Armageddon Conspiracy (8 page)

She took it to the kitchen, installed the second chip, and was about to put it back together when she heard a noise. She looked up to see Brent, naked, weaving, holding the doorjamb for support.

“What are you doing?” he croaked.

Her heart pounded, but she smiled and cocked her head. “Clumsy me,” she said sheepishly, holding up the backless phone and covering the small plastic case with her arm. “I dropped your phone.”

He blinked, fighting the drug. “Are you leaving? I know I had too much to drink. I’ve never been unable to . . . please don’t go yet.”

“I’m not leaving,” she said, standing up and coming over to put her arms around him. “I thought of something I have to do and was going to leave a reminder on my answering machine.”

He nodded. “Okay,” he rasped.

“Go back to bed.”

He turned and stumbled down the hall, and she sighed in relief. When she checked a moment later he was face down on the mattress, snoring loudly. Back in the kitchen, she finished putting the phone together, turned it on, and dialed the number of the FBI’s Manhattan office from memory.

After two rings a man answered. She recognized the voice.

“It’s working,” he said. “Get out of there.”

Anneliës turned off the phone then found a piece of paper and wrote Brent a note saying she’d had a wonderful time and promised to call soon. She pulled on her dress and carried her shoes as she let herself out.

THE MOMENT THE ALARM WENT
off Brent felt the sharp stabs of sunlight through his eyelids and his head starting to pound. He reached out and whacked the clock radio then lay perfectly still, afraid he’d be sick if he moved another inch. A few glasses of wine—how was it possible to feel this bad?

He recalled Simone and winced. Horny and impossibly gorgeous—at least that’s what he remembered—only he’d been so wasted that he wondered what she
really
looked like. He let his hand creep across, found the bed empty, the sheets cold.

He cracked one eye, enduring the pain, viewing the wreckage of his clothes where he’d tossed them the night before. “Simone?” he croaked. There was no answer. After another second he stood and stumbled into the bathroom. He peed, brushed his teeth, and then managed to hold down several glasses of cold water he drew from the tap.

Back in the living room, he looked around at his jumbled moving boxes and wondered if it had been a fantasy. Had a beautiful woman really walked out of his kitchen bare-ass naked? Then he remembered what happened next—absolutely nothing because he had passed out. It seemed like a bad joke, he thought as he spotted the scrap of paper atop the clutter on his dining table. “Thanks for a wonderful evening. I’ll call you. Love, Simone.” No phone number. No kidding! Like he’d ever hear from her again. If he didn’t feel so bad he might have laughed.

He stood there a moment until he remembered something else—DeLeyon, his Little Brother! Today was their monthly game of hoops! He put his hands to his head. He’d never survive. He had the shakes, the cold sweats. He’d have a heart attack if he tried to dribble a basketball.

He gave up thinking about the pain because he couldn’t break a promise to DeLeyon. He staggered back into the bedroom, and five minutes later, wearing shorts and a tee shirt and carrying a fresh shirt in a canvas bag, he caught a taxi to the West Side. He climbed out at Riverside and 125th Street and stumbled down through the narrow band of Riverside Park to a concrete basketball court shaded by tall sycamores and oaks and bordered by the West Side Highway. A game was in progress on one end of the court, while at the other end, a huge African American kid in a sleeveless tee shirt stood with a basketball held loosely against his hip and an impatient look on his face.

“Yo, y’all late!” he called when he caught sight of Brent.

“Rough night,” Brent mumbled.

DeLeyon screwed up his face. “You wish!” he said, starting to dribble the ball. “Prob’ly went to a movie by yo’seff and overslept.” He cut loose with a jump shot and swished the chains that hung in place of a net. He was sixteen, beginning to grow into his size, his
arms filling out with ropes of dark muscle, his bony little kid face taking on a sculpted maturity that was still full of youth but also a soulful depth.

The Big Brother thing had been Harry’s idea. He’d said it was more for Brent than his Little Brother, that it might keep him from becoming too much of an egotistical Wall Street asshole, at least slow the process a little. For almost five years Brent had flown down once a month from Boston and headed to the Upper West Side to meet DeLeyon, who had grown from a gangly kid to his current six-five. DeLeyon had miraculously managed to survive his boyhood on the Harlem streets, even though some of his posse hadn’t. His life had been hard enough to make bad choices awfully tempting, but most times he’d managed to make good ones. He slept at his grandmother’s some nights, other nights at his mother’s, and sometimes even at his father’s—depending on where it was safe or who was sober.

