Natural Suspect (2001) Read online

  "Yeah, sure," Luigi deadpanned. "Well, this ought to do it. You're breakin' new ground here."

  Finally, well fed and bundled against the storm, Patrick saw his cab arrive at the entrance to the Sweeney a little after nine o'clock. The hotel, halfway uptown on the West Side, had been recently refurbished, and now seemed to be a relatively friendly place with almost a neighborhood atmosphere. The cab wouldn't turn up the short street to the entrance because it hadn't been plowed, so Patrick walked to where he could see a small bar off the lobby. He stopped for a moment, outside in the swirling snow, taking the measure of the patrons. He knew the reputation of the place and guessed that there were some, maybe many, arrangements beyond those that seemed obvious.

  That man in the window holding hands over the tiny table with the much younger woman. The two guys at the bar, locked in a muted conversation, apparently unaware of the television or, indeed, anything else besides each other. The matron and, perhaps, her son.

  When it was built back in the twenties, the Sweeney had been a female-only dormitory. Midwestern girls with little or no connections would get to the big city and need an inexpensive and safe place from which to begin their forays into the Big Apple. Naturally, then, the Sweeney had been a mecca for hordes of young men. As times changed and the hotel's fortunes and clientele waxed and waned, it never lost its cachet as a place of secret assignation. Now, in its current incarnation, charming and all spruced up, it attracted clandestine couples from throughout the five boroughs and--if Henry's sighting of Arthur Hightower proved accurate--even millionaires from Long Island.

  It was far too cold a night to stand around outside for long. Patrick soon found himself inside, shaking off the snow, hanging his overcoat from a peg by the door. At the bar's entrance, he stopped and let his eyes adjust. The place was smaller and even more crowded than it had looked from the outside. In fact, he didn't see an empty seat.

  What he did see, however, was even better.

  He took a breath and moved forward between the tiny tables, the undistractable couples, to the end of the bar that had not been visible from outside. One man sat alone under the television set, staring forlornly out over the action. He was in his mid-fifties, handsome, with a full head of graying hair. He listlessly twirled a glass that must have earlier held a Manhattan--a cherry stem on his napkin gave it away.

  Patrick didn't want to lose his nerve by thinking about what he was doing. This was a break, fate, call it what you would, and he had to act. "Excuse me," he said to the man as he sidled up to the bar, "but aren't you Joe Kellogg?"

  The man slowly turned his head, looked Patrick up and down, lifted his nearly empty glass, and slurped at the dregs. His voice, when it came, was a deep Southern-edged baritone of honey, smoke, and good whiskey. "That's the name, son. But you've got the advantage of me."

  "How is that?"

  Kellogg chuckled wearily. Perhaps he was a little drunk. "It's an old expression people don't use much anymore. Means you know my name, but I don't know yours."

  "Oh, sorry. Of course. Yes, sir. Patrick Roswell, sir."

  Kellogg evidently had some code worked out with the bartender, who suddenly was in front of them as though he'd been summoned. Arthur Hightowers lawyer pointed at Patrick. "Manhattan all right? Hit me here again, John, and make it a double. His, too." Kelloggs tone brooked no debate. "Well, Patrick?"

  "Manhattan's fine, sir."

  "All right. Do I look like I'm in the military?" Eyes on Patrick, waiting for a reply.

  "No, sir."

  "Then you don't have to call me sir. How old are you, anyway?"

  Patrick swallowed. "Thirty-one. I heard that Arthur Hightower was here at this hotel on November the fourth. Do you know anything about that?"

  Kellogg looked out the side of his eyes with a spark of interest. "But enough small talk, Patrick. Let's get down to business. You must've heard wrong."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because he was dead."

  "That's what they're saying, Mr. Kellogg. But what if it isn't true?"

  Hey, presto, their drinks were in front of them. Kellogg picked up his cherry, bit it off, and dropped the stem back into the amber liquid. He moved the ice around with his fingertip, taking his time. "It's true, all right. If it wasn't true, he would have come to my office on the third and signed off on all the papers we'd been preparing for the better part of six months. Nothing except him bein' dead would have kept him from doing that. I worked with the man for twenty years, and I know that. You a reporter or something?"

