R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

Schaeffer shook his head. ‘Transcripts of everything Perez has said have been passed directly to the attorney general and the director of the FBI. It’s their decision, not ours. Like I said before, and I’ll say again, we are here to get the girl, not to involve ourselves in the comings and goings of corrupt politicians.’

‘Allegedly corrupt politicians,’ Hartmann said, his tone a little sarcastic.

Schaeffer nodded. ‘ Allegedly corrupt politicians, right.’

‘Whaddya reckon?’ Hartmann asked.

‘About Ducane?’ Schaeffer shook his head. ‘I’ve been too long in the FBI to be surprised about anything, Mr Hartmann… and that’s all I’m gonna say on the matter.’

‘So where from here?’ Woodroffe asked.

‘I go have some dinner with Perez,’ Hartmann said. ‘I hear him tell me how we can go stick our proposal up our collective asses, and then I go back to my hotel and get some sleep. I got a busy day tomorrow.’

Woodroffe shook his head and sighed.

‘Let’s get it done then,’ Schaeffer said, and rose from his chair.

‘Filet mignon,’ Perez said, and indicated a chair at the table in his room at the Sonesta. ‘It appears they have done a serviceable job. I shall perhaps recommend this hotel to some of my friends.’

Hartmann removed his jacket and took a seat at the table. A cloth had been laid, there were candles, warm plates already in place and on a trolley beside them covered dishes emitted a number of very pleasant aromas.

Perez remained standing as he served dinner, as he offered vegetables, as he poured the wine, and when he too was seated he unfolded a napkin and laid it across his lap.

‘I have considered your proposal,’ he said quietly, ‘and though I am in no way ungrateful for the concern of the attorney general and the director of the FBI about my welfare, I have decided, after long consideration, that I shall decline their offer.’

‘Long consideration?’ Hartmann asked. He smiled knowingly. ‘You knew the answer to the question before it was even asked.’

Perez shrugged, ‘Perhaps my consideration of the proposal served no other purpose than to enable us to spend a little time together this evening, Mr Hartmann. We are both in the best company we can find at this particular juncture in our lives, and I felt it would be good to take advantage of it. I believe that we are both humble enough to realize that something mutually educational and beneficial can be gained from this relationship.’

‘I have learned something,’ Hartmann said.

Perez looked up. ‘Pray tell.’

‘That no matter the situation a person might find himself in there is always a choice, and dependent on that choice his life will advance or decline.’

‘You believe, of course, that I perpetually made the wrong decisions?’

‘Yes, I do. I accept that you made your decisions based on what you believed at the time, but I consider that your beliefs were fundamentally wrong. Hindsight is a tremendously effective tool for determining the correctness of a man’s decisions, but unfortunately it is always too late by the time you have that advantage.’

‘You are a closet philosopher, Mr Hartmann.’

‘I am a closet realist, Mr Perez.’

Perez smiled. He speared a piece of steak and ate it. ‘And now?’

Hartmann raised his eyebrows.

‘You have made a decision about your life from this point forward?’

‘I have.’

‘And that is?’

Hartmann was quiet for a second. ‘I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as the perfect answer, Mr Perez. I do not believe Man is capable of always selecting the perfect answer. What may be perfect in that moment will not neces-sarily be perfect five minutes later. There is always the ultimate variable.’

‘Variable?’

‘People,’ Hartmann said. ‘The variable of people. The choices you made were, by their very nature, inherently connected to the people in your life. You believe you understand them well enough, especially if they are the people you live with, and you make choices based on what you consider will be not only the best for yourself, but also the best for them. The problem is that people change, people are unpredictable, and they have other factors that influence their opinions and viewpoints, and opinions and viewpoints are subject to change. The connections and interrelationships between people are tenuous and fickle, Mr Perez, and thus I don’t believe there will ever be a solution which is right for everyone involved simultaneously.’

‘You have made a decision about your own family?’ Perez asked.

‘I have.’

‘And?’

‘To make it work… to do everything in my power to make it work.’

‘And you believe you can do that?’

‘I have to believe it, or everything else becomes sort of pointless.’

‘And there is action that you can take?’

Hartmann did not speak.

‘Mr Hartmann?’

Hartmann looked up. ‘There was an action I was planning to take, but events have conspired to make that action perhaps impossible.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I was supposed to meet with my wife and daughter.’

‘Here?’

‘No, in New York.’

‘When?’

‘This Saturday at noon.’

Perez paused for a second. He leaned back. He set his knife and fork down, took the napkin from his lap and wiped his mouth. ‘And I have been the event that has conspired against you,’ he said quietly, almost sympathetically.

‘You have… though I understand that this is important, and that there is significance to our meetings. Of course these events may not be as important to me as they are to you, but I have nevertheless made an agreement, and that is something I will stand by.’

‘There is your realist, Mr Hartmann, the very thing that you are afraid of becoming.’

‘Afraid? How so?’

‘To accept the fact that you can do nothing about this because of me is fatalist. A realist would take action regardless of other causes.’

‘I will take action.’

‘Action sufficient to repair whatever damage might be done by failing to meet your wife and daughter on Saturday?’

‘I believe so, yes.’

Perez nodded. He placed the napkin on his lap once more and lifted his knife and fork. ‘So be it,’ he said. ‘I believe you will take whatever action is necessary and deal with the situation effectively.’

Hartmann looked at Perez and saw that this line of conversation would go no further. He continued to eat, though eating was the last thing on his mind, and when he was done they spoke more – of music, of art, of philosophy – but Hartmann knew that it was all a pretence, a face Perez was wearing for the world, a means by which he could talk without saying anything at all. He wished to reserve his revelations for the FBI office. This was the way he wanted it, and this was what he accomplished.

Hartmann left a little before eight-thirty. He met Woodroffe and Schaeffer in the downstairs foyer. They had been party to all that had been discussed in Perez’s hotel room, and already Perez’s response had been relayed to the attorney general and the director of the FBI.

‘Still nothing on the wife,’ Woodroffe told Hartmann. ‘We can only assume that both the names, Perez and Tiacoli, are assumed. There is no record of any woman with those names ever having been born, resident, married, divorced or anything else in the mainland United States. But we keep looking,’ he added, ‘and we keep looking until we have something better to look for.’

‘And Criminalistics and Forensics have come up with nothing else to help us? And the teams of people you sent out to search the different routes in and out of the city?’ Hartmann asked. ‘Nothing that gives any kind of indication of where he might have her?’