Night Fall (48 page)

“John.”

“May I call you John?”

“Of course.” I asked, “May I call you Jill?”

“You already have.”

“Right.”

I turned on my cell phone and waited for five minutes, but there was no beep, and I shut it off. I asked Jill, “How are you doing?”

“Fine. How are
you
doing?”

“Pretty good. Do you understand what’s going on?”

“Somewhat. I assume
you
know what’s going on.”

“Pretty much.” I glanced at her and said, “You should understand that you’re on the right side of this now-the side of truth and justice, and of the victims of TWA 800, their families, and the American people.”

“Then who’s after us?”

“Maybe no one. Or maybe a few bad eggs.”

“Then why can’t we call the police?”

“Well, maybe more than a few bad eggs, and I’m not sure yet who’s bad and who’s good.”

“What are we going to do while you’re trying to figure it out?”

“Do you have a hotel in the city that you usually stay at?”

“The Waldorf or the Union League Club.”

“Then let’s avoid those. Let’s pick someplace around Midtown.”

She thought a moment, then replied, “The Plaza.”

“Call them now and make a reservation. You need two adjoining rooms.”

“Are you staying with me?”

“Yes. Please use your credit card to hold the rooms, and I’ll see that you’re reimbursed.”

She got on her cell phone, called the Plaza Hotel, and reserved a two-bedroom suite.

I said to her, “I’d like you to turn off your cell phone.”

“Why?”

I explained, “You can be located by cell phone tower triangulation.”

She didn’t ask for any further explanation and shut off her cell phone.

We crossed the Nassau County line into the borough of Queens. We should be at the Plaza Hotel within half an hour.

Jill asked me, “How long will I have to stay at the hotel?”

“About two days.”

“Then what?”

“Then you change hotels. Or I find you a safe house. I need maybe forty-eight hours to line up the army of angels. After that, you’ll be safe.”

“Do I need to call my attorney?”

“If you’d like. But if you could wait a few days, that would be better.”

She nodded.

We continued on the Expressway through Queens, and she asked me, “When will you see Bud?”

“I, or someone else, will see him within the next forty-eight hours.” I added, “Please don’t call him.”

“I have no intention of calling him.” She poked my arm and said, “Why don’t you arrest him? I want to visit him in jail.”

I stifled a laugh, but then she laughed, and I laughed, too. I said, “I think we need his cooperation.”

“Do I need to see him again?”

“Maybe. But we try to keep witnesses separated.”

“Good.” She asked me, “Where do you live?”

“In Manhattan.”

“I lived in Manhattan after college, and before I got married.” She paused. “I married too young. How about you?”

“I’m on my second marriage. You’re going to meet my wife. She’s an FBI agent, currently overseas. Due home tomorrow, if all goes well.”

“What’s her name?”

“Kate. Kate Mayfield.”

“She kept her maiden name?”

“Not all to herself. She offered to let me share it.”

Jill smiled, then asked, “Is that how you met? On the job?”

“Yes.”

“Do you lead interesting lives?”

“At the moment, yes.”

“Is there a lot of danger?”

“There’s a distinct danger of dying from boredom.”

“I think you’re being modest, and understated. Are you bored now?”

“No.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“About a month and a half,” I said.

“And you were in Yemen?”

“I was.”

“What’s boring about that?”

“Go to Yemen and find out.”

“Where was she?”

“Tanzania. Africa.”

“I know where Tanzania is. What was she doing there?”

“You can ask her when you meet her.”

I had the impression that Mrs. Winslow didn’t meet that many interesting people at the club or at lunches or dinners. I had the impression, too, that she thought she’d missed the boat somewhere after college, and she saw this major catastrophe in her life as more of an opportunity than a problem. That was the right attitude, and I hoped it turned out well for her.

The Midtown Tunnel was about a mile ahead. I glanced at Jill Winslow, sitting next to me. She seemed pretty cool and composed, a product maybe of her breeding, or maybe she didn’t fully appreciate the immediate danger we were in. Or maybe she did, but she thought that danger was preferable to boredom. I agreed with that when I was bored, but when I was in danger, boredom looked good. I said to her, “I think you’ll like Kate. She and I will take care of you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I’m sure you can. But you’ll need some help for a while.”

