Sexile

by Lisa Lawrence

  Helê couldn’t tell me what else Marinho was into—she knew only of his prostitution and porn empire. And she wasn’t sure how those interests conflicted with Ferreira’s. It was just common knowledge that these men hated each other.

  So Ferreira had either turned Luis down or had failed to come to his aid. As much power as he wielded, there were still things he couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Plus the guy was in a prison cell for the time being.

  Henrique Marinho, I guessed, must be one dangerous pimp. Maybe that was why Desmond Hodd had kept me in the dark. It was beginning to look like I had been sent to investigate Luis to find the goods on Marinho.

  But if that was so, I had done my job, and my client ought to have a good explanation for why I was being hunted all over the city. You’re cooked, Marinho had laughed, knowing I was to be framed. And Hodd was letting it happen. Or he was in on it.

  And I kept wondering why.

  ♦

  “You’re mad,’ I heard Fitz say on the line.

  I had hugged Helê and Matilde goodbye, leaving the house in Twickenham early in the morning, then wandered the streets of London, not knowing where to go but doing my best to be inconspicuous. Too early to book into another cheap hotel. Staying at the same one after two nights was risky, and it wasn’t fair to have Helê or any friend harbor a fugitive.

  So by the afternoon, I had rung Fitz’s cell phone to find out what he had learned. I gave him a loud hint to run from his massage clinic to the café next door to use their phone—I would ring him back there. He was telling me at the moment that I not only couldn’t get out of the UK, but I was insane to try.

  “You do know we live on an island, yeah?’

  “People get smuggled in, there must be ways to smuggle yourself out. What did the police ask you?’

  “Shit! ‘Did she ever talk politics or complain about how Muslims were treated here? Did she ever introduce you to new friends?’ Rubbish. Your inspector mate, Carl, just hangs back in a corner and listens, barely says a word.’

  Maybe that’s a good thing, I thought. Or maybe he feels very betrayed.

  “I’m all right, babe, don’t worry about me,’ said Fitz. “It’s Helena they’re putting the screws on.’

  “What do you mean?’

  “They haven’t charged her with anything, mind you, but they’re poring over her books and shining lamps in everyone’s faces—me, the other escorts, her clients. It’s getting bad, Teresa.’

  “Carl knows her! He knows she has nothing to do with this or any of my cases! And he knows me!’

  “I don’t think he’s running the show. Yes, he knows you, so they’re using him to catch you. Listen, I told him it’s ridiculous. He brought up New York …’

  I sighed into the phone.

  “Teresa, you were in a state after you got back from there …’ He did his best to sound reasonable and not upset me. “I told him come on, that’s not fair, and he said well, what if she got turned? Indoctrinated? She gets into these strange scenes—’

  “I’m not in a strange scene. I’ve been editing porn movies out in Canary Wharf!’

  “Yeah, they confirmed that, but they think your ‘cover’ or whatever it’s called was to work for this extremist organization . Ugh! Look, it sounds crazy to my ears, too! But Norton says they tracked down this girl who works there. She saw you having a fight with their director—’

  “Duncan.’

  Jeez. That one I had brought on myself.

  “Right, this Duncan McCullough. He’s going away for a long time. Distributing these nasty rape videos. They found a stash of them in his flat.’

  “Okay, so Duncan must have confirmed there were three guys there who broke in.’

  “Carl didn’t mention that. The story is you were beating up this director creep, and then you decided to pay a little hurt to Luis Antunes. The nasty porn thing was your motive—that and just sending a message about Western decadence.’

  “I don’t believe this.’

  “I’m not sure the good inspector does either, Teresa, but he’s coming after you just the same. Maybe you better go peaceful-like, babe.’

  Can’t, I thought.

  I had nothing to fear over Nicole witnessing my fight with Duncan. She had been hit over the head, and she damn well knew I hadn’t done that and neither had our director. She also heard me insist she phone the police, and that didn’t sound like a woman about to murder Luis in a fit of outrage. But someone was keeping her from telling the whole story. Maybe the same ones who planted a Qur’an and bomb blueprints in my flat. Sad enough that having a Qur’an should even be thought incriminating.

