“What about my friend Nick? I’m getting a little worried. He hasn’t come back.”
“I’ll check with the guys out front and find out where he is. I’m sure that if he’s not in the washroom with Manny, then they’re downstairs. Come on, I get a kick out of showing off the room anyway.”
Billy Pearl knocked on the men’s room door, waited less time than Jillian would have liked, then escorted her inside and made a quick assessment of the situation.
“Okay, so Manny’s not here. That means he’s downstairs. Here’s the deal; I’ll give you two hundred Pearl Bucks if you can find the secret door.”
“Pearl Bucks. Tell me the truth, Billy, did you plan on naming your money after the writer, or was it a coincidence?”
“Next to the location of the mystery door, that’s my biggest secret. But I will tell you that my eighty-nine-year- old mom still has my diploma from James Madison High up on her wall.”
“Got it. But what would I do with two hundred Pearl Bucks anyway?”
“Okay, make it three hundred.”
Jillian groaned, then began to walk the elegant black-and-white bathroom perimeter, observing that it was hospital clean and blessedly odorless. As for finding a door to some secret chamber, she knew at the outset that she had no chance. Pearl watched with keen interest as she continued to look in all the wrong places. He kept his arms folded tight across his chest and his face etched in a know-it-all grin.
“I give up,” Jillian conceded quickly. “I’ll have to pass on the Pearl Bucks.”
Beaming at his own ingenuity, Pearl marched over to the row of bathroom sinks and wrapped his hand around one of the opaque plastic soap containers.
“Showtime,” he announced.
Turning the container clockwise a full 180 degrees, Pearl pulled the stainless steel mount out three inches from the sink backsplash. A spring-held door next to Pearl, camouflaged to look like part of the black-tiled wall, popped open without making a sound. Jillian, who was standing only a few feet away, stepped back in surprise.
“That’s amazing,” she said.
“We used to have some pretty serious business going on down there.”
Pearl eased open the hinged doorway with his fingertips, then flicked on a light switch on the upper wall of the stairwell. Jillian followed him down a short flight of well-built wooden stairs that descended into a dimly lit antechamber with a cement floor. Proceeding cautiously, she had to duck low to avoid colliding with the exposed lightbulb dangling by a dust-covered cord. Through a small alcove she emerged into a much larger storage room. Boxes of paper goods and other bar supplies were neatly stacked on plastic shelving units that lined the jagged stone walls. Abutting the only wall without shelving, Manny Ferris lay sleeping on a thin mattress resting atop a rusted metal bed frame. Jillian was grateful she had been prepared for his disfigurement.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Pearl said with surprising gentleness, “customers are wondering where you at. Did you forget to set an alarm?”
Manny jumped up, rubbing his eyes, mumbling something Jillian could not understand.
“Did you hear it?” Pearl asked. “Did you hear him speak Arabic?”
“What?” Jillian said.
“Arabic. He can barely put two words of English together, but every now and then the poor bastard blurts out sentences in Arabic.”
“How do you know?”
“We have a lot of Arab clients. One day, one of them heard him. Said he didn’t have much of an accent either.”
“Amazing,” Jillian said.
“That’s one of the reasons I think he was brainwashed. Maybe the Arabs did something to him when he was over in Iraq, fighting. Who knows?”
Manny’s eyes were glazed from sleep, but Jillian suspected they would not become more lucent even after he’d been awake for hours. Nick was right, vacant was the best description for Manny Ferris.
“I’ll go find out about your friend,” Pearl said, reading her thoughts. “You stay here with my cousin. Don’t worry, you’re safe.”
Pearl hurried up the stairs before she could respond.
“Hello, Manny,” Jillian said, keeping her voice intentionally calm and nonthreatening. “I’ve been looking for you. I wanted to talk to you about some pictures that I took.”
Manny gazed at her blankly.
“Got to get to work,” he mumbled.
“Of course,” Jillian said, walking over to him, “but before you do, I have some pictures I want to show you. They’re of the Lincoln Memorial. Do you know that building?”
She could see the color begin to drain from his face. He took several cautious steps backward, pinning himself into a corner.
“No… yes… no.”
“Don’t worry, Manny. Nobody is going to hurt you. I just want help knowing why you don’t like that building. Can I show you some pictures? They won’t hurt you. I promise.”
“No! Don’t want to help.” Manny’s voice was hoarse and strained.
Slowly, Jillian reached out and took his hand. He made no attempt to pull away. After a minute his tension began to abate.
“Come,” she said. “Sit down here next to me.”
A few more seconds and the frightened Marine did as Jillian asked and stared at the photos she had printed earlier that day at the Lincoln Memorial.
“Is there anything about what is in these pictures that upsets you? Think, Manny, it’s important.”
Nothing.
Jillian began to lose hope, but when she arrived at the pictures taken from the rear of the memorial, Manny’s tension returned and he began to shake. She showed him the final shots of the day, taken from the bike path across the Potomac. Manny looked at the first picture and began to sob.
“Please… no more…”
Jillian felt her pulse quicken as she studied the man.
“It’s this shot, isn’t it, Manny? This one from across the river. This is a view you remember. Did something happen to you out there?”
“Please…”
“Tell me, Manny,” she implored, “What was it? What happened to you there?”
Manny Ferris could not or would not answer. Then the connection between them was broken by footsteps descending the wooden staircase. Billy Pearl appeared, grinning broadly.
“My bouncer, Felix, remembered your friend from the last time he was here and threw him out. He’s across the street. Felix says he was a real troublemaker-a pain in the butt. You sure he’s a doctor?”
Jillian laughed. “He drives around in a huge RV clinic taking care of poor people.”
“Bad Felix. Well, at least that’s one mystery solved. Did you get what you needed from Manny?”
“I’m not sure,” Jillian replied. “But I think I know where to start looking. Let me check my hospital and see if there are any doctors who might be able to help Manny.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate it. Come back anytime. I’ll have Felix bring your friend back in. Drinks are on me.”
“Thanks,” Jillian said, “but I think he’d be just as happy with a few hundred Pearl Bucks.”
CHAPTER 22
Phillip MacCandliss hated the zoo. It wasn’t the notion of captive wild animals he hated, it was the specific place itself-the National Zoo off Connecticut Avenue. He hated the commotion and the bratty children. He hated walking on an unending bed of peanut shells, and the overpriced crap food and cheap souvenirs. But mostly he