No matter what else was going on in his life, Brent always showed up because these once-a-month meetings were pretty much the one constant in DeLeyon’s life. Regardless of his own efforts, he gave the kid all the credit for staying on track. In addition to being a superb athlete, DeLeyon had excellent grades and the brains to go Ivy. Brent already had the coaches from Harvard, Yale, and Brown looking.

Now he took a deep breath and tried to shove his pain into the background. “Late or not,” he grinned as he stepped onto the court and touched fists with DeLeyon, “I’m going to kick your bony ass.”

“Keep wishin’, white boy.”

“It ain’t wishing,” he said, giving DeLeyon’s ball a quick swat as he attempted a steal.

DeLeyon recaptured the ball then dribbled it easily a step or two
away. Brent headed to the foul line. “Okay,” he said, feeling his knees wobble. “Let’s not waste time. Gimme the ball.”

“Uh-uh,” DeLeyon said. “We shoot for it.”

Brent missed his first shot, while DeLeyon hit, giving him first possession. Immediately, he blew past Brent to score on a spinning lay-up. Brent lost the ball on his first turn, and DeLeyon took it back behind the line then swished a long three-pointer. The game went like that for the next hour and fifteen minutes, and DeLeyon won forty-four to twenty. Twice, Brent had to bend over, hands on his knees to catch his breath.

“That’s the worst ass-kicking yet,” DeLeyon said with a broad smile as they walked off the court.

“Yeah,” Brent admitted as he stripped off his sweat soaked shirt, used it for a towel on his chest and underarms. “You’re getting better, and I’m getting worse.”

“You
bad
today,” DeLeyon laughed. Then he sobered and gave Brent one of those dead serious looks that made him seem years older than sixteen. “But I appreciate you coming, man.”

They headed over to Broadway to a little pizza place, and Brent grilled DeLeyon like always about his grades and everything else in his life. DeLeyon mumbled his answers, pretending to resent the intrusion, but after a bit he reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a sweat soaked report card. He handed it to Brent, who unfolded it with care and scanned DeLeyon’s grades.

Brent smiled as he saw nothing less than A+. “You need to work a little harder.”

“You ever quit, man?”

“Not until you get into Harvard.”

“Yeah, right,” DeLeyon said, shrugging it off.

DeLeyon didn’t know it, but Brent had long ago determined he’d put him through college and pay whatever the scholarship didn’t cover. “Okay, gotta go,” he said. “Keep it up. I’m proud of you.”

“You really are, aren’t you?” the boy said, the tough outer layer disappearing for a brief second.

Brent nodded. “Yeah, I really am.”

By twelve thirty, after a shower, several cups of coffee, and three power bars, Brent’s hangover had faded to a sort of depressed exhaustion. As he toweled off he looked around at his confusion of unpacked boxes and scowled as he realized the problem. Being with DeLeyon always left him with a feeling of vague dissatisfaction and reminded him that there were more important things to do than trying to make himself rich.

He pulled open one of the boxes, started to unpack a stack of plates, but then glanced out the window. He’d planned to spend the day getting the apartment organized, but the sky outside was cloudless, the temperature pleasantly cool. Besides, why unpack? He wasn’t going to be here that long. Soon, he’d find a way to get Simmons her proof and then get on with his life, whatever that meant.

Fifteen minutes later he was in the BMW, roaring out of Manhattan on his way toward Morristown. It was much too perfect a day to be trapped inside, and he hadn’t seen Fred in almost two weeks. Of course, Fred would act like his visit was no big deal, but Brent knew that down deep it mattered.

The Lincoln Tunnel traffic was light, typical for a Sunday, and when he emerged on the other side, the summer afternoon was so
delightful that even Newark’s grunge didn’t seem too oppressive. He sped through the Oranges and crested the Ramapo Hills, where New Jersey transformed itself from a wasteland of abandoned factories and ruined tenements to the green rolling hills of Morris County.

On reaching Morristown, he drove straight to his old neighborhood and parked in front of a white clapboard bungalow on a quiet street close to the town center. A few miles away grand homes sat on multi-acre lots, the estates of investment bankers and lawyers who commuted to Manhattan, but the close-in neighborhoods contained small neat homes, most built after World War II and owned by people like Fred who lived and worked in Morristown—policemen, firemen, city workers, and teachers.

