CHAPTER 17
Walt Rogers paced the narrow confines of his motel room and smacked the wall with the flat of his hand before he turned to face the opposite direction. He carried his cell phone in his other hand and cursed it with each smack on the wall. When it finally rang, he almost dropped it in his haste to answer it.
“Talk.”
Walt nodded his head as he listened to the calm voice in his ear telling him that the two young people had disappeared in San Francisco. No one had seen them since they’d gotten off the bus from Los Angeles. “Throw a net around the other people he could be looking for. Any news of the Allen woman? Was she seen at the airport? Is her car missing? Where is her husband? What? What? What?”
“Now, Walt, just slow down a minute. You know I’ll get to everything as soon as I can. No sightings on Dr. Allen. Her car is not in her garage but her husband’s is. Neighbors say he has been in Hong Kong for several weeks on some big construction project. He’s not expected home for months. I’ll contact his company and find out if his wife told him where she was going. I already put her car out as a stolen vehicle. In the meantime, I have men checking parking lots at all the airports for miles around. We’ll hear from that sometime. Who shall I send to Chicago or Los Alamos or Arizona? I could just alert security at Los Alamos and let them watch for her or the kids. What do you think?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s good enough for Los Alamos. Just make sure they know it’s a national security issue. Send Ray and Wendy to Arizona. That’s a small town and I want them to keep a low profile. Who’s available for Chicago?”
“Sven’s in Detroit on another problem and Harris is in New York City. Either one of them could be routed to Chicago.”
“Send them both. Brief them thoroughly and make sure they’re looking for any of these people, okay? I’ll be waiting here for another few hours. Then I may go back to LA and take Dr. Evan Phillips to pieces. The boy has to have talked to him or gotten a message to him somehow. Keep me posted.”
Walt savagely punched the button on his phone and shoved it in the pocket of his jacket. He paced around the room a few more times and then dropped on the bed. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling for almost thirty minutes. When he finally clambered to his feet, the lines of anger had left his face. He rotated his shoulders to release the tension in his back and neck. He smiled a small secret smile and walked out the door to his car.
Walt Rogers pulled up to the UCLA campus and checked in with the security guards for the second time. This time the guards were not as helpful as before and refused to talk with him until the head of the security staff could be located. Walt flashed his credentials to no avail and waited in seething anger until a calm man with gray hair and penetrating eyes entered the room. The man wore a well-cut dark gray suit and expensive shoes.
“Bradley Watson, head of security for this campus. What can I do for you, Agent Rogers?”
“You can damn well help me with my interrogation of Dr. Phillips, that’s what you can do for me. I’ve been waiting here for thirty minutes and I demand that you bring the man to me.”
“Demand all you want, Mr. Rogers, but until I have authorization from your department, you don’t operate on this campus. Dr. Phillips has filed a complaint with the local office of the FBI and with the Attorney-General of the state of California. Our university attorneys have advised us that we are not to assist you in any way until these claims and any others filed by our employees are settled.”
“Goddammit, man, this is a national security issue. You don’t know what you’re messing with here or who you’re messing with. I am on a job with the highest priority and when I ask for help, you’re supposed to give it to me.”
“Well, if it is the highest priority, then your office should get in touch with our attorneys very soon. Until that happens, you might as well have a seat and wait because you aren’t entering our campus with the intention of interrogating Dr. Phillips or any one else.”
Bradley Watson rested a hip on the corner of the watch commander’s desk and offered Walt a wooden chair in front of the desk. Walt rejected the chair and stalked to the window in the far wall of the office. He jerked his cell phone out of his pocket and angrily punched in the number for his contact, Tom Adams. The impersonal tones of a machine asked him to leave a message. He growled his name in the phone and then punched in the number for his lieutenant, Art Johnson. When he was forced to leave a message yet again, he almost threw his phone through the window. He stopped himself just before he let go of it and set it on the desk with deliberate slowness. He glanced quickly into Bradley Watson’s face and was almost positive he’d just missed a smile. Well, it wouldn’t be long before he’d show this pissant who was important and who wasn’t.
Walt smiled grimly at the men surrounding him and forced himself to sit calmly in the chair in front of the desk. After he finished this job for Clark Duncan, he’d do a little investigating and screw up the life of the man sitting across the desk from him. Walt glanced again at the calm face and recognized a hint of authority he’d missed when he first met the man. Bradley Watson was definitely not a retired city cop as he’d first assumed. When Tom Adams or Art Johnson returned his calls, he would drop Watson’s name into the conversation and wait for a reaction.
Walt was seriously angry when his cell phone finally rang about forty-five minutes later. He never even had a chance to detail the situation before Tom cut him off.
“Shut up, Walt. Don’t say another word. The shit has hit the fan here in the office. Duncan is frothing at the mouth and swearing to everyone that he told you not to make any waves. Just back away from that university and apologize for bothering them. Do it now. I’ll call you back in thirty minutes.”
A click sounded very loud in Walt’s ear. He thoughtfully slid the phone into his jacket pocket and smiled tightly at the head of security. “Well, I guess that’s that. I’ll be back when all this is sorted out. My office will make an appointment with Dr. Phillips and his attorneys and we’ll thrash this all out then. Sorry to have bothered you.”
Walt reached across the desk and touched the Bradley’s hand. Then he walked steadily out the door and drove away from the campus. He pulled into the parking lot of a large shopping center and waited impatiently for Tom’s call. After thirty minutes had passed, Walt was banging on his steering wheel again and talking to himself. He held the phone out in front of his face and mentally willed it to ring. When he finally tossed it onto the seat in resignation, it rang. He grabbed it up and barked his name.
Tom Adams’ voice grated in his ear. “Don’t snarl at me, you asshole. I don’t know what you did at that campus but you sure ruffled a lot of feathers. You are not to speak with Dr. Phillips again, ever. If he needs to be questioned for any reason, someone else will be sent. I don’t want to hear what you did or didn’t do. It doesn’t matter at all. The word from the top is that you are ‘persona non grata’ out there so do your investigating somewhere else. Clark has also sent word that there are to be no retaliations against anyone at the University. Do you understand? You must have really hit a nerve or messed in someone else’s investigation. Back off and go somewhere else.”
“Goddammit, Tom, you know what it means when we get this severe a reaction. They’re covering up something and we need to find out what it is.”
“No, Walt, ‘we’ do not. Someone else might work on it but not you.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“No, I don’t. Obviously, I didn’t need to know. It must be part of a different investigation that’s more important. What’s next for you, Walt?”
“Oh, hell, Chicago, I guess. I have a feeling that’s where one of my professors has gone. I’ll call you when I get there. Sven and Harris will meet me there. Is there anything about the University of Chicago I should know?”
“Yes, a lot of their professors have security clearances so they do lots of work for the government. No threats and no weapons and no violence.”
“How the hell am I supposed to find out anything if I can’t even ask a question?”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t ask. I just said you couldn’t hold a loaded gun in your hand when you asked.”
Walt stabbed the button to cut off his phone without saying another word. Then he called Art and left him another message. He needed a flight to Chicago and he needed it this afternoon. He drove directly to the airport and stepped into a bar to wait for Art to return his call. Two scotches later, his cell phone rang. Somehow, he wasn’t very surprised when Art told him his flight didn’t leave for another two hours.
A woman slid onto the stool next to him and bumped slightly into his shoulder as she set her purse on the bar. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bang into you.”
She smiled at him and ordered a glass of wine from the bartender. She ran her finger lightly around the rim of the wine glass and stared into the red liquid inside. She pushed her shoulder length brown hair behind her ear with her right hand and drank some of the wine. A loud commercial caught her attention and she watched the small television screen while she sipped her wine. Walt watched her from the corner of his eyes and noticed the flashing rings on her hands and the glitter of her earrings. As near as Walt could tell, she was skating very close to her fortieth birthday. Her dress and shoes looked fairly expensive. Hell, he had two hours to kill before his flight. What would it hurt to talk for a while with a pretty woman?
Walt waited for the woman to drink more of her wine before he waved to the bartender. He ordered another scotch and then asked the woman if he could buy her another glass of wine. She looked him squarely in the face for the first time and narrowed her eyes in concentration. Then she smiled widely and pushed her glass toward the bartender.
“I’m Alison Brown and like everyone else around here, I’m waiting for a flight.”
“Walt Ralston. My flight leaves in two hours. How about yours?”
Just as Alison opened her mouth to answer, Walt’s phone rang. He grabbed it and answered it. He turned his head away from Alison and listened intently to the voice of his assistant Art. When he finished, he set the phone on the bar with a smile and faced Alison again.
She waited until she had his attention and then she answered his question. “Well, Mr. Walt Ralston, I have a two-hour wait also.” She turned on her stool to face him and carried her glass to her mouth. She watched him over the rim of the glass as he took a hefty slug of scotch and water. “Where are you headed? I’m on my way to Dallas. Will you be back in LA in about a week? Maybe I could buy you a drink since you bought me one.”
“Oh, I don’t live here, just passing through on business. I’m on my way to Chicago and I don’t know where I’ll be after that. What are you doing in Dallas? Don’t tell me you have ‘business’ there?”
She gurgled a low laugh and playfully touched his arm. She finished the wine in her glass and pushed it toward the bartender. “Now, what makes you think I’m not a business woman? I have my own business here in LA. I’m an interior designer. I’m on my way to Dallas to consult with a client and also to find new product sources for my more ‘western clients.’ Let me give you one of my cards and maybe you could call me when you’re back in LA.”
Alison picked up her small purse and reached inside for a business card. When the bartender set down another glass of wine, she motioned toward Walt’s glass and slid a ten-dollar bill across the bar. She pulled out her cell phone and finally slid out an ornately printed card. She handed the card to Walt just as the bartender slid another scotch and water in front of him. Alison picked up her phone and slid it into the small purse. Walt stared at the small card and smiled at it before he slid it into his jacket pocket. Then he noticed his cell phone on the bar next to a fresh drink so he slid it into his pocket also. He picked up his drink and held it out to Alison.
“Here’s to a new ‘friendship’!”
She touched his glass with her wine glass and drank a sip. “What kind of business are you in, Mr. Walt Ralston?”
“Um, I do confidential audits for businesses. You know, for takeovers or buy-outs. I also do background checks on employees. Some companies want some kind of audit before they sign big contracts with other companies, just to make sure these other companies can deliver. I travel all over the world.”
A loud announcement blared through the terminal and Alison cocked her ear. “They’re calling my flight. It’s been nice visiting with you, Walt. Please give me a call if you’re ever back in LA.” She held out her hand and shook his hand before she carefully slid off the stool and walked down to her gate. Walt stared down into his drink and wondered what would have happened if they hadn’t met in an airport. He shook his head and tossed down his drink.
Walt’s flight was called in the next couple of minutes, so he left the bar and joined the line of travelers funneling into the small door of the airplane. He settled into his seat and ignored the people sitting around him. As soon as he could, he tipped his seat back and closed his eyes. Behind his blank face, his mind replayed the events of the last few days. He tried to remember everything he’d seen and heard and then made tentative plans for his arrival in Chicago.
Walt was almost the first person off the plane and hurried through the long tunnel with extra long strides. He scanned the faces of the people in the terminal, recognized no one, and then slipped his phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open, and punched in the speed dial number for Tom Adams. Nothing happened. He shook the phone, punched the numbers again, and scowled when he heard silence. He angrily stabbed at the tiny buttons with his forefinger and pulled up the screen of speed dial numbers. It was totally blank. Now, Walt really stared at the small receiver in his left hand. Unconsciously, he weighed it and accepted its size as correct. He shook his head at the small phone and wondered fleetingly if it was time for a new one. This time he punched in Tom’s entire phone number and heard the ringing sound in his ear. A tiny smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he listened to Tom’s directions. Within minutes a well-dressed woman in her mid-thirties was driving him away from the airport and into the huge city in search of more answers. This time he would be the soul of politeness when he questioned Marianne Wolfe, excuse me, Dr. Marianne Wolfe. Walt growled slightly under his breath. These over-educated intellectuals were either the hardest ones to deal with or the easiest. He’d already hit a couple of hard ones. Maybe this one would be an easy one.
Alison Brown swayed out of the airport bar and turned to her left. She kept to the same slow rhythm until she judged it safe to hurry. Her legs took longer and longer strides as she slid between and around slower moving traffic. She glanced up at the rows of lighted signs signifying everything from bars to shops to bathrooms and counted off the bathrooms as she passed them. She ducked into the fourth one she came to and joined the short line of patiently waiting women and children. The young woman in front of her slightly turned her head and looked down at the shiny black high heels on Alison’s feet. Then she glanced at her face and nodded. Alison looked into the black eyes of the woman and then saw the small gold tooth at the very edge of her smile. Contact made and acknowledged. Within a very few minutes, Alison had turned over Mr. Walt Ralston’s cell phone and dropped the word “Chicago” into the smooth brown ear of the young woman in line. She changed clothes in the stall and left the bathroom looking far different from the woman who’d shared a few minutes with a strange man in a bar. Jeans, sweatshirt, and sneakers will change the looks of any woman, no matter her age, size, or coloring. Alison attached herself to a family group heading for the baggage area and drifted out of the terminal without seeing or being seen by Walt Ralston.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
Eden scrunched around in her bus seat until she was comfortable. Then she deliberately closed her eyes and left Deakin to his own devices. To her own surprise she slept most of the way to San Francisco. Deakin woke her up as they drove through the chain of cities that bordered San Francisco. At one point he motioned to a highway sign that listed the exit for Stanford. They both craned their heads to look but couldn’t see the campus from their side of the bus. They rode clear to the main bus station in the center of San Francisco.
As they wandered out into the waiting room of the station, a young man detached himself from the wall and jerked his head in their direction. He’d thrown his windbreaker over his shoulder and rolled up the sleeves of his tee shirt. A small tattoo of a lizard peeked out from under his left sleeve. Eden flipped a braid over her shoulder to give him a look at her earrings. He glanced interestedly at Deakin and then walked out of the building. Eden and Deakin followed him down the crowded street. The man slipped into a small video shop and then out the back door to a narrow alley running between a long line of two and three story buildings.
Deakin and Eden stepped behind a large trash bin and watched the man talk to a group of street people who’d turned the alley into their home. Then they followed him to a door halfway down the alley. They slid between two cardboard houses and into the back room of a liquor store. The man pointed up the back stairs before he continued into the store.
Eden and Deakin climbed the dirty staircase and found themselves on the top floor of an old apartment building. Years of marginal living had left layers of ingrained dirt and grime all over the floors and the walls. The windows at either end of the long hallway let in only a slight glow. They walked slowly and quietly along the hall and looked at each door in turn. At the far end, they came to a door with a small lizard scratched in the wood under the apartment number. Eden looked inquiringly at Deakin and then shrugged her shoulders. She knocked softly on the door and watched in surprise as it opened slowly. A voice floated out of the gloom of the apartment and said,
“Come in, come in. I’ve been waiting for you. Alden sent word you’d be heading this way. Lock the door behind you. I don’t want anyone else coming in right now.”
