name and address.’
‘One person is wearing all those hats?’
‘According to this document,’ Brenda said.
‘What’s the name and address?’ Lou asked. He reached for a piece of
paper.
‘It’s Samuel Hartman of the firm, Wheeler, Hartman, Gottlieb, and
Sawyer. Their address is Eight Rodeo Drive, Reno.’
‘That sounds like a law firm,’ Lou said.
‘It is,’ Brenda said. ‘I recognize the name.’
‘That’s no help!’ Lou said. He knew that the chances of getting any
information out of a law firm were unlikely.
‘A lot of Nevada corporations are set up like this,’ Brenda explained.
‘But let’s see if there are any amendments.’
Lou was already thinking of calling Paul back to get the rundown on
Samuel Hartman, when Brenda made a murmur of discovery.
‘There are amendments,’ she said. ‘At the first board meeting of Alpha
Management, Mr. Hartman resigned as president and secretary. In his
place Frederick Rouse was appointed.’
‘Is there an address for Mr. Rouse?’ Lou asked.
‘There is,’ Brenda said. ‘His title is Chief Financial Officer of the
GenSys Corporation. The address is 150 Kendall Square, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.’
Lou got all the information written down and thanked Brenda. He was
particularly appreciative because he couldn’t imagine getting the same
service from his own Secretary of State’s Office in Albany.
Lou was about to call Jack to give him the information about the
ownership of the plane, when the phone literally rang under his hand. It
was Mark Servert calling back already.
‘You are in luck,’ Mark said. ‘The fellow I’m acquainted with who knows
people in the Central Flow Management organization in Europe happened to
be on the job when I called him. In fact, he’s in your neck of the
woods. He’s out at Kennedy Airport, helping direct air traffic across
the north Atlantic. He talks to these Central Flow Management people all
the time, so he slipped in a query about N69SU on January twenty-ninth.
Apparently, it popped right up on the screen. N69SU flew into Lyon from
Bata, Equatorial Guinea.’
‘Whoa!’ Lou said. ‘Where’s that?’
‘Beats me,’ Mark said. ‘Without looking at a map, I’d guess West
Africa.’
‘Curious.’ Lou said.
‘It’s also curious that as soon as the plane touched down in Lyon,
France, it radioed to obtain a slot time to depart for Teterboro, New
Jersey,’ Mark said. ‘Near as I can figure, it just sat on the runway
until it got clearance.’
‘Maybe it refueled,’ Lou offered.
‘Could be,’ Mark said. ‘Even so, I would have expected them to have
filed a through-flight plan with a stop in Lyon, rather than two
separate flight plans. I mean, they could have gotten hung up in Lyon
for hours. It was taking a chance.’
‘Maybe they just changed their minds,’ Lou said.
‘It’s possible,’ Mark agreed.
‘Or maybe they didn’t want anyone knowing they were coming from
Equatorial Guinea,’ Lou suggested.
‘Now, that’s an idea that wouldn’t have crossed my mind,’ Mark admitted.
‘I suppose that’s why you’re an engaging detective, and I’m a boring FAA
bureaucrat.’
Lou laughed. ‘Engaging I’m not. On the contrary, I’m afraid this job has
made me cynical and suspicious.’
‘It’s better than being boring,’ Mark said.
Lou thanked his friend for his help, and after they exchanged the usual
well-meaning promises to get together, they hung up.
For a few minutes, Lou sat and marveled at why a twenty-million-dollar
airplane was carrying a midlevel crime boss from Queens, New York, from
some African country Lou had never heard of. Such a third-world
backwater certainly wasn’t a medical mecca where a person would go to
have sophisticated surgery like a liver transplant.
After entering Frank Gleason’s accession number into the computer,
Laurie sat pondering the apparent discrepancy for some time. She’d tried
to imagine what the information meant in terms of the Franconi body
disappearance. Slowly, an idea took root.
Suddenly pushing back from her desk, Laurie headed to the morgue level
to look for Marvin. He wasn’t in the mortuary office. She found him by
stepping into the walk-in cooler. He was busy moving the gurneys around
to prepare for body pickups.
The moment Laurie entered the cooler, she flashed on the horrid
experience she’d had during the Cerino affair inside the walk-in unit.