Mr. And Miss Anonymous (7 page)

Pete kicked the door again. “Okay, let’s try the police first even though the Feds are on it. Sometimes the police get pissy when the Feds stomp on their turf. They might be willing to give up something.”

“It’s worth a try,” Lily said.

“Lily…what just happened…it wasn’t because of…this, was it?”

“Way back when, we…you and I…we let the moment get away from us. I never forgot about you. I dreamed of you more often than I care to admit. Always, I wished we had gotten together somehow. I told myself that particular moment in time wasn’t right for us. These moments, right now, feel right to me.”

“Damn! Well, damn. That’s exactly how I feel. Felt. We’re not too bright, now, are we?”

Lily fiddled with the hat on her head. “Oh, I don’t know, Pete. I think that was a pretty bright move you executed back there in the parking lot. I was bright enough to respond. So where does that leave us?”

“How does ‘together’ sound?” Pete asked.

“I think it sounds perfect. Listen, Pete, are you sure you want to go public with all this? You’re so high-profile, I’m thinking it could damage your reputation. Stockholders are a funny lot. I’m nowhere near your league. I could use a different name. Zolly could help me. We could report back to you. I’m thinking out loud here.”

“It doesn’t matter. When this is all over, I’m retiring. I’m going to move out to my ranch in Montana. I made up my mind ages ago. It just took me a long time to get around to it. Right now, that’s my game plan. Can you see yourself living in Montana, Lily?”

Lily threw her head back and laughed. Her hat sailed away on a gust of wind. Winston chased it and caught it in midair before it could land in a puddle.

“It’s still pouring rain,” Pete commented.

“I know. I had a dream about us once. We were walking in a park in our bare feet in the rain. You were holding my hand. I wanted you to kiss me so bad. But there were other people walking in the rain, and you were shy. You actually admitted to being shy. I was so impressed that you were a sensitive guy.”

Pete listened intently. “Then what happened?”

Lily tried not to laugh. “I don’t know. I woke up. We could pretend we’re in the park right now.” To move things along, Lily removed her sandals. She reached for Pete’s hand and led him to the biggest puddle in the parking lot. She stomped in it. Pete joined her, then Winston joined them.

Zolly and Pete’s security team watched from their cars, their jaws dropping. Zolly clamped his hands over his eyes when the boss planted a liplock on his companion that lasted so long he didn’t think it was possible. He peeped between his fingers to see if either of them had suffocated.

“ ’Bout time, boss,” he muttered.

I
t was like a Halloween night—wet and cold, the naked, arthritic trees bending under the torrential rains falling like raging rivers from the black hole in the sky.

The windowless concrete building had its own symphony of sounds to match those of the elements: rats skittering across the floor, the howling wind invading the dark space through the many cracks in the deserted old building. Even the cement floor offered up its own set of weird, frightening sounds.

It was obvious both occupants of the room were nervous because they jumped when an owl hooted its displeasure at the weather invading its space in the tree outside the concrete building.

The witches and goblins this night were mortal. One wore a power suit and shiny wing tips, and carried a briefcase that cost more than most mortals earned in a month. The other goblin—more boy than man—it was hard to tell—looked like he had just stepped off the soccer field, with the grass stains to prove it. And yet, he smelled like Ivory Soap.

Even in broad daylight, it would be hard to tell either person’s age—a teenager perhaps or a thirtysomething with a baby face. A nonthreatening goblin.

The power suit was a plain-looking man. Possibly in his late fifties. Definitely a pampered individual. Plain face, plain, thinning hair, plain stature. It was the suit, the shoes, the briefcase that shrieked
power and money.
Then again maybe it was the man’s arrogance, or the man’s defiant eyes—eyes black as the night.

The other man/boy hated the plain man. Hated and distrusted him. He waved his wrist in the general direction of the man—a test. A test to see if the power suit had any idea at all that what he thought was a heart monitor on his wrist was really a miniature digital recorder. In this line of business, you never knew what could go down in the blink of an eye. Satisfied, the man/boy held out his hand. The plain man slapped a thick brown envelope into his palm.

“It’s all there,” the plain man said.

“Yeah, well, I never take things for granted.” The man/boy stuck the small penlight between his teeth so that the powerful tiny light beamed down on the thick stack of currency inside the envelope. The man/boy counted slowly and methodically, spitting on his index finger from time to time when the bills stuck together.

Outside, the owl hooted again and again. The rain continued to river downward. Holes in the roof allowed spits of water to hit the dirty concrete floor with delicate little plopping sounds.

