Upon A Pale Horse (Bio-Thriller)

by Russell Blake

  “Put that way, it doesn’t sound like that much fun,” Monica conceded. “Hey, maybe you can get me some chocolate while you’re there!”

  “One order of Swiss chocolate, coming up,” Jeffrey assured her in his most serious tone.

  “Do you have to do many of these?”

  “No. Thank God. There’s nothing more boring than a symposium with five hundred other attorneys. Usually I’d figure out how to weasel out of it and send someone else, but this is kind of the Super Bowl of Euro Zone structuring, so it’s best that I go. Anyway, it’s a done deal, and it’s only for two days, so I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “What am I going to do to keep myself occupied when you’re gone? I’ve gotten used to having you as my boy toy…”

  “Hold that thought,” he said, moving his plate aside and standing.

  She gave him a flirtatious look. “Our food will get cold.”

  “That’s why man invented microwaves. Or at least one of the reasons, I’m pretty sure.”

  Jeffrey lay staring at the ceiling as Monica nuzzled his chest, basking in the lingering afterglow of passion, their lovemaking as enthusiastic as always. His heart was torn at not being able to confide in her, but he didn’t want to endanger her in any way – and he kept revisiting Becky’s death, perhaps an accident, but more likely not. As much as he would have liked to share his internal drama, he wouldn’t put Monica in harm’s way. It was better that she knew nothing.

  He disengaged and went out into the front room, then got online and checked his email, hoping to see something from the brokerage firm or the banks he’d contacted after receiving Keith’s death certificate. He had no idea what he was going to discover when he opened the Swiss box, but having a boatload of ready cash wouldn’t be a bad idea, and his brother’s accounts were just sitting there, engorged with dollars. Only the usual work-related messages had come in, though, and he put off reading them until he was on the clock and could bill for his time. It was company policy to bill for every second spent on a client’s behalf, and Jeffrey could see the wisdom in that – otherwise half the day could be eaten up with uncompensated queries that would “just take a second” from clients who didn’t comprehend how attorneys earned their keep.

  A part of him itched to go on the web and do some research, but he knew better, and had resigned himself to behaving as though every move was being tracked. Which had made his private life difficult, to say the least. Now that he suspected that the condo was compromised, he’d had issues with making love, knowing that someone might be listening in, but it would have seemed strange if he’d suddenly lost interest, and truthfully one look at Monica generally solved that problem. Any reticence he attributed to thoughts about his brother, and she’d seemed sympathetic. It had to be a little weird living in your dead brother’s condo, after all.

  He pushed the thought from his mind and instead focused on his errands for tomorrow – to stop in at the office supply store and research the best way to get to Virginia without a tail, and to see what else he could glean about the cattle mutilations. He wished he could spend his evenings out somewhere he could get online, but it was foolhardy, and it would have seemed odd if he’d suddenly become uninterested in spending his free time with Monica. For all he knew, that was what had tipped them off about Keith. Again, he couldn’t take the chance, so he had to keep to his normal habits, seeming dumb and happy.

  There was only one niggling problem, and it had come to him as he’d grown increasingly paranoid since his discovery. Monica. His good fortune with the woman of his dreams had begun at the same time his career had taken off. And she had cinched the deal on him moving to Washington. But how much did he really know about her, other than what she’d told him? He hated the feeling of suspicion that had colored his feelings, but Keith’s revelation had changed everything, and he was now no longer unquestioning.

  Which brought him to his next agenda item, which he felt rotten about. He needed to know whether Monica was what she seemed.

  He’d agonized over it for the last few days, and the only plan he’d been able to come up with had been to hire a private investigator to verify her story. But that was harder than it sounded, given the constraints. It wasn’t like he could just call one on his cell or office phone. Even something as simple as that required planning and subterfuge, and he’d mapped out his lunch time and the few evenings of the week that Monica wasn’t with him to deal with hiring a PI and making his way to Virginia.

  “Honey? Are you coming to bed?” Monica called sleepily from the bedroom, and a pang of guilt stabbed through his heart at the sound of her voice. How low had he sunk to suspect everyone around him – even a woman he was crazy about?

  “Yeah. Be there in a second.”

  He closed his mental list of pseudo-errands and shook his head. It would be a long week. Tomorrow would be the first day he “forgot” his phone at home for the day, continuing to establish the pattern of absent-mindedness he was cultivating for his watchers. Part of him felt like he was going slowly mad, seeing ghosts everywhere, but the rational part of his mind told him that he was being prudent in light of the evidence.

  Whatever the case, he felt like a complete shit sneaking around behind Monica’s back and going so far as to hire someone to spy on her.

  But there was no other way.

  And he had to know.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Boys’ Night Out

  The next day at lunch he looked up several private detectives and spoke with two, outlining in general terms what he was looking for – a discreet background check and possibly some surveillance. The first couldn’t take a job for a week and wanted him to come into the office, but the second was hungrier and agreed to meet him that evening at seven at the British pub.

