The trendy bar – mock-vintage decor and lights – was hardly bustling, but it was busy enough and public enough for Curtis. Certainly compared to that darkened alley.
Perhaps the double whiskey wasn’t technically necessary for this ‘meeting’, but the alcohol helped to relieve his anxiousness, if only a little.
‘Satisfied now?’ the woman – who introduced herself as Alyssia – said, as Curtis pushed her driving license back across the wooden tabletop.
‘Almost,’ Curtis said, looking from Alyssia’s relaxed face to the more sullen Danny, who’d propped himself at the end of the long rustic oak table and sat there glaring as he nursed an apple juice.
‘Honestly, if you don’t believe I am who I say I am, then… what are you thinking exactly?’
It was a good question. When Danny had accosted Curtis outside, all manner of thoughts had spun in his mind. Were they gangsters, undercover police, spies? But would any of those options make sense?
No, Curtis decided. What made sense was the explanation Alyssia had given.
Curtis frowned and rubbed at his temple, then necked a good portion of his drink.
‘Just… tell me again,’ Curtis said. ‘Assume I’m dumb.’
‘Assume?’ Danny said with a snort.
Curtis ignored the jibe and finished off his whiskey, gasping a little as the strong liquor burned his throat.
‘Another?’ Alyssia asked.
She hadn’t yet touched her wine.
‘I drove here… But yeah.’
He could leave the car, get an Uber. He only lived a few miles from here.
‘Danny?’ Alyssia prompted, and he grumbled as he got up from his chair. Now he’d taken his coat off, his tight sweater highlighted his bulky, muscular physique. As he walked toward the bar his hands hung outward from his body as though he had too much mass in his back to pull them further in – or maybe he just wanted to appear as though that were the case.
‘Just… give it to me again,’ Curtis said to Alyssia.
She sighed. ‘My name is Alyssia Montagne. My sister is Mariana. She was in a relationship with your brother, Finn—’
‘In Mexico.’
‘In Mexico.’
‘But, like me, you were born in England—’
‘Yes, but my parents are Italian and French.’
He shook his head as though struggling to even get a grasp of that part.
‘And you know Finn?’
‘I met him several times.’
‘In Mexico.’
‘In Mexico and in Italy.’
‘Because Italy is where you live.’
‘I do now.’
‘And Danny—’
‘Is a private investigator. I hired him a few weeks ago—’
‘Because your sister is missing.’
‘Yes.’
‘She went missing in Mexico but you hired a private investigator in Georgia?’
‘Who says I didn’t hire one in every place Mariana had ever been to?’
‘Did you?’
Danny came back over and smacked Curtis’s second drink onto the table. The whiskey jumped up the side of the glass but didn’t spill. He rolled his eyes at Curtis before retaking his seat.
‘Your name’s Danny Golder,’ Curtis said.
‘What about it?’
‘Alyssia hired you—’
‘We’re doing this all over again?’ Danny said.
‘Yeah, we are,’ Curtis replied, surprised at his own bullishness. ‘Because half an hour ago I’d never met you two before. You introduced yourselves to me by attacking me in the dark and nearly breaking my arm, and now I’m told you’ve been following me around for the best part of two days. So, sorry if I’m a little suspicious about who you are and what your intentions are.’
Danny said nothing but reached into his pocket and took out his phone. His large fingers typed on the screen before he placed the device on the table and shoved it toward Curtis.
‘Take a look.’
Curtis picked up the phone and stared at the internet page. A profile from LinkedIn. Danny Golder, Private Investigator, just as he’d claimed. But a profile on a social media website was hardly definitive proof.
What more did Curtis want though?
‘Ex-police,’ Curtis said, reading the short résumé which also indicated Danny had spent time working for various security companies.
‘Yeah, and?’
Curtis didn’t say anything. He’d kind of thought Danny must have been ex-police or ex-military – some job where he could revel in his machismo – although he’d only spent four years as a policeman and much longer as a security guard or security consultant, or whatever he’d been. More than twenty-five years actually, which placed him perhaps in his early fifties, and which certainly matched his lined and weathered features, if not his youthful bulked-up physique.
‘You two didn’t know each other before?’ Curtis asked, glancing between them.
‘Why would we?’ Danny said. ‘Alyssia only got in touch with me, what – three weeks ago?’
‘Because your sister went missing in Mexico.’
Alyssia sighed, as though bored by the roundabout conversation.
‘My sister had been seeing your brother for nearly a year.’
