by Thomas Perry
Did she mean the cover was no good? She must. But that they wouldn’t be able to run. He said, “Okay, now let me in the bathroom.” He picked up his toothbrush and toothpaste and headed for the door. She stepped aside and said, “All right, but save the shower for morning, okay?”
He froze in the doorway, not believing at first what he knew he felt. She had stopped brushing her hair. He looked at her eyes, which now held an approximation of a coquettish half-lidded sidelong glance, but there was behind it a kind of terror. The hand that held the hairbrush was trembling. He didn’t bother to look down at the hand that was fondling his genitals.
He smiled and said, huskily, “Jesus, I think I’ll get that recipe myself. Give some to the girls at the office.”
Maureen turned and slipped away, and tossed the hairbrush on the table. As he brushed his teeth, he looked around him with an air of casual curiosity. The only thing that looked like a possibility was that there was no medicine cabinet. The mirror was attached directly to the wall. She had made a point of the shower. Was there something in it? Better not look. But it didn’t make any sense. If there were a camera and microphones, they would be trained on the bed. And they would both have to be there in a minute.
When he returned to the bedroom he was still confused, not knowing where to look. He was afraid that his eyes would rest on the spot, and they would know he was looking for something. Then he wondered if they would notice he was moving his eyes around too much. Only Maureen was safe to look at. She was sitting on the bed with her legs tucked under her, still brushing her hair with her left hand and smiling faintly to herself. He picked up his coat and started to hang it on the chair next to the bed. It had to be near, or he would never reach the Beretta in time. Maureen was busily turning back the covers, when she seemed to notice him again. She said, “Mind if I check our finances?”
“Not at all,” he answered, and she sat back on the bed and whisked the coat to her. She fumbled for a moment in the pockets, then found the wallet. She dropped it on the floor. As she leaned down to pick it up, keeping the other hand on the bed for balance, he thought he saw a swift movement under the coat. Then both hands reappeared and she was peering into the wallet, moving her lips as though counting.
“Not bad,” she said. “We should be okay at least until we get to Miami. Then we can use the traveler’s checks.”
“That’s what I figure,” he said. Miami. What else was there to say? He engaged himself in unbuttoning his shirt.
She tossed his coat back to him. When he caught it he was sure. The gun was gone. “How about my wallet?” he said, and she tossed it to him. He set it on the nightstand and continued to undress. Somehow his mind resisted. For some reason his alarm had eddied and swirled around inside him and had finally solidified as a reluctance to be trapped naked. Yet he knew that the surest way to convince whoever Maureen thought was watching that he was something out of the ordinary was to remain fully dressed. He knew Maureen must have slipped the gun into the bed somewhere, but now she was on the other side of the room, rummaging in her purse.
For a moment he was terrified. She couldn’t reach the gun, and he would need precious seconds to find it. If she had seen something, what—but then he remembered the gun in her purse. She hadn’t forgotten. She was standing guard over him until he could get into the bed and find the pistol. He quickly finished undressing and slipped in between the cool, fresh sheets. He pretended to stretch, and in one motion grasped the Beretta in his left hand and pulled it down next to his thigh. Then he lay on his back with his arms folded behind his head, looking at Maureen.
She moved to her suitcase, then took out a filmy white negligee. He had forgotten about that—that it was her turn now, and it must be harder for her. If someone was watching, it was a man. He resolved to make it easier for her if he could. He turned out the lamp beside him, leaving only the one on her side. If she wanted that out, she could turn it off easily and naturally. He said, “What do you think we ought to do first in Florida? I mean besides shopping.”
“I thought you were so excited about going deep-sea fishing,” she said, looking at him as she began to unbutton her blouse.
“Yeah,” he said. “But what about you? What will you do while I’m out there hauling in the big ones?” He wanted to keep her talking, busy playing the part until the hardest moments were over and she could slip into bed and pretend to sleep. He tried not to stare as the blouse came off and she stepped out of the skirt.
