Ghostman (7 page)

7

I turned off the television and sat in silence for a few moments, closing my eyes and thinking about Ribbons. He’d gotten himself into a world of trouble. When I opened my eyes, I started to transform myself into someone else.

Transforming has always been the easiest thing in the world for me. I unbuckled my safety belt and retrieved my bag from the overhead compartment. In the side pocket was a trio of faded passports, and stuffed under the covers were matching driver’s licenses. I had three men with a range of ages. Each one had a different look, career and lifestyle. None of them looked like me, but that wasn’t a problem. I wasn’t going to Atlantic City anymore. One of these three men was.

Jack Morton was the oldest of the three, and one of my favorite identities. I’d modeled him after a favorite college professor and never gotten into trouble with him before. He had a good, strong, noble personality. When I was pretending to be him, my voice would get deeper and my movements would get slower and more thoughtful. He was kind, strong-spoken and quick-witted. His voice was like melted wax. I laid his passport on my tray table and put the other two away. He was my man.

Although the birthday on the passport put him in his middle fifties,
Jack Morton was barely two years old. I’d created him piece by piece over the course of six months between a couple of jobs. I’d already planted all of his official documents in the record books. I had copies of his birth certificate and his college diploma tucked away somewhere. He’d gone to the University of Connecticut, Stamford, and done moderately well studying ancient languages. Now he worked as an insurance investigator. I liked him because, unlike some of my other names and identities, he didn’t have a single file in his criminal record. He was a good man who didn’t mind playing rough from time to time. I stared at his picture until my muscles slowly relaxed into the shape of his face. I could feel my expressions changing to fit his appearance. My resting heart rate slowed down, and my hands seized up with the tension of sudden middle age. It’s hard to age twenty years in twenty seconds.

I took a long breath, let it out slowly, and became fifty-six years old.

Since Morton’s palette was brown, I had to change mine to match. I carefully took out my sharp brown contact lenses and replaced them with foggier, duller, blue ones from my pack. My kit had a small vanity mirror for the makeup. I accented the curves of my face with a pencil and furrowed my brow to emphasize the lines. I smudged the pencil marks with my thumb until they blended in seamlessly with the curvature of my face. I applied very small amounts of dark foundation to my neck, cheeks and forehead. Within two minutes, it looked like I had the wrinkles and deep laugh lines of a man twenty years older.

“My name is Jack Morton,” I said in his voice, just to practice.

The hair was next. There are hundreds of products that can change a man’s hair color, but I’ve come to rely on a select few. Speed and simplicity are important. I didn’t have the time or space to wash my hair and let the dye sit for an hour. Instead I got my scalp wet in the sink and carefully combed in streaks of instant dye, turning my light blond hair a darker, dirtier, older brown. Once the dye set, I added streaks of salt-and-pepper gray, then swept my hair back and tousled it until it looked careless. I made the eyebrows match with a few touches of a pencil.

“My name is Jack Morton,” I said to myself again. “I’m an insurance
investigator with Harper and Locke. I was born in Lexington, Massachusetts.”

I had a few pairs of glasses in the bag. I tried a few different styles. Wire frames were too trendy. Circular specs were a little too old-fashioned. Thick-framed black glasses weren’t right, either. I settled for a pair of rectangular bifocals that slid down my nose slightly. I glanced in the mirror. I looked practically professorial. I tied a small amount of dental floss around my left ring finger and pulled it until it was tight enough to cut off circulation. According to Morton’s life history, which I’d written, he’d been divorced for a little over a year. When I pulled the floss off, it left the mark of a married man.

To complete the costume, I’d have to change watches. No insurance investigator would wear such an incredibly expensive Patek Philippe, and, if I was smart, I wouldn’t risk someone recognizing it. However, this was the only watch I had with me, and I was quite attached to it. I pushed it back on my wrist to hide it under my shirt cuff.

