The Hidden Man (7 page)

“So it’s not a pointless job that you’re afraid of having to endure?”

“Hell no. It’s that I’ll be expected to endure it without getting into fights with morons. How am I supposed to do that?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, well, when you put it that way…”

“How much did they tell you about me?”

“Just whatever they found out when the tip came in. They only got it late this morning. What did you do about your hair?”

Vignette removed the wig. Her hair was shorter than Shane’s. Still, he could hardly believe that this face had deceived so many men through several days of testing. It seemed to him that her pixie features were accented by the short hair. She must have clinched the male illusion with sheer attitude.

Blackburn had not lived with this person for the past nine years without learning something about how to coexist with a young female. This one was an actress, first of all. He knew the proper response.

“Well I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a woman wear her hair that short, but you know, you really make it look good.”

She stared at him with a faint smile. Finally, she stood up and walked over to him, put her arms around him, and then just stayed there.

“I’m sorry, Randall,” she finally said, her voice muffled by his shoulder. “I never thought it through. I was in it before I knew it. And then it just seemed like I had to keep it up. It was like being caught in fast water.”

“All right, then. I’m thankful you didn’t get hurt.”

“Hurt somebody else, you mean.” She gave him a tiny grin.

He laughed. “Just let me trust you. From now on, Vignette. Please.”

She looked up and squarely met his gaze, then hugged him again, nodding. Suddenly it frightened her to think how close she had come to setting off a real disaster for both of them. A wave of guilt overwhelmed her. She was glad that Shane was not there to see this.

“I’m sorry.”

They stood hugging for another quiet moment, before Vignette stiffened slightly and pulled back to look at him. “When did you say they found out?”

“Late this morning. Somebody had a couple of officers deliver a note to Chief White. I guess it wasn’t too long before he had my captain summoned to a meeting and really chewed him out.”

“No, that can’t be right,” Vignette said. “They already knew, early this morning. The officers came to put in the telephone, first thing. They told the Eastern…Miss Freshell. She waited around until I got up, just so she could tell me that I’d been caught. She’s so sweet, mmm?”

“You’re saying that the officers who installed the telephone were also messengers, and they had a message for you about all this, but they left the message with her instead?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Early this morning.”

He sighed and shook his head, rubbing both hands over his face. “I’m tired. Why don’t you go on ahead to bed? I’m going to have a brandy before I turn in.”

She quietly agreed and left the room, chastised. But he called out to her, “You sure it was this morning? When they told her?”

Vignette stuck her head back in the doorway. “Told you, I wasn’t even up yet.”

“Okay,” he replied with a tired smile.

After she left again, Blackburn sat for a long time, staring into the gas flames. His mood was darker than usual. The gas fire and concrete logs reminded him of the flaming leaks that burned in the broken rubble after the Great Earthquake.

He still hoped that there would turn out to be a plausible explanation for why Miss Freshell already knew about Vignette early that morning, before the department found out. He needed time to think it through, but first he had to get some sleep. A faint sensation of dread was just beginning to throb beneath his stomach.

THE FOLLOWING DAY

THE PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION

T
HE LATE AFTERNOON LIGHT
from a cloudless sky made for perfect visibility; there was no way for the nondescript man to keep any potential mistakes from being seen. Even though he was more filled with rage now than he had ever been back when he thought God was on his side, he remained alert enough to wisely avoid passing in front of the Japanese Pavilion. It would be too easy to attract notice from there. The place was already surrounded by watchful guards because the damn industrious Japanese had to go and make the other construction teams look bad by being the first to complete their hall.

The shopgirl walked stiffly beside him, an arm linked through his. She trembled in fear, with his pistol surreptitiously tucked into her ribs. He could sense the weakness in her knees and feared that if he allowed her to stop or even to slow down, her legs might give out, drawing attention.

All six hundred and twenty-five acres of the exposition site were alive with last-minute construction. Any of the workers would sound an alarm if they saw a young lady collapse, perhaps even heard an attempt to scream.

The tension of his situation was so high that it briefly penetrated his sense of purpose. At first, the awful danger of snatching up this charming girl and forcibly walking her across the fairgrounds filled him with an erotic sensation.

Halfway to their destination, that feeling had decomposed into a more pragmatic state of fear. Caution kept him moving briskly along. He bruised her ribs with the pistol barrel to make sure that she followed like a good girl. It took all his concentration, because even though he had no desire to be caught, her growing terror and confusion warmed him inside.