She looked into his eyes from across the room, her lips turned up in a little smile as though she knew what he was thinking and thanked him for his two contradictory wishes. “Oh, I’m going with you,” she said as she reached behind her and unhooked her bra. “I’m the bait.” As she spoke she shrugged it down off her shoulders, and he couldn’t help watching her firm round breasts jiggle slightly, the pink nipples standing out like tight little buds. When she slipped the silk underpants down her thighs he tried unsuccessfully to keep his eyes off the dark triangle of hair.
He said, “And what if the fish don’t like girl meat?”
She stopped in the middle of reaching for the wisp of nightgown, smiled again, and said, “Then there’s always the fisherman.” He could feel himself blush hotly as he realized that she was looking at the place where the thin covers rose over his erect penis.
She stepped to the bed in time to stop him as he reached across to turn out the other light. “Leave it on tonight,” she said. As he started to turn she was already pressing against him, sprawled atop the covers, kissing his neck and giggling. She began to claw back the blanket, and he understood. She actually intended to go through with it. He snatched her wrist and said, trying to make it sound like a joke, “Wait a minute, Miss. I’m a married man.”
She held his face in both her hands, still smiling her false smile, but her eyes opened wide in a kind of pleading. She said, “I know it. And if you don’t start acting like one you won’t live until morning.”
He pressed himself to her, fondling her breast and kissing her deeply. She gently drew him on top of her, one hand clenching and unclenching on his back, and the other moving about under the covers. When she had found the gun he knew it. The hand stopped and she opened her legs. And then he was inside her, feeling at once the warm moistness of her, and the cold, hard impression of the gun on his leg. She began to give low, whispered cries, and kicked back the covers, keeping only one side veiled.
Whenever he opened his eyes, he could see her open eyes rolling about, as though in a kind of rapture. Her cries were coming more quickly now, and she moved almost with violence, her head rocking from side to side. He could see nothing but her head on the pillow beneath his, her hair spread like a flaming halo about it. At last the lids came down and she shuddered. A real orgasm, he thought. For a moment he was lost in the surprise of it, but he forgot it as her hips began to move again. He looked down at her face. There were tiny beads of perspiration now on her upper lip. Again she was moving her head from side to side. Finally her eyes narrowed for an instant before closing and they were both lost, falling weightless as the throbbing pressure exploded out of him.
For a moment they lay still, and her hand flattened on his back, while the other moved down it, then stopped. The hand raised slightly, and he heard the deafening bark of the pistol and felt a flash of heat. In an instant he had rolled clear, and found himself crouching like a wrestler beside the bed. At the foot of it he saw the figure of a man standing with an expression of pained surprise on his face, his eyes bulging and his mouth hanging open. As the figure tottered, two more shots slammed into his chest and he toppled backward like a felled tree.
“Shit,” he muttered, and looked at Maureen, who was still pointing the pistol under the covers, where there was now a singed and smoking black hole. She said, “See if he’s dead.”
He bent over the body, but there was no uncertainty. There was no pulse, no heartbeat, no breathing. It was as though the thing on the rug had been p
art of the furniture of the unfamiliar room, or a bit of luggage left there by a slovenly porter. He looked at the face, frozen in its instant of outraged amazement. Then he said, “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. He looked up to see that she was already at her suitcase, taking out a fresh set of clothes. She turned to him and said, “But we’d better make him disappear.”
He began to dress. “Not much point in that,” he said. “It’ll slow us down, and it won’t help.”
“What do you mean?” she said. “We can’t just leave a—”
But he interrupted her. “I knew him.”
24“Twelve five P.M., Tuesday, February 20, Las Vegas: Subject Vincent Toscanzio. At 11:50 subject boarded TWA flight 921 for Chicago. He was accompanied by three persons: One registered as William Capell, positive ID Guillermo Montani. Others listed as Daniel Chesire and Richard Greene not identified. Photography will be forwarded to Justice.
“2:30 P.M., Tuesday, February 20, Las Vegas: Subject Carlo Balacontano. At 1:30 subject boarded private aircraft at McCarron Airport. Aircraft took off at 1:45. Flight plan filed for Nutley, New Jersey. No ETA.
