The Cleaner (11 page)
'What about your friends?' Again he took a moment before answering. 'I don't exactly have a long list to choose from.' 'You didn't come alone,' she said. Not a question, but a statement.
'Nate,' Quinn said. 'My apprentice. If I'd left him, he'd probably be dead by now.'
She took a deep breath, and, for the first time, her face softened, if only just a little. 'Same old Quinn, then.'
Quinn shrugged.
She looked at him, then shook her head. 'Son of a bitch,' she said under her breath. 'Get on before I change my mind.'
Quinn wanted to smile, but he kept his face neutral and climbed onto the back of the Vespa.
She took him to her apartment. It was a large, Western-style place in an area occupied by many foreign workers. She didn't offer him a tour. Quinn knew he was still on probation, so the living room was all he had to judge things by. It was a comfortable space, with a long, overstuffed couch and two matching brown chairs. Nearly every inch of wall space was lined with bookcases crammed full of texts. On one shelf he recognized a brushed-metal container. It was the only thing in the room he'd seen before, but he made no mention of it.
She told him to take a seat on the couch, then disappeared into another room for a moment before returning with two bottles of water.
'Tell me,' Orlando said as she handed him a bottle, then sat in one of the chairs. 'Everything.'
So Quinn did. He left nothing out; there was no reason to. If he was going to get her help, she'd need to know it all anyway.
It took almost an hour. When he was through, she said, 'Sounds like you've been having fun.'
'Yeah. A real joyride,' he said.
'And you think it's all connected? Colorado, the Office, Gibson, the disruption?' 'Absolutely.' 'Do you have the bracelet with you?' she asked. Quinn reached into his pocket and gently pulled
out a small plastic bag that had been secured with a couple of rubber bands.
He started to hand it to her, but she told him to wait. She got up and walked into the hallway that led to the rest of the apartment. When she returned, she was carrying two sets of rubber gloves. She offered one set to Quinn.
'I think it's safe,' he said, but he took the gloves anyway.
Once Orlando had hers on, she reached out and took the plastic bag from Quinn. Slowly she removed the rubber band and opened the package. From inside, she carefully removed the bracelet.
'Not real silver,' she said.
'No,' Quinn agreed.
'These designs are interesting.'
'They looked familiar to me. Not like I'd seen these exact designs before, but something similar.'
'They're German,' Orlando said. 'Old heraldry from three, maybe four hundred years ago.'
'You sure?'
She glanced at him for a moment, then looked back at the bracelet. 'Yes. I'm sure.' She examined the designs on the bracelet for a few more seconds, stopping on a square that had been partially damaged by the fire.
'Is this some sort of inscription?' she asked.
'What?'
She held the bracelet out to him, pointing at a spot on the half-burnt surface of the square. At first he didn't see anything, but then she turned it slightly so that the light caught the spot she was talking about. There was a thin line toward the bottom of the square, running along the edge. It was blackened by soot that had lodged in the grooves, helping it to blend in with the rest of the tarnished metal. Quinn couldn't remember seeing it before, but if he had, he'd probably thought it was just a scratch. Now that he looked closer, though, he knew Orlando's instincts were correct. It wasn't a scratch, but writing of some sort. Only it was so small, they'd need a magnifying glass or possibly even a microscope to read it.
'Maybe it's just the artist's mark,' Quinn suggested.
'Could be,' Orlando said, clearly not buying that explanation. She took the bracelet back from him, then turned her attention to the square near the hasp. Quinn had used another rubber band to keep the two pieces together. 'I assume this is the container?'
'Yes.'
Again, she carefully unwound the rubber band. Once it was off, she removed the top of the square, revealing the glass beneath. She looked at it for almost five minutes before she finally said something.
'You're right. I think it's a slide for a microscope.' 'Do you know anyone who could check it?' Quinn asked. 'Someone you can trust?'
'The damage to the slide might make things difficult. If the sample itself has been compromised, they may not be able to get a fix on it.'
'So you do have someone.'
She didn't answer him right away. Instead she stared down at the slide. 'I have someone. But I have to send it out. They're not local.'
