The Wrong Man

by Jason Dean

  They were in Aleron’s subterranean workshop in a modest house in downtown Brooklyn, five minutes’ walk from the park. A few people they’d passed on the way had greeted Aleron warmly and looked right through Bishop like he didn’t exist. Which suited Bishop just fine. If it kept happening he might end up finding his prey sooner than he’d anticipated.

  The room was filled with a wide variety of industrial printers, as well as an impressive stockpile of printer toner, fuse boxes, paper samples of every weight and colour, and assorted accessories that only a specialist would recognize. Bishop guessed Aleron needed them for his extracurricular work and was impressed by the man’s dedication to his skill.

  On the wall facing him, a large plasma TV with muted sound was tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel. He recognized the US Attorney General being interviewed about something or other. There weren’t any accompanying mugshots of Bishop, so he could only assume that whatever they were talking about was unrealated to him. Although that might change very soon.

  ‘Always put this on when I’m down here,’ Aleron said. ‘Helps me work.’

  Bishop turned and saw Aleron’s head swaying to the sparse sounds coming from the speakers.

  Bishop nodded. ‘It helped me sleep inside, too.’

  Aleron stopped typing and looked at him.

  ‘In a Silent Way,’ Bishop said. ‘Miles Davis. This second side, in particular.’

  ‘They let you have iPods in there, man?’

  ‘Never needed one,’ Bishop said and tapped a finger against his temple. ‘Shorter’s soprano comes in in about four seconds.’

  It was actually five seconds before the sax laid its sound over the other instruments like a spoonful of syrup, and Bishop could have listened to it for ever. Aleron smiled and turned back to his work. Bishop moved beside him, watching. It was always interesting to see a professional at work and Aleron clearly knew what he was doing.

  Aleron said, ‘Working on your new Social Security card at the moment. You got to realize I can supply you with all the essentials, but none of it will stand up to thorough investigation. You won’t be on any database under the name I’m giving you. This is just a cosmetic fix, like a toupee for a leukaemia patient.’

  ‘Most toupees I’ve seen looked like toupees,’ Bishop said, ‘and I’ve worked in California.’

  Aleron laughed. ‘Okay. Bad example, but you know what I mean.’

  ‘So what’s my new name?’

  ‘Eric Allbright. You like?’ He passed a pen over his shoulder. ‘Here, I’ll need a signature sample. Two L’s in Allbright, by the way.’

  Bishop used a pad at Aleron’s side to sign the new alias in his own handwriting. Then he pointed at the circular colour spectrum currently taking up most of Falstaff’s screen. ‘Last time I saw something like that was at grade school,’ he said.

  ‘You never hear of CMYK values?’ Aleron asked and Bishop shrugged. ‘Printing in any magazine or newspaper is made up of just four colours mixed together. It’s all about illusion. All the colours you see on a page are made up of cyan, magenta, yellow or black. Say you mix a hundred per cent of yellow with fifty per cent magenta. That gives you bright orange. Whack the magenta up to a hundred and you got warm red, you follow? That’s CMYK, man. All roads lead from those four bad boys.’

  Bishop nodded. The concept made sense and he knew better than most that very little is as it seems on the surface. ‘So what’s the K stand for?’ he asked.

  ‘Key plate. Been that way longer than you or I been on this earth. See here?’ On the computer, Aleron zoomed in on the lettering at the top of Bishop’s new ID card. ‘I managed to get the government templates but only in keyline black and white. They’re real protective about their colour values, so I’ve recreated them so they’ll come out my printer looking like the real deal. The navy blue in the lettering here’ – he pressed the cursor and brought up a window listing the four colours with an empty box next to each – ‘I make up by using twenty-seven per cent black, hundred per cent cyan, fifty per cent magenta and three per cent yellow.’

  Bishop leaned over Aleron’s shoulder and watched, fascinated, as the colours changed according to the percentage of the CMYK colours.

