Simple Simon

Chapter Fourteen The Song and the Dance

Breem was impressed with the facade of the old brownstone and the window boxes expectant of spring. He spit into one and pounded on the door, ignoring the brass knocker. When it opened, an ugly man stared out at him.

“Agent Lomax,” Breem said in greeting.

Bob Lomax, in sweats and a pullover sweater, gave Breem a cursory glance, but seemed more intrigued by the man standing next to him. “Pete?”

Kasvakis tipped his head in a joyless greeting.

Past both Breem and Kasvakis, Lomax now saw the familiar dark vans, windows tinted. He knew what was inside, or rather, who was inside. But why were they here? “What’s going on?”

From inside his coat Breem removed the warrant, folded in half lengthwise, and passed it to Lomax. “I think you’ll want to come with us.”

The surveillance teams were gone as ordered by Kudrow, pulled back to locations sufficiently far from the neighborhood where Art and Anne Jefferson lived that there would be no chance of errant contact with the authorities closing in on the area.

The sun had long since set. It was getting late. The streets were quiet. Just a lady walking her dog, a diminutive Westie, enjoying the crisp night, circling the block repeatedly.

Each time around, she took special interest in the two story Tudor with the Volvo in the driveway. It was usually in the garage, she was aware.

On one particular trip past she slowed, making mental notes, and after she turned the corner at the end of the block she came back no more.

In the captain’s chair behind the driver’s seat of a van following those carrying the warrant service teams, Bob Lomax finished reading the warrant. When he looked up, Breem was smiling at him from the passenger seat.

“Where’d you get this crap?” Lomax demanded angrily.

“Bank records don’t lie, Bob.”

“Someone is lying, because this just ain’t true. Art Jefferson would no more get into bed with Kermit Fiorello than I would. Or you.”

Why was it so hard for them to accept it? Breem wondered. Did the Bureau boys think they were all beyond reproach, that they were genetically incapable of selling out? Well, sorry to rain on the parade, Lomax, but I have your man cold, in the bag.

“This is not right,” Lomax said, collapsing back against the resistance of the high backed chair, swiveling it left and right, his heels digging into the carpet. “No way.”

“Your cooperation here is expected,” Breem said, eyeing the warrant. “He is one of your people.”

“Are you enjoying this?” Lomax asked, satisfied that he knew the answer beyond what Breem might say.

“I’m doing what I have to do.”

“Making your name?”

Breem quieted, then said, “Jefferson has a weapon and a shield. You’ll take those.”

Out the side window, streetlights blazed by as whitish streaks. Lomax stared at them until his eyes hurt, and then he simply closed them.

This time, only Mr. Pritchard smoked, savoring a cigar that was nearing the end of its life. It glowed bright with each breath, a fat stub poking from between his teeth.

And as he smoked he read, eyes scanning the message given him just a minute before by Sanders, who had promptly and properly retreated from the room. When Pritchard was done reading he passed the message to a man on his right, Mr. Bellows, and watched it progress around the table with serious, contemplative eyes.

Bellows passed it to Muncy, who passed it to Yost, who passed it to Pike. Pike read it twice and laid it on the bare table they circled. All eyes tracked to Pritchard.

“This is not good,” Pritchard said, choosing an understatement over the actuality.

“And the expected result of this…glitch?” Yost inquired of the group.

“He’s an honorable man, by all accounts,” Pike said. They’d read much concerning the parties that day.

“He’s not our concern,” Pritchard said coldly. “We have an innocent to think about. How does this affect our efforts there?”

Silence ebbed from man to man, broken only by Muncy’s throat clearing, a wet, raspy product of the cancer assaulting his esophagus.

“It complicates anything we do tenfold,” Yost observed. There were no disagreements.

“So,” Bellows began, looking to Pritchard, “the question becomes, ‘Do we intervene?’”

“The situation has changed since we agreed to step in this morning,” Pike said.

“An extreme innocent is involved,” Pritchard reminded the boys.

Muncy leaned forward, coughed into his hand, and said, “And if something goes wrong, what about the next innocent? And the next one?”

