The crowd in the lobby took only a moment to react. A woman screamed, then another, then everyone was bolting for the doors. The security men had their hands to their earpieces. Havermeyer could hear the one nearest him loudly demanding to know “What the FUCK is going on?” He looked over to see the Asian guard narrowing his eyes, as if there was something familiar about Havermeyer he couldn’t quite place. A running man collided with the guard. They nearly went down in a tangle of arms and legs, and Havermeyer used the momentary distraction to duck down a short corridor to the men’s room. Inside, he quickly stripped off the suit, revealing the next layer of his disguise: jogging shorts and T-shirt. The dress socks and shoes were replaced with the jogging shoes from inside the black shopping bag. The last prop was an iPod pulled from inside the suit coat before he stuffed the whole suit into a trash can. All the while, he could hear the sounds of panic rising to a crescendo outside.
Havermeyer stepped out of the bathroom and saw a line of people moving together in the same direction, back up the corridor he’d come from, headed toward the front doors. They were muttering, their voices tinged with barely controlled fear. A portly, mustached man in black pants, a white shirt, and bowtie was herding them along, like a harried schoolteacher. He realized the group must be coming from the bar. “Come on,” the man said, in a sing-song voice, “keep moving…don’t shove…” He fell in with the group, walking beside the bartender. “Hey buddy,” Havermeyer asked. “I just got back from my run. What’s going on?”
The bartender barely looked at him. “Some fuckhead called in a bomb scare.”
“A BOMB?” Havermeyer said, pitching his voice to project. The crowd’s muttering grew louder, and they started moving faster. Havermeyer felt intoxicated. One more word, shouted loudly enough and at the right time, would send them over the edge into full stampede.
“Shhhhh!” the bartender said. And for once, Hamilton Havermeyer took direction and backed off his performance. He joined the crowd as it flowed out into the street. He could hear the sound of distant sirens, getting nearer. He followed the crowd until it seemed they were well clear of the hotel, then broke away. Three quick changes, three roles played in as many minutes. Man, do I love show business, he thought as he walked off.
“BOSS,” CHUNK heard in his earphone. “This is Tom in Green Zone. We got trouble.”
“Report,” Chunk barked. Green Zone was the mezzanine lobby area at the entrance to the ballroom.
“Some crazy Arab in a robe just unpacked a bomb and started hollering.”
A bomb? Holy shit. Chunk had been so focused on protecting Enigma’s property from being stolen, he hadn’t considered the possibility someone might just want to blow it up. His stomach twisted. Oh my God, he thought, this is just the sort of thing they hate. Sex, excess…
“Get the people out of there,” he said. “We’ll get the crowd out of the ballroom.”
“Roger that,” Tom said.
“What’s happening?” Gane said.
“We need to shut this down,” Chunk said. “Right now. And get these people out of here. Someone just put a bomb in the outer lobby.”
“What?” Gane said. “Who?”
“Who did it isn’t important right now,” Chunk said, thinking furiously. Damn it, they’ve blocked the main way out. “Okay, all units, we need to evacuate the room, but not through the main doors. Someone’s put an explosive device out there.”
“The fire exits,” Gane said. “Back of the room. Into the service corridor.”
“That’ll let the whole crowd into the backstage area,” Chunk said, “but that’s the only way to go if the bomb’s in the lobby.”
“My girls,” Hermione said. Chunk hadn’t noticed her standing right next to his shoulder.
“You take charge of them,” Chunk said. “They’ll listen to you.”
“Not always,” she said grimly, “but this time, they damn well will.” She headed toward the dressing room. “Okay,” Chunk said to his people. “Cover the fire exits. When Gane makes the announcement, the lights will come up. Wave your flashlights. Get people’s attention and get them moving.”
“Boss,” Tom said.
“Tom, how are you doing getting people off the mezzanine?”
“Boss…” There was a moment’s hesitation. “It’s not a bomb.”
