Chapter Fifty-Three

Drawing Chickens

The International Spy Museum was located ten blocks east of the White House. Jimmie had read about the museum in a guide to area attractions. The private museum supposedly featured “the largest collection of international espionage artifacts ever placed on public display.” The museum’s board of directors included past members of the CIA, FBI, NSA, and even the KGB. In a city that supposedly had ten thousand spies, there were bound to be a few hanging out at the Spy Museum just shooting the shit. This was the place the kidnappers wanted to meet?

It seemed that Jimmie wasn’t the only one who’d overestimated the opposition’s intelligence. It’s your funeral, tough guys, he thought as he paid the twenty-five bucks for entry.

The girl at the counter with the nose stud and pageboy haircut handed him his ticket. “Made it just in time,” she said. “Nobody’s going to die.”

His heart stopped. “Excuse me?”

“The reminder on your face,” she said. “Noon? You’ve got twelve minutes.”

Of course. In his rush to get out the door, he’d forgotten to scrub the message from his face. The girl had read the backward message. Probably one of the skills you learned on the first day at a place like this.

“Is there a restroom I can use to wash it off?” Jimmie asked. “My roommate’s always drawing shit on my face.”

“Might be time for a new roommate.”

“At least it wasn’t a huge cock this time,” he said, a little louder than he probably should have, what with all the children around. Because it was a Saturday, the families were out in full force. A father in the next line shot him a look of disapproval, which was absolutely warranted.

“My roommate, uh, is always drawing chickens,” Jimmie explained, loudly and to nobody in particular. “Cocks, as everybody is well aware, are male chickens. That’s what I’m talking about—not cocks as in male genitals—”

“Please stop talking,” the girl behind the ticket counter said.

Jimmie headed down the hall. He’d nearly made a scene back there—not good, if he was trying to keep a low profile. The last thing he wanted to do was get tossed out of the museum and risk making the kidnappers think he’d bailed on them. Then what would happen to Cat?

After he washed the marker off, he realized he still had a few minutes to kill before noon. Plenty of time to do his morning business, which he’d skipped to get here on time.

All three stalls were open. Every time he encountered a choice of stalls at a public restroom, he had to do some quick mental gymnastics to determine which had the least germs. He wasn’t phobic about germs or anything, but he wasn’t a fool. It was automatically assumed that, in Western countries, most people would go for the stall farthest to the left. Stall #1. So he should pick stall #2 or #3. Except most people knew that most people would pick stall #1, so they would also go for the second or third stall . . . meaning that stall #1 would actually be the cleanest of the three. However, most people would run through the same calculation in their minds, leading them to choose stall #1 over the others because of its presumed cleanliness . . . meaning that, in the end, stall #1 would get the most traffic and have the most germs.

Jimmie chose the second stall as he always ended up doing. The third stall had never been in play, because everybody knew that the farthest stall to the right was the one where people went when they needed the most privacy—to shoot up drugs or drop a bomb.

He plopped himself down on the seat and opened the museum brochure he’d picked up at the gate. Somebody sat down in the stall to his right. Jimmie could see the man’s white penny loafers under the divider. The man coughed. This confirmed Jimmie’s impression that stall #1 was nothing but a germ farm.

He returned his attention to the brochure. According to the map, there were three floors at the museum. The permanent exhibits included “School for Spies” and “The Secret History of History” and apparently included interactive elements such as adopting your own spy name. Neat. There were a couple of different special exhibits going on right now, too, including one he wouldn’t have minded checking out on the Bond girls. But one temporary exhibit in particular grabbed his eye: “Ten Years of Taken.”

So that was why the kidnappers had chosen this as a meeting place. They wanted to mock his false bravado. They were in for a little surprise, though. He’d spent the bus ride over here boning up on his Trump negotiation tactics. He was ready for war.