After Death(40)

Leaving Santana and Harris without a target for their bitter incensement, Calaphas follows the attorney through the glamorously furnished apartment to the gym. The room measures perhaps twenty feet by twenty feet. It contains no exercise equipment.

“It used to be lined with circuit-training machines,” Woodbine says, “but I’m of an age when all that bores me. I had it removed.”

The exercise equipment has been replaced by one item, a chaise longue upholstered in a fabric with a leopard-skin pattern.

As Calaphas ponders the furniture, Woodbine feels the need to explain. “It’s a meditation room now.”

The walls are paneled in floor-to-ceiling mirrors, as is the door by which they entered. If a window exists, it’s been concealed by a mirror. One reflection repeats another, making a multitude of this two-man meeting, and the ceiling reflects everything below it.

Although curious about the nature of the attorney’s meditation sessions, Calaphas restrains himself from asking, because he doesn’t wish to have his excellent dinner turn sour in his stomach.

Woodbine says, “This Mace character, the crazy things he can do—I realize that’s a national security matter. You can’t tell me, and I don’t want to know. However, I have a mutual opportunity to discuss with you.”

They lock eyes.

Woodbine must see something that he needs to see, because he continues. “For some of us, there’s going to be more opportunity in the new America than you ever dreamed.”

“That’s why I’m aboard for it.”

“You’re aware that your agency and I are business partners.”

“It was suggested, yes.”

“It’s a lucrative business, enough profits to go around, plus the agency and I share certain ideological goals.”

“The New Truth,” says Calaphas.

“If you did a bit of business with me, it would be no different from your director, Katherine Ormond-Wattley, or deputy director doing business with me, which they do. It’s all in the family.”

After a silence in which he seems to be reflecting on a series of profound personal losses, Calaphas says, “The agency is the only family I have now.”

The attorney conjures a courtroom expression of sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Calaphas shrugs. “It suits me.”

The attorney places a hand over his mouth as though deciding whether he dares to say what he wishes to say, and he gazes at the mirrored ceiling, where he looks down on his upturned face, an uncertain soul who is his own and only god. He decides to proceed. “I didn’t tell Grantworth, but Mace drove away in my Bentley.”

“Some car.”

“I want it back.”

“Why didn’t you tell Grantworth?”

“I had the Bentley customized.”

“I assume you didn’t just add tail fins.”

“I can switch off the transponder when I’m not using the navigation system.”

“So you can’t be tracked. That’s not illegal. Not yet.”

“The customizer also built in a secret compartment. Not for drugs. It contains an unregistered AR-15 and three million in cash.”

“Run-for-it money,” Calaphas surmises.

“I’m not likely to need it, but I sleep better knowing it’s packed and ready. I’d rather the ISA doesn’t know I made such . . . preparations. It looks like the agency doesn’t have my full trust, and that’s not really the case.”

They consider each other indirectly. Woodbine turns his head to his right, and Calaphas turns his head to his right, which is the attorney’s left, so that they are looking at opposite mirrored walls in which their reflections curve away to infinity.

“So what’s this opportunity you mentioned?”

“If you find the Bentley, you can take the three million for yourself and bring the car to me, and we’re square.”

They face each other again, and Calaphas says, “You must really love that car.”

“It’s not the car.”

“I didn’t imagine it was.”

“It’s the rifle, the AR-15.”

“You made some use of it.”

“One incident. Four dead.”

“You’re an activist attorney,” Calaphas says approvingly. “Once the gun had a history, why didn’t you get rid of it?”

“I meant to, as soon as I had a replacement.” His mouth curls into a snarl. “Then along comes fucking Michael Mace.”

The attorney is a well-practiced liar, but Calaphas is a living polygraph. The details about the customized Bentley are true, and the three million dollars is true, but the claim that four were killed with the gun is a lie. The snarl isn’t an expression that comes naturally to a man who has spent his life looking earnest and magisterial in courtrooms. The use of the F-word, when such language isn’t his style, is a calculated emphasis meant to sell his anger and his story. He wants the Bentley more than the three million, and the reason he wants it has nothing to do with the vehicle or rifle.

Calaphas says, “Three million is more than the right number. But if the navigation-system transponder is turned off, how am I supposed to find your car?”

“The three million is mostly in hundreds, but some is in three-inch-thick bricks of twenties. One of those bricks is hollowed out to accommodate a transponder.”