Chapter Fifteen #3
Albert gave a snore from the bed, and Jack felt fresh annoyance that he had wasted so much of his life while creatures like this walked free and were even celebrated.
He didn’t bother spending any more time in Albert’s room.
Jack needed to find a safe. A vault. Or perhaps one of Byrd’s infamous hidden passageways.
He stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him.
He had worked his contact deep in the underground circuit for years.
Virgil’s mouth was normally wired tighter than a steel coil.
But Jack waited for his opportunity. And that night at the Moss Duck, he got Virgil drunk.
The dripping walls had reminded him of Pelican.
He had listened to the rhythm of it and bought them a sixteen-year-old bottle of Lagavulin to split.
Jack had waited patiently, after so many years, to tug the thread.
Until they were three quarters of the way through the bottle.
“The Bastion job, years back,” Jack had said. “You know anything about that?”
Virgil laughed. “That was a pretty little job, wasn’t it? Practically had a bow on top.”
“You know who did it, then?”
Virgil eyed the empty bar counter and cracked his neck. “Thief’s honor. Even if I knew, I ain’t telling.”
“You ever see one of those paintings?”
Virgil quirked an eyebrow. “I might have.”
“Well, if you might have seen it, I might have an interested party.”
“Arright. Yeah, I saw one once. But it was years back.”
Jack’s heart had skipped a beat. So the paintings had been sold on the market. He’d poured Virgil another shot of Lagavulin. Waited until the barkeep went into the back.
“Can you put me in touch with the person who sold them?”
Virgil had thought for a long moment. “Not likely.” He flicked his eyes toward the discarded newspaper that was stuck to the scummy floor. “But there’s someone else who knows for sure.”
Jack had picked up the Post-Courant and examined the front page. “Herbert Hoover?”
“Truman Byrd.” He smiled a sour smile. “He’s always known more than he’s saying.”
Jack had waited half a beat. Then all but whispered “What do you mean?”
But Virgil’s smile had dropped. “You’re talking about powerful people here,” he said, eyeing the barkeep. And then he’d shut up entirely.
Jack began to walk the hallways now. He checked each of the doors, glancing inside the ones that he found unlocked, and scanned the darkened rooms for their contents.
There were two closets, two bathrooms, a sitting room.
Three locked doors he assumed to be guest bedrooms. His hand was on the knob of the ninth door when he heard a voice say “Mr. Conner.”
He tried not to jump when he felt Dallas Winston, Byrd’s security, appear suddenly beside him. He turned. The handle of Dallas’s gun in his belt glinted in the shadows.
“What brings you up here, Conner?” Dallas asked. His voice was pleasant. But Jack didn’t miss the fact that Dallas’s hand moved toward his gun.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Jack said. “I’m looking to have a private word with Truman, but I realized I don’t have a clue where his office is.”
Dallas studied Jack. At first, Jack suspected he was trying to determine whether or not he was inebriated. But his eyes lingered on the places where one might conceal a weapon, and a part of Jack went cold.
“It’s not on this floor,” Dallas finally said.
He cocked an eyebrow. “It’s on the fourth.
I’ll escort you there.” He pointedly waited until Jack turned to follow him, then led him up two more flights of stairs.
The sconces flickered on the walls, and Jack heard a distant giggle waft through the open stairway.
Gardenias spilled out from the chinoiserie in the stairway landings. Otherwise, the house felt eerily still.
They finally came to a stop in front of a large oak door on the fourth floor. Dallas knocked briefly and then opened it. He and Jack stepped inside.
Byrd was standing amidst a flood of white papers spread across the rug in columns, like they were building a monument.
“Conner,” Truman said, looking up. He frowned.
Dallas Winston closed the door behind them.
Truman capped his pen with a sharp click.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Truman,” Everett Conner said.
“Not at all,” Truman said. “Though I’m sure you didn’t come for the interior decorating of my office?”
He exchanged a quick look with Dallas and pictured the revolver that was fitted beneath his desk, easily reachable. The button he had installed next to it would alert the local police.
Everett laughed a little. “Actually, a tour is something that would interest me. But that’s not why I’ve come.”
Byrd raised an eyebrow at Everett to continue.
He felt irritation like an itch beneath his collar.
He had just received notice from another advertiser who was pulling out.
The Depression was hammering the economy, and it was playing out on the ink of his papers in more ways than one.
He wanted to melt away into an aged whiskey, a game of craps, and a piece of butterscotch pie.
“This is a little awkward, I’m afraid,” Everett said. He scratched the side of his head and then regaled them with what had transpired shortly after Truman had left to attend to the papers. Truman felt the itch of his irritation flare into a full-blown rash.
Maybe Ronald was right about Berty.
His loyalty had limits. And the hairline cracks were showing.
Truman studied Everett Conner as he stood before him.
He let the silence stretch out uncomfortably between them.
He had to give it to the man—if Everett wasn’t there to shoot him, it was a brave thing he was doing.
Something that took risk and character. After all, Truman had known Berty for decades, and Everett only a few months.
He let the silence strain to the point of unbearableness, examined the scar on the top of Everett’s lip.
He’d never noticed it before, but the light hit it just right.
Tonight, he didn’t look like Truman’s brother Elias.
He reminded Truman of someone else.
“The situation will be handled,” Truman said.
“Thank you,” Everett replied. He gave a smile but took a step backward, as if suddenly anxious to get away.
Truman stared after him.
“You know what to do,” he said to Dallas, and returned to his papers.