Mahogany's Dream Read online

  “What do you want, man?” Rock asked. “I ain’t never seen no search party with just one cop.”

  “I want the address to your brother’s house in the Poconos.”

  “I don’t know it,” Rock said automatically.

  “Think hard, Mr. Anderson. Think about this cozy-ass life that you have going on here. Twenty-five to life is a long time to spend in jail.”

  Rock turned away from him, thinking hard. “What do you want with my brother? He ain’t done nuttin’ to nobody.”

  “I just want to ask him a few questions.”

  “Yeah, right,” Rock murmured under his breath. He knew that was like a shark telling a sea lion that it just wanted a kiss.

  “You have my word on that, Rock,” Mancini assured him. “You know you would be down at the station right now if that weren’t the truth.”

  Mancini’s word didn’t mean anything to Rock. Still, he’d been around the block enough times to know that if the police wanted to find a black man bad enough, it was only a matter of time before it happened. All things considered, he’d rather it be fat ass Mancini than some racist red neck who thought that a Black Physicist was a punch line to a joke.

  He gave his old nemesis the address. Then he did something he’d never done before: He prayed for his brother.

  Mancini left for the Poconos at once.

  After the detective had gone, Rock felt a sudden urge to inspect Mancini’s search warrant. He tore the paper open. Instead of a warrant, all he found was a note that said:

  KISS MY ASS.

  CHAPTER

  53

  “We got her!” Jill informed Brian.

  “Already?” he asked.

  “Yep. She used her mobile phone at 8:44 AM this morning to place a call to a Doris Parsons on Georgia Avenue in Washington, D.C.”

  “Her grandmother,” Brian said. “Where are they?”

  “We triangulated the call to a cell phone tower in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. The phone company said the signal came to the tower from the direction of a town called Pocono Valley. To get any more precise, I have to go there myself. Mapquest says it’s about two hours from here.”

  “We’ll take my car,” Brian said, snatching his suit jacket from the back of his chair.”

  Jill was surprised, but she didn’t argue.

  CHAPTER

  54

  For two days and one morning, Dyson, Janaya and Mahogany were wrapped inside a cocoon of happiness.

  Dyson’s Pocono Valley estate was extraordinarily private. Nestled in secluded woodlands at the base of a ridge, it was close enough to civilization to be comfortable but far removed from the tourist areas in Mt. Pocono and Tannersville. There weren’t any honeymooners in this part of the Poconos.

  ________

  It had only been a two-hour trip, but the dramatic shift from urban congestion to rural spaciousness along the way made them feel like they had traveled to another planet. This was especially true for Mahogany. When she wasn’t sleeping, she stared out the windows in astonishment as skyscrapers were replaced by mountains and rowhouses by trees. The seemingly endless canopy of trees carpeted the mountains like vast armies of skinny soldiers standing in formation.

  When she had slept, Dyson updated Janaya on the chain of events that had precipitated their trip.

  _________

  Janaya had not been surprised when Dyson’s split-level vacation home seemed to appear from nowhere at the end of a long, curvaceous road, which she then realized was his driveway. Separated from the nearest public roadway by an acre of woodlands, it was all but invisible to the passing traffic on Whitehall Road.

  The house itself was neither flamboyant nor particularly large. Constructed almost entirely of wood, it had a rustic appearance that made it look something like an elaborate log cabin.

  On the inside it was modern and well appointed, but not luxurious. Heavy oak buttresses ran along the ceilings and ten-foot picture windows let in sunlight from three sides. Dyson had made one of the four bedrooms into a library with enormous bookshelves that rose to the ceiling. The living room was built around a giant stone hearth and a bright sitting room with French doors lay just beyond the kitchen.

  But none of that is what made the place special.

