What are you trading?
That was always the question. Mays took his time to formulate the right response. In a world where mere possession of illegal files meant prison time, only undercover cops posing as traders answered quickly. Sixty seconds passed. Long enough.
FMLTWIA, he typed, waiting another sixty seconds before adding the all-important number, the girl’s age: 16.
Then he drew a long drag on his cigarette, and he waited for Mustang’s reply.
Chapter Forty-nine
Jack did all the right things to avoid jet lag. His wristwatch was set to London time before boarding. Plenty of water, no alcohol on the flight. He even managed to sleep a few winks before landing. Still, as they settled into their hotel room, he was having a hard time accepting that it was lunchtime Tuesday.
“You have to force yourself to stay awake until bedtime,” said Vince. “Napping is the worst thing you can do on day one.”
Jack was curious: When it came to international travel, was it an advantage to be blind—no disorienting change from night and day? But he didn’t know Vince well enough to ask the kind of questions that sighted people were always embarrassed to ask.
Chuck Mays had put them up at the Tower, a business hotel and convention center north of the Thames and a couple miles south of Somaal Town. They had a junior suite on the eleventh floor with two double beds. The feather pillows looked tempting, but Jack resisted. He went to the window and opened the blinds.
“Wow, check out the view.”
It was his first gaffe, but Andie’s words of worry popped into his head: Vince is blind, and you’re . . . well, you’re Jack. “Sorry,” he said.
Vince just smiled. “No need to apologize. Tell me what you see.”
Their room faced the Tower of London, and Jack tried not to sound like a tour guide as he described the historic buildings and concentric stone walls on the bank of the river, the oldest of which dated back almost a millennium. But he was suddenly philosophical.
“It’s kind of ironic,” said Jack. “This whole nightmare started when Neil asked me to represent a Gitmo detainee. Now I’m on the other side of the ocean trying to find his killer, just a few blocks away from one of the most notorious torture chambers on earth.”
“I seriously hope you’re not comparing Gitmo to the Tower of London. Because if you are, that makes you the blind guy in the room.”
Jack thought about it. “You’re right. No comparison. The weather is much better in Cuba.”
“That was a joke, right?”
Vince was still learning Jack’s intonations, and Jack was still adjusting to a roommate who couldn’t see his smirks and half smiles. “Yes,” said Jack. “That was a joke.”
Jack unpacked in silence—not because of any tension in the air, but because Vince was orienting himself to the floor plan, silently pacing off steps from the bed to the dresser, from the closet to the bathroom, from the desk to the minibar. Jack pretended not to notice when he banged his leg into the bedpost.
“I bet you’re wondering how I’m supposed to find a killer,” Vince said as he rubbed the pain out of his shin.
It was meant as a joke, but Jack picked up a hint of frustration in his voice. He imagined that if Vince were to roll up his pant leg, there would be plenty of black-and-blue badges of persistence.
“We’ll figure it out,” said Jack. “But on the subject of finding people, I am still curious to know how Chuck was able to track Shada back to London.”
“I guess I can tell you now that you’re on board. It was simple, really, once Chuck knew that she was disguising herself as a Muslim woman.”
“What do you mean?”
“You won’t find many women dressed in hijab who travel by themselves. It’s not allowed under Muslim law. Chuck checked the flight manifests to and from Miami, looking for women with Muslim-sounding names who were traveling alone. His supercomputers narrowed things down pretty quickly.”
Vince’s cell phone chimed, and a mechanical voice told him who it was:
“Call from: Chuck . . . Mays.”
“That’s weird,” said Vince.
Jack wondered how much of a coincidence it was, never underestimating Chuck’s technological ability to know that they were talking about him. He continued to unpack as Vince took the call.
At first, Vince did nothing to prevent Jack from overhearing his end of the conversation, but about three minutes into the call he noticeably lowered his voice. Another minute later he went into the bathroom, taking extra care to maneuver around that dreaded bedpost.
