Mosse wiped at his nose with the back of a silk sleeve. Then he nearly giggled. What a rush, he thought, when the guy finally let go and ended the blinding center of pain, Wow, if you could get a street lab to bottle that kind of relief...
Calmly navigating the big car to an auto-body shop a half-mile off the interstate, Zwaan doubted the little man would protest a hypodermic now.
When he pulled behind the shop into the privacy of a walled-off dead end, Mosse proved Zwaan’s guess right. Even before the car had finished rocking on its shocks, Mosse had his arm extended, his sleeve rolled back.
Zwaan wordlessly injected the man with a hypodermic needle he took from his vest pocket. As Mosse leaned back in the leathered luxury of the rental car, he closed his eyes.
Reaching over him to pop open the glove compartment, Zwaan hit the electric trunk switch. He stepped out of the car, retrieved a military-issue duffel bag, then walked around to the passenger side where he laid the Five-foot-six-inch duffel bag on the ground. Aside from an olive-green jumpsuit, it was half-filled with rags. Zwaan pulled the jumpsuit over his vested pinstripe, counted to thirty, opened the passenger door, and pulled out his unconscious passenger. He laid Henry L. Mosse into the duffel bag and zipped it over the man’s head.
Zwaan lifted the bag as casually as if held nothing more than rags, and dropped it into the trunk.
Half an hour later, he passed through the security gates of Miramar Naval Air Station. Another quarter-hour and he was stepping into the cargo hold of a C5A Galaxy military jet, the same military-issue duffel bag slung over his shoulder as easily as if it carried no more than clothes for a weekend pass.
Zwaan set the bag down beside a couple of wooden crates then moved to the front area of the jet and strapped himself in.
Zwaan allowed himself a smile of approval. Hitching rides on military flights was so much more efficient than traveling by any commercial jet. No check-in. No metal detectors. No baggage wait. With favorable winds, he could have Dr. Mosse at the Institute within two hours.
***
“What do ya think. Call him?” From the passenger side of a late-model gray car, Buddy McGoyle asked the question out of the side of his mouth. His eyes were intent on the blinding glare of a white two-story clapboard house across the street.
The sun was as high as it could get, almost straight up.
The recipient of Buddy’s question, David Mariott, had sourly thought more than once in the last ten minutes that this side street – one of barely more than a dozen on the island of Cedar Key – offered less shade than a plucked chicken.
All the houses on this street had been converted to take advantage of the tourist trade. Antique shops, mediocre art galleries, and an ice cream store. In structure, the other buildings were almost identical; the only differences were the shades of paint, from faded to peeling to the white – just like a target, David thought – of the house across the street that served as an office to one of Cedar Key’s few lawyers.
“So, like I said,” Buddy broke the silence the same time as he broke wind, “what do ya think. Call him?”
On the driver’s side, David tried to ignore his partner’s vulgarity as he toyed with the stump of his left ear. Two years earlier, Mariott had lost the bottom of both his ears to a hedge clipper as punishment for picking the losing warlord in the Miami drug trade. The alternative to placing his ear in the hedge clipper had been much worse, and he’d developed the habit of rubbing the stumps himself as a way to remind him of how fortunate he’d been to be hired on by the winning drug lord, the same Cuban who had squeezed the clippers shut.
“Call him?” David repeated Buddy’s question. He stopped pulling on his ear’s stump long enough to stare at Buddy. Not that he enjoyed the sight. Buddy was short, and a couple dozen, sweaty, white-fleshed pounds overweight, an excess of flab that poked out from too-tight shirts and pants that were always sliding down. Buddy usually had a finger up his nose, and the rest of his personal hygiene followed the same philosophy, leading to smells that worsened considerably over the course of a stakeout in this Florida heat. But the money was good. It justified the twenty-four-hour-a-day watch they shared. And how often was all the electronic equipment supplied, let alone a brand-new car for the keeping and half the cash up front? The earphones and tracking device were on the backseat, almost buried now in the empty pizza boxes and hamburger wrappings that Buddy happily threw over his shoulder. But David would never complain. Buddy, a friend since boyhood, had chosen the correct side in that drug war and had been the one who talked the victorious Cuban drug lord into snipping only the bottoms of David’s ears and not continuing on to the tip of his nose.