  As for Duncan, he might be afraid of giving up Marinho and his thugs—if they were organized crime, they could perhaps get to him in jail. A little proper interrogation, and he would tell all. But I had a sinking sensation that Inspector Carl Norton was being handed his marching orders and not given the opportunity to question Duncan or Nicole.

  It was this whole perverse “me as an Islamic terrorist’ that really kept me from turning myself in. It was so…calculated in its evil. I could have been framed without it and left to rot in a cell until the killer was safely away. But no, Marinho and whoever else was involved in this chose to use the ultimate label, and I could think of no other reason except they wanted me shot down in the street or quietly disposed of once I was locked up.

  But I was exhausted. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight.

  “Teresa.’

  “Can’t,’ I told Fitz. “Tell Helena … I don’t know. Tell her I’m so sorry.’

  “She doesn’t blame you, Teresa. I know she doesn’t.’

  “But it’s my fault anyway. I’ll get it sorted, trust me, I will.’

  “What can you do?’

  “I’m going to make trouble.’

  “Well, you are good at that.’

  Fitz was an old friend, and I took a few seconds to tell him how much I cared for him. He told me I had just ended up on a high note, sounding strong, and now my words sounded like I was dictating a eulogy. “Go kick ass, girl.’

  I made a sound of something between crying and a laugh, and then I let him go back to work. God, I was tired. I was sick of washing my few items of clothing in hotel sinks, checking my wallet for the ever-decreasing bank notes, feeling terrified to duck into a drugstore because I needed toothpaste.

  I dropped a couple of pound coins into the pay phone slot and dialed a different friend—one I was sure the police had forgotten I knew, and who could help me vanish like a magic act.

  6

  Ihave no idea how he came up with the rendezvous point, but I have to admit that Edgeware ranked low for me in terms of both convenience and what comes to mind for secret meetings. I had to lift one of those rattling aluminum security doors—it made a noise that played hell with my nerves—and then my old contact Dupuis waved me into a shop with all kinds of tool and dye machinery.

  I didn’t have a clue what was made there, but it was oily and dirty and none of it mattered. By this time of night, I was oily and dirty and wondering where I’d stay this evening.

  “Teresa! Bon. Come in, come in.’

  Dupuis was a funny little man who looked like someone had shrunk a slightly older Nicolas Sarkozy down to four foot five. Same square face, and the brown hair had salt and pepper in it with age. The smoky eyes and Gallic nose were still quite handsome. But Jeez, he was tiny.

  He was also self-effacing, painfully shy about everything except his craft. He told me once he had realized quite soon in his fine arts career that he was a technician, no lightning spark of creativity in him, and when he accepted that sad truth, forging Jackson Pollack or Matisse was the natural way to go.

  “You must never listen to the French when it comes to art,’ he laughed. “We can hang it, but we really must learn to shut up about it! You lose such respect for people’s intelligence when they stand in front of your Cézanne and declare how it lifts their souls.’

  I always
thought there was something profoundly sad about his cynicism and the revelation he would never be a gallery star in his own right. I couldn’t feel too sad for him, though. Before Dupuis went away to prison, he did a brilliant job of hiding his money. I didn’t get him his authenti-cator gig in Switzerland because he needed the cash—he needed to finally take a straight job because every European police force knew his brushstrokes. That didn’t enter into my recommendation—he was the best choice for that job because he had an eye like nobody else.

  Sitting at a workbench was his friend, who he introduced as Alain. A fleeting smile, and then Alain returned to peering through one of those magnifying glasses on a swing arm in front of a row of open passports.

  I have this theory. We know that geeks in America and the UK become the science-fiction writers, astronomers, and physicists of tomorrow. In France, maybe disaffected pimply youths at school grow up to become the criminal elite: forging paintings, figuring out the laser beam patterns over big diamonds in glass cases, writing vicious restaurant reviews for the Michelin guides…

  It’s just a theory.

