by Joshua Corin
“Funny,” replied Tom.
“His victims have almost all been civil servants, which implies anger toward the government. This is reinforced by the video he left for us at the second crime scene. Speaking of the crime scenes, we know he infiltrated each of them by posing as a janitor. We have videotape footage of him from the aquarium, and we know he gained access to the rooftop of that school in Atlanta by posing as a janitor there. But here’s where we hit a roadblock.”
“Go ahead.”
“Now I trust Esme as much as anyone when it comes to this sort of thing, but this whole Unity for a Better Tomorrow connection—I mean, I’m here because you asked me to join you but if the key really is this organization or the Kellerman campaign or whatever, why isn’t he targeting them?”
Tom shrugged. “It’s a valid point.”
“Instead he runs into Darcy at Walmart and shoots her then and there. However, he confronts Esme at city hall but lets her live. Why?”
Tom stared out the window at the passing Midwestern architecture and remained silent.
“Fact of the matter is—we’re in the dark here, Tom. Maybe the Unity is connected. Maybe Santa Fe is his next target. But how do you expect to confirm any of that? What are you going to ask Donald Chappell?”
They pulled into a two-story parking garage exclusive to the midrise skyscraper which housed the Unity for a Better Tomorrow and parked their Geo minivan between a Cadillac and a Lexus. From here they crossed through a causeway to the main lobby of the building, where they beheld a sunny-faced blonde standing beside a metal detector.
“Good afternoon and welcome! How may I help you today?”
“We have an appointment to speak with Mr. Chappell,” replied Tom, reaching into his black leather coat for his badge. “Special Agent Tom Piper.”
“Of course!” Her teeth were cartoon-perfect. “One moment, please.”
While the blonde typed their information into her computer, Tom and Norm took stock of their surroundings. The lobby was awash in rich reds and yellows and browns. Even the large tasteful artwork on the walls had been painted to match these soothing earth tones. Tom observed the painting behind the counter. It depicted a young and spry Andrew Jackson, thwarting the British at the Battle of New Orleans. He glanced around at the other paintings. Each showcased an episode of American heroism—Lewis & Clark on the untamed frontier, Thomas Edison tinkering with a lightbulb, Martin Luther King in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Nowhere in the lobby was a cross. Nowhere was a Bible.
“All right,” said the blonde. “I’ve confirmed your authorization for Floor 21.”
In order to reach the elevator bank, they had to pass through a metal detector. Norm went first, and wasn’t at all surprised it sounded a brief alarm.
“Sir, I’m afraid you’re going to have to temporarily relinquish your firearm.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
“I’m afraid it is, sir, or you won’t be permitted upstairs.”
Before Norm could retort, Tom unholstered his pistol and motioned for his colleague to do the same. They handed their guns to the blonde, who collected them in a plastic basket.
“Thank you so much. They will be right here when you’re through.”
Tom and Norm ambled through the warm space to one of the gold-plated elevators. There were no buttons on the elevator wall. The automated doors closed as soon as they were inside, and their slow ascent, undoubtedly activated from the desk in the lobby, began. Gershwin’s jazzy “Rhapsody in Blue” rang from its speakers and accompanied them on their vertical climb. Norm hummed along with the orchestral tune. The elevator finally came to a gentle halt, and its golden doors opened up to the twenty-first floor…
…and to a four-year-old boy in an astronaut costume, staring up at them from his abbreviated height.
Tom and Norm stared right back at him.
“Hi,” he whispered shyly.
“Hello,” replied Tom.
The twenty-first floor was a labyrinth of reds, browns and yellows. Seven different arteries wandered off from the elevator bank. Fortunately, a tall sallow-faced man in pinstripes soon appeared out of one of them.
“Right this way, gentlemen,” he said. “Mr. Chappell will see you now.”
The boy sucked on his left thumb.
“Joey,” said the man, “aren’t you supposed to be in the toy room?”
The boy mutely nodded, and ran down one of the other corridors.
