The question seemed to throw her a bit. She hesitated, then said, “Because you’re standing here.” She paused again before adding, “And because of how she describes you.”
“Huh?” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“You’re Jim, right? Mia’s knight errant?”
I shook my head and chortled. “Oh, Jesus.” It was going to happen eventually, but the longer time passed without it happening, the more I had started to believe that it wouldn’t.
Once she had heard that Tess was a bestselling novelist, it wasn’t much of a leap for her to deduce that the male hero of her first two books was modeled in some way on Tess’s very own man of action. The hazing about this was merciless with each new book, especially since Jim Corben had a goatee and lived on a cattle ranch when he wasn’t traveling the globe on archaeological adventures at the behest of a mysterious secret society.
“Well, for starters, I’m no cowboy.”
She tilted her head to one side. “And I ain’t no buckle bunny either.” Her faux-Texan accent was pitch-perfect, then Lendowski planted a hand on her arm.
“Mind if I cut in?” he said. “Annie and me were just talking, but she somehow got waylaid when I went to the bar.” He flashed us a big, overly toothy grin. How many teeth did this guy have? “Get it? Way-laid?”
She gently removed his paw as he laughed at his ingenious crack. “Len, how about you just lay off instead?”
He threw me a half-drunk wink. “They just love playing these games, don’t they? It’s all about the tease with these chicks. You should have seen how her eyes lit up when I told her ‘endow’ was the root of my family name. Isn’t that right, babe?”
He went to put a hand on her waist, but she swiveled round so that he grabbed a handful of air instead.
He laughed and tried again, this time getting hold of her with both hands and attempting to maneuver her away from me and over toward the bar and a couple of his SWAT buddies.
The last thing I needed was Lendowski as an enemy, but he was clearly the worse for drink and I could tell that Deutsch’s patience was running thin. But I also knew she realized that if she got on the wrong side of him—especially while they were partners—he was likely to set her career back some, or indeed stall it altogether. I, on the other hand, was part of the furniture and had enough goodwill aimed my way to ride out any macho posturing the big lug felt he might need to inflict upon me.
I moved in, grabbed his wrists, and firmly removed his hands from Deutsch. Then, as low as I could say it and still be heard, “Go back to your buddies, Len. Next round’s on me.”
He swung around viciously and his fist made the air move enough to create a piercing whistle in my left ear as my head jerked away from the blow.
Deutsch judiciously lurched backwards as I feinted the other way to avoid the follow-up, then Lendowski charged into me. I’d already vacated the space at which he was aiming so he hit a couple of suited Wall Street bankers instead.
He disentangled himself, pulled himself upright, and swung a right hook at my head, but overbalanced. All I needed to do was apply the slightest additional momentum to his leading shoulder to send him crashing to the floor—which I did.
Staggering to his feet, he cracked his knuckles and cricked his neck like the stereotype into which he had already fallen. He even gave me the thousand-yard stare, but somehow I resisted the urge to laugh, a reaction that would have done far more damage to our professional relationship than repeatedly punching him in the face.
It was all threatening to turn very ugly, but as Lendowski prepared to charge me again, Nick appeared and grabbed him from behind and said, “Yo, time for a break, big guy.” He ushered him away.
I remembered that Nick and Lendowski used the same gym, and I hoped that they’d built up enough of a rapport for Nick to be able to reason with the guy.
Deutsch moved back toward me. “Thanks. Mia’s a lucky girl.”
I laughed at her insistence on using the name Tess had given her fictional alter ego. “That’s what I keep saying.” I decided against relaying this message, Tess definitely not being the kind of woman who enjoys being complemented on her choice of man by an attractive—and available—professional female colleague. Especially not one who was showing no sign of trying to find someone else to talk to.
We watched Lendowski nod grudgingly at Nick, then head out of the bar.
Annie said, “How does a Neanderthal like that manage to keep his badge?”
