Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure (16 page)

I didn’t tell Charlie I was headed to the Ft. Davis Mountains and the McDonald Observatory.

The mirror above the small porcelain sink has a crack in the glass running almost straight down the center of my face. Still, the sallow tone of my skin is evident along with the faint pattern of an ashen beard on my chin and jaw. My eyes are swollen and the dark circles underneath them more closely resemble bruises.

How
could
she
know
?

My hands spin the hot and cold taps and the water creaks into the basin. I pump some orange liquid soap from the dispenser and rub in into my palms. There’s a slight grit in the soap, an exfoliant maybe.

The water, still cold, feels good splashed onto my face. I have to admit I was hoping for something more baptismal than refreshing.

There is no hiding from what I now know is true. I am a patsy.

The Governor played me. My girlfriend played me. I am alone, besides a reluctant reporter, in getting myself out of this.

How
could
she
know
?

I didn’t tell her, she doesn’t know George, and even Ripley doesn’t know we’re headed for him.

I reach into my pocket and pull out my cell phone, dialing information for Rice University. The operator connects me.

“The Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University. How may I help you?”

“Dr. Aglo, please.”

“Just a moment,” her voice is replaced by silence, a series of clicks, and more silence.

“Dr. Aglo here,” the scientist’s voice is familiar. “Who is this?”

“This is Jackson Quick. We met yesterday. I think it was yesterday. I was with the reporter George Townsend.”

“I know who you are.” His tone has changed. He doesn’t sound happy to hear from me.

“Have you told anyone about our visit, sir?”

Silence.

“Sir?” I ask again.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

A pause. I wait.

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “They were not kind. Threatening really. Asking about you and what you wanted with me.”

“What did you say?”

“To be perfectly honest with you,” he huffs, “I don’t like being in the middle of this. I was doing a favor for a friend in letting George and you into Dr. Ripley’s lab. I didn’t have any idea you would cause me this kind of trouble.”

“I understand. I didn’t think I’d cause you trouble either. Someone was following me and I didn’t know it. Can you tell me what the people looked like and what they asked you specifically?”

“I really don’t—” he stops mid-sentence. There’s worry in his silence. “I don’t know how much I should say. I don’t know what they know. They could be listening to this conversation. They were very persuasive about why I should cooperate with
them
. ” “Was there a woman?”

“I’m a scientist,” he pleads. “I deal with a world on a much smaller scale than the one into which you’ve apparently fallen. These are dangerous people, I believe.”

“Was there a woman?” I persist.

“I’m sorry,” he says. There’s an audible tremble in his voice. “I can’t say anymore. Please don’t contact me again.”

There’s a click and the line goes dead. His refusal to respond answers my question.

I shove the phone back into my pocket and there’s a sharp pain in my side. My ribs are bruised or fractured. I never found out before I left the hospital. My head still hurts.

The bathroom feels much smaller than when I stepped into it. The crack in the glass appears wider. My face is more gray than pale now. My Kinky T-shirt is stained brown with Bobby’s blood. I’m not sure what to do.

Think
,
Jackson
,
think
…

Slowly, still having to go to the bathroom, but knowing I’ve got urgent issues, I unlock the door and step out into the convenience store. Charlie’s car is parked against the building. She can’t see me. Given how long I’ve been in here, I figure she’s getting impatient. Or suspicious.

Or both.

At the front of the store, behind the counter, are a couple of clerks talking to one another. The door to the right of the store chimes open. A short, well-dressed man walks in with a Bluetooth earpiece in his left ear. He’s wearing dark pants, a white shirt, and a dark tie. He looks like a driver.

A
chauffeur
!

I step over to him on the candy aisle. He’s choosing between an Almond Joy and a Snickers when he notices I’m standing a little too close for his liking.

“Can I help you?” He turns to face me and takes a simultaneous step back.

“I hope so. You’re a driver, right?”

“Yes.”

“I need a ride to the airport. Do you have a fare with you right now or could you take me?”

“He flips his wrist to look at his watch. “I think I could. What terminal?”

“I’m flying United Express.”

