‘One question,’ Kelson said. ‘How did you get in here this time? Another question. What happened to your face? And would you please keep your hands off my guns?’
For a moment Genevieve Bower stared at him. Then tears ran from her eyes, the good one and the swollen one. When she cried, her breasts quivered.
‘Oh, don’t do that,’ Kelson said helplessly.
‘They came for the thumb drive,’ she said.
‘The – who did? The one in Jeremy Oliver’s van?’
‘You said it wasn’t there.’
‘That’s what I mean. The one I looked for.’
She sobbed, her body heaving.
‘Please stop that,’ he said.
‘They beat me,’ she said. ‘They only let me go because I told them I would get it. I lied.’
‘Who are they?’
‘I–I can’t tell you.’
The tears, the confusion, the quivering and heaving – Kelson felt the beginning of a headache. And a twitching eye. And an erection. He went to his desk and sat across from her. She put the Springfield into his outstretched hand. He popped the magazine, checked the ammunition, snapped the magazine back in place, and put the gun in its drawer. He left the KelTec on the desk. He breathed in deep and exhaled long, the way Dr P taught him. He said, ‘I can’t help you if you don’t tell me who they are and why they want the thumb drive so badly. You said it has videos on it. Tell me about them.’
Her sobbing stopped, though her eyes remained wet and her bruises glistened. ‘I shouldn’t have come here,’ she said. ‘I knew …’ She got up and started for the door.
‘Come back.’
‘Why? All I want is the thumb drive.’ Her tears started again. ‘The rest of it’s mine to worry about – not yours or anyone else’s.’
He pointed at the chair.
She came and sat.
He rubbed his forehead until the twitching stopped. He closed his eyes, as if he could free himself from his headache in the dark. He said, ‘Your old boyfriend Marty LeCoeur has a nephew, Neto. Neto got blown up in the thing at the Rogers Park Library. Now Marty’s in trouble. Maybe I am too.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, like she meant it.
‘All I’m saying is, I’ve got a lot going on. I don’t know what I can do for you.’
‘Just find the thumb drive,’ she said.
‘I don’t know where to start.’
‘Jeremy had it.’
‘First he had your shoes. Then he had your thumb drive.’
‘I’ll pay you.’
He breathed in deep and breathed out long. He took a pad of paper and a pen from the top desk drawer and slid them across the desk to her. ‘Who were Jeremy’s friends? Who did he trust? Anyone he might’ve given the drive to?’
She wrote two names Jeremy Oliver had mentioned in the short time they knew each other – Zoe Simmons, a friend of Oliver’s since high school, and Rick Oliver, his cousin. ‘They all grew up in Oak Park,’ she said. ‘Maybe you can find them.’
Kelson said, ‘Let’s say I tell you I’ll do this, what happens to you next? You walk out of here, and these people grab you and put you in a room and hit you some more?’
She forced a little smile. ‘They won’t find me. I rented a motel room on—’
‘Don’t,’ Kelson said. ‘If anyone asks, I’ll tell.’
‘You’ll look for the thumb drive?’ she said.
The pain in Kelson’s head pierced like a needle, from above his left eye back to his left ear. ‘New rules,’ he said. ‘No coming into my office when I’m out. No touching my guns. No lying.’
She started to object.
‘If you can’t tell me something, say you can’t,’ he said. ‘But no lying.’
‘OK,’ she said.
‘And please cut out that quivering, heaving thing. It messes with my brain.’
‘I’ve never met a man like you before,’ she said.
‘About a hundred fifty years ago, there was a railroad worker named Phineas Gage. An iron rod shot through his head. The rod ripped up his left frontal lobe, but less than a month later he was walking. A few years ago, a kid in Florida got shot through the brain with a fishing spear, but he seems to be fine now. But, yeah, we’re a little club. You don’t want to join.’
He showed her to the service elevator and explained how to leave through the back of the building. Ten minutes later, he tucked his KelTec into his belt, walked out of his office, and went to his car. He drove out of the city and inched northward through early-evening traffic toward G&G Private Equity. As he drove, he chatted with the radio reporters. When music came on, he sang along with the lyrics he knew. He made up the rest. Then he called Sue Ellen and asked about her day at school.
She said, ‘I love polynomials now.’
