Triple Threat

by Jan Coffey

  “Suit yourself,” she said, her voice sounding a little hoarse. “Vic bought the whole package. A good first step. We’ll let it go at that for now.”

  She walked away, not feeling too good about the fluttering sensation in her stomach or about the way he seemed to dominate the space in her apartment. Of course, it was a small apartment, she told herself.

  “Good. Why don’t you change into something more comfortable before we go?”

  “Go where?” She lifted the strap of her purse from her shoulder, dropping the bag on the love seat. “I am not your personal tour guide. You weren’t serious about me showing you around Philadelphia, were you?”

  “Thanks for the offer, but some other time.” He glanced at his watch. “How long does it take to get to the northeast section of the city?”

  “Depends on the address. Why?”

  “Your father gave me a name this morning. He said he already called this guy, who is interested in hearing the details of what we’re looking for.”

  Ellie was mildly irked that Lou had made no mention of it to her. “What’s his name?”

  “Theo Atwood.”

  Ellie couldn’t put a face to the name. “Do you have an address?”

  He took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. She recognized Lou’s handwriting. “Depending on the traffic, it could take us twenty minutes or two hours to get there. When exactly is he expecting us?”

  “Apparently, he does some tailoring at a little tuxedo shop he owns. That’s the address. Lou said it’d be best if we showed up about four.”

  All of this fit. Many of Lou’s friends who were in the business also worked part-time as sign painters and in framing stores and even as college art teachers. This gave them a respectable front, even though their true vocations as forgers, fences and middlemen paid much better.

  Ellie looked up at the clock on the wall. “If we leave now, we’ll be early, but we’ll at least be ahead of the rush-hour traffic.”

  He walked in and sprawled on her love seat. “You should still change before we go.”

  She looked down at her casual but stylish outfit. “You’re the third person who has told me that in the past five minutes. What’s wrong with what I have on?”

  “Nothing.” His gaze wandered appreciatively over her. “You have very nice legs. In fact, that little slit on the side of your skirt is a real tease. I’ll just have to make sure I sit across from you where I can get the best view. And I really like the shirt, too. Especially the way it molds to your breasts. Did you know that whenever you turn, the buttons pull, and I get this peek of—?”

  “Don’t touch anything,” Ellie croaked. “I’ll be right back.”

  Thirteen

  Ellie took a step back from the motorcycle standing in the narrow alleyway next to her building. “You don’t really expect me to ride on this thing, do you?”

  “Don’t embarrass me, Ellie,” Vic cut in before Nate could answer. “This is not a thing. This is a limited edition Hundredth Anniversary Ultra Classic Electra Glide Harley-Davidson.”

  “Oh. How could I not have known?”

  “I’d give my left nut to take this bike out for a ride.”

  Ellie raised an eyebrow. “Well, that would still leave you two, wouldn’t it?”

  “You don’t have to mutilate yourself, chief.” Nate laughed. “Why don’t you take it out when we get back?”

  “That’s a deal.” Victor beamed from ear to ear.

  “Here, I even brought a helmet for you.” Nate trapped Ellie against the fence and removed her sunglasses, lowering the shiny black helmet onto her head instead. She put up a struggle for a second when he tried to take her purse, but eventually gave up. He tucked it into a rear saddlebag compartment.

  She’d changed into a shapeless linen blouse, loose, ankle-length pants and a pair of sandals. “You look real cute like this, though you should have worn better shoes.”

  “I hate cute.” Her eyes were shooting darts of fire.

  “Sorry. You look beautiful like this.” Nate took her by the helmet and kissed her directly on her lips. She tasted even better than he’d imagined. He quickly lowered the visor before she could spit in his face. “Climb on, babe.”

  Vic opened the small gate for them. Nate grunted under his breath when Ellie climbed on and poked him sharply under the ribs. He rolled the bike onto the street and then fired it up. With a nod at Vic, he revved the engine and they roared down Pine Street. At the first red light, she pushed the visor up.

  “You found out about Victor’s weakness for Harleys, didn’t you, you dirty cheat. That’s how you fooled him.”

  He half turned to her. “Wanting to have sex with anything that walks is a weakness. Drinking soda in the morning is a weakness. Talking baby-talk to puppies might even be a weakness. But the feel of this much motorcycle between your legs is a religious experience.”

  Ellie leaned close to his ear. “You can be pretty darn scary.”

  Nate didn’t know what it was about her that brought out the daredevil in him. He raced through the next two lights. The layout of the city was fairly familiar to him, and while she’d been changing, he’d looked up the address they were going to on the map.

  Instead of shooting up through town, he went out Kelly Drive. The smooth, winding road, with the Schuylkill River on one side and the branches of trees intertwined overhead, gave him ample opportunity to test the power and handling of the bike. As he sped along the road, her light grip changed to a firm hold around his waist. Then, cutting away from the river, they flew up through Fairmount Park. When he didn’t slow down for some speed bumps, her little screams made him smile. After that, it was a blur of city streets…and a few sidewalks…until they reached the Northeast section. When he pulled into a parking space across the street from the tuxedo shop, her grip was slow to loosen.

