by Blake Banner
“Not on the phone. I’m where I was.” She was still in Oxford then. A wave of relief, then shame. She went on, cold and efficient. “I’m afraid this isn’t a social call. I need to be quick.”
“Sure, yeah.”
“I need you to do something.”
A spot of anger and resentment in my gut. “What?” I felt the bedcovers move, looked and saw Abi walking to the bathroom. Marni was talking again.
“I’m on a secure line, but I can’t stay on long, so I need you to trust me and not argue, OK?”
I took a moment to answer. Finally I said, “Yeah, OK…”
“I need you to go to Seattle, 5508 B, 26th Avenue South, Beacon Hill. There you will collect something.”
“Collect what?”
“Shut up. When the guy, you can call him Ernst, opens the door to you, you’ll tell him you need an extension. He’ll tell you to come in and look at some drawings.”
“Are you serious?”
“Shut up, Lacklan! He will give you some items and some instructions. Have you clearly understood everything I have told you?”
“Yes, of course I have. But, Marni…?”
“Be quick. I’m running out of time.”
“When this is over, we need to talk.”
A moment’s silence, then. “Yeah, when it’s over.”
The line went dead.
I sat a moment, staring out at the snow melting on Main Street. I could hear the shower going in the bathroom. The hot pellet of anger in my belly turned into a wave of rage and frustration. It welled up to a peak inside me. I closed my eyes and breathed. It passed, and I swung out of bed and joined Abi in the shower.
Downstairs we made breakfast together in silence. We were alone. I had got Primrose an apartment in Boston, where she was applying to universities, and Sean had joined her there for Easter. Abi and I had been going to spend the Easter on our own together. It was the first time we had been alone.
I put the coffee pot on the table, she set down two plates of bacon and fried banana, and a dish of pancakes. We sat and I watched her while she stared at her plate for four long seconds.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
“I have to go to Seattle.”
“Will you come back?”
“Yes. I don’t know how long. It may be a couple of days, or it may be a week. I won’t know until I’m there. But I have told them I need to talk to them. This is my last job, Abi.”
“Please don’t lie to me.”
I shook my head. “I am telling you the truth. I’ve had enough. I’m through.”
She reached over and took hold of my hand. Her eyes told me she wanted to believe me. They also told me that she didn’t.
After breakfast I packed up the Zombie, kissed Abi and told her I would call her from Seattle, and drove down the long track to Blood Canyon Road. There I turned north. I picked up the I-80 at Mill City and settled down to a thirteen hour drive. The Zombie was actually a 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback. But it had been modified by some crazy geniuses in Texas. Now the twin electric engines delivered eight hundred bhp and one thousand eight hundred foot-pounds of torque direct to the back wheels. It could do 170 MPH over a mile without breaking a sweat, went 0 to 60 in just over one and a half seconds, while spreading your face across the back of your seat, and did it all without making a sound.
I settled at a steady eighty, shook a Camel from my pack, lit it with my battered, brass Zippo and put the Eagles on the sound system. Desperado seemed somehow appropriate, as I thought about what I was leaving behind me and wondered about what I was heading for.
Marni had made it clear it wasn’t a social call. That meant just one thing. It was about Omega, and that meant that after the near catastrophe at the United Nations in New York[3], they were done licking their wounds and now they were ready to join battle again. I knew that while I’d been trying to live a normal life with Abi and her kids in Independence, Marni and Professor Gibbons had not been sitting on their laurels. They had been planning, preparing for when Omega resurfaced. It had always been a matter of time. Now that time had come. They were back, and so were we…
We?
I thought about the word.
All my life there had been two constants: my love for Marni and my hatred for my father. On his deathbed he had made me promise that I would protect Marni in her mission to bring down Omega. It had not been a hard promise to make, back then. But now things had changed. Marni had walked away, and she had not looked back. I had found Abi, and a home in Independence. Now it was a promise I was preparing to break.
