Mahogany's Dream Read online

  “A what?”

  “A millimeter wave generator, the most important part of the ADS system that Tsang worked on in New Mexico. The rest of the system is just cooling pumps and targeting mechanisms. The wave generator was the secret part.”

  “Shit,” Jill remarked.

  “It gets worse. I’m told Tsang’s version¾the Chinese version now ¾is better than the original. Their generator uses photons instead of electrons. And they figured out how to miniaturize it. Ours is so big it has to be mounted on a damn Humvee. My source says that Tsang’s version is the size of a carton of fried rice, pun intended.

  If that weren’t bad enough, a few months ago the NSA started picking up chatter between the Kuomintang and the PLA.”

  “PLA?”

  “Peoples Liberation Army, China’s military.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “We don’t know. They’re using an encryption system we can’t break.”

  “But I thought you said we had HMC’s encryption system.”

  “We do.”

  “But Tsang kept a copy?”

  Brian chuckled. “From what I understand, it’s not the kind of thing that can be copied. It has to be built from square one each time. You have to know exactly what you’re doing to build one, and there are only a handful of people in the world who know what they’re doing.”

  A bulb lit in Jill’s head. “So you think Conwell had something to do with the second encryption system.”

  “That’s what I was hoping you would tell me.”

  But she had no idea, and no idea how to find out. “Do you have any recommendations, sir?”

  “About what?”

  “About how I can find out where Conwell fits into all this.”

  Brian stopped walking and looked around. In every direction, all he could see was nature’s feral beauty. No matter what was happening in his life, he always felt at peace here.

  He turned to Jill and said, “Why don’t you just ask him?”

  CHAPTER

  18

  3:34 AM

  Blake’s torso flew up from the bed. His T-shirt stuck to his back with sweat. With a sigh of relief, he realized it was just a nightmare. He habitually reached over to Norma’s side of the bed, but it was empty. Just like his sorry life without her.

  Somewhere in the city, Dyson sat up in bed too, wondering why Blake would have such a dream.

  _______

  Rock looked out the front window at the curb. “I see you drove the Bimmer today,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Dyson answered, “I can’t drive the Aston everyday.”

  “I could,” Rock said. “I would drive that thing til’ the wheels fell off.”

  Dyson thought his foster brother was too enamored of material things, but of course he would never say that to his face. On some level, given their shared history, he understood Rock’s obsession.

  “What’s up?” Dyson asked the only person in the world he considered family.

  “Nuthin’. Just tryin’ to make a dolla’ outta ten cents. What’s up with you?”

  “Slow motion. Same story, different day.”

  Rock examined him closely. “You sure you’re okay little brother?” It had been only weeks since Norma’s funeral, and Dyson hadn’t been quite the same since.

  “I’ll be okay,” he said unconvincingly.

  “You know if you need to talk…”

  “I know. Where’s my mail?”

  Rock got up and went to another room. The low ceilings made him appear bigger than he actually was. Not that he needed any help. At 6’3” and two hundred eighty pounds of rippling muscle, Rock was a walking death threat.

  He came back with a small crate filled with envelopes and magazines. “You know Iverson needs to go ‘head and retire. I swear that boy Lebron James made him look like a’ old man the other night.”

  “That’s because he is an old man. Did Carla like the seats?”

  Rock grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Loved em’. You know everything looks different on the floor.” He popped an imaginary collar. “Including me. She kept sayin’ ‘Only ballers sit on the floor.’”

  Dyson laughed knowingly. “Just make sure you change your sheets before you take her to another game. I won’t be using those seats for a while.”

  Rock happily perked up at the news. “No doubt?”

  Dyson didn’t respond because he was preoccupied with an envelope that he had pressed against his nose. “Do you smell that?” he said, passing the envelope to Rock.

  Rock hadn’t noticed it when he’d retrieved the mail, but now he definitely smelled it.

  Ben Gay.

  They went outside the house and looked across the street, where Geraldine’s curtains swayed back and forth like they had just been dropped.

  CHAPTER

  19

  Blake came home to find a yellow post-it note stuck to his front door. The note said:

  Mother Superior calls all the nuns together and says to them, “I must tell you something. We have a case of gonorrhea in the convent.”

  “Thank God,” says an elderly nun in the back. “I’m so tired of chardonnay.”

  “Get it?” a voice said from behind him.

  He turned to find a pudgy man wearing a cheap canvas trench coat.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  The man handed him a business card from the Philadelphia Police Department. “Detective Anthony Mancini, Homicide Division.”

  “Aren’t you out of your jurisdiction, Detective? This is Gladwyne.”

  Mancini showed his teeth like a predator. “Jurisdiction,” he said, “is determined by the location of the homicide.”

  __________

  Inside the house, Blake silently appraised his uninvited guest. The detective was not what you would call fat, but he was certainly overweight. His potbelly pressed creases into the crotch area of his slacks. His shirt was unbuttoned at the collar and his tie had two very pronounced stains on it. And that hideous coat. It made the man look like he was wearing a gigantic brown paper bag. Straight from Walmart, Blake thought. He guessed Mancini was in his mid forties, a disheveled mess of a person if he ever saw one.

