The woman whom Thorpe had mistaken for Kimberly walked slowly past, checking her flight ticket, looking lost. It wasn't the first time Thorpe had seen Kimberly since she had been killed. He saw her running along the beach, he saw her waiting in line at the new John Woo movie, and once, in the produce department at Ralph's, he had seen her trying to select a ripe cantaloupe. He knew it wasn't really her. The photos taken at the safe house were proof enough. He knew it wasn't her, but he always made sure anyway.
Thorpe still didn't know how the Engineer had pulled it off. He had observed Lazurus and his crew for months. Lazurus was a thug, violent and obscene and heavily guarded; the few phone intercepts had caught him raging, giving orders to subordinates who were desperate to please, fearful of his wrath. Lazurus might have thought he was the boss, but the man running the operation was the Engineer; that soft, pink technocrat, the faintly ridiculous Engineer with his puppy love and awkward manners. Lazurus was just an unwitting stand-in, another patsy who never knew what hit him. If it hadn't been for the carnage at the safe house, Thorpe would have applauded the charade.
Some poor bastard pushed a baby stroller down the concourse, one kid in the stroller crying, another one slung against his chest, sleeping. Dear old Dad was sweating in droopy jeans and a stained polo shirt, thinning hair plastered across his scalp, and looking happier than he had any right to. It always amazed Thorpe. Where did that happiness come from?
No kids for Thorpe. No friends or family, either. He didn't even have an ex-wife to bitch about, to call in the middle of the night, drunk and lonely, talking about the good times that neither of them remembered. He didn't have anyone. Kimberly was the closest he had come, and she was dead. Fourteen years in uniform, the last ten in Delta Force, sent on missions he couldn't talk about, and then came the shop, with its secret mental compartments. Thorpe was the neighbor you called at 4:00 a.m. when your car broke down in the middle of nowhere, the one who would come and get you, and not tell you to check your oil once in awhile. Then one day his apartment would be empty and he would be gone, with no forwarding address. Sudden departures and no emotional entanglements were part of the appeal of the job, an essential part of the pay package. The shop gave him an excuse to be who he really was. It was a lousy trade-off.
Angry at himself, angry at the Engineer, angry at the sun and moon and stars, Thorpe finished the coffee in a quick swallow, then headed toward the escalator. Maybe the kid by the luggage carousel had mango slices for sale. Thorpe jiggled the empty cardboard cup as he walked, listening to the sugar cubes rattle around like blind dice.
A businessman in a blue suit walked rapidly down the escalator, elbowed Thorpe aside without a word, and kept moving. Thorpe forced himself to stay put. In his present mood, once he started, he might not be able to stop. He watched the businessman's crocodile briefcase swinging as the man plowed down the escalator, a real hard charger.
The kid was still by the door, at his post. He held out the tray, called to the businessman. Without breaking stride, the businessman smacked away the kid's tray with his briefcase, a solid roundhouse blow, scattering gum and candy, the kid stumbling backward onto the floor, blood streaming down his face. The businessman stalked out through the sliding glass doors.
Thorpe chased after the businessman, double-timing it, but a skycap cut him off with a line of carts, the skycap oblivious, talking on a cell phone. By the time Thorpe got outside, the hard charger had stepped into a waiting red Porsche convertible, a beautiful blonde behind the wheel. Thorpe watched them roar off, the blonde's hair floating behind her in the sunshine. She kissed the man as she accelerated into traffic, kissed him hard and deep, horns blaring around them, the blonde not caring. The hard charger didn't kiss her back, just lolled against the headrest and let her do all the work.
Inside, the kid was on his knees, picking up his goods. "You okay?" asked Thorpe, bending down beside him, helping gather the breath mints and scattered sticks of gum, piling them into the tray. "?Esta bien, nino?"
The kid didn't answer; he was busy organizing the gum and candy in his tray, stacking them up, his hands shaking. The edge of the tray, or maybe the briefcase, had split his upper lip, and blood was leaking from his nose, too. His T-shirt was spattered, Mickey Mouse's innocent grin stained with red. The kid kept blinking, cheeks flushed, as humiliated as he was hurt, and Thorpe knew that look. The kid didn't cry, though. Not one tear. Thorpe had a few medals in a safety-deposit box. He would have given them all to the kid if it could have done any good.
Thorpe dabbed at the blood with a tissue. "?Esta bien, vato?"
The kid still didn't answer, and Thorpe could see anger in his eyes now, recognized it, too, seeing not a sudden fury that faded as rapidly as it came, but something colder and more dangerous. All those so-called experts, Ph.D. numbnuts who thought personality changes were the result of a slow accretion of experience, were wrong. It just took one false move to fuck you forever.
"?Como se llama?" Thorpe said gently. "Me llamo Frank." He kept himself at eye level with the kid, nodded to the door the hard charger had gone through. "Este hombre es un estupida. Un porque."
The kid got to his feet, holding on to the tray, his gaze unwavering now. Tiger, tiger, burning bright, thought Thorpe. He and Thorpe were two of a kind now, and it was the saddest thing Thorpe had ever seen in a child. "Me llamo Paulo Rodriguez," the kid said, edging away.
Thorpe watched Paulo go, watched him until he disappeared deeper into the airport. The hard charger had stolen something from the boy, something only the hard charger could give back. Thorpe turned toward the luggage carousel, saw his bag going round and round, and knew he wasn't going on vacation. Not today. He had glimpsed only the license plate of the red Porsche as it sped off, just caught a flash of numbers, but it had been enough. Old habits, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thorpe grabbed his bag, then went outside and hailed a cab. Time to go home and give the hard charger a wake-up.
2
"What are you doing back here?" Claire wiggled her toes at Thorpe as she reclined in a blue wading pool set onto the grass at the center of the courtyard. Her yellow leopard-print tank suit contrasted with her deep tan, her short dark hair sprouting in all directions. "I thought you were on your way to Miami."
"Poor boy couldn't bear to leave us," chirped Pam, her roommate, a slim hennaed redhead in a string bikini. She toasted Thorpe with a can of light beer, water sloshing over the edge of the pool and onto the grass. "Welcome home, lonesome."
Thorpe closed the gate to the apartment complex, walked toward them. Claire watched him approach from under her sun visor, one leg cocked.
"Come on in and take a dip," invited Pam, tugging on her top. Eleven a.m. and her eyes were already bloodshot.
"There's not room in there for an anchovy," said Thorpe.
"She didn't get a callback," explained Claire, and Thorpe wondered if she had spotted some telltale sign of his disapproval.
"It was just a stupid suntan oil commercial," said Pam. "Not even one line."
"Everything okay, Frank?" asked Claire.
Thorpe idly touched his side, felt the scar, the two of them making eye contact. "Fine. I just needed to postpone the vacation for a few days… a week at the most." He walked into his apartment. He could still hear the music from poolside. He took his laptop out of the suitcase, set up on the kitchen table, and logged on to the Net, the connection made with a prepaid cell phone. Thorpe didn't believe in landlines or phone numbers with his name on the bill. His fingers clicked over the keys. The only e-mail was from Billy.