Fighting Chance(90)
They kept Tibor in the conference room while they made the rest of the arrangements. He was still in leg irons, and he would be in handcuffs when they took him to the courthouse once they found a judge ready to squeeze him in on an emergency basis. Gregor was glad to see that he looked despondent instead of blank. Despondent meant he had at least half a clue as to what was going on here.
Gregor was still stunned almost beyond belief that this situation had gone so far, that Tibor made the decisions he had, that—well, there was no way to make it make sense. Before all this started, Gregor would have said that Tibor was incapable of making this kind of mistake. Tibor had grown up in a Communist dictatorship and taken Holy Orders when religion was effectively prohibitive. He’d had enough trouble in his life, and seen enough in his capacity as a priest, to be thoroughly disenchanted with human nature. He understood, better than Gregor himself, that there was never a time or place when you could trust a criminal.
Gregor didn’t believe that criminals were born that way, but he did believe that once a person made the choice, the choice was largely irrevocable.
George Edelson came in at last with the news Gregor had been waiting for.
“Oldham will take it,” he said. “We’ve got half an hour to get over there. And he’s still royally pissed off, so there better not be any screwups.”
Edelson looked meaningfully at Tibor. Tibor shrugged.
After that there came the most frustrating part of all, because they had to give Tibor back to the jail staff. Gregor would have liked to tie Tibor up in a knot and haul him out to the courthouse himself, but he knew he was asking too many people for too many favors not to get with the program, no matter how annoying it was. If they got lucky with all this, there would come a time when he could sit with Tibor in Tibor’s own living room and have a complete and utter blowout fit.
They took Tibor out, and Gregor and George Edelson went to find a cab. When they got into one, Gregor called Bennis.
“I know where that is. That’s where we went yesterday. I can be there in time,” she said.
“Not a bad idea,” Gregor said. “You can lend him moral support. In other words, you can make him feel guilty.”
“I’ll see who else I can round up,” Bennis said. “Donna’s at some school thing and Lida’s babysitting Tommy and the baby, but I’ll bet I can get someone. A deputation from Cavanaugh Street. All wanting to beat his brains in.”
“If you take too long, you’ll miss it,” Gregor said. “This is really going to take no time at all. We’ve set the whole damned thing up ahead of time. After we’ve got him safely out on bail, we’re going over to Martha Handling’s chambers. I don’t know if they’ll let you back there. Never mind you and the Very Old Ladies.”
“Why are you going to Martha Handling’s chambers?”
“Because if I’m going to have the reputation of an Armenian American Hercule Poirot, I ought to earn it,” Gregor said. “And also because I need to force a confrontation. Mainly because I need to force a confrontation. It’s going to be hard, getting this untangled.”
“I thought you hated being called the Armenian American Hercule Poirot.”
“I do,” Gregor said, “but it’s coming in useful at the moment, and I’m going to use it.”
“All right,” Bennis said. “I guess that makes sense. On some level.”
“I really know what I’m doing, Bennis.”
“You usually do,” Bennis said.
Gregor put his phone back in his pocket.
“Was that your wife?” George Edelson said. “I’ve seen pictures of her. She’s a very beautiful woman.”
“She’s also a force of nature,” Gregor said, “and when this is all over with, she’s going to have my hide.”
“Really? Just because you solved a murder? Don’t you solve murders all the time? Or is it just because Father Kasparian is somebody she knows?”
“It’s not solving the murder,” Gregor said. “It’s not telling her everything I was thinking about when I was solving the murder. And yes, that’s because Tibor is somebody she knows. That’s because she knows too many people involved in this to begin with.”
They got caught in a traffic jam. There were cars stopped everywhere. There was gridlock at an intersection. There were police officers who were taking their own sweet time. Gregor kept going over and over it all in his head. He had a wish list a mile long of things he hoped would not go wrong. Tibor should get there on time. They should get there on time. Ray Berle and Tony Monteverdi should get there on time. Petrak Maldovanian and Russ Donahue should be there together and also on time.