Authors: Jason Dean
Bishop opened his eyes and smiled. The mind’s capacity for storing and accessing information was truly fascinating. He’d read
in
New Scientist
once that it was just like any other muscle. That the more you exercised it, the better it worked. Bishop was strangely reassured
by that thought. It meant genes and DNA didn’t decide everything.
That it was partly down to the individual’s strength of
character in the end.
He leaned forward, typed
Supreme Jets
into the search box and hit Enter. And there it was. Right at the top of the page. He clicked on the link and was taken to
their home page where the company promised to supply luxury jet charters for his personal and corporate needs. The logo
was
exactly as he remembered.
From there, he clicked on
Company History
and the page that came up, although heavy with text, featured an assortment of photos. Some were of the jets, either airborne
or in readiness for take-off. Some focused on the corporate headquarters in Washington. But the real prize was the shot of
the King of Yajir and a businessman
shaking hands in a hangar with a company jet in the background. Along with a man partly
in shadow, but with a cleft chin, a long nose and slightly sunken cheeks.
Bingo
.
It wasn’t exactly the same photo as the one in Brennan’s office. It looked to have been taken a second before or after, as
Brennan’s face was turned away slightly, his features obscured. If Bishop
hadn’t already seen the other shot, he would never
have been able to place him from this one. The picture was also uncropped to allow the full glory of the aircraft to be seen.
A Lear 60 six-seater, it looked like. Or possibly the 55. Both popular models amongst executives, in Bishop’s experience.
He guessed the presence of royalty had merited the photo worthy of inclusion
on the company website. There were no captions
under any of the pictures, but on the contact page there was a media representative by the name of Joanne Walsh, along with
an email address and phone number.
Bishop deleted the browser’s history before logging off, then paid for his time with a twenty, got change from a five and
went downstairs.
There were two payphones attached to the rear wall of the Laundromat, next to a table bearing three White
Pages directories and a pile of old magazines. Bishop picked up the nearest phone, inserted some coins and dialled the number,
scanning the shop as he waited. Three of the twelve washing machines were in use, and two female customers were sitting on
the chairs by
the entrance. Neither one paid him any attention.
A female voice said, ‘Joanne Walsh. Can I help you?’
‘Yeah, I sure hope so, Ms Walsh,’ Bishop said, turning to the wall. ‘My name’s Rhinehart. I’m a researcher over at the
Post
and one of our writers is planning a weekend society piece on luxury air travel, and the role of private air charter companies
as an alternative to scheduled airlines.’
‘Sounds intriguing,’ Joanne said.
‘Well, we’re hoping our readers feel the same way. Anyway, I noticed that cool photo on your site with King Saleh of Yajir.’
‘You’re not the first person to comment on it, Mr Rhinehart. It
is
a cool picture, isn’t it?’
‘Very. And Rhinehart’s my first
name, actually. It’s German. And on that subject, I was wondering if you had the names of
the two westerners in the shot. The businessman and his associate. Looks like one of his security men, maybe.’
Joanne Walsh paused. ‘Um, possibly. May I ask the reason?’
‘Well, it’s nothing important really, but if we can get a nice quote from somebody who’s actually
met royalty, it might add
some pizzazz to the article. You know, something to end the piece with. It would get your company a mention, too, of course.’
‘I see. Well, I think I might be able to find their names for you. Do you want me to call you back, um, Rhinehart?’
Not really
, thought Bishop. ‘Probably best if I stay on the line, Ms Walsh. As soon
as I’m done with this I’m out of the country on
another assignment.’
‘Oh. Okay. Can you hold for a few minutes then?’
‘No problem.’ Bishop leaned his shoulder against the wall and studied the nearest washer. A light blue sock was visible through
the glass and he watched it move in soapy circles. He kept a count of how many
times it reached the
top of the barrel and then tried to work out how this related to the number of revolutions per minute.
He’d decided it was probably kicking in at around the seven hundred mark when Joanne Walsh returned.
‘Right. Well, I found the names for you, but I’m not sure what good they’ll do as one of them . . . well, he passed away a few
years ago. He was a businessman
who used us quite a lot.’
‘Oh, no,’ Bishop said. ‘Well, maybe I can still talk to the one who’s still around; the second guy.’ Bishop realized his hand
was squeezing the phone a lot tighter. ‘Do you have his name there?’
‘I do. It’s Adam Cortiss.’
‘Adam Cortiss,’ he said. ‘That’s fantastic, Ms Walsh. Thanks very much, you’ve been
a great help. We’ll send your office a
copy when it gets printed.’
‘Please do,’ she said and Bishop hung up, whistling through his teeth. Now he had a name. Adam Cortiss. Things were looking
up.
