The Vaults (36 page)

He lit the first match and held it to a file. It didn’t catch immediately, instead smoking until the match burned down too far and Puskis dropped it onto the floor. The second match did ignite the folder and Puskis held the file so that the flame crept up the folder and grew. He replaced the folder on the shelf and watched as the flame spread to adjacent files. The smell of the smoke imbued Puskis with a sense of urgency, and he hastened down the aisle to ignite another folder. This accomplished, he moved back to the original fire to find that it had spread to three shelves now and would not easily be extinguished.

He walked ten aisles forward and lit another fire. Another ten aisles and another fire. Puskis was perfectly calm, even serene, looking back to see smoke billowing and flames licking at the ceiling. It was like a dream—more real than waking life. All this paper would go up quickly. He walked to the front of the Vaults, finding his two minders leaning against the wall chatting while the typists worked their keyboards.

Puskis pushed the elevator call button.

“Look here,” said one of his minders, “where are you going?”

“The men’s room, if that is permissible.” No nerves. Weightless.

The cop shrugged. Puskis entered the elevator and turned to look out as the operator pulled the gate closed.

The two minders were back in conversation; the typists were absorbed in their work, fingers manic. In the distance, tendrils of smoke slowly snaked forward, emerging from rows of files as though encircling the main center aisle.

The elevator operator pulled a face, sniffed, and asked, “Is that smoke?” Then rattled home the door.

Puskis felt no need to reply.

In the lobby, everything seemed oddly normal. People were oblivious of what Puskis had just done.
The Vaults were burning!

Puskis imagined the scene that would surely unfold in mere minutes; the panic that sets in when you introduce fire to a confined space crowded with people. He headed for the door.

“Can I help you, Mr. Puskis?” asked a cop stationed at the front entrance.

“Yes. If it is not too much trouble, could you send the elevator man back down to the Vaults? I suspect there may be people down there who are eager to come up.”

The cop gave a good-natured shrug. “Of course, Mr. Puskis,” he said, and wandered off to the bank of elevators.

Puskis, his face inscrutable, watched the guard’s progress for a moment, then slipped out the front door and headed toward the house of Joos Van Vossen.

In Red Henry’s office, a cherrywood liquor cabinet was stocked with expensive liquor but rarely opened. Henry did not often allow himself to lose even the slightest amount of self-control. He frequently drank beer, but at his size he rarely got at all drunk. He was now sitting with a tall glass of Four Roses Whiskey over ice, sipping aggressively. Three hours until the party began, and he didn’t like the way the day was progressing. The Poles were beginning to worry him. He had ASU guards discretely posted around the hotel where the contingent were staying. Nobody was getting to them at this late hour.

He grabbed a handful of cigars from a box on his desk and laid them out in front of him. He would bring five with him tonight. One for Rinus, or whatever the fuck his name was, and four for himself. He rolled the thick Cubans around on the table absently, letting his unconscious do the selecting while his mind wandered to Bernal. Henry did not have close emotional ties to people. Had he ever? He couldn’t remember any. But some people he liked to be around, people who amused and interested him. Bernal, like Block and Altabelli, had been one of those people.

He found himself equally disturbed by Bernal’s death—he would leave a void in Henry’s small social circle—and his apparent betrayal. Why would Bernal turn on him? What did he have to gain or, as might be the case, what was he trying to avoid losing? It didn’t make sense, which troubled Henry more than anything else.

Then there was that goddamn Frings, who for some reason was so pathologically single-minded in his pursuit of Henry that he was willing to sacrifice his girlfriend—and not just any girlfriend, but Nora Aspen—rather than give in on even a single point. How the hell had Frings found Otto Samuelson? It must have been Bernal. But again, why? Possibilities ran through Henry’s mind, but they always led to one thing—the Navajo Project. That could be a catastrophic problem. As he began to ponder the consequences of having Smith kill Frings, Henry realized his glass was
empty. With pewter tongs he snared more ice from the bucket and poured the whiskey slowly, watching it cascade over the cubes.

The Four Roses had him feeling warm, but rather than mellowing, his mind raced more frantically. Where was Otto Samuelson? More important, where was Whiskers? What the hell was going on out in the sticks? Trevor Reid, the Vampire, had made a run, and Henry thought that the number that Whiskers had done on him would have cowed the others into staying put. Samuelson and the others, they were hard men, but like most hard men they recognized when they were had. Whiskers, on the other hand, was not adequately described as hard. He was on an entirely different fucking planet. It was odd, Henry thought, that the person who seemed most like Whiskers to him in this respect was Feral. Not that the two had anything else in common. Feral was controlled and literate and seemed to have some kind of moral sense, screwed up though it was. Whiskers was a homicidal maniac. But they shared a quality of otherworldliness. You couldn’t outhard them because they weren’t being hard. They were something entirely different. And that was why they alone worried Red Henry, the hardest of the hard.

Red light flickered across Van Vossen’s face, reflections of the flames dancing in the brick fireplace. Puskis sat in a cavernous upholstered chair across from Van Vossen, who lounged in its twin. No tin was in his lap this time. A Bach violin concerto whispered from the Victrola’s horn. The place smelled of Van Vossen’s pipe tobacco.

“You burned the Vaults?” His tone was dull and his eyes without expression, but a sudden tensing of his body had alerted Puskis to his alarm.

“They were corrupting it. They were changing the information.” Puskis felt shaky from excitement; the finality of the act.

Van Vossen nodded. “Better no files than a record of lies.”

He understood, as Puskis had known he would. “It would have been a collective dementia.”

Van Vossen sucked on his pipe, avoiding Puskis’s eyes by looking into the fire.

