The Alias Men

by F. T. Bradley

I laughed. “Dude, did a tourist shop throw up on you?”

  Ben shot me a death-ray stare. “The airline lost my luggage, so I had to buy provisions at the airport.”

  “The outfit is totally working for you,” I said, still laughing. His pale legs looked lost without long pants to protect them, and his toes wiggled in oversized flip-flops. I would bet my video-game collection that Ben had never worn anything but secret agent boots in his life.

  “Enough with the joking,” Albert Black called from the passenger seat.

  I saw Agent Stark, his secret agent sidekick, in the driver’s seat. She looked serious as ever, in a black turtleneck, her brown hair pulled back in the usual bun. “Hey, Agent Stark.”

  “Linc,” she said with a nod.

  “So why the welcoming committee?” I asked, but I had a sneaking suspicion. Ben Green was here for a reason, and it wasn’t to get a California gift-shop wardrobe.

  “Since the mission has become more”—Albert Black searched for words—“of a pain in the you-know-what, we pulled Agent Green off another mission and flew him in.”

  “You’re replacing me,” I said.

  Everyone in the van was silent.

  “And you think fake surfer boy here is going to do a better job finding the Dangerous Double than me?” I had to clench my fists to keep from blowing up. This was my case, my turf, my family’s lives on the line.

  “I’m a trained agent,” Ben said, crossing his arms. “If it had been me on the Sterling Studios tour, the artifact would be secure by now.”

  “No it wouldn’t,” I argued. “The Dangerous Double was already gone when I got there.”

  “At least I wouldn’t have been detained by security,” Ben countered. “Or brought back a made-in-China imitation piece.”

  “There was no way I could’ve had time to—”

  “Silence!” Black yelled from his seat in front. “The point is, I can’t risk any more mistakes. The unveiling of the drone system is on Monday at nine a.m., and here we are, Thursday night, back at square one.” He looked at me. “Green is going in, and you’re going home, Baker. It’s decided.”

  “But I’m the one who got cast in the movie!”

  “And now Agent Green will take your place.”

  I looked to Agent Stark, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to have my back this time. I was out. Ben Green was in. I reached for the van door handle.

  “Stay here, Baker,” Black barked. “I’ll call a cab. Don’t want you getting any ideas, like sneaking off to this party.”

  I shrugged, like it was no big deal that I got replaced by my annoying double. But secretly, I wanted to know about the mission.

  “Now, Agent Green,” Stark said to Ben. “We think we know who stole the Dangerous Double from the warehouse.” She handed him a photograph, but I snatched it away before Ben could take it.

  “Let me see it,” I said. First they have me do all the work, and then I’m supposed to just let Ben Green take over? I don’t think so. I caught a quick glimpse of the photograph. It was a gritty image, like maybe it came from some security camera. The picture was of an average-height guy, kind of skinny, with dark hair, a mustache, and a cream-colored suit. He looked rich.

  “Gimme that.” Ben pulled the photograph from my hand.

  “Who’s the dude?” I asked.

  Stark hesitated, but then said, “His name is Ethan Melais. He’s a professional con man—a thief of secrets. He sells them to whoever is willing to pay top dollar.” She kept her eyes on Ben. “A freelance spy.”

  Albert Black dialed a number on his phone. From his hushed conversation, I could just make out that he was calling a cab.

  “How does Melais get these secrets?” I asked.

  “This isn’t your case, Baker,” Ben said. But then he looked at Stark, waiting for her to answer my question.

  “Ethan Melais has a knack for getting himself into closed-door meetings—he’s just that good a con man. We had a Pandora meeting here in Los Angeles yesterday.” Stark clenched her jaw. “We have reason to believe he got in, found out about the Chaplin hat.”

  Ben groaned.

  Stark continued, “Intelligence tells us he’s planning to infiltrate the top secret conference on Monday, so he can sell the drone-system prototype to the terrorist group.”

  “The world would be like an all-you-can-eat buffet of secrets if this Melais guy got the hat,” I said. “He wouldn’t have to con his way into anyplace. He could walk right in, and no one would be the wiser.”

