Secret of the Seventh Sons

by Cooper, Glenn

  She was checking out his reading material. “Don’t ask,” he pleaded.

  Outside, they sat in her car talking. He figured if he was going to be taken down, it would have happened already. It looked like no one had connected the dots.

  She told him that back in the office all hell was breaking loose. She wasn’t in the loop but the news was spreading fluidly within the agency. Will’s name had been added to the TSA’s no-fly list and his check-in attempt at LaGuardia had triggered multiagency pandemonium. Sue Sanchez was feverish—she’d spent all day behind closed doors with the brass, emerging only to bark a few orders and generally be a pain in the ass. They’d questioned Nancy a few times about her knowledge of Will’s actions and intent but seemed satisfied that she didn’t know anything. Sue was almost apologetic at having forced Nancy to work with him on the Doomsday case and assured her repeatedly that she wouldn’t be stained by the association.

  Will sighed deeply. “Well, I’m grounded. I can’t fly, I can’t rent a car, I can’t use a credit card. If I try to get on a train or a bus I’ll get picked up at Penn Station or the Port Authority.” He stared out the passenger-side window, then put a hand on her thigh and patted it playfully. “I’ll have to steal a car, I guess.”

  “You’re absolutely right. You’re going to steal a car.” She started the motor and left the parking lot.

  They argued all the way to her house. He didn’t want to involve her parents, but Nancy insisted. “I want them to meet you.”

  He wanted to know why.

  “They’ve heard all about you. They’ve seen you on TV.” She paused before finishing, “They know about us.”

  “Tell me you didn’t tell your parents you’re having an affair with your partner who’s almost twice your age.”

  “We’re a close family. And you’re not twice my age.”

  The Lipinski abode was a compact 1930s brick house with a steeply pitched slate roof on a stubby dead-end street across from Nancy’s old high school, its flower beds brimming with cascades of orange and red roses that made it look like the structure was being consumed by fire.

  Joe Lipinski was in the backyard, a small man, shirtless with baggy shorts. There were sprouts of silky-white hair everywhere—sparse on his sunburned scalp, tufted on his chest. His round, impish cheeks were the fleshiest part of his body. He was kneeling on the grass, pruning a rosebush, but shot up with a youthful spring to his legs and yelled, “Hey! It’s the Pied Piper! Welcome to Casa Lipinski!”

  “You have a beautiful garden, sir,” Will offered.

  “Don’t sir me, Joe me. But thanks. You like roses?”

  “Sure I do.”

  Joe reached for a small bud, pruned it off and held it out. “For your button hole. Put it in his button hole, Nancy.”

  She blushed but complied, threading it in place.

  “There!” Joe exclaimed. “Now you two kids can go to the prom. C’mon. Let’s get out of the sun. Your mother’s got dinner almost ready.”

  “I don’t want to put you out,” Will protested.

  Joe dismissed him with a what-are-you-talking about look and winked at his daughter.

  The house was warm because Joe didn’t believe in air-conditioning. It was a period piece, unchanged since moving day, 1974. The kitchen and bathrooms had been updated in the sixties but that was it. Small rooms with thick mushy carpets and worn lumpy furniture, a first-generation escape to the suburbs.

  Mary Lipinski was in the kitchen, which was fragrant from simmering pots. She was a pretty woman who hadn’t let herself go, although, Will noted, she was on the thick-hipped side. He had an unpleasant habit of divining what his girlfriends might look like in twenty years, as if he’d ever had a relationship that lasted more than twenty months. Still, she had a tight, youthful face, lovely shoulder-length brown hair, a firm bosom, and nice calves. Not bad for her late fifties, early sixties.

  Joe was a CPA and Mary was a bookkeeper. They had met at General Foods, where he was an accountant, about ten years her senior, and she was a secretary in the tax department. At first he commuted up from Queens; she was a local girl from White Plains. When they married, they bought this small house on Anthony Road just a mile away from the headquarters. Years later, after the company was acquired by Kraft, the White Plains operation was closed down and Joe took a buyout. He decided to open up his own tax business, and Mary took a job at a Ford dealer doing their books. Nancy was their only daughter, and they were thrilled she was back in her old room.