  Patrick shrugged, unsure. "Trying to be."

  "You wondering why I'm here?"

  "The question occurred to me."

  "It ain't got to do with Arthur Hightower Senior. And it looks like I'm being stood up." He sipped at his drink again. "You married, Patrick? No, I don't think so. The song had it right. Don't marry a pretty woman. Don't even date one, because you never know."

  "I'm not dating anybody," Patrick admitted.

  "Maybe I'm not, either. I thought I was, though." His eyes went soft. "Beautiful woman, incredible between the--" He stopped. "But, hell, I don't need to go there." He sighed. "Cordelia."

  Patrick felt as though he'd been hit. "What?"

  "Cordelia. That's her name. Some handful of pretty woman, let me tell you. And smart? You wouldn't believe."

  "Does she like crosswords?" Patrick asked.

  "Matter of fact. . . how did you know that?"

  "I didn't," Patrick lied. "Just a guess. But about Mr. Hightower . . ."

  "No, forget that, there's nothing there," Kellogg said, and suddenly the bartender was signaling again. "Hey, John's tellin' me I'm gettin' a phone call. Maybe it's her. Keep my seat warm, you want to."

  Patrick watched him leave the bar and go out into the lobby. After ten minutes or so, he'd finished his drink. John appeared with a second one, saying it was on Mr. Kellogg.

  Leaving his glass on the bar, Patrick rose to go to the men's room, and maybe see what was keeping Kellogg. The lawyer was sitting at one of the chairs in the lobby, talking urgently into a telephone. Patrick gave him a little wave and continued on into the bathroom. When he was done, he returned to the bar to wait and nurse his drink.

  The bartender had put a little too much bitters in the Manhattan, but Patrick barely noticed. His brain was fully engaged with the coincidence of the name Cordelia, which after all wasn't exactly Brittany or Sue in the common names of the decade department. Could it be that two entirely different women, both of them beautiful, smart, crossword freaks who were great "between the sheets," and both named Cordelia, were meeting their lovers in this one small bar? It was possible, he supposed, but not very likely. He'd have to pump Kellogg about it when he got back.

  If he ever did.

  Patrick checked his watch. He'd finished the second drink and was surprised that it was hitting him so hard. Or maybe he was just tired. It had been a long and exhausting day. He could barely make out the numbers on his wristwatch. He blinked and they seemed to get even fuzzier.

  He'd better get up and go see the lawyer in the lobby--interrupt his phone call to Cordelia if he had to--and make an appointment for the next day. He really wasn't feeling very sharp at all. He'd get a good night's sleep and get back on the story tomorrow. That's what he'd do.

  But it took nearly all his strength and willpower to negotiate the table in the bar, and when he got to the lobby, Kellogg had disappeared.

  Where had he gone? Maybe he was in the bathroom? But Patrick didn't have the strength to go and check.

  He couldn't do anything about Kellogg now. He had to get home. Had he had only two drinks? And had they both been doubles? He didn't remember clearly anymore.

  Luckily, here was his coat, still hanging on the peg by the door, and then finally he was outside in the swirling storm. Sitting in the warm bar, he'd forgotten how bad it had been outside. With the wind chill, it must be close to zero.

  The street hadn't plowed itself and ther
e still weren't any cabs in front of the hotel, but up at the cross street, he saw a steady stream of traffic. It wasn't more than half a block away, and he could flag a hack up there.

  If he could make it. Suddenly his legs felt all rubbery. But it wasn't really that far, he told himself. And see? He was already out of the lobby's glow, where the street was dark for a bit. Just a few more steps and he'd be back under a streetlight on the main thoroughfare, where he could flag a cabbie . . .

  And then something hit him and all the world went black.

  Chapter 3.

  Patrick Roswell woke slowly, the world around him coming into focus like the fancy camera techniques of some graduate-school pretentious art-film wannabe. He was immediately aware that his head was still ringing, but when he tried to lift his hand to massage his temple, he found, to his surprise, that he couldn't move his right arm. This discovery was rapidly followed by the secondary realization that he couldn't move any of his extremities. He looked down and saw that gray duct tape bound him hand and foot, immobilizing him in a hard-backed wooden chair. He also saw that he was stripped naked. A fiercely hot shaft of fear pierced his stomach. He pivoted his head about as best he could to see where he was.

