Once A Spy Part 25

'Sorry, I never thought about it one way or the other.'

'It's not a big deal. It never killed me.'

'I probably wasn't as attuned to that sort of thing as I might have been. That, at least, I can make up to you.'

'That's okay*you don't have to cook.' Charlie winced in recollection of the few times Drummond had tried.

'I know. I said make up to you.''

'What do you have in mind?'

Drummond exited the stall, thumbs-up*the drop was successfully loaded. 'I was wondering if you would like a ski house in the Swiss Alps,' he said.

Charlie was delighted, probably as much as he ever had been. 'Let's find out.'

45.

The chrome-banded facade of Desherer's Sweet Shop was, in Charlie's opinion, dazzling. Tonight was the first time he'd seen the rear of the building, which was essentially a pile of soot-blackened bricks. There were nicer tombs, he thought. Roomier ones too. Trailing Drummond into the alley required stooping and turning sideways to fit into a narrow, clammy pa.s.sageway. Six steep steps, carpeted with moss and pungent with mildew, brought them down to a squat steel door. Drummond extended his fingers into one of the many dark crevices alongside it. facade of Desherer's Sweet Shop was, in Charlie's opinion, dazzling. Tonight was the first time he'd seen the rear of the building, which was essentially a pile of soot-blackened bricks. There were nicer tombs, he thought. Roomier ones too. Trailing Drummond into the alley required stooping and turning sideways to fit into a narrow, clammy pa.s.sageway. Six steep steps, carpeted with moss and pungent with mildew, brought them down to a squat steel door. Drummond extended his fingers into one of the many dark crevices alongside it.

'I'm sort of surprised an actual spy's safe house has a hide-a-key,' Charlie whispered. Neighbors slept above, street traffic was barely audible; the loudest sound was the clicking tread of a rat in a nearby alleyway.

'A retinal scanner, like the ones at the office, might have been a bit conspicuous here,' Drummond said.

Charlie joined in the search. When his fingers struck something slimy and jiggly, he yanked out his hand. An old rubber glove flopped out after it.

Drummond caught the glove. 'Good work,' he said.

From the glove, he removed a key, then unlocked the door to the onetime storeroom, releasing a shaft of air redolent of fresh chocolate, bubble gum, and red licorice*a louvered wall was all that separated the back offices from the candy store. The aroma was enough to catapult anyone into the fondest childhood memories. As he followed Drummond in, Charlie's memories were of standing outside Desherer's big front window, drooling a puddle. Drummond meanwhile was across the street at the Mykonos Diner, collecting their take-out containers of dry meat loaf and boiled potatoes, or something even less exciting. Just making it inside Desherer's now felt like a victory.

Hearing a car approach the front of the store, Drummond eased into a shadow and flattened against the side of a tall file cabinet. Charlie ducked beneath a window, his foot inadvertently sending a box of malted milk b.a.l.l.s rattling across the floor.

The car drove up at a slow pace, on patrol, or on the prowl. High beams pierced the blinds that hung inside the store's big front windows, making a display worthy of the Fourth of July out of the chrome counter and its myriad jars of colorful candies, and throwing huge shadows onto the walls and ceiling in the back storeroom.

'Them?' whispered Charlie, pressed against dusty floorboards. whispered Charlie, pressed against dusty floorboards.

'More likely just a routine police patrol.'

Whoever it was drove away. The store seemed blacker than before.

Drummond unlocked the door to the last in the row of five small offices that had been built out from the storeroom's back wall. On entering, he twisted the coin advance handle on a gumball machine. A soft lightbulb within the globe blinked on, revealing four walls of warped wood paneling stained an orange-brown not found in nature. The file cabinets and bookshelves pressed against the paneling appeared to be all that held it up.

Drummond knelt and examined the small cube refrigerator. Nodding his satisfaction that it hadn't been tampered with, he pulled the door open and removed an armful of Chinese take-out containers*aluminum trays with waxed cardboard tops. He set them on the cracked leather desk blotter and pried off the lid of the topmost. Charlie backed away. The odor was like a punch in the nose.

'This is nothing,' Drummond said. 'An agent of ours in Berlin used to leave microfilm hidden inside dead rats in his cellar. And times I had something really important to hide, I submerged it in here.' He tapped a stout wooden door, which swung inward, revealing a tiny bathroom that made the one at the subway station seem spiffy. The toilet bowl was filled with brown water. Or brown something.

'You've made the eight-year-old Chinese food seem appetizing,' Charlie said.

'Actually I have a feeling you'll find it mouthwatering,' Drummond said with a smile. He pried away a slab of congealed chicken and peanuts, revealing a plastic-wrapped brick of twenty-dollar bills and another of hundreds. 'Not incidentally, the peanuts aren't peanuts. They're uncut diamonds.'

Charlie found Drummond's smile infectious.

This was the Christmas morning they'd never had.

'Actually, it's the most beautiful dish I've ever seen,' Charlie said.