  “So that’s us, the modern day Joseph and Mary,” Joe said, concluding a brief family history and passing Will a plate of string beans. A Verdi opera was softly playing on the Bose radio. Will was lulled into a contented state by the food, the music, and the plain conversation. This was the kind of wholesome shit he never provided for his daughter, he thought wistfully. A glass of wine or beer would have been nice but it appeared the Lipinskis weren’t serving. Joe was zeroing in on the punch line: “We’re just like the originals, but this one here, she was no immaculate conception!”

  “Dad!” Nancy protested.

  “Would you like another piece of chicken, Will?” Mary asked.

  “Yes ma’am, I would, thank you.”

  “Nancy tells me you spent the afternoon in our fine public library,” Joe said.

  “I did. I came across a real character there.”

  Mary grimaced. “Donny Golden,” she said.

  “You know him?” Will asked.

  “Everyone knows Donny,” Nancy answered.

  “Tell Will how you know him, Mary,” Joe prodded.

  “Believe it or not, Will, Donny and I went to high school together.”

  “She was his girlfriend!” Joe shouted gleefully.

  “We dated once! It’s such a sad story. He was the most handsome boy, from a nice Jewish family. He went off to college, normal and healthy, and got very sick during his freshman year. Some say it was drugs, some say it was just when he developed his mental problem. He spent years in institutions. He lives in some kind of supervised house downtown and spends all his time in the library. He’s harmless but it’s painful to see him. I won’t go there.”

  “He doesn’t have such a bad life,” Joe said. “No pressures. He’s oblivious to all the bad things in the world.”

  “I think it’s sad too,” Nancy said, picking at her food. “I saw his yearbook pictures. He was really cute.”

  Mary sighed. “Who knew what fate had in store for him? Who ever knows?”

  Suddenly, Joe turned serious. “So, Will, tell us what’s in store for you. I hear there’s some funny business going on. I’m concerned for you, certainly, but as a father, I’m very concerned for my daughter.”

  “Will can’t talk about an ongoing investigation, Dad.”

  “No, listen, I hear you, Joe. I’ve got some things I’ve got to do but I don’t want Nancy getting caught up in this. She’s got a brilliant career ahead of her.”

  “I’d rather she was doing something less dangerous than the FBI,” her mother said, chiming what sounded like a constant refrain.

  Nancy made a face and Joe dismissed his wife’s worry with a wave. “I understand you were close to making an arrest but both of you were yanked off the investigation. How does something like this happen in the United States of America? When my parents were in Poland, these things happened all the time. But here?”

  “I want to find that out. Nancy and I put a lot of time into this case, and there are victims who don’t have a voice.”

  “Well, you do what you have to do. You seem like a nice fellow. And Nancy is quite fond of you. That means you’re going to be in my prayers.”

  The opera was over and the station was doing a news summary. None of them would have paid any attention if Will’s name weren’t mentioned:

  “And in other news, the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has filed an arrest warrant for one of their own. Special Agent Will Piper is wanted for questioning for
irregularities and possible criminal wrongdoing related to the investigation of the Doomsday serial killer. Piper, a nearly twenty-year veteran of law enforcement, is best known for being the public face of the still-unsolved Doomsday case. His whereabouts are unknown and he is considered armed and potentially dangerous. If a member of the public has any information, please contact local police authorities or the FBI.”

  Will grimly stood up and put his jacket back on. He fingered the rosebud in the lapel. “Joe and Mary, thank you for dinner and thank you for your hospitality. I’ve got to be going.”

  There wasn’t much city-bound traffic this time of day. They had stopped first at a convenience store on Rosedale Avenue, where Nancy hopped out to buy provisions while Will fidgeted in her car. Two bags of groceries were on the backseat, but no, she had said emphatically, she would not buy him booze.