Deakin followed Eden through the fragrant smoke that filled the room and tracked the voice to its source. The glow from the screens of three monitors illuminated the room. Incense burners lined every window sill and the combination of scents gave Eden an immediate headache. She squinted at the young man in front of her and smiled into his green eyes.
“Yikes, Alden didn’t tell me one of you was a girl. If I’d known, I’d have gotten dressed. I guess you’ll just have to put up with my boxers. Pull up a chair and tell me what I can do for you. Alden says it’s dangerous and not to leave a trail.”
Deakin sat down next to the young man and held out his hand. “Deakin, here, and Eden, there. We need a way to reach someone at Stanford without getting caught. Hopefully, she’ll want to meet us and won’t turn us in to the bad guys immediately. What do we do first?”
The young man smiled at Eden and said, “Sam, that’s me. Employee or student at Stanford. Professor, cafeteria worker, maintenance man, chancellor, what?”
“I assume she’s a professor. Mala Goswami Allen. I’m guessing math or science.”
Sam’s fingers drifted over his keyboard but his indecision stopped him. “What kind of bad guys are we talking here?”
“Really bad ones. Lots of them and they have access to everything which probably means government of some kind. They kill people, that’s how bad they are.” “In that case, we’ll try an end run. Will they be watching this woman, tapping her phone, accessing her email?”
“Yes, definitely. We’d like to meet her if possible. Otherwise, a cell phone message or a written message would be fine. I’ll give you the questions to ask her.”
Sam nodded with a thoughtful look on his face and made his decision. “Give me the questions now and give me a hook. You know, something that’ll prove I’m in the deal with you. A name or a story, something that will make her believe you’re alive. I don’t know when I’ll get in touch with her. You two go down the hall to room #6. Crash there, take a shower, eat anything you can find. I’ll send someone when I have news.”
Hours later, a soft knock on the apartment door jerked Deakin out of his light sleep. Eden just turned over and pulled the covers over her head. Deakin patted her shoulder and slipped quietly out of the room. A definite crackle of electricity met him as he followed Sam into his room. Sam pushed him into a chair and dropped a few papers into his lap. Deakin picked up the papers and realized the words were printed on fax paper. His eyes misted over as he read the words on the first page. He shook his head and tried again. Sam walked to the window and stared out into a city night still lit by all the colors of the neon rainbow. When he glanced back, he realized Deakin wasn’t reading yet.
“I took a roundabout way of getting in touch with this woman. I ran the phone call through a couple of cell phones and then through a bank of pay phones in Los Angeles. I spoke directly to her and asked her your questions. She sent that answer to you. Let me know if I can do anything else for you. I checked in with Alden and he and the boys are doing just fine. Nobody seems to be searching for him right now so he’s staying under the radar for a while before he powers up the whole network again.”
Deakin nodded to Sam and looked back down at the pages in his lap. He took a deep breath and began reading.
Dear Deakin, I am no longer at the university so do not call me or search there for me. The phone call from your friend took me back in time to a life I’d almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite. Your beautiful mother Helena was my friend, the best friend of my life. We had such a great time working on the laser project. We were all young and idealistic and believed we were working for the good of all mankind. Our entire focus was on our work, not on the world around us. Dr. Phillips was older than we were but he was more like an advisor than a leader or an employer. He pointed us in the right direction and let us run with the ideas we came up with. We had the best of equipment and supplies and gave no thought whatsoever to the source of the money to pay for it all. Research for the sake of research, pure research was our daily bread. We developed many wonderful research avenues and some of those avenues have borne fruit. Many of the everyday uses of lasers were originated by the six of us. Helena, Alex, Marianne, Andy, Gretchen, and I – we were the core research group. Dr. Phillips watched over us and pushed us in certain directions but he wasn’t part of our group. Daniel Rivers who died along with Helena and Alex was not a scientist like the rest of us. He was a businessman from the beginning. He constantly urged us to consider the monetary aspects of our research. He thought we should market all these laser applications ourselves but the rest of us were so naïve. We were developing products for the common good and we were going to give our discoveries away so everyone could benefit equally.
Helena was a brilliant scientist. We all followed her lead. Alex was very intelligent also but he was more down to earth than Helena. He constantly made sure we considered the practical applications of all our ideas. We all worked happily together until Helena became pregnant. She then developed an entirely different direction for our research. Purely from a research point of view, it was dramatically interesting. She said she came up with the focus of the project when she thought about the development of her baby. She wondered if a laser could reverse the entire process of birth. Instead of the division of cells into more and ever more cells, maybe the laser could do the opposite and melt away cells until the object was back to its original beginning cell. I tried to talk her out of the project but Daniel egged her on. After eighteen months or so, Helena was ready to try out her idea. She had already melted plastic and aluminum into nothing. Now, Dr. Phillips and Daniel wanted us to try the laser on a white rat. Surely an animal could not be vaporized by a laser but, in the interest of science, we had to try. Helena refused to be a part of the experiment and argued long and hard against it. In deference to her feelings, Dr. Phillips experimented on rocks and plants which all disappeared without a trace.
At this point, Helena awoke to the possible uses of her laser and was horrified. Dr. Phillips arranged for a test on the rat while Helena was not around. Six or seven hard-faced men showed up for the test and filmed it. The laser either vaporized or melted the rat into nothingness, not even a smudge on the table. Smiles creased those hard faces as they walked away with the film they’d made. I told Helena about the men and watched the tears stream down her face. She was very quiet for a few days and worked late into the night. Then one morning she and Alex didn’t come to work and we never saw either of them again. The whole lab had been wrecked and the files emptied. All our research had been destroyed. I called Helena’s sister Marina who lived in Seattle. She said she had the baby but Helena had gone back to LA. Helena and Alex had cleared the computers of all the data and attempted to destroy the hardware. They were partially successful. Most of the hard data on the development of the laser disappeared and only fragments were left. The copies they’d made were never found. We were all questioned over and over for days and weeks but none of us knew where Alex and Helena had gone or what they’d done with the data they’d taken.
At the time, we were not allowed to communicate with anyone else and we were kept in strict solitary confinement. My native culture helped me remain sane in the face of an insane situation. Yoga and meditation filled the long silent hours. The others were not as fortunate. Dr. Phillips had a breakdown and spent several years in therapy before he was able to continue working. Andy Yang moved to Los Alamos and tried to duplicate the research but he was not half the scientist Helena had been. Marianne Wolfe is now at the University of Chicago. She suffered fractures in both her legs from some “unknown” accident and walks with metal braces and crutches now. She does no research anymore and teaches graduate level math classes. Gretchen Falk disappeared from sight. I never heard anything about her for years and years until I picked up a textbook she’d written. I tried to call her but she never returned my calls. Through a friend of my husband’s, I sent her a message and she sent me a reply the same way. “Leave me alone. I refuse to revisit the past. Let me live the rest of my life on my own.”
Alex, Helena, and Daniel Rivers all died, supposedly in a car accident. I never thought that was the truth but I had no proof. I hope they died easily but somehow I doubt it. Later, I received a frantic phone call from your Aunt Marina. Someone had taken you away and refused to let her keep you. I tried to comfort her but I fear I was not much help. I had recently been released from custody and my health was fragile. After I recuperated, I tried to call Marina but she was no longer in Seattle. A year later, on the anniversary of Helena’s death, I drove to Seattle and searched for Marina. I found no trace of her whereabouts. Maybe her visa had been revoked and she returned to Russia. Maybe she’s living right across the border in Canada.
Now that you have returned from the dead, I have taken up the search again. A few years ago, I met a man at a conference who knew about our laser research in a general way. He’d heard rumors and he even mentioned your mother’s name. I questioned him about his sources and he gave the name "Marina” as his primary informant. I am now in search of this man. We have kept in touch over the last year or two and have both continued the search for Marina. His name is Ian Nelms and he lives in Chicago. I will look up Marianne while I am there. I never asked her if she knew Helena’s sister.
Be very careful, my child. Please stay alive until I can see you. Your mother once was the dearest person in the world to me. I would like to see how you have grown. Do not try to contact my husband. He is not in the country at this time and has no idea what I am doing.
I will send messages to this number but I will not give you a number to contact me.
Mala Goswami Allen
Deakin looked up as Eden entered the room. Then he passed the pages over to her and sat silently while she read them. She folded the pages into a compact package and slid them into her backpack. She touched Deakin on the shoulder and jerked him out of his reverie. He patted her hand and asked Sam to collect any more messages Mala Allen might send.
“Where do I forward them?”
“Uh, send them to Alden. I’ll always stay in touch with him.”
“Is there anything I can do for you right now?”
“Check on that name she said. The one in Chicago.” He held out his hand to Eden and waited for her to pull the papers out. “Here it is. Ian Nelms. He’s in Chicago somewhere. Could you check him out while we decide where to go next?”
Eden and Deakin leaned against the far wall of the room while Sam hit his keyboard with great energy. “If Mala is covering Chicago, we don’t need to show up there also. We should find a car somewhere and head for Arizona and New Mexico. I don’t know how much we can find out but we have to try.”
Eden nodded her head and then jerked her head in Sam’s direction.
“C’mere, guys. Here’s the man. It says here that he’s the editor of some scientific journal. He’s really somebody big in the science world. Look at all those initials after his name.”
Sam clicked a few times and papers rolled out of his printer. He passed the pages over to Deakin and continued searching. More and more pages appeared until Sam shut down his search.
“If you want more from me, I’ll have to bounce around and come in from a different door. I can’t stay on very long at a time before someone starts to get curious.”
Deakin shook his head and said, “This should be enough for now, Sam. Thanks for everything. One last question and then we’re out of here. Where do we find a car? One that’s good for some highway travel?”
Sam narrowed his eyes and stared off into the distance. Finally, he wrote an address on a piece of scrap paper and handed it to Eden. “Talk to Joshua. He’ll help you out.” Then he waved as the two silently slipped out his door and disappeared into the gloom of the hallway.
Eden stopped in the pale early morning sunshine and looked around for the address Sam had given them. A short block of tired old shops met her gaze. She and Deakin crossed to the other side of the street and pushed open the door of a dingy secondhand store. They passed between racks of musty clothes into the dim interior of the shop. A disembodied voice called out of the gloom,
“Look around. I’ll be out in a minute.”
As soon as the man ducked through the curtain across the doorway in the far corner of the room, Deakin spoke. “Are you Joshua?”
“Yes, I am and who might you be?”
A round young man with small hands and feet appeared in front of Deakin and appraised him from head to foot. Then he scrutinized Eden. His gaze stopped at her earrings and he smiled slightly and pulled the curtain aside in welcome. Eden stepped through the doorway first and stopped in amazement. The room in front of her was furnished with beautifully polished antique furniture. Thick oriental rugs covered the scarred floor. She stepped gingerly onto the carpet and tip-toed to a wooden chair positioned next to a dropleaf table. Deakin followed her into the room but he stopped before his feet touched the fringe of the rug. The round man slipped easily through the door and herded Deakin across the room to the small kitchen area. He tweaked Eden’s earring as he bustled past her. Deakin leaned against the refrigerator and smiled as he took a cup of coffee from the man’s tiny hands. He laughed as Eden joined him.
“Are you afraid you’ll break something?”
Eden nodded emphatically and carefully held the china coffee cup in both her hands. Joshua crossed his arms across his chest and said, “Someone obviously sent you here for some reason. What do you want from me?”
Deakin noticed the small ring on Joshua’s pinky. A tiny lizard had been carved along the surface of the ring. “Sam gave us your name and address. We need a car that will make it to Arizona and New Mexico.”
A small frown creased Joshua’s forehead. Eden amended Deakin’s request. “Actually we need to buy a car and it needs to be a clean car no one’s looking for.”
Joshua raised his eyes to the ceiling and mentally ran through his list of available of merchandise. Then he smiled at the Eden and said, “I can find you something. It’ll cost you two thousand dollars, cash. Come back around lunchtime; say 1:00 and it’ll be parked around back. You can pay me when you pick it up.”
Deakin and Eden left by the back door and found themselves in a narrow alley. They turned to the left and headed for the bright sunshine. Deakin grabbed Eden’s arm as they reached the end of the alley and kept her from leaving the shadows. He peered out and then quickly stepped out to join a group of teenagers going into an ice cream shop. Eden followed along behind and grabbed the small round table in the corner. Deakin joined her a short while later and handed her a dripping cone. She laughingly licked the sweet drips from the side of the cone. Then she spoke softly under the cover of taking a bite of ice cream.
“No one’s watching us. Where do we go from here?”
“Find someplace to eat lunch and then come back. What else is there for us to do?”
Eden watched a police car pull to the curb in front of the window and one man stepped out the passenger door. He grabbed the arm of a young boy walking past and pulled him over to the police car. He seemed to be showing him a several pictures but the boy shook his head. Finally the officer let go of the boy’s arm and watched him scurry down the sidewalk. Eden slid her chair farther back in the corner and gestured Deakin to move closer to her. He started to turn his head but she pulled on the front of his shirt.
“Cops out in front. Showing pictures around and asking questions. Might be about us or it might not.”
Deakin nodded in understanding and calmly licked his cone while Eden monitored the sidewalk outside the window. Soon the policeman gave up and the car drove away. A city bus pulled up to the corner in a cloud of diesel smoke and they ran to board it. Several miles down the road they left the bus, crossed the street and entered the open iron gates of a small green park. A children’s playground occupied one end of the park. Rose bushes marched along the blackened iron fence and a grove of trees filled the farthest corner. Benches were dotted around the park and dogs nosed through the trees. Squirrels yelled down at the dogs and jumped from branch to branch in frantic attempts to get away from the canine intruders. Deakin and Eden dropped onto a bench near the trees and huddled together as clouds covered the sun before the ground could warm up in the sunshine. Deakin wrapped his arm around Eden and held her close to his side.
“We have about three hours to wait. Ten more minutes on this cold bench will be long enough for me. There’s a library on that corner. We could at least read the newspapers. What do you say, girl?”
Eden hid her face inside his jacket and shivered. “Anywhere out of this chill. Surely they’ll have a bathroom too. Indoor plumbing would be a definite blessing. Otherwise, I’ll be over there under the trees fighting with the dogs.”
Deakin chuckled under his breath and pulled her to her feet. They entered the library just as another police car pulled up across from the park.
