"There is no Adrian Arne," the man said. "Never has been, never will be. There is soil. Air. Blood. Strings. Nothing more."
"Very poetic," I sneered. "Now cut the crap and tell me what you know about Adrian." I took a step toward him. His cane came up immediately and he held it lengthwise between his hands.
"Your search is only beginning," he said. "You have far to go and the way is hard, but the start is always hardest. Forget about your friend. You have more important matters to consider."
"Listen," I said, taking another step. He threw his cane at me. I raised my arms to knock it away, but all of a sudden it transformed and I was covered in plastic wrapping. It swirled around me, encasing me from head to foot. It stuck to my skin, smothered my lips, tripped me. I tore at it angrily, ripped holes in it, and was free in ten or fifteen seconds. But the blind man was gone. The street stretched away in both directions, no sign of any beggars.
I hurried back to the car and asked Thomas if he'd seen what happened. He frowned. "A blind man, sir?"
"Yes."
"Here, sir? A minute ago?"
"Yes," I growled.
"No, sir. Do you want me to get out and look?"
I spat on the pavement in disgust, then got into the car. "Just take me back to the office," I muttered, and covered my face from the sun with a hand. I spent the ride brooding and for once I was glad of the silence up front.
I pulled our files on Cafran Reed and tried to immerse myself. Reed had no middle name, was fifty-four, divorced fourteen years ago, never remarried, a few romantic entanglements but nothing incriminating. He owned his own restaurant which he'd been running for more than twenty years, a small joint, popular with a select crowd, average annual income of…
My mind wandered. Adrian in the trunk of a stolen car, blood oozing out the corners of his eyes, cold, alone, dead. Dumped in the river, strands of his bowels indistinguishable from feeding eels. In a field outside the city, pushing up nettles, ribs home to a family of foxes.
Or was he alive? Maybe he'd skipped town one step ahead of whoever his enemies might be. Maybe he was hiding, waiting for a safe moment to contact me. Shit, he probably wasn't even thinking about me if that was the case-we weren't that close. Still, he would have said something surely. And what had that blind beggar been mumbling about?
I pushed the papers away. I couldn't concentrate, not with this on my mind. My right hand flexed and I recalled its grip on the tennis racket. That's what I needed to clear my head. A few hours on a court. I grabbed the phone to call for Thomas and only then remembered Sonja. She'd know about Adrian. If she was here, not home weeping and planning a funeral. If she wasn't caught up in the same trouble. Ifshe wasn't feeding the fishes with her brother.
I rushed up two flights of stairs to her office, suddenly certain she was dead or MIA. I burst onto her floor, alarmed her receptionist and crashed through her door without knocking. She was there. Looked up nervously, a hand snaking to the intercom to press for help. Then she realized it was me and relaxed. "Jesus, Capac," she laughed, opening her drawer to take out a cigarette. "You nearly gave me a stroke." She saw my red face and the look in my eyes, and lit the cigarette slowly. "What's wrong?"
"It's Adrian. He…" I was panting. She told me to sit. Held up a hand when I tried to speak again, said to wait until I had my breath back. I said nothing until I felt myself regaining control, then began again. "It's Adrian. He's missing. I went to his apartment and he was gone. The supervisor said Adrian had never even been there, but that's bullshit, Ivisited him there plenty of times, I know it was the right place, I-"
"OK," she interrupted. "Calm down. Let's go through this slowly and carefully. Who did you say was missing?"
I frowned and said it slowly. "Adrian."
She tapped her teeth with a glossed fingernail. "Adrian who?"
I said nothing for a moment. Then, bitterly, "Is that your idea of a fucking joke?"
"Adrian who?" she repeated.
"Adrian!" I yelled. "Your goddamn brother, Adrian Arne. He's gone."
She stared at me, confused. "I don't have a brother."
"What?" I said hollowly.
"I'm an only child, an orphan since the age of six." I could only stare at her wordlessly. Her eyes were filling with tears. "If this is some sort of a prank, Capac, it's in very poor taste."
