Chameleon Uncovered

by BR Kingsolver

  “I have a pistol under the table aimed at your balls,” I said and watched the grin slide off his face. “We’re going to go outside and have a conversation. Do you understand?”

  “Look, mister, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Joe, Joe. Sonny has two bullets in him and Huang has one. They were still able to answer all my questions, so I figure you’ll talk just fine with a bullet in the balls.” I tossed Sonny’s identification on the table and watched Joe blanch. “Shall we go?”

  We went out the back door into the alley, walked down to the end, and turned the corner. Joe glanced back once, saw the gun, and kept walking.

  I morphed back to my normal self. “That’s far enough. Turn around.” His eyes about bulged out of his head.

  “Who paid you to kill me?”

  “Nobody. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I aimed at the bottom of the zipper in his pants and pulled the trigger. He stumbled backward and fell on his butt. I let him stare at his bloody lap for a moment, then stepped up to him and held the muzzle of the pistol against his head.

  “You paid two men to kill me,” I said. “I take such things very seriously. Now, who paid you?”

  “M-m-my brother,” he said.

  “How much did he pay you?”

  “Twenty-five thousand.”

  “When?”

  “This m-morning.”

  “How did Sonny and Huang know where to find me?”

  “Dave called me. Told me you were at the museum.” He was crying, his words coming out between broken sobs. “Oh, God, please don’t kill me.”

  I couldn’t imagine a single reason why I should let him live. I definitely didn’t want him tipping off his brother.

  I pulled one of my hatpins out of its sheath in my bra, put it in his ear, and pushed. Six inches of stiff stainless steel coated with a neurotoxin penetrated the temporal lobe of his brain. He seemed to freeze, staring straight ahead, and stopped crying. I withdrew the pin and wiped it clean on his shirt. I took his wallet, keys, another picture of me, and his phone, then walked out of the alley and went looking for his car.

  David Wilson certainly had reasons for wanting me out of the way, but he didn’t strike me as a guy with twenty-five thousand credits in spare cash. That put Deborah and Malcolm squarely in the picture. The timing, according to Sonny and Joe, meant the hit had been contracted as soon as I got out of jail.

  Back at my hotel, I retrieved the suitcase from the linen closet again, then walked over to the museum. The buildings across Michigan Avenue were all at least twenty stories high. I blurred my form and entered the building closest to the staff parking lot. Fifteen minutes later, I was on the roof.

  During my time at the museum, I’d become familiar with the staff, their schedules, and their habits. I knew when people came to work, when they left, and what method of transportation they used.

  David Wilson called his brother’s phone twice that afternoon. I didn’t answer it.

  The sun slid toward the horizon, and the shadow of the building I sat on fell across the parking lot. The museum closed, and the last of its patrons left the building. Shortly thereafter, the staff left through the employee exits, most headed to the train station a couple of blocks behind me.

  Wilson finally emerged from the building, and I tracked him through the telescope on my rifle. When he reached his car, he stopped to unlock it. I centered my crosshairs on the back of his head and waited for the computer controls to adjust for the height, angle, and distance. The crosshairs turned red and the scope beeped. I took a breath, let half of it out, and slowly squeezed the trigger.

  His head slammed forward, hit the car, and his body bounced backward and fell to the ground.

  I broke down the rifle and packed it back in the suitcase, then in my blurred form, I descended the stairs to the ground floor and went out the loading dock. I set off the alarm, but I didn’t care. I would rather have anyone who investigated look at that escape route than think a ghost went through the security desk and the front door.

  The knock on the door came while I was eating breakfast. I answered it and was gratified to see the surprise on Wil’s face. I knew he didn’t expect to find me awake, let alone dressed, at six-thirty in the morning.

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, turning away and going back to my food. He followed me into the room and shut the door behind him.

  “I used to think you were a gentleman,” I said as I took my seat, “but it was all an act, wasn’t it? You’re actually one of the rudest sons of bitches I’ve ever met.”