What’s the big secret?
Jack was tucking socks and underwear into the dresser drawer when he heard the toilet flush. If Vince was trying to make him think that he had really needed to use the bathroom, Jack wasn’t buying it. Vince’s cell was clipped to his belt, the phone conversation over, when he returned to the room.
“Chuck wants me to meet someone,” Vince said.
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“Cut the bullshit.”
“I know, it’s annoying. But Chuck was up all night in some kind of paranoid mood. I had to flush the toilet to convince him that I was in the bathroom, away from where you could overhear. Even then, he wouldn’t tell me who he wants me to meet.”
Jack was skeptical, but he wanted to believe that Vince was being straight with him. “Who do you think it is?”
“Probably a local private detective.”
“When is the meeting?”
“One o’clock.”
“Where?”
“A pub called the Carpenter’s Arms, up on Cheshire Street. Chuck says it’s about a ten-minute cab ride from here.”
Jack checked his watch. “We’d better leave now.”
“Well, like I said: He wants me to meet someone.”
“You’re saying I can’t go?”
“For whatever reason, Chuck doesn’t want you there. Don’t take it personally.”
Jack blew out a mirthless chuckle. “What did I come all the way from Florida for, the beaches?”
“There will be plenty for you to do. Just let me get this first meeting out of the way, and then I’ll straighten things out with Chuck.”
“Call him back and straighten him out now.”
“Jack, come on. You of all people should understand the kind of hoops you have to jump through when your best friend is also a royal pain in the ass.”
Jack wasn’t totally cool with it, but Vince did have a point. Jack already had a half-dozen text messages from Theo listing all the crap he wanted Jack to buy for him in the duty-free shops.
“All right, you go,” said Jack. “But are you able to get there on your own?”
“My cell has GPS navigation. If you can get me down to the taxi stand, I’m good.”
Jack grabbed his coat and followed Vince out of the room. His walking cane and his memory seemed to be all the assistance Vince needed to find the elevator at the end of the hall. The lobby was bustling with conventioneers at check-in, however, which required some assisted maneuvering. With Vince at his side, Jack gained a whole new take on revolving doors. It was almost like something out of the Tower of London, and Vince seemed to be on the same wavelength.
“Is that the wheel of death I hear at the end of the gauntlet?” asked Vince.
A bellboy steered them toward a handicapped exit. Outside in the covered motor court was more chaos, and Jack led the way through a logjam of cars and buses to the taxi stand. Even with space heaters glowing overhead, the damp air was chilly enough for Jack to see his breath as they waited. Finally, a couple of tourists in front of them stopped arguing about whether or not they could walk to the Tower, and it was Vince’s turn. Jack held the door open as Vince climbed in the backseat and told the driver the destination.
“Do you need me to meet you here on the way back?” asked Jack.
“No, I should be able to find my way upstairs.”
Jack wished him
luck, closed the door, and watched the black taxi pull away. Immediately, a feeling of complete and utter uselessness fell over him. The next cab pulled up, and the porter opened the rear door. Jack stood there. The driver called to him.
“You want a cab or not?”
Jack was about to step aside, but then he caught a glimpse of Vince’s taxi at the stoplight, less than a half block away. He hadn’t flown across an ocean to hang out in the hotel room. The whole exchange upstairs was gnawing at him, particularly the part that Vince had told him not to take personally: “For whatever reason, Chuck doesn’t want you there.”
To hell with Chuck. Jack hopped into the cab and pulled the door shut.
“Where to?” asked the driver.
It suddenly amused Jack that this was his chance to say something Bond-like to a London cabbie—except that it sounded too goofy to actually say it.
“Do you see the taxi that just pulled out ahead of us?” Jack asked. “The one waiting at the red light?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Well . . . just do whatever he does.”
The driver glanced over his shoulder and shot him a curious look. “You want me to follow that cab?”