  Alain, Dupuis explained, was the man to make me into someone else.

  “A new passport,’ I said.

  “Not just one, three to be on the safe side,’ he answered. “Say, for instance, it is reported on the evening news that Miss Knight is traveling on a Dutch passport, and there you are, stuck. So we give you three possible identities. You will keep your own support network to alert you, yes?’

  “Yes,’ I said, not having a clue how I’d do that without putting my friends at more risk.

  “So how much will this cost?’

  “Cost?’ Dupuis sounded offended. “It will cost you nothing. Don’t be ridiculous, my dear. You are my friend! And I owe you so much.’

  I impulsively hugged him, which baffled Dupuis and embarrassed me. But I had been up for hours, on the run, and even the smallest kindness at this point stripped my composure. “D’accord,’ he muttered in the awkward pause as I pulled my arms away.

  “Our biggest enemy is time,’ he announced. “They are not stupid, those who run security at airports and train stations. I am sure that when I came in on the Eurostar, they realized it was no coincidence I arrive just as you are in trouble.’

  “So they might guess why I need you,’ I said, my heart sinking.

  Dupuis was stoical. “It makes no difference. If you decide to flee, you need documents. If you need documents, they need to be forged. What is good for us is that your face is not all over television—why, I cannot understand! Now, border security being what it is—rushed, in a hurry—attention is paid to spotting a forged passport but even more to how the person behaves. If he does stupid, nervous, guilty things. This is good for us. And you are not stupid or guilty. So. Please work on being less nervous.’

  “Okay.’ I took a deep breath and asked how good the documents would be.

  “The best!’ He laughed.

  “Come on …’

  “No, no, I am quite serious.’ He warmed to his subject, pointing at Alain’s array of passports—Greek, Polish, German, and more. “The smart way is to steal an existing blank. Now a few years ago, Belgium obliged everybody in this because of the utter stupidity and peculiarity of its municipal politics. Mayors—can you imagine!—mayors had the right to distribute passports, and so you had maybe six hundred of them stored at the town hall behind a simple lock. Can you believe it? Alain will tell you personally how in Tongeren, they left the key to the safe right in the desk drawer! Alas, the Americans, of course, put pressure on the Belgians, and the fun ended. But—’

  He went to Alain’s counter and picked up a handful of the tiny thin books. I didn’t have a clue why he zeroed in on these particular ones.

  “Occasionally, you get lucky. Stolen blanks from a diplomatic pouch. And Swiss. A gold mine! Many countries are slow to report stolen blanks. It’s a good thing we’re in Europe. You could never get away with this in America.’

  “Why not?’

  His eyes widened, and he blew air from his cheeks. “Oh, the Americans, they don’t fool around. They had fewer than fifty blanks stolen for years—even before 9/11! Our biggest obstacle is the biometric chip.’

  “Which you won’t have on the passport you use to leave,’ piped up Alain, staring through the magnifying glass.

  He could see the question forming on my lips, so he switched to rapid, easier French, and Dupuis translated.

  “Yes, he’s right. He says the beauty of what we’re doing is that you are leaving the UK—you are not trying to get in. Many times security checks are only too happy to have one leave and are less on their guard! After all, you will be someone else’s problem.’ He allowed himself a chuckle at his witticism. “We are also limited by your race, whether you know other languages—in other words, what else you can be.’

  That makes sense, I thought.

  “Our best course is to make you a citizen of one of the smaller African countries,’ Dupuis went on. “There are certain ones we must forget. I know you have been to Nigeria, but they have improved their passports. South Africa is also a bad option for similar reasons. Hmm…Botswana. Chances are the guard will know next to nothing about that country. True, they’re clever at tripping people up by asking who’s the prime minister of such and such a place, but they often don’t know the answers themselves! Do a little homework, look bored and tired like everyone else when you get to a checkpoint, and you should be fine.’

