Frankie Aguirre and Art Jefferson - 03 - Simple Simon

by Ryne Douglas Pearson

  Simon was up and at the dresser before Art’s revelation had run its course. He came back and sat next to Art, a black plastic cassette cradled in both hands.

  “Daddy’s gonna sing.”

  Well, it wasn’t an answer Art had been looking for, but he was damn glad to have stumbled upon it. It meant sleep for he and Anne, and, more importantly, it meant a measure of peace for Simon.

  But first, there were more questions.

  Art took the cassette and put The Tinkery in Simon’s hands, open to the KIWI page, as he was thinking of it now. “When you saw this, what did you do?”

  Simon saw the puzzle, and the words inside the letters and numbers, and Mommy was in the kitchen, and he got up from Daddy’s chair, and…

  “I know how to call someone.”

  “Did you call the number in here?”

  The number. Number. Simon’s brain played with that for a moment. There were so many possibilities with any number. But his friend Art was asking about calling. Calling. Pressing the buttons with numbers on them. That was calling. Calling had numbers.

  “I called that number.”

  Okay. Okay. “Where were you when you called?”

  “Mommy was making dinner, and I had hot chocolate.”

  Not the exact answer, but something nonetheless, telling Art that Jean Lynch was alive when her son called this number. This was all before Mike Bell came into their lives.

  “You were downstairs,” Art said.

  “Downstairs.”

  There was only one phone downstairs, Art knew. In the living room. About ten feet from a dark stain on the floor.

  He had no choice, and carefully led Simon down the stairs and into the darkened living room, keeping himself between the kid and the horrific landmarks on the hardwood floor.

  At the table where the phone rested, Simon stood and stared at the device. Art picked up the phone. It was still connected, the dial tone humming. He put the phone to Simon’s ear and held The Tinkery where the moonlight could hit the KIWI page. “Can you see the number, Simon?”

  Simon saw the number, and the words. Together they told him to do something, just like before. He straightened a single finger and began to press numbers on the phone. He was calling someone. Again.

  Art bent forward and kept his ear close to the handset, listening for an answer. It came after one ring.

  “Hi,” a voice answered with strained enthusiasm. “You’ve reached the puzzle center…”

  Before Simon could respond, or the person at the other end go on, Art took the handset and put it to the side of his face. “I’m calling about puzzle ninety-nine.”

  Silence, mostly, from the other end. Art thought maybe a muffled quick breath also.

  “Hello,” Art said.

  “Uh…”

  “Who is this?” Art asked.

  “Uh… You…puzzle ninety nine?”

  A little too surprised, Art thought. Okay. Let’s shake ‘em up. “This is Special Agent Art Jefferson, FBI. Who am I speaking to?”

  Click.

  Art kept the phone to his ear, listening as the dial tone followed, and hung up after a moment.

  Well, well, well. He asked himself where that call might have been answered. Placing Bell and KIWI into the equation, he could easily hazard a guess.

  “We called someone,” Simon said.

  Art looked to him, putting a big hand on the bony shoulder. “We sure did.”

  The sound erupting suddenly in the dead quiet of the Lynch’s living room sent a short-lived shudder through Art. He took the ringing cell phone from inside his jacket.

  “Jefferson.”

  “Art. It’s Bob.”

  Squeezing Simon’s shoulder softly, Art said, “What’s up?”

  The pause before Lomax answered was oddly uncharacteristic, and Art picked up on it instantly.

  “You’d better come home, Art.”

  Come home… ANNE! “Bob, what is it? Is Anne all right? What’s wrong?”

  “Anne’s…all right. But, Art, there’s…a problem”

  “A problem?” What the hell was Lomax talking about? “Are you at my house?”

  “Yes, along with Breem and a dozen or so of Pete Kasvakis’s fellas.”

  “What?” Art reacted.

  “Just come home. We’ll straighten this out.”

  “Straighten what out? Dammit, Bob, put Anne on. I want to talk to her.”

  There was a muffled discussion at the other end, which Art could not make out through the hand that was obviously covering the mouthpiece. Then…

  “Art? Babe?”

  “Anne? What’s going on?”

  “Art, there are a bunch of men here. With guns. They broke in and said they have warrants to arrest us.”

  Art’s hand slid off Simon’s shoulder and balled into a fist at his side. “Arrest us. You included?”

  “They have handcuffs on me right now.”

  Instinct drew Art’s gaze to the rough oval of dried blood a few feet distant, then to the body of the phone on the table, and finally to Simon, who stood in blissful silence, rocking ever so slightly next to him.

  “Breem is there?”

  “Yes. Art, what is going on?”

  Jaw muscles flexed, and Art said as calmly as he could, “Put Bob back on.”

