The Patriots Club (16 page)

25

It was a run-down, smelly apartment. One bedroom, a living room, and a bath, the kind of dilapidated quarters she’d seen in the
Times
in its “Neediest Cases” articles. Jennifer Dance sat in the center of the sagging single bed and crossed her legs. She had to pee, but she couldn’t get herself to set foot in the bathroom. The door was open, revealing a peeling linoleum floor and some rotting wood beneath it. The toilet was circa 1930, right down to the chain flush and cracked wooden toilet seat. A plumber’s helper sat on the floor next to it. The abrasive odor of bleach and ammonia drifted into the bedroom. Somehow it made her find the place even grungier.

Jenny could deal with mess and stink. The johns at school weren’t a whole lot better. Just last week, some wise guy had set his business afloat on a raft of toilet paper, squirted an entire can of lighter fluid on it, and lit it. “Just like crêpes suzette,” they’d caught him boasting in the hallway.

What bothered Jenny were the cockroaches, which were numerous and straight out of central casting. She craned her neck for a look and caught a shadow flickering beneath the flooring, and then another a few inches away.

Voices carried from the living room. Jenny tilted her head, trying to pick up a word or two. Who were these people? First, they spirited her out of school with the threat that she would never see Thomas again if she didn’t come right then and there, and now they told her to shut up, sit tight, and do as she was told. She didn’t know if she was being protected or held prisoner.

“Keep the curtains closed,” the woman had said when Jenny arrived. “Stay away from the window.”

Jenny wondered about the orders. They certainly weren’t to keep her from learning where she was. She was in Brooklyn, the Williamsburg section. There was no secret about that. She’d been driven over in a clunky Volvo; her, the rough-looking guy who’d taken her from school, and the driver, a curly-haired, unshaven man of fifty who had given her a very weird smile. No names. Never a hint as to their identity, or what they wanted with her. No, Jenny decided, the curtains weren’t to keep her from looking out. They were to keep others from looking in.

The two men were in the other room right now with the woman. The woman was the boss. Jenny had no doubt about that either. She stormed around the room like a besieged general planning her retreat, and the others were sure to give her leeway. She was tall and thin, her face pinched, forever concentrating, the eyes locked on a different plane. She wore her black hair in a ponytail and dressed like a college student in jeans, a white oxford shirt that she kept untucked, and Converse tennis shoes. It was her drive that frightened Jenny. One look, and you shared her resolve, whatever it was.

Apart from the warning to stay away from the window, she hadn’t said a word to Jenny. She had, however, given her a fierce once-over. One look up and down, the whole thing lasting maybe a second, but it was more invasive than a strip search.

A door slammed. A new set of footsteps pounded down the hall.

Jenny got up from the bed and pressed her ear to the door. She recognized the woman’s voice. It was calm and urgent at the same time. “They what?” she demanded. “They’re desperate.” Then, in a much softer voice altogether: “Is he all right?”

Before Jenny could hear the answer, the door opened inward, forcing Jenny back a step.

“We have to leave,” said the woman.

“Where are we going? Is Thomas all right? Was it him you were talking about?” It was Jenny’s turn to demand. She backed into the center of the room and stood with her arms crossed over her breasts. But if she was expecting a fight, all she got was a postponement to another day.

“Hurry,” the woman said. “Our presence has been noted.”

“Where are we going?” Jenny repeated.

“Someplace safe.”

“I want to go home. That’s someplace safe.”

The woman shook her head. “No, sweetheart. Not anymore it isn’t.”

But Jenny was no longer in a believing mood. The distrust and paranoia that surrounded these people had infected her. “Is Thomas all right?”

“He’s fine for now.”

“That’s it? For now? I’ve had enough of your half answers. Who are you? What do you want with me? Who’s chasing Thomas?”

The woman rushed forward and grabbed Jenny’s arm. “I said let’s go,” she whispered as her nails dug into Jenny’s skin. “That means now. We’re friends. That’s all you have to know.”

A different car was waiting at the curb. Jenny slid into the backseat, along with the woman and the man who had taken her from school. The car pulled out before the door was shut. They’d driven a hundred yards before the driver yelled at everyone to get down. Two sedans approached, traveling at high speed. She could make out a pair of heads silhouetted in each. Jenny pressed her face into the woman’s lap. A moment later, she felt their car buffet as the sedans raced past. “Was that them?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Who are they?”

“I believe you met them last night.”

“How do you know . . .” Jenny didn’t know how to finish her sentence. How did they know about last night? Or how did they know it was the same people?

The woman laughed, and the laugh traveled round the car, pulling everyone in. “I’ve had a little practice in this matter,” she said afterward.