THE TINY table in the midst of a sea of other tables that Pablo had gotten Moose (for a substantial fee, of course) left him seething with outrage. It wasn’t really a bad seat; he had a clear and unobstructed view of the girls strutting their stuff onstage. But it wasn’t the best seat, and as a member of Mario Allegretti’s crew, Moose Cantone had come to expect front row seats and the best tables wherever he and the boys went. He had half a mind to find that smarmy little bellhop and show him what happened to people who dissed Aldo Cantone. Then he remembered. He was supposed to be Ingmar Norberg, Swedish businessman. He gulped down the last of his Scotch and soda and sighed. Not being Moose kind of sucked.
Lost in his angry reverie, Moose hadn’t been paying much attention to the little British guy doing his routine up onstage. He’d begun to notice the increasingly uncomfortable laughter of the crowd around him. When he saw the guy suddenly jerk and disappear offstage as if he’d been skyhooked, he sat up and began paying full attention. He looked around, taking note of the large guys in suits and earpieces scattered around the room. He saw with dismay that they were taking note of him as well, more notice than Ingmar Norberg could expect from security. It gave him a crawly feeling between his shoulder blades. Had his cover been blown? He saw the security guy nearest him speaking, as if to an imaginary friend. He didn’t take his eyes off Moose.
Oh shit, Moose thought. Then the guy looked away, brow furrowed in concern, all thought of Moose forgotten. He looked toward the big double doors leading to the outside mezzanine. Moose looked around. The other security men were looking the same way, and none of them were looking at him. Something’s wrong, he thought. Something big.
“LADIES,” HERMIONE said. The line of models in their bird-themed lingerie stopped fidgeting and fiddling with their costumes and looked at her curiously. “There’s been a bit of an incident.” The models looked at each other, baffled. “Now I need you all to walk with me, this way down the corridor, and out of the building.”
The flock of bird girls erupted. “What?” “What about the show?” “What’s going on?”
“There’s no time to explain,” Hermione said, “but we need to go.”
The dark-haired Brazilian model, who’d apparently lost the Battle of the Sombrero, spoke up from beneath it. “But it was my turn to go on!”
“Catalina,” Hermione said, “no one is going on. Someone is trying to plant a bomb outside the show. Now will you go along like a good girl or am I going to have to come over there, knock you on your pretty, empty little head, and drag you?”
“A…bomb?” said a blond model dressed in red, white, and blue with an Uncle Sam hat perched jauntily on her head and American flag-striped eagle wings.
“A bomb,” Hermione said. She clapped her hands. “Now let’s go, girls. MOVE!” She started off down the corridor, toward the back exit. The models hesitated, but they were used to obeying Hermione, even if they weren’t always happy about it. They began following in a raggedly spaced line.
From his nook, Bran watched Clarissa join the back of the line. Her red-haired protector had vanished. Now was as good a chance as he was going to get. But how was he going to persuade her to leave the group? Something his uncle had said came back to him. “The most effective lie,” he said, “has a grain of the truth inside it.” He slipped from his hiding place and walked over to her. “Pssst,” he said.
She turned to look at him. Her perfect eyebrows arched in surprise. “Branson,” she said. “What’s going on? Do you know anything about this bomb?”
He shook his head. “It’s not a bomb.” He leaned forward and whispered, “Someone’s after you.”
Her e
yes widened. “Mario?”
He had no idea who Mario was, but he nodded. “The bomb’s a diversion. They…I mean Mario…expects you to go that way.”
She looked at the girls disappearing down the corridor. “Shouldn’t we warn them?”
Bran shook his head. “They’re safe. He won’t bother with them. In the meantime, we’ll go this way.” He reached out to take her arm.
She looked at him, eyes narrowed slightly. “Wait a minute. How do you know this? What do you know about it?”
He took a deep breath. “I overheard him talking about it. With one of his, uh, guys. At dinner.”
Her eyes widened in shock and her hand went to her mouth. “He’s here?”
