The King of City

12 The Disguise

"Lionel, this is the information you asked me for." Beau said to Lionel a few weeks before reaching Lucien. "I don't know what you want it for, but I guess I shouldn't intrude." Beau mentioned, he had always been very cautious and wasn’t used to meddling in the affairs of others.

"Thanks Beau, I won't forget this." Lionel said receiving the documentation in a file folder, the truth, Beau went to great lengths to collect the information, so Lionel had no doubt that what he said there was true. "How did you get it?".

"It's not good to ask those things, Lionel." Beau said sternly. "Have you forgotten your manners?" He said to finish mockingly.

“Shut up Beau! You’re my friend, not my dad”. Lionel said following the game. "Is he?". While saying it, Lionel pointed to a man with a coat, in one of the photos, who seemed to be making an effort not to be noticed, however, his way of dressing produced the opposite effect.

"Yes, he is the person who was talking to Amber, days before Elizabeth's operation," said Beau, who didn’t know the reason why Lionel wanted that data, but suspected it. "He always drinks tea in that cafeteria, every day at 9:00 a.m."

"Really, thanks. You're a good friend." Lionel said leaving.

The next day Lionel went to drink tea at the Enchanted Garden Cafe, which he had seen in the photos that Beau had obtained for him. It had a wonderful atmosphere, it had a gate with vines that surrounded the entire frame and gave the illusion of entering a magical place, inside it had a bright atmosphere, with mahogany tables and chairs with a rather fine cushion covered in crochet, it also had candlesticks in the best style of the 17th century and several chandeliers of fine glassware. There was a small mezzanine that looked out, like a kind of large balcony, this one was also surrounded by vines and flowers of all kinds, making it impossible to tell apart from the outside. At 9:00 a.m. The guy who was waiting so long came, came in and sat at a mezzanine table and prepared to order.

"Bring me some French toast, with some jam on the side and some scrambled eggs and please don't bring me coffee. I want tea!". The coat man said petulantly.

"Right away, sir. Would you like a companion?" Lionel asked him who disguised himself as a waiter and convinced the owner to let him impersonate one of his workers, Lionel had no trouble persuading him, he only showed him his police credentials and that was enough. All in order to approach the guy of the coat without being suspicious.

"No, leave it at that. Can't you see I'm in a hurry?"

"In whose name the order?" Lionel asked seeking information.

"Dave, now stop wasting my time and go"

Lionel returned with the request of the mysterious man, noticed he was carrying a briefcase with a key, so Lionel began to suspect that the information contained there must be very important, also noted that he never took him hand off his cell phone, even when he put it the phone on the table. The guy is certainly very careful, but Lionel is a trained military man, so that's not going to be an obstacle for him. Approaching the guy, Lionel dropped the hot Tea, which made him suddenly get up, knocking over the table and chair.

"YOU FOOL!" The guy in the coat snapped angrily.

"I'm sorry Mr! Lend me your coat, I'll clean it right now.” The man, very upset, handed the coat to the supposed waiter to clean it. Lionel quickly began to search through all his pockets for more information, as the guy had carefully removed the wallet from his coat before handing it over to Lionel, so couldn't extract information from there at the time. Lionel only found one parking ticket and one laundry ticket. Still, Lionel took them from him, because from there could extract valuable information with a little effort.

"Here's your coat back sir, sorry for the inconvenience" Lionel said disappointed that he hadn’t obtained any information.

"You know you're not going to get a tip, right?" The guy in the coat said contemptuously, who took him things and left the place angry.

Now Lionel had a place to start in order to investigate, first he went to the intelligence center, where he left the plaque that appeared on the parking ticket. There he tracked the vehicle data, such as the make, model, current owner and the city where it came from; however, it wasn’t productive to track the owner, because it was a woman and the person Lionel was following was a man, so he settled for obtaining images of the car and following it through satellite images to find the itinerary of the unknown man. The next thing he did was go to the laundry where the unknown guy, surely had one of his bizarre coats and there he would know the name of that guy and his identification.

“Excuse me, I'm here to pick up this wear”. Lionel said presenting the laundry ticket.

"Wait a minute, I'm bringing your order." The girl from the laundry replied.

In a couple of minutes that girl arrived in a large flowery dress with beautiful lace on the sleeves, apparently it was a young girl's dress.

"Thank you". Lionel ended up paying the price of the laundry, which was the most expensive in the sector.

In the bill that Lionel was given, there was the address of the person who left the dress, so Lionel decided to take it directly there and impersonate a laundry worker, upon arriving at the house, he realized that he was in a very quiet but modest neighborhood, there was no security at the gate, so Lionel was able to easily enter and ring the bell directly. DING-DONG, rang once, DING-DONG, rang twice. He thought that surely there would be no people because he had already waited long enough, when he was about to leave, the door opened gently.

"Where are you going? These young people today have no patience”. Grumbled an old woman of about ninety years old, white hair, glasses with a lot of magnification, too wrinkled and stooped, in the hands the arthritis that she had was noticeable to her and therefore she carried a staff to support the weight of her body since his old knees could no longer. "What do you want son?"

"Are you Margaret?" Lionel said reading the label because it seemed strange that she was the right person, since the dress was that of a young girl.

"OH, MY DRESS, YOU BROUGHT MY DRESS! What a nice young man you are, come in, come in, I'll give you a tea with cookies, you will like them”. Lionel took the opportunity to see what information he could get from that old woman.

"Here you have, young man. Would you like some sugar?" The old woman asked very attentively.

"Thank you! I like it without sugar." Lionel replied.

"Oh, how nice! you look a lot like my Philip when he was your age”.

"Who is Philip?" Lionel said suspecting that the name of that guy at the end wasn’t Dave.

"Well, he’s my son of course, he was so handsome. He was the best of his class in accounting school, I was so proud when he graduated and then held a managerial position at a bank”. In the old woman her eyes were proud of her son. “I remember his first job at the bank. How handsome he looked in that tie! It was the first time he wore a suit and it made him quite uncomfortable”.

"So, is your son a banker?". Lionel interrupted the story of the old woman who was already looking eternal.

"Oh no! Unfortunately, my Philip made bad friends and began to relate to bad people, like that girl Amber. How I hate that girl!”. Hearing Amber's name from the old woman's mouth, Lionel shuddered surely.

"Where does he work now?" Lionel asked anxiously.

"It's supposed to be a secret, but you seem like a good boy, I'll tell you, its name is Grey Umbrella Safety Company." The old woman paused briefly and continued. "Philip tells me that they make security cameras, but I really don’t believe him, the people with whom he interacts don’t sell those things, that bunch of vandals. Would you like more tea?" The old woman asked politely and she was really enjoying Lionel's company, however, someone else knocked on the door.