Artist (22 page)

“Sure. Never seen you there, though.”

“I’ll be there tonight with some friends. I’ll let you buy me a beer. You shoot pool?”

“Yeah, a little. How do I know you’re not shining me on
, though? How do I know you’re not going to stand me up?”

“Well,” Cassie said, “You don’t. But then again, what have you got to lose besides one minute of your time?” She put the envelope in his hand, waved over her shoulder as she walked away. T-shirt boy looked at it, watched her hips roll as she left, and hopped up the next two flights of stairs with his head even further in the clouds.

Adan went in with the phone man, parking the white panel van directly in front of Watt’s apartment complex. The phone man carried a clipboard. Adan got the toolbox. It was mid-afternoon, traffic was non-existent at West End as the residents sweltered in the summer heat. Adan looked for Pavone reflexively, half-expecting to see a pair of dirty Keds sticking out from a park bench somewhere but the undercover man was nowhere around that he could see.

“This is illegal a
s shit, you know,” the phone man said. “You could lose your badge for this if it got out.”

“Doesn’t seem to be bothering you,” Adan said. Cassie, working through Wesling, had hooked Adan up with the agent an hour before. He picked Adan up in the van, gave him a pair of overall with a BellSouth logo, and acted as if tapping into a phone line was the most natural thing in the world.

“I operate under the protection of God and the United States Government. Besides, nobody says anything if you act like you’re supposed to be here. Relax.It ain’t rocket science, Bub. A switch here, a new connection there and it’s done. Takes ten minutes, fifteen if you want to help.”

“Nope,” Adan said, “I have something else to take care of.” They were walking under the overhang of the carport now. The back of the house sat back fifteen feet from the water, a thin strip of shells separating the house and the dock. The toolbox went on the ground. Adan took a pair of pliers and headed for the boathouse. The phone man dug in his pocket, pulled wire cutters and alligator clips from his pocket and went off to find the phone outlet. Adan could hear him whistling, something off key, finally realized it was “Beat It” by Michael Jackson, and opened the door to the boathouse with a master key Dupond borrowed from a locksmith.

Adan didn’t know a thing about sailboats and didn’t have to. He knew enough to get under the floor, where he found a small four-cylinder gasoline engine with the words Atomic Four stenciled on the valve cover. He found the distributor, popped the cap off, and removed the rotor. He put everything back together and locked the door with the rotor in his pocket. He was standing on the carport when the agent came back fifteen minutes later.

“I thought you said ten minutes,” Adan said.

“Some of the wires were starting to corrode. I cleaned them up before they became a problem.”

“You fixed his wires? Jesus, this isn’t a service call.”

“Relax,” the agent said. “Just a little preventive maintenance. You wouldn’t want his phone to crap out while you were messing with him would you?” He was whistling along with the Eurythmics when he dropped Adan off at his car.

“I just don’t think she appreciates my finer qualities,” Flynn was saying. Slade, pretending to watch a game show, wa
s doing his best to ignore the conversation.

“It’s driving me nuts,” Flynn went on, “She plays the cello, you see, and when she holds that thing up against her chest it’s like I can see….whoa.” He stopped, went to the window. “Come check this out.”

“She’s probably young enough to be my daughter,” Slade said. “You check her out.” On the TV, the host was calling somebody down from the audience, an overweight girl with glasses, dressed as a giant pickle.

“It’s not a chick. It’s our boy, come here.” Dupond had Flynn and Slade inside the building, two other men, patrolmen who could pass for students, watching the outside, waiting for Watt to leave.

Slade went to the window, looked out where Flynn was pointing. Watt stood at the edge of the walkway. If he continued on it would have taken him to the library. He was just standing there, holding a briefcase in one hand, an envelope in the other. Students passed on either side of him, the between class traffic parting like a river around a rock. Every few seconds he would take a step, stop. He looked back the building, started back, stopped again.

“He looks a little discumbooberated,” Flynn said.

