The Eighth Day (3 page)

Maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but after he dropped off Jake, Danny’s elation began to fade. The truth was, he had a few pieces that were good to go, but they weren’t enough. He’d have to round up everything he’d sold, along with pieces he’d left in the care of friends. And the installation at the Torpedo Factory—the one Lavinia liked so much—was beginning to look like one of a kind. It was a mixed-media piece, and he no longer had any way of putting together the intricate video effects that kind of work demanded. The editing suite he’d used at the Artists Co-op was no longer available, its owner having reclaimed the system to go into business making “video memorials” of dead pets (a lucrative trade, by all accounts).

And there was another problem: the most interesting of his sculptures, and the pièce de résistance of any foreseeable show, was
Babel On II
. This was a mind-boggling construction that consisted of more than eight thousand transparent Legos put together in such a way as to create a nearly invisible city—at the center of which was a six-inch high three-dimensional hologram of Walter Mondale praying over Kurt Cobain’s funeral bier. The hologrammatic image was wonderful and haunting, as delicate and ephemeral as its subjects’ fade-to-black celebrity. The only problem was: How was he going to get the piece to the Neon Gallery without destroying it?

No big deal,
he thought.
I’ve got two months to figure it out.

Since he was driving Jake’s VW, parking was easy; finding a space for his own car, a huge and rusting ‘76 Oldsmobile, was always a challenge in Adams-Morgan.

When he bounded up the two flights of stairs to tell Caleigh about Lavinia’s offer, she was even more excited than he was. “I knew it!” she beamed, throwing her arms around him. She broke out a bottle of Mumm’s from the refrigerator (“it was supposed to be for your birthday, but we can always get another”).

Danny was feeling no pain when the phone rang, just after midnight. Caleigh answered it, then handed the receiver to him with a questioning look. “Jude Belzer,” she said.

He shook his head. It wasn’t a name he knew. Nor did he recognize the voice, which had a peculiar accent: half English and half something else that he couldn’t identify.

“Mr. Cray?”

“Danny.”

“As you like. I’m sorry to call you so late, but—”

“No problem,” Danny told him.

“I’m a lawyer.”

“Okay.”

“A mutual friend suggested I get in touch.”

“And who was that?” Danny asked.

“One of your many fans at Fellner Associates,” the lawyer explained. “Look, I’m just in from Milan and I’m off to San Francisco tomorrow. Would it be possible—is there any
way
—you could meet me in the morning? I know it’s short notice, but—”

“I don’t know. . . .”

“I have a proposal that I think will interest you. We could meet at the Admirals Club at Reagan National.”

Danny winced. He’d lived in the D.C. area most of his life. The airport would always be just plain National to him.

“Danny?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I was thinking . . . ten-ish?”

Danny wasn’t sure what to say. The Neon exhibition was going to be huge, but it wouldn’t be easy. He had a lot of work to do to make it happen. Then again, the grand that he had in the bank wasn’t going to last. And he couldn’t—he
wouldn’t
—live off Caleigh.

The silence must have dragged, because Belzer prodded him a second time. “Danny?”

“Yeah, sure—ten would be fine.”

“The Admirals Club?”

“Right. At National.”

It wasn’t until he hung up that Danny realized they hadn’t bothered to establish a way of recognizing each other. But, somehow, he could tell that wouldn’t be a problem. There was something in Belzer’s voice, a tone more than an accent, that made Danny think the lawyer already knew what he looked like. And maybe a lot more.

THREE

He looked . . . decent.

That was Danny’s conclusion as he stood in front of the mirror with a towel around his waist, dripping from the shower. Regular features, blue eyes, clear skin. Kinda tall, thin, and, for someone who didn’t “work out,” in pretty good shape. Though, actually . . . he played soccer on the Mall twice a week and went running with Caleigh in Rock Creek Park on the (admittedly
rare
) occasions when he got up as early as she did. So he wasn’t exactly a couch potato.

