Silencer (42 page)

She parked and bought two large sodas in the cafeteria and took them to one of the tables. Rhees sipped his in silence. Amanda smoked a cigarette and watched cars come in and out of the lot. A Cessna rose up from the runway. She imagined being inside the small plane, floating in a kind of light membranous sac through blue skies, where consciousness was suspended and amnesia a possibility.

She saw Kelloway step out of a car. He noticed Amanda and Rhees immediately and walked briskly to their table. He sat, waving smoke from Amanda's cigarette away from his face. She removed her sunglasses and looked at him, searching his expression for an indication of his mood. It was hard to tell.

‘OK,' he said. ‘Let's start with Tom Gannon.'

‘Dansk shot him,' she said.

‘And the other cops?'

She didn't say anything. She felt an unexpected reluctance to tell Kelloway anything else, but she wasn't sure why. Speech was an enormous effort suddenly. Words congealed and darkened like scars in her head.

‘So he kills four cops in one swoop and burns down half a forest,' Kelloway said.

Amanda looked beyond Kelloway a moment. The breeze fluttered briefly, then faded. The wind-sock nearby deflated. This situation had the pitch of a dream, or of that moment when you experience the first slide towards sleep.

‘And then where did he go?' Kelloway asked.

Rhees said in his flat way, ‘Dansk's dead.'

‘Dead?'

‘There were two gunmen,' Rhees said.

‘Where?'

Amanda said, ‘A place we never want to go again.'

Kelloway looked into her eyes. ‘What place?'

‘I'll draw you a map,' she said. But all she could remember was wilderness and gunfire. The geography was missing.

Kelloway leaned forward, elbows on the table. ‘These gunmen shot Dansk and left? You saw their faces?'

‘It was dark,' she said. ‘We couldn't see them.'

‘So you can't identify them.'

Amanda said, ‘Frankly, we weren't really looking. My best guess would be they were the same pair who attacked John.'

‘Dansk's own people turned on him.' Kelloway swatted a fly from his arm. ‘And left you two alive?'

‘Maybe Loeb can explain that,' she said.

Kelloway made one hand into a tanned fist. ‘Loeb was shot at close range outside a roadside tavern on I-Seventeen. We don't know who killed him. Nobody in the tavern heard any gunfire. You never find witnesses in these sawdust joints.'

She absorbed this information. No witnesses, she thought. No Loeb to answer questions. No Dansk to interrogate. Silenced voices. ‘How much background have you looked into?'

‘Ralph Loeb was with Justice for sixteen years. Terminal lung cancer, so he was going to retire one way or another pretty soon. I imagine he expected to croak in a hospital bed with tubes up his nose, but fate's a real joker. He told me he'd never heard of Dansk.'

‘Surprise.'

‘I have calls into various people. Top guys in Justice. The US Marshals Service. The Director of the Witness Protection Program. I'm also talking with the State Attorney-General's office. I have forensics examining the late Mrs Vialli for exact cause of death. The description of the guy you saw in the Hideaway Knolls has been circulated.'

‘You've become a believer, have you?' she asked.

‘Let's say I'm leaning,' Kelloway said, ‘but I need anything you can give me by way of solid evidence.'

She thought of Dansk's notebook. She thought of the drums and the labels on them. She had the unsettling feeling that Kelloway was keeping something back from her and Rhees. She didn't know what.

Her attention was drawn to a car entering the parking-lot and cruising close to the table. She saw the driver's face half in shadow, and she had a sense of recognition. The car moved past, then slid into a space about 50 yards away and the door opened.

The breeze came up again. The man who stepped out of the car put a hand to his scalp. His necktie, caught by a current of air, flapped up against his face and he smoothed it back into position. In his left hand he carried a briefcase.

Kelloway said, ‘I'm looking at the possibility of a serious investigation here. One that's also very delicate.'

Amanda turned away from the man fidgeting with his necktie. ‘Does the prospect scare you, Kelloway?'

‘I don't scare, Scholes. I've got balls of steel. All I'm saying is, this isn't your run-of-the-mill affair. This is something you piece together, and if there's a case I'm gonna have to convince some pretty influential people I've got something worth pursuing. This one leads in all sorts of directions. Justice. The US Marshals Service. I can see FBI involvement. Beyond that …' He shrugged.

