Dead Anyway (20 page)

I
WAS
in Hartford over a month when Evelyn called to say the purchase of Florencia’s agency was only a signature away.

“I don’t think I can delay this anymore without messing up the deal,” she said. “What do you say?”

“Do it. Have them wire the money into an online account you’re going to set up using a laptop I’m going to send you. I’ll include a return label. After you establish the login and security information, send the laptop back to me. Then start using your desktop to log on, and they’ll have both MAC addresses assigned to you. Don’t be alarmed if big numbers move in and out over time.”

“It’s your money, Arthur.”

We talked some more, mostly about my physical condition, which on the whole had been greatly improved by the rigors of running a food truck. Even my math skills had evolved to where I could give up the calculator. And I was developing a taste for my own ham and cheese croissants. I shared the general story with Evelyn, leaving out the specifics.

“I wish I could tell you the police have made progress on the investigation. Young Mr. Maddox is sticking with us, but that’s about it.”

I told her not to lose touch with him, for no other reason than the contact might come in handy someday. I said not to interpret that as an optimistic prediction.

“I’m not much of an optimist, Arthur, except on this issue. I have faith that I’ll see you again as your old self.”

“I’ll never be my old self,” I said, then added quickly, “but you might like the new version better.”

Before sending out the laptop, I used one of my spare names to set up a mailbox account at the UPS Store as an extra precaution. A week later it was back, effectively making me the only independently wealthy food truck operator in the Greater Hartford area.

I
ONLY
had to wait another week for luck to strike. I was tossing sandwiches and soda, and pouring coffee at CMT&M, when I saw Leo Dunlop standing in line with a laptop case over his shoulder. Before handing him his usual tall iced coffee, I sprinkled in a special kind of artificial sweetener from a special package long reserved for the purpose.

As my research indicated, the onset period was nearly instantaneous.

“Oh, Christ,” he muttered, staggering back into the waiting line.

“You okay, Leo?” the woman behind him asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Really dizzy.”

He started to breathe heavily and went down on one knee. I knelt down with him and held his shoulder, taking the iced coffee off his hands. He was shaking.

“My arm’s going numb. Jesus.”

“Somebody call an ambulance,” I yelled.

“I got it,” yelled a woman with a smartphone. When all eyes turned toward the caller, I stuck a gas-powered hypodermic into Leo’s side and pushed the button. Moments later, he fell the rest of the way to the pavement with both hands clutching his chest. His eyes were wide and spittle was forming on his lips.

“Chest pains. I think it’s a goddamn heart attack,” he croaked out.

I looked up to see the ambulance caller with her hand above her head, yelling out the address. With all eyes watching her, I picked up the laptop case and placed it in a slot next to the fresh fruit section and directly behind the cab.

Then I braced for a voice raised in protest or alarm, but the whole crowd was now circled around Leo, offering comfort and encouraging words. Leo wasn’t buying it.

“I think I’m fucking dead. Somebody call my wife,” he said, skidding his phone across the pavement. “She’s on speed dial.”

Everyone quieted down while another woman made the call. There was some back and forth, then she yelled, “Which hospital?”

“UConn,” the original caller yelled back.

There wasn’t much else for us to do but wait and hector Leo with well-intended questions and condolences. Through it all, I was able to dispense drinks and meals to the unfortunates who were behind Leo in line. They all spoke quietly and had a vague look of shame, though none thought the occasion demanded they go hungry. Still, I was glad no one said, “Leo would have wanted it this way.”

The ambulance showed up soon after, and after they hauled away their ashen-faced patient, the parking lot cleared and I was left with Leo’s laptop and the next phase of the process.

I took the laptop into the cab and turned it on, slipping in the boot disk as soon as I could open the little CD tray. Once inside the operating system, I installed the same spyware that now infected Ethan’s server room workstation at Florencia’s agency, and did a quick search for passwords, but Leo was far more security conscious than my last victims. It didn’t matter. As soon as he was back on his machine, which would be in a few days if my research held, I’d have it all.

Minutes later, I shut down the computer and wiped it down with diluted bleach. Then I took it to the parking lot entrance and turned it over to CMT&M plant security.