  “I’m not sure if I can masquerade as someone from Botswana for the rest of my life,’ I argued. “There are places I have to go after Paris that—’

  Dupuis clucked his tongue, once, twice, three times very fast, scolding me. “Oh, ye of little faith! Did I not say we would give you three passports, Teresa? Fortunately for you, we have found a way to transfer the biometric chip from your current passport onto two of the blanks.’

  “You’re kidding!’

  Now he and Alain were both laughing, enjoying their cleverness. “Oh, no, we’re not. You see, the British passports of the past couple of years or so only use digital imaging, they don’t have fingerprints or anything else included. If it were fingerprints, there’d be a problem, and we’d have to get someone else’s, and ugh! Many headaches.’

  I was flabbergasted. “How can you do that?’

  Alain answered again rapidly in French, and Dupuis was getting tired of playing translator. “It’s all quite technical, and of course, it’s the young people who know the computer tricks, so Alain brought one in. He says it has to do with something called RFID—Radio Frequency Identifi cation technology and using transponders to switch things around. On a slightly older passport like yours, the information wasn’t encrypted, so we got it easily and can copy it twice onto your two extras. Better not risk playing games with British security when you try to exit. With the Botswana one, it has nothing—they’ll look at it, and it’s a judgment call, but again, you’re leaving. It’s in their interests to keep the queue moving, to let you go. So we use the biometric chips for when you’re outside Britain, traveling elsewhere.’

  He tapped the counter where Alain’s first masterpiece was almost finished. “Ha! If we were in America, you couldn’t get away with this. They encrypt the biometrics, and they’re putting very fine mesh shields on the passport covers to try to block the chips from being scanned at a distance by forgers. Then we get around that, and on and on it goes.’

  “You’re scaring me that it won’t work,’ I said.

  Dupuis patted my shoulder. “Not to worry. Take it from an old liar with a paintbrush, my dear. A passport is a small bedtime story, and we are telling each child what he wants to hear.’

  ♦

  The Eurostar was a study in dread. Show my fear, and I would be done, game over. Alain had chosen a name I wasn’t even sure how to pronounce on first reading, but he and Dupuis were right. It was a long and busy queue for the train, and when the moment of truth came, the security guard ba
rely glanced at the passport. No biometric chip to read, one less thing they could use to verify me, so I got a polite nod. On your way, love.

  I had a new, disturbingly authentic-looking British passport. (If I had one this good, I thought to myself, what do the bad guys have?) I could use it practically anywhere, and given that the UK was known for its stringent controls, I should probably flash this one in Europe.

  “Forgers like to pick on Belgian ones, Portugal, Poland, the eastern EU,’ Dupuis had informed me. “Those they’ll study closer because of their history as forgers’ targets.’

  My third forgery was a blue Canadian passport. The logic was that if my British cover was blown, very few nations had a problem with Canadians as visitors or tourists. My British accent wouldn’t raise a flag, as many Brits immigrated to Canada, and just to make it even more plausible, it claimed I was married and lived in Winnipeg. I told Dupuis I sounded incredibly dull. He said that was the point.

  His other parting gifts included a laptop and a disposable cell phone with prepaid units. I waited until we were across the Channel, and then ring, ring: time to enlist Jiro Tanaka, the only person even mad enough for the scheme I had in mind. Hopefully, he wasn’t pissed at me for the cops giving him the third degree.

  I called him at the dojo, not a location the police would likely choose to eavesdrop, and so far, so good, he took my call and told me no sweat, he was outraged at them, not me. But as I sketched out my idea, I heard a long sobering silence. Maybe I gave him too much credit for recklessness.

  “Teresa,’ he said quietly. “You really take the…What you’re asking for is bloody well next to impossible.’ He sighed in exasperation and then said, “Umm, right, how did you get out of the country?’

  “I had a little problem with documents so I got help.’

  “Forgery?’ he whispered in amazement.

  “Umm…Yeah.’

  “Cool! How did they get around the RFID?’

  I should have known my favorite tech geek would be hungry for trade secrets. “Jiro, please, later? The task at hand?’