by Jude Hardin
The top of the card said UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, and below that was a round emblem with an eagle clutching three arrows. It had been issued to Perry Wendell Davis a little over two years ago.
Apparently that was going to be my fake name. My organization name. Perry Wendell Davis. I said it out loud a couple of times, just trying it on. I didn’t think I looked like a Perry or a Wendell. I wondered how Di had chosen the name. I would rather have been a Mike or a Phillip or something. Or a Sam. There was a driver’s license and a birth certificate and a social security card to go along with the Department of Defense ID. Enough credentials to get a passport, if I’d wanted one.
The birth certificate had me a couple of years younger than my real age, which was nice. Maybe it was Di’s way of compensating for the goofy name.
I looked through the typed pages that had been folded around everything. On top was a short biography of the middle-aged man in the photographs. His name was Kurt Von Lepstein. He was the chief executive officer of Aero-Fleck Audio. He was fifty-six years old, and he’d been with the company for seven years. He had an impressive résumé, with experience on the engineering side of the tech world as well as the business side. He was known as a fierce competitor among his peers, and a leader who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty among his subordinates. He was one of the five people at Aero-Fleck with access to the classified documents, and Diana wanted me to start with him as we proceeded with the investigation.
It was almost six-thirty. I skimmed the rest of the pages, trying to hurry through them before my next student arrived. They appeared to be a tutorial, a crash course on DOD procedure and protocol, specifically targeted for someone pretending to be an inspector. Specifically targeted for me. Diana wanted me to go in and inspect the safe again, and she wanted me to plant a bug in Von Lepstein’s office. Apparently she thought I could pull it off, but I wasn’t so sure.
Inspector Davis, I was to be called. It had a nice ring to it. Maybe only a handful of people would know that my first name was Perry, and that my middle name was Wendell. Perry Wendell. I said it out loud again. Every time it rolled off my tongue, it made me think of periwinkle. It was a dumb name. I didn’t like it.
The final page was a personal message from Di. She didn’t sign it or anything, but I knew it was her.
Dear Inspector Davis,
I hope you have found everything in order. If you have any questions or concerns, please provide them in writing and deliver them to the following address.
I recognized the name of the place. It was a law office in another strip mall not far from my studio.
There’s a drop box on the lower right side of the front door. Slide any future correspondence into the box, and make sure it’s in a sealed envelope marked KEYS TO THE CONDO. Once you have read these instructions and have committed them to memory, please burn them along with the envelope itself. It’s important that you burn everything and not shred it. Shredding is not as secure as most people think it is.
I’ll be in touch.
My six-thirty student walked in, a twelve-year-old named Riley Shaw. He was a few minutes early. His dad was with him.
I quickly gathered all the papers and photos and shoved everything back into the drawer. Father and son looked at me with peculiar expressions, as though they knew I was trying to be discreet about something.
“Go on back to the studio, Riley,” I said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Riley didn’t say anything. He was a quiet kid. He carried his guitar to the studio room and started setting up for his lesson.
His father handed me a check for fifty dollars. “I’m going to walk over and do a little grocery shopping,” he said. “I’ll be back at seven.”
“Great,” I said. “See you then.”
I was glad he wasn’t going to hang around. I didn’t want to have to worry about him snooping behind the counter.
At eight-fifteen, after my last student had left and I’d locked everything up, I drove out to my Airstream camper on Lake Barkley. I used to live there, before Juliet and I got married. It had been a little cramped sometimes, but it was mine. I ran my PI business from there, and I went fishing almost every day. I kept it now as a weekend getaway for my family, and as a place for me to go sometimes when I just wanted to be by myself and think.
My friend Joe Crawford used to own the lots where the campers are parked. He owned the bait and tackle store, and the dock, and the fleet of johnboats for rent. Joe owned all that, and he dealt in international real estate. He was a wealthy man, and a good man, but his life came to a horrible end a while back when he was abducted by a psychopath named Malden Zephauser. He was tortured and killed, and it was partially my fault, and it was a heavy sack of guilt I would be carrying for the rest of my life. Joe had been my best friend since sixth grade. I think about him every day. I miss him dearly.
His son Dylan runs the place now. Dylan’s only nineteen, but he has a good head on his shoulders. He’s a good kid. He takes after his dad.
I steered into the gravel driveway and pulled up the hill to lot twenty-seven.
My lot.
I killed the engine and got out. I opened the hatch and climbed inside the camper and switched the light on. It was stuffy in there, so I opened a couple of windows. Soon the nice cool April night air filtered in, carrying the scents of the lake and the surrounding woods with it. I poured myself two fingers of Old Fitzgerald and drank it all in a single gulp. It took the edge off a long and stressful day.
But I hadn’t gone out there to drink. I wanted to study Di’s instructions more thoroughly than I’d been able to at the studio, and I wanted to do it at a place where I wasn’t likely to be seen or interrupted. I sat at the table and spread the papers out in front of me. It was a lot to learn. Six pages of densely packed text, front and back. I read through everything three times before I started feeling as though I might be getting a handle on it. Then I read through everything again.