Eden scrunched around in her bus seat until she was comfortable. Then she deliberately closed her eyes and left Deakin to his own devices. To her own surprise she slept most of the way to San Francisco. Deakin woke her up as they drove through the chain of cities that bordered San Francisco. At one point he motioned to a highway sign that listed the exit for Stanford. They both craned their heads to look but couldn’t see the campus from their side of the bus. They rode clear to the main bus station in the center of San Francisco.
As they wandered out into the waiting room of the station, a young man detached himself from the wall and jerked his head in their direction. He’d thrown his windbreaker over his shoulder and rolled up the sleeves of his tee shirt. A small tattoo of a lizard peeked out from under his left sleeve. Eden flipped a braid over her shoulder to give him a look at her earrings. He glanced interestedly at Deakin and then walked out of the building. Eden and Deakin followed him down the crowded street. The man slipped into a small video shop and then out the back door to a narrow alley running between a long line of two and three story buildings.
Deakin and Eden stepped behind a large trash bin and watched the man talk to a group of street people who’d turned the alley into their home. Then they followed him to a door halfway down the alley. They slid between two cardboard houses and into the back room of a liquor store. The man pointed up the back stairs before he continued into the store.
Eden and Deakin climbed the dirty staircase and found themselves on the top floor of an old apartment building. Years of marginal living had left layers of ingrained dirt and grime all over the floors and the walls. The windows at either end of the long hallway let in only a slight glow. They walked slowly and quietly along the hall and looked at each door in turn. At the far end, they came to a door with a small lizard scratched in the wood under the apartment number. Eden looked inquiringly at Deakin and then shrugged her shoulders. She knocked softly on the door and watched in surprise as it opened slowly. A voice floated out of the gloom of the apartment and said,
“Come in, come in. I’ve been waiting for you. Alden sent word you’d be heading this way. Lock the door behind you. I don’t want anyone else coming in right now.”
Deakin followed Eden through the fragrant smoke that filled the room and tracked the voice to its source. The glow from the screens of three monitors illuminated the room. Incense burners lined every window sill and the combination of scents gave Eden an immediate headache. She squinted at the young man in front of her and smiled into his green eyes.
“Yikes, Alden didn’t tell me one of you was a girl. If I’d known, I’d have gotten dressed. I guess you’ll just have to put up with my boxers. Pull up a chair and tell me what I can do for you. Alden says it’s dangerous and not to leave a trail.”
Deakin sat down next to the young man and held out his hand. “Deakin, here, and Eden, there. We need a way to reach someone at Stanford without getting caught. Hopefully, she’ll want to meet us and won’t turn us in to the bad guys immediately. What do we do first?”
The young man smiled at Eden and said, “Sam, that’s me. Employee or student at Stanford. Professor, cafeteria worker, maintenance man, chancellor, what?”
“I assume she’s a professor. Mala Goswami Allen. I’m guessing math or science.”
Sam’s fingers drifted over his keyboard but his indecision stopped him. “What kind of bad guys are we talking here?”
“Really bad ones. Lots of them and they have access to everything which probably means government of some kind. They kill people, that’s how bad they are.” “In that case, we’ll try an end run. Will they be watching this woman, tapping her phone, accessing her email?”
“Yes, definitely. We’d like to meet her if possible. Otherwise, a cell phone message or a written message would be fine. I’ll give you the questions to ask her.”
Sam nodded with a thoughtful look on his face and made his decision. “Give me the questions now and give me a hook. You know, something that’ll prove I’m in the deal with you. A name or a story, something that will make her believe you’re alive. I don’t know when I’ll get in touch with her. You two go down the hall to room #6. Crash there, take a shower, eat anything you can find. I’ll send someone when I have news.”
Hours later, a soft knock on the apartment door jerked Deakin out of his light sleep. Eden just turned over and pulled the covers over her head. Deakin patted her shoulder and slipped quietly out of the room. A definite crackle of electricity met him as he followed Sam into his room. Sam pushed him into a chair and dropped a few papers into his lap. Deakin picked up the papers and realized the words were printed on fax paper. His eyes misted over as he read the words on the first page. He shook his head and tried again. Sam walked to the window and stared out into a city night still lit by all the colors of the neon rainbow. When he glanced back, he realized Deakin wasn’t reading yet.
“I took a roundabout way of getting in touch with this woman. I ran the phone call through a couple of cell phones and then through a bank of pay phones in Los Angeles. I spoke directly to her and asked her your questions. She sent that answer to you. Let me know if I can do anything else for you. I checked in with Alden and he and the boys are doing just fine. Nobody seems to be searching for him right now so he’s staying under the radar for a while before he powers up the whole network again.”
Deakin nodded to Sam and looked back down at the pages in his lap. He took a deep breath and began reading.
Dear Deakin, I am no longer at the university so do not call me or search there for me. The phone call from your friend took me back in time to a life I’d almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite. Your beautiful mother Helena was my friend, the best friend of my life. We had such a great time working on the laser project. We were all young and idealistic and believed we were working for the good of all mankind. Our entire focus was on our work, not on the world around us. Dr. Phillips was older than we were but he was more like an advisor than a leader or an employer. He pointed us in the right direction and let us run with the ideas we came up with. We had the best of equipment and supplies and gave no thought whatsoever to the source of the money to pay for it all. Research for the sake of research, pure research was our daily bread. We developed many wonderful research avenues and some of those avenues have borne fruit. Many of the everyday uses of lasers were originated by the six of us. Helena, Alex, Marianne, Andy, Gretchen, and I – we were the core research group. Dr. Phillips watched over us and pushed us in certain directions but he wasn’t part of our group. Daniel Rivers who died along with Helena and Alex was not a scientist like the rest of us. He was a businessman from the beginning. He constantly urged us to consider the monetary aspects of our research. He thought we should market all these laser applications ourselves but the rest of us were so naïve. We were developing products for the common good and we were going to give our discoveries away so everyone could benefit equally.
Helena was a brilliant scientist. We all followed her lead. Alex was very intelligent also but he was more down to earth than Helena. He constantly made sure we considered the practical applications of all our ideas. We all worked happily together until Helena became pregnant. She then developed an entirely different direction for our research. Purely from a research point of view, it was dramatically interesting. She said she came up with the focus of the project when she thought about the development of her baby. She wondered if a laser could reverse the entire process of birth. Instead of the division of cells into more and ever more cells, maybe the laser could do the opposite and melt away cells until the object was back to its original beginning cell. I tried to talk her out of the project but Daniel egged her on. After eighteen months or so, Helena was ready to try out her idea. She had already melted plastic and aluminum into nothing. Now, Dr. Phillips and Daniel wanted us to try the laser on a white rat. Surely an animal could not be vaporized by a laser but, in the interest of science, we had to try. Helena refused to be a part of the experiment and argued long and hard against it. In deference to her feelings, Dr. Phillips experimented on rocks and plants which all disappeared without a trace.
At this point, Helena awoke to the possible uses of her laser and was horrified. Dr. Phillips arranged for a test on the rat while Helena was not around. Six or seven hard-faced men showed up for the test and filmed it. The laser either vaporized or melted the rat into nothingness, not even a smudge on the table. Smiles creased those hard faces as they walked away with the film they’d made. I told Helena about the men and watched the tears stream down her face. She was very quiet for a few days and worked late into the night. Then one morning she and Alex didn’t come to work and we never saw either of them again. The whole lab had been wrecked and the files emptied. All our research had been destroyed. I called Helena’s sister Marina who lived in Seattle. She said she had the baby but Helena had gone back to LA. Helena and Alex had cleared the computers of all the data and attempted to destroy the hardware. They were partially successful. Most of the hard data on the development of the laser disappeared and only fragments were left. The copies they’d made were never found. We were all questioned over and over for days and weeks but none of us knew where Alex and Helena had gone or what they’d done with the data they’d taken.
At the time, we were not allowed to communicate with anyone else and we were kept in strict solitary confinement. My native culture helped me remain sane in the face of an insane situation. Yoga and meditation filled the long silent hours. The others were not as fortunate. Dr. Phillips had a breakdown and spent several years in therapy before he was able to continue working. Andy Yang moved to Los Alamos and tried to duplicate the research but he was not half the scientist Helena had been. Marianne Wolfe is now at the University of Chicago. She suffered fractures in both her legs from some “unknown” accident and walks with metal braces and crutches now. She does no research anymore and teaches graduate level math classes. Gretchen Falk disappeared from sight. I never heard anything about her for years and years until I picked up a textbook she’d written. I tried to call her but she never returned my calls. Through a friend of my husband’s, I sent her a message and she sent me a reply the same way. “Leave me alone. I refuse to revisit the past. Let me live the rest of my life on my own.”
Alex, Helena, and Daniel Rivers all died, supposedly in a car accident. I never thought that was the truth but I had no proof. I hope they died easily but somehow I doubt it. Later, I received a frantic phone call from your Aunt Marina. Someone had taken you away and refused to let her keep you. I tried to comfort her but I fear I was not much help. I had recently been released from custody and my health was fragile. After I recuperated, I tried to call Marina but she was no longer in Seattle. A year later, on the anniversary of Helena’s death, I drove to Seattle and searched for Marina. I found no trace of her whereabouts. Maybe her visa had been revoked and she returned to Russia. Maybe she’s living right across the border in Canada.
Now that you have returned from the dead, I have taken up the search again. A few years ago, I met a man at a conference who knew about our laser research in a general way. He’d heard rumors and he even mentioned your mother’s name. I questioned him about his sources and he gave the name "Marina” as his primary informant. I am now in search of this man. We have kept in touch over the last year or two and have both continued the search for Marina. His name is Ian Nelms and he lives in Chicago. I will look up Marianne while I am there. I never asked her if she knew Helena’s sister.
Be very careful, my child. Please stay alive until I can see you. Your mother once was the dearest person in the world to me. I would like to see how you have grown. Do not try to contact my husband. He is not in the country at this time and has no idea what I am doing.
I will send messages to this number but I will not give you a number to contact me.
Mala Goswami Allen
Deakin looked up as Eden entered the room. Then he passed the pages over to her and sat silently while she read them. She folded the pages into a compact package and slid them into her backpack. She touched Deakin on the shoulder and jerked him out of his reverie. He patted her hand and asked Sam to collect any more messages Mala Allen might send.
“Where do I forward them?”
“Uh, send them to Alden. I’ll always stay in touch with him.”
“Is there anything I can do for you right now?”
“Check on that name she said. The one in Chicago.” He held out his hand to Eden and waited for her to pull the papers out. “Here it is. Ian Nelms. He’s in Chicago somewhere. Could you check him out while we decide where to go next?”
Eden and Deakin leaned against the far wall of the room while Sam hit his keyboard with great energy. “If Mala is covering Chicago, we don’t need to show up there also. We should find a car somewhere and head for Arizona and New Mexico. I don’t know how much we can find out but we have to try.”
Eden nodded her head and then jerked her head in Sam’s direction.
“C’mere, guys. Here’s the man. It says here that he’s the editor of some scientific journal. He’s really somebody big in the science world. Look at all those initials after his name.”
Sam clicked a few times and papers rolled out of his printer. He passed the pages over to Deakin and continued searching. More and more pages appeared until Sam shut down his search.
“If you want more from me, I’ll have to bounce around and come in from a different door. I can’t stay on very long at a time before someone starts to get curious.”
Deakin shook his head and said, “This should be enough for now, Sam. Thanks for everything. One last question and then we’re out of here. Where do we find a car? One that’s good for some highway travel?”
Sam narrowed his eyes and stared off into the distance. Finally, he wrote an address on a piece of scrap paper and handed it to Eden. “Talk to Joshua. He’ll help you out.” Then he waved as the two silently slipped out his door and disappeared into the gloom of the hallway.
Eden stopped in the pale early morning sunshine and looked around for the address Sam had given them. A short block of tired old shops met her gaze. She and Deakin crossed to the other side of the street and pushed open the door of a dingy secondhand store. They passed between racks of musty clothes into the dim interior of the shop. A disembodied voice called out of the gloom,
“Look around. I’ll be out in a minute.”
As soon as the man ducked through the curtain across the doorway in the far corner of the room, Deakin spoke. “Are you Joshua?”
“Yes, I am and who might you be?”
A round young man with small hands and feet appeared in front of Deakin and appraised him from head to foot. Then he scrutinized Eden. His gaze stopped at her earrings and he smiled slightly and pulled the curtain aside in welcome. Eden stepped through the doorway first and stopped in amazement. The room in front of her was furnished with beautifully polished antique furniture. Thick oriental rugs covered the scarred floor. She stepped gingerly onto the carpet and tip-toed to a wooden chair positioned next to a dropleaf table. Deakin followed her into the room but he stopped before his feet touched the fringe of the rug. The round man slipped easily through the door and herded Deakin across the room to the small kitchen area. He tweaked Eden’s earring as he bustled past her. Deakin leaned against the refrigerator and smiled as he took a cup of coffee from the man’s tiny hands. He laughed as Eden joined him.
“Are you afraid you’ll break something?”
Eden nodded emphatically and carefully held the china coffee cup in both her hands. Joshua crossed his arms across his chest and said, “Someone obviously sent you here for some reason. What do you want from me?”
Deakin noticed the small ring on Joshua’s pinky. A tiny lizard had been carved along the surface of the ring. “Sam gave us your name and address. We need a car that will make it to Arizona and New Mexico.”
A small frown creased Joshua’s forehead. Eden amended Deakin’s request. “Actually we need to buy a car and it needs to be a clean car no one’s looking for.”
Joshua raised his eyes to the ceiling and mentally ran through his list of available of merchandise. Then he smiled at the Eden and said, “I can find you something. It’ll cost you two thousand dollars, cash. Come back around lunchtime; say 1:00 and it’ll be parked around back. You can pay me when you pick it up.”
Deakin and Eden left by the back door and found themselves in a narrow alley. They turned to the left and headed for the bright sunshine. Deakin grabbed Eden’s arm as they reached the end of the alley and kept her from leaving the shadows. He peered out and then quickly stepped out to join a group of teenagers going into an ice cream shop. Eden followed along behind and grabbed the small round table in the corner. Deakin joined her a short while later and handed her a dripping cone. She laughingly licked the sweet drips from the side of the cone. Then she spoke softly under the cover of taking a bite of ice cream.
“No one’s watching us. Where do we go from here?”
“Find someplace to eat lunch and then come back. What else is there for us to do?”
Eden watched a police car pull to the curb in front of the window and one man stepped out the passenger door. He grabbed the arm of a young boy walking past and pulled him over to the police car. He seemed to be showing him a several pictures but the boy shook his head. Finally the officer let go of the boy’s arm and watched him scurry down the sidewalk. Eden slid her chair farther back in the corner and gestured Deakin to move closer to her. He started to turn his head but she pulled on the front of his shirt.
“Cops out in front. Showing pictures around and asking questions. Might be about us or it might not.”
