I work through six choose-a-number menu options before I reach the cool, disinterested voice of an operator, who calmly informs me that Mr. Rivard is not available for calls. I expect that. I say, “Please send a message to him and ask him if he’s missing an investigator he hired a few months ago. If he is, I’ve found his man. He’s dead.”
There’s a short silence while the operator parses that out, and she doesn’t sound quite so serene when she replies. “I’m sorry, did you say dead?”
“Absolutely. Here’s my phone number.” I read it off to her. I’ll have to buy a new disposable after this, but that’s an acceptable trade-off, because I was planning to do that anyway. “Tell him he has one hour to call me back. After that, I won’t answer.”
“I see. And . . . your name?”
“Miss Smith,” I say. “One hour. Understand?”
“Yes, Miss Smith. I’ll see he gets the message right away.”
She sounds off balance enough that I believe her. I hang up and raise my eyebrows at Sam, who nods. We’re well aware that he could do a variety of things, including calling the Atlanta police, and we’re fully prepared to ditch the phone into the trash the second we see a cruiser. We watch the comings and goings of patrons. Nobody pays attention to us. The hot topics are, as in most coffee shops, schoolwork, writing, politics, and religion. Sometimes all at once.
Ten minutes later, my phone rings. “Please connect me to Miss Smith.”
“I’m Miss Smith,” I tell him. “Who’s this?”
“Ballantine Rivard.” He has a southern accent, but it isn’t Georgia. It’s an unmistakable Louisiana drawl, rich as cream sauce.
“And how can I be sure it’s you, sir?”
“You can’t,” he says, and he sounds amused about it. “But since you reached out to me, I suppose you’ll have to take your chances.”
He’s right. I can’t prove I’m talking to the right man, but what choice do I really have? “I want to talk to you about the man you hired. The one who’s gone missing.”
“The dead man, according to your discussion with Mrs. Yarrow.”
“Yes,” I tell him. “He’s dead. I can tell you what I know, if you meet with us.”
“If you knew anything at all about me, you’d know I don’t meet with anyone.” He still sounds polite, but there’s a new firmness. I can sense I’m losing him. “Please call the police with your story, Miss Smith. I have no money for whatever scheme you’re—”
“I’m not looking for money,” I interrupt him. I decide to take a chance. “I’m looking for Absalom. And I think you are, too.”
There’s an electric silence that stretches on forever before he says, “You have my attention. Talk.”
“Not on the phone,” I say. “We’ll come to you.”
Sam is watching me intently, coffee forgotten now. He’s as surprised as I am that the great Ballantine Rivard returned my call, and that he’s still on the phone.
“You’ll be thoroughly searched,” Rivard says. “And you’d best not be wasting my time, or I promise you, I’ll have you arrested without a second thought. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Then come to the Luxe building, downtown Atlanta. I assume you are in town?”
“Yes.”
“And what are your real names? The ones on your identification you will be showing my people?”
I don’t like doing it, but he’s right; I’m going to have to show ID. “Gwen Proctor,” I tell him. “And Sam Cade.” I know that he’ll have minions Googling us in seconds, providing him with a complete dossier of every news report ever written about Gwen Proctor, and Gina Royal. It’ll be a thick enough file. Sam’s will be far thinner.
If he recognizes the name, he doesn’t show it. “You’ll leave everything with security. Phones, tablets, computers, notes, paper, clothing. We’ll give you something temporary to wear. If you don’t agree with those conditions, don’t show up, Ms. Proctor. If you do, I’ll see you promptly at one thirty.”
That doesn’t leave us much time. We’ve left Lustig, or rather, he’s gone off to do what he needs to do. He didn’t ask what we intended to get up to the rest of the day. That might have been a mistake on his part.
I say goodbye and hang up, then put the phone on the table between us.
“You got us an invitation to the Ivory Tower,” Sam says. “My God.”
“To what?”
“That’s what they call the Luxe building,” he tells me. “Rivard’s been living at the top of it for twenty years now. Hasn’t left it in a while, especially after his son’s death.”
“How did his son die?”
“Suicide,” Sam says. “Broke Rivard’s heart, according to the tabloids.”
“Oh, and you read the tabloids?”
“I’m as weak as the next guy when it comes to celebrity gossip.”
“I’m not judging,” I say, and for the first time, I feel a real smile forming. “So you’re the Rivard expert of the two of us. What do you think will impress the man?”
Sam sips coffee. “Honesty,” he says. “And I think you’ve already got that part down.”
“Glad you think so. They’re going to strip-search us,” I say. He chokes on his coffee. “Just being honest.”
It’s not quite a prison search—I’ve had plenty of experience—but Rivard’s people are clearly serious about their work. Our phones are taken. Backpacks, including my laptop and our phones. We’re asked to strip to our underwear, searched, and then allowed to put on some dark-blue velour tracksuits in just the right sizes with RIVARD LUXE embroidered in gold thread over a crest on the front. Not quite business casual, but I’m willing to bet that they’re exorbitantly expensive. Matching slippers, and they’re so comfortable it’s like walking on clouds.
We go up in a private elevator that looks salvaged from the height of the Gilded Age, a work of art in itself. A security man rides up with us and hands us badges on black cords. “You’ll need to wear these at all times,” he says. “Stay inside the designated areas. If you go beyond those, the badges will sound an alarm.”
“And how will we know where the designated areas are . . . ?”
“Assume you should ask before you go anywhere at all,” he says. He looks like a former military man, one with a fairly high rank, too, and he’s used to being in charge. I glance over and see that Sam is fidgeting with the zipper on the front of his tracksuit. This is not his kind of outfit. He sees me looking and shrugs.
“I feel like a Russian mobster,” he says.
“Wrong shoes,” Mr. Security says, and I have to laugh. Then I have to consider how many of that type he’s ushered up here.