The Magdalene Cipher (17 page)

Dunphy picked a tooth—an incisor—out of the sole of his shoe and edged into the doorway
.

“Freddy? Freddy?” Jesse Curry's plaintive voice drifted down from the second floor
.

“Down 'ere!” Dunphy whispered, his voice urgent, clipped, and unconvincingly cockney
.

“Is that you, Freddy? Where are you, then?”

Dunphy didn't answer. He was afraid that if he said more than a word or two, Curry would recognize his voice. Stepping into the vestibule, he ducked behind the stairs and held his breath. If Curry was smart, Dunphy thought, he'd stay where he was
.

But he wasn't, and he didn't. There was a brief scuffle on the stairs above, and Clem's voice—“Owww! You prick!”

“Shut up!” Curry muttered
.

“Owww!”

“Freddy? C'mon, guy—talk to me.”

Dunphy could hear the fire department klaxoning toward Collingham Road and, under the noise, Curry's footsteps as he moved slowly down the stairs, pushing Clementine in front of him. A moment later, Dunphy could see them: Curry held her close to him by the hair at the back of her head, bunching it tightly in his left hand and pulling it back, keeping her off balance and compliant at the same time. His right hand waved a gun in the general direction of the front door
.

Which, Dunphy knew, was not the way you did this sort of thing. If you had a hostage, you put the barrel to her head and kept it there. Otherwise, someone like Dunphy could step up from behind (as, in fact, Dunphy did at that very moment), and smack you in the back of the head—which Dunphy also did, slamming the butt of the Walther into the mastoid bone just behind Curry's ear
.

Clem yelped with surprise as Curry staggered, swayed, and fell against the wall, dropping his gun. Holding the back of his head with his right hand, he was doubled over and moaning, a soft, sad sound
.

Dunphy turned to Clementine. “You okay?” She nodded, and he could see that it was a lie. Her left eye was swollen, and the side of her face was bruised. “Oh, jeez,” Dunphy muttered
.

Curry looked up, wincing through the pain. “That wasn't me,” he said. “That was Freddy. Ask her—”

“I don't give a fuck about Freddy,” Dunphy said. “I wanta know how you found me.”

Curry gritted his teeth against the pain and straightened up, wincing. “We had your credit cards tagged.”

“Bullshit.”

“I'm gonna lie about that? Why the fuck would I lie about that?”

“I don't know.”

“I think I've got a concussion.”

“I don't care. Now, tell me how you found me.”

“I already told you. We traced your credit cards. Talk about stupid. Talk about fucking up . . .”

“I didn't use my cards, Jesse!”

“
She
did. She bought a coat.”

“What?”

Curry glanced at Clementine and sneered. “She bought a
coat
.
At Camden Lock. Oh-Muh-Darlin' bought a—”

Clem lunged at him, but Dunphy caught her by the arm. “C'mon,” he said. “We gotta go.”

“What about him?” Clem asked. “He'll just come after us.”

Dunphy thought about it. Finally he said, “No, he won't.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm going to shoot him.”

Clem's eyes widened, and Curry turned pale. “Heyyyy,” he said, backing into the wall
.

Dunphy shrugged. “Can't help it. No choice.”

“Tie me up!”

“No rope.”

“Use a
belt
,
for Christ's sake!”

Dunphy shook his head. “Wouldn't work. You'd just get away.”

“You can't just shoot him,” Clem said
.

“Why don't you go outside?” Dunphy suggested
.

“No! You'll shoot him.”

“I won't.”

“He will!” Curry shouted. “Don't leave!”

Dunphy kept his eyes on Curry, but his words were meant for Clem. “Just go out, and make sure the coast is clear. I won't hurt him.”

Clementine looked him in the eyes. “You promise?”

“Scout's honor.”

Reluctantly, Clem slipped out the front door to the porch. As the door closed behind her, Dunphy took a step toward Curry, and then another. Suddenly, they were toe to toe, the Walther in Dunphy's hand, his arm hanging down by his side
.