  “And this is the only image we have of our suspect?” Ben waved the gritty photograph. “Assuming the hair and clothing could be changed—”

  “That’s useless,” I mumbled. It was true: I wouldn’t recognize Melais if he was sitting right next to me in this stuffy van.

  “It’s what you have,” Stark snapped. “Linc: You just sit here and wait for that cab,” she said to me before pulling herself together. “Green: Get to work. Find Ethan Melais. Bring us the Dangerous Double.”

  Ben asked, “Do you think he’s here?”

  Stark nodded. “The Chaplin hat gave us a lucky break in the hunt for Ethan Melais. There have been confirmed cases of top-secret-information theft in Rome, Moscow, and Frankfurt. It turns out that Nigel Floyd had a production in these locations at the same time as the thefts.”

  I said, “Ethan Melais is a movie guy. He’s part of Floyd’s crew.”

  “That’s still a very broad category,” Ben commented. He was right, but I wasn’t going to admit that.

  “Before, we didn’t have much of anything,” Stark said, “so this is a breakthrough in the case. We may have come here to retrieve the Dangerous Double and secure the drone-system prototype, but now our objective has expanded.”

  “Find Ethan Melais, find the Dangerous Double,” I said, summing up the case.

  “Exactly.” Stark pointed up the drive, to the gates to Nigel Floyd’s mansion. “That party is the best place to start. Ethan Melais is part of the movie crew. He’s simply waiting until Monday, when he can steal the drone-system prototype and make a fortune.”

  “So our perp profile is that Melais is male, average height, and slender. I’ll go inside,” Ben said with one of his annoying super-serious nods.

  “And you’re going home, Baker,” Black said. He’d ended his phone call and had been listening to our conversation. “A cab will be here in five minutes.”

  Ben Green pushed past me and opened the sliding door to get out of the van. Before he jogged up to the gate, he glanced over his shoulder and smiled.

  I won, Baker.

  And I had no choice but to let him hijack my mission.

  The cab must’ve been nearby when Black called, because it pulled up right as Ben made his way past the gate. This was just great, I thought, as Black gave the guy a wad of cash to drive me back to Pasadena. Ben was going to get Ethan Melais and the hat, even though I had the most to lose.

  No way.

  Black got back into the van, and as I opened the passenger door of the cab, this flashy Mercedes SUV that I knew cost more than a hundred thousand bucks drove by.

  Then the driver slammed the brakes. Backed up.

  The tinted window rolled down, and a guy with bleached-blond hair leaned across the passenger seat. “Lincoln Baker, my man. You made it!” Floyd had a big smile on his face.

  “Yeah, but . . .” I pointed at the cab. “I have to go.”

  “Nonsense!” Floyd said, and he popped the passenger door. “Get in.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the van. This was my chance to save my family, plus stick it to Pandora for ditching me. I’d catch Ethan Melais, get the Dangerous Double. Save everyone from the bad guys and their evil plans.

  “Okay.” I waved the cabbie off and got into the Mercedes SUV.

  Floyd hit the gas before I even put my seat belt on. “I hope you’re ready to party, Linc.”

  10

  THURSDAY, 7:28 P.M.

  LOS ANGELES IS A
N EXPENSIVE PLACE TO live. And judging from Floyd’s house, I was pretty sure he had the most expensive place in the city. From the gate and past some trees I caught glimpses of a concrete mansion with tall windows and an enormous balcony. No doubt it had a killer view of the Pacific.

  “Can you believe I’m late to my own party?” Floyd said with a laugh. “Stupid bean counters and their meetings—all they worry about is money.”

  I had no idea what that was about, so I just nodded.

  Beyond the metal gates, we passed dense bushes and aloe plants. Then we came to a circular driveway with a tiered fountain in the middle. Floyd zoomed past a line of cars and cut in front.

  We got out. He tossed the keys to one of the valets. “Put it in the garage, next to the Aston Martin, yeah? Scratch it up and you’re dead, bloke,” he said to the guy.

  The valet laughed, but you could tell he wasn’t sure if it was a joke. Come to think of it, neither was I.