Laughing, Drummond took the top off another container of now-petrified lo mein. The odor was fresh flowers as far as Charlie was concerned. Drummond removed a block of noodles to expose doc.u.ments including two blank United States pa.s.sports and two more United States pa.s.sports with his photograph inside. The names were Bill Peterson and John Lewis.

'Are these your emergency aliases or pseudonyms or whatever?' Charlie asked.

'Bill Peterson is a fabrication, pure and simple. John Lewis took some doing. He was born in Altoona, Iowa, in 1947, then was committed to an insane asylum in Des Moines in 2002. So he's not going anywhere. I borrowed' his social security number in order to get a duplicate of his birth certificate sent to an accommodation address I set up for him in Stamford, Connecticut. Then I used the birth certificate to get the pa.s.sport as well as a Connecticut driver's license, and, over time, all this*' He popped a hardened layer of rice from the next container and poured onto the desk blotter Fairfield Textiles LLC business cards belonging to 'John Lewis' as well as cards of others in the textile industry, receipts, a New Haven library card, about ten department store charge cards, and another ten ordinary debit and credit cards. 'Most of these cards work, but using them in the next couple of days will be too risky. We may as well send Fielding a note saying Wish You Were Here.' Still, this one could be vital.' He tapped a Sears card.

'In the event of an emergency where we need a blender?'

'In the event we want to draw on the account at the Bank of Antigua. It's a numbered account, so there's no link to my name. Do you think you'll be able to memorize the number on the card?'

Charlie glanced at the sixteen digits. 'For eight million bucks, I could memorize all of Moby-d.i.c.k.' Moby-d.i.c.k.'

Drummond regarded Charlie with what looked like contentment; Charlie wasn't entirely sure, never having seen that expression on him before.

'Charles, please know I never wanted you to be in the position of having to flee the country,' Drummond said. 'As it stands, though, I'm grateful to you for having gotten us this far. And I'll be very happy to have you along.' He thrust out his right hand.

Charlie clasped it with matching energy. Still, the handshake felt lacking.

It was interrupted by three raps at the door between Bedford Avenue and the vestibule the offices shared with the candy store.

'This is the police,' came a man's voice from the sidewalk. 'Please come out now or we'll be forced to come in.'

Charlie flashed back to his clumsy, boxes-of-malted-milk-b.a.l.l.s-rattling move when the car drove past. He groaned inwardly.

'I can take care of this,' Drummond whispered. He put the lid back on the container of cash and diamonds, then grabbed a card from the pile on the desk. 'Stay put for just a minute.'

He stepped out of the office, blending into the darkness of the corridor leading to the vestibule. He reappeared for a moment, red, then white, and then blue from the flashing light bar on the patrol car. Then he vanished into the vestibule.

Charlie heard him padding down thick rubber matting. He heard too the raspy slide of the bolt, the groan as the door opened, the tinkle of a little bell on top of it, the influx of the Brooklyn night, then Drummond delivering a very convincing, 'It's okay, officers, I'm Bill Peterson. I'm a tenant here. With too much work due tomorrow morning, unfortunately.' What sounded like a brief exchange of formalities between him and the policemen came next, followed by another jingle of the bell as the door fell back into its frame, the relocking of the bolt, the patrol car rolling away, and, finally, Drummond ambling back down the dark corridor.

'So did you have to buy tickets to the PBA dinner?' Charlie asked.

There was no response.

'Dad?'

Out of the darkness came a stocky young man. Charlie knew him as MacKenzie, but his name was really Pitman*a.s.suming Cadaret hadn't lied about that too. Pitman held the Colt that had been tucked into Drummond's waistband seconds ago.

'Dad had to go to a meeting,' he said.

46.

Pitman pried a block of wood from a corner of the bookshelf. It matched the triangular braces on the shelf's other corners. He shook it until a small transistor-like gadget fell out and onto the desk blotter. An eavesdropping device, guessed Charlie, who sat at the desk per Pitman's promise to shoot him if he didn't. a block of wood from a corner of the bookshelf. It matched the triangular braces on the shelf's other corners. He shook it until a small transistor-like gadget fell out and onto the desk blotter. An eavesdropping device, guessed Charlie, who sat at the desk per Pitman's promise to shoot him if he didn't.

With the b.u.t.t of the Colt, Pitman smashed apart the gadget, then swept away its remains, along with the Chinese food containers, sending them clattering against the fake-wood paneling and then to the floor. Spreading the charge cards out onto the blotter, he asked, 'Okay, which one is it?'

Evidently he'd overheard what Drummond said about the Bank of Antigua and was looking to get in on the money himself*how else to explain his furtive solo entry coupled with the destruction of the eavesdropping device? His problem was Drummond never identified the card by name; he'd merely tapped it.

'Which one is what?' what?' Charlie said. Charlie said.

Pitman grabbed him by the collar and thrust his face toward the desktop. The bulb of Charlie's nose flattened against the blotter. The cartilage was a hair's breadth from exploding when Pitman jerked him to a stop.

'Why make this hard on yourself, Charlie?'

'I don't know what you want,' Charlie said, trying to buy time to think.

