Inside Out (26 page)

59

Rush Massey was at the computer with his fingers on the keyboard. As he typed, a pleasant electronic voice spoke the words.

DEAR SIRS COMMA IT HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION THAT YOUR BREAKFAST FRUIT BARS CAN CAUSE FIRES IN TOASTERS PERIOD AS AN UNSIGHTED PERSON I BELIEVE I HAVE ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT WITHOUT FLAMING DEATH RESULTING FROM MY DEEP AFFECTION FOR YOUR TASTY BREAKFAST PASTRIES PERIOD I HAVE SOME IDEAS FOR FIRE-RETARDANT FOODS PERIOD

Rush heard a snort from behind him. He hadn't smelled Mrs. Holland's perfume and was unaware that the principal had snuck up behind him.

“Rush, you could be a comedy writer.”

“I'm going to be a federal judge so I can sentence the men my daddy catches. And when you're a judge, the blinder the better. Like when you're an umpire.”

Mrs. Holland chuckled and placed her hand on Rush's shoulder affectionately. “Your father is out in the hall waiting to see you.”

Winter led Rush into the auditorium and took seats close to the entrance. “I have something to tell you.”

“Okay.” His son's face remained emotionless. Rush was preparing himself mentally for virtually anything.

“What I am going to tell you is a classified secret, so I have to ask you to keep it between the two of us.”

Rush crossed his heart.

“You know the USMS airplane that crashed Thursday night?”

“Yes.”

“Right.”
God give me the strength to do this.
“Those WITSEC marshals were taking a witness to Washington to testify.”

“WITSEC like Uncle Greg?”

“Greg was . . .” Winter's voice broke. He hadn't felt the emotion coming. “On that flight.”

Rush was silent as he absorbed the information.

“He's in heaven, right?”

“I'm sure he is.”

“Then Mama will have somebody for company that's her friend.” Rush smiled. “So we should be glad about that.”

“Greg loved you. He was so proud of how grown-up you are. He said so the other day. Here's the thing,” Winter said. “The plane didn't accidentally crash. It was hijacked and blown up by some men who didn't want the witness to testify. The men who did it got away. That's the biggest secret.”

Rush contemplated the direction the conversation was taking. “Are you going to go catch them?”

“The FBI is supposed to do that. They are trying to blame Greg to explain how the bad men found the witness.”

“It's not fair, to blame someone who can't defend himself. And Uncle Greg wouldn't do anything wrong on purpose.”

“I agree. The FBI has some evidence they say proves Greg did what they say he did. I know it's a lie, but it looks like they might make it stick.”

“You can't stop them?”

“There's nothing I can do. Sometimes, no matter how bad we want to, we just can't set things right.”

“Why don't you try—tell the FBI that Greg was good? Go get some evidence.” Rush seemed confused.

“I'm not an investigator. I just wanted to tell you that even if people say it's true, we know it isn't. We know Greg was a good guy.”

“Yeah, sure. What else?”

“That's all I had to tell you. And that I love you more than anything on earth.”

Winter hugged his son to him.

“I'm sorry you feel so sad, Daddy.”

Rush reached into his pocket and handed Winter a folded red bandana, one of Eleanor's cotton handkerchiefs. “I want you to take this one.”

“That's yours.”

“It'll make you feel less sad, like it does me.”

60

Richmond, Virginia

Wire Dog found a space and parked his cab a block from the Second National Bank of Eastern Virginia. Sean walked to the bank's entrance and strolled inside. When it was her turn, she handed the young teller a one hundred–dollar bill.

“Could I have that in tens and fives?”

The teller reached into her drawer and swiftly counted out ten fives and five tens.

Sean asked, “Is Paul Gillman still with the bank?”

“Mr. Gillman's our president.”

“Is he in today?”

“I think so.” The teller looked up and across the lobby. “There he is.”

Sean turned. She saw Paul Gillman standing in an office door holding some papers. Paul had gained a few pounds in the five years since she had seen him, the blond hair was thinner on top, and he looked as though he didn't smile as much as he once had. Tucking her money into her purse, she started across the lobby, and her old friend from college looked straight at her, or through her, then turned and went back to his desk. She stopped at a kiosk, scribbled a note on a deposit slip, and crossed to Gillman's secretary.

“Excuse me. I'm an old friend of Paul's. I know he's busy, but could you give this to him?”

