Pieces of the Puzzle (5 page)

His question became: Was she in danger because of that and what would they do to get what they wanted?

Around quarter to two a taxicab pulled up to the curb. He looked on impatiently. Taxies had been coming and going all day
and more so since noon. He saw high heels first, a flash of stockings, and as the woman moved away from the cab, black slacks,
white blouse and a black business jacket. The woman was wearing sunglasses, and her brown hair was in a tight bun. He looked
back down at the
Miami Herald
.

The front page was pretty grim:

For fifteen seconds the world had been without a pulse. And in those few precious seconds, billions of dollars of market capitalization
disappeared. Anyone playing heavy in the short end of the market came out richer. Anyone playing heavy in the long end of
the market came out poorer. Couple the damage. Topple corporations. Make and unmake multibillionaires.

How do you attack democracy and win? How do you take control and keep it? How do you overcome immeasurable odds and survive?
It wasn’t by stockpiling nuclear weapons. It wasn’t by dropping bombs. It wasn’t through acts of terror. It was through the
one thing that fuels economies and drives our world.

Even Fidel Castro’s Cuba couldn’t survive without it and this fact burns deep in hearts and minds. Marx had his communist
doctrines, Lenin his socialist doctrines. Marxists and Leninists. Marxism-Leninism. Mao Tse-tung’s China, Maoists. So many
variations, all with the same fatal flaws. The fall of the U.S.S.R was only a precursor, the fall of the Berlin Wall only
a symbol. The reality check: The greed and corruption that followed.

There was no maybe about it; there was only certainty. But he knew it wasn’t just about the money. It was about control. Control
the money by controlling the flow of information, by stopping global commerce and exchange. Everything was linked to the Munich
assignment—the assignment he was the only one to come back from. But there were times when he thought it would have been better
if he hadn’t made it out alive.

He should’ve died with the rest of his team—the captain going down with the ship as it were. Captains who survived their crews
when the ship went down weren’t regarded well and in his circle, survival in those circumstances meant something else entirely.

The minutes ticked by. Another cab pulled up. Scott looked up momentarily. Just then someone said, “Excuse me?”

Scott didn’t say anything. He was waiting for the cab’s occupant to emerge.

The guy tapped him on the shoulder. “Eh buddy, you know what time is it?”

Scott didn’t have to glance at his watch to know what time it was, but he did anyway. “Almost two.”

“
Mahalo
.”

Scott folded the newspaper. The cab’s occupant emerged, but it wasn’t Jessica Wellmen. It was a man wearing a thousand-dollar
suit, lugging a leather attaché case and staring up at the top of the financial center as if it were a monument. It was Whuthers
of Whuthers, Wolcott and Williams. Whuthers went back to the taxi and asked the cabby something, then looked back up at the
building. The cabby shook his head, waved his arm and pointed as he spoke, then Whuthers paid the cabby and the cab sped off.

Scott watched and waited. He took a pen out of his pocket and circled something in the want ads. As he stuck the pen back
into his pocket, a loud bang sounded from across the street. The sound, not dissimilar to a car backfiring, didn’t alarm anyone—except
Scott. To his ears, the sound, muffled or not, echoed like a gunshot.

He looked around, tucked the paper under his arm, then started into the financial center. Whuthers made his way to the elevators.
Scott followed, noticing how tight the lawyer’s grip on the attaché case was. As Scott filed into the elevator, he pushed
ninety-two after Whuthers pushed eighty-nine.

Before the doors closed, the press of the business crowd thrust Scott right up alongside the unsuspecting Whuthers. The ride
toward the summit of the Southeast Financial Center went slowly. As the elevator emptied out, he nonchalantly shifted to the
opposite side. Soon there were only the two of them and one gray-suited old man. When the doors opened for the 89th floor,
he stepped expectantly forward, but Whuthers didn’t move. He pretended to suddenly notice this wasn’t the floor he wanted,
and took a step back.

