The Kill Room

start where you picked him up. That might refresh your memory.”
    His eyes pendulumed away. “Oh. Yes, it might. But I could have a regular assignment for Elite. I—”
    “I’ll double your fee,” Sachs said, thinking about the ethics of paying a potential witness in a homicide investigation. But this case was fat with moral ambiguity from the top down.
    Farada said, “I think that might work. I’m so very sad that he died. Let me make a call or two.”
    He vanished toward a den or study, pulling his mobile from its holster.
    Farada’s wife asked again, “There is nothing you’d like?”
    “No, thank you. Really.”
    “You are very pretty,” the woman said with admiration and envy.
    Faye was attractive too, though short and round. Sachs reflected that one always envies whatever one is not. The first thing that she’d noticed about Faye, for instance, was that when she walked forward to shake the detective’s hand she did so without any hitch in her gait.
    Farada returned, wearing a black jacket over the same slacks and shirt. “I am free. I will drive you. I hope I can recall everywhere we went.”
    She gave him a focused look and he added quickly, “But once we start I think the places will return to me. That’s how the memory is, isn’t it? Almost a living creature unto itself.”
    He kissed his wife and said he’d be back before dinner—with a glance toward Sachs so that she could confirm this would be the case.
    She said, “A couple of hours, I’d guess.”
    He and Sachs walked outside and they got into the black Lincoln Town Car.
    “You don’t want to sit in the back?” he asked, perplexed by her choice of the front passenger seat.
    “No.”
    Amelia Sachs was not a limo girl. She’d been in one only once—at her father’s funeral. She had no bad associations with long black sedans based on that experience; she simply didn’t do well being driven by others, and sitting in the rear seat exponentially increased her discomfort.
    They got under way. The man drove expertly through traffic, unwavering but polite and never using the horn, though they encountered several idiots whom Sachs would have blared onto the sidewalk. The first stop was the Helmsley on Central Park South.
    “Okay, so I pick him up here about ten thirty a.m.”
    She climbed out and walked inside to the hotel’s check-in desk. The mission, though, was a bust. The clerks were helpful but didn’t have any information that bore on the investigation. Moreno had had several room service charges—food for one—but no outgoing or incoming calls. No one remembered if he had had any visitors.
    Back into the limo.
    “Where next?” she asked.
    “A bank. I don’t remember the name but I remember where.”
    “Let’s go.”
    Farada drove her to a branch of American Independent Bank and Trust on 55th Street. She went inside. It was near closing time and some of the staff had left. The receptionist rounded up a manager. Without a warrant, Sachs couldn’t get much information. But the woman, one of those template vice presidents, did tell her that Robert Moreno’s visit on May first was to close his accounts and move his assets to a bank in the Caribbean. She wouldn’t say which one.
    “How much? Can you tell me?”
    Only: “Mid six figures.”
    Not like he was laundering huge sums for the cartels. Still, this was suspicious.
    “Did he leave any money here?”
    “No. And he mentioned he was doing the same for all of his accounts in other banks.”
    Returning to Tash Farada, Sachs dropped into the passenger seat. “And after this?”
    “A beautiful woman,” the driver said.
    She thought for a moment that Farada was talking about her. She then laughed to herself when he explained that he’d driven Moreno to the East Side and collected a woman who’d accompanied him for the rest of the day. Moreno had given the address—an intersection, Lexington and 52nd—and told the driver to pause in front of the building.
    They drove there now and Sachs regarded the structure. A tall, boxy glass office building.
    “Who was she?”
    He answered, “Dark hair. I am thinking she was about five-eight, in her thirties but youthful, attractive as I was saying. Voluptuous. And her skirt was short.”
    “Actually I was more interested in her name and business affiliation.”
    “I caught her first name only. Lydia. And as for business…Well.” Farada offered a coy smile.
    “Well what?”
    “Let me put it this way, I’m sure