T. Bunn - Winner Take All

Marcus jerked back just in time. “First you want me to have it, then you want to take it away? Sounds to me like we’re looking at a case of in-house forgery.”

“Give me that!”

“First you tell me what’s going on around here.”

The man had a felon’s eyes, dark no matter what the color. “You’re nothing but a corpse looking for the open grave. You want to keep the money? Be my guest.”

“I’m considering pressing charges against Sephus Jones for trespassing and felonious assault.” Marcus shredded the check and tossed the fragments into the man’s face. “If there’s any way to tie him to you personally, sir, I am going to nail your hide to the wall.”

As Marcus started toward the door, Lynwood Hale hissed, “The company is delighted with Dale Steadman’s problems. You hear what I’m saying? Dee-lighted. You go right ahead and run with this thing just as long as you like. We’ll look forward to seeing you keep this man busy for ages.”

“You’re telling me this case is your way of avoiding Dale Steadman’s proposed reforms? That’s why you had your hired gun accost my assistant?”

But Lynwood Hale was not finished. “You just tell your client, sooner or later he’s gonna stumble. He’s gonna find himself exposed and feeble. We’ll be there and ready. You go tell Dale Steadman what I said.”

Once they had rejoined Darren, Amos observed, “I smell a few singed feathers, but I don’t see any sign of scorched flesh.”

Marcus said to them both, “Fay Wilbur told me her grandson’s been detained for carrying a gun to school.”

Amos asked his deputy, “This your cousin?”

Darren looked stricken by the news. “ ’Fraid s-so.”

“He as big as you?”

Darren shook his head. “Deacon’s b-build, my b-bad attitude.”

Amos said to Marcus, “Here I thought all you country lawyers did was shoot the dog and walk the breeze. Or maybe it’s the other way around.”

“Fay is worried sick.”

“I expect she is.” Amos said to Darren, “Sounds to me like we ought to pick up this young’un, take him for a ride out to Wendell.”

Wendell was home to the largest state pen, notorious for its boot-camp attitude. Local police departments often took young repeat offenders for a walk down Melody Lane, as the central hall was known. The felons always sang the young boys a very warm welcome.

Marcus said, “There’s a local hardcase by the name of Sephus Jones.”

“You’re mixing with some bad stock there, Marcus.”

“He’s the guy who harassed Kirsten. I’d appreciate it if you could find out where he might be found.”

“I’ll see what I can turn up.” Amos climbed into the passenger seat, rolled down his window, and gave Marcus a little of the heat he had revealed inside. “Show a little intelligence from now on. You got anything you feel has to be done around here, you call for backup.”

As usual, Reiner Klatz compressed his fifty-three-year-old body into clothes designed for sleeker greyhounds doing the Königsallee strut. He called goodbye to his wife, left his apartment on the fashionable Oberkasseler Weg, and drove across the Rhein Knee Bridge. Parking around the opera house was impossible as always. Reiner left his new S-class in the Carsch-Haus underground lot and hoofed it to the Kö, as the place was known to locals.

The Königsallee and its surrounding lanes made up the primo shopping region of all northern Germany. The main drag was about a kilometer long and was split by a moat, useless medieval bridges, a fountain Wagner would have swooned over, and shops selling cashmere socks. Reiner Klatz made it a point to be seen daily somewhere along its length. He flitted about, far too busy to sit down and actually say something. The greyhounds all knew him, of course. The blue-hair set liked to kiss the air by his cheeks. But his chance to really shine, the one occasion when all the Kö’s spotlights swiveled and followed him down the lane, were opening galas at the Düsseldorf opera.

To say the least, the Düsseldorf opera was not Paris. Nor Vienna nor Berlin nor La Scala. But beneath this first rank huddled a second tier, provincial houses and some which pretended to be far more than that. Of all these houses, Reiner considered Düsseldorf tops. Hands down, without qualification. Premier of the second league. And that, as Reiner would tell anyone who cared to listen, was not a bad place to be.

Düsseldorf was unable to retain rank upon rank of opera stars. But those it did engage were counted among the best. Where La Scala might have twenty divas under long-standing contracts, Düsseldorf had three. Yet these three had all starred at La Scala at one time or another. And Glyndbourne. And Berlin, Nice, Paris, Rome, and the Royal Opera House. One had even sung at the Met.

Reiner spotted the duchess in time to wipe the bitter cast from his face. Thinking about the New York Metropolitan Opera House, even for an instant, was enough to ruin a perfectly good day. The duchess seethed through the Königsallee summer crowd like the SS Bismarck through dinghies in some teeming third-world harbor. This week’s pair of personal attendants and her private secretary skittered along behind.

The duchess planted herself in front of Reiner and blared, “I want you to explain to me how it is I cannot have the director’s box!”

“A lovely day, is it not, your highness.”

“Stop with this nonsense. Do I look like a fool to you?”

“Never have I thought-”

“Then do not cloud the air with blather!” The duchess was the real thing-real title, real money, real power. She was built like an aging Wagnerian alto, with a bovine figure that would have caused a rampant steer to blanch. “I spoke with the director again this morning and he informs me that the box is still untaken!”

“Please excuse me, highness. I have sought twice to alter matters with Frau Brandt. But with the chancellor coming …”

The duchess balked. Although the chancellor’s power was far younger than her own, it was of a realm she could not safely attack. Which was of course why Reiner had mentioned him. But in truth the chancellor had been refused the box as well. Which had almost given Reiner a stroke. But Erin had insisted. And when Erin insisted, particularly the day before a gala opening, there was nothing Reiner could do. When she had returned from the United States and agreed to start back at Düsseldorf, Erin had written into her new contract that the director’s box was hers by right for every gala event in which she starred.

For now, however, the box remained strangely empty. Which was baffling. Erin had personally written the chancellor and explained in her precise convent-taught script that this was an event of national importance. The Düsseldorf opera was going on an international tour, in which Erin was singing just twice-tonight at their sole performance in Germany, followed by the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden three nights hence. It was the first time the Düsseldorf opera had been invited en masse to Covent Garden, and there she would be singing before the Prince of Wales. To Reiner’s delight, the chancellor had accepted. Yet not even he would be seated in the director’s box.

Reiner extricated himself from the duchess and scuttled along the Kö. As he passed a news kiosk his eye was caught by the local rag, which naturally had Erin’s photograph on the front page. Reiner had almost come to blows with the managing editor over the coverage they had given Erin in her moment of direst need. At least, that was how Reiner had put it, standing over the woman’s desk and screaming so loud he had drawn people from two floors below. Erin Brandt could sing anywhere she wanted. The paper had publicly lamented the fact when Erin had departed for America two years earlier.