The Manolo Matrix

by Julie Kenner

  The back door opened onto an alley filled with the stench of rotten food and urine. They moved carefully toward the street, emerging from the dank wasteland of the alley to the vibrancy that was Times Square. They cut back over to Broadway and Devlin paused, considering their options. He didn’t like being tugged along on a string, impotent and at the mercy of some asshole who wanted to play a deadly game of cat and mouse. Over the last few weeks, he’d gotten used to the sensation of spinning out of control, of having no purchase on his life. Gotten used to it, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

  And this…well, this was different. This was fucked.

  And while part of him wanted to stand on the sidewalk, and yell for the s.o.b. to just take him out right then and there, the bigger part of him knew that he couldn’t do that. He had Jenn to consider. And if that meant that he was coming back to life—slowly defrosting—well, then that was something he’d have to deal with, too.

  He glanced over at Jenn, who was watching him curiously. “Well?” she said. “Where to?”

  “Here, I think. We’ll stay in Times Square for now.”

  “Why?”

  “Lots of people, and lots of hotels with decent evening security. Not great,” he added. “But decent.” He looked around, located the Marriott right across the street, and headed that direction. “Come on.”

  “ ‘If Memory serves,’ ” she said as they rode up the elevator to the lobby level. “What do we think that means?”

  “We’re talking about Broadway, so maybe an old show?”

  “Could be,” she said. “But what show? I’m not that familiar with the really old ones, not if they’re obscure. And are we talking only musicals? Or plays, too?”

  “I was only in musicals,” he said. “Got an offer for a play once, but turned it down. Musical theater was always my thing.”

  “Are you gay?”

  The question didn’t take him by surprise. That was just the nature of the business. “I’ll be happy to prove to you I’m not.”

  “Oh.” She completely avoided his eyes as her cheeks flushed even more.

  Devlin didn’t even bother to hide his grin. “I’m a rare breed. A heterosexual male who sings and dances on the Great White Way.”

  “Had to go and strap on a gun to prove your manhood, huh?”

  “Something like that,” he said, just to keep up the banter. In truth, it was nothing like that at all.

  “Maybe the reference to a knight has to do with Don Quixote?”

  “That would make sense,” he agreed.

  “Another song from Man of La Mancha? A lyric from ‘Knight of the Woeful Countenance?’ ”

  He started running the lyrics through his head. “Well, the Innkeeper sings the song. So maybe we’re looking for a hotel?”

  Jenn lifted her chin, hope in her eyes. “That’s good. That’s very smart!”

  He accepted the praise, but didn’t point out that he had no idea which hotel. “It also talks about the knight’s glorious deeds, and how he battles the villains.”

  “We’re battling villains, all right. But I don’t see how that helps us know where to look for the next clue.”

  “Me neither,” he admitted, as they stepped off the elevator and started toward the front desk.

  “And what about this memory serves crap?” Jenn asked. “Does that make any sense at all to you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Shit,” she said, and his heart broke just a little.

  He wasn’t exactly batting a thousand here, and he paused in the lobby, took her hand in his, and squeezed. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I promise.” The force of his words surprised even him. Because as he spoke, he realized that he meant it. He’d started on this path to help her out. Because that was the right thing to do. Because it was what he’d been trained to do. But quirky Jennifer Crane had gotten under his skin. He cared. And he kind of liked the way that felt.

  It wasn’t obligation anymore. It was personal.

  And God help any son-of-a-bitch who took a shot at the girl.

  Chapter

  28

  JENNIFER

  I had to admit he had the right idea about the hotel. I would have dragged us to some fleabag motel, something deep in Harlem, maybe. The kind of place that rented rooms by the hour, and where you didn’t sleep on the mattress because you didn’t want to bother the bedbugs.

  Instead, we ended up in the lap of luxury, complete with a linebacker-looking guy blocking the elevator bank and holding back any and all traffic that couldn’t produce a room key.