  When Dyson took them out to the rear deck to see the spectacular winter scenery at the rear of his estate, Janaya and Mahogany were dumbstruck with awe. Soaring high above their heads was a sloping ridge covered in a blanket of green pine trees. Fifty yards beyond the house was a large frozen pond. At the far end of the pond, a family of white tailed deer lazily grazed amongst a bank of red maple trees, their braches and most of the ground covered in white sheets of unsoiled snow.

  “All this is yours?” Janaya asked him.

  “Just six acres of it,” he said. “But I enjoy it like it is.”

  “Is this the North Pole?” Mahogany asked them, enraptured by the deer.

  Dyson laughed. “No. This is the Poconos. The North Pole is a long way from here, all the way at the top of the world.”

  “Do they have reindeer there too?”

  “No, but there are Polar Bears.”

  “Wow,” she said. “Can I skate on the pond?”

  “Not right now. It’s not cold enough yet. Right now the ice is so thin you might fall through and turn into a Popsicle.”

  Mahogany giggled.

  Janaya could have stayed there all day soaking up the view, but she had a more immediate concern. She and Mahogany needed clothes if they were going to be there a while.

  Dyson told her there was a shopping center over in Tannersville called The Crossings where they could go for that. He gave her one of his credit cards and told her to buy whatever she wanted. She had never seen a Titanium MasterCard before. He programmed the Range Rover’s navigation system to guide them and told them to have fun. When she asked why he wasn’t coming, he said that he had something important to work on while they were out. She didn’t press him about it.

  The two of them had a ball on their shopping spree. The quaint outlet mall wasn’t exactly Tyson’s Corner, but it had enough upscale factory stores to satisfy her appetite. At first she had been careful not to spend much, buying only the necessities. But when they stopped in the The Gap outlet store, there was almost nothing in the young girls department that Mahogany did not beg her to buy. When Janaya complained about the costs, Mahogany said, “But Dr. Hawthorn said that Dyson has more money than Santa Claus.” That remark caused Janaya to rethink her shopping strategy. After all, she reasoned, she had sacrificed a lot to come with Dyson. If she were going to give up everything and follow a man, at least she could look good doing it. After she made that small resolution, they spent a whole hour in the DKNY store.

  Hours later they pulled up to the house with so many bags that Dyson couldn’t even see Mahogany in the back seat. But he didn’t seem the least bit bothered as he unloaded their enormous bounty.

  When he finished, he told Mahogany to cover her eyes because he had a surprise for her. He led her by the hand to a small room adjacent to the living room.

  “Okay, open them,” he said.

  She removed her hand to find that his former library had been transformed into an exceptionally well-stocked artist’s studio, complete with easels and a little French beret hanging from a hook. Mahogany gasped in joy and hugged Dyson around the waist, thanking him over and over.

  “Where’d you get all these art supplies?” Janaya asked him. As far as she knew, the Range Rover was the only vehicle on the premises.

  “I had it delivered,” he said. “I ordered it yesterday, before I picked up Mahogany from the Academy.”

  As he playfully dragged Mahogany around the room, Dyson said, “Hey, wanna see some of my artwork?”

  “Where?” Mahogany said.

  Dyson flipped over the top page of the large drawing pad on the nearest easel. The new page depicted a poorly drawn stick figure building an art room with a hammer. An oversized inscr
iption at the top of the page said, “Who’s Your Daddy Now?”

  Mahogany laughed hardily. It was obviously some kind of inside joke between them.

  Janaya shook her head and said, “I’m stuck in Wonderland with two kids.”

  Later than night, after Mahogany had gone to bed and Dyson had shown Janaya how much he had missed her, she asked him how long he thought they would stay there. He said they only stay for as long as it took for the police to catch the intruder at the school or for Michelle to complete the guardianship paperwork, whichever came sooner. If the paperwork came through first, he would return Mahogany to school, but she would live at The Factory with him.

  At the mention of his lawyer’s name, Janaya grimaced and turned her back to him.

  _________

  The next day, Dyson was so exhausted from his one-man remodeling project that he slept late into the morning. Janaya woke him with breakfast in bed. She’d made banana nut pancakes, turkey bacon, a basket of fresh croissants and a smoked salmon omelet with caramelized onions.

