“Yes, she is,” Sarah said.
“She’s smarter than all of us,” I said.
“No lie,” Marcos said.
A silence fell over the car as we drove away.
v.
Parked right in front of my house was a dusty blue Jeep Wrangler. A short bull necked man sat reading a book in the open driver’s seat.
“Is that who I think it is?” I said as I slowed beside the Jeep.
“Yep,” Marcos said, waving to the man. “It’s Rake.”
I pulled into the driveway. “What’s he doing here?”
“Don’t know,” Marcos said.
I shut the engine off. Marcos opened his door and swung his legs out and got up. Sarah got out right behind him and took his arm to steady him.
“I’m all right,” Marcos said.
“Nothing wrong with help,” Sarah said.
Rake set his book down and swung up and out of his jeep. He walked slowly towards us, and I noticed he was careful to keep his hands in sight.
“Hey Marcos,” Rake said. “I heard.”
“You know Frank?” Marcos said.
Rake came towards me. His face was strangely smooth and unlined. His cornflower blue eyes were childlike and direct in their appraisal of me. His handshake was very strong; I could tell he was in great shape.
“Not really,” Rake said. “I’m glad to meet you in person, Frank.”
“In person?” I said.
“In the flesh,” Rake said.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“You know what I do?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Let’s go inside,” I said. “This is too confusing for the light of day.”
It was a strange group I led into my living room. Marcos was still swathed in bandages, limping; Ryan and Sarah were hand in hand, and Rake brought up the rear. Rake looked around with the avid curiosity of a child. They all arranged themselves on my couch and in my chairs, and then they looked at me as though they expected me to tell them what to do next. And what was I going to do with them? This was a long way from what I’d envisioned. All I needed was Spenser busting through the door to arrest us for conspiracy. Because that’s what was growing here.
Rake spoke first. “What are your plans for tomorrow?”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Are you going to see her?”
Everyone looked at Rake, then at me.
“What’s he talking about?” Marcos said.
I nodded slowly. “You just impressed me, Rake.”
He shrugged. “It’s not the first time someone’s said something like that to you.”
That was true. And that unsettled me more than anything else since I started this whole thing. Rake looked as thought he knew exactly what I was thinking. I didn’t like that, either.
“We’re going to have to have a talk,” I said.
Marcos coughed. “You guys are freaking me out.”
Rake spoke in an even tone, as though he were delivering a lecture. “You’re in more trouble than you know, Frank. They have something in mind for you. She wants you.”
“She wants me? What the hell is that?” I said.
“Something from her past draws her to you,” Rake said. “She doesn’t even know why. She wants you, but someone else wants you gone. They’ve fought over it.”
“Who’s the other?”
“I can’t see who it is,” Rake said. “But whoever it is, they mean you harm. There’s a lot of anger around her.”
“Why are you in this?” I said.
He held his hands out waist level, palms up. “What makes you think I have a choice? I’m a vehicle. For something larger than myself. I pay attention to what I’m told. I was told to seek you out and warn you. And Marcos is my friend. What happens to him happens to all of us, if you follow me.”
“I don’t.”
“Nothing happens in a vacuum. You know that. Everything affects everything else. One violent act sets off a succession of ripples that become waves in the continuum we live on, affecting everything else. The girl gone missing, the one you’re looking for, she set off a ripple that affected you. It affected Marcos, it affected these two kids, it affects me. So here I am.”
“So here you are,” I said. “What else can you tell me?”
“You hide a lot, Frank. We don’t need to speak about this in front of everybody else.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t speak of it at all.”
He shrugged. His eyes were uncanny. “As you like.”
Marcos let out a heavy sigh. “This is some seriously strange shit. You two want to fill us in?”
Rake settled onto the sofa arm. Ryan and Sarah moved over to give him plenty of room. “It’s Frank’s path. Let him tell you.”
My front room seemed crowded and constricted. I’d never been nervous in my house and I didn’t like it. “I’m going to see Miss Emerald and Wollheim tomorrow. I’m going to front them. The woman says she knows something about Luella Pound. Rake? Does she?”
Rake nodded slowly. “Yes. She knows.”
“Why go when Rake can tell you?” Marcos said.
“I can’t see everything,” Rake said. “What I know got me here. I don’t know what happened to the girl. What I see around her is cloudy. There’s something in the future, but I don’t know what. The future is not fixed. What Frank chooses to do can change it. I do know that if he goes to meet with the woman tomorrow that there will be trouble.”
“Can you do a reading and see more?” I said.
“I can’t believe I heard you say that, Frank,” Marcos said.
“You believe, Marcos,” Rake said. “Why so surprised that Frank believes too?”
“Do you remote view?” I said.
“Sometimes,” Rake said. “I work best in the protocols of an astrology reading or the cards. Have you ever worked as a monitor?”
“No,” I said. “But I know what they do. Who were you with?”
“I was operational,” Rake said. “At Bragg.”
“Ah,” I said.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Marcos said.
“Establishing bona fides,” I said.
“Bragg?” Marcos said. “Fort Bragg?”