  He was in a room that resembled no place he had ever been. The walls were painted a glistening, vibrant white. There was no furniture other than the chair to which he was glued. Out of the corner of his eye, he could just catch a glimpse of his clothes piled in a distant corner. He looked down and saw that the wooden chair in which he was sitting was placed in the center of a large clear plastic sheet. This was disconcerting.

  Patrick felt his mouth go dry. He started to cough out a "hello ..." then stopped. One of the few clear thoughts that managed to penetrate the throbbing in his head and the growing terror within the rest of him was that the only person likely to respond to his call was the person who had brought him to the room, stripped him as he lay unconscious, and strapped him into the wooden chair. He squirmed about and tried to loosen the tape, but felt what little strength he had ebbing swiftly.

  Patrick inhaled deeply and tried to collect his thoughts and to impose some order on his fear. I am in trouble, he told himself, which was a statement of such obviousness that it was almost breathtaking. I've got to make a plan. But other than sitting quietly and hoping that over the next decade or so the tape binding him might dissolve, he couldn't see what plan there was to be made.

  But I'm not even a real reporter, he silently whined to himself. I mean, if I were at the Washington Post or the New York Times or maybe even Long Island's Newsday, I might be willing to risk life and limb. But I'm not. I'm just a nobody--not even a reporter at a little worthless weekly.

  He breathed in again. He fought off the urge to cry out. He closed his eyes, hoping in a childish way that when he opened them again the bare room would evaporate and he would awaken from this unpleasant nightmare in his own ratty little apartment and he could return to his own boring, unpretentious, awful little life. He squeezed his eyes closed and promised whatever deity might be listening that he would dutifully shelve his every ambition and gratefully return to the mundane world of collecting ads, if only when he lifted his eyelids he was someplace else, preferably far away from anyone connected with the Hightower family.

  This, of course, was a prayer that went decidedly unanswered.

  He sucked at the hot air of the small room, making a wheezy, asthmatic noise. Patrick slowly opened his eyes and took another survey of the emptiness about him. I am really in trouble, he thought again.

  Directly behind him, he heard a door crack open.

  Patrick froze, then half closed his eyes and let his head loll forward, feigning unconsciousness, though he thought that whoever was behind him could probably hear the beating of his heart, which threatened to leap directly through his chest. There was a pause; then he heard the door latch shut and footsteps approach. The plastic sheeting made a crinkling sound as the visitor stepped across it.

  "Hello, Patrick," said a deep but jocular voice. "Please don't pretend to be asleep. It wastes my time and already you have occupied far more effort and energy than I ever thought I would need to expend on the likes of you. So, please, if you will, lets try to handle the next few minutes efficiently. It would be wise, I think, if you were to consider it important to spend as little time as possible in my presence."

  Patrick lifted his head and half turned to see the man with the voice.

  "That's better," the man said.

  Patrick didn't reply, biting down hard on his lip to keep from shouting out in terror.

  What he saw was a large, thin man, probably close to six feet eight or nine, dressed in pale green hospital surgical scrubs, wearing a white laboratory coat, his face covered with white Pan-Cake makeup, a Bozo the Clown bulbous red nose, painted red lips and topped off with a multihued wiry wild wig on his head. In his right hand he carried a briefcase, and in his left a bright blue hard-plastic soft drink cooler. Both hands were encased in latex gloves.

  "As you might expect," the clown said briskly, "I have a few questions."

  "Who are you?" Patrick blurted out.

  The clown broke into a grin, displaying two rows of perfectly capped teeth. "Why, I'm Happy the Clown. Or Jumpin' Jehosophat. Gee Willikers. You can pretty much use your imagination on that score, Patrick. Any appropriate circus-type name would suit me fine."

  "But. . ."

