A Man of Many Parts

Jax stood next to the front door of the jewelry store, a gun in one hand, his gaze scanning the area. While two terrified employees watched, his accomplices were busy emptying trays of jewelry into the messenger bags they carried, secure in the knowledge that the store’s security had been disabled. Or so they thought. Jax had been responsible for taking care of it and he had—with the exception of the camera outside the store that scanned the recessed entryway, photographing anyone who went in or out. He’d left it running so that it would catch the faces of the two men he was working with. That he’d be on the video as well didn’t bother him in the least. The man he was at the moment looked nothing like what he did in reality. “Let’s move it,” Patterson said as he slung his bag over his shoulder before heading to the door. “Now!” Jax and Dan followed him outside, where the three men paused in the entryway to pull off their masks as quickly as they’d put them on before entering the store—and in Jax’s case, to holster his gun. Then, casually, they strolled down the sidewalk as if they were just another set of pedestrians returning to work after lunch. Behind them, they heard the jewelry store’s alarm shrieking, meaning the store’s manager had turned the security system back on as soon as they’d left. When they got to the corner of the block, they turned onto the side street, walking to the lot where they’d parked their car. Patterson grinned while unlocking the doors. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to us, Cal. Too bad we didn’t meet you a long time ago.” ‘Cal Morse’ was the name Jax was using—the man a mutual acquaintance thought he was when he’d introduced him to Patterson two weeks previously. The acquaintance had told Patterson that ‘Cal’ was an expert at disabling any type of security around—which he was—and that he was looking to hook up with someone who needed his particular skills. Patterson had jumped on the offer. “I agree,” Jax replied as they got into the car, Patterson in the driver’s seat, Dan next to him, and Jax in back. “We make a good team.” Jax bided his time, waiting until they’d driven to the outskirts of the city. Only then did he reveal the real reason he’d joined up with them. Pulling out his gun, he pressed the muzzle to the side of Patterson’s head. “Pull over,” he ordered. “What the hell?” “I mean it,” Jax told him. “Dan, put your hands behind your neck or I’ll shoot you both right now.” With obvious reluctance, the men did as they were told. When the car came to a stop on the side of the highway, Jax told Dan to hand him the messenger bags. “And don’t try anything stupid,” he added at the same time that he used the butt of his gun to knock Patterson out, shoving him so he landed against the door, not the steering wheel—and the horn. “You won’t get away with this,” Dan growled, picking up the bags from the floorboard to pass them over the seat to Jax. “We’ll find you and then you’ll be dead.” Jax smiled as he took the bags. “Good luck with that.” He opened the car door, slammed the butt of his gun against Dan’s temple, and was out of the car before the man’s head hit the dashboard. The spot he’d chosen was a large stand of trees, separated from the highway by a small area of dead grass. Casually, he walked to them, disappearing from sight of the cars on either side of the highway. When he exited, several minutes later, he no longer looked like the man they had known as ‘Cal’. It was an identity he would never use again. Or, to be more precise, it was a face and body he’d retire permanently. On the other hand, he didn’t look like himself, either. At this point he was a slim young man with blonde hair, wearing the same clothing as before, but now the hoodie swam on him and he had to tighten the belt of the jeans to keep them from falling off. The contents of the two messenger bags were crammed into the larger one, along with the second, now empty, one. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he hiked down the service road which paralleled the highway. After several miles he came to a convenience store. By then, it was beginning to get dark. He waited in the shadow of a nearby tree until he saw what he needed—a lone car left idling at the gas pump while the owner went inside to pay. He was in it and had taken off before anyone was the wiser. Fifteen minutes later, back in the city, he left it in a parking lot a block from the hotel where he was staying. It didn’t matter that he didn’t look like the man who had registered there. He had the key card for his room and no one thought anything of it when he crossed the lobby to the elevators and went up to the fifth floor. The first thing he did, after locking and bolting the door, was to put the messenger bag in the room safe. Then he stripped and went to take a shower. When he left the bathroom, he was three inches taller, much more muscular, and had light brown hair. In other words, he was the man who had checked into the hotel under the name Jonathan Malloy. * * * * After a good night’s sleep, Jax dressed and went down to the hotel dining room for breakfast. Then he packed his things, putting the messenger bag with his ill-gotten gains into the laptop pocket of his carry-on bag. After he checked out of the hotel, he caught a cab which had just dropped off a pair of guests, giving the driver the address of a building on the edge of the downtown area. When they arrived, he asked the driver to wait. He left his suitcase in the cab, but brought the carry-on bag with him as he entered the building, and then took the elevator up to the third floor. Halfway down the hallway, he stopped at a door with a sign that simply said ‘Appraisals’ and listed the hours. He rapped twice, paused, rapped again, and after another pause rapped three times. A buzzer sounded to let him in. “It’s been a while, Jackson,” a well-dressed man seated at a desk said. Although Jax still looked like Jonathan Malloy, the man knew him as Jackson Martin. “Take a seat and let’s see what you have for me.” He smiled. “If I don’t miss my guess, it’s jewelry taken from a robbery yesterday afternoon.” “You always were smarter than you look, Alan,” Jax replied with a brief grin. He handed the messenger bag to the man, who emptied it onto the desktop. “Not bad, for a few minutes work,” Alan said after examining each piece. He named a price for the lot, which Jax accepted, then asked, “The usual arrangement?” When Jax nodded, Alan opened what Jax knew was a well-secured site on his computer to transfer half the money into Jax’s numbered offshore bank account. Then he went into another room, taking the jewelry with him. He returned and handed Jax a small security bag with a combination lock. “It’s all there,” he said, telling Jax the combination. Jax didn’t bother to count the money. He and Alan had done deals like this many times before and he trusted the man not to try to screw him around. Thanking him, he tucked the bag into an inside pocket of his jacket and departed. The cab was right where he’d left it. He told the driver to take him to the airport, tipped him well when they got there, then headed inside. His first stop was one of the men’s rooms where he transferred the security bag to the suitcase he would check through to his destination. When he had, he strolled to, and through, the security checkpoint—with ID that said he was Jonathan Malloy. Three hours later at another airport, he got his suitcase from the baggage claim carrousel, picked his car up from the long-term lot, and drove into the city to the building where he owned a penthouse condominium. When he left the car he looked like the condo’s owner, the real Jackson Martin. The lobby was deserted as Jax crossed to the elevator, which he took to the forty-second floor, where he exited. Next to it was his private elevator that would take him up two more flights to his condo. He input the security code to open the doors, got on, and when it reached the forty-fourth floor he stepped out into a small entryway with one door across from him. He pressed his thumb to the pad of the security box, unlocked the door, and entered the foyer of his residence. Only then did he finally relax completely. That he liked where he lived was a given. He wouldn’t be there if he didn’t—both in the city and the condo. After he’d bought it he’d almost totally redesigned it from the floor to ceiling. Where there had once been plush carpets, there was now hardwood flooring. The walls had originally been painted in shades of wine, gold, and royal blue. Now they were in colors varying from beige to white to pale gray, making the modern furniture stand out in stark contrast—be it the turquoise upholstered chairs and sofa in the living room, the deep gray and mahogany dining room set, or the dark oak beds and dressers in the two bedrooms on the second floor, each of which had a lavish en suite bathroom. Only the kitchen remained the same with pale copper appliances, matching cabinets, and copper-toned granite countertops. The work area for his business of record, as a restorer of damaged antiquarian books and prints, was on the second floor in what had originally been the condo’s master bedroom. Now, it was plainly decorated with utilitarian tables, chairs, and shelves for the tools he needed. All that had been accomplished under his watchful eye, as he posed as his personal assistant, a slender, redheaded, and very effeminate, young man who was antithesis of what Jax really looked like—tall and muscular, with hair so dark brown it almost appeared black at times. The only people who saw him as his true self were the clients for his restoration business and a few others that he trusted implicitly—and they were few and far between. Even his clients didn’t know his real name. To them, he was Jackson Martin, not Jax Martel. All in all, it was the perfect bachelor pad, as he sometimes thought of it, although it really wasn’t—a bachelor pad that is. It was his very private domain, designed to suit his tastes because he spent almost all of his time there when he wasn’t off on a job for a client who needed his restoration expertise, or working a caper like the one he’d pulled off the previous day—relieving criminals of what wasn’t theirs to begin with. Not that he returned what he’d gotten to the original owners. That wasn’t his thing and never would be. He went directly to his bedroom to unpack. The cash Alan had paid him went into a well-concealed safe under the floorboards beneath one of the nightstands. The next morning, he would courier half of it to the director of an animal shelter he supported anonymously. The rest he’d keep for day-to-day expenses. Glad to be home again, Jax walked downstairs, poured a glass of wine, and went out to the balcony that ran the full length of his condo. The city was spread out below him, the people looking like ants as they scurried to and fro. To his left, the mountains stood in all their majesty, the late afternoon sun turning what was left of the winter’s snow on their peaks to red, gold, and orange against the deepening blue of the sky. When he looked to his right he could see the suburbs and the highways filled bumper-to-bumper with cars on their way home from work—or so he presumed, given the hour. He sipped the wine, enjoying the cool evening air and the solitude, until he realized he was hungry. Not being in the mood to