Pike agreed with a nod. “Will we be in a position to help them?”

“I think,” Bellows began thoughtfully, sitting back, “that it all depends on one man. How he reacts.”

“To them, or to us?” Pike asked.

“To us,” Yost said. “Do you doubt how he’ll react to them?”

After a moment’s contemplation, Pike shook his head.

“Well, how do we determine one man’s reaction to something he has no knowledge of?” Pritchard asked the boys.

“He is an honorable man,” Yost observed, adopting Pike’s earlier point.

“Meaning?” Pritchard probed.

“He has to understand the big picture,” Yost explained. It was difficult to suggest what came next. “If it is presented to him.”

“Presented?” Pike challenged.

“That is not the way to do these things,” Muncy said. It is not the way. It’s dangerous.”

“Extremely dangerous,” Bellows had to agree.

Pritchard, though, was silent. After a moment the boys looked to him.

“You’re not considering this?” Pike inquired cautiously.

“It’s too early to say yes or no,” Pritchard responded. “How the next few hours play out will affect any decision on that point.”

Pike shot a derisive look Yost’s way before getting up from the table. He walked toward the door, saying directly to Pritchard on his way out, “One innocent we can’t save is not worth risking everything we’ve worked for.”

No response seemed appropriate, and Pritchard simply watched Pike leave, followed by the others, none of whom had any comments to add. They knew the decision was in his hands, and, like Pike, they had a fair idea what that decision was going to be.

Alone in the room Pritchard pressed the stub of his smoldering cigar into an ashtray and leaned back in the chair to stare at the ceiling. It would have been so damn easy, if it weren’t for Jefferson. He was a good person in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What Pritchard needed was someone who didn’t care. What he had on his hands was the FBI’s equivalent of Gandhi.

Gandhi with a gun.

A little before ten in the evening, a dark van cruised past the Jefferson house in Evanston, Illinois, and glided to a stop at the opposite curb, lights out and no screeching tires. A second, similar van was doing the same one house shy of the two-story Tudor. The side doors of each opened quickly, but quietly, and seven men in black exited, fourteen in all moving stealthily to positions around the house.

Four went down the side walkway, scaling a fence to cover the house from the rear and sides. The remaining ten huddled in front of the garage, weapons ready. One man held a Kevlar riot shield. Another gripped a small battering ram. Ten seconds after their comrades went over the side fence, the entry team made their move.

In a union choreographed through countless sessions, both practice and real, they moved in one line from the garage to the front steps, guns tracking to every window. The man in the lead pried the storm door open and held it as the man with the ram came up the steps, his implement already swinging, and knocked the simple wood door in with only one hit.

Anne’s head was twisting toward the front door from her spot on the living room couch, alerted by the pop of the storm door’s latch, when she saw the jam around the deadbolt explode into splinters. She screamed and stood, thinking Dial nine one one, dial nine one one, but there was no time for her body to react to the mental directions.

“U.S. MARSHALS! GET DOWN! DOWN! YOU! DOWN! ON THE FLOOR!”

Anne froze at the sight of men with guns invading her home. For the oddest instant she thought it might be some of Art’s friends from the office playing a joke, but the absurdity of that coupled with a faceless man shoving her to the carpet, foot on her back, gun at her head, made it very clear this was no joke.

“What is going—”

“SHUT UP!” a Deputy U.S. Marshal ordered, pulling her hands behind and cuffing them as the rest of the team fanned out through the house, clearing room after room, checking closets and the attic, the basement, the garage, and under the beds.

Within two minutes it was clear that there was no one else in the house. One minute after that, Angelo Breem entered behind Peter Kasvakis and Bob Lomax.

Anne, straining to look up from a forced position face down on the rug, saw her husband’s boss right away. “BOB!”

Lomax looked at Anne, embarrassed, and went to her, giving the man standing over her a sharp look that matched the scar. “Get her off the floor.”

The Deputy U.S. Marshal looked to Kasvakis, who nodded, and with Lomax on one arm they helped her into a chair.

“Bob, what is happening?”