  Monica had already told him that she needed the evening to run errands she’d been putting off and do laundry again, so he was in the clear, a bachelor for the night. He left his phone at home and walked briskly down the empty street, glad there were no other pedestrians out because it would be easier to spot anyone following him. When he entered the bar, he looked around and saw his investigator – heavyset and ruddy-complexioned, wearing a tweed jacket, sitting at one of the booths in the back, as agreed. Jeffrey walked to the bar and ordered a black and tan, watching the entrance as he waited, and when he was confident that nobody had followed him in, he took the seat opposite the man, one eye on the door.

  “Owen Jakes. Please to meet you,” the investigator said, holding out a hand the size of a bear paw. Jeffrey shook it and introduced himself, then took a sip of his beer, marveling at how good it tasted.

  “I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to spill it and you can figure out whether it’s something you can do. I met a woman a few weeks ago, and we’ve become inseparable. But I don’t really know anything about her. And I want to. I’m thinking a check on her work and living situation, and maybe a little light surveillance. Shouldn’t take much,” Jeffrey explained.

  Jakes’ face was impassive, unreadable. “Hundred and fifty an hour, plus expenses, minimum ten hours. If we find a rat, then figure another twenty-four to forty-eight.”

  The numbers hung in the air like a curse, and Jeffrey did a quick mental calculation. It could get expensive quickly. Then again, he was earning a fortune, so what was a few grand if it assured him that Monica was the genuine article?

  “When can you start?”

  “I can run the trace tomorrow, and any surveillance after that – maybe Thursday. What do you have on her?”

  “I…I have a business card, and a photo I printed out.”

  “What about home address?”

  “She lives with a couple of roommates somewhere around Foggy Bottom. I’ve never been up to her apartment, just outside her building. But frankly, I wasn’t paying attention, and it was night, and I didn’t know anything about the town…”

  “I see. And home phone?”

  “Just a cell and her office. O
h, and her car’s license number.” He’d memorized it – part of the mixed blessing of a photographic memory.

  “If she had a home phone it would be easy to skip trace her.”

  “I know. She doesn’t.”

  “I’ll need a grand downstroke as a retainer.”

  “Do you accept cash?”

  Jakes smiled for the first time. “I like you already. Where’s the card and the photo?”

  Jeffrey extracted Monica’s card from his wallet and handed it to him, then unfolded a piece of paper he’d printed that afternoon at the copy center. It was a photo from a few days before of Monica wearing shorts and a T-shirt at his house, beaming mega-wattage at the camera while pouring them wine. He pushed it across the table.

  The big man whistled. “Wow. Congratulations. What do you do for a living, Jeffrey?” he asked as he studied the printout.

  “Lawyer. But don’t hold that against me.”

  Jeffrey took another pull on his drink and then took out a wad of hundred dollar bills – part of the money he’d gotten out of the bank in San Francisco to cover surprises once in Washington. With a thousand to Jakes, he was left with five, which was more than enough to cover anything except a protracted surveillance he hoped wouldn’t be necessary. If it was, he would hit his new bank and pull whatever else he needed under the guise of wanting cash for the trip. He carefully counted out the thousand dollars and slipped it to the detective, who was drinking what looked like a soda. Jakes counted it again and grunted.

  “How do I get hold of you when I know something?” he asked.

  “I’ll call you. How long for the background check?”

  “We’ll run the plate and check on the company she works for first. That will take a day or so. I’d say give me a call day after tomorrow – Thursday – and I should have something for you.”

  A man wearing a windbreaker entered and looked around, causing Jeffrey’s heart to flutter. The newcomer spotted his friend and walked over, then pulled out a stool and sat down at the bar, his back to Jeffrey. Jakes’ eyes watched Jeffrey’s reaction without comment, although his eyes narrowed slightly.

  “Anything else I should know, Jeffrey? Any pieces of information you might have left out?”

  “No. That’s it.”

  “You sure? You look pretty spooked right now.”

  “It’s nothing. I thought I knew that guy. Turns out I don’t.”

  Jakes finished his drink and stood. “If you say so. Call me in a couple days. I’m always in the office during business hours, and if not, my girl can patch the call through to wherever I am.”

  Jeffrey nodded, and Jakes eyed him one final time before he rose, leaving Jeffrey to pay for the drinks. The bartender came over and took Jeffrey’s burger order and asked him if he wanted another beer, to which Jeffrey gave a thumbs up. It would help him sleep, he reasoned, and was completely consistent with what he now thought of as his cover.

  Jakes seemed crusty but competent, and hadn’t batted an eye over Jeffrey wanting to contact him instead of giving the PI a phone number to reach him. His burger arrived a few minutes later as he was watching yet more soccer, or maybe it was rugby, on the television, and as he bit into the mouthwatering sandwich he congratulated himself for having done as well as he had so far with the whole clandestine thing. The second beer was relaxing him and he was just starting to feel decent when he reminded himself that this wasn’t a game, and that the consequence for a slip was a trip to the morgue.