‘What did they do to change your mind?’
‘Now I hate graph functions. Can I come over to play with Painter’s Lane and Payday?’
‘I’m working tonight, honey.’
‘Good,’ she said, ‘I won’t have to talk to you.’
‘Funny,’ he said.
Before they hung up, she said, ‘Love you, Dad.’
‘Love you too, honey. That’s what hurts, right?’
‘Nope,’ she said.
‘You’re a smart kid.’
Kelson pulled into the G&G parking lot a few minutes before six. In the evening light, the late-May leaves on the little trees that dotted the edges of the parking lot looked so green they might burst. The white concrete panels on the outside of the G&G building, shadowed by the lowering sun, looked grimy.
Kelson went inside and rode the elevator to the third floor.
The receptionist gave no hint that she recognized Kelson from his last visit.
‘Marty LeCoeur?’ he asked her.
She had a pleasant smile. ‘No one by that name works here.’
‘Chip Voudreaux? Sylvia Crane or Harold Crane?’
‘Of course.’
‘Tell them Marty’s friend Sam Kelson wants to talk to them.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Marty’s friend.’ She dialed into the inner office.
A minute later, Chip Voudreaux came out in a navy blue suit, pale-yellow shirt, and blue tie. He smiled at Kelson with his too-white teeth and said, ‘Ah, Sam,’ as if Kelson was a favorite client.
‘Everyone here seems so happy,’ Kelson said.
Voudreaux had a chummy laugh. ‘Come …’ He led Kelson to his office.
A thin-faced woman with expensive blond hair sat on a brown leather sofa against one of the walls. She wore a blue skirt and matching jacket, and the way she crossed her legs made Kelson think she wanted to kick someone.
Voudreaux introduced them. ‘Sam Kelson – Sylvia Crane.’
‘My pleasure,’ she said, without apparent pleasure.
‘Don’t kick me,’ Kelson said.
She made a little square of her mouth and glanced at Voudreaux. Voudreaux asked Kelson, ‘What can we do for you?’
‘Let me talk with Marty LeCoeur.’
‘I don’t see what good that would do. He’s working on our problem. We’re treating him well. Feeding him coffee. We even gave him a little pillow for his back. He asked for his girlfriend, but we didn’t see how that would help.’
‘So you locked him in a room with a computer and you won’t let him talk to anyone?’
‘Why would we lock it? We have security personnel to keep him where he belongs.’
‘Be careful about angering him.’
Voudreaux’s smile turned ironic. ‘I think our men can handle him.’
‘I’ve never seen it, but my friend DeMarcus says when Marty gets angry, he turns into a bull shark.’
The ironic smile grew. ‘We’ll take that risk.’
Sylvia Crane said to Voudreaux, ‘We could hold this one too.’
Now Kelson smiled. ‘Believe me, I’d annoy the hell out of you.’
‘He has a point,’ Voudreaux said.
‘Only one way to get rid of me,’ Kelson said. ‘Let me see Marty.’
‘Oh, there’s more than one way,’ Sylvia Crane said.
That made Kelson grin. ‘You’re tough – or you try to sound tough. I like hard women. My ex-wife Nancy’s the toughest person I’ve ever known. She—’
‘Stop,’ Sylvia Crane said.
‘She could kick your ass,’ Kelson said. ‘And mine. And’ – he pointed a thumb at Voudreaux – ‘she could knock his shiny white teeth out. But you’re faking it. Tough talk. And the way you sit, you look like you want to boot someone. But I can tell.’
She uncrossed her legs and stood up. Kelson took a step back in case.
Voudreaux said to her, ‘Maybe we let him see LeCoeur. Put his mind at rest.’
‘Why do we want anyone’s mind at rest?’ she said. ‘They need to know what happens.’
‘What happens happens,’ Voudreaux said. ‘No harm in easing LeCoeur’s worries – clearing his mind so he can work.’
Sylvia Crane glanced from Voudreaux to Kelson and back. She looked unhappy. ‘Fine,’ she said.
Kelson stared at her with a new understanding. ‘You call the shots here?’
They took Kelson down a narrow hall to a door guarded by a thick-shouldered man in khakis and a black-logoed G&G golf shirt. He had no gun.
‘But you don’t look like you’d need one,’ Kelson told him.
