Page 26 of Hero

“Probably, but I was hoping to follow her to a safe place to do it. What can I say? I lost the cab, and so far, I haven’t found her again.”

“I figured it was worse than that. You were a genius to get that close in two days. Don’t be embarrassed. You bought us both time by getting Benjamin Spengler right away. All of the amateurs will be thinking it’s over. Want to know why I texted you to meet?”

Sealy said, “You’ve got me curious.”

“Well,” Mr. Conger said, “the parents of the two guys she shot have been complaining to me. These two were regular employees with balls and loyalty who had brought me money over time, not just part of a pickup team for one night.”

Sealy said, “I don’t know what I can do except get her for them.”

“No, this isn’t about doing anything for them,” Mr. Conger said. “The bitching about it was starting to annoy me, but then it gave me a brilliant idea. A beautiful, elegant idea.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It’s not like there was any doubt about what happened. They got into a gun fight with somebody who was better at it. There isn’t going to be a lawyer saying they were miles away at the time of the robbery. They were found with guns that they had fired at her. Both mothers are heartbroken. Both of them have told me that part of the hurt is who killed them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“This was a girl, outnumbered and defending an elderly couple. It’s humiliating. Their young sons are being made to look like punks. The least they wanted for their sons was to be remembered as serious badass men who were shot down in an ambush. I want that too, for my own reasons.”

Leo Sealy wasn’t sure why Mr. Conger thought he could change what had already happened and been reported, but he knew it was always best to wait and listen while Mr. Conger talked.

“It occurred to me,” Mr. Conger said, “that I could build the shooting into something better. I could get these two families to demand to know why Justine Poole hasn’t been arrested and brought in. She’d been lying in wait and shot two boys who didn’t actually get far enough to commit a crime. If the roles had been reversed, they’d certainly both have been locked up that night. That much is true.”

“Reversed? You mean if she and the Pinskys had tried to rob them?”

“No. If they’d been the ones who had seen her first and won the shootout. Why isn’t she being interrogated and investigated by the police?”

Leo Sealy widened his eyes and said, “It’s genius. If they can get under the police department’s skin, the cops might make her stay in one place.”

“Not the cops. The DA is the one I want to get to. He’s a politician, so he’ll do anything to help himself win his next election. If you know she’s coming, you can be waiting near police headquarters. Bang, it’s over. But you don’t even have to get her right away.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Right. If the cops bring her in, some assistant DA will be there to tell her not to leave town. They might make her turn over her passport and call in every day. If not, they can get a judge to order it.”

Leo Sealy felt uncomfortable. He had been in her condominium and could have searched for her passport but hadn’t because he’d been trying to kill her quickly and hadn’t expected her to live long enough to leave the country. He said, “If she has to stay around and be available to the cops, it might give me good chances to trace her to where she’s staying.”

Mr. Conger smiled. “I think we can keep her available to be dragged in and questioned again and again. The families can prolong this stuff for months, or for as long as it takes.”

“The one thing I wonder about, though—isn’t it dangerous for you to deal with the parents directly?”

“I won’t,” Mr. Conger said. “I’ve already retained a couple of my favorite lawyers to represent these two families. They’ve been paid cash in advance, but they’re going to say they’re doing this pro bono, so there won’t be any money to trace.”

Leo Sealy said, “I don’t want to be presumptuous, but if you’ve already protected your reputation by getting Spengler, why do this?”

Mr. Conger looked down and shook his head, then brought his head up and stared at him, the pupils of his eyes like pinpricks in the afternoon sun. “Don’t think of reputation like popularity. It’s more like the opposite. What I want is that when somebody hears my name, they start to feel a little shaky and sick to their stomach. So far, you’ve brought a boost to my name, and that’s better than money. But what kind of fool ever gets half of what’s on the table and then says, ‘That’s enough. I’ll leave the rest in case somebody else needs it’? I can see the way to have more, another boost to my name, and killing her is it. Over the next day or two, watch a lot of local news on television.”

19

Justine Poole and Joe Alston had trapped themselves into having a conversation about their prospects of a relationship and both had been more willing to listen than talk. After establishing that both were only interested in the opposite sex, that neither of them had been married, that neither had a lover at the moment, neither had made any overtures or invitations, and the discussion died of neglect.

She never hinted that her name was anything but Anna, and he never hinted that he knew it wasn’t. They agreed to the lie that they had given each other a lot to think about. Joe said the most important thing would be learning more about each other and Justine pretended to agree.

Joe Alston waited until the woman who was still calling herself Anna had gone outside to the shady area in the backyard where he had left the lawn chairs. When she began to look at her phone, he went out toward the garage. He had decided that the best strategy for dealing with her was to give her the impression that he at least tentatively accepted her lies but had just met her and it was too soon to think further than that. He was sure Justine Poole would not want any complications ordistractions and if any appeared she would leave. He didn’t want to lose his exclusive story.

He started his car and she got up and hurried to his side window. “Where are you going?”

He didn’t roll down the window, just smiled and waved and said loudly, “I’ll be back in a little while,” and backed down the driveway. He could see that she had bare feet, and as he reached the street and moved forward, he saw her nimbly retreat off the sun-heated pavement onto the grass.

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