The Professionals

by Owen Laukkanen

  He had the Lincoln lined up, closing fast, and was ready to run the bitch down when someone took a shot through the front windshield and he let his foot off the accelerator, lost focus, and twisted back to face forward, where the girl Fed stood in your classic Weaver stance, aiming the barrel of her Glock right through the windshield and directly at his head. She was yelling something, but he couldn’t hear it for the distance and the scraping of the car against the brick of some fucker’s garage, but she got what she wanted. He’d let the car slow just for a second, and when he looked back in the rearview mirror the bitch was out of sight, had ducked into somebody’s backyard and disappeared, leaving D’Antonio alone with the Fed.

  forty

  Windermere stood in the alley, both hands on her pistol, staring down the driver of the black Lincoln. Whoever this clown thinks he is, she thought, there’s no way in hell he’s killing my suspect.

  She advanced toward the car, hearing the first few sirens in the distance and hoping Stevens was still around front to catch up with the girl. Goddamn this guy, she thought. I had her. “Turn off the car,” she called out. “Throw the keys out the window.”

  The driver stared at her for a few moments, watching her advance. Then he glanced down, and Windermere let out her breath. He’s giving up, she thought. At least we can get this guy into custody, try and figure out his beef.

  But the driver wasn’t giving up. Windermere heard the roar of the engine and the chirp of the tires scrabbling for traction as the car leapt forward toward her. She had time for one shot, but missed, and then she was diving for cover as the Lincoln sped past.

  Windermere slammed against a garage door, feeling the rush of the wind in the car’s slipstream and the gravel spat back from the tires. She hauled herself to her feet and watched the car speed away down the alley. The car reached the end of the block and made a right-hand turn and disappeared.

  Windermere stood in the alley a moment, catching her breath. Then she swore, loud, and walked around to the front of the apartment building to find Stevens.

  Marie heard the gunshot and nearly froze up, thinking the big guy was somehow shooting at her from behind the wheel. But she looked back and saw the female agent take aim while she yelled at the driver, and he slowed down just as Marie reached another open gate and ducked through it, cutting across a back lawn, nearly tripping over a sandbox, and then hurrying around the side of the house and back out onto the sidewalk.

  She could hear the sirens now, and her heart was pounding. Somewhere behind her was the male police officer, and soon the whole street would be filled with police cars. So she kept her head down, ran as fast as she could out of the neighborhood and down toward Kinnear Park again, where the sound of sirens dissipated and she could slow down to a walk, blending in with the crowds walking the paths and enjoying the sunshine.

  This was bad, she knew. Really bad. That guy had found her right at her door. Somehow he knew where she lived. Somehow the police knew, too. They were compromised. They were found out. She had to tell Pender, and she had to get out of Seattle.

  She wanted to sit down on a park bench and cry. She was tired and scared, and she had no idea how anyone had figured out where they lived or how the cops had been on her so fast. She wanted to slow things down and think things over, but she knew if she stopped she wouldn’t get started again. She’d lie there until the police or the bad guys caught up.

  She forced herself to keep moving. Let’s figure this out. The apartment’s blown. Can’t go back. You’re stuck with what you’ve got, right now, on your person. She looked through her purse. No cash. ID and credit cards for Ashley McAdams, Darcy Wellman, and Rebecca Decoursey. And Marie McAllister. The McAdams alias was done. So was Marie McAllister. The thought made her want to cry again. Marie McAllister was as good as dead. So was Arthur Pender.

  Still two good aliases left. Darcy Wellman was used in Detroit, though. One good alias left. Rebecca Decoursey was never used. Marie dug around in her purse some more. What else? The backup burner. Thank God for that. Anything else? A pack of spearmint Trident. What the hell, she thought, trying to think like Arthur. One alias, one cell phone, and some chewing gum. Let’s hope that’s enough to get out of here safe.

  forty-one

  The clerk at the Hollywood Motor Lodge yawned as he watched the Trans Am pull out of the parking lot and onto the highway. Damn, but that car looked familiar. Those kids had been hanging around for a day now, and they hadn’t done a thing. Hadn’t gone sightseeing, hadn’t even gone out to eat. Three or four of them, Florida plates, car parked at the very back of the lot. The clerk wasn’t stupid; he’d seen plenty of people come stay at the Hollywood who didn’t want to be seen. Question wasn’t were they on the run, it’s what they were running from. And was it worth getting involved?