  Blake crumpled the post-it note. “That was highly unprofessional.”

  Mancini just shrugged and said, “Icebreaker.”

  “What can I do for you Detective?”

  “Offer me a seat for starters.”

  “Will you be here that long? I’ve already spoken with the police.”

  “Yes, you gave a statement to the 23rd District. I read the report. But I’m from homicide. I just need to ask you a few questions. Standard procedure.” Mancini looked over at Blake’s couch longingly.

  “Very well,” Blake said. “Have a seat. But I hope this won’t take long. I’m exceedingly busy.”

  Mancini dropped his girth onto the couch. “Ahh. That’s much better. My dogs were killing me. Whew. Yeah.”

  The man sounded as if he were having sex with the couch. It drove Blake crazy. “What are your questions, Detective?”

  “Just getting comfortable,” Mancini said. He looked around. “Nice place. Real nice. How much does a place like this go for?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Never mind. I’ll look it up.” He pulled a battered PDA from his pocket and tapped the screen with his finger a few times. “Why were you in Phoenix on the night of the murder?”

  “Business,” Blake said.

  “What kind of business?”

  “I had some meetings with representatives of Wells Fargo.”

  “About what?”

  “A position I’ve accepted.”

  “A position? I thought you were the head of…” Mancini checked his PDA. “Hawthorn Properties. That’s your swimming pool downtown right?”

  Blake eyed him scornfully. “I am the President of Hawthorn Properties. And yes, the Franklin Towers site is one of our projects.”

  “Then why are you trying to get a job in Phoen
ix?”

  “Personal reasons. I don’t see where that’s pertinent.”

  “Everything is pertinent to a murder investigation, Blake.”

  “Mr. Hawthorn will be fine.”

  “Okay Mr. Hawthorn. Can you answer my question now?”

  “I miss banking.”

  “So do I,” Mancini said. “The goddam Police credit union closed my account because they said I bounced too many checks. Can you believe that shit? The freakin’ police credit union.”

  “Writing a bad check is technically a crime,” Blake pointed out condescendingly. It wasn’t the best response.

  “Oh yeah, Aquaman?” Mancini growled. “Well sometimes us little guys have to do what we have to do to make ends meet. And guess what else? The credit union can kiss my fat ass. Technically a crime. Who the hell are you, the comptroller of the fucking currency?”

  “Do you have any more questions, Detective?”

  “As a matter of fact I do, Mr. Good Checks. This job in Phoenix, when did you accept it?”

  “I don’t recall exactly. Sometime in September I believe. I can get back to you with the exact date that I signed the Letter of Intent.”

  “You do that. And stick in a list of everyone you met with while you were there.” The detective tapped his screen again. “So tell me, how was your sex life?”

  Blake stammered. “I…I don’t see what that has to do with…”

  Mancini shot him a look.

  “It was fine,” Blake said. “Normal. Healthy.”

  “Really?” Mancini said, surprised. “That’s not what Dr. Kravitz told me.”

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Kravitz, your wife’s gynecologist.”

  “I’m not familiar with the name.”

  “That’s not a big deal. Hell, I don’t know the name of Marybeth’s gynecologist. It could be Dr. Sues for all I know. I think most men are like that. Makes us queasy you know? But this Dr. Kravitz is a riot. This guy has more cunt jokes that I’ve ever heard in my life. Like this one: What’s the difference between a cunt and 401(k)?”

  “Detective!” Blake yelled. “This is highly inappropriate. I fail to see how this is helping you catch the man who murdered Norma. You should be out there looking for him, not here telling me tasteless jokes!”

  Mancini looked wounded. “Okay, calm down buddy. I promise you I’ll catch the perpetrator. I was just a little confused because Dr. Kravitz told me that your wife was suffering from…” He referred to his PDA again. “Something called vaginismus.”

  Blake looked horrified. “A disease?”

  “Not an STD. It’s some kind of problem with the muscles around the vagina. Doc said your wife told him she hadn’t had sex in eight months. Now, I don’t know what you consider normal, but if I went eight months without it, I would explode.”

  “This is the first I’m hearing of this,” Blake said.

  “So the Doc is lying?”

  “Maybe Norma was telling him what he wanted to hear. Or maybe she was being modest. I don’t know.”

  “Uh-huh,” Mancini muttered, rubbing his chin.

  Blake was visibly disoriented.

  “Did your wife have any enemies? Anyone who would want to do her harm?”

  “No. Norma was a wonderful person. A saint. There were two thousand people at the funeral. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her.”

  “I see,” Mancini said. “What about your relationship? How was that?”

  Blake eyed him suspiciously. “Where are you going with this?”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Standard Procedure, that’s all.”

  Blake wasn’t sure how much he believed that. He considered asking for a lawyer, but thought better of it.

  “Our marriage was fine,” he said finally. “Norma was the best thing to ever happen to me.” He turned away because he felt tears forming in his ducts again. It was a painful truth.

