Shoot Him If He Runs

51

Stone woke late in the morning to find the bedsheet no longer covering him. He delayed pulling it up again to enjoy the sight of Holly lying naked on her back, her legs slightly parted, her hair awry.

She opened an eye. “You’re awake?”

“I seem to be.” He slid toward her on the bed, and she turned on her side to greet him.

“Something I can do for you, mister?”

Stone kissed her lightly on the lips, then he rolled her on her back again and kissed her on the nipples. They stood at attention. “Just lie there, and let me enjoy myself,” he said.

“Don’t I get to help?”

“Not just yet.” He worked his way down her body, kissing her navel and her belly. He admired her Brazilian wax job for a moment, then parted her vulva with his tongue.

Holly made a noise of pleasure.

Stone continued playfully with his work, then more seriously, until she heaved and thrashed, while running her fingers through his hair, until she climaxed with a long, loud sigh.

They lay there for a moment, both panting, Stone’s head resting on her belly.

“That’s a very nice way to wake up,” she said, then she rolled him on his back and sat astride him, stroking his penis until it was explosively hard. She slipped him inside her and began moving.

To his surprise, Stone came almost immediately. “Wow,” he said softly.

Holly leaned over and kissed him. “That was quick.”

“I had a head start,” he said, “so to speak. I nearly came when I was doing you.”

“How long do I have to wait for a rematch?” she asked.

“Until after breakfast,” he replied, reaching for the phone. “I’m hungry for more than you. What will you have?”

“It’s nearly lunchtime; Eggs Benedict, orange juice and coffee.”

Stone ordered the same for both of them.

Shortly before noon, Lance was sitting in his temporary office having a sandwich sent up from the cafeteria, when he looked up to see Mona Barry standing in the doorway, holding a laptop. “Good morning, Mona,” he said. “Nice to see you in on a Saturday.”

“I wish I could say it was nice to be here, but I’ve been putting in a lot of time on the photos you gave me, and I have some results, though perhaps not the results you hoped for.”

“Come in and take a seat,” he said, dragging a chair next to him behind his desk, so they could both look at the laptop. “What have you got?”

Mona opened the laptop and pressed a button. “Here are the three photographs you gave me; I’ve run multiple tests on them. I have eliminated Robertson from consideration as Teddy.”

“Why?”

“First, because the Agency people I showed the photographs to unanimously agreed that he is not; too young, wrong facial features. Also, I have been able to confirm that he is, in fact, one Barney Cox, one of four British subjects sought for questioning in a robbery of cash from a company at Heathrow Airport, in London, some months ago. Confidence is extremely high, to the point of certainty.”

“Thank you for confirming that,” Lance said. “I’ll see that the information is passed along to the appropriate authority.”

“Now,” Mona said, “about the other two. At first, the photos seemed to be ordinary British passport shots, the kind you’d get at a dozen photographers’ in the West End of London. I analyzed them right down to the dot level, or rather, the pixel level on the computer, and there were a number of similarities, so much so that I began to think that they might have been taken by the same photographer. What kept throwing me off was that the light was different in the two shots-a slightly different color temperature and with the light coming from a different direction.”

“Is there some way to identify at which studio they were taken?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not there, yet; I’m just walking you through what I found.”

“Of course, go ahead.”

“It turns out that where they were taken isn’t really relevant, though I suspect London. They were taken with a Polaroid camera, the kind that takes four shots at once; very common in photo shops.”

“Not digital?”

“No, that’s what you’d expect if they were taken in a large U.S. city, where the conversion to digital photography may be a bit farther along than in England, but again, that’s not the point. After I had taken that analysis as far as I could without identifying a specific shot, I started to do multiple comparisons of the faces.”

“And…?”

“Well, look at the two faces: you see,” she said, pointing, “the man on the right, Weatherby, has had his nose broken at some point, and his jawline is a little firmer than the other man, Pemberton.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

Mona hit a few computer keys. “Now, here I’ve enhanced and enlarged the Weatherby photo: look at his Vandyke.”

“Right, I’m looking at it.”

“What do you see?”

Lance gazed at the enlargement. “A mustache and goatee.”

“But look at what appear to be the roots of the hairs: they seem to have a tiny, thicker dot at the root of each one.”

“Which means?”

“Which means that it’s a false beard, though a very good one.” She moved to another enlargement. “Same at the hairline; it’s a wig.”

“So Weatherby is disguising himself.”

“Yes, but still not the point.”

“Get to the point, Mona.”

“Now look at an enlargement of the broken nose,” she said, moving to another photo. “What do you see?”

“Come on, Mona, tell me.”

“All right.” She pointed at the place where the nose seemed broken. “No pores in the skin,” she said.

“So it’s a false broken nose?”

“Just a clever application of spirit gum, a common theatrical makeup substance.”

“All right, so he has a fake broken nose, too.”

“Right.” She changed photos again. “Now here’s the Pemberton nose, enlarged, alongside the Weatherby shot. Look at the other side of the nose.”

“I’m looking.”

“The other side of both noses is very like that side of Weatherby’s.”

“But not the chin,” Lance said. “It’s softer, less firm.”

“It certainly is, but here’s what happens when I straighten Weatherby’s nose and remove his Vandyke.” She switched to two photos where the hair was cropped out but the faces were enlarged. “What do you see now?”

“They’re beginning to look related,” Lance said. “Brothers?”

“No, there’s spirit gum on Weatherby’s chin, as well as his nose. If we remove that we get…”

Lance furrowed his brow. “Pemberton’s chin?”

“Exactly. They’re not brothers; they’re the same man.” She clicked on two other photos, and images appeared that made the two men look the same.

“Has anybody who knew Teddy Fay seen these?”

“The only two people still in Tech Services who knew him. They both said it could be, but they couldn’t say for sure. Of course, I’ve altered the photos to reflect what I think the men would look like without disguises, but since there are no known photos of Teddy, we can’t be sure it’s him. But I’d put the chances at around seventy-thirty that it is.”

“Well, at least we can have our people hunt down these men-this man, rather-and photograph him.”

“From what I’ve heard about Teddy, that could be awfully hard to do,” Mona said. “But I’ve done this,” she said, switching to a page of a dozen photographs, all different. “I’ve made up this man with various combinations of wigs, mustaches and subtle changes in the face. Why don’t you e-mail this page to our people and see what they can do with it?”

“I will do so immediately, Mona,” Lance said.

She handed him a DVD. “Here’s everything,” she said. “Let me know how it works out.” She took her laptop and left.

Lance picked up the phone and dialed Holly’s satphone number. No answer and no voice mail. He sat down at his computer, inserted the DVD Mona Barry had given him and transmitted it to Holly’s laptop, along with an e-mail explaining what she had done.