“No, I didn’t,” he said.
“I wish I had something for you,” she replied. She reached across and laid her hand on his, her right hand, which was never without the beautiful Colombian emerald ring that matched her eyes. “If I’d known you were coming to ask me that question,” she added, “I would’ve made up a most wonderful lie for you, dear boy, something that would have made you happy.”
Chapter 12
After visiting for another hour or so, Bern left Gina’s in a taxi, leading her to believe that he was headed to the airport to fly back to Austin. She would have insisted he stay with her if she had known he was going to be in Houston overnight, but he wanted to be alone. He went to a pharmacy, where he bought a toothbrush and toothpaste, a plastic razor, and shaving cream. Then he checked into a hotel overlooking the West Loop Freeway.
He stood at the window, watching the traffic going north and south in the blistering heat of the summer afternoon, and thought about his situation. He was caught up in something very weird here. He had no doubts now that the genetic testing was going to confirm that the skull was indeed that of his twin brother. That was a huge leap of logic, he knew, but something told him it was inevitable.
He remembered Becca Haber saying that her husband (was he really?) had been an “orphan. Abandoned. Parents unknown.” Now Bern had discovered that his own origins were exactly the same. He could not believe that this was a coincidence.
What about Becca herself? How much of her lie was a lie? What part of it was truth? The thing that concerned him about all of this was that someone was orchestrating it-if not Becca, then someone else. If someone wanted him to know that he had a twin brother who was now dead, why would they do it this way? What was this approach going to achieve that couldn’t also have been achieved by simply coming to him and telling him?
According to Gina’s story, Bern must have been separated from his brother at birth, because the hospital documents made no reference to another child. Or perhaps there had been two children left at the hospital, but someone there-or at child protective services-decided to split up the two boys and falsified the documents. Maybe they’d thought it would be easier to put the boys up for adoption as singles rather than as a pair. Was that sort of thing done? It seemed improbable, although conceivable.
Or had his biological mother separated the brothers at birth? And the reasons why she might have done such a thing could be endless.
Picking up the ballpoint pen and notepad from the hotel desk, he sat and jotted down these questions and others, then looked at them, as if staring at them would bring some clarity to the bizarre problems that they presented.
Did someone want him to investigate his brother’s death? Had he been murdered? Who would have known about the twins? Someone at the hospital. Someone at child protective services. His biological mother? Or his father? Again, why wouldn’t whoever was behind all this just come to him and reveal the truth and ask for his help? It seemed unnecessarily perverse to do it the way it was being done.
Or maybe none of these questions came even remotely close to what was happening. Maybe he had been swept into an unimaginable situation, as bizarre and unbelievable to him as Alice’s aphasia had been to Becca Haber when he had tried to explain it to her. He could imagine now how she must have felt.
He stood up from the desk and went down the hall to get a bucket of ice. From the minibar, he took a miniature bottle of gin and some tonic and made a drink. No lime. He really wished he had a lime. He stared out the windows again. The freeway was packed now as the rush-hour traffic began to build up.
Picking up the telephone, he called home and listened to his voice mail. Several messages, though none from Becca Haber. But there was a curious one. A man’s voice. He said only, “Important that you call me,” then gave a number. No name. Houston area code.
Bern was beginning to lose patience with apparent coincidences. He took another drink of gin, picked up the telephone again, and dialed the number.
“Hello.”
“Who is this?” Bern asked.
There was a momentary pause and then the man said, “Hello, Paul. How odd that you are in Houston.”
“Who is this?” Bern repeated.
“Vicente Mondragon,” the man said. “I knew your brother.”
It was a strange moment. Though Bern had convinced himself that the skull that he had reconstructed in Austin was indeed that of his brother, to hear this idea-never before even imagined by him-confirmed so casually by a stranger was disorienting.
“I’m sorry,” Mondragon said. “I know you must be horribly confused by what is happening to you. I would like to explain some of it to you, if I may. Can you meet with me this evening?”
Bern felt a flurry of emotions, some of which he couldn’t explain. On the one hand, he was eager to talk to this man, but on the other, he was furious at being jerked around like this, and, rightly or wrongly, he immediately blamed this Mondragon for it. Also he was, irrationally, angry at the sound of Mondragon’s voice, which was mellow and sophisticated. But there was also something else about it, too, a hint of a speech impediment. That, and an air of the imperious.
“Where? When?”
“I’ll have someone pick you up at eight-thirty.”
“Just give me an address. I’ll be there.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to insist,” Mondragon said.
Chapter 13
Washington, D.C.
It was already dark as Gordon pulled into the parking lot of a low-dollar motel on Jefferson Davis Highway near Reagan International. He locked his car and went inside, where he found Kevern in the stale gloom of the cocktail lounge. He had commandeered a relatively quiet corner, despite the creepy piped-in music. Gordon quickly ordered a scotch and soda and Kevern tapped the tabletop for another one of whatever he was having. Gordon just wanted to get it over with.
“When’s your flight?” he asked.
Kevern looked at his thick wrist.
“Coupla hours.” He was wearing a white guayabera, and his hairy, muscular forearms rested on the table.
“Okay,” Gordon said. “You’ve got your clearance for your jump start. The Bern deal’s a go. But I’m telling you, they broke into a collective sweat before they checked off on it. Lots of discussion, some of it heated. Lots of agonizing.”
Kevern nodded.
Gordon stared at him in the silly, moony light of the lounge. Expressway atmo. Jesus.
Kevern asked, “So… how’d you handle Mondragon’s Tepito thing?”
Gordon didn’t flinch. “I didn’t.”
Kevern was a sphinx, but Gordon knew that he understood the implications of two of Gordon’s decisions. One, he’d given Kevern the break he wanted. The drug hit in Tepito was the official story and would remain the official story. If the Heavy Rain group had learned the truth, they would have pulled the plug on the operation. Two, the only way Gordon was able to push through the Bern operation was by not telling the group that Kevern had already initiated it six weeks earlier.
Gordon had covered for Kevern twice and had lied to the group twice by omission. Kevern owed him. But there was a flip side.
