Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [2]
I threw the American Express garbage where it belonged, put the Petrowski check inside a handsome envelope engraved with Law Offices of Alexander James Sloan, and typed the Mouse’s righteous name and institutional number on the outside. Stamped with my bold red Confidential Legal Mail, the envelope next went into my postage meter, a machine which could never be returned to Pitney Bowes for service. I understand the Mouse has a friendly guard who will cash these for him, obviously a future roommate. I added the four would-be mercenaries’ names to my Rolodex, took a manila envelope for each and enclosed a Rhodesian Army recruiting poster (Be a Man Among Men!), an Exxon map of Afghanistan, two phone numbers for bars in Earl’s Court, London, and the name of a hotel on the island of Sao Tome off the coast of Nigeria. As usual, none of them had enclosed the self-addressed, stamped envelope. The world is full of crooks.
The buzzer sounded, telling me either I or the dope-crazed hippies in the lower loft had a customer. I switched the toggle over to Talk, and hit the Play switch on the cassette recorder. A sweet female voice lilted out of the recorder and into the microphone connected to the downstairs speaker, “Yes please?”
A woman’s voice came back from downstairs, “I would like to see Mr. Burke, please.”
I hit the second switch on the recorder, and my faithful secretary asked, “Do you have an appointment?”
“No, but it’s very important. I don’t mind waiting.”
I thought for a second, contemplated the state of my finances, and selected another switch from the two remaining. “Very well. Please come up and Mr. Burke will see you shortly.”
“Thank you,” came the woman’s voice.
As soon as I hit the opener for the downstairs door, which also sends down the elevator, I went through the back door to the fire escape and climbed out past the connecting window to the second office. I kept going until I was near the end of the building, where I had a periscope mounted to give me a view of the entire hall from the elevator on down. It was a miserable arrangement even with the floodlights in the corridor—when it was raining or dark outside, you couldn’t see that much—but at least you could tell if it was more than one person outside the office door. It wasn’t this time and I went back inside.
Pansy growled softly. I adjusted the fake Persian rug on the right-hand wall (the second office is against the left wall) so that it looked as though there were a connecting door, and I opened the outer door just as she was getting ready to knock again. I motioned her to come inside and sit on the low couch next to my desk, activated a switch to open the phony intercom, and said “Sally, hold my calls for a while, okay?” A quick push of the second switch got me “Certainly, Mr. Burke.” I then turned to look at my new client.
The low couch usually bothers people but this lady couldn’t have cared less. I guess she measured about five feet total (maybe an inch or so less), white-blonde hair, high forehead, thin nose, wide-set dark eyes, and a kind of thick chunky build you would call buxom if you hadn’t had a look at her from the waist down. I hadn’t yet so I mentally settled for old-fashioned “buxom.” She wore wide-legged gray wool slacks over medium-heeled black boots, a white turtleneck pullover covered by one of those unstructured ladies’ jackets, no hat, no jewelry that I could see, pale lipstick, too much eyeliner, and some rouge that didn’t quite hide the tiny scar just under