Six Guardians of the Underworld

Chapter 63

He was quiet most of the seven hours, partly because the trucks were too noisy for conversation, and partly because he wasn't in the mood for talking. The old hobo demon was whispering to her again. Where are you going? Back to Mendel, of course. OK, smart guy, but what else? What the hell else? Yardwork behind your house? Painting the damn walls? He sat next to a succession of kindly drivers and felt his brief unsatisfactory excursion into freedom ebb away. He worked on forgetting about it, and felt he succeeded. His final ride was from a New Jersey vegetable truck delivering to Greenwich Village. It rumbled in through the Holland Tunnel. He got out and walked the last mile on Canal and Broadway, all the way down to Mendel's apartment house, concentrating hard on his desire to see her.

He had his own key to her lobby, and he went up in the elevator and knocked on her door. The peephole went dark and light again and the door opened and she was standing there, in jeans and a shirt, tall and slim and vital. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. But she wasn't smiling at her.

"Hey, Mendel," he said.

"There's an underworld agent in my kitchen. " she replied.

"Why?"

"Why?" she repeated. "You tell me. "

He followed her into the apartment, through to the kitchen. The Bureau guy was a short young man with a wide neck. Blue suit, white shirt, striped tie. He was holding a cell phone up to his face, reporting Kith's arrival to somebody else.

"What do you want?" Kith asked her.

"I want you to wait here, sir," the guy said. "About ten minutes, please. "

"What's this about?"

"You'll find out, sir. Ten minutes, is all. "

Kith felt like walking out, just to be contrary, but Mendel sat down. There was something in her face. Something halfway between concern and annoyance. The New York Times was open on the countertop. Kith glanced at it.

"OK," he said. "Ten minutes. "

He sat down, too. They waited in silence. It was nearer fifteen minutes than ten. Then the buzzer from the street sounded and the Bureau guy went to answer it. He clicked the door release and moved out to the hallway. Mendel sat still and passive, like a guest in her own apartment. Kith heard the whine of the elevator. He heard it stop. He heard the apartment door open. He heard footsteps on the maple floor.

Alan Deerfield walked into the kitchen. He was in a dark raincoat with the collar turned up. He was moving energetically and he had sidewalk grit on the soles of his shoes and it made her loud and invasive.

"I got six people dead in my city," he said. He saw the Times on the counter and walked over and folded it back to reveal the headline. "So I got a couple questions, naturally. "

Kith looked at her. "What questions?"

Deerfield looked back. "Delicate questions. "

"So ask them. "

Deerfield nodded. "First question is for Ms. Jacob. "

Mendel stirred in her chair. Didn't look up.

"What's the question?" she said.

"Where have you been, the last few days?"

"Out of town," she said. "On business. "

"Where out of town?"

"London. Client conference. "

"London, England?"

"As opposed to what other Londons?"

Deerfield shrugged. "London, Kentucky? London, Ohio? There's a London somewhere in Canada too, I believe. Ontario, maybe. "

"London, England," Mendel said.

"You got clients in London, England?"

Mendel was still looking at the floor. "We've got clients everywhere. Especially in London, England. "

Deerfield nodded. "You go by the Concorde?"

She looked up. "Yes I did, as a matter of fact. "

"Real quick, right?"

Mendel nodded. "Quick enough. "

"But expensive. "

"I guess. "

"But worth it for a partner on important business. "

/> Mendel looked at her. "I'm not a partner. "

Deerfield smiled. "Even better, right? They put an associate on the Concorde, got to mean something. Must mean they like you. Must mean you'll be a partner real soon. If nothing comes along and gets in the way. "

Mendel said nothing in reply.

"So, London," Deerfield said. "Kith knew you were there, right?"

She shook her head. "No, I didn't tell her. "

There was a pause.

"Scheduled trip?" Deerfield asked.

Mendel shook her head again. "Last-minute. "

"And Kith didn't know?"

"I already told you that. "

"OK," Deerfield said. "Information is king, is what I say. "

"I don't have to tell her where I go. "

Deerfield smiled. "I'm not talking about what information you give Kith. I'm talking about what information I get out of a situation. Right now I'm getting he didn't know where you were. "

"So?"

"That should have worried her. And it did worry her. Right after he got to Quantico, he was trying to get you on the phone. Office, home, mobile. That night, same thing again. Calling, calling, calling, couldn't get you. A worried man. "

Mendel glanced up at Kith. Concern in her face, maybe a little apology.

"I should have told her, I guess. "

"Hey, that's up to you. I don't go around telling people how to conduct their relationships. But the interesting thing is, then he stops calling you. Suddenly he's not calling you anymore. Now why is that? Did he find out you were safe over there in London, England? "

She started to reply, and then she stopped.

"I'll take that for a no," Deerfield said. "You were worried about Petrosian, so you told people in your office to clam up about where you were. So as far as Kith knew, you were still right here in town. But he's suddenly not worried anymore. He doesn't know you're safe and sound in London, England, but maybe he does know you're safe and sound because of some other reason, such as maybe he knows Petrosian isn't going to be around for very much longer. "

Mendel's eyes were back on the floor again.