Amanda stared past Kelloway at the man who was struggling once more to keep his tie in place against the renewed mischief of the breeze. When he reached the table he smiled at Amanda.

She said, ‘Lew Bascombe. Got a plane to catch?'

‘No, no plane,' Bascombe said. He sat, opened his briefcase, took out an opaque plastic folder and laid it on the table. It was red and shiny, buttoned shut.

Kelloway nodded at Bascombe, then said to Amanda, ‘I want everything you can tell me. A to Z.'

She wondered about Lew Bascombe's presence. She looked at the red folder. Lew was drilling his fingers on it. She leaned back, sluggish. When Kelloway spoke his voice came from a cloud of ectoplasm. ‘I got some real thick doors to knock on and some heavyweight characters I'm gonna have to talk to. I need good stuff to show them, and where am I gonna find this stuff if I don't get it from you and Rhees? Not from Loeb, and not from Dansk, that's for sure.'

She said, ‘Loeb and Dansk weren't working alone: they had support. People with access to information. People who knew what buttons to push on their keyboards. Others who specialized in violence. I don't know how many or how deep this whole sickness runs.'

‘These are exactly the people I want to fucking nail.'

‘Have you thought that Loeb had time to start covering his tracks before he died?' she asked. ‘Maybe he made a few phone calls right after his talk with you. He realized things were beginning to fall apart, so he sent out messages. Eliminate certain files and records, et cetera.'

Kelloway said, ‘You can't wipe out
everything
, Scholes. There are always traces left somewhere, and I'll find them. When I get my foot in the door I'm like some fucking Jehovah's Witness on Benzedrine.'

Kelloway looked at Bascombe, who unclipped the folder and opened it. He started to pull papers out.

Bascombe said, ‘I've arranged a complete set, Amanda. Two birth certificates, two social security cards, two driver's licences issued by the State of Arizona. Two credit cards and a cheque-book from a bank in Yuma. The key to a house in the same city, address attached. You'll see we've described you as married. I picked the names myself. Erika and Robert Bloom.'

‘Wait,' she said.

Kelloway said, ‘I can't begin to build a case without you two and I want to be one hundred per cent goddam sure any witnesses of mine are in protective custody –'

‘
Wait
,' she said again.

‘I want you both safe and sound while I work this business out. We have our own in-State witness protection program –'

‘I'm aware of that –'

‘It's small-scale compared to the Federal one, but at least it's secure, and I know where I can contact you when I need you. I can guarantee total safety, round-the-clock protection, a direct line to my office open all hours.'

Amanda looked at the birth certificates, the credit cards, the cheque-book. They appeared to vibrate in her vision. ‘You're asking us to drop out of sight for God knows how long and assume new
identities
?'

‘Nobody's gonna come looking for you. You don't have to live with an ongoing paranoia. You'll be safe in my care.'

Safe in my care
. ‘Is this mandatory?' she asked.

Kelloway shrugged and raised his eyebrows. ‘Let me tell you what's gonna happen if you don't accept: you'll spend a whole lotta time looking over your shoulder. When the sun goes down, you'll wonder what lies out there in the darkness. When the doorbell rings, you'll jump. When somebody comes to fix your garbage disposal, you'll be reaching for a Valium or a gun, whichever's closer. And then there's Rhees to consider. He needs rest, time to mend.'

He'd fingered her weak point. She stared at the wind-sock and watched it fill with air. She listened to the breeze as if she expected to hear a message of guidance rustle out of the trees nearby, reliable counsel voiced by the shaken leaves.

‘Maybe you don't trust me,' Kelloway said. ‘But you have to trust somebody somewhere along the line. Begin with me. Who was it that gave you Tom Gannon for protection? Who was it offered you that? And those other cops? I walked that extra mile for you.'

She looked at Rhees, whose drawn face seemed to recede from her. Trust somebody somewhere.

Rhees said, ‘Robert and Erika Bloom,' as if he were checking the flavour of the names in his mouth and didn't like how they tasted, but his voice was odd and lifeless.

She heard another small plane rise off the runway.

‘Well?' Kelloway asked.