The secretary stared at Sean with a look teetering between hostility and curiosity. Sean suddenly realized how alien she must look to the middle-aged woman who spent her days focusing on numbers. It amused and excited Sean to see how people responded to superficial differences between themselves and others. Had Sean Devlin, instead of Sally McSorley, appeared in the bank, the secretary would have been tripping over herself to accommodate her.

The secretary took the note reluctantly and went into his office.

Paul Gillman beat his secretary out of the room. Looking right past Sean, he scanned the lobby with a hopeful look on his face.

“Paul,” Sean said. “Here.”

The banker turned and stared at her. “Sean?” he stared in disbelief.

“Who else?”

He grinned with delight. “God, you look like Billy Idol!” He hugged her and actually lifted her off the floor.

The secretary stared down at her desk and shuffled some papers.

“What brings you to Richmond?” Paul remarked, finally setting Sean back down.

“Business.”

“How's Olivia?”

“Mother passed away.”

“Sorry. I really liked her.”

Sean smiled. “She liked you, too.”

“How long will you be in town?”

“I'm on the ground for three hours and I thought I'd say hello, take care of a loose end.”

“Come into the office.”

“The
presidential
office.”

“What's with you and the getup?” he demanded as she settled into a leather chair. “What happened to Sean Marks, the little debutante?”

“I married this guy a while back. I was crazy about him. He's a federal agent whose temper is legendary.” She touched her bruised lip and grimaced.

“Son of a bitch. Aw, Sean, I'm sorry. What can I do?”

“I need to get something from my lockbox.”

“Of course.” He reached into his desk and sifted through the contents until he found an envelope with
SEAN MARKS
typed on it and an address over a year out of date. “I labeled it so you'd get it back if the sky fell on me or something. You never know.”

“The address is no good,” she admitted. “Guess I haven't been much of a friend, not staying in touch.”

“You always were mysterious, Sean. But this punk thing is quite a departure from your old look.”

He handed her the envelope, which she opened and removed the key. “You and Ally still happily married?” she asked.

“Well, I am as happy as a man with three little boys running amok all over the house can be. Everything is great. But I'd throw it all away and do something insane if you only crooked your little finger.”

Sean smiled warmly at her old friend. “I envy you.”

Before they entered the vault, Paul asked Sean to sign her name on an index card. She had signed it once before, five years earlier, so the signature could be verified. The signature above was looser, from a less stressful time. He located the box, inserted his and then her key, opened the door, pulled out the box, and carried it to a cubicle. “Take as long as you want. I'll be right outside.”

She opened the box, which she had in case of an emergency. At the time it had seemed silly, but her mother had insisted. Olivia Marks had subscribed to the belief that everyone should have mad money, a secret stash in a safe place to draw on. Olivia Marks had been a woman who had lived her entire adult life in quiet terror.

No one but Paul knew Sean had the lockbox, and she alone knew what was inside it. Paul had never asked about its contents. She had made few very close friends—had rarely let anyone get close emotionally. She listened carefully, patiently, but she rarely volunteered information. She evaded. If pressed, she lied. And she lied with an ease that prevented her friends from being certain they ever really knew her. Sean had been raised to be a survivor. There had been a price and she had paid it. For the first time in her life she was glad she had.

There were only two objects inside the box. She lifted out the stack of fifty hundred-dollar bills held together with a rubber band. The second object was a passport in the name of Sally McSorley. She reached into the bottom of her jacket pocket and took out the wedding band Dylan had given her fourteen months before, whose design matched the one Dylan had worn. She felt a surge of relief as she dropped it into the box and closed the lid.

While she had been inside the cubicle, Paul had straightened his tie and carefully combed his hair. She felt a pang of guilt. As she handed him the box, she caught the scent of breath spray. All of her life, she had been an actor. Affecting and manipulating men had been an effortless exercise, but she had never before consciously manipulated people who cared about her.

“Can't you lay over and have dinner with us tonight? Ally would sure love to see you. You could meet our children: the Grub, Splashy-cat and Goop-slinger.”

Sean laughed. “I wish I could, Paul, but I have an appointment with an attorney in California,” she lied. “Next trip through, we can all get together and I can finally meet those boys of yours, whose given names, I am sure, aren't what you said.”