"A prank!" I exploded. "Your brother disappears and you-"
"Stop it!" she shouted, tears trickling down her cheeks. "This isn't funny. Why are you being so cruel?"
"Sonja, what are you saying? You know you have a brother! You introduced us, for the love of Christ!"
Her face whitened. "The joke's over," she snapped. "I don't know why you're doing this and I don't want to. I would have given anything for a brother or sister, as I must have told you, or else you couldn't target me like this. How dare you throw shit like this at me? Get the hell out of my office."
I tried to say something.
"Now!" she screamed.
I stood, head spinning, and stumbled to the door. I tried one more time before leaving. "Who got to you, Sonja? Who made you turn on your own brother?"
"If you don't leave," she growled, "I'll set security on you, Cardinal's pet or not."
"Have it your way," I said coldly. "Deny Adrian. Be a Judas. But I won't bend. You hear me? I won't fucking bend or let this drop. I'll find out who's behind this and I'll make them pay. Nobody fucks with my friends. Nobody! "
I stormed out of the office, fingers clenched into fists. I pounded the wall as I went and cracked the plaster, but I didn't give a fine flying fuck.
I couldn't stay in the office, not with that bitch laughing at me upstairs. Her own brother! Somebody had wiped Adrian out-I was sure of that now-and she was playing along. To protect herself? She hadn't seemed scared, so I didn't think so. To move up another rung on the corporate ladder? She'd sacrificed her own body to get this far. Maybe sacrificing Adrian's would move her a step further along. It didn't sound like the Sonja I knew but maybe I was just a bad judge of character.
This was turning into a nightmare of a day. I'd come into it with high expectations. The Cardinal was rooting for me, I had a golden opportunity to impress, and I was still buzzing from my mind-blowing bout of sex the night before. I'd wanted to concentrate on finding my mysterious lover-I was sure I could track her down-but here I was, stuck with a far less attractive mystery. The woman from the stairs would have to wait.
As furious as I was, I took the Reed file with me. Ignoring a direct order from The Cardinal wasn't on the agenda, regardless of all other distractions. He'd told me to visit Cafran Reed and that remained my number one priority. I could put it on the back burner for a few hours while I did some digging around for traces of Adrian, but I'd have to turn to it in the afternoon. I didn't want to be the first man in twenty years to tell The Cardinal he had to wait because I had more important things to deal with.
I popped into Party Central and checked the records on three different floors. I wanted to see what sort of background info they had on Adrian, who his friends were, if he was connected with any shady deals, if there were clues in his past. It took a while for me to believe what I uncovered, but in the end I had to face the facts- he wasn't there. The most complete records in the city, and not a word about him. No birth certificate, no record of his driver's license, insurance details, schooling or employment history. I checked twice on each floor but every search produced the same result. Officially Adrian Arne didn't exist, had never existed.
It wasn't possible. There had to be information somewhere, perhaps tucked away in files on one of the higher, restricted floors. But I couldn't get in there, so I had no option other than to resign myself to his bureaucratic nonbeing.
Then I recalled my encounter on the stairs. Was the woman in black involved in this? Strangers didn't wander into Party Central as and when they pleased. Getting an operative in here would require tremendous influence. The same sort it would need to eradicate a person's files. She could be a link to Adrian. It looked like I'd have to investigate my mystery girl sooner than planned, only not for the romantic purposes I'd initially envisaged. It would be difficult but I'd hunt her down. For Adrian's sake if not my own.
I called Adrian's agency and spoke to the manager, John D'Affraino, whom I'd met a couple of times. He remembered me and was all smiles over the phone. "John, do you have an Adrian Arne on your books?" I asked after a while.
"Let's see." I heard him tapping the name into his computer. "Is that with or without an e? With? No, no Arne. We've got an Adrian Arnold."
"Could you describe him?"
"Six-two, black, thirties, bushy beard."
"No. Do you have a record of my drivers for the last month or two?"
"Sure. Just a minute… here we go. You've got Thomas at the moment. He's one of our best. Before him you had Pat Burke. Gregg Hapes before that."
"Could you get Pat or Gregg on the phone?"
"Sure. Hold on a sec."