We approached the tollbooths of the Midtown Tunnel, and I reached up and removed Jill’s E-ZPass, which would record her license plate number, location, and time, none of which I wanted recorded. I paid cash at the booth and entered the long tunnel under the East River.

Jill asked me, “What should I do about Mark?”

“Call him later from your cell phone.”

“And say what?”

“Say you’re well and that you need some time by yourself. I’ll brief you later.”

“Good. I’ve never been briefed.”

I smiled.

She said, “Eventually, I want to tell him everything.”

“You should… before he finds out. You understand that this is all going to become public.”

She stayed silent awhile, and we watched the grimy white tiles zip by. She said to me, “There were so many nights… when we were sitting in the family room, him on the phone, or reading a paper, or telling me what I had to do the next day, when I wanted to pop that tape in…” She laughed and asked me, “Do you think he would have noticed?”

“I’m sure he would have.”

We emerged from the tunnel, and I was back in Manhattan, which I’d thought about a lot in Yemen, though not under these circumstances. I sniffed the exhaust fumes, marveled at the billions of tons of concrete and blacktop, and watched a taxi run a red light. It was Sunday, so traffic was light and pedestrians were scarce, and within five minutes, I was heading crosstown on 42
^nd
Street.

I said to Jill, “Do you have any questions for me?”

“Like what?”

“Like what’s going to happen next. What to expect. That kind of stuff.”

“If I need to know anything, you’ll tell me. Correct?”

“Correct.”

“Can I make a suggestion?”

“Of course,” I said.

“You’re keeping it in first gear too long.”

“Sorry.”

I turned right on Sixth Avenue and headed up to Central Park South, paying attention to my gear changes. Within a few minutes, we were in front of the Plaza Hotel, and I had the valet park the car. I carried our overnight bags into the opulent lobby and followed Jill to the reception desk.

I didn’t want her paying with her credit card, which could be traced, so she arranged to pay by check, which would be secured by her credit card imprint. I showed the desk clerk my Federal credentials and asked for the manager. He arrived in a few minutes, and I said to him and the clerk, “We are traveling incognito on government business. You will not tell anyone who inquires that Mrs. Winslow is checked in here. You will call the suite if anyone makes such an inquiry. Understood?” They understood and noted it in the computer.

Within ten minutes, we were in the living room of a two-bedroom suite. She found the bigger bedroom, which she claimed without saying a word, and we stood in the living room.

She said, “I’ll call room service. What would you like?”

What I liked was in the room bar, but I said, “Just coffee.”

She picked up the phone and ordered coffee and assorted pastry.

I said to her, “Will your husband be home yet?”

She looked at her watch and said, “Probably not.”

“Okay, what I need you to do is call home and leave a message for Mark. Say something that indicates that you need some time away from home and that you’ve gone to the country with a girlfriend or something. I don’t want him to be alarmed, and I don’t want him calling the police. Understand?”

She smiled and said, “He won’t be alarmed-he’ll be shocked. I’ve never left home before… well, not without a pre-arranged story. And he won’t call the police because he’d be too embarrassed.”

“Good. Use your cell phone.”

“You said-”

“You can keep it on for about five minutes-ten tops.”

She nodded, took her cell phone from her bag, turned it on, and dialed. She said, “Mark, this is Jill. I was bored today, and I decided to take a ride to the Hamptons and visit a girlfriend. I may stay overnight. Call my cell phone if you’d like and leave a message, but I’m not taking calls.” She added, “I hope you had a good morning of golf with the boys, and that Bud Mitchell didn’t aggravate you again.” She looked at me, smiled, and winked. “Bye.”

Clearly Mrs. Winslow was having some fun.

She asked me, “Was that all right?”

“Perfect.”

On the other hand, if Nash had gotten around to putting two and two together, he’d be at the Winslow house now, soon, or later, and Mr. Winslow would be hearing another story, and he’d be asked to help the authorities find his wayward wife. But I couldn’t worry about that now. I said to Jill, “Please turn off your cell phone and don’t forget to turn it off every time you use it.”