“Your mind’s clouded by alcohol. He’s actually a very charming individual. If you’d only give him a chance.”
She eyed me curiously for a second, like she wasn’t sure if I was being serious, then her expression brightened and she actually laughed—a first. “Now why couldn’t they partner me with someone like you instead?”
“You’ve got to earn me, Annie.”
I immediately regretted opening my mouth—even more so given the curious, but not turned off, look in her eyes.
“Earn you. Now that’s an intriguing prospect.”
“And that’s my cue,” I said, with a smile. “Seriously . . . just ride it out. They’ll reassign you, I’m sure. They’re not blind.”
“I hope they do—I might not hold back next time.”
“Just make sure you’ve got plenty of witnesses around.”
I waved at her, turned and headed for the door. I stopped to tell Nick I was going home, then left. It was getting late and I was physically and mentally exhausted. We all were.
Outside, I saw Lendowski leaning against a wall in the alleyway that ran alongside the bar. At first I thought he was throwing up, but then I realized he was talking on his cell, which probably meant his bookie had called with more bad news.
I gulped a lungful of cold air and stuck out my hand for a taxi so I could reclaim my car from the Federal Plaza parking garage. In less than an hour, I’d be back in my castle, cuddled up with my fair maiden.
Lendowski had sobered up the second he’d heard the voice on the other end of the call, a voice that, although not that of his bookie, filled him with the same level of dread.
He owed his bookie about sixty thousand dollars, and he had no idea how he was ever going to pay it all back. They’d threatened him already, and the fact that they didn’t bat an eyelid about doing that to an FBI agent left him under no illusion about how serious and unforgiving these people were. They had him sweating—not an easy thing to pull off with Nat Lendowski. Then, a couple of months back, he’d taken a call from someone else that knew about his debt. The guy had offered him five hundred dollars a week just to keep tabs on Reilly. Nothing too elaborate. He just wanted Lendowski to let him know if Reilly did anything odd or disappeared for any length of time without explanation.
Lendowski made no real effort to earn the money, but continued to collect the envelopes of used bills from his apartment building’s laundry room every other week. He could have used the money to pay down the debt, but instead he gambled it—and lost. Which meant he was now at the guy’s mercy as well as that of his bookie.
When he’d answered his cell, the guy cut to the chase.
“Hey, Len. It’s time to start earning your keep.”
Len scowled. “What do you want me to do?”
“Reilly,” the man said. “Stay close to him. Imagine your life depends on it.”
With a sinking feeling, Lendowski realized this wasn’t going to be particularly easy, especially following what had just happened in the bar. But at least he could offer something.
“He’s on his way home. I know he’s got some big social engagement out of town tomorrow night. Heard him talking to his partner about it. He’s taking his lady.”
“OK. Good. Anything else, call me immediately.”
The caller hung up.
Lendowski pocketed his phone, then turned and emptied his stomach against the wall.
8
Mamaroneck, New York
The mystery call still had m
e in its thrall.
I was in two minds about what to make of it. There was a chance it was genuine. The man’s pitch sounded real. On the other hand, I couldn’t ignore the possibility that I was being played. Either way, I had to go to the meet. There was no way I wasn’t going, despite the usual complications, including the main one: I couldn’t tell Nick about it, and he’d probably sniff it out and start hassling me about what I was hiding. It would also be safer having him there, but I’d started this thing on my own and I wasn’t about to jeopardize his career over it this late in the game. I also couldn’t risk spooking the caller if he was indeed genuine and had something of value to say.
I was lying on the bed, deep in thought, wondering about it all, while in front of me, Tess was busy pulling out one outfit after another from her wardrobe and parading them for my opinion.
“What about this one?” she said as she gleefully presented me with a long, shimmering bronze dress that flared out at the bottom. “You said you liked it when I wore it to that gala at the Institute.” Her expression then clouded with thought just as fast as it had brightened up. “Then again—do you think the guest list at the White House might have anyone else who was also at that gala besides us?”
