Ryan finished his cup of hot chocolate. He saw a metal garbage can a few paces away.
He knelt down and said to Olivia: “Wait here. Okay?”
Olivia sipped her hot chocolate while Ryan walked over to the garbage can. Ryan must have wanted to minimize Olivia’s movements so she wouldn't spill her hot chocolate. That was the only explanation that made sense.
I noticed that the crowd in the immediate area had thinned. This was the edge of the fairgrounds. There were no festival goers outside the restroom building. The hot chocolate vendor was partly obscured by a large piece of signage detailing the wonders of the Ohio Winter Days Festival.
The young man looked around and noticed the same things I had noticed: The crowd here was sparse, and Ryan had his back turned.
He moved toward Olivia.
I took a running start, and tackled him.
Chapter 47
I have never played football at any level. But I think it’s fair to say that I hit the guy like a linebacker sacking a quarterback. He had been watching Olivia and Ryan—and he had been oblivious to me.
When I struck him I heard him go “Oof!” I felt the blow throughout my entire body. He wasn't a large man; but then, neither am I.
Once he was down, I scrambled to get on top of him. He looked up at me with an expression that began as surprise (who is this, on top of me?) and quickly changed to naked defiance. He wasn't the sharpest tack in the proverbial box, but he was capable of deducing that he had been detected, and that I had stopped him before he was able to carry out anything concrete.
“You son-of-a-bitch!” I shouted. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
He thought about responding. Then he narrowed his eyes and sneered.
I punched him in the mouth.
His upper lip flowered in a burst of pink and red. I was aware of a sharp pain in the knuckles of my right hand. That’s the thing that no one thinks about before they get into a fistfight: It hurts to be hit, but it hurts to hit someone else, too.
“Were you going to kidnap my daughter?” I asked.
He was no longer sneering. He tasted his own blood, turned his head, and spat.
“Who sent you?” I demanded.
“No one!” he said.
I raised my fist again. “Who?”
“Some dude! Listen, I wasn't trying to kidnap anyone! I was just supposed to scare the little girl. That was all. Then I was supposed to run away. They paid me two hundred dollars!”
The young man started coughing. I could tell the man beneath me was no hardened criminal operative. He wasn't even a Sid Harper or a Donnie Brady. He was a flunky, essentially, whom Sid or Donnie had hired to make a little trouble.
I believed his claim that he hadn't intended to kidnap Olivia. This guy wouldn't have been capable of pulling it off. To kidnap a child from a crowded venue like this wouldn't be easy, especially when she is accompanied by two adults. Granted, Ryan had turned away from Olivia. But if this creep had tried to take Olivia away, my daughter would have started screaming.
That didn't make him any less despicable. What kind of a man takes money to terrify a child in public?
I grabbed him by the collar of his fatigue jacket. He looked very frightened.
“Please! All I was supposed to do was say ‘boo’! That was it. I wasn't even going to touch the girl.”
Speaking of “the girl”: I now heard my daughter crying, saying, “Daddy?” I could hear Ryan saying, “That man is your daddy, Olivia?”
Various threads were converging here, and I would soon need to explain myself. I would also have to decide what to do about the man I had just tackled and punched.
There was nothing I could really do here, from an official perspective. If I held him for the police, the “facts” would likely not shake out in my favor. He had done nothing but move in the direction of my daughter, whereas I had tackled him, held him to the ground, and slugged him.
I stood up and stepped back from the man. He coughed and I could tell that I had knocked the wind out of him. But he wasted little time in getting to his feet.
“You tell the man who hired you that I’ll kill anyone who tries to harm my daughter—in any way.”
I was aware that a little crowd was starting to collect around us. For one man to tackle another in public is not an event that goes without notice.
“The show’s over!” I said to the assembled onlookers. “Go on, leave us alone. Please.”
There were people shaking their heads, and I heard someone ask half-heartedly about calling the police. Then I turned to see that the young man in the olive jacket was already making his escape. He was loping away, trying to lose himself in the crowd. I noticed that he was limping. I had injured him—I had no idea how badly—and I felt no regrets.
There some final mutterings and head shakes, then the little crowd started to disperse. The show really was over.
“Frank?” Claire. She was running toward me from the direction of the restrooms. I didn't know how much of the confrontation she had seen, but she must have seen at least some of it. And she now knew that I had accompanied Ryan and her on their Saturday afternoon date—without being invited, and without making my presence known.
Until now, of course.
Ryan stepped toward me, fixing me with a stare that mingled disdain and amazement.
“So you must be Frank,” he said.
Chapter 48
Before I dealt with either of the two adults, I wanted to set things straight with Olivia.
“Don’t cry, sweetie,” I said. “Daddy had to do that because that was a very bad man.”
I didn't tell her that the bad man had been about to frighten her. She hadn't picked up on that, and there was no need to upset her further.
“Bad man!” Olivia repeated. Her tears were tapering off now, and I seemed to have won her over. A minor victory, but an important one.
Claire, of course, had plenty of questions for me.
