waddle past doing my act, grimaced, and looked elsewhere.
I went into the covered parking garage, and a minute later Katrina sneaked up behind me. How did I know this? She had the nerve to pinch my fanny and say, “Hey, doll, looking for a good time?”
I flinched and grumbled, “Yeah, ain’t I the friggin’ hottie?”
She chuckled.
“Wheels next,” I said, and we walked across the street and down to Route 7, where the local suburbanites make all the car dealers congregate along one long road, each within sight of one another, trying to filch one another’s customers. Liar’s Alley, the locals call it. I dodged into the restroom at the Chevy dealership and changed into jeans and a button-down dress shirt, with Top-Siders, and then emerged looking like your typical suburban yuppie.
Katrina and I walked over and ogled a 1996 BMW four-seater convertible parked in the lot. Out of thin air a guy dressed like a Miami Vice cop appeared.
“Hey folks, like it?” he asked, with the prototypical smile and unctuous manner of his breed.
“Depends how it drives,” I said, stroking the paint job. “Even brought the wife along, ’cause we’re serious. I’m not looking, I’m buying, and if you convince me, you’ll get a fat check as I’m driving off in this thing.”
He beamed. He caressed me with his eyes. He then eyed Katrina, because I was already bagged, and all he had to do was to charm the little woman into wanting it too.
“Hal Burton,” he said. “Just a sec and I’ll run in and get the keys. It’s an incredible car. You sure you can handle it?”
“Born to it,” I said, one overtestosteroned jerk to another.
He winked and then ran in to get the keys.
Katrina said, “Is there a point to this?”
“You like it?”
She stared at the car. “Not my style.”
Hal came trotting out with the key. He winked again as he tossed the key across the hood, like we were a couple of real swell pals, weren’t we now?
He got in the back while Katrina and I climbed in the front. It started up with a throaty roar. We pulled out into traffic and headed straight for the Beltway, Hal babbling about what a titsy car it was, how frequently and expertly serviced, how beloved and pampered by its previous owner, how much the car was… well, us.
I hit the GW Parkway exit and began heading toward D.C. Hal in the back said, “Smooth, ain’t it? Like the way it drives?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, nodding enthusiastically.
He said, “Hey, sorry to mention this, pal, but the dealership’s gotta rule about staying within a five-mile limit. Not that I don’t trust you, ’cause you look like swell folks, but rules are rules.”
I said, “Gee, Hal, I’ll try to get off at the next exit.”
Hal grinned. That grin died when I zipped right past the next exit.
“Hey, uh,” he said, bending forward and tapping my shoulder. “You missed that exit.”
“Sorry. The way this thing drives, you get caught up in it. How much did you say it cost?”
He leaned back. He grinned. He imagined where he’d spend his commission. “List at eighteen five, but you’re obviously a man of the world, so you know that’s negotiable.”
While he droned on about everything he was willing to do to fit us into this car, I took the Key Bridge exit. He grinned and was still prattling about what a swell car it was, and what a swell couple we were, when we came to the stop sign at the end of the exit. I put the car in park and looked over at Katrina.
“Don’t you just love this car?”
“I told you earlier, it’s not my type.”
I looked back at Hal. “Sorry, pal. The little woman doesn’t care for it.” I tossed a twenty in his flabbergasted lap as we got out. “For gas. Incidentally, the car’s got one broken shock, and it needs a valve job.”
We left him fuming and cursing as we began walking across Key Bridge toward the Georgetown section of D.C.
Katrina said, “I’m sure you have a really good reason why we did this the hard way?”
“We arrived in a cab, so the watchers were expecting us to leave in one. If they’re CIA or FBI they’d know five minutes after we called the cab company, and they would’ve been waiting for us at the other end.”
She grinned. “Aren’t you the clever one?”
“The trick in modern society is avoid anything electronic. The police are spoiled. Between charge cards, ATMs, e-mail, telephones, car rentals with computers, hotels with computers, airlines with computers, the feds have these software programs that sweep through all that clutter, and they find you. If you’re electronically invisible, they’re bewildered.”
“And I suppose you know what to do next?”
“No, actually, I don’t. From here on in, we’re on the fly.”
She scratched her head and said nothing for a minute. Then, “Do you trust Alexi?”
I had to think about that. I guess I did, within limits. Yes, he had an extra bat in the belfry, but as I mentioned, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a decent guy. There was no question how she felt about him. After all, she’d done the big swami dance with him.
“What exactly do you have in mind?” I asked, sort of a delicate way of not answering her question.
“Let’s call him.”
“Why?”
“So he can hide us.”
Oddly enough, the idea of calling a Russian intelligence officer to hide us from the American government had a certain ironic charm. Added to our lack of other workable options, I thought why not.
“Okay,” I said, “but let me do the talking.”
We walked into a grungy-looking record store filled with teenage kids combing through the stacks, hunting for the latest hip-hop hit. I approached the girl at the counter.
“Hey,” I said, “we’ve got an emergency and I don’t have a cell phone. How about if I pay you to use your phone to make a call?”
She snarled, rolled her eyes, and started to say, “Store policy is-”
I whipped out of my pocket the thick wad of money that I took off the thug that morning. “Two hundred bucks.”
Her lips froze. She handed me the phone. I handed it to Katrina. “You got his number?”
Her hand went into her purse, digging for it. I said, “Just talk to his secretary. Tell her we lost a briefcase and we’re wondering if Alexi had any idea where it is. Give her the number for this store and ask for him to call us.”
Katrina dialed the number and in Russian gave Alexi’s secretary our message. When she was finished, I handed the girl the two hundred bucks, then told her we’d be getting a return call any minute. She smiled and licked her lips, and I saw two of those little silver beads sticking through her tongue. We stood by the counter for twenty minutes watching a procession of young kids dressed almost identically in baggy jeans and oversize sweat shirts, nearly all of whom had dyed hair, tattoos, and earrings or small silver beads punched all over their faces. Katrina fit right in. I looked like a guy who mistook this place for a tofu bar.
It sucked being young in this era. In my day we only had to look like fancified dorks in disco drag. At least we didn’t have to get stabbed and tattooed. I mean, those old disco clothes, you send them to Goodwill and glide gracefully into becoming a fat, balding, middle-aged guy. Just throw out all your old pictures and your kids will never know what a jumbo jerk you used to be. All those holes and tattoos-they’ll know.
The phone finally rang, the clerk picked it up, said, “Just a minute,” then handed it to me.
Alexi’s voice said, “Sean?”
“Yeah, Alexi,” I said, then unloaded the whole story, including the fact that my government was somehow mysteriously implicated.
He listened patiently, then said, “This is something very big happening here, Sean. I would offer to put you in safe house, but this could be compromising. It would be better to be using Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. My people will book you a room and charge it to our expense. It will be under Mr. and Mrs. Harrington. I will be calling you later.”
