Extreme Denial (31 page)

Bennie stared at Decker as if trying to understand a foreign language. “What possible reason would make me want to do this?”

Esperanza’s telephone conversation ended. He turned toward Decker.

“Any news?” Decker’s stomach cramped.

“No.”

“Thank God. At least, she hasn’t been reported dead. I’ve still got hope.”

“She?” Bennie raised his thick eyebrows.

“A friend of mine. I’m trying to find her. She’s in trouble.”

“And Nick Giordano can help get her
out
of trouble?” Bennie asked.

“He definitely has the power to do that,” Decker said. “That’s what I need to talk to him about.”

“You still haven’t given me a reason to help you.”

“I love this woman, Bennie. I want you to do this because I love her.”

“You’re making a joke, right?”‘

“Am I laughing?”

“Please. I’m a businessman.”

“Then here’s another reason. Nick Giordano has a special interest in this woman. He thinks she killed Joey Scolari.” Bennie flinched. “You’re talking about
Diana
Scolari? Joey’s
wife
? Jesus, Nick has everybody looking for her.”

“Well, it might be I can help him find her.”

“Make sense. If you love her, why would you turn her over to Nick?”

“So she won’t have to run for the rest of her life.”

“Of course not. She’ll be dead. You’re still not making sense.”

“Then maybe
this
will make sense,” Decker said. “If Nick Giordano is happy with the way my conversation with him turns out, he might want to reward anybody who showed the good judgment to make the conversation happen.”

Bennie scowled, calculating.

3

The phone on the other end rang only once before a man’s raspy voice said, “You’d better have a damned good reason for calling this number.”

Immediately Decker heard the beep of an answering machine and dictated his message. “This is Steve Decker. My name ought to be familiar to you. Your people were watching me in Santa Fe. I have something important I need to discuss with Mr. Giordano. It concerns Diana Scolari and the murder of her husband. It also concerns a U.S. marshal named Brian McKittrick. I’ll call back in thirty minutes.” Decker put the phone back on its hook and stepped from the littered glass booth into the dusky rain, approaching Esperanza, who stood in the doorway of a closed appliance store. “Getting tired of following me?”

“Not when you’re taking me to such interesting places.”

4

The flower shop was on Grand Street,
OPEN SUNDAYS AND HOLIDAYS,
a sign on the door announced. A bell rang when Decker opened the door and stepped into the shop. The funeral-home scent of flowers surrounded him. Curious, Esperanza glanced around at the closed-circuit television cameras above the abundant colorful displays, then turned toward the sound of footsteps.

A matronly middle-aged woman wearing gardener’s gloves and a smock came out of a back room. “I’m sorry. It’s almost seven. My assistant was supposed to lock the door. We’re closed.”

“I guess I lost track of the time,” Decker said. “It’s been a while since I did business with you.” He picked up a pen and a business card on the counter, wrote something, then showed it to the woman. “This is my account number, and this is how my name is spelled.”

“One minute while I examine our records.”

The woman returned to the back room and closed the door behind her. A mirror next to that door was two-way, Decker knew. An armed man watched him from behind it, he also knew, just as two other armed men in the basement watched the monitors of the closed-circuit cameras.

Not letting his troubled thoughts show, he pretended to be interested in various attractive corsages that were visible behind the glass doors of a cooler. He was appalled by the disarming ease with which he was slipping back into his former life.

Esperanza glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes until you have to make that phone call.”

The woman came back into the display room.

“Mr. Evans, our records show that you left a deposit with us two years ago.”

“Yes. I’ve come to close out the account.”

“Our records also show that you always ordered a particular type of flower.”

“Two dozen yellow roses.”

“Correct. Please, step into our display room.”

The small room was to the left of the counter. It had photographs on the walls, showing the numerous flower arrangements the shop could provide. It also had a plain table and two wooden chairs, where Decker and Esperanza sat after Decker closed and locked the door. Esperanza parted his lips to say something but was interrupted when the matronly woman came in through another door, set a briefcase on the table, and left.

The moment the door clicked shut, Decker opened the briefcase. Esperanza leaned forward, seeing objects cushioned within niches cut into plastic foam: a Walther .380 pistol, an extra magazine, a box of ammunition, and two small electronic objects, the purpose of which wasn’t obvious.