  ‘Hey, man, have a heart,’ Aleron said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The air conditioning in here’s good, but not that good. Know what I’m saying?’

  ‘I can take a hint, if that’s what you mean,’ Bishop said, smiling as he scratched the back of his head. ‘Just tell me where.’

  Falstaff turned back to the monitor. ‘Top floor. Last on the right.’

  NINETEEN

  Towelling himself off from the shower, Bishop studied the ugly kaleidoscope of purple, red, brown and grey that covered his midsection. Christ, what a mess. And if it looked that bad on the outside, he could only imagine what his insides resembled. But bruising came before healing, and besides, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

  The Three Bears’ visit already felt distant to him, despite its being only seventeen hours ago. He checked Cook’s watch and was surprised to see it was 10.40 already. He needed to get moving. The longer he stayed still, the easier it would be to find him. Plus he had leads he wanted to follow. Places to revisit. Certain people to see.

  In the basement, Aleron was standing in front of the TV with the sound up and his arms crossed. ‘Eric Allbright, you’re a star,’ he said.

  Bishop went to stand next to him. An artificially pretty brunette reporter was standing outside Greenacres’ main entrance. The yellow strip at the bottom of the screen said she was Melanie Murray, followed by the word live. Behind her, Bishop could see a police barricade.

  ‘A source inside Greenacres has told us it was actually the infirmary physician, Dr Brendan Cook, whom the guards found in James Bishop’s bed, heavily sedated and handcuffed to the railing. It appears this was the man we caught on film earlier as he was being transported to police headquarters for a statement.’

  The screen suddenly changed to jerky, hand-held footage and showed two uniforms and a long-haired man approaching a black-and-white. All three noticed the camera at the same time and the scene froze, zooming in on Cook’s startled face. Bishop smiled at the image. The doc looked as though he’d been caught flashing.

  ‘We also expect to bring you an interview with Deputy Marshal Angela Delaney, who’s been assigned the task of recapturing Bishop and is currently inside the prison with her team taking statements.’ As Melanie spoke, the picture changed to Bishop’s three-year-old mugshot, with his hair longer and five days’ worth of stubble on his face. That was something. At least he looked a little different now.

  Melanie continued, ‘To recap, we can confirm Bishop escaped from Greenacres Prison here in Ulster County some time before dawn in the rear of a delivery truck headed for the Bronx. As yet, we don’t know exactly where he exited the vehicle but we should be able to give you more soon. We’ve also been informed that in addition to the US Marshals Department, every law enforcement agency in the country is now on high alert and it is only a matter of time before . . .’

  The picture switched to two men and two women in the distance walking towards a plain, unmarked Chevrolet. Melanie called out, ‘Deputy Delaney. Deputy. Can you give a statement regarding the escape and your estimation of Bishop’s chances?’

  Bishop saw one of the women say something to one of the men, who nodded and got behind the wheel. The camera quickly zoomed in on the woman as she looked up briefly before opening the front passenger door. He figured this must be Delaney. Attractive in a stern way, she looked to be a couple of years either side of forty with blond hair hidden under a black cap. Clearly, she wasn’t about to grant Melanie any interviews right now. She slid in while the other two got in the back. Then the vehicle moved towards the police barriers to the left of the picture. A uniform let them through and the camera tracked the vehicle until it was gone.

  Bishop let Melanie’s babble wash over him and thought hard
. He’d stayed here too long already, and now that his picture was out there he needed to consider his next move carefully. He had two immediate tasks in mind. Both held their share of risks, so it was just a matter of prioritizing one over the other.

  ‘This stuff won’t be ready until early evening,’ Aleron said, interrupting his calculations.

  Bishop took the hint and rose to leave. ‘Just give me a time and a price.’

  Aleron thought for a moment. ‘Come back around five. A grand should do it.’

  ‘A grand?’ asked Bishop as he began climbing the basement stairs. He’d expected it to be a lot more.

