by Gayle Lynds
45
In notorious Southeast Washington, drugs and violence ruled the night. The motel where Elijah, Frank, and Palmer were waiting was not far from the Anacostia River in a less seedy but still treacherous area. As Elaine drove past, she noted the sign—MELODIE MOTEL—but the lights for the Me and I were broken. It now announced itself as the LOD E MOTEL. The VACANCY sign shone brightly.
She circled the block and pulled into the motel’s lot alongside four other cars. She recognized two from Ben Kuhnert’s place—Palmer’s was not among them. All four appeared empty.
Turning off the engine, she studied the one-story motel. It was built in the shape of an L. The operatives’ room—1D—was on the long wing, at the angle where the two parts of the motel met. Outdoor lamps were turned on above most of the doors, although the lights were feeble. Nothing illuminated 1D—either the bulb had died or someone had unscrewed it. Curtains were drawn across all of the windows.
She listened as she speed-dialed Elijah’s cell number. It rang and rang. No answer. She speed-dialed Frank’s and Palmer’s numbers. Again no answer. Finally she left a message on Palmer’s, telling him she was at the motel. She had heard no sound of ringing phones from the room. That could be because their cells were turned off or because the walls were extra-thick. She liked neither answer.
Cautiously she emerged from the Jag, but she did not lock it. Key in left hand, left elbow pressing her shoulder bag to her side, Walther in right hand, she approached the angle of the two buildings. Room 1D was on the right side. Traffic growled past behind her. A boom box set at high volume showered heavy metal music into the night.
Her senses burned with wariness. She knocked, heard a small sound to her left.
“Don’t turn, Elaine!” It was Palmer Westwood’s voice. “You can look at me, but don’t turn.”
Repressing a shiver, she gazed over her shoulder. Terror shot through her. Palmer was aiming a 9mm Browning with a sound suppressor at her, standing in the doorway of the room that was theoretically next to 1D but was actually ninety degrees away—a perfect angle to ambush her.
He closed the door quietly behind him. “I was right. Jay did warn you that you might be walking into trouble. I knew he’d figure it out. Lower your weapon—there’s no point in your shooting a hole in the door. You might wipe Elijah or Frank. Stop thinking! You don’t have a choice. Just do it! There’s a good girl. Lower it nice and slow.”
Jay sat at the computer in the big penthouse office, put on his glasses, and tried to read Ghranditti’s e-mail. It was password-protected. No surprise.
Raina pulled up a chair beside him. “What are you going to do?”
He loaded the CD of Litchfield and Alec’s conversations, copied it onto the machine, then into a file. “Contact someone who can tell us what they said.” He created a new Hotmail address and composed an e-mail to another Hotmail address—[email protected]. He attached the video of Litchfield and Alec then typed into the message box:
I need the time and place of an arms shipment. Need it yesterday. Check the attached conversation for it. I’ll try to wait here. Phone if I don’t respond to e-mail. We could already be too late.
As he sent it off, he dialed his cell and told Raina: “Don’t ask who I’m calling. Other people could be hurt.”
“Jay, please. You’re contacting Bobbye Johnson.” Surprised, he stared as she continued: “She’s the only other one who knows the full story.”
He gave a curt nod and spoke into the cell as soon as Bobbye answered: “You know who this is. There have been more developments.” He related the highlights of the high-tech shipment and what they had learned.
“Raina’s here with me now,” he said. “Do you have anything on Larry Litchfield yet?”
“He’s a sly sonofabitch,” Bobbye said, clearly angry. “He wants to fry my ass and steal my job. So far he’s doing a damn good job of both. Did you see yourself on the news this afternoon? Don’t bother to find a TV if you didn’t—it’ll only depress you. Larry forced me to go public with your escape.”
He swore, covering a stab of anguish. “I’ve e-mailed you video that Raina brought from Geneva. No audio. On it is a conversation between Larry and Alec St. Ann–he’s a Whippet op. I’m hoping they said something you can turn into gold. I don’t need to remind you to handle everything yourself.”
“No, you don’t, Jay. You can drop the spymaster crap with me. As far as I’m concerned, I’m still your boss.”
