Max Collins - Fate of the Union

In 1605, in London, Guy Fawkes and his coconspirators planned to blow up the House of Lords with gunpowder they stashed beneath Parliament.

“Hell, Peep — you think that’s what’s going on here?”

“Certainly is possible, and you don’t need hundreds of pounds of this Senk stuff. Ten pounds would shuffle the deck from here to the Washington Monument.”

Patti Rogers, in the otherwise unoccupied outer area of Chief Ackley’s satellite office, did not immediately recognize the name in her cell phone’s caller ID window — KEVIN LOCKWOOD — but something about it was so frustratingly familiar that she took the call.

“Patti Rogers.”

“Agent Rogers, it’s... it’s me. Virginia. ”

The transvestite friend who’d found DeShawn Davis aka Karma Sabich: Kevin Lockwood.

“Virginia,” Rogers said. “What can I do for you?”

That came out like a salesperson and Rogers immediately regretted it.

“Can you meet me?” The next was whispered: “I’m... I’m scared .”

“Virginia, are you in immediate danger?”

“Not this second, but... please, I really need to see you.”

Holding the hand of a jittery drag queen was probably not the best use of Rogers’s time, but Virginia sounded terrified, and was a part of this case, after all. “Where are you?”

“Bob & Edith’s,” she said. “The diner where I work sometimes? There are enough people here to make me feel fairly safe.”

“It may be as much as an hour. Are you all right for that long?”

“I... I think so.”

“Good. I’m in the middle of something, but I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“Thank you. Really, thank you.”

They clicked off.

Leaving Reeder behind to participate in the Capitol search, Rogers got to Bob & Edith’s on Columbia Pike in Arlington in just under an hour — a small miracle in that kind of traffic.

The cozy diner stayed open 24/7, and most people seemed to be eating breakfast, no matter the time of day. Stools at the counter alternated blue and yellow seats, a color scheme continued with the blue tabletops in booths.

As usual, the aromas of comfort food welcomed Rogers — Bob & Edith’s was a place where she often brought visitors from her native Iowa, the fare making them feel at home and the clientele reminding them they weren’t. The families bringing their kids here for Mom-style cookin’ did so as part of a shifting Fellini-esque cast of transvestites, junkies, and alkies. Yet there were no fights, no robberies, not even misdemeanors at Bob & Edith’s, the Switzerland of the DC map.

Not spotting Virginia, Rogers settled into the nearest booth. A handful of patrons were scattered around the place, at what seemed to be an off time; and what few customers were here appeared to be in groups of at least two.

A waiter came over, took her order for coffee, went away. She didn’t even look up, her concentration going to her cell as she retrieved Virginia’s number. She punched it in but it went to voice mail.

Had Virginia been in real trouble? Was Rogers too late? Too late for what?

The muted sounds of “It’s Raining Men” — Virginia’s ringtone? — came from somewhere, the timing making it clear this was Rogers’s call. Had someone grabbed Virginia, and she left her phone behind, on a nearby booth maybe?

The ringtone continued as her waiter returned to her table, poured her coffee, then said over his shoulder to a middle-aged henna-haired female cashier, “Pinky, I’m going on break.”

Then Rogers’s waiter sat across from her in the booth. The sample of “It’s Raining Men” started up again, third time through.

“Part of the persona,” he said with a shy shrug. “My ringtone, I mean.”

She hit END on her phone and the song stopped playing.

Kevin Lockwood had short dark hair and tortoise-shell-framed glasses behind which Virginia’s fawn eyes gazed at her. He was impossibly handsome in that GQ model manner, making even his waiter’s white shirt and black bow tie look fashionable.

Still, she found herself asking the one-word question: “Virginia?”

The young man smiled. “Yes, Agent Rogers,” he said quietly, “there is a Virginia... but best call me Kevin in here. Virginia has the waitress job, but sometimes Kevin takes a shift for her.”

For a few moments, she just studied him, getting used to this new person. “Is it just an act? Virginia, I mean?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “It’s more than that. The best way I can explain is, I’m at my most comfortable when I’m her.”

“Why is, uh, Kevin taking her shift today?”

“Because Virginia is afraid.” The fawn eyes narrowed. “And I don’t think the person following me knows what Kevin looks like.”

“You’ve been followed? You’re sure of that?”

He nodded. “ Was being followed, anyway. I shook him, I think.”

“Him.”

“A dangerous-looking blond man.”

Their SIM card blond again.

Rogers asked, “This was when?”

“Just last night, or really today, because it was past midnight. I saw him sitting at the bar in back, when I was on stage — at Les Girls? He had a nice build, and kind of a Beach Boy grown-up look. Cardigan, chinos, shades of tan. And he was still there, when I came from the dressing room to go home.”

“Still as Virginia?”

“Still as Virginia.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

“As I left, I did — I passed right by the bar. He was watching me, but of course a lot of guys at Les Girls do that, on and off the stage. Really, it was the way he was watching me.”

“What way was that?”

“Stealing looks. Pretending not to.”

“Isn’t that common, too?”

“It wasn’t in the way most guys do, where you get that... checking-you-out kind of look. Something else. Can’t explain much more than that. Not sexual.”

Rogers nodded. “You got a good look, you said.”

Kevin nodded back. “Light-blue eyes to go with the blond hair — you know the expression, ‘ice-blue eyes’?”

“Those kind of eyes.”

“Those kind of eyes,” Kevin said, “but not in a good way. And the Beach Boy features, that kind of chiseled California thing, closer up they looked hard. Rough complexion.”

Rogers got the SIM card picture up on her phone. “Could this be him?”

“Not could — that’s him. That is him. Who is he?”

“We don’t have a name yet, Kevin, but he’s wanted.”

“Not by me! I got Ronnie, one of the bartenders, to drive me, I was so shaken up.”

“And he followed you home?”

“Somebody was following us, I thought. I kept looking back. Ronnie said I was being paranoid, but just when I got dropped off outside my place, that blond creep drove by.”

“Do you know what he was driving?”

“A Nissan. An Altima? And, no, I didn’t get a license plate. I was in a hurry to get inside behind a locked door.”

“So, what then? How did you lose him if you just locked yourself in?”

Kevin leaned forward in a sharing secrets way. “After Virginia went inside, I did the big cleanup. Makeup off, wig, clothes, showered, shaved again... then I came back out of the building as Kevin. I haven’t seen him since.”

Rogers sipped her coffee, thinking. Then she said, “Kevin, I’d like to get you into a safe house for the next few days.”