“Yeah.” Branson pointed down the corridor. “He’s waiting that way. We need to go this way.” He took her arm then and gently steered her toward the kitchen. He could feel her trembling, hear her quick breathing. Whoever this Mario was, she was scared to death of him. And she thinks you’re keeping her safe, a voice inside his head said. Asshole.
“Branson,” she said in a small voice.
He stopped and looked at her. The look of fear on her face broke his heart. “Don’t let him get me. Please don’t let Mario get me.”
“I won’t,” he said. He felt lower than worm shit when he said that. He felt even worse when he led her through the door and saw the Lowman brothers standing there.
“WHAT THE hell do you mean it’s not a bomb?” Chunk demanded.
Tom hesitated. “It’s a fake,” he said finally. “A bunch of cardboard tubes and some electronics. It’s not a bomb.”
A diversion, Chunk thought. They’re trying to distract us. Get us out of place. And it’s working. The house lights came up. Gane was standing at the podium. The crowd began to rumble with confused voices. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began.
Damn it. Chunk thought of waving at Gane, getting him to stop, but he knew it was hopeless. “There has been an incident in the outer lobby,” Gane was saying.
“All units,” Chunk spoke over the wireless system. “The bomb is a fake, repeat, the bomb is a fake. It’s a diversion. All units. Find…” He noticed people getting up from their seats as Gane’s words sunk in. He saw looks of confusion and panic. If he took people off the job of getting them out to look for Clarissa, there’d be a stampede. “Cancel that,” he barked. “Concentrate on getting the people out. Slowly. Safely. Zoe,” he barked. “Where are you?”
“Trying to get the asshole calmed down.”
“The…oh. Vandella.”
“Yeah. The minute he heard ‘bomb,’ he went from threatening to sue us into blubbering like a baby and begging me to get him out of here. It’s not a pretty sight.”
“Where’s Cartwright?”
“She was with the other girls. And your new girlfriend. She’s got it under control, moving them towards the exit.”
“She’s not my…never mind. Make sure Cartwright and the item are secure.”
“Roger that.” A moment went by, then he heard Zoe swear softly. “Talk to me, Zoe,” he said, a note of panic edging into his voice.
“She’s not with the group,” Zoe said. “She’s gone.”
“What do you…”
She interrupted him. “I’m on it.”
Chunk gritted his teeth. “I’m on my way.”
CLARISSA FELT her heart pounding as the young waiter led her through the kitchen door. She didn’t know if she could trust him, but she was terrified of seeing Mario again. When she saw the two men standing just on the other side of the door, she stopped and blinked in confusion. Then she felt her heart contract with fear.
They were dressed in identical black leather jackets and black jeans. They had ski masks pulled over their heads. One of them held a shotgun, and the other had the kitchen staff backed up against the wall with an ugly-looking submachine gun. There was only one thing they could be. Thugs.
She yanked her arm free of Branson’s and rounded on him. “You bastard,” she hissed at him. “You told me you weren’t going to give me to him.”
“They’re not Mario’s…” The sentence was cut short as she slugged Branson as hard as she could across the jaw. He staggered back, crashing into the dishwasher line. “Hey! Ow!” he shouted.
Then one of the thugs grabbed her around the waist from behind. “Son of a BITCH!” she screamed. She kicked out as hard as she could, but he was lifting her off the ground and she only connected with air. She snapped her head back, hoping to smash his nose, but he was too fast. She was being dragged toward the open door, where the back of a truck yawned open.
“C’mon,” the man behind her grunted. “We’re not gonna hurt you. It’ll all be over in a minute.”
She felt her blood run cold at those words. “NO!” she screamed as loud as she could. “NO! NO!”
The kitchen doors slammed open and Zoe Piper burst in, her face a mask of grim fury. The man with the gun turned toward her, but not fast enough. She was inside the arc of the gun as he swung it around. She grabbed the weapon, twisted it, and ripped it out of the man’s hands. As she tossed it away, the man cried out in pain, then aimed a wild haymaker at her. She ducked, the blow missing her face by inches, then shuffle-stepped back and kicked the man as hard as she could in the crotch.