  His face flushed, and he stood in the middle of the room, acting as though he didn’t know what to do.

  “You thought I’d still be asleep, didn’t you? And you came at this time on purpose. Deputy Director Wilberforce, you’d better hope your guts are never on fire.”

  His face hardened, and he flushed as dark as I’d ever seen. His jaw muscles worked, and I was sure if I listened closely enough, I’d hear his teeth grinding together.

  “David Wilson is dead,” he finally said.

  “Oh? This is a tough town. I told Deborah she should fire him, but I didn’t mean literally.”

  “He was shot by a sniper.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t expect a cultured lady like Director Zhukoff to do the job herself.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t kill him?”

  I set my fork down on my plate and looked up at him. “Is this the new normal? Paintings are stolen, let’s roust Libby. Someone dies, accuse Libby. I’m surprised you aren’t trying to pin the bombings on me. How about any old shoplifting cases?”

  My stomach churned, and I pushed my plate away.

  “You didn’t happen to bring my stuff that you stole, did you? You took everything I own, so I don’t know how I managed to buy a rifle and assassinate someone. You’ve had people following me since you let me out of jail. Did they see me rob a bank?”

  “They lost you in the first five minutes. Said you just disappeared. How did you know Wilson was shot with a rifle?”

  “Lots of incompetents in this city. Your men. Wilson. You. I assumed it because I never heard of a sniper using a derringer, you dumbass.” I was getting so sick of this whole mess.

  “What do you hope to accomplish by sending that damned lawyer around to harass me?” he said with a lot more passion than I’d seen before.

  “He’s not harassing you. He’s protecting my rights, and getting ready to sue your ass off.” I got up and walked over to the window. It was looking like a wet and gloomy day ahead. “You don’t seem to get it. I’m not some bimbo you can treat any way you want. My corporation is a member of the Chamber, and as such, we have a contractual relationship. I also have a contract with AIC. I have contacts, including a member of the Toronto Chamber’s board of directors.”

  I turned back to face him. “The large corporations control the Chamber, but all of the small corporations give you legitimacy. You treat your smaller members like shit, and you’ll get a rebellion that makes a few muties throwing bombs look tame.”

  His brow was furrowed, and he seemed to be having a problem understanding me. “What do you mean, your corporation?”

  “Do you ever do any research, or do you just hope that your good looks will cover for your blundering around? I’m the CEO and Chairman of Fly by Night, Incorporated. We pay our ten percent tithe to the Chamber just like Hudson Bay or MegaTech. You truly think I’m some kind of idiot, don’t you? Some little girl playing around.”

  Two strides took me within inches of his face. “You better get your act together. I want my personal effects and my equipment. I want my weapons, for which I have Chamber permits due to my position as my corporation’s chief of security. I want AIC to pay me the money they owe me. And if you can’t do those simple things, then I’m not only going to have that lawyer bite your ass, I’m going to the media and tell them about the art theft.”

/>   “We don’t want the public to know about the theft,” he said.

  I gave him a smile and batted my eyes. “Then I’ll be sure to give the media your name as a point of contact. I’ll also tell them that the museum buried my company’s assessment of their security rather than implement the recommendations. I’m sure their insurance company will be interested in that.”

  His eyes widened, then narrowed. I realized I was right. He thought I was some kind of dumb blonde bimbo. Then it hit me. He didn’t think I pulled the robbery. They, he and the museum board, had latched onto me as a convenient scapegoat. I could understand why Deborah and Malcolm would want to cover up their incompetence, but the idea that Wil was willing to sacrifice my life to his career caused something to break inside me.

  Slipping around him, I went to the door and opened it. “Get the hell out. And don’t come back without my equipment.”

  After I closed the door, I felt like I wanted to throw up. As much as I’d always pushed Wil away, I couldn’t deny that I had a schoolgirl crush on him. His voice on the phone or a smile from him made me feel hot and numb, thoughtless and breathless. How in the hell did we get to a place where we were enemies?

