George Chesbro - Two Songs This Archangel Sings

"I'm not so sure. Always, we come back to his signals to me-the open loft, the lights, the painting, the money. Why all that business, unless he wants something brought out, and is willing to pay me a lot of money to bring it out? Believe me, if all Veil wanted was to kill somebody, that person would be dead."

"Maybe the guy is heavily guarded; money and power usually are."

"He'd still be dead. You tend to underestimate Veil's skills; he's one hell of a lot more than just a street fighter. No; he wants something brought out. He can't just come out and say it himself because… because…"

Garth supplied the answer I was looking for. "Because he wouldn't be believed," my brother said distantly. "He's got a long police record, and God knows what his military file would show."

"Thank you, Sherlock. That's it. He needs proof, some form of corroboration from an outside party, for the story he has to tell. He has a friend who's a private investigator, but he just couldn't bring himself to hire a friend to do a job that could get him killed in the blink of an eye, so he-"

"That's bullshit," Garth interrupted, his voice thick with soft, subdued fury. "That fucker set you up."

"No. He left it all up to one roll of the dice. You're the one who pointed out that I practically had to rip up the floorboards to find the painting and the money."

Garth dismissed the thought with a gesture of disdain and disgust. "Anyone who knows you would have made you an overwhelming odds-on favorite to do exactly what you did under those circumstances, in that situation. He set you up."

"I'll take responsibility for my own behavior, thank you very much."

"If he'd been up front with you from the beginning, you'd at least have known what it was you were getting involved in. You'd have had some kind of warning of the kind of people you were up against and could have taken appropriate steps to defend yourself. His stupid little game almost cost you your life, and now you're a marked man until this thing is resolved. I may kill the son-of-a-bitch if I find him."

"Take it easy, Garth," I said, and eased myself off the side of the bed onto the floor. Instantly, pain shot up from my heels into my shinbones and knees, and I promptly collapsed.

"You're not going anywhere for a while on those feet," Garth said as he gently lifted me off the floor and deposited me back on the bed. "What'd they use, a blackjack?"

"Yeah," I said through clenched teeth as I waited for the pain to subside. "I've got to get on the move, Garth. If those guys find out I'm alive, and they probably will, I'll be a sitting duck here. It won't take a bloodhound to find me."

"That's why I brought you your two little friends there to keep you company. Also, there'll be an armed guard outside your door for as long as you're here."

"Who the hell's paying for that?"

"The city of New York. You're a material witness in crimes including arson and murder. In fact, this little chat may be considered an official police interrogation. As for the rest of it, I don't give a damn what Kendry did or didn't want you to do. This has become a police matter, and you're out of it. I greatly appreciate your thoughts, but thinking is all you're going to be doing from now on. You can talk to me all you want; I happen to be assigned to the case."

"You? What happened to the big industrial espionage case you were working on?"

"I asked to be transferred to this case, and they gave it to me. I have more than a passing interest in finding that prick Kendry, as well as the two men who beat on you and started that fire under your ass."

"Garth, isn't it a bit unusual to assign a case to a cop who has blood in his eye because of a personal interest?"

"Who cares if it's unusual? I've got it. You wanted the police involved, you've got it. A police artist will be around in an hour or so to talk with you and try to develop some sketches."

"Garth, you're not going to find Veil unless he wants to be found."

"We'll see about that. He's also considered a material witness. You let me worry about him. When you've coughed up the rest of the crap in your lungs and can walk, you're literally going to hole up in my apartment until we crack this thing. I'm going to booby-trap the place so that nobody but the Frederickson brothers can walk through the door and stay in one piece."

"I'm not going to 'hole up' anywhere, Garth, and you know it. I've got things to do."

"No, you don't. You carried close to a double teaching load last semester so you'd be free this semester to talk to some more loonies. So you put off your research for a time. You have to keep a low profile for a while. Make a joke about your naturally low profile, I'll swat the bottoms of your feet. I'm not kidding."

"Neither am I. You let me take care of my own business, Garth. You don't know how long solving this is going to take. It was my feet they beat on, and my ass they tried to burn. I take things like that personally, too. Also, Veil is still my friend, and I'd become personally involved even before my visitors came. I'd taken Veil's money."

"You took shit. You just put his money in a safer place, remember? Besides, the painting is gone. You've got nothing left to go on."

"I've got more than you do. I remember the painting, and in particular I remember the symbols on the robe the figure wore."

"Maybe they were just put there for decoration."

"Nothing in that painting was put there just 'for decoration.' They were some kind of symbols, and I'm going to find out what they mean."

Garth slowly shook his head. "You're not thinking clearly, Mongo. You make sketches of whatever markings you remember, and I'll have them checked out. You don't exactly blend into the scenery, which means you can't just go walking around the streets. You want those guys to finish what they started?"

"Indeed not. But I don't think I'm alone; I do believe I've picked up some heavy protection-a guardian angel, so to speak."

"You've got smoke on the brain. What are you talking about?"

"How many cops and firemen were on the scene when you got there?"

"They were all over the place."

"Ambulances?"

"Two or three. What are you getting at?"

"You said you found me on the sidewalk, wrapped in wet drapes. Let me tell you something; whoever cut me off that bed and carried me outside was no fireman. When I passed out, I was surrounded by flame and just this side of Barbecue City-a minute, probably less. Now, I never heard any sirens-and believe me, I was listening with keen interest. I would have been ashes by the time firemen pulled up to the front of the building, much less got up to my apartment. No way. Five people died in a fire that started under my bed."

Garth considered it, and I could see in his eyes that he was reaching the same conclusion I had. But then he backed away from it. "Fires are tricky things, Mongo. I'm not sure you would have heard sirens over the noise of the fire itself. The firemen could have been a lot closer than you think."

"A cop or fireman would have taken me directly to an ambulance, not dropped me on the sidewalk. It had to be Veil who got to me, cut me loose, and carried me out. He'd known what was likely to happen to me if I got involved, and he'd been keeping an eye on me from the time I pushed open his door and went up to his loft. He must have broken through the door of my apartment almost as soon as the two men left. It was probably Veil who turned in the first alarm. After he got me out, he would have gone back up to try and help others; it was too late for five of them."

Garth was silent for some time, thinking. "Just for the sake of argument," he said at last, "let's assume that you're right. One question: If it was Kendry who brought you out, and he was that close all the time, why didn't he make an earlier entrance and blow away those two guys before they started thumping on your feet and toasting your ass?"