Hell's Horizon (4 page)

4

F
irst things first—we had to take Nic’s body back to the Skylight. Vincent offered me an out but I said I’d see the job through. I’d been trained not to let personal feelings get in the way of work.

We said nothing as we crossed the city. What was there to say?

I averted my eyes as we bundled the corpse into the elevator at the Skylight. The general manager was waiting on the eighth floor with four Troops, who silently accepted our consignment. Vincent accompanied them to 812, making sure everything was suitably arranged. I stayed by the elevator, rubbing my hands up and down the sides of my thighs, wondering if this could be a dream. Maybe it was still Friday and I was upriver with Bill, dozing on the damp grassy banks.

“C’mon,” Vincent said, taking me by the elbow and guiding me into the elevator. “I phoned Tasso. He’s busy but said he’d call Frank and have him meet us back at Party Central.” I could tell Vincent was bursting with questions but he kept them to himself.

Frank was standing by the gate at Party Central when we arrived. He told Vincent to park the ambulance and beat it. For once Vincent didn’t argue.

We sat in a downstairs office and I told Frank about me and Nic Hornyak. He listened sympathetically, phrasing his questions delicately. When I was through, he took me for lunch to Shankar’s. We ate quietly, heads down. I went for a long walk after that, sticking to backstreets, oblivious to my surroundings, trying not to think about Nic.

When I got back to Party Central, The Cardinal wanted to see me.

I hadn’t seen as much of The Cardinal as a neutral observer might have supposed. He was a reclusive, rarely glimpsed creature. The more his empire grew, the less he ventured from his base on the fifteenth floor of Party Central. He even dined and slept up there.

I thought about it while waiting to be admitted and could recall only eight or nine occasions when I’d come within touching distance of the city’s infamous crime lord. I’d shared a car with him once, on his way to the airport. He was heading for Rome to pay his last respects to the recently deceased pope, an old friend of his.

He hadn’t said anything to me during the ride. I was up front, he was in the back with Ford Tasso, issuing last-minute orders. He had to be blindfolded before getting on the plane—he was terrified of flying. On the way back, Tasso told me and the two other Troops that if word of The Cardinal’s fear leaked the three of us would be taken out and shot, no questions asked.

Another time, I ran into him coming out of a bathroom on the ninth floor of Party Central. I held the door open and saluted as he tucked the hem of his shirt back inside his pants. “Thanks,” he said.

“Thanks.”
The only word he’d exchanged with me prior to that night.

I felt sick. The one thing they don’t teach you in the Troops is how to converse with The Cardinal, since it’s not something you have to do in the normal run of things. How was I to address him? What would he ask me? How should I respond? I wasn’t even sure I could tell him the time—my teeth were chattering. I was still in shock at finding Nic in the Fridge. Now this.

His personal secretary—Mags—tapped me on the shoulder. “Mr. Jeery,” she smiled. “I’ve called you three times. He’s ready and waiting.”

“Oh.” I wiped sweat from my brow. “Thank you.” I stood.

“Do you want a glass of water?” Mags asked.

My throat was dry but I shook my head. The last thing I wanted was my bladder acting up during my meeting with The Cardinal.

“Don’t worry,” Mags said. “He won’t bite you.”

I managed a weak smile. She squeezed my hand comfortingly, then led me to the door, knocked and gently shoved me in.

The first thing I noticed was the puppets. Dozens of them, hanging from the walls, draped across his huge desk, slumped over in corners. I’d heard about them, of course—everybody knew about The Cardinal’s penchant for puppets—but hadn’t been anticipating the display. For a moment I thought I’d wandered into a toy store by accident. Then I spotted The Cardinal in a monstrous chair behind the desk and everything snapped back into place.

“Al!” he greeted me like an old friend. “Take a seat. Make yourself at home. Get you anything? Coffee, a snack, a beer?”

“No. Thanks.” I was dazed by the reception. It wasn’t what I’d been expecting. I pulled up a plastic chair and sat opposite The Cardinal. Out of habit my fingers strayed to my beret and I began to straighten it. The Cardinal watched, amused.

