Archer Mayor - The surrogate thief

Sam couldn't stand the man.

"Hey, Counselor," she greeted him. "They let you in, too?"

Masius smiled broadly. "Indeed they did, Agent Martens." He nodded graciously at Joe. "Agent Gunther, how are you today?"

"Impatient. Where is he?"

Masius stepped aside and ushered them in. "Mr. Bander's in the library."

"You sound like the butler," Sam commented.

But Masius was beyond such taunts. He merely gestured down a ballroom-size hallway. The man could afford a thick skin, Gunther thought, his footsteps lost in the softness of thick carpeting. Boston-based, with a who's-who list of shifty, well-heeled clients, Walter Masius hadn't achieved his stardom by being easily riled.

He passed ahead of them about halfway down the hall and opened a tall, carved wooden door to their left. "In here," he said, and again stood aside to let them in.

The room they entered was two stories high, with one wall of leaded-glass windows and the other three lined with solid rows of expensive books. A railed balcony ran above them like a suspended horseshoe. Persian rugs were scattered across the floor, fat leather furniture was gathered in clusters around old-looking lamps and low, claw-footed tables, and by the windows sat a desk, huge as a dry-docked aircraft carrier.

The whole room was as sumptuous as a movie set and looked just as fake. Gunther had no doubt that the entire collection of books had been purchased by an interior decorator and remained untouched by the home's owner.

"Mr. Bander will be right in," Masius purred. "Make yourselves comfortable." He backed out, drawing the door closed as he went.

"Christ," Sam said in a whisper, looking around.

"It's a My Fair Lady knockoff," Joe told her. "I've seen it before, only better." He sighed in frustration. "I knew he'd pull this kind of crap-soon as I heard we had to come here to collect. Goddamned theatrics."

Sam watched her boss walk over to the windows and stare out at the vast lawn, its surface flecked with dead leaves, pale and battered by the first frosts of the season. She'd seen him get increasingly tense as the days had crawled by, sitting far from the command post in his upstairs office, poring over files he'd studied a dozen times already. The contrast between that and their own progress downstairs had been palpable, since they'd been successfully strengthening their case against Greenberg with ever-growing piles of evidence, including having located his three colleagues from the Tunbridge Fair. Knowing that they were all involved in a major case was intoxicating, which only made Sam's awareness of Joe's isolation that much more poignant. Several times she'd found excuses to drop by to find out how he was doing, and each time, although he'd pretended to be working, she'd known he'd simply been waiting for today-for the evidence, true, but even more, she sensed, for the opportunity to bring a little peace to his spirit.

A different door, off to one side and designed to blend into the bookcases, opened to reveal the man they'd both seen only in news photos, on TV, and as a scruffy youngster in yellowed mug shots.

Walter Masius was on his heels, still acting like a windup majordomo.

"Mr. Bander, Agents Gunther and Martens."

Seeing his nemesis for the first time in person-a short, pale, unprepossessing man dressed in nondescript clothes-caught Joe unexpectedly. In a way, he'd anticipated something weightier, at least marginally dramatic-someone looking the role ascribed to him.

This was a nobody, a delivery man lost in a mansion, glancing around as if expecting to be thrown out.

Joe knew what Thomas Bander had done, both as T. J. Ralpher and under the guise of legitimate business. He knew that underneath the insipid exterior hid a man capable of ruthless cruelty.

But therein lay the distinction between what Joe had imagined and what faced him now-previously, Bander's evil had been shrouded with a convenient, though fictionalized, personality. Call it the spider of lore at the web's center, calculating, seductive, lethally larger than life-a monster deserving of the damage that Joe had carried around inside him for well over half his years.

But now, in this forgettable, unmemorable, utterly ordinary man, Joe suddenly saw the larger insult of simple amorality. Tom Bander was no dark creature. He was simply an opportunistic parasite.

"You can cut the crap, Masius," Gunther said shortly from across the large room, feeling the heat of pure rage wash over him. "This isn't Masterpiece Theatre, and you're not Alistair Cooke. Let's get this done." He waved at his colleague impatiently. "Sam."

Sam looked at him, startled, as she reached into her pocket to extract the small buccal swab kit needed for the sampling. She could count on one hand the times she'd seen Joe angry, always in response to an immediate crisis-never a real burn like this one.

She approached the slight man with Masius. "Mr. Bander? Sorry, but I need to confirm your identity before taking the swab."

Masius spoke for his client. "We attest that this is Thomas Bander, for the record."

"Driver's license," Joe said, still keeping his distance.

"I don't believe that's necessary," Masius stated dismissively. "My client is a well-known member of the community."

Gunther's voice remained hard. "It's a court order, goddamn it. Show her the license."

Masius opened his mouth to respond, but Bander merely extracted his wallet and displayed the ID. Sam peered at the photograph and nodded, handing Masius a copy of the judge's order.

"You want to sit down for this?" she asked Bander.

He smiled slightly. "Will it hurt?"

Joe suddenly broke from his position, crossed the carpeting quickly, and seized Bander by the upper arm as everyone, Sam included, tensed for a violent outburst. Instead, Gunther roughly drew him to a chair and sat him down like a child.

"Open your mouth," he ordered.

"Now, just a minute," Masius objected.

Joe turned on him. "You shut up."

Bander was looking up, from one to the other.

Gunther refocused on him. "Was there something you didn't understand?"

His mouth snapped open.

Sam moved around her boss, quickly slipped on a pair of latex gloves, and extracted the swab from its sealed envelope. The sooner they left, she hoped, the sooner she'd be able to prevent Joe from shooting someone.

"I'm sorry, Agent Gunther," Masius intoned, "But I'm going to have to take this up with your superiors. This is simply not acceptable behavior."

Joe took three fast steps toward him, forcing him to retreat until he bumped into the wall.

"You call anybody you like, Counselor. I don't happen to give a good goddamn. But while I'm here, doing what the law allows, I am not going to put up with your shit. Is that understood?"

"I will not…," the other man began.

"Is that understood?" Gunther shouted, his face two inches from the lawyer's.

Masius paused, swallowed, and finally murmured, "Yes."

Gunther returned to Bander, who was licking his lips following Sam's careful swiping of both his inner cheeks with the buccal swab, which she was now repackaging at high speed.

"And you, T. J.," he said, leaning forward and emphasizing Bander's former name, "you better enjoy your last days in this place, 'cause your ass is mine. After all these years getting rich off other people's misery, you're in for some serious payback."

"Okay, boss," Sam said very quietly. "I'm all set."

Gunther nodded and was heading for the door when Masius spoke up again.

Sam didn't hear what he said. Joe whirled around so fast and shouted, "Don't" so loudly, his finger pointed like a sword at the man, that only that one word reverberated around them.

Once again, Masius shut his mouth, his eyes narrow with anger.