by Tinnean
Lapin frowned. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. That was Mann’s car. His mother had no business being in it. If Elizabeth hadn’t chosen that moment to get jealous and have the tires of Portia Mann’s car slashed…. Dumb broad.”
“As you say.” I felt the skin over my cheekbones tighten. It was a good thing I’d learned before I’d joined the WBIS how to control my expressions. I knew I looked nothing more than mildly interested. “In that case, I still don’t understand. Why would the senator want to get rid of her son?”
“I thought you’d be brighter, Vincent. With Mann out of the way, even temporarily, Portia Mann would turn to Richard for the strong masculine presence she needs in her life—that all women need in their lives—and he’d have complete access to her and her social and financial connections. She’s going to make a perfect first lady, don’t you think?”
“But he’s married,” I pointed out.
“Not for long. I’ve been keeping Elizabeth busy. Of course, you wouldn’t know that. When the time is right, I’ll go to him and confess that she seduced me.” He rolled his eyes piously to the ceiling, a smirk twisting his lips. “I just couldn’t live with the guilt and shame anymore.”
Talk about your sociopath. “And he’ll keep you on after learning you’ve been screwing his wife?”
“Whose idea do you think it was originally? I’d never have gone to bed with the old bitch if Richard hadn’t promised me the position of White House Chief of Staff!”
“I see.”
“I thought you would since you have no use for women. They can be such stupid pains in the ass. Take that bitch whore, for instance. Not that you can.” He gave a laugh that was snide and nasty, and I was glad he wouldn’t be taking up space on planet Earth for too much longer.
“Bitch whore?” I didn’t particularly care, but he was on a roll, and I wanted him to keep talking.
“Yeah. She actually thought I’d marry a slut like her.”
“So what did you do?”
“I had her taken care of.”
“You couldn’t have just told her you didn’t want to get married?”
“I really thought you were smarter than that,” he mocked. “She was just a whore. Why would I leave a loose end like her around?”
“Makes sense.” And she really wasn’t important. I brought the conversation back around to Wexler. “What about the senator’s constituents? Didn’t they originally vote for him because he was married to their previous senator’s daughter?”
“Yes. That’s true.” Lapin scowled at me, not pleased that I was aware of that. That was the problem with people who didn’t know how the WBIS was run. They thought we just went around killing indiscriminately and did nothing else. “But—”
“There’s also the fact that his supporters are so big on family values. You don’t think they might be swayed more if he forgave her?”
“Oh, no! Not when they learn about all the abortions she had!” His grin returned, and I half expected him to rub his hands together in glee. “Even Richard is unaware of that.”
“How did you find out?” There was such a thing as doctor-patient confidentiality. It hadn’t stopped me from getting at her records, but Lapin wasn’t WBIS, and I was curious.
“Elizabeth likes to talk, especially after a little something has been added to her frozen daiquiris.”
Like the something I had added to his drink? “She could deny it.”
He shook his head. “I have it on tape. As well as her talking about other affairs she’s had… interracial affairs. The people who vote for Richard don’t have much tolerance for that.”
She never had. Lapin had doctored the tapes.
“I thought about including a lesbian affair as well, but that would have been too much, even for the idiots who vote for Richard.” His lips stretched in a cool smile. “He will have no problem shedding a wife who brings nothing but humiliation and grief to his family.” And to his party as well, no doubt. “And when he announces, after a suitable period, that he’s going to marry Portia Mann, a woman who remained faithful to her husband even after he died….”
“So the idea was to get her son out of the way so Wexler could get to her.”
“Didn’t I say that? She’s the woman who’ll bring him the White House!”
Talk about fucked up. Someone should have taught Senator Wexler that just because he wanted something didn’t mean he could have it.
“I see.” I was repeating myself, but Lapin didn’t notice.
“She and Mann are too close.” He frowned. “Each time Richard approached her, there was Mann, getting between them. Of course, that will all change.” He finished his drink.
“How? If you don’t mind my asking? It seems to me your plan has gone slightly… awry? Mrs. Mann is the one in the hospital, not Mann.”
“That has thrown a spanner in the works. Damn Mann. However, the senator has that in hand. He’s very close to someone in the CIA.”
“What does the CIA have to do with it? Mann works at State.”
“Are you really that stupid? That’s simply his cover.”
“I find that hard to believe. Mann is such a dilettante.” Sorry, Quinn.
“Oh, he is.” Lapin’s grin was so obnoxious I wanted to smash it off his face.
“And you learned this how?” I asked instead.
“The vice president may have said something regarding Mann’s actual job while dining with me and Senator Wexler.” Smug bastard. And I didn’t bother clarifying which one. “Quinton Mann is going to be transferred to Paramaribo. That’s in Suriname, you know, about fifty-six miles from Devil’s Island. By the time he returns—if he returns—”
“If?”
“Oh, there’s all manner of insects in Suriname, and some of them are human. As I was saying, Portia Mann will be Portia Wexler.”
“Very clever.”
“Yes. I knew you’d come around.”