“Mr. Chappell’s grandson,” the man explained. “Someday, God willing, all this will be his.”
Tom and Norm exchanged a glance, then followed the man back down the wide hallway from which he came.
“Would either of you care for a beverage?”
“A Heineken?” asked Norm.
The man glanced at him, confused.
“Kidding,” Norm added.
The man nodded. The hallway was lined with beautiful cedar doors. They stopped at the one labeled Chappell.
“If you need anything at all, my name is Paul. Like the apostle.”
Paul opened the door, and the two FBI agents entered the office of Donald Chappell. Compared to the rest of the complex, his office was surprisingly small, even intimate. Donald Chappell, a white-haired, broad-shouldered octogenarian, sat behind an architect’s easel. He was oil-painting the Omaha skyline, visible from his picture window.
“Have a seat,” he said. His deep voice, hardly touched by age, resonated off the close walls. That was why Chappell chose to have his office so small, Tom surmised.
They sat down in the room’s only unoccupied chairs, a pair of hundred-year-old high-backed jobs with plush crimson seats and hand-carved legs and arms. Norm did his best to keep his weight off the wood. The chair probably cost a year’s worth of his salary.
“I admire the FBI,” said Chappell. He continued to paint. “Your greatest failures are flaunted and your biggest successes remain confidential. And still you persevere. I would imagine you’re under a great deal of heat right now, Tom, given the debacle in Texas. Your superiors must have you on a short leash.”
Norm shifted in his seat, but Tom remained unfazed. “I’m glad you brought up the case. That allows us to get to the point.”
“By the by, Bob is not the only candidate we have held rallies for. We’ve also invested a great deal of time and effort in the vice president’s campaign on behalf of the Republican Party. The Unity for a Better Tomorrow is both nondenominational and nonpartisan.”
“Except our guy isn’t targeting the rallies you held for the vice president,” Norm replied.
“That’s assuming your conjecture is accurate. As you can imagine, we at the Unity for a Better Tomorrow would prefer you to be wrong. For us to be connected in any way to this monster is sickening.”
“It’s possible he’s already sent you a message…”
“I doubt it. As soon as you contacted me, I had my people sift through our mail. We receive our share of negativity—all causes do—but there’s been nothing unusual. Otherwise we would have already contacted you.”
Tom’s cell phone buzzed. He let it go to voice mail. “Could we have our people sift through your mail?”
Chappell finally looked up from his easel and over at the two gentlemen. His eyes were hazel, and rheumy. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. It’s all been destroyed. We believe it best not to keep hate around.”
The man was lying. Tom was certain of it.
This was the real reason he wanted to meet the man in person. He hadn’t expected to learn anything from Chappell’s answers. Men like Chappell rarely spoke in substance, except to their inner circle.
Chappell returned to his painting. “Hatred is antithetical to all religions, and yet society remains muddled with those who reject the principles that set us above the other species—empathy, honesty, and selflessness.”
“You need religion to make you a good person?”
“It reinforces, Tom. It protects us agains
t temptation. Surely as a member of law enforcement you can agree that if something is a proven deterrent to sin, it deserves exaltation. Religion steered our forefathers to break free from the yoke of tyranny and pursue our ‘God-given’ rights. In God we trust, Tom.”
“How about any former employees,” asked Norm. “Maybe somebody you fired or someone who quit…”
This brought a smile to Donald Chappell’s face. “We’ve never fired anyone. Not since we first opened our doors in the early ’70s.”
“You’ve never…”
“Every one of our employees goes through a careful vetting process. I’m certain the FBI does the same.”
“Well, sure, but that doesn’t mean none of our agents have ever been fired…”
“Well—” Chappell shrugged “—I guess my vetting process is more thorough.”
Norm, exasperated, glanced over at Tom, who replied: “Thank you for your time,” and rose. So did Norm.
Tom waited until they were back in the relative privacy of their rented Geo before sharing his suspicions.
“I hear you, but our hands are tied,” Norm said. “You really think any judge is going to grant us a warrant with what we have to investigate these people? In an election year?”
