“My time is running short. You said you wanted our help. How?”
“If you have received any communications from someone particularly upset with this group, I’d like to see them. If someone like that contacts you in the future I’d like you to give me a call.” I put one of my cards on her desk. “If you’re not involved, and I’m sure moral people like yourself don’t advocate violence, then you wouldn’t want to be seen as hiding information that could help prevent a crime, would you?”
Mavis refused to look at my card. Her jaw worked away furiously, slowly grinding her teeth to dust. Would that she could get rid of her enemies so easily. Finally, she said “No one has written us threatening that group in particular or singling them out in any way.”
“Contact may happen now that it’s known you don’t approve of them. You’ll let me know if that occurs?”
I took her flushed face for assent and let myself out.
Going down in the elevator I shook my head in dismay at the amount of damage they could do fighting a war they couldn’t win and that needn’t be a war at all. Nature abhors a vacuum and the forbidden only grows in allure. If you’re going to squeeze things out of people you’d best beware of what comes to fill the void.
CHAPTER 6
The Duncaster sits by itself on the corner of 21st and R. I pulled into the circular driveway and left my car with the valet.
At the front desk I asked for Martin Duncaster and stood there scanning the lobby as I waited for him. The front door was the only way into the lobby from the outside. The elevators were to my left, the small lobby shop to the right. The Duncaster was a small, discreet hotel made up entirely of suites. It had no bar or restaurant. There was a kitchen for room service. All the hotel staff operated from behind the L-shaped counter that faced the entrance.
“Hello, Leo. Delighted to see you again.” Martin Duncaster came out from behind the counter with his hand extended in greeting.
Martin was tall, slim and fair. His prematurely gray hair parted high on the left, flopped over and partially hid his right eye. Martin was one of those men I envy and hate, whose clothes always hang in perfect alignment. One day he would succeed his father, Lowell Duncaster, as head of the Duncaster Hotel Group, but until then he had to learn the business. Martin had elected to serve out the rest of his apprenticeship running the Washington Duncaster. A few more years and Martin would have a memoir’s worth of stories he could tell. But he wouldn’t.
“Let’s go back to my office. You can tell me what I ‘need to know’ as you chaps like to put it.”
I followed Martin. Once behind his desk, he slid a pair of keycards over to me.
“Made the code up myself not ten minutes ago.”
I held them up. “One key for all the locks?”
“Yes. The same key unlocks the elevator, the garage, the suite and the escapeway to the roof.”
“I guess I can’t drop them in a mailbox anywhere and return them to you when I’m done.”
“Afraid not. After the number of keys requested is punched the code is dead. No more keys with that number can be issued. You have the only ones. We can’t recode the room without them either. It makes me useless to anyone trying to break in. A situation I appreciate. The machine has to go back to the manufacturer to be opened and the block removed. So, it’ll cost you plenty if you lose those.” He nodded at the keys. “By the way, will you need all three bays of the garage?”
“No. One will do.”
“Are you expecting any deliveries?”
“No. If that changes I’ll call to let you know. I’ll come down and take anything at the front desk.”
“That’s fine. You won’t be registering, I presume?”
“Not a chance. Should be just an overnighter. How about if I pay the day-rate up front and you bill me for the extras?”
“That’s fine, Leo. The same address as before?”
“Yeah. Any changes I should know about?”
“Let me think. Only the elevators. The penthouse elevator is hydraulic now.”
“Great. So if there’s a fire in the shaft, it’ll fall to the floor and the doors will pop open when we hit the lobby, right?”
“Right.”
That would be a great scene. Me, Davey and Jane Doe all in a heap and a tangle when the doors flew open. A gunman in the lobby would have a field day. “Why’d you change the system?”
“Had to. Changes in the fire code. With a dedicated system, now they require hydraulics. It was a bitch changing the system. Required all new maintenance access, the works. Anyway it’s all in now. Everything else is the same. You want to go up and secure things? It’s all yours. No one else can even get into the elevator until you return the keys.”
“May as well. If I see something I don’t like I’ll check in with you before I leave.”
“Very good. If not, then …” Martin stood up and we shook hands. “I hope you have an uneventful stay with us.”
“Amen, Martin.”
The elevator was a dedicated system, which means that it only opened on the lobby level and the penthouse floor. I got out on the penthouse floor and looked left and right. Next to the elevator door in the corridor was the escapeway to the roof.
I inserted the key in the door, pulled it open and stepped into the stairway. Fire codes required a stairway that ran from the basement to the roof with access on every floor. The penthouse floor was the only one you couldn’t get to from the stairway. I slid down the metal bar and left the door wedged open behind me. A half-flight up was the door to the roof. Pushing it open, I slid its wedge into place and examined the roof. There were no cornices to catch with a grappling hook. Because it was free standing, the only way onto the roof was via helicopter or some similar means. The air-conditioning units were secure as were the overhead elevator housings. Solid metal welded into place. The roof door was solid steel and smooth, no lock, no handle, nothing. You could go up from the inside, but not down from the outside.
Satisfied, I retraced my steps and went back into the corridor and then let myself into the penthouse.
