by Jason Dean
‘Look,’ Bishop said, ‘if that wing was opened in 2000, then that photo was taken before 9/11. Lots of changes after that date. Like no more lockers in public buildings. You won’t find any in Grand Central any more. Same goes for JFK and most other places you can think of.’ He nodded at the laptop screen. ‘I figure those ones there lasted another year, eighteen months tops, before they got taken away too.’
Luke said, ‘And you know that for sure, right?’
‘I didn’t say I did. But let’s assume the lockers are still there. We know Brennan arranged it so the key was hidden in a steel tomb nobody knows even exists. So where does he decide to hide the priceless file itself? In a public building, of course. Where thousands of people walk past it every day, and its only protection is a lock my twelve-year-old niece could open with one of her hairpins. That sound logical to you?’
Luke snorted again. ‘What, you never heard of hiding something in plain sight?’
Bishop sighed and turned to Aleron.
‘You been on the up so far, Bishop,’ Aleron said. ‘I’ll give you that. And if you got a better lead than this, I’m listening. Otherwise . . .’ He shrugged.
‘I’m still thinking,’ Bishop said.
Luke’s laugh sounded like a dog’s bark. ‘You’ll be sure to let us know what you’ve come up with an hour or two from now, though, right? Keep us updated?’
‘Step off, Luke,’ Aleron said. He grabbed a Metroblade business card off the table and reached into his pocket for a pen. ‘What were the numbers on that key again?’
Bishop said, ‘E2110 and 3975642.’ Aleron wrote both numbers down on the back of the card.
‘Okay,’ Luke said. ‘To me, that means locker 2110 on the east side of the building. And I think you’re right about one thing: those locks will be next to useless. So the second number is for the extra combination lock he put on there. You got any more great advice before Ali and me get going?’
Bishop looked at them. ‘You thought about how you’re gonna get in? There’ll be cameras. Guards, too.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Bishop,’ Luke said. ‘You just sit back and keep that brain of yours whirring while the seconds tick away to nothing.’
Aleron rubbed a thumb over his brow and looked at the key in Bishop’s fingers. ‘You better keep hold of that in case you think of something. I’ve learned a few tricks with locks myself, so we should be okay.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Bishop said. ‘If you are and you get the file, text me so I’ve got something concrete when Thorpe calls at midnight to set up the exchange. Text me either way, but don’t call; I want to keep the line clear for him.’
‘Okay,’ Aleron said.
Luke looped his bag over a shoulder and was already halfway to the entrance doors when he stopped and came back. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and dropped it on the table in front of Bishop. ‘What you asked for,’ he said and walked back to the doors. He unlatched one and stood there, waiting.
Aleron got up and put out his hand. As Mandrake shook it, he said, ‘Thanks for your help. And I hope your old man’s okay.’
Mandrake gave a thin smile. ‘Thanks. And let me know when you get Jenna back. I feel like I know her already.’
‘You’d like her,’ Aleron said, and gave a nod to Bishop. ‘Everybody does.’
Then he joined Luke at the door and they both walked out into the night.
EIGHTY-TWO
Bishop barely registered their exit. He just sat there, the key in his hand. Thinking. 22.53. Sixty-seven minutes to come up with something.
He hadn’t lied to Aleron. He really did hope they’d prove him wrong, but he thought it highly improbable. The file had to be someplace else. Had to be. He just needed to figure out where.
And to do that, Bishop needed to discover the meaning behind these two numbers. E2110. 3975642. One on each side of the key. Which indicated they referred to two entirely different things, connected only by their common purpose: the location of the file. They clearly weren’t map coordinates, but maybe they were pointing towards its location in a less obvious manner. And they felt faintly familiar to him. No, familiar was the wrong word. But there was definitely something there that struck a chord in his consciousness, and it sure wasn’t anything to do with a combination lock.
A hand entered Bishop’s field of vision and placed an opened bottle of Dr Pepper on the table. ‘Art swears by the stuff,’ Mandrake said. He sipped from his own bottle and sat down opposite. ‘Calls it lubrication for the mind. ’Course, he gets off on the sugar rush, too.’