'It won't do me any good just sitting in my pocket,' Quinn said.
Orlando rewrapped the square, then put the bracelet back in the bag and rewound the rubber band around it. 'I'll get it out first thing in the morning.'
'Thanks,' he said. 'See if they can check that inscription, too.'
Orlando said nothing, but the look she gave him said,
Do you think I'm an idiot? Of course I'll have them check.
Quinn suddenly had the urge to yawn. He tried to stifle it, but was only half successful. It was just a little after 7:30 p.m., but his body wasn't going to let him stay awake much longer. He was beginning to feel a second yawn coming on when he heard a noise from deeper in the apartment. 'What was that?' he asked, sitting up, alert.
Orlando turned and called out, 'Trinh?'
A moment later a young Vietnamese woman appeared in the doorway leading toward the rest of the apartment. Orlando said something to her in Vietnamese. The girl responded, then disappeared the way she had come.
'Housekeeper?' Quinn asked.
'Of a sort.' Orlando stood up, then looked down at Quinn for a moment, apparently contemplating something. 'Come on,' she finally said.
She led him into the hallway, stopping at a door halfway down. It was partially closed, so she pushed it open. The room was dimly lit. Trinh was there, sitting in a chair, mending a shirt. She looked up and bowed slightly as Orlando and Quinn entered, then returned to her work.
It took Quinn's eyes a moment longer to fully adjust to the low light. When they did, he noticed something he should have realized was there from the beginning. To the girl's left, on a small bed, low to the floor, was a sleeping child.
Orlando walked across the room and knelt down next to the bed. She kissed the child lightly on the forehead, then stood and led Quinn back into the hallway.
'What's he doing here?' Quinn asked.
'He's my son,' Orlando said.
'Yeah, I know. But I thought he was with your aunt in San Francisco.' 'My aunt is getting too old to care for him. Her
health isn't what it should be.'
'Is it safe, though? To have him with you?'
She was silent for a moment. Then said, 'He's all I have left.'
Chapter 11
Quinn awoke before the sun. Reaching over to the nightstand, he felt around until he found his watch. Four-thirty a.m.
Sighing, he rolled onto his back. After several minutes of staring into the darkness, he tried closing his eyes again, hoping that maybe he could eke out a little more sleep. But the rest of his body wasn't cooperating. His day had begun, whether he liked it or not.
He reached back over to the nightstand, flipped on the lamp, then got out of bed. The tile floor was cool but not uncomfortable. On the dresser opposite the foot of his bed was a television. He grabbed the remote control off the nightstand next to the lamp and turned the TV on. The business report was running on CNN International. Though Tuesday morning was imminent here in Vietnam, the New York Stock Exchange had just rung its closing bell on Monday afternoon. A financial reporter was running through a list of numbers, but Quinn paid little attention. He didn't play the market. Too risky.
He retrieved his computer, his text pager, and the flash memory stick from his bag on the floor. The stick was attached to an otherwise empty key ring. His everyday keys were in his BMW back in L.A., stowed in a safe compartment few would ever be able to find.
He sat down at a table next to the bed. He opened his computer and turned it on.
The previous evening, before he'd fallen asleep, he'd spent twenty minutes reading
Native Speaker
by Chang-rae Lee. As he read, the lights in his room had dimmed three times. It made him leery of the electrical system in the building, so he'd decided to run his computer off battery power for now. It wasn't a problem. The laptop had a full charge and could run for several hours.
Quinn slipped the memory stick into a port on the side of the computer. The first thing he did was access an encoded document containing information he'd been compiling over the years. The document was a list of locations and bank accounts, a blueprint of potential hideaways and cash deposits that were available to him if needed. He didn't know how long they could stay in Vietnam, so he had to be ready just in case they had to move. From the list, he chose three potential backup destinations.
He closed the document, then opened his modem software. After entering his personal code, he clicked the button labeled 'Connect,' and was promptly greeted with an error message:
Quinn's pager doubled as a wireless, high-speed satellite modem. He turned it over, unhinged a tiny cover in the upper left corner, slid it away, and exposed three small buttons. Using a ballpoint pen, he pushed the middle button, then the one on the left. He flipped the pager back over and opened the cover so he could view the display screen.