Tom grunted. Norm was correct. And what he’d omitted was the pressure bearing down on them from the assistant director’s office. As Chappell had noted, their failures were public—and the AD was quickly losing patience with Tom and his task force’s recent public failures.
Tom then remembered the cell phone call he’d ignored during the meeting, and checked his call history.
“What?” asked Norm, noticing Tom’s curious grin. “Who called?”
Tom showed him. It was Lilly Toro.
Lilly shared with Tom Piper everything she saw at the rally. She described the envelope to the best of her ability. She even told him about her panic attack. She knew it wasn’t especially relevant—but once she started talking, one piece led to another. She wasn’t usually so loquacious. Maybe she still had some leftover anxiety in her tongue. Or maybe she simply needed to talk.
By the time their conversation had ended, it was midafternoon, and that meant traffic. Lilly lit up the last Marlboro in her pack, started up the engine of her pink Beetle, and joined the slow-moving mob on the westbound freeway across the Bay Bridge.
As expected, Tom had ordered her not to divvy what she knew to anyone else, especially her (ex?) coworkers at the paper. Ah, well. Lilly had resigned herself to that option when she made the call. Why did she choose the FBI over the Chronicle? Perhaps it had something to do with—
Fuck. She was being followed.
She glanced again in the rearview. Fifteen feet behind her was a blue Ford sedan. She was certain it had been there when she’d pulled out of the lot at Berkeley, but had thought nothing of it. Berkeley was a busy campus. But here she was, almost at San Francisco, and…
No. She was being silly. It was practically rush hour. Did she think she was the only person who lived in San Francisco? The driver of the blue sedan probably was a professor. More than likely, he lived in Pacific Heights with his wife and 2.5 children. He may have even been at the rally. Big deal. Chill, girl.
Just to be safe, just to put her doubts at rest, she adjusted the mirror to get a gander at the driver. She was part of a five-mile-per-hour trickle moving across the eight-mile-long Bay Bridge, and the sun was to the fore, not the aft, so it was easy to get a good look at the guy behind her without any hindrance of speed or glare. So it was that she saw Galileo, unobtrusively, behind the wheel of the blue Ford sedan.
And he waved at her.
Lilly sank down a few inches in her seat and gripped her wheel as if it was her only friend in the world. She perused her options, few as they were. The Bay Bridge was notable for having exit ramps at its midpoint, which led to Yerba Buena and Treasure Islands respectively. She wasn’t far from the ramps. Maybe if she left the bridge for one of the islands…he would follow her and she would then be stranded on an island with a mass murderer. Bad idea.
So she had to stay on the bridge and follow it through to the West Bay and San Francisco. Locals got lost all the time on San Francisco’s hilly, labyrinthine streets. And Galileo wasn’t a local—as far as she knew. If he was foolish enough to pursue her into Chinatown, labyrinth to end all labyrinths, she could lose him. She knew she could. She just had to keep her head down. This was a man who could grow impatient and just shoot her from the seat of his car. She just had to keep her head down…and make some phone calls.
First call: Tom Piper.
It went to voice mail.
“Tom,” she rasped, so craving a cigarette, “it’s Lilly again. I’m on the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and he’s right behind me. He’s going to try to kill me, Tom, but I think I can lose him in Chinatown. In the meantime, be a dear and call every goddamn agent you have and rally them to me right fucking now. I’m driving a pink VW Beetle. He’s behind some piece of shit blue Ford four-door. License plate number…uh…” She popped up for a peek. “JG3-94Q. I am in danger. Call me back.”
Next call: 911.
“911,” intoned an Asian-inflected operator, “please state the nature of your emergency.”
Lilly reiterated her situation to the operator. Accordingly, “patrol cars would be dispatched to her area as soon as possible” and she was “to remain calm.” How was she supposed to remain calm? How was anyone supposed to remain calm in an emergency? It was natural to go crazy. Evolution had programmed the human body with a biological imperative to survive, and adrenaline played its part in that process. Her panic attacks—and she noticed she wasn’t having one right now—were as much an overreaction, as much a wrong reaction, as “remaining calm” would be.