The combination of all of my efforts rendered me completely unremarkable. I looked like thousands of other middle-aged white American men. I was middle age, middle weight, middle height and middle income. The only thing that set me apart was the expensive suit and watch, but those could be explained away.
At my age, I should care about how I look. It’s just part of the job
.

We arrived at Atlantic City International close to four in the afternoon local time. I set my watch forward three hours as the tires bounced once on the runway. It was even hotter here. A blistering ninety degrees, and it wasn’t likely to cool down anytime soon. Even the baggage handlers on the runway wore their shirts tied around their heads. With the humidity the way it was, the city felt like it was burning. The pilot gave me his phone number and told me to call when the cargo was ready. I patted him on the back and went down the stairs. The tarmac stuck to the soles of my shoes.

First I needed to rent a car. Then I needed a place to stay and something to eat. But all that could wait until I found the facilitator.

I took out my international phone and pounded in Ribbons’s cell number. I knew he wasn’t making calls, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t taking any. He had a cellular code from Virginia, which was a little unusual but not completely unheard-of. People have cell numbers from all over the place. The phone rang. By the time the answering machine picked up, I was already halfway to the rental-car desk. An electronic voice. You’ve reached this number. Please leave a message after the beep.

I waited for the beep. “Call home immediately,” I said. “Father isn’t angry, he just wants to hear from you.”

I killed the call and glanced down at the screen. Ribbons’s number was already logged on the phone’s record, permanently written onto the data chip. I took the battery out and crushed the small data card. I threw the phone away in a trash can. I had another international phone in my jacket, but it was the last one.

The federal agent was waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator.

8

I don’t run from federal agents. I run from cops, sure, because I might have a chance of getting away. But running from a federal agent is like trying to hide in a labyrinth. You might be able to prolong the chase for a while, but in the end the minotaur’s going to catch you. Feds don’t mess around. They always get the people they’re looking for, so you’d better make sure they’re not looking for you in the first place.

The only solution is to play along. I didn’t speed up or slow down. I just leaned against the escalator’s railing and let it bring me slowly toward her.

I knew who was waiting for me. She had the right wrinkles in her suit and worn-out edges on the soles of her sensible leather flats. Her skin was the color of coffee creamer and she was slender, but not thin. She had curves in the right places and a stern sort of intelligence to her. I imagined that she was a swimmer. Her curly brown hair was bundled back. Shoulder length, no nonsense.

She stepped in front of me and flipped open a leather badge booklet. Inside was a small gold shield with an eagle and the words
Federal Bureau of Investigation
.

She said, “Are you the passenger from the Citation Sovereign?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Can I have a word?”

“What is this about?”

“Do you know a man named Marcus Hayes?”

I didn’t answer. Not right away. I would have walked away right then, if she weren’t so goddamn pretty. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You must have the wrong person. I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“You just stepped off his jet, so I’m betting you do.”

“I want to see your badge again.”

“Show me your identification and we’ve got a deal.”

I considered it for a second. It is for moments like this that people carry fake driver’s licenses. Travel agents rarely give them a second look, and regular police don’t have enough training to tell the high-quality fake ones from the real ones, because every state has different security features. But Jack Morton was clean. If I played the odds, showing her his driver’s license would be almost as safe as refusing to show her anything at all. It was within my rights just to walk away, but that would make me look suspicious.

I took the card out of my wallet. She looked at it, then up at me. We matched perfectly. For all she knew, the photograph could have been taken today. If she could tell it was a fake, she didn’t let on.

She put the license back in my hand, then slid her shield booklet off her belt and gave it to me. It was a thin leather wallet with the gold insignia and a card in a viewing flap.
Rebecca Lynn Blacker
. Five foot six, pale eyes, tan skin, just north of thirty years old. I took out the card and rubbed it between my fingers. It felt real.

I looked up.

“All right,” I said.

She took the badge back. “Mr. Morton, you’re in from Seattle, right?”

“Yes.”

“You hear about the armored car that got robbed this morning?”

“I saw it on the news on the flight.”

