Liar's Market

by Taylor Smith

  “Yeah, I don’t like the look of these Almond Joys, either,” Carrie said, mock soberly, as she pulled a couple of bars out of the bag.

  Jonah rolled his eyes. “You guys can have some. I’ve got tons. Hey, Sam? Race you!” he shrieked in delight.

  The two boys took off at a gallop up to the next house on their route.

  “Slow down,” Carrie called after them. “And don’t forget to say thank you.”

  “We won’t,” came the chorused reply.

  She tore the wrapper off the end of the chocolate bar and stuffed the paper into the pocket of her down jacket. She was wearing a heavy wool green turtleneck and jeans under it, a multi-hued knit scarf knotted around her neck and long johns under her jeans and boots. A killing frost had settled over the city, and her wispy breath was making ice crystals in her loose hair.

  “Man, one more block, and then I think I’m going to rein these guys in,” she said. “I’m freezing.”

  “You’ve got that thin California blood,” Tengwall said. “I grew up in North Dakota. This is nothing.”

  “Yeah, I’m a total wuss, no doubt about it.”

  They walked along a little farther, watching the parade of small witches and wizards, princesses and superheroes on the street—as well as some of the oversize characters who were starting to emerge from the nearby campus. There were students dressed as knights and nuns, pimps and Playboy Bunnies, as well as a variety of handmade costumes that had obviously been put together from odds and ends in assorted dorm rooms. One fellow was a bulletin board, decked out entirely in paper flyers. Another in an advanced party spirit was walking down the middle of the street wearing jeans and a T-shirt to which were pinned dozens of fuzzy yellow stuffed Easter chicks. The T-shirt had two words emblazoned across the front: CHICK MAGNET.

  Across the street, a group of elaborately costumed adults was streaming up the sidewalks of a large, brightly lit home with loud music spilling out its open windows. A young D.C. Metropolitan cop stood on the doorstep, handing out what Carrie guessed would be the first of multiple warnings about noise levels. It was going to be a long night for law enforcement.

  Under the lamplight at the corner, a tall man was dressed as the Phantom of the Opera, in a long, red-lined black cape, wide fedora and a gleaming white mask bisecting his face. He seemed to be watching them, but when he spotted Carrie looking back, he spun on his heel, cape swirling, and started up the drive toward the party.

  Carrie’s heart began to pound. “Brianne? See that guy across the road? He looks like Drum.”

  “Which one? Where?”

  “The one in the Phantom costume, heading up the walk. His gait is identical to Drum’s.”

  The Phantom mounted the steps, and paused at the door, joining the conversation for a moment before the cop waved him through. A moment later, the music turned down, the cop came back down the sidewalk and drove off in his cruiser.

  Carrie exhaled heavily. “I guess it was just my imagination.”

  “I’m telling you, Carrie, he’s gone. You can relax.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” She frowned at the younger woman. “So, anyway, you’re leaving us? Jonah will be sorry to see you go.”

  “I won’t be far away. Maybe I can drop by to see him. I really like the little guy.”

  “He really likes you.”

  Tengwall hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this.”

  Carrie nodded. “Me, too, believe me.” She waved to Jonah and Sam. “Hey, guys, it’s getting late and I think you’ve got enough candy there to last you until next Halloween.”

  They grumbled, but turned back, peering in their bags and pulling out sustenance for the walk home.

  After they got back to Sam’s house, Jonah and Sam spread their loot out on the floor to let Carrie and Sam’s mother sift through it, removing anything with an open wrapper or that looked in any way dicey. Then, Carrie and Jonah said goodnight and headed back next door with Tengwall. It was a happy little boy she tucked into bed—after he’d brushed his teeth under very close scrutiny.

  “That was so much fun, Mom!” he breathed happily. “I wish every day was Halloween.”

  She snuggled beside him on his narrow bed, breathing in his soapy, chocolatey scent. “If every day was Halloween, it would get boring. It’s having it just once a year makes it special.”

  “I’d like to get candy every day. That wouldn’t be boring.”