Rake nodded, then said, “If he’s moved her someplace, I could try to find her.”
“He?”
“Not just him,” Rake said. “She’s the power.”
“You can’t go!” Sarah burst out. “It’s too dangerous.”
They all looked at me. How did I get to this place? A slow accretion of seemingly minor decisions and now I was doing just what I was strictly proscribed from doing. I was involved with a group of civilians in an action that could bring attention to me. And there was Rake, who seemed to have a handle on who I was and what I did, though he was careful not to say anything in front of the others.
He was a problem.
I looked at my little clan of warriors and I felt something I’d never tell Doctor Marks about. It was a swell of belonging, of attachment.
“I’m going for it,” I said. “That’s decided. What we need to do is work out the nuts and bolts.”
Marcos said in weary surprise, “Franko, Franko. From you to we. That’s a big journey you’re tackling, man.”
I crouched on the floor as though I were sketching a tactical diagram in the carpet. They all huddled around. “This is what we’ll do…”
CHAPTER EIGHT
i.
There is a theory in psychology that psychosis comes about because the patient is too sensitive to the demands of the world. Sensitivity is an asset to a writer or a poet; it’s a burden to a killer. Perhaps I was sensitive and never admitted it to myself. That could be part of the denial that sets in when you watch the slow steady creep of madness from inside your head. In Rake’s world, a sensitive meant someone tuned into those faint subliminal messages that resonate in the universe; being a sensitive meant being aware of those tiny
ripples in the sea of consciousness.
I was sensitive that way, too.
There’s a correlation between some forms of psychosis and psychic ability. Cautious scientists labeled psychic phenomena as “anomalous events.” I had experienced those anomalous events while working with the Cells. On very rare occasions, we worked with those hidden, secretive units of military trained operational psychics. Once, on a mission, I had been “accompanied” by a remote viewer who led me to my target. The viewer was an invisible presence hovering off my shoulder; his body was in a darkened room at Fort Bragg, where he rattled off directions in a stream of consciousness that was transmitted by satellite directly to the tiny earpiece I wore. I followed those directions through the streets of downtown Baghdad, till they led me into a building where a man lay sleeping on a couch in an abandoned office.
The man died in his sleep.
And then my shadowy remote viewer led me out to an extraction site.
That op was a model for tonight’s job. I wouldn’t be alone. In my bedroom, Rake lay on the bed in a light trance. Marcos sat beside him, a tape recorder rolling, to capture everything the ex-military psychic said. Ryan and Sarah stood guard in the front room.
And Rake went out into the ether, to hover off my shoulder and provide a running commentary about my excursion.
I sensed him. It was a vague feeling of presence that accompanied me, and I felt his attention as I stopped at the gate blocked the road to Manfred Wollheim’s house. The guard, the same one Spenser and I had encountered before, recognized me.
“May I see your invitation, sir?” he said.
I handed him Miss Emerald’s business card.
He quirked an eyebrow and said, “It’ll be just a moment, sir.”
Other cars stopped behind me. The guard went into the shack and picked up the phone. He was only on for a moment. He came back out and handed the card with elaborate courtesy. “Pull on through, Mr. Lovelady. You can find your way?”
“Sure.”
“Good night, sir.”
My Toyota Camry looked sadly out of place among the BMWs, Lexuses and Mercedes Benzes parked on the street and along Manfred Wollheim’s driveway. A young black man in a white jacket directed me to a space at the curb.
“Valet, sir?” he said. “When you get ready to leave, just tell my partner up at the house and we’ll bring your car up.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “A little exercise will do me good.”
“As you like, sir.”
I walked slowly up the driveway. Several couples with the dress and mannerisms of old money walked with me. We didn’t speak to each other, though they shot me curious looks. I was dressed in a black linen sport coat, with a banded neck black shirt beneath, black slacks and black lace up Rockport dress shoes. Miss Emerald had said basic black. I was armed in the fashion I preferred when I couldn’t carry a gun. At the back of my neck, clipped inside the label of my banded shirt, I had a Spyderco Harpy set up for a left hand draw; clipped inside the waistband of my trousers was my Spyderco Military-Police set up for a right hand draw.
I preferred blades to a tiny hide out gun. I like being up close and personal.
At the door I was greeted by a butler in a white coat. He referred to a clipboard he held. “Good evening, sir. And you are?”
“Frank Lovelady.”
He pursed his lips and studied his list. “Ah. Yes. Mr. Lovelady. Please come in, sir. I’ll let Mr. Wollheim and Miss Emerald know that you’re here.”
“Thank you.”
In the great room I took a flute of champagne off a passing tray held by an attractive young woman of college age. The room was well populated with an interesting mix. There were corporate clones in basic black business suits, some accompanied by wives in expensive cocktail dresses and bodies sculpted by too much time on the tennis court or in the gym, and more singles than I would have expected. Single men, yes, the nature of Miss Emerald and the Man’s interests being what they were, but I was surprised by the number of attractive professional woman there alone. It could be that this was just what it seemed, a cocktail party thrown by and for high level professionals, maybe to garner support for their “research.”
