The Impala’s engine screamed. The Hino was thirty yards out. Ten. Its huge headlights shone directly through the shattered rear window, turning the interior of the Impala into high noon. The flatbed’s bumper nearly scraped crimson paint from my trunk before the nimbler Impala won the race and started to pull away.
They didn’t bother shooting at me. I would run out of road soon enough. We both flew down the straight narrow lane, rockets fired out of the same barrel.
The bulldozer blocked the road, directly ahead. A few dozen scant yards between me and the giant Hino now. Would it be enough?
I had to brake. They expected me to brake.
I kept it floored.
There was two feet of space between the bulldozer and the steep drop-off to the valley floor below. I wasn’t going to make it. I didn’t need to. Even if I rolled the Impala into the ditch ten feet below, it would be better than what the Hino would do to me.
I edged right. Aimed for the gap, and braced.
They must have guessed I was going to try to U-turn again. The Hino swerved left, ready to cut me off and mash me into a two-dimensional shape. Their swerve opened up an instant patch of night directly behind me, and I stomped the brakes so hard that the rear of the Impala nearly jumped into the air.
They realized their mistake, tried to veer the massive weight of the truck back to the right. It screamed past me, a hurricane inches away, and grazed my front fender, tearing it and my headlight off effortlessly. The Impala bucked like an angry horse. The Hino braked, far too late. Its tires clutched desperately at the asphalt, one long shriek of agony.
It must have only taken a second, at the speed the Hino was traveling, but I felt I had a year to watch with sick fascination. The flatbed’s taillights jumped. I saw it skid, tilt, farther and farther, until it toppled, still flying forward. The rear tires, suspended in midair, nearly touched the blade of the bulldozer.
And then the Hino was gone from view, an instant before a massive kettledrum boom that reverberated for miles down the valley.
My engine had stalled. I turned off the Impala’s surviving headlight and jumped from the car, gun in hand. The road was still deserted. I looked over the edge.
The Hino lay on its right side. Its thunderous path had ripped a swath of earth from the slope of the embankment and torn through an old barbed-wire fence. One of the strands of wire was still looped tight around a left rear wheel. The truck’s headlights shone on, illuminating a storm of terrified insects and debris light enough to still be floating back to earth.
That wasn’t the worst of it. The massive concrete pipes had snapped their restraints, scattering and embedding themselves in the ditch. And elsewhere. I climbed down the embankment.
No movement from the Hino’s cab. I wasn’t expecting any.
Some of the pipes had slammed forward. The metal safety barrier at the front of the truck’s bed had never been designed to handle that kind of crushing impact. There was barely a square foot of the Hino’s upper cab that remained undamaged.
I looked anyway. The passenger’s head and torso were out of sight under one of the pipes, mashed between it and the door. I’d seen worse damage to human bodies. Not often. I’d be happy if I never saw it again.
Marshall’s body was more intact, at least enough for me to identify his burly shape. I climbed up the truck, its headlights casting my giant shadow into the field beyond.
From the top, I could reach down into Marshall’s sport coat. The coat and his shirt were drenched with blood and more. He had a shoulder holster with a Beretta Nano, just like Boule carried. Maybe Ingrid got a bulk deal. I set the gun and his wallet on the crushed bowl of the driver’s door and used my penlight to look more closely.
The Beretta’s barrel smelled of burnt powder. I checked the magazine. One bullet light. I knew who had caught it.
A royal blue magnetic keycard was tucked in with Marshall’s credit cards, and a bag check tag in similarly colored plastic. Both were marked with the ornate crest of the Olympian Heights. A downtown hotel. The downtown hotel. Too ritzy for hired help like Marshall.
Ingrid Ekby, however. She was just the sort of clientele the Olympian cultivated.
Time for me to see how the other half lived. Or died.
Thirty-Five
The lobby of the Olympian Heights reached valiantly for the limits of tasteful ornamentation. Where a newer and hipper hotel might have gone for sleek minimalism, every wooden surface of the Olympian was carved, every surface gilded, and the Persian-inspired carpets were soft enough to absorb every click of Vuitton heels without disturbing the hushed ambiance.