“9:15 A.M., Monday, February 19, Palm Springs: Subject Antonio Damonata, AKA Tony Damon. Subject checked out of Royal Palms Hotel at 7:00 A.M. Wife, Marie Damonata, took Sun Aire connecting flight to Los Angeles, 8:30 A.M. and Pan American flight 592 at 9:50 A.M. Destination Miami, Florida. Subject and two other men in Cadillac El Dorado, Blue, California license 048 KPJ, left vicinity at 8:35, probable destination Los Angeles.
“5:40 P.M., Monday, February 19, Miami: Subject Marie Damonata arrived Miami airport flight 592. Flight was met at 5:20 by four men. One positive ID Martin Damonata, son of Marie and Antonio Damonata. One probable ID Stephen LaTona.”
That was enough, thought Elizabeth. Brayer was right, and the last one clinched it. What the others were doing might have been open to question, but Tony Damon was scared to death. The murder of Castiglione had stirred them all up, and now they were on the move, scurrying back to their strongholds and getting the women out of sight.
It was coherent, she thought. Everywhere it was the same. The news had traveled quickly. “Five eighteen P.M., Tuesday, February 20, Seattle: Subject Joseph Vortici. Vortici has not left his home since Sunday, February 18. Vortici’s children have not been in school.”
They were all waiting for the next thing to happen, and it was clear they all expected it to be ugly. She put down the sheaf of reports and walked to the window. Las Vegas was a strange place. Even this building, FBI headquarters, felt like some sort of temporary structure thrown up in the middle of the desert. One-story, cinder blocks painted government green, an air conditioner every few yards. The only buildings that looked as if they were built by people who intended to stay were the giant hotels and casinos clustered around Las Vegas Boulevard like dinosaurs crowding up to drink at a stream. It was ludicrous, really. It was everything that everyone had always told her. What had Brayer called it? “A monument to the Mafia’s ability to cater to the lowest forms of lust in the souls of the American people; to give the suckers what they want. It’s the biggest joke that’s ever been played on the United States.” “Take a good look at it,” he’d said. “You’ll learn something. It’ll show you why the best we can ever hope to do is yap at their heels.” It was true. It wasn’t a regular city. All around were the most bizarre and outlandish temptations to do things you couldn’t do at home—eat too much, drink too much, stare at naked bodies in feathers and sequins, but mostly, gamble. But you had to admit there was something about it. It wasn’t exactly beautiful. It was—dazzling. For all intents and purposes, a place that grew up overnight, the night Bugsy Siegel arrived in 1946. Vanity Fair. If John Bunyan could have seen it he would have recognized it.
“Miss Waring.” She turned and saw it was the local FBI division chief. It was the first time she’d seen him since the meeting in the hotel. Where had he been?
“Yes?” she said.
“These gentlemen are agents Grove and Daly from Justice.” He left the office and closed the door.
She waited for them to say something, but they were busy pulling out chairs for themselves and shuffling papers in their briefcases. They looked vaguely familiar. She had probably seen them some time in a Justice hallway. She smiled and said, “What can I do for you?”
Grove said, “Miss Waring, we’re from Internal Security. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
She struggled to hold the smile, but she knew it must be fading. “Sure. What about?”
Daly, a chubby man with thick glasses and a crew cut, spoke first. “It’s about the incident concerning Fieldston Growth Enterprises. Please sit down.” He sounded kind, soothing, almost the way some men did who had always been chubby and worn thick glasses.
Grove cleared his throat, and she suddenly realized that this was going to be something she wouldn’t like. The men were distinctly uncomfortable. “To the best of your knowledge, who knew you had been ordered to serve a warrant on Fieldston Growth Enterprises?”
“John Brayer, of course,” she said. “The FBI. There were two Bureau auditors, but I didn’t get to meet them. I suppose the local FBI division head, the man who was just here. And there were two or three agents on surveillance at FGE.” Grove scribbled on a yellow legal-size notepad.
He said, “Who else?” He seemed to know the answer.
She remembered. “The presiding judge and I suppose his staff.”
He repeated, “Anyone else?”
This time she was sure. “Nobody I know of.”
Daly spoke up. His eyes looked apologetic behind the round magnifying lenses—big, sad, puppy eyes. “Please try harder to remember, Miss Waring.” It seemed to be very important to him. “Did you mention it to anyone? Family? A boyfriend, maybe?”