  I flashed ours, then pranced to the elevator button, enjoying the momentary high that came from building security. My mood was surprisingly light, a combination of being in a clean hotel with the illusion of safety, and Devlin’s promise that we’d get through this. He’d been lying, of course. But it had made me feel a lot better.

  It had also made me confident.

  We could through this. And, somehow, we would.

  “Crap security,” Devlin said as we waited for the elevator. “But better than nothing.”

  I deflated immediately. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

  “Sorry. But there are about a dozen easy ways our assassin could penetrate that security.”

  “And you now feel it necessary to recite each and every one to me?”

  “No. I was just thinking about them. Occupational hazard. We’re safe. I promise.” The elevator arrived, and we stepped on, Devlin moving immediately to push the button for the 43rd floor.

  Occupational hazard. I considered that. I spent my days humming show tunes. Mundane, maybe. But pleasant overall. What must it be like to look at murder and mayhem and drugs and criminals every day? Exhausting, I figured. And satisfying? I guess it must be. I mean, I knew my career was satisfying. My real career. The one I hadn’t officially started yet, but would soon.

  But Devlin had held that career in his hand. Hell, he had a freaking Tony award on his bookshelf. And if the buzz that came from working—starring—in musical theater could be matched by joining up with the FBI, well, then maybe I ought to turn in an application to my local field office.

  Or not.

  I frowned at my reflection in the mirror-lined elevator. There was only one job I wanted, and I was unreasonably pissed off that someone was stepping in and risking my dream. I could hardly open in the next Sondheim if I was dead.

  For that matter, I could hardly deliver a cheeseburger and fries if I was dead. And that happy thought made me remember my job. Which, as it turns out, was only a few blocks down the street.

  Proximity is a great purveyor of guilt, and all of a sudden, I felt a wallop. (The guilt was stupid, I know, but sometimes emotion is unreasonable.) I needed to call in for tomorrow because there was no way I was picking up my shift. And now with Brian cut loose from the wonderful world of food service there wasn’t anyone I could call to cover my hours. (I was not bitter, I was not bitter…)

  My boss was just going to have to improvise. Lord knows, I was getting the hang of it.

  With no effort at all, I pushed the problem aside. In the grand scheme of things, the current state of my employment was way low on the totem pole. At this moment in my life, frankly, nuclear holocaust, sexually transmitted diseases, and a takeover of high fashion by Sears were all low on my list of concerns.

  The only things flashing neon in my brain, in fact, were knights, Candide, Rome, and the rest of that goddamn ridiculous clue.

  The elevator door opened, and Devlin and I stepped out, got our bearings, and headed left toward the room. He slid the plastic key in and the door opened on the first try. I was impressed—those doors never work for me—and we stepped inside a clean room that looked like every other hotel room on the planet.

  It had one bed, a king-size, but at the moment, I wasn’t particularly concerned with the sleeping arrangements. (Which, frankly, goes to show you how much this who
le experience was messing with my head. Under normal circumstances, sleeping arrangements are tops of my list when I hook up with a cute guy.) Instead of sleeping, I planned on working, and so I dragged the floor lamp closer to the bed and turned the light on so that the bed was illuminated.

  “You really think we’re safe here?” I asked. “Mel told me that Lynx had some sort of tracking device. Maybe our assassin has one, too.”

  “I thought of that,” Devlin said. “But I stand by my decision. We can’t stay on the move and work out these clues. We need a base. And a large hotel works perfectly. Those devices don’t have pinpoint accuracy. There are at least a thousand rooms in here. He won’t find us.”

  “I think that makes me feel better,” I said, trying to block the image of an assassin wandering the halls in search of us.

  “And what would the device be in, anyway?” he asked. But he answered his own question. We both did, turning in unison to look at the bed, where he’d left the book laying on the spread.

  “Right,” he said. “I want to check the rest of the book for clues, anyway. I’ll look it over for electronic devices, too.”