“Okay. Cash?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me get these candy bars and we can go.” He points toward the door opposite Charlie’s car. “You can wait over there by the black Lincoln.”

I thank him and slide out the door to his car, which is still running. The windows are tinted what I imagine is as dark as the law will allow. I try the rear driver’s side door and find it unlocked. I get in and pull my wallet from my back pocket. There’s one hundred and twenty dollars inside, more than enough to get me to the airport.

The driver pushes through the door of the convenience store and plops into his seat a few moments later. He glances at me in his rearview mirror without saying anything. His right hand slips the car into reverse, then into drive, and we pull past the gas pumps, past Charlie sitting in her car, and out onto the feeder road.

As we pull away, I see Charlie get out of her car, tucking a handgun into her pants at the small of her back. I guess we’re officially broken up.

***

She knows where I’m going. Not good.

I can’t go to Midland.

What
do
I
do
?

My mind is racing to the point that all I can think about is how my mind is racing. I need to focus.

The driver slows at a stop light before the entrance to the beltway. To the right is Rick’s Cabaret, the strip club where Anna Nicole Smith got her start. To the left, on the other side of the beltway, is an Amegy bank. My bank.

Perfect
.

“Can we make a couple of stops before hitting the airport?” I ask the driver.

He glances at me in the rearview mirror and sighs.

“Please?” I ask. “I’ll pay cash and I’ll tip really well.”

“I really don’t have much extra time. I’ve got a pickup in The Woodlands in ninety minutes.”

“No problem.” I point across the freeway to the bank. “I need to go there first.”

The driver looks over his left shoulder to merge into the turn lane before the light turns green. He steers the car onto Imperial Valley, crosses under the beltway, and swings into the bank’s nearly empty parking lot next to a small Hyatt hotel. I thank him and run into the bank where I find a single teller behind the desk.

The woman looks to be around thirty maybe, and her brown roots need coloring to match the strawberry blonde covering the rest of her head.

“May I help you?” she asks.

“Yes please.” I hand her my driver’s license. “I need to withdraw six thousand dollars please.”

The woman’s eyes widen. She looks at my license and then at me. I approximate the smile on the card and she smiles back before placing the ID on the keyboard of her computer.

Without looking up from the monitor in front of her she says, “I need to check your account Mr…”

“Quick.”

“Yes,” she says. “Quick.”

A second teller has appeared to help with the drive through lane, dressed similarly to the first one. It’s funny the things I notice.

“Is there a problem?” I ask the strawberry blonde.

“No sir,” she says. “It’s a large amount. I need to check on a couple of things.”

Her fingers type away. I’m beginning to sweat, beads forming at my temples.

“Just a moment,” she says. She turns to the other teller, whispers something, and hurriedly walks through a door at the end of the counter. I’m guessing it’s a manager’s office or something.

I dig into my front pocket and pull out my cell phone to check the time. This is taking too long, but I need the money. It’s the only way my plan will work. I can’t use ATMs, I can’t use my debit card. Cash is my only option to avoid Charlie and whoever else it is who wants me dead.

The teller emerges from behind the door with a tall, thin man. He’s in a short-sleeved pale blue dress shirt with a dark blue tie and pants tightly buckled at his waist. His hair is thinning, but he’s done a respectable job of camouflaging it with creative combing. He’s a modern version of Ichabod Crane, holding a slip of paper in his hand as he approaches me from the other side of the counter.

“Mr. Quick? Becky here tells me you’d like to make a large withdrawal from your account.”

“Becky is right,” I smile at the ineffectual teller. “Six thousand dollars.”

“Yes,” he says, sliding the piece of paper onto the counter in front of me. “That’s what Becky indicated.”

“Is there a problem?”

“Oh no,” he furrows his brow. “There’s no problem, sir, but for withdrawals of that size, we typically need to go through a few extra steps.”

“What extra steps?”

“Well,” he pulls a pen from his shirt pocket and uses it as a pointer on the slip of paper in front of me, “I’ll need you to fill out this withdrawal slip first.”

