Frankie Aguirre and Art Jefferson - 03 - Simple Simon Read online

  Both Anne and Chas Ohlmeyer looked, and smiled in knowing unison. Simon’s head was cocked sideways, his eyes peering through blonde strands, his posture otherwise remarkably steady, no rocking and arms folded across his chest.

  “Something’s caught his fancy,” Anne said.

  Nita Ohlmeyer leaned close to Anne. “Maybe a squirrel. In the trees.”

  Art’s face traversed several emotions as he watched, something that was not lost on Chas Ohlmeyer. “Why don’t you go ask him?”

  “Me?” Art reacted. “He doesn’t respond to me.”

  “Hogwash,” Anne said quietly, then in almost a whisper, “I saw you. Remember?”

  A few seconds drifted by until Art gave in—to his own urge as much as Chas’s suggestion—and went to Simon.

  Reverend Charles Lewis, his heart heavy for the boy after speaking over his parents’ caskets, watched with some measure of satisfaction. “I’d say Simon Lynch is lucky to have you and Art, Anne. It was more than decent of you to arrange this.”

  “They had no family,” Anne said. “They didn’t go to church.” She glanced off toward Simon, then came back to the pastor of the church she and Art had started attending soon after arriving in Chicago. “People don’t come into this world alone. They shouldn’t leave it that way.”

  Ohlmeyer caught Anne’s eye with a familiar tilt of his head. “You paid for this, didn’t you?”

  Anne said nothing, and that was enough of a confirmation for Ohlmeyer. He touched Anne’s back gently, then walked off toward the cars with his wife.

  “Anne, if there is anything more you need…” Lewis hugged her, then he, too, was gone, leaving Anne almost alone, grave diggers to her rear, Art and Simon to her front, tiny against the downtown skyline.

  She stood where she was, leaving them be.

  “Do you like the buildings?” Art asked, his hands loose in his pockets, one fiddling with change and the other trying not to do so with the house keys.

  “Black is up,” Simon said, then he squatted low and cocked his head as close the ground as he could to get the lowest possible vantage point. “Up more.”

  Art’s eyes shifted curiously from Simon, to the skyline, and back again several times before the meaning behind the words became clear. “The tower, you mean. The tall black building?”

  “Up, up, UP!” Simon shouted, giddiness flavoring the exclamation.

  Art chuckled and gave the Sears Tower a good once over. “Yeah, she’s up there. You’re right about that.”

  One of Simon’s hands reached toward the black monolith, and a single finger poked at it, stabbing into the air, trying to touch it. Hunched to the ground as he was, the child-like pleasure in the effort was obvious.

  But sadness surrounded Simon like an aura, touching those who were his link to the horrid reality that had become his. Art, closest at the moment, was caught in the pull of the emotions. After a moment he could take no more. Damned if he was going to cry again, funeral or no funeral.

  He put his hand out and said, “Simon, time to go home.”

  Simon rose almost too quickly, and Art had to steady him, grabbing his hand firmly. Then the mild green eyes came up, and danced around the knot in Art’s tie. “Two five six four Vincent. A blue house. Mommy has hot chocolate.”

  Art said nothing, knowing there was nothing to say, then led Simon back to Anne, who took his other hand. They walked to the car together.

  * * *

  A half hour later, slowed in Monday traffic heading north from the city on the Edens Expressway, Art Jefferson yawned deeply.

  “You’ve got to get some more sleep,” Anne said, knowing she should have made the statement inclusive of herself. The nights had been extremely rough on them both. But Art, he had to get up every morning and put in a full day at the office. Anne felt quite guilty that Chas had been so generous with the university’s leave policy. Guilty, but still thankful. “Worrying about him falling asleep won’t do either of you any good.”

  Art tapped the Volvo’s brakes and forced an easy breath as a car on his ass came very close.

  “You had the same dream last night,” Anne probed. “Didn’t you?”

  Art glanced low in the rearview. Simon was staring off toward a refrigerated truck, shiny white, passing on the left. “Not with him around.”

  “What can be so bad about a dream that—”

  “Anne…” Art gave her that look, and she understood. She was pressing, being ‘earnest’ as she would put it. “Anyway, you’re right. There’s got to be some way to get him to go to sleep before three in the morning.”

  Her hand found his knee and rubbed reassuringly. “We’ll find it.”

  The wave of cars ahead sped up, and the refrigerated truck moved right, taking a space that had opened in front of the Volvo. Art shook his head, adding a breathy sigh when he saw the small inspection door, about as big as a license plate, flapping freely open in one of the truck’s twin rear doors. “A lot of ice cream is going to waste.”

  Anne nodded. “I could use a sundae.”

  “Me, too,” Art agreed, but his thoughts swerved back to more important matters with little hesitation. “I guess it’s hard knowing only one place for sixteen years and then out of nowhere you’re in some stranger’s house. Especially for him.”

  “We’re not strangers, remember,” Anne said, tapping her chest.

  “That’s right,” Art concurred. “He’s got it in writing.”

