Doug Allyn - The Best American Mystery Stories 2003

“Lovecraft University, in Massachusetts.”

The old man shook his head. “Never heard of it. And why are you in this part of Maine?”

“To see you.”

“Me?” Brown said, sounding shocked. “Whatever for?”

“Because I’m working on a book, and I think you have some information I could use,” Kevin said.

“Me?” Brown said again. “I think you’ve come a long way for the wrong reason, young man.”

Kevin remembered how he had thought this would go, and decided it was time to just bring it out in the open, just barrel right ahead. He opened up the envelope and took out the two black-and-white photos that Lancaster had provided him and passed them over. Brown looked at the photos and then fumbled in his shirt pocket, to pull out a pair of glasses. With the glasses on, Brown examined each photo, and then there was a quick intake of breath. Kevin leaned forward, wondering if he would have to pull out the other bits of information he had when Brown would deny that it was him in the photos. From the college newspaper research, he had additional photos, showing Brown in a variety of photos at each murder scene. From information supplied by the conspiracy buffs, he had old police department records, placing him at each scene. Kevin waited for the answer, and when the answer came, he was shocked and surprised.

Brown looked up. “Are you here to kill me?”

Kevin said, “No, no, not at all. I really am a college professor, and I really am working on a book. About the deaths of both JFK and his brother. And my research led to these photographs, and then to you, Mister Brown. So that’s really you, isn’t it? You were present at both assassinations.”

Brown’s voice lowered to a whisper. “So long ago... so very long ago...”

Then, Kevin surprised even himself as a burst of anger came up and he said, “Why? Why did you do it?”

Brown looked stunned at the question. “What do you mean, why? I did it because I was ordered to, that’s why. I was younger back then, full of energy and purpose, and I did what I thought was right, and did what I was told. It was a different time, a turbulent time.”

“And who ordered you to do it?”

Brown shook his head, lowered the photos down on the couch, kept his gaze on them both. “I’m not going to say a word. I’m an old man, living up here nice and quiet, and I’m not going to say another word.”

“Was it Richard’s Children? Was it?”

Brown’s eyes snapped right back at him. “Who told you that?”

“That was part of my research. Richard’s Children.” Kevin took a breath, thinking, true, all true. That loon Lancaster was right. “I’m working on a book, Mister Brown, and I’m going to reveal your part in it, whether you help me or not.”

Brown put his shaking hands in his lap. “It could be dangerous.”

“Maybe so, but it’ll be the truth.”

Brown didn’t say anything for what seemed to be a long time, and then he said, “I’ve been retired, for years... but I was a pack rat, you know. Against all orders. I kept documents and papers and photographs... lots of information...”

“You did?”

A slow nod from the old man. “I certainly did... A book. You said you’re working on a book?”

“I am.”

Brown said, “Would you like to see those materials?”

“God, yes.”

Brown nodded, slowly got up off the couch, holding on to the walker with both gnarled hands. “You wait right here. I’ll go get them.”

Kevin clasped his hands together, his heart thumping yet again, thinking of how he would spend the day with the old man, debriefing him, figuring out all the angles of this story, the biggest story of the millennium, and all belonging to him. Kevin started smiling. Questions of tenure at old shabby Lovecraft U? Lancaster was right. When this book was done, he’d be considering offers from Yale and Harvard and —

Brown came back into the room. He moved quickly. He didn’t have a walker with him, not at all, and he moved with the grace of an old man who had kept himself in shape. And there were no papers or books or photographs in his hand. Just a black, shiny, automatic pistol.

“You should have stuck with your Shakespeare,” Brown said, his voice even and quite strong, and those words and the sharp report of the pistol were the last things that Kevin ever heard.

After receiving the news from a coded transatlantic phone call, the man who sometimes called himself Lancaster and sometimes called himself York got up from his desk and walked across the room to a thick oaken door. He rapped once on the door and entered at the soft voice that said, “Do come in.”

The room was cozy, with long drapes and bookshelves lined with leatherbound volumes, some framed photos on the dull white plaster walls, and a wide window that looked down upon the windswept Thames. From his vantage point, looking over the desk and the comfortable chair that the old man sat in, Lancaster could make out the round shape of the rebuilt Globe Theatre.

The man wore a thick dressing gown, and his black hair was swept back, displaying a prominent nose. One arm was on the desk, and the other one, withered and almost useless, was propped up on the arm of his chair. The old man was known as one of the richest and most philanthropic men in all the world, and on the wall were photos of him with the president of the United States, Prince Philip of Great Britain, the prime minister, and several other notables. Including a small photograph of him with Richard Nixon, and Nixon was the one smiling the most, as if pleased at what had just been agreed to. He looked up and said, “You have news?”

“I do,” Lancaster said. “The college professor has been removed. Mister Brown fulfilled our request admirably, and his compensation is en route.”

“Good,” the man said. “Any loose ends?”

Lancaster paused, and then proceeded, knowing that the man before him was always one for direct questions. “No, no loose ends. But I am concerned about just one thing, sir.”

“Which is?”

Lancaster said, “I understand the whole point of this exercise. To locate those people with sufficient imagination and interest to look into our activities, and then see how far they can go before we eliminate them. And eliminate those they have contact with, who have supplied them with damaging information. But there’s just one thing. Mister Brown, our man in Maine.”

“Yes?” he asked.

“Don’t you think he should be... taken care of, as well?”

The man at the desk turned and looked out at the mighty Thames and sat still. Lancaster knew better than to interrupt him when he was in such a reverie. Finally, he said, “No. I don’t think so. And you want to know why?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Loyalty,” he said. “The man has done noble services for us, many times, over the years. He deserves our loyalty. So he shall remain alive. Understood?”

“Yes,” Lancaster said.

“Good,” said the man who called himself Richard. “As the Bard once said of my spiritual ancestor, ‘I am determined to prove the villain, and hate the idle pleasures of these days.’ Come, we have work to do.”

“So we do, sir,” he said. “So we do.”

From When the Women Come Out to Dance: Stories

Lourdes became Mrs. Mahmood’s personal maid when her friend Viviana quit to go to L.A. with her husband. Lourdes and Viviana were both from Cali in Colombia and had come to South Florida as mail-order brides. Lourdes’s husband, Mr. Zimmer, worked for a paving contractor until his death, two years from the time they were married.

She came to the home on Ocean Drive, only a few blocks from Donald Trump’s, expecting to not have a good feeling for a woman named Mrs. Mahmood, wife of Dr. Wasim Mahmood, who altered the faces and breasts of Palm Beach ladies and aspirated their areas of fat. So it surprised Lourdes that the woman didn’t look like a Mrs. Mahmood, and that she opened the door herself: this tall redheaded woman in a little green two-piece swimsuit, sunglasses on her nose, opened the door and said, “Lourdes, as in Our Lady of?”