  The clerk sat down at the front desk and shuffled his newspaper. Had to be the kids from that South Beach shooting, he figured. He dug up the local news and paged through it. Sure enough. Trans Am, kids in their twenties. Three men, one woman, one presumed injured. Probably bleeding on the furniture, the bastard.

  Paper said the Dauphin—that was the South Beach hotel—got torn up, said it looked like drugs. Well, damn it. Drug shootings and bullet holes were something the Hollywood didn’t quite need. Hard enough keeping customers around without wireless Internet, these days.

  He didn’t like to get involved in these things, not usually. People had a right to privacy, and who was he to judge? But when their presence started to interfere with another man’s commerce, well. It was time to put a stop to things.

  The clerk put down the newspaper. He glanced around the lobby. All right, he thought. If you’re gonna do it, you’re gonna do it. He reached for the phone with one hand and dug around in the desk drawer with the other, reaching for the old .38 while he dialed for the police.

  Pender and Sawyer drove the Trans Am into Hollywood on the Federal Highway, Pender at the wheel and Sawyer on the lookout for cops. It gave Pender a funny feeling, driving around in broad daylight, but how else were they going to get out of here? We’ve gotta swap this rig somehow, he thought.

  They found a used-car dealership on a slummy main drag, a little corner lot with a shitty corrugated-iron shack in the back and a razor-wire fence around the perimeter. “These guys will do fine,” he told Sawyer. “Probably criminals themselves.”

  Pender parked the car on a side street, and they wiped it, threw the plates in a dumpster a few blocks down, and hiked onto the lot, where a man in a bad suit and a wrinkled tie shook their hands and squinted through the sun and tried to sell them on a repossessed Porsche Boxster.

  Pender talked him away from the sports car long enough to set his eyes on a big Dodge truck, a Durango, and then pulled out his wallet and got the salesman to sign off for seven thousand in cash, no undercoating necessary.

  He purchased the car in Ryan Carew’s name, and they were off the lot within forty-five minutes and feeling a hell of a lot better about the situation.

  “Clothes and a computer,” said Sawyer. “And then let’s get the hell out of Florida.”

  They drove until they came to a shopping mall, and Pender found them a computer store inside. He handed Mouse’s note to the first salesman he saw and came out ten minutes later with a brand-new computer. Then they hit JCPenney and set about buying clothes.

  Pender hooked himself up with a decent wardrobe and started working on getting Mouse some clothing of his own. Then he caught sight of Sawyer a couple aisles down, working his way through women’s wear. Pender wandered over to him. “Don’t think they have your size, guy.”

  Sawyer held up a purple sweater. “You think she’ll like this?”

  “Who?”

  “Tiffany, who else? She can’t wear that tank top forever.”

  Pender shook his head. “Christ, Sawyer.”

  “What?” Sawyer stared back. “She needs clothes as much as we do.”

  “She has clothes. At her hotel room.”r />
  Sawyer glanced at the sweater once more, then draped it over his arm and kept walking. “I think she’ll like it.”

  Pender sighed. “We get her one change of clothes,” he said. “Then we cut her loose.”

  Pender paid for the clothing, and they made for the exits, stopping once at a drugstore for more bandages and painkillers before retreating to the Durango. They piled all the bags in the back, and Pender was about to climb behind the wheel when his burner started ringing.

  “Arthur?” It was Marie. Sounding shaky. “It’s me. Where are you?”

  “We’re in Florida,” he told her. “North of Miami. We had a little problem.”

  “I know,” she said. “So did I.”

  “How so?”

  “Arthur, we screwed up,” she said. “I don’t know how, but there are people after us. There were cops at the apartment. And someone else, too. Someone bad. They were waiting for me. Somehow they figured out where we live.”

