“Shut up, Marino,” I say softly.
“I’m getting withdrawal.” He gets up and goes to the liquor cabinet. Now it’s time for bourbon. He pours Booker’s into a glass and comes back to the table. “Wouldn’t that just be something if it turns out Talley’s involved in everything from soup to nuts. Maybe that’s why he wanted you at Interpol. He wanted to pick your brain to see if you knew maybe what Benton knew? ‘Cause guess what? Maybe when Benton was poking around after Susan’s murder, he started figuring out shit that started pulling him too close to a truth Talley can’t afford for nobody to know.”
“What are you two talking about?” Lucy is in the kitchen. I didn’t hear her walk in.
“Sounds like a job for you.” Marino gives her his puffy eyes as he swills bourbon in his glass. “Why don’t you and Teun investigate Talley and find out how dirty he is. ‘Cause I believe with all my little heart they don’t come no dirtier. And by the way.” This to me. “In case you didn’t hear, he’s one of the guys who drove Chandonne up to New York. Now ain’t that interesting? He sits in on Berger’s interview. He spends six hours in the car with him. Hey, they’re probably drinking buddies by nowor maybe they already was.”
Lucy stares out the kitchen window, her hands in the pockets of her jeans, obviously put off by Marino and embarrassed by him. He is sweating and profane, and unsteady on his feet, and filled with hate and spite one minute, sullen the next.
“You know what I can’t stand?” Marino keeps at it. “1 can’t stand bad cops who get away with it because everybody’s too damn chicken to go after them. And nobody wants to touch Talley or even try because he speaks all these languages and went to Harvard and is a big shot golden boy….”
“You really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lucy says to Marino, and by now, McGovern has wandered into the kitchen. “You’re wrong. Jay’s not off limits and you’re not the only person on this planet who has doubts about him.”
“Serious doubts,” McGovern echoes.
Marino shuts up and leans against the counter.
“I can tell you what we know so far,” Lucy says to me. She is reluctant and soft-spoken because nobody, really, is quite sure how I feel about Jay. “I kind of hate to, because there’s nothing definitive. But it’s not looking good so far.” She looks at me as if in search of a cue.
“Good,” I tell her. “Let’s hear it.”
“Yeah. I’m all ears,” Marino responds.
“I’ve run him through quite a number of databases. No criminal or civil court records, no liens or judgments, et cetera. Not that we expected him to be a registered sex offender or deadbeat parent or missing or wanted or whatever, and there’s no evidence that the FBI, CIA or even ATF has a file on him in their systems of records. But doing a simple search of real estate records raised a red flag. First of all, he has a condo in New York where he’s let certain select friends stayincluding high-ranking people in law enforcement,” she says to Marino and me. “A three-million-plus place full of antiques, on Central Park. Jay has bragged that the condo is his. Well, it’s not. Comes back to a corporate name.”
“It’s not uncommon for wealthy people to have property in separate corporate names, for privacy reasons and also to protect various assets from litigation,” I point out.
“I know. But this corporation isn’t Jay’s,” Lucy replies. “Not unless he owns an air freight company.”
“Kind of eerie, right?” McGovern adds. “Considering how much shipping the Chandonne family is involved in. So maybe there’s a connection. It’s way too soon to say.”
“No big surprise,” Marino mutters, but his eyes light up. “Yeah, how well I remember him playing the big rich Harvard act, right, Doc? Remember, I wondered why we was suddenly on a Learjet, and next thing we’re on the Concorde going to France. I knew Interpol didn’t pay for all that shit.”
“He never should have bragged about that condo,” Lucy remarks. “Obviously he’s got the same Achilles’ heel other assholes do: ego.” She looks at me. “He wanted to impress you, so he flies you out supersonicsays he got the tickets comped because they were for law enforcement. And sure, we know the airlines do that sort of thing on occasion. But we’re tracking that, too, to see who made those reservations and what the story was.”