Bishop nodded his thanks and picked up the bottle. He took a few sips, hoping Mandrake would lapse back into silence. Instead, the pilot said, ‘It’ll come. You can think too hard on a problem and then it’s right in front of you.’
‘Sure,’ Bishop said with a sigh.
He glanced down at the key in his left hand and studied the sticker. And he frowned. In the conversation with Aleron and Luke he might well have overlooked the simplest thing. He pulled at the sticker and saw engraved letters on the face of the key. Price.
Keys usually had a manufacturer’s name on them. Like Yale or Chubb. Or nothing at all. He’d never heard of Price. So maybe locksmiths had the option to personalize their keys themselves when they ordered them from the manufacturer. To Mandrake, he said, ‘You got a Yellow Pages here?’
‘Sure, Alex keeps—’ Mandrake stopped. And tried again. ‘There should be some in the desk behind me. Which borough?’
‘Let’s try Manhattan first.’
Mandrake walked over to his receptionist’s desk. It was still cordoned off by bright yellow crime scene tape and he ducked under and rooted around in the drawers. He came back and handed over a directory that looked thinner than Bishop remembered. He guessed the internet had all of life’s answers these days.
Opening it to the Locksmiths section, he flicked through it until he came to the Ps and started turning the pages more slowly. And then he stopped. There, at the bottom of the left-hand page, was a quarter-page ad. All Your Lock Problems SOLVED! it screamed in large red text across the top. Under that, in slightly smaller letters, was the name: Price Locksmiths. Bishop skipped over the text and focused on the photo of the premises that took up the left third of the ad. He saw a small, well-stocked store with a glass front and a single glass door. Apartments above it. And then he looked at the address.
110 East 2nd Street.
If you needed to fit that on a small sticker you might shorten it to 110E2. Or E2110. Possibly. He just hoped the shop’s owner had one of those apartments above.
Bishop checked his watch again. 22.59. He’d have to get moving. Ripping the page from the directory, he grabbed his knapsack, placed Luke’s note in his pocket and rose from the chair. ‘Looks like you were right,’ he said to the pilot. ‘This could be something. What you did for us, I won’t forget.’
‘Me neither,’ Mandrake said. ‘Next time, I charge you.’
Bishop smiled and strode over to the doors and pushed into the car park. Jenna’s Honda and Mandrake’s Mercedes were the only vehicles left. No sign of Cortiss’s Lexus on the road, either. The cops must have taken it away. When he reached Jenna’s vehicle, he pulled out the emergency set of keys she’d given him and used the one with the Honda logo to unlock the door. He threw the knapsack on the passenger seat and was about to get in when he stopped, pulled the Maglite from his pocket and walked to the rear of the vehicle.
He lay on his back and pulled his upper torso under the car. He felt a twinge in his stomach muscles and paused, willing it to go away. The Three Bears already seemed like months ago. Back at a time in his life when getting out and finding who’d set him up was all he cared about. Strange how things changed. He could never have imagined the situation in which he now found himself.
He switched on the flashlight and shone it at the undercarriage. It was only a few moments before he found the magnetized transmitter box next to the exhaust resonator. He detached
it from the vehicle and slid his body back out. He stood up, tossed the box towards the fence and then got in the car.
EIGHTY-THREE
Situated on the edge of Chinatown between Canal and Franklin, Cortlandt Alley is one of New York’s few remaining alleyways. The narrow, grimy side street spans two blocks and is almost always dark. During the day it serves as a commercial access to the five- or six-storey warehouses and factories on either side. At night it serves as a haven for crack addicts and the homeless. In recent years, the alley has also become the location of choice for music video directors tasked with lending their baby-faced employers some semblance of street credibility.
None were present at 22.57 on Wednesday, though, as Martin Thorpe steered the van slowly northwards down the cobblestoned street. He passed fire escapes, sweatshops, padlocked doorways and raised, shuttered entrances until he came to a stop outside two of the latter, both emblazoned with graffiti.
