R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

Hartmann nodded. ‘I haven’t been here for fifteen years, and I am aware of the man’s reputation.’

‘So that was that. He said what he had to say and I left.’

Hartmann leaned forward and looked directly at Verlaine. ‘I want to go back there to see him.’

Verlaine laughed suddenly, unnaturally. ‘You’re fucking joking, right?’

Hartmann shook his head. ‘I wanna go out there and talk to the man… I wanna find out how much he knows about this. I want to see if he knows this man, see if it doesn’t prompt him to tell us a little more.’

‘And compromise the entirety of the federal investigation?’

Hartmann nodded. ‘That, yes… I have considered that, but nevertheless, right now he’s the only person who seems to have any kind of an understanding of who this man is and what he might have done.’

‘All due respects for your cojones, but you can leave me the fuck out of that,’ Verlaine said. He looked nervous, agitated.

‘I’m not going to get anywhere near him without you,’ Hartmann said.

‘So you’re not going to get anywhere near him then,’ Verlaine said, ‘because you sure as hell ain’t dragging me into this. This is a federal jurisdiction investigation for Christ’s sake! You seen how many people they’ve brought down here? This is Catherine Ducane, daughter of Louisiana’s governor, and you wanna go do something that could jeopardize the entire operation?’

Hartmann shook his head slowly. ‘They don’t have an operation. They have one helluva lot of men and horsepower. They have radios and tape recorders and voice experts and criminal profilers, but the fact of the matter is they actually don’t have a plan between them. They are just waiting this out, hoping to hell that Perez will say something that gives them a clue as to where the girl might be.’

Verlaine was quiet for a moment. ‘That’s his name… the old guy? Perez?’

Hartmann nodded. ‘Ernesto Perez.’

‘What the fuck is that? Spanish or Mexican or something?’

‘Cuban… originally from Cuba.’

‘Mafia?’

Hartmann glanced towards the window. He was saying too much and he knew it. ‘Indirectly, yes… connections with the Mafia in Cuba.’

‘And he’s just sitting there telling you his whole life story, like his autobiography or something?’

‘Yes, seems that way,’ Hartmann said. ‘Man’s singing like a canary.’

‘And right now he’s given you nothing that indicates why he took the girl and where he’s hidden her?’

‘Or if she’s even still alive,’ Hartmann said. ‘He challenged me when I was talking to him. He made mention of something called the rule of threes.’

Verlaine nodded. ‘Air, water and food, right?’

‘That’s right. By implication he suggested that she was somewhere with no food and every moment I wasted time in talking to him was a direct threat to her life.’

‘You believe him? You reckon he’s got her somewhere and she’s starving to death?’

‘Christ only knows… I don’t know what to believe any more. He knows what he’s doing, and he’s obviously very organized. Despite all the power of the federal government we’re still no further forward in finding the actual location of this girl.’

Verlaine said nothing for a little while. ‘This means something to you.’ It was not a question, more a simple statement of fact.

Hartmann looked back at Verlaine. He frowned.

‘Something personal… I get the idea that this is in some way personal for you.’

Hartmann shook his head. ‘Personal is personal… that’s why it’s called personal.’

Verlaine smiled. ‘I understand that, but you’re asking me to do something here that is very personal to me.’

‘To you… whaddya mean?’

‘The fact that I might wanna stay alive a little longer. Feraud is not a man you cross. He’s not a man you ignore. He asked me to walk away from this, to not go looking, and to never speak of it to him again.’

‘And you’re gonna do what he says?’ Hartmann asked, a sense of challenge in his tone.

Verlaine smiled and shook his head. ‘Don’t come that shit with me… you wanna play your stupid mind games you go play it on the Feds. I got better things to do than fuck with something that ain’t my business.’

Hartmann was lost for words. He looked at the man facing him, the only man that could perhaps be an ally in this thing he had somehow managed to create for himself, and he realized that if he was to have any chance at all of getting some help he would have to tell the truth.

‘You wanna know why I want this to end?’

Verlaine nodded. ‘Try me, and if it’s good enough then I might consider giving you a hand.’

Hartmann felt as if he would collapse inside. He realized how tired he was, how worn around the edges, and despite all that had taken place, all that he had heard from Perez, the one thing there at the forefront of his mind was what would happen if he missed his Saturday meeting with Carol and Jess.

And so, understanding that there was nothing further he could tell Verlaine, he told him the truth.

And Verlaine listened, and did not interrupt, and did not ask questions, and when Hartmann was done Verlaine leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. ‘So you’re in the crap up to your fucking neck and you need me to bail you out?’

Hartmann nodded. ‘In the crap with this thing, with my wife and my kid, with my fucking job and everything else that matters a damn. I gotta see this through to the end. I gotta see it through, and on the one hand I cannot rush it, but on the other hand what happens with my wife and my daughter is one fuck of a lot more important to me than what happens to Catherine Ducane. I wanna see it done, I wanna see the girl back safe, but I need to get back to New York and see my wife before she gives up on me completely.’

Verlaine was quiet for a time. He looked at the wall above Hartmann’s head and seemed to be completely lost.

Hartmann could feel his heart beating in his chest.

Verlaine shook his head slowly and looked at Hartmann. ‘I get killed doing this and I am gonna be so fucking pissed you won’t believe it.’

Hartmann smiled. ‘You’re a cop first and foremost, John Verlaine, and I know that you might have some sense of willingness to help me out, but above and beneath everything else you’re in this to get the bad guys, right?’

Verlaine smiled. ‘Not just to get ’em,’ he said. ‘Wanna get the chance to shoot some motherfucker as well.’

Hartmann laughed. ‘So you’re gonna do this?’

‘Against my intuition, against every shred of better judgement, against every rule in the fucking book… but yes, I will do this.’

Hartmann, expecting to feel relief, felt instead a sense of fear gnawing at him. What was he doing? What the hell did he expect to happen when he went out there to see Antoine Feraud? He reminded himself of the reason for his action, and though this did nothing to assuage his apprehension, it nevertheless served to focus his mind. The intention was to get through this as fast as possible, to find the girl, to put the bad guy in the joint, to get the hell back to New York and salvage what he could of his marriage and his life.

‘Tomorrow evening?’ Hartmann asked.

Verlaine nodded. ‘Tomorrow evening it is.’

‘Time?’

‘Come for six… we’ll see what we can do.’

Later, alone once more in the Marriott Hotel, Hartmann watched TV with the sound up. Anything to drown out his thoughts. He understood that he was ignorant of the full consequences of his actions, but he believed in the inherent balance of the universe: that if one approached something with a good intention then that could often turn the tide in one’s favor. Had he believed sufficiently in the existence of God, he would have prayed. But he had seen far too much of the dark underbelly of humanity to consider that there was anyone out there taking any kind of responsibility for what was going on down here.