Linwood Barclay - Trust Your Eyes

“Mob guys love that kind of thing,” I said. “It’s like politicians. Even when you do a cartoon savaging them, they want the original framed on their wall. Better that kind of attention than none at all.”

“I still don’t believe it,” Howard said.

“I didn’t want to take any money for it-not that he offered, since I think he was expecting it for nothing. But when we said he could have it, he invited me to lunch.”

“You had lunch with Carlo Vachon,” Howard said.

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

Think fast. “The Tribeca Grand.” Where Jeremy and I had met with Kathleen Ford.

“What did you have?” Howard asked.

Don’t try to lie any more than you have to.

“I have no idea. I was scared shitless and remember almost nothing.” I paused. “I drank a lot. But he asked me about my family, and I got to talking about my brother, and what he does, and Vachon became very, very interested.”

Howard didn’t say anything this time. He waited.

But Thomas jumped in. “You never told me about this. When did this happen?”

“Just hang on.” To Howard, I said, “Vachon didn’t care all that much about the rest of the world, but having a guy who knew New York City with his eyes closed, who could remember every street detail, he said he could use someone like that. For some of the same reasons Thomas mentioned, like if you have an agent on the run. Except it’s not agents. It’s people working for Vachon.”

“I’m not happy about this, Ray,” Thomas said. “You should have told me about this.”

“He’s not an easy guy to say no to,” I said. “You know how many murders are tied to the Vachon family? You think I was going to tell a guy like that to get stuffed?”

Howard and Lewis were exchanging looks, wondering whether to believe this crock of shit. The good thing was, it seemed to be buying me some time. Time for what, I didn’t know. But we weren’t dead yet, and that was definitely a plus. I wondered what efforts, if any, were being made to find us. Julie had been intending to come back to the house. What would she have done when she found the house empty, no sign of us, the car still in the driveway?

Howard was about to say something, when his cell phone rang. He took it out, saw who it was, and grimaced.

He put the phone to his ear. “Hi, Morris…No, no, don’t worry. You didn’t wake me…Yes, I’m in bed, but I can’t seem to settle down…Yes, sure, I could call him tomorrow…Uh-huh…he did do good work on that campaign…No, I don’t mind, and again, I’m sorry about having to cancel tonight. I just wasn’t up to it…Uh-huh…Okay, then…You, too, take care.”

He ended the call, put the phone away, glanced at Lewis, and said, “He wanted to meet tonight.”

The phone call done with, Howard returned his attention to me. “Now, where we were? Oh yes, your story. I find it implausible at best.”

“What part of everything you’ve heard so far does strike you as plausible?” I asked. “My brother found, online, a murder you folks carried out. Does that sound plausible? Does it sound plausible that a bunch of professional killers like you would leave yourselves so vulnerable and exposed?”

I had him there.

“If you don’t believe me,” I said, “why don’t you call him?”

“Excuse me?” Howard said.

“Vachon. Give him a call.”

Howard laughed. “Now, there’s an idea. I’ll give the head of one of New York’s most powerful crime families a call in the middle of the night. I’m sure that would go over well.” Then he got serious. “Why would they be keeping an eye on Thomas? Why should I believe they might be watching him now?”

I swallowed. “If you had a resource like Thomas, wouldn’t you want to keep him safe?”

I could see the slightest hint of worry in Howard’s eyes. I don’t think he believed it, but he was afraid to dismiss what I’d said altogether.

“Let’s say this story of yours is true,” he said. “Carlo Vachon is Thomas’s guardian angel. Was it Vachon who had him looking for the window?”

Which was the better answer? Yes, Vachon was on to them, or no, he didn’t know a damn thing about it? Maybe, if I’d had some idea of who’d actually died in the apartment, I’d know which answer to give. At one point we’d thought Allison Fitch had been murdered there, but she’d only died in the last day. Lewis had said the words “Bridget’s body” to Howard when he had arrived. I had no idea who Bridget was, but wondered if she’d been the Orchard Street victim.

While I was thinking, Thomas said, “I found it on my own. I told you.”

Howard leaned back in his chair and took a long breath. “I swear, I don’t know what to make of this.” He turned so he could look directly at Lewis. “If this is some random event, if this Rain Man freak here really stumbled upon that image on the Web site by chance, then our problems end here.”

“Yeah,” Lewis said.

“The Clinton thing, the e-mails to the CIA…debunking those details eases my mind in ways I will not bother to elaborate on.” He rubbed his chin contemplatively. “But this other matter, of Vachon…”

“I’m not buying it,” Lewis said.

Howard spun his butt around on the seat so he could address Nicole. “You’ve been rather quiet.”

She didn’t respond.

“Have you any thoughts on this matter?”

She thought a moment. “I think, if they were keeping tabs on Thomas, they’d have rescued him by now. If you feel your other concerns have been addressed, then all you have left to do is get rid of these two.”

“Yes,” Howard said. “You may be-”

I think it’s fair to say all of us just about jumped out of our skin at that moment. Someone was banging on the front door of the shop.

“Jesus,” Lewis said.

Howard looked at me. “Is that them?” When he found me speechless, he asked the same question of Thomas.

Thomas said, “Maybe.”

The banging continued. Then, shouting: “Howard! Howard, I know you’re in there!”

Howard’s eyes went wide. In that instant, he looked truly rattled, more than any other time since he’d arrived.

“Dear God,” he said. “It’s Morris.”

Shortly after putting his phone away, Morris Sawchuck said to his driver, Heather, “I’m not waiting any longer. I’m gonna find out what the son of a bitch is up to.”

“I’ll be here,” she said.

Morris got out of the town car, stormed across the street, and banged on the door of the toy shop. “Howard! Howard, I know you’re in there!”

Morris put his eyes up to the glass and cupped his hands around his head. There was a light on in the back of the shop. Then a curtain was pulled back and Howard strode toward the door. He turned back the dead bolt and opened the door six inches.

“You’re up and around,” Sawchuck said.

“Morris, Jesus, what are you doing here?”

“Open the door,” Morris said.

“Morris, you can’t-”

Morris threw his shoulder into the door and knocked it wide open, tossing Howard back and causing him to trip on a child’s pedal car from the 1950s. Sprawled out on the floor, he found himself looking up at Morris.

“What’s going on here?” Morris demanded.

“You have to leave. You don’t want to be here. You have to-”

“I’m not going anywhere! You lied to me, Howard. You lied to me about being sick, about what you’ve been doing tonight. And I’ve got a feeling you’ve been lying to me for a long time. I swear to God, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll-”

He looked to the back of the store, and the light coming through the curtain. He could see shadows moving behind it.