Once a spy dc-1

by Keith Thomson

  “Top of the morning to you, Mr. Ramirez!”

  Although the vending machine room was just a few steps from the office, Brody was bundled into a coat, scarf, and hat. And he hadn’t purchased anything.

  He’d been waiting.

  Swallowing against an upsurge of dread, Charlie said, “Top of the morning back at you.”

  “You have rather fair hair for a Ramirez, don’t you?”

  “My mother’s Swedish.”

  Brody laughed derisively. “Listen, I’ve had so many weird middle-of-the-night check-ins that a man giving a fake name counts as fairly normal, especially if a second person’s waiting in the car. I can’t see the parking spaces around the corner from my office, but while you were checking in last night, I could distinguish the rumble of your car from that of the highway. Most people, fearing car thieves, don’t leave their vehicles running. Unless there’s someone else in the vehicle.”

  “Is there a charge for a second person?” Charlie asked, hoping the objective of this third degree was merely the collection of a few bucks.

  “No, up to four can stay at no additional fee. I wanted to share with you the message in a fax I just received from the FBI. They’re seeking two fugitives, an older man and one about your age. And height and weight and hair and eye color.”

  “Thanks for sharing,” Charlie said. By it he meant, “What do you want?”

  “I’ll tell you what, a thousand in cash, and if someone asks me, a man matching your description may or may not have checked in here in the middle of the night-it was dark, you were all bundled up, who could tell?”

  A thousand dollars was a small price to avoid capture. Charlie wished he had it. He fished the wallet from his pants and flipped it open to display bills totaling $157. He saw no need to mention the twenty he always kept in a different pocket. “This is what I have, and going to an ATM won’t do either of us any good, even if I had that much in my account.”

  “What about Daddy?”

  “Obviously you’re a highly observant individual. Notice how, like last night, I’m wearing just a sweatshirt even though it’s, like, two out?”

  “The point?”

  “I had to leave home last night in a rush-you can imagine how that happens, when you’re a fugitive. My father was in the same rush. He left home in pajamas, or, to the point, without his wallet. I only have as much cash as I do because yesterday I was thinking about buying a bus ticket to South Dakota.”

  Brody deliberated, his breath rising from the dimly lit breezeway and into the predawn darkness. Finally, he cast a porcine hand and pinched the bills from the wallet.

  Eight minutes later, Arnold Brody was swiveling anxiously in his desk chair when a dark blue Chevy Caprice sailed into the lot. Out darted two men. A strong gust of wind blew their overcoats open, revealing gray suits. The driver, in his twenties, was pale, with a stern countenance, like a wolf’s. He was what Brody had expected of a federal agent. The passenger, in his early forties, had a jock’s thick torso, gone soft in the middle. His big face was pleasant and suntanned, showcasing a sparkling grin. He looked more like an insurance salesman or a golf club pro.

  “Mr. Brody, I presume,” the driver said.

  “Good to meet you.” Brody stepped out of the office and extended a hand.

  The driver did too, but only to flash an FBI badge identifying him as Special Agent Mortimer. His partner’s ID showed him to be Special Agent Cadaret.

  “Sir, where’s their car?” Mortimer asked.

  “They were clever about that,” Brody said. He pointed to the back end of the building. The nose of the gray Buick peeked from behind it, twinkling silver in the nascent sunlight. “They parked all the way down there, even though their room isn’t anywhere close, so the car would be hidden from the road.”

  “We appreciate the detective work, sir,” Mortimer said. “Which room are they in?”

  “Do you mind a quick question first?” Brody asked.

  “Please,” said Mortimer.

  Brody looked to his shoes to convey his reluctance to broach the topic to such men of altruism. “The fax mentioned a reward?”

  “That’s right.” Mortimer turned to Cadaret. “It’s what, ten thousand?”

  “For each of them.”

  “Room one oh five,” Brody said, fighting an urge to sing it.

  8

  Mortimer wandered down the parking lot, stealing glances at room 105. The curtains were closed and the lights were off. He looked for telltale shadows or flickers. He saw none. The gap between the door and the threshold was clear. Likely the rabbits were in bed.