Bishop went over to the table and checked the covers of the three current White Pages directories stacked next to the magazines.
Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. Picking up the Manhattan book, he opened it at the Ts and leafed through the pages.
After a few moments, he smiled as he came upon the sole listing for ‘Thorpe,
Martin H’. Bishop remembered Thorpe once revealing
that the H stood for Heath, and that he suspected his mother of being drunk when she came up with it. The phone number was
still the same as before, and Bishop was faintly surprised that Thorpe hadn’t gone the unlisted route. Maybe he felt he hadn’t
reached that level of success quite yet. Still living in the same rent-controlled
uptown apartment, too.
Bishop closed the book, picked up the phone again and fed it some more coins. He began dialling the number but when he reached
the last digit, instead of pressing the five button to connect to Thorpe, he pressed six.
After a short wait, a deep male voice said, ‘Yeah?’
‘Hey,’ Bishop said. ‘It’s Frank. Can I
talk to Larry?’
‘Who?’
‘Larry. Larry Foster. Who’s this I’m talking to?’
‘This is Domingo. Ain’t no Larry here, pal.’
‘Oh, sorry. Must have misdialled. Thanks.’
Bishop pressed down on the receiver and released it again. After inserting more change, he dialled the correct number and
waited as it rang.
Shortly, a familiar voice said, ‘Hello?’
Adopting the same lazy Texas drawl as Carmody from this morning, Bishop said, ‘Hey, there. Domingo left yet? He was supposed
to be here half-hour ago. I can’t wait all day.’
There was a short pause. ‘You got the wrong number.’
‘Aw, hell.’ Bishop quoted the previous number and said, ‘That’s
right, ain’t it?’
‘All except the last part,’ Thorpe said. ‘This number ends with a five.’
‘Shoot. Sorry ’bout that. I’ll try again.’
Bishop smiled as he placed the phone back on the hook. While he couldn’t be sure the feds were listening in on his ex-colleagues’
phone calls, it was better to assume they were. In which case, a quick check on Domingo’s
number would tell them the last
call was nothing more than a genuine misdial.
But Bishop now had the information he needed. Thorpe was at home today. And in Bishop’s experience, people were generally
creatures of habit in their down time. He checked Cook’s watch. 11.39. Getting close to lunchtime for many people this fine
Sunday.
And he had a pretty good idea where Thorpe would spend his.
Smelling strongly of chlorine, the uniformly grey changing room contained three long aisles with lockers on both sides and
four wooden benches running down the centre of each. With the visor of his baseball cap hiding his features, Bishop sat on
a bench in the middle aisle and fiddled with the buttons on the diver’s watch. It was
13.06, and he was waiting for the skinny
teenager ten feet away to finish packing away the last of his gear. Bishop watched him carefully place a pair of grey sneakers
with a flashy star design into the locker before finally closing it and moving off towards the pool.
Then the place was quiet except for the muffled sound of running water coming from the next
room. That’s where Thorpe was.
Four minutes ago, Bishop had watched him exit the corridor leading from the pool, wearing a stylish pair of purple and black
trunks, and head for the showers.
Thorpe had once mentioned that he’d joined the Asphalt Green Sports Center on East 90th Street partly because it was never
crowded, but mostly because it boasted
the only Olympic-sized swimming pool in Manhattan. And Thorpe was serious about his
fitness. Any time he got a day off, Bishop knew he liked to spend his lunchtime doing laps and he guessed an arm injury wouldn’t
stop him. In fact it probably helped, so Bishop made a wild gamble and it had paid off.
He had taken the subway into Manhattan, gotten off at the
86th Street station and walked the rest of the way. This far into
town no one paid any attention to anyone else; they were all too busy. So as long as he kept moving he reckoned he was safe.
At reception, he’d parted with thirty-five dollars and received a day pass and a locker key in return.
Soon, the sounds coming from the shower faucets stopped. Then Bishop
heard the unmistakable sound of wet soles against tile.
As the footsteps got closer, he got up and turned to the line of lockers on the right. He placed his key in number 317 and
waited. The footsteps came
to a halt in the adjacent aisle. Then there was the sound of another lock being turned.
Bishop removed his key and walked to the end of the row. He turned
left and peered round into the next aisle. A kneeling man
with a towel around his waist had his back to Bishop. He was pulling out a folded white T-shirt from a locker and placing
it on the long bench behind him. Then came a pair of white Nike sneakers, which he set down next to a pair of damp purple
and black trunks.
As the man turned back to pull
out the rest of his possessions, Bishop silently walked forward and sat on one end of the bench.
Keeping his voice low, he said, ‘Hello, Thorpe. Don’t bother turning round.’
Thorpe froze, holding a pair of a tracksuit pants in both hands. ‘Okay.’
