Even (6 page)

“Nothing, huh? Just like you know nothing about the guy in the alley? Well, we do know something, David. We know you killed that guy. So what you need to do is stop lying and tell us what happened, while we can still help you.”

“What I need to do is sit here and wait for my lawyer to get me released.”

“You can try,” Harris said. “But trust me. You’ll have a long wait.”

Harris was wrong. I only had to wait forty minutes. At dead-on one o’clock he was back with Gibson, standing outside my cell, waiting for Cauldwell to work the lock. Only this time, he had his handcuffs ready.

“On your feet,” he said. “Turn around. Show me your hands.”

He fastened the cuffs and gave each one an extra squeeze, making sure they were clamped really tight around my wrists.

“Ms. Wilson works fast, doesn’t she?” I said.

“What?” Harris said.

“Ms. Wilson. My lawyer. Works fast, to get me released already.”

“You’re not being released, jackass. And this has nothing to do with your lawyer.”

“No? So where are we going?”

“We’re not going anywhere. You are. The FBI is here.”

“Why? What do they want?”

“Like you don’t know.”

“I don’t know. Why is the FBI involved?”

“Enough. Shut your mouth. Not one more word, or you’re going to take a beating right here.”

Three men were waiting for us near the reception desk. I’d never seen any of them before. The little glass gate swung open as we approached and the oldest of the group stepped forward. He had short, graying hair and a bulging stomach that hung down over his belt.

“My name is Lieutenant Hendersen, NYPD,” he said. “I’m here to inform you that at 12:05
P.M.
today, jurisdiction in your case was assumed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These gentlemen are agents. We’ve completed the paperwork. They’ll take it from here.”

“I’m Special Agent Lavine,” the taller of the other two men said, stepping up alongside Hendersen. He was a shade over six feet tall, slim, with broad shoulders and short blond hair. His gray single-breasted suit was well cut, and his white shirt looked crisp and new next to his dark, striped tie. Cuff links peeped out from under the sleeves of his jacket, and I caught sight of initials embroidered onto his shirt pocket when he moved. He wouldn’t have looked out of place in a tailor’s window, other than for his face. It looked tired and drawn, with deep lines etched into the skin around both eyes. The third guy looked much
more awake, almost bouncing on the balls of his feet. His clothes were similar, but he was an inch taller, six inches wider, and a good ten years younger. He stepped into line a moment later, moving slowly as if working hard to resist the urge to reach out and grab me.

“This is Special Agent Weston,” Lavine said. “You’re with us, now. Come on. Time to go.”

“The FBI are taking over?” I said to Hendersen. “Why?”

He ignored me.

“What about my arraignment?” I said. “Does my attorney know about this?”

Hendersen sneered at me.

“Good-bye, Mr. Trevellyan,” he said, and turned to walk away.

Gibson handed my bag of possessions to Agent Weston, and Harris removed his cuffs from behind my back. I went to rub my wrists, but before I could get the circulation going again Lavine had grabbed them and snapped on his own cuffs. They were of a slightly different design, but every bit as uncomfortable.

Weston took my arm and guided me out through the main door. He led me along the sidewalk to a plain white van parked at the end of the line of vehicles. Lavine opened the rear doors and Weston bundled me inside. The load space was empty apart from an old gray blanket like the kind moving companies use to protect furniture. It was crumpled and stained, and smelled of mildew. I pushed it away with my foot. I didn’t like to think what it might have been used for.

I don’t know which agent took the wheel, but whoever it was had a heavy right foot. The rear tires screeched as we lurched forward, and the van crunched into every pothole and swerved around every corner after that. The interior was pitch-dark, and as I bounced helplessly around, banging and bruising myself on the hard metal surfaces, it reminded me of a story I’d once heard. Something an old-time U.S. Army intelligence guy had told me. About the CIA in Vietnam. He said they used to load Vietcong suspects onto helicopters, put sacks over their heads, and fly them around for a while before taking them in for questioning. They got the most drugged-up, whacked-out pilots they could
lay their hands on and just let them go crazy for a couple of hours. Then the prisoners would come staggering out, sick to their stomachs, totally disoriented. Much more likely to talk. Apparently a couple of times the poor guys were so out of it they actually believed they’d landed in the United States, and gave it all up straightaway.