Even by Seattle’s indifferent dress codes, my stained jeans and torn leather jacket were going to attract attention from the hotel staff if I lingered. A group of businessmen piled out of a taxi van, airport baggage tags still on their luggage. I used the disorganized bunch for cover as they struggled with the revolving door, and crossed to the elevators.
I didn’t know Ingrid Ekby’s floor, or which room. But she was very rich, and always had been. Accustomed to the best. I swiped on the elevator pad the keycard I’d taken off Marshall’s body, and tried the brass button for the top floor, north of the twelfth. It was marked E. Probably for Executive, or Elite. As much dough as Ingrid had, I doubted they had renamed the floor just for her.
The letter glowed a bright cheery red in reply. E for Execution.
I endured twenty seconds of light jazz before the elevator opened again, revealing a hallway that was the visual version of the jazz, a study in calming neutrals. Only two doors on the hall, spaced very wide. Suites, or penthouses.
I’d try the left door first, 1401. I had made it twenty steps in that direction when the door latch clunked, and I slipped sideways into the ice machine room. The steady hum of the machine covered any sound as I wedged myself behind it.
Tamas Fekkete walked past the room.
I was so stunned to see him, I doubted my eyes, and quickly moved to risk a glance down the hall at his retreating figure. It was him, no question, all the way up to his bald pate. He had changed clothes since EverCon, into another tracksuit, this one orange. He carried one of the plain canvas duffels that had held the gold bars. It looked light. That was all I had time to register before he was gone again. I heard the elevator ding and the doors open and close.
Fekkete wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even Ingrid’s prisoner.
What the hell was happening?
I moved down the hallway and peered through the peephole of 1401. Light shone from within. Ingrid was sure to have Boule with her, and maybe a second bodyguard.
I rapped softly on the door. Waited until a shadow crossed the light at the peephole. Tapped the keycard on the lock. It beeped, and I shouldered the door open fast and stuck the S&W under Boule’s nose, his hand still reaching for the latch.
“Don’t,” I whispered, as that same hand twitched toward his belt. He wore a suit in muted green plaid, no tie, and his hair was glossy with product. I reached under his jacket to carefully divest him of his Beretta, and checked him for a backup piece.
I spun him around and shoved him into the room. “Walk.”
We could have played half-court basketball in the sitting area of the suite. Bedroom doors off to its left, and a wet bar and full dining area and kitchen to the right. Maybe the Olympian provided a personal chef.
On the fifth step Boule’s weight shifted, tensing for the pivot I knew was coming. I kicked him hard at the base of his spine. He fell to land with a painful thump on his side. His head missed the glass coffee table by an inch.
Ingrid Ekby appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. She looked even better inside than she had in bright daylight. She wore a black silk tunic, belted at the waist. Her sleek hair was brushed straight back to fall below her shoulders.
She briefly glanced at Boule, before turning her freezing gaze at me.
“Scum,” she said.
I tapped Boule on the sole of his leather oxford with my b
oot. “You. Crawl under the table and stay there.”
Boule didn’t move. Just stared at me, his hero’s jaw tight with fury. I raised the heavy S&W, ready to bring it down on his head.
“Ellis,” Ingrid said. Boule looked at her and she nodded. He gave me one last glare before starting to wedge himself between the curved gold legs of the coffee table.
“Why did you let Fekkete go?” I said to Ingrid.
“You should care more about yourself. Coming here was a mistake.” She could have been speaking to a board of directors, not at all concerned that an armed man had burst into her five-star suite to threaten her.
“Murdering Corcoran was the mistake. How did you find him?”
Her brilliant blue eyes flashed to Boule, back again.
“We didn’t kill him,” she said.
I touched the barrel of the gun to her forehead.
“You won’t shoot,” she said.
“Try reaching your men at the farmhouse. Then tell me I’m bluffing,” I said.