Deakin nodded in understanding and calmly licked his cone while Eden monitored the sidewalk outside the window. Soon the policeman gave up and the car drove away. A city bus pulled up to the corner in a cloud of diesel smoke and they ran to board it. Several miles down the road they left the bus, crossed the street and entered the open iron gates of a small green park. A children’s playground occupied one end of the park. Rose bushes marched along the blackened iron fence and a grove of trees filled the farthest corner. Benches were dotted around the park and dogs nosed through the trees. Squirrels yelled down at the dogs and jumped from branch to branch in frantic attempts to get away from the canine intruders. Deakin and Eden dropped onto a bench near the trees and huddled together as clouds covered the sun before the ground could warm up in the sunshine. Deakin wrapped his arm around Eden and held her close to his side.
“We have about three hours to wait. Ten more minutes on this cold bench will be long enough for me. There’s a library on that corner. We could at least read the newspapers. What do you say, girl?”
Eden hid her face inside his jacket and shivered. “Anywhere out of this chill. Surely they’ll have a bathroom too. Indoor plumbing would be a definite blessing. Otherwise, I’ll be over there under the trees fighting with the dogs.”
Deakin chuckled under his breath and pulled her to her feet. They entered the library just as another police car pulled up across from the park.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
Walt Rogers kept in constant touch with his agents from his vantage point in an unmarked white van parked near Dr. Phillips’ office. All the watchers carried pictures of both Eden and Deakin taken from the security cameras at the Salt Lake City airport but they were handicapped from the beginning. Two out of every three girls had long hair of every shade from stark white to pitch black. Deakin look-alikes walked along every sidewalk and in and out of every building. It was like picking two ants out of entire anthill. The agents constantly checked their photos but had no luck in spotting either the boy or the girl.
Several older men and women entered or left the building but no student tried to talk to them. One of the watchers thought she saw Eden heading for another building several blocks away but she lost sight of her in the swirling masses of students moving around the campus. A large man in his late twenties had blocked her from view as he hurried out the door of the science building and headed for the nearest cafeteria. He returned fifteen or twenty minutes later with a white sack in one hand and a soda in the other. He entered the building and loped up the stairs. As he walked down the hallway, he met Dr. Phillips near the men’s bathroom. No overt sign passed between the two men but Dr. Phillips moved on with a slightly lighter step.
The agents in place around the science building began to get frustrated with their stake-out and moved into different positions as the hours passed. Finally, one or two of them at a time would follow a girl who might be Eden or a boy who slightly resembled Deakin. It never occurred to them to follow the older student who carried a large armful of heavy books. As soon as he turned in the direction of the library, the agents quickly forgot him.
Ten minutes later an agitated command blasted in each of their ears. The electronics expert in Walt’s van had just received information from the university computer showing the use of Eden’s identification card in the library. All the agents converged quickly on the library and blocked the doors of the building. Three of them fanned out from the building and worked their way along the wide sidewalks, looking for anyone running away from the library. They stopped ten or twelve students who didn’t match either of the photos. As soon as each of them showed identification in a different name, they were released and sent on their way.
The other agents worked through all the floors of the library until they’d seen id’s for everyone inside the building. Walt cursed as he stood in the entrance of the library. Just for the record, he asked for the title of the book Eden had checked out. Zen and the Art of Archery. “Crap,” thought Walt as he left in the building in a rage.
He consulted a map of the campus and then sent his people to the city bus company. They spoke with the drivers of any buses that stopped along the outer edges of the campus. None of the drivers recognized the photos of Deakin and Eden but that wasn’t so surprising. Thousands of students rode the buses and half of them resembled the photos. Walt pushed the search further and further afield. The agents visited car rental agencies and airports. They collected security videos from everyone who had them and set up a viewing center. Later in the evening, Walt slotted in the video from the central bus station in Los Angeles. There he caught a glimpse of a girl wearing a Lakers cap who could be Eden. He took the time to check the entire segment in case Deakin showed but the girl seemed to be alone. Walt memorized the face of the clerk who’d helped her and the time listed in the corner of the video. Then he ran to his car and drove to the main bus station in Central LA.
Just as he had expected, the clerk he needed to speak with had already left work for the day. Walt spent some time with the clerk on duty and pinned down the tickets that had been sold around the time shown on the film. Two tickets to Las Vegas, one to San Diego, one to Phoenix, two to San Francisco, and one to Sacramento. “Damn, it could be the one to Phoenix or the two to San Francisco. Hell, it could be any of these for some reason I know nothing about.”
Walt left the terminal armed with the name and address of the clerk. Just to be on the safe side, he sent agents to each of the destinations with orders to flash the photos and call him ASAP with any leads.
Walt hammered his fist on the door of the apartment rented in Stephanie Fisher’s name. A small voice called from inside. “Who’s there?”
Walt grimaced when he realized the voice originated about halfway up the door. He estimated the age of his questioner was seven to eight years old.
“Police. Is your mother home?”
“I can’t open the door for nobody. You have to come back some other time. Bye-bye.”
Small feet ticked away from the door and left Walt standing all by himself. He sighed with exasperation and hammered on the door to his right. No one answered that door so he tried the door to the left. An older woman called through the door and then opened it a few inches. She spoke through the crack in the door.
“Show me your badge. You don’t look like a cop to me.”
Walt held up his identification and waited impatiently for the woman to read his name. One eye peered through the two-inch crack and stared at Walt’s face.
“Could you open the door, ma’am? I need to ask some questions about your neighbor.”
“Say what you got to say but say it quick. The chain stays on the door and the door closes real soon.”
“Do you know if Stephanie Fisher still lives next door? When will she get home from work?”
“She still lives there but what gives you the idea I’d know her comings and goings. It ain’t none of my business. She’s a grown woman, a nice woman who takes care of her family the best she can all by herself. All I know is she works days. Good-bye, Mr. Rogers.”
The door snicked closed, narrowly missing Walt’s nose. He angrily stared around the metal balcony that ran around the entire second floor of this small apartment building. He glanced down into the darkened weedy courtyard as several older children argued over sharing a skateboard. He leapt down the stairs and pulled up in front of the three boys.
“Do any of you know Stephanie Fisher? She lives in #209 up there. I need to talk to her right now. When will she be home from work?”
Two of the boys stepped slightly away from the boy who held the skateboard. Their eyes slid sideways and flicked across his face and then they both stared down at their own shoes. The boy in the center glanced up at Walt from under his eyelids and asked,
“What you want to know about her for? She hasn’t done anything.”
“Don’t worry, boy. I just need to talk to her about something that happened at work. When will she be home?”
A car door slammed in the parking lot behind the building and a tired woman in her thirties walked out of the gloom of the parking lot and into the sparsely lit courtyard. The other two boys vanished silently into the shadows when Walt turned his head to stare at the woman. She stopped and transferred her sack of groceries from her right hip to her left. She reached her hand out to the boy and gathered him into her side.
“Who are you and what are you doing with my son?”
“Stephanie Fisher?” Walt flipped out his identification yet again and then quickly slipped the wallet back into his pocket. “I need to ask you some questions about your work. Could we go up to your apartment and talk?”
Stephanie nodded and led the way up the stairs. She turned just inside her door and closed the door behind Walt. She hugged her small daughter, sent both children to the kitchen with the groceries and gestured Walt to the couch. He cleared the coffee table with his arm and lay down pictures of Eden and Deakin. Stephanie knelt on the floor and stared at the pictures. She glanced questioningly up at Walt.
“She showed up on your security cameras. According to computer records, she could have bought one or two tickets to several different cities. Do you remember her? Did you see him?”
Stephanie picked up the picture of Deakin and shook her head. “I don’t remember him at all. She looks kind of familiar but I’m not sure.” She slid the pictures of Eden into a row and stared at them all.
“On the security film, she wore a Lakers cap and a sweatshirt.”
Stephanie frowned a little as she looked again at Eden’s face. “I’m just not positive. I have the feeling she wasn’t going very far. Not out of California, at least. Could you tell on the tape how much she paid?”
“It looked like she counted out four or five bills – maybe tens or twenties. The technicians are still checking that out.”
“If there is a California destination on your list, then that was hers.”
“One ticket to San Diego, one to Sacramento, or two to San Francisco.”
Stephanie dropped the pictures on the table. “Two tickets, I seem to remember she bought two tickets. She was polite. Lots of our passengers are rude and pushy but she wasn’t. What’s she done?”
Walt shook his head and gathered up his pictures. He dropped a card on the table. “If you think of anything else, call that number and leave me a message.” He nodded to the woman and her children and disappeared out her door.
Walt pulled out his cell phone and called in the information before he started his car and headed for San Francisco. One of his agents had already made a positive hit at the bus station in San Francisco. More agents had flooded the area but none had scored any other hits yet. Walt called in all his men and sent them to San Francisco. He wanted agents covering airports, bus stations, train stations, car rental agencies, and boat docks too. He pointed his car north and raced to the Bay area. He knew he was getting close to Eden and Deakin. He could feel it in his bones. His hands clenched tighter on the steering wheel and he leaned right and left as he slid through traffic, unconsciously using his body to propel the car faster and faster through the darkness.
Just as he closed in on the city of San Francisco, Walt’s cell phone beeped in the silence of the car. He answered it without taking his eyes off the cars in front of him. When the caller had finished speaking, Walt clicked the phone off and tossed it into the passenger seat next to him. There had been no further sightings of the two teenagers so Walt was now headed for Stanford University and an early morning meeting with Dr. Mala Allen.
Walt arrived at the university first thing the next morning and stopped at the guard station near the main entrance to the campus. A few flashes of his identification brought instant cooperation and an escort to the correct building. He ran up the stairs to the second floor and stopped outside the door of Dr. Allen’s office. A handwritten sign had been taped to the frosted glass in the door.
FAMILY EMERGENCY
No office hours or classes until Monday
Walt smacked the flat of his hand on the doorframe and looked around for someone else to question. The security guard who had escorted him to the building appeared at the head of the stairs. Walt grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up to the door.
“When did she leave? Who do we ask?”
The guard pointed to the double wooden doors at the end of the hallway. Walt loped down the hall with the guard close behind him. He pulled open one of the doors and stepped into a large office with a wooden counter running the width of the room. Students crowded in the narrow area in front of the counter and filled the benches along the wall. Walt shoved his way through the crowd and waved peremptorily toward one of the clerks. She stared at him over her glasses and pointed to a small machine on the counter.
“Take a number and we’ll get to you.”
Walt slapped his hand on the counter and waved again at the woman. “Over here, now.” He pulled the guard to his side and then pushed him toward the woman. He cannoned into several students who closed ranks to keep him back. They were all patiently waiting their turns. Why didn’t he?
The guard leaned across the counter and spoke loudly to the clerk. She looked down the counter and saw the identification in Walt’s hand. She stretched out her hand for the wallet, copied down the name and number, compared the picture with the man, and then handed it back. She then gestured to the end of the counter where a small door led into the office behind her. Just as Walt’s hand touched the door handle, she buzzed the door open and pointed to an office in the far corner.
The guard followed Walt as he threaded his way through the desks and chairs. Walt rapped his knuckles on the doorframe and entered the small office. There he found that Dr. Allen had been called away during the night. Some member of her family had been in an accident and she had left town immediately. Walt came away from the office with a list of family members from Dr. Allen’s personnel file and hurried to his car. He instructed the guard to monitor the doctor’s phone and office just in case Deakin and Eden showed up. He sat in his car and called the phone numbers he’d been given without connecting with a single live voice. He smacked his hand on the steering wheel in anger and frustration. He should have picked up these two children by now. He had no idea how they’d eluded him so far. Sheer luck, he guessed. He made a final call to his second-in-command, a rabbity-faced man with the soul of a viper. Art Johnson would have shackled his own grandmother to the wall to find out a piece of information.
“Art, she’s not here. Send agents to all the other names on that list I gave you. Make sure those kids can’t reach any of these people. I’ll find out where the good Dr. Allen has gone to and who told her to run. Call me with any information.”
Walt flipped his phone closed and collected the rest of his agents at the security guard post at the front gate. He sent one agent off to check phone records and several others to check out the local friends and relatives of Dr. Allen.
None of those people knew anything about Dr. Allen’s whereabouts or about any emergency that could have called her away from her job. One unidentified phone call had reached her home phone. It had been placed from a pay phone outside a convenience store in the Los Angeles area. Walt snorted in disgust. Soon it would be his turn for some good luck. He’d catch the two kids sooner or later.
Walt Rogers kept in constant touch with his agents from his vantage point in an unmarked white van parked near Dr. Phillips’ office. All the watchers carried pictures of both Eden and Deakin taken from the security cameras at the Salt Lake City airport but they were handicapped from the beginning. Two out of every three girls had long hair of every shade from stark white to pitch black. Deakin look-alikes walked along every sidewalk and in and out of every building. It was like picking two ants out of entire anthill. The agents constantly checked their photos but had no luck in spotting either the boy or the girl.
Several older men and women entered or left the building but no student tried to talk to them. One of the watchers thought she saw Eden heading for another building several blocks away but she lost sight of her in the swirling masses of students moving around the campus. A large man in his late twenties had blocked her from view as he hurried out the door of the science building and headed for the nearest cafeteria. He returned fifteen or twenty minutes later with a white sack in one hand and a soda in the other. He entered the building and loped up the stairs. As he walked down the hallway, he met Dr. Phillips near the men’s bathroom. No overt sign passed between the two men but Dr. Phillips moved on with a slightly lighter step.
The agents in place around the science building began to get frustrated with their stake-out and moved into different positions as the hours passed. Finally, one or two of them at a time would follow a girl who might be Eden or a boy who slightly resembled Deakin. It never occurred to them to follow the older student who carried a large armful of heavy books. As soon as he turned in the direction of the library, the agents quickly forgot him.
Ten minutes later an agitated command blasted in each of their ears. The electronics expert in Walt’s van had just received information from the university computer showing the use of Eden’s identification card in the library. All the agents converged quickly on the library and blocked the doors of the building. Three of them fanned out from the building and worked their way along the wide sidewalks, looking for anyone running away from the library. They stopped ten or twelve students who didn’t match either of the photos. As soon as each of them showed identification in a different name, they were released and sent on their way.
The other agents worked through all the floors of the library until they’d seen id’s for everyone inside the building. Walt cursed as he stood in the entrance of the library. Just for the record, he asked for the title of the book Eden had checked out. Zen and the Art of Archery. “Crap,” thought Walt as he left in the building in a rage.
