Simple Simon (19 page)

Van Horn recalled his own recent involvement with the A-SAC, and how he’d been asked not to mention what was discussed with anyone. Unusual only in that confidentiality was requested at all. That was a given in the job.

“He seemed normal, just Jefferson,” Green commented.

“Yeah,” Van Horn agreed. But was he acting normal? And if not, why not? And, still gnawing at Van Horn, the question as to just where the A-SAC had laid his hands on the KIWI ciphertext.

And, the biggest question of them all: Should he tell Lomax about it?

“I’ve got a lot of stuff to take care of, Denise.”

“Sure. I just wanted to say hi. If you want to grab a bite for lunch, I’ll still be around.”

“Okay.”

The door beeped as it closed and locked. Van Horn wheeled himself back from the main terminal and let his head flop back, eyes to the ceiling, mind working through the pros and cons of breaking his trust with the A-SAC. With a man wanted by his and every law enforcement agency in the land.

He found that no answer offered itself up for easy selection.

*  *  *

Lunch that day would have to wait.

Kudrow was back in his office an hour after finishing with Keiko Kimura and on the phone with Section Chief Willis.

“Cover his family, friends, everyone close to him, and move out from there,” Kudrow instructed.

This time the usually affirming Willis did not reply with a snappy ‘Yes sir.’ “Our resources are not limitless.”

Surprised, Kudrow squeezed the handset. “I don’t care what
your
resources are, get more if you have to.” He waited, wondering if there would be any further hint of reluctance, if there would be any need for him to mention Willis’s unfortunate dalliance with the wife of a Czech diplomat. She wasn’t a spy, but the mere act itself suggested all that needed to be suggested. “Are you clear on that?”

“Yes sir,” Willis answered in a resigned monotone.

Kudrow hung up without another word. None was required. Willis had confirmed that he still knew who was in charge. Of everything.

*  *  *

At seventy-six, Pooks Underhill was the dean of dominoes at the daily gathering in Palmer Park on Chicago’s south side. He was the master. The king. A slammer of the highest caliber. When it came to the spotted black rectangles, everyone knew he was the best.

And everyone knew he cheated.

“Got you, you old son of an old mother,” Pooks taunted, knees coming up to be slapped and a smile that lacked a fair number of teeth opening a hole in his dark brown leathery face. “Got you! Got you!”

People played him to find out how he cheated, to solve the mysteries of mysteries.

Pooks’ opponent, a thick man some twenty years his junior, hung his head as the revelry continued across the picnic table.

The mystery would remain just that.

Suddenly, in the midst of the joy, Pooks leaned on the table, laughing over, face serious, one eye cocked oddly askew of the other, and his hand out. “Five. Come on, you owe me five.”

The opponent handed it over, and Pooks got the requisite backslaps from the onlookers as the defeated slinked away. But with one hand on his back there came a whisper in his ear.

“Hey, Pooks, some kid wants to talk to you,” Jersey Chuck said, pointing back toward a group of trees ringing three overturned garbage cans. Birds picked at the spilled trash. A jittery white boy stared at the birds.

“Who’s that?” Pooks asked.

“How the hell should I know? He scared the shit out of me as I was comin’ over. Who you think knocked those cans over?”

Pooks’ old eyes squinted at the kid. “I don’t know him.”

“Well, he asked for
you
,” Jersey Chuck said.

Pooks stood from the bench, making sure he had his winning safely stashed in his pocket, and walked over to the kid. “Who are you? What you want with me?”

Simon turned, his wandering gaze flashing over the man who might be a friend. He held his cards at chest level. “Simon is looking for Pooks Underh ill.”

“Are you Simon?” Pooks asked, bending to get a look at the kid’s face. He found it to be an impossible endeavor. “Shit, boy, you the damn squirreliest boy I’ve ever seen.”

“Simon is looking for Pooks Underhill,” Simon repeated, following the instructions on the top card.

“Well, squirrel boy, if you is Simon, then you found the Pooks.”

The top card was flipped back. “An old friend wants to see you.”

“An old…” The kid turned and began walking toward a pickup truck in the lot. “Where you going?”

Simon stopped halfway to the truck, flipped another card, and made a
This Way
windmilling motion with one arm.