For the first time, Ingrid looked uncertain. At three inches, she couldn’t miss the flecks of blood still staining my fingernail beds, left after a hasty wiping of Marshall’s gore from my hands.
“It’s the truth,” Boule said. “She didn’t order anyone’s death.”
Half-answers. I was fed up with those, even from myself. I walked over to where he lay under the coffee table, picked up a throw pillow from the gold chenille couch, and pinned his knee to the floor with the pillow by pressing the muzzle of the S&W into it.
“Corcoran had the gold,” I said. “Fekkete just walked out of here, carrying gold. Fill in every blank, or I’ll see how many limbs you’re willing to live without.”
“The fence,” Boule said, words racing each other out of his mouth. “We found the gold through the fence. We put word out to anybody who might make a deal for the gold, weeks ago. Told them we were potential buyers. In case any more bars turned up on the market.”
Smart. If April’s partner Fekkete had a stash of other kilobars, apart from what the hunters had found in the safe, they might have captured Fekkete when he tried to sell them.
“The fence called Marshall last night,” Boule said. “There was a meeting set for today.”
“You already had Fekkete by then. What were you after?”
Ingrid spoke before Boule could. “I told Marshall to go. I wanted to make sure you were working alone.”
Boule winced as I pressed down on his knee. “Marshall came back with half of the gold, one red suitcase. He said the fence had refused to tell them who the seller was, or whether the other half would be coming. That he drew on them.”
“And Marshall told you they were forced to kill the fence. You bought that?”
Ingrid managed to make a shrug look elegant. “I accepted the fact that Marshall might have taken the rest of the gold for himself. If he had, it would be easy enough to confront him later. I had other concerns.”
“Now I’m one of them. Marshall lied to you about more than the fence. There was no gold at the meeting. They killed the fence in cold blood, and forced my friend to take them to where we’d stashed the gold. Then they murdered him.”
“Do you want an apology? You are a thief. Your friend was a thief. I honored our deal. Fekkete for the gold, and for Michael O’Hasson.”
I could have gone with Jimmy to meet the fence. Would I have been able to save him if I had? Or would I have wound up sealed in Hollis’s smuggling compartment right next to him?
“Where’s the gold?” I said.
“Not here,” said Ingrid.
In quick succession I walked through every room, keeping an eye on both of them as I searched. The red suitcase wasn’t here, and neither were the canvas bags full of kilobars.
I couldn’t take their lives. And apparently I couldn’t steal their gold.
But I could steal their revenge.
“Who are you calling?” Ingrid said.
“Sledge City Gym. Somebody there will care that Fekkete’s walking around loose.”
“No,” she said immediately.
How about that. Actual emotion from the ice queen.
“Give me a reason,” I said.
“I need him. I’ll pay you.” She vibrated with sudden intensity. The change was startling.
“You’ve sung that song before.”
“The gold is in the hotel vault. I promised it to Fekkete. He has two bars to show as proof that he has more.”
“Ingrid,” Boule said from the floor.
“I’ll get you an equal amount,” she said. Making fists so tight, her nails must be cutting her palms. “But you must help us.”
“Proof for who?” I said.
She didn’t answer. I pressed Send and put the phone to my ear.
“Joe Slattery,” she said, like the words were razors on her tongue.
I paused, and cut the call. “Joe’s dead.”
Ingrid made a sound closer to a raven’s caw than a human laugh. “God, I wish. I’ve wanted nothing but his death for my entire life, it seems.”
“He disappeared twenty years ago. More.”
“He had to. Because my father—the great goddamn Karl Ekby—would have cut a hole in his belly and taken a week pulling out his intestines with fish hooks.”
“Why?”
She looked at me as if the gun in my hand didn’t exist, as if she was giving serious thought to tearing my throat out with her pearly teeth.
“Ingrid,” Boule said again. His tone was tender. I remembered what Lorenzo had told me.
There were whispers about the brothers. Bad rumors. Beating the living hell out of women. Raping them.
