“Don’t worry about it.”
“James seemed a little pissed off.”
“It’ll be okay. How drunk were those guys?”
“Pretty drunk, but they weren’t slurring. They were slumming it, looking for prostitutes.”
“But they were going to rape you in the parking lot?”
“They weren’t calling it that. They thought I was a prostitute, that I’d trade sex for silence. If that couple hadn’t come out of the bar—”
“So they were going to bully you into the sex?”
“Sex or they call the cops. What should I do now? I need to get my bag back.”
“You’re safe now. Sleep on it. You can’t do anything until tomorrow anyway.”
She turned on the lights as they entered Bell’s bedroom. “The bathroom is stocked. And Bell keeps some clothes here, so there’s probably some jammies in the dresser.”
“You’re a life saver.” Lily hugged her.
“Don’t worry about it.” She rubbed Lily’s back. “We’ll get this sorted out tomorrow.”
Nicole went back downstairs to the den. Denison was standing at the windows looking out onto the street. “She going to be all right?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry about all this.” She tried to take his hand, but he pulled away.
“I didn’t realize what you meant when you said you’d been flirting for drinks. This is crazy risky.”
“It is if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Help Lily if she needs it. I told you no more secrets. I won’t do any more baby scams. Not one free drink. Not one stolen car.”
“Seriously?”
“Really.”
Sanders turned into the parking deck next to ACS Associates in a nearby suburb and drove up two levels to Kirby’s Audi. The deck was empty, except for three cars that probably belonged to the building security team. He pulled in beside the Audi and put the BMW in park. “We’ve got to get our story straight.”
Kirby laughed. “That was crazy.”
Sanders ran his hand over his moustache. “There’re probably security cameras in the parking lot.”
Kirby’s face fell. “You think the cops will be after us?”
“If that couple got my license plate number and called the police.”
“I can’t have this.”
“Me neither. Okay. The woman picked my pocket.”
“She did.”
“We caught her trying to steal my car.”
“Also true.”
“We tussled. The couple started yelling. We ran because we’re drunk, didn’t want the cops involved, didn’t want the publicity, were afraid we’d be arrested.”
“That’s our story?”
“That’s it.”
“Okay. That’ll be easy to remember.” Kirby was quiet for a moment. “What about the girl?”
“What about her?”
“You took her handbag.”
Sanders looked into the back seat. The handbag was sitting in the floor. “I’ll put the fear of God in her. Make sure she keeps quiet.”
“Okay.” Kirby opened the car door. He started chuckling. “The look on your face when you realized she had your car keys—I’m never going to forget that. How bad are you going to mess with her?”
“She tried to steal my car, almost got us arrested. She deserves a little trouble.”
5
The Airport Pickup
Wednesday morning, Tony squinted at his watch in the dark. It was 5:15 a.m. He glanced at Missy in the other bed. She was snoring softly. He gathered his clothes and went into the bathroom to get dressed. It was time to set up his getaway plan. He slipped out of the motel room with his go bag, took the beltway to the east side of Mitchellville, and got off at Sixty-third Street. On one side of the divided highway was a rundown Trucker’s Delight truck stop. On the other side was WeekStay Motel, a strip of rooms with peeling paint and a potholed parking lot. He counted four cars parked in front of the rooms, none of them new. It was just the place he was looking for. He pulled into a spot in front of the office. The door was locked. He pressed the buzzer on the intercom. A voice said, “We open at seven.”
“I need a room now,” Tony said.
“Check in is at ten. You can wait in the truck stop across the way.”
“I’ll pay for the week in cash. Starting yesterday.”
The lights in the office came on. A middle-aged woman in a heavy robe and furry slippers came to the door. The butt of a pistol hung out of her robe pocket. She studied Tony for a moment before turning the lock. She shuffled off behind the counter while Tony came in.
“The week?” she asked.
“Yesterday through next Wednesday.”
“In cash?”
“Yeah.”
