by Gordon Cope
“It’s pointless to run; you can’t get off the island,” said Arundel.
“Just get moving,” ordered Kenyon. “I don’t have all day.”
Arundel stopped in the kitchen and fished through a drawer.
“What the hell are you doing?” asked Kenyon.
Arundel pulled out a cork screw. “I noticed some excellent Montrachet down there,” he replied. “Seeing as how we could be locked up for several hours . . .”
Kenyon shooed him down the stairs, then locked the door.
The agent leaned against the doorway. This can’t be happening to me, he thought. The horror at being accused kept alternating with the shock of being Lydia’s son. It was all too insane.
Kenyon placed the pole axe onto the kitchen counter. He leaned against the door for a second, wondering what to do next, willing himself to think clearly. He knew the cops would find the entrance to Señora Santucci’s apartment any second. He had to get out of there.
All he was wearing was a pair of shorts and a sweaty T-shirt. Where was his wallet? He knew it was in his jacket, but where had he hung it the night before? He glanced down the hallway and saw it hanging on the deacon’s bench by the front door. He hurried down the hall, grabbed the coat, remembering to leave his cell phone behind so they couldn’t use it to trace him. He grabbed a ballcap and headed for the front porch.
“Stop right there.”
Kenyon turned. Special Agent in Charge Marge Gonelli was standing at the turn of the stairs. Her shoulders visibly sagged from the long airplane journey from San Francisco.
“Marge,” said Kenyon, taking a step toward her.
“Don’t move,” she ordered. “You’re under arrest.”
“Marge, I haven’t done anything.”
Gonelli stared grimly at the agent. “Not according to Deaver.”
“None of what Deaver says is true,” said Kenyon. “You have to believe me.”
“What I believe is unimportant,” replied Gonelli.
“Oh, yes it is,” said Kenyon, squaring his shoulders. “Because if you honestly think I did any of this, Marge, then I have no one on Earth to prove my innocence except me.”
Kenyon tucked the jacket under his arm and turned toward the open front door. He paused, but there was no response.
He walked slowly down the front steps to the sidewalk.
Still, nothing.
He reached the sidewalk and turned toward Cromwell Road.
Then Jack Kenyon, fugitive, ran as hard as he could.
Twenty-seven
Kenyon reached the end of the street and rounded the corner onto Cromwell Road. He figured he only had a few minutes before Gonelli let Arundel and his men out of the basement. They would immediately mount a pursuit.
He trotted west on Cromwell until he came to a busy intersection. He tried to flag down a cab, but they all drove by. Any second, a cop could appear around the corner.
Kenyon spotted an underground station. He sprinted across the street and into the dark entrance of the building.
He came to a stop inside and groaned aloud. The entrance to the trains was through a row of turnstiles, and two guards stood behind the barrier to ensure nobody hopped over.
A large crowd of students waited in line in front of the ticket office. Kenyon pulled out his wallet and walked up to the front of the line. “Kid, here’s five pounds to let me butt in line.”
“Que?”
Kenyon uttered a silent curse. The student was Spanish. He waved the note in the student’s face. “Uh, esta cinco dinero para primero,” he said, in his broken Spanish. “Hokay?”
The student smiled. “For ten, senor, si!”
Kenyon pulled out another bill and moved to the open ticket wicket. “That’ll be five pound sixty for a day pass, love,” said the clerk.
Kenyon paid and received a pink cardboard ticket. Glancing over his shoulder, he spotted the tall, rounded hat of a bobby entering the station. Bending over, he fumbled with the turnstile until it took his ticket. He rushed forward, but the turnstile refused to operate.
“Hoy, you,” said the underground guard, pointing to Kenyon.
Kenyon froze.
“You got to take your ticket back out, mate.”
Kenyon suddenly realized that his ticket was protruding from a different slot. He nodded to the guard and pulled it out. The turnstile clicked over, letting him through.
Without looking behind, he joined a large group of passengers getting onto an elevator. Just as he entered the enclosed space, he glanced up. A security camera stared balefully down at his face. He pulled down his ballcap, hustled inside the elevator and descended with the rest of the passengers.