  “Where did you get all this food?” he asked her.

  “I had your video game on wheels direct me to the nearest market. Mahogany helped me make it.”

  “Where is she, by the way?”

  “Downstairs, trying to become the next Picasso.”

  When Dyson finished his meal, Mahogany skipped into the room to collect his tray.

  “Did you like the food?” she asked sincerely.

  “I loved it,” he said. “That was the best breakfast I ever had.”

  Mahogany blushed. “Ms. Janaya told me to ask you something if you liked it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Who’s your mommy now?”

  Dyson tickled her and she rolled on the bed, laughing her heart out.

  Later that afternoon, two Delaware Indians stopped by. Dyson greeted them warmly. He introduced the middle-aged woman as Meoquanee and the teenage girl accompanying her as Fala.

  Janaya was initially suspicious of the food-bearing pair, but after Dyson pulled her aside and explained who they were, she just found them curious, like so many things he had shown her. He said that his property covered part of an area that was culturally significant to their tribe. There were two annual events, The Gamwing and The Corn Dance, which he allowed them to conduct on his property, even when he wasn’t there. The New York developer who had owned the property before him was not nearly as receptive. Meoquanee had told him that the last owner would call the Sheriff on them for disturbing the peace, even when they carried on their ceremonies outside the bounds of his estate. When Janaya remarked that they didn’t look like any Indians she had ever seen, Dyson chided her for her cultural insensitivity. He explained that Meoquanee cleaned hotel rooms over at the big resorts in Mt. Pocono just so her family could afford to live near their ancestral homeland. According to Meoquanee, most of her branch of the Delaware Nation was now scattered around the country. Dyson believed that their two annual gatherings functioned as de facto family reunions. He was more than happy to accommodate them. As an expression of gratitude, Meoquanee and Fala brought him dishes of their traditional foods whenever he was in town.

  Janaya had to admit the food was delicious. She sampled the strangely flavored squash and hominy while Meoquanee excitedly updated Dyson on all the new births in her clan since the last time she had seen him.

  Mahogany and Fala hit it off too. Gleeful laughter occasionally emanated from Mahogany’s studio, where the girls had gone to escape the adults. Fala gave Mahogany the honorary name Unami, which she said meant turtle in their native language.

  Before they departed, Meoquanee told Dyson that his family was beautiful.

  That night the three of them watched DVDs together until they all fell asleep on the couch, Mahogany on Dyson’s lap and Janaya on his shoulder. Not one of them had anyone else’s dream, although Mahogany had a pleasant dream where she was a sea turtle leisurely floating in a colorful coral reef.

  CHAPTER

  55

  When the monotony of the Pennsylvania Turnpike began to bore her, Jill asked Brian, “What’s Dunleavy like?”

  “Carl?” he said. “One of a kind. He’s like a law unto himself.”

  Whenever someone asked Brian about Carl Dunleavy, he couldn’t help but think back to those fateful events in New Mexico.

  __________

  On the third day of Tsang’s interrogation, Dunleavy showed up at the base with a bulging plastic trash bag and a singe manila folder. Over the years, Brian had learned that whenever his mentor carried a single folder, it usually contained bad news for somebody. On that hot day in Albuquerque, the bad news was for him.

  When they entered the supply room where they were holding Tsang, they found the diminutive scientist crouched in a corner, naked. His body shivered from the air conditioning blasting through the two ceiling vents. Streaks of dried blood caked the skin beneath his damaged ear.

  Dunleavy unlocked the thermostat and adjusted it to a more comfortable temperature. He checked his watch. He then untied the trash bag, which held the clothing Tsang had been wearing when they had taken him into custody two days earlier.

  “You can dress him and send him on his way,” Dunleavy directed Brian.

  Brian was relieved. “So this is over?”

  “It’s not over, but I’m through with Tsang,” Dunleavy said, checking his watch again.