A year? For Finn that sounded like a very long time.
‘They both worked for Travers International.’
‘Travers? As in, Victor Travers?’
Everyone knew of Victor Travers. A prominent businessman, originally from Switzerland, who’d made his money starting a no-frills airline which he’d sold for billions. Since then he’d enjoyed a celebrity lifestyle due to his ever-diverging, often prominent business interests that always kept him in the public eye, one way or another.
‘Yes,’ Alyssia said. ‘Before she went missing… I knew there were problems between your brother and my sister.’
‘What kind of problems?’
‘She wasn’t happy. She was… scared. But I don’t know what of. She told me she couldn’t trust Finn. We arranged for her to leave Mexico, just for a break. She was going to come visit me in Positano. But she never showed.’
‘This was?’
‘Six weeks ago, give or take. I tried everything I could for a couple of days to reach her after that. Then I went to Mexico to look for her myself. But I found no sign of either Finn or Mariana there. I contacted the police, but they wouldn’t listen. They insisted Mariana wasn’t even there officially anymore, her visa had expired a couple of months ago. I didn’t know that. Your brother had quit his job too, apparently, cancelled his tenancy and emptied his apartment. The police told me Mariana must have gone home.’
‘To Italy?’
‘No. Atlanta. Before Mexico she lived in Atlanta. Which is why I hired Danny.’
‘But she’s not been back here,’ Danny said. ‘I’m sure of it.’
All three of them went silent.
‘What… what exactly are you suggesting?’ Curtis asked, after taking another sip from his whiskey.
‘At first I thought… maybe someone had hurt them both,’ Alyssia said. ‘Or that they were both hiding, or even that your brother had hurt my sister and run.’
The way she said that last part… Clearly that had been her primary thought. Curtis already got the sense that Alyssia, like everyone else it seemed, didn’t like Finn too much. Or perhaps Curtis was projecting his own feelings.
Alyssia leaned in toward Curtis. Her eyes darted left and right as though she was now more concerned about eavesdroppers.
‘But then I saw the videos,’ she said, little more than a whisper. ‘From the attack at the Capitol Building.’
She held Curtis’s eye. He didn’t know what to say. From all the news articles, the internet furore, there’d been no official suggestion that anyone had identified the ‘hero’ yet, or even any substantive speculation as to their identity. But Curtis had known the moment he saw the blurry image.
Alyssia seemed pretty sure too, yet apparently she’d only met Finn a few times.
‘You think it was Finn,’ Curtis said.
‘You certainly do,’ Alyssia responded. ‘You were on the list of people in Georgia that I wanted to track down anyway, even before what happened the other day. Since then…’
‘Since then you’ve been following me around.’
‘At first we thought perhaps you knew where he was. That you were helping to hide him.’
Curtis didn’t say anything to that.
‘But it became obvious you were looking for him too. Actually, you’ve done a good job so far,’ Alyssia said, with a strange smile.
Curtis felt oddly flattered by that, even despite the snide look on Danny’s face which suggested he didn’t agree with his client.
‘I know this is a lot for you to take in,’ Alyssia said.
Curtis downed the rest of his second whiskey. ‘Yeah.’
‘I’m going to the toilet,’ Danny said, already moving out of his seat as he spoke.
Curtis waited until he was out of earshot.
‘He’s a bit…’
‘What?’
‘Conspicuous,’ Curtis said, though that wasn’t really the best word to describe how he felt about the PI.
‘You didn’t see him.’
Fair point.
There was a noise behind him and Curtis turned to see four women walk into the bar, giggling and laughing, obviously a little worse for wear even though it wasn’t late.
‘Shit,’ Curtis said, whipping back around.
Alyssia’s eyes narrowed as she stared.
‘It’s—’ he began, but he didn’t get a chance to finish because Jayne peeled away and was by Curtis’s side in a flash.
‘Curtis. Fancy seeing you here?’
He looked up at her, but she was staring – kind of glaring – at Alyssia.
‘Just a quiet drink after work,’ Curtis said.
‘I thought your office was in Sandy Springs?’ she said, momentarily looking his way.
‘It is.’
Jayne switched her gaze back to Alyssia. ‘Sorry, we haven’t met. I’m Jayne. A friend of Rachel’s. His wife.’
Alyssia wouldn’t be a good poker player, apparently, because she stuttered and looked a little bewildered by the sudden turn of events.
‘This is Alyssia,’ Curtis said, trying to play it cool. ‘She’s—’
‘A new client.’
