Never Trust A Lady

by Kathleen Creighton

  And that was the next thing he had to find out. Who in the hell was this Jane Carlysle? Watching the slick way she’d neutralized Campbell during the bidding, he’d figured her to be a player for sure. After seeing her up close, talking to her, he’d thought, okay, not one of the bad guys-CIA, maybe. Even, God forbid, the FBI. He’d been thinking maybe it was time for a little team effort, a limited pooling of resources. As long as the good guys won, right?

  Now, though, after seeing her with Campbell, he was beginning to consider a whole new possibility. One that made the bad taste at the back of his throat even more bitter. What if Jane Carlysle was exactly who and what she appeared to be-an innocent antiques lover who just happened to have fallen in love with that particular painting? What if-jeez, stranger things had happened-Campbell really had fainted? Sure wouldn’t be the first time an innocent had gotten caught in the crossfire of someone else’s war…

  Enough. The grimace with which he banished that thought was more of annoyance than pain. God, he wanted a cigarette.

  The young woman at the reception desk looked up as he approached, elegant eyebrows arched in welcome. “Yes, sir, may I help you?”

  Hawk glanced at his watch and made his smile as charming as he knew how. “Sorry to bother you, but I wonder if you can tell me-I think this is where I’m supposed to meet my wife. She called me this morning-major crisis-apparently she’d gone off without her credit cards.”

  The woman laughed in mock dismay. “Ooh, a real disaster.”

  Hawk did his lopsided smile again, accompanying it with a chuckle. “For me it’s more of a disaster when she has ’em. Anyway, I don’t seem to be able to locate her.”

  “Have you taken a look inside? Perhaps she’s gone back to the auction.”

  Hawk nodded. “I checked a while ago. Didn’t see her, but it’s a pretty big crowd. I wonder, would you mind checking her registration card for me? Just to make sure she’s checked in.”

  “Certainly. Name?”

  “Carlysle-Jane.”

  “Carlysle…let’s see…how is that spelled?”

  Hawk’s heart lurched. Shoot. Well, hell, he had a fifty-fifty chance. He had his mouth open to take a stab at it when the woman said, “Oh, yes, here it is. Jane Carlysle-from Cooper’s Mill?”

  Hawk exhaled and put the smile back on. “That’s the one.”

  The receptionist plucked the card from the file and placed it on the desk in front of her. Hawk tried not to crane too obviously. “Well, according to this, your wife plans to pay for any purchases by check.”

  “My wife? Can’t be! Let me see that…” And as he’d been certain she would, the receptionist obligingly turned the card around. He leaned over and gazed at it long enough to commit Jane Cartyste‘s-with a Y-North Carolina driver’s license to memory, then straightened with a sigh. “That’s her, all right. Well. I guess I’d better find her and see what she wants to do. Maybe she’s already paid up and gone. Is that possible?”

  “For that, you’d have to check with the office-that’s through the auditorium, door to the, um, right of the stage. She’d need to pay for her purchases there, then pick them up in holding. That’s in the backstage delivery area-there’s a loading dock there, for large items. I suppose your wife might have gone out that way, if you-”

  Hawk muttered. “Thanks, I’ll check,” as he turned away. He pushed through the auditorium doors on a surge of adrenaline, nerves already kicking in to full battle readiness. He was pretty sure he knew now where Campbell had been going in such a hurry.

  “Look. there he is again,” Jane said in a loud whisper, tightening her grip on the shopping bag containing her precious Roy Rogers cap pistol as if she expected an imminent mugging. “The man I told you about, the one who was bidding against me, the one who tried to-to bribe me.”

  Connie’s slightly protuberant blue eyes glittered dangerously. She shifted, moving closer to Jane, her stocky body lending unspoken support. “Yes, yes, I see him. Never mind, dear, stand fast, don’t let him intimidate you. You won the battle, fair and square.”