  Now they were cruising on the Hutch and the Whitestone Bridge was coming up. He reminded her to call his daughter, then fell silent and watched the sun turn the Long Island Sound burnt orange.

  Nancy’s grandparents’ house was on a quiet street of postage-stamp-sized homes in Forest Hills. Her grandfather was in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s. Her grandmother was visiting a niece in Florida for a respite. Granddad’s old Ford Taurus was in the one-car lock-up garage behind the house; in case they found a cure, Nancy joked darkly. They arrived at dusk and parked out front. The garage keys were under a brick, the car keys in the garage under a paint can. The rest was up to him.

  He leaned over and kissed her and they held each other for a long while, like a couple at a drive-in.

  “Maybe we should go inside,” Will exhaled.

  She playfully rapped his forehead with her knuckles. “I’m not sneaking into my grandma’s house to have sex!”

  “Bad idea?”

  “Very bad. Besides, you’ll get sleepy.”

  “That wouldn’t be good.”

  “No it wouldn’t. Call me every step of the way, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Will you be safe?”

  “I’ll be safe.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “There’s something I didn’t tell you about work today,” she said, kissing him one last time. “John Mueller was back in for a few hours. Sue’s putting us together to work on the Brooklyn bank robberies. I talked to him for a while, and do you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I think he’s an asshole.”

  He laughed, gave her a thumbs-up, and opened his door. “Then my work here is done.”

  Mark fretted. Why had he agreed to come in off his vacation?

  He wasn’t quick enough on his feet or strong enough to stand up for himself—he was always a lapdog for parents, teachers, bosses—always too eager to please, too scared to disappoint. He didn’t want to leave the hotel and burst the delicious bubble he and Kerry were inhabiting.

  She was in the bathroom, getting ready. They had a superior night planned: dinner at Rubochon’s at the MGM Mansion, a little blackjack, then drinks back in the Venetian at the Tao Beach Club. He’d have to leave early and go straight to the airport, and he probably wouldn’t feel too brilliant come dawn, but what was he going to do now? If he was a no-show he’d raise all sorts of alarms.

  He was already dressed for the night and restless, so he logged onto the Net via the hotel’s high-speed service. He shook his head: another e-mail from Elder. The man was sucking him dry, but a deal was a deal. Maybe he’d priced himself too low at $5 million. Maybe he’d just have to hit him up for another five in a few months. What was the guy going to do? Say no?

  As Mark was working through Elder’s new list, Malcolm Frazier’s group was on Alpha Alert: shifts on cots and cold food. Moody sorts to begin with, they were in a despicable state over the prospect of a night away from wives and girlfriends. Frazier had even forced Rebecca Rosenberg to stay overnight, a first. She was beside herself over the whole situation, completely in tatters.

  Frazier pointed at his monitor with irritation. “Look. He’s on that encrypted portal again. Why the Christ can’t you break that? I mean how long is it going to take you to break that? We don’t even know who’s on the other end.”

  Rosenberg shot daggers at him. She was following the identical traffic on her screen. “He’s one of the best computer security scientists in the country!”

  “Well, you’re his boss, so break the goddamned code, will you? How’s it going to look if we have to farm this out to the NSA? You’re supposed to be the best, remember?”

  She shrieked with frustration, making the men in the room jump. “Mark Shackleton is the best! I sign his time cards! Just shut up and let me work!”

  Mark was almost done with his e-mail when the bathroom door opened a crack and he heard a muffled, “I’ll be ready soon!” in her lilting twang.

  “I wish I didn’t have to go back to work tomorrow,” he said over the sound of the TV.

  “Me too.”

  He hit the mute button; she liked to talk from inside the bathroom. “Maybe we can rebook for next weekend.”

  “That would be great.” The faucet ran for a second then stopped. “You know what would also be great?”

  He logged off and slipped the computer back in its case. “What would also be great?”

  “To go to L.A. next weekend, you and me. I mean, we both want to live there. Now that you’ve come into all this money, you can quit your stupid UFO job and be a movie writer full-time and I can quit my stupid escort job and my stupid vasectomy job and be an actress, maybe a real one. We can go house hunting next weekend. Whaddya say? I think it’d be fun.”