  “Sure it would—boring as those peas you never want to eat. I’d have to say, ‘Jonah, eat your Snickers bars, or no spinach for dessert,’ and you’d say, ‘Mo-om! Do I have to’?”

  He rolled on his side sleepily and pulled the covers up under his chin. “We should try it and see. Could I have jelly beans for breakfast?”

  “In your dreams,” she said, kissing him. “Go to sleep, doofus.”

  He grinned and closed his eyes. “Night, Mom.”

  “Night, sweetie. I love you.”

  She lay with him for a few minutes, humming softly, savoring the quiet. Thinking how different this was from those long colicky nights when he was a baby and she’d walked him up and down the floor for hours, wondering what she’d done wrong to produce such an unhappy infant. Now, she couldn’t imagine what she’d done right to have been blessed with such a lovable son.

  At the faint sound of murmuring downstairs, she rolled gently away from his sleeping form and headed for the door, switching off the lamp as she went. Tucker must have shown up for the night watch. She was losing track of which one of them was on duty when—although from what Tengwall had told her, maybe she and Jonah would soon be left on their own, at long last. It couldn’t come a moment too soon. She could no longer remember what it was like to have a life that didn’t include the perpetual presence of suspicious eyes.

  And yet, by the end, these people had become familiar and almost comfortable—especially Huxley, she admitted, feeling a small ache that she had no business indulging. Their lives were on different paths. Those paths might have briefly intersected, but she wanted no more of the world to which Huxley and the rest of them belonged.

  Been there, done that. No, thanks.

  Down in the library, though, was proof that if Carrie was done with treachery, it wasn’t done with her.

  She saw Tengwall standing with her back to the open door, talking to someone on the far side of the room, out of her line of sight.

  “I was going to make her some tea,” she said. “I thought we agreed that was the best way to handle it.”

  “Handle what?” Carrie said, stepping into the library.

  Tengwall spun around, her blond ponytail flying, her gaze leaping from Carrie to the desk, then back again. When Carrie saw who it was sitting at the desk, she froze, her heart leaping into her throat. “Drum,” she breathed.

  He rose to his feet. His silver hair was slicked back and there was a white half-face mask lying on the desk next to a broad-brimmed fedora, and a red-lined cape tossed over the back of the chair.

  He followed her gaze to the costume, then smiled. “Yup, that was me in the street. You almost had me there, Carrie. Fortunately, there were so many people at that party that no one thought anything strange in one more costumed stranger walking into the place. It’s what I always used to tell you—if you carry yourself like you belong, nobody questions your right to go anywhere you want. Takes a little confidence—” he punched a fist lightly in the air “—but it can be done.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked coldly.

  “I came for my son.”

  She backed up into the doorway. “No way. No bloody way. He’s staying with me.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “This wasn’t how it was going to go, Drum,” Tengwall protested. “I could have brought Jonah to you once she was out. You shouldn’t even be in the streets. She recognized you. Somebody else might, too.”

  “That’s sweet of you to be concerned, honey.” He came around the desk an
d put a hand to her cheek, smiling. “But I changed my mind. I didn’t want to leave this all on your shoulders. It didn’t seem fair. The traffic is wicked out there tonight. It makes more sense for us to do this together.”

  “You’re in on this, Brianne?” Carrie asked. “How could you? Isn’t it obvious the man’s a total snake?”

  “No, he’s not. You don’t understand, Carrie. He didn’t do what they said. And,” she added, “I love him.”

  “Good God. He was your hot date the other night? How long have you been seeing him?”

  “A couple of months. I admit, I was ready to turn him in when he first showed up. But after he explained what happened, I knew I had to help him.”

  “What happened?” Carrie repeated. “What happened is that he betrayed his country. You know that.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Drum said. “I would never do that. You should know better, Carrie. I’m a MacNeil. MacNeils aren’t traitors. My family has served this country for generations.”

  “Unbelievable,” Carrie said, shaking her head as she backed out the door. She had to get to a phone. She had to keep him away from Jonah.

  “Carrie, don’t make me play the heavy,” he warned. “Come in here and sit down and let me explain.”

  “You need to leave right now, Drum.”