  “Cool.” I sat on the edge of the bed and took off my shoes, then pulled the wad of cash out of the bottom of each. Devlin watched, his brows raised, as I tossed the bills onto the middle of the bed. “If that amuses you,” I said, “you’re going to love this.” And then I reached into my bra and pulled another wad out of each cup.

  Devlin’s mouth twitched. “I’m sure there’s an appropriate smart-ass remark to make at this point, but I’m not entirely sure what it is.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I won’t hold it against you.” I pointed to the cash. “Take some. We should both have a supply of cash and it’s your blood money anyway.”

  He nodded. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll take the bills that were in your bra, not your shoes.” He leered a little, but he almost laughed at the same time, and that sort of destroyed the effect. “Want to see where I’m going to hide the money?”

  “I don’t want to hear about your kinky fantasies,” I said primly. I pointed to the book. “Now get to work.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said, with just a hint of a chuckle.

  I shook my head in mock exasperation, then moved to sit at the desk as Devlin settled in to scour the book. I pulled my iPod out of my tote first, and set it to play the soundtrack to Into the Woods. It’s Sondheim, which means the lyrics are fast and fun and smart. Normally Sondheim draws my attention so much I can’t focus on anything else, but I know that show really well, and it made good background noise. Fast enough to keep me moving, familiar enough to keep me concentrating on the clue.

  As the Narrator started to set the story up, I opened the drawer, took out some hotel stationery, and broke the clue down into sections. By the time Cinderella was singing at the grave, I wasn’t even hearing the music anymore. Instead, I was annotating my notes. Here’s what I ended up with:

  If memory serves—Memory? The song?

  the answer is Practical-ly—“Practical”? A musical? A play? capital letter important? Hyphen important?

  on the knight’s production—man of la mancha (?)

  And will be found by following—a note to us??

  One Thing After Another—a title?? play? musical? Check web

  to the gathering place—??

  of the patroness of Candide—Candide = musical. But who’s the patroness?

  as she dances among the Italian canals—Venice?

  And of those who dine on the meal—????

  named by Morgan and Catiline—characters? Actors?

  Writers? (the “named” reference???)

  when they sat on The Love Set—another show? Check that

  and When [they were] In Rome.—right? Doesn’t [ ] mean to cut??

  I sat there, tapping my pen against the paper in time with “I Know Things Now,” going over my notes. Okay, if it is “Memory,” then what did that mean? I had no idea.

  Then again, maybe I did. Because “Memory” is the famous song from Cats. And Cats is based on T. S. Eliot’s collection of poetry called Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Which could be where the Practical-ly came from.

  Not bad deducing, if I do say so myself, and I was feeling pretty smug. Except, of course for the fact that I had no idea what any of that had to do with Man of La Mancha. Or what any of the last part of the clue meant.

  Frustrated, I switched off my iPod, then twisted around in my chair to watch Devlin, who was meticulously flipping pages, then examining each one for markings, tipped in notes, or messages scrawled in blood. “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Slow,” he said, looking up. “You?”

  “Not bad,” I said. “But not there yet. Can you think of any connection between Cats and Man of La Mancha?”

  “The theater?” he said. “I don’t know where La Mancha was staged, but that’s my best guess.”

  “Works for me,” I said, then pulled out my laptop once again. As soon as it booted up, I went to the Internet Broadway Database at www.ibdb.com. Not as well known as the movie database, but way more useful to a theater buff like me. There, I checked the theaters where Cats and La Mancha played. “No luck there,” I said. “Different theaters.”

  Since I was online, though, I checked One Thing After Another, The Love Set, and When in Rome. All plays. Old ones—from the twenties and thirties—which explained why I’d never heard of them before. Now that I’d become acquainted with them, though, I still didn’t know what to do with the information.

  I sighed. “I hate this. I can’t get a fucking clue.”