Jack sighed, resigning himself to it. “Fine, if you must: Follow that cab.”
Chapter Fifty
Vince was halfway to the Carpenter’s Arms pub when his phone chimed. Again it was Chuck Mays.
“Swtyeck is following you.”
“How do you know?” asked Vince.
“I’m watching it right here on my computer screen.”
“You have a GPS tracking chip on Jack?”
“It’s a remote installation through his cell phone. I put one on you, too.”
Vince bit his lip to stem the eruption. “Chuck, you need to stop doing things like that without telling people. It’s a violation of privacy.”
“People need to stop telling themselves that there is such a thing as privacy.”
Spoken like a true data miner, but that was another debate. “Do you want me to go back to the hotel?”
“I don’t know,” said Chuck. “Let me think this through. You didn’t tell Swyeck who you’re meeting with, did you?”
“I lied and said it was probably a detective.”
“Good, then just lose him.”
“What do you expect me to do, roll down the window and throw a box of roofing tacks on the road?”
“Just give the driver an extra twenty pounds to ditch him.”
“That won’t work,” said Vince. “I told Jack the meeting was at Carpenter’s Arms at one o’clock.”
“Damn it! Why’d you do that?”
“Probably because I’m not at all comfortable lying to him. The three of us made a deal. This was supposed to be a team approach.”
“Fuck the team! Just call Swyteck and tell him that the meeting was canceled.”
The cab stopped, and Vince heard the meter register. “Seven pounds,” said the driver.”
Vince checked his wallet for a ten—tens were folded in half, twenties in thirds—and he told him to keep the change.
“Would you mind directing me to the pub’s entrance?” he asked the driver.
Chuck overheard. “Vince, don’t get out of the cab.”
“Sorry, I’m going in.”
“It took a lot of coaxing to arrange this. I promised it would be just you. You can’t go in with Swyteck on your tail. Let me reschedule.”
“I’ve waited long enough for answers.”
“You know how skittish she is. All I did was look at her and she ran from me.”
Vince climbed out of the cab. A cool mist greeted his skin, and he heard the Cockney accents of passing pedestrians—the nuances of northeast London in his perpetual world of darkness.
“I can’t look at her,” he said as he stepped onto the sidewalk, “which is why Shada won’t run from me.”
Chapter Fifty-one
Stop here,” Jack told the driver. They were in Bethnal Green, a half block away from the Carpenter’s Arms.
Like it or not, Jack had received a crash course in East End pub history from a driver who was apparently determined to become his new best friend. Plenty of pubs in the area claimed a connection to Ronald and Reginald Kray, the East End’s kings of organized crime in the 1950s and 1960s. Carpenter’s claim was more real than most. Once upon a time, it was actually owned by the Kray twins and run by their dear old mum. Somehow over the years the tiny old pub had avoided conversion to flats, and it stood in refurbished splendor at the corner of Cheshire and St. Matthew’s Row.
“Try the Greene King IPA or Staropramen ale on draft,” the driver said as Jack climbed out of the cab.
“Will do,” said Jack.
The cab pulled away, leaving Jack alone on the sidewalk. He was standing in front of a vacant shop that had apparently sold shoes of some sort; a tattered old sign in the window read THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, BUT THE PEOPLE WEAR PLIMSOLLS—£5. The narrow and crooked one-way street was made even narrower by a block-long construction site across from the Carpenter’s Arms. Jack peered through the cold mist and saw Vince at the pub’s entrance.
Jack felt a pang of guilt for tailing a blind man, but Vince’s claim that he didn’t know who he was going to meet was a crock, and but for the jet lag, Jack would have called him on it immediately. Factor in the pain he was still feeling over Neil’s death, and maybe Andie had been right about the wisdom of deferring to the police. Chuck Mays was not to be trusted, and even if Vince was reliable under normal circumstances, these were not normal circumstances. Jack was starting to feel used, and it wouldn’t be the first time that someone like Chuck had tried to hire the name Swyteck—the son of a former governor—to legitimize some scheme.