If they wanted me to collect something in Seattle, then they would want me to deliver it somewhere too. I would do that. And then I would tell Marni and Gibbons that it was over. I had no future with Marni, that much was clear, and the only future I had fighting Omega was more killing. Killing was something I was good at. I was the best of the best. But nothing wearies, destroys you, nothing drains your soul as much as killing. And I had had enough.
As Don Henley kept telling me, I wasn’t gettin’ no younger.
I crossed into Oregon as the sun hit noon. I crossed the Black Rock Desert at speed and stopped for a late lunch at Prineville. Then I took US Highway 26 toward Portland, and as evening began to close in, I started to climb, through ever denser pine forests, toward Mount Hood. Finally, at shortly before eleven that night, I stopped at Tanglewild, outside Seattle, because I liked the name, and booked into a Best Western for the night.
As I lay, staring at the dark ceiling, preparing myself for sleep, Independence, the Pioneer Inn and Abi seemed suddenly to be a very long way away.
* * *
Beacon Hill is not the most exciting place in Seattle. It is a dormitory for the people who work downtown and in the Eliot Bay area. There is nothing there but houses, thousands of them—not quite identical, but close enough—in endless, almost identical rows.
26th Avenue South was not hard to find. I came in on the I-5, followed Beacon Avenue north to South Orca and turned left into 26th. The house I was looking for was on the right, about halfway up, and about as boring and inconspicuous as Beacon Hill itself. I pulled up, climbed out and slammed the door. It echoed down a street with no people in it. I took a moment to look at the house. It was a red brick with very straight, modern lines and a path that wound up through a huge rockery, covered in pines and cypress trees. The path ended at a front porch that was more like a terrace.
I climbed the path, rang the bell and then hammered for good measure. The door was opened after a moment by a man I guessed was in his early sixties. He wore heavy, horn-rimmed glasses like the ones Michael Cain used to wear back when the world was young, and a gray cardigan like the one his grandfather used to wear before that. He had it buttoned up and I could see a pipe poking out of one of the pockets. He smiled at me and said, with a hint of reproof, “I came as fast as I could. Can I help you?”
I raised an eyebrow. “I hope so. I need an extension.”
“Oh, well then, you’d better come in. I’ll show you some drawings.”
I thanked him and he led me through a spartan, minimalist living room with a stone fireplace, furniture with bare, polished wooden legs, and five cats, to a kitchen in tubular metal and black and yellow Formica. A sixth cat followed us in and I saw six dishes on the floor with cat food in them. Each dish had a name, so I guess the cats could read. He waved a hand in their direction and said, “Don’t mind the gang. I was just about to make tea. Will you have some?”
“Thanks. I need to be on my way. I’d rather get down to business if you don’t mind.”
He gave a small, private smile as he prepared two mugs with tea bags. “How do you know you need to be on your way?” he said, then glanced over his shoulder as he switched on the kettle. “I haven’t given you your instructions yet. Sit down.”
I sat at the Formica table. He took a large manila envelope from on top of the toaster and dropped it in front of me. From the pocket that did not co
ntain his pipe he took a pair of latex gloves and pulled them on. Then he opened the envelope and extracted an ID card. He handed it to me.
“Do me a favor and get lots of fingerprints on that, would you? Nothing alerts the intelligence agencies like an ID card with just two fingerprints on it. You are Joseph O’Brien. I thought you had a bit of an Irish rogue look about you. You live in Chicago. Your job, address and other details are all in the envelope. None of it will stand up to close background checks, obviously, so try to avoid drawing attention to yourself. Here is your driving permit and a credit card for any expenses you may have to incur as Mr. O’Brien. Give them a good maul too. When you are done with them, burn them thoroughly.”
I looked at the two documents and the card, then up at Ernst. “What the hell is this? What do I need these for?”
“Don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger.” He said it into the envelope, fishing out a couple of sheets of A4, which he handed me. I looked at them. They were just biographical details that went with the ID documents. He went on, “Now, at twelve noon you will take your car to the SP Parking at First and Colombia. You will go to the very top floor and there you will meet an old friend of yours…”
“Who?”
