Parallel Lies

by Ridley Pearson

  The e-mail notification chime rang on the computer. McClaren leaned over the keyboard and liked what he saw.

  Alvarez slipped the box into his front pocket. McClaren caught this out of the corner of his eye. “You be careful of those switches. First the toggle, then five seconds, then the button. You’ll have ten minutes exactly, from the time you push the button. You can’t stop it. And if that magnetic connection is broken, she’ll blow as well.”

  “Got it,” Alvarez declared.

  “Get out of here.”

  Alvarez wanted his boots back. He wanted away from there. McClaren would take his own head off someday—a bad wire, a missed switch.

  Ten minutes later he was walking the streets of New York, a box of undetectable explosives in his pocket. He had work to do on the computer board he was assembling, and he needed the final details of the bullet train test run. He intended one last derailment as a diversion before the bullet train. There was much to do.

  If he threw those two switches, the box in his pocket would blow, taking his own life, along with a couple dozen pedestrians.

  New York. What a city.

  CHAPTER 8

  Riding a bicycle uptown on Madison Avenue in December, Alvarez both sweated and shivered as he kept his eye on the cell phone antenna on the black Town Car he was following. He pedaled hard at times, managing to stay within a half block of the car, grateful for New York’s bumper-to-bumper evening traffic. The fact that she was riding in a Town Car confirmed for him that this was a business trip. When Daddy sent for her, it was always a stretch limousine, sometimes, an extended stretch. Never a Town Car.

  After five hours of sleep he’d left his loft apartment with a feeling of destiny swelling in his chest. McClaren’s box could help him to roll the bullet train; this woman, and her secrets, could cripple William Goheen. He had designed it as a one-two punch, and so he followed her, intent on gaining access.

  He’d stopped at St. Bart’s Church, lit three candles—one for each of his departed—and said prayers for thirty minutes before taking confession, where he had informed the father only that he had “a bad thing” planned, and though he would not seek forgiveness, nor absolution, that it relieved him to speak of it even in the abstract. The priest had given him twenty-five Hail Marys and some scripture in St. John to review, small penance for the deeds to come.

  The bike was a brutal choice in this weather but a useful tool given that there was no cab driver to remember his face. A bicycle could jump a sidewalk and head the wrong way down a one-way street or quickly switch lanes in almost any traffic. At red lights, he could jump off and cross with pedestrians. On the streets of New York, a bike was the vehicle of choice for surveillance.

  The Town Car turned right on 64th Street.

  Alvarez followed, pedaling hard and pulling closer. That was another plus: cabbies and limo drivers paid little attention to such cockroaches in their rearview mirrors. Bike riders were nonpeople.

  Alvarez caught sight of the back of her head through the Town Car’s rear window—blonde hair tonight, her own, not a wig, parted so that one side fell to her ear, the other to her neck. Always a different look. Always provocative. She could get a man’s juices going from fifty yards. Always just enough makeup to conceal her real face. If she had been a spy instead of a call girl, she could have brought down governments. As it was, she brought down Japanese businessmen—brought them down to their knees, begging, as they volunteered fifteen hundred dollars an hour.

  Alvarez needed a name and a phone number. The two hundred dollars in the pocket of his jeans was for the driver of the Town Car.

  Upper East Side, the city’s old-money neighborhood—her John had to be some tycoon or dot-com dad here on a business trip; the Japanese favored the hotels near Times Square.

  This was only the third time he’d followed her like this. The first had been a black-tie affair, and he’d thought she was simply attending, not working—but he’d stayed with her after the event. Her two-hour visit to the Essex House, the somewhat shaky gait to her wide-legged walk as she’d left the hotel, picked up there by the same Town Car and delivered to her doorstep, had suggested otherwise. The second time the same car again was involved; she was delivered to a Japanese half her height and twice her age. All doubt disappeared.

