those sessions before the financial gatekeepers, this time I might not be the smartest one in the room. At least I don’t have the same level of information that Manheim possesses. It puts me in the weaker position, a place where my footing isn’t as solid. It irritates me.
“Now that we’re done with the cloak-and-dagger routine, would you mind telling me why you tried to have me killed?” Directness is my only party favor at this bash.
Manheim waits a few beats before answering. As I watch his face, I’m pleased to see the same irritation I myself am feeling. He’s wondering how I found him out, how I tracked him here.
“Out of more than thirty million people in Australia, why would you pick me as this so-called assassin?”
“Out of the fifty million people in Venezuela, why would you pick me to do in?”
Manheim leans forward in his chair and crosses his arms over his knees—the posture of a confidant. “Maybe you were the only one digging somewhere you didn’t belong.”
I ignore the widening of Esperanza’s eyes, half seen in my peripheral vision. My heart, though, picks up its pace. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but thinly veiled admissions were not on the list.
I, too, lean forward. “What wasn’t I meant to find?”
He snorts and settles back in the chair. “How much is your employer paying you?”
“Who says I have an employer?”
“You’re using a Reese Industries corporate card. You might as well hand out business cards.”
He’s got me there, although it pleases me to learn he doesn’t know I’m no longer in Reese’s employ.
“I’m a consultant.”
“A treasure hunter.”
“Semantics.”
“Indeed,” Manheim says.
He pauses and seems to be considering something, then gives a half smile.
“You’re obviously resourceful, Dr. Hawthorne. I’ll grant you that. Tell me—is it that quality, or pigheadedness, which makes a man stumble blindly through a dangerous neighborhood after nightfall?”
“Interesting analogy, Victor. Am I the blind man? Or is that you? I have trouble with metaphors.” I was wrong: directness is not my only party favor. I also have false bravado. It’s like an insincere charm. And inflating beneath it all is a latent anger that I want to nurse until it is large enough to force me to kill this man with my bare hands. And I want him to know it’s for my brother that he dies.
“Don’t think I’ve come unprepared for this meeting, Dr. Hawthorne. I know a great deal about you. I know that you were born in Athens, Maine. That you graduated from Cambridge with a 3.7 GPA. You then spent three years working with Dr. Wherle in Peru, and another three with Dr. Winstead in several locations.” He pauses then, and I see what might be the hint of a smile. “Your brother died while you were excavating a site in the Valley of the Kings in 2003, and ever since then you’ve been teaching at a charming little institution in North Carolina.”
It’s like being forcibly undressed—my life recited in a pithy paragraph. The fact that I’m astute enough to understand what he’s doing is of only marginal help. I affect an unimpressed smirk, even though he’s picked at the wound that is my brother’s death.
“All public record,” I say. “A few minutes with a search engine.”
“Your parents are John and Madeline. Your father is dead and your mother lives alone in your family home on Denton Street. She spends her time volunteering at Athens Presbyterian and sitting on the board of the Fitzgerald Art Museum.” He stops, fixes me with a look of pure malevolence, then says, “On Tuesdays and Thursdays she leaves her home at precisely 3:30 in the afternoon, arriving at the museum between 3:50 and 3:55, depending on traffic at Broadmore.”
Even with my knowing the reaction he wants to elicit from me—even this doesn’t insulate me against what’s been revealed. Without putting a voice to it, he’s just levied a threat against both me and my family. As I try to formulate a response, the chief thought in my head is that Manheim is something more than a second-rate political hopeful. And he’s just demonstrated resources enough to make good on his threat. That in itself should be enough to force me to gather up my toys and go home—to promise to never again stick my nose where it doesn’t belong, and return to teaching uninspired youth. The urge is magnified when Esperanza places a cautioning hand on my arm, a gesture that barely cuts through the red haze starting to cloud my vision.
Manheim nods. “I see you understand.”
I understand that I want to beat this man until his face is an unrecognizable pulp beneath my fists. But that would accomplish only the assuagement of a personal need. If this man is more than bluff—and his past actions force me to believe he is—then there’s more at stake than my own satisfaction.
With the stakes raised, and made personal, the need to know is accentuated. It’s like a slow burn in my blood—a lingering of hot sauce on the tongue hours after the meal. “What was in KV65?” I ask.
I think the man sitting across from me understands my need, because the question causes a slight break in his façade. For a brief instant I see something—not quite empathy but maybe an acknowledgment from one who can understand this desire to fill in the gaps. But the look is gone before it can solidify, and it does nothing to make me hate him any less.
The silence in the room grows heavy, absolute. If I were sweating, I would hear each drop strike the floor. When Manheim leans forward, a strange energy passes between us. I can feel it crisscross my skin, run beneath Esperanza’s hand that still rests on my arm. And when he speaks, I can almost hear the words before they leave his lips.
“Dr. Hawthorne, there are some things that were never meant to be discovered.”
I
sense more than see Espy beside me. I sense her through the worried anger that threatens to upset the rhythm of my feet, the sun full in my eyes as I hit the white stone steps, dodging a pair of elderly women in matching sweaters, embroidered Scottish terriers wearing green hats. Because of urgency, I’ve reverted back to my old phone. I come close to a snarl as I will Duckey to answer, as I imagine him in the throes of some holiday ritual while his phone emits an impotent ringtone in an empty room. It’s never felt less like Christmas than it does right now. I’m detached from all the familiar things I associate with the holiday season. I’m on the outside of it, and I find that I’m resentful—of Duckey, of his family, of whatever it is that’s keeping him from answering his phone.
By the time I reach the bottom step, the phone is on its eighth ring and I’m about to jam my thumb onto the disconnect button when I hear a click and then my friend’s voice.
“Jack?”
“Do you still have a friend in the Bangor police department?”
There’s no hesitation in his voice, as if he can hear something in my own that registers the need for a quick response, for a setting aside of the usual playful banter. “Yeah. Carrie Preston. She’s a detective in the fifteenth precinct.”
I let go of a sigh that’s been building inside my lungs, just waiting for an opportunity to escape, to mark the fact that something, however small, has gone right.
“I need a favor, Ducks.”
“Name it.”
“I need someone to get my mom away from the house. They have to take her somewhere safe.”
What Duckey says next is a testament to our deep friendship, to a trust not easily granted. And it denotes another item on the ledger for which I’ll be paying for the better part of the foreseeable future.