  “Come on, Linc,” Floyd said as we walked up the wide steps of his mansion. The place was enormous, and everything was straight-lined and metal—like those fifties houses, only brand-new and mansion-sized. There were double wooden doors that a butler-looking guy opened for us. For someone like me who was used to doing that myself, it was kind of awkward.

  And the butler was wearing a Chaplin hat! As soon as we made it inside, I saw several butlers with the same getup: white shirt, bowler hat—all that was missing was a mustache.

  “What’s with the Chaplin hats?” I asked Floyd.

  “Part of the ambience, Linc.” He spread his arms, obviously proud of his house and the big party he was throwing. “We’re celebrating the origin of the Academy Awards, going all the way back to the first Oscars, in 1929. Honoring the masters, like Chaplin, yeah?”

  “Yeah. I mean, sure.” This was going to make my job even harder. Any one of those hats could be the Dangerous Double. All Ethan Melais had to do was tilt the hat and he’d disappear. Reminded of the mission, I wondered where Ben was. Had he made it inside?

  What if Floyd caught us together? My whole kid-actor cover would be a bust.

  This could get complicated. I had to hurry and find that Ethan Melais dude, so Pandora would send Ben on his way and victory could be mine. I tried to think of a way to lose my annoying look-alike, but then Floyd pulled me by the arm.

  “This way.” We left the marble-tiled entry and walked into a giant space that looked like his living room. There were white sofas, a red coffee table, and a black grand piano. The back wall was made out of sliding doors that opened up to a huge deck, showing a view of the sun setting over the Pacific in the distance.

  “Whoa,” I whispered, looking around the place, forgetting I was supposed to be cool.

  Floyd laughed. “You like it? I don’t know, I was thinking it’s a little predictable, you know? So Hollywood.” He motioned to the glass wall. “Come on, let’s go on the deck.”

  We walked outside, passing groups of party guests who nodded to Floyd or shook his hand in passing. This dude was a big shot. To be honest, I was feeling a bit nervous. Bakers aren’t exactly a fancy bunch.

  I scanned the crowd for Ethan Melais suspects: an average height, skinny male. But it was pointless. Dozens of dudes at this party could be him, let’s face it. It seemed so easy: Find one bad guy with a Chaplin hat. But like every Pandora mission, it got more complicated in a hurry.

  Below the deck, there was this awesome pool surrounded by lounge chairs. Down the grassy hill from the mansion stood a small ranch-style house.

  “That’s the old place,” Floyd said when he caught my eye. He leaned on the deck railing. “It’s where I got my humble beginning, before all this.” He motioned to the mansion, the deck, the pool, the perfectly manicured lawn. “I still go down there sometimes, when I need to think.”

  “Looks a lot like my house,” I said.

  Floyd looked a little sad. “I miss the days when it was all so simple.”

  “Who is your new friend, Nigel?” A woman in black pants and a big white blouse came up from behind Floyd. She had shoulder-length blond hair and wore pink-framed glasses. I guessed she was about my mom’s age. She extended her right hand, and leaned on Floyd’s shoulder with her left. “I’m Katherine Freeman. You can call me Kate. I’m the makeup artist.”

  Floyd said, “Kate here is nominated for an Academy Award. She’s the guest of honor for this little soiree.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “I think the guests are actually here for you,” Kate said to Floyd. “But it’s a nice party.”

  “We go way back—Kate and I were roommates once, living just down that hill, isn’t that right?”

  Kate nodded. “I still remember coming to the city with nothing but my suitcase. If Nigel hadn’t taken me in as a roommate, who knows where I’d be?”

  “And then my friend Larry moved in,” Floyd added with a grin. “The three musketeers, we called ourselves. Like Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford—they were friends in their early Hollywood days and eventually started their own film company, United Artists, you know.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do—start your own company?” I asked.

  Floyd smiled. “In my dreams. But so far we’ve done almost every movie together, right, Kate? Except for this last one you got the Oscar nod for.”

  “We make a good team,” she said.

  “But you live in this mansion now,” I said to Floyd.

  Floyd nodded. “The place down there is empty. We’ve all moved on, haven’t we?”

  Kate nodded, looking a little sad. She turned her attention to me. “We haven’t even been introduced. You must be Nigel’s new protégé.”

