by Rob Byrnes
“So remember,” Chase continued. “Don’t tell anyone. The safety of our country—maybe the world—depends on your silence.”
“I promise.” The super swallowed. He understood he was about to play an important role in history, one he might be able to share with a grandchild one day if either of his kids ever took the time to procreate. “I promise!”
Chase clasped his shoulder. “That’s fantastic. You’re a good citizen.” Then, leaning into his ear again, he added, “General Abudhabi will be contacting you within the hour. It’s important for you to stand by your phone and wait for the call.”
“But my phone number is unlisted.”
Chase winked. “That’s no obstacle for the leaders of the world’s superpowers, citizen. Now you’d better get to your apartment. And remember: Don’t leave until the general calls.”
“I won’t!” The super saluted and proudly walked off to his basement apartment. Usually he thought of it as dark and depressing and sad, but tonight General Abudhabi would be calling!
When the lobby was empty, Chase opened the door for Grant and Nick.
Grant was wary. “That looked a little too easy. What’s the catch?”
“No catch.” Chase rolled his shoulders, which were still sore from the fall, and tried to work out a few kinks. “I have a gift—the gift of being convincing—and I use it for your benefit.”
“Okay, Rain Man.” Grant pushed the elevator button. “And now we’re gonna finish this job, right?”
The three men bumped fists and got on the elevator.
Enright, quite proud of himself, had June Forteene on speakerphone so Bernadette could hear her voice. That Bernadette was a cat really didn’t matter; at least he could share his close personal relationship with this famed blogger with another living being.
He had wanted to start with self-congratulations for his capture of the comatose junkie, but she was all over a different topic.
“I’m being stalked by a fake UPS driver.”
Enright stroked Bernadette. “A…what?”
“I’m telling you—wait, am I on speaker?”
Enright responded with something between throat noise and “yes.”
“Take me off.”
“Sorry. I had it on speaker so Bernadette could listen in.”
“Who’s Bernadette?”
“Never mind. So you were saying…”
“There’s a guy dressed in an old UPS uniform who’s stalking me. He showed up at my office this morning, and this afternoon my super ran into him in my apartment building lobby.”
“Are you sure it was the same man?”
“Well…no. I haven’t personally seen him yet. But how many seedy-looking bums wearing old, frayed UPS uniforms can there be out there?”
A lot, Enright thought, because—unlike June and most other people—he’d seen some scary things. But he wisely kept the thought to himself.
“I’ll start staking out your office and apartment building tomorrow. I had already planned to ratchet up security to protect you in that building after the break-in tonight. This stalker just makes it more imperative.”
“So what should I do now? He knows where I live.”
“First stay calm. As long as you’re locked inside your apartment, you’re safe.” He thought it out a bit. “Would you like me to come over?”
The tone in her voice made it clear she’d like nothing less. “That won’t be necessary.”
He coughed a few times for no other reason than to deflect attention from the fact she had just rejected his services. “Okay, well, it’s too late to hire outside help tonight, but I’ll arrange to have someone at your office and outside your apartment door first thing tomorrow.”
“In the meantime—” She stopped again. “Am I still on speaker?”
“Uh…no.”
“Take me off!” Enright stopped petting Bernadette—she wasn’t happy about that—and pushed a button on the phone. And finally June continued: “In the meantime, what am I supposed to do?”
“Stay calm, stay in your apartment, and call me if anything is the least bit suspicious.”
That was it? She could have figured that out on her own.
June hung up without saying good-bye, took a deep breath, and powered on her laptop. This new wrinkle in her life—how she’d been targeted several times today by a shadowy conspiracy—would no doubt make compelling reading for visitors to her blog.
She had a half dozen paragraphs written of a first draft—tentatively titled HOW THE VAST LEFT-WING CONSPIRACY SILENCES ITS FOES—when there was a solid rap on her door.
She glanced at the bottom of her draft, where her courage was spelled out in a sixteen-point font: “My Daily Affirmation is to love myself even more.” And so she did.
June Forteene looked at the screen and thought how ironic it would be if the fake UPS driver killed her while she was in the middle of writing a blog post about him. Now, that would be news! Drudge and Malkin would rue the day they’d stopped talking to her if that happened.
The downside, of course, was that she would be dead, and therefore unable to enjoy the media frenzy. She sighed; there was always a downside.
The rap came again. June was reluctant to leave her laptop—before editing, her first draft read like a self-pitying mash letter to herself—but she could always work on it later. She saved the file before creeping up to the door and looking through the peephole.
A fortyish man with highlights wearing a dark shirt and bad tie stood in the hallway, holding a wallet in his hand. He looked more like a casually dressed police detective than a hit man, but she couldn’t take any chances.
“I’ve already called the police!” Her shout echoed against the metal door, the only thing protecting her from the potential assassin. “If you’re smart, you’ll leave before they get here.”
The man in the hall smiled. “Ms. Morris?”
He used her old name; she didn’t care for that, but it did make him sound less like the stalker-killer she’d half expected. “Didn’t you hear me? I called the police!”
“I heard you. Ma’am, I am the police. Detective Bailey, UN General Assembly Special Detail.”
