Джозеф Файндер - Vanished

I stormed into the elegant room – yellow walls, patterned red carpet, white tablecloths, the hush of power – wearing jeans and a T-shirt and hiking boots. Stoddard was in one of his finest handmade suits: dove gray, double-breasted, with a crisp pale blue shirt and red tie. Before him were a cup of coffee and a bowl of cornflakes. His second breakfast, I guessed. He’d always told me never to go to a business breakfast without eating first.

The maître d’ had followed me in, protesting, “Sir! I’m sorry, but jeans aren’t permitted. Sir, I’m afraid you’re going to have to put on a tie.”

The commotion attracted a lot of attention. A lot of stares. Stoddard glanced around curiously, then did a double take.

“ Heller? What the hell are you–?”

“We have a little unfinished business,” I said.

He exchanged a look with the senator – indulge me for a second – and said, “I think this can wait till I’m back in the office.”

“You didn’t seriously believe you could get rid of Dorothy Duval so easily, did you?” I stood before his table, arms folded.

Stoddard rose. “Excuse me, John,” he said to the senator. “Personnel matter.” He came around the table, very close to me, and said through gritted teeth, “Heller, get the hell out of here. You’re making a scene. If you want to talk about this, make a goddamned appointment.”

“Right now works for me,” I said.

“Damn you, Heller,” he said, and crossed the dining room. I followed him out to the corridor. He stood a few feet away and poked my chest with his index finger. “Don’t you ever do that again,” he said, his voice a low, ominous rumble.

“You want to explain to me why you assigned me to that stolen-cargo case in Los Angeles?”

“I assigned you because I thought you’d do the job.”

“Yeah,” I said. “No one else in the firm was qualified, huh? So is that the reason you didn’t want me looking too hard at who Traverse Development really is? So I wouldn’t put it together that Traverse is just a Paladin holding company? Meaning that the real client was Leland Gifford?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Heller.”

“And maybe Leland Gifford figured that I’d have some inside knowledge because of my brother?”

“Why would your brother know anything about this? You’re not exactly making sense.”

“Or did you think you’d be able to control me if I found out what was in that container?” I was, I admit, speculating wildly. I just knew it was no accident that I was put on the job.

“ Control you? When have I ever been able to control you ? I’ve seen the surveillance video of you and Dorothy and some other guy breaking into the Paladin offices.”

“So you’re singling Dorothy out?”

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to you.”

“So you were planning to fire me, too, that it?”

“I can not have you doing that sort of thing.”

I took a small metal object from my back pocket and showed it to him. A USB flash drive that held three gigabytes of files and e-mails. “Yeah,” I said. “It would be wrong. Like the illegal wiretap you had us do on the Ogilvie case.”

“Oh, please,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re growing a conscience all of a sudden.”

“Your breakfast companion might be interested in hearing about the work you did for his colleague, Senator McBride.”

He knew just what I was talking about: a senator who’d hired Stoddard to expunge a domestic-abuse charge before it became public. And then a couple of years later, the senator’s opponent hired Stoddard to do a little background research on Senator McBride, and what do you think Stoddard turned up? Lucky for Stoddard that Senator McBride didn’t demand his money back.

“So what’s this supposed to be, your job insurance?”

I shook my head slowly. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“You’re quitting, huh?”

“Before you fire me.”

“You think anyone’s ever going to hire you in this town?”

“Nope.”

“You got money in a piggy bank somewhere, Heller? Money your dad buried under a rock for you in the Alps?”

I just looked at him. Let him think it. “Know what this really is, Jay?” I wiggled the flash drive in my fingers. “It’s your retirement package. This effectively puts you out of business.”

“What do you want?”

“Dorothy doesn’t want to work for you. But you’re going to do everything in your power to get her an even better job, somewhere else. You’re going to give her a sterling recommendation, and you’re going to get on the phone and use that famous Stoddard charm and pull every string you have. I’m talking a really great job. And if you don’t…”

I wiggled the flash drive again. Its brushed-metal case glinted in the light from the chandelier overhead.

He stared at me, mouth jutting open. Dumbfounded.

“Don’t disappoint me, Jay,” I said.

Then I turned to leave.

“Heller,” he called after me. “I don’t know what you have up your sleeve, but I suggest you not bother. Like Sun Tzu said: ‘All battles are won or lost before they’re fought.’ ”

“He never said it,” I pointed out. “That’s from the movie Wall Street .”

“Doesn’t make it wrong.”

“Well,” I said. “I guess we’ll see.”

My cell phone kept ringing while I was accosting Jay Stoddard in the Senate Dining Room and outside of it. When I was finally able to check my voice mails, I found six. Two from Dorothy, confirming that she’d been able to rent all the equipment and uniforms I’d asked for. One was from Lauren. One was from an old friend named Pat Keegan, who now taught explosives at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and sounded very happy to hear from me. One was from an irate client who hadn’t been told that I was on leave from Stoddard Associates. He would not be happy to hear that I most assuredly was not coming back.

And one was from Lieutenant Arthur Garvin. He’d just gotten a heads-up from Anne Arundel County police about an apparent homicide that might have been connected to one of the cases Garvin was working. He wanted me to meet him at the crime scene in Linthicum, Maryland. At that time of the morning, it was more than an hour’s drive. There was no way I could do it. I had far too much going on that day.

I called Garvin to extend my apologies.

But when he told me that the victim had worked at Gifford Industries, I raced to my car.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD was cordoned off. A uniformed patrol officer from the Anne Arundel County Police Department was stopping all traffic. His cruiser was parked perpendicular to the street, its light bar flashing red and blue, the strobes pulsing a glaring white.

Garvin met me at the barricade and escorted me through, and together we walked the hundred feet. The neighborhood reminded me of my grandmother’s: modest houses set close together, big cars, manicured lawns. The victim’s house was tiny, the smallest on the block. The street on either side was choked with police vehicles; the driveway was crawling with uniformed officers and crime-scene techs. A patrolman was standing at the door to the bungalow, taking the crime-scene log. Radios were crackling. Neighbors were huddled together at a safe distance, talking. Probably neighbors who’d never spoken before.

“Here’s the deal,” Garvin said. “I don’t know the lead on this case, but he’s an old-timer like me, and he was willing to admit you to the scene on the condition that you don’t move or touch anything. Unfortunately, it’s daytime, so we’ve got everyone and their brother showing up here – all twelve guys from the Homicide unit, the unit commander, the duty official, the ME’s Office, you name it. I told the detective that you’re a buddy of mine, and I trust you.”