  Devlin came over behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, then looked down at the paper I’d been scratching my notes on. “Actually, you’ve got the fucking clue. You just can’t find the fucking answer.”

  I couldn’t help it. I’d been so certain he was going to offer me platitudes that when he didn’t—when he laid that smart-ass remark on me—I burst out laughing.

  “How about you?” I finally asked. “Did you check the spine? Any clues? Any electronic chips?”

  He picked up the book and showed me the slot between the leather binding and the bound pages. “Nothing there.”

  “You’re positive?”

  He didn’t even answer me that time, and I took that for a yes.

  “So, is this what it’s like? Working for the FBI, I mean.”

  “Can’t say I’ve investigated that many rare books,” he said. “And I’ve never once obtained evidence by resorting to sexy musical numbers.”

  “Yeah, I can see how that probably doesn’t come up too often.” I frowned and shook my head in mock despair. “Sounds like a pretty boring job, then.”

  “Terribly,” he said. “Tedious and dull.”

  “Really?”

  He shrugged. “A lot of the time, yeah. But the point is for the tedium to pay off.”

  “I can’t imagine trading the theater for tedium,” I said. Then I immediately backpedaled. “I mean, theater can be tedious, sure. Lighting checks and technical rehearsals and all that b.s., but the payoff…standing on that stage, drawing energy from the crowd. Don’t you miss that? How did you walk away from that?”

  “I didn’t,” he said.

  “You…what?”

  He laughed, low and soft. “What I mean, is I may have left theater, but I still have that rush. When the evidence pulls together, when you finally get to the heart of the case—well, that’s a rush more powerful than any I felt on stage.”

  “Really?”

  “I know it sounds hokey, but I like helping people. Flashing a badge and packing a gun’s not too bad either.” A shadow crossed his face, and I realized we’d taken this conversation a little too far.

  “So,” I said, trying to cover. “You really think the book’s okay?”

  A pause, but then he nodded slowly. “I’ll rip it apart page by page if you really want me to, but this book is intact. If there’s something
hidden inside, then someone would have had to rip it apart to put it there.”

  He had a point. “Okay. You’re right. We have the clue. Now we just have to find the answer.”

  He took my hand and squeezed. I held on, wishing I didn’t ever have to let go. “We’ll find it,” he said, and I have to admit, I liked his positive thinking.

  “Right,” I said. “I know. I just wish I knew what was supposed to happen today.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said, and I felt my eyebrows rise up behind my bangs. He grinned. “I mean it doesn’t matter because we’re going to stop it with plenty of time to spare. Okay?”

  I nodded. “Okay.” I stood up, then started to pack up my laptop. “We should get out of here.”

  “You know where we need to go?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t have any idea where the clue led, but I did know that I was supposed to be the protector. That was a part I was playing by ear, but I had a feeling my instincts were dead-on. No pun intended. “All I know is that we need to move.” I pointed to the bed, and the book that was still on it. “But the book stays here.”

  We’d paid for the room with cash—not a common thing these days, but since I’d foisted so much cash on the clerk, they really couldn’t argue.

  It was enough money, in fact, that I knew we were covered for a few days. So while Devlin looked at me like I was a nut-case, I wrapped the book in one of the hotel-provided laundry bags, dropped down to my belly, and crawled under the bed to inspect the setup. After a few seconds of that, I crawled back out, turned on my side, and peered up at him. “Got any string? Rubber bands? A belt you’re not using?”

  He stared at me, head cocked, a completely perplexed expression on a face that I was becoming quite fond of.

  “Never mind,” I said. “The laundry bag has a drawstring.” I took my bundle, unwrapped it, tugged the cotton drawstring out, then wrapped the book tight again in the bag. And then, with Devlin staring at me like I was a loon, I inched back under the bed. This time, I made a little sling, using the drawstring hooked around one of the metal slats that held the boxspring in place. I tied the book into the sling, tightened it up so that it would stay nice and firm, then shimmied back out.