I can do this, I told myself. If I put my mind to it, I can do it.
I studied the instructions some more, standing and pacing and reading the entire document out loud. I poured another shot of whiskey and did it again. By the time I finished, I could practically recite everything from memory.
I walked outside and carried the papers to the rusty fifty-five-gallon drum behind the camper. I twisted the pages together and then lit them with a butane cigarette lighter. The bright orange flames consumed the document, ashes dancing away in the breeze, the embers dying before they hit the ground. I dropped the last bit of it into the drum before the fire got too close to my fingers. It flared and then burned down to nothing.
I went back inside and slid the phony driver’s license and the Department of Defense identification card and the shiny silver disk into my wallet, and then I put the social security card and the birth certificate in the built-in gun locker in the bedroom. Juliet doesn’t like guns in the house, so when we got married I installed the locker and started keeping most of my collection in the Airstream. The .45 I bought down in Key West stays in the Jimmy’s glove compartment, and there’s a .357 magnum strapped to the underside of our bed frame, but I keep most of my guns in the camper.
The only key to the gun locker was in my pocket, so I wasn’t worried about Juliet or Brittney finding my fake credentials. In fact, it probably would have been fine to just leave everything out. Neither of them came to the lake much anymore, so it was hardly an issue.
My cell phone vibrated. I pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. It was my wife. I hesitated, thought about letting it go to voice mail, finally picked up.
“Hi sweetheart,” I said.
“Where are you?”
“Working late.”
“You’re still at the studio?”
“I’ll be home in a little while. Want me to bring something to—”
“I know you’re not at the studio,” she said. “Because I drove over there looking for you. Where di
d you go?”
“Nowhere special. Like I said, I’ll be home in a little while. I’ll bring something to eat if you want me to.”
Her voice broke. “I bought Chinese while I was out. At the place by your studio. I already ate, but there’s plenty left over if you’re hungry.”
“Are you upset about something?” I said.
“I’m OK. I’ll see you later, Nicholas.”
“I love you,” I said, but she had already hung up.
I made it to Aero-Fleck Audio at one-thirty Friday afternoon. I’d stopped and rented a car on the way, per Di’s instructions. It was a Nissan Altima. Black, brand new. It looked like the kind of car an inspector for the Department of Defense might drive. Nice, but not pretentious. I wore a light gray suit with a white shirt and a yellow tie.
There had been a black leather briefcase on the Jimmy’s seat when I started out. I assumed Di had put it there sometime during the night. It contained a flimsy plastic three-ring binder and a cell phone and a Visa card. Nothing else. Secured inside the binder were two pages of document numbers, with AERO-FLECK AUDIO printed in raised gold lettering at the top of each page. I figured the gold was there for a reason. It was more than flash. It made the stationery identifiable. It wasn’t something you could run off at the local Kopi-Shack.
Aero-Fleck was located in an industrial complex in Orange Park, not far from the dog track. A two-story yellow brick office building stood facing the road, and behind that there was a large metal structure I supposed housed the actual factory.
I picked up the phone Diana had left for me, called the main number from my car.
“Aero-Fleck. This is Angela. How may I provide you with outstanding service this afternoon?”
I’ve always wondered if receptionists go to some kind of special school where they learn to be perpetually polite and cheerful. Sitting at a desk and answering the phone all day would get on my nerves after a while. By the end of the shift, I would be picking up the receiver and shouting, What the fuck do you want! I wouldn’t last a day. Angela was good at it. She had a sweet and resonant voice. She used just the right inflections, and she had just the right hint of a Southern accent. There was something almost motherly about her voice. She sounded like someone who might walk in with a tray of cookies at any minute.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m Inspector Davis, from the Department of Defense. I’m here to take a look at the security of your classified documents.”
“No problem, sir. You’ll need to talk to Bob Waters. Allow me to transfer you now. I’ll put you on hold for just a second.”
“Can I speak to Mr. Von Lepstein instead?”
That caught her off guard. She was quiet for a couple of beats.
“Well, sir, Bob Waters is the Contractor Program Security Officer, and—”
“I know who he is, but this is a special case. I’m going to need to talk to the CEO eventually, so I might as well start with him. It’ll save everybody a lot of time.”
“What did you say your name was again?”
The pleasant and helpful voice was gone. She sounded irritated now. I’d disrupted her routine. I’d dumped a cupful of sand in her crankcase.
“Perry Davis,” I said. “DOD.”
“Hold, please.”
I listened to a commercial telling me all about the company and its speaker systems. About how they were second to none when it came to in-flight sound quality and durability; about how every employee, from the CEO to the cleaning crew, was treated with respect and dignity; about how Aero-Fleck led the industry in environmental friendliness, utilizing solar power and recycled materials to help decrease its carbon footprint. It sounded like a great place to work. I wondered if they had any openings for world-class guitarists with crippled hands or ace detectives with revoked licenses. For some reason, I doubted it.
The commercial went dead midsentence, and a couple of seconds later Von Lepstein clicked on.
“This is Kurt,” he said.
