Phineas Troutt Series - Three Thriller Novels (Dead On My Feet #1, Dying Breath #2, Everybody Dies #3)

by J. A. Konrath

  I wasn’t wearing a jacket, so McGlade gave me his to muffle the sound of the drill. He wasn’t too thrilled.

  “Don’t get shit all over it,” he said. “It’s Pierre Cardin.”

  I made the first hole about two feet up. When it was deep enough, I tried screwing in the tree step. The hole was too small, and the step wouldn’t twist through brick. I used the drill to widen the hole slightly, and then the step fit in, but my hand got cramped fighting the rock.

  The next hole I made four feet from the ground, about a foot and a half to the left of the first step. After widening and putting in the step, I made the third hole six feet off the ground, directly above the first one. In went the tree step. The start of a simple, staggered ladder.

  Now came the hard part. Gravity was an unforgiving mistress, and a body clinging to a wall had the tendency to pull away from it. I put my right foot on the first step, got a hand hold on the third step, and pulled my left foot to the second step. But in order for me to drill a hole for the fourth step, Harry had to push up on my ass so I didn’t fall down.

  “Wow, I didn’t expect you to be this muscular,” he said.

  “Hold still. And stop squeezing.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s like two melons in a sack.”

  The fourth hole was hardest to do, not only because I had to drill left-handed, but because standing and balancing on the tree steps took all of my muscle control and concentration.

  When I got it in, I told McGlade to shove me really hard. When he did, I got my foot up to the third step, and then my hand on the second story window sill. Pulling myself up, I reached the fourth step, shielded my eyes with my free hand, squinting into the dark room, seeing only curtains. Looking at the window itself, I noted it had been wired with foiling. The windows on the first floor hadn’t been foiled. This was encouraging.

  “Throw up Little Elvis,” I whispered down to Harry.

  “Why? Did you see me eat him?”

  “Just hand him up here, McGlade.”

  “Get it? I have to eat him before I can throw him up. C’mon Phin. That’s funny.”

  “I’m laughing inside. Hurry up.”

  McGlade tossed the hamster, and I caught him and placed our sidekick next to the window.

  No crazy behavior.

  “We’re clear,” I told McGlade. Then I handed the hamster back to him and lowered myself down a step, spending twenty minutes drilling six more holes. For the two I drilled on either side of the window, McGlade had to climb up a step himself to hold me up. When I was finished, I had two tree steps to stand on, two steps in the holes on both sides of the window, and one step above the left upper corner of the window as a hand hold. Using a rope, I hooked one end on the tree step on the left side of the window, looped it around my back and through my armpits, and tied the other end to the tree step on the right.

  Now I could stand comfortably facing the window, and the rope kept me from falling away from the wall.

  “Throw up the glazier stuff,” I told Harry.

  “I haven’t eaten the…”

  “Just throw it up, McGlade.”

  He tossed the pack up to me and I set about covering the edges of the window with duct tape.

  The principle behind window foiling was that a crack in the glass would trigger the alarm. A thin, one inch strip of foil is glued around the perimeter of the glass. Two terminals are placed on either ends of the foil, and then recessed somewhere within the frame. The foil, now attached to the central alarm system, acted as a closed circuit. Since it is so thin, the slightest crack in the glass will cause the foil to split, breaking the circuit and setting off the alarm.

  But with duct tape used to reinforce the glass, and a diamond tipped glass cutter and a glazier’s suction cup, I could remove a circle of glass from the center of the window without disturbing the foiling.

  The work was slow and meticulous. After three layers of duct tape, I softly pressed the suction cup to the window.

  Then, with infinite care, I traced around the suction cup with my glass cutter.

  “How you doing? I’m bored.”

  “Shh.”

  Every dozen circles, I gave the suction cup a tap with my finger, listening for the telltale tinkle of glass breaking.

  “I’ve got a little rumbly in my tumbly,” Harry said. “You feel okay?”

  “Shh.”