“Five hundred dollars.”
“That much?”
“Uh-huh.”
He laid five one-hundred-dollar bills on the counter. She handed him a key. “Second from the end,” she said.
He went down to the room and looked inside. Stained carpet, scratched furniture, thin towels. The faint smell of urine and disinfectant. The kind of place where nobody minded your business. He dropped the go bag on the bed, shifted the mattress, slashed the cover to the box spring, and put his Glock and the envelope containing the $5,000 down in the box spring. Then he shifted the mattress back and straightened the bedspread. He put the Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob as he left.
On his way back to the Budget More Motel, he noticed a line of cars at a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through and pulled in. He bought an assortment of donuts, a large coffee, and a large tea. He cradled the cup carrier of drinks and the bag of donuts in one arm as he opened the motel room door. Missy raised her head up from her pillow when the outside light slanted into the room.
She squinted at him, her pistol in her hand. “Where you been?”
“Went out for breakfast. Brought you some tea.” He set the bag of donuts and the cup carrier on the table.
She sat up on the edge of her bed and set her pistol on the night table. “Thanks.”
“Can I turn on the light?”
“Go ahead.”
“You like anything in your tea?”
“Where’s it from?”
“Dunkin’ Donuts.”
“One cream, one sugar.”
He fixed her tea and carried it to her. Then he sat down at the table, took the cover off his coffee, and blew on it.
Missy looked at her smartphone. “Clemens is still on time. Plane landed in New York. He’ll still be here at ten.”
Tony tapped his donut on his napkin to knock the loose sprinkles off. “Excellent.”
“What’s the plan?”
“No hurry. We can talk after you’re ready for the day.”
“I’d rather talk now.” She sipped her tea.
“We’ve got his picture, so he’ll be easy enough to spot. I’m going to hold up a sign with his name on it. With any luck, he’ll fall right into our hands. No muss, no fuss. Show him a gun if I need to.”
“Bring him back here?”
“That depends. Is he a hard guy? Does he know what’s going on? Or is he a chump? You know how I work. I want the least mess possible. Maybe we drop him at his apartment. Maybe we bring him here. Maybe we dump him in the country. It just depends on who he is and what we find out.”
“Okay.”
“In the meantime, since we’re talking it through, I want to pick up a different car for the airport.”
“You going to swap out the Volvo?”
“No, it’s clean. You can drop me and bring it back here.”
She got up with her tea in her hand and started toward the bathroom. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
“Great. You want any of these donuts?”
“Save me one with chocolate icing.”
Missy and Tony drove into downtown on the tail end of rush hour and took a left into a parking d
eck next to an office tower. Tony scanned the parked cars as they spiraled up through the parking deck. Partway up the third level, he said, “Stop. That black Lincoln is perfect.”
“Wait for you?”
“No need.”
Missy turned toward the exit as Tony was walking toward the Lincoln Navigator. She bounced over the speed bump at the gate and turned right headed for the beltway. Panhandlers were working the intersections. She fell in behind a school bus. It took a left, and she continued another block to the beltway ramp. The beltway traffic was mainly semitrucks and commercial vehicles, all moving fast. As she was driving north around town, her phone vibrated. It was Robertson.
“It’s me,” she said.
“Your guy still going to the airport?”
“Yeah.”
“You really, really don’t want to be there.”
“Not my call.”
“We’re going to get Clemens ahead of you. Make sure you’re the one driving when you start after us. Get lost in traffic. That’s your best bet.”
“What do you think my guy is going to do if he thinks I’m jerking him around? I agreed to provide you with information, not set myself up to be killed.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you, but if you come after us and we get in a gunfight, I won’t be able to protect you until the shooting stops. That’s all I’m saying. Make your best choice.”