  He positioned himself behind a brick column directly across the breezeway from their room. The column would hide him from their view. Another motel guest might think he was examining the structure, that he was an engineer or an aficionado of architectural kitsch, perhaps. Fortunately there were no guests around. But any second, one might appear. And because of the strong wind-the gusts turned the breezeway into a block-long flute-Mortimer wouldn’t have the luxury of being alerted by the sound of the unbolting of a door. Accordingly, he drew the Walther from his coat with no more fanfare than if it were a cell phone, and he held it close enough to his chest that his lapels hid it. The gun was loaded with subsonic ammo and sound-suppressed, and its report would be no louder than a quarter falling into one of the vending machines’ coin-return slots.

  Cadaret pulled up in the breezeway two feet before the room, flattening himself against the wall-though not too flat. A passerby might guess he was waiting for his wife, using the bricks to scratch his back maybe. He reached sideways and banged on the door three times.

  There was no response.

  Mortimer took a quick look around. Still no one about. He signaled this to Cadaret.

  Cadaret knocked twice more and said into the door, “Charles and Drummond Clark, Special Agents Mortimer and Cadaret, FBI.”

  Again, nothing.

  Mortimer listened for a creak of weight shifting on carpet. He heard none.

  “We know you’re not responsible for the taxi driver,” Cadaret said. “We’re here to get your assistance in finding out who is.”

  Mortimer aimed his Walther at the zero in the plastic room number mounted at eye level on the door. His overcoat still concealed the weapon from all points of view except that of whichever rabbit would open the door. By the time Drummond or Charlie Clark glimpsed the gun, a hollow-point round would have entered his head, driving him back into the room. Cadaret would follow and, with his own. 22, take out the other Clark.

  As Cadaret crept closer to the door, Mortimer scanned the area. He shook his head, informing Cadaret the coast was clear.

  Cadaret whirled and kicked the door inward. The wind masked much of the smash. Leading with his gun, Cadaret dove to the carpet and rolled, coming to a halt on one knee, planning to shoot both men.

  He fired no shots. Instead he turned and beckoned Mortimer. Warily, Mortimer stepped in. Cadaret appeared to be alone in the room.

  Brody must have gotten the number wrong, Mortimer thought, until Cadaret directed his attention to the rumpled comforters and blankets. Not only had someone clearly lain in each bed, particles of cinder-no doubt from the house on Prospect Place-and similarly shaded smudges remained on the sheets and pillowcases.

  Cadaret rose slowly, his gun aimed at the closed bathroom door. There was no need to discuss the plan-Mortimer got it from Cadaret’s eye movements.

  Nodding his acknowledgment, Mortimer tapped the room door shut behind him and stole toward the bathroom. Adrenaline slowed down time, sharpened his senses, and left him swollen with an exhilarating sense that he could shape circumstances to his will.

  He knelt by the bathroom door and prepared to fire his Walther twice-and only twice. He was confident no additional rounds would be required.

  He counted to three with his fingers. On three, Cadaret lowered a shoulder and flew at the door. It flew inward, ripping the shower curtain from the rod ab
ove the bathtub, rings and all. Everything clattered into the tub, which, like the rest of the bathroom, was empty.

  “Did you find them?” Brody asked, and just as soon wished he hadn’t. The agents’ demeanor said enough.

  “We suspect they took someone else’s car,” Mortimer said.

  Impossible, thought Brody. “There are just three other rooms rented. All of them are on this side of the inn. And look-” Stepping out of the office, he pointed down the breezeway. Three cars were parked outside their respective rooms.

  He considered, though, that while he had been sitting in his office pricing widescreen TVs online, the fugitives might have sneaked around the back of the building to his own car. He felt the blood drain from his face.

  “Are you okay?” Mortimer asked.

  “I don’t know,” Brody said, bolting for the other side of the building.

