A Friend in the Glass (An Auden & O’Callaghan Mystery #3)

Chapter Twenty-One

“God damn it,” Sam said as Rufus dabbed at his face again with the wet paper towel. He tried to pull back, but the redhead had a surprisingly strong grip when he put his mind to something. As Rufus moved in for the kill again, Sam settled for asking, “Tell me again why we couldn’t have gone back to your place to do this? Not that I don’t have a special place in my heart for the men’s room at the Javits.”

In all fairness, it actually wasn’t all that bad. It was clean—ish—and the smell of Sam’s own blood was strong enough to cover any other odors that might have bothered him. More importantly, it was surprisingly empty, but then, they’d picked one of the facilities away from most of the foot traffic. The looks they’d gotten on their walk, as people gaped at Sam’s possibly broken nose and bloodstained face and clothes, had almost been worth it.

“You’re being a huge baby,” Rufus muttered as he worked, carefully rubbing at the crusted blood under Sam’s nose. “Can you breathe? Is it broken?”

“No clue.” But when Sam checked himself in the mirror, he said, “I don’t think so.” Rufus had done a good job—the blood was gone except for a few dark drops on his clothes. His nose was puffier than usual, but it didn’t look crooked or bent, and when Sam probed gently, it felt sore instead of painful. He turned back to Rufus and gave him another once-over; Rufus had already insisted that he was fine, but—“How’s your ass?”

“Wanna kiss it?”

“Playtime’s later.” But Sam brushed his fingertips along Rufus’s hairline and kissed him. “You’re sure you’re ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m not the one who went face-first into a car.” Rufus tossed the paper towels. “I’m glad you’re tougher than old boots.”

“Is that an expression?”

“Sure it is.” Rufus shrugged and smiled—a little less cockier than usual, but given the situation, that was expected. He cleared his throat before producing the wallet he’d lifted. “Here you go. Keep whatever cash he’s got. I probably owe you.”

“Maybe it’s more like a joint checking account.” But Sam took the wallet and opened it.

Two hundred and forty-three dollars. An unmarked keycard—not the cheap, thin kind that hotels gave out, but a solid piece of plastic that was meant to last for a long time. A business, maybe. An unopened scalpel blade in sterile packaging. A bump of coke. A crumpled receipt for McAlister’s Steak House. And a driver’s license for Chad Deangelis. The photo on the ID matched the man Sam had fought on the street, down to the ridiculous mustache, and as far as he could tell, the license was real.

“Call Erik?”

Rufus was making a face now. “Everyone I’m working with thought Chad was just some lowlife coke dealer… but he’s gotta be connected. Maybe he’s got a lawyer on retainer. Because two days after I put the NYPD on his ass he shows up outta nowhere in a swanky car? He should be booked downtown. I think it might be in our best interest to first look for what’s connecting him to all this.”

Sam nodded. He folded the cash into his wallet, handed the license to Rufus, and said, “Assuming that’s legit, I guess he wasn’t worried about anybody knowing who he was.”

“Looks real to me,” Rufus agreed, flipping the New York ID back and forth to study either side. “It’s got the raised signature and funky holograph. Those are tough to make on the street. Can’t believe his name really is Chad.”

“Chad likes rib eyes. And he’s not smart enough to buy his wine by the bottle—how many glasses did this asshole have?” Sam held out the receipt. “Do you know this place?”

“That many zeroes isn’t my lifestyle. But the address isn’t far from here—somewhere in Chelsea.”

“Ok. So, town car, expensive dinner, keycard. But on the other hand, a scalpel blade, a bump of coke, and more cash than most people carry. Not to mention the fact that they planned that shit show.” Sam touched his nose gingerly again. “The guy I saw in the car looked like he could have been military, but Chad—” He flicked the license. “—I don’t know. And if they’re with Lew, why are they riding around in a fucking town car and carrying a New York license?”

“Someone must have seen us hanging around here,” Rufus said. “I bet they were waiting, hoping we’d come back today.” He shoved the ID into his jacket pocket before putting his hands on his hips. “These asshats could be working for Del, right? I guess if that one guy is military, the situation does lean more in Lew’s favor, but Chad being a local? That must be important.”