One of the entry team trotted down from the second floor and went to Kasvakis. “He’s not here.”

Anne, disoriented, angry, scared, and more than a bit sore, looked away before Lomax could answer her question and said toward Kasvakis and Breem, “What are you doing in my house?!”

Lomax crouched in front of Anne, his hands on her shoulders. “Anne, where is Art?”

“Art? ART?” She looked at anyone with a face, shock everywhere on hers. “You’re here for ART?”

Breem stepped closer, and said to the man guarding her, “Mirandize her.”

Getting a nod from his boss, the man did.

“Anne,” Lomax began when the rights had been read, “something needs to be cleared up.”

“Where is your husband?” Breem asked.

Anne tried to focus her attention, but too many things were happening at once. Plus, with the disorientation and fear fading, her anger had room to grow, and when it reached critical mass it had its own questions. “Who are you?”

“I’m United States Attorney Angelo Breem. Now, where is your husband?”

“Why do you want to know?” Anne demanded, remembering the name, and some choice characterizations her husband had made about the man.

“Because I have a warrant for his arrest, as well as yours.”

Arrest? Art, arrested? And…me? She needed a familiar face and turned to Lomax. “Bob?”

“Anne, something has happened. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know Art can.”

Breem rolled his eyes. “Your husband? Where is he?”

“Why are you here to arrest him?”

“Stop playing stupid,” Breem said.

Lomax stood. “Watch it, Breem.”

“No, you watch it Agent Lomax. I have a warrant, I have one suspect from this residence. Now I want the other.” He stepped right up to Anne now and glared at her. “I want your husband. Where is he?”

Anne started to say something, then stopped, and swallowed. The conversation over the breakfast table flashed in her head, Art saying nothing was up, and her knowing it was a lie. Did this have something to do with that? She thought hard, in silence, the thin man who said he was the U.S. Attorney waiting for his answer.

For the second time that week, Art Jefferson took Simon Lynch back to the house where his parents were murdered, and up to the room that not long before was a large part of his physical world.

The first thing Simon did was go to the corner where the red rocker had been and fix an unsteady gaze on the empty space.

“We took that back with us the other night,” Art said, lowering himself onto the bed behind where Simon stood. “Remember?”

Simon studied the floor, the corner, the walls where they came together, even glancing at the ceiling, but it was not there. The red rocker was supposed to be in the corner. It was in the corner in the room at Art and Dr. Anne’s house. It was not here. Simon chewed his lip and fretted over the inconsistency.

“Simon, come here.” Art patted the bed next to him, picking the same spot as the previous night.

Simon did as his friend asked.

Art leaned casually forward, elbows on his knees, and did not try to force eye contact with Simon. On his lap he had The Tinkery, and the paper taken off Mike Bell. It could have been a repeat of their earlier visit. Art hoped it would not be.

“Do you remember the man with red hair?” Art asked.

“The man with red hair,” Simon parroted partially, and began to rock.

All right, was that nerves making him do that, or was it because of the simile Art had seen with the rocker? Art did not know that, but he knew he hated with every fiber of his being the condition that afflicted this kid.

“Simon, did the man with red hair hit you?”

Simon’s head swung right, then came back. “The man with red hair hit me.”

Art considered the answer, and its repetitious nature. After a moment he asked, as a test, “Simon, did the man with red hair sing to you?”

A pleasing silence followed.

Okay. So he hit you. That could have angered Art without end, but he would not let it. There were more important—

“Daddy’s gonna sing,” Simon said.

Oh, shit. You had to ask him about singing. Would this ever end? Art wondered. Did he still believe his mommy and daddy were around, just AWOL for some unexplained reason? If he did, it was torture to let it go on.

“Simon, Daddy’s not going to sing to you. He’s not here.”

That triggered something in Simon, and he pulled his cards out and flipped through, choosing the one at the very back. IF DADDY IS NOT AT HOM AND CAN NOT SING TO SIMON THN GO TO TH TOP DRSSR DRAWR AND TAK OUT TH TAP TO LISTN TO.

