“It was the number I could remember,” John said. “Besides, I figured somebody would be home. I don’t mind talking to Bennis.”
“You still haven’t told me what’s wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong,” John said. “At least, not exactly. Believe it or not, I’m calling for a friend. And no, I’m not in Washington. We’re on recess. I’m spending the holidays out in Bryn Mawr. At the moment, though, I’m downtown.”
“All right. Downtown doing what?”
“Like I said. Calling for a friend. Do you know who William Jefferson is?”
“Of course I do. Took over as police commissioner after that whole thing blew up.”
“The whole thing blew up,” John Jackman said. “Well, that’s one way of putting it. Biggest corruption scandal in the history of the Commonwealth and it happens while I’m on the job. Do you know I’ve introduced a bill to make private prisons illegal?”
“I have been following your career, John, yes. But—is that back again? Is there another judge out there shanghaiing people to keep the prison populations up?”
“No,” John said. “No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure how much you knew. You got shot. You were in the hospital. I understood you had a long rehab. I didn’t know if you were keeping up. Bill Jefferson thought you probably had been keeping up, which is why I’m making this phone call. He thinks you might not be interested in talking to him.”
“I’m a little tired,” Gregor said. “This is sounding like gibberish.”
“I’m supposed to reassure you that the department is no longer a cesspit of corruption, and it’s safe for you to deal with them.”
“It was safe enough for me to deal with them when they were a cesspit of corruption. What’s going on here? Has he got a murder he wants a consultant for?”
“Not a murder, no. It’s that thing that happened last night.”
“The woman in the garbage bag,” Gregor said.
“Exactly.”
Gregor stretched out his legs. “You do realize, both of you, that I wasn’t actually there? It was Tibor Kasparian and Tommy Moradanyan who witnessed whatever that was? Tibor just called me and asked me to come on out and help. Meaning stand around and listen to the cops question them. I did see the woman and the garbage bag on the ground, but by the time I got there the ambulance men were there already. They were packing her up to get her to the hospital. I take it she didn’t die.”
“Not yet.”
“It’s that close?”
“I don’t know where we’re at now,” John said. “The report I got said she was a complete mess, but that’s to be expected. You always want people to live, of course, but I think the issue here is the same whether she lives or dies. Things are kind of complicated. Jefferson wants some help.”
“All right,” Gregor said. “Put him on.”
“He wants some help down here.”
“You want me to come down there.”
“We’ll send a car. I take it you still don’t drive. We’ll send an unmarked, don’t worry. Just come down here and talk to Bill and the two detectives we’ve got working this. You don’t have to go on with it past that if you don’t want to.”
“But you wouldn’t call me in if you didn’t want me to.”
“Yeah, well.”
“How fast do I have to be ready?”
“We could pick you up in twenty minutes.” There was a long pause. Then Jackman said, “You can’t have changed that much, Gregor. This is you. You’re up. You’re probably in a suit and tie already.”
Gregor was in a suit and tie already. Gregor pulled his legs in and stood up. “All right. Just ring the bell when you get here. Do you know Bennis and I have a foster child? He came to us last night.”
“Jefferson really does need help, Gregor. This really is a complicated situation.”
“Just ring the doorbell. Actually come up to the door. I’m not going to keep everybody’s cell phone clear just so the cops can call me from the curb.”
Gregor hung up. Then he went down the hall again to the back of the house and the kitchen.
Javier and Bennis were still at the kitchen table. Javier had started in on fruit and cheese. He was handing thick slices of cheese to Pickles, who was sitting patiently on the floor next to his chair. Bennis was just putting down her cell phone.
“That was Ed George,” she said as he came in. “He’s on his way over. He has paperwork.”
“Hadn’t we decided we were going to make this a nice calm day, get acquainted with Javier?”
Javier looked up. Pickles put her paws up on Javier’s leg and looked over the surface of the table. Javier reached for a strip of bacon.
“What did John Jackman want?” Bennis asked.
Gregor sat down and told her. His plate was still where he had left it, and still mostly full of food. He got a strip of bacon for himself and gnawed on it halfheartedly.
“I think it’ll be all right,” Bennis said. “I don’t think he wants us to sign anything right this minute. I think the point is for us to read it over and then go get it signed in front of a notary. At least he said something about a notary, and he didn’t say anything about bringing a notary.”
“And Lida isn’t here to try to introduce him to every gay man she’s ever met in Philadelphia so she can get him safely married and—I don’t know what she wants. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean it to be like this. I really did mean to take the month off so we could concentrate on this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bennis said, leaning over to take yet another strip of bacon out of Javier’s hands before he could feed it to the dog.
3
Edmund George showed up before the police did, which meant he had to have been just around the corner. He was wearing a fedora over a black cashmere coat and a plaid cashmere scarf. He looked like a model for GQ magazine, the Absolutely Youngest Partner in the Absolutely Most Prestigious Law Firm in the world. The chances were he wasn’t that young. There had been a few lost years back there when Gregor first met him.
He came through to the kitchen with his attaché case held out in front of him. He put the attaché case on the kitchen table and surveyed the wide spread of food there. Then he sat down in front of the nearest empty space.
“Good morning,” he said to Javier.
“Buenos días,” Javier said.
“He looks better than the last time I saw him,” he said to Bennis. “Is that Father Tibor’s dog?”
“The general consensus is that he’s using it sort of like a therapy dog,” Gregor said. “Tibor doesn’t mind, and the dog makes Javier happy, so—”
Bennis put a cup and saucer down in front of Ed. “Eat all you want,” she said, “but do us a favor and don’t feed the dog. Javier’s been feeding her all morning. She’s going to end up throwing up all over the living room.”
Ed ignored the food and started to take papers out of his attaché case. “These are mostly from the Department of Homeland Security,” he said, “and that’s just busywork. I don’t know why they think we’re all going to be safer if we fill out enough forms, but they do. I’ve looked into the whole thing about Javier’s background, and I don’t know what to tell you.”