The driver turned his head and looked at the woman. “Jesus, Bobby, that was close.”

“Yes,” said Bobby Stillman. “They’re getting better.”

26

“Do you have another card, sir?” asked the salesclerk.

“Excuse me?” Bolden stood at the counter, slipping his belt through the last loop of a new pair of blue jeans and notching it around the waist. His soiled clothes had been folded and slipped into a bag for him to carry out. Besides the jeans, he wore a dark flannel shirt, a hip-length work jacket, and a pair of ankle-high Timberlands. Everything was new, down to his socks, underwear, and T-shirt.

“The card has been refused.”

“You’re sure? It’s probably a mistake. Can you run it again?”

“I’ve run it three times already,” said the clerk, a punk-cum-lately with spiked hair, a bad complexion, and a dress shirt three sizes too big around the neck. “I’m supposed to confiscate it, but I don’t want any hassle. Here, take it back. Don’t you have a Visa or MasterCard?”

Bolden handed over his MasterCard. There was no reason for his credit card to be turned down. He paid his bills on time and in full. He’d never been one to live beyond his means. When his colleagues talked matter-of-factly about their new Porsche Turbo, or their second home in Telluride, or the superiority of a seven-thousand-dollar made-to-order Kiton suit, he felt strangely out of place. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with buying nice things, he just didn’t know how to spend money like that. The Cartier watch he’d given to Jenny was the single most expensive item he’d ever bought.

“Declined,” said the clerk from the end of the counter. “I’ll have to contact the manager. You can talk to him about it if you want.”

“Forget it,” said Bolden. “I’ll just pay cash.” He thumbed his billfold. A fiver and a few ones looked up at him. He glanced at the pimply clerk with his oversized collar and thought that it made perfect sense. They can stake out a team to kidnap you off a busy street in the middle of the city. They can fabricate e-mails. They can beat a woman’s face to a pulp and convince her to tell the police that you did it. Of course they can hijack your credit. “Doesn’t look like this is going to work. Let me go change out of this stuff.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said the clerk, putting down the phone. “Happens all the time. Just leave the clothes on the chair in the dressing room.”

Bolden picked up the bag holding his dirty suit and cut through the pants section. He couldn’t go back out on the street in his old clothes. They were filthy, and called attention to him from fifty feet away. He looked one night away from being a bum. The two dressing rooms sat side by side down a corridor to his left. A few customers browsed here and there, but otherwise, the store was deserted. Bolden stopped and pretended to look into his bag, as if making sure everything was there. The emergency exit was dead ahead, past the shirts and shoes and the manager’s office. In a mirror, he saw the clerk come out from behind the counter and make his way slowly toward him.

Just then, a bearded, heavyset man emerged from the office, a few feet away from Bolden. He held a clipboard in one hand and was talking into a cell phone with the other.

“Hey,” Bolden called to him. “You the manager?”

“Hold on a sec,” the man said into the phone. Putting a smile on his face, he lumbered over. “Yes sir, how can I help?”

Bolden nodded his head toward the clerk. “Your cashier’s got some mouth on him,” he said angrily. “You should have a word with him.”

“Jake? Really? I’m sorry to hear that. What exactly did he—”

“Here, take these.” Bolden pushed the bag of soiled clothes into his arms.

As the manager fumbled with the bag, Bolden walked past him.

“Hey!” the clerk shouted. “That guy hasn’t paid. Don’t let him go.”

“But I got the clothes,” replied the manager, holding up the bag.

The path to the exit was clear. Bolden took off down the aisle.

The clerk ran after him. “Hey, man. Get back here. He hasn’t paid. Stop!”

Bolden hit the door at a run. It flew open, and rebounded against the wall with a loud crack. The alley was empty, a Dumpster to the right, piles of cut-down cardboard boxes to the left. Instead of running, he stopped short and pressed his back to the wall beside the door. The clerk emerged a moment later. Bolden grabbed him by the shoulders and flung him against the wall. “Do not follow me,” he said. “I’ll be back. I will pay for this shit, okay?”

“Yeah, man, sure. Whatever you say.”

Bolden smiled grimly, then slugged him in the stomach. The clerk doubled over and fell to the ground. “Sorry, man, but I can’t trust you.”

There was a banking center a few blocks up. Bolden chose “English” as the language he’d like to do business in, then entered his PIN: 6275. Jenny’s birthday. When the ATM chirped, and the main menu appeared, he sagged with relief. He selected “Cash,” then keyed in a thousand dollars. A second later, the screen informed him that the amount requested was too high. He typed in five hundred instead.