“Call him?” David asked. “This broad don’t know the lawyer from Adam. She drives two hours north to meet him in this pimple of a hick town. He don’t tell her over the phone why he wants to see her. And how many lawyers you know do regular business on Saturday? I’d say this is it.”
“What do you think, then, call?”
David had looked back to the house but, by the slightly nasal tone of his partner’s question, knew Buddy’s nose was filled, probably knuckle deep.
“You’re trying to get me to say it,” David said. “You want me to say we should make the call. Am I right? You probably even want me to do the talking.”
David made certain he kept his gaze on the house. He didn’t want to see what Buddy might do with the results of his most recent nostril search.
“Hey,” Buddy said. Sure enough the nasal quality was gone.
“I’ve never seen the guy, but he sounds spooky, like I wouldn’t want him mad. Even the Cubans who sent us to him seemed scared. And I’m guessing for the money we’re getting for this job, he don’t go easy on mistakes.”
David said nothing. Only because he had the same gut feeling about the mystery man who’d arranged for delivery of fifty grand in small bills and promised double for a package this broad was supposed to be getting.
David sighed. “It’d be more of a mistake not to call him. You know that too.”
“So what do you think, call?”
David sighed. He knew what was coming next. Every time Buddy didn’t want to do something, it was the same question.
“Come on, David. How much of your face you still got?”
David flashed back to the sensation of clippers slowly tightening on the gristle of his ears. “You’re right, Buddy. Give me the phone.”
Buddy contented himself to watch the tourists as David dialed the number on the cellular phone. A couple of them looked okay in halter tops, if only they didn’t have stupid husbands at their sides as they gawked at window displays of junk they’d hate as soon as they got it home.
“Two, nine, eight, seven,” David said into the phone. Stupid spy game, this repeating the last digits crap. “Our bird-watching took us to Cedar Key.”
During the conversation, Buddy monitored his stomach for hunger. Stakeouts did that to him. As soon as he knew he couldn’t get to a fridge easily, his stomach rumbled. Like getting an urge to sneeze at a funeral.
“There’s a lawyer here,” David said. “He got hold of her at the motel, says she needs to see him right way.”
David listened, then spoke. “Naw, I don’t know how he got her number.”
David nodded. “Yup, we kept it all on tape. Just like everything else.”
Brief silence.
“She’s inside right now,” David answered. “Been there maybe ten minutes.”
Another brief silence.
“That’s right, empty-handed. All she had when she went in was her purse.”
David’s silence lengthened.
Buddy glanced over. He watched David’s eyebrows furrow in concentration as he listened to the cellular phone, soaking in instructions. Buddy admired David. Ever since they were kids, David had always been smarter. He’d helped Buddy every time he could during math tests, something Buddy hadn’t forgotten when David needed help in front of the hedge clippers. O
f course, David was only school smart. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have picked the wrong Cuban in the first place.
A minute later, David said good-bye, folded the cellular phone, and handed it back to Buddy.
“Time to come out of the woodwork.”
“Ice her?” Buddy asked. That was the thing he most liked about a good territorial drug feud. The body count.
David shook his head. “Our man Figures she’ll come out with a package. If it’s sealed, we follow her. If she pulls over to open it, we snatch it there, take her purse, jewelry, make it look like a regular mugging. If she don’t pull over, we snatch it in Clearwater, same thing, but better because it looks less connected to this visit here.”
“So what if it’s not sealed?” Buddy asked.
“He says if the package is open, it means she went through it in the lawyer’s office.”
“And?” Buddy knew there was more to the answer because David was starting to sweat. David didn’t like body counts.