The traffic stream had finally poured her across the Bay. The first exit was the one she needed—Fremont Street. She didn’t bother with her blinker. No reason to give Galileo advance notice, right? Fremont Street emptied out into the city’s financial district, mecca of high-rises and corporate logos. Lilly passed the headquarters of VISA and The Gap. She remained hunched in her seat—not that difficult given her tiny frame—and chanced another glimpse at the rearview. Galileo remained fifteen feet behind her, steady as a stone.
She took Pine and then north to Kearny, and the neighborhood began its transformation from California chic to Mandarin peasantry. Tiled awnings stretched out over entrances. Cubical buildings became pagodas, and signage—so commonly horizontal—now hung vertical, to better suit the ancient language being conveyed.
The major thoroughfare in Chinatown was Grant Avenue, so Lilly made sure instead to take one of the slender side streets. So many of these were dead ends, but Lilly knew the area well and avoided getting trapped. Galileo was still on her tail, but the overall foreignness of the area had to be frustrating him, and his chunky blue Ford barely squeezed between the brick buildings in a narrow lane like Ross Alley.
Take that, motherfucker…
Lilly felt her grip ease up a bit on her wheel. She was actually going to win. She, Lilly Toro, was going to defeat the big bad wolf. Strangely, she suddenly thought about her parents, and not with malice. They would be proud of her. They, who loathed her lifestyle, who had kicked her to the curb at age sixteen, would be bragging about her victory to their neighbors.
When she saw the police substation coming up on the right, her nascent joy blossomed into unbridled bliss. She was home free. She had made it. She pounded on her horn, which got the attention of the three or four cops hanging out on the station’s front steps, and then she pulled alongside the curb.
“Can we help you?” one of them asked.
“Yes, I…” Lilly looked back to point at the Ford—but it was gone.
“Ma’am?”
“I was being followed,” she said with a grin, “but I guess I lost him.”
As the cops glanced back down the street at the complete absence of a threat, Lilly shifted into Park and got out of her ca
r. Her legs felt rubbery from tension, but alive. Alive! Her cell phone rang. It was probably Tom Piper, finally calling her back. Late again. She put the phone to her ear.
“Yo,” she said.
“Thank you for standing still,” answered Galileo, and from 2,000 feet away he tugged the trigger of his rifle and ended Lilly’s life.
16
“Fear,” said Rafe, “and desire.”
He wrote the words in large black ink on the dry erase board, and some of the more dutiful freshmen in the lecture hall jotted them down. Rafe took a moment to smirk at this—would they forget those two words if they didn’t copy them down? Then again, these were college students. With their away-from-home-for-the-first-time overindulgence of alcohol, drugs and sleep deprivation, who knew what condition their recently matured brains were in?
He continued his talk.
“It’s the dialectic of human psychology. When we say that people ‘push our buttons,’ there are only two buttons and these are they. And as societies can be said to have a collective psychology, we can too list them on this paradigm. To wit—the Roman Republic falls closer to Fear, yes? The xenophobia of the early Romans allowed them not only to be on guard for the elephants of Hannibal but also informed the way they absorbed nearby cultural memes and without exception colored them decidedly Roman. The psycho-sociology of the Roman Empire, interestingly but not surprisingly, is another story altogether.”
He paused again, to allow the note-takers (few and far between as they were) to catch up. Rafe knew that the effectiveness of using historical examples to explain sociological concepts was waning with each passing year, but in his heart of hearts he was a history buff and couldn’t resist the efficacy these comparisons provided, at least to the astute in the room. Catering to mediocrity was not his style.
His mind drifted to his old father, now ensconced in their guest bedroom with his dumbbells and his magazines, and to his wife, for all intents and purposes an invalid on the living room divan. Much like the Romans of old, his life of late had shifted quite dramatically along the Fear-Desire paradigm.
