Simple Simon

Chapter Twenty Four Dead No More

There was nothing to which Art could compare this sight. Nothing. As he and Simon walked past sawhorses and the idle tools of carpenters’ labors, and approached the east side windows of the Skydeck Observatory, all the world below seemed to be a sea of undulating white mist that rolled inward from Lake Michigan, lit with a radiance borne of a thousand man-made lights below. And from this sea the Sears Tower rose, a rectangular island of black against a star flecked indigo sky, the moon barely a scythe above.

Simon released his grip on Art’s hand and pressed himself right up to the glass wall, his breaths laying steamy ovals on the surface. His head came up, eyes also, the jitter somehow steadied, and he looked out upon the world high above the world below.

“This is up…” he said, and moved along the floor to ceiling window, hands walking along the glass like a mime searching for an exit from the transparent box that imprisons him. “Up…”

“We’re way up,” Art said in agreement, losing himself in the moment, in Simon’s discovery of another place, maybe another universe altogether as he saw it. However he saw it.

Simon’s head twisted as though he were pressing an ear to the glass, eyes to the ceiling, trying to get the best view possible. “We’re in the sky.”

Art followed along as Simon neared the corner of the stripped room. “What do you see?”

“Simon sees up.”

And what did that mean? Art wondered. Did Simon even know? In the end, did it matter?

“Up,” Simon said once again.

Art put a hand on his back and tipped his wrist to check the time. It was almost nine.

This was the night it would end, and Rothchild was gone. Kudrow had made the trip from the Chocolate Box to Rothchild’s office to monitor developments. But the man who did not exist had gone home for the day, treating it as any other. That might have been appropriate in most cases, but not this one. He should have realized that, Kudrow thought. Damn right he should have.

So back to the Chocolate Box Kudrow went, through checkpoints he had just come in the opposite direction, back to his office and to a small phone book he kept in the safe with the master cipher books for KIWI. In the back of that phone book, on a page with more scribbles than readable text, Kudrow ran his finger to the third phone number from the bottom. It had a line through it like most of the others.

He dialed it standing behind his desk.

“Hello?”

An unseen hand might have reached out and lifted Kudrow’s chin, but it was his own reaction to the strange male voice at the other end of the line.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

Kudrow’s throat constricted involuntarily, lest an errant demand be loosed on the person who had answered Rothchild’s phone.

No one answered Rothchild’s phone but Rothchild. That was the agreement. That was the rule.

“Who the hell is there?”

His breathing might have traveled over the line, and Kudrow thought maybe the thump of his heart as it slammed against the inside of his chest at a pace he could not remember, even during the most grueling treadmill tests he’d been subjected to.

This was a muscle out of control, fed by adrenalin and whatever other chemicals his brain was telling the glands to let loose into his system. This was panic.

“Is anybody there?”

Kudrow laid the phone back into its cradle, keeping his hand on it as if to hold it in place, standing as still as he could, feeling the bethump bethump bethump bethump in his chest go on until he thought it might let loose, like an engine that had thrown a rod, ripping a hole right there and letting the blood spurt out against his blazing white shirt.

He wondered if he was having a heart attack, and then he wondered if he should be wishing that it were so.

The supervising FBI agent spun a chair around and sat facing Kirby Gant in his kitchen.

“Can I have something to drink,” Rothchild asked almost meekly, as he remembered doing long ago.

“You got anything?” the agent asked.

“Fruit punch, in the fridge,” Rothchild said, and one of the dozen FBI types in his apartment poured him a glass. He sipped from it, draining half, then set it on the kitchen table. “Thanks.”

The supervising agent nodded. “Now, how is this going to go? Easy or hard?”

Rothchild had already been read his rights. He knew that he could have an attorney present during questioning. And he further knew that no attorney in the land could do for him what he could do for himself.

“Your name is Kirby Gant,” the supervising agent said when no reply came to his question. “Correct?”

Oh, old Kirby. Kirby was dead. Kirby could do Rothchild no good at all. Zero.

“You don’t want to talk to Kirby,” he told the agent. “You want Rothchild.”

Because Rothchild was the one with value, and Rothchild understood the game. Kirby had showed him how to play.

“Rothchild has much more interesting things he can tell you.”

Art looked at his watch again. Nine o’clock sharp. And as if on cue, emerging from the sea of mist as a dragonfly might broach murky water, a helicopter appeared and gained altitude as it neared the Tower.

They’re here, Art thought, his hand sliding from Simon’s shoulder to his back, where it rubbed soft circles.

Simon caught sight of the helicopter also, and tried to point at it but stubbed his finger into the glass. “It’s coming up.”

“It’s coming,” Art said, knowing what he had to say next. “Those are friends, Simon.”

Friends? How could that be friends? Friends were not that. That was Up. Friends were like Art and Doctor Anne and Doctor Chazzz.

“Come on,” Art said, turning Simon from the window and guiding him back toward the exit from the Skydeck.

The thrump-thrump-thrump of the helicopter penetrated the windows as it passed and circled to the north, turning to head back for a landing on the roof. It was a sound that fascinated Simon, requiring Art to keep a firm hand on his back as they weaved between the stacks of construction materials nearer the room’s center.

Another sound drew Art’s attention, though: the soft squeak of a door opening and sliding back on its hinges. He slowed as they neared the turn around the elevator core, which had let them out directly into the Skydeck. He slowed and kept one hand on Simon’s back but let his other lift the side of his sweater, and he could feel the cool grip of his Smith & Wesson on his palm as Keiko Kimura came around the corner with a gun in each hand.