Michael Nava - The Little Death

“Let’s not call names,” he said nudging the nozzle of the gun into the small of my back.

At that moment the elevator stopped. A dozen people crowded on. The gun pressed harder against my back.

I clenched my hands into fists. “This man’s got a gun,” I shouted and jerked away from Barron.

A woman screamed.

“Get him,” someone shouted.

The elevator stopped again. The doors flew open. Barron pushed his way to the front as hands reached out trying to stop him. He broke clean and ran down the corridor. Perhaps aware that he was still armed, no one followed. The elevator door closed.

“Who was he?” a man asked me.

“A nut with a gun,” I replied.

Three hours later I was sitting on the floor in Grant Hancock’s apartment drinking a glass of wine while he went to the door to pay for a delivery of Chinese food. He took the small white cartons from a brown bag and set them on a tea tray between us. We opened them up and ate from them with wooden chopsticks.

I had just told him that after getting the names of the other people on the elevator I’d gone to the police.

“What did they do?”

“What cops always do, they took a report and promised to look into it. By the time that report reaches the appropriate desk, Peter Barron could be in Tierra del Fuego.”

Grant chewed a bit of shrimp.

“I don’t understand why Barron pulled a gun on you. He works for Smith. Smith is supposed to be on our side.”

“Does he work for Smith? I mean, he does, ostensibly, but in actuality I think he was working for Robert Paris.”

“That sounds complicated.”

“But it fits the evidence. What I think happened is that Hugh contacted Smith to let Smith know he was back in town. Maybe he even enlisted Smith’s help in exposing Robert Paris as the murderer of Christina and Nicholas. Smith leased the house for him, probably gave him money. Peter Barron works for the security section of Pegasus — I think Smith might have entrusted him to keep an eye on Hugh and make sure he stayed out of trouble. In fact, I remember that it was Smith who bailed Hugh out of jail when he was arrested in July.”

“Are you positive?”

“Yes, I called the jail and had them check.” I finished my wine and poured another glass. “At the time I thought John Smith was an alias used to avoid notoriety by whoever bailed Hugh out.”

“Well, it is hard to believe there are men in the world actually named John Smith.”

I poked at the carton of rice.

“Anyway,” I continued, “Barron was supposed to protect Hugh but instead he betrayed him to Robert Paris.”

“How would Barron have known about the bad blood between Hugh and Robert Paris?”

“I’m sure Hugh told him,” I said. “It was a subject to which he often returned.”

Grant nodded.

“So Barron went to Robert Paris with the information that Hugh was in the city and that he, Barron, knew where Hugh was. Paris then paid Barron to murder Hugh. And that’s how it was done.”

“And Smith? Don’t you think he was a little suspicious about the circumstances of Hugh’s death?”

“I’m sure he was. He probably had Barron conduct an investigation. You can imagine Barron’s conclusion.”

Grant put down the carton from which he’d been eating. “And Aaron? Why kill Aaron?”

“Aaron worked for the firm that handled Paris’s legal work. He must’ve learned something very damaging that implicated Barron with Hugh’s murder.”

“Such as?”

“Pay-offs, maybe. Reports. I don’t know. Aaron never had a chance to tell me.”

“How much of this do you think Smith knows?” Grant asked, pouring me the last of the wine.

“My impression of Smith from reading the newspapers,” I said, “is that information reaches him through about three dozen intermediaries. Everything is sanitized by the time it touches his desk. He probably knows next to nothing about what really went on.”

“And you’re going to tell him.”

“Yes.” I picked up a bit of chicken with my chopsticks. “It’s strange that Hugh never talked to me about Smith.”

“From everything you’ve said, it doesn’t sound like Hugh told you much about his family.”

“That’s true.”

“He wanted to protect you. Knowing how potentially dangerous the situation was, he wanted to keep you out of it.” After a pause he added, “He loved you.”

Instead of protecting me, Hugh left me ignorant — and vulnerable.”

Grant sighed. When do we ever do the right thing by the people we love?”

When, indeed, I wondered, looking at him from across the room.

The next day I went back to Pegasus, this time to see Smith but I got no closer than his secretary. She, unlike the gullible receptionist, was not inclined to let strange men without appointments loiter in her office, She threatened to have me elected. Taking the hint, I went out into the corridor to ponder my next move. There didn’t seem to be any. Two middle-aged men in dark suits came out of Smith s office and passed. Their jowls quivered with self-importance, I watched them walk to a door at the end of the corridor — what I’d assumed was a freight elevator.

One of the two withdrew a key from his pocket and fit it into a lock on the wall. The door slid open, revealing a small plushly appointed elevator.

The executive elevator. Of course.

It would hardly do for Smith and his retinue to waste expensive time waiting for the public elevator or to endure the indignities of making small talk with file clerks. Smith would have to leave at some point, and, if I couldn’t wait for him in his office, I’d wait here.

So I waited. I waited from ten in the morning to nearly six at night, fending off the occasional security guard with my business card and an explanation that I was meeting a friend from

Pegasus’s legal staff. I thought that Smith might emerge for lunch until I saw a food-laden trolley wheeled off the executive elevator by a red jacketed waiter. About an hour later the waiter reappeared with the now empty trolley and boarded the elevator. Just as the doors closed I saw him finish off the contents of a wine glass.

At about four a few lucky employees began to leave, singly, or in groups of two or three. By five, the corridor was packed. By five-forty-five when it seemed that everyone who could possibly work at Pegasus had left for the day, the doors were pushed open and two beefy bodyguard-types strode out flanking a third man. The third man was tall, thin and old. The blue pinstriped suit he wore fell loosely on his frame and was shabby with many wearings, but he wore it as if it were a prince’s ermine. They walked rapidly past me to the executive elevator. The key went into the lock. I rushed over to where they were standing.

“Mr. Smith.’’

The tall old gentleman turned toward me slowly, examining me without particular interest.

“My name is Henry Rios. I have to talk to you about Hugh Paris.”

At the mention of my name, the old man raised his eyebrows a fraction of an inch, indicating, I thought, either recognition or surprise. However, he said nothing. The two men closed ranks in front of him.

“Don’t come any closer,” one of them said, allowing his jacket to fall open, revealing a shoulder holster.

John Smith’s employees, it seemed, were issued sidearms along with their Brooks Brothers charge plates. I stepped back.

“All I want is ten minutes of your time,” I said to Smith.

The elevator door opened and he stepped into it. The bodyguards followed him in. I lunged forward trying to keep the doors open. “Ten minutes,” I shouted.

The same man who’d just spoken to me now lifted a heavy leg and booted me in the chest, throwing me backwards to the floor.