  More muffled talk, then, “Art, where are you?”

  “What is this, Bob? What am I supposed to have done that Breem would want to arrest me and Anne?”

  “Art, they found bank accounts. One overseas with Anne’s maiden name on it and full of money from one of Fiorello’s accounts.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “I know it is. But there’s more, Art. A lot of stuff that makes you look guilty just because it exists.”

  “It doesn’t exist.”

  “I know, but I’ve seen the account records. They’re there.”

  “Then someone put them there,” Art said, invoking the defense of those with no defense. A setup.

  “Where are you?”

  Art looked around the room. It seemed suddenly smaller than a few minutes earlier. Why set me up?

  The fist thumping against his leg brushed the small arm next to him, and a hand came to his, wiggling its way between the clenched fingers, relaxing them, until it was comfortably in his palm.

  The Tinkery blazed white in the moonlight where it lay on the phone table.

  Simon squeezed his hand.

  Lomax pressed the question.

  This is the puzzle center…

  Mike Bell hit Simon. Mike Bell had a page of KIWI ciphertext reading ‘I know kiwi’.

  Simon can decipher KIWI.

  Mike Bell once worked for the NSA.

  The NSA developed KIWI.

  KIWI is unbreakable.

  Simon knows KIWI.

  They wanted Simon.

  They still want Simon.

  Art’s brain waded through the pieces. Placed together it was a clear picture. He knew that neither he nor Anne had done anything wrong. It had to be a setup. And who would want to set him up, to get him out of the way?

  Who wanted Simon?

  “Bob, this isn’t what it looks like,” Art said. He knew, though, that if he said any more he’d sound like a man with guilt at his core. The unbelievable could not explain the impossible. It had to be made believable first.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m sorry, Bob.” Oh, God, Anne… How can I let her… “I can’t tell you.”

  “Art.”

  “Tell Anne everything will be all right. I’ll figure this out.”

  “Art! Don’t do it this way.”

  “Bob, if you believe me, follow your own advice. Look at the holes. This is a big one and you know it.”

  “Art.”

  The line clicked off.

  * * *

  “Well?” Breem asked.

  Lomax hung his head. When it came up he threw the U.S. Attorney’s cell phone at the wall, breaking a vase in the proces
s.

  “Hey!” Breem protested angrily.

  Lomax afforded him just a brief glance, then said to Anne, “Sorry about the vase.”

  One of Kasvakis’s men came hurriedly in, interrupting the heated moment. “We got a cell hit.”

  Kasvakis and Breem looked at the slip of paper the Deputy Marshal held out.

  Anne caught Lomax’s eye. “Bob, is Simon all right?”

  “Simon?” Breem asked. “Who’s Simon?”

  “That’s the Lynch kid,” Kasvakis recalled aloud, turning to Breem and adding, “His parents were killed last week.” The U.S. Attorney’s blank stare requested more information. Kasvakis gave it with an edge. “Chrissakes, Breem, don’t you read the intel attached to your warrants? Under ‘Occupants’?”

  Breem looked to Anne. “This Simon is with your husband?” Then to Lomax. “Now he has a hostage.”

  “Art is running the investigation of his parents’ murder,” Lomax explained.

  “Was,” Breem corrected.

  The Deputy Marshal that brought word of the cell hit now had the warrant out and was flipping through the attached information. “Hey, look at this.”

  Kasvakis did first, Breem joining him a second later, peeling his eyes from Anne and Lomax.

  “The cell hit,” the Deputy Marshal said, pointing. “The repeater that bounced the call is here. And look where the Lynch house is.”

  Breem looked instantly to Kasvakis. “Get there. Fast.”

  “We’re an hour away.”

  “Get someone there! NOW!”

  With an apologetic glance at Lomax, Kasvakis left through the front door.

  “Bob?” Anne said, her eyes pleading, for an answer, for a solution, for anything that would end this.

  “Anne—”

  But Breem cut him off, saying to the Deputy Marshal guarding her, “Get her out of here.”

  The man helped Anne to her feet, carefully, gently, lest the FBI agent with the scar lay one on him like he looked he wished he could do. Anne’s eyes trailed back toward Lomax as she was led out of her house.

  “So help me, Breem, if anything happens to her…”

  The threat from the Chicago SAC amused Breem. “You’re in no position to make threats.”

  Lomax took two steps forward, making Breem back up one until his back was against the wall under the stairs. “I’m not the one you’ll have to worry about.”

  Breem felt Lomax’s hot breath on his face, then the bigger man turned for the door. “He’s finished, Lomax!”

  With a slight, confident shake of his head, Lomax said, mostly to himself as he trotted down the steps from the porch, “Not by a long shot.”

