R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

‘That is a very trusting attitude, Mr Hartmann… and an attitude that will accomplish little but your own downfall if you apply it to Ernesto Perez.’

‘And Charles Ducane?’

Feraud shook his head. ‘I have nothing further to say.’

‘You think I should apply my trusting attitude to him, Mr Feraud? You know him, have known him for all these years… you’re probably more qualified to make a judgement on Charles Ducane’s trustworthiness and honesty than anyone else, right?’

Feraud smiled and nodded his head. He raised his right hand and pressed his index finger against his lips.

‘We made a deal,’ Verlaine said suddenly. ‘We made a deal that I would take care of this thing you asked of me, something that jeopardizes my job, and you would speak with us.’

Feraud lowered his finger from his lips. His smile rapidly vanished. ‘What are we doing right now, Mr Verlaine? We are speaking, are we not? I said I would speak with you, and as always I have kept my word to the letter. Now again, if you don’t mind, I would like to rest.’

Thunder rolled outwards above the house. Somewhere to Hartmann’s right he heard the sound of footsteps, and when he turned he saw the Creole standing there waiting for them to leave.

‘I will not forget that you have failed to keep your word, Mr Feraud,’ Verlaine said.

Feraud looked at Verlaine, his eyes cold and hard and unforgiving. ‘Be careful, Mr Verlaine… be careful or I might choose not to forget you.’

Hartmann felt the skin crawl up his back and tighten at the base of his neck. His hands were sweating, his whole body was sweating, and he wanted nothing more than to leave the house, to make it safely to the car, to drive back to the city and never once look over his shoulder.

They walked back the way they had come, the Creole ahead of them, and once they were again on the veranda Verlaine’s gun was returned.

Neither of them said a word as they walked to the car, and only when they had finally reached the sliproad that ran to the freeway did Verlaine say something.

‘Never again,’ he said, and his voice was almost a whisper.

Hartmann opened the passenger door and climbed inside.

Verlaine started the engine and pulled away.

‘Guy scares the living fucking Jesus outta me,’ Verlaine said. His voice was hoarse. It cracked mid-sentence and Hartmann noticed how tightly he was holding the steering wheel. His knuckles were white and stretched.

‘Not a man I would like to upset,’ Hartmann said.

‘That’s the problem,’ Verlaine replied. ‘I think I just did.’

‘He won’t do anything,’ Hartmann said. ‘A warning is not the same as a threat.’

‘I hope to fuck not,’ Verlaine replied, and then they gained the freeway, and the lights of New Orleans were ahead of them.

They did not speak again until Verlaine pulled to a stop two blocks from Hartmann’s hotel. He did not wish to have any of the federal agents see that they had been together.

‘You need any other favors,’ Verlaine said, ‘you can forget about them before you even think it.’

Hartmann smiled. ‘Thank you for your help,’ he said. He reached over and gripped Verlaine’s hand where it rested on the steering wheel. ‘Go home,’ he said. ‘Have a couple of shots of sourmash and hit the sack. Forget about this… it isn’t your problem, okay?’

Verlaine nodded. ‘Thank fucking God.’

Hartmann climbed out of the car and watched as Verlaine drove away. He turned right and started walking, and within a minute or so had reached the Marriott. He glanced at his watch. It was a little before nine, and already he felt as if he hadn’t slept for three weeks.

In his room he undressed and showered. He called room service and ordered coffee. He turned on the radio and listened to nothing in particular, and then he lay on his bed and wished this had never begun.

And then the storm began – suddenly, violently – and the sound of rain rushing down from the sky and hammering against the roof of the hotel was almost deafening. Hartmann turned over and buried his head beneath the pillow. Still the noise was there, ceaseless and unrelenting. The whiplash snap of lightning, and back of that the rolling mountain of thunder that escalated until it seemed the whole sky was charged with its force and momentum.

The sound was perhaps some help, for within it Hartmann found it difficult to think. He recalled these same storms from his early childhood, both he and Danny as tiny children crouched beneath the covers while their father told them that somewhere God was angry, but not with them, and so there was no need to be afraid, and from the landing the sound of their mother’s voice telling them that big boys weren’t afraid of storms. Hartmann closed his eyes, closed everything down, and somehow managed a brief respite from what was happening to his life.

Within twenty minutes he was asleep – quietly, gratefully asleep – and he did not wake until the telephone rang with his alarm call on Tuesday morning.

It was 2 September, and he had only four days until his life reached yet another watershed.

He rose without delay, he showered and dressed, but his mind was elsewhere, unable to find any real point of anchorage, and only when Sheldon Ross came to get him did he realize he was on his way back to the Field Office.

Another day, another handful of hours seated in the cramped and airless room.

Another dark catastrophe of visions courtesy of Ernesto Cabrera Perez.

When he arrived he was acutely aware of how empty the place was in comparison to the previous days. Schaeffer was present, as was Woodroffe, but apart from them he saw only two or three additional agents.

On each wall of the main outer office Schaeffer had positioned a large monochrome photograph of Catherine Ducane. Hartmann paused and looked at the face staring back at him. The picture showed Catherine at perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. She was a pretty girl, but innocent and vulnerable.

‘Looks like my brother’s daughter,’ Woodroffe said, and Hartmann started nervously. He had been miles away, thinking that when Jess was such an age she would look perhaps very similar. Maybe that was Schaeffer’s intention: to give them all something, to keep it there in their minds at all times. They were looking for someone, a real person, not only a real person but a frightened and confused teenage girl who had no idea why she’d been taken.

Hartmann said nothing. He turned and made his way through to where Schaeffer was waiting. In the man’s eyes he could see the question that didn’t need to be verbalized.

Schaeffer shook his head. ‘Nothing yet,’ he said. ‘I got sixty men putting hundreds of miles on their wheels and between them they have come back with nothing.’

Hartmann merely nodded and took a seat at the table beyond the small office where he would sit with Perez.

Perez was controlling them all, like some sort of chess grand master. Everything they were doing had been predicted by him, every eventuality had been taken into consideration, and – in all honesty – Hartmann believed that whatever they did, whatever effective action Schaeffer might instigate, they would be seated there for as long as it took for Perez to finish what he had to say.

And then the man came, and Hartmann turned and saw him walking down the length of the open plan office, an agent on each side of him. He was going nowhere – they all knew that, and he was going nowhere merely because he intended it to be that way.

Hartmann rose to his feet. He nodded at Perez as Perez walked past him. Perez smiled, entered the narrow room at the end and Hartmann walked in behind him.

Once seated, Perez steepled his fingers together and closed his eyes. He seemed to inhale deeply, exhale once more, as if performing some kind of ritual.