LITMIR.BIZ

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even now taking place inside the residence. “Must charge a lot, a place like this, to let ’em bust your windows.”

       “Again, not my department. But I assume it was a generous offer.”

       “What is your department, Ms. Crane?”

       “Alice. I’m the caretaker.”

       “Uh-huh. Is the owner in residence?”

       “As I understand it, the property is owned by a real estate holding company.”

       “So this is like, what, an investment kind of deal?”

       “Apparently. As I say, I’m only the—”

       “Caretaker. Yeah, I got it.” The notebook snaps shut. “We’re done. Have a nice day. My advice, take care of the glass. This city, somebody’ll sue ya.”

       “Thanks, Officer.”

       All of the above is conducted on the sidewalk, below the entrance, which rises seven steps from the pavement. Naomi’s rules forbid law enforcement officers from entering the premises unless invited. She calls it the vampire rule. Plenty of cops have been invited, over the years, and a chosen few have stayed for dinner, but this is the first full-scale invasion without a warrant. And it wasn’t cops this time, not exactly. And maybe not even slightly. More like a paramilitary mission executed with stopwatch precision.

       Next task, fix the building. We have a standing arrangement with Danny Bechst. You’ve probably seen his vans around town, with the Bechst of Boston logo wrapped around the vehicles. The deal is, when we call Danny he drops everything and works the problem until it is completed, around the clock if necessary. For this he gets a very handsome annual retainer plus double the normal hourly rate, so Danny Boy loves it when we call. Included in the compensation package is an understanding that all work be conducted with the utmost regard to privacy and security. His men, and they’re all men except for a couple of females on his interior painting crew, are not to stray unchaperoned anywhere on the premises. As far as Danny’s crew are aware, the owner is a rich eccentric who treasures her privacy, only the last of which happens to be true, technically. It helps that most of his guys don’t speak English and wouldn’t know who Naomi Nantz is if they tripped over her, which Danny makes sure they don’t. Trip over her, that is.

       I punch Danny’s number and in less than an hour a couple of his men, working from the outside, have screwed temporary plywood panels to the broken windows, and Danny himself is inside the command center taking measurements.

       “No problem,” he promises. “End of day it’ll look like new, only better.”

       There are a few more things you need to know about boss lady before we can proceed. What I said about how she treasures her privacy, believe me, that’s understating. When Naomi Nantz calls herself a “Very Private Investigator” she’s not kidding, and she’ll do almost anything to keep it that way. Also true, that she’s neither rich nor eccentric. Brilliant and difficult is not the same as eccentric. Eccentric is dressing your pets in period costumes; brilliant and difficult means you know exactly how to go about saving an innocent life and/or bringing the guilty to justice, and you don’t much care who might get offended or insulted along the way.

       The assumption that she must be rich, to live in such a place and undertake cases of her choosing, regardless of recompense, is understandable, but mistaken. I’m in charge of the operating budget, paying the staff and so on, and I happen to know that she draws a salary like everyone else. Okay, more than everyone else, but still. Nor was I fibbing about the residence being owned by some sort of holding company, and legally managed through a law firm. So it is. As to who is really paying the bills and underwriting the whole enterprise—we call him (or it could be a her) the Benefactor—only Naomi knows the truth of the matter. Or so we all assume. When something extraordinary happens, she’s the one who makes contact, so she must know who it is, right?

       As to the woman herself, for the past three years I’ve been working closely with her on a daily basis, and yet I know nothing for certain about her personal history, her family or how she came to be here, doing what she does. I’m not even sure if Naomi Nantz is her birth name. Boss lady is pretty much off grid and I’m inclined to respect that choice.

       Up to a point.

       With the repairs sorted out, I head down the hall to the library, a large room with tall built-in bookcases on three walls. There’s one corner window where if I stand on my tippy-toes I can just glimpse the Charles River. Other than the roof deck and Beasley’s kitchen, this is my favorite place in the residence, mostly because it’s so rarely used that I usually have it to myself. Not today. Naomi has taken possession of the leather-covered magazine table, setting up a laptop, a broadband phone with a couple of open lines and a secure line hardwired into a satellite phone antenna. I let her know where we stand, cop-wise and repair-wise, and she motions to a rail-back chair as she finishes her call.

       “You’ll be writing up your notes for the daily meeting, of course.”

       “Of course. That’s why you pay me the big bucks.”

       “Probably don’t have a lot to write up, just yet.”

       “Not just yet. There’ll be a lot more when Jack and Teddy report.”

       Naomi nods to herself, musing, and I can almost hear her brain humming as she shifts through scenarios and alternatives. “This is a bit delicate, but there’s something we need to keep in mind.” She hesitates.

       “Shoot,” I urge her. “I’m a big girl, I can take it.”

       “My concern is with Jack Delancey. He’ll be our main investigator on this case—he expects no less—but the circumstances are such that he may be compromised.”

       “Excuse me?”

       “Friendship can do that. He and Shane go way back, and Jack holds him in the highest regard. Clearly he can’t bring himself to consider the possibility that Randall Shane might be playing us.”

       “Wait. You really think he killed this professor guy?”

       “I’ve no idea, but I’m keeping an open mind. The facts must lead us, not our hearts.”

       “So why aren’t you telling this to Jack instead of me?”

       Naomi grimaces slightly, as if made uneasy by what she’s about to say. “Because I want you to keep your eyes open. If you think Jack misses something crucial, whether accidentally or on purpose, you will report to me.”

       I’m astonished. “You want me to rat out Jack Delancey?”

       “An unfortunate phrase. But yes, if the situation warrants it, that’s exactly what I expect.”

      Chapter Four

      The Rest of Forever

      Gradually he awakens, becomes aware on some primitive level that is sentient. At first there is no sense of self. He’s no more than an assemblage of pain, nerves firing from various locations on his large body, defining a vague shape. Hands painfully cramped, feet aching, joints smoldering. Something in the middle makes itself known, unpleasantly. A sack of bubbling acid? No, a stomach, seething. At one end, pounding, a brain held like a bruised yolk inside a damaged shell.

       He has a name, if only he can find it.

       Halfway to forever, the name finally surfaces, drifting lazily around the brain. He claims it, holds it tight. At some point Shane realizes that his eyes are open and the darkness is an actual darkness. His limbs are restrained by something soft and unyielding. He’s strapped down, elaborately, on a padded table. Testing the restraints, he measures his own unnatural weakness and surmises that he’s been heavily drugged, possibly with muscle relaxants. They’ll be watching, whoever “they” are. Darkness being no barrier with the right equipment. He stops struggling and waits, knowing they will come, eventually, and that he must prepare himself.

       The rest of forever

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