“How?”
“Eh?”
“How would you know I’d come around?”
“Oh, my—our contact in the WBIS.” He frowned. “Stupid man got himself killed—”
“In a home break-in?” Had Shaw been involved in this as well? Dammit, he was another one I should have killed harder.
“Yes. He passed on lots of interesting information about you.”
“Me, in particular, or other WBIS agents as well?”
“You, Mark Vincent. Didn’t know that, did you?” he gloated. Then he frowned again. “Unfortunately, that source dried up when he got himself blown up. Fucking idiot. Everything was going along so perfectly….”
“Yes?” So it wasn’t Shaw, but Sperling. I had to agree with Lapin that Sperling had been an idiot, but if Lapin thought his plans were going along perfectly, he was as much an idiot.
“Yes. Meanwhile, I’ve been giving a great deal of thought as to what it would be like having a man like you under me. My own pet assassin.” He fondled his glass, and a brief glance at his crotch revealed he had a hard-on. Jesus. “Sure you don’t want that drink now?”
“No.”
“I believe I’ll have another.”
“I’ll get it for you.” I rose, my stance casual and unthreatening, brushed my fingers over my lapel and the American flag that was pinned on it, incidentally deactivating the recording device, and crossed to where he sat.
He held his glass out to me. I grinned down at him but didn’t take it. Maybe that was when he realized letting me into his house really hadn’t been a good idea.
It only took a moment to snap his neck.
I stared into his dead eyes. “You’re lucky, you miserable son of a bitch. I could have made it take longer.” I could have made him beg and gibber at the end, suffer as Quinn was suffering. As Mrs. Mann was suffering.
However, I couldn’t afford to leave marks on his body that couldn’t be attributed to a motor vehicle accident. I checked my watch. It would be dawn in a matter of hours, and the accident scene needed to be se
t up. Once that was done, I would turn my attention to Mrs. Wexler.
She might have been as much a victim of her husband’s machinations as of Peter Lapin’s, but I didn’t much care.
She would be attending some function or other up on Capitol Hill tomorrow night. On her way home from it, she was going to be… delayed.
XXI
NO ONE noticed when I pulled up in the shadows and got out of my sedan, probably because of the screams.
There had been an accident.
Lights in the houses nearby were on, and curtains were drawn back so the view wasn’t obstructed. Others, willing to brave the October chill, stood on their sidewalks in their bathrobes, whispering and staring avidly.
The Mercedes Benz seemed to have come out the loser in a game of chicken with an old oak—the front end was crumpled, the engine now just scrap metal shoved back through the dash, and the windshield was a mass of shattered glass.
I swore under my breath. A glance at the license plate told me all I needed to know. The Mercedes belonged to the Wexlers.
A couple of cop cars blocked access to the street, and two of the cops diverted what traffic there was. A third talked to the driver of the flatbed tow truck that would transport the wreck to the junkyard, and a fourth, standing out of the way, was making notes.
The chauffeur was nowhere to be seen, but maybe, like Novotny, he’d already been transported to the hospital.
An ambulance was parked a few yards away from the vehicle, and two men worked on the female victim, who was screaming nonstop and trying to clutch at her face.
“Ma’am, please. Ma’am, you can’t…. Dave?”
“Ma’am, if you keep trying to touch your face, we’ll have to restrain your hands. You have to stop…. Goddamnit! Bob, hold her hands. I’m gonna get—” He went into the ambulance.
I couldn’t tell how badly the woman on the stretcher had been injured, although I could see that one eye appeared to be sunken in her skull, as if the bones around it had been shattered. Her face was covered in blood.
The paramedic returned with straps and fastened her wrists to the sides of the stretcher. Her screams finally stopped, but I didn’t think she was smart enough to realize that screaming wouldn’t make the pain go away; she was probably on the verge of passing out.
She moaned as the paramedics prepared to ease the stretcher into the back of their rig. One of them climbed in with her, and the other closed the door.
“We’re a little short on eyewitnesses here,” the cop taking notes groused.
The paramedic shrugged. “Not unusual for this time of night.”
“Did she say anything to you?”
“Just that she didn’t mean it.”
“Didn’t mean what?”
“Hell if I know. Maybe drinking and driving? The smell of alcohol alone was enough to give me a buzz. She must have been going pretty damn fast too. And she wasn’t wearing her seat belt, either. These rich people. They think the laws don’t apply to them.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She was driving, but we found her in the backseat.”
“What makes you think she was driving?”
“How else could her face get all banged up like that?”
I wanted to know the answer to that myself.
The paramedic got into the ambulance, switched on the siren, and sped off.
The cop shook his head, shut his notebook, and walked back to the squad cars. The tow truck had already left, and in a matter of minutes, the scene was deserted, even the morbidly curious having gone back into their homes.
Abruptly, I realized I wasn’t alone in the shadows, and I slid a hand into my pocket for the deadly little weapon Romero had given me a few days before.
“That will not be necessary, Mr. Vincent,” a husky contralto murmured behind me.