“You can take it off if you want,” he said. “Never did like those damned berets. They were Mr. Tasso’s idea.”

I smiled gratefully and removed it.

The Cardinal wasn’t handsome. Nearly six and a half feet, though you couldn’t tell when he was sitting down. Too thin for such a big man. A crooked nose. Cropped hair. An Adam’s apple that looked like a golf ball stuck in the middle of his throat. Gray skin. A leering gap in his lower face for a mouth. His dress sense wasn’t the keenest either—a baggy blue tracksuit and sneakers. No jewelry. A cheap digital watch. If I dressed like that, I wouldn’t make it past the rear gate of Party Central.

“Let’s get down to business,” he said. “You knew Nicola Hornyak?” I nodded. A file nestled snugly on his lap. I’d have loved to see what was in it. “Knew her long?”

“About a month.”

“You were screwing her?”

“Yes,” I answered calmly, overlooking his bluntness.

His eyes flicked down to the notes. “But you told Mr. Weld it wasn’t serious.”

“We’d meet a few times a week, maybe have a drink or something to eat, head home or to a hotel. Nothing more than that.”

“Hmm.” He studied his notes again. “You went out drinking together. I thought you were a teetotaler.”

“I am. Nic ordered wine, I stuck to minerals.”

“What about drugs?”

“No.”

“Neither of you?”

“No.”

“Nicola Hornyak never did drugs?”

“Not with me.”

Again the “Hmm.” Then he changed tack. “You’ve been with us quite a while. Respected by your superiors, admired by your colleagues. Brains. Talent. A hard worker. Haven’t made much headway, though, have you?”

I shrugged, smiling uncertainly. “I get by.”

“But you don’t move up. A man of your ability and experience should have been promoted by now. I know you’ve been approached, by both Mr. Tasso and Mr. Weld, but each time they’ve offered you more responsibility you’ve turned them down.”

“I’m happy as I am.”

“Or afraid to advance?”

“I’ve seen what happens to those who slip while scaling the corporate ladder. Cleaned up after a few of them. Never seemed worth it to me.”

“What if I handed you a promotion on a plate, if I said I was getting rid of Frank Weld and wanted you to take his place?”

I stared at him.

“I’m serious,” he said. “Not about getting rid of Mr. Weld—I have no intention of dismissing such a valued employee—but maybe moving him to some other branch of the organization, where he won’t clash with Mr. Tasso all the time. I’ve been working on a list of possible replacements. Would you care to be added to it?”

“I couldn’t fill Frank’s shoes,” I mumbled. “I know nothing about management or leadership.”

“Mr. Weld didn’t either when he started. Few men do. Leaders aren’t born—they grow.”

“I don’t know what to say. I thought you wanted to talk about Nic. This is…” I searched in vain for the words.

“I’ve had my eye on you for some time,” The Cardinal said.

“On
me
?”

“Did you never wonder why Mr. Tasso spent so much time on you when you joined the Troops? Why he took you under his wing?”

“I thought he liked me.”

The Cardinal laughed. “Mr. Tasso’s interests and friendships are mine. I asked him to keep an eye on you.”

“Why?” I was dumbfounded.

“Because I knew your father.”

“Tom Jeery?” I gaped.

He nodded. “A fine man. Someone I was able to rely upon. I thought if the son turned out to be half as valuable, he’d be a good man to have on the books.”

“I barely knew my father,” I said. “He wasn’t around much when I was growing up. Disappeared for good when I was seven. I had no idea he was involved with you.”

“He asked me not to mention it. Didn’t want his image tarnished.” The Cardinal turned over a sheet of paper. “Did you kill Nicola Hornyak?” he asked, as if still discussing old friends and family.

“No!” I shouted, bewildered by his change of pace, momentarily losing my cool. “I wasn’t even here. I was out of town. On a—”

“—Fishing trip. Yes. Mr. Weld told me. But that may have been a clever piece of subterfuge. It’s convenient that your girlfriend’s brutal murder coincided with your absence.”

