“I’m going to go find Manny. Do you think you can handle it here until I get back?”
“Sometime soon you’ve gotta come and see where I work,” Jillian said.
Nick waited until Jillian was settled at the bar before making his way over to the men’s room. When he glanced back, a heavyset man in a light blue suit was sitting down next to Jillian and starting his rap. Jillian waved to Nick, assuring him with her eyes that she had the situation well in hand.
It wasn’t until Nick had pushed against the swashbuckling cavalier on the restroom door and called out Manny’s name that he realized Jillian had the prints they had made.
“Manny?” he called out again. The orange marble countertop was dry and the toiletries were still in neat rows on top. Leaning over, Nick scanned underneath the stall doors, but they were all empty.
On his way over to the box office to check and see if Manny was even scheduled to work that night, Nick spied Jillian seated at the black lacquered bar, flanked by three leering men, each ignoring the girls on the poles as he vied for her attention. As if sensing Nick was watching her, Jillian turned and waved across the club.
Not to worry, her playful look said.
Stepping into the dim, carpeted foyer of the stairwell landing, Nick peered into the box office window, but the room was empty.
“Hello,” Nick called out. “Is anybody there?”
Then he felt a strong grip on his shoulder. Nick turned.
“Hey, buddy,” a surly voice growled, “remember me?”
It was the same bald heavyweight who just yesterday had pressed him against the club wall like an ink stamp while Manny Ferris made his escape.
“How could I forget,” Nick replied, more calmly than he was feeling. “Isn’t your name Dick?”
The bouncer’s massive hands grabbed Nick’s shoulders, then spun him around and began shoving him up the stairway.
“When I toss someone out of here, it’s permanent. Didn’t I make that clear?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak gorilla. Must not have understood you,” Nick said, struggling futilely to hold his position.
“Well, maybe you’ll understand this.”
With a hard push, he launched Nick into the club’s blackened glass front door. Nick crashed into the frame shoulder first, knocking the heavy hinged door open as if it were part of a doll’s house, and cracking the glass. With his arms and legs flailing, he spilled out onto the sidewalk, rolling into a somersault as he fell, and continuing to roll until he was off the curb and onto one knee. Then, hoping he didn’t show the pain he was feeling in half a dozen places, he forced himself to his feet.
The bouncer, hands on hips, stood glaring at him.
“Look,” Nick said, “my friend is still inside. At least let me go down and get her.”
“Sorry,” the bouncer answered with a toothy smile. “But I don’t speak asshole.”
JILLIAN CHECKED her watch and frowned. Nick had left to find Manny Ferris nearly twenty minutes ago. Now she was starting to worry. To make matters worse, the gentlemen crowding her end of the bar were getting restless.
Where is he?
With no small effort, she managed to handle the quartet of admirers strutting about her bar stool like peacocks. When they weren’t inspecting, they were preening. When they weren’t preening, they were jockeying for position. Of course, she acknowledged, this was a men’s club—their men’s club. She could deal with matters so long as she didn’t run out of small talk and synonyms for no.
One of the men, with sloppy-drunk eyes and a sagging face that could have passed for a Rorschach inkblot test, was becoming a problem.
“So, baby mama, are we going to dance or not?” he slurred.
“I’m sorry, but I’m a customer, not an employee,” she answered him, stone-faced.
He turned with a huff and Jillian smiled to herself. Again, she checked her watch. Nick seemed resourceful, but that did not stop her from worrying. Years in nursing had turned concern into a sort of sixth sense that was impossible for her to shut off. Even so, she knew her feelings for Nick were shaped by more than a professional instinct for his well-being. There was an attraction to him she simply could not deny.
“I’ll pay you double whatever he offered,” a man was proposing, leaning close enough to give Jillian a lungful of Old Spice.
Jillian was readying to rebuke the advance when a tall man, dressed in a black turtleneck and a tailored Brooks Brothers jacket, stepped between them.
“Hey, what gives?” Old Spice snapped. “The lady said she wanted to hang with me, so back off.”
“I said no such thing,” Jillian shot back.
The two men glared at each other and Jillian would not have been surprised if they started to growl. The tall man, who had thinning black hair, an aquiline nose, and confident dark eyes, reached inside his blazer, pulled out a toothpick, and slipped it into the corner of his mouth. His narrow face was pocked by acne scars that were ill concealed by his rough five o’clock shadow. The diamond studs pinned on each ear had to be two carats at least.
“Hey, friend,” the newcomer said, “why don’t you take a hundred Pearl Bucks and go hang with a lady that wants your company.”
With his Jersey accent he could have easily passed for one of Tony Soprano’s henchmen. He pulled out a roll of fake bills.
“You think you can buy me off with toy money because you’re big into jewelry?”
“No. I think I can buy you off because I own this place.”
Jillian watched with amusement as Billy Pearl padded the Spice man’s sweaty hand with a wad of colorful Pearl Bucks.
“Sorry about that,” Pearl said, turning to Jillian. “We love it when women stop by at the club—especially beautiful women.”
“Thank you,” Jillian said, feeling no threat from the man.