  The lightness of the moment, the freedom of a jesting observation, opened a space in Anne’s thoughts for a possibility more concrete. Something that might, just might, bring some measure of peace to Simon, and to their nights. “Babe, you have the key to his house, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You can go in,” Anne continued.

  “Yes…?” Art confirmed warily, knowing that tone. “Why?”

  “You should take him,” Anne said. “Tonight. Not where there might be, you know…” She mouth spelled B-L-O-O-D. “To his room. Let him see that it’s there, that it’s okay. Maybe he has a pillow or something that he can bring back. We got him out of there so fast last week that there was no time to think of taking anything other than some underwear and clothes. Let him show you what he’s attached to.”

  Art hardly had to think on it at all before deciding that she was on the mark. “You’ll come, too, right?”

  Anne shook her head and smiled. “Get past it, G-Man. You don’t need me there. He likes you. And you’re good with him.”

  “Come on,” Art protested, though his heart wasn’t in it. “I’ve never even had kids.”

  “I’d say that was a waste from what I’ve seen.”

  Traffic slowed again, bringing Art close to the truck ahead, and the tailgater right up on his ass. But nary a curse was uttered, though a few were carefully thought in higher decibels.

  “I’ll have sundaes waiting when you get back,” Anne said.

  “Wonderful,” Art said as traffic began to inch forward. “I get to get back into this.”

  * * *

  Lying on his stomach on a grossly inadequate pad of some variety, a former Marine named Georgie burned through the last roll of thirty-six exposures and came to a cross-legged sit in the back of the truck now yards ahead of the silver Volvo. He lifted a radio to his mouth in the dark and empty box of the truck, light entering only in spurts as the inspection portal slammed open and shut.

  “Done,” Georgie said.

  In the cab, Ray, a once promising Green Beret officer who’d had the misfortune of riding in a Humvee that hit a mine in the Kuwaiti theater of operations, pressed the gas pedal with his titanium and Kevlar right foot and brought a radio up from the seat. “Four rolls?”

  “Four rolls,” Georgie replied, pressing a button on the camera that began rewinding the film. “The kid ain’t photogenic.”

  “I doubt that matters.”

  Georgie peeked through the inspection portal a final time and squeezed the transmit key h
ard. “The guy driving is going to be out of the way before we grab the kid, right?”

  “You weren’t told to take any more of him, right?” Ray responded with a confirmatory question.

  Georgie popped the canister or film out as the rewind motor stopped. “I sure as hell hope he’s gone.”

  “Why?”

  “The guy’s eyes never stop moving. I doubt he’d go quietly.”

  Ralph changed lanes right and caught a glance of the driver in the truck’s side view mirror. His eyes checked the lanes, his head moved, all while he talked, and drove. Ralph brought the radio up a final time as he peeled off toward the exit. “It’s supposed to be taken care of.”

  * * *

  Before Rothchild was Rothchild, he was a man named Kirby Gant, but even Kirby Gant was known by another name. A more prominent name. One feared and respected by the denizens of cyberspace and the heads of corporate computer security alike. Once he was known as Mr. Tag.

  Mr. Tag was a cyberspace resident, a net surfer of the highest and most dangerous order, a computer age equivalent to Jesse James or Attila the Hun, though it was joked that even those criminals and savages knew some limits. Mr. Tag knew no limits, be they legal or moral.

  He trafficked in digitized child pornography and shut down regional telephone switching systems at will. He played havoc with computer systems from Japan to South Africa. When Hurricane Miranda was twenty four hours from landfall in the Florida keys, Mr. Tag tweaked the National Hurricane Center’s computer to erase its data every ten minutes. He raided New York stock brokerages and had millions of dollars transferred to accounts he had electronically created, then directed the computers of the banks holding those accounts to disburse cash in steady streams from ATM’s in Minnesota, much to the delight of the fortunate few to be in the vicinity.

  He lived on the run, the feds always on his heels, half wanting to lock him up for twenty years, the others wanting to talk shop with him and learn how he did it. One bank offered him a quarter million dollars if he would turn himself in and help them make their system secure. Later, when he thought about it, he realized they would have gotten off cheap, considering he’d placed an order in their name for three hundred million dollars in municipal bonds, a mess that had cost the bank more than a million just to fix.

  Yes, Mr. Tag was a fugitive, a criminal, a hacker, a danger, and he loved every second of his existence. So, when the cuffs were finally on him and after a few weeks in federal detention, the offer relayed to him through a soft-spoken government attorney seemed attractive. And when he met G. Nicholas Kudrow while out on a suddenly agreed-to bail, the offer became irresistible.

  Do what you do best, but for us, now. And without risk.

  And so, after a tragic accident on the Chesapeake, with Mr. Tag’s body written off as food for the fish, Rothchild came into being. Doing what he did best from a smallish office deep in the earth beneath the most secure installation on the planet. Phone lines came in, phone lines went out. Fiber optic cables snaked in, and out. Satellite up and down links were wired in.

