The Cathar Secret: A Lang Reilly Thriller (27 page)

     He nodded feebly.

     Gurt let go and the man slowly straightened up, his hand to his neck as he inhaled loudly.

     "Now, once more, did Marcie Rollens ask you to regress the child?"

     He was rubbing his throat and coughing. "Yes, yes! She said he would remember a previous life! How would I know unless she told me? Now go!"

     Twenty minutes later, Gurt was sitting in their den in a chair across from Lang. Wynton and Paige looked at her anxiously from a leather sofa as she finished recounting her visit to the hypnotist.

     "I do not believe the man knows any more than he told me."

     Lang stood, went to the stone fireplace that divided the room from the dining room, and added a log to the stuttering flames. "I tend to agree. If he were part of the kidnapping, I doubt he'd hang around."

     "I didn't know we suspected doctor whatever his name is," Wynton said.

     Lang shrugged. "We didn't but there's no point in not covering every possibility."

     As a lawyer experienced in defending product liability cases, Wynton was accustomed to pointing the finger of liability in as many directions as possible to deflect it from his client. Sometimes his theories were actually meritorious rather than distracting to the jury. He understood covering every possibility. "Okay, now what?"

     Instead of an answer, Lang's cell phone chirped.

     He glanced at the screen and said, "Yes, Sara?"

     A few seconds later he snapped the phone shut. "Sorry, but I need to go by my office, tend to business."

     Wynton watched him leave, wondering what it would be like to have a practice that let you come and go as you pleased.

Law Office of Langford Reilly

Peachtree Center

227 Peachtree Street

Atlanta

Forty Minutes Later

"K
ING CON" WAS THE NAME SARA
and Lang had given Phillip Hall. He was waiting in the reception area when Lang walked in the door of the small office suite. Sara was pointedly occupying herself with Lang's expenses to be reimbursed by the Foundation, a task she normally undertook only at his insistence. As usual, the accused swindler was immaculately dressed: English herringbone tweed suit, Hermès tie, silk shirt, glossy Italian wingtips. A camel-colored cashmere overcoat hung from the brass coat rack.

     Phillip Hall stood, the usual warm smile on his face, hand extended. "I appreciate your taking the time to see me."

     Lang tossed his own overcoat toward one of the quartet of Martha Washington chairs gathered around a magazine-laden coffee table and motioned him into his office. "That's what I'm in business for."

     Inside, Lang shut the door and slid into his desk chair, taking a moment to thumb through a stack of pink message slips. "And what might I do for you today?"

     Hall eyed one of the two wingback client chairs as though questioning its fitness as a seat before folding into it. "I was wondering if you had contacted the U.S. Attorney yet."

     Lang frowned. "I thought I made it clear: I don't represent you until the retainer is paid."

     Hall used his most reasonable voice. "And I thought I told you the
check will be good in a day or two. Surely you can trust me that long. If it doesn't, you can always withdraw."

     The list of the man's victims obviously included members of the bar. Once a lawyer was counsel of record, most judges, particularly federal ones, were reluctant to subject their calendars to the delay usually involved in a change of attorneys. Even more reason to get paid up front.

     On the other hand, a hundred-thousand-dollar fee would be a nice donation to Manfred's education fund.

     With the predatory instinct of all bunko artists, King Con sensed indecision. "You'll have your funds by next week."

     In his first years of practice, Lang had had to take pretty much whatever business walked in the door. That had included a paperhanger, bad check writer, who was an attractive young woman. By flirtation, charm, and the fact that Lang's office rent was due, she convinced him to accompany her to her preliminary hearing for five hundred dollars. Paid by check. Not only did the hearing go badly but the check bounced higher than a rubber ball. It was the first and last time Lang had represented anyone on what amounted to credit. He had no aversion to occasionally taking up the cause of the indigent, but he insisted on making the choice himself, not being stuck with a nonpaying client.