He consulted a map of the campus and then sent his people to the city bus company. They spoke with the drivers of any buses that stopped along the outer edges of the campus. None of the drivers recognized the photos of Deakin and Eden but that wasn’t so surprising. Thousands of students rode the buses and half of them resembled the photos. Walt pushed the search further and further afield. The agents visited car rental agencies and airports. They collected security videos from everyone who had them and set up a viewing center. Later in the evening, Walt slotted in the video from the central bus station in Los Angeles. There he caught a glimpse of a girl wearing a Lakers cap who could be Eden. He took the time to check the entire segment in case Deakin showed but the girl seemed to be alone. Walt memorized the face of the clerk who’d helped her and the time listed in the corner of the video. Then he ran to his car and drove to the main bus station in Central LA.
Just as he had expected, the clerk he needed to speak with had already left work for the day. Walt spent some time with the clerk on duty and pinned down the tickets that had been sold around the time shown on the film. Two tickets to Las Vegas, one to San Diego, one to Phoenix, two to San Francisco, and one to Sacramento. “Damn, it could be the one to Phoenix or the two to San Francisco. Hell, it could be any of these for some reason I know nothing about.”
Walt left the terminal armed with the name and address of the clerk. Just to be on the safe side, he sent agents to each of the destinations with orders to flash the photos and call him ASAP with any leads.
Walt hammered his fist on the door of the apartment rented in Stephanie Fisher’s name. A small voice called from inside. “Who’s there?”
Walt grimaced when he realized the voice originated about halfway up the door. He estimated the age of his questioner was seven to eight years old.
“Police. Is your mother home?”
“I can’t open the door for nobody. You have to come back some other time. Bye-bye.”
Small feet ticked away from the door and left Walt standing all by himself. He sighed with exasperation and hammered on the door to his right. No one answered that door so he tried the door to the left. An older woman called through the door and then opened it a few inches. She spoke through the crack in the door.
“Show me your badge. You don’t look like a cop to me.”
Walt held up his identification and waited impatiently for the woman to read his name. One eye peered through the two-inch crack and stared at Walt’s face.
“Could you open the door, ma’am? I need to ask some questions about your neighbor.”
“Say what you got to say but say it quick. The chain stays on the door and the door closes real soon.”
“Do you know if Stephanie Fisher still lives next door? When will she get home from work?”
“She still lives there but what gives you the idea I’d know her comings and goings. It ain’t none of my business. She’s a grown woman, a nice woman who takes care of her family the best she can all by herself. All I know is she works days. Good-bye, Mr. Rogers.”
The door snicked closed, narrowly missing Walt’s nose. He angrily stared around the metal balcony that ran around the entire second floor of this small apartment building. He glanced down into the darkened weedy courtyard as several older children argued over sharing a skateboard. He leapt down the stairs and pulled up in front of the three boys.
“Do any of you know Stephanie Fisher? She lives in #209 up there. I need to talk to her right now. When will she be home from work?”
Two of the boys stepped slightly away from the boy who held the skateboard. Their eyes slid sideways and flicked across his face and then they both stared down at their own shoes. The boy in the center glanced up at Walt from under his eyelids and asked,
“What you want to know about her for? She hasn’t done anything.”
“Don’t worry, boy. I just need to talk to her about something that happened at work. When will she be home?”
A car door slammed in the parking lot behind the building and a tired woman in her thirties walked out of the gloom of the parking lot and into the sparsely lit courtyard. The other two boys vanished silently into the shadows when Walt turned his head to stare at the woman. She stopped and transferred her sack of groceries from her right hip to her left. She reached her hand out to the boy and gathered him into her side.
“Who are you and what are you doing with my son?”
“Stephanie Fisher?” Walt flipped out his identification yet again and then quickly slipped the wallet back into his pocket. “I need to ask you some questions about your work. Could we go up to your apartment and talk?”
Stephanie nodded and led the way up the stairs. She turned just inside her door and closed the door behind Walt. She hugged her small daughter, sent both children to the kitchen with the groceries and gestured Walt to the couch. He cleared the coffee table with his arm and lay down pictures of Eden and Deakin. Stephanie knelt on the floor and stared at the pictures. She glanced questioningly up at Walt.
“She showed up on your security cameras. According to computer records, she could have bought one or two tickets to several different cities. Do you remember her? Did you see him?”
Stephanie picked up the picture of Deakin and shook her head. “I don’t remember him at all. She looks kind of familiar but I’m not sure.” She slid the pictures of Eden into a row and stared at them all.
“On the security film, she wore a Lakers cap and a sweatshirt.”
Stephanie frowned a little as she looked again at Eden’s face. “I’m just not positive. I have the feeling she wasn’t going very far. Not out of California, at least. Could you tell on the tape how much she paid?”
“It looked like she counted out four or five bills – maybe tens or twenties. The technicians are still checking that out.”
“If there is a California destination on your list, then that was hers.”
“One ticket to San Diego, one to Sacramento, or two to San Francisco.”
Stephanie dropped the pictures on the table. “Two tickets, I seem to remember she bought two tickets. She was polite. Lots of our passengers are rude and pushy but she wasn’t. What’s she done?”
Walt shook his head and gathered up his pictures. He dropped a card on the table. “If you think of anything else, call that number and leave me a message.” He nodded to the woman and her children and disappeared out her door.
Walt pulled out his cell phone and called in the information before he started his car and headed for San Francisco. One of his agents had already made a positive hit at the bus station in San Francisco. More agents had flooded the area but none had scored any other hits yet. Walt called in all his men and sent them to San Francisco. He wanted agents covering airports, bus stations, train stations, car rental agencies, and boat docks too. He pointed his car north and raced to the Bay area. He knew he was getting close to Eden and Deakin. He could feel it in his bones. His hands clenched tighter on the steering wheel and he leaned right and left as he slid through traffic, unconsciously using his body to propel the car faster and faster through the darkness.
Just as he closed in on the city of San Francisco, Walt’s cell phone beeped in the silence of the car. He answered it without taking his eyes off the cars in front of him. When the caller had finished speaking, Walt clicked the phone off and tossed it into the passenger seat next to him. There had been no further sightings of the two teenagers so Walt was now headed for Stanford University and an early morning meeting with Dr. Mala Allen.
Walt arrived at the university first thing the next morning and stopped at the guard station near the main entrance to the campus. A few flashes of his identification brought instant cooperation and an escort to the correct building. He ran up the stairs to the second floor and stopped outside the door of Dr. Allen’s office. A handwritten sign had been taped to the frosted glass in the door.
FAMILY EMERGENCY
No office hours or classes until Monday
Walt smacked the flat of his hand on the doorframe and looked around for someone else to question. The security guard who had escorted him to the building appeared at the head of the stairs. Walt grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up to the door.
“When did she leave? Who do we ask?”
The guard pointed to the double wooden doors at the end of the hallway. Walt loped down the hall with the guard close behind him. He pulled open one of the doors and stepped into a large office with a wooden counter running the width of the room. Students crowded in the narrow area in front of the counter and filled the benches along the wall. Walt shoved his way through the crowd and waved peremptorily toward one of the clerks. She stared at him over her glasses and pointed to a small machine on the counter.
“Take a number and we’ll get to you.”
Walt slapped his hand on the counter and waved again at the woman. “Over here, now.” He pulled the guard to his side and then pushed him toward the woman. He cannoned into several students who closed ranks to keep him back. They were all patiently waiting their turns. Why didn’t he?
The guard leaned across the counter and spoke loudly to the clerk. She looked down the counter and saw the identification in Walt’s hand. She stretched out her hand for the wallet, copied down the name and number, compared the picture with the man, and then handed it back. She then gestured to the end of the counter where a small door led into the office behind her. Just as Walt’s hand touched the door handle, she buzzed the door open and pointed to an office in the far corner.
The guard followed Walt as he threaded his way through the desks and chairs. Walt rapped his knuckles on the doorframe and entered the small office. There he found that Dr. Allen had been called away during the night. Some member of her family had been in an accident and she had left town immediately. Walt came away from the office with a list of family members from Dr. Allen’s personnel file and hurried to his car. He instructed the guard to monitor the doctor’s phone and office just in case Deakin and Eden showed up. He sat in his car and called the phone numbers he’d been given without connecting with a single live voice. He smacked his hand on the steering wheel in anger and frustration. He should have picked up these two children by now. He had no idea how they’d eluded him so far. Sheer luck, he guessed. He made a final call to his second-in-command, a rabbity-faced man with the soul of a viper. Art Johnson would have shackled his own grandmother to the wall to find out a piece of information.
“Art, she’s not here. Send agents to all the other names on that list I gave you. Make sure those kids can’t reach any of these people. I’ll find out where the good Dr. Allen has gone to and who told her to run. Call me with any information.”
Walt flipped his phone closed and collected the rest of his agents at the security guard post at the front gate. He sent one agent off to check phone records and several others to check out the local friends and relatives of Dr. Allen.
None of those people knew anything about Dr. Allen’s whereabouts or about any emergency that could have called her away from her job. One unidentified phone call had reached her home phone. It had been placed from a pay phone outside a convenience store in the Los Angeles area. Walt snorted in disgust. Soon it would be his turn for some good luck. He’d catch the two kids sooner or later.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
Later the next day, Susan and David Hornung stumbled off the bus and stared bleary-eyed around at the large bus station in the center of San Francisco. Not one person in the crowded waiting room seemed to pay any attention to either of them which was a very big “plus” in their lives right then. Neither one of them had spoken much about their visit to UCLA. Eden had done some research online and found the location of Dr. Evan Phillips’ office. She’d printed out a map and noted down his office hours on the back of it. With their backpacks and jeans, they blended in with the rest of the campus population. They approached the huge science building with great care. Eden sat on a bench outside the front door and pulled a notebook out of her backpack. Using the notebook as a front, she scanned the area for watchers or guards. A couple of men lounging against a tree to her left caught her eye. Her suspicion grew as she realized the men would talk for a few minutes and then look across the wide sidewalk to a gardener who was clipping a hedge. A few minutes later one of them looked down the sidewalk past Eden’s bench and nodded slightly. A younger man stood next to a bicycle rack and held a cell phone to his ear. That made at least four people watching this door. Eden made a show of repacking her backpack and then stood up when a small group of girls walked past. She smiled at one of them and followed the girls past the man with the cell phone.
Deakin appeared in the distance. He’d just turned the corner from the back of the large building and carried a stack of campus newspapers. He waved one at the group of girls walking with Eden. They all stopped and flirted a little with Deakin as they took the papers. As he handed Eden her copy, he whispered in her ear.
“Guards in the back and on the side. Front, too?”
Eden nodded and smiled at him as she took the paper. The other girls walked quickly by on their way to their next classes. Eden pointed to the headline on the paper and laughed up at Deakin. Under her smile, she said,
“Library in fifteen minutes.”
They moved apart and left the science building. Eden walked into the very next building she came to and hunted down a pay phone. She pulled her hand inside her windbreaker to keep from leaving fingerprints on the phone and called Dr. Phillips’ office. A woman’s voice answered the call and asked Eden to hold while she transferred the call. Eden immediately hung up the phone and walked on toward the library. She found Deakin reading a newspaper. She dropped into the chair next to him and said,
“We can’t get close to him. I just called and the secretary put me on hold so I hung up. Do we try e-mail? Even if we do get through that way, how would he get back to us? We can’t wait around in one place for very long. They, whoever they are, will catch us.”
“Well, we have to try. When is his next class?”
Eden walked over to a computer and quickly pulled up Dr. Phillips’ class schedule. Then she walked back to Deakin and shook her head.
“He’s the head of the department and he doesn’t teach big classes or even small ones. He works with his grad students in small seminars. We certainly couldn’t sneak into them. He knows all those people. We can get into the building anytime but you can bet his office is being well-guarded. There’s a big class in thirty minutes. Let’s get inside the building first. After that, we’ll play it by ear.”
Eden joined a large group of students and walked into the science building with no problems. Deakin grafted himself on another group and followed her inside. They milled around inside the building and then Eden climbed the stairs to find a restroom. Deakin staked out a spot next to a vending machine and chatted with anyone who approached. Eden reappeared an hour later with a definite twinkle in her eye. She was followed down the stairs by a hefty young professor carrying a stack of books under his arm. Deakin moved to join her but she shook her head. The professor followed her out the door and away from the building.
Fifteen minutes later, Deakin’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and answered it warily. He laughed when he heard Eden’s voice in his ear.
“Meet me back at the library. I’ve sent a message to Dr. Phillips and we may hear from him this afternoon, hopefully in about an hour.”
Eden sat in the window of the library with a large book on the desk in front of her. She slowly turned the pages as she watched the front door of the library. Deakin sat on a bench across a small plot of grass and alternated between watching the front door and watching Eden through the window. He held the computer on his lap and clicked studiously as he watched. He looked just like hundreds, if not thousands, of other students all over the campus. He noticed a man slide into the chair across from Eden so he closed down the computer and packed it away. He hefted his backpack onto his shoulder and headed for a closer vantage point.
The man paid no attention to Eden while he dropped a stack of books onto the table. He sorted them into stacks and flipped pages in one or two of them. He copied a few things out of one of the books, took another to the copy machine, and then returned to pick up his mess. He carried one book away with him and left the others in a pile on the desk. After a few minutes, Eden pushed her book to the side and picked up the book on top of the middle stack. She took it to the checkout station and used her UCLA identification to check it out. She stuffed the book into her pack and joined Deakin to leave.
They had walked about one hundred yards away when a commotion sounded behind them. Deakin turned slightly and saw several men running into the library. He hustled Eden into the shadows and asked,
“Did you use your name in any way?”
“I used my ID to check out this book. Why?”
“’Cos you sure triggered a reaction. They must have enough clout to access the university computer system. When your ID number hit the system, they knew it immediately. Let’s get out of here now. What do you suggest?”
Eden took her bearings and turned to the left. They hurried along the sidewalks and entered building after building. They would walk in one door and then leave through another one. Soon they’d made it to the edge of the campus. A wide, heavily used street lay in front of them. Eden kept them in the shadows until a city bus appeared on the horizon. Then she pulled Deakin into a crowd of students waiting to board the bus. They took their seats and slouched down like half the other people on the bus.
A couple of hours later, Eden and Deakin sat side by side on a bus heading for San Francisco. Eden had picked seats that had no windows so they couldn’t be seen very well from outside the bus. She had brushed out her long brown hair and put it into long braids on either side of her face. She now wore a black running suit and carried a Walkman in her hand. Deakin had changed into a different colored windbreaker and a Lakers cap. His height and thin physique made it hard for him to change his appearance very much so he’d added a sweatshirt to his ensemble. It added bulk to his body and caused him to walk a little differently than before.
After they were safely away from Los Angeles, Eden had pulled out the book from the library and opened it where the page had been folded down. A small piece of paper had been crammed into the spine of the book. Eden carefully edged it out and opened it up. The scrap of paper was covered with tiny writing. While she tried to decipher it, Deakin paged through the entire book and found four other pieces of paper. He set them out next to the first one and let Eden try to read them.
