Thomas Perry - Blood Money

“You mean he handles their money?”

“Not just their money, but everything that can be done with money. And he keeps it quiet. Say some foolish citizen sues the family. Does Henry grease this citizen’s palm? No. He knows the senior partner of the law firm representing this citizen. This lawyer is the fund-raising chairman for the symphony orchestra. He quietly gives the committee a big donation. The law firm advises the client to settle cheap. If the case gets to court, the citizen’s lawyer certainly doesn’t say everything about the other side that he might have. Or, maybe the family has a teenaged son who needs help getting into the right college. Henry goes in politely and has a talk with someone on the board of trustees, someone who knows the family name and might even be distantly related—these people inbreed like chinchillas. He has a talk about new buildings and endowments. If it’s a tough case, he might bring a check with him.”

“How did he help you?”

George shrugged. “He just steered a little business my way. Somebody in one of these families died unexpectedly: he was about forty. Henry needed to make some money disappear from the dead guy’s accounts and get spread to relations before the death got reported. Otherwise there would have been a huge inheritance tax. Another time, he needed to have some money come out of nowhere and land in a politician’s pocket.”

“I don’t suppose Henry Ziegler’s got an ad in the Yellow Pages. How do I get in touch with him?”

George said, “If you’re as hot as you deserve to be, don’t try. He’ll meet you somewhere tomorrow night.”

“Where?”

“Can you get to L.A.?”

“All right.”

“He stays at the Bel-Air Hotel. He’s there now. I’ll tell him to expect you.”

Jane hugged George Hawkes. “Thanks, George.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got a plane to catch.” She took a step backward. She looked up at the windows of the house, but saw no sign of the woman. “If I were you, I’d go in now. The longer you’re out here with me, the worse it will be for you. You can rest easy, though. No matter how this goes, I’ll probably never see you again.”

George raised his head to stare up at the stars. “Life is a lot weirder than that.” He looked at her again. “You need a ride?”

She shook her head. “People see cars. They don’t see one more tourist out for a walk, and pedestrians don’t have to wear license plates.” She turned away and moved down the long driveway toward the gate. After a few steps, Hawkes could see only the dark shape of her shadow against his lawn. As soon as she was out of the light from the house, he could not see her at all.

13

Jane’s flight brought her into Miami in the early morning, when she was reasonably sure the watcher she had seen last night would be home asleep, but she found that he had been replaced. The crowds were thin and she could pick out other watchers. There were three men in tight T-shirts along the wall who paid little attention to the arrival of her flight but were very interested in all departures. Their behavior added a bit to her fears for Rita. If Rita had not gotten out of Florida already, this was the airport she would have been most likely to use.

This generation of wiseguys—the ones now in their twenties and thirties—seemed bent on dressing badly. Their fathers had worn suits like salesmen when everyone else had been in jeans and sweatshirts, so they had been easier to pick out. Jane noticed four police officers in the next waiting area. There were two men who wore windbreakers that hid their equipment, and two women who had identical taste in purses. Theirs were made by a company named Galco and they consisted of two compartments designed to surround a center pocket that held a gun.

Jane moved downstairs to buy a ticket to Los Angeles, then went into a ladies’ room to arrange her hair and change clothes before the flight. The pressure had increased over the past few days, and she wasn’t sure why. It looked as though the authorities had noticed the increased Mafia presence in airports and decided to place a few more cops nearby to find out what was up, and then the Mafia had reinforced its complement to spread the police thinner. It was getting to be more dangerous to fly.

When Jane reached Los Angeles, the numbers seemed to have increased again in a few hours. She rented a car at the airport under the name Valerie Campbell and drove it to Beverly Hills to do some shopping. When she had what she needed, she approached the Hotel Bel-Air by a long and circuitous route, then watched the parking lot for fifteen minutes before she went in to register for the night.

It was evening when she picked up the telephone in her room and asked the operator to ring Mr. Ziegler’s room. He answered, “Yeah.”

She said, “A mutual friend—”

“He talked to me,” Ziegler interrupted. “Meet me on the bridge in front where the swans are.”

Jane walked out of her room, down the narrow pathway through the garden, and across the margin beside the tables under the trellis where people were eating dinner. There was a certain absurdity to this spot. She had noticed on another visit to the hotel that the terra-cotta tiles under the patio were artificially heated from beneath. She had set her purse down, and when she had picked it up, the bottom had been warm. A few of the diners looked up as she crossed the little courtyard, but none of the eyes lingered on her for more than a moment.

She was dressed in a black linen dress that she had bought this afternoon, so she could have sat down at any table and looked enough like the other women to be the sister who always arrived late—or the daughter, at some tables. She turned left at the end of the path and came out on the little arched bridge over the pond.

There were still cars pulling up at the end of the bridge. Valet parking attendants got out and expensively dressed guests got in and drove off to claim their reserved tables at other restaurants in other parts of town. Jane stood apart from the other guests and stared over the railing. Two swans were still down there, gliding gracefully across the surface of the water toward the curtain of high reeds that separated them from the parking lot.

“You Jane?” The voice was low and gravelly, with a harsh, edgy quality to it, like a stage whisper.

It carried so clearly that she raised her head and scanned the doorway and the edge of the parking lot before she nodded.

“Me Henry.” He was short and dapper, his suit beautifully tailored to disguise a chubby torso. He seemed to be in his fifties, but his wavy hair had grayed and thinned enough that he could be sixty. He said, “Come on,” and turned back toward the hotel. She followed him through the arch, then up a maze of paths to the doorway of a bungalow with an enclosed garden. He opened the door and let her enter first.

The suite was larger and a bit more lavish than hers, and it had a big couch and a full desk with a fax machine. Open on the desk was a laptop computer that he had not turned off. The display glowed bright sky blue with a rainbow pie chart in the corner and a few lines of print. She noticed the proportions were changing constantly.

He said, “I sweep my rooms for bugs, and put a scrambler on the telephone as soon as I check in.” He gestured at the couch and, when Jane was seated, dragged a straight-backed chair up to sit across from her. “George told me just enough about you so I could place you in the universe. I suppose he did the same about me.”

“Yes,” said Jane.

“We have the same problem,” said Ziegler. “With both of us here, the feds could seal the exits and set fire to the hotel with all those rich bastards still in it, and still come out ahead after the lawsuits.” His eyes never moved from her face. He was studying her. “What’s the business you’re bringing me?”