  “I can’t do that. Now, get back in here and sit down, dammit.” This time, he pulled a gun out of his pocket and aimed it at her for emphasis.

  Carrie froze for a moment, racking her brain, trying to think what to do. He had a silencer on the gun, but the streets were so loud with revelers it wouldn’t matter how much noise they made, no one would hear anything. Except Jonah, maybe. And the last thing she wanted was for him to walk in on this.

  She moved back into the library and settled on the table near the fireplace. “So now what happens?” she asked. “You shoot me? That’s a great way to make it up to your son for being a lousy father. God, this is so typical of you, Drum. And you, Brianne. You’re every bit as dumb as I was. Don’t you see what’s going on? He uses women. Do you think he’s going to walk off into the sunset with you and live happily ever after? Get real. He needs you now, but how long do you think it’ll be before he moves on to greener pastures. He’ll dump you, or start cheating on you, the ways he’s cheated on me—and on his first wife. How did that go, by the way, Drum? How did Theresa really die?”

  “She drowned. You know that.”

  “After ingesting alcohol and tranquilizers. Is that what was going to happen to me, too? That’s what Brianne meant about making tea for me?”

  “Nobody’s going to hurt you, Carrie,” Tengwall said. “He just wants his son. You can understand that.”

  Carrie gave her a scathing look. “No, Brianne, I take it back. You’re much dumber than I was if you can’t see what he’s got planned here.”

  Drum stepped between them. “Brianne, you need to go upstairs and get that bag over there packed with a few things for Jonah. I’ll be right up, and I’ll help you carry him down. Would you do that for me?”

  “Drum, are you sure—”

  “It’s going to be fine. I’ll just talk to Carrie, and then we’ll be off. Go on now. Scoot!”

  Tengwall moved away, reluctantly. He watched her gather up a duffle bag by the door and head out. Then, Drum turned back to Carrie. “It’s not what you think. I am not a traitor. I’ve been set up, but with this much suspicion hanging over me, there’s no way I’ll ever clear myself now. And frankly, I can’t be bothered, anyway. I’ve had enough of the business. I’m ready to retire.”

  “You mortgaged the house out from under your mother. And you forged a letter to my broker and tried to steal my money.”

  “The house is mine, Carrie. I can do what I want with it.”

  “And my money?”

  “Well, that, I admit, was a little over the top. But I had to do it, once I realized how bad things were, and that they were going to try to pin this bogus espionage rap on me. You’ll be all right. You’re young and bright and beautiful. You’ll find someone else. I hear there’s an MI-6 character sniffing around. That’s great. You liked England, didn’t you? You’ll be fine, Carrie, but I need—”

  Three loud bumps sounded from the front hall, like a punching bag being bounced down the stairs. The first thought that occurred to Carrie was that Tengwall had tried to carry Jonah down by herself and dropped him. Drum must have thought the same thing, because he bounded for the door.

  Carrie was right behind him, but she paused just long enough to grab the heavy brass pestle out of the mortar sitting in the low table, sticking it up the sleeve of her oversize sweater. Tracy’s mother had bought the mortar and pestle in an antique market in Marrakech. It was a kitchen utensil, really, but the mortar had a crack in it, so Mrs. Overturf had polished it up to use as an attractive paperweight in the library instead. As weapons went, a blackjack in her sleeve was better than nothing, she decided.

  In the front hall, they found not Jonah but Tengwall collapsed on the staircase. Carrie came around Drum to get a better look, and saw the young woman’s head draped over the landing, a trickle of blood beginning to pool next to it.

  Carrie clamped a hand over her mouth as a freezing draft washed over her. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to find a large man just inside the open front door, his right arm raised. It held an automatic weapon fitted out with a silencer. He was big, like Tucker, but this man wasn’t bald. Rather, he had thick black hair, a heavy moustache and a couple of days worth of stubble on his swarthy cheeks. He was wearing a black leather jacket over a blue shirt and brown corduroy pants.

  He pivoted in one smooth movement and pointed the gun at Drum. “You will drop your weapon, please,” he said in heavily accented English.

