It was April now in the Upper East Side, and the newstand on Madison Avenue near the bus stop was selling persimmons.
Sanguineus did his usual thing in the morning and bought whatever fruit looked the most appealing, not because of any dietary concerns, but because he liked the pigtailed blonde who took his money, the news hawker's daughter.
"This is the Asian species of persimmon," she explained to him as she wrapped the peach-like fruit in wax paper. "They're doing quite excellently in my greenhouse, actually my bedroom, under a sunlamp. Did you know the persimmon is really a berry? Tomatoes are really berries too. Did you know that?"
Sanguineus took the small brown paper bag from her and said earnestly, "I have devoted my life to the study of berries, specifically the cherry."
The girl stared at him, her mouth open in that neverland between a smile of understanding and a puckered confusion.
Her fruit stand abutted the rows of newspapers and magazines, just up from the stairwell that led to Red Rum's secret offices.
The building was the former Hidelverg Emporium, built in 1926. The stairwell was about twenty feet from the current garment maker's recessed entrance. You went down the narrow concrete steps that had rubber non-slip strips on the treads, to the bottom where a steel door on your right had a plaque saying UNIVERSAL TOOLS, and below, 'Sales and Stock.'
The door was not locked. You walked in and met the receptionist behind an L desk cluttered with in-and-out trays, a Mac computer, a printer, intercom, landline phone, an assortment of personal preference items and framed pictures of the grandkids. It was a small drab office.
If you were looking for specialized tools you were directed into the stock room where the in-house salesman with a very low-key sales manner got for you what you wanted, or ordered it for you.
It was a legitimate business. It had been audited by the IRS, scrutinized by the FBI who suspected it was a front but could find no evidence to support their suspicions. The business could pay its rent and utility bills, and offer a decent salary, with frequent bonuses, for the receptionist and salesman. Its on-line sales were flat, on occasion dismal, but it managed to keep out of the red.
The receptionist, Estelle, had a hobby. She was active on several social media sites on the surface Internet and its deeper cousins. She chatted and roleplayed and posted stories and articles under various pseudonyms. Her activities were often risque and kinky, but as innocent as the day in her office was long. Red Rum could not have operated without her.
Estelle was talking on the phone when Sanguineus came in. She made a peace sign with the hand that held a Bic pen under the thumb. This meant that an assignment was awaiting his consideration in the Meeting Room.
She went on talking to whoever was on the line. An operative in the field asking for extra funds probably, Sanguineus thought, as he went through into the stock room.
The salesman, Eduard, saw a difference in Sanguineus that he had never seen before, not in his sixteen years with the 'company.' It was indescribable. It was a sensed difference, not anything you could put a name to. A psychotherapist with offices on West 47th Street came to see Red Rum's director twice a year, in spring and in autumn, to evaluate the mental fitness of the operatives. Rumor had it that the doc was concerned about Ricklen Cruor, alias Sanguineus.
Eduard supposed it was the rumor that made him see that odd something in the bearing of Sanguineus. Assassins are not prone to the emotional weaknesses that would shatter the mind of more sensitive people, he was sure. No, it was more likely that Ricklen was just in need of a nice long vacation, or a stint as an analyst, and not that he was falling apart at the seams. ("Apt phrase for Madison Avenue," he congratulated himself.)
Above one of the shelves that displayed nail guns was a sign: 'Emergency Exit,' with a red arrow pointing down to the shelf in question.
Eduard, after an exchange of pleasantries, pulled back on the shelf, which swung on hinges. It revealed an archway into a passage leading upward, on your right, to an iron door marked EXIT. It opened onto the alley behind the building.
But Sanguineus struck with the heel of his palm the wall of the passage on his left.
It seemed to be just a cement wall. But when the tiny camera lens in the junction of wall and ceiling, responding to the vibrations of the calculated strike, had taken a photo of him and evaluated the minutiae of his facial features through a computer identification program, the wall slid into a slot.
This occurred after the shelf had been shoved back in place, so that only the passage lighting fixtures illuminated him.
Beyond was an office room into which Sanguineus strode, going straight to a standard door across the pile carpet. He had entered one of the most secret places in the world.
There were three secretaries in the spartan office, each in her own personalized cubicle, hard at work interpreting, updating, and when necessary translating, reports coming in from Estelle.
The reports went to analysts in various locations in the world who evaluated and advised, and who then sent their conclusions to Gina Kinnon, recently promoted to executive secretary to the Director. She saw that he was informed of them, on a priority list that considered two primary concerns: profitability, and global political ramifications. Usually it was only the first concern that decided the matter.
All three women eyed the tall dark man who crossed the room. For that moment the fate of a number of people hung suspended.
When Sanguineus had punched in his code, zero-dash zero one, in the locking mechanism, which allowed him entrance into the corridor beyond, the three women sighed longingly. They returned their fingers to the keyboards, to spell out the fate of those unfortunates whose lives were to be priced and forfeited.
"Morning," said the grumpy security guard, slouched in his chair at his post by the transverse corridor.
Sanguineus nodded but said nothing.
These two corridors were short, carpeted, decorated with prints of the Director's ranch in Wyoming, and offered restrooms, consultation and debriefing rooms, bedrooms with showers, janitorial closets, a junk room full of everything that nobody will ever need anymore, the executive secretary and assistant secretary's offices, and access to four long narrow 'basements' for training purposes.
Sanguineus had intended to give the persimmon to Gina. But Estelle's peace sign sent him through to the dining room and kitchen, where he left the persimmon on a cutting board by the sinks, the three-man kitchen staff having not yet arrived for lunch preparations, and went down a stairway to 'the tunnel.' This led to the Meeting Room and the Director's office and residence.
Sanguineus met with Bear Claus in the intimate living-room of the residence suite, just the two of them. The assignment, which Claus had vaguely referenced as "Some to-do in Scotland," was not discussed.
Claus had a wild hair up his ass, as Sanguineus described it to himself, about the strange case of Tanya Wilde.
"It's not my intention to pry into your private affairs," Claus said, seated in his plush chair like a quarterback leaning over the center before the ball is snapped. "But according to our analyst for the Scottish hit, Tanya cast a shadow. Those are his words. 'Cast a shadow.' She was born in Edinburgh, but she grew up in Lornaglen, a rather cosmopolitan town that's apparently popular with retired school and college teachers.
"Look, we know that Tanya was involved in a piece of really hairy shit in the DeGroot assignment. That Hysterium nonsense. Before that it was a pretty rough time in Amsterdam, where she had to romance the target and then pop the old bastard. Now here's what I need to know. We thought she was killed by a mob man in France, this Benz character. You avenged her. Okay. And now she comes back from the dead and seeks you out. You have dinner. Then boom, she disappears again. It's been almost four months since your dinner with her, and the only thing we've got on her is a sighting in London's Heathrow Airport, three weeks ago. Going where? The analyst says Edinburgh on a false passport, the one she used in the Amsterdam business. But he hasn't found a trace of her in Scotland. He scoured Lornaglen, and nothing. Tell me what she talked about during that dinner engagement."
"Sanguineus," he said when there was no apparent response, "this is an oder. Sorry, but I can't send you to Scotland unless I know what YOU know about Tanya Wilde."
Sanguineus smiled, but it had no substance to it.
He took out his pouch of tobbaco and rolling papers. On the stand by an elbow was a frosty Tom Collins and a tray of cheese and wheat crackers.
He was remembering in vivid, painful detail that evening in a swank restaurant in midtown Manhattan where the glitter and gloss, the fashion and the fêtes, could not shake Tanya from a mood that, in his own mind, spelled the devil.
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