“And if the package is open, we ice her the first place we can along the highway, take the package, the purse, and all the other crap. But if she goes right to a pay phone, we do a drive-by shoot and run.”
“That’s it?” Buddy asked. On the open market you could get someone stiffed for only a grand. Fifty was definitely overkill. The guy with the weird voice didn’t have much of a head for business.
“That’s not it,” David said. “After she’s done, we go back and do the lawyer too. Then burn the house.”
“That don’t give us time to plan or nothing,” Buddy said. The nice thing about David was he sweated body counts so bad that he made sure the plans were solid-A, no mistakes. “We’ll be lucky to get out of town. And in case you didn’t notice, there’s thirty miles back to the interstate and only one highway out.”
David gave Buddy a shake of the head. “Hey, what do you expect for fifty grand up fronts”
***
BB shots of sweat rolled off Slater’s back and shoulders as he sawed through the last of the two-by-fours. At his feet lay a stack already cut, none longer than the width of his garage windows. He felt like he’d popped a few stitches during his efforts, and his head throbbed. To add to Slater’s discomfort, the sawdust clung to his sweat and clogged his mouth as he drew deep breaths from the exertion. Much as he wanted to open the garage door for fresh air, however, he would not allow himself the luxury.
Nor did he have the luxury of sunlight. Slater had already cut garbage bags to the size of his windows and stapled the black plastic to the frames, reducing the sunlight inside to zero and forcing him to continue his work in the glare of a single 100-watt bulb.
After all, he was working with more than a couple of assumptions. Number one, that the kid was smart. Two, that the kid was nearby, constantly watching the cluster of cabins that formed Seven Springs. If the kid happened to notice this flurry of activity in the garage, no amount of bait would bring him in. It was risk enough that if the kid were around, he might suspect something just from the noise from Slater sawing wood and pounding nails, but Slater had that covered too. In the afternoon, he’d haul out a crudely built doghouse, as if that were the end result of all his time in the garage. Best part was, Slater had gone back into Los Alamos immediately after breakfast and, along with the other necessary supplies, bought two Labrador puppies to go with the doghouse.
Assumptions three and four were that no one else was looking for the kid and that Slater should be doing his best to Find out what exactly was forcing the kid to live on the outskirts of this meager settlement like a half-wild dog.
Slater was working on a fifth assumption too. He’d have no chance at all of catching the kid on foot. It meant his trap would have to work perfectly, and work the first time. Once spooked, the kid would be impossible to tempt back again.
Slater had spent much of the previous evening and all of this morning’s breakfast in concentrated thought on how best to capture a kid with the seemingly supernatural abilities he’d demonstrated a few nights earlier. He’d even wondered about using a dart gun, then laughed at himself for thinking through the complications of getting the gun, figuring out the right dosage, and waiting for hours in the night for the kid to appear.
Since he couldn’t outrun the kid, it would have to be a self-activated trap. One that Slater didn’t have to spend hours watching. One that Slater could check periodically. One that the neighbors wouldn’t discover. One that couldn’t hurt the kid. One that the kid couldn’t see him build. And one, of course, the kid didn’t suspect.
That left Slater few possibilities. He couldn’t, for example, dig a primitive pit, cover the top, and use bait to bring the kid in.
Any new aboveground structure would also be suspicious. Slater pondered how to lure the kid into the house, then realized the boy could do too much damage, and there were too many ways of getting out. The garage, Slater had finally decided.
So on his return from town, in the late-morning heat, he had begun to barricade the inside of the garage. First the dark plastic for total privacy. Now the two-by-fours.
Slater used six-inch spikes to secure the wooden bars across the window frames, telling himself if the kid was able to pull those bars loose, it would be just as well he escaped.