  The beer tasted rancid and metallic from that point on, and he declined a third, preferring to make his way back home and spend another night wondering how the hell all this would end, a vision of Monica seared into his retinas from the photo, her smile as innocent and loving as a baby’s.

  TWENTY-TWO

  In the Clear

  When two days had gone by with excruciating slowness, Jeffrey practically ran from the office at lunch time, the now-daily walk part of his attempt at exercise, he’d told his secretary, who hadn’t given the remotest sign of caring. He was getting better at checking his reflection in shop windows, looking for a tail, and didn’t see anything ominous as he ordered his sandwich and stood in line to pay, a predictable creature of habit who would hopefully lull any watchers into somnolent boredom.

  He rushed to eat and then made his way to the pay phone to call Jakes.

  The gruff PI’s voice was matter-of-fact when he came on the line. “The car’s not in her name. It’s actually owned by a company out of Virginia. Evendale Industries. Ever heard of it?”

  “No. Doesn’t ring any bells.”

  “Name doesn’t come up on any lists, which is neither good nor bad. Means she has no criminal record. We’re waiting for a more thorough search, though. Should be in by the end of the day.”

  “Where does that put us?”

  “Nowhere good. I also did a reverse on the business number, and it comes up as unlisted. Which doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Lots of businesses have unlisted numbers. Depends on what they do, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “I took a drive over to the address that was listed on the card, and there’s an office building there, so it’s not a vacant lot.”

  “Then it sounds like she’s clean, right? I mean, the car could have any number of explanations, correct?”

  “Anything’s possible. Why don’t we wait to see what else comes up before we throw a party, though, okay? All we’ve got right now is that she has no criminal record and is driving a company-owned car. I’m doing some research on what Evendale is, and that should be in around the same time as the in-depth search. So how do you want to play this? Call me again tomorrow?”

  “That seems best. How much have you burned so far?”

  “You’re almost through your grand. The in-depth search will cost me a few hun. Figure we’ll eat fifteen hundred by the time we’re done.”

  Jeffrey paused, digesting the number without comment. “Listen. If I needed to hire a reliable car for a day, without any paperwork, you know anybody who could handle that?”

  “Depends. You going to rob a bank?”

  “No. I just want to run an errand and not use my car. It’s pretty high-profile.”

  “An errand, huh? Well…I have a Ford Taurus that’s not being used. I suppose I could let you have it for the day for a hundred bucks. When do you want it?”

  “A hundred bucks!”

  “Or you can rent one from any of the agencies for thirty or forty.”

  Jeffrey thought fast. “No, rental cars are going to look too new. Fine. I’ll pay the hundred. I’ll need it on Saturday. First thing in the morning.”

  “I’ll drive it into work. You know where my office is?”

  “I remember the address. I can find it.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Thanks for the good work. I’ll call you tomorrow, same time.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Jeffrey was walking on air as he returned to the office. It looked like Monica was the real thing. Nothing could have made him happier, and as a sea of gray-skinned clerk and low-level bureaucrat faces surged towards him, he questioned just how far out of touch with reality his brother’s note had pushed him. Not everything was some plot, and not everyone was bad.

  Now he had to figure out how to get away on Saturday so he could get to Virginia and hunt down the professor. The car solved the biggest problem – how to make it a hundred and fifty miles into the wilds without being tracked or going on record as renting something – but he still had to figure out how to lose Monica for the day.

  As he waited for the elevator, he was confident he would think of something.

  After all, he had so far.

  That night their lovemaking was especially tender, their connection even deeper than usual, probably because he was more at ease now that Monica had been vetted. He’d taken her to an Italian restaurant in Georgetown for dinner, and the conversation had been easy, the wine flowing like water as the
y savored their meals. Upon their return to the condo they’d turned the lights low and Jeffrey had made them each his version of a Cosmo, and they’d bantered about his upcoming trip and the weather finally turning warmer.

  He shifted on the bed and stroked her bare stomach, the skin twitching at his gentle touch as he ran his fingers along the slight rise of her abdomen, and she squirmed and moved closer to him, purring like a contented jungle cat. He pulled away and closed his eyes, reveling in their mutual joy, and felt as close to love as he’d ever experienced. Which made it all the harder to deceive her, but he had no choice.

  “That was incredible. As usual. You’re amazing, Monica. Truly.”

  “About time you realized it,” she said playfully, her eyes closed.

  “I do. I’m glad I met you. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “So far so good.”

  He hesitated. “I’m going to have to abandon you on Saturday, so if you need some ‘me’ time to yourself, that would be your big chance.”

  Her eyes popped open in surprise. “Why? What’s up on Saturday?”

  He put his arm over his forehead and stared at the ceiling, unable to meet her gaze. “Just a bunch of BS I’ve been putting off. I need to spend most of the day rooting around in my crap that’s in storage, and look through Keith’s, too – I’ve put it off long enough. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to think since I got here, but I have to do it sometime. I need some of my stuff, and I wasn’t really thinking when I told the movers to keep it all.”

  “But we’ll still hook up Saturday night, right? I don’t have that many more shots at you before you run off to Switzerland.”