Decker couldn’t subdue his self-loathing. “I hoped I had touched this stuff for the last time.”

5

“You’d better have a damned good reason for calling this number.”

Beep.

“This is Steve Decker again. I have something important I need to discuss with Mr. Giordano. It concerns Diana Scolari and—”

A man picked up the phone on the other end. His voice had the arrogant tone of someone accustomed to giving orders. “What do you know about Diana Scolari?”

“I need to speak to Mr. Giordano.”

“
I’m
Mr. Giordano,” the man said angrily.

“Not
Nick
Giordano. Your voice sounds too young.”

“My father doesn’t take calls from people he doesn’t know. Tell me about Diana Scolari.”

“And Brian McKittrick.”

“Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”

“Put your father on.”

“Anything you have to say about Diana Scolari, you can say to
me”

Decker hung up, waited two minutes, then put additional coins in the pay phone and pressed the same numbers.

This time, there wasn’t an answering machine. Instead, halfway through the first ring, a hoarse elderly male voice said, “Nick Giordano.”

“I was just talking to your son about Diana Scolari.”

“And Brian McKittrick.” The voice sounded strained. “My son says you also mentioned Brian McKittrick.”

“That’s right.”

“How do I know you’re not a cop?”

“When we meet, you can search me to make sure I’m not wearing a wire.”

“That still won’t mean you’re not a cop.”

“Hey, if you’re that paranoid, maybe there’s no point in trying to arrange a meeting.”

For a moment, the line was silent. “Where are you?”

“Lower Manhattan. “

“Stand on the Fifth Avenue side of the Flatiron Building. A car will be there to pick you up in an hour. How will the driver know it’s you?”

Decker glanced at Esperanza. “I’ll be holding two dozen yellow roses.”

6

In a coffee shop just down Fifth Avenue from the Flatiron Building, Decker stayed silent until the waiter brought their order and left. They had chosen a far corner table. The place wasn’t busy. Even so, Decker made sure no one was looking in his direction before he leaned down, opened his travel bag, and removed a small object that he had earlier taken from the briefcase at the flower shop. The object was metal, the size of a matchbox.

“What
is
that thing?” Esperanza asked.

“It sends out a homing signal. And this”—Decker reached into his travel bag and withdrew a metal box the size of a pack of cigarettes—”receives it, as long as the signal doesn’t come from farther than a mile. Traffic moves south on Fifth Avenue past the Flatiron Building. You’ll be waiting in a taxi north of here—at Madison Square Park. After I get into the car Giordano sends for me, give me fifteen seconds so you won’t be obvious, then follow. The receiver operates visually. This needle points to the left, right, or straight ahead, depending on which direction the signal is coming from. This gauge tells you from one to ten how close you are, ten being the closest.” Decker flicked a switch and put the receiver ahead of the transmitter. “Yes. The system’s working. Take the receiver. If something goes wrong, our rendezvous is in front of this coffee shop at the top of each hour. But if I don’t show up by six tomorrow night, get back to Santa Fe as fast as you can.” Decker glanced at his watch. “It’s almost time. Let’s go.”

“What about your bag?”

“Keep it.” The bag contained the pistol, the spare magazine, and the box of ammunition. Decker knew he’d be searched. There was no way he was going to spook Giordano by trying to carry a weapon to a meeting with him. “Ten minutes after I arrive at wherever I’m being taken, phone the number Bennie gave me. Ask to speak to me. Make it sound as if bad things will happen if I don’t come to the phone.”

“And?”

“Follow my lead when I talk to you.”

They reached the exit from the coffee shop.

“You won’t have any trouble catching a cab around here.”

“Decker.”

“What?”

“Are you sure about this?”

“No.”

“Then maybe there’s another way.”

“The last thing I want to do is go out there. But I’m running out of time. Maybe I’ve
already
run out of time. I don’t know where else to go except straight to the source of the problem.”

Esperanza hesitated. “Good luck.”

“Beth needs it more than me.”

“But what if ...”

“They’ve already killed her?”

“Yes.”