  After several minutes of cutting and tapping, the circle came out in one piece, the rest of the window intact.

  Heated air pushed through the hole, feeling good on my cold face. I parted the curtains with a finger and peered into the dark room. Empty.

  “Took you long enough,” said McGlade.

  I shushed him, then took out the liquid compass in the glazier bag. Window foiling was commonly coupled with a magnetic switch, which would trip if the window were raised. It worked on the same circuit principle as the foiling. The switching mechanism was a spring-loaded lever that made contact with a stationary metal arm when a companion magnet was near. When the magnet, recessed in the window, was pulled away from the switch, the lever was released from the stationary arm and the circuit was broken, causing the alarm.

  The compass showed me there was a magnet in the window, in the bottom right hand corner. Taking a powerful Neodymium-Iron-Boron magnet from the pack, I stuck my hand through the hole I’d just made and placed it on the housing that held the spring loaded lever. This magnet, which was only wafer thin but had a lifting power of ten pounds, should hold the switch closed when I opened the window.

  “You almost done?” asked McGlade.

  I grimaced, holding my side. Earl, who I’d been ignoring the last few hours, was feasting, almost doubling me over. My legs were beginning to shake from standing on the tree steps, and my hands ached.

  I reached my arm through the hole, undid the latch, and took a deep breath.

  “Here’s where we find out if my misspent youth pays off,” I thought.

  Then I opened the window.

  The window opened without incident.

  “Meet me at the front door,” I told McGlade.

  I unhooked the rope and climbed in through the open window, my cramped muscles sighing in relief. We were in, but the alarm system was still active. Before walking through the house with any impunity, we’d have to disarm the system. And doing that meant finding the master control panel.

  I viewed my surroundings, noting that I was in some kind of bedroom. The lights were off, and the door was closed.

  I pulled a penlight from my pocket and took a quick glance around. There was a canopied bed on one side of the room, with a bureau and a desk, and on the other side a large, mirrored closet. It looked like a guest room rather than Milton’s personal one. I didn’t see any light coming from under the door, so I guessed the hallway was also dark. I flicked off the penlight to let my eyes adjust to the darkness.

  “Help.”

  I spun and saw McGlade had half his body through the window, hanging there like a soggy rag.

  “I told you I’d meet you at the front door,” I grumbled.

  “And miss all the fun? Help me. I’m getting squeezed like a toothpaste tube.”

  I assisted Harry, and then asked for Little Elvis.

  No sensors by the door.

  I opened it slowly, then crept into the dark hallway, keeping the hamster in front of me in one hand and the 1911 at my side in the other. Hopefully I wouldn’t mix the two hands up.

  McGlade followed me, silent as a walrus ballet. Between his heavy feet and his labored breathing, I couldn’t begin to fathom how he’d survived, even prospered, as a private investigator all these years.

  “Don’t you have a stealth mode?” I whispered.

  “I think I’ve got gas.”

  “Shhh.”

  “I shouldn’t have eaten that third gas station chili dog.”

  “Quiet.”

  “I knew it looked wrong. Hot dogs aren’t normally that skinny. Or crunchy.”
r />   I shot him a look, and he spread out his hands like it wasn’t his fault. But he stayed mostly quiet as we trekked down the hall, to an adjoining one. We could have been checking doors as we passed them, but I doubted they were occupied. Human beings, even when relaxing, made noise and liked light. This part of the mansion was silent and dark. A deserted second floor and a first floor rigged with ultrasonic sensors added up to one thing in our favor: Milton didn’t have live-in servants. That made things a bit easier.

  By the time we found the staircase my eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I was seeing pretty well. The stairs were massive, wide, marble, with brass railings. I gave Little Elvis back to Harry and held my breath, straining to hear any signs of life.

  Wafting up the stairs like a light breeze came the unmistakable sound of giggling.

  I took the stairs slowly, reaching the bottom, then following the sound into a very large room, decorated like some kind of museum exhibit.