cook, he left the balcony and returned to his bedroom where he changed from the slacks and dress shirt he’d worn during the flight home into jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Then, he got a photo album from the bookshelves along one wall, flipping through it until he found the picture he wanted. He studied it, imagining himself as the man in the photo, and became him. With that done, he turned off the lights, as well as all of the ones downstairs when he got there, with the exception of the light in the entryway. Then he crossed to his private elevator, punched in the code, and when the doors opened, armed the condo’s security system and stepped in. A moment later he exited two floors down—once he was certain no one was there. It wouldn’t do for someone to see a strange man using the elevator when the only person who did was the assistant to the reclusive owner of the penthouse condo, or the owner himself. Switching to the other elevator, he rode down to the lobby and left the building. A cool breeze assailed him, smelling of the city—auto fumes and garbage, of course, fish for some unknown reason, a wisp of scented candles from a shop he walked past, someone smoking weed, and as he got to the cross-street, grass and early spring flowers from a park a block away. He considered going down there, then changed his mind, and his direction, walking to the wide creek that flowed through the city. Unsurprisingly, despite the fact it was getting dark, there were people walking along the path, or biking, or skateboarding, depending on their ages. Across the creek, he saw brief movements behind the bushes and knew some of the city’s homeless population were staking out safe places to sleep for the night. He commiserated with them, knowing it was a hard life. But isn’t life always hard, unless you’re rich and famous, and even then it’s not always a bed of roses. He was being cynical and he knew it, but still there was more than a grain of truth in his observation. He walked along the creek for a while then left the path and headed toward an area comprised of a variety of shops, restaurants, and clubs. He ate dinner at a restaurant he favored before going on to one of the clubs. He paused when he entered and looked around to see if there was anyone he knew at the bar or the tables. He recognized a few faces even though it had been a while since he’d been there. None belonged to men he knew intimately, so he crossed the crowded room to the bar, found a seat, and waited for a bartender to acknowledge his presence. “Mick,” one of them said, coming over. “Long time, no see.” Jax replied, “I know. I’ve been out of town.” “Saving the world?” “Not quite.” Jax laughed. “Just some things in a couple of stately homes that the owners wanted brought back to their original condition.” “You’re an interior designer?” a man who had taken the seat next to him asked. “Nope, I’m a private art restorer.” Jax chuckled. “I mean I work privately, not for a museum or gallery.” “That must be interesting,” the man replied. “It has its moments.” Jax turned away to take a sip of his drink when the bartender set it down. He hadn’t been quite lying, or quite telling the truth. He did do restoration work—on antiquarian books and very occasionally lithographs and etchings. “Sorry,” the man said, starting to get up. “I didn’t mean to bother you.” “You’re not.” Jax smiled, holding out his hand. “I’m Mick Ingram.” “Ed Brown,” the man replied as they shook hands. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who restores umm…paintings?” “Art work and books. Primarily books. I know, some people would say those are two very unrelated items and that books aren’t art, although I’d argue the point, but the theory’s the same, if not the practice. You want to do everything possible to repair any damages done to them. But enough about that. If I keep going I’ll undoubtedly bore you stiff. What do you do for a living and more to the point, do you live here or are you just passing through?” “I’m, God help me, an accountant.” Ed laughed. “It’s a job and one I’m good at. I live about two miles south of here, meaning the club. Have for the last ten years.” He picked up his beer and took a drink. As he did, he drummed the fingers of his free hand on the bar in time to the music coming from the bandstand. “You like music, I take it,” Jax said. “I like dancing,” Ed replied, glancing pointedly at Jax. Taking that as his cue, Jax smiled. “I do, too. If you’d like…” He gestured toward the dance floor. “Sure, why not.” The evening ended as Jax hoped it would, in Ed’s bed. The man was an enthusiastic lover and he wasn’t bad looking, which was always a plus. Since it was a casual hook-up, and they both knew it, Ed didn’t protest when Jax got dressed as soon as they’d finished. The only thing he said was, “Maybe we can do this the next time we’re both at the club at the same time, Mick.” Jax smiled. “Could be. We’ll see.” With that, he left, having no intention of returning to that club again anytime in the near future—at least not as Mick. When he got home, he showered and went to bed, awaking eight hours later to bright sunshine coming through the window. He stretched lazily, decided it was time to get up, and did so. When he looked in the bathroom mirror he figured he must have been more tired than he’d thought when he’d arrived at the condo as Mick’s face stared back at him. Not that it was a problem. He knew himself well enough to know he wouldn’t have gotten onto his private elevator if anyone had been around to see him. He changed his look, becoming Jackson, aka Jax, shaved, got dressed, and went into the kitchen to fix a late breakfast. Or early lunch, he decided when a glance