“No, of course not,” she said. “I spoke to no one.”
He smiled. “All of us who work in this field deal with a hundred details every day, a lot of them sensitive. We’d never intentionally reveal anything, but sometimes we make—” he paused, then chose “errors. Maybe we have plans that have to be cancelled due to our responsibilities at Justice.” What in the hell was he getting at?
He smiled again. “You know. You get a call from the boss—your Mr. Brayer, and then you have to break a date. My wife has gotten used to it, but believe me,” he chuckled, “it took many years.”
She saw it coming, but had to wait. He said, “You call your boyfriend and say, ‘Sorry, can’t go. I’ve got to serve a warrant.’ ”
Elizabeth said, coldly, “I just told you I spoke to no one. I have an excellent memory. Now tell me what’s going on.”
This time Grove answered. He was a large man about fifty years old, with small, sharp eyes and a broad, expressionless face. “We’re here to find out why the people you’re investigating seem to know in advance what the next move is. Your superiors consider you bright and perceptive, Miss Waring. Surely that must have crossed your mind.”
“Yes,” she admitted. In fact it had kept her awake until after two last night, but she wasn’t going to tell him.
His expression didn’t change. He said, “Well, it occurred to Mr. Connors too. He’s asked us to find the problem.”
She wondered whether she would be able to keep herself under control. Her head was beginning to throb. “And so you’re asking me.”
He nodded. “And so we’re asking you.”
She said quietly, “But I don’t know. I was just told to do it, and when I got a call from the two agents—but they weren’t agents, were they?—I served the subpoena. I spoke to no one.”
Daly said, “Do you have any suggestions for us, Miss Waring?” So there it was: the chance to serve as the anonymous accuser. “We’re not making much progress.” The methods of interrogators were always the same.
“No,” she said. “I only know I’m not the one. I don’t have any idea how they know what to do or when to do it. It might
be they just figured it out. I was the agent in the open. I’d been to FGE the day before and gotten nowhere. The next logical move was to audit their records. Maybe they just put the pieces together.”
The two were already standing up and putting their notepads away.
Elizabeth felt a sudden desperation. She knew it was part of their craft, that they were trained to make her tell them things because she wanted to know what they knew, but she couldn’t help herself. “Wait,” she said. “Whom else are you talking to?”
Daly’s chubby face turned to her in a look of bright hope. “All of the agents, I suppose. The judge and his staff. Are we missing someone?”
She said, “No, I don’t think so.” Watching them leave, she regretted having said anything.
Elizabeth shut the door and dialed Brayer’s room at the Sands. When he answered she said, “John, I’ve just been grilled by two men from—”
He interrupted, “I know, I know. Internal Security. Don’t let it bother you. They’re looking for a leak.”
“I know they’re looking for a leak,” she said in frustration. “But I’m not it.”
“No,” said Brayer, “and neither am I. But I had to put up with it too, and so does everyone else.”
“Then it’s not because I was the one who—”
“No, dammit,” he said. “It isn’t. So forget it. I’ve got things going on here and I can’t take the next hour to hold your hand. So get back to work.”
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“More killings.” He hung up.
ELIZABETH SAT WITH THE DEAD TELEPHONE in her hand. The field reports were still in a pile on the table, set aside to make room for the Internal Security men. But killings. Brayer had said killings. That made the field reports obsolete, she thought. Half of them were more than twelve hours old. The petty chieftains had been running for cover for two days. By now some of them could be anywhere—given twelve hours Damon could be in Hong Kong. Or dead. But Elizabeth had been assigned to the field reports, and the only way back into Brayer’s good graces was to do what you were told. And she had been told to analyze the field reports. But how did Brayer know there had been killings? She picked up the pile of reports and leafed through them quickly. They were almost uniform. There were no reports of murders among them, just the opposite: what she held in her hand were thirty or forty individual ways of saying that nothing was happening. If there were killings, Brayer hadn’t gotten the information from the field, because as soon as a call came in, the typescript was run off and distributed to everyone on the case. Her heart stopped. Oh, God, she thought. Was it the mistake or the suspicion that she was the security leak?