It was a blow that should have dropped the man to the ground, clutching his groin and whimpering. The man yelled again, but the brutal kick didn’t seem to have anything near the expected effect. His next blow was a backhand that connected with Zoe’s face, and it was she that crumpled to the floor. It was the last thing Clarissa saw before they dragged her into the truck.
MOOSE CANTONE was no kind of genius, and nowhere near a natural leader. He was a born follower, with a born follower’s natural instinct for how to ingratiate himself with whatever patron he’d attached himself to. When the house lights came up, and he heard the words “incident in the outer lobby,” he was up and moving. Something big was going down, something dangerous, and Mario Allegretti’s lover was in the middle of it. If he could help her out, maybe he could get back in Mario’s good graces, or at least get out of this godforsaken burg. He’d made it up onto the runway before anyone noticed him.
“Hey!” one of the security guys barked. He moved to block Moose’s progress. Moose stiff-armed him off the runway and into the crowd below. Someone screamed. He ignored it and kept going, like a running back headed for the goal line. He burst into the backstage area, shoving aside another guy, this one wearing a ball cap, who got in his way. The guy yelled something Moose didn’t understand, then he heard the words “security” and “backstage.” He kept going, down the steps, out the door, and into a broad, well-lit corridor. He looked left, then right. Far down the corridor to his right, he saw the disappearing backs of a line of women semi-dressed in feathers and spangles.
“CLARISSA!” he yelled. No one turned around. He ran down the hallway after them. People were beginning to spill into the backstage area, shepherded by security men and panicked hotel employees. He put his head down and prepared to bull his way through them, when he heard a familiar scream. “NO! NO! NO!”
He’d heard enough arguments between Mario and Clarissa to recognize her scream. It seemed to be coming from behind him. He turned and saw the double doors to the kitchen swinging back and forth as if someone had just shoved through them. He heard another outraged cry and ran toward it.
“HOLD STILL, damn it,” Japeth snarled. He was kneeling behind Clarissa, who was sitting where they’d wrestled her to the floor of the truck. Bran held her wrists in one hand. The truck bounced and swayed as Elihu wove through the traffic. A stack of boxes of canned tomato paste piled on one of the wire racks lining the inside of the truck teetered alarmingly. They’d hung a battery-powered work light on one of the racks. The motion of the truck caused it to swing back and forth, throwing crazy shadows on the metal walls. Bran couldn’t tell if it was motion sickness or fear making his stomach roil and gurgle.
“FUC
K YOU!” she screamed. She pulled and writhed and kicked. One wrist came free and she flailed at Japeth with it. He smacked her on the back of the head, hard. “Cut it out!” he snapped. “I’m just tryin’ to get this off.”
Bran managed to grab her wrist with his free hand. “What’s the problem?” he asked Japeth.
“Damn thing’s locked or somethin’.”
Clarissa looked at Branson, eyes filled with hate. “So this is how you get your jollies?” she said. “You going to hold me down while this asshole rapes me?”
“He’s not going to rape you,” Bran said. “He can’t.”
“What do you mean, he can’t?” Clarissa demanded.
“It’s not important, okay?” Japeth said in an aggravated voice.
“He doesn’t…I mean they don’t…look, they’re not going to hurt you,” Branson said. “I promise.”
“And just why the hell should I trust you?” She pulled her head back and tried to spit at him, but her mouth was dry with terror and all that came out was a wet puh sound. She narrowed her eyes and dropped her voice to a savage whisper. “I hope you know what’s going to happen if you deliver me to Mario with as much as a scratch on me. Or”—she craned her head to try to look back at Japeth—“without clothes.”
“Who the hell’s Mario?” Japeth asked.
“I don’t know,” Bran said.
Ice Chest Page 11
