Imposter

by Davis Bunn

  “Speaking of which, you’ve got an admirer. No, don’t turn around. It’s wonder boy.”

  “Matt?”

  “Do you know of another?” Dorcas hid her next glance behind a sip of her Coke. “The way he’s watching you, I’m thinking love.”

  “Don’t talk stupid.”

  “And don’t you let him down too hard. If you’re certain that’s the way you want to play it.”

  The flutter in Connie’s gut blinded her to the final play and the halftime gun. “I don’t see any alternative.”

  “He’s handsome, he’s smart, he’s rich, he’s connected.”

  “He’s a fed. We talked about that, remember?”

  “This may come as a shock. But there aren’t a whole lot of perfect men out there, just waiting to peel you a grape.” Dorcas had a way of looking at Connie sometimes, like she went from friend to ancient wise-woman all in one breath. “You want to grow old with fifteen cats for company, that’s your business.”

  “What, if I let this one go I’m doomed to seclusion?”

  “Now you’re the one talking silly.” She set down her cup. “I’ll go join the longest line in Baltimore and give Skippy my seat. That is, unless you strongly object.”

  Connie remained silent.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Matt was slow in approaching. The shy little-boy look on his face disarmed her completely. Her normal acid greeting for strays just faded away. Instead she said, “Matt, hey, you’re just in time for the world’s most seriously lame halftime show.”

  He smiled then, and it twisted something inside her. When he seated himself, they were so close their shoulders and arms touched. “I like hearing you use my name.”

  “Nicknames are for the office,” she said, then added for soft emphasis, “Matt.”

  “Is Connie your real name?”

  “Consuela. Taken from my mom. She died when I was a baby.” Matt stared at her with such intensity she could feel the look down deep, and she both loved it and wanted to run off screaming. Which was absurd, of course. There was still another half to play. “What color are your eyes, Matt?”

  “They shift.”

  “That’s good. For a second I thought I was hallucinating.”

  “You’re not. They run through shades of green.”

  “With some gold in there for good measure. They’re nice.”

  “Thanks. My last girlfriend said they were as shifty as the rest of me.”

  “She sounds like a real cow.”

  He broke contact then. Turned and stared out over the field, saying, “I don’t know why I said that.”

  “That’s what I’m supposed to be telling you. I shouldn’t have called your flame a cow, Matt.”

  “I never talk about myself like that.”

  “Never?”

  He shook his head, not seeing the band taking shape in front of them. “No.”

  “Must be awful lonely in there.”

  He turned back, testing his words, measuring them carefully. “I came down to ask if you’d have dinner with me.”

  “I told you in the office.” But her voice shivered slightly with the strain of not screaming an affirmative. “I’m thinking that’s not a good idea, Matt.”

  “No, probably not.” The field got another blind inspection. “My last mistake said I was locked up tighter than the M&T bank vault.”

  “Are you?”

  A very slow nod. “Probably.”

  She probably would have handed out her standard rejection, had Dorcas’s admonition not been hanging there in the brilliant autumn afternoon. “So when do you want to get together?”

  The little-boy look was back in his eyes again. “You mean it?”

  “Hey, I’ve got a perfect record at choosing the wrong men.” But she was still smiling. Even when the band started up. “See what I mean?”

  “What?”

  “The band. Aren’t they awful?”

  He was reluctant now to look away from her. Which was, when she took a moment to think about it, pretty cool indeed. “You’re right. They’re bad.”

  “Next month we’ve got the annual Thanksgiving parade. Say you’ll come with me.”

  Something in his manner said the smile he gave her was a very rare event. “Consider me booked.”

  “There are high schools in Baltimore who make the national finals every year. We’re talking so many awards they don’t even list them anymore. These kids couldn’t afford instruments if the state didn’t pay for them. But they live to perform.” She gestured at the field. “What do we have out here, but lame white guys who couldn’t keep time with an atomic clock. Shoot these guys, bring in the high schools; that’s my advice. Then you’d see some energy worth watching.”

  “You really love this, don’t you.”

  “What, football?” She laughed without reason, which was just not her. But the sun was setting over a winning game, and she was seated next to a guy who left her hands clammy. “If I ever left Baltimore, it’d only be for a town where the team has Super Bowl potential. Sort of gives shape to my calendar, if you know what I mean.”

  “Not really. But I’m willing to learn.” He spied Dorcas waving from the stairs. “Your sidekick is back. How about dinner tomorrow night?”

  “See you at seven.” She smiled him away, said to the air where he had once been, “Matt.”

  Dorcas greeted Connie with, “You better be glad I’m seriously in love with old what’s-his-name. Otherwise, I’d be wrestling you to the ground over that one.”

  Connie did not reply. The band was finally gone and Bonnie Raitt was singing about how she needed her man like oxygen. It sort of said it all.

  The two of them hooted and danced their team through two more touchdowns and a true football stomping. The division crown was theirs, the Super Bowl a date on Baltimore’s calendar. A game and an afternoon so fine it kept the frequent fliers in their seats to the end. Except for the ones who felt the need to dance their way through the final play with this pair.

  Then the screams started.