She read slowly out loud to Deakin.
“Last saw ADK & HRK two months before death. Scared about work. Sent baby to her sister’s for safety. Said were leaving town but not say where. Big blowup after disappeared. Took copies of all research and wiped computers clean. We pieced together as much as we could but all their research was missing. Never talked to them again. Research group split up. Talk to Mala Allen at Stanford. Helen’s friend. Watching me closely. Don’t call or email. Sending grad student to give you this. Good Luck.”
Eden looked up at Deakin and asked, “Do you know anything about an aunt?”
Deakin shook his head and stacked the scraps of paper into a pile. “How do we get in touch with this woman at Stanford? Surely they’re watching her too. Do we even know where to find her? God, what the hell do we do next?”
“We sleep while we have the chance. Stretch your legs out in the aisle and close your eyes. We’ll figure out what to do when we get to Stanford.”
Later the next day, Susan and David Hornung stumbled off the bus and stared bleary-eyed around at the large bus station in the center of San Francisco. Not one person in the crowded waiting room seemed to pay any attention to either of them which was a very big “plus” in their lives right then. Neither one of them had spoken much about their visit to UCLA. Eden had done some research online and found the location of Dr. Evan Phillips’ office. She’d printed out a map and noted down his office hours on the back of it. With their backpacks and jeans, they blended in with the rest of the campus population. They approached the huge science building with great care. Eden sat on a bench outside the front door and pulled a notebook out of her backpack. Using the notebook as a front, she scanned the area for watchers or guards. A couple of men lounging against a tree to her left caught her eye. Her suspicion grew as she realized the men would talk for a few minutes and then look across the wide sidewalk to a gardener who was clipping a hedge. A few minutes later one of them looked down the sidewalk past Eden’s bench and nodded slightly. A younger man stood next to a bicycle rack and held a cell phone to his ear. That made at least four people watching this door. Eden made a show of repacking her backpack and then stood up when a small group of girls walked past. She smiled at one of them and followed the girls past the man with the cell phone.
Deakin appeared in the distance. He’d just turned the corner from the back of the large building and carried a stack of campus newspapers. He waved one at the group of girls walking with Eden. They all stopped and flirted a little with Deakin as they took the papers. As he handed Eden her copy, he whispered in her ear.
“Guards in the back and on the side. Front, too?”
Eden nodded and smiled at him as she took the paper. The other girls walked quickly by on their way to their next classes. Eden pointed to the headline on the paper and laughed up at Deakin. Under her smile, she said,
“Library in fifteen minutes.”
They moved apart and left the science building. Eden walked into the very next building she came to and hunted down a pay phone. She pulled her hand inside her windbreaker to keep from leaving fingerprints on the phone and called Dr. Phillips’ office. A woman’s voice answered the call and asked Eden to hold while she transferred the call. Eden immediately hung up the phone and walked on toward the library. She found Deakin reading a newspaper. She dropped into the chair next to him and said,
“We can’t get close to him. I just called and the secretary put me on hold so I hung up. Do we try e-mail? Even if we do get through that way, how would he get back to us? We can’t wait around in one place for very long. They, whoever they are, will catch us.”
“Well, we have to try. When is his next class?”
Eden walked over to a computer and quickly pulled up Dr. Phillips’ class schedule. Then she walked back to Deakin and shook her head.
“He’s the head of the department and he doesn’t teach big classes or even small ones. He works with his grad students in small seminars. We certainly couldn’t sneak into them. He knows all those people. We can get into the building anytime but you can bet his office is being well-guarded. There’s a big class in thirty minutes. Let’s get inside the building first. After that, we’ll play it by ear.”
Eden joined a large group of students and walked into the science building with no problems. Deakin grafted himself on another group and followed her inside. They milled around inside the building and then Eden climbed the stairs to find a restroom. Deakin staked out a spot next to a vending machine and chatted with anyone who approached. Eden reappeared an hour later with a definite twinkle in her eye. She was followed down the stairs by a hefty young professor carrying a stack of books under his arm. Deakin moved to join her but she shook her head. The professor followed her out the door and away from the building.
Fifteen minutes later, Deakin’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and answered it warily. He laughed when he heard Eden’s voice in his ear.
“Meet me back at the library. I’ve sent a message to Dr. Phillips and we may hear from him this afternoon, hopefully in about an hour.”
Eden sat in the window of the library with a large book on the desk in front of her. She slowly turned the pages as she watched the front door of the library. Deakin sat on a bench across a small plot of grass and alternated between watching the front door and watching Eden through the window. He held the computer on his lap and clicked studiously as he watched. He looked just like hundreds, if not thousands, of other students all over the campus. He noticed a man slide into the chair across from Eden so he closed down the computer and packed it away. He hefted his backpack onto his shoulder and headed for a closer vantage point.
The man paid no attention to Eden while he dropped a stack of books onto the table. He sorted them into stacks and flipped pages in one or two of them. He copied a few things out of one of the books, took another to the copy machine, and then returned to pick up his mess. He carried one book away with him and left the others in a pile on the desk. After a few minutes, Eden pushed her book to the side and picked up the book on top of the middle stack. She took it to the checkout station and used her UCLA identification to check it out. She stuffed the book into her pack and joined Deakin to leave.
They had walked about one hundred yards away when a commotion sounded behind them. Deakin turned slightly and saw several men running into the library. He hustled Eden into the shadows and asked,
“Did you use your name in any way?”
“I used my ID to check out this book. Why?”
“’Cos you sure triggered a reaction. They must have enough clout to access the university computer system. When your ID number hit the system, they knew it immediately. Let’s get out of here now. What do you suggest?”
Eden took her bearings and turned to the left. They hurried along the sidewalks and entered building after building. They would walk in one door and then leave through another one. Soon they’d made it to the edge of the campus. A wide, heavily used street lay in front of them. Eden kept them in the shadows until a city bus appeared on the horizon. Then she pulled Deakin into a crowd of students waiting to board the bus. They took their seats and slouched down like half the other people on the bus.
A couple of hours later, Eden and Deakin sat side by side on a bus heading for San Francisco. Eden had picked seats that had no windows so they couldn’t be seen very well from outside the bus. She had brushed out her long brown hair and put it into long braids on either side of her face. She now wore a black running suit and carried a Walkman in her hand. Deakin had changed into a different colored windbreaker and a Lakers cap. His height and thin physique made it hard for him to change his appearance very much so he’d added a sweatshirt to his ensemble. It added bulk to his body and caused him to walk a little differently than before.
After they were safely away from Los Angeles, Eden had pulled out the book from the library and opened it where the page had been folded down. A small piece of paper had been crammed into the spine of the book. Eden carefully edged it out and opened it up. The scrap of paper was covered with tiny writing. While she tried to decipher it, Deakin paged through the entire book and found four other pieces of paper. He set them out next to the first one and let Eden try to read them.
She read slowly out loud to Deakin.
“Last saw ADK & HRK two months before death. Scared about work. Sent baby to her sister’s for safety. Said were leaving town but not say where. Big blowup after disappeared. Took copies of all research and wiped computers clean. We pieced together as much as we could but all their research was missing. Never talked to them again. Research group split up. Talk to Mala Allen at Stanford. Helen’s friend. Watching me closely. Don’t call or email. Sending grad student to give you this. Good Luck.”
Eden looked up at Deakin and asked, “Do you know anything about an aunt?”
Deakin shook his head and stacked the scraps of paper into a pile. “How do we get in touch with this woman at Stanford? Surely they’re watching her too. Do we even know where to find her? God, what the hell do we do next?”
“We sleep while we have the chance. Stretch your legs out in the aisle and close your eyes. We’ll figure out what to do when we get to Stanford.”
Sunday, January 4, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 13
Eden woke from her sleep and opened her eyes to black dark. She immediately closed them again and listened to the sounds around her. Three or four other people slept near her. Their breathing sounded loud in her ears. The old couch she lay on gave off a musty odor and tickled her nose. A huge sneeze jerked her into an upright position. Her feet hit the cold cement floor. A slice of light appeared in front of her as a door slowly opened. She followed the light across the littered room and met Jade in the doorway. His makeup was smeared and his clothes streaked with dirt. He put his finger up to his mouth for quiet and shut the door behind them.
Then he whispered in a thready voice. “I heard you sneeze. There’s no point in waking everyone up. Come into the kitchen and I’ll give you a cup of coffee.”
As he walked away, Eden hurried after him on her bare toes. “Where are my shoes? My feet are cold.”
Jade pointed to a bag in the corner of the kitchen and turned his back to pour coffee for her. Eden rummaged through the bag and found a clean pair of jeans and a clean tee shirt. She quickly changed into the clean clothes and stuffed the others into the bag. She reached for her shoes as Jade walked closer.
“Give me your dirty clothes and I’ll take care of them for you.”
Eden glanced at him with surprise and then pulled the clothes out of the bag. Her hand closed over a small makeup bag stuffed into a corner and she pulled it out. Without even looking at its contents, she handed it to Jade and took the coffee cup from his thin fingers. She sat at a worn wooden table and sipped her hot coffee. A plate of cinnamon rolls appeared in front of her and she carefully picked up one of the sticky buns. Jade emptied out the makeup bag on the table and happily looked through all the mascara, lip gloss, blush, and eye shadow containers. Eden critically considered his smeared face. She reached into the bag again and felt around until she found a jar of face cream. She slid it across the table to Jade. He beamed up at her and grabbed the jar of cream. He cleaned his face until he looked like the boy he used to be sometime in the past. Then he packed everything back into the small makeup bag and said,
“Thank you, dear. It’s a lovely present. I lost all mine in the fire.”
He grabbed a sweet roll and joined Eden. A few minutes later, Deakin dropped into the chair at her side. A weary, dirty Deakin who could have used a bath and a good night’s sleep.
“The computers are all up and running. We didn’t lose much, maybe some old stuff we didn’t need anymore. I’m gonna crash for a few hours. Stay here until I get up and we’ll decide what to do next, okay?”
Eden smiled at him and waved him away from the table. “Go, sleep. You’ll find a nice dusty couch waiting for you in that room. Jade and I will get along just fine.”
As the door closed behind Deakin, she turned to Jade and asked, “Well, what do we do now?”
“Well, we need food mostly. I’m not familiar with this neighborhood so I’ll have to wander around a little. I need to find a laundromat and a grocery store.”
“I’ll come with you and help you carry the groceries back here.”
When Deakin reentered the kitchen, Jade had stocked the shelves with a little food and had a large pot of stew cooking. Deakin dropped into a chair and watched the boy stir the pot of stew and then fill another large pot with rice and set it on a burner. Then he turned around to face Deakin and said,
“Well, I hope you’re happy. I lost everything in the fire. This is the only outfit I have left.”
Deakin stared at the boy’s face and observed, “You look different. Nice, but different.”
Jade touched his cheeks and said, “Your girlfriend had the decency to give me all her makeup. I lost my whole collection. From now on, I’m carrying it all around with me. See.” The boy unzipped a small green backpack and showed Deakin the makeup inside it.
“Well, I think you look very nice, Jade. Is the stew ready?”
“Not yet. Go take a shower first. Your clothes are in that bag over there with the girl’s.”
Deakin looked around the room and asked anxiously, “Where is she?”
Jade jerked his head toward the computer room and said, “She’s been in there with Alden for four hours now. You can take dinner in to them when you’re cleaned up. Go, go, go.”
Jade shooed Deakin out of the room and returned to his cooking.
Several hours later Jade stuck his head in the door and called softly, “Can I get the dirty dishes?”
Eden appeared carrying a stack of bowls. “Thanks for the stew, Jade. What’s happening out there?”
“The boys are drifting in, one at a time. Only a couple of them haven’t showed up yet. They’ll show up before long. The others are getting kinda antsy though ‘cos there’s nothing for them to do. They want to talk to Alden. Since nobody’s seen him yet, they want to make sure he made it out of the fire.”
“Alden, come speak with your loyal followers.”
Alden looked up from the monitor screen and frowned in the direction of the door. “Can’t it wait?”
“No, you should at least let them know you’re here.”
Alden nodded in agreement and gave up his place to Deakin. Eden followed Alden into a large storage room littered with boxes and mattresses. Ten or twelve boys stood up and moved forward as he stood in the doorway. He moved through the crowd saying very little, but hugging each boy and patting him on the back. Then he stood in front of the small group and tersely explained their situation. He gave each of them money and sent them out to furnish their new nest. A tall, gangling redhead with a prominent Adam’s apple was sent out to buy two or three television sets. A smaller darker boy named Rogelio was in charge of Gameboys. Chester left in search of lamps and flashlights. Denver and Dallas went clothes shopping. Keith from Kansas headed for the comic book shop and Aaron from Oregon took a trip to the drug store. The boys all left in different directions. There must have been at least six exits from their new building and the boys used every one of them. At the very last, Alden went into the kitchen and sat down next to Jade at the table. He flicked his finger on Jade’s cheek and pulled him close in a big hug. The man and the boy talked in low tones for a few minutes before Alden reclaimed his chair from Deakin.
Eden followed him into the computer room and sat down at another desk. Ron and Davy had set up six computers around the room but they weren’t all up and running yet. It was time to back off a little and lay low for awhile. Let the dust settle and hope the bad guys had lost their trail. Deakin was wild to continue his search though. He wanted to contact every person his parents had worked with. He wanted to talk to all of them face-to-face but it just wasn’t possible.
Deakin paced around the room and fetched back up at Alden’s chair. “I’ve got to leave, Alden. There are things I could be doing to find out what happened.”
Alden tipped back in his chair and looked upside-down at the set expression on Deakin’s face. “You know you can leave anytime you want, boy. You’re not a prisoner here. You have leads to follow. Go see all these people, ask your questions, and then come back. Eden knows how to find me if we have to move again. Just wait until tomorrow, okay? I’ll have some presents for you to take with you.”
Deakin leaned his head against Alden’s shoulder and said, “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done so far. You have been the greatest friend I’ve ever had. We’ll be back and help you get going again. I promise. And we’ll wait for morning to leave. Until then, we’ll work for you here.”
Eden and Deakin stood at the bus stop five blocks away from Alden’s new headquarters. They wore new clothes and carried backpacks and the laptop as their only luggage. They also carried $5000, two credit cards, and two driver’s licenses each, compliments of Alden. Eden had become Susan Hornung and Ashley Richards. Deakin was now her brother named David Hornung and Justin Richards. Alden had come through with some terrific presents. They each carried a new cell phone and a list of addresses. Former bandits had spread out all over the country. Some of them he’d never met, just done business with over the Internet. Others were boys who’d once lived and worked with him, but were now off on their own. A list of safe houses was a definite plus for their quest. Eden had almost cried as they left the warehouse and Jade really did cry. Deakin swore that Jade always cried when any of the boys left, but Alden would always take care of his younger brother. Eden’s eyes opened wide at this snippet of news that gave her something to think about as they made their way toward UCLA and the first of their interviews with Alex Kimbrough’s past.