On the ninetieth floor, the old gentleman stepped out. The doors closed. Scott’s mind started to work. He watched the lights
above the elevator doors move: Ninety-one. Ninety-two. The elevator’s buzzer rang. The doors opened. Scott hesitated, considered
his options, then stepped into the hall. He glanced back over his shoulder. Whuthers was still leaning against the elevator
wall. The elevator doors were almost closed.

Scott spun around, stuck his hand in between the closing doors. The doors jerked open. He jumped into the elevator.

Whuthers didn’t move. He was wearing sunglasses, so Scott couldn’t see his eyes. Scott glared at him.

Behind him, Scott heard the doors close. He spun around, hit the emergency stop button and drew his gun. He whirled back around
to Whuthers, but Whuthers still didn’t move. Scott shook his head in disbelief. He expected some response—
but no response?

“The briefcase,” he said almost cordially, “I’ll take it now.”

Whuthers’ droopy scowl didn’t change. Scott brandished the gun, then reaching out with the opposite hand, grabbed Whuthers’
neck. There was a tightening in his gut as he realized he didn’t feel a pulse.

In an instant, he knew he didn’t have time to puzzle over a dead man—there was no way he was going to explain his presence
at the crime scene to the Miami police department. He would restart the elevator and get out of the building as quickly as
he could. And there was only one way to be sure, absolutely sure, that he got out of the building without being detained:
Ride the elevator to the first floor and go out through the front entrance as if nothing had happened—because nothing had
happened until someone else discovered it, then it was like Schrödinger’s Cat.

Without hesitation, Scott pried the briefcase from Whuthers’ hand, propped him back against the side wall, then started the
elevator. The first time the doors opened on the thirty-second floor and someone stepped into the elevator, he braced himself
for discovery, but nothing happened. No one screamed. No one even seemed to notice poor Mr. Whuthers. They were all too busy—probably
looking forward to the end of a hectic week and the holiday. People got on and off the elevator at a number of floors, all
the way down to the first floor where Scott got off and never looked back.

He walked at a leisurely pace to the parking garage, got into the rental car and drove off.

Hours later, he scratched at his right temple, rubbed sleep from his eyes with the heels of his hands. He peered out through
stained curtains, momentary disbelief showing on his face at the arrival of a misty dawn.

Too many hours ago, he had checked in with Glen. He used the pay phone down the street and while he mostly used codes, he
was still very careful about what he said. Glen’s office phone was subject to monitoring at any time, and Glen could only
ensure that outside parties weren’t listening in.

Glen was careful too, his, “Are you off to Orlando tomorrow?” wasn’t even in the book, but Scott understood what Glen meant
just the same—what’s the next move? Scott’s next move was Jessica Wellmen. He wanted to drive out to Boca Raton right then,
but Glen told him to check hotel registers first.

The registers had been a waste of time.

For hours since, Scott walked in circles around the cramped motel room. Telling himself there was no way the attaché case
had been empty when Whuthers entered the financial center. No way.

There had to have been a switch, a switch in the elevator, a switch he hadn’t seen. So many people coming and going, and he
hadn’t watched the case. Stupidity, there was no other explanation, not lost youth, not the booze—he quit the booze—plain
and pure stupidity, nothing else.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flashing neon sign of the liquor store down the street. Any other time he would have
wondered if it was still open, but not now, now he thought of Cynthia and her stupid sticky notes. Cynthia and the baby, who
he must forget if he was ever going to get his head screwed on straight and think only about what he was supposed to be thinking
about. He knew what he had to do. He took her picture out of his wallet and set it on the nightstand, intent on leaving it
there.

He wanted to call her, and before he knew it, the dial tone was in his ear. But even his subconscious knew better than to
place the call. He stuffed the picture into the trash, got out the Rand McNally road map of the state of Florida, and memorized
the main streets of Boca Raton. The way he figured it, he could catch a catnap, check out, and be in Boca Raton before 10
a.m.

What a grand way to spend New Year’s Day.