  Stopped behind the Town Car at Park, waiting for a light, he briefly glanced back at the line of traffic, propelled by a nagging, nervous feeling. He mentally clicked off images of the string of cars behind him, including two city cabs, a Mercedes coupe, a Lexus SUV, a light blue four-door that had seen better days, and a green Ford Taurus.

  The traffic light changed to green.

  The Town Car turned onto 63rd and pulled over in front of a small luxury hotel, the Powell, where a uniformed doorman came around and opened the door for the stunning young woman. She carried an oversized purse—no telling what sex toys might lie inside. The doorman held the hotel’s door open for her and sized her up as she passed. Alvarez marked the time: 10:09 P.M. The Town Car waited out traffic and then backed up to claim a parking space—a rarity in this neighborhood. To check if he’d been followed, Alvarez circled the block and came back up 63rd.

  He walked the bike up the sidewalk on the west side of Park and rounded the corner, back onto 63rd, the Powell’s flags a half block ahead. He stopped, leaned against a wall, and studied each and every car in sight. Although there were plenty of cabs to confuse him, he didn’t see the Lexus, nor the Mercedes, nor any of the others he had registered when that sense of dread had hit him at the stoplight. Convinced he was okay, he walked the bike up the sidewalk, preparing himself for the bribe he had in mind.

  The Town Car was empty. The driver apparently had been given time off. Alvarez cursed himself for being so paranoid. He had wasted several minutes circling and scouting 63rd. Now he would have to wait for the driver’s return.

  He glanced up and down the block, searching for a place to light. The narrow street, lined with immaculately maintained four-story brownstones that were fronted by high wrought-iron fences, spoke of the wealth and privilege of the Upper East Side. Opposing rows of mature maple trees, their bare branches like delicate pen-and-ink drawings, offered an overhead canopy. An old man with a stoop walked his Dalmatian. An elegantly dressed couple strolled arm in arm, chatting privately; she carried Prada while he wore a cashmere overcoat.

  The Lake House, a restaurant attached to the Powell, offered an opportunity, but Alvarez didn’t want to risk that the woman might be flirting at the bar with her client. He couldn’t afford to be seen by her. He spotted another restaurant directly across the street. It appeared crowded but worth a try. He walked the bike across, slipping between car bumpers, and chained it to an ALTERNATE PARKING signpost. He shed his zippered sweatshirt, exposing a more stylish, Italian black leather jacket. Spotting two empty tables through the window, he headed inside.

  Murals and mirrors. The smell of olive oil and freshly baked bread. He checked and confirmed a good view of the Town Car, hoping he might be here but a few minutes.

  The women inside, the waitresses as well as the patrons, all appeared under thirty, very Euro. Maybe employees from the chic boutiques just around the corner on Madison. Maybe this was just another one of those New York anomalies—chic and trendy in a starched-collar neighborhood. Alvarez’s Mediterranean looks drew some attention as he moved to a window seat with a view of the Town Car. A pale young woman with free-weight arms, nut-hard nipples, and Stairmaster buttocks led Alvarez to the banquette, passing him a wine list.

  “Your server will be right with you.” She sounded German, not French. The Stairmaster did its stuff as she retreated.

  With his attention divided between the Town Car and the front door of the Powell, Alvarez missed his server’s introduction.

  “Excuse me, sir.” A creamy, youthful voice, this time with a hint of Paris in the inflections. He glanced in her direction but only briefly. Pale skin. Red lips. Haunting gray-green eyes. Black top
. Black pants. Black shoes. Looking back out the window, he ordered a Pinot Noir that she quoted at eight dollars a glass. He looked up at her once again, his mind working to place her—for suddenly he knew that face and, most of all, that cream-filled voice. But from where and how? His excellent memory briefly failed him. And now, as he sat there awaiting the wine’s delivery and the driver’s return to the Town Car, half lost in the past, half consumed by the present, he found himself straining to place her. What was she doing there, inside his thoughts, occupying him like an unsolved puzzle? He wanted her out.

  He blocked her out temporarily, concentrating on the hotel and the black car across the street.