  Rounding the corner, he could see that the Reserved: Management spot was empty. He stopped and placed his hands on his knees to prevent himself from collapsing under the weight of his own stupidity. How had he gotten it into his head that shaking down fugitives would provide them with a sense of security?

  Mortimer and Cadaret rounded the corner behind him. “Mr. Brody, can you give me the make, model, color, and tag number?” Mortimer asked.

  Brody sighed, thinking not of the car, which was late in life, but the value of its occupants. “It’s a red, ninety-three Toyota Cressida, Jersey plate T-E-N dash P-I-N.”

  “We ought to be able to get a statewide be-on-the-lookout alert on the system in a matter of minutes,” Mortimer said, hurrying to his car, presumably to effect the BOLO from a computer. “We’ll get it back for you.” His cool failed to buoy Brody. The fugitives would have to be idiots to keep the car long.

  Brody returned to the office with Cadaret. “You may have information, whether you realize it or not, that can help us,” Cadaret said as they sat down.

  Brody couldn’t think of a thing that would be of use to them. Desperate to increase his reward prospects, however, he added insights and innuendo as he recounted his chat with Charlie, including Charlie’s admission that he was on the lam and thinking of going by bus to South Dakota. Wherever possible, Brody sprinkled in what little else he knew, like that the old man was wearing pajamas.

  Cadaret asked, “Have you told any of this to anyone else?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Good,” Cadaret said. His words were punctuated by a muffled blast.

  Brody’s eyes fell on the gun Cadaret was aiming at him.

  Then came a searing pain unlike anything Brody ever had felt, and all at once the world was cold and black and-

  Cadaret posted a BACK IN FIVE MINUTES sign in the office window. Watching from the driver’s seat of the Caprice, Mortimer dialed a local number. One ring and a man answered, “Road service and towing.”

  “Hi, I’ve got a dead battery,” Mortimer said.

  “No problem, man. Where are you at?”

  “Montclair, at the library.”

  “I got a guy I can get there in fifteen, twenty minutes.”

  “Great, thank you.” Mortimer hung up and opened the door, admitting Cadaret.

  They drove onto the New Jersey Turnpike as soon as the paramedic van pulled up at the motel office. Three men, clad head to toe in white medical garb, exited the van. While

  the first tidied the office, the second and third removed the corpse. They got a chuckle out of the A. BRODY placard beside it-Cadaret had removed the letter R.

  9

  No sign welcomed Charlie and Drummond to Monroeville. The northwestern Virginia town appeared to have no signs at all. Or buildings, houses, or power lines. The Toyota Cressida’s replacement, the burgundy Ford Taurus Charlie drove, was alone on what, according to the map, was Monroeville’s only road, a crudely paved, single-lane straightaway through an eternity of dense, towering pine trees. Monroeville had no streetlamps either. And because of the shadows cast by all the pine trees, the town could have used some, even at ten on a cloudless morning such as this.

  “I remember Mom liked the outdoors a lot,” Charlie said, “but enough that she could have become a forest hermit?”

  “I don’t know,” said Drummond, taking the question at face value. “Now that I think of it, there is one thing I do remember about her: She was a smoker.” He said smoker with disdain.

  Charlie had lost count of how many times this morning Drummond had recalled that she was a smoker and gone on to condemn the habit. All Charlie had learned otherwise was that the three of them used to take wonderful outings to the Prospect Park Zoo when he was in his pram. Which smacked of cover story. He gave up on questions while still in New Jersey.

  Pine trees flew by for several more miles, and he was beginning to wonder if they’d left Monroeville, or Virginia for that matter, when he saw that the road terminated ahead at a pair of tall, rusty doors in a high stone wall.

  He stopped the car at the doors. He couldn’t see over them or over the wall, just through the gaps between the hinges. All he saw was more forest.

  To the left sat, at a slant, a small gatehouse. Many of its wooden roof and wall shingles were missing and the remainder were beset by rot. The lone window was cracked and caked with muck. Above the door, hardened pine sap formed outlines of letters that had since fallen off; Charlie was able to make out 1 Loblolly Blvd.