  Brian noticed that Dunleavy was pensive. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “Everything is wrong,” Dunleavy said. “My interrogation was a failure, the station officer assisting me is an idiot, and the Pacers beat the Bullets by twenty last night.”

  Brian was confused again. “Your interrogation was a failure?” he asked, gawking at the terrorized animal that had been an electrical engineer before it had started. “You mean Tsang is not the leak?”

  “No,” Dunleavy said flatly.

  “How do you know?”

  The question annoyed Dunleavy. “Because it’s my job to know! I knew he wasn’t our guy after the first session.”

  Brian was sickened. “Then why did you keep going?”

  “Because I had to be sure. Unlike you, I carry out my job with competence.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Two days ago, when you brought the food back to Tsang, did you let him make a phone call?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No buts. That makes you an idiot.” Dunleavy checked his watch one last time.

  “You never told me that he couldn’t make a phone call.”

  Dunleavy sighed. “Do I have to tell you to wipe your ass when you take a dump? It’s goddamed common sense. Why would we keep him secluded in this room if we wanted him to have access to the outside world?”

  Although it was hard to argue with logic, Brian tried. “He said he just wanted to tell his wife that he was okay. Christ, you had beaten the crap out of the guy. I didn’t see any harm in it.”

  “And what did he say to his wife?”

  “I don’t know. They spoke in Chinese.”

  “Exactly,” Dunleavy said, making a point that escaped Brian.

  “Well nobody told me the rules. You’re the interrogator, not me.”

  “That’s right. I’m the interrogator and you’re the idiot.”

  Brian had had enough of being called an idiot. He stepped towards Dunleavy, who outweighed him by at least thirty pounds. “At least I don’t go around kicking the shit out of people for a living.”

  “According to these you do,” Dunleavy said, handing Brian the folder.

  “What’s this?”

  Dunleavy didn’t respond.

  Brian reviewed the contents of the folder in horror. It contained copies of several affidavits. The first one was from the waitress at the Manhattan Project, who attested to serving Brian five bottles of beer when he was still technically on duty. His debit card receipt for the beer was stapled to the top. The second affidavit was from D
r. Stitz, who attested to seeing Brian return to the Base alone at 5:48 PM. The third and fourth affidavits were from two different Base employees who attested that they had seen Brian leave the lab the next day with blood on his sleeve.

  Brian snapped the folder shut. “You asshole! You set me up.”

  “You set yourself up, Sport,” Dunleavy said blithely. “But don’t pass a kidney stone yet. I’ll only use those if I have to.”

  Brian didn’t know if that were a threat or an olive branch.

  Dunleavy walked over to Tsang and knelt down on one knee. Tsang lurched back in fright. Dunleavy said, “Dr. Tsang, if it makes you feel any better, I know you’re not a spy. You might be thinking that this is a shitty way to find that out. On some level, you’re right. The only thing I can say to that is that sometimes, the truth hurts.” The big man cracked up, slapping Tsang across the back. Then he turned to Brian. “I have a plane to catch. Good Luck.”

  Good luck?

  Brian was astounded. “You’re leaving? Just like that?”

  “Is there something else I need to do here?”

  Brian was sure there was, he just couldn’t think of anything at the time. So Carl Dunleavy vanished into the same cloud of mystery from which he had sprung.

  Within an hour, Brian discovered why Dunleavy had been in such a rush to leave. He was trying to help Tsang stand up on his own power when a three-ring circus came through the door. The hostile delegation included Tsang’s wife, two Albuquerque police officers, and an aggressive young lawyer from the Asian American Protection Society named Daniel Gwang.

  Mrs. Tsang immediately tended to her disoriented husband while Gwang tried to convince the officers to arrest Brian for kidnapping. A chaotic, multilingual shouting match ensued. Cooler heads eventually prevailed, mostly after the officers verified that Brian was right about the local police having no jurisdiction over the Base.