Curry's back was pressed against the wall, and Dunphy saw that his shirt collar was soaked with blood from where he'd been smacked with the gun. “This is a joke,” Curry said. “Right?”

Dunphy shook his head
.

“We go back a ways,” Curry pleaded. “A long ways.”

A soft, derisive puff fell from Dunphy's lips
.

“I know what you're lookin' for,” Curry insisted. “I could tell you stuff you want to know.”

“Yeah, but you'd lie,” Dunphy replied. “And, anyway, there's gonna be a lotta cops here, so—well, it's just not a good time.”

“But—” Curry's eyes grew round as the muzzle of the Walther pressed against his kneecap
.

“Hang on,” Dunphy said, “this is only gonna take a second.”

“For God's sake, Jack—”

“Stop whining—it's not gonna kill ya.” And he fired
.

Chapter 19

They ran hand in hand along the Old Brompton Road, looking over their shoulders, desperate for a taxi. Police cars careened down the street at ferocious speeds, klaxons shrieking. Finally, they found a cab in front of a Pakistani shop that seemed to specialize in plastic luggage
.

“Victoria Station,” Dunphy said, and yanked the door open. A second later, the two of them fell into the cab's cracked leather seats, lay back, and listened to their hearts slam against their chests. Hot air rattled from a heater on the back of the driver's seat, toasting their ankles
.

It was a full minute before Clem looked at him. “Where are we going?” she asked, her voice dull with shock
.

Dunphy shook his head. A little nod in the direction of the driver
.

“I don't have my passport,” Clem said
.

“Don't worry about it.”

Lost to the world in the thickening rush hour, they rode in silence, with Dunphy doing his best to ignore the tears on his girlfriend's cheeks. After a while, he couldn't take it any longer. “Look,” he said, “I didn't have any choice.”

She kept her eyes on the street beyond the window
.

“And, anyway,” he went on, “it's not like—” The driver's eyes loomed in the rearview mirror. Dunphy lowered his voice to a whisper. “It's not like he's gonna croak, for Christ's sake. He's a
tough
guy.”

Clem turned to him in disbelief, then looked away
.

Dunphy grinned. “A little spackle, a cane—he'll be fine.”

She burst into tears
.

Dunphy rolled his eyes. “It's the truth. Not that I give a shit, but the son of a bitch'll be hunky-dory in no time.”

Clementine looked at him as if he were insane. “And the other man? What about him? Will he be fine, too?”

“A little dental work—he'll be right as rain, doing what he does best.”

“And what's that?”

“Hurting people.”

Nothing else was said between them until they arrived at the train station. Dunphy gave the driver ten quid, and with Clementine in tow, led her through the crowds to the building's far side, where he hailed a second cab to a second train station—this time, King's Cross. The traffic was even thicker than before, the ride slower, and the conversation nonexistent
.

Which was fine with Dunphy, who had a lot of thinking to do—not to mention the explaining that would come later. But first, he had to get cash—and lots of it. Which meant a visit to Jersey
.

He looked out the window. The cab was crawling along Victoria Street past New Scotland Yard, heading toward Westminster Abbey and Whitehall. Rivers of businessmen, shop girls, cops, pols, and tourists thronged the sidewalks, moving at a surprising clip
.

The thing is, Dunphy thought, there's no way Blémont hasn't been in touch with the bank. He would have called them months ago. He'd have explained about the money, about how it was actually his, and—then what? Then, nothing. A hapless shrug from the banker—what's-his-name?—old man Picard. Who'd have expressed his regrets and shown Blémont to the door. “Sorry, old man, nothing to be done, I'm afraid. We'll just have to pray your chap turns up!”

And that's exactly what Blémont would do—wait for Thornley to show up. He'd have searched everywhere, of course, but he'd have known there was one place that Thornley was certain to come: the Banque Privat de St. Helier on Jersey. Because that's where the money was, and that's what this was all about, right?