  “Right,” said Jane, breathing through her nose. She watched, hovering anxiously, while a Rathskeller’s employee carefully wrapped the painting of the ballroom dancers in layers and layers of brown paper. It was the last of the lot, thank God. Connie’s purchases-and there had been a good many of them-had already been loaded into her van, which was conveniently parked near the foot of the loading ramp.

  It was there that Jane had spotted the ubiquitous Mr. Campbell, leaning against the fender of an anonymous black sedan, arms folded and ankles crossed, seemingly oblivious to the cold and wet. Watching. Waiting.

  Jane shivered and turned her back to him. “I wish he’d just give it up,” she said crossly to Connie as she accepted her wrapped parcel from the young employee. “I’ve already made it perfectly clear to him that I’ve no intention whatsoever of selling this painting. I love this painting. You know, people like that seem to think they can have anything they want if they just pay enough money. He gives me the creeps-oh!” Turning with the painting in her hands, she’d clumsily barged right into someone. “Oh-I’m so sorry. Please excuse me, I…” And then she stopped, bemused, completely forgetting what it was she’d meant to say.

  “We meet again,” Tom Hawkins said with a smile.

  Well, okay, so it wasn’t much of a smile-a lopsided quirk of the lips that didn’t soften the forbidding terrain of the rest of his face one iota. She found it oddly endearing. “Mr. Hawkins,” she breathed, her own smile blossoming without reservation. “Tell me, did you ever find your friend?”

  He gave his head a rueful waggle. “The girl at the front desk suggested I try back here, but…” His shrug had the same elusive charm as his smile. “I don’t see her anywhere, so I guess I must have missed her. Oh, well…”

  “I’m sorry,” said Jane, which was a bald-faced lie.

  “Me, too.” He gave another little c’est la vie shrug, then, as if suddenly remembering his manners, stepped forward to take the paper-wrapped parcel from her. “Here, let me give you a hand with that. Where are you ladies parked?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Connie in her iciest and most dismissive upper-crust British.

  It was a tone designed to give frostbite to a penguin, but its effect on Tom Hawkins seemed to be quite the reverse. By no stretch could the smile he turned on Connie be considered rueful or lopsided. And it did affect the terrain of his face-all of it. It touched his features like the sun coming up on an Arctic landscape, squinting his eyes and lighting his skin with color and warmth. Jane didn’t know about Connie, but her own reaction to that smile was about the same as if she’d taken a slug of Canadian whiskey, neat.

  “Thanks,” she gasped over the beginnings of Connie’s protest. “That’s very kind of you.” She edged around her friend with a whispered, “It’s okay,” and fell into step with the man, who was already starting down the ramp with her burden.

  “That’s us right there, the dark blue van.” She waited while he wedged the painting into the back of the van. She surrendered the bag containing her Roy Rogers cap pistol when he turned to ask for it. When he had tucked that away, as well, she heard herself witlessly babbling profuse thanks, saw herself poking out her hand with a lamentable lack of grace, realized that she was as out of breath as if she’d been the one doing all the toting and lifting.

  “My pleasure-glad I could help.” Without the smile, his face was once more grave and careworn, though not so forbidding, perhaps, as she’d first considered it. And his handshake was firm, and very warm.

  “Anything else to go in here? No?” He slammed the van’s doors, tested them to make certain they were closed properly, then nodded politely to Connie, who was protectively hovering. “There you go, you’re all set. You ladies drive carefully now.” With a brief nod to Jane, he turned and started back up the loading ramp. Halfway up, she saw him pause to light a cigarette, hunching over his cupped hands to shelter agains
t the drizzle.

  “Who was that?” Connie demanded as she turned the key in the van’s ignition, her tone sharp and battle-ready.

  Jane chuckled, and realized at once how artificial it sounded. How exhilarated she felt-but that was just from the cold, wasn’t it? And so breathless-which was easily explained, especially at her age, by the ordinary bustle and fuss of settling in and buckling up. Oh, but she had found that man attractive-and what was wrong with that? It had been a long time since she’d felt that particular buzz, and she’d damn well enjoyed it.