All in all, he thought that he looked okay, though maybe a little too edgy for a first meeting, especially with a lawyer. His hair, for instance. Short, brown, and spiky, it had blond highlights at the tips (thanks to Caleigh, who’d obviously been deprived of dolls as a child). Maybe if he slapped a little gel on his hair and combed it straight back (Pat Riley style), it would look okay—just sort of sun-streaked.

He ran a brush through his hair, cocked his head, and considered the result in the mirror: not bad, except that he looked like a pirate. A young and affable pirate but a buccaneer nonetheless—which might not be appropriate for a business meeting.

It was the tattoo that did it. And the piercings.

The tattoo was a black silhouette, tribal and abstract, that curled up and around his right shoulder. The piercings consisted of three gold rings in the helix of his left ear and a fourth through his right eyebrow—the result of a lost bet.

But it didn’t matter, really. The tattoo would disappear beneath his shirt, and the piercings only took a second to remove. When this was done, he was his mother’s son again—a nice young man with no apparent edges.

Walking into the bedroom, he opened the closet door and took out the clothes that he kept for occasions like this: the Zegna suit and tie that Caleigh had pounced on at Glad Rags (an upscale consignment boutique), the Cole-Haan loafers (leftover from graduation), the oh-so-cool windowpane shirt from Joseph Abboud. It was a dark and businesslike ensemble, funereal or gangsterlike, depending on your point of view. And it made him smile, because the beautiful suit and gleaming shoes were like a disguise.

He drew the line at an attaché case, though. Instead, he carried a leather “envelope” that held a yellow legal pad and the Mark Cross fountain pen that his father had given him in a moment of wishful thinking and largesse.

Riding the Metro out to the airport, he read the
Washington Post
—or, more accurately,
Doonesbury,
Style, and the sports page. Then he was there, amid the throng surging in and out of Terminal B. Finding a security guard, he asked the way to the American Airlines lounge and was directed to the third floor at the south end of the terminal. There, on the wall beside a wooden door, was a brass plaque that read:
ADMIRALS CLUB
.

A buzzer beside the door gave admittance to a large and airy room with a wall of plate glass at the far end. The attendant at the reception desk asked Danny to sign in as a guest, then nodded toward a corner of the room that overlooked one of the airport’s busiest runways.

Jude Belzer was sitting in a wing chair that might as well have been a leather throne, watching Danny as he made his way past a flotilla of empty easy chairs and couches. Nearby, three men in business suits sat nibbling honey-roasted peanuts and sipping Coca-Colas. Although they didn’t talk among themselves, they were obviously together—a phalanx of well-dressed pawns guarding their king’s perimeter.

To Danny, they seemed like Xerox copies of one another: each of them was thirty-something and squarely built, with thick black hair cut close to the scalp. They’d be difficult to tell apart, he thought, except for the guy in the middle, whose right eyebrow was cleft in two—so that he almost seemed to have three.

Belzer shared the same palette as his bodyguards (or whatever they were). Everything about him was dark, from the suit that he wore to his pitch-black hair and wraparound shades. He removed these as Danny approached, revealing fathomless brown eyes. When he got up to shake hands, Danny noticed, first, the silver-handled cane he leaned on, the gold blob of a Rolex, and the leather boot encasing a deformity of some kind.

“Danny Cray.”

“Jude Belzer.”

Rangy and athletic-looking, Belzer had a powerful grip and was handsome enough that he flustered the young woman who materialized to ask if they’d like something to drink. The lawyer had the presence of a movie star, and Danny could see the wheels turning behind the waitress’s eyes as she tried to place him in her firmament of celebrity. Blushing and stuttering, too eager to please, she finally dashed off to fill their order: coffee for Danny, Pellegrino for Belzer.

Belzer put his sunglasses back on, apologizing as he did so. “My eyes are sensitive to glare,” he said in a regretful tone.

“So,” Danny said, settling into an easy chair. “Here we are.”

“Yesssss.” With a smile, Belzer leaned forward and, without any introduction at all, quietly explained why the two of them were there. “I’d like to retain you for a little damage control.”

“ ‘Retain’ me?”

Belzer’s hands fell open, like a book. “A bit of freelance investigation. You do that, don’t you?”

