Brian Haig - The Kingmaker

I finally flagged down a taxi and had the hack drive us to the heart of the Virginia suburbs and drop us at the Tysons Corner mall, which came to an astonishing total of sixty dollars. And do you believe the taxi driver had the balls to look at me expectantly, like, Hey, where’s my tip?

Tysons happens to be one of the biggest malls in the world, a huge, sprawling complex with multiple escalators and over a hundred stores that are always crammed with jostling crowds. It being late November, with Christmas around the corner, the crowds were twice as thick. We rushed through several shops, buying enough clothes and shoes to last for several days, several wigs, some hair dye-your basic disguise paraphernalia-and a big goddamn hunting knife for those unexpected eventualities that seemed to be falling our way.

I used my charge card, because I wasn’t the least bit worried about giving away our location. Why should I be when we were already being followed? I didn’t see them, but they were there. They’d been there this morning to see me almost get killed, and near Katrina’s apartment to see her almost get killed.

Who were they? I had no idea, but they were pros. I assumed they were Fibbies, though that wasn’t necessarily correct. They might be CIA people, although that would be odd, because the United States has all these quirky laws about how the CIA isn’t supposed to do domestic operations. Not that the CIA always respects those laws. And I assumed it was Mary moving the chess pieces around on the board.

In my former life as a member of the outfit, we’d had pretty good instruction on how to elude followers. Since we were sometimes forced to operate incognito in places we weren’t supposed to be, it was expert training. Of course, it always helps when the trailers aren’t aware that you have these skills, because that lets you exploit their underestimations.

I explained to Katrina how we were going to do this, and then we promenaded into Lord amp; Taylor. She yanked a dress off the rack and went into the women’s dressing room as I stood by the entrance like your typically bored suburban husband. About ten minutes went by with women passing in and out, while a flock of other bored husbands gathered around me, each of us avoiding one another’s eyes, the way guys do when their wives are spending them into bankruptcy.

I finally walked away. I moved swiftly, knowing that if the followers were serious, there’d be plenty of them in the mall, each with those little earphone and hidden microphone thingies, squabbling back and forth as they handed us off to one another. And at that very instant, some of those watchers would be wondering what the hell had happened to Katrina, which was the heart of the plan: to get the watchers screaming at one another, frantically trying to hunt down Katrina, while I did my thing.

I dodged into the ground floor of Nordstrom, then trotted up the escalator to the second floor. I ducked down low, hiding in the clothes racks as I raced swiftly through the women’s section and dove into the women’s dressing room, where I immediately dodged into a stall.

A minute later I waddled out between two other women, looking not the least bit bewitching in my paisley muumuu dress with bags of clothing tied around my waist, a red wig on my head, and a large pair of women’s glasses, grasping two other bags of clothes to hide the whiskers on my jaw. I wobbled ungracefully toward the entrance, praying this worked. I had this nightmare of a bunch of Fibbies converging on me, drawing a big crowd, and there’d I be, exposed as a transvestite with pitiful tastes.

I went straight for the hot dog store in the middle of the mall, where a svelte blonde dressed in tight jeans and a black butch T-shirt and motorcycle boots sat munching a king-size dog, watching for a supremely ugly redhead in a muumuu. The muumuu was Katrina’s idea. I’d never forgive her. I looked like a cow. I mean, if you’re going to do this cross-dressing thing, it hardly seems fair to have to look like an elephant in a tent.

I went for the exit; she waited a minute, then followed. On my way out, I saw a guy dressed like an overage surfer looking frantically around. A thingie was stuffed in his ear and he was talking into his chest. He watched me waddle past doing my act, grimaced, and looked elsewhere.

I went into the covered parking garage, and a minute later Katrina sneaked up behind me. How did I know this? She had the nerve to pinch my fanny and say, “Hey, doll, looking for a good time?”

I flinched and grumbled, “Yeah, ain’t I the friggin’ hottie?”

She chuckled.

“Wheels next,” I said, and we walked across the street and down to Route 7, where the local suburbanites make all the car dealers congregate along one long road, each within sight of one another, trying to filch one another’s customers. Liar’s Alley, the locals call it. I dodged into the restroom at the Chevy dealership and changed into jeans and a button-down dress shirt, with Top-Siders, and then emerged looking like your typical suburban yuppie.

Katrina and I walked over and ogled a 1996 BMW four-seater convertible parked in the lot. Out of thin air a guy dressed like a Miami Vice cop appeared.

“Hey folks, like it?” he asked, with the prototypical smile and unctuous manner of his breed.

“Depends how it drives,” I said, stroking the paint job. “Even brought the wife along, ’cause we’re serious. I’m not looking, I’m buying, and if you convince me, you’ll get a fat check as I’m driving off in this thing.”

He beamed. He caressed me with his eyes. He then eyed Katrina, because I was already bagged, and all he had to do was to charm the little woman into wanting it too.

“Hal Burton,” he said. “Just a sec and I’ll run in and get the keys. It’s an incredible car. You sure you can handle it?”

“Born to it,” I said, one overtestosteroned jerk to another.

He winked and then ran in to get the keys.

Katrina said, “Is there a point to this?”

“You like it?”

She stared at the car. “Not my style.”

Hal came trotting out with the key. He winked again as he tossed the key across the hood, like we were a couple of real swell pals, weren’t we now?

He got in the back while Katrina and I climbed in the front. It started up with a throaty roar. We pulled out into traffic and headed straight for the Beltway, Hal babbling about what a titsy car it was, how frequently and expertly serviced, how beloved and pampered by its previous owner, how much the car was… well, us.

I hit the GW Parkway exit and began heading toward D.C. Hal in the back said, “Smooth, ain’t it? Like the way it drives?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, nodding enthusiastically.

He said, “Hey, sorry to mention this, pal, but the dealership’s gotta rule about staying within a five-mile limit. Not that I don’t trust you, ’cause you look like swell folks, but rules are rules.”

I said, “Gee, Hal, I’ll try to get off at the next exit.”

Hal grinned. That grin died when I zipped right past the next exit.

“Hey, uh,” he said, bending forward and tapping my shoulder. “You missed that exit.”

“Sorry. The way this thing drives, you get caught up in it. How much did you say it cost?”

He leaned back. He grinned. He imagined where he’d spend his commission. “List at eighteen five, but you’re obviously a man of the world, so you know that’s negotiable.”

While he droned on about everything he was willing to do to fit us into this car, I took the Key Bridge exit. He grinned and was still prattling about what a swell car it was, and what a swell couple we were, when we came to the stop sign at the end of the exit. I put the car in park and looked over at Katrina.