“That he does,” Slade said. “I think that’s our cue.” Earlier, Slade had gotten a call from Cassie and Dupond, a call in which he had been given strict instructions.

“It’s got to sound natural,” Cassie said.

“I can do natural,” Slade said, “I’m a great actor. I was the Scarecrow in my high school play.”

“Whatever,” Cassie said, and hung up.

Slade straightened his tie and turned off the TV. Pushing his way through the throng of students, he passed through the doors, Flynn two steps behind, and found Watt still standing on the sidewalk.

“Professor,” he called.

Watt turned.
Ok, he’s looking like he had a few,
Slade thought. He stayed back, casually passed his hand over his jacket where he had his service revolver in a shoulder holster under his left arm.

“Sorry to bother you, Professor but we’ll be leaving in a day or two and we wanted to get you your coffee machine back.”

“My what?” Watt said.

“Your coffee machine. We’re leaving day after tomorrow and we want to ge
t you the coffee machine back. You remember, you loaned it to us? We’ll clean it of course, maybe run some vinegar through it. Where do you want us to bring it?”

“Oh, yes. The machine.
Don’t worry about it, Detective. My girl will clean it. Give it to her before you go.” Watt looked across the common toward the library, as if he’d forgotten Slade already. He looked at the envelope in his hand, started toward the library, turned back. “Did you say you were leaving?”

“Yeah, Dupond is pulling us back. Guess we’ll be back downtown by the end of the week.” Flynn said. “I’m gonna miss this place.”

“Why are you leaving?” Watt asked. “Where are you going?”

“That’s up to Dupond and Reed,” Slade said. “We’re not really getting anything done here. No big breakthroughs, nobody coming forward with anything worthwhile, so, we move on to something else. Sometimes it’s like that, dead ends you know?”

Watt seemed to pull himself together, moving forward and shaking hands in turn. “I’m sorry your time has been unproductive here, gentlemen. If I can do anything for you, feel free to call.”

“Sometimes that’s just the way it goes,” Slade said. “C’es la vie, as the French would say.” He turned, pulling Flynn along with
him.

“Have a good day, Professor Watt.”

“And here, the tour guide was saying, is where Jean Duplantier was found. She was strangled, her blouse ripped open. The killer left a ten-franc note beside the body, or perhaps she lost it in the struggle. It may be what the killer used to lure her away. Nobody knows, except perhaps the killer.”

Watt struggled at the back of the crowd. Rain poured off his shoulders, onto his shoes, and
out onto the cobbled street. He couldn't see. There were too many people in front of him, too many straining tourist bodies pushing into the door.

He pushed against the crowd again and it parted, faces staring at him as he made his way to the front. “Ah, but the Professor here could probably tell us. You know, don’t you professor?” Watt wiped the water from his eyes. In the doorway, a crumpled figure in a tattered coat, one high-heeled shoe, half on, half off the cement step. The girl was young in the face, old in the eyes. She looked up at him, seeing nothing, s
eeing everything. The eyes knew, he thought. It was always in the eyes. Finger marks clawed their way around her throat.

Another. Watt in a damp apartment, rope burns on his hands. This one was older. When she’d taken off her shirt, he could see the stretch marks. She laughed, a tired sound, put her cigarette in the ashtray, offered herself, pushing
back against him until the rope went around her neck and the life went out of her face.

And another. A young girl in a cemetery, tipsy on cheap wine over dinner. Her breath smelled of curried chicken and cheese when she breathed her last. Again it was raining. The tour guide was waiting when he stepped out onto the street. Another young girl, this one full of life on the outside,
but loaded with death on the inside. No victim. “I’ve been waiting for you, Professor. But, such is life, isn’t it. We are all waiting for something.”

Watt struggled to reply, felt more rain on his lips. Across the street, his mother walked, a loaf of bread under one arm, a bag of something in the other. “You were always such a good boy, Viktor,” she called and turned the corner. “Pay her no mind, Professor Watt,” the girl said, “I’m the one you don’t want to see.”