The elevator stopped deep in the bowels of the earth and disgorged the passengers. Kenyon was carried along down a tunnel to the Piccadilly line platform where the crowd split into two: east and westbound. A train was standing at the eastbound platform. Kenyon rushed to an open door and pushed his way on board. He breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed behind him and the train accelerated into the dark tunnel.
Kenyon stood near the door, his tall frame nearly scraping the rounded roof of the car. He glanced around, careful to keep his cap pulled down. Most of the passengers were either tourists with daypacks or commuters reading their newspapers. They swayed on straps as the car bucked and squeaked down the ancient tracks.
The next station was South Kensington. Kenyon peered at the route map on the wall above the windows. He was heading toward the center of town. He tried to do some quick calculations. One of the first places the cops would look for him would be the underground. They would check the security tapes at the nearest station, but he estimated he had at least half an hour before the cops on patrol would have a picture or description. That gave him twenty minutes, or about five stops of the underground.
Kenyon was all too aware that he was still wearing his jogging shorts and 49er’s T-shirt. The jacket in his hand was dark blue, but it had an FBI insignia on the breast pocket. Might as well paint a bullseye, he thought to himself.
Three young men carrying bags from Harrod’s got on at the next stop. One of them was wearing a Gap ballcap. He turned to his friend, who was wearing a Virginia Tech sweater, and poked him in the ribs. “Hey, Mel, tell Joe what the clerk said to you in the dressing room.”
“I’d be dee-lighted to measure your inseam, love,” Mel mimicked the clerk in a falsetto accent. “Man, I almost decked that fruit.” They all laughed uproariously.
Kenyon looked at Mel. He was tall, with a crop of dark hair and a midwestern accent. He was ten years younger than the agent, but the resemblance was close enough.
“Excuse me,” said Kenyon. “You boys go to Virginia Tech?”
“Yessir,” said the one in the Gap cap. “We’re criminology undergrads.”
Kenyon pointed to Mel’s sweater. “I’m going to meet my brother for his birthday, and he just loves the Hokies,” he said.
The trio swelled with pride. “This year, we’re going to win the Sugar Bowl,” said Mel. All three whooped.
“I hope they do,” said Kenyon, grinning. “Phil was going to go to Virginia Tech; that was, before the leukemia got him.”
The three young men suddenly sobered. “Hey, I’m sorry to hear,” said Mel.
“It’s all right,” said Kenyon. “The doctors here say he’s going to be fine.” Kenyon looked at Mel. “I didn’t have time to buy Phil a birthday present, but you know, he’d love a Virginia Tech sweater. It would just make his day.”
Mel didn’t need a second hint. He put down his Harrod’s bag and pulled his sweater over his head. “You give this to your brother, and you tell him Mel wishes he gets better soon,” said the student.
“Hey, that’s great,” said Kenyon, taking the sweater. “Phil’s gonna just love it. But let me give you something.” Kenyon offered his FBI jacket. “Here, take this.”
Mel’s eyes went wide. “Is this for real?” he asked.
“One hu
ndred percent,” said Kenyon.
“Oh, man, the guys in criminology are gonna go nuts when they see this.”
“Go ahead, try it on,” said Kenyon.
Mel eagerly pulled the jacket on. “Fits perfect,” he said, beaming.
The kid with the Gap hat glanced up as the train began to slow. “Hey, Leicester Square,” he said. “This is our stop.”
“You guys take care,” said Kenyon, as they disembarked.
The agent waited until they had disappeared into the crowd, then slipped off the train and pulled on the Virginia Tech sweater. He tossed his ballcap onto a bench, and smoothed down his hair. He felt remorse at misleading Mel and his friends, but he was desperate.
A series of escalators carried the passengers up from the platform. Kenyon was careful to keep at least a hundred feet behind the students, wary of being spotted.
The station for Leicester Square was crowded with commuters and tourists trying to get in and out. Kenyon’s heart plunged when he spotted two cops at each exit, carefully scanning the faces of people as they left.