Brent found his uncle in the back yard, wearing dark pants and a threadbare wife-beater. He was bent over, trimming his roses and humming a little tune, and if he heard Brent approach he gave no indication. In spite of a knee injury that had forced his early retirement, Fred Lucas was big boned and still thickly muscled. Although Brent could see places where the flesh was starting to sag, his uncle’s shoulders and arms still looked powerful.

“Need some help?” he asked when he got close.

Fred turned his head just enough to see Brent in his peripheral vision. “You wouldn’t know a rose from a freaking dandelion.”

“Yes, I would,” Brent countered. “Dandelions grow in the middle of the lawn. Roses grow around the sides.” He paused. “Otherwise, I think they’re almost indistinguishable.”

His uncle had gone back to cutting. “You’re a moron.”

“Which one of us went to Yale?”

“A liberal moron. I rest my case.”

Brent laughed and raised his hands in surrender, knowing Fred never admitted defeat in any contest nor gave an inch in any argument. When Fred was wrong—not an infrequent occurrence—he’d simply revert to foul language, insults, and name-calling until his opponent lost focus. He’d won dart-throwing, arm-wrestling, and beer-drinking contests over more able competitors simply because he needled them to distraction. The same was true with family arguments.

“Did I ever tell you what a pain in the ass it was to grow up with an uncle who couldn’t stand to lose?” Brent asked.

“You only whined about it maybe a thousand times. It was your way of thanking me for giving a wissy like you a sense of perseverance.”

“That must have been it.”

Fred finally cracked a smile, straightened, and slipped his clippers into his back pocket. “So, how’s the big-shot-money-man?” he asked as he straightened up, limped toward his nephew, threw his arms around him, and gave him a hug that left the front of Brent’s shirt stained with sweat.

“Pretty good.”

Fred eyed him a second then tossed his head. “Yeah, right,” he said. “And I’m rich and handsome.”

“Everything’s fine,” Brent insisted.

Fred walked up the back steps and through the screen door, letting it slam behind him. He came back out a moment later with two cans of Budweiser and handed one to Brent. “Don’t shit a shitter,” he said as he cracked his cold beer and sipped the foam off the top.

“Really,” Brent insisted, trying to mean it.

Fred went over and flopped into a cheap aluminum lawn chair. “Know who I saw the other day?”

“Who?”

“Maggie.”

“That was quick.” Brent glanced at his watch. Usually it takes you at least five minutes to bring her up.”

Fred sighed. “Man, she’s pretty.”

Brent shrugged.

“Pretty dumb move.”

“She broke up with me. Remember?”

“Only cause you were stupid.”

Brent waved his beer. “’Preciate the support.”

“Or decided you weren’t rich enough.”

Brent looked at the curling paint on the back wall of the house. “There’s nothing wrong with having enough money to take a trip or paint your house.”

“A: I don’t want to go anyplace, and B: there’s nothing wrong with letting it peel!”

Brent shook his head.

“I keep trying to tell you, and you keep trying not to believe me, but money ain’t gonna make your life any better. People in this neighborhood spend their whole lives on the clock, but they still get married and have kids. Money don’t make ‘em nicer. It don’t make ‘em live longer. It didn’t keep those other bastards in the Trade Center any safer than Harry.”

“Maybe I’m doing something a lot more complicated than just grubbing for money. Ever think about that?”

Fred shook his head. “Nope.”

Brent let out a laugh. “Why didn’t you take your own advice, smart guy?”

“What? Get married?” Fred looked at himself. “Who’da put up with me?”

“Plenty of stupid women out there.”

Fred became suddenly serious. He shrugged uncomfortably. “Putting out fires is dangerous—I don’t gotta tell you.” He turned to his flowers. “It hurts the people around you. Your mom—she wasn’t evil. She just couldn’t take it without your dad. Shit like that happens.”

Brent swallowed. This was a subject he hated. He took a deep breath then pointed toward the stakes along the back fence. “Tomatoes look good.”

Fred nodded. “Good call. Let’s talk about global warming, or the Yankees and how I hope the team plane goes down right into Stein-brenner’s fucking house when he’s in it.”