Known to Evil

There was a small black box on left side of Christian's desk. The hole in the top suddenly shone a brilliant blue.

"He will see you," the exasperated receptionist said.

A door behind him opened automatically and I ushered my client through.

THE WALLS WERE ROYAL BLUE and the carpet burgundy. An ever-changing gallery of Renaissance masterpieces on loan from the Met hung along the walls on our way to the Big Man's desk.

Rinaldo was standing in front of the desk (something he had never done for me alone) when we got to him.

"Mr. Brown?" Angie said hesitantly. "Is that you?"

"Hi, Tara." There was an unfamiliar smile on his lips.

"What, what are you doing here?"

"This is my office."

"Are those paintings for real?"

"Why don't we all have a seat?" he offered.

ANGIE WAS LOOKING AROUND the office, seated on a seventeenth- century French chair, while I watched her from my favorite perch: a chair of carved lava stone that was once a pre-Columbian sacrificial altar.

"Mr. McGill?" Alphonse Rinaldo said. If you didn't know him you might not have perceived the threat.

"Sandra Sanderson the Third," I replied.

"Oh."

"Who?" Angie asked.

"Mr. McGill has informed me about your situation," Rinaldo said in a soft and very understanding voice. "He's brought the problem to me and I have resolved to straighten it out. You'll have to excuse us for a few minutes if you don't mind, Tara."

"I don't understand, Mr. Brown. What do you have to do with any of this?"

"I'll explain after Mr. McGill and I confer. Can I get you something to drink or eat while you wait?"

"I haven't had breakfast yet."

Rinaldo picked up the phone and waited a beat. Then, "Mr. Latour, the young lady in my office needs breakfast. Come in and get her order. Mr. McGill and I will be in the library.

"Come with me, Mr. McGill."

He stood and so did I. I followed him to a shadowy corner on the north side of the office. There we passed through a door into a good-sized room that was lined with bookshelves and books. There was a round ash table in the center of the room surrounded by four red-velvet padded chairs.

"Have a seat."

I did so. It felt really good to sit down, like I'd been extremely tired and up to that point unaware of the extent of my exhaustion.

"Nice suit," he said.

"Yeah. My wife bought it for me. I hated it at first. But now it's kind of growing on me."

"I specifically instructed you not to speak to Tara."

"Sometimes a good agent has to make decisions on his own."

"You should have called and asked me before taking such action."

"There was no time to call."

"You should not have brought her to me."

"It's the only place I could be sure that she wouldn't be killed."

That caused him to cross his legs, right over left.

For a moment there my future was in question. I had disobeyed. Even in his weakened position he was that caged lion and I a mere mortal on the wrong side of the bars.

"Give it to me," he said at last.

I laid it all out. The assailants, all six of them, and the threats. I told him about Shell and Leo locked in a cellar in Queens and Sandra Sanderson's obvious involvement. I explained how I decided the only way to approach the problem was to put Angie first as my client.

He listened very closely to my story.

Usually when we spoke he was in some kind of hurry. An ambassador from some foreign nation or an insistent billionaire was in the waiting room in line for a meeting. But that day I could have gone on for hours.

"Your actions have put a strain on our relationship, Leonid," he said when I had finished. "Even if I am pleased with the outcome, I won't be able to put my full trust in you again."

"You mind explaining what it is that we've done here?" I asked. There was no reason to cry over spilt influence.

"You know that I report to City Hall," he said. "Not directly to the mayor but we know each other to speak. A long time ago this, unofficial, position was created in order to keep things ru

"When I first took the position, I was… anxious. My decisions are often taken on my own, without counsel or review. I was uncertain…

"On Tuesday and Thursday mornings I'd go to a diner not far from here. Angelique was seventeen and a waitress at the time. Her first name was too long for the tag so she used Tara as her name. We used to talk. Those conversations relaxed me. She made me feel normal, and I suppose, I fell in love with her a little."

Rinaldo uncrossed his legs, clasped his hands together, sat up straight.

"Not in a sexual way. More like a man feels toward the daughter of a good friend. We had long talks in between her customers. She saw me in an avuncular way, and I, behind the scenes, tried to help her get on with her life.

"She never had a father in the house, and her mother… had problems. So I tapped a college counselor to develop a friendship with her-"

"Iris Lindsay," I said, remembering the gravestone in the photograph.

"Yes. Poor Iris died only a few months ago. She greased the wheels for Tara to get into college, and a few other things. Tara never knew. She didn't even know my real name.

"After she left the diner I had Christian research her background, and Sam Strange's predecessor set up certain monies and benefits for her-with the help of an ever-watchful Ms. Lindsay. Helping Tara made me feel more balanced.

"I've kept up the support, and over time she's developed relationships with certain city employees who answer to this office. I could never tell her what I was doing, but I kept an eye on her. If she filed a complaint about some neighbor or applied for a scholarship or a job, I was usually able to help. I thought I was being discreet, but I guess Sanderson's people found out. They must have kept her report to the police out of the system."

"What would she care about some woman you help out?"

Rinaldo let his hands rise in an uncommon show of helplessness. "Sandra's life has no partitions," he explained. "Her son died a while ago-a rare heart condition that went undiagnosed until the postmortem. Then she got it in her head to erect a building in memoriam for Desmond. Some monolithic downtown waterfront monstrosity. The city was against it. A dozen interest groups were against it. She came to me to try to work a way around the problem. I might have gone along, but this 'memorial' was also going to make her bank over a billion dollars. It seemed to me that she was more concerned over profit than she was for the memory of her son.

"But, like I said, there are no partitions in her life. I knew she was bitter over my refusal to get involved. I didn't realize that she was also a little insane."

"You think she went after Angie for revenge?"

"Either that or to blackmail me. We'll never know now."

"Is Grant's last name Corman?" I asked then.

"Why?"

"A Grant Corman is bodyguarding Sanderson."

"I see."

"That's a very sloppy mistake, if you don't mind my saying so."

"A man is only as good as those who represent him," Alphonse said. "You disobey… and Mr. Strange gets careless."