Damn, thought Kenyon. Arundel had already got the word out. He stepped to one side to buy a cheap pair of sunglasses from a kiosk, hoping they wouldn’t recognize him. It was a faint hope, but it was all that he could think of.
For the first time that day, Kenyon’s luck took a turn for the better. As the three students reached the first exit, a bobby spotted the FBI jacket and grabbed his whistle. An ear-piercing shriek filled the air, and the other policemen came running. They pounced upon the unsuspecting student and wrestled him to the ground, along with his friends.
Kenyon felt terrible, but he knew it would make a hell of a story for their criminology classmates when they returned to the States. He said a silent thank you to the students, and fled up the unguarded exit.
As soon as he reached the sunshine at street level, Kenyon headed for Leicester Square. The pedestrian mall was crammed with tourists. The agent blended into the crowd, standing behind a fat man taking pictures of buskers with a video camera and an “I’m with Stupid” T-shirt.
Rather than watch the buskers, however, Kenyon scanned the crowd. He didn’t spot any uniformed police, but he knew that Scotland Yard would have plainclothes in the crowd watching for pickpockets. He slowly made his way to the edge of the crowd, leaving Leicester Square and headed north, into Chinatown. Kenyon was surprised at the tiny size of the Asian neighborhood. Considering that London had almost ten million people, the oriental stalls and grocery stores only stretched for two blocks.
Kenyon continued north through Chinatown into Soho. The district was lined with theaters showing various plays. What had Arundel said? Why not take time out and go see a mystery. Kenyon laughed at the irony of that one. The theater district in Soho quickly gave way to the porno district, with Triple-X shops and nudie shows lining the streets.
As Kenyon walked past the Pussycat Exotic Show, a black man dressed in a gold vest stepped in his way. “We got gorgeous girls, we got well-hung lads,” he said. “Come on sport, give it a go.”
Kenyon was about to step around the tout and keep walking when he spotted a police car parked at the end of the street. He quickly ducked into the entrance. The foyer of the Pussycat was decorated in black velvet and a filthy red carpet. He paid his money to the bored ticket clerk and headed into the theater.
From what Kenyon could see in the gloom, the theater had once been an elegant music hall, but twenty years of skin shows had covered the walls in grime. As he sat down on a rickety bench, he noticed needles and condoms littered underneath. The only other people near him were a group of kids in raggedy clothes with spiked hair and they looked too stoned to even notice him.
The agent glanced at his watch. He had been on the lam for less than an hour. He figured he was safe for the next few minutes, but then what? Should he just turn himself in, he wondered? But he realized that if he was in jail, there’d be no way he would ever be able to figure out who was trying to frame him.
Kenyon thought back, trying to remember what Deaver and Arundel had said before he fled. Something about the e-mail he had received. It was too convenient. Kenyon had to agree. It was a great way to cover up the theft of the Cyberworm virus and build an alibi at the same time. The agent had to give his grudging admiration. Whoever had thought it up had done an excellent job of painting Kenyon into a corner.
What else had Deaver talked about? The stuff about the copy of Techno 69. They wanted it, and badly. What was so important about the forgery?
The question made his head ache. Kenyon was thirsty and tired. He had to find some cover to rest. He considered renting a hotel room, but he didn’t have enough money for even one night. He couldn’t go to the gallery; that would be the first place they’d stake out.
Kenyon thought for a fleeting moment about Tanya O’Neill, but he quickly dismissed the idea. Offering him sanctuary from the police was a felony, and she had a career in law at stake.
What about Happy Harry? No, Kenyon was certain that Arundel had the cabby under surveillance. One false move and he’d land in jail for aiding and abetting.
Who did that leave? Nobody.
No, wait. There was somebody. Kenyon pulled out his wallet and dug through it until he found the card he was looking for: Hadrian deWolfe. The art appraiser had been a good friend of Lydia’s. Would he help her son? The agent hated to ask such a risky favor of someone he hardly knew, but there was nowhere else to turn.
Kenyon returned to the foyer and found a phone booth. He went inside and closed the door, then dug out some change and dialed the number on the business card.
