George Chesbro: Second Horseman Out of Eden

"All you have to do is ask some questions, Lieutenant; with what's happened here, and with the background information we've given you, you have the right. You find out where they dumped the dirt, and Garth and I will take care of the social work."

I watched McCloskey think about it; the more he thought about it, the further I could see him slipping away. I realized that he was a man not only worried about his past, but also about his present and-most important-his future. There was a small war being waged inside him, and I could see the casualty figures moving across his face.

"All you've really got is a letter from a kid," he said at last in a low voice as he lowered his gaze and stared at the carpet. "And what's in there could be the product of the girl's imagination."

"Want to read the letter, McCloskey?" Garth asked in a mild tone. I hadn't been sure he'd been listening.

"It doesn't make any difference. It's still just a letter, and there's no proof whatsoever that Nuvironment is involved in anything illegal. I think the captain would want me to have more than a suicide, a kid's letter to Santa Claus, and your word for the way things are before I go and risk stepping on Henry Blaisdel's toes. He pulls a hell of a lot of weight in this country, and particularly in this city, in case you didn't know."

I said, "Why don't you call your captain now, Lieutenant? Tell him what's happened here, and what we've told you. See if he'll okay your going to talk to the people at Nuvironment. Since Garth is the one who tracked down Valley's last telephone call, we'll tag along just to serve as material witnesses, as it were. Get them to tell you where they dumped the dirt, and we're gone."

"I don't need you to tell me how to do my job, Frederickson."

"I understand that. But no decent people would refuse to cooperate in an investigation that could involve the physical and emotional well-being of a child. But some people just don't like to talk to private detectives-and these people definitely won't talk to Garth and me if we're right about them having something to hide. Your presence in your official capacity could, let us say, help them to focus their attention on the seriousness of the matter. If we hurry, we can still get over there for a chat before they close the office for the day."

"It could get tricky, Frederickson," McCloskey said in a very low voice. "It's not something I'm going to rush into."

"For Christ's sake, Lieutenant-!"

"Now you listen to me, Frederickson!" the other man snapped as he abruptly raised his head and glared at me, pointing a thick index finger at my chest. "That big, stony-faced, self-righteous brother of yours standing across the room dumped on me pretty good a few years back. I was wrong, sure; inexperienced. Maybe I got what I deserved, maybe I didn't, but the fact of the matter is that I've had to walk a pretty tight line ever since then. I'm still walking a tight line, and I'm going to be doing it right up until midnight of December thirty-first; that's less than a week and a half away, and that's when I retire. Now you guys got real lucky, and now you've got it all; you're rich, and you're famous. Now, I'm not saying I could have done as well as you or the mighty Garth Frederickson over there, since he teamed up with you-but it didn't help that I had and have a stain on my record that Garth Frederickson put there. For sure, I'm telling you that I'm not about to jeopardize my pension, or a cushy job as head of security that I may have lined up, rushing into muddy waters that the famous Fredericksons have been stirring up. The difference is that you can afford to offend powerful people, or make mistakes; I can't. I'm going to go by the book, on this and every other matter that comes up in the next few days. If you don't like it, that's tough shit. Are you reading me, Frederickson?"

"It sounds to me like you've already retired, Lieutenant," I said, knowing I would probably regret the words, and not caring.

"Fuck you and your smart-assed insults, Frederickson! I'm not personally responsible for that kid; if I felt I was personally responsible in every case like the thing you're working on, I'd have gone crazy years ago. I said I'd talk to my superiors, and I will!"

I was trying to come up with an even better insult when Garth, uncharacteristically, ended up acting as mediator. "McCloskey," he said, speaking to the vestibule, "are Mongo and I free to go?"

"I need a statement signed by the two of you."

"Sure," I said. "Uh, do we have to come with you to the station right now? There's something else Garth and I would like to do this afternoon, and we're a bit pressed for time."

McCloskey wouldn't look at me. "I guess tomorrow morning is all right," he mumbled. "First thing."

"First thing."

It seemed we were excused. Garth and I went out onto the street, hurried to the corner to hail a cab.

"I could have used a little assistance back there, brother," I said. "Having a police detective along with us could make things a whole lot easier where we're going."

Garth shook his head. "I knew you were wasting your time. McCloskey's as dead as Valley, and there's no sense in trying to get help from a corpse."

The Blaisdel Building on Fifth Avenue was an imposing edifice indeed, a great tower of pink marble, steel, and smoked glass with an archway entrance three stories high at its apogee. The first few floors were filled with chic boutiques where you'd pay at least two hundred dollars more for any item than you would anyplace else. According to reports in various publications, the top three floors comprised Henry

Blaisdel's penthouse-"a fantastic adventure in interior design incorporating all that is best in the world," as Architectural Digest had put it. But the writer had confessed that her description was speculative, since she hadn't been allowed up there; nobody-excepting, I assumed, family members, servants, and top executives-was allowed up in the penthouse. Blaisdel himself hadn't been seen in public for more than a decade; what he needed was brought to him, and when his presence was required somewhere else he went by helicopter, parked by a very special permit atop his building, to his private jet to. . wherever. By contrast, Howard Hughes had been a party animal.

We entered the cavernous lobby, looked around until we found a directory on the wall to our right. Nuvironment was listed simply as a single word with the indication that its offices occupied all of the ninth floor, just above the tree-filled atrium and shops. The shopping floors had their own elevator system, and when we went to the bank of elevators serving the rest of the building we found no buttons for the penthouse or the ninth floor. Nuvironment was obviously not a company that encouraged drop-in business. Or drop-in anything, for that matter.

"You want to look for some stairs?" Garth asked tersely.

"No," I said, glancing at my watch. No New York City cabdriver had been willing to pick up an odd couple like Garth and me with our bloodstained clothes, and we'd ended up having to jog back to our brownstone to change. It was now 4:45. I had no idea what time Nuvironment closed up shop, but I wanted to get there before it did. While it was true that tomorrow was another day, it was also true that every hour that went by was another hour of potential pain and degradation for Vicky Brown, who could be somewhere close by, perhaps only a short cab ride away. "It looks like we're going to have to make an appointment after all."

"They're not going to agree to talk to us now, Mongo-if they agree to talk to us at all. A phone call will just put them on their guard."

"What choice do we have? Stairs aren't going to get us in there; if they don't have an elevator stop, the door on the fire stairs will most certainly be locked from the inside. Obviously, they have their own private way of getting in and out." I searched in my pockets until I found a quarter, started walking toward a bank of pay phones near the entrance, stopped when I realized that I was suddenly alone. I turned, saw that my brother was walking rapidly in the opposite direction, toward an archway that led to the boutiques on the first floor. "Garth?!"