“In all the confusion, I didn’t realize I still had Leo’s briefcase. Hope he’s okay,” I told the guard.

He took the case from me and stuck it under his desk, as if it was in imminent danger of further unauthorized possession.

“Makes you want to give up the donuts and start jogging,” said the guard, whose enormous pot belly I had the good sense not to look at.

“We’ll be lightin’ candles,” I said, and left him with my digital Trojan Horse safely ensconced beneath his desk.

C
HAPTER
16

N
atsumi woke me up at three in the morning screaming into the disposable phone I used to communicate with her.

“Oh my God, John, I’m so afraid,” she squeezed out between hacking sobs.

I sat bolt upright.

“What happened?”

“A man. He had a knife. I thought he was going to kill me. Oh, God. He was in the backseat of my car. He grabbed my hair and stuck the knife into my neck. It cut me. He whispered in my ear. It was horrible.”

“Are you bleeding?” I asked.

“It’s a little cut. I’m in my car at the casino. I took a late shift for another dealer. The doors are locked. I don’t know what to do.”

“Drive away. Now.”

I heard the faint sound of the car starting. Then she came back on the line.

“He asked about you. He called you the guy who was looking for Bela Chalupnik. I told him your name. I thought that was safe since I don’t believe it really is your name. What is going on?”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, closing my eyes in the dark and cursing my foolishness.

“I told him the same thing I told Ron Irving. I described what you looked like. I said I hadn’t seen you since that night, but you promised to get in touch with me sometime, thinking that might stop him from killing me. I guess I was right.”

“You didn’t see him.”

“He told me to lie down across the console, and that he’d shoot me if I tried to look up. Then he just left. What do I do?”

I played a little movie in my head, on fast forward.

“Go home and pack the most important stuff you have that you can fit in a suitcase you can handle. Computer, meds, jewelry, passport. One change of clothes. Then drive to New Haven and park in the train station parking lot. I’ll arrange to have the car towed and stored when I get the key. Take the train to Hartford, and walk to this hotel.” I gave her the name and directions from the station. “Take the elevator to the fifth floor. I’ll meet you and we’ll take it from there.”

“I’m frightened.”

“This is all my fault. But I’m going to make good on it. Right now you need to trust me and do exactly what I tell you to do.”

“I trust you. Even though my mother says I shouldn’t.”

“Where is your mother?” I asked.

“Kyoto. We talk on the phone.”

“Does the casino have her address?”

“No. I told them she wasn’t in the country and that’s all I said. I didn’t want the background checkers invading her privacy.”

I thanked God for the one bit of good luck embedded in all the bad.

“No other relatives?” I asked.

“No. You have to tell me now. You can’t pretend anymore.”

I finally relinquished, with a strange rush of pleasure, all my reticence before Natsumi.

“Florencia.”

“Who is that?”

“That was my wife’s name. Her real name. The rest will have to wait. Call me when you’re on the train.”

When she hung up, I felt a familiar rage surging within me, a feeling that was effective in dousing its corollary, raw fear. If there was any way I could be driven to greater effort, this was likely it. I gave voice to that, loudly, alone in the room, then went about the proper preparation.

T
HE HOTEL
was in easy walking distance to the train station. I rented a room to legitimize my presence, and used the time to case the layout. As hoped, there was a separate service elevator that worked without a key, accessible from the utility room that stored sheets and towels and tiny bottles of shampoo and body lotion. I’d asked Natsumi to call me when she was on the train heading north, which she did.

“Do you think anyone followed you to New Haven?” I asked.

“That’s a frightening thought.”

“Sorry. Do you?”

“I can’t tell. I’m a psychologist, not a spy.”

“So you passed your exams.”

“I did. Now it’s just the thesis. I’m changing my topic to ‘Effects on the Nervous System Resulting from Knife-Wielding Attackers.’ ”

Her next call came as dawn was creeping up from the horizon.

“I’m on the move,” she said. “Rolling suitcase in hand.”

“Is anyone you recognize from the train behind you?”