Jack was about two hundred feet away, his anger rising, when he saw Vince reach for the door at the pub entrance. Then Vince stopped. Jack’s cell rang, and he answered.
“Stop following me,” said Vince.
The words hit him like a brick. Jack didn’t know how Vince knew, but it didn’t matter. “If I go back to the hotel, I’m going back to Miami,” said Jack. “Either I’m part of this, or I’m not.”
“Don’t be a jackass. It’s not my decision. Chuck set up the meeting.”
“Chuck is about to be indicted for murder.”
“For the third time: That news story was a plant. Chuck didn’t kill his wife.”
“I’m talking about the murder of the guy who was sleeping with her. Who killed Jamal Wakefield?”
“Jamal was butchered. They cut off his foot.”
“I’ve seen more grisly murders for hire.”
“Now you’re talking crazy.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. But let’s have this conversation later. You have no idea what you’re screwing up.”
“Who is your meeting with?”
“I’m not meeting with anyone if you don’t get out of here.”
Jack picked up the pace, now almost close enough to read the chalkboard in the window. “Are you meeting with Shada Mays?”
“I told you: Chuck set it up.”
“That’s the point. I’m not going to lend my name and reputation to secret meetings that I’m not a part of.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jack was acting on a gut feeling that wasn’t his own, but he trusted Andie and Theo, and the fact that they were of the same mind about Shada’s infidelity was enough for him.
“Don’t be a fool, Vince. Don’t let Chuck use you.”
“Use me to do what?”
“To strong-arm Shada Mays into helping Chuck get away with the murder of Jamal Wakefield.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” said Jack. “Are you or are you not meeting with—”
Jack stopped cold, nearly flattening a woman who had rounded the corner from the opposite direction. She, too, was frozen in her tracks—and their eyes locked.
“Jack, please,” Vince said over t
he phone, but Jack wasn’t listening. Images flashed in his mind—photographs he’d seen of Shada Mays before her disappearance. And he knew.
“Shada?” he said.
She didn’t answer, and before Jack could say another word—before he could even react—she turned and ran.
“Shada, wait!”
Jack sprinted after her, trying his best to keep up. Two minutes into the chase, Jack was digging for a gear he didn’t have. She was pulling away, a blur of buildings flying by as the distance expanded between them.
“Shada!” he called out.
She never looked back, never broke stride. Jack hadn’t logged a five-minute mile since high school, and Shada was bettering that pace on a wet sidewalk. He pulled up at a zebra crossing, exhausted and fighting to catch his breath. The mist was turning to rain. Hunched over, hands on his knees, Jack looked up and watched Shada disappear into the old neighborhood. He wasn’t surprised in the least that a woman on the run could run like the wind.
Jack was still catching his breath when a taxi pulled up at the curb. The rear window rolled down, and he spotted Vince in the backseat.
“Get in,” Vince said.
Jack turned and walked the other way. The cab came up slowly beside him, matching Jack’s walking pace. Vince spoke through the open window.
“I made a mistake,” said Vince.
Jack didn’t answer. The cab pulled ahead with a quick burst of speed, and then it stopped at the corner. Vince got out, and the cab pulled away. He waited for Jack, who had no intention of stopping. In fact, Jack already had his smart phone in hand, searching the Web for return flights to Miami.
“I’m sorry,” said Vince.
Jack stopped. It wasn’t every day that a criminal defense lawyer got a heartfelt apology from a cop, and Jack found himself unable to ignore it. He put his phone away.
“You should have told me you were meeting with Shada Mays.”
“You’re right, I should have,” said Vince.
“It was beyond a mistake. Meeting with Shada Mays was the most important thing that could have possibly come out of this trip. You not only excluded me, but you flat-out lied to my face. There is absolutely no way for me to trust you anymore.”
Afraid of the Dark Page 24