Boca Raton, Florida
Sunday,

2 January

He turned on the battery pack of the night vision goggles, slipped the goggles into place, and suddenly a world of greens
unfolded before his eyes. The reception area was dingy and smaller than he imagined. There was a metal desk, a few chairs,
an ugly couch, a coat and a plain wooden door leading to another room.

He went to the desk and examined the daily calendar. On Friday, December 3, there was a note jotted down about the Symphonic
Pops. A name, Helen—
Jessica’s sister?

He tried to flip back through the pages but had to remove a glove to flip through the pages singly. Thursday: Nothing. Wednesday:
Meet client 2:30. Tuesday: Lunch Helen 1:00. Monday: Nothing. He skipped forward and found three days were missing—Thursday,
Friday and Saturday.

Next he rummaged through the desk drawers, didn’t find anything unusual. He was about to see what was behind the door when
he heard something outside: A noise, like someone tripping over a garbage can. He killed the power to the NVGs, waited.

Someone fiddled with the door handle. His thoughts began spinning. He had watched the place all through Saturday and well
into Sunday. No one moved near the place then—why now, in the wee hours of a Sunday night?

His heart skipped as the door opened. He lifted his gun from its holster and shrank into a corner beside the couch. The wall
gave way beside him, and he groped with his hand, discovering a paneled door leading to a closet he hadn’t seen earlier. He
slipped into the closet, just as the lights turned on.

He heard something slap the desk, a rattle of keys, a door closing. Someone in heels walked over to the couch. The heavy odor
of a flowery perfume filtered under the closet door on a puff of air and behind it came the powerful scent of alcohol. He
waited for a time, then cautiously slid the door open a fraction of an inch and stared into the brightness. His eyes adjusted
and he saw a woman lying on the couch. The bottle of scotch she had been holding was spilling onto the floor.

He eased the closet door open and crept to the couch. The woman didn’t move. It could have been the secretary he had talked
to on the phone. The hair color was right, but he couldn’t be certain. Her face was squashed against the canvas of the couch.

He opened the door that led from the reception area, expecting to find a hallway dotted with doors. Instead he found what
appeared to be a single room. He saw no harm in turning on the light now and did so. In the far right corner, there was a
small square section cut out of the room that he was sure led to a bathroom or closet. Against the near wall sat a small desk
cluttered with wires, cables and small gadgets. Near the desk were racks of equipment. The floor was buried end to end in
electronic gizmos, but there were no three departments, no fifteen desks for fifteen consulting engineers. One desk, for one
lonely engineer.

The desk seemed a promising place to start. Scott picked his way across the floor to it. His eyes lit up when he saw a black
leather attaché case sitting on the floor behind the desk. He set the case onto the desktop and opened it. Inside was a wig,
a woman’s wig with long brown hair. He made a toothy grin—at least he had been right about the slacks and the cab.

He rummaged through the desk, but didn’t turn up anything useful—not even a date book or client list, which seemed strange.
He glanced at the phone on the desk, a vintage rotary type, and noticed it had a different number from the one he called on
Friday. He remembered the video phone on the front desk—it would have a programmed data list.

He went back to the reception area. The woman on the couch hadn’t moved. He went to the phone, tried to access its database
of phone numbers and found something he didn’t like. It was erased clean. On a whim, he picked the phone up, got the dial
tone, then held his breath as he pushed the redial button. A number started dialing out and feeding to the video screen.
1-4-10-5—suddenly something hard and cold was jammed into his other ear. A slurred voice said, “Drop the phone or I’ll blow
your head off.”

He dropped the phone, started to turn around.

“Put up your hands, asshole.” The woman started to frisk him with one hand. She found his holster. He let her take his gun.

“Wouldn’t you know it, another cop.”

“I’m not a cop.” He started to put his hands down.

The woman rammed the gun further into his ear. “Then who are you?”

“Take the gun away from my head, and maybe I’ll tell you.”