Returning his attention to the computer, he signed on and went directly to his e-mail.
There were a dozen messages waiting for him. The first he opened was from Orlando, sent only a few hours earlier.
Call me when you wake up. – 0.
Obviously she didn't expect him to be up quite as early as he was.
If I called her now, she might never speak to me again.
He couldn't help smiling as the thought passed through his mind. But it wasn't just the thought that had made him smile, he realized; it was seeing her again, talking to her. It was actually being close enough to reach out and touch her if he wanted. Strike that. He did want to, but his conscience wouldn't let him.
On the television, the business report was replaced by the world news – a report about the recently elected president of Serbia. A reformer, apparently. Reaching out, the reporter said, to his country's former enemies in an attempt to heal old wounds with a promise to send both civilian and governmental representatives to some upcoming European Union conference on the Balkans.
Quinn picked up the TV remote and lowered the volume, then looked back at the computer screen. Of all Quinn's messages, Orlando's was the only one sent directly to his main e-mail address. Everyone else sent their correspondence to Quinn via dummy accounts that would then electronically forward the messages through a series of circuitous routes to his main e-mail hub. There was a note from his father. A joke, and not a very funny one, about ice fishing and polar bears. Another was from his mother, hinting that she needed help around the house, mentioning three times how useless his father was. It was an old complaint.
He sent them each a quick e-mail, telling them he was on another business trip and would call when he got back home. They thought he was a private consultant in the banking industry, with clients all over the world. It was his standard cover story, though embellished somewhat for his parents.
Six of the nine remaining messages were from other freelancers Quinn had hired at one time or another, all checking in, looking for work.
That wasn't unusual at all. People were always keeping in touch with Quinn, in case anything came up. Recently he'd been receiving more messages than usual, averaging at least one a day. Things had been quiet for several months, so everyone was anxious to make some cash. It was a kind of espionage recession. Quinn blamed it on more and more organizations and state-run agencies trying to do things 'in-house' to hold down costs. But that would eventually change. The old adage 'You get what you pay for' would come into play soon enough.
What was unusual, though, was that the last of these looking-for-work e-mails was sent two days ago, about the time Quinn was making his way out of L.A. Since then, no you-got-a-gig-for-me inquiries from anyone. Had word gotten out about his 'situation'? That would explain why the e-mails had stopped. Still, it seemed unusual. Though rumor and gossip were as fast-spreading in Quinn's world as in any other subculture, the halt in any communication had been
too
fast and abrupt. No way word of his new situation could have traveled through the normal channels in that amount of time. Someone wanted word to get out, and had likely helped in its propagation. Of course, the lack of e-mails could have been a coincidence, but Quinn doubted it.
He frowned. It was the disruption again. It looked like the sons of bitches who'd included him on the target list had taken the extra precaution of making sure everyone knew about it, effectively cutting off his contacts and making him persona non grata. He was still having a hard time connecting the dots that put him on that list. According to Peter, he was the only non-Office staffer targeted. But that didn't make sense.
If he were an ops guy, okay, he could have seen himself being thrown in with the rest. Ops guys were subject to being removed. Even freelance ops. It was an occupational hazard. But Quinn was a behind-the-scenes player. An investigator, an assessor, a perception arranger, even an occasional setup man. In other words, a
dry
cleaner. An
independent
dry cleaner. No killings, no exchanges, no face-to-face meetings. No wet work at all.
Though he couldn't figure out exactly what the connection was, it must have had something to do with this business in Colorado. A guy named Taggert who'd been turned into a chunk of charcoal, and Jills, who'd come to the end of her career years before she planned. Perhaps whoever had done this thought Quinn had learned something necessitating his removal. If Peter had called someone else in to do the job, Quinn would have probably still been sitting on the beach on Maui enjoying his vacation, and the other guy would be the one scrambling for his life. Or, more likely, would be dead already.