  Will Piper’s face was plastered all over the plasma screen. Christ, Mark thought, second time in two days! He unmuted the set.

  “Did you hear me? Wouldn’t it be fun?”

  “Hang on a second, Kerry, I’ll be right with you!” He watched the news item in horror. It felt like a boa constrictor had wrapped itself around his chest and was squeezing the breath out of him. Yesterday he saw this guy boasting about new leads, and today he was a fugitive? And it was a coincidence he was being called in from vacation? Two hundred IQ points started rowing in the same direction. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—”

  “What’d you say, honey?”

  “Be right with you!” His hands were shaking like he had malaria as he reached back into his case for his laptop.

  He never wanted to do this; a lot of Area 51 people were tempted—that’s what the watchers were for, that’s what his algorithms were for—but he wasn’t like the others. He was an it-is-what-it-is kind of guy. Now he desperately needed to know. He entered his password and logged onto the pirated U.S. database stored on his hard drive. He had to work fast. If he stopped to think about what he was doing, he was going to balk.

  He started entering names.

  Kerry came out of the bathroom, dressed to the nines in a slinky red dress with her new watch gleaming on her wrist. “Mark! What’s the matter?” His computer was snapped shut on his lap but he was bawling like an infant, big chest-sucking sobs and torrents of tears. She knelt down and threw her arms around him. “Are you okay, honey?”

  He shook his head.

  “What happened?”

  He had to think fast. “I got an e-mail. My aunt died.”

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry!” He stood up, wobbly—no, more than wobbly, in a near faint. She rose with him and gave him a giant hug, which prevented him from falling back down. “Was it unexpected?”

  He nodded and tried to wipe his face dry with his hand. She got him a tissue, rushed back to his side and daubed him dry like a mother tending a helpless child. “Look, I’ve got an idea,” he said robotically. “Let’s go to L.A. tonight. Right now. We’ll drive. My car’s overheating. We’ll take yours. We’ll buy a house tomorrow, okay? In the Hollywood Hills. A lot of writers and actors live there. Okay? Can you pack?”

  She stared at him, worried and perplexed. “
Are you sure you want to go right now, Mark? You’ve just had a shock. Maybe we should wait till the morning.”

  He stamped his foot and shouted in a juvenile fit. “No! I don’t want to wait! I want to go now!”

  She backed away a step. “Why the big rush, honey?” He was scaring her.

  He almost started crying again but was able to stop himself. Sniffing hard through blocked nostrils, he packed up his laptop and turned his cell phone off. “’Cause life’s too short, Kerry. It’s too fucking short.”

  JULY 30, 2009

  LOS ANGELES

  Their room overlooked Rodeo Drive. Mark stood at the window in a hotel bathrobe and through parted curtains mournfully watched luxury cars take the turn off Wilshire onto Rodeo. The sun wasn’t high enough to burn off the morning haze, but it looked like it was going to be a perfect day. The suite on the fourteenth floor of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel cost $2,500 for the night, paid for in cash to make it a little harder for the watchers. But who was he kidding? He looked into her handbag to check Kerry’s mobile phone. He had switched it off while she was driving and it was still off. She would be on their radar already, but he was playing for time. Precious time.

  They arrived late, after a long drive through the desert during which neither of them spoke much. There wasn’t time to plan things but he wanted everything to be perfect. His mind drifted back to when he was seven, waking up before his parents and rushing to make them breakfast for the first time in his life, pouring out cereal, slicing a banana, and carefully balancing the bowls and cutlery and little glasses of OJ on a tray that he proudly presented to them in bed. He’d wanted everything to be perfect that day, and when he succeeded, he solicited their praise for weeks. If he kept his wits, he could succeed today too.

  They had champagne and steaks when they arrived. More champagne was on its way for brunch, with crepes and strawberries. A Realtor would meet them in the lobby in an hour for an afternoon of house-hunting. He wanted her to be happy.