Brimstone

"Why?"

"Because a lawyer would advise you that keeping your mouth shut is better than lying."

Cutforth stared at the cop. "What makes you think I'm lying?"

"Grove hated rock music."

Cutforth stifled his response. This cop wasn't as dumb as he looked. In fact, he was about as dumb as a fox.

"I'll be back, Mr. Cutforth. And next time it will be on tape and under oath. Keep in mind that perjury is a serious crime. One way or the other, we will find out what you discussed with Grove. Thank you for your time."

As soon as the elevator had hummed its way down, Cutforth picked up the phone with a shaking hand and dialed. What he needed was a humping vacation on the beach. A beach on the other side of the earth. He knew a girl in Phuket who did amazing things. He couldn't leave tomorrow-Jowly, his biggest client, was coming in for an overdub session-but after that he'd be clean gone, fuck the rest of the clients. He was going to get the hell out of town. Away from his wife. Away from this cop and his questions. And, most especially, away from this apartment and its stench .

"Doris? Nigel here. I want to book a flight to Bangkok. Tomorrow night if possible, otherwise first thing Monday. No, just me. With a limo and driver for Phuket. And find me a nice big house on the beach, something really secure, with a cook, maid, personal trainer, bodyguard, the works. Don't tell anyone where I've gone, okay, Doris darling? Yeah, Thailand .     I know it's hot this time of year, you let me worry about the heat."

Do you always keep the apartment this hot, Mr. Cutforth?

He slammed the phone down and went into the bedroom, threw a suitcase on the bed, and began hauling things out of his closet: bathing suits, sharkskin jacket and slacks, shades, sandals, money, watch, passport, satellite phone.

They couldn't nail him for perjury if they couldn't frigging find him.

{ 11 }

By the time Sergeant Vincent D'Agosta entered the back door of the New York Athletic Club, he was a very pissed-off cop. The doorman had stopped him at the Central Park South entrance-even though he was wearing a tie as part of his full dress uniform-and upon hearing his inquiry sent him around to the back door because he wasn't a member. That meant walking all the way to Sixth Avenue, down the block, and coming back around on 58th Street-almost a quarter of a mile.

D'Agosta cursed under his breath as he walked. Cutforth was lying, that much he was sure of. He'd taken a gamble, with that wild guess about Grove hating rock music, and Cutforth's eyes had given him away. Still, for all his tough talk, D'Agosta knew there was an entire legal system between him and a rich bastard like Cutforth. Milbanke had been a total wash: all she'd wanted to do was babble about her new emerald necklace. The nutcase hadn't given him a single decent lead, not one. And now here he was, taking an unexpected constitutional around one of Manhattan's long crosstown blocks.  Shit.

Finally arriving at the back door of the Athletic Club, D'Agosta punched the button for the service elevator-the only elevator there-and when it opened at last, creaking and groaning after a good three-minute wait, he punched 9. The elevator ascended slowly, pissing and moaning the whole way, at long last opening its doors again with a wheeze. D'Agosta stepped out into a dim corridor-for a fancy club, this one was pretty dark-and followed a little wooden sign with a gold hand pointing a finger toward Billiards. There was a faint smell of cigar smoke in the air that made him crave a good Cuban. His wife had nagged him into giving up the habit before they moved to Canada. But maybe he'd take it up again. Hell, no reason not to anymore.

As he walked down the corridor, the smell grew stronger.

He came through a door into a spacious room, its far wall studded with grand windows. As he entered, another guardian of the order sprang up from a little desk with a "Sir!" Ignoring the man, D'Agosta peered around the room. His eye finally discerned a lone, dark figure, wreathed in smoke, hunched over the farthest billiard table.

"If I may inquire your business, sir-?"

"You may not." D'Agosta brushed by the attendant and strode past the billiard tables, low-hanging lamps casting pools of light over their emerald surfaces. It was six o'clock in the evening, and through the windows, the rectangle of Central Park was a graveyard of darkness. New York was at that magical twilight moment, neither light nor dark, where the glow of the city matched the glow of the sky behind it.

D'Agosta paused about ten feet from the man and pulled out his notebook. He flipped it open and wrote, Bullard. October 20. Then he waited.

He expected Bullard to look up and acknowledge him, but he didn't. Instead, the man leaned farther over the green baize, his face in shadow, and tapped another ball. He chalked his cue with a swift twist of the wrist, came around the table, hit again. The table was like no pool table D'Agosta had ever seen: much larger, with smaller pockets and smaller balls in just two colors, red and white.

"Mr. Bullard?"

The man ignored him, moving to make yet another shot. His back was huge, his shoulders broad, and the silk fabric of his suit strained taut across them. All D'Agosta could clearly discern was the glowing stump of a huge cigar and two great knotted hands that were thrust into the circle of light, the veins on their backs as thick and rolled as blue earthworms. One of the hands sported two immense gold rings. The man tapped, moved around, tapped again.

Just as D'Agosta was about to say something, the man abruptly straightened, turned, pulled the cigar from his mouth, and said:

"What do you want?"

D'Agosta didn't answer right away. Instead, he took a minute to observe the man's face. Quite possibly there wasn't an uglier man on God's earth. His head was huge and swarthy, and though the body it was perched on seemed as massive and thick as a grizzly's, the head still appeared oversize. A lantern jaw, anchored by popping muscles, rose toward a pair of undulant earlobes. Centered between them were dry fleshy lips white against the dark skin: a particularly unpleasant combination. Above stuck out a thick, pitted nose. Massive, beetling brows jutted far over a pair of sunken eyes. From the bushy eyebrows above, a squat forehead led upward to a bald dome, its skin covered with freckles and liver spots. The impression the man gave was of enormous brute strength and self-assurance in both mind and body. When he moved, the blue silk that clad his frame rustled, and his movements were as heavy and deliberate as those of a well-muscled draft horse.

D'Agosta licked his lips. "I have a few questions for you."

Bullard looked at him for a moment, then shifted the cigar back into his mouth, leaned over the table, and gave one of the balls a little tap.

"If it's too distracting in here, we can always do this downtown."

"Just a minute."

D'Agosta checked his watch. He glanced back, saw the mincing attendant watching them from the far side of the room, his hands clasped in front of him as if he was an usher in church, smirking faintly.

Bullard now put his back to D'Agosta, leaning far over the table, the silk stretching and hiking up, exposing a crisp expanse of white cotton shirt and a pair of red suspenders. Another faint tap, more rustling silk.

"Bullard, your minute's up."

Bullard jerked his cue up, whisked some chalk on the tip, bent back down. The motherfucker was actually going to take a few more shots.

"You're pissing me off, you know that?"