  “A man I ran into in the lobby,” she said in a bright and casual tone that was as fake as her smile. “He was waiting for a girlfriend, I rather imagine. It doesn’t look as though he’s made connections yet.” With patent insincerity, she added, “Poor guy.”

  “Well, one can’t be too careful,” Connie said as she edged the van out of the line of parked cars. “These days, you never know.”

  Chapter 3

  Hawk tucked his lighter away and continued up the ramp without looking back. He didn’t need to look to know that the blue van was pulling away from the curb, or that the man named Campbell was already behind the wheel of his black rental sedan, set to follow. He’d be doing the same, of course, when the time was right, and in the meantime, he wasn’t concerned about losing sight of the van. The small electronic device he’d planted on the top edge of the back door would make the vehicle easy enough to locate.

  In the shelter of the loading bay’s overhang he lingered a while to smoke his cigarette, to any interested observer just a poor nicotine addict enjoying his fix. But while he waited for the calming effects of the drug to take the edge off his adrenaline high, his eyes were busy scanning the parking lot and nearby streets and alleyways. When he was satisfied that no one else besides Campbell was taking any particular interest in the two middle-aged ladies in the dark blue van, he drew on his cigarette one last time and dropped it to the concrete, squinting against a lingering tail of smoke as he ground the stub beneath the toe of his shoe.

  He dusted his hands together, then shoved them into the pockets of his charcoal-gray overcoat and moved to the steps, moving quickly now and with purpose, taking the short way to the parking lot. God, he could still feel the tingle. Feel it in the palms of his hands, feel it crawling all the way up his arms and across his shoulders, along the back of his neck and into his scalp. As he’d felt it a few days ago outside Loizeau’s shop in Marseilles, and again just moments ago, holding that damn painting in his own two hands. The tingle of excitement. The thrill of the game.

  As he zigzagged his way through the busy parking lot, in a midafternoon gloom that was only partly mitigated by the premature illumination of mercury vapor lamps, it occurred to him that he might be in danger of becoming addicted to the tingle.

  And why not? Why not, when it was one of the few real pleasures he allowed himself these days. No risk of emotional involvement attached, a helluva lot safer than sex and probably only marginally more hazardous to his health than cigarettes or booze.

  Besides, holding that painting, knowing what was hidden inside it-hell, it would give any man a thrill to realize that right there in his hands was the key to the future of civilization as we know it, the beginnings of the next holocaust, the fate of millions of innocent lives. Wouldn’t it?

  But Tom Hawkins acknowledged and accepted the truth about the man he’d become, which was that the wildfire racing along all his nerves hadn’t been ignited by any of those things. No…he knew that what he’d felt, standing in the rain with that painting in his hands, was more like what a fighter feels with the throat of a vanquished foe pulsing in his grasp. The elation of a poker player who’s just been dealt a pat hand. The emotion that had surged through him then was the same one that fills the breast of the chess champion just before he utters the words, “Checkmate.”

  No…for a man to think about the fate of children and nations at such a time, he would first have to care about those things. But Hawk had learned the hard way that caring bears a terrible price. And that it was one he no longer cared to pay.

  He spotted his rental car in the next row over, went straight to the trunk, unlocked it and took out his briefcase. He tucked it under his arm while he relocked the trunk and let himself into the car, then placed it carefully on the seat beside him until he’d gotten himself settled in behind the wheel and relocked the doors.

  After a quick but thorough check of all neighboring vehicles, he punched in a number combination and opened the briefcase. Inside was a smaller case that resembled a laptop computer. This Hawk turned toward him, flipped up the screen and began to touch keys. When he had the monitor screen green and glowing, he selected a disk from a small assortment in his briefcase and inserted it in the laptop. A moment later a map of eastern Virginia appeared on the screen. A few minor manipulations gave him Arlington and its environs. Close enough, for now. He marked his own waypoint, then sat back and lit a cigarette while he studied the screen through narrowed eyes.