Then he whispered in a thready voice. “I heard you sneeze. There’s no point in waking everyone up. Come into the kitchen and I’ll give you a cup of coffee.”
As he walked away, Eden hurried after him on her bare toes. “Where are my shoes? My feet are cold.”
Jade pointed to a bag in the corner of the kitchen and turned his back to pour coffee for her. Eden rummaged through the bag and found a clean pair of jeans and a clean tee shirt. She quickly changed into the clean clothes and stuffed the others into the bag. She reached for her shoes as Jade walked closer.
“Give me your dirty clothes and I’ll take care of them for you.”
Eden glanced at him with surprise and then pulled the clothes out of the bag. Her hand closed over a small makeup bag stuffed into a corner and she pulled it out. Without even looking at its contents, she handed it to Jade and took the coffee cup from his thin fingers. She sat at a worn wooden table and sipped her hot coffee. A plate of cinnamon rolls appeared in front of her and she carefully picked up one of the sticky buns. Jade emptied out the makeup bag on the table and happily looked through all the mascara, lip gloss, blush, and eye shadow containers. Eden critically considered his smeared face. She reached into the bag again and felt around until she found a jar of face cream. She slid it across the table to Jade. He beamed up at her and grabbed the jar of cream. He cleaned his face until he looked like the boy he used to be sometime in the past. Then he packed everything back into the small makeup bag and said,
“Thank you, dear. It’s a lovely present. I lost all mine in the fire.”
He grabbed a sweet roll and joined Eden. A few minutes later, Deakin dropped into the chair at her side. A weary, dirty Deakin who could have used a bath and a good night’s sleep.
“The computers are all up and running. We didn’t lose much, maybe some old stuff we didn’t need anymore. I’m gonna crash for a few hours. Stay here until I get up and we’ll decide what to do next, okay?”
Eden smiled at him and waved him away from the table. “Go, sleep. You’ll find a nice dusty couch waiting for you in that room. Jade and I will get along just fine.”
As the door closed behind Deakin, she turned to Jade and asked, “Well, what do we do now?”
“Well, we need food mostly. I’m not familiar with this neighborhood so I’ll have to wander around a little. I need to find a laundromat and a grocery store.”
“I’ll come with you and help you carry the groceries back here.”
When Deakin reentered the kitchen, Jade had stocked the shelves with a little food and had a large pot of stew cooking. Deakin dropped into a chair and watched the boy stir the pot of stew and then fill another large pot with rice and set it on a burner. Then he turned around to face Deakin and said,
“Well, I hope you’re happy. I lost everything in the fire. This is the only outfit I have left.”
Deakin stared at the boy’s face and observed, “You look different. Nice, but different.”
Jade touched his cheeks and said, “Your girlfriend had the decency to give me all her makeup. I lost my whole collection. From now on, I’m carrying it all around with me. See.” The boy unzipped a small green backpack and showed Deakin the makeup inside it.
“Well, I think you look very nice, Jade. Is the stew ready?”
“Not yet. Go take a shower first. Your clothes are in that bag over there with the girl’s.”
Deakin looked around the room and asked anxiously, “Where is she?”
Jade jerked his head toward the computer room and said, “She’s been in there with Alden for four hours now. You can take dinner in to them when you’re cleaned up. Go, go, go.”
Jade shooed Deakin out of the room and returned to his cooking.
Several hours later Jade stuck his head in the door and called softly, “Can I get the dirty dishes?”
Eden appeared carrying a stack of bowls. “Thanks for the stew, Jade. What’s happening out there?”
“The boys are drifting in, one at a time. Only a couple of them haven’t showed up yet. They’ll show up before long. The others are getting kinda antsy though ‘cos there’s nothing for them to do. They want to talk to Alden. Since nobody’s seen him yet, they want to make sure he made it out of the fire.”
“Alden, come speak with your loyal followers.”
Alden looked up from the monitor screen and frowned in the direction of the door. “Can’t it wait?”
“No, you should at least let them know you’re here.”
Alden nodded in agreement and gave up his place to Deakin. Eden followed Alden into a large storage room littered with boxes and mattresses. Ten or twelve boys stood up and moved forward as he stood in the doorway. He moved through the crowd saying very little, but hugging each boy and patting him on the back. Then he stood in front of the small group and tersely explained their situation. He gave each of them money and sent them out to furnish their new nest. A tall, gangling redhead with a prominent Adam’s apple was sent out to buy two or three television sets. A smaller darker boy named Rogelio was in charge of Gameboys. Chester left in search of lamps and flashlights. Denver and Dallas went clothes shopping. Keith from Kansas headed for the comic book shop and Aaron from Oregon took a trip to the drug store. The boys all left in different directions. There must have been at least six exits from their new building and the boys used every one of them. At the very last, Alden went into the kitchen and sat down next to Jade at the table. He flicked his finger on Jade’s cheek and pulled him close in a big hug. The man and the boy talked in low tones for a few minutes before Alden reclaimed his chair from Deakin.
Eden followed him into the computer room and sat down at another desk. Ron and Davy had set up six computers around the room but they weren’t all up and running yet. It was time to back off a little and lay low for awhile. Let the dust settle and hope the bad guys had lost their trail. Deakin was wild to continue his search though. He wanted to contact every person his parents had worked with. He wanted to talk to all of them face-to-face but it just wasn’t possible.
Deakin paced around the room and fetched back up at Alden’s chair. “I’ve got to leave, Alden. There are things I could be doing to find out what happened.”
Alden tipped back in his chair and looked upside-down at the set expression on Deakin’s face. “You know you can leave anytime you want, boy. You’re not a prisoner here. You have leads to follow. Go see all these people, ask your questions, and then come back. Eden knows how to find me if we have to move again. Just wait until tomorrow, okay? I’ll have some presents for you to take with you.”
Deakin leaned his head against Alden’s shoulder and said, “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done so far. You have been the greatest friend I’ve ever had. We’ll be back and help you get going again. I promise. And we’ll wait for morning to leave. Until then, we’ll work for you here.”
Eden and Deakin stood at the bus stop five blocks away from Alden’s new headquarters. They wore new clothes and carried backpacks and the laptop as their only luggage. They also carried $5000, two credit cards, and two driver’s licenses each, compliments of Alden. Eden had become Susan Hornung and Ashley Richards. Deakin was now her brother named David Hornung and Justin Richards. Alden had come through with some terrific presents. They each carried a new cell phone and a list of addresses. Former bandits had spread out all over the country. Some of them he’d never met, just done business with over the Internet. Others were boys who’d once lived and worked with him, but were now off on their own. A list of safe houses was a definite plus for their quest. Eden had almost cried as they left the warehouse and Jade really did cry. Deakin swore that Jade always cried when any of the boys left, but Alden would always take care of his younger brother. Eden’s eyes opened wide at this snippet of news that gave her something to think about as they made their way toward UCLA and the first of their interviews with Alex Kimbrough’s past.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 12 continued
Eden leaned back in her chair and thought for a few minutes about what she’d found out and what she hadn’t found. A bottle of orange juice appeared next to her keyboard and she absentmindedly twisted the top off. She finished drinking it before she even realized she’d begun. Then she nodded her head vigorously and made her decision. As long as she was in the police files, she’d do some more snooping. Instead of typing in her own name, she typed in the block number of her apartment building. Several recent reports flashed on the screen. It seemed her apartment had been broken into sometime in the last week. The apartment manager had noticed the broken lock on her door and reported it. Persons unknown had torn the hell out of her place. According to the report, her furniture was slashed open, everything had been pulled out of the closet, and the drawers had all been emptied onto the floor. Even her refrigerator had been emptied along with the cabinets.
Next she clicked into the missing person’s files and searched through the long list of reports that had been filed in the last week. Her name was not on the list and neither was Deakin’s. That didn’t mean the police weren’t looking for them, though. Someone could have turned them in as suspects for any number of crimes. She then found a list of all APB’s that had been broadcast in the last week. There she found the license number of her car. She backtracked and found that she was suspected in a hit and run accident that had sent a pedestrian to the hospital. Suddenly, she felt very good about leaving her car in the Phoenix airport parking lot. She also felt very good when she noticed the date of the hit and run. She and Deakin had been meeting with Wayne Kimbrough that day. Now, if he would just stay alive, she would have a witness who could say she wasn’t in Los Angeles at the time of the accident. Hell, she wasn’t even in California.
Eden turned away from her screen and looked around the room for Deakin. He stood at the back of Alden’s chair and stared at the huge screen of Alden’s monitor. Deakin turned toward Eden with a face filled with O’s. His eyes were huge round circles and so was his mouth. Alden feverishly clicked the keys on his keyboard. He yelled at Eden to close down her computer ASAP. She turned back to her screen and began closing all the files she’d browsed through. When she had turned off her machine, she moved around the circle shutting down the other computers, one by one. She ran into Deakin halfway around the circle and glanced at the grimness showing in his face as he closed out and turned off computers.
All the other boys in the room had already shut down their machines and gathered up any papers into piles. They stuffed the piles into backpacks and handed them out the door to Jade. When they’d finished, they followed the backpacks out the door. Alden’s machine was the last one to close down. He gathered a stack of disks and stuffed them into a bag. Then he shut down his monitor and tossed the bag to Deakin. Eden stood at the open door and watched the two move from machine to machine. They reached under each desk and flipped a switch. Small red blinking lights scattered around the room. Deakin and Alden met Eden at the door. Just as Alden pulled the door shut, he flipped one more switch on the wall and slammed the door shut.
Eden flinched when she heard a loud “whump” on the other side of the door. Deakin whispered in her ear, “Acid to ruin the machines. Then a fire to burn them totally up.”
She pulled the bag containing the disks out of Deakin’s hand and slipped the handles across her body. She grabbed Deakin’s belt and stumbled after him down the darkened hallway. A hand grabbed the back of her shirt and feet bumped her heels with every step. Eden put out her right hand and touched the wall but the rising heat made her jerk her hand away.
Deakin whispered over his shoulder. “Be careful. That whole room is burning by now. Stairs coming up. Railing on your right.”
Eden followed him blindly down a winding metal stairway into a damp smelly tunnel. Deakin walked faster and faster through the tunnel. Nasty odors wafted up into Eden’s face as they splashed through stagnant pools of water. She kept one hand on the wall and ran her fingers along the old bricks that lined the tunnel. Several times her fingers ran out of wall and touched black emptiness. Other tunnels ran off at right angles. Once she stumbled over a set of tracks that crossed their tunnel and disappeared into another tunnel to the left. After two or three turns, Eden hoped Deakin knew where he was going. After the latest turn, a small light appeared in the distance. It grew larger and larger as they now ran through the tunnel.
Deakin stopped thirty yards from the opening and slowly edged his way to the barred window. He peered around the edge of the frame and dropped below the edge of the window as a man walked along the alley. When the man had disappeared, Deakin unhooked the bars and opened the window. He stepped out first and then helped Eden climb over the window sill. Jade followed on her heels as did Alden and two other boys. They all huddled in a group behind a trash dumpster as one of the boys closed and locked the window. Then they split up in pairs and took different paths out of the alley.
Alden grabbed Eden’s hand and pulled her with him down the alley to the left. They melted into the moving crowd of people on the sidewalk. He threw his arm across her shoulders and pulled her close to his side. She leaned into him and slowed her breathing down as they walked. Off to the left, a column of black smoke reached into the sky. The blare of fire engines and emergency vehicles joined the usual street sounds. They drifted with the crowd in the direction of the fire and stopped at the edge of the large watching crowd. Eden’s eyes widened as she realized the building they’d just left had imploded in on itself. Bricks had crashed down on the computer room and covered everything with rubble. Huge metal girders pointed toward the sky and watched over the smouldering mess below. More brick walls crashed down as the firemen sprayed heavy arcs of water on the building.
Alden pulled Eden back as the policemen tried to move the crowd away from the fire. They wandered away with the others who’d grown bored with the spectacle. They walked for blocks and blocks until Alden stopped in front of a tattoo and piercing salon. Eden stepped through the doorway and into the front room of the shop. A girl with green and orange striped hair greeted them. She was a walking advertisement for all the delights offered in the back rooms. Rings and studs decorated her ears and her face. Even the center of her tongue hadn’t been spared. Tattoos twined down both her arms and across her shoulders. Eden smiled at her and left the talking to Alden.
Alden leaned across the glass showcase and pointed to a pair of earrings. “We’d like to see those, please.”
The girl reached down into the case and brought out a pair of silver earrings with tiny lizards dangling off the studs. Alden held them out to Eden and gestured for her to put them on. She slid the posts into the holes in her ears and leaned down to look in the small mirror the girl held. She slowly stood up and gestured for Alden to look in the mirror. Reflected in the small surface was the front window of the shop with two policemen peering through the grime that covered it. Alden fingered the tiny lizards in Eden’s ears and pulled out his wallet to pay for them. Eden looked again in the mirror and watched the cops laugh and walk away. The girl handed Alden his change and spoke some garbled words to him. Eden shook her head and leaned in to listen but she still didn’t understand what the girl said. Then she realized the tongue stud made it difficult for the girl to speak clearly.
Alden took her hand and pulled her into one of the back rooms. A young man sat in a chair with his arm resting on a steady table. The outline of an elaborate work of art covered part of his forearm. The tattoo artist glanced at Alden and then at Eden. His gaze fastened on the lizard earrings and he nodded them through the doorway in the far corner of the room.
They slipped out the back door of the shop, crossed the alley, and entered the back of another shop. The young man in the stockroom noticed Eden’s earrings and sent them into the front of the shop. They stepped into an amazing room. The tall walls were covered with dark wooden shelves. Ancient sculptured tin covered the ceiling. The center of the large room was covered with tables. Piles of comic books were stacked on every table and every shelf along the walls. Large posters waved in the breeze from the ceiling fans. Twenty or thirty people moved around the room and flipped through pile after pile of old comic books.
A teenaged boy stood at the register and watched the crowd around him. He glanced at Alden and Eden and then out the front window of the shop. He turned back and shook his head slightly at Alden, who moved Eden into the shelter of the cash register and began looking through a nearby stack of comics. Eden followed his lead and leafed through a stack also. When the coast was clear, the boy touched Eden on the shoulder and sent them on their way.