“I have no idea. All I know is that he will be waiting there for you. He will deliver an uninteresting saloon car to you, and tell you what to do and where to go, so to speak. He will then take your own vehicle back to Boston.” He smiled. I didn’t. I had decided I didn’t like him.
“Who gave you these instructions?”
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t tell you because I don’t know.”
The kettle had stopped boiling, but he made no move to make tea. I guess he had decided he disliked me as much as I disliked him. I said, “Are we done?”
He nodded and waited. I took the documents and stood. “Thanks for the tea. Say goodbye to Mr. Tiddles for me.”
“Goodbye. Close the door on your way out.”
I made my way to my car, aware of him watching me from his window.
It was a short drive along Beacon Avenue and over Holgate Bridge, up to the Waterfront. All the way I was asking myself who the ‘old friend’ was that was going to meet me at the parking garage. I wondered briefly if it might be Marni or Gibbons, but I was pretty sure they were still in Oxford.
I arrived with a couple of hours to spare, but drove the Zombie to the top floor anyway. There were only a couple of other cars up there, a Ford Focus and a Dodge Charger. I climbed out and was immediately buffeted by the wind coming in off the bay. The view was spectacular and I took a moment to look out over the dark stretch of Puget Sound. When I turned to make my way to the elevators he was standing there behind me. I should have known it would be him. I smiled.
“Kenny.”
“Good morning, sir. I have your car. May I say what a pleasure it is to see you?”
I laughed out loud, partly at his old-world formality, and partly at the sheer, unexpected joy of seeing him. “It is a pleasure to see you, too, old friend. It’s been a long time, too long.”
“Indeed, sir. Almost two years. Rosalia sends her best wishes. You are missed at home…” For a moment I didn’t know what to say. I was overwhelmed by feelings that confused me. He must have sensed it because he smiled and held out a key. “It’s the Dodge, over there, sir, a nice V8. Miss Marni said to get something inconspicuous, but I thought you’d like something with a bit of grunt.”
“It’s a perfect choice.” I took the key and handed him the ones to the Zombie. Then I laughed again and slapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go and have coffee, Kenny, and you can tell me about Rosalia and the house… Has it really been two years?”
We rode down in the elevator and walked up to 3rd Avenue, where we found a café with tables in an internal patio. We ordered coffee and I sat watching the man who had been my father’s butler for two decades; who had in many ways been more of a father to me than Bob Walker ever had. He was now my butler, though it was hard for me to think of him as such, and since my father’s death I had barely set foot in the house. Listening to him now, filling me in on the state of the lawns and the gardens, of the woods, the house and Rosalia’s health (Rosalia—my surrogate mother—my cook!), I realized, almost with a sense of panic, that what he and Rosalia wanted most from me was for me to take my place in that house, and bring order back to their world. To fill my father’s shoes.
He fell silent and I realized he had finished his coffee and I had barely touched mine. He hesitated a moment, then said, “Miss Marni gave me a message for you, sir.”
“Yes,” I said. “I had almost forgotten. It has been so good to catch up…” Even as I said it I was aware that it was both true and hypocritical of me. Though I loved Kenny and Rosalia, every fiber of my being wanted to run from my father’s legacy, and they were a part of that legacy. And yet, I could have sat all day listening to him and his stories about rosebushes and the falcons that were nesting on the chimney pots.
“The message is, sir, that she wishes you to drive to Spokane, to leave the car in a side street there and to purchase, cash, a ticket on the Empire Builder, which I understand is a train, to Chicago. And, once there, to purchase a ticket to Washington, D.C., in the name of Joseph O’Brien. Again, she advises that the ticket should be bought cash. There is a room reserved for you, in the name of O’Brien, at the Hotel Hive, on F Street. It is a… um… modest establishment, but I do not believe you will be staying there very long. Today is Monday. On Wednesday evening, at six, you will be met in the bar by a gentleman. He will ask you how your extension is progressing, and you will inform him that it is a work in progress. He will then take you to meet somebody. I am afraid, sir, that I do not know whom you are to meet.”