Art leaned over enough to read the card for himself, mentally adding the E’s where needed. A tape…

Simon was up and at the dresser before Art’s revelation had run its course. He came back and sat next to Art, a black plastic cassette cradled in both hands.

“Daddy’s gonna sing.”

Well, it wasn’t an answer Art had been looking for, but he was damn glad to have stumbled upon it. It meant sleep for he and Anne, and, more importantly, it meant a measure of peace for Simon.

But first, there were more questions.

Art took the cassette and put The Tinkery in Simon’s hands, open to the KIWI page, as he was thinking of it now. “When you saw this, what did you do?”

Simon saw the puzzle, and the words inside the letters and numbers, and Mommy was in the kitchen, and he got up from Daddy’s chair, and…

“I know how to call someone.”

“Did you call the number in here?”

The number. Number. Simon’s brain played with that for a moment. There were so many possibilities with any number. But his friend Art was asking about calling. Calling. Pressing the buttons with numbers on them. That was calling. Calling had numbers.

“I called that number.”

Okay. Okay. “Where were you when you called?”

“Mommy was making dinner, and I had hot chocolate.”

Not the exact answer, but something nonetheless, telling Art that Jean Lynch was alive when her son called this number. This was all before Mike Bell came into their lives.

“You were downstairs,” Art said.

“Downstairs.”

There was only one phone downstairs, Art knew. In the living room. About ten feet from a dark stain on the floor.

He had no choice, and carefully led Simon down the stairs and into the darkened living room, keeping himself between the kid and the horrific landmarks on the hardwood floor.

At the table where the phone rested, Simon stood and stared at the device. Art picked up the phone. It was still connected, the dial tone humming. He put the phone to Simon’s ear and held The Tinkery where the moonlight could hit the KIWI page. “Can you see the number, Simon?”

Simon saw the number, and the words. Together they told him to do something, just like before. He straightened a single finger and began to press numbers on the phone. He was calling someone. Again.

Art bent forward and kept his ear close to the handset, listening for an answer. It came after one ring.

“Hi,” a voice answered with strained enthusiasm. “You’ve reached the puzzle center…”

Before Simon could respond, or the person at the other end go on, Art took the handset and put it to the side of his face. “I’m calling about puzzle ninety-nine.”

Silence, mostly, from the other end. Art thought maybe a muffled quick breath also.

“Hello,” Art said.

“Uh…”

“Who is this?” Art asked.

“Uh… You…puzzle ninety nine?”

A little too surprised, Art thought. Okay. Let’s shake ‘em up. “This is Special Agent Art Jefferson, FBI. Who am I speaking to?”

Click.

Art kept the phone to his ear, listening as the dial tone followed, and hung up after a moment.

Well, well, well. He asked himself where that call might have been answered. Placing Bell and KIWI into the equation, he could easily hazard a guess.

“We called someone,” Simon said.

Art looked to him, putting a big hand on the bony shoulder. “We sure did.”

The sound erupting suddenly in the dead quiet of the Lynch’s living room sent a short-lived shudder through Art. He took the ringing cell phone from inside his jacket.

“Jefferson.”

“Art. It’s Bob.”

Squeezing Simon’s shoulder softly, Art said, “What’s up?”

The pause before Lomax answered was oddly uncharacteristic, and Art picked up on it instantly.

“You’d better come home, Art.”

Come home… ANNE! “Bob, what is it? Is Anne all right? What’s wrong?”

“Anne’s…all right. But, Art, there’s…a problem”

“A problem?” What the hell was Lomax talking about? “Are you at my house?”

“Yes, along with Breem and a dozen or so of Pete Kasvakis’s fellas.”

“What?” Art reacted.

“Just come home. We’ll straighten this out.”

“Straighten what out? Dammit, Bob, put Anne on. I want to talk to her.”

There was a muffled discussion at the other end, which Art could not make out through the hand that was obviously covering the mouthpiece. Then…

“Art? Babe?”

“Anne? What’s going on?”

“Art, there are a bunch of men here. With guns. They broke in and said they have warrants to arrest us.”