The man nodded to Crane and Voudreaux and opened the door.
Marty sat at a white table in an all-white room lit by fluorescent ceiling strips. He worked on two side-by-side big-screened laptops. He seemed to have tightened into his small body. As he keyed numbers on to a big field of other numbers, he mumbled, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuuuck.’
Voudreaux put on his toothy smile and said, ‘Marty, my man, how’s it coming?’
Marty jerked from the table and stared at Voudreaux and Crane like a feral cat. Then he noticed Kelson.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘How’s Neto?’
Kelson hated to say it. ‘Bad, Marty. Sorry.’
‘Goddammit.’
‘Yeah.’
‘He need me?’ Marty said.
‘Not much anyone can do,’ Kelson said. ‘The doctor wants to know about his organs. You know, about donating them.’
Marty shook his head. ‘That boy never gave away anything he could sell – never bought anything he could steal either.’
‘The hospital wants your OK before they pull the plug.’
‘Hell if they’re getting it. Neto’s a fighter. You watch – he’ll—’
‘The doctor says—’
‘What the fuck’s the doctor know?’
‘He says—’
‘Does he know Neto? I know Neto. The kid’s a survivor. I ain’t pulling the plug.’
Voudreaux said, ‘Great reunion here – and pity about Neto – but we have zero time for this.’
Marty stared at Voudreaux’s eyes like he would eat them.
Kelson stared at Voudreaux’s too-white mouth. ‘Your teeth look like they’d hurt,’ he said. ‘My ex-wife’s a dentist, and she—’
Sylvia Crane said, ‘Are you making progress, Mr LeCoeur?’
‘Fuck if I know. This system you’re using, any halfway smart high school kid with a bag of Cheetos could hack it. You give it to a guy like Neto, and you’re asking for it. I don’t blame victims, but you’re fucked.’
‘Just so we’re clear, you recommended Neto for the job,’ she said. ‘We hold you responsible.’
‘Why the fuck d’you think I’m here instead of sitting with Neto? But you can hold my fucking balls over a blowtorch, it changes nothing,’ Marty said.
‘You’re a colorful individual, Mr LeCoeur,’ Voudreaux said, ‘and under other circumstances, we might appreciate color. Right now, we want results. What do you need to get this done?’
‘Time,’ Marty said. ‘Luck. What I really need is Neto. The kid built walls inside walls inside walls.’
‘What kind of time?’ Voudreaux said.
‘Without Neto? Weeks. Maybe a month. Maybe even then I can’t do it.’
‘We need it now,’ Sylvia Crane said.
Kelson looked at her. ‘When you say “now”, do things just happen around here?’
‘Almost always,’ she said.
Kelson said to Marty, ‘We’ve got to get you out of here.’
‘Excuse me?’ Voudreaux said.
‘I’ll stay,’ Marty said.
Kelson said, ‘D’you know what they’ll do if you can’t get their money?’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ said the little man.
‘Desperate people do dumb things,’ Kelson said.
Voudreaux said, ‘We aren’t desperate.’
‘Oh, come on. Look at you. Those teeth.’ Kelson turned to Sylvia Crane. ‘And you – you know you want to kick me. Everything about this place is frantic.’
Sylvia Crane said, ‘Do you always make bad matters worse?’
‘Always?’ he said. ‘No.’
For a moment she looked like she would kick him, and keep kicking until the police report read ‘Unidentified Male’ and the lab needed to use partial prints and DNA. Or maybe she’d call in security to do the job. But then she laughed at him.
Kelson frowned. ‘That worries me more. Do you ever lose control?’
She turned to Marty. ‘Get back to work. Let us know if you need anything – food, coffee, anything.’ Then she said to Kelson, ‘I’ll show you out.’
She led him back through the narrow hall and past the receptionist. She walked him to the elevator and waited with him. When the elevator doors opened, she rested her fingers on his wrist and held him for a moment. ‘Some advice, Mr Kelson,’ she said. ‘Next time you think of coming here, don’t. Go to a movie instead. Go out for dinner. Spend some daddy-daughter time with – what’s her name? Sue Ellen?’
‘How do you—’
‘Shh,’ she said. ‘Be smart, that’s all. You can do that, can’t you?’