“Wishful thinking. No matter what happens, my government career is over.” Still, he found himself smiling at her gruff kindness.
“If I get something out of it, I’ll assign a team,” she said. “No! Don’t make a move yet. Let’s make sure we know what we’re dealing with. So far, it looks like only Larry and Whippet, but we have no guarantee. We want Ghranditti’s deal to hold together so we can roll up everyone at once.”
Controlling her fear, Elaine peered up into Palmer’s face. The raptor features were unemotional, but the faded eyes were bright and alive. His thick mane of white hair, always immaculately combed, was disheveled.
“You did miss the game, didn’t you, Palmer?”
“More than you’ll ever know. Lock your car.”
With a swift motion, she angled her wrist and punched the button. The flash of the car’s answering lights reflected off the motel’s window glass.
“Give me your cell. Carefully.”
She pulled it from her bag and handed it to him. “Going to call Jay? Going to tell him you’re Moses?”
He laughed and slid the cell into his pocket. “Open the door and go inside.”
She glanced at the door then at him.
“Do it!”
She turned the knob and pushed. A jolt of horror paralyzed her. As if from a great distance, she heard Palmer laugh again. Elijah lay in an ocean of blood on the bathroom’s cheap linoleum, the light glaring down as if showcasing him in some depraved department-store display. She swallowed bile. There was so much blood she had to believe he was dead.
Her gaze shifted. Frank sat on an upright wood chair beside the more distant of the two beds, trussed to it by duct tape tight across his chest and hips and thighs and legs. Another strip sealed his mouth. His eyes were savage with rage. He shook his head and struggled to speak, but all she heard was a mumble.
“Go in,” Palmer repeated. “Move!”
She stumbled over the threshold.
Palmer shoved her farther into the room and quickly locked the door. “See, Frank? I was right,” he said. “I told you she’d come. There was no way she’d be able to resist. Did you tell Jay where we were, Elaine? Come on, fess up.”
“Of course I did. He’ll be here soon.”
He cocked his head, considering. “Not soon enough. Sit on the bed! No, this one. You don’t need to be close to Frank. Where’s Jay?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. That’s the truth, Palmer. You know how he is. But I told him where I was—and where I was going to meet you!”
Palmer considered again. “Dial Jay’s number. Now!” He tossed her the cell.
She caught it. “No.”
He aimed his pistol at Frank’s heart. “I’m a crack shot. Say the wrong thing, and Frank joins Elijah on the bathroom floor. Tell Jay you weren’t able to find the motel. That you must’ve gotten the address wrong. Ask himwhere he is andwhathewants youtodo. If he doesn’tanswer, leave a message.”
She stared at Frank, at his helplessness. As if in slow motion, she laboriously tapped in Jay’s number. “It’s busy,” she told Palmer.
“I said to leave a message!”
She did: “Jay, I couldn’t find the motel. Please call back. Where are you? What do you want me to do now? I keep thinking about Palmer’s Leslie Howard story. You know, Palmer—”
He was at her side in an instant, snatching the cell from her hand, the gun steady on Frank. He punched the POWER button, turning it off. “I may be old, Elaine, but my brain works just fine. Stupi
d of you to try to give Jay a clue. And that was a stupid damn story about Howard anyway. I told it to Jay to make the point that grand gestures waste lives. Howard threw his life away.” He moved sideways toward Frank and ripped the duct tape off his mouth.
“Goddamn you Palmer all to hell!” Frank bellowed.
Palmer slashed the pistol across Frank’s mouth. Blood erupted. “Shut up!” As Elaine sprang off the bed, he swung the weapon around and pointed it at her. She sank back, and he glared. “Don’t count on a coronary getting rid of me, either. My heart’s as sound as Fort Knox. Sounder. Now, Frank”—he checked the seething operative—“this is your chance to save Elaine’s life. You made me wipe Elijah. Are you going to make me wipe her, too?” He peered at Elaine. “According to Frank’s cell, he and Jay were on the line long enough to actually talk. The cell also told me Frank phoned household security services then a keysmith. Ergo, he made a key for Jay.” He raised his voice only slightly, but it sounded like a cannon’s roar in the small room. “Where are Jay and Raina, Frank!”