  * * *

  The sheer curtains that hung in the front windows of the Lynch household glowed in the bath of pale lunar light. At one window that looked out onto the porch, the curtain moved aside.

  Art stared out into the street, at the Volvo parked at the curb. He wasn’t a praying man, but his eyes angled up as he asked, “God, what am I going to do.”

  From behind, Simon said, “God is up, up, up!”

  “Yeah. Yeah, he is.”

  But they were there, feet on the ground, and in the worst spot Art figured he’d ever been in. Others had been tight, but he’d always been a good guy in those.

  You are still a good guy.

  The one line pep talk, true as it might be, brought little comfort. Someone had painted him a bad guy, and he had to make that right, and he had to see that whoever was doing this didn’t succeed. Didn’t get what they wanted. Didn’t get Simon.

  And then there was Anne, the mere thought of her in handcuffs twisting a knot in his gut.

  Not now. Focus. She’s strong. She’ll understand. He looked to Simon, who was sitting in a big chair next to the window, his face sideways against the headrest. Anne would do the same thing.

  Art put his hand out to Simon, and a second later the little hand was in it.

  The knot in his stomach disappeared. There would be time for anger. Plenty of time, he assured himself, and for sure there would be targets for it.

  But later. For now, he had to think. Like the professional he was. And like others he had come to know.

  * * *

  The Chicago Police Department cruiser closest to 2564 Vincent approached the house with its lights blacked out just minutes after their dispatch center put out the call. The passenger officer had his gun out before his partner stopped two houses away. They both saw the silver Volvo parked in front.

  The driver, after opening his door and taking cover in its V, lifted his radio from its place on his belt. “The car’s here. Where’s our backup?”

  A minute later the first backup arrived from the opposite direction, then three more cars within five minutes. In ten minutes there were thirty officers on the scene and they had a perimeter set up around the house.

  After trying to make phone contact for twenty minutes, the senior officer on the scene ordered his men to approach the house. Receiving no resistance, they entered through an open back door and checked the house from top to bottom. It was empty.

  So was, they discovered, the garage.

  * * *

  He hadn’t hot-wired a car in fifteen years, but considering Martin Lynch’s Ford pickup was about that old, Art was able to get it to turn over with only a few shocks to his fingertips.

  With the tank halfway between E and F, he drove slowly away from the area, knowing he would have to find someplace for them to stay for the night. Knowing that he could not use his credit cards, or his ATM card, or go to a friend, or, he was beginning to believe, lift a phone from its cradle. Maybe he was being paranoid, but someone with power had decided that his life was expendable. All because of the kid sitting close to him on the truck’s bench seat.

  Simon laid his head on Art’s shoulder, twisting his nose toward the seatback. He sniffed. “Daddy,” he said.

  Art patted Simon’s leg and noticed that Martin Lynch had done one thing to bring his aged vehicle into the future. A radio poked from the center of the dash. In it, a tape player. Art took the cassette from his pocket and slid it in. It began to play.

  “Wander boy, wander far…”

  Simon snuggled closer to Art.

  “Wander to the farthest star…”

  Art drove on, the song playing, tearing holes in his heart, but putting Simon fast asleep in nothing flat.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Offers, Favors, and Worries

  Precisely at ten in the morning, G. Nicholas Kudrow crossed the Beach Drive bridge over Rock Creek on foot and turned left toward Miller Cabin and a gathering of benches nearby. The sun was out and stealing the bite from the morning chill, and as he strolled he could see that a woman seated on one bench was staring at the rising ball of yellow, sunglasses black against her brown face.

  When he was close enough he saw that her nails were painted blue.

  Keiko Kimura looked briefly at the stranger as he took a seat on the bench adjacent to hers, the sculpted metal armrests of each separating them. An older man, she saw, at least older than she, with features so plain that they could become agonizingly boring in short order. And the eyes. She didn’t care for the eyes at all. Even through the tint of his glasses she could see that they were little more than immature olives lost among folds of pale skin.

  He was not the man she was waiting for, thankfully, but he smiled at her. A prelude, she just knew, to some banal comment offered as a friendly greeting, leading to a one-sided conversation she would escape from only when her American contact arrived.

  Her young American contact, long hair, economical frame, and all accessories included. And off-limits.

  But she could fantasize. That, no silly alliance of convenience could deny her.

  “A beautiful morning,” Kudrow said, eyes admiring the mare of a Park Police officer slow trotting aside the horse trail.

  Keiko angled her face away from the man, hoping he would get the hint. That want died as
he stood from his bench and moved himself to hers.

  “He’s not coming, I have to tell you,” Kudrow said, smiling as the eyes behind the glasses twitched his way.