Caller unknown, p.21
Caller Unknown, page 21
Eventually the senior officer said, “Mr. Cruz, there’s an irregularity with your visa. Please come this way.”
Now his heart was ice and a cold sweat broke on his brow. He barely registered his footsteps as he was ushered through a side door into a featureless side room with only a table and chair, an empty watercooler and a yellowing miniature banana tree in a pot.
The senior officer told him to sit and went away with his passport. A clock ticked loudly on the wall. Five minutes passed, five minutes that seemed an eternity, then the officer was back. Now he was all smiles and apologized: it seemed his visa was in order after all and he was sorry for the inconvenience. He handed back the passport and wished Mr. Cruz a pleasant visit.
Ed was led back into the arrivals hall. He walked out into the blazing tropical sun and got in a cab to take him to the main settlement, Road Town. He stared at the unfamiliar position of the driver on the right-hand side. His heart was beating fast, his hands were shaking and his lightweight suit was soaked with sweat. There was no air-conditioning in the cab, just the hot wind blustering through the open windows. They drove along the coast road: asphalt around the airport, then suddenly unpaved stretches, potholes rattling the suspension, then asphalt again. The road, such as it was, was flanked by green hills on one side and pristine white beaches and blue ocean on the other.
He pulled the passport out of his jacket pocket and rifled through it. There was the visa stamp from the first visit. He stared at it. Something was off about it. He couldn’t put his finger on it. What was it that had made the border guard suspicious? What had he seen that the officer on his first trip had missed? Everything seemed the same as before. The passport had satisfied over a half-dozen immigration officers since.
He leafed back to the visa. A plain stamp with “Visitor, the British Virgin Islands” and the date of entry and a remain date with the first officer’s signature. In all respects it was, as far as he could recall, exactly the same. Except now he saw one thing: instead of being upside down, the stamp was now the right way up. It had been changed. He flipped through the other visa pages. At first glance the other entry stamps looked exactly as they had been. But was there something minutely off about them too? The book looked very much like Dumfries’s original work, with later accidental additions like the crease on the cover, the rubbed foil of the US eagle and ink blot on one of the pages. If it had been copied, someone would have had to have access to it for some time to reproduce it so faithfully. Yet the version in his hands just didn’t feel right. He was confident it had been swapped as he waited in the immigration hall.
The taxi entered Road Town. It was a ramshackle place, not gussied up like many of the Caribbean tourist traps, despite its cruise ship pier for what the locals called the “pirate tourists.” There were quite a few yachts sporting American, Canadian, or European flags.
His taxi suddenly swerved and pulled up abruptly in front of the hotel. There was a blare of horns and some colorful expletives from the vehicles behind.
He paid and walked into the lobby with its parquet floor and mahogany desk. There was a notable restraint about the colonial-era hotel after the riot of brightly painted houses and aquamarine sea outside. The foyer was cooled by overhead fans, and sparsely populated. Nevertheless, he had the feeling of being watched.
The meeting with the client was at lunch and only lasted a few minutes. The flight out was not until the next morning. The rest of the day was his.
When he got back to his room he took out the passport again and stared at it. Was he imagining things? With the long hours and the after-hours boozing sessions with Benzema, he hadn’t been feeling himself these last months. He put the passport away. The walls of the well-appointed room seemed to be closing in on him. He decided to get out. He put on a Hawaiian shirt with a muted pattern, some jeans and sunglasses, and headed down to the harbor area. He sat at an outside table in a bar on the quay and ordered Red Stripe. It was served straight from the bottle. The other clientele were predominantly white yachties in Bermuda shorts and T-shirts. Beer and conch fritters were being consumed at a fair lick. He chugged his beer and the cold, sweet amber soothed him. Nothing to worry about: a couple more beers, sample some of the local cuisine and head back to the hotel for an early night—
Then there was a shadow over the table and someone sat abruptly in the seat next to him.
“So, dead men still drink,” a voice said. Another Red Stripe was pushed in front of him.
He looked around. A short man in a loud Hawaiian shirt with Ray-Bans propped on his forehead was sitting there holding his own bottle of Red Stripe.
It had been nearly a decade, but Ed recognized him. The gingery hair had receded now and the pale face was freckled with exposure to the tropical sun. The grin was still there, though the teeth looked yellow from smoke. It was Moss, the student at Northeastern who had befriended him for that one short day so long ago.
“You gonna pretend you don’t recognize me?” Moss asked.
Ed said nothing. Any words were stoppered in his throat. He felt cold despite the equatorial afternoon sun.
Moss leaned forward. “It’s OK, man, I get it. We all read the papers back then: ‘Northeastern student missing. Adoptive father’s suspicious death.’ Let me guess. You flipped out—another abusive patriarch bites the dust…” He laughed. “Wish I’d had the cojones to do the same.” He took a hit of beer. “But, man, if I could have had a dollar every time I was questioned about you—by the police, then the Feds, then some super-secret anonymous government ‘official’… Made me think you must be some Russian spy or something. They all had a massive hard-on for you, Ed—that is, if you still call yourself Ed.”