Art’s hand slid off Simon’s shoulder and balled into a fist at his side. “Arrest us. You included?”

“They have handcuffs on me right now.”

Instinct drew Art’s gaze to the rough oval of dried blood a few feet distant, then to the body of the phone on the table, and finally to Simon, who stood in blissful silence, rocking ever so slightly next to him.

“Breem is there?”

“Yes. Art, what is going on?”

Jaw muscles flexed, and Art said as calmly as he could, “Put Bob back on.”

More muffled talk, then, “Art, where are you?”

“What is this, Bob? What am I supposed to have done that Breem would want to arrest me and Anne?”

“Art, they found bank accounts. One overseas with Anne’s maiden name on it and full of money from one of Fiorello’s accounts.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“I know it is. But there’s more, Art. A lot of stuff that makes you look guilty just because it exists.”

“It doesn’t exist.”

“I know, but I’ve seen the account records. They’re there.”

“Then someone put them there,” Art said, invoking the defense of those with no defense. A setup.

“Where are you?”

Art looked around the room. It seemed suddenly smaller than a few minutes earlier. Why set me up?

The fist thumping against his leg brushed the small arm next to him, and a hand came to his, wiggling its way between the clenched fingers, relaxing them, until it was comfortably in his palm.

The Tinkery blazed white in the moonlight where it lay on the phone table.

Simon squeezed his hand.

Lomax pressed the question.

This is the puzzle center…

Mike Bell hit Simon. Mike Bell had a page of KIWI ciphertext reading ‘I know kiwi’.

Simon can decipher KIWI.

Mike Bell once worked for the NSA.

The NSA developed KIWI.

KIWI is unbreakable.

Simon knows KIWI.

They wanted Simon.

They still want Simon.

Art’s brain waded through the pieces. Placed together it was a clear picture. He knew that neither he nor Anne had done anything wrong. It had to be a setup. And who would want to set him up, to get him out of the way?

Who wanted Simon?

“Bob, this isn’t what it looks like,” Art said. He knew, though, that if he said any more he’d sound like a man with guilt at his core. The unbelievable could not explain the impossible. It had to be made believable first.

“Where are you?”

“I’m sorry, Bob.” Oh, God, Anne… How can I let her… “I can’t tell you.”

“Art.”

“Tell Anne everything will be all right. I’ll figure this out.”

“Art! Don’t do it this way.”

“Bob, if you believe me, follow your own advice. Look at the holes. This is a big one and you know it.”

“Art.”

The line clicked off.

“Well?” Breem asked.

Lomax hung his head. When it came up he threw the U.S. Attorney’s cell phone at the wall, breaking a vase in the process.

“Hey!” Breem protested angrily.

Lomax afforded him just a brief glance, then said to Anne, “Sorry about the vase.”

One of Kasvakis’s men came hurriedly in, interrupting the heated moment. “We got a cell hit.”

Kasvakis and Breem looked at the slip of paper the Deputy Marshal held out.

Anne caught Lomax’s eye. “Bob, is Simon all right?”

“Simon?” Breem asked. “Who’s Simon?”

“That’s the Lynch kid,” Kasvakis recalled aloud, turning to Breem and adding, “His parents were killed last week.” The U.S. Attorney’s blank stare requested more information. Kasvakis gave it with an edge. “Chrissakes, Breem, don’t you read the intel attached to your warrants? Under ‘Occupants’?”

Breem looked to Anne. “This Simon is with your husband?” Then to Lomax. “Now he has a hostage.”

“Art is running the investigation of his parents’ murder,” Lomax explained.

“Was,” Breem corrected.

The Deputy Marshal that brought word of the cell hit now had the warrant out and was flipping through the attached information. “Hey, look at this.”

Kasvakis did first, Breem joining him a second later, peeling his eyes from Anne and Lomax.

“The cell hit,” the Deputy Marshal said, pointing. “The repeater that bounced the call is here. And look where the Lynch house is.”

Breem looked instantly to Kasvakis. “Get there. Fast.”

“We’re an hour away.”