“What are you doing here? And—” she looked after the fleeing man. “Why were you fighting with that man?”
“I was fighting with that man,” I said, “because he was approaching our daughter with bad intentions.”
That was a vague response, I knew, and it only led to more questions.
“So you expect me to believe,” Claire went on, “that you happened to be up here—because, you really thought it would be a great day to go to the Ohio Winter Days Festival!—and then you came along at precisely the right moment?”
To Ryan’s credit, he didn't immediately intervene in this argument between the two ex-spouses. He may also have sensed that this involved a matter of parenting, and regardless of his status with Claire, he was still odd man out as far as that was concerned.
“There’s a lot more to it than that,” I said.
“I’d say there is!” Claire shot back.
I could tell that I wasn't going to establish any level of credibility here without bringing Claire up to speed. And for what it was worth, I really did owe her an explanation.
“I’ve recently been threatened…” I began. I took about fifteen minutes to run her through the basics of the story. While I was talking, Olivia—having recovered from my fight with the “bad man” had now walked over and nestled up against me.
“So why don’t you call the police?” Claire asked when I had finished.
“Because,” I said patiently. “I don't have any proof.”
And that was still true. I did have circumstantial evidence—but no proof. I thought about the file from the Jones Company. I was already putting together my strategy for the upcoming week. I was going to look for more shell company files. If I could find enough of them, there might be a way to turn my circumstantial evidence into solid proof. I was still speculating, though.
Claire looked over expectantly at Ryan. Although he hadn't intervened yet, he had been listening intently. I knew that he wouldn't give me the benefit of any doubts.
; “I don’t know,” Ryan said. “I’ve been standing here listening to this; and I’ll be honest: It all sounds pretty far-fetched to me.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Hold on, Frank. Keep in mind that I don't know you from Adam, and our interactions thus far haven't exactly been pleasant. Quite candidly, you seem like a bit of a loose cannon to me.” He turned back to Claire. “I don’t know, baby. I just don't know.”
I decided to let Ryan’s remarks slide. I had already been in one fight at the Ohio Winter Days Festival. One fistfight per venue should be enough, I figured. And I had already known that Ryan was going to interpret my words in the most negative light possible.
“In any event,” I said, “how about the two of you call it a day? Olivia’s got to be cold, and I think we’ve all had enough of the Ohio Winter Days Festival.”
Claire sighed. “Yeah, I guess so. It looks like you got what you wanted, Frank. Ryan and I were going to try to have a nice day with Olivia, and it’s turned into a disaster instead.”
This was another remark that I simply had to let go. In the not-too-distant future, perhaps, I would be able to demonstrate that my presence here had been necessary, that my only motive had been to protect our daughter. For now I was going to have to cut my losses.
I knelt down and gave Olivia a hug and kiss.
“You be a good girl for Mommy,” I said, pointedly leaving Ryan out. “I’ll see you again soon.”
With that I turned my daughter back over to Claire. I reasoned that the threat was put to rest, at least for today. The young man in the fatigue jacket had been ill-prepared for the task given him, and he clearly wanted no more of us.
I stood there as they walked away. Claire ignored me. Olivia waved bye-bye. Ryan shook his head disdainfully at the mess that his girl-friend’s ex-husband had made of the day.
Chapter 49
And I wasn't done yet . Well, I was done with Claire, Ryan, and Olivia. But I wasn't done with Donnie Brady.
For all I knew, Donnie Brady might not have been the one who had hired the young man to stalk my daughter and then frighten her in some undefined way. What I did know was that Donnie had made the threat, Donnie had put the fear in my mind; and when I’d gone to check on the situation, it had been more or less as Donnie had said.
That made Donnie responsible, as far as I was concerned.
Before I left the fairgrounds, I used my phone’s Internet connection to find Donnie’s address.
He lived in an apartment complex not far from Thomas-Smithfield. I recalled Donnie’s late-night, unannounced visit to my apartment. Well, I was going to return the favor.
I stopped first at my apartment and retrieved a golf club from the bag in my closet. If Donnie liked golf clubs so much, I’d give him another one.
It was late afternoon when I reached his ground-level apartment and rang the doorbell.
I noticed a peephole, but I didn't bother to hide myself from view. First of all, Donnie wasn’t the meticulous type who would check the peephole before opening his front door. Secondly, Donnie wouldn't be afraid of mild-mannered Frank Joseph.
I heard footsteps, and saw a shadow pass over the peephole. So I was wrong, after all. There was a pause and more footsteps. Finally the door opened.
Bethany. Not Donnie—but Bethany.
On the surface, this wasn't a huge surprise. I had long known that Donnie and Bethany were an item. I shouldn't think it unusual to find them together on the weekend.
“What do you want?” Bethany demanded. She leaned against the doorframe, holding the door only about halfway open.
“Where’s Donnie?”
I held the golf club discreetly at my side. Bethany hadn't noticed it.
She looked at me dubiously, nonetheless.
“Why do you want to talk to Donnie?”