“Shit,” Pooks said. If this wasn’t the strangest damn thing, he didn’t know what was. “An old friend, you say. Well, let’s see.”

By the time Pooks got to the pickup, Simon had already climbed in. Pooks stopped at the passenger door, peeking in gingerly at first, past the squirrely kid to the person behind the wheel.

“Well,
son
of a
son
of someone else’s bitch!” Pooks’ few sallow teeth showed through another smile as he almost crawled through the open window, poking his hand past Simon.

“Good to see you, Pooks,” Art said, shaking the old con man’s hand.

“Son of a—shee-it.” Pooks looked to Simon. “He ain’t yours…”

Art shook his head and checked the area around the lot once again. “Pooks, listen, I need some help.”

“I watchez the television, mister,” Pooks offered. “I should say you do.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Art said, thinking how absurd it was that he was professing his innocence to Pooks Underhill, a man he’d busted for running a credit card fraud ring almost twenty years before. Simply
having
to do so churned an uncomfortable warmth in his stomach.

“Hell, you think I thought you’d do anything that ain’t A one hundred percent over the top and through the woods straight? No way!” Pooks’ head shook in wide sweeps, the skin of his narrow face sliding over each cheek with the motion. “You’s the man, Jefferson.”

“And you are the Pooks,” Art said.

Again Pooks’ attention turned to Simon. “So who is he?”

“Someone I’m protecting.”

Pooks bent his body into the truck and tried as he had outside to get a good look at the kid’s face. “He don’t like looking, or what?” he asked, pulling back.

“Long story,” Art said. “Pooks, listen, I need some help.”

“Going to Mexico?” Pooks wondered conspiratorially. “Canada? Africa?”

“No, I just need some help until I can clear all this up. A place to stay. A different car. Maybe, if you know who might have access to them, some credit cards. The basic fugitive package.”

Pooks laughed without restraint. “Where’s that Funt guy?” the old man asked, pretend primping for a nonexistent camera.

“Can you help me, Pooks?”

“Hell, I’m the Pooks, Jefferson. I knows a few people who might have what you need.” Pooks examined Art and Simon sideways for a moment. “But yous is gonna attract attention. Big old brother and a scrawny white boy. You don’t see that every day. Not around here, anyhow.”

That thought had already occurred to Art. He gestured to a paper sack on the floor near Simon’s feet. “My last twenty bucks.”

Pooks frowned and pulled a small wad of fives from his pocket and peeled off ten of the bills, passing them to Art.

“You still play dominoes, I see.”

“I still beats all at dominoes,” Pooks corrected. He opened the passenger door and slid in. Simon scooted very close to Art.

“It’s all right,” Art reassured him. “Pooks is a friend. Remember?”

Simon, his cards still in hand, flipped through the to the proper spot, and ceased crowding toward Art.

“What the hell’s that?” Pooks asked, sour faced.

Art fiddled with the loose ignition wires, and the truck’s engine turned over without a cough. “His way of keeping track.”

Pooks nodded, admiring the system as Simon tucked the cards away. “That’s a damn good idea, young fella. Pooks gonna get himself some of those.”

“Pooks is my friend,” Simon said.

“Hell yes!” Pooks reacted, slapping a knee and looking to Art. “All right, Jefferson. Let’s get you two squared away.”

*  *  *

A sheet of bulletproof glass separated mother and daughter, the handsets of the speakerphone their only connection beyond the visual.

Tears rolled down Jennifer Preston’s face, sniffles traveling the few feet to her mother as a wet static.

“Don’t do that or I’ll start,” Anne said.

“I can’t believe this,” Jennifer said, continually dabbing her nose with a tissue as she stared at her mother, locked up, blue smock the drab attire, a federal marshal standing guard a few feet behind.

“I can’t either,” Anne agreed.

“I mean, how could he do this to you?”

The agreeing nod froze, and Anne’s expression hardened. “Now wait a minute. He did not do this to me. Someone is doing this to us.”

Jennifer looked doubtfully away, then drifted back to her mother. “Then why is he running? Why doesn’t he turn himself in? Running makes him look—”

“Don’t you even think that!” Anne interrupted harshly. “Art is a good man. An honest man. Do you think he’d want me in here? Do you?”