The woman took a step back. Scott showed her his hands, made sure she understood they were empty, then slowly reached down
to his boot. “Two fingers. I’m not going to try anything, so please don’t shoot,” he said as he lifted the gun from his boot
and set it onto the desk. “If you’re going to frisk someone, do it right.”

The woman lowered the gun a bit and took another step backward. She wasn’t very steady on her feet and the gun swayed all
over the place.

“Look, if you point the gun away from me, we can talk. Or better yet, put it away.” When she didn’t, he shrugged and turned
up his hands. “If I was going to hurt you, I would’ve. You were passed out on the couch, remember?”

She dropped her arm. Scott lurched forward and snatched the gun from her hand, sticking his thumb in front of the hammer as
he did so. The woman started screaming and staggered backward. Scott released the hammer on the gun, set it onto the desk,
then helped her over to the couch.

She eyeballed him, bewildered. “Trash can next to the desk. Bring it… I’m going to be sick.”

He brought it.

He waited for the color to return to the woman’s languid face. Good thing he had made coffee.

His watch said it was almost 6 a.m., but what little he could see of the street through a gap in the thick curtains was still
dark and dreary. The rain hadn’t stopped. It had been raining for hours, pounding and cleansing the concrete. “How’s the coffee
going down? Too strong, more cream?”

The woman shrank farther into the corner of the couch. It seemed the more sober she became, the more frightened she became.
She drank the coffee almost reluctantly as if she didn’t want the drunk to end. Scott could remember days like that—sometimes
you didn’t want to remember the things you’d done the night before.

She said, low yet firm, “Don’t want to rob me, don’t want to kill me, don’t want to rape me—too old and ugly for you now,
is that it?” Scott noticed the youth hidden behind wrinkles and puffy blue eyes. “You’re Helen?” She relaxed a bit. “My body,
not my brain, or is that vice versa.” She frowned, put a hand to her forehead. “My head’s going to kill me in the morning…
I’m not a drunkard if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“It is morning,” he said quietly. “What time does the office open on Mondays?”

“Just who are you and what are you doing here?”

He said what was safest. “I’m conducting an investigation.”

“On Jessica?”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re not the first. A P.I. was here a few weeks ago. My sister’s not in any trouble, is she?”

He pointed to the red sweater on the coat rack. “Your receptionist, what’s her name?”

“Give me a minute—No, there it is, May. May Parker… Wait, if you’re following Jessica, you have to know where she is. We were
supposed to meet last night, to celebrate.”

“Her return from Miami?”

Helen frowned again. “No, my good fortune. Isn’t that a laugh?… Aspirin, I need aspirins… No, better, I think I’m going to
sleep.”

“You need to walk around.” Scott helped her stand. “Where are the aspirins?”

“Bathroom,” Helen moaned. “But I don’t think I’m ready to walk.”

He put his arm around her to help steady her. She shrank away and stumbled back onto the couch. He brought her legs up onto
the couch with the rest of her body, then put a cushion behind her head. “When was the last time you saw Jessica?”

She draped an arm over her eyes. “Thursday.”

“Jessica didn’t call you when she came back from Miami?”

She was silent.

“Helen, Helen?” He brought the sweater from the coat rack and wrapped it around her. He lifted her billfold from her purse
while she was passed out. Not much to find: a driver’s license and a credit card. Both belonging to Helen Johnson.

With his feet propped on a chair, he sat facing the front door for the next several hours. He was half awake, half asleep.
He had to go to the bathroom but didn’t want to move. He was waiting for the door to open. It was after ten and May, the receptionist,
was probably late. He heard a moan from behind him and cocked his head in that direction. Helen was beginning to stir.

“Aspirin, I need aspirin, my brain’s on fire,” she was saying.

Scott stretched, heard his back crackle pop, then stood. “Is the office open today?”

“Weekday, isn’t it?” Helen shot back. “Aspirin’s in the bathroom.”

He helped her to her feet. “Get it yourself.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t care either. Will you just get out of here?”