The front room of the suite had a wet bar with a small refrigerator and a microwave oven along the right wall, a large table with eight seats around it for meetings or meals, and next to that was a modular sofa system focused on a large screen TV with attendant VCR. There was a phone on a stand next to the sofa and multiple jacks on the wall opposite the table. The furniture was light in color and shape and the walls were cream-colored. I dialed up the recessed lighting from the panel next to the front door. The room was bathed in soft light. All of this conspired to make the room as spacious as possible. You have to compensate when there are no windows.
The bedroom door was reinforced with a steel plate and had a deadbolt with a two-inch throw. Inside, on the wall next to the door, was a panic button wired to the front desk. I hit the button and got an immediate “Yes?” “Nothing. Just testing.”
“Yes, sir.”
The closet and dresser were on the right wall. A queen and a twin bed faced the door. I stepped around the door and saw the entertainment center: another color TV with VCR and a stereo system that handled records, tapes or CDs. In addition to the essentials, the bathroom had a phone jack, a bidet and a four-foot-square sunken tub. Under the bathroom sink was an emergency medical kit, a high intensity flashlight, and a cellular phone. I removed these things, checked them out and set them up in the nightstand next to the queen bed.
It took almost two hours to sweep the suite for bugs and booby traps. Satisfied that it was clean I locked up and went down to the garage. That too was clean. With home base secured, it was time to scout the possible opposition.
CHAPTER 7
The Trumbulls lived in College Park, not far from the University of Maryland. Mark Trumbull, plaintiff in Trumbull v. Ballantine Talent Management was a freshman there.
I pulled up a half block from the house and sat there trying to figure out how to approach the family when I saw t
he answer taking shape in their driveway.
I backed up, drove around the block and waited for fifteen minutes. My timing was perfect. I approached the house just as they set up the GARAGE SALE sign.
Slamming the door to my car, I walked up the sidewalk to the house. A plain, one-story box, a lawn that was a single mass of ground-hugging junipers. Nice if broccoli is your idea of landscaping. A ginger-headed woman in loose fitting pants was pulling a box out from under a card table.
“Can I help you with that?” I asked.
She straightened up and shaded her eyes with her hand. “Thanks.” She kept squinting at me, trying to place my face. I put the box on the table.
“Saw your sign. I’m a real nut about yard sales, never pass one by. I find the most interesting things there. I have to admit it’s odd seeing one on a weekday.”
“Yeah, well it’s kind of like a fire sale. You know—everything’s gotta go.”
“Sorry to hear that. Sound like you’ve had some bad luck, maybe.”
“You can say that again.” She turned back to arrange things on the table. I took her in with a quick sweep of my eyes. She looked like she’d been clipped in half at the waist and then rebuilt. Unfortunately she had the front end of a sports car and the rear end of a lorry.
Most of the stuff for sale was athletic gear: weights, bench press, shoulder pads, helmets, balls of every sort, a backboard, soccer nets and so on.
Mrs. Trumbull, or at least I assumed it was Mrs. Trumbull, turned back to me. “You look like you could use some of this stuff, like you were an athlete, maybe?”
“Once, a long time ago. But you’re right, I could use some of thse things. I still fool around a bit.” I picked up a football and squeezed my fingers along its seams.
Mrs. Trumbull looked back at the house. “God, I wish that boy could just ‘fool around,’ but no, if he isn’t going to be the best then he isn’t going to do anything at all. He wants everything out, and now. Says he can’t stand to look at the stuff.” She turned to me. “You know, he even wants us to sell his trophies. Now ain’t that something. All he’s got are his memories and he even wants to get rid of those.”
“Sounds like he’s pretty angry …” I offered weakly.
“Don’t I wish. He’s just given up.” She shook her head more in disbelief than sadness. “But I sure as hell haven’t, let me tell you. They’re gonna pay for what they did to my boy. You can’t get away with ruining a person’s life.”
“That’s for sure.”
“Hey, mom. Phone. It’s Mr. Massengill.” I heard a voice say. I looked toward the garage. In the shadows a boy stood. He was broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted. He took a step toward us and I saw the four rubber toes of his cane come into the light. Then his skinny legs with the brace on the right knee.
His mother laid her hand on my forearm, “If you see anything you like, come up to the front door and lean on the bell. That’s our lawyer on the phone. I may be a while.”
“Sure thing.” Mrs. Trumbull hustled past her son and he followed her into the house.
I rummaged around for five or ten minutes and settled on a lacrosse stick and a pair of gloves. The stick was one of the modern ones: aluminum shaft, plastic head and nylon webbing, made in a factory by a machine. Back when I played, the sticks were birch with rawhide and gut webbing, made by Indian women in Canada and then shipped to a warehouse in Towson. Every year I’d go to Towson to pick out my sticks. They hung in rows from the ceiling. Thousands of them. And no two alike. I’d take a dozen down that looked the right length and heft them, looking for two or three that felt just right. It was a pilgrimage. But that was a long time ago.
I leaned on the bell and as promised Mrs. Trumbull appeared.
“So you like the lacrosse stuff, eh? Listen. I’ve got to get back on the phone. How about forty for the stick and say twenty-five for the gloves?”