Waiting, he stared at his new boots. You could trace a man’s life by his shoes, he thought, remembering his PF Flyers, Keds, and Converse high-tops. As a teenager, he would have killed for a pair of Air Jordans, but priced at seventy-five bucks, they were beyond reach. Beyond dreaming even. In college, his first check from work-study had gone to buy a pair of Bass Weejuns. Oxblood with tassels. Shift managers at Butler Hall were required to wear dress shoes. Sixty-six bucks so he could look nice shoveling tuna casserole and potatoes au gratin onto a plate. Every Sunday night, he’d spread the front page of the Sunday
Times
on the floor, gather his toothbrush, Kiwi polish, chamois, and rag, and spend an hour polishing them. Sixty-six bucks was sixty-six bucks. The shoes lasted him through three years of college. He still refused to pay more than two hundred dollars for a pair of shoes.

He stared at the screen, waiting for the pleasing whir and grind that signaled his money was being gathered. A new screen appeared informing him that the operation was not possible and that due to an account discrepancy, the bank was confiscating his card at that time. For any further questions, he could call . . .

Bolden stalked out of the cheerless office. The chill air was like a slap in the face. He jogged to the end of the block. At the corner, he opened his wallet and recounted the bills inside. He had eleven dollars to his name.

27

“Who were they?” asked Jennifer Dance, as the old sedan bumped and rattled up Atlantic Avenue toward the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Old boyfriends,” said Bobby Stillman.

“Are they the reason you had me keep the curtains drawn?”

“Boy, she’s full of questions, this one,” said the driver. “Hey, lady, put a lid on it.”

“It’s all right, Walter,” said Bobby Stillman. She twisted in her seat, bringing her intense gaze to bear. “I’ll tell you who they are,” she said. “They’re the enemy. They’re Big Brother. Remember the Masons’ ‘All-Seeing Eye’?”

Jenny nodded hesitantly.

“That’s who they are. They watch. They spy.
Scientia est potentia.
‘Knowledge is power.’ They report. They silence. They brainwash. But that’s not enough for them. They have a vision. A higher calling. And for that calling, they’re willing to kill.”

The woman was crazy. Big Brother and the Masons.
Scientia est dementia
was more like it, or whatever Latin gobbledygook she was quoting. Any second now she was going to start babbling about the aliens among us, and the miniature transmitters hidden in her molars. Jenny had a physical need to move away from her, but there was no place to go. “How do you know them?” she asked.

“We go back a long way. I keep coming after them, and they keep trying to stop me.”

“Who’s they?”

Bobby Stillman threw an arm over the seat, shooting her an uncertain glance as if she was deciding whether she was worth all the effort. “The club,” she said. Her voice was calmer, sober even, gaining traction now that she was back on planet Earth. “It’s funny, isn’t it? But that’s what they call themselves. A club of patriots. Who are they? The big boys in Washington and New York with their hands on the levers of power. How do you think they found Thomas? They’re inside.”

“Inside what?”

“Everything. Government. Business. Law. Education. Medicine.”

Jenny shook her head, uncomfortable with these vague accusations. She wanted names, faces, plans. She wanted something she could read about in
The New York Times
. “Who’s in the club?”

Bobby Stillman ran a hand over her hair. “I don’t know all of them, and believe me, darling, I wouldn’t tell you if I did. Then you’d be number two on their hit parade with your boyfriend, right after yours truly. All you need to know is that they are a group of men, maybe even women—”

“A club . . .”

Stillman nodded. “A club of very powerful, very connected individuals who want to keep their hands on the tiller steering this country of ours. They meet together. They talk. They plan. Yes, it’s a club in the real sense of the word.”

“That does what?”

“Primarily, they interfere. They’re not content to let the government work the way it’s supposed to. They don’t trust us, and by us, I mean the people—you, me, and that guy over there selling Sabrett hot dogs—to make the decisions.”

“Do they fix elections?”

“Of course not.” Bobby Stillman flared. “Aren’t you listening? I said they’re inside. They work with those in power. They convince them of the purity of their aims. They scare them into acting. Into usurping the people’s voice . . . all in the name of democracy.”

Jenny sat back, her mind racing. She looked at her nails and began tearing at her thumb, a habit she’d gotten over at the age of fourteen. It was too much for her. Too big. Too ill-defined. Altogether too spooky. “Where’s Thomas?” she asked again.

“We’re going to meet him now.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t you two have lunch planned? Twelve o’clock? At your regular place?”

Jenny bolted forward in her seat. “How did you know?”

“We listen, too,” said Bobby Stillman. “But we’re not mind readers.”

Walter, the driver, turned his head and looked at Jenny. “Where to, kid?”