‘Okay, you two,’ he said, putting the vehicle into neutral as he scanned the street ahead. ‘Out you go.’
He turned in his seat and watched Danny exit the rear doors before reaching back in to pull Jenna out. Thorpe had already cuffed both hands behind her back at the car park, but he needn’t have bothered; she was still too doped up to be a problem. But she’d start coming out of it soon, and then she’d quickly wish she were under again.
Neither he nor Danny had used this place much recently, not since his undercover days, when they’d interrogate suspected informers here without fear of the screams reaching the outside world. The Cattrall organization still owned the lease, but these premises had been unused for years now since their operations had been moved out west. He was surprised they hadn’t sublet it, but he figured waste not, want not. There was a wealth of hidden spots in even the busiest of cities, but only if you knew where to look. And Thorpe made it his business to know.
As Danny removed the second padlock securing the brown metal door next to the shutters, Thorpe said, ‘Remember what we agreed. There needs to be enough light so there’s no mistake, and I don’t want you going to work on her until I give the word, okay?’
Danny gave him a nod and a smile, then pulled the door open and shoved Jenna into the darkness before turning to watch him drive away. Thorpe knew it wouldn’t be dark in there for long. He’d checked earlier to make sure the lights on the first floor were still working and stashed Danny’s favourite tools and instruments in plain view, ready for use later.
He smiled to himself as he pulled out his cell and accessed the web page they’d been using to track Jenna’s vehicle. Maybe that was why the two of them worked so well together, their little sexual peccadilloes making them outsiders to the rest of the world. Although he couldn’t help thinking his appetite for the young stuff was probably a little healthier than Danny’s more sadistic tendencies. At least Thorpe’s bed partners woke up in the morning. For the most part, anyway.
Still, each to their own. And it wasn’t as if Jenna ever had a chance of coming out of this alive. Not after she’d seen their faces. Besides, everybody died. The only difference was that the process was going to be a little more painful for her than for most. Okay, a lot more painful. But it would only last a few hours and then it would be over.
He kept an eye on the cell phone screen as he carried on up towards Canal Street. The red dot was still in the same place. Still over the other side of the river at Metroblade, where Bishop had returned earlier to avail himself of one of their choppers.
Oh, well. His hope that Bishop might use her car to get back to the city had been a long shot at best, but he’d leave it on, anyway. There was still an hour to go.
Things might change between now and then.
EIGHTY-FOUR
Bishop turned into East 2nd Street at 23.43 and found the locksmiths’ a minute later. There was little traffic at this time of night, and even fewer pedestrians. He slowed to a crawl as he passed the storefront while searching for a nearby space. The only one was at the end of the block under a No Parking sign. Ignoring the sign, Bishop parked up then jogged the two hundred yards back to the shop.
The brownstone looked thinner in real life. Shutters covered the windows and door he’d seen in the photo. On the left was a second door up some steps. Bishop saw a single, new-looking buzzer and intercom built into the brickwork next to it, which indicated a sole tenant rather than a bunch of separate apartments.
He kept his finger on the button for about ten seconds. When he got no response, he kept at it for half a minute more before a deep male voice erupted from the speaker. ‘I got ears,’ it said. ‘Give me a reason.’
Bishop said, ‘A friend of Randall Brennan’s.’
A short pause. And then, ‘Wait there.’
Bishop counted forty-nine seconds before he heard the sound of bolts being pulled back from the other side. The door finally opened inwards to reveal a thick-shouldered, dark-skinned man. Bishop guessed early fifties. He was about two inches taller than Bishop and wore flip-flops and a black Oriental-style kimono that couldn’t completely hide his paunch. There was a small amount of grey showing in the close-cropped beard and at the temples, but his face still looked young. His right arm remained behind his back, out of view.
‘What was that again?’ he asked.
‘Randall Brennan,’ Bishop said.
‘I got that part. I didn’t get your connection to him.’