  “What about your finances?” Mancini asked in a more reverent tone.

  “Money was not a problem. Money has never been an issue.”

  “And the insurance proceeds?”

  “What about them?”

  “It was a lot of money.”

  “And?”

  “What did you do with it? Did you invest any of it in your, uh, project downtown?”

  Blake struggled to contain his anger. “What kind of person do you think I am? Is that what this is all about? For your information, I donated all the insurance proceeds to Norma’s school. I don’t need it.” Then, after a pause, Blake said, “I think you should go now, Detective. If you have more questions, we can meet at another time.”

  “That’s fine. I know this is still a difficult time for you. I just have one more question for now.”

  “Yes?”

  “How do you know it was a man who killed your wife?”

  CHAPTER

  20

  Mahogany Burrows is not a witch. She’s not a gypsy or an oracle or any of the other things people call her whenever her condition spills outside the confines of her mind. For the most part of everyday, she’s just a normal nine-year old little girl. But for a few hours of most nights, she becomes a receiver of dreams. For reasons unknown, most of the dreams that Mahogany received were nightmares. She often awoke to the sounds of her own screams. The constant emotional trauma was devastating.

  Dyson didn’t know if he could help her, but he owed it to Norma to try. He’d been meeting with Mahogany at the Academy twice a week for three months. He was attempting to help her control her condition. It was like the blind leading the blind. For while it was true that he had learned to manage the emotional side effects of PTD during his early adolescence, he couldn’t say how he had done it. There was no twelve-step program for Mahogany to follow. All he knew was the over time he had learned how to turn down the mental aftershocks like a faucet.

  That was around the same time he discovered that, for brief periods with heavy concentration, he could summon other people’s most recent dreams while he was awake. In time he came to believe that coping with the condition and manipulating it were somehow related, like two sides of a coin.

  That was the reason why he had just told Mahogany that she wasn’t trying hard enough.

  Mahogany hung her head. It seemed that she had been hearing that her whole life.

  __________

  Mahogany Burrows had become an orphan at six years old when her mother died of a drug overdose. A local landlord had found her, abandoned and starving to death, when he came to collect her mother’s past due rent. Besides her mother, Mahogany’s only known family was a great aunt in Georgia who was too old to take in a little girl she didn’t know.

  So Mahogany had spent two hard years in a North Philadelphia orphanage before a caseworker referred her file to Norma, who was a known sucker for hard luck cases. And Mahogany certainly fit the bill. The first thing Norma saw in Mahogany’s file was this assessment:

  Very bright, but emotionally unstable. Placement unlikely.

  Placement was a code word for adoption. No one adopted orphans with documented psychological problems. No one but Norma Hawthorn’s little charter school on Spring Garden Street.

  __________

  “I’m sorry,” Dyson said to Mahogany. “I know you’re trying as hard as you can.”

  He decided to try the other side of the coin.

  “Mahogany, I want you to play a game with me.”

  “Okay,” she said eagerly. “What’s it called?”

  “Dream Beam.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  Jill sat in the lobby of Freedom Theater waiting for Dyson to emerge from a Board meeting.

  Across the lobby, a small group of young girls in sequined tutus huddled in a corner, chatting and giggling. Little ballerinas. Jill vaguely recalled reading that Freedom Theater operated some kind of dance program for inner city youth. She couldn’t care less. This just happened to be the only place where she was reasonably sure Dyson would show up at a
specific time.

  She checked her watch. The board meeting should’ve ended fifteen minutes ago.

  A few minutes later, board members whom she recognized from the file began walking past her. A few of them stopped to chat with the ballerinas. Others eyed her curiously.

  A little boy wearing a backpack came zooming from the direction of the Board Room. He ran directly up to a ballerina who looked so much like him that she had to be his sister.

  “Jasmin! Jasmin, look! Mr. Conwell gave me a Gameboy Extreme because of my report card.” He showed off his prize.

  “So what,” his sister said. “You’re still butt ugly.”

  The other girls laughed.

  “You’re just mad that you’re so skinny people can’t see you when you turn sideways,” he came back.

  The girl shoved her open palm within an inch of her brother’s face. “Talk to the hand,” she said, very unballerina-like.

  That’s when Dyson and Rock walked into the lobby.

  Jill rose from her seat, but the children beat her to him. They jumped up and down, greeting him and shouting for rewards of their own.

  “I don’t have any more Gameboys,” he said.

  “That’s not fair,” one bold dancer informed him. “You gave Andre one.”

  “Andre had straight A’s and perfect attendance,” Dyson explained.

  The dancers skulked at those high benchmarks.

  “But I’ll tell you what,” Dyson said. “I’ll give a different surprise to whoever can stand on her toes the longest.”

  That was like asking fish to swim. Every last one of the girls began balancing themselves with impressive ease. The flamboyant among them did twirls at the same time. After what seemed an interminable period to Jill, the girls began resting on flat fleet again.

  Dyson bent down so he was eye level with the pigtailed winner. “You didn’t win Amira,” he teased.

  “Uh-huh, yes I did,” she protested, rising to her toes again as proof.