“I didn’t. I got a phone call. I’m on vacation, you see. I was taking my two weeks down in Cape May. This morning I’m waking up, just about to take a run on the beach, when I get a call from the special-agent-in-charge of the Trenton field office, then another one from the Atlantic City Police. I get in my car and spend three hours getting back to Atlantic City. Traffic like you wouldn’t even believe, understand? No coffee, no time for a shower. I just drive and hope the PD sorts it out before I get there, but I pull up at the scene and the police have nothing. Two guys at large and no leads on finding them. So I start making calls. And you know what I find out? That just hours after all hell broke loose here, the Seattle field office snapped some photos of a meeting between an unknown man and a notorious heist-maker. An hour after that, the heist-maker got a Cessna Sovereign fueled and sent it packing across the country right here. This isn’t a large airport, Jack. This town doesn’t get that sort of itinerary every day.”

“An unknown man?”

“One six-foot Caucasian male, mid-thirties, with light hair and brown eyes.”

“Then you know it wasn’t me,” I said.

“I asked you a question about Marcus Hayes.”

“It sounds like he loves to gamble.”

She shook her head. She had a sort of half smile on. She said, “What are you doing here, Mr. Morton?”

“I’m on vacation.”

“You’re here to clean things up for Marcus.”

“I’m not here for anyone,” I said.

“Listen, I get it,” she said. “A guy like that says jump, you jump. I read his file. Extortion, murder, drugs, bank jobs in half a dozen countries. If someone like that told me to do something, I might start thinking that I didn’t have a choice. Like it’s this or prison. But you know what? I’ve found I do my best work when I’m doing my own damn thing. And I’ll
tell you, this weekend I’m here by myself. If I were you, I’d try to stay out of this. I’m very good at what I do.”

She handed me a business card that had a couple of names on it before hers, but hers was right there at the bottom. “In case you want out,” she said, “give me a call.”

9

The man Marcus promised me was leaning against the wall under the arrivals gate holding up a piece of paper with
Jack
on it. A young black guy with slick hair and a very expensive suit. I might have mistaken him for just another limo driver if it weren’t for his gold-framed eyeglasses and the almost-nervous look on his face. He barely saw me coming until I was right on top of him.

“I’m the man you’re waiting for,” I said.

We shook hands and he fell in step with me without my having to ask. His voice was soft as silk. “Nice to meet you, sir,” he said.

“Who are you?”

“I’m here to help with whatever you require.”

“Okay.”

“Have you ever used our service before?”

“No.”

“Whatever you need, we provide. Your privacy is of the utmost importance to us. Nothing you ask us to do will ever be traced to you. All evidence of our relationship will be destroyed once you pay the balance of your bill. We do not keep records of our clients, nor do we ask any questions of you.”

“You running point for me?”

“Yes, sir. Your employer called this afternoon and told me you would prefer it if I didn’t ask your name.”

“Good. Do I get to know yours?”

“Alexander Lakes.”

“That’s not your real name, is it?”

“No, sir, it isn’t. What should I call you?”

“Sir is fine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ulysses is also good.”

“That’s a fake name if I ever heard one.”

“I have a soft spot for the character.”

“There’s a character?”

“Homer. Also James Joyce. Don’t you read?”

“Newspapers.”

I walked with him through the doors and out to where the rental-car agencies kept their desks. I knew Alexander was there to pick me up if I wanted, but I needed my own wheels. I rang the bell for service. When the lady came out with the papers, I gestured to Alexander. He looked at me, then showed her his driver’s license and he filled out his information on the contract. He was left-handed, and his script looked like he was performing a surgery. He had perfect cursive handwriting. He paid for three days’ rental with a gold credit card. In his wallet I could make out two faded photographs of his children tucked into the flap.

As we walked away from the desk and into the parking lot, he said, “We’ve taken the liberty of booking you a room at the Chelsea. We know the staff there. Your name, whatever it is, won’t go on the register, and there will be no record of your stay. All charges will be forwarded to us. The name they’ve got is Alexander Lakes.”