George Chesbro - Two Songs This Archangel Sings

"What happened to your coat, Mongo? That looks like a knife cut."

"Something like that. While you're checking the registration, see if you can find out which city official or agency issued the work permit for that location; ask for a copy of the papers."

Garth gave a curt nod, picked up his telephone. While my brother spoke with Motor Vehicles, I sipped at my coffee and stared at the front page of the newspaper on Garth's desk. The photograph of Liu Sakh Po, head askew, stared back at me. Again, I had the haunting feeling that there was something important in the picture that I was missing.

"There's no such registration," Garth said as he hung up the phone and tossed the slip of paper into the wastebasket. "Not for Con Ed, or any other vehicle. It doesn't surprise me. I called Con Ed right after we got the report of a stolen van, and they told me all their vehicles were accounted for. Also, there's no record of a work permit being issued for that site."

"That doesn't surprise me."

"In the beginning, before we heard about the van going off the Palisades, a few of the cops around here thought it might be a hoax."

"You knew damn well there was no hoax."

"Sure," Garth said, lowering his voice as he rose, walked around the desk, and closed his door on the staring faces outside his office.

"I just wasn't sure what to do about it. Whatever you were doing, you seemed to have the situation under control." He paused, smiled wryly as he sat back down behind his desk. "You were in the driver's seat, so to speak, and nobody called to report their van stolen. Then the report came in of the van going into the river. I'll admit that caused just a tad of concern."

"When they bring the van up, they'll find two bodies in the box."

"Nice, Mongo."

"I guarantee they're not Con Ed workers."

"Tell me what happened."

"You want to get a stenographer in here to take my statement?"

Garth thought about it as he stared at me with narrowed lids. "No," he said at last. "I'm not feeling too trusting any more about what outsiders may have access to my written reports, and we already have enough complications. Until somebody steps up to officially report a missing vehicle with a Con Ed logo, we'll keep this between ourselves."

"What about your captain and the rest of the cops around here?"

Garth shrugged. "You see me investigating, don't you? I'll make up a report and put it away someplace. If it looks like the shit is going to hit the fan, I'll produce the report and claim that I misplaced it."

"Whatever you say; that's your department." I took the Seecamp out of my pocket, gripping it by the end of the barrel, placed it on Garth's desk. "In the meantime, you might try to get some prints besides mine off this gun. Also, let's get a police artist in here. I want to see if we can't come up with a name."

"Whose name?"

"A very big fish that got away. He's a man with the best sleeper-move since Mr. Spock, and he's also the man who says he's going to off you unless I keep truckin' along to his satisfaction."

I told my brother what had happened. Garth listened in silence, without taking notes.

Garth dusted the butt of the Seecamp himself, came up with two partial prints that weren't mine. An hour later a police artist, under the impression that Garth was looking for a mugger who'd slashed my coat, turned my description into a pretty good rendering of the big man. Garth took the sketch to be copied and the prints to be checked. I sat down in his chair, found myself once again staring at the New York Post photograph of the broken Po. Then, suddenly, I knew what was wrong with the picture.

It was the newspaper in Po's hands.

Po, probably at the moment of his death, had crumpled the paper up toward his chest, and the back page was partially exposed. Even though the Post reproduction was grainy, I could tell that the paper Po had been reading was a New York Times, not a local Albany paper. That, in itself, wasn't unusual. What was strange was the ad on the back page which, even partially obscured and stained with blood, I recognized as one for Vogue.

A news addict, I read the New York Times every day with something approaching religious passion, every page front to back, including the advertisements. For the past week the back page of the first section-the one Po held in his hands-had been taken up with ads for Sports Illustrated, Reader's Digest, and a complaint by the Scientologists that the I.R.S. was harassing them.

The morning newspaper Colonel Po had been reading in the middle of the night when his head had been squashed was at least a week old-maybe more, since I couldn't remember what day or days the ad had run.

I picked up Garth's phone and called the advertising department of the Times. Five minutes later I had the information I needed.

The Vogue ad had run for three days, the second day being the one when somebody had taken a shot at Veil, the third, the day of the night when I'd almost been burned to death.

Garth must have seen something on my face when he came back into the room. "What's the matter, Mongo?" he asked as he closed the door behind him.

I got out of Garth's chair, leaned against the edge of the desk. "I was just trying to figure out what Po was doing in the middle of the night reading a newspaper that was almost two weeks old."

Garth raised his eyebrows slightly. "Is that what he was doing?"

"Yep." I pointed to the newspaper in the photo. "I recognized this ad and checked with the Times. Guess what?"

"The day Kendry was shot at?" Garth said tightly.

"That day, the day before and after. A perfect bracket."

"Damn," Garth said, growing excitement in his voice. "There had to be something in that issue that was keeping Po up nights-even two weeks after it happened. You talk about a worried man!"

"And it has to be connected with Veil's disappearance," I said, pushing off the desk and heading for the door. "I'm going to the library."

Garth moved into the doorway, filling it. "Relax, brother, and finish your coffee. You've run enough minor errands for one day, and I think it's better if you stay off the streets until we see how this latest wrinkle smooths out. The super in our building keeps all the papers for the Boy Scouts, and they're not due to be picked up until next month; we'll find the issues we need down in the basement. According to your own words, somebody could decide to step on you at any- time-as if we didn't already know that. From here on out, yon don't leave my sight except to go to the bathroom."

"Okay," I said, moving back to lean against the desk.

Garth looked puzzled. "What do you mean, 'okay'?"

"Okay means okay."

"You said okay once before to taking it easy, and the next day you hijacked a van, killed two men, and almost got killed yourself."

"This is a serious okay. I must be getting old. Can you get any kind of make on the big guy with the spooky eyes?"

"I've got people working on it. Don't hold your breath."

"Hey, Garth, self-defense or not, I still killed two men. You sure you don't want to call in someone to take my statement, just to cover your ass?"

"I'm sure," Garth said curtly as he sat back down behind his desk. He opened the top drawer, took out a black felt-tip marker and a yellow legal pad.

"I still don't understand what you're going to tell all the people who are going to be asking you questions."

"You want a lot of cops and reporters asking you questions and following you around?"

"No, I can't say that I do."

"Then fuck them," Garth said as he drew a thick, black circle around the newspaper in Po's hands. "It's not their brother who's being watched and hunted."