“Our patrons come here and pay a good deal of money to behave like sharks. Sometimes innocent guppies become part of their feeding frenzy. You have my apology.”
“No need, but accepted. I’m a very fast swimmer.”
“Have you been here before, Miss—?”
“Jillian.”
“Miss Jillian. Buy you a drink?”
“Thanks, but you’d better have a lot of Pearl Bucks on you to do that.”
“I appreciate the feedback. I’ll make sure to tell the boss. I know this sounds like a line, but what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?”
Jillian laughed. She liked Pearl.
“Actually, I’m here with a friend, whom I can’t seem to find at the moment. We came in to talk to one of your employees, Manny Ferris. Do you know him?”
Pearl’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. She was being assessed by him, but for what and why, she did not know.
“Know him? Yeah, I know him,” Pearl said finally. “Manny’s my cousin. What do you want with him?”
“He’s not in any trouble, Billy, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Maybe your business with Manny isn’t any of my concern, but seeing as he’s family, and he’s, well, not all there, if you know what I mean, I kinda need to make it my concern.”
“I’m a nurse on the psych unit at Shelby Stone. I need his help, is all. We think Manny may have information about a man we’re trying to find.”
“I promise you, Manny Ferris doesn’t have information about anything, at least not information he can get in touch with.”
“What does that mean?”
Billy studied her for a time, as if deciding if she should be trusted.
“You’re a nurse,” Billy said. “Maybe you can help.”
“Help with what?”
“What do you know about brainwashing?”
“We studied it in a psych course,” Jillian said. “The modern version goes back to the fifties. It involves breaking down a person’s sense of self so they can build a new one.”
“Manny was a sharp kid, even when he came back stressed out from war
and was drinking all the time. Then he disappeared for a while and one day he showed up here. He looked as if someone had cut up his face and he seemed to me as if he had been brainwashed.”
“How sad. What makes you think he was brainwashed?”
“It was like the old Manny was gone, but replaced with nothing. He couldn’t tell me where he was, or what he had been doing. Only that he needed a place to stay and something to eat. Drugs? Pain? I don’t know who did it or how, but somebody wrecked his mind.”
“My friend went to find him in the men’s room. I don’t think he found him there.”
Pearl laughed.
“Manny doesn’t have much range. If he isn’t in the bathroom, then he’s in the basement storeroom sleeping on the job. When you can’t rely on your bathroom guy, you’re really in trouble.”
“He sleeps in the basement?”
“It’s not as bad as you’d think. In my more colorful youth, I used to store other stuff besides toilet paper and cups down there. The space had to be comfortable and roomy enough to work in, but also well concealed, if you get my drift.”
“Can I see him?” Jillian asked.
Pearl considered the request.
“Well,” he said finally, “if you don’t mind following me into the men’s room, I’d be happy to give you a tour.”
“What about my friend Nick? I’m getting a little worried. He hasn’t come back.”
“I’ll check with the guys out front and find out where he is. I’m sure that if he’s not in the washroom with Manny, then they’re downstairs. Come on, I get a kick out of showing off the room anyway.”
Billy Pearl knocked on the men’s room door, waited less time than Jillian would have liked, then escorted her inside and made a quick assessment of the situation.
“Okay, so Manny’s not here. That means he’s downstairs. Here’s the deal; I’ll give you two hundred Pearl Bucks if you can find the secret door.”
“Pearl Bucks. Tell me the truth, Billy, did you plan on naming your money after the writer, or was it a coincidence?”
“Next to the location of the mystery door, that’s my biggest secret. But I will tell you that my eighty-nine-year-old mom still has my diploma from James Madison High up on her wall.”
“Got it. But what would I do with two hundred Pearl Bucks anyway?”
“Okay, make it three hundred.”
Jillian groaned, then began to walk the elegant black-and-white bathroom perimeter, observing that it was hospital clean and blessedly odorless. As for finding a door to some secret chamber, she knew at the outset that she had no chance. Pearl watched with keen interest as she continued to look in all the wrong places. He kept his arms folded tight across his chest and his face etched in a know-it-all grin.
“I give up,” Jillian conceded quickly. “I’ll have to pass on the Pearl Bucks.”
Beaming at his own ingenuity, Pearl marched over to the row of bathroom sinks and wrapped his hand around one of the opaque plastic soap containers.
“Showtime,” he announced.
Turning the container clockwise a full 180 degrees, Pearl pulled the stainless steel mount out three inches from the sink backsplash. A spring-held door next to Pearl, camouflaged to look like part of the black-tiled wall, popped open without making a sound. Jillian, who was standing only a few feet away, stepped back in surprise.
“That’s amazing,” she said.
“We used to have some pretty serious business going on down there.”
Pearl eased open the hinged doorway with his fingertips, then flicked on a light switch on the upper wall of the stairwell. Jillian followed him down a short flight of well-built wooden stairs that descended into a dimly lit antechamber with a cement floor. Proceeding cautiously, she had to duck low to avoid colliding with the exposed lightbulb dangling by a dust-covered cord. Through a small alcove she emerged into a much larger storage room. Boxes of paper goods and other bar supplies were neatly stacked on plastic shelving units that lined the jagged stone walls. Abutting the only wall without shelving, Manny Ferris lay sleeping on a thin mattress resting atop a rusted metal bed frame. Jillian was grateful she had been prepared for his disfigurement.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Pearl said with surprising gentleness, “customers are wondering where you at. Did you forget to set an alarm?”