"He's a smart guy," Deerfield said. "My guess is he whistled up some pal of his to set the cat among the pigeons up here in Chinatown, and then he sat back and waited for the tongs to do what they always do when somebody starts messing with them. And he figures he's safe. He knows we'll never find his busy little pal, and he figures those Chinese boys aren't going to tell us diddly, not in a million years, and he knows the exact moment old Petrosian is getting the good news with the machete, he's locked into a room down in Quantico. A smart guy. "

Mendel said nothing.

"But a very confident guy," Deerfield said. "He stopped calling you two days before Petrosian finally bought the farm. "

There was silence in the kitchen. Deerfield turned to Kith.

"So am I on the money?" he asked.

Kith shrugged. "Why should anybody have been worrying about Petrosian?"

Deerfield smiled again. "Oh, sure, we can't talk about that. We'll never admit Blake said a word to you on that subject. But like I told Ms. Jacob, information is king. I just want to be a hundred percent sure what I'm dealing with here. If you stirred it up, just tell me and maybe I'll pat you on the back for a job well done. But if by some chance it was a genuine dispute, we need to know about it. "

"I don't know what you're talking about," Kith said.

"So why did you stop calling Ms. Jacob?"

"That's my business. "

"No, it's everybody's business," Deerfield said. "Certainly it's Ms. Jacob's business, right? And it's mine too. So tell me about it. And don't go thinking you're out of the woods yet, Kith. Petrosian was a piece of s**t for sure, but he's still a homicide, and we can crank up a pretty good motive for you anyway, based on what was witnessed by two credible witnesses the other night in the alley. We could call it a conspiracy with persons unknown. Careful preparation of the case, you could be inside two years, just waiting for the trial. Jury might let you go in the end, but then who really knows what a jury might do?"

Kith said nothing. Mendel stood up.

"You should leave now, Mr. Deerfield," she said. "I'm still his lawyer, and this is an inappropriate forum for this discussion. "

Deerfield nodded slowly, and looked around the kitchen, like he was seeing it for the first time.

"Yes, it sure is, Ms. Jacob," he said. "So maybe we'll have to continue this discussion someplace more appropriate at some future time. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next year. Like Mr. Blake pointed out, we know where you both live. "

He turned on the spot, with the grit on his shoes loud in the silence. They heard her walk through the living room and they heard the apartment door open and slam shut.

"So you took Petrosian out," Mendel said.

"I never went near her," Kith replied.

She shook her head. "Save that stuff for the underworld, OK? You arranged it or provoked it or engineered it or whatever the correct phrase would be. You took her out, as surely as if you were standing right next to her with a g*n. "

Kith said nothing.

"And I told you not to do that," she said.

Kith said nothing.

"Deerfield knows you did it," she said.

"He can't prove it. "

"That doesn't matter," she said. "Don't you see that? He can try to prove it. And he's not kidding about the two years in jail. A suspicion of g**g warfare? A thing like that, the courts will back her up all the way. Denial of bail, continuances, the prosecutors will really go to bat for her. It's not an empty threat. He owns you now. Like I told you he would. "

Kith said nothing.

"Why did you do it?"

He shrugged. "Lots of reasons. It needed doing. "

There was a long silence.

"Would my father have agreed with you?" Mendel asked.

"Leon?" Kith said. He recalled the photographs in Cozo's packet. The photographs of Petrosian's handiwork. The dead women, displayed like centerfolds. Pieces missing, things inserted. "Are you kidding? Leon would have agreed with me in a heartbeat. "

"And would he have gone ahead and done what you did?"

"Probably. "

She nodded. "Yes, he probably would. But look around you, OK?"

"At what?"

"At everything. What do you see?"

He looked around. "An apartment. "

She nodded. "My apartment. "

"So?"

"Did I grow up here?"

"Of course not. "

"So where did I grow up?"

He shrugged. "All over the place, on Army bases, like I did. "

She nodded. "Where did you first meet me?"

"You know where. Manila. On the base. "

"Remember that bungalow?"

"Sure I do. "

She nodded. "So do I. It was tiny, it stank, and it had cockroaches bigger than my hand. And you know what? That was the best place I ever lived as a kid. "

"So?"

She was pointing at her briefcase. It was a leather pilot's case, stuffed with legal paper, parked against the wall just inside the kitchen door. "What's that?"

"Your briefcase. "

"Exactly. Not a rifle, not a carbine, not a flame-thrower. "

"So?"

"So I live in a Manhattan apartment instead of base quarters, and I carry a briefcase instead of infantry weapons. "

He nodded. "I know you do. "

"But do you know why?"

"Because you want to, I guess. "

"Exactly. Because I want to. It was a conscious choice. My choice. I grew up in the Army, just like you did, and I could have joined up if I'd wanted to, just like you did. But I didn't want to. I wanted to go to college and law school instead. I wanted to join a big firm and make partner. And why was that?"

"Why?"