“So where are we, then?” I said to Weston when he finally opened the rear doors, twenty minutes later. “Saigon?”

He didn’t answer.

“Quantico, maybe?” I said.

He gestured for me to get out.

“Federal Plaza, at least?” I said, looking over his shoulder at the parallel rows of square pillars and grimy, oil-stained floor. “Because I’ve got to tell you, I’m not impressed with the decor.”

Weston reached into the van and leaned forward to grab my arm. His jacket gaped open and the rough black polymer grip of his service weapon stood out against his clean white shirt. I let him tug impatiently at my sleeve for a moment, then shuffled toward him until I could swing my legs around and get my feet on the ground.

I stepped away and saw we were in the corner of a large, rectangular basement garage. There were only four other vehicles. Identical Ford sedans, standing in line to the side of the van. They looked new and shiny. They were much larger than European cars, but even with all the empty spaces each one was parked neatly within the yellow lines.

There were no other people. Apart from the two agents and me, the place was deserted. No one to witness anything that could happen there. A notice on the wall said the owners—some bank—denied responsibility for any damage that may be caused. I couldn’t see which bank because someone had taped a piece of cardboard over the name with
JUDAS
handwritten in large red capitals. Next to the sign were the remains of a metal bracket. It was like the one above the door in the police interview room. A short length of wire was dangling from it, neatly cut at its end. I looked around the rest of the garage. Similar brackets had been mounted on the pillars at regular intervals.

Now, they were all empty.

Maybe the cameras had been recovered by the bank when it abandoned the building. Maybe they’d been stolen while it was lying derelict. Or maybe they’d been removed for another reason.

I backed up against the side of the van, just in case.

Lavine broke the silence.

“Hey,” he said, standing in front of a pair of turquoise wooden doors set into the wall. “Will you hurry it up?”

Weston turned to look at his partner, and that gave me a decision to make. My eyes were drawn to his neck. Cervical vertebrae are notoriously delicate. Even wearing handcuffs, I could sever his spinal cord with one sharp snap. Then I could reach down under his arm and take his gun. A Glock 23 holds thirteen rounds, but I wouldn’t need that many. One would be enough. Two, if I went by the book. Lavine would be finished before he could take his own weapon out of its holster.

I passed.

If all I was supposed to have done was kill a tramp, why was the bureau so interested in me? What made it worth trampling all over the NYPD and dragging me away to this building? There was too much I didn’t understand.

So you can call it curiosity. Or professional courtesy. But either way, I decided to play along.

There were always plenty of books in the house when I was a kid.

A lot were borrowed from the library. Others had been inherited from relatives. But a few had been bought for me. I remember the first one my parents ever gave me, after I’d learned to read for myself. It was a collection of proverbs and fables. Some of them seemed pretty old-fashioned, even in those days. Some didn’t make much sense. Some I’ve forgotten the detail of.

And others, I should have paid more attention to.

Ones like
Curiosity killed the cat
. . . .

The turquoise doors were the only way I could see to get out of the garage, other than the vehicle ramp at the opposite side. They had obviously been heavily used. The paint was worn and peeling, and the corner of the right-hand door scraped on the ground when Lavine pushed it open. Weston and I followed him through into a small concrete-walled lobby. There was an elevator to our right, but Lavine ignored it. He kept going and disappeared up a set of stairs at the far side. They only went up one level. We trudged along behind him and caught up just before he reached a heavy gray door at the top. He held it open for us and we emerged into a large, bright, open space.

I paused to check my new surroundings, but Weston grabbed my arm and hauled me past a deserted reception counter that ran along the left-hand wall. It would have been wide enough for three people to work behind, but now I could only see one chair. All the usual receptionists’ paraphernalia was missing—sign-in books, visitors’ badges, telephone switchboards, computer screens—and there was no other furniture in the whole area. It must have been some time since the place was occupied. A layer of dust covered the floor, making the marble tiles feel a little greasy underfoot, and a few small spiderwebs clung to the angles of the tall window frames.

