~4.25~

The system Ivan used to find Marley wasn’t the sort of thing that would only work once, but it was so awkward and drew so much attention that he had never put it to use before and would prefer to never use it again, especially as it was not a sure thing.

It was simple enough. It relied on having agents positioned at places where Marley might have been at times he was likely to be there, saying words that would dispel the aura protecting him. There was nothing magic in the words… they were sort of a social spell, a trigger that made everybody who heard them pay attention to the person who didn’t belong, no matter how strongly they might have been inclined not to notice him.

The words varied from situation to situation.

On a corner Marley was known to haunt, a woman yelled, “Stop, thief!”… and everyone turned and looked at her like she was crazy. She blushed and said, “Sorry, but I always wanted to say that.”

In a park he sometimes sat in, a man cried, “Hey, what’s that guy doing?”, but nobody saw the person to whom he was referring.

And so it went, across Jericho. A dozen of Ivan’s agents made their way through Marley’s known hang-outs, doing and saying the things that would draw people’s attention to the unnoticed other in their midst. A woman came into the diner just as Marley was leaving. She looked around and said loudly, “What’s that guy doing there?” and even though she had not looked at him and everything but his elbow was out through the door, Marley felt a ripple of unease pass through him.

Attention tugged at him in a way it hadn’t for years. He fought the impulse to run, knowing that it would make him more noticeable. He stepped out of the way of an incoming diner patron instead of letting her blindly pick her way around him, then hurried on his way.