She raised her face and watched the craft, a dwindling gleam of quicksilver in the sun. The sound of the engine dropped a half-tone. She put her sunglasses on and the gloss of the day dimmed to an acceptable level. She looked at Kelloway, who was less harsh, less predatory, in reduced light. Then she stared at Bascombe for a long time. That bland face, that bad wig.

‘What do you think, Lew?' she asked.

‘I think you should go for it, Amanda,' he said.

‘Just like that,' she said.

Bascombe said, ‘I've already agreed to co-operate one hundred per cent with Dan to get this whole goddam business cleared up. I believe you should do the same.'

The same, she thought. Christ, she was weary, weary. She wanted a bed and clean sheets and a cool dark room. Above all else she wanted Rhees to be safe. She looked at Bascombe and remembered Willie Drumm. ‘Tell me, Lew. Did you ever get around to checking on Dansk?'

Bascombe said, ‘Of course I did.'

‘And?'

‘Nothing,' he said. ‘He wasn't employed by Justice. He wasn't employed by the Marshals Service. He came out of nowhere.'

Zero, she thought. A mystery. Now he was dead and she should begin the process of imposing amnesia on herself. She saw a State police car enter the parking-lot.

‘Is that our transportation, Kelloway?'

‘Only if you accept,' he said.

She glanced at Rhees again. He made an indeterminate movement of his head. She knew what it meant: I'm in too much pain to think.

‘What about my father?' she asked. ‘He's going to wonder. I owe him a call.'

‘Later, when you're relocated, we'll arrange for you to phone him. We're not talking for ever, Amanda. Three months, six, it depends on what I find. I might get lucky sooner, you never know.'

She closed her eyes against the light and finished the last of her soda. She thought of Morgan and his hacienda in the hills, Morgan waiting to hear from her. Later, like Kelloway had said.

Life was going to become a series of postponements and abdications. She removed the sunglasses and blinked.

‘There's a notebook you're going to need,' she said.

77

Kelloway watched the state police car drive out of sight. Neither Amanda nor Rhees looked back at him. He turned to Bascombe and said, ‘Where the hell did Loeb dig up a psycho like Dansk? What was the old clown dreaming of? He must've known the risk he was running trusting a guy like that. OK, so Dansk was a US Marshal with special undercover status, big deal, but Loeb should've checked on his mental stability, for Christ's sake.'

Kelloway picked up an empty soda container from the table and crumpled it in his hand. ‘Then, lo and behold, Loeb changes tack and decides he wants Dansk dead because the guy's outta control and it's panic stations, and all the evidence has to get swept under the nearest rug immediately, and Scholes goes home happy and content because she imagines her personal nightmare's finished … A dying man finds some mercy in his heart. You think it was something like that with Loeb? Or did he just lose his nerve?'

‘It doesn't matter much now,' Bascombe said.

Kelloway had a hard purposeful quality in his expression. ‘No more fuck-ups. No more of Loeb's misbegotten judgements. No more Dansk.'

Bascombe smiled, a humourless effort. ‘This wide-ranging investigation of yours. When does it begin?'

Kelloway said, ‘What investigation?'

‘I'm sorry for the woman, kind of,' Bascombe said.

‘Save your sympathy, Lew. She got herself into this. She had her chances to back out. More than a few times.'

‘Her father …'

‘Tough one,' Kelloway said. ‘But you can't have guys like Dansk doing this work. He fiddled around and he blew it, and along the way some unhappy sacrifices had to be made. Jesus, I hate losing men. It's a total waste.' He was silent a time, staring towards the trees. ‘OK, I figured Dansk was deranged enough and determined enough to get through to the cabin, but fuck, I really missed out on Loeb's misguided charity. Maybe the old fart saw Scholes's reprieve as an act of atonement or something, or maybe all the death just sickened him to the heart, which I could understand, believe me.'

‘Who knows,' Bascombe said.

‘Sometimes I get depressed and I think this operation's too much. The pressure-cooker syndrome. The whole act you have to go through: containment, keeping secrets, all the lies. Then I swing the other way and it looks good again, it feels right, it's running like a well-oiled clock and God's got a grin on his face. You think I need Prozac maintenance, Lew?'