“DeWolfe here,” said the art appraiser.
“Hadrian, it’s me, Jack.”
DeWolfe picked up the urgency in his voice. “What is it, Jack?”
“Listen, I’m in a lot of trouble. I hate to ask for your help, but there’s no one else I can turn to.”
The art appraiser didn’t hesitate. “Whatever it is, you can count on me. Where are you?”
Kenyon breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m in central London, at the Pussycat Erotic Show,” said the agent.
“I know where that is,” said deWolfe. “It will take me fifteen minutes to get there—wait in the audience until I arrive.”
“Will do,” said Kenyon. “And one other thing.”
“What?”
“Thanks.”
“No need to thank me,” said deWolfe, sounding pleased.
Thank God there’s some people you can count on, thought Kenyon. He hung up the phone and headed back to his seat.
Twenty-eight
The show began just as Kenyon sat down. To the pounding of recorded rock music, a blond woman dressed in a schoolgirl’s outfit wandered onto the stage, seemingly lost. The stage had been decorated in purple plush velvet curtains. A fireman’s pole had been set up to one side, and a large, round bed dominated the center of the stage.
Kenyon leaned back in the bench and stared ahead, his eyes unfocused. He thought about the fact that Lydia was his mother. For the first time, his strange life started to make sense.
Kenyon knew that Lydia had come to London to study in the late 1970s. She would have been young, probably only twenty or so. For a small town girl from Montana, it must have been like another planet.
Suddenly, a large black man dressed in fireman’s pants slid down the pole and landed at the blond girl’s feet. He pulled down his pants to reveal a large, throbbing erection. The schoolgirl screamed in apparent fright.
Kenyon tried to picture a young woman with long, straight hair and chinos running into some British rock star in stovepipe jeans and a leather vest. Kenyon barked a short, loud laugh that made the stoned kids glance his way. For all he knew, his father could be Joe Cocker.
By now, the schoolgirl had gotten over her fright and was sucking the fireman’s cock with great relish. He, in turn, pulled down her chemise to reveal an impressive set of breasts. He picked her up and flung her onto the bed.
It didn’t matter a bit who the father was, thought Kenyon, Cyrus must have hit the roof when his daughter came home pregnant. An abortion would have been legal, but that wouldn’t have mattered to Cyrus and Daisy: they were God-fearing fundamentalists. They would have ordered Lydia to have Jack, then arranged to formally adopt their daughter’s bastard.
After that, guessed Kenyon, the old tyrant tossed his mother out on her ear, ordering Lydia never to darken his door again.
A second man, dressed in a Santa suit, came out and ripped off the schoolgirl’s skirt. He and the fireman then took turns screwing her doggy-style.
How could Lydia abandon him just like that? Never a visit, never a card, never even a phone call. Maybe she just wanted to forget he ever existed. The thought filled his heart with sadness.
The agent glanced at his watch. What if deWolfe decided not to show? What if he called the police? The agent couldn’t stand waiting any longer. He arose and went to the front door of the Pussycat, glancing out to see if the coast was clear.
Just then, deWolfe’s car appeared, pulling up in front of the entrance. Abandoning caution, Kenyon sprinted over and hopped into the passenger side.
“Sorry about the delay, the traffic was dreadful,” said deWolfe. He pulled away from the curb.
“Listen, I really want to thank you,” said Kenyon, his heart pounding. “You don’t even know what trouble I’m in.”
“Tell me,” said deWolfe.
“The police think I murdered Lydia and stole a military secret.”
The driver glanced at his passenger askance. “Did you?”
“No. I’m being framed.”
DeWolfe squared himself against the wheel. “Then I think you owe me an explanation,” he said. “Now.”
Kenyon didn’t know where to start. “There’s this computer virus called Cyberworm. Somebody tried to steal it in San Francisco. Only they set it up so it looked like I was the one stealing it.”
“That’s terrible,” said deWolfe.
“It gets worse,” said Kenyon. “The code to the computer virus was here in England. The police think I tried to steal it. Somehow, they think that fake Techno 69 has something to do with it.”