Manny jumped up, rubbing his eyes, mumbling something Jillian could not understand.
“Did you hear it?” Pearl asked. “Did you hear him speak Arabic?”
“What?” Jillian said.
“Arabic. He can barely put two words of English together, but every now and then the poor bastard blurts out sentences in Arabic.”
“How do you know?”
“We have a lot of Arab clients. One day, one of them heard him. Said he didn’t have much of an accent either.”
“Amazing,” Jillian said.
“That’s one of the reasons I think he was brainwashed. Maybe the Arabs did something to him when he was over in Iraq, fighting. Who knows?”
Manny’s eyes were glazed from sleep, but Jillian suspected they would not become more lucent even after he’d been awake for hours. Nick was right, vacant was the best description for Manny Ferris.
Nick.
“I’ll go find out about your friend,” Pearl said, reading her thoughts. “You stay here with my cousin. Don’t worry, you’re safe.”
Pearl hurried up the stairs before she could respond.
“Hello, Manny,” Jillian said, keeping her voice intentionally calm and nonthreatening. “I’ve been looking for you. I wanted to talk to you about some pictures that I took.”
Manny gazed at her blankly.
“Got to get to work,” he mumbled.
“Of course,” Jillian said, walking over to him, “but before you do, I have some pictures I want to show you. They’re of the Lincoln Memorial. Do you know that building?”
She could see the color begin to drain from his face. He took several cautious steps backward, pinning himself into a corner.
“No . . . yes . . . no.”
“Don’t worry, Manny. Nobody is going to hurt you. I just want help knowing why you don’t like that building. Can I show you some pictures? They won’t hurt you. I promise.”
“No! Don’t want to help.” Manny’s voice was hoarse and strained.
Slowly, Jillian reached out and took his hand. He made no attempt to pull away. After a minute his tension began to abate.
“Come,” she said. “Sit down here next to me.”
A few more seconds and the frightened Marine did as Jillian asked and stared at the photos she had printed earlier that day at the Lincoln Memorial.
“Is there anything about what is in these pictures that upsets you? Think, Manny, it’s important.”
Nothing.
Jillian began to lose hope, but when she arrived at the pictures taken from the rear of the memorial, Manny’s tension returned and he began to shake. She showed him the final shots of the day, taken from the bike path across the Potomac. Manny looked at the first picture and began to sob.
“Please . . . no more . . .”
Jillian felt her pulse quicken as she studied the man.
“It’s this shot, isn’t it, Manny? This one from across the river. This is a view you remember. Did something happen to you out there?”
“Please . . .”
“Tell me, Manny,” she implored, “What was it? What happened to you there?”
Manny Ferris could not or would not answer. Then the connection between them was broken by footsteps descending the wooden staircase. Billy Pearl appeared, grinning broadly.
“My bouncer, Felix, remembered your friend from the last time he was here and threw him out. He’s across the street. Felix says he was a real troublemaker—a pain in the butt. You sure he’s a doctor?”
Jillian laughed. “He drives around in a huge RV clinic taking care of poor people.”
“Bad Felix. Well, at least that’s one mystery solv
ed. Did you get what you needed from Manny?”
“I’m not sure,” Jillian replied. “But I think I know where to start looking. Let me check my hospital and see if there are any doctors who might be able to help Manny.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate it. Come back anytime. I’ll have Felix bring your friend back in. Drinks are on me.”
“Thanks,” Jillian said, “but I think he’d be just as happy with a few hundred Pearl Bucks.”
CHAPTER 22
Phillip MacCandliss hated the zoo. It wasn’t the notion of captive wild animals he hated, it was the specific place itself—the National Zoo off Connecticut Avenue. He hated the commotion and the bratty children. He hated walking on an unending bed of peanut shells, and the overpriced crap food and cheap souvenirs. But mostly he hated the smell—the odiferous stench of beasts, pissing on straw beds, buzzing with flies. Something about the rank smell reminded him of the majority of the vets who relentlessly harassed his office begging for handouts.
He assumed that his intense distaste for the place went back to the trips he had taken there with Denise and the girls before she had left and poisoned them against him. But it really didn’t matter. He hated the place and that was that.
Why his CIA contact had picked the zoo as his meeting point he had no idea. An unfortunate coincidence was his best guess, but by no means his only one. They had ways of knowing things—everything. It was what they did.
Apart from receiving a mysterious iPod, delivered to him via interoffice mail the day after taking the assignment, this meeting was the most spylike thing he’d done. The device came with a single preloaded song, titled simply “Play Me.” By listening to that track, MacCandliss learned how to use the iPod as a two-way radio, as well as how to arrange a rendezvous with his contact in the event of trouble. The song vanished from the iPod after one listen. It was very Mission Impossible, and MacCandliss loved being a part of it all, even if only a peripheral part. Now, though, there was legitimate trouble.
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