‘You recognize my voice?’
‘I think so. You been on TV recently?’
‘My fifteen
minutes, if you believe Andy Warhol.’
Thorpe nodded. ‘So, did you get hold of Domingo in the end?’
Bishop smiled. Thorpe still had his sense of humour, at least. ‘He never showed. I had to leave without him.’
‘He’ll get over it. Got to admit, you had me fooled. It sounded nothing like you, but I should have guessed. A wrong number
the same day
you escape from prison?’ Thorpe clicked his tongue and said, ‘Any particular reason why I can’t turn round?’
Bishop thought about it and decided the cap hid his new haircut well enough. But he kept hold of the Beretta in his jacket
pocket. ‘Not any more,’ he said. ‘Go ahead. Take a load off.’
Thorpe turned slowly and got to his feet. He looked
at Bishop, dropped the pants onto the white T-shirt and sat down on his
side of the bench.
He hadn’t changed much in three years. Still in good shape, no doubt due to the swimming. Same prominent jawline. Same comma-shaped
scar on his upper lip. The thick light brown hair was as short as ever, but Bishop noticed a few grey strands in there. And
maybe
there were a few more laugh lines around the eyes.
Thorpe glanced briefly at the jacket pocket concealing Bishop’s hand and smiled. ‘I know you won’t believe me, but it’s good
to see you.’
‘I’m glad to hear that. Makes it easier for me to ask a favour.’
Thorpe frowned and used a palm to pat down a crease in his
tracksuit. ‘That kind
of depends on how big the favour is. Don’t get me wrong, Bishop; it
is
good to see you, but I don’t want to end up sharing a cell with you.’
Bishop smiled. ‘And here was I thinking you’d be anxious to pay me back after what I did for you in Seattle.’
Eight years before, Bishop’s first assignment as a team leader had been to guard a rock promoter on the west coast
after he
had a major falling out with some local gang-bangers. The three-man team, consisting of Bishop, Thorpe and a man named Romario,
had been driving him back from a business meet one evening when their route was blocked by two cars full of armed men who
began throwing down fire in their direction. Bishop managed to get out and dislodge a nearby sewer grate and,
while he laid
down covering fire, ordered Thorpe and Romario to get the principal out of the area via the drainage tunnels.
Amazingly, the cops were on the scene in no time at all and while they went after the shooters, Bishop climbed down into the
narrow, dark tunnel and saw that his principal and Romario had gotten away okay. The same couldn’t be said for
Thorpe. He
was still down there, writhing around in a foetal position, calling on Bishop to get him out before the walls squeezed the
life out of him.
A fear of enclosed spaces would have ended any other bodyguard’s career, but Bishop covered for him in his report. In all
other respects, the guy was a natural, so Bishop picked him for his team in
all future assignments. He just made sure Thorpe
was never put into that kind of situation again.
Thorpe’s frown became deeper and he stopped fiddling with his clothing. ‘Yeah, you got a point there. I guess I
do
owe you one, at that.’ He sighed and said, ‘So what do you need?’
‘Nothing major. Just some simple information retrieval. I want you
to go to the office and dig up everything you can on a
man named Adam Cortiss.’ Bishop spelled out the surname and said, ‘History, current status, everything. The guy’s definitely
a player and I know you got files on everybody over there. There’s bound to be something on him.’
Thorpe said, ‘You want to give me a clue who he is or am I working completely in
the dark here?’
Just then, a slightly overweight man came in from the shower room and both men paused as he began walking towards them, tightening
the towel around his ample waist. Halfway down, he turned and disappeared into the next aisle.
‘Cortiss used to work for Brennan,’ said Bishop. ‘He was also the fourth member of the assault team. The one who
escaped without
a trace.’
There was a short silence, as though Thorpe was thinking through the full implications of what Bishop was saying. ‘That’s
interesting,’ he said.
‘Isn’t it,’ Bishop said. ‘And I need it now. Can you do it?’
‘Assuming I can, how do you want it delivered?’
Bishop pulled a piece of paper
containing his new email address from his pants pocket and handed it over. ‘Send it to this
address as an attachment. That way we don’t need to risk another meeting.’
‘Okay.’ Thorpe reached into the locker and pulled out a thin wallet. He took out a RoyseCorp business card and offered it
to Bishop. ‘It’s got my business cell number on there in case you need
to reach me, but I should have something for you in
a few hours.’
‘The sooner the better,’ Bishop said. He memorized the number without touching the card. Then he stood up, left hand still
in his pocket. ‘I’ll keep checking throughout the day.’
‘Right,’ Thorpe said. ‘But look, if you really didn’t . . .’
‘Thanks,’ Bishop
said, cutting him off. Then he turned and left before Thorpe could say anything else.