He was already on the job. That is what he told Conchita Crystal. But he hardly knew where to begin. He knew next to nothing about Harry Levine and he knew even less about what was going on, what was really going on, what sort of trouble Harry was in. Who might be after him? The guy was walking around with the truth about Kennedy, if this Frederick Lacey was for real. After their talk on the dock, Chita had agreed to meet him at his place later that afternoon.
“Bring me everything you have,” Walter told her. He meant about Harry, but he also meant she should bring the money. “Think about it. I want to know everything you know.”
Now, Walter sat in Billy’s thinking back on the events of that day, the day he went to work for Chita Crystal. It turned out she couldn’t tell him very much at all about her nephew. She found him, when his mother died, only a couple of years ago. Harry was “pleased,” she said, when he learned she was his aunt. “He was somewhat amused by it all. Not overly impressed,” she told Walter.
“There is a certain . . .” Walter stammered, looking for the right word.
“I know. I know,” Conchita said. “One day, out of the blue, an aunt shows up, an aunt from nowhere.”
“And she’s one of the most famous people in the world.”
“One of the richest too. Don’t forget that,” Conchita added that with a smile, her trademark smile. Walter struggled once again to keep his concentration.
Harry Levine was a “nice boy.” That’s the way she described him. Walter took that to mean he was average. He’d always associated nice with average and saw no reason not to do so here. Chita, as Walter had finally agreed to call her, had not spent much time with Harry. He was a grown-up when they met. They both had busy schedules. Fortunately her work carried her around the world. She told Walter this as they sat in his kitchen watching an afternoon Caribbean rainstorm splatter hard against the seaward side of his hilltop home. She met Sadie Fagan first, in Atlanta, not long after Elana died. She saw Harry in London. She made the trip just to meet him. There was a minimum of publicity, although a complete blackout is simply not possible in England where celebrity is more interesting than the royal family and where Chita was just as big a star as in the United States. She did her best to protect Harry. After a few days of photos, only one of them showing him clearly, she returned to America and he was not bothered further by the press. Her work, she told Walter, took her to Europe frequently, and she managed to see Harry a few times, in London and Paris as well. Once they got together in Spain. All told she had been with him perhaps a half-dozen times. Walter listened patiently, but soon Chita had little new to offer. “I’m sorry,” she said, “that I can’t be more helpful.”
The young woman who was Walter’s housekeeper brought a pot of tea and a plate of fresh fruits. She put them down on the kitchen counter, at a respectful distance from them, and offered to pour the tea.
“Thank you, Denise,” said Walter.
“She’s lovely,” Conchita whispered to him after Denise had gone.
“Clara’s niece,” Walter said, with a tone that told Conchita he hadn’t considered the fact that she had no idea who Clara was.
“Clara?”
“She was my housekeeper, my cook, my protector, my surrogate mother. She was with me here so long I can’t remember when she wasn’t.” He had a tender, hurt look in his eyes. Chita wanted to comfort him. This crusty old man, she thought, had a soft, vulnerable side too.
“She died?”
“Yes. Three years ago.”
“You miss her.”
“I miss her.”
“I can see that,” said Chita. “Denise, she does a good job?” Walter just shook his head, yes.
Conchita Crystal looked around her. It was definitely a man’s house. The television in the living room—more like an amphitheater, she thought—had the biggest screen she’d ever seen. “I didn’t know they even made them that big,” she said to him. The furniture was comfortable and, although Conchita could not pin a name or any particular style to it, it looked like quality merchandise. Perhaps, she thought, this is what they call eclectic. The floors of Walter’s house were hardwood, richly stained, gleaming, shiny and spotless. A few throw rugs were scattered about. The room, including the kitchen area, was so huge it was difficult to see it as a single room. The far wall was made entirely of glass soaring all the way to the top of the vaulted roofline. Since the glass stretched at least thirty-five feet from one end to the other, there were three double glass sliding doors that opened onto a wooden deck running the full length of the house. Part of it was covered, she could see, by a slanted roof and under it was a table with six wicker chairs. At the other end was some sort of outdoor stove and, next to it, a hot tub. The tub was covered with a blue tarp. Despite the rain, Conchita could see down the mountainside, out to the sea. She’d been privy to some incredible views, from equally incredible homes—owned a few herself—but this sight was as thrilling as any. She hoped she could stay long enough to see it when the storm passed and the sunshine reappeared.
Walter asked many questions about Harry. He wanted to learn about his character—his likes and dislikes, his habits, tendencies, inclinations, his vices. Conchita told him what she knew, and while it wasn’t much, Walter began developing a picture of Harry Levine as they talked. Not a photographic image—that she had already given him—but a psychological profile of sorts. What kind of man Harry was would determine where he went to hide. It had always been so. From decades of experience, Walter understood the more he knew about Harry Levine, the more he could decipher Harry’s motives, the easier it would be to calculate his movements and discover his whereabouts.
“Tell me about Tulane University,” he asked. She did, and when she finished, he asked about Philadelphia. But mostly Walter was interested in Roswell, Georgia.
“I don’t know that much about Roswell,” said Conchita.
“Harry grew up there.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know about my sister then. I didn’t know Harry when he was a child. You should really talk to his Aunt Sadie.”
“I will.”
“She’ll have much more to tell you than I do. Talk to her.”
“I will.”
“We don’t have much time,” said Conchita.
“Well, we’re not sure about that, are we?”
Chita reached out with her hand, much as she had done earlier in the day at Billy’s. Once again her long, slender fingers, bright red nails flickering in the reflected light, inched toward him, touched his forearm. It was the first time she had touched him since she came to his house. Her eyes caught his and held him straight and tight. Had he been a dog, she could have led him anywhere without so much as a jerk of his leash. Instead, like a fish, she reeled him in.
“It’s that I’m worried about him, Walter. You must find him before he gets hurt.”
“You know, of course,” he said, unwilling to breathe with gills, “I don’t really know what’s going on here—with Harry—what this is really all about. You tell me somebody gave him something, about somebody named Lord Frederick Lacey. Your nephew Harry has some sort of document that says Lacey killed John Kennedy. Harry’s got some kind of confession, is how you put it. Who gave it to him?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”
“And you want me to find him before they do—but you don’t tell me who they are or even who they could be.”
“I don’t know,” Conchita said. They’d been through this before, she said. Now, she repeated it with a note of irritation in her voice. “If I knew more I would tell you. Don’t you believe me?” He’d tested her patience. She was getting pissed. Even in her anger, with her lips closed together, her mouth tighter than he’d seen it before, a frown creating tiny wrinkles in the lines of her cheeks and in the space just above her nose between her narrowed eyes, taking him in with steely resolve, even then Walter could not keep himself from thinking how beautiful she was—how much he wanted to wrap his arms around her, tell her he would do anything, whatever she wanted, anything, anything. To have her, he’d say anything.
But he said nothing.