One Got Away

by S. A. Lelchuk

“Yeah. Work work.”

  “Who’s the lucky guy?”

  I laughed. “It’s nothing exciting.”

  He handed me a hot plate, two eggs over easy, a pile of fragrant home fries, and perfectly crisped bacon. “Not sure if he’ll agree with that. Whoever he is.”

  Like Ethan, my brother didn’t know the exact details of what I did when not at the bookstore, but he had a better sense by far. That was my fault. A year ago, men with guns had visited him in his apartment, intending to use him as a bargaining chip to get to me. It had been the worst night of my life, and very nearly the last. But we were here, and they weren’t.

  That night, after everything happened, I’d sent my brother away and then dragged their bodies—three of them, one by one—down the stairs with the help of a very strong friend who had been born without the squeamish gene. A friend who also happened to know a thing or two about where to put a body. Or three of them. As far as I knew, the three men had been last seen in a landfill outside of Sacramento.

  And here we were, eating breakfast. Life could be funny.

  I picked up a piece of perfectly crisped bacon and bit into it, feeling a satisfying crunch. “What’s new with you?”

  “Things are good.” The spatula flashed like a wand, seemingly everywhere at once. “Got a hot date tomorrow night.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Brandon grinned mischievously over his shoulder. “Well, now that you’re boring and settled down, at least one of us has to have some fun.”

  “I’m not boring. I’m just not single,” I protested.

  “Nik, please. I love you both—but you guys are the most incredibly boring couple in the world. Like, nursing home boring. The two of you spend Friday nights sitting in your living room watching old movies on TCM. When was the last time you were up past midnight?”

  “I’m up past twelve all the time!”

  “I called your place last week and literally woke you. It was eleven thirty.”

  “I was tired! That was one time!” I changed the subject back. “So, who is she? Let’s hear some details.”

  His grin grew. “A doctor. And hot. A hot doctor.”

  I chewed a potato. “How the hell did you convince her to give you a shot? And stop sounding so damn satisfied with yourself,” I added.

  Brandon’s voice tottered with a gleeful excess of dignity. “You know, many women find me extremely charming, although tragically, my big sister isn’t one of them.”

  “Charming. You. Right.”

  “And in fact, I’ve been told more than a few times that I’m not so bad on the eyes, either.” He shook his spatula at me. “What do you think about that revelatory information?”

  “How many drinks do you have to buy these poor girls before they say that?”

  “I’m telling you, Nik, online dating has opened up a whole exciting world. If you had a cell phone you’d know what I’m talking about.”

  “I think I’ll let you enjoy the pleasures of Tinder all on your own.”

  We bantered on while I finished breakfast. It made me happy being around my brother, getting to see him like this. Dating, working, laughing. Happy. He’d been talking recently about wanting to one day have his own restaurant. Regardless of my teasing, Brandon had become an undeniably skilled cook in the last year. And responsible. No unexplained disappearances or shady friends. In the last few months I had been checking leases near my bookstore, and had recently learned that the noodle place next door was closing down and would be on the market. I’d talked to Jess to ask if the idea was totally crazy, but to my relief, she hadn’t shot me down. I was considering it. It would be good to have my brother in the neighborhood.

  I pushed my empty plate away and put a twenty-dollar bill under my mug. “Gotta run. I owe you lunch.”

  He leaned across the counter and gave me a quick hug. “Knock ’em dead.” He winked. “Or at least, out.”

  I gave my brother a wave of assent, already headed for the door.

  * * *

  The Bay Bridge was clogged with cars doing the morning commute into San Francisco, but I lane-split my way across the five-mile span at a steady twenty-five, drivers throwing me jealous looks. The sky had cleared into blue, and the Bay sparkled in the morning sun. I fought through more downtown traffic and finally parked my motorcycle across the street from the InterContinental.

