Andrew Vachss - Only Child

“Yeah.”

“Burke...Burke, what does it mean?”

“I think I know, now,” I told her. “The NV tapes, for some of the people in them it’s an acting job, and for some it’s the real thing.”

“But the guy making the movies...?”

“For him, it’s all real,” I said. “And he’s in charge.”

“How many?” Wolfe, on the phone.

“A hundred and seventy-seven, total,” I told her, the results of the Mole’s invasion of the Palm Pilot spread out in front of me. “But—”

“You’re joking.”

“But I only need the 516 and 631 ones.”

“And that’s...?”

“Seventy-one.”

She made a sound of disgust. Asked, “The names on each bill?”

“Names and addresses. But if any one of them made calls to or received calls from these numbers,” I said, giving her the number from the cell phone in the gym bag, and the one I’d copied off the wall phone in their kitchen, “that’s the only one I need.”

“This could take—”

“Price no object,” I said. “Even a few hours could mean the difference.”

Ibecame a news junkie: print, radio, and TV going simultaneously, scanning for “Twin Brothers Found Murdered in New Jersey!”

Nothing.

There was always the chance that the cops hadn’t connected what they thought was a hit-and-run with what had to be a deliberate homicide—maybe the Mustang’s plates dead-ended instead of taking them to the address we’d pulled from the driver’s license. Or maybe the woman in the back bedroom gave them enough likely suspects to keep them working local for a long time.

Or maybe they were keeping the media lid down until they tightened the noose.

“You understand it’s not like the City out there,” Wolfe said, on the phone. “You’ve got 516 for Nassau, 631 for Suffolk, but 516 is also the area code for all the cell phones on Long Island. There’s no separate cell prefix, like our 917.”

“And you can’t get into cell phone records because there’s so many different...?”

“We got one hit,” she went on, like I hadn’t said anything. “Out of all seventy-one numbers, only one call was made to either of the Jersey numbers. It went to their house phone.”

“When?”

“About six weeks ago.”

“Do you have the—?”

“I don’t think you’re getting this,” she said. “What I did, I had...some people do a back-check. Instead of pulling all the records for seventy-one customers, they focused on matching any of those numbers with the phone records for the Jersey numbers...the two you gave me, understand?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering how my brain had gone so numb. Grateful that Wolfe’s never did.

“And what we found was a cluster of calls,” she said, crisp to the edge of impatience. “A pattern. Mostly from the cell, a few from the house. All to the same number in Suffolk County. And when we looked at that customer’s records, we found that single call to the house in Jersey I just told you about. Clear enough?”

“Perfect.”

“Not so perfect,” she said. “The calling number’s a cell phone. The customer’s name is Robert Jones. And the address is a PO box. The credit card’s a dud, too.”

“Byron, can you do something for me? With the studio?”

“I only paid the interest, brother.” A honeyed baritone voice on the phone. “Just say what you need.”

“The Lloyd Segan Company. How may I direct your call?”

“To Mr. Segan, please,” I said, pronouncing the name with the accent on the first syllable, like Byron had said to.

“May I tell Mr. Segan who is calling?”

“My name is Burke. I was told he’d be expecting my—”

“Mr. Burke, yes. Hold, please.”

A short pause, then...

“Lloyd Segan.”

“Mr. Segan...”

“Lloyd.”

“Lloyd. My name is Burke. Byron said you’d—”

“What can I do for you?” the man said, his voice friendly with warmth and sharp-edged at the same time.

“What I need, Lloyd, is a favor. A number someone can call, and someone to answer it, do a little routine. And some...coaching, I guess you’d call it. So I can play my role.”

Two-thirty in the afternoon. Half past eleven in Hollywood.

I pointed across the room, where Michelle was poised at the desk, a headset buried somewhere in her hair, only the mouthpiece at the end of the wand visible.

She nodded, blew me a kiss, and dialed.

I tried to hear the phone ring at the other end in my mind—we couldn’t risk putting it on speaker.

“Good afternoon, I have Mr. Chenowith, from Acidfree Productions, for Mr. Vision.”

...

“Oh, certainly, sir. We’re at area code 323....”

“What’s he doing ?” Cyn asked, pacing anxiously.

“Checking out Acidfree Productions,” I told her. “Or getting across a border.”

When the direct line rang, I knew Lloyd had come through. Now it was time to see how good a coach he was.

“Acidfree Productions,” Rejji answered the bounced call.

...

“Mr. Vision, is Mr. Chenowith expecting your call?”

...

“Hold, please,” she said, sliding out of the chair as Michelle slid in, giving Rejji a “Nice job!” pat on the bottom.

“Mr. Chenowith’s office,” Michelle said.

...

“Oh, Mr. Vision. Thank you so much for calling. May I give you to Mr. Chenowith?”

...

Michelle pointed at me. I took a centering breath, picked up the extension, said, “This is Stan Chenowith. Do I have The Vision himself?”

Rejji dropped to her knees in front of me, hands clasped. Not playing. Praying.

“I can get word to him,” the voice said.

“Oh. All right. Can you tell him we would like to take a meeting with him, concerning backing one of his projects?”

“What do you mean, backing?”

“Well, financing, actually. I don’t know what you know about our—”

“I know how it works,” the voice said, as if I’d offended him. “How did you...I mean, have you seen any of...the work?”

“To be honest, I have not,” I said. “But you know how this industry works. The buzz is that The Vision is going to be very hot. And if you think the elevator’s going up, way up, the ground floor’s the best place to get on.”

“People are talking about...the work?”

“Oh, everybody’s talking about it. Word is, he’s on the edge. New concepts. I’ve heard Blair Witch meets Fight Club; is that outrageous? But, I have to tell you, your client isn’t the easiest man to get hold of.”

“Where would this meeting be?”

“That would be up to him, of course. I’m only calling now because I have to red-eye in tomorrow, and I’d hoped we could get together in the evening. But if that’s not convenient...”

“You’d meet in New York?”

“At the Helmsley Park Lane. On Central Park South,” I said, underlining that I was a Holy Coaster. A New Yorker would have said “Fifty-ninth Street.” “If that would be all right. It’s where I always stay.”

“What time?”

“Any time The Vision wants. We bring more than money to our projects. We bring flexibility .”

“Like nine o’clock?”

“You got it! Just have The Vision come to the front desk and ask for my suite. One of my people will come down to get him. Or would you like us to send a car...?”

“Okay.”

“Okay, you’ll ask The Vision?”

“No. Okay, he’ll be there. I can...I have the authority to make commitments for him.”