Danny nodded. “Sure.”

“Well then . . .” A flash of teeth. “I have a client—a businessman in Italy—Zerevan Zebek. . . .” The lawyer paused, as if waiting for a reaction. When none came, he resumed talking. “For some time now, Mr. Zebek has been the target of . . . I’m not sure what to call it . . .
a campaign
to destroy his reputation.”

A sympathetic frown settled on Danny’s face as the waitress arrived with their drinks. “When did it start?” he asked.

“A few months ago,” Belzer replied. “One of the Florentine papers—
La Repubblica
—began to publish certain rumors. . . .”

“About?”

“Mr. Zebek’s businesses. Our first reaction—”

“And what did they say?” Danny asked. Unused to interruption, Belzer frowned. “I mean—I was wondering about the allegations,” Danny explained.

The lawyer shook his head, closed his eyes, and made an impatient gesture with his hand, as if he were waving good-bye to someone he didn’t care about. “What difference does it make? There’s nothing to them.”

Danny sat back in his chair, sipped his coffee, and let the silence between them grow—which wasn’t easy. The lawyer’s body language expressed an attitude somewhere between annoyance and contempt.

Finally, Belzer relented with a sigh. “Okay, they say he’s in bed with the Mafia—that he’s an arms dealer . . . a polluter, and a cheat.
They say
he’s the devil incarnate.”

Danny grinned. “Whereas . . . in fact . . . ?”

Belzer shrugged. “He’s a venture capitalist. Secretive? Of course. But that goes with the territory, doesn’t it? We’re talking about someone who’s invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a string of small companies, some of which have done very, very well—and may do even better. We’re talking about cutting-edge science—robotics and MEMS—not Telepizza.”

Danny wouldn’t know MEMS from Reese’s Pieces, but he understood what Belzer was driving at. Over the last year and a half, he’d done enough work for Fellner Associates to know that the high-tech universe was a cutthroat one in which billions came and went like tropical storms. The lawyer obviously believed that his client was being smeared by a competitor. “So why doesn’t he sue?” he asked.

Belzer took a drink of water and leaned forward with a wolfish grin. “Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? I mean, that’s why we’re here.”

“Ah.”

The older man sat back. “We know who some of the people involved are—tabloid hacks and others. But there’s no point in going after
them
. We want to trace the stories to the source—find out who’s behind them.”

Danny thought about that. It might be something he could do.

“One of the people
we know
was involved,” Belzer continued, “was an American.”

“Ah . . .”

“A man named Terio.”

“And how can we be sure of that?” Danny asked.

Belzer regarded him coolly. “Maybe this isn’t something you need to know.” When the younger man looked doubtful, the lawyer shrugged. “Mr. Terio was overheard talking to a reporter.”

“ ‘Overheard’?”

Belzer nodded.

“You mean like . . . he was sitting at the next table, or . . . you bugged him?”

Belzer’s face tightened in mock indignation. “I’ve never bugged anyone in my life,” he protested. Then he paused and added, “We have people for that.” The remark made Danny smile. But he must have looked worried, too, because the lawyer hurried to reassure him: “It was in another country, Mr. Cray. The laws are different.”

Danny nodded thoughtfully. “So what is it you’d like me to do?”

“Well, if we could get a look at Mr. Terio’s papers . . .”

“His ‘papers,’ ” Danny repeated. “What kind of ‘papers’?”

Belzer shrugged. “Whatever there is. And if we could find out who he was talking to, or who
else
he was talking to, that would be even better.”

Suddenly we’re in the past tense,
Danny thought. “ ‘Was’?”

Belzer nodded. “Mr. Terio passed away.”

Danny blinked.

The lawyer shifted in his chair. “It was in the news.”

Danny gave him an apologetic look. “I just got back in town,” he said. “My girlfriend and I were in North Carolina, so—”

“It was in the papers,” Belzer told him. He twirled a finger in the air. “TV. Radio.”

Danny thought about that. “So this guy was, what—prominent? I mean, to get in the papers—”

Belzer shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “He wasn’t actually ‘prominent.’ He was a college professor. It was more the way he died than who he was.”