“I told you it was all there,” the plain man said when the man/boy shoved the thick envelope inside his zippered Windbreaker.

“Nice doing business with you,” the man/boy said as he pretended to kick an imaginary soccer ball.

The plain man in the power suit looked at the man/boy, whose job description was “contract killer,” and winced. “I hope you remember the rules,” he said coldly.

The man/boy laughed. It was a pleasant sound. “ ‘Go to the main library every Tuesday and Friday morning and check out the James Bond book
Never Say Die,
and if you need me, there will be a yellow Post-it on page two hundred telling me the time and the place for our next meeting.’” Like he was really going to do that. He’d be outta there the minute he hit the highway. He’d done a clean job with no loose ends. His first rule of business was, “Never stick around to watch the cleanup.”

In the far corner of the concrete building, two rats screeched at one another. The owl hooted again. The minute the door opened, lightning ripped across the dark night like a spaceship gone amuck. Both men ran toward their vehicles, the plain man to a high-powered Mercedes, the man/boy to a junkyard pickup truck.

The last sound to be heard was the eerie hoot of the owl before the night turned totally black.

The plain man’s house was palatial, even by the standards of the megarich. He shed his soggy power suit jacket and tie, kicked off the sodden wing tips, and yanked at his soaking-wet socks before walking up the circular staircase to his bedroom. He stripped off the rest of his clothing as he made his way to the bathroom. As always, he took a moment to stare at the room. It was a grotto, featuring a sunken whirlpool, with vines and plants somehow growing out of the brick walls. Water trickled down the stone walls and into a trough that led into the whirlpool. It was such a soothing sound he felt his eyelids start to droop. He pinched his stomach hard as he stepped into the shower. First the icy-cold spray, then steaming spray so hot his skin felt like it was on fire. When he thought he couldn’t stand the heat one second longer, he switched back to the icy-cold. At least it woke him up.

Shivering, he towel-dried himself and dressed in a pair of flannel pajamas decorated with fat white bunnies, a gift from one of his grandchildren. He couldn’t remember which one.

That night he had the California house to himself. His family and the two full-time servants were back East in an almost identical house. He liked it when he was alone.

Wearing slipper socks, he padded down the circular staircase to the state-of-the-art kitchen, where he made himself a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of hot chocolate. People were always surprised that he knew how to cook.

As the plain man chewed his sandwich, he noticed that his hands were trembling. As he was always in control of his emotions, the tremor bothered him. He realized for the first time that what he was experiencing was fear. He didn’t like the feeling at all. Not one little bit.

He stared across the room at the huge bay window in the breakfast nook that took up one entire wall of the kitchen. All he could see was total blackness. A shiver ran up and down his arms as he tried to remember if he’d set the alarm when he entered the house. He slipped and stumbled as he made his way to the foyer, where he quickly punched in a set of numbers.

Alarms were a joke. If someone was intent on entering a house, alarm or not, they’d get in. Like that lowlife he’d just paid off.

The slipper socks slapped at the imported marble floor as the man made his way back to the kitchen.

The black window drew him like a magnet. Was someone out there watching him?
Now, where did that thought come from?
he wondered. Though he could see nothing, he could still hear the pouring rain.

Suddenly, the man felt vulnerable, standing exposed in his bunny pajamas at the window. He moved rapidly to turn off the bright overhead lights. When the kitchen was as dark as the night outside, he slithered to the side of the window. Did he just see movement by the bougainvillea trellis? He felt trapped as he crept back to the entry hall, where he reached up for the panic button that was held in place by a magnet. He clasped it in his hand as he made his way to the second floor.

At the top of the steps, he pressed a switch, and the entire first floor lit up like a football field at a night game. The light made him feel a bit better. But only for a moment. Even if he pressed the little red button on the panic gizmo, he could be dead before the police arrived. He must have been out of his mind to hire that psycho.

He entered his home study. He looked at his computer and wondered if there was some wiseass out there who could find what he’d gone to such great lengths to hide. He cursed his father then, in all four languages in which he was fluent. If it wasn’t for him, he wouldn’t be there sweating like a Trojan. A fearful Trojan.

Like the old man cared. Crippled with arthritis, Parkinson’s, and a weak heart, he was going to die soon and leave his son holding the bag. “And there go all my political aspirations,” he mumbled as he turned on the computer. “There goes the goddamn White House!”