I’d say it was robbery but no one was listening. “I don’t have that much in cash. How about I write a check for the difference?”
“Is it local?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have a pen I could use?”
“Sure, come on in.” I followed her into the living room.
She motioned for me to sit at an old-fashioned secretary and extracted a pen from a coffee mug painted with flowers.
“When you’re done just bring it back to me in the kitchen. I have to be on the phone.”
“Sure. Who should I make the check out to?”
“Alma Trumbull will be fine.” That said, she hurried back to Mr. Massengill.
I took out my business checkbook and paid Alma Trumbull forty dollars for used lacrosse gear. I took a quick look around and focused on a family portrait on the wall next to the secretary. Alma was seated between two young girls. They looked about ten years old. Behind them stood two versions of the same man. One was the boy I’d seen in the garage. If he wasn’t a clone for his father then the man’s genes had ridden roughshod over whatever contribution his mother had to make. I memorized the faces should they appear anywhere near Jane Doe in the next 48 hours.
I swiveled around as I heard Alma, in the kitchen, yelling “Dammit, Ralph, that’s not a settlement, that’s an insult. You can tell them where to put it. I’ll take my chances in court.”
She was silent for a moment then sputtered, “Don’t tell me what he did. That tramp lured him up there. She has no business parading herself around like that. What does she expect to happen? I’ve seen her on TV. She’s practically begging for it. No, Ralph, I’m not going to change my mind about this.”
I’d pushed things as far as I dared. I added twenty-five in cash to my check, stood up and walked back to the kitchen.
“Here, Mrs. Trumbull. Sixty-five dollars. Thank you. I’ll let myself out.”
She crumpled up the money in her fist and nodded her head without looking at me. Ralph Massengill was still trying to earn his fee.
I tucked the gloves under my arm, took the stick by its throat and closed the door behind me. Walking to my car I turned to look back at the house and saw Mark Trumbull staring out the front window at me. I hurried away with my small piece of his past. In my car I saw him, still there, staring into space, looking for his future, maybe.
CHAPTER 8
I drove back around the beltway to my health club in Falls Church, stopping only to eat in a seafood house, whose food was so bad that they made “all you can eat” a threat. A couple of hours were well spent tossing around some iron. Then I went upstairs to swim some laps. My orthopedist had informed me that my knees could no longer take the pounding that jogging involved and I should start riding a bike or swimming. I thought about Rocky Franklin’s offer as I climbed the stairs to the pool.
Goggles on, I slipped into the pool and began my laps. Slowly and steadily I pulled through the water.
Kicking easily, trying not to flex and snap the knee joint, I swam for about a half an hour. All the while I was letting the idea of a desk job sink into me. Was I ready to take a step back from the action? I didn’t cringe when I asked myself that question. Maybe that’s a sign, I thought.
Laps done, I hoisted myself out of the pool, toweled down and went to the locker room to change. On the way home I began thinking about Jane Doe. She would arrive tomorrow. It was time I started to get to know the target. Ninety percent of bodyguarding is anticipation and preparation. Five percent is reflexes. And five percent is dumb luck.
Samantha’s car was in the driveway when I pulled up. Dropping my bag on the kitchen table, I went looking for her. She was at my desk, headphones on and that faraway look she gets when hosting the muse.
It took me a while to get used to these trances she went into. I’d be talking to her and then realize she wasn’t really there at all. She was fixing a phrase, filing a metaphor, spinning out a plot strand, coalescing a scene, threshing her experiences and imagination to make fiction out of them. At first it annoyed me, a dart in my
vanity. But I believed her when she said she couldn’t help it, and that it had nothing to do with me.
I kissed her temple and broke the spell.
“Oh, Leo. You scared me.” She said as she flinched, momentarily.
“Sorry. What’re you doing here. I thought you were holed up at your place, working.”
“I was. But I got lonesome, so I came over here. This place is starting to feel more like home than my place. So I gave up trying to fight it and brought my work over here. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Hell, no. I was just surprised, is all. How’s it going?”
“Okay. Slower than I’d like, but it’s coming along. What are you up to?”
“I took a security job for one of Walt’s clients. High pay and low risk.”
“Is Arnie with you?”
“No. He’s doing some bounty hunting down in Florida. I’m working with an old friend on this, Davey Isaacs. You don’t know him.”
Sam was wearing one of my sweatshirts. It stretched halfway down to her knees. She’d curled her bare toes underneath her.
“Let me dump my gear. I’ll be right back.”
I picked up my bag from the kitchen table and took it back to the bedroom. My workout clothes went into the laundry bin. I stowed the bag overhead and went into the bathroom to get a couple of aspirins. I’d overdone the swimming and my knee was starting to act up.
I pulled open the medicine chest, and moved aside the styling mousse and nail polish remover that had recently migrated to my side of the cabinet. First the medicine cabinet, then a midnight coup in the closet. One day you wake up and there’s pantyhose in your bottom dresser drawer. I caught myself in the mirror and there was a smile on my face. Fearful perhaps, but a smile nonetheless.
The Things We Do for Love Page 3