  Following a pro was tricky. Someone naturally inclined to suspicion, habitually alert. But Coombs had seemed comfortable. I remembered his lobby entrance: the shoeshine stand, the cheerful nods and waves, the coffee and newspapers and leisurely breakfast. Easy, unhurried routine.

  This morning I chose a different spot in the lobby. Hair in a bun instead of down, jacket off instead of on. Little details changed.

  I waited. Just like last time.

  Only this morning was different.

  Today there was no Coombs.

  Nothing said he had to get up at the same time. Maybe it had been a late night, or he could have spent the night somewhere else entirely. He seemed like a man who would have many opportunities for company.

  I waited half an hour, wondering whether I should come back later in the day, or the next morning. But something was telling me that this should be sorted out now. I waited a few more minutes, then decided to take a chance. I walked over to the front desk and asked for him.

  The clerk shook her head. “There’s no guest staying here under that name.”

  Nothing said Coombs had to be using his real name. I described him, and the clerk shook her head again, her face turning from neutral to unfriendly. “I’m afraid I can’t answer these questions.”

  I didn’t want to press it. I thanked her and walked away.

  A dead end.

  As I was crossing the lobby, I slowed, my eyes on the shoeshine stand.

  * * *

  “When was the last time you had these shined, miss?”

  “Possibly never,” I admitted.

  “You’re lucky I like a challenge.” The shoeshine guy shot up a smile. He was getting a workout on my motorcycle boots, whipping an inky rag back and forth across the many scuffs. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever had a shoeshine. A very gender-specific activity, reinforced by the magazines he kept near at hand, Esquire and GQ and Sports Illustrated. Like a male version of a pedicure.

  I thought over the tangle of convoluted and murky relationships I was glimpsing. Martin, my client. William, who was incapable of speaking to me, and Ron, who refused to. Susan, so determined to leave her family in the rearview mirror. And the elderly matriarch, Mrs. Johannessen, a woman crumbling and secluded as some fog-swept Scottish castle.

  Was she being kept away from me, or from the world?

  What had she done? What did Coombs have on her?

  This was a powerful, proud, and secretive family. The whole Gary Cooper attitude, strong and silent to the end. What had made Martin worried enough to involve me—an outsider?

  “There you go, miss. That’s as good as I’m gonna get ’em.”

  The shine guy was looking at my boots with satisfaction. A job well done. The leather gleamed, most of the scuffs gone. The boots looked inky-black and brand new. He blew out his breath with exaggerated effect. “Come back and see me before another ten years go by, okay? Quality leather is the same as people. Gotta be treated right to stay healthy.”

  “Deal.” I climbed down from the chair and gave him a bill, watching his face change as he saw the 100 and keeping my voice casual. “I was supposed to meet a friend for breakfast, a tall, good-looking British guy who stays here. You haven’t seen him this morning, have you?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Oh, you must mean the doctor? You just missed him.”

  “Missed him?”

  “Sure did, just barely. He checked out this morning.”

  I kept my voice casual. “Checked out? How do you know?”

  “He had his bags with him—besides, he told me. He was in too much of a rush to even get a shine. He usually co
mes every morning, like clockwork. That’s a fellow who knows how to dress,” he added with approval. “Never even saw him in sneakers, not once.”

  “What time did you see him?”

  The shoeshine guy checked his watch. “Oh, I dunno, musta been an hour or two ago. You didn’t miss him by much, if that makes you feel better.” He smiled, as if remembering something pleasant. “I’ll miss him. He’d been everywhere, seen everything, and oh, boy, could he tell a story. You could have given him a stage and a mic and sold tickets all night long.”

  “Where was he going? Did he happen to say?”

  He didn’t hesitate. His words slammed into me. “Back home, to London. Seemed like something unexpected had come along. Like I said, he was in a rush. Sort of like there was a fire and he was running to put it out.” The shoeshine guy pointed across the wide lobby. “I think it was JD who helped him with his bags. You should talk to him.”

  JD the bellhop was young and skinny and puppy-eager to please. “Sure, I remember your friend,” he said. “Hopped in a Yellow Cab.”