Danny took another sip of coffee and leaned forward. “The
way
he died?”

Belzer watched a 737 land on the runway behind the window. After a moment, he said, “Mr. Terio immured himself.”

Danny wasn’t sure that he’d heard right. A couple of seconds ticked by. “Excuse me?”

Belzer turned back to him. “I said he
immured
himself.”

It’s a language thing,
Danny supposed.
This guy’s English is perfect, but it’s English-as-a-second-language perfect, so maybe he doesn’t mean what he thinks he means.
“When you say ‘immured,’ you mean like . . . like in that Edgar Allan Poe story?”

Belzer nodded. “Except, in Mr. Terio’s case, it was a do-it-yourself activity.”

The younger man sat where he was and said nothing for a while. Then his businessman imposture dissolved and he sank back in his seat with a chuckle of incredulity. “I’m sorry, man, but . . . ‘do-it-yourself’?”

Belzer inclined his head in confirmation. “He buried himself alive.”

Danny heard himself say,
“What!?”

Belzer nodded.

“But . . . how do you even
do
that?” Danny asked.

The lawyer shook his head in bafflement. Then he frowned and tried to explain: “According to the police, he went to something called the ‘Home Depot’ and bought what he needed. Then he built this little room from the inside out.”

Danny couldn’t believe it. The idea blew him away. “But why? Why would anyone ever
do
that? There are guns for that. Bridges! Pills!”

Belzer shook his head, almost wistfully. “Obviously, he was crazy.”

No shit,
Danny thought. “Of
course
he was crazy, but . . . what I’m getting at is: What made him do it? Even crazy people have
reasons
for what they do. They’re just
crazy
reasons.”

Belzer made a gesture that conveyed a mix of helplessness and indifference. “I’m sure you’re right.”

Danny nodded, then ran a hand through his hair. Finally, he made an effort to get down to business. “Okay, so Mr. Terio’s kind of a mystery. But why me? I mean, I can understand why you want to find out about this campaign against your client, but—why not go to Fellner Associates?” Before the lawyer could answer, Danny plunged on. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m flattered. It’s just that . . . They’re the A-team. I’m just one guy. I don’t have anything
like
their resources.”

It wasn’t something that he wanted to say, but it was so obvious that it couldn’t be avoided. He was a part-time PI who didn’t even have a license—whereas Fellner Associates had a dozen offices in half a dozen countries and 120 staffers, including a former deputy director of the CIA. It also had subscriptions to a hundred esoteric databases and a Rolodex packed with the names and telephone numbers of experts on everything from “questioned documents” to data forensics. So
Why me?
was by no means a bad question.

“Actually,” Belzer confided, “you’ve worked for Mr. Zebek before.”

Danny looked surprised. “I have?”

The lawyer nodded. “You were . . . I think they call it a ‘subcontractor.’ ”

“A ‘sub.’ ”

“Exactly. You helped with a matter that Fellner was handling for Mr. Zebek’s holding company.”

Danny shook his head. “Remind me.”

“Sistemi di Pavone.”

Danny thought about it. He’d done lots of work for Fellner, but at such a low level that he sometimes wasn’t even told the client’s name.
Sistemi di Pavone
didn’t ring a bell, but it seemed impolite to say so. “Ri-iight.”

“Mr. Zebek has rather a lot of—what should I say?— ‘work-type work’ with Fellner. Due diligence, for the most part, some mergers and acquisitions. But the Terio issue is different. It’s a personal attack.” Belzer paused to be certain Danny got the point, and then went on. “So there’s no need to involve Fellner. What we’d like to do is isolate the Terio investigation from our other work—while still keeping everything . . . in-house, so to speak.”

Danny nodded his understanding. He could see where it might make sense. Then he shifted in his seat and leaned forward. He should raise the question of fees—which was a little bit tricky. Fellner paid him twenty-five dollars an hour but billed him out at double that. So maybe he should ask for thirty-five. Or even fifty (if he could do it with a straight face).