  ‘Miles fans get a special discount,’ Aleron said, following close behind. ‘I don’t meet many these days.’

  At the front door, Bishop paused on the outer step and turned round. ‘You know, I expected a bunch of questions about the murders.’

  Aleron shrugged. ‘In my line, I’ve learned it’s best not to pry.’

  ‘Thanks. For the shower.’ Bishop turned and began walking away.

  ‘No, thank you,’ Aleron said and shut the door.

  TWENTY

  Sitting in a cubicle facing the exit of the inappropriately named Cyber Paradise, Bishop sipped lukewarm tea and casually rechecked his dozen or so fellow surfers. Whoever named the place had only got it half right. There was no arguing the ‘cyber’ part, but ‘paradise’ was probably taking things a little too far.

  The internet café was located eight blocks from Aleron’s place and took up part of the second floor of a Laundromat. Only one way in, so Bishop was sitting at a workstation to the side of the door, next to the room’s only window. Just in case he needed an alternative exit. Everyone there was totally absorbed in his or her own world, and for the past thirty minutes no one else had come in.

  Bishop checked his screen and finished filling in his fake details for a new email account. He then visited the Post website and browsed until he found a grainy snapshot of Sam Chaney. He still had the same angular features, but his face had filled out and his brown hair was longer and brushed forward. The photo had been taken as he was leaving a controversial lap-dancing club called Heroines in Lower Manhattan, which had opened two years before and specialized in pretty young things dressed in skimpy, spandex superhero costumes. If only briefly. According to the Post, Chaney was the majority owner of the club and his own best customer. He had resigned from RoyseCorp a couple of months after Bishop’s trial and used an insurance payout to launch a major business in the heart of Manhattan.

  Sam Chaney. Living the dream. But then, women had always been his obsession.

  A month or so after Chaney, Chris Tennison had also decided to leave RoyseCorp to start up his own web-based business, along with a cute name to go with it. Eyetech Associates. He now specialized in the supply of state-of-the-art surveillance equipment to international clients. Business had been good enough after the first year to move his operation from his house in Guttenberg, New Jersey to an office suite on West 20th Street, currently employing a staff of nine.

  Martin Thorpe was still at RoyseCorp, although he was no longer a close protection officer. One of the injuries sustained in the Brennan raid had resulted in a destroyed nerve in his right elbow and he could no longer fully extend the arm. It didn’t keep him down for long, though. He currently held a senior position in Foreign Operations at head office. Which was pretty much as Bishop expected. Thorpe had made no secret of his desire to move on to the corporate side of things whenever a good opportunity came up.

  Researching the three men felt weird. Like looking at what Bishop’s life might have been in an alternate universe. One where he hadn’t been locked away for somebody else’s crime. It also felt like turning his back on his own, but he’d been over the choices. Someone on his team had to have been involved for the attack to have been pulled off. And that same man had to have been involved in setting Bishop up.

  The internet didn’t really give him much. None of their actions following the murders were really out of character. All three still lived in New York and none of them seemed unexpectedly rich. But one of them had to be responsible for aiding the assault team. And somebody had jammed his comms and pager.

  Bishop sighed. At the moment he was left with his main lead: the photo in Brennan’s office of the guy he’d shot on the stairs. Find him, find some answers.

  Alicia or Philip Brennan would probably know who he was, but Bishop couldn’t see them talking to the man they believed responsible for the destruction of their family. So all he really had going for him was the memory of a photo he’d seen once.

  Bishop did a search on both King Saleh and Randall Brennan, which scored a big fat zero. The two men were never mentioned in conjunction with each other. He did an individual search on each man, but the links he got numbered in the thousands and would take forever to check. Probably with the same result. He stretched and studied the young guy on the computer next to him. He was waving at someone through a camera affixed to the top of the screen. Bishop watched, curious, as the man then pretended to kiss the camera. He guessed the girl, or guy, at the other end appreciated the light-hearted gesture. Bishop couldn’t think of anyone he’d blow kisses at via the World Wide Web, especially in a public place. He’d never been that carefree, even in his youth. But then, maybe he just hadn’t allowed himself to meet the right woman.