“Right.” Sam glanced at his watch. “We could check out the steakhouse. Or run down the address on the license. But I don’t want to miss Del if he’s here. I guess Chad’s going to have to wait.”

The rest of the morning and early afternoon they spent roaming the convention, on the hunt for any news about Del Jolly, Conasauga, or the colonel. It wasn’t like they had to find a way to bring the topics up—the majority of people at the convention, it turned out, were people who loved to hear themselves talk, and everybody was talking about the colonel’s death and Evangeline’s possible suicide. It was simply a matter of moving through the convention hall, stopping to listen where conversational knots had formed, and then moving on again when the time was right.

The problem, though, was that even though everyone was talking about the colonel, nobody was saying anything useful. Sam heard the same information repeated over and over again, the bare details of the case embroidered with rumor and suspicion. That it had something to do with organized crime. That it had something to do with drugs.

What he didn’t hear—not even once—was a word about Stonefish. And he wondered if whoever had killed the colonel was pissed that those incriminating emails had never made it to the authorities. When Lew got pissed, he got quiet, but you could see it in the way he clenched his jaw.

There wasn’t any sign of Lew, though—pissed or otherwise. And no sign of Del, either, although Sam didn’t think that was too surprising—if Del had stuck around, he might not want to poke his head out until he absolutely had to. With Evangeline dead, and now the colonel, everybody around him was dropping like flies.

When Sam tracked Rufus down in the convention center’s bar shortly before Del’s panel was scheduled to begin, the first thing he said was something else he’d noticed.

“Looks smaller today, doesn’t it?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Rufus answered. He’d taken up residence in the back of the bar, standing at one of the high-top tables hardly big enough for two people to set their cocktails on. “I didn’t want to be dramatic, but maybe these deaths really spooked the Suits.”

“Yeah, I think normally these things are mostly an excuse for a bunch of middle-aged men to talk over each other and carry their Viagra prescriptions around. Somebody takes a dive in the middle of that? And somebody else gets shot in a hotel room? Talk about boner killers.” He scanned the crowd once more, but he still didn’t see Lew or Del. “Any luck?”

“With my boner? It works just—oh, you mean Del. No, I didn’t see him.”

“Same here. No sign of Lew or Del yet. Should we try the panel?”

Rufus gave the tabletop a quick drum with his fingers. “At this rate, I’d say it’d be pretty ballsy if Del was in attendance. But even if he’s not, the excuse for his absence might tell us something.” He took a step back while asking, “That’s supposed to start in a few minutes, right?”

“Yep,” Sam said. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

When they got to the room where the panel was going to be held, Sam was unsurprised—if annoyed—to see that it was already full. People packed the spaces along the walls. One enterprising man was sitting on his briefcase. More bodies jammed the doorway, and the crowd spilled out into the hall. Sam returned the angry looks and mutters with hard looks of his own as he forced a path through the audience. It was actually easier that way, as a matter of fact—it gave him something else to think about.

They ended up near the front of the seats, pressed up against the wall, less than two yards from the tables where the panelists would be. A woman was already seated—Indian, Sam thought, with her dark hair cut short and in a suit that managed to look both understated and expensive. Then the crowd began to buzz. Men and women moved aside to clear a path, and a moment later, Del entered the room. He was followed a moment later by a second man—white, fortyish, with the kind of glasses that would have gotten him punched in elementary school—who was trying to read as he walked, his nose buried in a thick packet.

Another woman appeared to be the moderator, and she got the panel started. Each of the panelists presented something involving slides that showed pictures of military equipment, charts, and big numbers. None of it, as far as Sam could tell, had anything to do with Stonefish—Del’s presentation had to do with some sort of data analysis software. All three presenters, in turn, seemed to veer between the highly technical and the grossly commercial—the subtext, when it was subtext—seemed to be simply: buy from me .

After about fifteen minutes of it, Sam found his mind wandering. He scanned the crowd. By this point, he was beginning to recognize faces that he’d seen at the convention, but no one he’d flagged as memorable or important. They all seemed to have varying degrees of interest in the presentations—the man on his briefcase was about to fall asleep, his head nodding as he inched closer to slipping off his impromptu seat.

