“He’s in my office,” she said.
I started to turn to head that way, but she placed a hand on my shoulder. “Look, it’s your choice how you want to conduct yourself, but when you have important meetings like this, I recommend practicing a little more professionalism. I don’t know Chan Grayson. He seems easygoing, so he might be fine with it, but Psalter doesn’t have a lot of patience for foolishness. He can be an asset, but he won’t have anything to do with you if he thinks you don’t have any self-discipline. In his line of work, he requires people he can depend on. It doesn’t matter how much money you have.”
I stared back at her, not quite sure what to say. She was probably right, of course, but I was surprised she was being this frank. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, considering our talk last night.
“This is just advice,” she said. “I’m not telling you what to do, but you’re in some pretty deep waters, and there’s a lot of things out there that can smell the smallest bit of weakness. Maybe learn to keep it in your pants from time to time.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll work on it.”
She stared at me with that unreadable expression of hers and then glanced over her shoulder at my closed office door. “I can see Erin getting carried away,” she sighed, “but I would have thought Helen would be more responsible.”
“I think she was just a little overexcited to be back with us,” I admitted.
“Mm,” she grunted and looked back at me. “I can’t smell them on you. Whatever you did, good job. You ready?”
“Lead the way,” I said, following her.
As soon as we entered Chloe’s office, Henry Psalter stood up and looked at me with an intense, piercing gaze that was almost off-putting, but at the same time, his eyes seemed to have a dead quality to them. He was a lot different than I expected. I imagined him as some sort of Bob Hoskins character from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, wearing a brown fedora and a trench coat. I’d never met a private investigator before today, so I only had Hollywood to go off of.
Psalter stood nearly six feet tall, with deep brown skin and salt-and-pepper hair cut close to the scalp. He was clean-shaven, with deep lines under his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. He looked like he was pushing sixty, but it was hard to be sure. He wore a mustard yellow button-down shirt with a grey knit sweater vest over it, dark slacks, and black dress shoes. He looked like a nerd from South America.
He smiled as he stuck out his hand, but that smile never reached those vacant eyes of his.
“Mr. Upton?”
“Mr. Psalter?” I shook his hand; his grip had just the right amount of firmness, which surprised me because I almost expected it to feel more like a dead fish.
“Please, have a seat,” I said as I took another chair. Chloe leaned against the wall behind her desk, crossing her ankles and folding her arms.
“I prefer to stand, thank you,” he said as he reached down to pull a manilla envelope from a leather satchel. “In the late 1980’s, I met with a priest in Camaguey. He was a trusted confidante of Salvador Magluta’s turned informant for me. We had a working relationship for the past two years, and I trusted the man.”
He handed the envelope to me as he continued, “He had just poured me a finger of Dalmore. I swear, Arturo wouldn’t shut up about that bottle of scotch Magluta had gifted him. He always said he was saving it for a special occasion. I should have known something was wrong, but I ignored my instinct. Ironically, that same scotch saved my life. I was taking my first sip when the glass caught the knife meant for my throat. You see, one of his altar boys had snuck up behind me.”
He backed away from me and clasped his hands in front of him, waiting for me to take a look at what he’d given me. “Needless to say, that’s the last time I’ve sat down during a meeting and the last time I will ever sit facing away from a point of egress.”
Unsure of what to say, I looked from him to Chloe but got nothing from her. I looked back at Henry. “What happened to the priest?”
“He met his God,” Psalter said matter-of-factly.
I considered asking about the altar boy, but something in Psalter’s vacant expression answered my unasked question.
Since he seemed to be waiting for me to look at the contents he handed me, I opened the envelope and pulled out a small collection of papers and photographs. The first was a large picture of a man wearing a button-down shirt, eating lasagna just outside a restaurant with another man sitting across from him.
I immediately recognized him. That scar was hard to miss.
“Holy shit!” I exclaimed as the door opened, and the other two entered Chloe’s office.
“What is it?” Erin and Chloe both said at the same time.
I held up the image and said, “This is the guy who tried to pull a gun on me this morning!”
“Are you sure?” Erin said, walking over to stand behind me and peer over my shoulder.
“Yeah,” I said. “I won’t forget that face anytime soon.”
Chloe approached me, and I handed her the photo. “He was in the coffee shop,” I said. “Do you recognize him?”
She didn’t respond immediately as she stared at the photo. “I didn’t see him in the coffee shop,” she finally said, “but I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere before.”
“Very likely,” Henry said. “He worked for Colin Gerrard.”
All four of us looked up at Henry.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you serious?” Helen asked.
“That’s it,” Chloe said, as if finally recognizing the face. “I saw him once around the VistaVision building. Roughly two weeks before Gerrard died.”
I took the photo back from Chloe. “Do you think this is the guy responsible for my grandpa’s death?”
Henry shook his head and said, “Doubtful. He was in the Caymans at the time of your grandfather’s death.”
“What was he doing there?” Erin asked.
“I haven’t been able to piece that together,” Henry said, “but he wasn’t even in the country. It doesn’t mean he didn’t have a hand in it, but it does mean that if he played a role, he didn’t act alone.”
“Wait… why are you showing me this guy? He pulled a gun on me just this morning. Did Chloe fill you in?”
“Hardly,” Psalter said, “This is the man who broke into your apartment.”
On hearing that, I stood up and began pacing the small office. Had I been wrong about the reason for the break-in? What if he’d been looking for me? What if he’d been trying to get to me for the past week, and I’d been ignorant the entire time?
But then… why trash my apartment if that wasn’t his goal? He certainly hadn’t been quiet about it. It didn’t sound like the actions of someone whose only goal was to assassinate me.
I turned to look at Henry. “Do you know why he broke in?”
Henry shook his head and said, “Not that I’ve been able to determine. Nothing has been reported missing. In light of this new information, it’s possible he was looking for you and trashed your apartment to cover that fact up.” Henry looked doubtful at that prospect. “It seems unlikely because he could have simply left without you knowing he’d been there if he were competent.”
“The other theory is that he could have been searching for something of your grandfather’s that isn’t easy to locate. Perhaps it’s something in a safety deposit box that no one is aware of.” He arched an eyebrow at me, fixing me with a deadpan expression. “I don’t suppose your grandfather left you any sort of secret message or anything. Perhaps a puzzle box you have to solve, revealing some grand mystery?”