Guilty Minds

“You don’t think I’ve thought about it?” I said. “But I know people like Vogel. The things that trigger him, the small irritants you can’t predict. Thing is, Mandy will never be safe. My nephew-a target, too, anytime the wind blows east and Vogel has a change of heart. I can’t have these people walking around with a target on their backs. The sooner I move against him, the safer Mandy is.”

She kept looking at me for a few seconds longer. Then, softly, relenting, she said, “Okay. I get it.”

On my first phone call I got lucky, which only set me up for eventual disappointment. Thomas Vogel indeed had an account with Comcast for his Internet and his cable TV. I told them I was having trouble with my service. They asked for “my” date of birth, which I provided-I’d gotten it from Art Garvin-and then I asked, “What address do you have?”

This normally works. You give them enough information that identifies yourself and they tend to get loose with the information. People like to help. But she said, “What’s your password, sir?”

“Password?”

“Your account has an extra security feature. We’re not allowed to give out any personal information, including the address, unless we’re given a password.”

“Ohh-I’ve forgotten it, I’m sorry. But I gave you my name and my date of birth.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I’m still going to need a password.”

Vogel was smart. He’d taken precautions that ninety-nine percent of people wouldn’t bother with. I hung up and called back, hoping to reach another customer service representative who wouldn’t be as scrupulous.

But no matter how many times I called, I came to the same stopping point. They required a password before they’d give out the home address.

I was no more fortunate with the electric company. They, too, required a password before they’d divulge the home address.

Then came the pizza places. I called the first one, giving my name as Thomas Vogel, and said, “You have the address, I assume.”

“No, sir. Can you give it to me, please?”

Normally this trick works. Pizza places, take-out places, restaurants that deliver-if you’re a regular customer, and you order takeout from them a lot, they’ll store your information in their databases. But I struck out with all five pizza places.

Either Vogel didn’t have pizza delivered to his home-he picked it up or he just didn’t eat pizza-or he didn’t live in Thurmont. It was possible that he had his mail delivered to a post office that wasn’t in his hometown but nearby. If so, he was even craftier than I’d figured.

Half an hour of this, and nothing. No luck finding his home address. Room service arrived with coffee, and then Dorothy came back with an express mail envelope from the concierge downstairs and the form that goes with it.

“For Thurmont, Maryland,” she said, “they don’t guarantee delivery until noon.”

“So noon it’ll have to be.”

Then came a knock at the door. It was Merlin, holding a shopping bag.

“Hey, man.”

“Thanks for coming. You got it?”

“I brought two, just in case you need a second one.”

“I shouldn’t, but I appreciate the thought. All right, hold on.”

Merlin said hello to Dorothy while I called Ellen Wiley.

“I never heard back from you,” she said. “I thought things might have gone sideways.”

“Worked out okay. But I need one more favor from you.”

“Whatever the hell you want, sweetie,” she said.

When I’d finished talking to Ellen, I tried Mandy’s cell phone one more time, but once again there was no answer.

Everything depended on one complicated plan with a lot of moving parts. With any number of ways it could go wrong.

72

This is the book you wanted, right?” Merlin said. “The 48 Laws of Power?” He pulled an orange hardcover from a plastic Barnes & Noble bag out of one of the duffel bags and set it on the dining table. Next to it he placed a small True Value hardware bag. “Razor blade and glue,” he announced.

The book was a remainder, but it was a hardcover, which was the important thing. It had to be a hardcover book. “That’s the one.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“Never read it,” I said, absently. “It just seems plausible, and it’s thick enough.” I opened the book to the title page and scrawled, in loopy handwriting,

Contract on the way-meanwhile enjoy this.

XOXO

Ellen.

It looked like a woman’s handwriting, or close enough. Then I opened the razor blades’ packaging and slid out one blade from the dispenser.

Dorothy looked at what I was doing and laughed. “Heller, you son of a bitch,” she said.

– 

We got to the big post office on Mass Avenue, next to Union Station, shortly before seven. Just in time to send off the package via overnight express mail.

In the car on the way back to the hotel, I sniffed the air and said, “You started smoking again.”

“Couple days ago,” Merlin said. “I feel lousy about it. Don’t give me shit.”

“Stressed?”

“I don’t know. Nick, I gotta be on an FBI or DHS list somewhere, buying all this junk.”

“You’re nobody if you’re not on a Do Not Fly list.”