  “That’s the address I have,” he said, “but she can’t live here.”

  “Why not?” Drummond asked.

  “For one thing, no one’s been here for a hundred years.”

  The gatehouse door creaked open, giving them both a start. A string bean of a man unfolded himself through the tiny aperture. Although the pine boughs overhead diffused the sunlight, he squinted, transforming his pale and craggy middle-aged face into a roadmap of wrinkles. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and his graying black hair, while not long, was chaotic. A disproportionate belly swelled his soiled khaki windbreaker imprinted with MHFC SECURITY.

  Charlie rolled down his window. Air blew in that was cold and redolent of pine. The guard’s approach brought the smell of liquor.

  “Gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the Monroeville Hunt and Fish Club,” he said as if he’d learned it by rote. “How may I be of assistance?”

  “We’re looking for Isadora Clark,” Charlie said. Off the guard’s blank look, he added, “Supposedly she lives here.”

  “Nobody lives here, sir. No humans, that is.”

  “Maybe she’s a member of the club or something like that?”

  “She married to a member of the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, that’s who belongs here. Any case, the rule on club grounds is no ladies.”

  Pine trees flew the other way on Loblolly Boulevard until, finally, Charlie spotted a filling station. The pumps still said ESSO. The faded yellow-clapboard general store at the back of the property predated horseless carriages. There was just one vehicle in the dirt lot that had tires, a rusty pickup. What mattered was the place was still in business and it had a pay phone. Better, the pay phone was outside the store on the rear wall; Charlie was keen on being seen by as few human beings as possible.

  While Drummond waited in the car, Charlie fed a handful of change into the pay phone’s coin slot, then spun the rotary dial. By the second long ring, a sticky foreboding crawled over him. In the hours before the betting windows opened, when the tip trade was at its peak, Mickey was something of a legend for answering his cell phone before the end of the first ring. Even though it added fifteen minutes to his commute, he rode the bus instead of the subway because some of the subway tunnels blocked his cell reception.

  By the fifth ring, Charlie suspected Mickey would never answer a telephone again. Hoping he was wrong-as well as praying to that anonymous entity he called upon when one of his picks was neck and neck with another horse-he dialed Mickey’s office line.

  The p
hone was picked up in the middle of the first ring.

  Along with profound relief, Charlie exhaled, “That address can’t be right.”

  “This isn’t Mickey.” The voice was deeper than Mickey’s and solemn enough that guilt kicked Charlie in the stomach; if not for the phone cord to cling to, he might have fallen.

  Boiling over with rage, Charlie sat at the wheel of the Taurus, gas pedal even with the floor, the filling station rapidly becoming a faded yellow speck in the rearview.

  Drummond looked over as if Charlie were the one with lucidity issues. “Did you get the proper address?” Drummond asked.

  “Do you know what they mean at the track by a stooper?”

  “It rings a bell. I think. Maybe not.”

  “Stoopers comb the floors and the corridors, picking up tickets in hope of turning up a winner that was mistakenly crumpled or tossed before the race officials took an infraction into account and revised the order of finish. A little while ago, while stooping in the Big A parking lot, my friend Mickey found a ticket from yesterday’s eighth race for a hundred bucks on a filly named Tigertown. Tigertown won, paying nine to one. The paramedic’s opinion was that, in his excitement, Mickey died of a heart attack on the spot.”

  “I’m sorry, Charles.”

  “Same,” Charlie said. For now his remorse took a backseat to retribution. “And we’re not the only ones who are gonna be.”

  “Who else?”

  “There has to be some way to make it look like a person had a heart attack that’ll be missed in a conventional autopsy, right?”

  Drummond pondered it. “Had someone given your friend chocolate?”

  “Why?”

  “I–I don’t know.”

  For Charlie’s purposes, that was as good as a toxicologist’s report. Getting a free Hershey bar would have made Mickey’s day.

  “I assumed someone did something to him,” Charlie said. “So I asked myself, What the hell was I thinking about dragging Mickey into this?”