Ingrid’s veneer of calm reformed, like a thin sheet of water freezing and smoothing cracks on an icy lake. She turned and walked to the wet bar and began to rinse her hands at the sink.
“You,” I said. “You and Joe. That’s what this is about.”
She dried her hands on the cotton bar towel, delicately, like dabbing a wound. Her makeup was still perfect. Her posture was straighter than ever.
“Me and Joe,” she said. “We are tied together, aren’t we? Maybe it will always be like that.”
“Back in Los Angeles,” I guessed, “when the Slatterys worked for Karl.”
“I was barely fifteen. Joe had seen me, just once. I was late leaving my father’s offices and the Slatterys came. They upset me, even then. They were frightening men.”
She stepped back into the center of the room. Reclaiming her position of power.
“A month later, Joe took me right off the street near my school and into the trees. It was—it seemed like a very long time. Hours. I think he meant to kill me when he was through using me. I was an object to him. He was—crooning—more and more. Building up to it.
“When I realized that I was going to die, I remembered to fight, like waking from a trance. I bit him. In the neck. So hard that when he threw me off of him his first thought was to stop the blood before catching me, and I ran. I escaped.”
Boule and I watched Ingrid. She might have been reading a newspaper listing, for all of the emotion her voice conveyed. But her eyes were unfocused, lost to the past.
“I cannot forget,” she said. “I cannot move on. Not until.”
“Did you ever believe he was dead?”
“Oh no. I could not hide what had happened. My face, my body—both required surgery. When Karl went looking, Gar told him that Joe had run. Karl did not believe him. He asked Gar very hard with a lot of pain, but Gar insisted. One of the Slattery trucks was missing. Stayed missing. There was no sign of Joe. Karl let Gar live, to watch him. He had the Slatterys under his thumb for months. Found the banks and the deposit boxes where they hid their money. Then the truck reappeared.”
“With Joe’s blood,” I said.
“And marks of gunfire. Karl was satisfied. I was not. Later, when Gar went to prison and April disappeared herself, I was even more certain that Joe was alive somewhere. But I h
ad no resources. Not at that age. I hounded my father. He broke down and explained how he kept watch on the Slatterys’ old deposit boxes. Trying to reassure me.”
“Instead, he just gave you a focus,” I said.
“April stayed hidden. After my father died, I looked. My private investigators couldn’t find her. I was half-convinced that she had died herself, anonymously in some backwater town, and that my only option was to wait until Gar Slattery was released from prison and follow him to Joe.”
“Let me guess. April reappeared.”
“She emptied one of the old deposit boxes. The clerk called us and earned ten thousand dollars, just by getting pictures of her and her car.”
“And you paid her a visit.”
Ingrid didn’t answer.
“She must have been pretty tough,” I said, looking at Boule. “Your men got her to spill about the safe and the gold. But she wouldn’t give up Joe. Just like Gar wouldn’t, when Karl tortured him.”
“The Slatterys are strong,” Ingrid said. “They still die.”
Strong, and cunning. Joe was alive. Nearby. I believed Ingrid was right about that part. Hell, I might have already seen him. Someone like Joe Slattery would want to be where he could move the pieces on the board, control his men while staying under wraps.
“April told your men about Fekkete, too?” I asked.
“Szabo, his name used to be. I remembered him from my father’s trial. A distinctive man. I knew he had worked with Karl at the same time as the Slatterys. If he was April’s partner, then I was certain he must have some idea where Joe is now. But he vanished before we could find him.”
“So you set the trap at the safe. Hoping to catch Joe, or at least Fekkete.”
Ingrid nodded minutely, acknowledging her failed gambit. “One of the last things April confessed was the alarm she had installed in her safe. It was simple enough to use it for our own purposes.”
“And you sent Marshall to the fence today on the off chance it was Joe selling the gold and not me. Strikeouts, both times. You’ve got bad luck, lady.”
“Fekkete will bring Joe to me. I will finish this.”
Every Day Above Ground Page 25
