LITMIR.BIZ

       SIX

      This morning I slept in, and I’m glad. Except for my right flank, which feels like a mule kicked it, my muscles have that deliciously liquid feeling that only sex or too much sleep can give. It’s been a while since I had the former, so I owe my thanks to a quiet hotel room in America, which can be quite a luxury for me. I ate breakfast in the lobby, then called Budget and rented a Mustang convertible. After traveling in the East for months, riding in underpowered taxis, cyclos, and even rickshaws, an American muscle car feels exactly right. It’s late October in New Orleans, but I have the convertible top down. The leaves are green and still on the trees, and the morning sun tells me the temperature could hit eighty by lunchtime. That’s the way this city is: heat and rain, rain and heat. When winter finally comes, the humidity makes it cold, but winter doesn’t last long.

      I’m late for my meeting with the FBI, because nobody bothered to tell me they moved the field office from downtown—where they were forever—to a brand-new building on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, between Lakefront Airport and the University of New Orleans. It’s a massive four-story brick structure designed to look like a college campus building, but the closer I get, the more it looks like a fortress in disguise. Set far back from the main road, the building is surrounded by a heavy iron fence topped with sharp fleur-de-lis and fronted by a guardhouse with antiterrorist barriers embedded in the concrete road. The armed gate guard checks my driver’s license, radios upstairs, then raises the barrier and waves me into the parking lot.

      As I lock the Mustang and walk toward the entrance, I sense that I’m being watched on screens inside. I won’t win any fashion awards today: jeans, a silk blouse, espadrilles, and my fanny pack. No purses for Jordan Glass, unless I’m doing a formal party. I know how to dress up, but I don’t do it for the FBI. The entrance is also built on the heroic scale, with flags and black marble inscribed with the FBI motto: “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.” Other law enforcement agencies have come up with more derogatory words for the acronym, but I’ll reserve my opinion today.

      A metal detector at the door leads me into a small vestibule not unlike a doctor’s office, where a female receptionist waits behind glass. When I give her my name, she pushes a sheet through a slot for me to sign, and assures me someone will be down for me in a minute. Thirty seconds later, the door opens and a tall man with deep-set eyes and a day’s growth of beard steps through the door by her window.

      “Jordan Glass?”

      “Yes. Sorry I’m late. I went to the federal building downtown.”

      “That’s our fault, then. I’m John Kaiser.”

      This guy does not look like the FBI agents I’ve known. He’s six feet two, lanky, and looks as comfortable in his white button-down shirt and sport jacket as a cowboy in a tuxedo. His dark brown hair is past the unwritten regulation length, and his aura is about as unofficial as anything I can imagine. He looks like a law student who’s been studying for three days without sleep. A forty-five-year-old law student.

      As if reading my mind, he pulls out his wallet and flips it open to reveal his FBI credentials. His bona fides are there in black and white: “Special Agent John Kaiser.” His photo looks much neater than the man standing before me, but it’s him all right. He cleans up well.

      “You don’t look like an FBI agent.”

      A lopsided grin. “My SAC is fond of telling me that.”

      “Why did they move the field office?”

      “After the bombing in Oklahoma City, the government mandated a hundred-foot setback from the road. This office has twice as much space as downtown, and a hell of a lot better view. They moved last September, a month before I got here.”

      “Are we going upstairs?”

      He lowers his voice. “To tell you the truth, I’d rather talk to you alone first. Do you like Chinese food? I haven’t eaten since last night, so I ordered some. I ordered for two.”

      “I like Chinese. But why don’t you want to eat it in your office?”

      Kaiser has hazel eyes, and they focus on mine with subdued urgency. “Because I’d rather talk without any interference.”

      “From whom?”

      “You met him last night.”

      “Doctor Lenz?”

      He nods.

      “So the dislike is mutual?”

      “Afraid so.”

      “You can’t keep Lenz out of your office?”

      “I’m not sure. But I can definitely keep him off a picnic table on Lakeshore Drive, especially if he doesn’t know I’m going there.”

      “I’ll go if we take my car.”

      “You read my mind, Ms. Glass.”

      Kaiser collects his sacks and follows me through the main doors. He tries to match his stride to mine, but with the height differential it’s a struggle.

      “We got your film from the fire scene,” he says.

      “What did it show?”

      “You got some good crowd shots. New York is busting its collective ass trying to trace every face in them. It’s a big job. The good news is, the video store had a list of members, and the bartender says a lot of his patrons that evening were regulars.”

      “I thought maybe I got a shot of the guy who set the fire. It would have been a downward shot, forty-five degrees toward the back of a crowd.”

      Kaiser gives me a strange look. “You’re not going to believe this.”

      “What?”

      “You got the top of some heads, and a Caucasian hand flipping you the bird.”

      “Flipping …? You’re kidding me.”

      “My sense of humor doesn’t extend to cases like this one.”

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