  Or shrine. A shrine to all things Nazi.

  Hanging from the ceiling were flags adorned with swastikas and Iron Crosses and lightning bolts. There were uniforms and antique weaponry behind glass cases on two walls. At the third wall was a large, open safe, and standing by the safe was an old man in a tailored blue suit sniffing what looked like a rag.

  I was on him in six steps, the gun pressed to his head before he could even turn fully around.

  “No sudden moves.”

  Rather than quake in fear or yell in surprise, the multi-millionaire gave me an indignant sneer.

  “Who are you? How did you get in here?”

  “Where’s the alarm control panel?”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  I slapped him across the chops, hard. His upper dentures flew from his mouth and clattered against a display of jack boots.

  “The control panel, Milton.”

  “It’s in the foyer,” he squeaked, sounding less like a hotshot company president used to giving orders and more like the frightened victim I wanted him to be.

  “Show me.”

  Putting his arm behind him in a hammer lock, we walked out of the room and across the hall.

  “Ask him where the bathroom is,” said McGlade.

  I ignored him, letting him lead us through the room, into another hallway, and to the foyer, where a portrait of Milton, his upper body poking through the hatch of—no shit—a Panzer tank.

  “Behind the painting,” Milton said. “There’s an access panel.”

  The frame was on hinges, and I pulled it back to reveal a keypad and screen. “What’s the code?”

  “Nineteen forty-two.”

  He lisped his T’s, lacking an upper set of teeth. I raised a finger and stopped myself. A kernel of memory kicked itself loose in my mind. Years back, when I was hired by a man’s abusive wife to break into his office and plant some drugs there, I got a job at the security company that protected the building in order to learn its procedures. The ex-cop who trained me liked to talk, mostly about security systems, and I learned quite a bit. One of the things he’d told me about was a duress code.

  A duress code was a number that seemed to disarm the system, but still alerted the police. If someone broke into your house and put a gun to your head, you could give him this code and he’d believe he was home free, until the cops showed up five minutes later.

  A clever trick, but one that was standard in the industry. Also standard was the practice of making your duress code simply your normal code plus or minus one. That made it easy to remember in a panicky situation like being held at gunpoint.

  So instead of punching in 1942, I punched in 1941. Lo and behold, the entire system disarmed.

  “Nice try,” I told Milton.

  He seemed to shrink, but his eyes were still sharp, commanding.

  “I don’t keep much money here. Just a couple thousand. Take it and get out.”

  “I don’t want your money. You know what I want.”

  I stared hard, into his rheumy eyes. They widened slightly, a spark of recognition appearing.

  “You’re the brother.”

  “Tell me where she is,” I said, daring him not to.

  Bradford Milton, head of Milton Electronics, Führer of the CN, septuagenarian, career asshole, laughed in my face. “Nothing will stop my plans!” he declared.

  “Your plans?” asked Harry. “What is this, James Bond?”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about your plans,” I told the Nazi. “I want Pasha. Tell me where she is.”

  “And where the bathroom is,” McGlade added.

  He jutted out his saggy little chin. “I’ll die before I tell you anything.”

  “I’m not going to kill you.” I snarled at him. “I’m just going to break your knees.”

  “Bad ticker.” His breath smelled like sour cream. “I’ll have a heart attack if you start hurting me.”

  “Maybe I’ll take that chance.”

  I reared back to slap him again when Harry caught my hand.

  “Phin. I’ve got a better idea. Let’s hit him where it really hurts. Right in the fetish.”

  We marched him back to his trophy room, realization slowly dawning on the Nazi.

  “You’re can’t be serious,” he said.

  Harry walked up to Milton’s safe with a spring in his step. Wiggling his fingers in anticipation, he reached in and took out a sheaf of yellowed papers, carefully wrapped in plastic.

  “What’s this? Recipes?”

  “Put that down. It’s worthless to you.”

  “And now it’s worthless to you, too.”