She turned it off and put it in her bag.

Mrs. Winslow went to her bedroom to freshen up.

The doorbell rang, and I let the room service guy in and signed the check.

I walked to the windows and looked out over Central Park.

I felt like a man on the run, which wasn’t surprising, since I was on the run. Ironically, my whole professional life had consisted of me chasing other people who were on the run, though most of them were so stupid that I never really learned much from them about how not to get caught.

But I learned
something
, and I wasn’t stupid, so the odds of Messrs. Nash and Griffith or anyone finding me soon were in my favor for a while.

Jill came into the living room, looking like she’d done a powder-and-paint job, and we sat at the dining table and had coffee and pastry. I was actually hungry, but I didn’t hog the whole plate of sweets.

She asked me, “Your wife is arriving tomorrow?”

“That’s the plan. About fourP.M. ”

“Will you meet her at the airport?”

“No. I can’t show up at a pre-arranged place.”

She didn’t ask why not, and I could tell she was getting it. I said, “I’ll have her met and taken here. Neither she nor I can go back to our apartment.”

She nodded, looked at me, and finally said, “John, I’m frightened.”

“Don’t be.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I explained, then added, “I don’t need a gun.”

We made small talk awhile, and then I said to her, “Take the cassette tape I gave you, and have it locked in the hotel safe.”

“All right. What are you going to do with A Man and a Woman?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

She nodded, then said to me, “I’d like to go to church. Then take a walk. Is that all right?”

I said to her, “To be honest with you, if these other people somehow discover where we are, then it doesn’t matter what you do.”

I put her cell phone number into my cell and she put mine into hers. I said, “Remember, don’t keep it on more than five minutes.”

Actually, in Manhattan, with a few hundred thousand cell phone signals bouncing around, it could take fifteen minutes or more to triangulate a cell phone location, but better safe than busted. I continued, “And don’t use your credit cards or an ATM machine. Do you have cash?”

She nodded, and asked me, “Would you like to come with me?”

I stood and said, “I need to stay here and make some calls. I’ll call you a few times, so check for my messages every half hour and call me back as soon as you get my message.”

She said, “You’re worse than my husband.”

I smiled and said, “If you need to call here, call the room phone. But if I don’t answer the room phone, then try my cell. And don’t come back to the room if I don’t answer the phone. Understand?”

She nodded.

I said, “On your way out, don’t forget to have that video cassette put in the hotel safe. Then, put the receipt in a hotel envelope and have it sent up to this room.”

Again, she nodded.

I said to her, “Plan to be back here no later than fiveP.M. ”

“I think I’m going back to Mark.”

I smiled. “See you later.”

I went into the bedroom, sat on the bed, and dialed Dom Fanelli’s cell phone. He answered, and I said, “Sorry to interrupt your Sunday.”

“Hey. You’re calling from the Plaza?”

“I am. Where are you?”

“I’m at the Waldorf. What are you doing at the Plaza?”

“Can you talk?”

“Yeah. I’m at a family barbeque. Get me out of here.”

I asked him, “Do you have a drink in your hand?”

“Does the Pope eat kielbasa? What’s up?”

“You wanted to know what this was about. Right?”

“Right.”

“It’s a big, hungry, fire-breathing dragon, and it can eat you.”

There was a short silence on the phone, then he said, “Shoot.”

“Okay. It’s about TWA 800, which you know, and it’s about a videotape of the crash. And it’s about Jill Winslow, the lady you found for me.” I gave him a full, fifteen-minute briefing. He stayed uncharacteristically quiet the whole time, and I had to ask him a few times if he was still there.

After I finished, he said, “Jesus Christ Almighty. Jesus Christ.” Then he asked, “Are you shitting me?”

“No.”

“Holy shit.”

“You want in?”

I could hear loud people in the background now, and loud music, so he must have been moving his location. I waited, then it got quiet, and he said, “I’m in the toilet now. Shit, I need another drink.”

“Flush first. Dom, I need your help.”