Eden and Alden walked out the front door of the shop and wandered along the sidewalk with other shoppers. Small shops and stores filled the old buildings on this block. At one corner, Alden bought them both cups of coffee and doughnuts. Several times Eden had tried to ask him where they were going but he refused to answer her. At several points in their rambling walk, Alden had entered shops and spoken to young men in the back rooms. Eden’s earrings had given them entrance into those back rooms and she stood to the side to watch the transactions. In one back storeroom, a tall, thin man with wild hair and multiple tattoos took several computer disks from Eden’s bag and stowed them in a small safe behind a pile of junk. In another shop, this time a pizza place, Alden dropped off more computer disks. These disks found their way into the bottom drawer of an old desk and joined a motley pile of other disks.
As they left through the back door of the pizza restaurant, Alden whispered in Eden’s ear. “Remember these people and places. These people are all former bandits. You and Deakin may need to get these disks back sometime later. Always wear those earrings. Never take them off. They’re your passport through this maze. Two more stops and then we go to the new place.”
Eden listened and watched as Alden did business with two more young men. As they walked away from the last, a dirty unshaven man bumped into Eden’s shoulder and grabbed her arm. He shoved something pointed into her ribs and demanded her money. Eden turned to look at him in alarm and the tiny lizards swung out of the shadow of her baseball cap. The man immediately let go of her arm, mumbled an apology, and disappeared into the crowd. Eden turned back to Alden with her mouth still open.
He smiled at her and said softly, “Never take them off. Remember that.”
“I believe you for sure. You really believe in the old saying, ‘When you give, give the very best,’ don’t you?”
A small chuckle escaped from Alden’s mouth. They ambled along through the neighborhood until they passed another pizza parlor. This one sold single slices out a small window. Eden pulled Alden over to the window and ordered two slices and two cups of lemonade. They leaned against the building to eat their pizza and then walked off with their cups of lemonade.
A dirty brown car pulled into the curb next to them and an arrogant voice called out, “Hey, girlie, you sure get around, don’t you? Just how many ‘boyfriends’ do you have?”
Eden whirled around and stared into the eyes of the policeman who’d stopped them the night before. Out of nervousness, she stuck the straw from her drink in her mouth and drank her lemonade. The officer waved her over to the car and leaned out the window. He put his hand on her arm and pulled her down to his level.
“You want to go for a ride with us, honey? We’ll treat you real good.”
The driver of the car snorted in disgust and said, “Cut it out, Jim. I don’t do that sort of thing. Leave her alone. She isn’t doing anything.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do, boy. I’ve been on the street longer than you’ve been alive and I know something suspicious when I see it. This girl is way too clean for this neighborhood. She don’t belong here and I want to find out why.”
“Then, just ask her, Jim. She might just tell you.”
“Goddamnit, I will. What the fuck are you doing in this sinkhole, little girl?”
“Sociology research for the Social Services Department at USC. This is my lab partner and we’re interviewing street people and homeless people. We’re trying to find out how many of them come here from other places just to take advantage of the social services. The State of California wants to know how many people from other states it’s being forced to take care of. There are hundreds of us wandering around here day and night asking questions. Did you know that in the last hour we’ve found sixteen people from Illinois, twelve from Oklahoma, five from Texas, and some from Florida and New York? I can’t remember how many.”
She looked interrogatively at Alden, who pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and flipped through it. “Uh, ten from Florida and three from New York.”
The policeman stared at her in disbelief and said, “Well, I will be goddamned. Now, they’re sending nice kids out on the streets and we’re going to have to take care of them too. Let’s get out of here right now. I don’t want any part of this shit. Drive, boy, drive.”
They watched the car turn the next corner and disappear from sight. Alden looked at Eden in approval and said, “That was very good. How did you learn to do that?”
Eden smiled and said, “I’ve been making up stories like that my whole life. Most people will believe anything you say if it involves a bureaucracy of some kind. You don’t want to say you work for the government but that you ‘do’ work for the government. Then you don’t have to have a badge or identification card of some kind. As long as you look the part and talk the part, 98% will believe you. The other 2% don’t believe anything at all. ‘Walk the walk and talk the talk,’ that’s my prescription for lying.”
Alden laughed as he piloted her toward his new home. He’d been away from a computer for far too long.
Next she clicked into the missing person’s files and searched through the long list of reports that had been filed in the last week. Her name was not on the list and neither was Deakin’s. That didn’t mean the police weren’t looking for them, though. Someone could have turned them in as suspects for any number of crimes. She then found a list of all APB’s that had been broadcast in the last week. There she found the license number of her car. She backtracked and found that she was suspected in a hit and run accident that had sent a pedestrian to the hospital. Suddenly, she felt very good about leaving her car in the Phoenix airport parking lot. She also felt very good when she noticed the date of the hit and run. She and Deakin had been meeting with Wayne Kimbrough that day. Now, if he would just stay alive, she would have a witness who could say she wasn’t in Los Angeles at the time of the accident. Hell, she wasn’t even in California.
Eden turned away from her screen and looked around the room for Deakin. He stood at the back of Alden’s chair and stared at the huge screen of Alden’s monitor. Deakin turned toward Eden with a face filled with O’s. His eyes were huge round circles and so was his mouth. Alden feverishly clicked the keys on his keyboard. He yelled at Eden to close down her computer ASAP. She turned back to her screen and began closing all the files she’d browsed through. When she had turned off her machine, she moved around the circle shutting down the other computers, one by one. She ran into Deakin halfway around the circle and glanced at the grimness showing in his face as he closed out and turned off computers.
All the other boys in the room had already shut down their machines and gathered up any papers into piles. They stuffed the piles into backpacks and handed them out the door to Jade. When they’d finished, they followed the backpacks out the door. Alden’s machine was the last one to close down. He gathered a stack of disks and stuffed them into a bag. Then he shut down his monitor and tossed the bag to Deakin. Eden stood at the open door and watched the two move from machine to machine. They reached under each desk and flipped a switch. Small red blinking lights scattered around the room. Deakin and Alden met Eden at the door. Just as Alden pulled the door shut, he flipped one more switch on the wall and slammed the door shut.
Eden flinched when she heard a loud “whump” on the other side of the door. Deakin whispered in her ear, “Acid to ruin the machines. Then a fire to burn them totally up.”
She pulled the bag containing the disks out of Deakin’s hand and slipped the handles across her body. She grabbed Deakin’s belt and stumbled after him down the darkened hallway. A hand grabbed the back of her shirt and feet bumped her heels with every step. Eden put out her right hand and touched the wall but the rising heat made her jerk her hand away.
Deakin whispered over his shoulder. “Be careful. That whole room is burning by now. Stairs coming up. Railing on your right.”
Eden followed him blindly down a winding metal stairway into a damp smelly tunnel. Deakin walked faster and faster through the tunnel. Nasty odors wafted up into Eden’s face as they splashed through stagnant pools of water. She kept one hand on the wall and ran her fingers along the old bricks that lined the tunnel. Several times her fingers ran out of wall and touched black emptiness. Other tunnels ran off at right angles. Once she stumbled over a set of tracks that crossed their tunnel and disappeared into another tunnel to the left. After two or three turns, Eden hoped Deakin knew where he was going. After the latest turn, a small light appeared in the distance. It grew larger and larger as they now ran through the tunnel.
Deakin stopped thirty yards from the opening and slowly edged his way to the barred window. He peered around the edge of the frame and dropped below the edge of the window as a man walked along the alley. When the man had disappeared, Deakin unhooked the bars and opened the window. He stepped out first and then helped Eden climb over the window sill. Jade followed on her heels as did Alden and two other boys. They all huddled in a group behind a trash dumpster as one of the boys closed and locked the window. Then they split up in pairs and took different paths out of the alley.
Alden grabbed Eden’s hand and pulled her with him down the alley to the left. They melted into the moving crowd of people on the sidewalk. He threw his arm across her shoulders and pulled her close to his side. She leaned into him and slowed her breathing down as they walked. Off to the left, a column of black smoke reached into the sky. The blare of fire engines and emergency vehicles joined the usual street sounds. They drifted with the crowd in the direction of the fire and stopped at the edge of the large watching crowd. Eden’s eyes widened as she realized the building they’d just left had imploded in on itself. Bricks had crashed down on the computer room and covered everything with rubble. Huge metal girders pointed toward the sky and watched over the smouldering mess below. More brick walls crashed down as the firemen sprayed heavy arcs of water on the building.
Alden pulled Eden back as the policemen tried to move the crowd away from the fire. They wandered away with the others who’d grown bored with the spectacle. They walked for blocks and blocks until Alden stopped in front of a tattoo and piercing salon. Eden stepped through the doorway and into the front room of the shop. A girl with green and orange striped hair greeted them. She was a walking advertisement for all the delights offered in the back rooms. Rings and studs decorated her ears and her face. Even the center of her tongue hadn’t been spared. Tattoos twined down both her arms and across her shoulders. Eden smiled at her and left the talking to Alden.
Alden leaned across the glass showcase and pointed to a pair of earrings. “We’d like to see those, please.”
The girl reached down into the case and brought out a pair of silver earrings with tiny lizards dangling off the studs. Alden held them out to Eden and gestured for her to put them on. She slid the posts into the holes in her ears and leaned down to look in the small mirror the girl held. She slowly stood up and gestured for Alden to look in the mirror. Reflected in the small surface was the front window of the shop with two policemen peering through the grime that covered it. Alden fingered the tiny lizards in Eden’s ears and pulled out his wallet to pay for them. Eden looked again in the mirror and watched the cops laugh and walk away. The girl handed Alden his change and spoke some garbled words to him. Eden shook her head and leaned in to listen but she still didn’t understand what the girl said. Then she realized the tongue stud made it difficult for the girl to speak clearly.
Alden took her hand and pulled her into one of the back rooms. A young man sat in a chair with his arm resting on a steady table. The outline of an elaborate work of art covered part of his forearm. The tattoo artist glanced at Alden and then at Eden. His gaze fastened on the lizard earrings and he nodded them through the doorway in the far corner of the room.
They slipped out the back door of the shop, crossed the alley, and entered the back of another shop. The young man in the stockroom noticed Eden’s earrings and sent them into the front of the shop. They stepped into an amazing room. The tall walls were covered with dark wooden shelves. Ancient sculptured tin covered the ceiling. The center of the large room was covered with tables. Piles of comic books were stacked on every table and every shelf along the walls. Large posters waved in the breeze from the ceiling fans. Twenty or thirty people moved around the room and flipped through pile after pile of old comic books.
A teenaged boy stood at the register and watched the crowd around him. He glanced at Alden and Eden and then out the front window of the shop. He turned back and shook his head slightly at Alden, who moved Eden into the shelter of the cash register and began looking through a nearby stack of comics. Eden followed his lead and leafed through a stack also. When the coast was clear, the boy touched Eden on the shoulder and sent them on their way.
Eden and Alden walked out the front door of the shop and wandered along the sidewalk with other shoppers. Small shops and stores filled the old buildings on this block. At one corner, Alden bought them both cups of coffee and doughnuts. Several times Eden had tried to ask him where they were going but he refused to answer her. At several points in their rambling walk, Alden had entered shops and spoken to young men in the back rooms. Eden’s earrings had given them entrance into those back rooms and she stood to the side to watch the transactions. In one back storeroom, a tall, thin man with wild hair and multiple tattoos took several computer disks from Eden’s bag and stowed them in a small safe behind a pile of junk. In another shop, this time a pizza place, Alden dropped off more computer disks. These disks found their way into the bottom drawer of an old desk and joined a motley pile of other disks.
As they left through the back door of the pizza restaurant, Alden whispered in Eden’s ear. “Remember these people and places. These people are all former bandits. You and Deakin may need to get these disks back sometime later. Always wear those earrings. Never take them off. They’re your passport through this maze. Two more stops and then we go to the new place.”
Eden listened and watched as Alden did business with two more young men. As they walked away from the last, a dirty unshaven man bumped into Eden’s shoulder and grabbed her arm. He shoved something pointed into her ribs and demanded her money. Eden turned to look at him in alarm and the tiny lizards swung out of the shadow of her baseball cap. The man immediately let go of her arm, mumbled an apology, and disappeared into the crowd. Eden turned back to Alden with her mouth still open.
He smiled at her and said softly, “Never take them off. Remember that.”
“I believe you for sure. You really believe in the old saying, ‘When you give, give the very best,’ don’t you?”
A small chuckle escaped from Alden’s mouth. They ambled along through the neighborhood until they passed another pizza parlor. This one sold single slices out a small window. Eden pulled Alden over to the window and ordered two slices and two cups of lemonade. They leaned against the building to eat their pizza and then walked off with their cups of lemonade.
A dirty brown car pulled into the curb next to them and an arrogant voice called out, “Hey, girlie, you sure get around, don’t you? Just how many ‘boyfriends’ do you have?”
Eden whirled around and stared into the eyes of the policeman who’d stopped them the night before. Out of nervousness, she stuck the straw from her drink in her mouth and drank her lemonade. The officer waved her over to the car and leaned out the window. He put his hand on her arm and pulled her down to his level.
“You want to go for a ride with us, honey? We’ll treat you real good.”
The driver of the car snorted in disgust and said, “Cut it out, Jim. I don’t do that sort of thing. Leave her alone. She isn’t doing anything.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do, boy. I’ve been on the street longer than you’ve been alive and I know something suspicious when I see it. This girl is way too clean for this neighborhood. She don’t belong here and I want to find out why.”
“Then, just ask her, Jim. She might just tell you.”
“Goddamnit, I will. What the fuck are you doing in this sinkhole, little girl?”
“Sociology research for the Social Services Department at USC. This is my lab partner and we’re interviewing street people and homeless people. We’re trying to find out how many of them come here from other places just to take advantage of the social services. The State of California wants to know how many people from other states it’s being forced to take care of. There are hundreds of us wandering around here day and night asking questions. Did you know that in the last hour we’ve found sixteen people from Illinois, twelve from Oklahoma, five from Texas, and some from Florida and New York? I can’t remember how many.”
She looked interrogatively at Alden, who pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and flipped through it. “Uh, ten from Florida and three from New York.”
The policeman stared at her in disbelief and said, “Well, I will be goddamned. Now, they’re sending nice kids out on the streets and we’re going to have to take care of them too. Let’s get out of here right now. I don’t want any part of this shit. Drive, boy, drive.”
They watched the car turn the next corner and disappear from sight. Alden looked at Eden in approval and said, “That was very good. How did you learn to do that?”
Eden smiled and said, “I’ve been making up stories like that my whole life. Most people will believe anything you say if it involves a bureaucracy of some kind. You don’t want to say you work for the government but that you ‘do’ work for the government. Then you don’t have to have a badge or identification card of some kind. As long as you look the part and talk the part, 98% will believe you. The other 2% don’t believe anything at all. ‘Walk the walk and talk the talk,’ that’s my prescription for lying.”
Alden laughed as he piloted her toward his new home. He’d been away from a computer for far too long.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)