  Matt stayed through to the bitter end because his father did. And because if he leaned up close to the glass, he could catch occasional glimpses of the redhead and the brunette two tiers below his perch. The ones who wore the Ravens T-shirts and the ridiculous glass beads around their necks. The ones who, every time they rose to their feet and danced, a thousand faces turned and grinned and nodded to the beat.

  After the game ended, Matt stepped to the back of the room and entered the grind of final handshakes. His father and the Ravens owner traded smiles and jokes about who was going to pay for what come Super Bowl time. Then the glass imploded.

  Everybody was either outside in the hallway waiting for the elevator, or milling about the final power play by the buffet table. Which meant the heavy glass shards sliced into carpet and not people. Even so, the golden mirror sparkles sprayed back across them all. Then everybody was screaming and shouting all at once.

  A giant’s fist punched the wall behind and above Matt. “Down!”

  But the owner was a man used to ruling. He didn’t crumple for anybody.

  Paul Kelly took half a heartbeat to scout around, as though seeking Sol’s guidance on how to handle this.

  Matt leaped and took them both down, one in each hand. That same instant another shot punched the back wall. No sound except a distant echo, it could have been a bomb or a cannon or even a jet-sized backfire. Far, far away. What Matt could hear clearly was a crump each time another giant segment of concrete was hammered to dust.

  This higher tier of boxes was taken by native rock stars and the pros for their families, both past and present. Security was tight on this level, where the smallest box went for two hundred and fifty thou plus drinks and food. The muscle guys in overtight jackets came running, shouting into their wrists and waving an arsenal. The owner tried to rise up and crawl forward. But the shots were coming closer. Matt flattened the man with one determined arm, hol
ding his father’s face in the carpet with his other.

  There was a measured pace to the shots. Three, maybe four seconds between each one. Steady and cruelly deliberate. The air was clouded with blasted concrete and seared with the smell of charcoaled wallpaper. Another crump, then more screams and yells and shouts and thundering footsteps. Crump. Crump. Crump.

  Normally after a game the pedestrian walkway fronting Camden Yards was congealed like human glue. The passage was the most direct way back to downtown and the light-rail station. After a win, people stopped for the sideshows and the hawkers and the tailgate parties that spilled out of the lots and went on all night. After a loss, the atmosphere was funereal and progress even slower. Today, however, Matt raced down the walk surrounded by a cluster of twenty or so law enforcement types. Running with him were off-duty cops doing uniform crowd control for the game. Traffic cops in biker boots and leather. Stadium security in fire-engine-red jackets. And Connie. All shouting at the top of their lungs. A lot of them waving guns overhead. The crowd on Camden Passage did a human tidal version of the Red Sea.

  Sirens whooped in from all sides. The biker cops and the security guys who ran with radios still wired into earpieces all shouted in unison, “Lombard and Paca!”

  They arrived with the first three patrol cars. Guns sprouted, people shouted, hands waved. A uniformed cop setting up a periphery spotted Matt. “You! Back off!”

  Connie stepped between them. “He’s with me.”

  “And you are?”

  “Morales. Homicide.” She flashed her badge. “What do you have?”

  “Guy in the university science labs two blocks over called it in. Somebody was up top firing off a cannon. We’re waiting on a warrant.”

  Matt offered, “That’s my dad’s building.”

  Connie gripped his arm and bulled forward. She aimed for a senior officer on the building’s stairs, talking into a cell phone. “Lieutenant! This is the building’s owner!”

  The guy flipped his phone shut. “We got your permission to hunt down a possible sniper?”

  A voice called, “Chopper is inbound!”

  “Go for it,” Matt said. “But I don’t have a key.”

  “Long as we have your permission.” The officer raised his voice. “Police only!”

  They rammed through the front door. Inside was a decrepit lobby of cracked marble and faded gilt. The electricity was off. “Bring us some light!”

  While they waited for lights to be brought from the cop cars, Connie crouched by the stairs rising between two sets of brass-lined elevators. “Dust has been disturbed!”

  The officer bent down beside her. “Listen up! Keep to the inside rail! You! Go get your camera and kit. Photograph and measure the shoe prints.”

  Matt offered, “I’ll do it, sir.”

  “You’re the owner, right?”

  “Owner’s son.” He showed his ID. “I’m also a federal agent. And I can’t handle forty flights.”

  Connie said, “He’s taken one in the leg.”

  “It’s all yours.” The officer raised his voice. “Take the stairs single file!”

  Matt accepted the Polaroid from a young officer and listened to the footsteps thunder away overhead. He completed his shots and measurements just as Connie returned with the first contingent. “The shooter’s long gone. They’re searching the floors.”

  “Probably futile.” Matt pointed to an indentation in the dust. “These tracks are headed up, but these go down. Same boots.”

  “That’s why you didn’t go up?”

  “My leg already hurts from the run.” He folded up the camera. “Let’s go outside.”

  A brilliant autumn sunset was framed by other hulks sprouting billboards with paintings of idyllic condos and happy, successful people. Matt leaned against the wall and described for her the attack.

  “So your father was the target of another hit.”