Dark now, suddenly dark. A car started down the street, slowed. The window came down. “You’re a dumb shit, just like your mother,” the man driving said, and sped off. Gone again. Watt looked for the girl, found her standing under the streetlight. She was wearing a billed hat and carrying a rifle. “Oh, yes, I know how to use it,” she said. Water ran down her face. It was raining harder, tangled hair plastering against her shoulders. She didn’t seem to notice it. The rifle was gone. In her hand she carried a flashlight, blinded him with it.

“In the end, Professor,” she said. “It’s all about what we do best isn’t it?”

The light was gone. The girl was young. In another circumstance, he could have made her into a masterpiece, carved his genius into her flesh. Now he trembled. She had long slender legs, a narrow waist. Her skin was olive toned, the eyes a deep brown, and he was afraid.

“In the end, Professor,” she said again, “It’s all about what we do best.”

Watt ran. Ran hard on heavy feet. His leather shoes squished and he looked down and found them filled with blood. He stumbled, fell into the street. The contents of his coat pockets spilled out, rope and duct tape, a knife, the edge stained red, a volume of algebraic equations. The girl was beside him. “Never could get the math, could you professor?” She laughed and tossed the book away. Knelt beside him.

“In the end, Professor, it’s all about what we do best isn’t it? Now we’
ll see, you and I, who’s best at this game.”

Watt woke up, soaked in sweat. Outside, another summer storm, perhaps the last of the season, was pounding the streets. On the bedside table was the picture he had received in the envelope. He couldn’t make himself get rid of it. How could anyone know? Dead eyes stared back at him.

“He went home, but he didn’t go right home,” Adan said. “After he talked to Slade he went right to his car and left. He would normally take the right down Leon C. Simon. That takes him straight home. He went left, hooked a right on Franklin, and another all the way up at Chef Highway, and again at Elysian Fields. He stopped at a chicken place, sat in there ten minutes, and left without buying anything.”

“He’s looking for a tail,” Dupond said. “Who was on him?”

“We had Clements and DeSalvo, in two different cars swapping off. I don’t think he could have seen anything. When he stopped at the chicken place, DeSalvo kept going. Clements went past, parked in that parking lot at the cake place. DeSalvo picked him up again when he went past Milne Home.”

“And Pavone?”

“Says the guy parked, went straight inside, and he never moved. There’s only one way in and out. He’d have to swim out now, because his boat isn’t going anywhere. One thing unusual though.”

“What’s that?” Cassie asked.

“Pavone says the lights came on around three in the morning. He could see him walking around a bit. Then the lights went out again. Nobody came out though.”

It was only after Adan went home to get some sleep that Dupond got the chance to get Cassie alone.

“Just what the hell are we doing here, Cassie? It seems to me that you’re pushing this thing. I’m the guy running this investigation. And that’s what it is, it’s an investigation. It’s not a witch hunt. We need to be going back over the evidence. We have to find something to tie Watt into all of this.”

“You don’t think he’s the guy?” Cassie asked.

“I think, in all likelihood, he’s our man. He fits. He’s a good suspect. But that’s all he is. If we don’t find some solid evidence to tie him to the murders, he’s going to walk.”

“He won’t get away with it,” Cassie said.

“And just what the hell does that mean? If we can’t tie him to it, he walks. What else can we do?”

“Have you ever just let a guy walk away because you can’t convict him?”

“Hell yes. It happens all the time,” Dupond said. “It’s the way the system works.”

“Well, I can’t see doing that. I know it’s him and I’m going to get him one way or another.”

“And I’ll ask again. What the hell does that mean? Listen, if I think you’re getting too wrapped up in this thing, if you can’t do this the right way, I’ll get you out of here. Personal relationship aside, this is my job, my business, my investigation. You’re here to learn. You’ve done some good stuff, I’ll be the first to say that and we wouldn’t have zeroed in on Watt if it wasn’t for you. But, you don’t run the show. Understood? And we do things the right way. Understood?”