Call Me Joe (20 page)

"Quite," Jennings yawned. "I'll send out some coded cables before I leave."

"Good man," Calvert smiled. "I want this scoundrel, Jamie. This feels rather personal to me."

Jennings stood and retrieved the stack of files Calvert had been perusing. He left quietly, easing the door shut behind him with only the barest, muffled 'snick' of the latch. His last glimpse of Calvert was a shadowy profile, hands clasped across his stomach, feet propped up in the windowsill. There was every possibility, Jennings knew, that he'd return at seven the next morning to find Calvert in exactly the same position, lost in his thoughts and oblivious to the passage of time.

The two had worked together for 21 years and now communicated as much in unspoken signals, body language, and habit as verbally. If asked, either would say that the person who knew him best was the other.

And yet, Jennings realized for the thousandth time, the real John Calvert, whatever was at the core, behind the efficient yet affable façade, was even more a mystery than it was the day they first met.

All Jennings knew for sure was that that core's demand for justice—even, occasionally, retribution—was as cold, monolithic, implacable, and patient as a glacier.



"Anything?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing at all?"

"I'm still looking but … no."

Joe's idyll in Soho was rapidly headed south. As Katja mined the Internet from various places around Europe, Joe bought computer time at a local copy shop and scanned the newspapers in Spokane, Boise, Portland, and Seattle.

The
Seattle P-I
had a one-paragraph blurb in their world news box.  In the other three, nothing. There was plenty in the
U.K. Press
, of course, but none mentioned the e-mail.

Joe began to hear a faint rasping sound, from time to time, which he finally realized was his own teeth grinding.

"We didn't think this through," he muttered darkly. "Why would a paper in Washington or Oregon run the story? Nobody knew the guy there. The e-mail was the connection and Scotland Yard is holding that back."

"Why would they do that?" Katja asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Police do that in every homicide investigation," Joe sighed. "Some detail like that. Helps them sort out actual tips from the chronic confessors and prank calls. Shit, I'm so freakin' habitually careful, I never thought to leave them something else juicier to hold back."

"What do you want to do? Katja asked. "How about an e-mail straight to the papers?"

"It would be stale, now," Joe mused. "Besides, Scotland Yard is saying it's European radicals.  An e-mail would look like one of those nut bags trying to steal the credit."

"Isn't that better?" Katja suggested. "If they think it's those green party freaks, it's cover for you."

"If they think it's Europeans," Joe explained, "they'll think the warning about Washington is a feint. Maybe we weren't specific. Maybe they have other projects in Washington."

"If they do, I haven't found it on the 'net,'" Katja replied.

"They may just not be publicized," Joe insisted, "or still in the planning stages."

"Well, you'll never know that," she sighed.

"I suppose I'll just have to be a little more blunt, huh?" Joe mused.

"More blunt?" Katja chuckled. "What would that be, flat-nosed bullets?"

"Something like that," Joe replied.



"Look," Jack sputtered, "I own the place! Why not just walk in and demand to see the memo?"

"You own the site, maybe," I replied, "although that's really just leases, but you don't own P.P.V.'s interoffice communications."

"But … this is so cloak and dagger," Jack sighed. "It's silly … not to mention dangerous."

"Jack," I smiled. "There's danger and there's danger. What's the danger in my going through a window?"

"That you'll get caught!" Jack blurted. "What happens if Steptoe comes back?"

"That's the point at which you get haughty and imperious," I laughed. "What's the downside? He threatens to have me arrested, I'll refuse."

"Refuse?" Jack exclaimed.

"I refuse pretty good," I nodded. "It's one of my best things."

"Yeah," Aaron sighed, leaning against the back door. "I can vouch for that one."

We pulled up in front of the expansive lodge built to house Mountain Empire's offices. It towered three stories above the grassy floor of the valley and featured one huge wall made entirely of glass. It was as far removed from the cluttered trailer where we had first encountered Steptoe as the Ritz is from a phone booth.

Jack barely glanced at it as we climbed out of the car. Aaron stretch painfully and stared off down the valley.

"The office is in the back left corner?" I asked him.

"Yeah," Aaron yawned." Sorry, this medication makes me sleepy."

"I know," I nodded. "You know where that file is kept?"

"Cabinet in the corner, top drawer," he murmured. "It has a lock on it but Mr. Steptoe never uses it."

"You ready for this?" I asked. "Gonna be a lot of talk after you're seen with us."

"My mama's daddy—the granddad I actually liked—used to say that shuttin' up was never a real bad idea," Aaron said quietly, avoiding my eyes. "I thought I might try that, for once."

I slapped him on the back and smiled at him. It bothered me that my well-advertised perception had failed to show me the intensely vulnerable kid crouching behind the rural bad-ass façade. I realized that my mania for fixing things was about to tug me into an attempt at serious over-compensation.

Aaron looked at me curiously as I removed my hand and glanced at Jack, who was fidgeting with the desire to stomp into the lodge and raise hell with somebody, anybody.

