The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [38]
“Any problems?” The Roman asked as he picked up the phone.
“Not a one. I did it first thing this morning. Put it in that lapel pin just like you said.”
“So I gathered from his last two hours of conversation.”
Reaching down, The Roman tugged open the bottom drawer of the file cabinet, and his fingertips tap-danced to the last file in back. The only unmarked one in there.
“Wes say anything interesting yet?” his associate asked.
“He’s getting there,” The Roman replied, flipping open the file on his desk and revealing a small stack of black-and-white photos.
“What about you? If your investigation’s so vital . . . I thought you were coming down here.”
“I’ll be there,” The Roman said as he stared down at the pictures. Graying from age, all of them were from the day at the speedway. One of Nico with the Service tackling him to the ground, one of the President being shoved inside his limo, and of course, one of Boyle, in mid-clap moments before he was shot. The smile on Boyle’s face looked unbreakable . . . his cheeks frozen, teeth gleaming. The Roman couldn’t take his eyes off it. “I just have to take care of one thing first.”
19
Palm Beach, Florida
Where is he?” I ask, rushing through the welcome area of the small office with its dozens of potted plants and orchids.
“Inside,” the receptionist says, “but you can’t—”
She’s already too late. I cut past her cheap Formica desk that looks suspiciously like the one I threw away a few weeks ago and head for the door covered with old Florida license plates. Beyond the plants, which were the standard thank-you gift from clients, the office had all the design sense of a fifteen-year-old boy. It didn’t matter. Moving over the bridge a year ago, Rogo took this office so he’d have a proper Palm Beach address. When you’re targeting the rich, and 95 percent of your business is done by mail, that’s all you need.
“Wes, he’s busy in there!” the receptionist calls out.
I twist the doorknob, shove open the door, and send it slamming into the wall. Standing at his desk, Rogo jumps at the sound. “Wes, that you?” His eyes are closed. As he tries to make his way toward me, he taps his blotter and pencil cup and keyboard like a blind man feeling his way.
“What happened to your eyes?” I ask.
“Eye doctor. Dilated,” Rogo says, patting a picture frame of his childhood dog. The frame falls and he fumbles to pick it up. “Being blind sucks,” he says.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Meanwhile, ready for new levels of pathetic? When I was at the doctor, I cheated on my eye exam. Before he got in there, he left the eye chart up—y’know with the giant E and the little N3QFD at the bottom? I memorized it, then spit it right back at him. Suckaaaaaa!”
“Rogo . . .”
“I mean, that’s even more sad-sack than—”
“Boyle’s alive.”
Rogo stops patting the picture frame and turns straight at me. “Wha wha?”
“I saw him. Boyle’s alive,” I repeat. I slowly slink toward one of the chairs across from his desk. Rogo turns his head, following me perfectly.
“You can see, can’t you?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he replies, still in shock.
“And is that my old desk out there in your reception area?”
“Yeah. I picked it up when you threw it away.”
“Rogo, I left that desk for charity.”
“And I thank you for that. Now would you like to tell me what the hell you’re talking about with your dead former coworker?”
“I swear to you—I saw him . . . I spoke to him.”
“Did he look—?”
“He got plastic surgery.”
“Well, who wouldn’t?”
“I’m serious. The shooting . . . that day at the speedway . . . it was . . . it wasn’t how it looked.”
It takes me almost a half hour to fill him in on the rest of the details, from backstage in Malaysia, to Dreidel’s info about the O-negative blood, to the FBI cornering me on the beach and asking me about The Roman and The Three. Forever a lawyer, he never interrupts. Forever Rogo, his reaction is instantaneous.
“You told Dreidel before me?”
“Oh, please . . .”
“I was in the car with you