They were silent for a while, then Van Vossen poured them both brandies from a crystal decanter. Puskis did not enjoy alcohol, but sipped it to be polite.

“Your book is the only record left. It is now the most complete story of the workings of justice in the City.”

Van Vossen thought about this, staring into his glass as he swirled the dark liquid in circles. Puskis had wondered what the reaction would be. Would the gravity of this responsibility intimidate, or would Van Vossen find pride, even exhilaration, in this duty?

“I’m having a difficult time organizing the book,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, how do you organize a work like this? What is the organizing principle? Surely not time.”

This surprised Puskis. “In the Vaults, we organized by—”

“In the Vaults,” Van Vossen said peevishly, “you organized by whim.”

Puskis felt his temper rising. “By whim? The system of organization in
the Vaults is a complex, organic system. It is the closest reflection of the very nature of crime.”

Van Vossen gave a disgusted laugh. “Is that what it is, Mr. Puskis? Are you sure that you don’t force events into categories that bear only certain of the essential characteristics? Are crimes really that similar?”

Puskis’s reflexive answer was yes, but he stifled it. The question was not adequately answered with a single word. Yet, if he was unable to answer the question affirmatively, what had been the point of the Vaults or his three decades of work therein?

“How well did you know Abramowitz?” Van Vossen asked, seeming to change tack.

“He was my mentor.”

“Did you know him before his decline?”

“Well, I didn’t have anything to compare it to, but I imagine that he was already, um, troubled, by the time I worked with him.”

“Do you know why he went insane?”

Puskis didn’t respond. He had pondered the question for almost twenty years. He had no idea.

“He went insane because he was looking for a pattern. He was looking for a pattern or a theory or some kind of organizing principle to explain the crime and evil that passed through his hands every day and every week and every year. He tried to find a design, you see, and it drove him insane because in the end there was no design. He looked for God in the deeds of man, and he discovered that all there was were the independent acts of thousands of people. No pattern, no design, no sense. So, as I said, I am having a difficult time organizing my book.”

The signing gala was being held at the former armory, which had been converted to a cavernous ballroom. Red Henry leaned against the temporary bar and watched the workers as they made preparations for the evening. Already, giant American and Polish flags alternated along the walls. Tables were appointed in red and white, and red, white, and blue. Caterers scurried back and forth, carrying crates of glasses, putting out place settings, and carting food to the kitchen. Henry glowered at the lot of them and was rewarded with their nervousness and, in some cases, fear.

A polka band was setting up on the stage at the far end of the room, the musicians tuning their instruments and playing brief phrases that Henry vaguely recognized. The music added to the cacophony of clanking dishes and slamming doors and chatter in a half dozen languages. Henry took a long draft off a pint of beer. He was getting drunk and comfortably aggressive.

He heard the maintenance door slam and footsteps approach. He turned to find Peja striding reluctantly toward him. Henry scratched his head with his free hand, knowing he was about to get some news he didn’t want to hear. He could tell by Peja’s eyes.

“Out with it,” he growled by way of greeting.

Peja avoided his eyes. “Okay, sir. The Poles, well, the Poles aren’t coming.”

Henry stared at a spot twenty feet behind Peja, focusing on maintaining his temper. “The Poles aren’t coming?” he said, carefully enunciating each word.

“My understanding is that they’re backing out of the deal. They don’t want to sign the contract.”

Henry considered this for a moment, finished his beer, and threw the empty glass down hard on the floor, where it shattered into tiny shards. Peja flinched, then gathered himself.

“Is this just your understanding or is this a fact?”

“It’s a fact, sir. I heard it from Rinus himself.”

Henry spoke with chilling calm. “Why, in your opinion, have they changed their minds at this late date?”

“I checked into that. The officers who had surveillance at the Poles’ hotel said that the woman from the strike at Bernal’s had been to the hotel. Presumably she met with Rinus.”

“ ‘Presumably she met with Rinus,’ ” Henry mocked. “We’re talking about the woman Carla Hallestrom?”

“I’m fairly sure it’s her.”

“They just let her walk in? That goddamn labor chippie waltzes right into a hotel where a very important group of businessmen is staying on the afternoon of a crucial deal and they just let her walk in?” Henry’s voice was rising in volume, and the workers cast worried glances in his direction.

“I addressed that very point with them, and they said that they had not been given any directive for that situation.”

“Can’t they fucking think, for Christ’s sake?”

“They pride themselves on their discipline, as you know, sir. They held off and monitored the situation, as they put it.”

Henry knew that he had insisted upon this unstinting discipline. “So this Carla meets with Rinus and he decides—what?—he’s not going to move his factory here after all?”

“That’s not exactly what he said. He said he wanted to look at some options before committing to us.”

“It’s the same goddamn thing. If he leaves here without signing the contract, he won’t return.” Henry sighed. “What did she say to them? Did she threaten them? Bribe them? Did she whore herself for their compliance?”

Peja shrugged. “Rinus was not forthcoming.”

“Bring me a beer,” Henry yelled to nobody in particular. He wanted to go over to that hotel and grab Rinus by his fucking collar and drag him down here to sign the fucking contract and drink this shitty Polish beer and fulfill his goddamn responsibility. But experience had shown Henry that waiting would be more effective. Let them sleep on whatever it was that the little commie bitch had told them. He would speak to them in the morning, bring the entirety of his overpowering personality to bear on the Poles, and they would see sense. His powers of persuasion were rarely resisted.

He still had this evening to get through. He gave Peja a wolf’s grin.

“Don’t tell anyone that this deal has gone south. This is still a celebration.
The story is the Poles have come down with food poisoning. Understand? This goes on as usual.”