  "You need to know more?" the clown asked, not unpleasantly. "Well, let's just say that I am the sort of man who accomplishes things. People seek me out because I can straighten out even the most crooked problem. I make things right. Or, at least, right the way they want them to be. I am a fixer and handyman--a jack-of-all-trades for dealing with the stickiest sorts of conflicts. I specialize in the most unusual conundrums and mix-ups that life can possibly deliver. I untie Gordian knots and solve double-crostic puzzles. I am, in short, a good man to have on your side and a bad man to cross. I work outside most norms and conventions, and don't really have much concern or truck with the law. This gives me some advantages in my line of work, Patrick. I am a mechanic for the exotic and out-of-the-ordinary breakdowns on the roads of life. I'm the sort of man who makes obscure riddles clear and thick mysteries obvious. In this regard, I have many, many capacities. Well trained, I am, Patrick, and despite my appearance, not really a very funny man to deal with. Although, I have found that in circumstances such as yours a little levity helps things along. Hence this garb."

  The clown gestured toward his nose.

  "Honk, honk," he added.

  Patrick felt cold circulate within him, as if he'd stepped into a freezing river current. "What do you want with me?"

  "Not an unreasonable question," the clown said. He placed his briefcase and plastic cooler on the floor, then knelt down and opened the briefcase. He removed a small, silver dental probe which he flourished in the air between himself and Patrick.

  "Is it safe?" the clown demanded in a gruff, Teutonic accent. "Tell me, pliss, is it safe?"

  Patrick felt his mouth dry, his heart pound. "Please," he replied, "I don't understand ..."

  The clown frowned. The makeup he wore gave his every expression an exaggerated impact, as if the smiles were in response to something truly hilarious, and the frown a result of some great and utter disappointment. "You're not a film buff?"

  "What?"

  "A film buff. Don't you like the movies?"

  Patrick opened his mouth to reply, but could find no words.

  The clown shook his head, making the multicolored wig bounce around. "I was hoping you'd be a film fan. Tell me, you don't recognize the late Sir Laurence Olivier's great line from Marathon Man? Where he has a bit of a discussion with Dustin Hoffman over diamonds and dental care? Come on, Patrick, everyone remembers that scene. Unforgettable ..."

  He waved the dental probe in the vague direction of Patrick's mouth, which, at that moment, seemed to Patrick to be wisely kept shut.

  The clown's smile
returned. "No? Alas. It does seem to me that I am running into more and more uneducated types in my line of work. But I had hopes for you, Patrick. I mean, a newspaper man--or, even an aspiring newspaper man--ought to be well versed in popular culture, don t you think?"

  The dental probe glistened, reflecting light from a single, bare overhead bulb as the clown swung it around. Then, abruptly, the clown stopped the probe in mid-swing and suddenly pointed it directly at Patrick's mouth.

  "You should not be silent when I ask you a question," he said, his voice suddenly cold and even, terrifying in its abrupt flat tones. "When I ask, you should answer. This will hurry things along and limit your and my involvement. Again, I remind you, this would be a wise philosophy to adopt for the foreseeable future." The clown leaned forward and tapped the dental probe against Patrick's lips.

  Patrick could feel sweat beginning to gather beneath his throat, dripping down his chest. The same was true beneath his armpits. "What do you want from me?"

  "Ah, better. What I'd like is the truth. Can you manage that?"

  Patrick nodded.

  "I need to hear you," the clown said, a singsong, false menace in each word.

  "Yes. Of course. Whatever you want, just let me go."

  The clown smiled. "Maybe. Maybe not. That remains to be seen. Cooperation is the key word here, Patrick. Cooperation and compliance. Two key words. Think you can manage those?"

  "Yes. Please. What are you going to do to me?"

  The clown smiled again. "Why, Patrick, I'm going to hurt you. Isn't that obvious?"

  Patrick moaned. "Please, I'll do whatever you want. . ."

  "Of course you will," the clown said, matter-of-fact obvious-to-see filling his voice. "I mean, look at you. Look at me. I'd have to say you're not in much of a position to negotiate. You're in a position to--"

  He gestured toward the trussed man, as if urging him to complete the sentence, which Patrick did, rapidly.