Oh. June Forteene hadn’t expected that response. “Let me see your badge.”
The man slipped the wallet open and smushed it so close to the peephole she couldn’t see a damn thing except darkness. Still, he wouldn’t have made the gesture if he didn’t have a badge, would he? If he didn’t have a badge, he would have given her some lame excuse or gotten the hell out of there.
No, she told herself. Don’t trust. See the badge.
“I need to see that badge.”
The wallet was pulled back a few inches until it came into focus.
“Back up,” she demanded, and he took a few steps toward the opposite wall. “You carrying a gun?”
The man patted himself around the midsection and lifted his pant legs to show that nothing was strapped on his ankles. That made her feel, better until she thought about it and…
“Hey, if you’re a cop, how come you don’t have a gun?”
That didn’t seem to faze this cop. He leaned close to the door so he didn’t have to shout. “Guns are a very sensitive issue on the UN Detail. For example, if I’m carrying a service weapon I’m not allowed near most western European delegations, or even Canada. I’d be stuck with Mexico, Syria, Russia, and the United States. For me, not carrying a weapon is a career move.”
A long pause followed. She still wasn’t quite sure.
“For what it’s worth,” he added, “I wish I was carrying. I value the Second Amendment more than any other amendment. In fact, it’s probably my favorite amendment.”
On her side of the door, June Forteene still debated whether or not she should open the door. The guy had all the right answers—and if this had been a first date, his passion for the Second Amendment would have guaranteed another—but something felt a little off.
Then again, he was a detec
tive with the New York Police Department. Wasn’t that to be expected?
Having weighed every angle and having come up with nothing but paranoia, she took a leap of faith and unlocked the dead bolt.
June still wasn’t sure she trusted this alleged cop. Maybe his credentials passed the test, but there was something off about both the man and the situation. And it wasn’t just her certainty that he wasn’t wearing underwear.
Fortunately, she had a degree of power he lacked.
She never dreamed she would have pulled a gun on a cop, but there she was. The nine-millimeter came out of her purse as he stood in the threshold between the hallway and her apartment.
“Hands up.”
The cop smiled. “‘Hands up?’ You’re Edward G. Robinson now?”
June was twenty-nine years old and therefore not quite sure who that was. “I said, hands up.”
So his hands went up, and her hand—the one that wasn’t holding the nine-millimeter—grabbed the phone and dialed.
“It’s June Fortee—” She stopped herself. “It’s Hillary Morris in 7-F. I have a guy here who claims he’s a cop.” She paused and listened to the voice on the other end of the line. “Really? Really? Well, all right, then.”
“So?” asked Chase as she hung up the phone. He had been nowhere near as casual about having a gun pointed at his chest as he’d tried to let her believe.
“The super vouched for you.” The nine-millimeter went back into her purse. “So maybe you’re a real cop.”
Chase exaggerated a sigh. “I appreciate your skepticism, Ms. Morris. Especially in your position. But we don’t have much more time to waste. If it’d put your mind at ease, I can go outside and find my supervisor and have him talk to you, but you really don’t want to wait.”
She squinted. “I don’t?” He nodded. “Why not?”
A sober, just-the-facts-ma’am expression was on his face. “We have reason to believe your life is in danger.”
June reached for her purse and almost had her hand on the gun before Chase was able to grab her wrist.
“There’ll be no need for that, Ms. Morris.” They struggled a bit, but finally the gun dropped from her hand back into the bag. “The NYPD is all over this.”
That didn’t exactly fill her with a sense of security. “But who…?” She gasped. “The fake UPS driver!”
“The who?”
“There’s been a seedy guy in an old, frayed UPS uniform who’s been shadowing me all day. He was at my office this morning and then showed up here this afternoon.”
Chase nodded. “Seedy, you say?”
“A real lowlife. Shifty-eyed. Shady-looking. And very old.”
He knew she was talking about Grant—who was all of those things, except maybe not that old—and he couldn’t help but feel defensive. “I’m sure he wasn’t that seedy.”
She disagreed. “Worse.” June hadn’t actually seen him, of course, but based on the descriptions by Edward and the building superintendent, her mind had captured a vivid image. “Shady, shifty-eyed, seedy, and old.”
“Well…hmm.” Chase took a deep breath. Mostly, he wanted to calm himself and forget she was describing his partner, but he figured it might make his detective act a little more believable if it looked like he was considering her information. “In that case, it’s all the more imperative you leave this apartment right now.”
She shoved her hands to her hips. “What?”
“Ms. Morris…” He took another deep breath, and all those slights to Grant dissipated with the fresh air. “I don’t think you appreciate how serious this situation is.”
Her nostrils flared. “What I understand is this!” She grabbed for her purse, but Chase once again slapped her hand away. “Ow! Why do you keep doing that?”
“Why do you keep reaching for your gun?”
“I thought you loved the Second Amendment!”
“I do. I just don’t love it when the Second Amendment is pointed at me.”
The back-and-forth could have gone on forever—probably would have—but four sharp knocks stopped them.
Chase sidled close to the door. “Identify yourself.”