  Pender leaned back against the truck. Felt dizzy all of a sudden. “But you got out all right. You’re okay.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m—yeah, I’m fine. But I gotta get out of Seattle.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m at a motel by the airport. Tell me where you’re headed, and I’ll fly out there to meet you. I’ll fly tonight.”

  “You have cash? ID?”

  “One credit card. One ID. Rebecca Decoursey. McAdams and Wellman are shot. Arthur, so is Marie McAllister. So is Arthur Pender.”

  Jesus Christ. “That’s fine,” he said. “You’re doing great. Just let me think for a second, and I’ll tell you where to meet us.”

  He closed his eyes, trying to visualize a map of Florida in his head. Sawyer knocked on the window from inside the Durango. Leaned over and opened the door. “Everything all right?”

  “Give me an airport north of here,” said Pender.

  “Fort Lauderdale?”

  “Too close.”

  “Orlando?”

  “Maybe. Can we make Jacksonville?”

  “Time frame?”

  “Tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  “Yeah,” said Sawyer. “It’s like three hundred miles.”

  “Okay.” Pender picked up the phone. “Marie? Fly to Jacksonville. Orlando if you can’t make it by tomorrow morning. Text me your flight info, and we’ll meet you at the airport.”

  “Jacksonville,” said Marie. “Okay.”

  “Marie,” said Pender. “You did great. Everything’s going to be fine.” He hung up the phone and stood in the parking lot for a minute, staring up at the sky. Cops and somebody else, too. Somebody bad. Beneteau’s people. How the hell had they found the apartment? Nobody in the world could connect Marie McAllister and Arthur Pender to the kidnappings. Nobody. But they’d found the apartment, and they’d almost caught Marie. The thought made him sick.

  Sawyer knocked on the window again. Pender swung open the door and climbed into the truck. He glanced at Sawyer. “They made us. Marie and me. I don’t know how.”

  “She’s all right?”

  “She’s fine. Terrified, but she got away.”

  “So Jacksonville.”

  “Jacksonville,” said Pender. “Tonight or tomorrow.”

  He turned the key in the ignition. He was about to drive away when the phone rang again. He picked it up. “Yeah.”

  “Pender?” A whisper. “It’s Tiffany.”

  “Tiffany. What’s up?”

  “Pender, we’re at the motel, and I’m afraid,” she said, and Pender felt his stomach flip all over again.

  “What’s going on? Is Mouse okay?”

  “Mouse is fine, Pender. But the cops just pulled into the parking lot,” she said. “They’re out there in a police cruiser, and I think they’re coming to get us.”

  forty-two

  The superintendent jangled his keys as he climbed the steps to the second floor, and the sound echoed through the stairwell. He was an older guy, white hair and thick glasses, and he’d sounded like he was asleep when Stevens knocked on the door.

  “That curly-haired girl,” he said as he reached the landing. “Unit 204. Lives with her boyfriend.”

  Stevens glanced back at Windermere. “Which one’s her boyfriend?”

  “Tall kid,” said the super. “Blond hair. Good-looking guy. Nice and quiet.”

  Carew, thought Stevens. We’re getting the two-fer.

  The super started down the hall. “They weren’t around much. Either of them. Traveled for work, they said.”

  “You have names for these two?”

  “Pender,” said the super. “That’s the boyfriend. Arthur Pender. His name’s on the lease. The girl’s Marie something. I can’t remember.”

  They’d lost the girl in the alley when the big guy in the Lincoln had showed up. Stevens hadn’t seen her come out on his end, and Windermere hadn’t found her when she squeezed back onto the street. The patrol cars were searching the neighborhood but the girl was gone.

  Ditto the driver. They’d had Seattle police put a notice to all units to keep an eye out for busted-ass Town Cars, and the FBI’s Seattle office had detailed an agent to start looking at livery companies and car rentals as well. But Stevens knew the driver would likely be long gone even if they did manage to find the car.

  Windermere hadn’t taken either loss very well. Stevens had caught up to her outside of the apartment building, found her staring into her hands, swearing under her breath. He walked up and sat down beside her. “You all right?”