  All to a place that, like Rothchild, did not exist. No records. No mess. No worry.

  Hacker heaven.

  And in that heaven, Rothchild stared at a screen and dreamed of a way to ruin Special Agent Art Jefferson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Chicago Field Office. Dreamed and plotted, culling useful tidbits from the seemingly endless streams of data pouring through the display.

  At one spot he suddenly paused the scroll, a disbelieving glint lifting from his eyes. “You used a credit card?! What a fool.” With a few keystrokes he cross referenced that with a check Jefferson’s former wife Lois had written to a private detective several months earlier, when she had put him on her husband’s trail. An obvious case of cold sheets. “Jefferson, Jefferson. Who was she?” Rothchild scanned the credit card info from the motel. “And only once. Well, you weren’t that bad of a boy.” Especially considering what your ex was doing back then, Rothchild thought. Phone records gave her away. “Dumb and trusting, Jefferson. You should have checked the phone bill. Called a number or two. Man, she was burning up beds all over L.A.”

  But an affair, or dozens of them, as titillating as they might be, were far too mundane to be of use in what Rothchild needed to craft. “The demise of a man,” he said aloud as the information once again flashed by. “The end of a career.”

  Career. Rothchild froze the display. “Career. Wait a minute.”

  For several minutes he swam through the digitized information until he had what he wanted, something that had whizzed by hours before but now took on new meaning. A newspaper article, about some mobster beating a federal rap, and in particular the portion where the U.S. Attorney had none-too-kind words for the man of the night. “Oooh, I am thinking, I am thinking….”

  Rothchild’s eyes glazed over for a long while, nothing in the room moving except the air through the vents. His mind worked, taking that which had happened and twisting it into a picture he wanted to see. Into a false reality, but one nonetheless as real as his own false existence.

  And at some point his cheeks bulged above a grin, and his eyes narrowed. He had it. The picture. Whole. “Oh, Special Agent Jefferson, have I got a surprise for you.”

  * * *

  Art guided Simon through the living room of 2564 Vincent, leaving the lights off, and led him up the stairs where he finally turned a light on in Simon’s room.

  The young man took a tentative step in, then another, and finally went to his bed and sat on the edge. His face angled toward a corner of his room, a corner where a large red rocking chair sat in pained stillness.

  “Daddy’s gonna sing,” Simon said, then his jittery gaze shifted to the floor near his feet.

  From where he stood just inside the doorway, Art brought his hands free of the pockets that provided the implements of nervous distraction. He clasped them first in front, then crossed his arms, then tucked his thumbs in his front waistband. Glancing down and picturing the image he thought, An Armani cowboy, and gave up, letting his hands back where they wanted to be, with the change and the keys that provided relief.

  A minor relief.

  And why did he need relief?

  What is the matter with you? Art demanded of himself as he watched Simon begin to slowly rock where he sat on the bed. He’s the one who lost his parents. What’s your problem?

  But he knew what his problem was. It was a lingering remnant of the old Art, pre-heart attack, pre-new life. A trait that was part of his successes and part of his failures. He was sure there was a gene in his makeup just for it.

  You want to fix it. You want to make it right for him.

  Simon stood and went to the chair, but he did not sit. Instead he touched the wooden arm. After a moment he pulled out his cards and flipped through them, searching, it appeared to Art, for an explanation, an answer. You and me both, kid.

  “Daddy…”

  Art walked to where Simon stood and put a hand on his shoulder. The cards disappeared back beneath a pull over sweater.

  “Where did Daddy sing to you?”

  Simon caressed the worn arm of the rocker. It moved eagerly beneath his touch.

  Art watched the motion and thought how soothing it was, remembering his grandmother rocking him when he was young. He wondered quietly, equating it with Simon’s seemingly furtive motions, the rocking, the swaying, wishing he knew if he found comfort in it.

  “Do you want to sit?” Art asked. The rocker moved, old wood moaning softly against the hardwood floor.

  “Daddy’s gonna sing,” Simon repeated.

  Art eyed the chair thoughtfully. “Did Daddy sit here? And sing to you?”

  Simon reached over and took Art’s left hand in his, and squeezed hard. “Daddy sits in the chair and sings.”

  The skin, cold and soft, churned a pang in Art’s gut, and he said, “What did Daddy sing, Simon?”

  Simon let go of Art’s hand and backed away, once again sitting on
the edge of his bed, downcast face toward the rocker.

  Dammit, what is it?! Art swore internally. I don’t know what he wants! He’s sitting here just like at our house, except there it’s an empty corner. Here it’s a…

  * * *

  Anne heard the garage door open, her cue to get the sundaes from the freezer and top them with whipped cream and a drizzle of glorious chocolate. As the door from the garage to the house opened, she decided that she wouldn’t tell Art that she had snuck a few spoonfuls of Hersheys earlier. To test it, of course.

  “Well, my men, how did it…” Surprise screwed onto Anne’s face at what came in the door, Simon in the lead, followed by Art, and a big red rocking chair in a stretcher-carry between them. “What is that?”