The bottom six feet of glass had been covered up with sheets of coarse blockboard. One section was boarded up on the inside, as well. It was next to the far end of the counter, in line with a semicircle of black textured rubber set into the floor. It looked like the remains of a revolving door. It would have led to the street, but now the thick wooden panel blocking the opening was braced with two stout planks. Each was held in place by six heavy steel bolts. You’d need some decent tools to get through there, now. Or a little C4.

Weston didn’t release my arm until we reached a line of shiny silver posts. There were five, dividing the reception area on one side from a twin bank of elevators on the other. I guess they would have originally held hinged panels—probably glass, judging by the brackets—to control access into the building. Now their fittings were broken and there was nothing to fill the spaces between them. We walked through, past a double door leading to some offices, and headed toward the elevators. A door in the far corner was labeled
STAIRS
. For a moment I thought Lavine was going to make us climb again, but he reached out and pressed the call button instead. The indicators above three of the elevators were blank, but the fourth one was already showing
GROUND
. Its doors parted, and the three of us filed inside.

The elevator had buttons for twenty-four floors. Lavine hit the one labeled “23.” The doors closed gently, and almost imperceptibly we began to ascend. The elevator’s walls were covered by some sort of rough sacklike material hanging from small metal hooks near the ceiling. I
pulled back the edge of one of the sheets and found it was protecting a mirror. I presume it was the same on the other walls. If so, I was glad they were hidden. I didn’t need an endless sea of those agents’ miserable faces reflecting all around me.

The display gradually wound its way up to 23. We stopped moving and the doors silently slid apart. Weston pushed me out first. He guided me around to the right, away from the elevators, and then steered me along the corridor until we reached an enormous open-plan office. Two lines of storage cabinets were laid out along the center of the room, forming a kind of pathway to a glass supervisor’s booth that jutted out from the end wall. The cabinets were low—less than waist height—and a gap after each third one gave access to groups of desks on either side. They were pushed together in fours to form parallel rows of identical crosses. These were arranged alternately one against the cabinets, one against the windows all the way down the room. The nearer ones were completely bare, except for a tangle of wires spilling out from the exposed cable trays at the back. Farther away several computer keyboards were scattered around, all with their leads neatly coiled up, and I could see a handful of old telephone headsets mixed in among them.

The last couple of desks on the right looked as if they hadn’t been cleared yet, and the ones at the far end on the left had been moved out of position. They’d been pushed aside, and the space between them was filled with chairs. At least a hundred. They were piled high on each other at impossible, drunken angles. Some had their arms hooked together to hold them in place. Others had fallen off and were lying on the floor, blocking the entrance to the booth.

Lavine flipped a couple of the fallen chairs onto their wheels and rolled them through the glass doorway. I had to stand aside as he came back out for another one, and I ended up squashed against the last desk on the right. I could hardly see any of its surface. It was covered with pizza boxes, Coke cans, coffee mugs, newspapers—all kinds of junk. The next desk was clinical in comparison. It held neat piles of papers and folders, several pens, a cell phone charger, and a pair of laptop computers.
The screensavers had kicked in on both of them. One had a floating FBI shield that rippled as it moved. Homer Simpson was showing his backside on the other.

Two maps were pinned to the wall behind the desks, completely filling the space between a pair of windows. At the top was a large-scale street map of Manhattan. Clusters of red dots and blue triangles had been marked on it, along with a series of times and dates from the previous week. Below that a color-coded linear diagram was superimposed on an outline of the United States. The key said it was a schematic of the national railroad network. A set of black-and-white photographs had been stuck around the top right-hand border. They showed men’s faces. I counted five. All of them would be in their mid to late thirties. They looked scruffy and unkempt, but basically cared for. Certainly not a pack of tramps. Arrows had been drawn connecting them to points on different railroad lines. All the points were on routes that fanned out from New York.