Twenty Blue Devils

'He punches tickets,” Gideon said triumphantly, “while he walks up and down the train!'

John frowned silently at him for a few seconds. “Am I missing something here?'

'John, what muscles would you use if you were walking up and down a moving train all day?'

John made an impatient sound. “How the hell would I—” He stopped. His eyes widened. He put down his cup so suddenly that coffee slopped over the rim. 'Balance! You'd use your muscles of balance. You'd be standing on a moving, vibrating platform all day long, you'd always be using those muscles that keep you steady—'

'Bingo,” Gideon said with quiet satisfaction. “In particular the soleus muscles. And the soleus muscles attach to the fibulas. And if you used them hard enough and often enough, you might even develop a pair of fibulas that looked like Brian's.'

'Whew,” John said wonderingly, starting to believe it now. “But...I mean, how could it be? What was it all about? Why would he...You think Therese knew? What about Nick? Why would...how could...” He shook his head again, this time with a little jerk, as if to clear the fuzz away and get himself going. “First things first. Let's make sure it's even possible. Let me call the Bureau and see about getting some up-to-date dope on Bozzuto.” He leaned across the table and reached for the telephone. “If it turns out he's alive and well in Chicago, then we've got a small problem with this theory of yours.'

'Back to the drawing board,” Gideon agreed. “But I don't think it's going to turn out that way.” He looked at his watch. “John, it's only seven-fifty in Seattle. Are you going to get anybody in?'

'Absolutely. The Bureau never sleeps.” He punched in a set of numbers, then looked up while the connection was being made. “This is going to take a while. You think you could scout around and see if anybody's working in the kitchen yet? Maybe you could bring us back some breakfast.'

'Will do,” Gideon said, making for the door.

'I don't want anything healthy,” John called after him. “I want something good. No fruit.'

* * * *

It took John another pot of coffee, three telephone calls, an hour and fifteen minutes, and three foot-long sugar-encrusted fried crullers to get the information he wanted. Gideon had stayed with him for a while, but after finishing the cheese, rolls, and grapefruit juice he'd brought for himself he went back to his own cottage to shave and shower. When he came out of the bathroom John was sitting in the main room, waiting for him, looking seedy and bedraggled in the fresh, clear light of a Tahitian morning, but with the happy look on his face of a man who had gotten somewhere.

'Wait'll you hear this,” he said.

Gideon waited.

'I finally got hold of the right guy at the U.S. Marshals Service, which took some doing—'

'What do they have to do with this?'

'They run the witness protection program, didn't you know that? Anyway, I finally got hold of the right guy and convinced him that I was on the up-and-up, which wasn't all that easy over the telephone—I had to have a deputy director in Quantico talk to him and vet me—and he told me all kinds of interesting things about our old friend Klingo Bozzuto.'

Gideon settled into the chair opposite him. John was going to draw this out for all it was worth. Well, he had earned a little expansiveness. Besides, Gideon was willing to admit that he had it coming; through the years John had done more than his share of sitting politely and even attentively around while Gideon confounded and amazed him with startling feats of forensic prestidigitation. Turnabout was only fair.

'Such as?” he prompted.

'I will start at the beginning,” John said, rather portentously for him. He examined a few notes that were scrawled on the face of a Shangri-La postcard that he'd brought with him. “On June 17, 1983, one Bozzuto, Joseph Rodolfo, known to one and all as Klingo, officially ceased to exist. In his place was a completely new man with a brand-new work history, a brand-new personal life, a brand-new Social Security number—and a brand-new name. And the name they gave him was...” He grinned. “You'll never guess.'

Gideon's chest had taken up its thumping again. “Brian Scott,” he said.

John waited a couple of seconds before answering. “Nope,” he said. “Vernon W. Culpepper.'

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Chapter 27

* * * *

John's typical laugh was a sunny, explosive, childlike peal, but when he was really amused, really tickled, what came out instead was a bursting, choking hee-hee-hee that could grate on Gideon from the first hee and then go on seemingly forever.

'Hee-hee-hee,” he said now, his eyes pinched shut, “heehee-hee, hee-hee-hee-hee-hee, hee-hee-hee—'

'The humor here escapes me,” Gideon said crossly when it appeared that an end was not in sight.

'Hee-hee-hee,” John gurgled. “That's because you couldn't see your face. Hee-hee... oh, God...I'm sorry, Doc, I couldn't help it, you were so—so—” And in he started again.

'I gather,” Gideon said stuffily, “that this is a small joke on your part?'

John held him off with raised hand, wiped his eyes, and let go a huge terminal sigh. “Oh, boy. No, it's not a joke. That's what they named him: Vernon Westmark Culpepper.'