The simple goal was to keep moving, giving the impression that they were a couple leaving work together. Nobody would pay any attention. His presence made it almost certain, because he had always moved within a curious sort of empty space. It traveled everywhere with him. The empty space cloaked him so well—whether he liked it or not—that in most situations he could arrive, stay, eventually leave, and as far as most other people knew, he had never been there at all.

The anonymity was neither entirely reliable nor as good as actual invisibility. Because there were always those occasional
noticers,
coming out of nowhere and having to
notice
every damned thing. They provided the risk element. Just one noticer could be enough to set off a whole chain of them—busy little noticers forming a promenade leading him straight to prison.

Unacceptable. If things went wrong, he was genuinely terrified of the consequences. But the wave of pleasure that accompanied the danger was so strong that now his legs were becoming as weak as those of personal Revenge girl, if for different reasons. The similarities between an assailant and his victim were beautiful to him.

“Step along,” he whispered through a fake smile. He pushed the barrel into her ribs again, just to remind her.

Luck kicked in for him at that point; everyone else passing by was too busy to notice anything. Revenge girl managed to keep her feet under her, no doubt hoping to buy good treatment from him with her cooperation.

At any other time, she might have been able to do just that. But God had made a mockery of the nondescript man. The same God to whom he had been so grateful, one day earlier, had abandoned their partnership in the mission to bring down a man whose arrogance cried out for destruction.

The Divine betrayal was even worse than it would have been for him to discover that God did not exist at all, because the betrayal was personal proof that God not only existed, but was the type of Heavenly entity who was willing to fill a desperate man’s hungry soul with the impression that guidance was at hand every step of the way…only to turn his back upon his nondescript servant at the most crucial moment.

Oh no. No, no, no.

His rage was a boiling black tar, clinging to anything that it touched, burning away. He guided the terrified shopworker into the Hall of Science, down to the completed “Cave Dwellers” area where his workers had been given time off for finishing ahead of schedule. He checked to see that all was clear, then quickly pulled her back through his concealed door and into the large dead space behind the imitation cliff.

He had fixed the trick door and added some more insulation to the inner “cave.” With nothing left for him to do but finish the display’s last few touch-ups himself, he had spent his free time behind the fake rock cliff, readying a private little area that God, as it turned out, may not have picked out for him after all—but which He really should have.

He made the place ready without knowing how it would play into his need for revenge, working purely on faith.
Plans are for atheists,
he reminded himself. And who could tell about that? The exposition was set to last for ten months.

Questions for tomorrow. He had failed at Duncan, the genuine article, and the scalding rage drove him like lashes of a whip. He could not wait. Once she was properly tied and muffled back inside the hidden cave, he finally admitted to himself that he was not going to be fulfilling her hope of letting her go.

He did not have a catch-and-release policy.

At that same moment, in the kitchen of the Blackburn-Nightingale residence, Vignette stood between Randall and the Eastern Whore and tried not to drop the dish that she was rinsing and flee the room. Miss Freshell had her trapped in another one of her domestic rituals. Vignette called this one the Wash-Rinse-Dry ceremony, which left her stranded in the middle rinsing position and handing each dish to Randall. She did it without looking at him.

Miss Freshell, in all her evil glory, controlled the pace of the ceremony because she did the washing. You could never go any faster than she wanted you to. This meant that nothing was ever over, in this little ceremony, until Miss Freshell damn well said it was. And now with poor Randall still so besotted, he no longer seemed capable of anything more than parroting Freshell’s proclamations and glaring in disapproval whenever Vignette or Shane put up any friction over the new set of opinions in their lives.

Vignette felt like a worm under the beak of the Eastern Whore. This woman was able to shred her quarry and speak at the same time.

“—not that the Ladies’ Hospitality League needs any recommendation from me. I
know
that you will find them to be the same stimulating mix of interesting women that I do.”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Vignette…” Randall muttered under his breath to her.

“What, Randall?” Vignette snapped. “What? She said it, she’s said it before, I acknowledged that she said it. So what is it?”

“No, dear, Randall and I both agree that the very best thing for you now is the stimulating company of women who make an art out of graciously serving others. We are having our third orientation meeting on Saturday, but I’m sure I can convince them to take you as a late arrival.” Freshell beamed a withering smile at Vignette, then moved it over to Randall and held it there for several seconds while Vignette fought the sensation of bursting into flame.

Instead she focused on simply holding still and nodding…rinsing each dish carefully…not dropping it…not looking up at Randall…not smashing a dish over Freshell’s coiffed curls…not screaming and screaming and screaming until Randall woke up out of his unbelievable sleepwalking stupor.

“It’s only for ten months, dear. I’ll guide you through it. And since you’ll be there while I’m gathering material for my next book, you can always return the favor by working as my assistant! Fair as the day is long, wouldn’t you say?”