“Get someone there! NOW!”

With an apologetic glance at Lomax, Kasvakis left through the front door.

“Bob?” Anne said, her eyes pleading, for an answer, for a solution, for anything that would end this.

“Anne—”

But Breem cut him off, saying to the Deputy Marshal guarding her, “Get her out of here.”

The man helped Anne to her feet, carefully, gently, lest the FBI agent with the scar lay one on him like he looked he wished he could do. Anne’s eyes trailed back toward Lomax as she was led out of her house.

“So help me, Breem, if anything happens to her…”

The threat from the Chicago SAC amused Breem. “You’re in no position to make threats.”

Lomax took two steps forward, making Breem back up one until his back was against the wall under the stairs. “I’m not the one you’ll have to worry about.”

Breem felt Lomax’s hot breath on his face, then the bigger man turned for the door. “He’s finished, Lomax!”

With a slight, confident shake of his head, Lomax said, mostly to himself as he trotted down the steps from the porch, “Not by a long shot.”

The sheer curtains that hung in the front windows of the Lynch household glowed in the bath of pale lunar light. At one window that looked out onto the porch, the curtain moved aside.

Art stared out into the street, at the Volvo parked at the curb. He wasn’t a praying man, but his eyes angled up as he asked, “God, what am I going to do.”

From behind, Simon said, “God is up, up, up!”

“Yeah. Yeah, he is.”

But they were there, feet on the ground, and in the worst spot Art figured he’d ever been in. Others had been tight, but he’d always been a good guy in those.

You are still a good guy.

The one line pep talk, true as it might be, brought little comfort. Someone had painted him a bad guy, and he had to make that right, and he had to see that whoever was doing this didn’t succeed. Didn’t get what they wanted. Didn’t get Simon.

And then there was Anne, the mere thought of her in handcuffs twisting a knot in his gut.

Not now. Focus. She’s strong. She’ll understand. He looked to Simon, who was sitting in a big chair next to the window, his face sideways against the headrest. Anne would do the same thing.

Art put his hand out to Simon, and a second later the little hand was in it.

The knot in his stomach disappeared. There would be time for anger. Plenty of time, he assured himself, and for sure there would be targets for it.

But later. For now, he had to think. Like the professional he was. And like others he had come to know.

The Chicago Police Department cruiser closest to 2564 Vincent approached the house with its lights blacked out just minutes after their dispatch center put out the call. The passenger officer had his gun out before his partner stopped two houses away. They both saw the silver Volvo parked in front.

The driver, after opening his door and taking cover in its V, lifted his radio from its place on his belt. “The car’s here. Where’s our backup?”

A minute later the first backup arrived from the opposite direction, then three more cars within five minutes. In ten minutes there were thirty officers on the scene and they had a perimeter set up around the house.

After trying to make phone contact for twenty minutes, the senior officer on the scene ordered his men to approach the house. Receiving no resistance, they entered through an open back door and checked the house from top to bottom. It was empty.

So was, they discovered, the garage.

He hadn’t hot-wired a car in fifteen years, but considering Martin Lynch’s Ford pickup was about that old, Art was able to get it to turn over with only a few shocks to his fingertips.

With the tank halfway between E and F, he drove slowly away from the area, knowing he would have to find someplace for them to stay for the night. Knowing that he could not use his credit cards, or his ATM card, or go to a friend, or, he was beginning to believe, lift a phone from its cradle. Maybe he was being paranoid, but someone with power had decided that his life was expendable. All because of the kid sitting close to him on the truck’s bench seat.

Simon laid his head on Art’s shoulder, twisting his nose toward the seatback. He sniffed. “Daddy,” he said.

Art patted Simon’s leg and noticed that Martin Lynch had done one thing to bring his aged vehicle into the future. A radio poked from the center of the dash. In it, a tape player. Art took the cassette from his pocket and slid it in. It began to play.

“Wander boy, wander far…”

Simon snuggled closer to Art.

“Wander to the farthest star…”

Art drove on, the song playing, tearing holes in his heart, but putting Simon fast asleep in nothing flat.