“I’m not following,” I say.
“I know I was the one who said you should let it go. But that was before this creepy guy threatened my kids. Now I don’t want to let it go. If we do, he’ll always be out there. I’ll always be looking over my shoulder.”
“If I let it go, he won’t bother you.”
“Right,” Ellie says with a scoff. “Tell that to Rex and Hank.”
I could argue that Rex and Hank posed a more direct threat, that they were actual eyewitnesses to that helicopter hovering over the base fifteen years ago, but I don’t think it would matter. I get what she’s saying. Ellie doesn’t want to live in fear. She wants me to take care of it, and she doesn’t want to know how.
Ellie pushes with her legs harder now. The swing goes back, and using the momentum, she gracefully jumps off as it comes forward, even triumphantly raising her hands like a gymnast sticking the landing. I care so much about her, and yet for the first time I’m realizing I still don’t know her, and that’s making me care all the more.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” I say.
“I know.”
I remember the schedule I’d seen a little earlier on the “Andy the Other PianoMan” website. He’ll be at the Hunk-A-Hunk-A Club, whatever that is.
I’ll go there and confront him tonight.
“One more thing,” Ellie says.
“What?”
“I may have a lead on Beth Lashley’s whereabouts. When we were in high school, her parents bought a small organic farm in Far Hills. My cousin Merle has a place down there. I asked her to drive by and just knock on the door. She said she tried, but the gate by the fence was locked.”
“Could be nothing.”
“Could be. I’ll take a little drive tomorrow and let you know.”
“Thank you.”
“Sure.” Ellie lets loose a deep breath and looks over at the school. “Does it seem that long ago when we went to this school?”
I look with her. “A lifetime ago,” I say.
Ellie gives that one a small chuckle. “I better head back.”
“You want me to drive you?”
“No,” she says. “I’d rather walk.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Hunk-A-Hunk-A advertises itself as “an upscale revue of male erotic dancers for ladies with class” because no one says “strip joint” anymore. Tonight’s featured performer is Dick Shaftwood, which I suspect may be a pseudonym. I find the yellow Ford Mustang tucked in a back corner of the club parking lot. There is no point in going inside, so I park in a spot where I can clearly see the exits and the Mustang. I notice two buses and several large vans in the lot, like maybe tour groups come here.
What I learn from watching the crowd enter and exit is somewhat obvious. Women don’t come here alone. I don’t see one woman walk in or out by herself, like guys do at their strip clubs. The female clientele here come in groups, usually large ones, all cheering and already at least partially lubed up. Most, if not all, seem to be with bachelorette parties, which explains the buses and large vans. They are being responsible—good, clean, dirty fun with a professional designated driver.
It’s getting late. The women departing now are annoyingly hammered—loud, staggering, sloppy, falling over one another, holding one another up—but staying close together in a pack, waiting for any straggler to rejoin the herd before proceeding onward. A few of the male strippers start heading home. Even fully clothed they are not hard to pick out. They all scowl. They all have that stick-up-the-ass, “yo, brah” strut. Most are wearing loose-fitting flannel shirts barely buttoned, their waxed cleavage glistening in the streetlight.
I can’t imagine why Hunk-A-Hunk-A would need a piano player, but a quick check of the website on my phone (Hunk-A-Hunk-A has its own app, by the way) shows that they offer “themed events,” including some kind of “classy experience” involving dancers in tails moving to old classics on “a Steinway grand piano.”
I’m not in the judging business, Leo.
It’s just past midnight when Andy Reeves, decked out in a tux, makes his exit. There is no reason to play it coy or cute here. I get out of my car and start toward his. When Reeves sees me, he looks less than pleased.
“What are you doing here, Dumas?”
“Call me by my nom de plume,” I say. “Dick Shaftwood.”
He doesn’t find that funny. “How did you find me?”
“Your newsletter. I’m a card-carrying member of the Other PianoMan Fan Club.”
Reeves doesn’t find this funny either. He picks up his pace. “I got nothing to say to you.” Then thinking of it: “Unless you brought me the tape.”
“I didn’t,” I say. “But I’ve kind of had enough, Andy.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you either talk to me, or I email out that tape right now.” I hold out my phone as though my thumb is poised over a send button. It’s a bluff. “I start with a friend of mine at the Washington Post and move on from there.”
Reeves shoots daggers at me with his eyes.
I sigh. “Fine, then.” I pretend to get ready to push the send button.
“Wait.”
My thumb stays poised and ready.
“If I tell you the truth about the base, do I have your word you’ll let this go?”
“Yes,” I say.
He takes a step toward me. “I need you to swear on the memory of your brother.”
It is a mistake for him to bring you into this, but I do indeed swear. I could voice caveats. I could tell him that if he or his cohorts had something to do with your death, not only would I sing like an oversharing canary, but I would personally be certain to take each and every one of them down.
I don’t worry about the swearing. If what he tells me now needs to be revealed, I’ll do so with joy and enthusiasm.
“Okay,” Andy Reeves says. “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”
“I’m good right here.”
He glances around the lot in full suspicion mode. There are a few stragglers, but this is hardly a hotbed of potential eavesdroppers. Still, he probably spent most of his life working in some kind of clandestine governmental department, CIA or something, so I get the paranoia.
“Let’s at least get in my car,” Reeves suggests.
I snatch the car key from his hand and slide into the passenger seat. Then he gets into the driver’s. We both face forward now. Our view is of an old stockade fence that has seen better days. Several wooden pickets are either missing or cracked, like a vagrant’s teeth after too many fistfights.
“I’m waiting,” I say.
“We weren’t part of the Department of Agriculture,” he says.
When he doesn’t go on, I say, “Yeah, I kind of figured that.”
“Then the rest of this is simple. What happened in that facility is highly classified. You know that now. I’m confirming it. That should be enough.”
“And yet it’s not,” I say.
“We had nothing to do with your brother or Diana Styles.”
I give him my best “get to the point” expression. Andy Reeves makes a big deal of considering his next move. He makes me promise yet again to never speak a word of this to anyone, not ever, that he will deny it, that nothing he says leaves this car, you get the drift.
I agree with it all so we can move on.
“You know the time period we are talking about,” Andy Reeves begins. “Fifteen years ago. Post-9/11. Iraq War. Al-Qaeda. All of that. You need to put this in that context.”
“Okay.”
“Do you remember a man named Terry Fremond?”
I search the memory banks. I do. “Rich white kid from a Chicago suburb who got turned into a terrorist. Uncle Sam al-Qaeda, they called him, something like that. He was on the FBI top ten list.”
“He still is,” Andy Reeves explains. “Fifteen years ago, Fremond set up a terrorist cell when he came back home. They were close to pulling off what may have been the worst event on US soil perhaps in history, another 9/11.” Andy Reeves turns and meets my eyes. “Do you recall the official story of what happened to him?”
“He got wind the feds were onto him. Escaped through Canada and made his way back to Syria or Iraq.”