The man tried to look and sound casual, but Bishop instantly knew the guy was ex-military. The erect bearing, the obvious gun behind his back, the way his eyes checked the surrounding area and the occasional vehicle passing by. Probably Corps if he’d known Brennan. And then the significance of the second number hit Bishop like a bullet. ‘3975642,’ he said.
‘That supposed to mean something to me?’
‘A soldier never forgets the serial number of his first rifle,’ Bishop said, and pulled the key from his pocket and held it up. ‘Mine was 6758296. Yours is written on this along with your name and address. You’re Price?’
The man scrunched his eyebrows together. ‘I know you?’
‘I doubt it,’ Bishop said. ‘You planning on shooting me or inviting me in?’
The man studied Bishop for a few moments. Then he smiled and pressed himself against the wall with his right hand in plain sight. It was holding a .45 semi-automatic, pointed at the floor. ‘Just follow the light,’ he said.
Bishop walked past him and heard the door close behind him. The passage was lit by a single bulb. More light came from a small reception room at the end. When he got there, he saw a single window overlooking a small yard. He turned and watched Price approach with his hand and gun now in his dressing gown pocket. Directly at Bishop’s left was a closed door that he guessed provided access to the shop. There was a stairway to the right of the hallway, which Bishop assumed led to the living quarters above. Neat stacks of magazines, newspapers and junk mail filled the reception room floor and five large potted plants were lined up against the right-hand wall, like a parade at attention. Attached to the same wall was a red and black payphone that looked older than Bishop, with its receiver hanging off a hook at the side.
‘I know where I’ve seen you now,’ Price said, head tilted slightly as he studied Bishop. ‘You don’t look like a psycho.’
‘You’re not the first person to notice,’ Bishop said. He knew soldiers and cops were trained to observe more, but he was still impressed by how quickly Price had placed him. ‘Although that might change before daybreak.’
Price nodded. ‘Payback’s something I understand. If it’s warranted. What was your unit and rank?’
‘Initially, 1st Battalion 3rd Marines, Bravo Company out of Hawaii. Later, C Platoon at 2nd FAST Company, based out of Yorktown. Sergeant.’
‘Yeah, I heard of them from buddies still in. Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team. Deter, detect, defend, right?’
‘That was one slogan we used, sure.’ Bishop frowned and said, ‘You knew Brennan well enough t
o care what happened to him, and now you know who I am. How come you’re not pointing that .45 in my direction?’
Price shrugged. ‘Someone with your history couldn’t have killed the colonel. Or his daughter. You and I know that, even if the judge didn’t.’
‘Thanks. I could have used you on the jury.’
‘You’re welcome. So I’m assuming you’re closing in on the real killer?’
‘I was, until he snatched a friend of mine as insurance.’ Bishop looked down at the key in his hand. ‘But I’m hoping this can provide me with something to help get her back. Thing is, I don’t have much time left.’
‘Then I guess you better follow me,’ Price said. From the same pocket that contained the gun he took a large set of keys and used one to unlock the door at Bishop’s left. He opened it, reached in to switch on the lights and stepped through.
Bishop did the same and found himself halfway down the first of two long aisles that stretched to the rear of the shop. The place was as well stocked as the photo had indicated. Turning left, he followed Price and passed by examples of every kind of safe, door viewer, buzzer, intercom, door holder, chain guard, mail box, pivot, alarm, cylinder, padlock, deadbolt, key type or door closer he could imagine.
‘I own this whole building outright, you know,’ Price said, his flip-flops making a clapping sound as he walked in front. ‘Thanks to him.’
‘Brennan, you mean?’ Bishop checked his watch. 23.48. Wouldn’t be long now before he got a call from Thorpe. Probably a text message from Aleron, as well.
‘Right. About five years ago I was struggling for reasons I won’t bore you with. The usual country song shit. Couldn’t keep up repayments and got served with repossession papers. Then all of a sudden, my whole mortgage gets paid off in one swoop.’ Price stopped outside another door at the rear of the premises and searched through his key chain. ‘That ended the drinking for me, at least. Turns out the colonel had been keeping tabs on his old sergeant since the war and stepped in to save the day.’