Words finally came back to him. “What do you want, Moss?”
“What do I want? Jeez, that’s gratitude. I just bought you a beer.”
“I didn’t ask for it.”
Moss sighed. “Listen, Ed, I don’t know what happened to you. I’m just glad things seem to have worked out. There you are: nice duds, hanging out in a nice spot. So what if you gave the finger to the man? Like me.” He gestured at the blue ocean. “I’m just drifting where the weed’s good and no one hassles me. Got a nice little boat out there. It’s called the Shona. Successor to the Madeline. Remember her from Northeastern? She was cute but turned out temperamental. Same story with Shona. She split too. So now I need another yacht. Bad karma to keep the one with the old name, you know? So, tell me, what really happened to you?”
Ed stood abruptly. “Look, Moss,” he said, “we didn’t know each other back then. We just hung out for one day. But, contrary to what you’re thinking, I didn’t kill anyone. Sure, I disappeared. There was a reason. I did what I had to do, though it meant abandoning college even before I’d begun. That’s all I’m going to say. So, now, please just forget you ever saw me, OK?” He threw down a ten. “That should cover the drink.”
Moss’s face closed—gone was the bonhomie. The pale eyes looked suddenly resentful, balked of a juicy story. “Have it your way; to be honest, you were a bit of an asshole even back then, Ed,” he said.
Ed turned on his heels and headed off in the opposite direction to the hotel. He didn’t want Moss to know where he was going. He glanced back. Moss was still staring after him, the same hostile look on his face. Ed ducked into a side alley, then looped back through the side streets. He was sweating heavily. He wiped his forehead and then his hands and entered the hotel lobby quickly. He went up to the receptionist, the same beaming West Indian lady who had greeted him that morning, with “Dolores” on her name badge. “I need to check out, please,” he said.
“But, Mr. Cruz, you only just arrived.”
“Something came up at the office. I need to fly back to Miami today.”
“No flight until tomorrow, sir,” Dolores said.
“Where’s the nearest airport with flights today?” he asked.
“Puerto Rico.”
“Is there a charter that could get me there?”
“Sure, Island Wings. But it will cost you.”
“Price is not an issue. Ring them, please. Tell them to be ready in a half-hour. And here’s some money for your trouble.” He slid a twenty over the counter. He didn’t wait for thanks, but hurried up to his unused room, picked up his overnight bag and hustled back down to the lobby.
“All arranged, sir,” Dolores said. “There’s a cab outside.”
He was unaware of his response as he hustled out. He looked left and right up the street. No sign of Moss, no sign of the police. Would Moss even go to the police? The little he knew of him suggested not. Moss, though he was probably some kind of trust-fund millionaire, figured he was a rebel. Maybe he actually admired Ed for what he had done, just as he’d said. Maybe Ed shouldn’t have been short with him? But sitting shooting the breeze with the guy would have revealed more and more of what Ed wanted forgotten. He’d brushed him off, and people did things against their nature when they felt insulted, and that might include going to the authorities.
The cab dropped him at the Island Wings hangar a quarter of an hour later. There was a pilot wearing overalls checking the engine on a Cessna. He wiped his hands on a rag and shook hands. “Mr. Cruz?”
“The same. Grateful for taking me at short notice.”
“No problem. I’m Sam Saint. If you give me your passport, I’ll get it stamped, then we’ll stow your bag and we can go.”
The passport. Was there going to be another problem? But it seemed Saint had a shortcut when dealing with customs and immigration. He returned in five minutes and handed the passport back. Then he ran Ed’s proffered visa through the credit card imprinter: $600 he would have to explain to Sarah. In fact, there was going to be a lot of explaining to do. Why he was arriving back a day early for one.
Only moments later they were airborne and heading toward San Juan.
He just made the last flight to Miami.
He had plenty of time to think during the three-hour flight over the Caribbean. He began second-guessing himself. It was possible that Moss, instead of going to the local police on Tortola, would ring one of those old contacts he’d mentioned at the Boston police or the FBI. If so, there could be a reception committee waiting for Ed at Miami International. His life might be coming to an abrupt end: suspected murder and an assumed identity would be enough to put him behind bars.
Then a second thought came. Moss had mentioned the “super-secret” government official who had questioned him. Who had he been? Why had he been anonymous? Was he one of them, Typhon? And if they had now been told about Ed’s reappearance on Tortola, with their resources, might they not already have questioned Moss, Dolores, Saint, and the American Airlines ticket seller in San Juan? Might they now know his assumed name and where he lived? And might they, rather than cause a scene arresting him at security at Miami International, be waiting quietly to snatch him from his home?
Since he was arriving from a US territory, there was no customs and immigration check at Miami. He passed security: no police reception. He got the shuttle to the parking lot, where he looked around cautiously before approaching his car. Maybe his brand loyalty had been inherited from Stu: his new Merriweather car was a Volvo station wagon. In this case, it was black rather than the powder blue of Stu’s old jalopy, abandoned so long ago in the Maine Woods.