I brushed my elbow against the knife concealed at my waist.
The whole thing made me want to cut someone’s throat.
There were several men dressed in dark professional suits with their suit coats unbuttoned discreetly positioned around the room. Security. A couple of them were eyeballing me over their wine glasses filled with what was surely sparkling water. They’d made me already as someone to keep an eye on. Or maybe they’d been tipped off in advance. It didn’t matter. I felt like shouting “I am Frank Lovelady!” I wanted, for an instance, to shrug off my cover and pick up the gauntlet thrown down by Miss Emerald and the Man.
One security man, a lean Hispanic, didn’t bother disguising his interest in me. He moved off his position on the wall beside the stairs and came towards me. He wore a flesh colored earpiece and while I couldn’t see it, he probably had a mike in his sleeve or lapel. I didn’t like the way he moved. He was thin and wiry, with over developed pectorals and hard arms beneath his suit. He’d be a handful at close quarters, and I wondered if he was the Cuban who took Marcos down.
“Good evening, sir,” he said. “How are you?”
It was the faint “chu” that told me he was Cuban.
“Fine,” I said. I studied his neck. He was poised and relaxed, a pro.
“Miss Emerald wanted to see you as soon as you arrived.”
“That’s nice. What’s your name?”
He had a cocky glint in his eye. He knew I knew. That was plain to see. “Armando, sir.”
“Armando, tell Miss Emerald I’ll be glad to talk to her. Where is she?”
His body language was eloquent. He pointed across the room. “Over there.”
On display at the foot of the stairway, Miss Emerald was splendid in a short black cocktail dress that cost more than most people made in a year. Manfred Wollheim stood beside her, his shoulders bulking beneath the exquisitely tailored Armani jacket he wore. They both looked at me. Several other men and women standing by them turned to look at me as well.
I raised my champagne flute in greeting.
“Have a good evening, sir,” Armando said.
“Where you from in Cuba, Armando?” I said.
He smiled. I felt his desire for violence. “Havana, Mr. Lovelady.”
“You a Marielito?”
“I was too young for that,” he said.
“See you around.”
“I’m sure, Mr. Lovelady. Enjoy the party.”
He swaggered back to his spot, his head tilted slightly as he listened to his ear piece.
From behind me, Miss Emerald said, “Do you want to hurt him, Frank?”
I turned to her. She was stunning. “Why would I want to hurt him?”
“It’s in the way you look at him. As though you were a lion in a cage thinking about what you would do if you weren’t in the cage.”
“That’s an interesting thought.”
“Yes,” she said. “Interesting. That’s what I like about you, Frank.”
“So here I am,” I said. “What have you got to tell me?”
“There’s no need to hurry. Let’s take some time, get to know one another before we move onto business.”
She gestured to a waiter, who brought over two glasses of blood red wine. “A very fine Merlot. Will you join me?”
“Why not?”
I touched my glass to hers. “Cheers.”
“Long life and health, Frank.”
We drank.
“So you came alone?” she said.
I tilted the glass up and examined the wine in the light. “Only my invisible friend.”
She found that amusing. “You have a sense of humor. Good. So have you and your friends made progress looking for your girl?”
“I thought you were going to help me with that.”
She sipped some wine, rolled it around in her mouth. “I’ve read your articles, you know. You’re really too good to be writing for those little magazines.”
“It’s a living.”
“Barely, I would think.”
“I don’t do badly.”
“It must be nice. All the travel, I mean.”
“I enjoy travel.”
“And such interesting places. You have an affinity for dangerous places. Colombia, Yemen, Kuwait, Bosnia…what an unusual collection of locales for a…travel writer.”
I sipped my wine. It was quite good.
She studied my face, then smiled. Her teeth were perfect. She was so close that I felt her body heat like the warmth from a banked fire. A little thrill started in my groin.
“You’re a master of the poker face, Frank. I don’t think I’d like to play cards with you.”
“Not my game.”
“What is your game?”
“I don’t have one. So now we’ve talked nicey nice. What about the girl?”
I felt the presence of Manfred Wollheim before he spoke.
“Good evening, Mr. Lovelady,” he said.
I turned to him and tilted my glass in salute. “Call me Frank. Everyone else does.”
“Frank, then. I saw you monopolizing Miss Emerald’s attention. I wonder what the two of you were discussing with such fervor.”
“Fervor,” I said. “I like that word.”
He laughed and sipped a whiskey in an expensive cut glass tumbler. “We’ve done some checking, Frank. We may have a lead for you on this girl you are so intent to find.”
“I’d appreciate that,” I said. “We could cut out the fencing and get down to business.”
“You have so many talents that interest us,” Wollheim said, as though he hadn’t heard me. “You are comfortable in foreign countries, you can handle yourself in tough situations, you have an admirable ability to focus on solving problems. We have some international projects you might find interesting…we’d like you to consider consulting with us. For a suitable fee, of course.”
I laughed and took another sip of wine. I liked the way it warmed my belly. Or maybe that was the first tingle of the adrenaline that came to me when I worked.
“You’re offering me a job?” I said.
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