at the clock told him it was almost eleven. After he ate, he went into his office behind the living room. The first thing he did after getting online was check for news stories on the jewelry store robbery. He smiled when he saw that Patterson and his accomplice had been apprehended. They had been filmed leaving after the robbery by the camera outside the store, exactly as he’d planned. He laughed aloud when the report said that the police didn’t believe Patterson’s claim that the third man had taken off with the sizable haul from the robbery. Some of the fingerprints lifted from the car belonged to one Calvin Morse, a known burglar. When he was located, he denied any knowledge of the robbery before stupidly, in Jax’s opinion, trying to escape by jumping off his second floor balcony. Guilty conscience about something, apparently. His body was now lying in the morgue, waiting for the next of kin to identify it. No trace of the jewelry was found on his person or in his apartment. Satisfied that he had, as always, pulled off the perfect double-cross, Jax went into his business email. “Not that I want to work, but I do have to keep up appearances,” he said under his breath. That wasn’t quite the truth. He liked taking a damaged book and restoring it to its original pristine condition—or as close as was possible. There was only one email, from a man by the name of Donovan Hayes. ‘Mr. Martin’ it began. ‘I am in need of your expertise. I purchased a book which, unbeknown to me at the time, had significant damage to two pages. If you are available and interested, please call me.’ No description of the damage? Usually people will over-explain what turns out to be something quite easy, if time-consuming, to repair. Well, Mr. Hayes, let’s see if you’re legitimate, first. He always did a thorough check on a potential client who wanted his services. It wouldn’t do to walk into a trap because he was too trusting. It had happened once, when he had first set up his business, many years ago. He managed to escape unscathed, and had learned a valuable lesson in the process. Not all collectors were as honest and aboveboard as one could hope. But then neither am I, except when it comes to my business. Then I’m scrupulously honest. Two hours later, he was certain the man was legitimate. At that point he called him to find out precisely what Hayes needed him to do. “As I’m certain you know,” Hayes said once Jax had introduced himself as Jackson Martin, “I’m a book dealer with my own well-respected bookshop, and a collector of rare and antiquarian books.” I didn’t until I researched you. Jax refrained from saying that aloud. He already had the feeling, just from the tone of his voice, that Mr. Hayes was one of those people who thought everyone would know who he was the moment his name was mentioned. Instead, Jax lied, replying, “Your name is familiar to me.” “Very good. Now, to my problem. I bought several cartons of old books at an estate auction. Most of them will go directly onto the shelves of my shop. I expected that. I’ll make enough off them to help defray the cost of the two I was after for my personal collection.” “I’m presuming from what you said in your email, that you didn’t discover one was damaged until you got it home.” “Yes. The atlas.” There was a pause before Hayes continued. “I’ll admit, I was a bit precipitous in buying it without giving it a thorough examination first. However, the previous owner assured me that it was in close to pristine condition and from what I did see of it, he was correct. There was another bidder and I was determined to get my hands on it rather than let him outbid me.” “A true addict,” Jax said with a small laugh. “That I am,” Hayes replied. “Atlases are one of my passions. Be that as it may, when I got it home and went through it page by page I was horrified to find that someone, perhaps a child, had scribbled on two of the pages with what I can only believe was a crayon, and did it hard enough that one of the pages tore.” Jax frowned, because he knew any competent restorer could handle the problem and cost Mr. Hayes a good deal less than he would charge for the service. He said as much. “I want the best,” Hayes replied. “From what I’ve learned, that would be you.” “Thank you for the vote of confidence,” Jax said dryly. “All right, I’ll take a look at it to see exactly what I’ll be dealing with. I can be out there the day after tomorrow, if that works for you.” “It does,” Hayes agreed, and then gave him his home address. “It’s a bit outside the city,” he added, as if it would make a difference. “All right. I’ll see you sometime on Monday. I’ll let you know exactly when after I’ve made flight arrangements.” “Thank you, Mr. Martin. I’ll be expecting you.” When they ended the call, Jax went online to bring up the address on a map site. A bit out of the city? I’d say that’s a misnomer. The house, which was more of an estate from what Jax could tell, was twenty miles outside the city, set on approximately seven acres of forested land. To get to it, he would have to take a four-lane highway out of the city when he arrived; get onto a smaller, two-lane one, and then onto what appeared to be a narrow, paved road that would take him the rest of the way. With that in mind, he made his plane reservations, as well as setting up a car rental when he got to the airport, both in a name other than his own. He would have a face, and body to match the ID by the time he got to the airport. Erring on the side of caution, but then when haven’t I? He would become Jackson Martin again on his drive to the estate, when he found a restroom at a gas station or a mall where he could safely change identities without anyone being the wiser.