  Harry ripped the papers up into tiny pieces, scattering them throughout the room. What little color Milton had left in his face drained out.

  “Let’s see what else is in here. Oh, lookee. A lock of hair.”

  “Don’t touch that,” blurted Milton, his composure quickly cracking.

  “Oh, you sentimental old fluff. What is it, an old flame’s? Let’s see if the old flame is still flammable.”

  Harry whipped out a Zippo and torched the baggie containing the hair. It went up and out in less than ten seconds.

  “Hair today, gone tomorrow,” McGlade said.

  “Stop it!”

  “Hey, what’s this?”

  Harry bent down and picked up the rag Milton had been holding when we first burst in. Except that it wasn’t a rag. It was a pair of very old underwear.

  “Please,” said Milton. His voice was cracking. “I can pay you. I have money.”

  “Let me guess,” said Harry. “These were Hitler’s jockey shorts.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  McGlade made a face.

  “It looks like your Führer didn’t know how to wipe his ass. Look, Phin. Sixty-year-old skid marks.”

  “I don’t know where she is,” pleaded Bradford Milton. He’d begun sweating.

  “How do we contact Packer?”

  “I can’t. He’s on a mission. He’s off the grid, maintaining radio silence.”

  “Hey,” said Harry, “a loose thread.”

  “Please…”

  “What mission?” I asked.

  McGlade pulled, and the underwear began to unravel before Milton’s eyes.

  “What mission?” I repeated.

  “The mission. Five years… planning… full house, so many on the right… all of those tickets… thousands of tickets… sacrifices must be…” His eyes bugged out, and he wheezed, “I… regret… nothing…”

  Then, in a completely unexpected turn of events, Milton keeled over.

  His head hit the ground with a serious THUMP. His eyes rolled up into his head, thin lips knotting like a pair of mating earthworms. His body went suddenly rigid, and then lax.

  None of these were good signs. I knelt down and checked for a pulse.

  “He’s dead,” I told McGlade.

  “You Nazi bastard!” Harry screamed. “Where’s the bathroom?!”


  I sat down on the floor, swearing at no one in particular. Harry gave the body a swift kick, for reasons only known to Harry.

  “Just making sure he’s not faking.”

  “I guess we have to search the place,” I lamented, knowing that a thorough search of this mansion could take days.

  “I’m searching for the shitter.”

  He jogged off. I began to go through the safe. Lots of German documents that looked old. A deed to the house. Several car titles. A few thousand dollars in cash. Some gold jewelry that looked antique. And a thumb drive.

  The thumb drive seemed incongruous among all the old papers and items. I immediately began to search for a computer.

  The museum area didn’t have any, and I did a brisk tour of the dining room, living room, library, kitchen, pool table room, hunting trophy room, and a bunch of other first floor rooms. As I was heading for the staircase to search the second floor, I came upon McGlade, looking relieved.

  “I couldn’t find the bathroom, so I took a dump in a vase,” he told me.

  “Classy.”

  I walked past him. He followed.

  “It’s a joke. You could at least pretend to be amused. This kind of crude humor doesn’t just happen. It takes effort.”

  “Help me find a computer. I already checked downstairs.”

  “Yessir. Little Elvis and I are on the case.”

  The upstairs had a laundry room and several guest bedrooms, and then McGlade yelled, “I found it!” from the other end of the house. I went to him, and saw he was in the master bedroom, lavishly decorated with—who would have guessed—WWII memorabilia.

  McGlade was sitting on the enormous bed, staring at a laptop computer.

  “Password protected.”

  “Can you crack it?”

  “Not here. Back at my office I’ve got some software I could try. I also know a few hackers if my blunt force approach doesn’t work.”

  “You’ve got a laptop in your bug out bag,” I said, holding up the pen drive. “Let’s see if we can read this.”

  “Sure. What do you want to do about the dogs?”

  “The German Shepherds?”

  “Their owner is dead. And if we let them run wild in the woods, they might eat some small children.”