  Watching the young guy, Bishop wondered whether he was approaching his search from the wrong angle. Instead of coming at it from Brennan’s side, maybe he should focus on the basics and go back to the photo on the Wall of Fame. And think about what was actually in the picture.

  He closed his eyes. It had been taken in an aircraft hangar. Possibly on a private airfield in Yajir, as it seemed unlikely that the king would ever set foot in the main airport. Bishop focused on the plane. Only a portion of the jet was visible. It was white, with the turbofan mounted on the rear fuselage. Above that was the T-tail with a logo and some lettering reversed out of dark blue. One word. Not Arabic. Something western. The logo above it was an arrow in the shape of an S, so the name must have begun with the same letter. But what was it?

  It took a couple of minutes as his consciousness focused on the detail, but the name gradually became sharp enough in his memory to make out.

  Supreme.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Bishop opened his eyes and smiled. The mind’s capacity for storing and accessing information was truly fascinating. He’d read in New Scientist once that it was just like any other muscle. That the more you exercised it, the better it worked. Bishop was strangely reassured by that thought. It meant genes and DNA didn’t decide everything. That it was partly down to the individual’s strength of character in the end.

  He leaned forward, typed Supreme Jets into the search box and hit Enter. And there it was. Right at the top of the page. He clicked on the link and was taken to their home page where the company promised to supply luxury jet charters for his personal and corporate needs. The logo was exactly as he remembered.

  From there, he clicked on Company History and the page that came up, although heavy with text, featured an assortment of photos. Some were of the jets, either airborne or in readiness for take-off. Some focused on the corporate headquarters in Washington. But the real prize was the shot of the King of Yajir and a businessman shaking hands in a hangar with a company jet in the background. Along with a man partly in shadow, but with a cleft chin, a long nose and slightly sunken cheeks. Bingo.

  It wasn’t exactly the same photo as the one in Brennan’s office. It looked to have been taken a second before or after, as Brennan’s face was turned away slightly, his features obscured. If Bishop hadn’t already seen the other shot, he would never have been able to place him from this one. The picture was also uncropped to allow the full glory of the aircraft to be seen. A Lear 60 six-seater, it looked like. Or possibly the 55. Both popular models amongst executives, in Bishop’s experience. He guessed the presence of royalty had merited the photo worth
y of inclusion on the company website. There were no captions under any of the pictures, but on the contact page there was a media representative by the name of Joanne Walsh, along with an email address and phone number.

  Bishop deleted the browser’s history before logging off, then paid for his time with a twenty, got change from a five and went downstairs. There were two payphones attached to the rear wall of the Laundromat, next to a table bearing three White Pages directories and a pile of old magazines. Bishop picked up the nearest phone, inserted some coins and dialled the number, scanning the shop as he waited. Three of the twelve washing machines were in use, and two female customers were sitting on the chairs by the entrance. Neither one paid him any attention.

  A female voice said, ‘Joanne Walsh. Can I help you?’

  ‘Yeah, I sure hope so, Ms Walsh,’ Bishop said, turning to the wall. ‘My name’s Rhinehart. I’m a researcher over at the Post and one of our writers is planning a weekend society piece on luxury air travel, and the role of private air charter companies as an alternative to scheduled airlines.’

  ‘Sounds intriguing,’ Joanne said.

  ‘Well, we’re hoping our readers feel the same way. Anyway, I noticed that cool photo on your site with King Saleh of Yajir.’

  ‘You’re not the first person to comment on it, Mr Rhinehart. It is a cool picture, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very. And Rhinehart’s my first name, actually. It’s German. And on that subject, I was wondering if you had the names of the two westerners in the shot. The businessman and his associate. Looks like one of his security men, maybe.’