And of course, while she asked the question of Vignette, her eyes and her smile were reserved for Randall. It struck Vignette that it felt just like this when she got herself caught in that tremendous riptide while swimming around the Golden Gate. She had been swept along by that overpowering force with no one to help her, even though she could see people on the shore. Now here was Randall standing right next to her, and he would never be able to hear her scream.

“Vignette,” Randall quietly said, “in light of things, you know, this is fair for you to try. And to really give an honest effort to it.”

“How can I—”

“
Also
—as a personal favor to me—because you would be giving me something to tell my captain that might convince him that I’m not running an asylum here, and he does not need to continue with his bad jokes.”

“Randall, you don’t—”

“Not that his bad jokes would be enough of a reason in themselves, but as long as we have this opportunity to send you to a sort of finishing school, it’s a nice bonus for me. It’s something good that I can tell him about you.”

He smiled at her and touched her face so that she met his gaze. “For me, Vignette. Please. Do this for me. Do it because I want good things for you in life and I can’t do enough to help you get them. I want you to know how to get the best out of your own life, and this can help you.

He grinned. “And besides, aside from getting bored once in a while, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Vignette handed him the next dish, but he was the one who dropped it. It hit the floor, breaking into clean halves. And in the quick moment when he bent down to pick up the pieces, Vignette slipped and allowed her eyes to turn toward Miss Freshell.

The Eastern Whore flashed her the briefest moment of a sneer, glaring in angry triumph. Vignette did not know the exact reasoning behind it but she felt an instinctive revulsion.

She found herself stuck in a web newly spun across a familiar spot, where there had always been clear air before.

Shane was just finishing up the first day of his new work schedule at The Sea Mist, a Market Street restaurant so unusually posh that there was no food, only cuisine. He was now working strictly the lunch and afternoon hours, leaving him free to accompany Blackburn at Duncan’s evening performances. But after his first day on the early shift, it was already clear that he would be paying for the excitement with a drop in wages.

Just as he leaned over his last table to polish down the top, he felt a strong hand grip his upper arm and pull him upright. He turned to see James “J.D.” Duncan peering at him like a man who has just caught a spy. Duncan pulled Shane into a high-backed booth and lowered his voice to a harsh whisper.

“Nightingale! I thought that was you. What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Finishing up my afternoon shift,” Shane replied, puzzled, trying to figure out the cause for the older man’s alarmed expression.

“…This is what you actually do?” Duncan looked at him as if he smelled bad.

“No, Mr. Duncan. This is how I actually pay my bills. There are other things that I actually do.”

“I specifically requested Detective Blackburn and I’m sure I never said anything about a restaurant waiter accompanying him!”

“Mr. Duncan, The Sea Mist is one of the best restaurants in town. It took me months to get a job here. I’m not ashamed of this work.”

“Fine, but you’re not a policeman!”

“No. I’ve already established that I’m not cut out of policeman material. Even so, Detective Blackburn believes that I can help him.” He sighed. “Look, I have these…sometimes I see…” Shane stopped, wondering how far to take the explanation.

Duncan ignored it. “You two are related, yes? I’ve been asking around. People tell me anything I want to know. You may as well just—”

“He adopted us. It’s no secret, Mr. Duncan. My sister and I have lived with him for the last nine years.”

“All very touching. Except when it’s at the expense of my security.”

“Mr. Duncan…First, it is just not in him to put you at risk like that. Second, he asked me to come because there are specific ways that I can help him.”

Duncan still did not react. He simply stared with a darkening expression. When he finally spoke, the words came out drenched in venom.

“I only stopped in here today because the theatre is so close by. But now that prompts the question: When was the first time you were ever backstage there?”

“The other night, when we came back to see you after your show.”

“
Only
then?” Duncan asked, using the vocal tone of a man who already knows that he will hear nothing but lies.

“Yes.”

“
That
was your first time?”

“Yes. It was.”

“Maybe your first time was on that same day, but…a bit earlier?”

“No, by the time we got to the theatre, the show was about to begin. I didn’t even get a seat.”

“I’m not talking about the performance! I‘m talking about your activities backstage.”

“Mr. Duncan, we should go outside if you want to talk more. I’m not supposed to stay around here after my shift is over.”

“Has Detective Blackburn shown you any special techniques? Police procedures for doing things like, oh, finding hidden compartments in things? Picking open the locks?”

“No, Mr. Duncan. He has not.” Shane leaned across the table and spoke with deliberate gentleness, realizing that he could never get away with offending this powder keg of a man.