Jayne nodded but clearly didn’t believe the explanation. ‘Yeah? Who do you work for?’
‘My own company,’ Alyssia said. ‘A startup. You wouldn’t know it.’
‘Not Curtis’s usual style,’ Jayne said. ‘Cozy drinks for two. He’s normally more the corporate account at a swanky steakhouse type.’
‘Yeah,’ Curtis said. ‘Looks like you’re having a good night?’ He indicated to Jayne’s three friends who were still giggling and swaying as they waited at the bar. He vaguely recognized one of them.
‘Leaving drinks.’
Then her phone rang. Curtis tried not to show his relief as she answered the call. And where the hell had Danny got to?
‘Oh, right, yeah, OK. See you there!’ Jayne ended the call excitedly. ‘Girls, come on! Wrong bar!’
The other three looked confused for a moment before tootling over.
‘Nice to see you, Curtis. Say hi to Rachel.’
‘Will do.’
‘Have a good night,’ Alyssia said.
Jayne fixed another suspicious glare her way. ‘Yeah, you too.’
Moments later they were gone, just as Danny emerged from the men’s room.
‘Did I just get you into trouble?’ Alyssia said.
Undoubtedly yes. ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘What isn’t?’ Danny said, as he plonked himself back down.
‘Nothing,’ Curtis said.
Danny raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything more about it.
‘So you think the… hero is Finn,’ Curtis said, focusing on Alyssia.
‘As do you.’
‘But you haven’t told anyone else. You haven’t gone to the police, the press, even though everyone’s talking about him, even though there’s a reward on offer.’
‘No, I haven’t told anyone. And neither have you.’
‘Why?’ Curtis asked.
‘It’s a good question, isn’t it.’
Which one of them would give their answer first?
‘I’ve not told anyone,’ Alyssia said, ‘not because of doubts about Finn being there, but… because of doubts over why he was there.’
Even if he hadn’t expressly admitted that to himself, Curtis felt exactly the same.
‘What are you saying?’ he asked.
‘What if Finn being there, in DC, at the Capitol Building, wasn’t random? What if there’s more to the attack than we’re being led to believe by the newspapers, by the police, by Elliott Charlton?’
‘Do you have any evidence of that?’
‘I have my sister, missing in mysterious circumstances. Your brother too, except for those few moments caught on camera. But where is he now and why is he hiding?’
‘You think what happened has something to do with your sister?’
‘I think I have to find your brother in order to find out what happened to her.’
‘So what next?’ Curtis asked after a while, the question aimed at stopping his mind from churning over the same questions.
‘What next?’ Danny said, looking incredulous. ‘If you don’t know where your brother is, then next you go home, to your wife, and let me get on with my job. I don’t need an amateur like you running around stepping on my toes.’
‘Your job? There’s nothing official about your job,’ Curtis said. ‘I don’t need to do anything to appease you.’
Danny balled a fist but rather than slam it – as Curtis had expected – he placed it calmly on the table.
‘Remember what I told you earlier, about your arm?’
Curtis didn’t say anything.
‘Do anything stupid and it’ll be in pieces,’ Danny added. He needn’t have bothered. Curtis remembered the threat just fine.
‘Or maybe I just call the police right now,’ Curtis said. ‘Tell them everything I know about Finn. What about that?’
He fixed his own glare on Danny.
‘Except you’re not going to do that, are you?’ Alyssia said.
Curtis refocused on her but didn’t answer.
‘Because you can’t understand why Finn was there either and… you want to protect him?’
Did he?
‘So there’s at least part of the story the media are reporting that you don’t trust,’ she added.
‘Agreed. But, after all… this, you’re telling me I should just go home and get on with my life and leave you two to finding Finn? And then what? How do I even know—’
‘It’s exactly what you’ll do,’ Danny said, getting to his feet and plucking his coat from the back of the seat. After a moment, Alyssia stood, a little more reluctantly.
‘Give me your number. I’ll be in touch if there’s anything I think you can help with,’ she said. ‘But… it’s better for you, all of us, if you stay out of this.’
‘Unless you hear from your brother,’ Danny said. ‘You tell us as soon as that happens.’ He handed a business card to Curtis.
‘And likewise, if you find out anything about Finn, you’ll tell me, please?’ Curtis suggested.
Alyssia didn’t say anything to that.
‘Enjoy the ride home,’ Danny said, slapping Curtis hard on the back. He winced in pain as he watched the PI and Alyssia head for the door.