I raised my eyebrows and nodded positively, though evidently not with a lot of enthusiasm. I mean, by dress number three, I was fresh out. I went with the failsafe response: “They’re all great. Besides, whichever one you choose, you know you’re going to be the hottest girl in that room.”
OK, I knew that wasn’t going to cut it, and it didn’t. Tess just gave me that deadpan look that signaled a lot of hard work ahead for me to make up for it and said, in her best ironic French accent, “You have such a silky tongue, Monsieur Reilly. No wonder women swoon over your ever utterance.”
“It’s my cross to bear,” I replied before heading out to the kitchen. “You want a beer?”
“Monsieur, you spoil me with your exquisite taste.”
“I’m assuming that means you want foreign?”
“Moi?”
I smiled. “One Bud, coming up.”
I hit the fridge, took a long chug, then sat down at the kitchen table and mapped out tomorrow in my mind.
I had to be at Times Square at one. I didn’t think it would be a long meet, and that’s assuming Darth showed up at all. The guy sounded so jittery it felt like anything would spook him.
On the other hand, he could show up and turn out to be the real deal. If so, I might try to convince him to come into custody, which, if he did, would obviously wipe out our little DC excursion. I could already picture how cheerfully Tess would take that.
She was all excited about our mini-break. She’d arranged for her mom, who lived up in Westport, to come down and look after Kim and Alex while we were out of town. It would be just the two of us, shacked up in a nice hotel room in the capital. Which would be great. Having to miss it would be bad. Then again, my covert meeting could go all wrong and morph into something nasty and intense, which was a different worry altogether.
I needed to be at Penn Station at two for our Acela Express down to DC I was already going to be on thin ice with Tess once I told her I’d be ditching her at Union Station and meeting up with her at the hotel later. That would be tight too—I’d be jumping in the rental car that was waiting there for me and driving out to have my chat with my favorite philandering CIA agent before joining her in time for the star-studded Christmas dinner.
That wasn’t a conversation I was hugely looking forward to. I hadn’t felt great about blackmailing Stan Kirby the first time, even though he was a cheating scumbag. It hadn’t exactly endeared me to him either. He’d probably blow a gasket at having me show up again, and at his house for that matter, but I didn’t have any other choice. A phone call wasn’t going to have the full effect, not if I wanted to convince him to look into what the CIA’s servers had on record about my dad. I couldn’t show up at his office. And Kurt had called to tell me that his snoop into Kirby’s digital footprint showed that his Thursday evening trysts with his sister-in-law seemed to have ended, and that he drove home from Langley straight after work pretty much every day. Maybe my little intervention had actually put him back on the straight and narrow. Or maybe his mistress had just got bored with his sorry ass. Who knows. Still, I couldn’t afford not to go out and see him. The dinner invitation to the White House was timely, a great opportunity to slip away and have my little chat with him without raising too many flags.
I decided it wasn’t hugely productive to keep mulling over it any more. I just needed to get out there and see how both events would play out. Right now, the best call was to get back to the bedroom with Tess’s beer and make up for not fawning over her overpriced selection of haute couture.
I didn’t get much of a chance to fawn. Within moments of me handing Tess her exquisite brew, I saw her eyes move away and land on something by our bedroom door.
I followed her gaze to see Alex standing there, his face tense with worry despite clearly being half-asleep.
“Oh, baby,” she said warmly.
She started to get out of bed, but I stopped her and said, “I’ve got this.”
I turned and padded over to him, slowly. He just watched me in silence as I dropped down to one knee in front of him.
“Hey,” I said softly, giving him a kiss on his forehead. “What’s going on, champ? It’s very late.”
He stared at me, his lower lip curled out and quivering a bit, his big brown eyes brimming with anxiety.
He didn’t need to tell me what was going on. This wasn’t the first time he’d had a nightmare.