The cab went around a little square whose name Dunphy didn't catch, and swung left, heading up Whitehall past the Admiralty and Old War Office. Clem made a sniffling sound, but shrank away when Dunphy tried to comfort her
.

Ah, well, he thought. One thing at a time
.

Jersey . . . Blémont . . . the Frenchman wouldn't have sat around for months, watching the bank. He'd have paid someone to tell him if and when Kerry Thornley showed up. But who would that someone have been? Someone who worked in the bank. Which meant old man Picard, a secretary, or clerk. But probably not Picard himself: discretion was his business
.

The taxi swung past Charing Cross, heading up the Strand in the direction of the Inner Temple. For a fleeting moment, Dunphy was tempted to have the cab stop, so that he could check out the site where everything had started. The place where Schidlof—or at least the
middle
part of Schidlof—had been dropped. But the cab turned before it got to the temple, moving north on Kingsway in the direction of Bloomsbury and the British Museum
.

If it was a clerk who'd been bribed, Dunphy thought, he'd have been given the name of someone else to call—someone on the island. Whoever that was would notify Blémont of Thornley's whereabouts and follow him wherever he went. Eventually, Blémont himself would show up, and that's when things would get ugly
.

But what if it was Picard? What if Blémont had actually gotten to the old man himself? What then?

Dunphy thought about it. Well, then, he thought, in that case, he'd try to keep me there. Perhaps until Blémont himself could arrive. Dunphy grunted softly, as if he were on a bicycle and was suddenly pedaling uphill
.

“What?”

He turned to her. “I was just thinking,” he said. “When we get to King's Cross, I have to make a phone call.” She looked away. They were passing a row of chic furniture stores on Tottenham Court Road
.

If Picard tried to stall him, he'd probably make up an excuse about not having enough cash on hand to close out the account. And, in fact, that wouldn't be such a stretch: the Banque Privat was, as its name implied, a private bank and not a commercial one. It did not have tellers or ATMs, and it did not cash checks for workmen. Even more to the point, it
was
a lot of cash that Dunphy was seeking: nearly three hundred thousand pounds—about half a million dollars—the entire take from Blémont's scam with the stolen IBM stock. The idea, then, was to make sure that the money (and not Blémont) would be waiting for him when he got to the bank
.

When the cab pulled into the turnaround at King's Cross, Dunphy gave Clem a fistful of cash and told her to buy two tickets to Southend-on-Sea
.

“Where will
you
be?” she asked suspiciously
.

“Right there,” Dunphy said, gesturing. “On the phone.”

It took a while to get the number for the Banque Privat, but when he did, the call went straight through
.

The woman who answered was crisply efficient. She said that Mr. Picard was in a meeting and would not be available until the afternoon. Perhaps she could be of help?

“Well, ah certainly hope so,” Dunphy said, affecting a southern accent. “This is Taylor Brooks—from Crozet, Vuhginya?”

“Yes?”

“And how're yew, ma'am?”

“I'm very well, thank you.”

“Ah sure am glad to hear that, on accounta ah'll be stoppin' by tomorrah—fo' a visit? The man I work for said I should call ahead, give y'all a little notice.”

“I see. And who might that be?”

Dunphy chuckled. “Well, ma'am, that's not something we discuss much on the telephone—bein' as how he's real discreet. But we do have several accounts with yew. Ah believe they were set up by a Mr. Thawnly.”

Silence
.

“Well, I haven't seen hide nor hair of that jokah for
quite
some time, but—what it is—ah'll be making a withdrawal. And the Big Fellah—that's my boss—thought I should call aheada time—on account of the
amount
involved.”

“Well, that was very thoughtful of him.”

“Thank you, ma'am, ah'll tell him you said that. Truth is, we're about as busy as a dawg with two dicks—”

“Pardon me?”

“I
said
we're about as busy as a
dawg
with two dicks. Which is a saying we have—means we're
real
busy. Anyway, like y'all said, ah'm gonna need three hundred thousand pounds—”

“Oh, dear . . .”