The next part took less brawn but considerably more ingenuity. Slater stepped several paces in from the overhead door and screwed a J-hook waist high into the wall of one side of the garage. He attached a long piece of dark wire to the J-hook and strung the wire to a pulley at the same height on the other side of the garage. The wire then went up to another pulley, level with the tracks of the overhead door. From there, he strung the wire to the track itself, leaving Slater with a simple trip wire, set high so that a wandering raccoon or coyote would not set it off.
Slater then disconnected the thick springs that pulled the top of the overhead door to the back of the tracks. He estimated each panel of the door weighed fifty pounds, but decided he couldn’t trust the combined weight to be enough. It took another half-hour for him to attach sandbags to the inside of the bottom panel, invisible to anyone outside of the garage.
At that point, Slater tried to lift the door.
He strained to raise it three inches and nearly broke his back at his efforts.
That brought a simultaneous chuckle and curse. A chuckle because the door would drop faster than a guillotine blade, and because if Slater couldn’t budge it, neither could the kid, no matter how strong. A curse because he’d have to reattach the door springs to help him raise the door.
Twenty minutes later, when the garage door was partially raised, he inserted a small piece of wood into a gap in the track. It took another half-hour of experimenting to get the wood situated at a precarious wobble where its leverage was enough to hold the door yet wouldn’t take too much pressure to release. During that twenty minutes of work, Slater hoped the kid wasn’t looking into the half-open garage.
His final steps were to rig the trip wire to the wood and disconnect again – very slowly and carefully – the door springs that had help him raise the heavy door.
When Slater finished, only a couple of hours before dusk, the slightest tension on the wire would pull the wood block loose.
He checked the garage thoroughly for any tools that the kid might use to try to bust free and put them all into a locked toolbox, which he took with him to the house. Then he removed all the wood scraps and any other junk the kid might use in an attempt to free himself.
On his return, Slater carried a high-sided box that contained two sleeping Lab puppies. He hung the box in a hammock at the back of the garage – high and out of reach of coyotes – and stepped out the side door. Slater shut it and with a key, locked the bolt shut.
The trap was as complete as he could make it. Inside, the windows were barricaded. The side door was steel – the kid could kick all day and not dent it or knock it off its hinges. And the front over-head door was four feet off the ground – plenty of room for the kid to du
ck beneath on his way in. He wouldn’t hit the trip wire until he was a couple steps inside, and by then the door would drop so fast not even a cat would be quick enough to race beneath it.
Slater wasn’t worried that the kid wouldn’t show.
Slater had two more assumptions. The kid would visit at night when he felt safer, when the trip wire was invisible. And the kid would definitely visit. If not this night, the next. Or the night after. When the puppies woke, they’d start mewling for attention. And what boy could resist puppies?
***
Paige Stephens looked across the burnished walnut desk at the man who had phoned her three hours earlier.
“I hope you’ll forgive the delay,” Franklin Hargrove said. He smiled and gestured at his wheelchair. “Even the simplest tasks become more complicated. Including, unfortunately, the call of nature.”
Paige nodded. It had been a difficult fifteen minutes, sitting at the desk while waiting through his absence and fretting and wondering why he had called.
At his smile, however, she began to relax. The man across from her was a picture of southern gentility several decades misplaced. Distinguished gray hair, round spectacles, neatly trimmed goatee, black bow tie, starched white shirt. The office around her reflected that same feel of stepping onto a set for Gone with the Wind. The bookshelves, the straight-back chairs, the coffee table all matched the deep varnished luster of the expansive desk. The aroma of pipe tobacco filled the air, a smell that brought back pleasant memories of her grandfather rocking as he alternated between puffs and tall tales.
“I’m also sorry I couldn’t say much over the telephone,” the lawyer told her. “But I did have very explicit instructions.”
“From who?” she asked, almost sharply.
“Your late husband.”
Paige lowered her eyes. Although she could not escape the over-whelming subconscious awareness that Darby was gone, it still came like a blow to be reminded at any other level.
“Mrs. Stephens, please believe me when I tell you I wish there were another way to discuss this.”
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