The Empress File

“The council’s called another special meeting, but it’s not until tomorrow night.”
    “Hmph. I would have thought… I guess that’s OK, but I would have thought they’d do it quicker.”
    “Maybe stalling for time. Maybe trying to figure out who knows what. You take care.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “You, too.”
    When LuEllen returned, she was wearing the intent look she develops when she’s working, when she’s turning a job in her mind.
    “Where were you?” I asked.
    “Greenville,” she said. “I shadowed Dessusdelit back to her place and waited for a few minutes, to see what she’d do. She came back out, got in her car, and drove down to Greenville.”
    “To do what?”
    “Visit a bank,” LuEllen said. “She had a briefcase with her when she came out of her house. She was carrying it by the handle and threw it in the backseat of the car. When she came out of the bank, she was carrying it with both hands.”
    “She took something out of the bank,” I said.
    “Yeah. Out of the safe-deposit box in a town where she’s not known.”
    “She had some money stashed.”
    “She had something stashed, and now she’s got it in her house. She’s thinking about running.”
    “And you…”
    “I’m going to hit her again. She killed Harold and Sherrie, and she’s got to pay.”
    “You weren’t that close to Harold, and you never even knew Sherrie.”
    “They’re fuckin’ Nazis,” LuEllen snarled. Then, in a milder voice, she said, “Besides, there’s some bucks in it. Truth be told, she’s the kind of fat cat I’d hit just for the money, and the first time around we never really touched her.”
    B OBBY REPORTED a flurry of calls between Dessusdelit, Hill, St. Thomas, and Ballem, all cryptic but increasingly testy. Ballem had gone to the chief of police about the burglary of his house but hadn’t formally reported it, Bobby said. And he’d gotten the murder photos in the mail, delivered while Dessusdelit was in Greenville.
    “He didn’t tell her what the pictures were, but he wants to see her tonight. They’re meeting at his house after dark. He’s only about three blocks from her, so she’s going to walk over. Hill’s going to be there, but they haven’t said anything aboutSt. Thomas. I think they’re cutting St. Thomas out.”
    “Or planning to set him up for the murders,” I said.
    H ILL WAS INSISTING that the “goddamn artist” had something to do with the machine’s problems, but the others weren’t listening, Bobby said. “Dessusdelit told him she knew all about the problems between you and Hill. She said that if they wanted to get out of this trouble, they had to stop fantasizing and understand that they caused the problems themselves, by making a mistake, and now they have to straighten it out themselves.”
    “Sounds like she’s recovering herself,” I said to LuEllen when I passed on Bobby’s information.
    “It also sounds like she’s going to be out of her house tonight,” LuEllen said.
    We argued about whether to hit Dessusdelit, and LuEllen won.
    “Look,” she said, “the heart of the machine is Ballem, St. Thomas, Hill, and Dessusdelit. We know we can take Hill and St. Thomas, because the cops have the bodies, and we have the photos. We already ripped Ballem for those stamps, and now we’re siccing the IRS on him; plus he’ll be tarred with the killings whether or not he’s convicted of them. But Dessusdelit—Dessusdelit slides free, unless the IRS gets her for evasion orthe state gets her on a corruption charge. That’s not enough. But if we take her stash, we take her heart out. Everybody says that she lives for money. Even the cards said so, didn’t they?”
    “The cards are bullshit,” I said.
    “Yeah, right.”
    L U E LLEN TOOK D ESSUSDELIT by herself. The house was an easy target the first time, and it was easy the second. It was, however, a little tough to watch, so we watched Ballem’s instead.
    Dressed in navy blue sweats and running shoes, we parked in the country club lot—there was a dance going on, and the lot was full—and jogged along the edge of the golf course to a small copse of trees off the third tee. From there we were looking right down at Ballem’s front door. Hill arrived first, a little before nine, and then Dessusdelit walked in. We jogged back to the car, called Dessusdelit’s place from a pay phone, and, when we got no answer, nipped off the receiver.
    As we drove down to Dessusdelit’s, LuEllen