The Unknown Beloved(107)

All hell had just broken loose.

He handed Jeziorski the pilfered wallet and headed for the war zone.

“Hey, thanks, Mike,” Steve Jeziorski shouted. “You’re a good guy. That’s what I told the other fella. You’re a good guy. Not as scary as you look. If I hear anything else, I’ll come find you, okay? No charge.”



Cowles had made a call.

By the time Malone reached the suite, Sweeney was being spirited down the back stairs, Grossman and Keeler were gone, and Irey was waiting for him. Cowles and Ness sat in dejected silence, the detritus of the last week pooled around them.

“I’m sorry, Malone,” Cowles said. “We were in over our heads. We needed reinforcements.”

“Where are they taking Sweeney?” he asked.

“Go home, Ness. Cowles,” Irey said, his tone firm, even consoling. “It’s all been handled. It’s over. I’ll take care of everything.”

Ness raised bruised eyes to Malone’s, shrugged into his rumpled blue suitcoat, and walked from the room, leaving the door of the suite gaping.

Cowles followed him out, and Malone could hear him apologizing down the long hall.

“We didn’t have anything to hold him on, Eliot. I just couldn’t see any other way forward. I did this for you.”

“I know you did, Cowles. I know you did,” he could hear Ness say. Then Irey walked to the door of the suite and shut it firmly.

Malone didn’t sit. The windows had been opened to air the place out, and evening was falling gently through the drapes that had survived Sweeney’s confinement.

Irey didn’t sit either. He surveyed the room like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and flipped on a lamp as if he needed a second witness.

“Cowles filled me in, Malone. I think I have the basic gist of it all. I’m just wondering why it was David who called me. And not you.”

Malone was silent. To defend himself would have meant throwing Eliot under the bus. And, try as he might, he didn’t know what else Eliot could have done. When every choice was rotten, you had to make a rotten choice.

“You had a respected doctor—” Irey began.

“He isn’t respected, Elmer. His wife has petitioned the court for him to be committed to an institution twice.”

“That is not the point!”

“You said he was respected, sir. As if that protects him from the law.”

“You aren’t the law!”

“I’m not?” Malone frowned, baffled.

“Not in this matter, you aren’t. You’re a Treasury agent, in case you weren’t aware.”

“I’m aware that I had no communication from you indicating there were any protected persons in the case you knew I was assisting on.” Malone was more surprised by Elmer’s agitation than he was angry, and he easily kept his voice level and his own temper under control.

“You never take a vacation. Your wife had just died. You needed some downtime,” Irey said.

“In Cleveland?” Malone snorted. “I was in the Bahamas, Elmer, but you readily agreed for me to go to Cleveland. If it was for my emotional well-being, you and I have far different definitions of ‘rest.’”

“You were not lead, you were not point, you aren’t even here officially. You have had no oversight—”

“But a month ago, you told me to do whatever I needed to do to end it. You said the big guy wanted it wrapped up.”

“I regret that now.”

“Why?” Malone asked. He’d never seen his boss so agitated, and he’d never given such mixed signals. “We’ve never been an agency that went about investigations in the regular ways. I daresay it’s one of the reasons we’ve been successful. The reason you’ve been successful, Elmer.”

Elmer took off his spectacles and rubbed a large hand over his square face, as though he could reform his features into something less reproving. Then he dropped into a chair. His next words made Malone’s heart sink.

“Lie detector machines and palm readers?” he asked. “Is that the best you could do?”

“Palm readers?” Malone hissed.

“What is it that Daniela Kos does, Malone?”

Malone did not answer. He stared at his boss, not understanding, and for the first time in his career with the department, not . . . trusting.

“You and Eliot Ness pulled a respected doctor into a clandestine interrogation for six days.” Irey raised his hand to quell Malone’s argument. “A doctor whose only documented crimes are that he drinks too much and his wife doesn’t want him anymore. That describes most men, doesn’t it, Malone? Including you and Eliot Ness. You aren’t one to drink too much, but your wife wasn’t too keen on you either, now was she?”

Malone stilled, biting back his affront. Irey getting nasty and personal was the most baffling thing of all. Malone hadn’t believed any part of his life was truly private. The agency didn’t work that way. When you signed up, you turned your life over for inspection, every embarrassing moment. But for Irey to pull out Irene’s rejection and use it as leverage was new.

“What the hell is going on here, Irey?” he whispered.

“You don’t have a real suspect,” Irey said. “And you resorted to methods I can’t condone or defend.”