want me searching down the river and to the sea, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. And if you show up on my screen, I will use all the resources at my command to follow you.”
“Are you threatening me, Ms. Lowry?”
“Merely telling you what I’m doing and what I intend to do. If, along the way, I find that you’re involved in some chicanery or mischief, I will use that knowledge to achieve my ends.”
“Chicanery? Where in the South are you from, girl?”
“I will hound Zella Grisham until either she dies or I do. And I will do the same for you, Mr. McGill.”
“Unless?”
The sneer morphed into wan complicity.
“If the company’s money is restored, the hunt will be over.”
“This is a mighty small office to be issuing such large edicts,” I said.
“The full weight of Rutgers is behind me.”
The woman through her window was white, in her twenties, nearly bald, with dark blue or maybe even black lipstick. This image and Antoinette’s words elicited my smile.
“Zella was framed,” I said. “The judge was convinced of that; that’s why she vacated the sentence.”
“Judge Malcolm lifted the sentence because we didn’t oppose that decision.”
“And you didn’t because you felt that on the outside Zella might lead you to her confederates.”
“I’m looking at you, Mr. McGill. NYPD files have you involved with everything from embezzlement to armed robbery.”
Wow. I wondered if this private cop could succeed where Carson Kitteridge had failed.
“But,” Antoinette added, “if you help us retrieve our losses, we can offer a one and a half percent reward on all monies returned.”
“That’s a lotta money.”
“ What do you say?”
I sat back and watched the bald white girl laugh at what someone was saying on the phone.
“My father told me one time that corporations have the rights of citizens but that they are not organic creatures. And so Rutgers doesn’t have the capability of feeling like it has to protect its biological appendages. That said, Ms. Lowry, do not believe that you are safe from the forces unleashed by this . . . campaign.”
I had to throw down that gauntlet. If somebody wants to threaten you, you have to respond in kind; I learned that lesson not from my father but by raising myself on the streets of New York.
The special investigator took it pretty well. She considered my words, weighed them. But she was tough too.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“In your investigation have you looked into Harry Tangelo and Minnie Lesser?”
“They were considered,” Antoinette said candidly, “and rejected. We believe that Zella had some connection to Clay Thorn. It’s possible that you knew him too.”
Thorn was the guard who was executed during the heist.
“Harry and Minnie are missing,” I said, “ have been since before Zella went to trial. That’s strange, don’t you think?”
I could see the suspicion rising in Lowry’s eyes, also the resentment that I could tell her something she didn’t know.
“ What’s your interest in them?” she asked.
“I work for the lawyer who got Zella out of hock.”
“Breland Lewis is your lawyer, Mr. McGill. He’s working for you.”
That was my cue to stand. Antoinette had come out a point or two ahead in our competition, but I had learned more about her than she had about me.
“I think I’ll be leaving now, Special Investigator Lowry. If I don’t show up downstairs in a couple of hours, send out a search party. It’s a fuckin’ rat’s nest in here.”
21
ON MY WAY uptown on the A train I was thinking about one and a half percent of fifty million. So far Twill was the only operative at my agency bringing in any cash that month.
I was standing in the middle of the crowded car, holding on to a metal pole, when I noticed the blue-and-pink-haired, much tattooed woman standing next to me. She was young and white, flipping through pictures of naked women on her
“Are you threatening me, Ms. Lowry?”
“Merely telling you what I’m doing and what I intend to do. If, along the way, I find that you’re involved in some chicanery or mischief, I will use that knowledge to achieve my ends.”
“Chicanery? Where in the South are you from, girl?”
“I will hound Zella Grisham until either she dies or I do. And I will do the same for you, Mr. McGill.”
“Unless?”
The sneer morphed into wan complicity.
“If the company’s money is restored, the hunt will be over.”
“This is a mighty small office to be issuing such large edicts,” I said.
“The full weight of Rutgers is behind me.”
The woman through her window was white, in her twenties, nearly bald, with dark blue or maybe even black lipstick. This image and Antoinette’s words elicited my smile.
“Zella was framed,” I said. “The judge was convinced of that; that’s why she vacated the sentence.”
“Judge Malcolm lifted the sentence because we didn’t oppose that decision.”
“And you didn’t because you felt that on the outside Zella might lead you to her confederates.”
“I’m looking at you, Mr. McGill. NYPD files have you involved with everything from embezzlement to armed robbery.”
Wow. I wondered if this private cop could succeed where Carson Kitteridge had failed.
“But,” Antoinette added, “if you help us retrieve our losses, we can offer a one and a half percent reward on all monies returned.”
“That’s a lotta money.”
“ What do you say?”
I sat back and watched the bald white girl laugh at what someone was saying on the phone.
“My father told me one time that corporations have the rights of citizens but that they are not organic creatures. And so Rutgers doesn’t have the capability of feeling like it has to protect its biological appendages. That said, Ms. Lowry, do not believe that you are safe from the forces unleashed by this . . . campaign.”
I had to throw down that gauntlet. If somebody wants to threaten you, you have to respond in kind; I learned that lesson not from my father but by raising myself on the streets of New York.
The special investigator took it pretty well. She considered my words, weighed them. But she was tough too.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“In your investigation have you looked into Harry Tangelo and Minnie Lesser?”
“They were considered,” Antoinette said candidly, “and rejected. We believe that Zella had some connection to Clay Thorn. It’s possible that you knew him too.”
Thorn was the guard who was executed during the heist.
“Harry and Minnie are missing,” I said, “ have been since before Zella went to trial. That’s strange, don’t you think?”
I could see the suspicion rising in Lowry’s eyes, also the resentment that I could tell her something she didn’t know.
“ What’s your interest in them?” she asked.
“I work for the lawyer who got Zella out of hock.”
“Breland Lewis is your lawyer, Mr. McGill. He’s working for you.”
That was my cue to stand. Antoinette had come out a point or two ahead in our competition, but I had learned more about her than she had about me.
“I think I’ll be leaving now, Special Investigator Lowry. If I don’t show up downstairs in a couple of hours, send out a search party. It’s a fuckin’ rat’s nest in here.”
21
ON MY WAY uptown on the A train I was thinking about one and a half percent of fifty million. So far Twill was the only operative at my agency bringing in any cash that month.
I was standing in the middle of the crowded car, holding on to a metal pole, when I noticed the blue-and-pink-haired, much tattooed woman standing next to me. She was young and white, flipping through pictures of naked women on her
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