"You got Jack's back," I told Aaron. "I'll be back here pretty fast."

I yawned and stretched and made a major show of moseying off in the opposite direction of the office.

As soon as I got past the stand of trees at the last bend of the driveway, I ducked into the woods and negotiated a wide arc behind the lodge. The back of the building had one set of patio doors, one tightly-covered larger window at ground level, and two tiny windows on each of the other two floors. Unless Aaron was mistaken, Steptoe's office was behind the patio doors.

I edged down the side of the building and peered quickly through the patio slider. The office was empty, its door to the foyer slightly ajar. I could hear Jack administering an epic tongue-lashing and Steptoe's intermittent bleats of protest.

I was fishing a metal shim out of my pants pocket when I noticed that the far side of the glass slider and the screen were both open an inch or so.

Sometimes, being lucky is better than being sneaky.

I slipped the doors back, crept over to the file cabinet and was reading the file in less than 15 seconds. As I crossed back to the door, on impulse, I glanced down at the paperwork Steptoe had left on his desk.

It was faxes of a Scotland Yard report on the shooting of Percy Kensington. There were three sets of copies, so I pocketed the bottom set, slipped out the back, and retraced my steps to the parking lot. I locked the file and faxes in the Cherokee's glove box and then went into the lodge's foyer, where Jack was still in full Black Bart mode.

"Tell me something, Alan," Jack snapped. "If I just decide to dump your ass out in the street right this minute, who do you think is authorized to stop me?"

"Well, I would hope that cooler heads will prevail," Steptoe stammered. "For the moment, the site is under control of Pembroke Property Ventures, so I would need to place a phone call to Anthony Pembroke before leaving my post."

"You know what?" Jack smiled. "Let's do that."

He whipped out his cell and punched a speed dial.

"Mr. Bartinelli! Wait, please!" Steptoe yelped.

Jack closed the phone and looked at Steptoe the way an exterminator looks at bugs.

"Maybe …" Steptoe ventured, fighting for his tattered aplomb. "Maybe we've gotten off on the wrong footing, here."

"Gee, ya think?" Jack laughed. "Let's see, you sicced your security guys on me, tried to stonewall me, acted like a greasy little prick, tried to prevent me from reviewing files that I own 40 percent of, engaged me in a shouting match in front of the whole staff… Tell ya what. You're supposed to be the sales director here when we open pre-sales?"

"That's my primary function," Steptoe puffed. "I agreed to oversee the site at this stage as a favor to Rod Hooks."

"If you've bothered to ask Rod or Anthony or to read the contracts, you probably know that, once we start pre-sales, I assume full authority for operations in all areas. Did you know that, Alan? Anybody at P.P.V. bother to tell you?"

Steptoe went green and began to fidget. It was clear to me what the answer was.

"No," Steptoe finally admitted. "I was told that your role would be development of marketing materials and strategy and actual oversight of physical operations."

"Ya got jobbed, Alan," Jack smiled ferally. "So … how are you related to Anthony Pembroke?"

"I see no need to …"

"How, Alan?"

"Brother-in-law," Steptoe muttered. "Married to his sister, Lindsay."

"And your marriage wasn't going well," Jack stated flatly.

"No," Steptoe signed, "for quite some time."

"Jesus," Jack growled. "Alan, I really don't want to feel sorry for you, but I sorta do. Anthony killed two birds with one stone. Got you and his sister apart and got exactly the sort of Teflon management he wanted; seemingly accommodating, but actually a hindrance. You really think I'm likely to keep you around for the marketing campaign?"

"No," Steptoe murmured. "I … I'll start clearing out this afternoon.”

He turned to reenter his office, head bowed. The pressure of his staff's scrutiny, I knew, would be nearly unbearable.

"Alan," Jack asked quietly, "can you really do this job, or are you just taking up space?"

Steptoe gathered himself and turned to face Jack. He stood tall and pushed his chin out defiantly.

"I do an excellent job, Mr. Bartinelli," he rumbled. "There, you see, the joke's on Anthony and my beloved Lindsay, I'm afraid. I suspected his motives from the start. I didn't care. I find it easier to be a cuckold 5,000 miles away than to face it across the width of a bed. I've noted Tony's astonishment at what I've done here and it is mother's milk to me. It's foiled his and Lindsay's pet theory, you see, that I am nothing without her."

The office staff stood in a large knot behind the receptionist's desk. They had been transfixed throughout this; silent and still as cardboard cutouts. Jack looked at them for a moment and then nodded, slowly.

"Alan, would you step into your office for just a moment, please?" Jack asked.

Steptoe walked into his room and closed the door behind him. Jack walked over and stood in front of the staff.

"Show of hands, please," he said softly. "If you think Alan Steptoe is a good manager and you'd like to continue working with him, give me a thumbs up. If not, thumbs down. Don't think about it. Just trust your gut, now."