“No. And stop saying things like that. It’s freaking me out.”

“Sorry. When you get to the hotel, go to room 535. Knock on the door and I’ll come out.”

“If this is just an elaborate ploy to seduce me, I’ll kill you.”

“I’m not that imaginative.”

“Maybe you should be,” she said. “I might like it.”

“What room am I in?”

She confirmed it, and we hung up.

I
COULDN
’
T
bear waiting in the room, so I went and stood by the elevator. As soon as she cleared the doors with her rolling bag, I grabbed her free hand, ignoring the startled look on her face, and pulled her down the hall to the freight elevator. I asked her not to talk. As we waited for it to show up, I could feel my pulse thumping in my ears. The doors slid open. Empty, thank God.

I pulled her in and hit the button for the bottom floor. We went down and the doors opened on a gloomy, shadow-laden concrete world. I held the doors open and listened. Nothing.

I pulled her out of the elevator and toward the loading dock used to load and unload convention displays. There was a security guard sitting at a little desk, reading by a task light that barely illuminated the cavernous space. I waved at him and said it was a long story as we zoomed by, and he never budged, having been charged with keeping unauthorized people out and given no guidance on those passing the opposite way.

I hit the button for the big loading dock door and we slipped out as soon as we had the headroom.

The Subaru was waiting at the curb. I opened the hatch and told her to crawl under the blanket that lay there waiting. I put her suitcase in the foot well of the front passenger seat, got in and started the car.

No one followed as we drove down the street and on to the entrance ramp to the highway. Unless they were invisible. I shot the car up the ramp and into the waking day. I let Natsumi know it was now okay to talk.

“Well, that was a first,” she said, pulling the blanket off her head.

“Can I just say I’m sorry one more time, or do you want me to spend the rest of my life apologizing?”

“I don’t like apologies. The Japanese do it so much it’s hard to believe they really mean it.”

“Would you describe the voice of the guy who attacked you as high, low or in-between?”

“In-between.”

“Did you detect an accent?” I asked.

“You say detect, which means any accent he had would be subtle. I’m guessing a borough of New York City, but I’m not sure, having only lived in Connecticut, so all New York accents sound the same to me. Where are we going?”

“To my apartment. I have a room waiting for you.”

“With room service, I hope.”

“Of course.”

“I need your real name,” she said.

“Arthur. But I’d rather you called me Alex. That’s the name I usually use. Most of the time.”

“I’m Natsumi all of the time.”

“Not anymore. You’ll need a new name.”

“You’re going to explain all this to me, right?”

“Yes. As soon as we can get to a place where I can look you in the eye so you can see I’m telling the truth.”

“That bad?”

“That bad.”

I
DROVE
directly to the apartment above the garage and carried Natsumi’s rolling bag to her room. I apologized that she didn’t have her own bathroom, and she reminded me that we’d abolished apologies. I asked her to meet me in the kitchen as soon as she felt ready to do so.

She showed up a half hour later freshly showered and wearing a dark blue sweat suit.

“Is it too early for wine?” she asked. “Just joking. Coffee would be nice, though.”

As I worked on the coffee, I started in on my story, beginning with Florencia’s murder and the attempt on me. I told her everything, deciding there was nothing to be gained by doing otherwise. Now that she was in, she needed to be in all the way. I told her that.

“Thank you,” she said. “I think.”

I told her about my sister Evelyn and how she faked my death, and my friend Gerry Charles and his guitar collection. About Henry Eichenbach, Madame Francine de le Croix and Sebbie “The Eyeball” Frondutti. I described my meeting with Fred Tootsie and how it led me to Clear Waters Casino, and with her help, Bela Chalupnik, aka Pally Buttons.

“And thereby stupidly connecting you to me by talking to that security guy at the Sail Inn,” I said. “And by asking you to get Bela’s photo. I don’t know why I wasn’t thinking more clearly.”

I spared nothing in describing my interview with Pally at the abandoned gravel business, and my subsequent chat with Shelly Gross. And finally, the sale of Florencia’s insurance agency, my journey north to Hartford and the purchase of Billy Romano’s food truck.