“Then what happens to me doesn’t matter.” ‘

A minute later, during which Decker hoped that Esperanza had time to hail a cab, he stepped into the darkening rain and turned right, walking toward the Flatiron Building. Worried about what McKittrick might be doing to Beth, Decker couldn’t help being reminded of the similar rain that had fallen the night McKittrick shot his father in Rome.

He reached the Flatiron Building five minutes ahead of schedule and stood in the shelter of another doorway, holding the yellow roses in plain view. His emotions were complicated: various levels of doubt, fear, and apprehension. But only the doubt applied to himself. The rest were directed elsewhere: fear for Beth, apprehension about what might already have happened to her. But most of all, he felt seized with determination. It was the first time he had ever engaged in a mission in which the mission truly meant more to him than his own life.

He recalled something Beth had told him two nights earlier, Fiesta Friday, after they had left the film producer’s party and driven back to Decker’s house—their last moment of normalcy, it seemed at the time, although Decker now realized that
nothing
about their relationship had been normal. Moonlight through his bedroom windows had gleamed on them while they made love, making their bodies resemble ivory— the bittersweet memory made him feel hollow. Afterward, as they lay next to each other, side by side, Decker’s arms around her, his chest against her back, bis groin against her hips, his knees against hers, legs bent, in a spoon position, she had lapsed into so long a silence that he thought she had fallen asleep. He remembered inhaling the fragrance of her hair. When she spoke, her hesitant voice had been so soft that he barely heard it.

“When I was a little girl,” she murmured, “my mother and father had terrible fights.”

She lapsed into silence again.

Decker waited.

“I never knew what the fights were about,” Beth continued softly, not without tension. “I still don’t. Infidelity. Money problems. Drinking. Whatever. Every night, they screamed at each other. Sometimes it was worse than just screaming. They threw things. They hit each other. The fights were especially horrible on holidays—Thanksgiving, Christmas. My mother would prepare a big meal. Then, just before dinner, something would happen to make them start yelling at each other again. My father would storm out of the house. My mother and I would eat dinner alone, and all the while she would tell me what a rotten bastard he was.”

More silence. Decker knew enough not to prompt her, sensing that whatever she wanted to say was so private, she had to reveal it at her own pace.

“When the fights got worse than I could bear, I begged my parents to stop. I pushed at my father, trying to get him to stop hitting my mother. All that did was make him turn against
me
,” Beth finally said. “I still have a mental image of my father’s fist coming at me. I was afraid he would kill me. This happened at night. I ran into my bedroom and tried to figure out where to hide. The shouts in the living room got louder. I stuffed my pillows, one in front of the other, under my bed covers to make it seem as if I was sleeping there. I must have seen that trick on television or something. Then I crawled under the bed, and that’s where I slept, hoping I was protected from my father if he came in to stab me. I slept that way every night after that.”

Beth’s shoulders heaved slightly, in a way that made Decker think she was sobbing. “Was
your
childhood like that?” she asked.

“No. My father was a career soldier. He was rigid, very much into discipline and control. But he was never violent with me.”

“Lucky.” In the darkness, Beth wiped at her eyes. “I used to read stories about knights and fair ladies, King Arthur, that sort of thing. I kept dreaming that I was in those stories, that I had a knight to protect me. Even as a kid, I was good at drawing. I used to make sketches of what I thought the knight would look like.” Covers rustling, Beth turned to him, her face now in moonlight, tears glinting on her cheeks. “If I could draw that knight again, he’d look like you. You make me feel safe. I don’t need to sleep under the bed anymore.” Two hours later, the hit team had broken into the house.

7

Rain gusting at Decker’s face brought him out of his memory. Racked with emotion, he studied the traffic that sped through puddles past the Flatiron Building. Conflicting questions tortured him. Had the story Beth told him been true, or had she been setting her hook deeper, lying to elicit more sympathy from him, programming him to protect her regardless of the threat? It came down to what he had been brooding about since yesterday, when he had learned that she had deceived him about her background. Did she love him, or had she been using him? He
had
to know. He
had
to find her and learn the truth, although if the truth wasn’t what he wanted to hear, he didn’t know what he would do, for the fact was,
he
loved
her
completely.