“Then why is he running?”

“Jennifer, running doesn’t always mean running away,” Anne reminded her daughter.

“I’m not equating this to dad,” Jennifer countered. “God, you are such a damn analyst.”

“It
is
my job,” Anne said, and they shared a laugh that lasted a painfully short time. “Babe, you’ve got to trust Art. There’s a reason he’s doing what he’s doing.”

“And what is it?”

A treacherous void of reasons opened before Anne as she considered the question. She looked her daughter in the eye and said confidently, “I’m sure he’ll tell me someday.”

*  *  *

He could see the deep holes in the tips of four of the six bullets, and could feel the cool metal of the barrel on his forehead. His thumb stroked the trigger up and down.

His eyes squeezed shut.

One.

Two.

Three.

Pull.

Brad Folger, sitting on the edge of the bathtub in the upstairs bathroom, saw himself pull the trigger, knew that he had, believed that he had, but when he forced his eyes open he could see his thumb still on the slender curve of steel, caressing it.

Heavy breaths, almost gasps, pumped his chest, and somewhere beneath the skin he felt his heart become a runaway steam engine. A roar that he thought might be laughter filled his head, and he dropped the revolver on the mat by the tub and collapsed forward on his knees, hands pressed over his ears, elbows out.

Coward. You couldn’t do it.

The roar in his head seemed to agree.

But after a moment the gasps eased, and his heartbeat slowed, and the taunting sounds faded, and when Brad Folger pulled his hands from his ears and sat up he heard something that could not kill him, but that did break his heart.

“Daddy! Daddy!” the cry came from the opposite side of the bathroom door, accompanied by the thump of a tiny fist on wood. “I gotta go.”

Brad Folger drew his arm across his upper lip and wiped his eyes with his other hand. “Sweetie, why don’t you use the bathroom downstairs.”

“‘Cause Tommy used it and it stinks.”

Folger’s pained scowl dissolved into a grin. He picked the gun up from the floor and tucked it in his waistband, making sure his shirt tails covered it. Then he stood, and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror.

You are a coward
, he told himself.
But not because you couldn’t blow your brains out.

When he opened the door, his three year old little girl, stuffed penguin in hand, strolled past him and turned, waiting. “Can I have some privacy?”

Folger smiled at his little girl, nodded, and backed out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut.

“Coward,” he said aloud, quietly, the self pity fading, a new emotion rising. Anger.

He was surprised that he could feel that. Surprised and thankful.

*  *  *

Mr. Pritchard watched the video with Sanders, both men seated in an office that sported trophies and plaques honoring the occupant. The scene transfixed them, Pritchard pressing the knuckles of one hand into his chin, Sanders finally stopping the recording with a click of the remote.

“He’s smart,” Sanders commented. “He knows they’ll be watching his friends, so he goes to someone who would be thought of as a nemesis.”

“What’s his name?” Pritchard inquired.

“Underhill. Walter Underhill. He’s a con man Jefferson busted a long time back. He served ten years for dealing in stolen credit cards through the mail. He’s still connected, but not very active.”

Pritchard stared at the frozen scene of Jefferson and Underhill in the front seat of a pickup, the innocent between them. Shot through a long range lens, the image was grainy, but Pritchard could clearly see that Simon Lynch sat very close to the wanted FBI agent. Very close indeed.

“You’re a bright young man, Sanders. What made you suspect he’d be leaving last night?”

“Our surveillance showed the Volvo parked in the driveway,” Sanders explained. “It’s always in the garage. I knew someone would be going somewhere. It was just a matter of knowing when they left.”

A simple tracking device affixed quickly, nonchalantly, under the bumper as a woman out for a walk passed the car had taken care of the rest. But that begged a question. “Will they search the vehicle?”

Sanders shook his head. “They have no reason to.”

“And what about the opposition?”

“At this point, we can’t be sure. But you can be certain they’re looking.”

Opposing teams, on a crowded field, one team sees the ball amidst a forest of legs, afraid to reach for it for fear that their opponents will then see it. Pritchard knew someone would have to make the first move. The difference was when his team made it, it would only be an opening. If the other side made it, it would be the end.

In this case, he thought, late was not better than never. Late
was
never. Never was never.