  Chapter 13

  David Wilson’s murder made the news, though the stories I read attributed it to a mugging. Joseph Wilson’s murder showed up on the Chicago Police report, but no one considered it important enough to make the news. I was sure Wil and Chamber Security didn’t pay any attention to it. My experience with Chamber Security in Toronto had shown they were oblivious to anything that didn’t affect their corporate masters. As a result, I considered it doubtful anyone would link the two deaths.

  I used the tablet to send Dad the list of stolen art works. If anyone had a clue as to the buyers, it would be him. I hoped he also might have some suspicions as to who pulled off the heist.

  With time on my hands, I felt restless. Out of curiosity, I blurred my image, snuck out of the hotel, and headed over to the museum.

  I rarely tried to maintain invisibility for very long in public, especially in the daytime. It required moving slowly, staying close to objects or buildings I could use for a background, and avoiding getting close to anyone. I made it unseen into the museum and past all the security to the wing with the administrative offices.

  Few people who knew me would have considered me a patient person, but they had never seen me work. Casing a potential break-in or profiling the movements of a target often required days or even weeks of observation. I settled into the doorway of an empty office down the hall from Deborah’s office.

  Over the next two hours, I watched Jess leave and come back twice. Three different people from the Finance office and one from Payroll went to the washroom. Shortly before noon, Jess left again, and then Malcolm Donnelly came down the hall and went into the office. I slipped through the door right behind him.

  Malcolm didn’t bother to knock before opening Deborah’s door, and I slid a stapler from Jess’s desk into the doorjamb before the door could close.

  “What’s going on?” Malcolm asked.

  “Wilberforce called me this morning. Nelson is threatening to go to the press and the insurance company,” Deborah said.

  “That’s not good.”

  “No, it’s not. How are we going to explain not informing the insurance company?”

  “We use the same reason we always planned on,” Malcolm said. “We delayed telling anyone because we thought the Nelson woman was responsible and we were trying to convince her to return the paintings.”

  Deborah’s laughter sounded harsh and a little shrill. “That excuse might have flown if we were only talking about two paintings. I was crazy to let you talk me into this in the first place, but what in the hell were you thinking? A billion credits worth of art. Your damned greed is going to do us in.”

  “It’s a little too late for second thoughts. Two paintings or five, it doesn’t matter. We still have the necklace.”

  “You fool. Do you still think you can plant that on her? Wil has her under constant surveillance. He’s searched her room repeatedly. Throw the damned thing away. All it can do is incriminate us.”

  I heard Deborah’s heels click across the floor, stop, and come back. “Mal, we’ve got to call the insurance company. Wil thinks we already have. If we delay any longer, people are going to wonder why.”

  The door opened behind me. I slowly, ever so slowly, bent over and pulled the stapler out of the door. It slowly closed without a sound, but didn’t latch.

  “Deborah?” Jess called. “They didn’t have chicken salad today so I got you salmon.”

  I inched backward into a corner and watched as Malcolm and Deborah came out of her office, Malcolm left, and Deborah took her lunch back to her desk. I had to wait another hour and a half until Jess went to the washroom before I could sneak out. That gave me a lot of time to think.

  Since I’d recently done a security audit of the entire facility, I probably knew the museum as well as anyone. I wandered down to a vacant office with a working phone. Feet up on the desk, I called North American Insurance and asked to speak to the claims adjuster in charge of the AIC robbery.

  After being transferred a couple of times and then put on hold, a man came on the phone and asked, “To whom am I speaking?”

  “Jasmine Keller,” I said. “I’m a reporter for the Chicago Daily News. I’m trying to get some information on the investigation into the robbery at the Art Institute of Chicago earlier this week.”

  “I’m sorry, but we don’t comment on ongoing investigations,” the man said.

  “Can you confirm that a billion credits worth of art was stolen?”

