LITMIR.BIZ

       FIFTEEN

      I am crossing the Washington Beltway in a yellow taxi driven by a black lay preacher. Lenz told me I would be met at Dulles Airport by FBI agents, but none showed, so I took the cab. The driver tries to make conversation—he still knows a lot of people from “down home,” meaning the South—but I am too absorbed in the object of my journey to keep up my end of the exchange.

      Lenz’s private office is supposed to be in McLean, Virginia. All I know is that my lay preacher is leading me deep into upscale suburbia. Old money suburbia. Colonial homes, Mercedeses, Beemers (700 series), matched Lexi, tasteful retail and office space. The driver pulls into the redbrick courtyard of a three-story building and stops. You could probably buy five acres of Delta farmland for the monthly rent on Lenz’s office.

      The first floor of the building is deserted but for ferns, its walls covered with abstract paintings that look purchased by the square yard. A bronze-lettered notice board directs me to the third floor. When the elevator door opens on three, I am facing a short corridor with a door at the end. No letters on the door.

      Beyond the door I find a small, well-appointed waiting room. There’s a lot of indirect light, but the only window faces the billing office. A dark-skinned receptionist sits behind the window. I am not looking at her. I’m looking at a pale, gangly, longhaired young man folded oddly across a wing chair and ottoman. He is snoring.

      “Miles?” I say softly.

      He does not stir. A Hewlett-Packard notebook computer and a cellular telephone lie on the floor beside him. The computer screen swirls with a psychedelic screen-saver program.

      “Miles.”

      The snoring stops. Miles Turner flips the hair out of his eyes and looks up at me without surprise. His eyes are the same distant blue they have always been.

      “Hello, snitch,” he says. “What’s in the briefcase? The names of everybody who works at EROS?”

      “Fresh underwear. What the hell are you doing here?”

      “Same as you, I guess. The mad doctor wants to pry open my skull, see what he can find. I hope he’s in the mood for drama. I certainly am.”

      “I can’t believe you agreed to come.”

      A fleeting smile touches his lips. “Didn’t have any choice, did I? I’ve got an old drug charge hanging over my head. All Lenz has to do is tell his sidekick—Baxter—to push the button, and I go to jail. Do not pass GO, et cetera.”

      “Jesus.”

      Miles leans his angular head back with a theatrical flourish and tries to catch the eye of the receptionist. I take the opportunity to study him more closely. It’s been four years since I saw him in the flesh. Miles long ago vowed never to set foot in Mississippi again. When I saw him last, in New Orleans, he had short hair and wore fairly conservative clothes. No Polo or khakis, of course, but your basic Gap in basic black. He’s wearing black again today, but his hair hangs over his shoulders, his sweater is not only torn but looks cheap, and he is dirty. I don’t smell him—yet—but he plainly hasn’t bathed for at least a couple of days.

      “Staring is rude,” he says, his eyes still on the window to my left. “Don’t you read your Amy Vanderbilt? Or is it Gloria Vanderbilt?”

      “Miles, what the hell is going on? You look terrible. What’s happening with the case?”

      He smiles conspiratorially and brings a warning finger to his lips. His eyebrows shimmy up and down as he says in a stage whisper: “Shhhh. The walls have ears.”

      When I stare blankly, he adds, “But then their ears have walls, so perhaps it doesn’t matter.”

      “Are you telling me you think this waiting room is bugged?”

      “Why not? Lenz works for the FBI. They could bug this room in the time it took you to wake me up.”

      “How do you know how long that took?”

      “Touché.”

      “What’s the computer for?”

      “Keeping up with developments, of course. Baxter just got the court order to do the trace in Wyoming. He must have blackmailed the judge. I think it’s a standard FBI tactic.”

      “Has Brahma logged on again?”

      “Once, about an hour ago, but Baxter didn’t have the court order then. He was only on for a couple minutes. They did manage to trace digitally back to the Wyoming phone company again. Lake Champion.”

      “How do you know that?”

      Miles smiles with satisfaction, then replies in a vintage Hollywood Nazi accent: “I haf my sources, Herr Cole.”

      “What about the kidnapping? Rosalind May. Anything on that?”

      “Nada. By the way, I didn’t know you had a mole among my faithful.”

      “What are you talking about?”

      He smiles again. “How else could the FBI have found out about Rosalind May?”

      “Don’t you care about these women, Miles?”

      “I care about all women.” Suddenly he is whispering so that I can barely hear. I sit beside him.

      “They’re going to call one of us in there soon,” he says. “Why don’t we make a little deal right now? I say nothing to Lenz about you, you say nothing about me.”

      This shocks me more than anything I’ve seen or heard yet. “You think you have to spell it out like that? You think I’d tell these people anything about you?”

      His lips narrow in a shadow of the smile Jesus must have given Peter when he prophesied the disciple’s betrayal. “Humans do strange things under stress, Harper. Why don’t we just shake hands on it?”

      I look down at the proffered hand and surprise myself by taking it.

      “You want to grab a bite to eat after this?” he asks lightly. “Tie on the old feed bag, as they say back home?”

      “Sure. I want to find out what the hell’s going on with this manhunt.”

      “Whoever goes first waits for the other. Cool?”

      “Sure.”

      “Mr. Turner?”

      The receptionist has slid open her window, but she is seated, and I see only a tight black bun atop her head.

      “Dr. Lenz will see you first,” she says in a husky, almost luminous voice. “Go through the door and down the corridor. The doctor is waiting.”

      Miles stands slowly, looks through the billing window, and says, “You have spooky eyes.” Then he picks up his computer and his cellular phone and disappears through the door like a tall and undernourished White Rabbit.