  “Are you staying at the Powell?” His waitress again, delivering the warm bread and olive oil. He found her accent enchanting and knew full well it was her voice he recognized, more so than her looks. That told him he’d known her when they’d both been younger, and suddenly he placed her. He didn’t want her placing him, and yet he was a man intent on proving himself in all situations. He couldn’t stop himself from saying her name. “Mariam?” he questioned. “Marianne?”

  “Jillian,” she answered tentatively.

  “Umberto. Bert,” he abbreviated, returned to his college days. “Fredo and I—we were roommates. I came to your family home a couple of—”

  “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed.

  “You were …smaller …younger—”

  “I was …twelve!”

  “Much younger,” he said, once again dividing his attention between her and the Town Car. “You live here? In the city?”

  “God bless rent control.”

  “Fredo?” he asked. “Belgium, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Married. Three children.”

  He lost her then. Lost the whole room, the street, the hotel. Lost everything to memories of the twins and a life not too far removed. A nearby server banged two plates together, and Alvarez returned.

  She grinned. Her hair was jet black and cut with bangs like a Chinese doll. Her two front teeth were stained faintly yellow, indicating a smoker. He wondered if her eyes could possibly be that shade of green, or if she wore pigmented contact lenses. A silver charm bracelet adorned her left ankle. She had long, elegant feet. In the last eighteen months, he had learned to quickly assess people this way. He looked for lies. He looked for them—the Northern Union Security agents like the one in the boxcar.

  She caught him staring back out the window. He explained, vamping for a lie of his own, “My wife—my ex-wife—” he was already off to a lousy start, “went into the Powell a few minutes ago. Dressed to the nines.”

  “You’re following her?”

  “Pitiful, isn’t it?” He hoped this might send her running, angry at himself for identifying himself to anyone. Anyone! To his surprise, this seemed to have the opposite effect.

  Jillian said, “Let me catch these other tables. I’ll be right back.” Harmless enough words, but her eyes betrayed a definite attempt to maintain the connection with him. She had been twelve going on twenty, as he recalled. She’d had an obvious crush on him that amused her older brother but had made Alvarez uncomfortable, because even at that age she’d been too much woman and too little child. Women of all types, all ages, were attracted to his dark looks. “It’s the charisma, not the skin tone,” his wife, Juanita, had once told him. She claimed that he charmed women simply walking into a room and smiling, and that for the sake of their marriage he had to learn to control it. Control it, he had. Through eleven years he had never entertained a single unfaithful thought—at least he chose to remember it that way. These last two he’d been celibate, focused, even consumed, with the truth. Settlement. Restitution. His chest knotted and he caught himself tightly gripping the stem of the wine glass. He was ten years older than Jillian, he reminded himself. He had no interest in women. And yet he had to force himself to relax, amazed it could be so difficult.

  But he tensed again, this time Jillian’s sultry eyes the farthest thing from his mind. What caught his attention was the uniformed limousine driver approaching the Town Car. Alvarez left a ten-dollar bill on the table and hurried for the door. He cut across traffic and caught up to the man just as he unlocked the driver’s door.

  Alvarez fished out the two hundred dollars and gripped it in his fist. Distracted, he caught sight of Jillian standing by his table and cupping her hands to see out the glass.

  “Excuse me,” Alvarez said, a world away from his hobo existence.

  The driver stood up, his dark eyes evaluating Alvarez, who had donned a pair of sunglasses. “Help you?” He sounded Eastern European.

  Alvarez took the driver by the arm and forced the two hundred into his fist. The driver resisted, until he saw it was money.

  “Listen,” Alvarez said. “It’s really simple. I saw your … passenger, and if I read it right …then you can help me. It’s an escort service, right?”

  The driver attempted to hand back the money. “Hey, buddy—”

  “No, no, no! You keep the money whether I’m right or wrong. If I’m right, you have a first name for her and a phone number I can call. That’s all I ask. No addresses, nothing personal.” Alvarez glanced over his shoulder at the hotel, as if longing for her. “Her manager. Whatever. I don’t need anything more than that.”