When Missy got back to the motel room, she started wiping down the surfaces, beginning with the bathroom, and working methodically through the bedroom, being sure to include the TV remote and the lamp switches. It was unlikely that they would be trailed here by law enforcement, even more unlikely that there would be any reason to fingerprint the room, and they might be back here with Clemens in a few hours, but wiping down a room had always been strangely relaxing for her, and she didn’t want nerves to give her away to Tony before the shooting started—if it was going to start. It wouldn’t surprise her at all if Tony managed to steal Clemens out from under their noses, find some way to get one step ahead of them, but if it all turned to mud, she was going to make sure that she was the last person he blamed. While she was wiping off the minifridge, Tony came in.
“Where you been?”
“Drove around awhile. Wanted to make sure I wasn’t being followed.”
She turned back to the minifridge. There was something about his tone of voice, his manner, the way he moved—he was just a little too—calm? Certain? Something was up—something he wasn’t sharing. That banter last night, his oh so obvious trust, the cup of tea this morning—was it all real, or was it a ploy to put her at ease, to keep her from seeing that she was about to be played? He was a master at getting inside a mark’s head. She had to stay on her guard.
Back in San Francisco, the sun was just slanting over the buildings across the street. Denison and Nicole were sitting at the kitchen island. He was reading the newspaper and sipping his coffee. An empty cereal bowl sat to his right. Nicole was reading the newspaper on her smartphone and eating granola mixed with yogurt. She glanced up. A jogger passed by on the sidewalk. The neighbors from across the street, business clothes and brief cases, got into their car. Lily came into the room in the wrinkled party dress she’d been wearing the night before.
“How did you sleep?” Nicole asked.
“Fine.”
“There’s coffee on the counter. Breakfast stuff.”
“No thanks. Could you lend me cab fare? I need to go home and get ready for work.”
Denison set his paper down. “Are you serious? What if those guys are waiting for you?”
“Those guys are at home nursing hangovers. My neighbor has a spare door key. It’s six thirty in the morning. I’m perfectly safe.”
“I’ve got some cash in my purse,” Nicole said.
“Can I borrow your phone to call a cab?”
Nicole handed Lily her smartphone. “Yellow Cab is in the Contacts.”
Lily called a cab and passed the smartphone back to Nicole.
“Come on,” Nicole said. “I’ll get you your money.”
They walked into the front hall where Nicole’s handbag hung on a coat-tree. She took out a wad of cash and pressed it into Lily’s hand. “To help tide you over until you get your ID straightened out.”
“Thanks. I’ll pay you back.”
“No hurry.”
Nicole opened the door so that they could watch for the cab. “Have you decided how to handle those guys?”
“If I’m lucky, they’ll feel stupid this morning and will be happy to give me back my bag.”
“If not?”
“I haven’t gotten that far.”
“If you need help, just let me know.”
“Thanks.”
A cab pulled up in front of the condo. “There it is,” Lily said.
“Call me later,” Nicole said.
“I will.”
Nicole walked back to the kitchen. Denison was rinsing the breakfast dishes in the sink. “Do you really think she’s safe?”
Nicole shrugged. “I don’t know.”
At the Mitchellville Airport at ten minutes to ten, Tony and Missy sat in the Lincoln Navigator at the far end of the drop-off lane where they had a good view of arrivals and departures. Travelers were rolling bags to and from the parking garage across to the terminal. The skycaps were busy with the passengers who wanted to avoid carrying their luggage inside. A light mist began to fall. Tony put the windshield wipers on intermittent. A white Mercedes sedan pulled into the drop-off lane in front of the main entrance. Three men got out: Robertson, a middle-aged guy with a gray crew cut, and a thick-necked guy in a leather coat.
“We’re screwed,” Tony said.
“What?” Missy peered about like she didn’t know what Robertson looked like.
“Two o’clock. Robertson and two other guys. Management and muscle, looks like. They’re going to collect Clemens.”
The three men stood on the sidewalk waiting. Tony held a picture of Clemens. “There he is. Freckles and all.”
A blond man wearing a gray suit came up to the three men, smiled, and shook hands with Robertson and Gray Crew Cut. Tony took their picture with his phone. They all piled into the Mercedes.