Senator Hudson Preston sat down in his ergonomic chair and leaned back to wait for the computer to boot up. He felt proud of himself that he’d personally contacted Peter Kelly and harnessed the man’s expertise in setting up foolproof firewalls that, according to Kelly, even the Pentagon couldn’t penetrate. And in return for that expertise, the senator had ordered thousands of computers to be sent to the local school system, all compliments of Preston Pharmaceuticals.

Peter Aaron Kelly didn’t like him, and Preston knew it. “Tough shit, Mr. Kelly,” the senator said aloud.

He started to type, recording everything that had happened in the past three days. When he finished, he raced out of the room to his bedroom, where he’d tossed his keys on the dresser. He grabbed them and removed the memory stick that looked like a child’s whistle painted in psychedelic colors. To anyone who asked about the strange doodad hanging from his key ring, he said it was a gift from one of his grandchildren. He removed the memory stick, plugged it into the computer, and copied the file he’d just created. When he was finished, he returned the two-inch cylinder to his key ring and laid it on the top of his dresser.

The senator deleted all the files and turned off the computer. He was ready to go to bed. He crawled between the covers, knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to sleep. But he had to try because he needed to forget all the carnage he’d seen on the news. If he tried, he could almost live with that. What he couldn’t live with was the picture he’d seen of Peter Aaron Kelly on the evening news, along with Lily Madison.

The senator started to shake under the covers.

PAK Industries
versus
Preston Pharmaceuticals.

One winner. One loser.

Unless…

T
hey were in someone’s yard. A family’s backyard. Josh Baer could see into the kitchen, where a family was seated around a big table. He’d seen scenes just like this on television. This was different, though. This was a real, flesh-and-blood family. Not actors pretending to be a family.

Even though he was soaking-wet in his khaki trousers and navy blue blazer, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the scene in front of him. He wished more than anything in the world that somehow he could be part of the family inside. Just once. Just to see what it felt like to have a father put his hand on his shoulder. For a mother to hug him. For a sister or a brother to take a poke at him. Families did that. He knew his eyes were filling up with his loss, so he tried to refocus his thoughts. Why was this family eating so late? Dinner at the academy was promptly at six o’clock. Not five minutes past six, not one minute past six, but promptly at six. He could see the big, round kitchen clock over the doorway through the window. It said the time was seven fifteen.

Josh did his best to forget how wet and miserable he was as he watched the family get up and leave the kitchen. A minute later he heard voices in the driveway as they got into a car and drove off. He blinked at the fact that lights were left on and food was still sitting on the table. He knew Jesse was hungry. Maybe he could sneak into the house and take some food. He didn’t stop to think but ran toward the house, though not before he cautioned Jesse to stay hidden in the thick shrubbery. He returned with the bucket of chicken, some clothes from the dryer by the back door, and a headful of wonderful scents. He now knew what a family’s house smelled like. He felt giddy at the sudden knowledge.

They ate first, devouring the fried chicken and biscuits. They had fried chicken at the academy, but it had never tasted like this chicken.

“That was very good,” Jesse said. “We’re having a real experience, aren’t we, Josh?”

“This is as real as it gets, Jesse. Quick now, change your clothes. You’ll feel better when you’re dry and comfortable. We have to leave here and find a place to sleep tonight. The police are going to be looking for us. So will the…lots of people are going to be looking for us. We have to look different so we…so we blend in.”

Josh Baer prodded his companion. “Come on, Jesse, we have to keep moving, or they’ll find us. We have to find a place to ditch our old clothes. Jesse, are you listening to me?”

Jesse mumbled something as he tried to keep up with Josh. “Why are we running away? Let’s go back, Josh. They’re going to punish us.”

Josh drew a deep breath. He’d taken responsibility for Jesse, who was mentally challenged, when they were five years old and living in that first awful place. “No, they aren’t going to punish us because we aren’t going back. Promise me you’re going to do everything I say. Promise, Jesse.”

“I promise. Where are we going? Who was that person with the gun? Are they going to catch us?”

“I don’t know where we’re going yet. Someplace safe. He was just a guy with a gun, and I don’t know who he was. If you do what I say and listen to me, they won’t catch us. Do you understand me, Jesse?”

“I always do what you say, Josh. You’re my brother.”

“Except for yesterday, when you couldn’t find your book bag and we were late for class. Being late for class yesterday was a good thing, Jesse. If we had been on time for class, we’d both be dead.”

“I’m getting tired. I wish I had some more of that chicken.”

