"Do you recall the last time you took me out?"
"I think so," he said. "Last Thursday, wasn't it? Or was it Friday?"
"One of those, yeah. Do you remember my date, a tall lady in a green dress?"
A slight pause, one I'd have missed if I hadn't been expecting it. "Sure," he said, cheerful as before. "A nice lady."
"She lost an earring, we think maybe in the car. You come up with anything like that lately?"
"No, Mr. Raimi. And I cleaned it out just yesterday."
"If you do, will you send it on?"
"Absolutely. I think I remember them. Green, right, like the dress?"
"Yeah. Like the dress." I hung up and took a few seconds to collect myself. I thanked the receptionist for the use of her phone, went to the toilet, came down in an elevator and set off to see Cafran Reed.
They'd even gotten to the chauffeurs. Why go to such lengths? Deleting his files, securing the silence of those who knew him, covering every track he'd ever made. What justification could there be for the cost, time and effort that must have involved? And if they'd gone that far, bought out his building supervisor and workmates, his own sister… if they'd solicited everyone who knew him and warned them to deny Adrian's very existence… why hadn't they come after me?
Y Tse called as I was on my way to Cafran Reed's restaurant. "Hi, kid," he boomed. "How's tricks?"
"Fine," I said. This was the first time he'd called. He hated phones. I guessed somebody had been talking.
"You sure of that? Someone told me you've been acting a bit strange today. What's up?"
"Who was it?" I asked. "Sonja?"
"Well, tarnation's titties, Capac, how many other dames have you been freaking the living shit out of? She was sobbing, called you a heartless prick, threatened to cancel your contract. She'd been drinking and that's not like Sonja."
"And she's blaming me? Fuck her!" I yelled. "She won't acknowledge Adrian. Her own brother, and the bitch sat there and told me she was an orphan! Can you believe that shit? Then I go to Party Central and someone's wiped his files. I call his agency and they say he never worked there-not only that, but they've drawn up an imaginary list of drivers for me. And there's some-"
"Whoa," he laughed over the line. "Get a grip, Capac. Are you high?"
"Y Tse," I shouted, "Sonja has a brother! Adrian has been my driver and best friend since I started working here. A couple of days ago he didn't turn up for work and now it's like I dreamed him up. Nobody admits they knew him, there's nothing to prove he was ever alive. How the fuck am I expected to react?"
"Listen, Capac-no, no anchovies-," he said to somebody on the other end of the line. "-Let's talk this through calmly. I don't know Sonja very well but a few years ago I had an all-night session with her and Leonora. We got to talking about our lives and inner selves, all the shit you only discuss at five in the morning. She said she'd never had a family, would have loved a brother or sister. She got quite emotional about it."
"But I saw him! Every fucking day, Y Tse! Are you saying I imagined him?"
"No. All I'm saying is a few years ago, before anyone had ever heard of Capac Raimi, Sonja Arne told me she didn't have a brother. That means whatever you've stumbled into predates you. There are three possibilities as I see it. One, Sonja was lying all those years ago and really does have a brother. I don't think that's the case. Why should she lie back then if it was? Two, you're going mad. Not a pretty thought, but the mind screws up on us sometimes. I don't think it's likely but we can't dismiss the possibility. Three, there never was an Adrian Arne, only a pretender."
"But she introduced us. She told me he was her brother."
"She was lying."
His simple assertion threw me. It was so obvious. Immediately I knew it must be the truth and cursed myself for not having seen it already.
"She wanted you to believe she had a brother," Y Tse went on, "so she fed you a lie. He was in on it too. It's an easy deception to pull off-you had no reason to suspect something foul. Now they want the deception to end. So they stop lying. No trick to it. Who's going to notice the disappearance of a guy who was never real in the first place?"
"Why go to all that trouble?" I asked. "What difference can it make whether I think Sonja has a brother or not? It serves no purpose. Why would they pretend?"
"That's something for you to unearth if you decide to follow it up. But I'll tell you, whoever's behind this, I doubt it's Sonja. I guess somebody else is involved, someone who likes to play meaningless games for reasons sometimes unknown even to himself."
"The Cardinal?"
"It's got his crazy stamp all over it. You checked in Party Central's files and drew a blank? Well, ignoring the fact that if he's not her brother, his name wouldn't be Arne"- Fuck! -"who's got the power to tamper with those files? A handful of people, and every one of them's on the shortest of The Cardinal's many leashes. Nothing like that could be done without his knowledge."
"There was…" I paused. Should I tell him of my encounter on the stairs? I trusted Y Tse but… no. I trusted him and that was that. I needed at least one person to believe in. "There was a woman last night. I met her going up the stairs of Party Central. I don't know what she was up to, but it wasn't legitimate. She was dressed like a burglar and-"
"A burglar?" he snorted. "Get real. Couldn't happen."
"But it did. She got in somehow. She was coming down from a higher floor when I-"
"I'm telling you," he interrupted, "Party Central has the tightest security on the face of the planet. Apart from the Troops camped around it, there are sensor beams on every floor, remote-operated machine guns set behind the walls, canisters of gas in the ceilings, hidden cameras, secret traps, all manner of-"
"Hidden cameras?" My heart raced as I thought of The Cardinal sitting down before a TV set with his lunch, watching my bony ass going through the motions.
"Loads of them."
"On the stairs too?"
"Of course."
Fuck. Another problem I'd have to cope with. This was one week I wanted to take back and start over again. "So you think The Cardinal's behind this? That he set Adrian up to fool me, or made him vanish like those others you told me about, Harry Gilmer and the rest?"
"Harry…? Oh, him. Yeah, could be. Not beyond the-"
"Y Tse," I cut in, suddenly thinking of something, "do you know Paucar Wami?"
There was a long silence. Finally, "How do you know Wami?" he asked quietly.
"I don't. Not really. I ran into him a while back and the name just jumped into my mind a second ago. He worked for The Cardinal, didn't he? He killed people for him, made them vanish?"
Y Tse hesitated. "People rarely see Wami coming or going, and he can eliminate a man without leaving a trace, but I doubt it's him."
"But he's worth checking out?" I pressed, not sure why my mind had linked him to this but certain somehow that I was on to something.
"I wouldn't," Y Tse said. "Wami plays his own games and they're not the sort you want to get mixed up with. If you want my advice, leave Paucar Wami well alone." But he said it with more hope than expectation. Y Tse knew I wouldn't let this drop.
We talked some more, about trivial matters, then he hung up. Thomas got stuck in traffic-this was a bad time to be driving-but eventually I made it to my meeting with Cafran Reed and breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped out of the car. It would be good to get back to some ordinary business for a couple of hours. I'd taken all the craziness I could handle for one day.
The sign above the door simply readcafran's. Inside there were rubber plants in a couple of corners, strong yellow lights, paintings of trees and rivers, pop tunes playing softly in the background. The pretty receptionist paged her boss and a waitress escorted me to a table by one of the walls.
Cafran appeared a couple of minutes later, smiling easily. He was short, plump and pleasant, bald as an elbow. His face was a mass of freckles. He wore large, red glasses. His suit was conservative but somewhat at odds with the orange suspenders andi love cafran's rosette pinned over his heart.
"So, Mr. Raimi," he said brightly as he sat, "you're the latest designated knight. It's been a while since my last. I remarked on it only the other day to Ama-my daughter-and voila! Here you are. Would you care to order? The steak is rather excellent this week."