I nodded for a long time. I was thinking that things wouldn’t even get started until Wednesday, but I had told Abi I’d be away a couple of days or a week. It was going to be considerably more than that. I sighed. “Thanks, Kenny.” I looked at my watch. “I guess we had better get going.”
On the way back to the parking garage Kenny said suddenly, “Sir, may I ask a question? Two, questions, in fact.”
“Of course, Kenny. Anything.”
“Can we…” He hesitated. “Can we expect you home at some point, sir?”
I smiled. It was a good question, and I wasn’t able to answer it until we were stepping out of the elevators onto the roof. I walked him to the Zombie and as he opened the door I said, “It’s a question I have been asking myself a lot lately, Kenny, and I’m beginning to think that the answer is yes. I don’t know when. Maybe I’ll know more after Wednesday.”
“That is good news, Rosalia will be very happy.”
“What’s your other question?”
“Will Miss Marni be with you?” I guess he saw by my face that there was no simple answer to that one, because before I could reply, he said, “Ah, I see, sir. Well, I’d best be getting back then. Perhaps we should leave a few minutes between my departure and yours. We’ll be hoping to hear from you in due course. Goodbye, sir.”
And with that, he climbed into the car and slipped silently away.
Two
The drive to Spokane should have taken six hours but it didn’t. The four wheel drive Dodge, with its V8 growl, is not a car for cruising or looking at the scenery. I hit the I-90, crossed the two bridges, and after Issaquah I was out of the city and burning rubber at 100 MPH, headed east in the afternoon sun. Both me and the Dodge were happy.
I arrived in Spokane at five PM, dropped the Dodge in a side street and, according to Kenny’s instructions, bought a one way ticket to Chicago on the Empire Builder. I discovered then that there was only one a day. It departed at twenty-five minutes past one in the morning and arrived in Chicago thirty-six hours later, at three fifty-five in the afternoon. It would have been faster by ten hours to drive, but I guess Marni, or Gibbons, was trying not to leave a trail. At some point, I figured, I might find out why.
Premium was ex
tortionate, but for once in my life I took a leaf out of my father’s book and went first class, because I got a room, a bed and food, all of which I was going to need. I called Abi from a pay phone and told her I was going to be at least a week, maybe two, but that I was more certain than ever that I was coming back. She was quiet, like she was trying to believe me, which made me wonder whether I believed myself. I was pretty sure I did, but I was also in uncharted territory. Family were things I had been running from as long as I could remember. Now, suddenly, I found I wanted to create both.
After I had hung up, I killed eight hours by getting lost in the city, buying a book, having an early dinner at a restaurant and then downing some drinks and watching TV in a late night bar. At one AM I made my way to the station and boarded the train.
The rest of the journey was a kind of interminable blur: the relentless rhythm of the train on the tracks, and the endless spectacular scenery of the north, interspersed with chapters from a futuristic dystopian thriller about a guy fighting an unwinnable war against an all-powerful organization that controlled world governments. I wondered if the author knew how close he was to the truth. But eventually, after thirty-six long hours, we arrived at Chicago, and I shoved the book in my bag.
From the railway station I took a cab direct to O’Hare and managed to get a seat on a flight departing that evening at seven forty-five, arriving at ten thirty. I called the hotel and told them I’d be arriving earlier than expected. I could have booked in at the airport Hilton, stayed the night and caught a morning flight, but it felt like I had been traveling all my life, and getting nowhere. Now I just wanted to arrive, get the job done and go home.
I finally climbed out of the cab at the Hotel Hive at just before midnight, sixty hours and three thousand miles from where I had started, with still no clear idea of what I was doing there, or when I would be able to go back to Independence, Abi, and the life I was trying to build. I checked in at reception and discovered that Marni had had the good sense to book me a king-sized attic. I rode the elevator up to my room, poured myself a large Bushmills and collapsed on the bed.