Jumper: Griffin's Story (21 page)

Madame Breskin tilted her head. "Yes, I suppose. We all are, at times. If anything he's been more objective than idealistic. Sometimes we don't see what others . . .
voir d'un coup d'ceil."

"Madame?" said E.V, preoccupied, still staring at the drawing.

Madame Breskin was regarding me and I translated, "See at a glance."

E.V. looked confused but the waiter came just then and I was relieved and E.V. was clearly relieved and Madame Breskin was clearly amused.

Later, in the lobby of the hotel, E.V. asked quietly, "I'd like a copy, if you could Xerox it."

"You can have it, when I'm done. I've just started on the background. I'm not satisfied at all with the light on the mosque and the ducks, and the water–that goes without saying."

She panicked. "We're leaving in the morning! You won't have time."

"I meant, when you get back. To
Trenton
." I folded back the cover of the sketchbook and pointed at the blank cardboard. "Your address and phone number." I put a drawing pencil in her hand. "Please?"

"Oh. Mail." She wrote the lines neatly, elegantly. "Of course."

I shrugged.

She said, "And
your
address?"

"Post is... difficult where I live and I'm not on the phone. But I'll be in touch."

Madame Breskin was giving us some space. She sat in an elegant lion–footed chair by the lifts and pretended to look at her book.

I tucked the sketchbook under my arm and held out my hand. "Bon voyage, Mademoiselle Kelson."

She took my hand and said, "A handshake? Screw that." She pulled and I stepped closer. The sweater was as soft as I'd drawn it, but the lips were, if anything, softer.

"Oh!" she said. "You
can
smile."

I had to pick up the sketchbook, after, and the doorman steered me gently out onto the wet pavement past the door frame after I'd collided with it once.

It was raining, cold and nasty, but I didn't really care.

I was really tempted to show up at the airport the next day and surprise her but I didn't know whether they were leaving from Gatwick or Heathrow or even what airline. I must admit the phrase "leave them wanting more" went through my head but I would've gone in an instant if I just knew where and when.

I was the one wanting more.

I spent two more hours in Regent's Park, finishing up the background. I did very little to her figure–just some blending and darkening of her outline so she stood out from the background. The lace edge of a bra had shown as her neckline draped, due to gravity, and I'd drawn it faithfully, but now
it
drew
me,
my eyes returning to it, to her eyes, to her lips.

I took the drawing to a Kinko's and used their largest–format machine to produce a doubled–sized copy on art stock. Then I went to a specialty art shop to have the original matted and framed. "Your work?" said the clerk, handling it carefully by the edges. "You haven't signed it. You want me to spray it with fixative?"

Self–consciously, I signed it, first name only. Below I put "Regent's Park" and the date we'd sat there. Then he took it in the back and gave it a spritz with a can of
Lascaux
.

"You want it boxed, too?"

"Yes, please."

"For shipping or hand carry?"

"Hand carry–I'm going to deliver it."

The trouble was, I didn't really recall the East Coast. We'd been there when I was very young, but I just didn't remember. I bought an Amtrak train ticket for the
Southwest Chief,
leaving
Los Angeles
in three days and arriving in
Chicago
forty–two hours later. "We've got some rooms available," the clerk said.

I nodded.
"Sure–that
sounds good."

She looked at me, the young teen of indeterminate age, and said, "It
is
expensive. I mean, the ticket is almost eight hundred dollars more with a room."

I began counting out hundred dollar bills and she said, "Very well. Room or roomette? The roomettes don't have their own showers and toilets, but they're not as expensive."

In the end I paid a premium for the room and then again, on the
Lakeshore Limited,
for the
Chicago
–
New York
run, with a twenty–four–hour gap in between.

I wasn't going anywhere near airports–places where they wanted ID. The name I had them put on the ticket was Paul MacLand, that bastard Paully from my old karate class.

I gave Special Agent Proctor one more chance, again catching him at his desk.

"One last chance," I told him from a pay phone near
Balboa
Park
. "You want my cooperation or not?"

He made a slight concession. "I'll answer your questions face–to–face. Not over the phone."

"Where?" I seriously considered it. After all, it wasn't as if he could hold me.

"Here–in my office."

"Bugger that!" I bit my lip. "I might consider someplace else.
Balboa
Park
, perhaps? You could be there in ten minutes, right?"

"Maybe."

"You'd have to come alone."

"What, alone and unarmed?" You could cut the scorn with a knife.

"Bring as many guns as you want. Just be alone." Pause. "I've got a call scheduled. How about forty–five minutes?"

He was stalling. "Take it on your cell on the way here." "It's the deputy director. I can't." "I did mention that this is your
last
chance, right?" "But I really can't! Maybe I could cut it down to thirt–" I cut him off. "I won't be calling again." And hung up.

The next morning I jumped to Universal Studios in
L.A.
, a place I'd been with Mum and Dad. Saw the shark. I left immediately, overwhelmed by the memories.

Why should happy memories hurt more than the images in my head from
that
night?

I caught the brand–new Red Line extension at
Hollywood
and Vine and rode it all the way to Union Station. My train didn't leave until the next evening, but I wanted a jump site. I sketched the funky Mission–style clock tower from outside.

Back in
San Diego
I called the sheriff's department from an office phone in the county courthouse. The office was empty for lunch and the door was locked but it was glass and I could see through it. The Central Investigations Division at the main office gave me a cell phone number. "Detective Vigil is coordinating with the federal authorities." She used the Spanish pronunciation, Vee–hill.