He started to help her to the bathroom. She backed away.

“Don’t touch me. I’m sober now. Don’t you touch me!”

“Look, Helen. We went through all this before. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m looking for Jessica. I think she’s in a lot of
trouble and doesn’t realize how bad the situation is. You could help by telling me where she is.”

“You said you were a P.I., is that true?”

“I never said that.” Scott paused. “I tell you what. I’ll go if you recommend a place where I can get a room and some sleep,
and if you promise to call me the minute Jessica returns. She is in trouble, Helen, serious trouble, and I believe I can help
her before it’s too late.”

Her eyes widened. “Too late for what?”

“Who was she meeting in Miami?”

“A client.”

“A client, in Miami?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Scott put a hand on her shoulder. She stared him down. He pulled the hand away. “Remember, you’re the one who told me you
thought Jessica was in trouble. I work for the government, Helen. I’m here to help. Don’t lie to me.”

“The government.” She laughed. “Which government?”

“Our government.”

“Who’s paying you the most?”

Scott squeezed his eyebrows together. “No one’s paying me anything.”

Helen started screaming, “I can’t handle this. I need an aspirin. I need an aspirin.”

“Get the whole bottle if it’ll help.”

“If May comes in, don’t say anything about this to her.”

He watched her slink away into the back room. He rubbed sleep from his eyes with the heels of his hands, then poured himself
a cup of coffee. He kept an eye on the bathroom door in case there was a back exit he hadn’t seen.

A few minutes later, she returned. She had rinsed the thick cake of makeup off her face, combed her hair, straightened her
long, baggy dress. She looked younger, almost pretty.

She glanced at the wall clock. “May’s not here yet?”

He nodded to the empty desk. “Is she usually late?”

“Never.” Helen’s jaw started to quiver. “I know he’s paying you, stop playing with me. Tell him I didn’t tell you anything,
and leave it at that. Tell him I’m willing to give him back the money. I don’t want it. I’ll never say anything, ever. I promise.”

“Him?”

She glared. “Either way, you’re here about WIH-2. Either way, I have nothing to say. Leave, please leave.”

“You’re worried about May and Jessica, aren’t you?”

“Just get out of here.” She broke into tears. “Tell him I wouldn’t talk.”

“I’m not leaving until I get what I came for.”

There was sudden terror in her eyes. Her whole body started to tremble. She slapped her hands onto the desk. “I can’t take
it. Take my thumbs if you’re going to. I don’t want to conduct anymore. I can’t hear the music, only the pain. Take them,
tell him I didn’t talk.”

Scott wasn’t sure if he should leave, embrace her, or just stand there. He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not here to hurt
you, Helen. I’m not working for anyone that’s going to hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

She buried her face in his chest and continued sobbing. He embraced her awkwardly. She started kissing his cheek, pushed his
hands to her breasts, then whispered in his ear, “Make me feel. I need to feel.”

He put her at arm’s length and gripped her elbows. “That’s not what you need.”

She started crying again.

“I saw a Hilton on the way into town. I’ll check in. When you’re ready to talk, call.”

“Don’t leave. I don’t care who you’re working for, don’t leave me here alone.” She sucked at the air nervously. “Where’s May?
If May was here everything would be all right.”

Scott led Helen to the couch. He sat in an adjacent chair. “If you want me to stay, I need some answers. For starters, why
did Jessica go to Miami and what did she bring back with her?”

“Jessica didn’t come back from Miami.”

Scott stood and started for the door. “When you’re ready to tell the truth, call me.”

“But that’s the truth.”

“And I suppose the wig and the attaché case in the other room are yours?”

“Wig?”

Scott opened the door. “The truth, when you’re ready, call.”

He walked out and closed the door behind him. He waited by the curb, pretending to fumble through his pockets for car keys.
Eventually the door opened and Helen emerged. She held the wig in her hand.

“Jessica never wore this,” she said, “but I don’t suppose you’d understand why.”