“It’s Rafferty.”
Chase winked at June. “My partner. Can I let him in?” She scowled. “Okay, then.”
He opened the door, and June saw a casually dressed man in his late fifties tapping his foot impatiently. Unlike the first cop—the one with the highlights he was getting too old to pull off—the second cop looked old, sloppy, and tired. Now, this was what she thought a seasoned police detective should look like.
And, like a seasoned detective, he got straight to the point.
“You Hillary Morris?”
“I am.”
“You gotta get out of here.” When a glimmer of hesitation crossed her face, he doubled down. “Now!”
“But…”
The veteran cop was inches in front of her before she could react. “This is not negotiable, Ms. Morris. Detective Bailey here is gonna get you to safety, and I’m gonna make sure your apartment doesn’t explode and you’re not killed in a bloody inferno.”
She was close to panic, but she still had the presence of mind to point a fingernail in his direction. “You mean a fiery inferno.”
He cleared his throat. “What I mean is, if this place goes up, it’s gonna be fiery and bloody. So go!”
June reached for her bag. “Okay, I…”
He shook his head. “That stays.”
She looked at her bag. It was her constant companion. “But…But I need my bag.”
“You mean the bag some terrorist might’ve lined with explosives, according to NYPD intelligence? You wanna carry that bag around with you?” While June stared blankly at him, the older cop offered up a seen-it-all sigh and gingerly picked it up. “Sorry, but the purse stays here.”
She wasn’t happy about that but thought it might be better than dying in a fireball. “Can I at least have my phone?”
“You mean the phone that might be rigged to explode at any minute?” The cop studied his watch. “Like, in seconds? Or maybe in a few minutes when you’re standing out on Second Avenue and it not only blows your head off your shoulders, but also kills everyone around you? Is that the phone you want?”
“But—”
“Lady, I appreciate your concern. Hopefully this is a false alarm and you’ll be back in business in less than an hour. For now, though, I can’t let you leave with anything ’cept yourself. Got it?”
She nodded. She still wasn’t happy, but she got it.
But if that seedy, shady-looking, shifty-eyed old fake UPS driver was anywhere outside, she might have to take her chances with the explosion.
“Christ, I thought she was never gonna leave.” Grant stood in June’s living room, Nick at his side, and sized the place up. He could see nothing worth fencing. “Guess this blogging business doesn’t pay much.”
“Think of it as a time-saver for you.” Nick eyed a prehistoric boom box, trying to figure out what it was until it occurred to him it was June’s stereo. “You won’t be slowed down stealing her stuff.”
“I guess there’s that.” He set the purse on the keypad of her still-open laptop. “I’m just gonna take a quick look around for jewelry or whatever, then we should get out of here.”
And not that either of them knew or cared, but the heavy side of the purse—the side holding her cell phone, Kindle, gun, and makeup—pressed down on just the right keys to publish a blog post that began HOW THE VAST LEFT-WING CONSPIRACY SILENCES ITS FOES, went on to rant about a seedy UPS driver who’d been stalking her across the city, and ended with “My Daily Affirmation is to love myself even more.”
Within seconds, readers around the world—friends and foes alike—were saving screen-captures of the not-intended-for-publication blog post.
Hundreds of them.
Out on the sidewalk, June took in the usual General Assembly traffic chaos before turning her attention to Chase. “So where’s t
he rest of the bomb squad?”
“Finnerty can handle this by himself. He’s the best man we’ve got.”
She started to say something but stopped, because there was a new something that suddenly seemed much more important. “Finnerty? I thought you said his name was Rafferty.”
“Uh…that’s right. Detective Finnerty Rafferty. Junior.” He had no idea where the ‘Junior’ came from, but for some reason he thought it added a touch of verisimilitude.
June did not. “Finnerty Rafferty is not a real name.”
“Lady, you named yourself after a holiday. You shouldn’t be talking.”
She fumed over that comment. It was bad enough her neighborhood had been invaded by cops and diplomats from scores of nations that officially hated American freedom; she didn’t also need to be insulted by a police detective.
And even though she tried to respect the badge, she was about to call him out on the insult—and would have, because she was trying to love herself even more—had the building superintendent not suddenly appeared at the top of the stoop.
“Detective Bailey!” he hollered, and a half dozen cops who’d been standing nearby were suddenly paying attention to the trio on the sidewalk. Chase signaled for the super to lower his voice, to no avail. “Detective Bailey, I still haven’t received that phone call!”
June’s eyes darted back and forth between the two men. “What phone call?”
“He can’t tell you,” said Chase.
“Oh, that’s right! I can’t. Anyway, Detective Bailey—”
“No need to keep using my name,” said Chase as softly as possible, which really wasn’t all that quiet since the men were standing ten feet apart. He felt the eyes of the real police officers watching carefully. Fortunately, a police force with tens of thousands of officers offered a high degree of anonymity. “Now go back to your apartment. I’m sure the call will come at any moment.”
“Wait!” June had also noticed the interest of the real police officers, which only deepened her own suspicions. “Why are you sending him back into the building if there might be a bomb in there?”