  The driver considered. “I just drive them. I don’t know their business. It’s my business not to know their business.”

  “So make an exception,” Alvarez said. He grabbed the man by the hand and made him squeeze that money. “Special circumstances.”

  “It’s an exclusive service, my friend.”

  “I can tell that just by looking,” Alvarez replied.

  “You need references—referrals. It’s very exclusive.”

  “Mr. Takimachi’s my referral,” Alvarez pressed. He’d done his legwork. Takimachi was the man she had entertained the second time he’d followed her.

  “I do not know this name,” the driver lied. “Besides,” he said, burdened by a tongue that didn’t appreciate English, “if you have a referral, then you have everything you need.”

  “Mr. Takimachi does not like to share. Not that, anyway,” Alvarez said, indicating the hotel. “Who can blame him?”

  The driver simply stared.

  “Please,” Alvarez pleaded. “So sue me for being male. My name is Cortez,” he lied. “I’m a conqueror.”

  The driver grinned at that. “You request Gail,” he said. He recited an Internet address.

  “No phone number?”

  “You request Gail. Mention Takimachi. They will e-mail back to you.”

  “The Internet?”

  “These people are careful,” the driver said. He added, “You should be, too.”

  Alvarez flushed with heat, set off by the warning. He didn’t need to compound his problems. He nodded, glad for the heads up.

  He had accomplished what he had come to do. Even so, in a moment of weakness, he returned to the restaurant and his table by the window. It took him a moment to realize the glass of wine had been cleared.

  “You’re back,” Jillian said. A coy grin.

  Indicating the hotel, he said, “She’s not my ex-wife.”

  “Okay.”

  “She’s a woman who owes me something. Her father, actually …The details aren’t important. He’d rather put me in the hospital than repay that debt.” He invented this as he went along, wondering if any of it sounded credible and reminding himself that short lies worked better than longer ones. “I’ve just discovered I’m being watched. The father, I think. I can’t go home tonight.”

  “That’s understandable.” She seemed to be looking through him, to have expected something like this from him. It left Alvarez feeling disconcerted.

  “I’ll take a room …in a hotel, but running into you just now …I’d love the company, a friendly face, if you’re not busy after you’re done here.” He went for broke; he lowered his sleepy gaze, wandering from her eyes to her ankles. “Would you h
ave any interest in that?” He wasn’t sure why he lied, why he wanted the company—in celebration perhaps. He’d had two major successes. He tried not to face the real reason he pursued her—if caught in the next week, he would never have such company again.

  “My roommate and I, we usually go clubbing.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I won’t let you take a hotel room,” she informed him. “That’s ridiculous.”

  The couple at the next table were listening in. Alvarez gave the guy a dismissive look and won back their privacy.

  She said, “It’s a studio down at Sheridan Square. Small. We share a double bed,” she addressed the customer at the next table, “and not the way you’re thinking.” To Alvarez she said, “We’ll work something out.”

  “The hotel,” he said, “is not a problem.”

  She grinned. “Let me check with her when I get a minute.”

  Alvarez adjusted his position, affording himself a view of the hotel.

  The Town Car had once again double-parked in front. The blonde left the hotel, leaned in, and spoke to the driver.

  Alvarez checked his watch—perhaps her John had stood her up. At the same time, he chastised himself for allowing Jillian to distract him. The blonde now headed across the street toward the restaurant. He’d been sloppy, and this realization hit him hard.

  She looked angry. The Town Car pulled away.

  “She’s coming over here,” Jillian said softly.

  Alvarez spun around. “Yes.”

  She met eyes with him. “Quite a looker, that one.” She added sarcastically, “You’re sure you’re not stalking her?”

  He said, “Write down the club for me, would you?” The napkins were linen. He searched for something to write on. Jillian produced a notepad and leaned down, putting pen to paper.