I tried the number and after five rings a voice said, "Bob Vigil."

"My name is Griffin O'Conner, Detective. I sent a sketch to your department."

There was a sharp intake of breath. "Really. That's odd. The Feds seem to think you're in
Europe
."

Huh. The U.K. Immigration Service was talking to the FBI? Maybe through New Scotland Yard? "You got caller ID?"

"Yeah. I see you're local right now."

"Any luck with the sketch? Was it helpful?"

"Shit, yes! The car rental company ID'd him, the guy whose car they stole in Mexico ID'd him. The Azteca Airlines clerk at Rodriguez ID'd him."

"Rodriguez? Where's that?"

"
Tijuana
," said Vigil. "
General
Abelardo
L.
Rodriguez
International
Airport
."

"Where'd he fly?"

"They don't know. She doesn't remember and the ID he used apparently wasn't for 'Kemp.' That name wasn't on any of their manifests. Flights left for several cities both in and out of
Mexico
. The FBI are trying for security video on the departing flights in
Tijuana
and arriving flights at the possible cities."

"Does Special Agent Proctor at the San Diego FBI office know this?"

"That's who told me."

Bastard.

Vigil continued, "We surmise that Sam didn't have a phone number for you–that's why the perp's camped out there, right?"

"Camped out? At Sam's place?"

"Yeah–they were there a good week. It ties into the car rental and the amount of trash they generated. I take it that Sam couldn't just call you."

I winced. "Uh, no. I called him. I'm semiregular, but–"
God.
They'd held Sam and Consuelo for an
entire week
waiting for me to call? I felt like throwing up. I wanted to race to
Paris
and search until I found Alejandra, to protect her.

You 'djust lead them to her.

Vigil interpreted my silence. "You see it, eh?"

My breathing deepened. "Yes!"

He was tactfully quiet for a moment.

After my breathing calmed I said, "Anybody else? Have you figured how many there were?"

"Paolo saw four. He's the guy who was carjacked on Highway Two. We have some pictures of them, from the camera at the rental place. You could take a look and see if you recognize them."

"Do you have Kemp in those shots?"

"No. According to the rental agent he stayed outside. One of these other guys took care of the paperwork."

I suppose he could be one of the guys I'd encountered in the London Tube, or the Big Man in
Oaxaca
. My train wasn't going to leave for another twenty–six hours. "I guess I could come look. Where are you?"

"I'm at
Lemon Grove
substation. Your number looks like its downtown, yes?"

"I'm at the county courthouse."

"I'm going to the main office. I could meet you someplace closer to downtown."

Well, he had answered my questions, unlike Proctor, and I wanted to see the pictures–the other faces.

"Okay. The main library on E Street."

"Right. Take me twenty–five minutes, okay? Just inside?"

"Sure. Are you in uniform?"

"No. I'll have a red folder with the pictures–I'll wave it. I'm Hispanic, about two hundred pounds, and I've got on a brown suit, no tie. Clean–shaven. Well, I was this morning."

"Right."

I jumped to the little staff parking lot behind the central branch library and walked around to the front. For a moment I stood under the covered entranceway on the sidewalk, looking around, but it was just a busy
San Diego
weekday. I went inside and found a place where I could watch the door from behind a circular book display rack and lean against a wall.

Lots of people moved in and out through the doors in the next thirty minutes. Finally, as advertised, a man in a brown suit came in, a thick red file folder in his hand. He was holding it in front of him chest high.

I pushed off the wall and went to meet him. As I passed the reference books I heard a step and twisted to my left to see a man lunge out from between the shelves. Something flashed in his hand and I felt a pressure on my back ribs, then excruciating pain. His hand, and the flashing metal, came back for another stroke, toward my stomach, and I was gone.

I staggered across the uneven floor of the Hole and fell to one knee. When I tried to lift my left hand to feel back there, I screamed, and dropped it again. Where my arm rested against my leg, I could feel the cloth was soaked. I couldn't even twist to look down but I tilted my hand and saw blood on the fingers.

I needed a doctor, urgently, before I bled to death, but I also needed to avoid the places I frequented. Going to hospital in
London
could be quickly fatal. Definitely in
San Diego
, too, or the clinic I knew in La Crucecita. I managed to stand though the effort caused my sight to darken and the room to spin. I found myself staring at my sketches, pinned to the sheets of plywood.

There.

It was early evening in Hondarribia, but the old quarter was well lit, and when I sprawled facedown on the pavement, the red mess on the back of my pale shirt apparently stood out very well, for the last thing I heard was a woman screaming and a man's voice saying,
"Por la sangre de Cristo!"

Indeed.

I woke up lying on my stomach, my head tilted to one side. My back didn't hurt as much but someone was tugging on it. I started to shift and a hand pressed down on my shoulder. A man's voice said, "
No te muevas! lEntiendes?"

I settled back down.
"Entiendo."
After a minute I asked where I was. "
Donde estoy?"

"Mi clinica. Soy el doctor Uriarte. Elpolicia te trajo."
The police brought me, eh? I thought about what was in my pockets. Just money. English pounds, some francs, some U.S. dollars. Maybe an art eraser. No ID–not since my passport had been confiscated by UK Immigration.

"Treinta–nueve puntadas,"
Dr. Uriarte announced.
"Por todo."

Thirty–nine stitches. He'd obviously numbed it but my imagination made it itch and ache and tingle all at once. He dressed it.