  “We will make a press release available through the Institute at the proper time.” Then he hung up.

  I smiled. At that point, I couldn’t see any benefit to me of doing anything Wil or the museum wanted me to do. The next call I made was to the Chicago Daily News, the largest news media organization in the city. I was quickly passed to someone on their Arts desk.

  “What was this event you said we missed on our calendar?” a woman asked.

  “Not an event. The robbery. I was wondering why I couldn’t find anything about the stolen Monets and Renoirs on the infonet.”

  We chatted for a few minutes, then I hung up, morphed into a fifty-year-old woman, and made my way out of the museum.

  The news that Wil was searching my hotel room every time I left disturbed me. I hadn’t worried about it too much, since I didn’t have anything left to steal, but it bothered me. It also bothered me that I was being followed, even if it was easy to fool any tail they set on me.

  An hour of research led me to a decent hotel in a middle-class mutie district not too far from the blues bar I’d visited with Deborah. I took a bus over there in my disguise as Jasmine Keller and checked it out, then rented a room for the rest of the month. On my way back to the Winston Hotel, I stopped into a cheap recycled clothing store and spent a hundred credits on shirts, pants, dresses, and underwear.

  I packed everything I still owned, using the new clothing to replace my stuff in the closet and drawers. I doubted a man would notice the difference. After retrieving the suitcase from the upstairs linen closet, I morphed into a likeness of a five-foot-tall, dark-haired woman in conservative clothing wearing a hijab headscarf. I had seen her at the museum a couple of weeks before. Hanging a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door, I took my luggage down to the lobby and called for a taxi.

  Only my mom and dad, and Orlando Ortega, had the number of my spare phone. Only Mom and Dad could reach me through secure email. I called all of them and told them I was no longer at the Winston, and why, but didn’t tell them where I’d gone. I also sent an email to Mom, asking her to ship me a replacement computer. The tablet worked great for most people, but I had serious systems I needed to crack.

  I turned on the screen in my room, tuned in the news feed, and settled in to wait.

  I waited for two days. The hotel ca
fé served what they called “Southern Comfort” food. Evidently, that was a euphemism for “fried.” The second night I went out and found a place that served pizza. The other options in the neighborhood were primarily Asian and various preparations that tried to disguise soybean curd as some kind of animal, bird, or fish.

  Sticking with my Jasmine persona had a number of benefits. She wasn’t homely, but she wasn’t pretty enough to attract unwanted attention. On the other hand, Jasmine was as tall as me, but forty or fifty pounds heavier, which tended to intimidate people. And since she was only an illusion I projected, Jasmine had my speed and strength.

  The morning of the third day, I morphed into a redhead that looked like my mom when she was young. I grabbed a subway down to the train station, where I met Mike Di Blasio, one of the bouncers at my mom’s brothel. He handed over my new computer, and I handed over the pint of human blood I’d bought fresh that morning.

  “Oh, wow, Lizzie,” Mike said, his smile showing his fangs, “you didn’t have to do that. That’s really nice of you.” Most respectable vamps rarely drank human blood. It was expensive, unless they had a lover to donate on a regular basis. Of course, there were those select few at high corporate or criminal levels who could afford a harem of blood whores.

  “It’s the least I can do, Mike. I really appreciate you making the trip all the way down here.”

  “It’s nothing. I get paid, and I mostly sleep. Kinda breaks up the monotony, ya know?” He leaned close and dropped his voice. “Your mom said that if you need someone to watch your back, I should stay. Gave me a message for you. Said to tell you that, now these is her words not mine, you understand?” I smiled and nodded. “She said to tell you that only a damned fool turns down help when someone’s trying to kill you.”

  “I really appreciate the offer,” I said, and I did. The problem was all my changes. Very few people knew about my abilities. Mike knew me as Lizzie, my mom’s sweet redheaded daughter, and also as Libby, the tall blonde with the smart mouth. He didn’t know we were the same person.