“Jacob, Stephen, and Murray. They'd like you a lot, Sean. You know, if there's ever anything you need, you can ask me. I really mean it.”

She smiled sincerely at her friend. There was one thing. “I don't think anybody could possibly show up here, but if anyone asks after me . . .”

“I'll say I haven't seen Sean Marks in five years. I'll just date today's signature on the card for a week after you rented the box. I'm a banker, but I've always been terrible with numbers. Don't be a stranger, okay? We care about you.”

“Thank you, Paul. You can't imagine how much your friendship means to me.”

What was life without friends, family? Without those connections strengthened by shared experience, life became mere survival. She was abruptly conscious of the weight of the pistol in her jacket pocket, a heavy reminder of the fact that she would never again be the girl Paul Gillman once knew.

Wire Dog jerked awake when she opened the cab door. Sean had called him for a number of reasons. He was a perfect addition to her disguise, and she didn't want to have her face seen by other cabdrivers. Wire Dog didn't strike her as someone connected to illegal activities—a real consideration when it came to cabbies. Every dark enterprise inevitably had some connecting point to organized crime, to the network Sam Manelli manipulated from his nest in New Orleans.

When Wire Dog pulled up outside the Hotel Grand, Sean handed him the fare with a ten dollar tip added, despite his unconvincing protest that it was excessive.

“I'm glad you called,” he told her. “You wouldn't want to go hear some music sometime, would you?”

“Too much work to do,” she said.

“Work your fingers to the bone, and know what you get?” he asked.

“No.”

“Bony fingers.”

She laughed.

61

New Orleans, Louisiana

Johnny Russo took a handful of quarters from his pocket and poured them onto the steel shelf inside one of the few remaining phone booths in America with a door, or so it seemed. At the curb, Spiro stood leaning against the Lincoln's grill, his massive arms crossed over his chest.

Reading from a business card he held against the closed wallet in his hand, Johnny dropped a quarter in the slot and punched in the penciled phone number. He was phoning the Kurtz of Kurtz, Walker, Koinberg, Rustin, Winklin & Associates, Sam Manelli's high-profile criminal attorney.

Johnny Russo deposited the number of coins required for the first three minutes. He hoped he could be done in two. He really hated lawyers, and Kurtz, famous or not, was a strutting fag—or would be, given half a chance.

The phone was answered immediately. “Kurtz,” the lawyer said. The sound of dinnerware and conversations placed the attorney in a restaurant.

“It's Johnny.”

“Johnny?”

“Sam's guy.”

“Sam's guy?”

Johnny raised his voice slightly. “Sam from New Orleans.” He wondered why the lawyer wanted to act as though he had fifty more important Sams to sort through before he arrived at Sam Manelli, a mobster who'd bought the fancy-ass meal the fag and his pals were eating.

“I'm in the middle of something,” Kurtz said pompously. “Is this important?”

“Would I be calling you to see what you're eating for dinner? I got some important hypothetical questions.”

“Shoot.” Kurtz sounded a little impatient, a tone he would never use with Sam, Johnny knew.

“Suppose somebody's lawyer dropped dead—choked on a candy bar or something. Say that by some chance, in this hypothetical scenario, the lawyer had in his possession, at the time of his death, pictures that were proof that the witness against his client was killed in a plane crash with marshals and one prosecutor, say from a New Orleans federal district. Hypothetically speaking.”

Kurtz was silent for a few seconds. Johnny was sure the lawyer had assumed the story was going to be a threat and was relieved it was another lawyer who was dead.

“There would be nothing to prove that this man's client ever saw them?”

“Not a shred.”

“Then if nothing physically linked this evidence to the dead man's client—only to the lawyer—it would more than likely be worthless in court.”

“With no witness left against his client, would that mean the case would be dropped or whatever?”

Johnny heard ice tinkle. “The case against this guy's client would be dropped and the defendant would be released as soon as the lawyers could get to the judge. With the right prodding from the right attorney, this theoretical defendant of yours would be released before the sun goes down tomorrow.”

“That was gonna be my next question,” Johnny said.

“What else could it be?” Kurtz said snottily.

The lawyer hung up, leaving Johnny Russo with a full minute still paid for.

“Ya puke. My next question coulda been ‘How long would it take me to have your head in a bucket?'” Russo gathered the scattered quarters and dropped them back in his pocket. He would have great news for Sam when he called at two
A.M.