  “Any chance you remember the license plate or cab number?”

  The bellhop shook his head. “Sorry. I must call a hundred cabs a day.”

  “Did he happen to say where he was going?”

  JD nodded readily. “Sure, I called the cab for him. He was going to SFO.”

  6

  Traffic lightened as I hit the city outskirts on 101 South. I reached SFO in under twenty-five minutes, glad I habitually traveled with my passport. I pulled into short-term parking and discreetly emptied my handbag of several possessions that didn’t belong anywhere near a security line. My motorcycle sported a pair of secure metal lockboxes. My things would be fine.

  In the International Terminal, I checked the Departures monitor, picking through the usual blur of letters and times until I found what I was looking for. A British Airways flight. SFO-LHR, San Francisco to Heathrow, departing in less than an hour. I had maybe half that time to board. If Coombs had been rushing to the airport, he wouldn’t want to wait around all day for a flight. He’d want to be thirty thousand feet up as soon as possible.

  I scanned the monitor once more. No other London-bound flights were showing.

  At the British Airways counter, they were sold out of Economy-class fares. I swallowed and put a $3,400 first-class ticket on my credit card, reminding myself that I was on the expense account of a very wealthy man who had instructed me to spare no expense. I asked the woman at the counter if any other London-bound flights had left recently and she consulted her computer, then shook her head. “Most of the trans-Atlantics leave later in the day. You’ll have to hurry,” she warned. “They’re about to start boarding.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I ran through the terminal to security. They’d close the cabin doors ten minutes before departure, which left me twenty minutes. Maybe five or ten minutes to get through security and then I could sprint to the gate.

  I’d make it. Barely.

  The TSA guy studied my passport in what felt like slow motion, then scrawled his initials on my ticket as I headed for the X-ray. Two minutes later I was through.

  “Hold on a second.” A blue-shirted TSA agent was standing in front of me. “Would you step aside for a minute, miss?”

  “I’m going to miss my flight!” I protested, holding my ticket up as evidence.

  Another TSA officer, this one a woman, had appeared next to the first. “Just a few questions.”

  They must have flagged me at the counter. Maybe the last-minute ticket, or absence of luggage. More probably both, combined into a giant red flag screaming Not normal.

  The two of them were watching me with unfriendly expressions.

  I followed them.

  * * *

  I spent an endless fifteen minutes in a small room, dutifully answering a series of plodding, uninspired questions while they practically took apart my handbag.

  Finally, the female agent nodded and said, “You’re free to go.” No hint of apology in her voice for making me quite possibly miss my flight.

  I checked the time. Eight minutes until the gate closed.

  I ran.

  * * *

  I reached the gate maybe a minute too late.

  The Jetway door was closed, but through the floor-to-ceiling windows I could see the plane, agonizingly close, its tail painted with ribboning red and blue flags. There was a lone gate agent at the boarding counter, remaining after the flood of passengers like some abandoned sentry, busy with some kind of final paperwork for the departing flight. I ran up to the desk, ticket outstretched, my desire plain enough that I didn’t bother to speak.

  “I’m sorry,” the gate agent said, looking actually regretful as she checked my ticket. “They closed the cabin doors.”

  “Please. I have to be on that plane.”

  She spread her hands helplessly. “I wish I could do something. But when they seal the doors…” She trailed off.

  “Could you make an exception? Please, just this once?”

  Her eyes were sympathetic. “I’m sorry. If you talk to our main desk, I’m sure they’ll be able to rebook you on the next available flight.”

  “Could you check with the pilot?” I knew I sounded like I was begging, but didn’t care.

  The sympathy in her eyes waned and the corners of her mouth firmed up. “This isn’t a rom-com. I’m sorry, but you can’t just go running onto the tarmac.”