Apparently he thought we were going to be on a first-name basis, but I wasn’t going for it. I didn’t want to be his buddy. I didn’t want to have a beer with him later and talk about fishing or football. In the instructions I’d read last night, Di had stressed the importance of maintaining a strictly professional relationship with the contractors. The United States government basically employs them, she’d said. The government is their bread and butter. Without government dollars, they don’t exist. Stay in character, she’d said. Don’t get friendly with the help.
I wasn’t there to be pals with anyone. I was there to give them shit about their security. I was there to rake them over the coals, if necessary. I had the power to snap my fingers and shut the place down. Or so they thought. That was the kind of power a real DOD inspector had, and that was the kind of attitude I needed to maintain.
I wasn’t going to call the chief executive officer of the company Kurt, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to call me Perry.
“Hello, Mr. Von Lepstein,” I said. “This is Inspector Davis from the Department of Defense. In five minutes, I’ll be coming to inspect the security of your classified documents. I’ll need to see everything, from the engineering schematics to the training manuals.”
“We just had an inspection last month,” he said. “You guys usually only come twice a year. Was there some kind of problem?”
“This is an unsecure line, and at this time I’m not at liberty to discuss whether there was a problem or not. If there was, or if there is today, you will get a notice from the Pentagon on how to remedy the situation. Of course, if there’s an actual breach of security, the factory will be closed and a major investigation will ensue. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Nobody wants that. There was indeed an inspection last month, but, as I’m sure you know, the Department of Defense has the right to perform impromptu inspections with unlimited frequency. We can occupy the premises every day if we want to. It’s all in the contract, Mr. Von Lepstein.”
“I’m quite aware of what’s in the contract. What was your name again?”
“Perry Davis,” I said.
“Listen, Perry—”
“Inspector Davis. Please.”
He sighed. “OK. Inspector Davis, then. Are you new around here? We usually see Hal Greenwood or Diana Dawkins.”
“Today you’re going to see me. Again, I’ll be there in five minutes. Can you meet me at the front door?”
“I’ll send Bob. He’ll escort you to the document room.”
“I don’t want Bob. I want you.”
“Why is it so imperative that—”
“I’ll explain when I get there. Five minutes. All right, Mr. Von Lepstein?”
He hung up. I took that as a Yes, Inspector Davis. Of course I’ll meet you at the front door in five minutes.
From the beginning, even before I knew Di was a covert agent, I doubted that Kaliope Pendergrass was her real name. It just sounded made-up, like a character in a movie or something. I wondered if she had chosen the name herself, or if it had been assigned to her—the way Perry Wendell Davis had been assigned to me. Diana Dawkins sounded more like a real person.
I let four minutes tick off the clock, and then I grabbed my briefcase and climbed out of the Altima and headed toward the front entrance. A sign mounted on the plate glass said ALL VISITORS: NO CELLULAR TELEPHONES OR DIGITAL CAMERAS BEYOND THIS POINT. Di had already informed me of the policy, and I had stowed my cell phone in the glove compartment before getting out of the car.
Kurt Von Lepstein was standing behind the door with his arms folded across his chest. He smiled, but his eyes said, Why are you wasting my time like this, you inconsiderate plebeian.
My heart was pounding, and I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my back. I was nervous, but I maintained eye contact and kept a slight snarl on my lips. I was trying my best to look like a badass DOD guy. Like a cool cucumber with all his ducks in a row. I pulled the door open and stepped inside.
Von Lepstein extended his hand.
“Inspector Davis?”
“That’s right. Nice place you have here.”
“Thanks. My office is on the second floor. We can talk there.”
“Perfect.”
That’s where I wanted to be, Von Lepstein’s office. If he hadn’t offered to take me there, I would have insisted on it.
The reception desk was a semiround Art Deco thing with shiny black and gray lines and a brushed stainless steel base that looked like a giant loudspeaker cut in half. It faced the front door, and behind it sat the owner of the silky voice I’d spoken to earlier: Angela. At least I assumed it was her. She wore a tight knit dress and diamond earrings and too much makeup for someone who wasn’t going to be anchoring the local TV news. She looked at me and smiled as Von Lepstein and I walked by.
We got on the elevator, and he pushed the button for the second floor.
“So there was a problem with the last inspection?” he said.
“Did I say that?”
“No, but your presence here pretty much indicates it. And you wouldn’t have insisted on seeing me first thing unless there was something out of the ordinary.”
I didn’t say anything until we were off the elevator and safely inside the CEO’s office. He sat behind his desk, and I sat in the leather armchair across from him. He planted his elbows on the glossy cherry desktop and rested his chin on his hands, which were laced together and freshly manicured.
My briefcase was on my lap, and my right hand rested on its flat surface. My left hand was in my pocket, the shiny little silver disk from Di’s package between my thumb and forefinger. I discreetly peeled off the tiny tab on the glue strip as I told Mr. Von Lepstein another lie.
“You’re right,” I said. “There was a problem. Diana Dawkins’s report was incomplete. Either she made a mistake and failed to note a very important document, or there’s an entire set of schematics missing from your safe. If the Department of Defense was in error, of course there will be no repercussions. If the schematics really are missing, then we have a problem indeed.”