Josh was losing his patience. “I’m tired, too, Jesse. We have to get as far away from school as we can. It’s better if we move around at night because no one will be watching for us in the dark. Please, Jesse, try to keep up. We’ll find a place to sleep pretty soon.”

Staying in the shadows, skipping from yard to yard, the two boys trudged along for hours as they sought a safe haven. The rain had stopped, and the cloud cover moved on, leaving the moon riding high in the sky. Josh wasn’t sure, but he thought it must be around midnight. He knew Jesse was more tired, but he was gamely putting one foot in front of the other. Jesse was always a good sport.

If only Jesse had been smart enough not to swallow those pills. Well, there was no point in thinking about that now. Maybe someday he’d be able to tell someone who cared enough to listen.

His eyelids drooping, Josh saw the bus in the empty lot out of the corner of his eye. He half-dragged, half-carried Jesse to the bus, praying that the door would be open. It was. They crawled in, and Jesse was asleep the minute he stretched out across the long seat at the back of the bus. Josh sat down, propped his feet up against the seat in front of him, and closed his eyes. Tired as he was, sleep would not come.

He played the scene over and over in his mind. Why? He felt bad about stealing money from Mr. Dickey’s wallet. He felt even worse for taking all the money in Miss Carmody’s purse. He told himself they were dead and wouldn’t need it. Still, he’d stolen it. More for Jesse than for himself. Altogether it was $140. Enough to buy food for a little while until he could figure out what to do.

He was smart. All those doctors who checked him all the time said he was exceptionally smart. The tests proved it. But he wasn’t smart in the ways of the world. How could he be? He had lived in group homes, under close supervision, then at the academy. He’d never gone anywhere in the outside world to gain any practical knowledge. He thought about the family he’d seen earlier. They looked so happy. He wondered if he would ever be happy.

Josh did his best to curl into the fetal position on the narrow seat. His last conscious thought before drifting off to sleep was that he knew in his heart, in his mind, in his gut, that somewhere out there in that strange, alien world he was just coming to know, he had a mother and a father. He wasn’t a test tube kid. He wasn’t. No matter what they said or did to him, he would never, ever believe that.

The memory came almost immediately.

He was back in the white building dressed in a long white shirt and standing in a long line with other children. To get the colored candies. The men in the white coats said they were M&M’s. He looked up at the pictures on the wall of the little candies dancing across a poster.

He didn’t know how he knew, even at the age of six, that it wasn’t candy on the little white dish. Maybe it was because the other children got sick after taking the candies.

He kept the colored candy under his tongue, then spit it out when no one was looking.

Then again, maybe it was the way the men in the white coats whispered when he was next in line to receive the candies.

They wrote a lot on the paper that had his name on it. Someday, when he learned how to read, he was going to search for those papers to see what they had written about him.

He moved out of the line and waited for Jesse. Jesse was like him when they first came to this place, but he was different now. Sometimes he couldn’t remember his name and Josh would have to remind him. “What’s your name today?”

The chubby six-year-old laughed as he ran out to the playground. He always laughed when he couldn’t remember his name. Josh followed him, trying to understand why Jesse couldn’t remember his name. Everyone was supposed to know their names. Jesse used to know his name before they started giving out the colored candies.

Fifteen minutes to play on the swings and monkey bars, then the monitors would line them up to go back indoors. He moved closer to Jesse. “You have to remember your name, or they’ll put you in the
slow
line,” he whispered.

Jesse laughed again as he scampered away from the swing he’d been swinging on.

Josh followed him and watched as Jesse struggled with the monkey bars. He turned when he heard the whistle. Time to line up. The fast line and the slow line. Josh took his place in the fast line with another boy and one girl. Jesse waved as the monitor led him to the slow line, where the majority of the children were waiting. He waved again as he took his place in line. Josh didn’t wave back.

Josh moved closer to the boy in front of him. When the monitor wasn’t looking, he whispered, “Do you like those candies, Tom?”

“Heck, no. They’re bitter. When no one is looking, I spit them out. Don’t tell on me, okay?”

“I won’t tell,” Josh said solemnly. He turned to the girl and asked the same question. “Do you like the candy?”

The girl, whose name was Sheila, giggled, and said she put them in her ear when no one was looking. “Promise not to tell.” Again, Josh solemnly promised.

Following the monitor inside, Josh knew if they swallowed the candies that he, Tom, and Sheila would go to the slow line, the line where the kids couldn’t remember their names.