“Don’t tell him!” Elaine said quickly. “They might be able to stop the shipment!”
Palmer sighed. “I don’t have the patience for this.” He fired. Elaine’s left hand was resting on the bed. The tip of her little finger detonated. Bits of flesh and bone sprayed her face and clothes. She screamed and grabbed her hand to her chest. The pain blistered. The end of her finger was gone. Hot blood poured down her arm, soaking her sleeve.
Palmer tossed her a handkerchief. “I said I was a good shot. And don’t think that scream will bring anyone. Around here, they’ll think someone’s just having good rough sex.”
Frank’s face was pale. Sweat coated it. He said nothing, but the fire was gone from his eyes.
Elaine tried to press the handkerchief against the wound, but the nerve endings sent black pain to her brain. She swallowed a sob. “I’ll scrub you, you fucking bastard, Palmer. First chance I get! I’ll scrub you myself!” Tears of pain oozed from her eyes as she wrapped the handkerchief around her hand to catch the blood. The raw flesh and exposed bone flamed and throbbed.
Palmer said calmly, “If Frank tells me where Jay and Raina are, I’ll let you take one of Elijah’s shoelaces to make a tourniquet. Still, I doubt you’ll bleed to death.” His icy glare landed on Frank, while the pistol remained trained on Elaine. “All right, Frank. This is it. If Jay is really on his way here, I’ve got no more time. How many corpses do you want me to leave in this room? Answer me! Where are Jay and Raina?”
Frank had the look of a man condemned. “All I know is I got a key to Martin Ghranditti’s penthouse for them.” He looked into Elaine’s eyes, pleading for her to understand as he told Palmer the address. “Go ahead, Palmer. Shoot.” He nodded.
“Thanks, Frank, but I hardly need your permission.” Palmer raised the silenced pistol and fired straight into the old operative’s heart.
Again blood geysered. Frank’s chest turned red as he jerked, his chin lifted, and he and the chair crashed back onto the thin carpet. His legs twitched and stopped.
“God, what a mess,” Palmer said. “All right, Elaine, kick your shoulder bag over here, then go get that shoelace. I’ve got a call to make.”
46
Ghranditti’s penthouse was quiet now except for the sound of Raina’s footfalls as she stalked around the office. As Jay ended his cell call with Bobbye Johnson, he turned in the chair to watch her stare out the wall of windows then turn toward the desk. She was as restless as a cheetah. She stopped beside Ghranditti’s contoured leather chair, her attention captured by something on his desktop.
She gave him a startled look. “Did you see this, Jay?”
He was beside her in an instant. She was focused on a photograph framed in sterling and standing on Ghranditti’s desk, her hand outstretched but apparently unable to make herself touch it. The photo was the only one there, and it showed a woman who looked so uncannily like Tice’s wife, Marie, that a sickening moment of déjà vu swept through him. But Marie had been dead nearly twenty years, and those were not their children. The man was about fifty, heavyset, and sleek in an oily sort of way.
Shaken, Jay said, “They’re posed like the last formal portrait Marie and I and our kids sat for.” The girl was leaning across her mother’s lap and peering up adoringly at her father. Between the parents and slightly behind stood a son. The third child was a little boy about two years old who played with a blanket at his father’s feet and looked into the camera with a sweet smile.
He could not tear his gaze away from the woman. The features were almost identical to Marie’s. The same height and age and even body build and eyes—green. Slightly unfocused, but definitely sea green, and the longer he studied her, the more sense it began to make in a completely insane way, because the woman sat as stiff as a piece of furniture, just the way Marie used to be the last few months of her life. She was drugged, as Marie was all of the time.
Jay dropped heavily into the desk chair and turned over the photo. Raina put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and leaned close so she could see, too. On the back was a date six months ago and names neatly printed in a list:
Martin Ghranditti
Marie Ghranditti
Aaron Ghranditti
Mariette Ghranditti
Kristoph Ghranditti
Rage seized Jay. His hands shook as if from palsy. He flipped the photo over and stared again. His family. But not his family. A charade, a farce, a travesty of the living and the dead. His eyes felt hollow. The feeling of violation was as sharp and deep as razor slices to his marrow. He wanted to terminate Martin Ghranditti. If Ghranditti were there, he would be dead.