It was now eight o’clock in the evening. He drove across the waterway by the MacArthur Causeway and hung a left on Lenox. It was a long avenue, a mile and a third, interrupted between 11th and 12th Streets by Flamingo Park and its sporting amenities; 1330 was just north of the first of these, the Abel Holtz Tennis Stadium. He pulled in and parked in its lee, got out and took the path bordering the park. There was no one out. At the baseball stadium he turned left back toward his house. He inched his way around the wall surrounding the villa at the intersection of Lenox and 14th Street and peered back south toward 1330, fifty yards away. Nothing stirred.
He crept toward the house, keeping to the shadows of the shrubs overhanging the neighboring property’s walls. There was the front path and a paved double-parking area currently only occupied by Sarah’s Cavalier. Lights could be seen through the drapes in the front living room. All seemed normal. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was waiting for him.
There were paths either side of the house leading to the back garden. He took the left-hand one and eased around the corner. As always, the back door was unlocked when he tested it. This was a virtually crime-free area. He quietly opened it and stepped into the unlit kitchen. The temperature was still in the high seventies and he could hear the muted roar of the AC from within the house. He felt his way around the kitchen promontory. The door to the unlit hall and the front rooms was open. He could now hear a voice over the AC. It was coming from the living room. It was Sarah. Who was she talking to? He crept down the hall past their bedroom. Now he was nearer, he could hear her better; he realized she was on the phone.
But there was something off about her voice. She sounded… afraid?
“No, he hasn’t complained, but he seems very tired…” It was as if she were picking her words very carefully. The person at the other end of the line evidently cut in, as there was silence for a few seconds.
“In a month. Maybe two months,” she replied. There was another pause.
“Yes, I better hang up now. I’m expecting him to call me.” Then there was the sound of the receiver being replaced. He heard her intake deep, juddering breath.
Half of him had decided to silently back away, exit the house, retrieve his car and drive up as if nothing had happened. But the other half was on the threshold of a very dark place. That half demanded answers, now.
He stepped into the room. She screamed. Her face was a mask of unrecognizable, primal terror. He felt as a murderer must feel just before they pull the trigger, plunge the knife… do what they are about to do and it’s too late to stop it.
She took a step back and nearly knocked over the lamp on the side table behind her. “Ed, what are you doing here?” she managed.
“Who was that on the phone?” he asked.
Did she hesitate? “It—it was just Emma.”
He didn’t reply straightaway. For reasons he couldn’t explain, given they were talking about a phone conversation, he went around the room, looking for signs that someone else had been there. He even twitched aside the drapes to check there was no one hiding behind them.
He turned to her. “What’s going to happen in a month or two?” he asked.
Again, was there a hesitation? “She was talking about coming to see us.”
“And what’s me being so tired got to do with it?”
“Ju-just if this was a good time for a visit, nothing more. For God’s sake, Ed. You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing here? You’re meant to be in the Caribbean.”
“Yeah? Well, something came up.”
“What do you mean?”
He tried to control his breath and lower his racing heart rate. “I ran into someone… someone from the past.”
“Who?”
“A guy called Moss. We met that first day at Northeastern. Now he appears out of nowhere in the same bar as me on Tortola.”
She was silent as she digested this.
“Could it have been coincidental?” she said eventually.
“I don’t believe in coincidences anymore,” he replied. “Has anyone been here?”
“No one. I haven’t spoken to anyone but Emma all evening.”
“No one outside? No cop cars?”
“Nothing.” She was crying now. A reaction to the shock. “You’re scaring me, you know? Really scaring me.”
He heard his pulse pounding in his ears. He had a bunched expanse of the drapes in his hand. His knuckles were white. Something in her look was so beseeching that he felt his pulse calm, the buzzing in his ears clear. He felt the wave of darkness begin to recede. She was Sarah, just Sarah. But the imp whispered then: why had he never heard that scared voice before, the one he had heard on the telephone? That had not been Sarah.
If it had not been Emma on the other end of the line, then who? He could call the operator and ask for the number, but not in front of Sarah. And the chances of tracing a call were slim: it could have been routed through any number of exchanges.
He let go of the drape and stepped toward her. She flinched back into the side table and this time the lamp wobbled and fell with a crash. The light went out.
He held up his hands. “I’m not going to hurt you, Sarah,” he said. “Listen, I’m going to get my car now. Why don’t you fix us both a drink and we can discuss this, OK?”
She nodded but there was no trust in that look.
He backed away and went to the front door. “I’ll be five minutes,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The week after Tortola he called into the office sick. He spent a lot of time looking out onto Lenox Avenue. But there were no cops, no suspicious people casing the house. Life outside appeared normal.
Something was gnawing at him. A hunger he could not assuage. Something was missing, something physical; his time away from the office only seemed to make it worse.
And he couldn’t shake the strange sound of Sarah’s voice on the phone. After his unexpected return, relations were strained. She seemed afraid of him. She slept in the spare room. They went without speaking for hours. In the emotional absence he began looking coldly on their relationship. He began to wonder: had things been too pat with them? Some questions he had never asked now seemed to demand answers.