  She didn’t look up. “I had a shot at them both, Stevens. I didn’t get either.”

  “We’ll get them,” he told her. “The whole city’s looking by now.”

  “I played that like a rookie. A goddamn city cop. We had a wide-open shot and we missed it.” She looked at him and her eyes were dark. “We missed our big chance here, Kirk.”

  She was right, Stevens knew. Still, it was impossible to stay disappointed when the consolation prize was so good. The Seattle office had come through with a search and seizure warrant almost immediately, and Stevens felt his insides prickling as he and Windermere waited outside the kidnappers’ door. Here it is, he thought. The inner sanctum. Even Windermere looked excited again.

  The super fumbled with his keys outside unit 204 and then unlocked the door. He pushed it open. “Go ahead, Officers.”

  As far as interstate crime ring headquarters went, the place was a bit spartan. It was a little one-bedroom apartment: scuffed hardwood floors, plain off-white walls with cheap posters and prints hung up for color. There was a kitchenette off to one side and a bathroom to the other, a bedroom dead ahead and a living room with a modest little couch and a beat-up old coffee table facing a medium-sized TV.

  “I thought these kids were supposed to be rich,” said Windermere.

  “Maybe they spend it all on candy bars.”

  “They sure don’t spend it here.”

  Stevens looked around. “They’re professionals,” he said. “They know they can’t explain a mansion and a yacht if the IRS figures them out. They’ve got the money stashed off somewhere.”

  They searched the place. Windermere took the bed and bathroom, and Stevens took a tour of the rest of the place. The kitchenette was empty—a few dishes drying in the rack and a few more in the cupboards, but that was it. The girl’s groceries were in the fridge, and there was a romance novel on the coffee table and a handful of DVDs underneath the TV. Otherwise, the place was bare.

  “Stevens,” said Windermere. “Come on in here.”

  Stevens walked into the bedroom—the same modest aesthetic as the rest of the apartment—and found Windermere waiting by the bed, grinning like she’d just won the jackpot. She held a laptop computer in one hand and was gesturing down to her feet, where the girl’s duffel bag lay half open on the bedroom floor.

  “This is the good stuff,” she said. “Let’s have a look in that bag.”

  Stevens lo
oked. Clothes, for starters. Plenty of warm winter clothes. He picked up a pair of jeans and felt something rustling in the pocket. Took it out and examined it—a receipt. A receipt from a White Castle restaurant in Troy, Michigan. “Bingo,” he said.

  “Keep looking.”

  He pushed clothing aside until he came to the bottom of the bag, where he felt out a flat paper envelope and brought it to the surface. He opened it and peered inside. Money. Well-used twenties, and lots of them. “Must be like four grand in here,” he told Windermere. “Told you they stashed it somewhere.”

  “That’s nothing,” said Windermere. “Four grand must be walking-around money to these kids.”

  Windermere sat down on the bed and opened the laptop. “Let’s call the Seattle office,” she said. “Get them to start looking into Pender and his girlfriend. Assuming those aren’t aliases, too.”

  “They’re not aliases,” said Stevens. “They never expected to be found here. This was home.”

  “Some home.”

  “Probably temporary. They wouldn’t have wanted to stick around here too long.” Stevens took out his phone and called the Seattle office. Asked for a background check on Arthur Pender and Marie—

  “McAllister.” Windermere looked up from the computer. “Marie McAllister.”

  “Gotcha,” said the Seattle agent, a young guy named Vance. “I’m on it.”

  “Thanks. Any word on the Lincoln?”

  “As a matter of fact,” said Vance, “we got a lead on that. None of the big companies reported renting out a Town Car like you described. But we talked to a smaller outfit, Emerald City Cars, said they’d dropped off a black Lincoln at the Hyatt this morning. Rented to an Antonio Pistone of Royal Oak, Michigan.”

  There it is, Stevens thought. “They get the car back?”

  “Not yet.”

  “All right,” he said. “We’re heading to the Hyatt right now. Do me a favor and run this Pistone through the computer, see what comes up.”