Raina grabbed the picture and turned it over once more and looked at the list of names as if she could not believe what she had seen. “Kristoph! Kristoph is on his list. Ghranditti named his baby after Kristoph!”
“For some obscene reason that bastard has tried to steal our lives.”
“What does this mean!” she demanded. “Why did he do this?”
They gazed at each other. Bright red spots of fury radiated from her cheeks. Her eyes snapped. But there was a sense of illness around her mouth. She was sickened, too. It was not only thievery, it was a violation so intimate and cruel that it was almost unfathomable.
“Come here.” Jay stood and wrapped his arms around her.
She burst into tears on his shoulder. Trembling, he buried his face in her soft hair. They stood that way a long time, their grief for what they had lost and rage for what had been taken by subversion and violence felt like a bottomless pit, unassuagable.
In the shabby motel, Elaine gritted her teeth to keep from crying out in pain and from the sight of poor dead Elijah and Frank. Sitting on the bathroom floor, she worked to undo Elijah’s shoelace with her uninjured hand.
After calling in an anonymous tip to the police that Jay Tice had broken into Martin Ghranditti’s penthouse to hide, Palmer phoned Laurence Litchfield on a cell equipped with a compact voice modifier.
Dragging on a Pall Mall, he stalked back and forth. “Face it, Litchfield. Your people were incompetent. They couldn’t handle a simple job like capturing an old man and two women. Tice has been out of commission for three years. Cunningham’s no operative. And Raina Manhardt spends most of her time behind a desk now. Your failure doesn’t relieve you of your obligation to wire me the first half of my payment!”
Finally she had the shoelace. With her teeth and hand, she wrapped it around her pulsating finger and struggled to tie it, hoping to ease the raging hurt.
“What? Because Ghranditti’s people failed, you knew it wouldn’t be easy, so you weren’t going to pay me until yours succeeded?” His words were cold steel: “You’re smarter than that. You don’t want anyone to know you welshed on a deal with me. Here’s what you’re going to do. First, you’ll send people to make a couple of corpses look as if they died in a fight over drugs.” He gave him the motel’s name and address. “It’s Elijah Helprin
and Frank Mesa, and you can thank me that they’re no longer trying to turn you into cat food. Second, Cunningham’s with me, so if you want her, you’re going to send that first payment to the account number I gave you, and you’ll do it while I’m standing here talking to you. Otherwise, I’ll let her go.”
The shoelace tourniquet tied, she looked up in time to see a triumphant smile on his face. He was getting what he wanted.
“All right, I’ll check. Hold on.” He lowered the cell, touched buttons, watched the LED, and smiled more widely. He inhaled his cigarette. Then: “It’s there,” he told Litchfield. “Third, I’ve sent the police to arrest Tice and Manhardt. They’re at Ghranditti’s place. . . . I know, but it’ll be more amusing if the police succeed. If they do, you’ll wire me the second half of my funds. Since there’s risk attached to that, tell me where the shipment is, when ownership’s being transferred, and all of the details I need to get in. I’m going to do you the great favor of delivering Cunningham so you can dispose of her as you wish. We don’t want her found dead here, do we? That’d trigger questions that might lead back to you. A strong suggestion: If Tice gets away from the cops, you can damn well bet that one way or another the bastard will figure out where the shipment is leaving from, and he’ll go there. With Cunningham, you’ve got a hold over Tice. He’s crazy about her. Treats her like his own kid. Jealous, Litchfield?” He chuckled.
She staggered to her feet, judging the distance to her shoulder bag.
“Why will I deliver her? Because I can’t afford to leave details like Jay Tice living. But then, neither can you. I’ll phone just before we arrive. Have a couple of men waiting. I’ll drop her off. She won’t give you much trouble—she’s injured. Once all three of them are on the premises, I want the rest of my money. Agreed?”