Josh stirred, then woke. Groggy, he looked at the darkness surrounding him. It all came back to him in a rush. He crept to the back of the bus to check on Jesse, who was still sleeping peacefully. Josh walked back to his seat and tried to go to sleep again, but sleep was elusive. His weary mind kept going to the family he’d watched from his hiding spot in the bushes. What he’d seen earlier was real—really, totally real.

Josh knew that the outside world he was in was very different from the cloistered one he had lived all his life. He, Tom, and Sheila whispered about this other world after lights-out. They talked and planned what they’d do when they left the academy at eighteen. It was Tom who came up with the plan. Sheila, the bravest of the three, said it would work if they all did their part.

They did have one fear, and Josh was the one who’d expressed it over and over: “What if the authorities don’t believe us?”

Tom’s response was, “I have the goods.”

Sheila said their remarkable memories would serve them well. All Josh could do was nod and hope they were right.

Now he was on his own, with only Jesse to help him. He blinked away the tears forming in his eyes. He was never going to see Tom and Sheila again. Ever. If he was lucky, maybe he could find out where his two best friends were buried so he could visit them. He had to tell them how sorry he was that he was alive and they weren’t.

Josh wondered if that would ever happen. His eyes finally closed, and he was asleep.

A hard shake to his shoulder woke Josh hours later. He blinked as he raised himself on one elbow to look out the bus window. The sun was just creeping over the horizon.

“I have to pee, Josh. I’m hungry. I don’t like it here. I want to go home. Let’s go home, Josh.”

Josh stood up and had to duck. His six-foottwo frame was too tall for the bus. He crouched over as he led Jesse outside.

Ninety minutes later the two young men stopped at a roadside shack, lured in by a sign that said it served the best bacon-sausage-and-egg sandwiches in California. Josh ordered six and two bottles of orange juice, seriously depleting his money supply. They wolfed down the food and asked the man behind the counter for directions to the nearest library.

The day was beginning. People were walking in little groups, some walking dogs, others running, some jogging. Traffic was heavy in all directions. Overhead the birds were awake and singing their morning songs. Josh wished he had the time to enjoy and savor what was going on around him.

Josh did a double take when he saw a sign for the university and realized they must be headed for the Berkeley Campus Library. He didn’t know if it was a bad thing or a good thing. He told himself there was probably more information to be gained from a college library than a public library.

“I want to go home, Josh. Why are we going to this place?”

Josh whirled around. “Listen to me, Jesse. We can’t go back. They…closed the school. The doors are all locked. We have to find somewhere else to go. You have to listen to me, Jesse, and pay attention. That man with the gun back at the school…He will come after us.”

“Why?”

Josh knew he wasn’t going to get through to Jesse, but he tried nonetheless. “He’s one of the bad guys. He doesn’t like us. He wants to kill us the way he killed Mr. Dickey and Miss Carmody and all our friends. When we get inside, you can open your backpack and draw while I work on the computer. Maybe…maybe the people in the library will let you hang up your pictures. You have to be real quiet in the library. You can’t talk to anyone, Jesse. Do you hear me?”

“Will they really hang my pictures, Josh?”

“Yeah. I promise. You’re gonna keep quiet, right?”

Jesse squeezed his lips shut with his fingers and giggled.

Josh’s eyes were everywhere as he walked through the security line, Jesse right behind him. It was a nice library. A big library. They could get lost inside for many hours. Even at that hour there were hundreds of people, mostly students, milling about. The only thing he didn’t like about libraries was the deathly silence. When you made a sound, everyone
looked
at you. Just then he didn’t want anyone looking at him.

Two strolls up and down the aisle later, Josh picked out a table at the back of the library and settled Jesse. “Listen to me,” he whispered, “I’m going to be over by the computers. Do not move from this chair, Jesse. Stay here until I come back for you. If you get lost, someone will take your book bag, and they won’t give you anything to eat.” He hated saying things like that to Jesse, but sometimes he had to do it so Jesse wouldn’t blow things out of the water. As Josh had found out over the years, there was no telling what Jesse would do at any given time.

Josh waited until Jesse had his colored pencils and his art tablet in front of him before leaving. He looked back once, and saw that Jesse was in his own little world. For the moment.

Josh headed for the racks of current daily newspapers. He carried them to a small table, opened them, and proceeded to read everything printed about the carnage at the academy.
What a crock,
he seethed under his breath. He had a good mind to send the newspapers a scathing e-mail, telling them they had it all wrong. Maybe he would do that.