  “You’re a maniac. And a jerk. And I’m taking a cab home.”

  Nate swung his leg over and climbed off the bike. Stifling a grin, he tried to help her with the helmet. She waved him away as if he were an annoying insect and started removing it by herself.

  “Coming here should have been a straight shot up Broad Street, but you had to take the scenic route around the city and show off all your adolescent tricks.”

  When she yanked the helmet off, her face was flushed, and her dark hair was sticking straight out in all directions. He reached up to smooth it, but she batted his hand away again.

  “Let me help. You look like a porcupine.”

  “Thanks to you. And you, by the way, look like something off the cover of some cheesy biker magazine.”

  “Seriously,” he said. “Let me just smooth it down a little.”

  She let him, and Nate was shocked by the softness of the short tresses. They molded like fine silk around his fingers.

  “Much better.” He pulled back, trying to ignore the image of how her head would look on his pillow. Ellie took out her purse and lifted Nate’s hand to glance at his watch. “We’re still a half hour early.”

  Nate looked across the wide street, past a line of parked cars, at the row of run-down shops. Retractable steel doors covered with graffiti hid several of the storefronts. An older man walking a scrawny dog passed by the tuxedo shop, which was sandwiched between an ancient-looking pizza parlor and a mom-and-pop convenience store that had Checks Cashed banners running across the top of dirty plate-glass windows. There was very little traffic on the street, though there were a number of kids and adults on a patch of grass a half block away. As he watched a skateboarder hop the sidewalk, it occurred to him that the crowds of people gathering in Center City for the July 4 celebration would not be seeing this part of town.

  Nate looked back at the tuxedo shop. A dark green awning shaded a nonexistent window display. The tinted glass on the door hid whoever was inside.

  “By the way, which hat should I be wearing when we walk in there?”

  “Your first name is enough. We’re
a referral. Other than how much you’re willing to pay, and how we go about exchanging cash for the flag, he won’t need to know anything else.”

  “I got Wilcox to agree to overnight us some specifics about the material and the weave and wear of the Schuyler flag. He’s sending copies of recent pictures taken of it, too. Of course, we’ll only give Atwood that stuff after we make a deal here.”

  “I’m surprised Wilcox agreed to anything. People like Atwood are a thorn in historians’ sides.”

  “Never mind thorns. I believe Dr. Wilcox would welcome any degree of pain so long as he can salvage his job after this whole fiasco is over.”

  A couple of teenagers walking by nodded admiringly at the Harley as they passed.

  “Are you sure it’s safe to leave this thing here?”

  “Absolutely.” He touched her arm. “But why don’t you wait here while I go inside and check the place out first.”

  “No way. I’m not letting you mess this thing up. We’re going in together.” Helmet in one hand, she slung her purse over her shoulder. Taking hold of his arm, she pulled him into the street. “By the way, is the bike yours?”

  “No questions, remember?”

  “Come on, Agent.”

  As a small delivery truck with restaurant supplies for the pizza shop pulled up and double-parked in front of the tuxedo shop, Nate saw the black Suburban with smoked glass in his peripheral vision. The SUV came out of nowhere but was bearing down on them with increasing speed.

  Grabbing Ellie around the waist, Nate yanked her back out of the vehicle’s path as the Suburban blew by. He fell backward over the hood of a parked car, and she came with him.

  Fury ripped through him. Before he could get to his feet, though, Nate felt the blast rock the street. Rolling with her on the pavement as shards of glass and rubble rained down on them, he pulled Ellie beneath him just as a second explosion tore through the air.

  Chris crouched by an open window in the convent’s sitting room, watching a group of kids outside argue and curse as they picked their teams for a baseball game. He’d watched this same group open the fire hydrant across the street earlier and run barefoot under the spray of water for more than an hour before a city worker showed up and shut it off.

  Most of them seemed older than him. All of them had foul mouths that would put Chris’s mom to shame. He imagined himself growing up here. It would be good not to be a freak. It was comforting to look around and see that these kids had holes in their shirts and shorts and wore raggedy old baseball caps, and a couple of them had duct tape on their sneakers. They even played baseball with what looked like a piece of a broomstick and cheap rubber ball. Nobody cried and ran home when they got pushed from behind or somebody slapped them in an argument. It occurred to him that maybe they didn’t have homes or parents to run to. They all seemed to be having a good time, even if they were constantly yelling and teasing and squabbling.

  Chris wondered how long they would let him stay here. He’d been smart in answering the questions. He knew the less he said the better, so he’d said nothing about funny gadgets or about what anybody looked liked or about the name he’d heard. They had no reason to take him back to ask more questions.

  Allison was the only person he was sorry to leave behind, but she had her family and friends and a nice house in town. And it would’ve only been a matter of time before she started listening to everyone else. It wouldn’t be long before she realized that she was hanging around with a loser.

  The loud cheering of the kids outside drew Chris’s attention. Somebody they knew and obviously liked was coming up the street. Chris leaned out the open window. Peeking around the corner of the brick wall, he saw a couple of the younger boys hanging from the neck of some guy in a T-shirt, jeans and baseball cap, just getting out of a station wagon. The arguing between the two boys who were picking the teams got louder. From what he could hear, they both wanted the man on their team.