  I started to say something else, then gave up as I saw the Jetway swing away from the plane like a decapitated snake. The plane, freed, inched forward, the nose ponderously angling out toward the expanse of runways. No other flights were leaving for hours. By the time I could get to London there would be no way I’d catch up to Coombs. No way I could find him in his home city. Not with a man so clearly practiced at fleeing and evading. He had gotten away.

  I walked back through the terminal, thinking, frustrated with the closeness of the miss. Around me were the usual airport scenes: people slumped in chairs, stretched out on the floor, on barstools staring up at televisions playing news shows and sports recaps, flipping through magazines in kiosks. Bored travelers killing time in a dozen different ways.

  People, everywhere. Just not the person I wanted. Had Coombs been scared by something? Like running to put out a fire, the shoeshine guy had said.

  Then I stopped and exclaimed, “Damnit, Nikki!” loud enough for a mother pushing a stroller to give me a dirty look.

  I was annoyed at myself. I had to start thinking smart instead of quick. Coombs, by all accounts, was a pro. If something had spooked him, he wasn’t going to walk around blabbing the name of his destination to every shoeshine guy and bellhop he ran into. If he was blackmailing anyone, he might have assumed the Johannessen family would have him followed. Walking around broadcasting his next stop to anyone with a pair of ears would be akin to a fleeing hare dropping a trail of biscuits for the dogs to follow.

  Coombs had been in a rush. Yet he had bothered to tell the shoeshine guy that he was going back to London. He made sure that the bellhop knew he was going to the airport. Had the airport itself been a bait and switch? He could have gotten in the cab and changed the destination by the time they pulled away from the hotel. Maybe he had dropped false crumbs all over San Francisco, for anyone chasing him to pick up and follow. Distractions, obfuscations. Buying time to flee.

  Like a squid squirting ink.

  One thing seemed certain, the more I thought about it. If he had told anyone who would listen that he was going back to London, I could be sure that London would be the one city in the world where I would not find Dr. Geoffrey Coombs. A small part of me wondered whether the $3,400 British Airways ticket in my hand was refundable. A bigger part wondered what to do next. The longer I delayed, the more ground he could cover. The less chance I had of finding him.

  I had to start over.

  I had an idea.

  7

  Coombs had left the hotel in a Yellow C
ab. That gave me something. I exited the terminal, went up to the Information booth by the baggage claim, and asked the man working the desk for the Yellow Cab phone number. I called the number and reached a dispatcher. “I left something in one of your cabs,” I told him. “This morning, going from the InterContinental to SFO.”

  There was loud conversation in the background and his voice was hard to hear. “We keep a lost and found at our office, 2060 Newcomb. If you forgot an item, they clean out the cabs at the end of the day and you can pick it up there.”

  “Can I ask the driver directly? It’s important. Time-sensitive.”

  “Hang on a second,” he said. “Let me look up the trip.”

  I spent a few minutes listening to scratchy elevator music and wishing they offered a Silent option. Then the dispatcher was back. “Lorenzo did the trip. He didn’t find anything, but he’s at lunch now if you want to ask him yourself. The Egg Up Diner on Turk, off Van Ness. You can meet him if you can get over there quick.”

  “Great. What’s he look like?”

  The dispatcher said, “Forties, swarthy, bald, fat.”

  That seemed clear. “Got it. Thanks.”

  He wasn’t done. “But if he asks, I told you like Marcello Mastroianni, only taller.”

  “Marcello Mastroianni, only taller. Got it,” I said again.

  Fifteen minutes later I was headed north on the 101. Back to San Francisco.

  * * *

  I found Lorenzo at the lunch counter of the Egg Up Diner, wolfing down a triple-decker pastrami sandwich with a heaping side of fries and a deli pickle the size of a water bottle. There was a slice of apple pie next to him on a smaller plate, waiting its turn. He was clean-shaven but had a yellow-brown mustard mustache under his nose. The small diner was mostly empty, but I would have found the cab driver easily even if it had been packed. The dispatcher’s description had been accurate.

  There was an open stool next to him. I sat and ordered coffee, then turned to him. “Lorenzo?”