Where was Lew?

There were lots of reasonable explanations for why Lew might not be at the panel—chief among them, the possibility that Lew had killed Colonel Bridges and framed Del for it. But if Rufus was right, and if Sam was looking for patterns that weren’t there, then why wasn’t Lew here? Maybe it was as simple as Lew no longer had a reason to attend the convention with the colonel dead. But that didn’t seem to track; if anything, Lew’s attendance should have been more important. And no matter what Rufus said, Sam hadn’t imagined Lew’s presence at the Conasauga panel on Wednesday—and if it had been so important then, where was he now?

He was so caught up in theories that, before he knew it, the panel was over. Most of the crowd dispersed, some of them clearly disappointed that Del hadn’t confessed to murder, otherwise implicated himself, or had the decency to show up covered in blood. A few men and women lingered, though, clearly hoping to talk one-on-one. When it became clear that they wouldn’t be able to catch Del alone, Sam nudged Rufus toward the hall.

“He’s got to come out of there sometime,” Sam said. “Let’s see if we can get him alone somewhere.”

Rufus pointed discreetly in one direction, saying, “There’s a bathroom back that way. And over there is a corner that used to have a phone bank. If all else fails, we can bring him upstairs where the Halibut guys are.”

Seconds turned into minutes. Convention-goers hurried past them. Voices echoed from the high ceiling, so many people talking at once that it all became an ebbing, swelling roar.

And then Del appeared, glancing blankly from side to side like a man crossing the street on autopilot, one hand checking that his shirt was tucked in. His gaze swept over them without seeming to take them in, and he turned and set off toward the front of the convention center.

Sam went after him, Rufus at his side. The bathrooms Rufus had indicated were ahead of them. Sam thought the easiest thing to do might be to take Del’s arm—gently—and guide him toward the door. Most people, if you tried that, were so taken aback that they went along with you simply because they hadn’t figured out what else they were supposed to do.

As Sam picked up his pace, closing on Del’s flank, someone stepped into his path. Sam tried to jink past him, but the man moved with him, holding up a hand. At first, Sam registered it as a warning—STOP—but then the man said, “Hey!” and he realized it was a greeting.

Sam sidestepped again, and the man moved with him. He brought his attention to bear on the man, which meant losing track of Del for precious seconds.

The hair. The suit. The way this guy couldn’t help but try to stare down the blouse of a woman passing him. Then his eyes came back to Sam, and he said, “God, I’m so glad I ran into you.”

“Move, Anson,” Sam said.

“I’ve been freaking out—”

“Move!” Sam didn’t wait for an answer; he shoved Anson out of his way and started forward at a jog. Del was less than a hundred yards ahead, but that was significantly farther than he’d been a few moments before, and, worse, he’d already passed the bathrooms Sam had intended to use.

“It’s just—” Anson sounded out of breath as he came after Sam. “—ever since, you know, Evangeline, I’ve been thinking.”

“Rufus,” Sam growled as he hurried after Del.

“Hey, buddy,” Rufus said, already in the process of cutting Anson off from Sam’s path. He flicked the other man’s nose, held up a cell phone, and asked, “This yours?” And when Anson automatically reached for his pocket, Rufus drew his arm back and chucked it down the hall like he was trying out for the Yankees. “Go fetch.”

Anson’s outraged shout followed Sam as he broke into a run.

Ahead of him, Del was almost to the exit. The older man was still doing those nervous, side-to-side looks, but Sam got the impression they were instinct more than anything else—Del moved like a man who was nearly blind with his own panic. Sam’s stride ate up the distance between them steadily. A hundred yards dropped to eighty. Then to sixty.

He was thirty yards back when Del shoved open the door and stepped outside.

It took five seconds, maybe six, for Sam to follow.

The clouds had thinned. Sunlight made him squint. The smell of exhaust rose to meet him, circulating on a draft of cold air.

At the curb, two men had their hands on Del Jolly’s arms. As Sam watched, they shoved him into the back seat. One dove in after him, while the other hurried around to the driver’s seat.

“Hey!” Sam shouted. He sprinted toward the car. “Stop!”

They peeled away from the curb, and at the next intersection, they turned and were gone.