     This was particularly true where the potential client seemed affluent. The U.S. Attorney's Office had a nasty tendency to slip Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization, or RICO, charges into indictments containing multiple counts involving large sums of money. The RICO statutes, originally enacted to combat organized crime, provided for the forfeiture of ill-gotten gains from whomever was in possession of the money. Like so much well-intentioned legislation, the RICO Act was applied by government for purposes that bore no resemblance to the original intent of the lawmakers. In this case, conceivably, it could be extended to include sums paid for attorney's fees. At least, the contention had been made if not upheld.

     The prospect of having to litigate the issue of entitlement to fees earned hung over the head of every high-priced criminal lawyer who defended a white-collar client in federal court. It was a serious weapon in the hands of the prosecution, a device to discourage the most skilled advocates from taking high-profile cases, a process directed toward limiting the defense to less-skilled attorneys.

     All of this went through Lang's mind before he reached into a desk drawer and produced Hall's check for a hundred thousand dollars. He stood, extending it.

     "Tell you what, Mr. Hall: take this and bring me one certified. Better yet, make it a bank draft. I'll be on the case like a politician on a campaign contribution as soon as I have bank funds."

     Hall's reaction to the check reminded Lang of one of the old films showing Dracula's recoil from a crucifix. He could almost hear him hiss. "You really can't do that, can you, Mr. Reilly? I mean, I have rights. You agreed to represent me, now you're reneging. I'm sure the Bar Association won't permit it."

     Lang placed the check on the far side of the desk, reached into another drawer, and produced a book. He dropped that, too, on the far side of the desk. "Bar directory. You'll find the Bar Association's phone number on one of the first few pages. Feel free to call from here if you like."

     "I suppose lawyers, like thieves, stick together," Hall sneered.

     "You'd know more about thieves than I would," Lang retorted. "But I will give you a bit of free legal advice: you're not going to get competent counsel with worthless checks, believe me."

     "But you
agreed
to represent me." Hall was now pleading.

     The true test of the sociopath: from what both men knew the other recognized as a lie, to righteous indignation to threatening to supplicating, turning on a psychological dime. It was a trait shared by a number of Lang's clients.

     Lang shook his head. "I agreed to represent you for a hundred grand, and I stand by that. You come up with the money and I'll provide the representation."

     "I told you I'd have it."

     "When you do, we can begin. Not before."

     "So, you're basically saying you don't trust me."

     Currently more than fifty counts of mortgage fraud plus money laundering, a long history of scams—and the man was accusing Lang of not trusting him? It took an effort not to chuckle.

     "I'm saying this is a cash-and-carry-only business."

     Hall got to his feet. "I can see I will need to consult other counsel. Not everyone can turn down a hundred thousand dollars."

     Lang had learned that the figure really didn't matter until the money was reduced to possession. But he said, "I'll manage somehow. Don't forget your coat."

     Lang was standing by Sara's desk as Hall stamped angrily out of the suite.

     "Good riddance!" she muttered as soon as the door closed.

     Lang chuckled. "Don't count on it. Man's got more brass than your average doorknob."

     "You think he'll be back?"

     "Count on it. Set your watch to about two minutes past indictment."

Gasthaus Schelling

Herrengasse 29

Rothenburg ob den Tauber

Germany

5:30
P.M.
Local Time

S
IX TIME ZONES TO THE EAST
, Friedrich Gratz was also in a small suite of rooms. He and two other men were gathered around the bed on which a small boy lay curled into fetal position. The child, eyes red from crying, whimpered.

     "He is not responding," Dr. Heim said.

     Gratz's partner-in-crime, Otto Dortmann, alias Johann Schect, leaned over the bed for a better view. "Have you no drugs that would relax him, make it easier to hypnotize him?"

     The physician shook his head. "Such drugs would cloud his mental state, make it even more difficult to reach the subconscious."

     "Then what do you propose?" Gratz wanted to know.

     Propose? Heim would
propose
these two mad men go back to the lunatic asylum or wherever they had come from and take the child with them. He would
propose
they forget they had ever met the elderly doctor.