  “I’m Linc Baker,” I said.

  Floyd said, “He’s a star. Completely genuine—just the fresh innocence we need.” Floyd’s phone rang. When he saw the caller ID, he frowned. “Gotta take this, but you enjoy the food, okay? There’s a video-game room on the lower floor.”

  And before I could say anything, Floyd disappeared in the crowd of party guests.

  Kate gave me a smile. “He’s a little . . . intense.”

  “No kidding.” The wind blowing up the hill was getting colder now, and the sunset had given way to dark skies.

  Kate pointed to the living room. “Come on. Let’s get inside and eat.”

  I followed her, and we settled somewhere near a bar. I looked around for Ben, but I still didn’t spot him in the crowd. I wondered if he’d found Ethan Melais yet. I wanted to be the one to bring Melais in.

  Kate ordered us both sodas. After handing me mine, she studied me with X-ray eyes, like Mom’s. “So you’re the muse?”

  “The what?”

  She laughed. “Floyd’s muse—do you know anything about movies, Linc?”

  I shook my head. No point in lying, I figured. “I don’t even know what this movie is about.”

  Kate said, “The Hollywood Kid is a creative interpretation of the silent-film classics as juxtaposed against today.”

  Huh?

  When she saw my confused look, Kate laughed and added, “The film is a collection of modern vignettes, seen through the eyes of a child of the 1930s.” She pointed at me. “Through your eyes.”

  “I’m this Hollywood kid or whatever?”

  She nodded.

  “No pressure or anything,” I mumbled.

  Kate smiled. “Have you seen Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid?”

  I shook my head.

  “That’s what Nigel’s film is based on—creatively, anyway. The Kid is thought to be based on Chaplin’s poor childhood in the UK.”

  I nodded and pretended to pay attention. But really, I was scanning the crowd for skinny dudes who could be Melais. There were lots of them, unfortunately.

  “The Tramp is really a genius character,” Kate went on. “Did you know he came up with the costume himself? Chaplin just gathered clothing from fellow comedians. He added the mustache so he’d look older.”

&n
bsp; “That’s where he got the bowler hat?”

  Kate nodded. “There were many other bowler hats over the years, of course.” She smiled. “Anyway, we should eat before it’s gone.” She motioned to the buffet up ahead. Instead of having legs, the three tables were suspended from the two-story ceiling by heavy chains.

  From afar I could see there were a bunch of little appetizer snacks—my favorite. But I wasn’t here to eat. I had to find Ethan Melais, tonight. Before he could get the drone-system prototype and sell it to the terrorists. “Maybe later,” I said.

  “Don’t wait too long,” Kate said. “Hollywood is like any other place. People will take what they can get before someone else does.” And she was off to get her plate.

  I looked around, taking in my surroundings. There were lots of people, some looking dressy in suits, some wearing jeans and ratty T-shirts, like they were too cool to make an effort. And lots of skinny dudes, unfortunately.

  I glanced up to the second-floor balcony, which overlooked the great room. And that’s when I spotted someone. A familiar-looking girl with long black hair, wearing jeans and a white blouse. She turned around and waved.

  To me?

  I looked over my shoulder to make sure there wasn’t some handsome kid behind me—nope, just me. So I went upstairs, passing some people dancing to the jazzy music that was playing from the speakers.

  I walked over to the pretty girl, hoping my smile wasn’t too dorky. Trying to be cool, even though I was pretty sure I was working on some sweaty pit stains.

  “I’m Savannah.” She shook my hand. I remembered now: I’d seen her at Sterling Studios, when I was looking for the warehouse. Her handshake was firm. “You’re the other kid.”

  “Huh?” Was she talking about Ben? I glanced around, but he wasn’t in sight.

  Savannah frowned, but only with her left eyebrow, which for some reason made her even prettier. “The other kid in Floyd’s movie. I’m the girl lead.”

  “Oh,” I said, sighing in relief. “The Hollywood Kid. Yeah, that’s me. Linc Baker.”

  Savannah leaned closer. She smelled like fresh laundry. “Did Nigel put you through the wringer too when you auditioned? I had to come back three times.”