Dead and Gone - Andrew Vachss [43]
I took a sip of my ginger ale, thinking Wolfe was right—this was a personal thing with Clancy. “When does school let out around here?” I asked him.
He gave me a sharp look. “End of May,” he said.
I gave him a neutral look back.
“Yeah,” he said, quietly. “And it was broad daylight, that time of year.” He put two fingers to his forehead. “It wasn’t my case.”
“I know. When did the Gee come in?”
“Maybe a week later. The record’s not clear.”
“I saw that story in the newspaper.…”
“That was a while afterwards. They kept it quiet, didn’t want to spook the kidnappers, in case it was about money.”
“Maybe it wasn’t about money or sex,” I probed.
“What, then?”
“They, the parents, they knew how to find the … guy who got shot in New York. If they were players in the Russian mob, maybe washing money, the snatch could have been a message.”
“It’s possible, I suppose. But nothing like that came up when they were being investigated. Look, that kind of case, you have to eliminate all the possibilities. You know how many kids are killed every year by their parents, or the boyfriend of the mother, or …? Dumped in some vacant lot, reported missing. And the perps go on TV crying crocodile tears and ask everyone to help them search for their precious baby. Something like this, you have to check the parents, see if maybe they weren’t the perps.”
“Like they did in Boulder? With JonBenét Ramsey?”
“This isn’t Boulder,” Clancy said, his voice as stony as his eyes.
“Sorry. The parents, they came up clean?”
“They did. And it wasn’t because the job was sluffed. Everybody got talked to. Teachers, their pediatrician, their housekeeper, neighbors; you name it. Not one person had the slightest suspicion of the parents. No history of child abuse. Not even a hint of booze, or drugs. Or domestic violence. The parents themselves were asked about enemies, and they said they hardly even knew anybody over here.”
“What about an old grudge? From the old country?”
“It’s possible,” he said again, the “anything’s possible” unspoken, but clear on his face.
“The reason I ask … I’m guessing that nobody on your side could have known about any connection to the Russian mob back then. No way they could have.”
“You’re right. If there was a connection back then, it didn’t show up anywhere in the investigation.”
“Okay.”
“I got a friend in the Bureau,” he said, dropping his voice. “We’ve got photos of the kid from just before he disappeared. There’s a computer program, factors in everything known about the subject, right down to his genetic makeup. Anyway, this program ‘ages’ the subject. He’d be, what, fourteen or so now? The kid you saw when the thing went down—would you recognize him?”
“Not a chance. It was dark. I never really got a look at his face. He started shooting right away.”
“Wolfe’s good people,” he said, out of the blue.
“I know.”
“Is she in this?”
“You spoke to her. What did she say?”
“She said she’s known you a long time. Sent along your sheet, but said it didn’t tell the whole story, so she filled in a lot of the blanks. Asked me if I’d do her this little favor.”
“So …?”
“So Wolfe doesn’t ask for favors. She trades. Unless it’s personal. She didn’t say anything about herself, just about you. So it comes out like you and her …”
“No.”
“Right,” he agreed. Too quickly. “She said as much. Said you and her … you weren’t going to be together. That you were a criminal in your heart.”
“But …?”
“But somebody has a bull’s-eye painted on you, and you needed to get off first.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Never is. Look, I’ll see you later. Midnight, one o’clock, how’s that?”
“Fine with me. I’ll be at the hotel …?”
“Sure. That works. Me, I got a date.”
I slipped the blue lens on the mini-Mag, played the light over the keypad to the in-room safe all good hotels provide nowadays. I didn’t want to open the safe—I wanted to see if anyone else did. The safe is programmed by the hotel guest. You pick whatever combination of numbers you want. But a pro knows what to