     But he said, "It was your idea, not mine, that I try to hypnotize the
kind.
I told you the procedure is difficult with children, sometimes impossible. And now you want
me
to
propose
something?" The doctor bent down to retrieve a black satchel from the floor, the sort of bag associated with physicians in those long-ago days when they actually made house calls and did not ask for proof of insurance before treatment. "If you want my suggestion, I would advise you abandon whatever crazy scheme requires the
child to regress to a previous life and do whatever you think necessary to avoid spending the rest of your lives in prison. As for me, I am returning to some sort of sanity."

     He turned and took a step toward the door before Gratz's voice froze him. "What you would be returning to,
Herr Doktor
, is jail, trial, and possible execution. It would only take a phone call. And I could certainly make use of the nearly half million dollars the Jews are willing to pay for the privilege of hanging you."

     Dr. Heim set his bag down again. If he needed further proof these two were insane, the idea that they would contact the authorities after kidnapping this little American boy provided it. He decided to try a reasonable approach although he suspected these two were far past the point where reason would help.

     "We can exchange threats: you threaten to expose me to those who would prosecute acts committed seventy years ago. I could tell them about the boy here. None of us would be the better. Let us face fact: the child may simply not be subject to being hypnotized."

     It was clear that neither Gratz nor the man called Schect was prepared for that possibility.

     "Might I ask the purpose of your efforts to learn something of the child's supposed prior life?"

     The other two men exchanged uneasy glances before Gratz spoke. "Let us simply say the person he was, the prior life, involved a very important secret, a secret we badly need to learn."

     Kidnapping an American child, tracing a man wanted for so-called war crimes, hiding out in this miserable
Gasthaus.
Heim would bet the "secret" involved money and a lot of it. Well, if he could put the boy into a state of hypnosis, at least these two mental defectives might realize the futility of trying to reach a dead person through a living one and go away.

     Heim opened his bag. "Perhaps a mild tranquilizer will make the child more cooperative after all, perhaps able to concentrate on my voice. I have tried everything else."

     Minutes later, the three were seated around the bed as Heim spoke in a sing-song voice, urging the boy to sleep. Gratz caught his own eyelids fluttering and had to force himself to stay awake.

     "If you are asleep now, I want you to raise your right hand."

     The child's right arm trembled and went up.

     "You've done it!" Schect exclaimed excitedly.

     Heim shot him a silencing glare and continued. "Tell us your name."

     The reply was soft and quavering, almost inaudible. "Wynn-Three."

     "How old are you, Wynn-Three?"

     "Three."

     "Where do you live?"

     "With Mommy and Daddy."

     "Do you know what city?"

     "'Lanta, I think."

     "We know all that," Gratz whispered. "Get him back to his previous life."

     "If we move his mind too abruptly, he'll wake up," hissed Heim. Then, to the little boy, "Do you remember your last birthday?"

     Gratz shifted his feet impatiently, drawing another glare from the doctor. After regressing two birthdays, Wynn-Three described an event that could, possibly, have been the birth experience.

     "What do you remember before that?" Heim wanted to know.

     The pause was so prolonged that the three men each began to wonder if there would be an answer.

     "Dark . . . warm . . ." The child actually smiled, his fetal position tightening.

     "Womb," mouthed Heim before saying, "Wynn-Three, I want you to think back further, sometime before that."

     Wynn-Three's small face tightened into an expression of discomfort, if not pain, and he began to shiver. "Cold, so very cold!"

     The three men exchanged startled looks. The voice was that of an adult.

472 Lafayette Drive

Atlanta

The Same Day

9:35
P.M.

M
ANFRED HAD GONE TO BED WITH
the normal protests and supplications for a few minutes' stay. As usual, Grumps had followed up the stairs, curling beside the bed as he waited for his small master to return from the bathroom smelling of soap and toothpaste. Two thumps of his tail greeted Lang as he carried his freshly bathed son into a bedroom decorated with brightly colored airplanes and cars. Careful to avoid stepping on any toys that might roll, slip, or otherwise prove lethal underfoot, Lang dumped Manfred into the bed. He dutifully read his son a few pages of Dr. Seuss before leaning over to brush the small forehead with his lips, turning out the light, and slipping out of the room.