“I was with a friend,” I growled. “Bill Casey. He’ll vouch for me. He was with me the entire time. We even shared the same tent.”

“I know.” The Cardinal smiled. “I just wanted to see how you react when riled. You can learn a lot about a man by the way he responds when subjected to slanderous accusations.”

There was a knock on the door and Ford Tasso entered. “Algiers,” he greeted me. “Heard about the mess. How you holding up?”

“Quite remarkably,” The Cardinal answered for me. “He takes loss firmly on the chin. Barely fazed by it.”

“I’m fazed,” I said sourly. I didn’t like what he was doing. I hadn’t been especially close to Nic but I was hurting from what had happened. The Cardinal was acting like it was some big joke. That pissed me off.

“Look at his face,” The Cardinal chortled. “He’d love to throttle me.”

“Go easy on him,” Tasso said. “Finding a partner in the Fridge would have knocked the wind out of the most seasoned of us. Frank told me he didn’t even know she was missing.”

“You two are back on speaking terms?”

“For the time being.” Tasso joined The Cardinal on the other side of the desk and glanced at the notes in his employer’s lap. “The cops don’t know about Al,” he said. “Want us to keep him under wraps?”

The Cardinal sniffed. “Makes no difference whether they know or not.”

“How about you, Algiers? Want us to hush things up?”

“Bill knew I was seeing her,” I said.

“Bill?”

“Bill Casey,” The Cardinal explained. “The pair were away fishing when the incident occurred.”

“And he knows about you two?” Tasso frowned. “Then we can’t keep it to ourselves. Howard Kett’s handling the case.” Kett was Bill’s superior officer. Bill didn’t have much time for him—Kett was a grade-A prick—but would feel compelled to reveal information as important as this.

Tasso and The Cardinal discussed other business for a couple of minutes, while I sat there like a stuffed squirrel. When their discussion came to an end, Tasso departed. He offered his condolences one final time and slipped out.

“You weren’t listening, were you?” The Cardinal challenged me as soon as his right-hand man was out of earshot.

“What?”

“While I was chewing the cud with Mr. Tasso, I kept an eye on you. You tuned us out.” He tutted. “You shouldn’t be so courteous, Al. Have you any idea what certain people would pay to be where you are, to have been present while I was in congress with my number one aide? These are the types of opportunities one should seize, not turn one’s nose up at.”

“I’m not interested in seizing,” I responded. “That’s why I’d be no good as a replacement for Frank. I’m not an organizer.”

“A pity. I had high hopes for you. Your father was far more ambitious.”

I shifted my chair a couple of inches closer to the desk. “What did my father do for you, exactly?”

“Collected debts. Encouraged stubborn shopkeepers to see things my way. This was thirty, thirty-five years ago. We were still quite primitive back then.”

“Do you know what happened to him?” I asked. “Why he vanished?”

“Your mother never told you?”

I shook my head. “She never spoke about my father. I think she was afraid of him. Whenever I asked, she said he was a bad man and I was to forget him. She died when I was a teenager, before I could make more mature inquiries.”

“You never tried tracking him down?”

“I asked about him but nobody knew anything. Bill did some checking for me but came up blank. I always assumed he ran off with another woman.”

The Cardinal rose and crossed the room to the huge window that afforded him a bird’s-eye view of the city. He stood looking down in silence. I stared at his chair and waited for him to speak. I had a good idea what he was preparing himself to say.

“Tom Jeery was killed in the line of duty.” He glanced over his shoulder to check how I’d taken that, noted my neutral expression and continued. “One of those stubborn shopkeepers pulled a knife on him. Cut deeper than he intended. Severed an artery.”

“So he’s dead.” I’d thought, over the years, that he must be, but had always held out hope that one day he’d walk back into my life, even if it was just so I could deck him for cutting out on me and my mother.