“—and I'd appreciate it if you'd have it on hand when ah get there. Hunnuds, if you got 'em. Fifties, if you don't.”

“Yes, well . . . you said you're a Mr. . . . Taylor?”

“No, ma'am. Ah said ah'm a Mr. Brooks. Taylor's my fus' name.”

“Excuse me.”

“No need to apologize, ma'am. Happens all the time.”

“And the account—”

“Well, now, that's not something we should go into just now, but if you'll tell Mr. Picard that I called, and that these are his Crozet, Vuhginia, accounts, he'll know exactly where ah'm comin' from.”

“I see.”

“Well, praise Jesus! That's all I had to say. Just a little heads-up. Ah'll look fo'wut, then, to seein' ya—fust thing.”

And with that, Dunphy rang off
.

“Who was
that
a?” Clem asked, startling him as he turned away from the phone
.

“My bank,” he said, taking one of the tickets from her hand. “Jesus, Clem, I swear I'm gonna get you a bell.”

“I don't mean
that
a—I mean who were
you
supposed to be? You sounded like that old television show
.
Dukes of Hazzard!
a”

“Thanks,” Dunphy said dryly. “I do the best I can. So where's the train?”

“Track seventeen. We've got about four minutes.” She was looking at him strangely, as if she'd just begun to realize that Dunphy was a lot more than she'd bargained for
.

They walked double-time through the crowded station, hurrying without ever quite running. At Track 17, they broke into a jog on the platform, making their way toward the front of the train, where the last of the first-class cars was waiting. With the exception of an impeccably dressed elderly couple wrestling with shopping bags, and a young man talking boisterously into a cell phone, they were alone
.

Dunphy dropped into a seat near the back of the car and closed his eyes. He was thinking about the Banque Privat. The secretary, or whoever she was, would tell old man Picard about the phone call she'd just had. Picard would recognize the reference to Crozet immediately
.

These were accounts that Dunphy had set up for the Reverend James MacLeod, a burly evangelist with a radio and television ministry that netted his Second Baptist Primitive Church about fifty thousand dollars a week in cash and checks, sent through the mail by enraptured admirers. The checks, and about 10 percent of the cash, were properly declared and publicly accounted for. The remaining 90 percent of the cash was smuggled abroad into MacLeod's accounts at the Banque Privat
.

Dunphy had no intention (or, indeed, any way) of touching that money. He was no longer a signatory to any of the accounts, and his reference to them was simply a way of making sure that Picard had the necessary cash on hand—without tipping him to Merry Kerry's arrival
.

The train lurched. He opened his eyes. “You okay?” he asked
.

Clem shook her head. “No, I'm not okay. I don't know what's happening—or who you really are—or what any of this is all about. And it's not fair. Because I'm the one who's probably going to get killed.”

Dunphy shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “No, you're not,” he said. “But . . . it's kind of complicated.”

She made a low, growling sound and looked away
.

“All right! I'm sorry. It's just . . .” He lowered his voice. “Just don't go off the deep end on me.” He thought about it for a moment and then plunged in. “Remember, the other day? I mentioned a thing called need to know. And I said you didn't have it, but—it turns out—you did. I was thinking, the less you knew, the safer you'd be, but—” He paused, then added, “My bad,” and paused again, uncertain how this would play. Finally, he plunged on. “So the point is, I fucked up. There's no way to get around that, and now—well, now, we're in a lot of trouble. Both of us.” He sighed. “Got a cigarette?”

Clem blinked. “You don't smoke.”

“I was thinking of taking it up again. I mean, why not?” When she didn't laugh, he hurried on. “Anyway, it's like this. When I told you I'd left the Agency, when I said that I was—”

“Redundant.”

“Right—when I said that I was redundant—well, that was kind of an understatement.”

A quizzical look from this beautiful girl. “What does
that
mean?”

“Well, it means that, while it's true that I don't work for the Agency anymore, there's more to it.”

“Like what?”

“Like what you saw. They're looking for me. And they're pissed.”