“Just get him, will you?”
Bethany sighed and closed the door in my face. But she said, “Just a minute,” before she did. Under the circumstances, that was good enough for me.
Most of another minute had elapsed when Donnie opened the door. He lacked his usual swagger. His face revealed him to be preoccupied, maybe even scared.
I wasn't concerned about Donnie’s feelings at the moment. Before long I would have further insight as to why Donnie might have been preoccupied on that Saturday afternoon, but at the time I dismissed it.
I swung the golf club up and thumped him on the chest with the business end of it. Hard.
“If anyone ever gets close to my daughter like that again, I’ll use one of these to take your head off.”
I raised the golf club, and thought about doing more. No, that would involve an escalation that I wasn't prepared for. Not yet.
Donnie stared back defiantly but he said nothing. I had caught him off guard. Whatever else he had been anticipating on this Saturday afternoon, he hadn't expected Frank Joseph to show up and threaten his life with a golf club.
“Never again,” I said, backing away. “Don’t you ever threaten my daughter again.”
Donnie closed the door on me without saying another word.
Chapter 50
On Monday morning, I continued to dig through the files. The Jones Company wasn't the only supplier that looked like a shell company.
I located several more throughout the morning. I wrote down their names, and returned the files to the filing cabinets.
Then I came across the file for the Peters Company. The purchase orders to the Peters Company followed the now well-established pattern: bogus-looking item numbers and names, no backup documentation from engineering, suspicious-looking address information. A vague, generic company name.
The location of the Peters Company, however, was not far from the Thomas-Smithfield building. I recognized the address as a location inside a nearby office park.
I suddenly realized: I could visit the Peters Company during my lunch hour. Such a visit might provide the breakthrough I had been waiting for.
It was worth a try, anyway.
I set off at exactly noon and made the drive in a little under ten minutes. The location was as anticipated: A series of three large office buildings that shared a parking lot. There were abundant trees, landscaped bushes, and several ponds. In any other season but winter, these would be attractive surroundings.
I walked into the lobby of the middle building, designated as B, per the address I had written down from the purchase orders. The Peters Company would be located on the third floor.
The lobby was like any other in a building like this: black tiles, chrome fixtures, lots of windows. There was a pair of elevators in the middle of the lobby. I felt a tenseness in my belly, as I had no idea what I was going to find in Suite 315, the supposed home of the Peters Company.
But it was not going to be that easy. The elevators could only be operated by a keycard.
“Can I help you?” said a female voice from behind me.
I hadn't noticed the receptionist desk; or perhaps the woman had been momentarily away when I’d passed through the front door.
“I’m here to see the Peters Company,” I said.
She leaned back in her chair and raised her eyebrows at me. She was brunette, attractive, and about thirty-five. Librarian glasses. She was seated, but what I could see of her hinted at a good figure.
“Who in the Peters Company are you here to see? And who should I tell them is calling?”
I was momentarily flustered. I hadn't thought things out this far. I had planned this as a simple reconnaissance mission, not an interview.
But I had two choices: Play along or walk away.
“My name is Frank Herbert,” I said. At the last second before I spoke, I decided that I should probably give a fake name. I silently prayed that the woman wasn't a science fiction fan, and she wouldn't pick up on the fact that I’d just given her the name of the late author of the Dune novels.
“Which company do you represent?”
“Thomas-Smithfield.”
>
That had probably been a mistake. But I couldn't think of a fake company name off the cuff, without sounding like a transparent fraud. I should have said, ‘the Jones Company’, I thought wryly, as soon as the name of my employer was out of my mouth.
I looked at her, she looked at me. She was still waiting for me to give her some vital piece of information.
She smiled with a trace of condescension.
“You still haven't told me who in the Peters Company you came here to see. Mr. Sokolov? Or Mr. Kuznetsov?”
“Mr. Sokolov,” I said, largely because I knew that I would bungle the pronunciation of the second name.
“Please have a seat.” She indicated a dark brown sofa on the other side of the receptionist’s desk. “I’ll call up.”
I waited. I didn't have to wait very long. In less than five minutes, the door of one of the elevators opened with a pneumatic wheeze.
The man who walked through the elevator was somewhere in the indeterminate middle years between about thirty-eight and fifty. He was wearing a business suit. The man was perhaps six feet tall and had a square build. The analogy that came immediately to mind was that of a large fire plug.
“Visitor?” He said to the receptionist. He had not yet noticed me. I could still make a run for the front door.
“Over here, Mr. Sokolov,” she said, indicating me.
Mr. Sokolov stared at me, sizing me up.
“You are Mr. Frank Herbert?” he asked.
With this sentence I got the full force of his heavy Russian accent.
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, then. Come with me.”
I already had the feeling that something about Mr. Sokolov, something about the Peters Company, was horribly wrong. Nevertheless, I was committed now. I followed Mr. Sokolov into the elevator, which he opened with his keycard.
As the elevator door closed behind us, I desperately wished that I had made other plans for lunch.
The Eavesdropper Page 13