  “Can you see okay from there?”

  Chris jumped, bumping his head on the window in his hurry to pull back in.

  “Yes, I’m sorry.” He rubbed his head.

  “Nothing to be sorry about, Christopher.”

  It was clear Sister Helen was the one in charge around here. Everybody minded what she said—and that included Mr. Lou, the handyman, and even Miss Ellie’s friend, Agent Murtaugh. The nun was nice to him, though. Last night, she’d come in to check on him a couple of times during the night, and this morning he found a new box of Lucky Charms on the breakfast table in the kitchen. She said she always wanted to try them, but she didn’t eat much when the two of them sat down together.

  “You can go out and play with them if you want.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  She had a bundle of mail under one arm, and she sat down on the wing chair near the fan. “Never mind me, go on and watch the game.”

  He hesitantly sat down on the corner of a chair by the window and looked out again. They were done picking the teams, and they were using one boy’s shirt and some rusty hubcaps for bases. The guy in the baseball cap was pitching, and he was as loud as the kids, busting on the batter, a tall teenager who must have just showed up, too. There was a foul ball off the Dumpster across the street, and two of the younger kids ran over to the pitcher to give him a high five and run back.

  “Is he one of the dads?”

  Chris heard Sister Helen move behind him. “No, Ted is just a good friend.”

  “Does he live around here?”

  “No.” She pulled a chair up and sat down by the window, too, watching the game. “Ted comes around two or three days a week, sometimes more. He likes playing baseball or basketball with the kids in the neighborhood. He’s the best thing that has happened to some of these children.”

  The pitcher threw the ball to first and had the first baseman throw it back.

  “Too many of these kids never had a good father figure until Ted started coming around. Do you know what a father figure is, Chris?”

  Chris nodded. He was pretty sure he knew. He had a father. He didn’t need his fingers, though, to count the number of times his dad tried to do something fun with him. It was zero. He looked from the older woman’s thoughtful face to the ongoing game on the street. The teenager hit a grounder; the shortstop caught it and threw to first in time.

  “Have you ever been to a baseball game, Chris?”

  “You mean like the Yankees?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ve seen it on TV.”

  “Ted—” she motioned to the pitcher “—is taking the kids to the Philadelphia Phillies game this Friday night. I know he’d be thrilled to have one more customer.”

  Chris tucked his hands between his knees and looked out. “I don’t have no money…and I know it’s wrong to want something that expensive.”

  She smiled. “None of us has to pay to go. A few years ago, Ted arranged it with the Phillies. They invite the inner-city kids to come and watch the game.”

  “For free?”

  She nodded. “In fact, I can take you out right now and introduce you to him and some of the kids. That way you’ll know some of their names by the time Friday comes around.”

  Chris felt a tingle of excitement, but he was afraid to show it. What happened if this Ted guy had no extra tickets? What if those men in suits came from New York and took him?

  “So what do you say?” The nun was already on her feet and had her hand stretched toward him. Chris hesitantly reached up and took it.

  “What should I call him?” he asked on the way out of the house.

  “These hooligans call him Ted, but since you’re such a polite young man, you can start with Mr. Hardy.”

  People were screaming and running in every direction. In minutes, a roaring fire had swept through the block of stores from the point where the initial explosion had happened. The sound of sirens filled the streets, growing louder by the second.

  Ellie’s gaze was riveted on Nate’s bloody back a
s he ran down the block, dragging her behind him. At the first intersection, he shoved his badge in the face of a cabdriver who had slowed down. Vaguely, she could hear Nate shouting the address of her shop at the driver.

  The back door of the cab opened, and Ellie felt herself slung inside.

  “You’re hurt,” she cried, holding on to him.

  “I’m fine,” he said, handing Ellie her purse. “I’ll call you later.”

  The door slammed in her face, and the cab sped away. Ellie turned around and looked through the back window at Nate, who was running back down the block toward the fire. The images she’d seen of New York since September 11, 2001, rushed back. But two blocks away, people were walking on the streets and—with the exception of police cars, ambulances and fire trucks racing toward the scene of the explosion—there was no indication that anyone was even aware of the chaos she’d just left.

  The cabdriver was talking excitedly to his dispatcher, then turned on his radio. The local all-news station came up, but there was nothing about the explosion yet.

  He turned down the radio when they went to a commercial and glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “They got us all peeing in our pants whenever a car backfires these days. Yous was right there when it happened, huh, lady?”

  Ellie could only nod. The feeling of the ground dropping from under her while objects flew in every direction wouldn’t leave her. Nate had shielded her body with his—he could be bleeding to death now for trying to save her life. She batted at a tear that escaped. They’d probably both be dead if it weren’t for that delivery truck…and that black SUV that almost ran them down.

  “Didja see any airplanes or anything crash?”

  She shook her head and looked out the window. The streets were backing up with traffic. Impatient drivers honked their horns, unaware that anything had happened.

  “Maybe it was a gas line. Or something in a restaurant,” the driver suggested. “So your husband’s an FBI guy, huh?”