“Come on,” I said as I lifted him up and hugged him against me. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
I glanced back at Tess. She gave me a pained half-smile and a small, warm nod, and I carried him into his bedroom.
“Story,” he mumbled, clinging to me tightly.
I melted a bit. Despite the anger roaring through me regarding what he was going through, what they’d done to him, at least he was now letting me comfort him, and not just Tess.
It was such a bittersweet feeling—enjoying holding my son tight against me, feeling him cling to me like this, his protector, his dad—but at the same time wanting to pound the guys who did this to a pulp.
“OK,” I told him as we cuddled up in his bed. “What are we in the mood for tonight? Some gobblefunk or that clever mouse and his big, toothy friend?”
Alex smiled.
I melted some more.
“Gobblefunk,” he murmured.
“Good call,” I said, and raised my hand for a high five, which he gently tapped back before rubbing his eyes with tight fists in that glorious way kids do.
We cuddled up and sank together into the wonderful world of the Big Friendly Giant. Alex’s breathing got louder and slower, his little snores a symphony to my ears, a balm to my tired senses.
Once I was sure he was comfortably asleep, it was hard to extricate myself from that lovely cocoon and move back to our bedroom, but I needed to. I had to get some good zees in.
Tomorrow was shaping up to be a day of a complication or two, at best.
THURSDAY
9
Boston, Massachusetts
Dr. Ralph Padley woke at seven, as he did every day since moving into the East Broadway brownstone seventeen years ago.
Until his body had turned on him, he had enjoyed starting his days there. The purchase had proved an exceptionally wise investment, as the area was now quite the equal of the Back Bay or South End—his meticulous research having, once again, paid off. As per his rigid habit, he showered, dressed, scraped a dusting of snow and a thin layer of ice from his windshield, then drove to the Starbucks at the corner of Beacon and Charles. Regardless of what he was going through, regardless of the aches and weaknesses, he would stick to his routine as long as he could. It would be his small revenge over what fate had decreed for him.
He walked under the string of Christmas lig
hts hanging inside the faux-classical entrance and joined the short line. Beyond the Ionic columns that met the plaster-molded ceiling, there was a seasonal warmth, though Padley was entirely oblivious to the imminent holidays. More than ever, he vehemently believed that any feelings of joy generated inside retail outlets was nothing more than a cynical exercise in marketing.
Despite it all, Padley felt good today. Apprehensive, certainly. Fearful, even. But deep down, he felt hopeful. Today, he would trigger a sequence of events that, while highly dangerous, would—if successful—lay the foundation of his quest for salvation.
Handing his Harvard University travel mug to his regular morning barista, he ordered his regular morning drink—an Earl Grey Tea Latte—into which he poured a generous splash of cold half-and-half at the milk station. He noticed that the thermos was running rather low, but by good fortune held the exact amount of milk for his beverage.
Sipping his drink, he drove along Beacon and turned left into Clarendon, parking just before the intersection with Boylston Street. He took his gym bag from his car and walked the hundred yards to Boston Sports Club.
He entered the BSC—or at least attempted to—at the exact moment that a slim man wearing a fedora tried to do likewise. After the socially acceptable number of “sorrys” and an immaculately polite “no, excuse me,” the fedora-wearing man deferred and stepped aside, eventually following Padley inside the building.
This exchange caused Padley to wonder why men no longer wore hats as a matter of course. His grandfather had always worn a Homburg and had told the young Ralph that a man’s choice of hat said much about him, but as young Ralph had still been somewhat conflicted about what he wanted to say about himself, he had chosen not to wear a hat. He now had something to offer the world, something of which he could rightly be proud, and wondered whether it wasn’t the time to choose a form of headwear. As things stood, he favored an ivy cap, perhaps in corduroy or wool—anything but Harris Tweed, he mused, thinking it would definitely send out the wrong signal—though he reserved the right to change his mind and opt for something more flamboyant.