I take his pen to begin filling out the form.

“Now may I ask, if a cashier’s check will be sufficient for your needs?”

“No,” I say without looking up from the form, “it will not. I’d like cash. It doesn’t matter if it’s twenties, fifties, or hundred dollar bills. I don’t want a check.”

“I see.” He slips into Becky’s spot at the computer and begins typing. Becky’s looking at my shirt. She looks away when my eyes briefly meet hers.

I get it. My shirt has blood on it, my face is bruised, and I have bandages on both arms from the IVs at the hospital. Here I come, death warmed over, looking for six grand in cash. No wonder they’re skittish.

“Look,” I say, trying to ease the unspoken tension, “I was in a car accident. Totaled my car. I got released from the ER, where they didn’t bother to wash my clothes, and I need to get another car.”

Ichabod Crane stares at me blankly.

“I’m in sales,” I lie. “I can’t be without a car. I don’t want to waste money on a rental while I sort through the insurance mess, so I’m buying a used car. A two-year old Camry. I like to pay cash because I get a better deal at the lot. I’d go home and change, but the meter on the Town Car is running.”

“I understand, Mr. Quick,” says Ichabod. “I don’t need an explanation. It’s your money.”

I lean on the desk and slide the withdrawal slip back to him. “I know I look like crap, I know it’s a lot of money, and you’re protecting my account. I appreciate that.”

I don’t know whether he buys what I’m selling or not. I don’t care. I need this expedited.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” he says. He takes the slip from the counter and retreats back to his office. After a lot longer than a moment, he returns with a white envelope.

“Let me count this for you,” he says. He opens the envelope and thumbs through a stack of fifties and hundreds, counting out loud.

“…fifty-eight fifty, fifty-nine, fifty-nine fifty, six thousand.” He organizes the stack and shoves it back into the thick envelope, which he lays on the counter in front of me.

“Thank you.” I pull the envelope off of the counter. It’s surprisingly heavy.

“Do you need a balance?”

“No, thank you.” I turn to leave. “I’m good.”

***

“You’ve got thirty minutes,” the driver announces as he pulls into a parking spot on the east side of Greenspoint Mall. He’d cut across Benmar Drive to what was effectively the backside of the mall.

Greenspoint, which is framed to the west by I-45 and to the south by the north beltway, was not in a great part of town. The mall is known by police and reporters as “Gunspoint” after a sheriff’s deputy was kidnapped from the mall parking lot and later killed. That had happened in 1991 and the mall was never the same. It always looked half-abandoned when I would drive by it, and I had never once thought of shopping here until now.

I tell the driver, “Be back in twenty-five.”

I hop out of the car, feel a slight ache at my bruised ribs, and jog through the entrance to the left of the movie theatre. Once inside, I spot a mall directory and scan for the stores I need. The first stop is Radio Shack. I need a new phone.

“I need a Smartphone,” I tell the first customer service rep I see. “Something that lets me download apps, surf the net, that kind of thing.”

Ten minutes later I’ve got a new phone, a new number, a new email account.

“It’ll be a few minutes for me to set up the phone for you and activate the account,” the rep tells me as she sets the phone, charger, and Bluetooth headset on the counter by her register.

“That’s fine,” I say. “I’ve only got a few minutes and I need to grab some other stuff. Can I pay for it now and pick it up in ten?”

“Sure,” she tells me. “Not a problem. That’ll be three hundred dollars, plus the tax.”

I point to a pair of sunglasses in the display case next to her. “What are those?”

“Oh,” she lights up. “Those are the super cool POV ACG-20 3 megapixel Action Video Camera Sunglasses.”

“What do they do?” I ask, half knowing the answer. She pulls them from the case and hands them to me. I put them on. They’re comfortable.

“They can record up to two hours of video. They have a rechargeable battery. You can download the video to your computer with a USB connection.”

“I’ll take them,” I put them back on the counter next to the phone. If there’s a connection that can make them download video into my phone, I want that too.

“The glasses are one fifty,” she says. “There is a connector we have in stock. It’s probably around fifty dollars.”