R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

And Carol would have to explain once more how daddy wasn’t really running with the same program as them, that daddy had a very important job to do, that daddy never meant to not be there and there had to be a good explanation for his absence. But in her mind Carol would be cursing him, telling herself that she’d been a fool to believe he would ever keep his word, that despite being apart for these months nothing had changed, that Ray Hartmann was still the same self-centered, disorganized, alcoholic loser that he’d always been.

But that wasn’t the truth. He hadn’t always been self-centered, hadn’t always been disorganized, and sure as hell he hadn’t been, and wasn’t , an alcoholic. It was this that had made him this way, this life, these people, and now he was falling right back into the same patterns all over again despite promising himself that this year, this year, would be the one he left this crazy bad business behind.

Hartmann turned over and buried his face in the pillow. New Orleans was out there, the same New Orleans he had left with a vow never to return. But return he had, and in returning he’d carried with him all the suitcases he believed he’d left behind. He had never really set them down, that was the truth, and whatever was inside them, whatever it was that scared him so much he dared not look, had been right there all along. You never really let things go, you just fooled yourself into believing that you had grown out of them. How could you grow out of them when they were, always had been, and always would be an intrinsic part of exactly who you were?

He felt the tension in his chest, a difficulty in breathing. He turned over and stared at the ceiling, watched the trace-lines of car headlights as they turned at the end of the street beneath his window and wound their way out into the darkness. Out there he would find simpler people with simpler lives. Yes, they told lies, they cheated, they failed one another and possessed their regrets, but those things belonged to them; they were not so crazy as to try to carry their own burdens and the burdens of the rest of the world as well.

Perhaps it would never be easy. And no-one had ever told him it would be easy. But sure as hell they’d never let on it was going to be this hard.

Hartmann sat up and reached for his cigarettes. He lit one and flicked on the TV with the remote. He let the sounds and images blur together in his mind until he had no idea what he was watching or why. It worked for a minute, perhaps two, but always present was the sound at the other end of the phone, the way the voice had seemed to crawl down the wire and invade his head right through his ear.

And the way those first words sounded, and how they could not have been worse.

‘Mr Ray Hartmann… welcome home to New Orleans…’

A chill edge of fear crawled along his spine. It settled at the base of his neck. He reached up with his right hand and massaged the muscles that were knotting into small fists.

Hartmann opened his mouth. He looked sideways at Schaeffer. Nothing came forth. Not a word.

‘You are well, Mr Hartmann?’

Schaeffer nudged him in the shoulder.

‘As can be,’ Hartmann replied.

‘I understand that you have been dragged all the way home from New York… or did you manage to convince yourself that New York was now your home?’

Hartmann was silent.

Schaeffer nudged him again. Hartmann wanted to lunge from the desk and drive the receiver right into Schaeffer’s face. He didn’t. He sat stock-still and felt the sweat break out on the palms of his hands.

‘I don’t think I did that,’ Hartmann said.

‘Then you and I have something in common, Mr Hartmann. Despite everything, all these years, all the places I have been, I am like you… I could never get New Orleans out of my blood.’

Hartmann didn’t reply.

‘Anyway, I can imagine Mr Schaeffer and his federal agents are busy trying to trace this call. Tell them it doesn’t matter. Tell them that I am coming in. I am coming in to speak with you, Mr Hartmann, to tell you some things.’

‘Some things?’

The man at the other end of the line laughed gently. ‘You and I, we shall be like Robert Harrison and Howard Rushmore.’

Hartmann frowned. ‘Like who?’

‘Harrison and Rushmore… you do not recall those names?’

‘No, I don’t. Should I?’

‘Robert Harrison and Howard Rushmore were the men who published Confidential magazine. You know, “Uncensored and off the record”, “Tells the facts and names the names”. You have heard of Confidential magazine?’

‘Yes,’ Hartmann said. ‘I’ve heard of it.’

‘That’s what we are going to do, you and I. We are going to spend some time together, and I will tell you some things that perhaps your federal people won’t want to hear. And this is the deal. I’m coming in. I want to be treated with dignity and respect. I will tell you what I want you to know. You can do anything you wish with the information I give you, and then when we are done I will tell you where you can find the girl.’

‘Catherine Ducane.’

‘No Mr Hartmann, Marilyn Monroe. Of course Catherine Ducane. Catherine Ducane is what this is all about.’

‘And she is okay?’

‘She’s as okay as could be expected under the circumstances, Mr Hartmann, and that is all the information you will get from me this evening. As I said, I will be coming in, and when I am there I will tell you what you need to know, and that will be our business.’

‘How will we know you when you come?’ Hartmann asked.

The man laughed. ‘Oh you will know who I am, Mr Hartmann. That, I can assure you, will be the least of your worries.’

‘And when will you come?’

‘Soon,’ the man said. ‘Very soon.’

‘And what about-’

The line suddenly went dead. Hartmann held the receiver against his ear even though he could hear the burring sound of a disconnected line through the speakers in the room.

He shuddered. He closed his eyes. He slowly replaced the receiver in the cradle and turned to look at Schaeffer.

Kubis appeared in the doorway, his face flushed, his eyes those of an agitated man. ‘Two blocks down,’ he shouted. ‘He was calling from two blocks down.’

Schaeffer moved far faster than his size should have permitted, but he was out of the room with three other agents running after him, and though they went out through the front doors of the Field Office at a run, though they would charge down Arsenault Street and nearly lose their lives as they cut through the traffic at the junction, though they would within three minutes stand at the very box from where the call had been made, they would find nothing. Schaeffer knew there would be no prints. He knew the impression of the caller’s ear, as telling as DNA, as individual as retina scans and fingerprints, would have been wiped from the receiver, and though he knew these things he nevertheless ordered the callbox taped and cordoned, he instructed the deployment of Criminalistics to go over the thing with a microscope, and yet in his heart of hearts he knew he was achieving nothing more than the exercise of protocol.

And then he returned. He shared words with Hartmann. He gave him his marching orders and instructed one of the agents to sequester Hartmann in the nearby Marriott Hotel.

And there Hartmann would be found, lying on the bed, smoking a cigarette and watching TV in the early hours of Saturday 30 August, a week to the day from when he was supposed to meet Carol and Jess. A week from the first real chance to rebuild his life.

Way to go , he would think. Way to go, Ray Hartmann .

And after a while he would turn the volume right down and lie there watching the light from the screen flickering on the walls, and he would feel the tension in his chest, the sense of breathlessness and claustrophobia, and he would know – above all else he would know – that you never actually escaped from these things, because these things always came from within.