No doubt Pitman could torture him into revealing it was the Sears card. Probably the spook knew dark artistry that would hurt just to hear about. And even more disturbing: Once Pitman got what he wanted, he couldn't risk Charlie breathing a word of what had happened.

'I know it's not one of the gas station cards, because you can't buy a blender at a gas station,' Pitman said. 'So, which is it? Nordstrom's? Spiegel? Sears? JCPenney?'

Charlie felt the heat of Pitman's scrutiny with the mention of each. 'Really, I have no idea what you're talking about,' he said.

'Do you have Alzheimer's too? I overheard your entire conversation.'

Pitman gripped the Colt by the barrel and appeared only to flick it. When the handle struck Charlie's nose, though, it felt like a wrecking ball. Hot blood burst from his nostrils, he saw at least two of everything in the room, and he wanted to shriek. But while shrieking would release some of the pain, it would get the neighbors' attention, and draw the police. Then Pitman would simply flash his G-man badge and drag Charlie somewhere else to torture him.

Which would foil Charlie's nascent escape plan.

So instead of shrieking, Charlie dug his nails into the wooden frame of his chair, sucked back the blood, and said, 'Oh, I get it, you mean the numbered bank account.'

'So pain helps jog your memory. Good.' Pitman positioned himself so he stood directly above Charlie. He took Charlie's right ring finger in a tight grip, then raised it as high as he could in preparation for plunging it into the sharp edge of the desktop. 'I'm going to break your fingers, one at a time, until you tell me which card it is.'

Charlie had no doubt the maneuver would break his finger. The question was whether it would break the finger off off. 'Okay, okay, okay! Uncle!'

Pitman let Charlie's hand fall but kept the gun pointed at him. 'Which?'

The bright red Sears card sat in the very center of the blotter. Trying to block it from his consciousness, Charlie inched a hand toward the JCPenney card. The nose of the Colt mirrored his motion.

'JCPenney?' Pitman asked.

'Yeah,' Charlie said in defeat.

He grabbed at his nose, as if to staunch the blood. In the process he elbowed the JCPenney card. It skidded off the desk and clicked to the floor. 'Sorry,' he said.

As Pitman knelt to pick up the Penney's card, Charlie s.n.a.t.c.hed the Sears card, wound up, and fired it toward the bathroom. Its flight was clumsy*end over end, as opposed to the laser beam he'd envisioned. The motion caught Pitman's eye. He looked up from his kneel as the card landed, with a splash, in the toilet bowl*or, as Charlie thought of it, the bull's-eye.

'It was the Sears card, wasn't it?' Pitman asked.

Charlie looked away and said nothing.

'I should have known from the way you avoided looking at it.' Pitman stood and pointed the Colt at him. 'Get it out and lick it clean.'

Charlie rose. From the desk, Pitman matched his movements with the nose of the Colt. Fearing another pistol-whipping, Charlie steered clear of it.

When in range of the bathroom, he lunged, grabbed the handle of the flush chain hanging from the overhead cistern, and pulled as hard as he could. Water rushed into the bowl with astounding power. The Sears card would almost surely go down the drain.

Pitman dove headlong from the desk and toward the bowl. Charlie threw all his weight against the inside of the bathroom door. The face of the door met Pitman's jaw squarely with a sound neighbors might have mistaken for a bowling ball that had fallen from the top shelf of a closet.

Pitman toppled backward. Still he managed to keep the muzzle of the Colt on line with Charlie's face. Until he slipped on a greasy take-out container top. The base of his skull smacked into a sharp edge of the desktop. He collapsed to the floor.

47.

Charlie knelt over Pitman and jostled him back into consciousness. Pitman's eyes opened and he appeared to regain focus. Charlie flashed the Colt. 'What happened to my father?' over Pitman and jostled him back into consciousness. Pitman's eyes opened and he appeared to regain focus. Charlie flashed the Colt. 'What happened to my father?'

'I don't know. How long have I been unconscious?'

'Like, ten seconds.'

Pitman inched a hand toward his waistband.

'While you were out, I put that SIG Sauer P two-two-eight of yours in a safe place,' Charlie said. 'Now, where'd they take him?'

'I don't know.'

'You're lying.'

'You memorized the number on the Sears card, didn't you?'

'Is the number your price for information?'

'It could be.'

'Why would I trust you?'

'What choice do you have?'

Charlie eyed the Colt.

Pitman laughed. 'If you fire that in here, either half the neighborhood will hear it and call the cops, or the cops will hear it themselves, and after I identify myself and explain the situation to them, you and I will go somewhere else and take our sweet time on your recollection of the account number.'

'All right. I'll use this then.' Charlie uncradled the telephone on the desk.

'For what?'

'I'll say you came here to apprehend my father's retirement fund, rather than apprehend me*I'll bet you didn't even tell anyone you'd heard me with your bug.'

'Who can you call?'

'Anybody. Your colleagues will hear me whoever I call.'

'Then they'll know you're here.' here.'

'Then they'll know we're we're here, you mean. And they'll put you in jail for a long time. If you're lucky.' here, you mean. And they'll put you in jail for a long time. If you're lucky.'