  “A shooter with professional sniper’s gear,” Matt replied. “He waits until the game is over.”

  “So?”

  “Think about it. If he wanted to take Pop down, he’d do it when there was a big play and everybody would be crammed up against the glass. This wasn’t a hit, Connie. This was a message.”

  “Saying what?”

  Cops began appearing in the doorway. Matt pushed himself off the wall. “That’s exactly what I intend to find out.”

  Matt returned home and prepared a solitary meal. He tried to call Sol and his father and got their recorded messages. Not even Sol’s emergency line was active. He watched the local news as he ate. The coverage was all about the Ravens win and the attack. The gun was displayed, a statement in and of itself. Matt stopped with his fork poised and listened to the newscaster’s excited description. A large-caliber professional sniper’s weapon. The bullet holes in the owner’s box were given a good run, each blast about two and a half feet across. Then Matt watched his father address a battery of microphones, the backdrop a sea of faces. Milking the moment as only a winning candidate could. Sunday evening after a threat on his life, and the candidate was still rolling hard.

  The phone rang as he was washing up. Judy Leigh, the newspaper journalist, sounded breathless. “Sorry to bother you.”

  “No problem. I’ve been expecting your call. Is that traffic I hear?”

  “I’m in my car.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere. I’m parked outside my house. I needed to check . . . Can we talk about what happened?”

  “At the game? Sure.” Matt sketched out the day’s events.

  “So you don’t think it was a real attack.”

  “That’s just my opinion.”

  “What do the police think?”

  “The police haven’t shared their thoughts with me,” Matt replied.

  “You supply evidence that reignites a dormant murder case. You saved your dad and the Ravens owner, and they’re still shutting you out?”

  “If you write that, they’ll never let me back in again.”

  “Point taken. Still, their attitude astonishes me.”

  “There’s a lot of bad blood,” Matt pointed out. “Some of it your paper’s fault.”

  “Yeah, that comes with the job.” She hesitated, then said, “I’ve been ordered not to have anything more to do with you.”

  “By whom?”

  “The super-boss.” She related the confrontation with the paper’s CEO, then concluded, “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  The night was black against Matt’s kitchen window. The clock read late. Lights still gleamed from every window of the carriage house. Matt saw figures moving back and forth inside. The house over his head was utterly quiet. A week to go and the candidate ran to a twenty-four-hour stopwatch.

  Matt said, “Why would the owner of three-dozen papers fly in and order you to stop talking to a candidate’s son?”

  “I was hoping you’d tell me that.”

  “This has to be about money. A lot.”

  “What can you tell me about your father’s latest project?”

  “Nothing. I know less than you do.”

  “Excuse me for saying, but that sounds, well . . .”

  “Bizarre. I know.” Matt stared at the reflection in the window glass. Memories filled the space where the night should have been. When Matt had joined the Vail police force, his father had been so angry he had wanted to disown his son. Megan Kelly had threatened to leave him. It was the only time Matt could ever recall his parents really fighting. Matt hated his father’s business. He always had. It had stolen his childhood. Because of his father’s companies, he never had a home. He never had friends. His father did not disown him, but he swore Matt would never see a dime. Matt could not have cared less.

  Matt dreaded the next question she was bound to ask. But all she said was, “Can I say something that is going to sound totally absurd?”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “No, Matt. No joke.” Her voice sounded stra
ined.

  “Tell me.”

  Another long pause, then, “I think somebody is stalking me.”

  The taxi driver said, “Here is your house coming in the next block.”

  “Thank you.” Connie said into her phone, “Almost there, Matt. Are you in place yet?”

  “Five minutes. Hang back, will you?”

  Connie said to the driver, “Could you pull over here and wait a second, please?”

  The driver was Pakistani and extremely nervous about carrying a cop. He had balked when the young woman in old woman’s garb had climbed into his backseat. The driver had liked it even less after she had flashed her badge. The driver asked, “There is going to be shooting?”

  “No shooting. Promise. Just pull into this spot, please.” She said into her phone, “We’re in a holding pattern, and I think this wig has fleas.”

  “Okay, I’m pulling down the side street. Wait, I’ve got a parking spot.”

  “Do you see anybody?”

  “Not yet.” A moment’s pause, then, “I really appreciate your helping me out here.”

  “You know how long I’ve dreamed of being a real cop? I’m the one paying dues, Matt.”

  She felt the change in his voice as much as heard it. “I really like hearing you say my name.”

  “Maybe we should focus on the game plan.” But she was smiling as she said it. She leaned forward and said to the driver, “Okay, thanks, you can pull out now.”

  “We drive to the address and there’s no shootings?”

  “Not a single bullet. Promise.” To Matt, “My driver is a little freaked.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  The driver said, “This is being the place.”

  She handed a bill over the seat and said to Matt, “What say we go be cops.”

  As soon as the taxi pulled up in front of the door, Judy Leigh’s husband came down the stairs. Connie said in greeting, “Take my arm and help me out, like you would your favorite great-aunt. That’s it. Okay, big hug for the cameras. Can you tell me where the joker is?”

  The man was trying hard to sound tough and failing. “Across the street, five cars back.”