  Another voice, this one familiar, piped up behind him. “I would do what he says if I were you.” Coming through the vestibule door, his cheeks ruddy, his brown eyes bright, was Tom Bent.

  “Bent,” Drum said grimly. “I should have guessed.”

  “Your weapon, Mr. MacNeil,” the brawny one repeated.

  Drum tossed it over onto the hall rug, and Tom crouched down and retrieved it. He stuck it into the left pocket of his overcoat, then reached over to the right side and fished around that pocket until he found what he was looking for. Another weapon, also silenced.

  “Tom, what’s going on here?” Carrie asked. “Who is this?” She wanted to feel relieved that help was at hand, but it was small comfort, with Tengwall bleeding profusely, quite possibly dying on the staircase.

  “This fellow’s name is Markov,” Tom said. “Sergei Markov, and he works for me, don’t you, Sergei?”

  The big bruiser nodded, while Carrie tried to remember where she’d heard that name before.

  “But,” Tom added, “there’s really no need for you to remember his name.”

  A sharp hiss of air sounded, and Markov’s free hand flew to his chest like someone with a sudden, severe case of heartburn. He looked down, apparently stunned to see a field of red suddenly blooming on the front of his shirt. And then, his knees buckled and he dropped forward like a stone. As the man fell, Tom managed to retrieve the gun that slipped from his failing hand. When Markov hit the carpet, Carrie saw a small hole in the back of his leather jacket, its edges still smoking. The smell of gunpowder in the air bit at her nostrils.

  “Tom!” she cried. “What did you do that for?”

  “I’m cleaning up loose ends, darlin’. This man’s a nasty piece of work—a hired assassin. Look what he did to poor Miss Tengwall there. This is also the fellow who tried to shoot you in London.”

  Carrie nodded slowly. “That’s right. Huxley said a man named Markov had been identified as the shooter from last April.”

  “I hear Drum here hired him to kill you,” Tom said, “only Markov botched the job.”

  “That’s a damn lie, Tom,” Drum said indignantly. “Carrie, I didn’t, I swear. That’s what I mean. You see? They’re
trying to pin this all on me.”

  “It’s on you, Drummond,” Tom said. “The jig, as they say, is well and truly up. You tried to have Carrie killed. And poor Alex Lee in Hong Kong? They’re saying you threw her off her balcony—and on her birthday, no less.”

  “But I didn’t! You know I didn’t. I told you I was going to stop off in Rome on the way to that Delhi conference to see Francesca.”

  “Who’s Francesca?” Carrie asked, and then answered her own question. “Oh, my God, Francesca Gambini, the Italian ambassador’s wife? Who was always sending over wine from her father’s vineyard? Godammit, Drum, you were screwing her, too?”

  But Drum was shaking his head in disbelief, staring at Tom. “You were the one who did this to me. Christ, Tom, how long have we been friends? I even shared Alex with you, and—”

  Tom’s face contorted. “You shared her with me,” he sneered. “So magnanimous. Crumbs from the table of the great Drummond MacNeil.”

  “Oh, hell, now I see,” Drum said. “You killed her, and then set me up to take the fall. And I thought you were trying to help when you warned me CIA Security was taking a hard look at me. He was the one who called me in a panic that last morning when I took off at the mall, Carrie. He was my friend, he said, he had a backup car waiting to take me to cover while everything got straightened out.”

  “If you’d had nothing to hide, Drummond, you’d have had no reason to be rattled.”

  “Everybody has something to hide, Tom. A little fudging on expense accounts, a couple of under-the-table deals—”

  “Keeping mistresses on the Company’s tab, making payments to non-existent informants, trading in black-market currency,” Tom added, head shaking. “You just kept digging yourself in deeper and deeper.” He turned to Carrie. “I hate to say this, darlin’, but this man you married is smooth but not real bright. The more rattled he got, the more stupid mistakes he made, until he just ended up looking so sleazy that the security folks were ready to believe anything about him—including that he compromised operations.”

  “But I don’t understand,” Carrie said. “I was told that operations really were damaged. They said people were betrayed and killed because secret intelligence had been sold. Information that could only have come through the London Station Chief. That was Drum.”