First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [30]
Schiltz's offices, sprawled on a stretch of Braddock Avenue in Fairfax, Virginia, were in a low, angular redbrick government building in that modern style so bland, it seemed to disappear. Using mostly the Innerloop of the Capital Beltway, it took Jack just over twenty minutes to drive the 16.7 miles from Langley Fields to Schiltz's office.
"Dr. Schiltz isn't here," the diminutive assistant ME said.
"Where is he?" Jack demanded. "I know you know," he added as her lips parted, "so don't stonewall."
The AME shook her head. "He'll take my head off."
"Not when he knows I'm looking for him." Jack leaned in, his eyes bright as an attack dog's. "You're new here, aren't you?"
She bit her lip, said nothing.
"Call him," he said now, "and tell him Jack needs to see him, stat."
The Indian woman picked up a cordless phone, dialed a number. She waited a moment, then asked to speak with Dr. Schiltz. In a moment, he came on the line, because she said, "I'm so sorry to bother you at dinner, sir, but—"
"Never mind," Jack said, hustling out of the office.
EGON SCHILTZ was an Old Southern type. His meals were sacred time, not to be interrupted for anyone or anything. A creature of habit, he always ate his meals at one place.
The Southern Roadhouse, set back in a strip mall as nondescript as Schiltz himself, was fronted by gravel ground down over the years to the size and shape of frozen peas. Its mock Southern columns out front only added to the exhausted air of the place. At one time, the restaurant had had a platoon of white-gloved attendants, all black, to greet the patrons, park their Caddies and Benzes, wish them good evening. It still had two sets of bathrooms at opposite ends of the U-shaped building, one originally for whites, the other originally for blacks, though no one connected with the place spoke about their history, at least not to strangers. Among themselves, however, a string of ascendingly offensive jokes about the bathrooms made the rounds like a sexually transmitted disease.
Jack walked in the kitchen door, showed his ID to the chef, whose indignation crumbled before his fear of the law. How many illegals were in his employ in the steamy, clamorous kitchen?
"Dr. Schiltz," Jack said as they made room for the expediter, bellowing orders to the line chefs. "Has he finished his porterhouse?"
The chef, a portly man with thinning hair and watery eyes, nodded. "We're just preparing his floating island."
"Forget that. Give me a clean dessert plate," Jack ordered.
One was produced within seconds. The chef nearly fainted when he saw what Jack put on the center of it. With a squeak like a flattened mouse, the chef turned away.
Holding the plate up high in waiterly fashion, Jack put right shoulder against the swinging door, went from kitchen to dining room with snappy aplomb, and immediately stopped so short, the hand almost slid off the plate. Egon Schiltz sat at his customary corner table, but he wasn't alone. Of course he wasn't. He made it a point to have dinner with at least one member of his family even when he was working late. Tonight was his daughter Molly's turn. Same age as Emma, Jack thought. Look at them talking, laughing. Is that what it means to have a daughter? All at once, his eyes burned and he couldn't catch his breath. Jesus God, he thought, it's never going to get any better, I'm never going to be able to live with this.
Molly, catching sight of him, leapt up, ran over to him so quickly that Jack had just enough time to raise the tray above the level of her head.
"Uncle Jack!" she cried. She had a wide, open face, bright blue eyes, hair the color of cornsilk. She was a cheerleader at school. "How are you?"
"Fine, poppet. You're looking quite grown up."
She made a face, tilted her head. "What's that?"
"Something for your father."
"Let me see." She rose on tiptoes.
"It's a surprise."