  Generally speaking, Hawk disliked high-tech toys, especially anything that relied too heavily on computers. It was his firm belief that they couldn’t be trusted. Also that they were short on flexibility and utterly lacking in imagination and loyalty. He wouldn’t like to have to count on one in a crisis. The Global Positioning System was an exception, probably because he’d had one on his boat for a good many years now and had gotten used to it. These days, he considered a GPS unit an indispensable modern convenience, rather like a microwave oven.

  But he still knew how to boil water the old-fashioned way, if it came to that.

  The rapidly changing numbers on the LCD screen told him that the van was still moving, albeit slowly. He glanced at his watch. Rush hour-small wonder. No need to follow just yet.

  He turned on the car’s engine, adjusted the heater and ran the windows down a crack to let out his smoke, then took the cellular phone from its box in the center console and punched in a number he knew by heart. While he waited for the connection, he parked his cigarette between his lips and reached inside his coat, searching for the small piece of paper he’d tucked away in his shirt pocket.

  He was squinting at it when a familiar, French-accented voice snarled in his ear. “Interpol-Devore.”

  “Hawk, here. I’m on the cellular. Better scramble.”

  There was a short pause before the U.S. bureau chief spoke again, with tension crackling in every syllable. “Go ahead. Have you got it?”

  Hawk chuckled, though no one hearing it would have mistaken the sound for humor. “Not yet. Working on it. Listen, I need for you to call in a favor from our friends at Quantico.” He paused, smiling darkly to himself, for Devore’s rumble of discontent; there was nothing one law enforcement agency hated more than having to ask another one for help-especially when one or the other was the FBI. “Don’t worry, it’s just a little one. I need anything you can turn up for me on a Jane Carlysle-that’s Carlysle with a ‘y’ and an ‘s’-address, Cooper’s Mill, North Carolina.”

  He read off the driver’s-license number he’d scrawled on the back of one of his bank deposit slips, waited until Devore gave it back to him, then rolled the paper into a slender tube and held it to the glowing end of his cigarette. He watched it sprout flame while he listened to Devore’s inevitable questions-questions he didn’t have any answers for. Yet.

  “Hold on a sec,” he said, interrupting Devore in midsentence, and dropped the burning paper into the car’s ashtray. “Time to go. I’ll get back to you.” He’d just observed that the coordinates on the GPS monitor screen had remained unchanged for a significant length of time, which meant, in all probability, that the blue van had reached its destination. He broke the connection on Devore’s tinny protest, stashed the phone in its box more abruptly than was probably good for a delicate piece of electronic equipment and reached across it to tap keys on the laptop.

  When he had the van’s location pinpointed on his street map, he sat back with an audible
“Huh!” of surprise. He didn’t need to look up the address in his directory; it was one he knew well. He’d stayed in that hotel himself, a time or two. Had a nice view of the river, the tidal basin and the Washington Monument. In a few weeks, when the cherry trees were in full bloom, it would be downright spectacular.

  And what the hell, he wondered, were those two women doing back in the middle of town? It didn’t make sense. If he’d just gotten his hands on one of the most devastating and sought-after pieces of information since the A-bomb blueprints, he’d be hightailing it out of town with the goods as fast as he could.

  The more he thought about it, the more he had to wonder about the Carlysle woman’s role in all this. In fact, he couldn’t get the woman out of his mind. As he backed out of the parking space and circled the lot to the exit, nosed into traffic and set a course toward the Potomac, her name played in his memory like a phrase from a song, a bit of melody sung in her own gentle voice: “Hi, I’m Jane Carlysle.” He saw her face floating above his head like a loopy white cartoon balloon.

  The weirdest thing was, he could still recall the way she smelled. It wasn’t even anything he could put a name to-not a particular scent, or a certain brand of perfume, but rather an elusive combination of things, like soap and bath powder, deodorant and hand lotion and shampoo, a smell that was uniquely her own, and at the same time achingly familiar to him. It had come wafting out of his past, from the depths of forbidden memory, calling to mind not just a particular woman, but a particular kind of woman.