“I guess we’re tailing them,” Tony said.
“You sure that’s a good idea? We don’t want to go anywhere we can’t get away from.”
“They’re our only lead.”
Tony followed them out of the airport, cut around a minivan to stay with them, and fell into traffic a few cars behind. “I love an SUV for a surveillance job.”
The mist turned to rain. The Mercedes headed away from downtown, took two rights onto a street lined with warehouses, and turned left into the entry of a Mighty Fortress Self Storage. A man in a raincoat and a ball cap shut the gate. Tony parked on the side of the street.
“Are we going to wait?” Missy asked.
“Can’t find out what’s going on from here. We already know Robertson and Clemens are connected. And we already know that Robertson has the blackmail envelope.”
“They might not know anything about the people who killed your partners.”
“True. But who is that other guy? We’ve seen him and two others who aren’t cops. Are they the cleanup crew? Maybe their base is in there. Maybe we can learn something or get a chance to snatch Clemens.”
“I already told you running and gunning is not my thing.”
“You’ve done okay so far. This is just a simple little recon.”
“I could stay in the car.”
“I need you with me. Gear up.”
They climbed into the back of the Navigator, opened the gun cases, and took out the Kevlar vests and the AR-15 rifles. Thunder cracked in the distance. The rain was bouncing off the sidewalk as they slipped through the gate, came around a dumpster, and moved along the side of a block of self-storage units. Ahead, on the left, they could see the Mercedes parked beside the rental office. The Mercedes was empty. Tony p
eeked in the nearest window of the office. He couldn’t see anyone. They crept to the left corner of the building. No one was visible on the street. The rain slowed. They sneaked along the wall to the next window. Tony leaned over to peek in.
A shot chipped the concrete near Tony’s foot, the gunshot almost on top of the bullet strike. The shooter was close, too close. Tony glanced over his shoulder while he scrambled backward. Missy was gone. Another shot. The window above him shattered. He crawled faster, the gunshots herding him back toward the corner of the building. Then a shot hit the wall behind him. He rolled out from the wall, sprang up, and zigzagged through the rain toward the nearest block of storage units, firing blindly as he ran. Automatic gunfire buzzed around him like hornets. He fell to the ground behind the side of the storage unit. His legs felt wobbly. He couldn’t breathe. He thought he’d been hit in the vest. He sat with his back against the wall and his rifle across his knees. He forced himself to suck in air. Don’t pass out. Dead men pass out.
His heart was pounding as he climbed to his feet. This place was a trap. He needed to keep moving. He could hear footsteps. Thunder sounded. Rain pounded the pavement. Someone tackled him. They rolled across the asphalt. A big guy, heavy, was on top of him, one hand pushing into his face. He jerked his head sideways. A knife struck the pavement next to his throat. He grabbed the wrist of the hand that held the knife. The man’s face was inches from his. Cold eyes and hot breath. He clapped his other hand around the back of the man’s head and bit down hard on his nose. The man jerked away, blood pouring down his face. Tony pulled his Glock, shot the man twice, sprang to his feet, and ran for the next corner. His head was spinning. He crawled under a pile of boxes by the door to a storage unit and tried to control his breathing. The rain poured down.
Later, when he woke, it was dark and quiet. His side hurt, and his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He tried to spit. Where was he? The events filtered back into his mind. He crawled out from under the boxes. Every movement hurt, but he got to his feet and stumbled back toward the rental office, both hands cradling the assault rifle. The Mercedes was gone. He leaned against a wall. His clothes were damp, but he felt wetness oozing from underneath his Kevlar vest. Had he been shot? He put his hands on his knees and breathed. Missy? Was she dead or going on his list? She hadn’t wanted to come in here. Was that because she didn’t know, or because she knew and didn’t want him to get hurt, or because she knew and was afraid she’d be shot in the crossfire?
The Murder Run Page 7