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
She chuckled. “I do not think that would be wise on my part.” Something pressed into my back. Fuck. How had she managed to get so close to me? “I can break your spine, severing your spinal cord. You would be left a paraplegic.”
I eased my stance and raised my hands so she could see them. “Are you going to?” The thing at my back didn’t feel sharp, like a knife, and it didn’t feel cylindrical, like the barrel of a gun.
“I do not think so. The son of my dear friend would be saddened, and that in turn would make Portia sad.”
“Portia?” I played dumb. “Portia who?”
“Portia Mann, as you very well know.” There was amusement in her voice, something I found intriguing. Women didn’t generally display amusement around me.
“Who are you?”
She must have leaned forward. Her breath was warm in my ear, and she whispered her name. “Folana Fournaise.”
“Damn. I thought you’d been killed!”
“As you can see, reports of my demise have been exaggerated.” She’d run a syndicate of assassins in the early days of the Cold War; had gone on to do freelance work for various agencies in Great Britain, France, and Germany; and finally was reported to have taken a bullet to the chest by someone from the KGB.
“Well, obviously. Would you mind if I turned around?”
“Slowly, if you please. I have been curious to meet you, Mr. Vincent.”
“And I you.” I turned and faced the woman who had gotten the drop on me. She was dressed in a severe black pantsuit. There was enough moonlight for me to see her clearly; she was beautiful. Although her black hair was threaded with silver, she carried her years well. “If I hadn’t been given false information, I’d have made more of an effort.”
“Are you flirting with me, Mr. Vincent?”
“I don’t flirt.”
“Of course not.”
I cleared my throat. “So you did that to Mrs. Wexler’s face?”
“Yes.”
“With that?” I nodded toward the weapon she’d been pressing against my back. It was one I had never seen, a smooth, hard piece of wood shaped like an elongated dumbbell.
“The kongo? Yes. From what I could learn of her on such short notice, she is a woman who values her looks above everything. I also used it to shatter the windscreen.”
“And what about her chauffeur?”
Her teeth flashed white, and she placed a billed cap on her head. “She was so complacent. She never looked at me, never even realized that it was not her chauffeur behind the wheel.”
I studied her carefully. “You’re obviously unharmed. How’d you get the car to hit that tree without putting your head through the windshield?”
“Surely you don’t expect me to tell you all my secrets?”
I guessed not, but she’d probably rigged the steering wheel so it wouldn’t turn, aimed it at the tree, and thrown herself out. She was a smart woman, and she’d done a damn fine job. Not that I was going to tell her that.
“Dealing with Mrs. Wexler was my job,” I told her in an icy voice. I threw in a cold stare to boot.
“No. Her actions put my dear friend in grave danger. It was my prerogative.”
Well, shit. I hadn’t succeeded in intimidating her at all. And if I’d met her before Quinn, and in spite of her age, I’d have made a play for her. I was glad I’d met Quinn first, though.
As for what happened with Mrs. Wexler, there was no point in challenging the woman before me—what was done was done. “Now what?”
“Now I must leave. I trust you will not seek to detain me?”
“No, ma’am. Although I could.” She laughed, and I raised an eyebrow. “You think I couldn’t detain you?”
“It is not that, Mr. Vincent. Portia has told me of your tendency to call her ‘ma’am.’ I know enough of you to realize that is a mark of respect.” The kongo disappeared from her hand, replaced by a bunch of purple flowers. Their soft fragrance rose in the still night air. “Will you see that my dear friend gets these, please?”
“Of course.” I accepted the violets.
“Thank you.” She hesitated for a moment, as if she would say something else, but then simply said, “Istenhozzád, Mark Vincent.”
“Farewell, Folana Fournaise.”
Clouds drifted across the moon, and when they had passed, she was gone.
XXII
I DIDN’T want to see Quinn until I could tell him that whoever had done this to his mother had paid for it.
Peter Lapin and Elizabeth Wexler had been dealt with. The only one left now was Senator Wexler. I wanted to come up with something special for him.
Something very special.
It was long past midnight when I pulled into a parking spot at the hospital and sauntered into the lobby.
Not too many people visited at this time of night. The lighting around the information desk had been dimmed, and no one was there.
Not that it mattered. I’d learned that once she’d come out of recovery, Mrs. Mann had been taken to a private room on the sixth floor. As of the last time I’d checked, shortly before I’d gone to track down the Wexler bitch, Quinn’s mother still hadn’t regained consciousness.
I’d have liked to see how Mrs. Mann was doing before this, but I’d been a little… busy.
I didn’t doubt that Quinn understood.
I found the stairwell and trotted up the stairs to the sixth floor.
Four men were just entering the elevator when I opened the door of the stairwell. They turned, and I recognized them from the files I kept—Quinn’s uncles.
I was in no rush to meet them. Two were former CIA, one was NSA, and I knew the fourth, the Brit who was involved with Quinn’s middle uncle, had worked British intelligence back in the day. They’d probably all have the same attitude as Novotny toward someone who was WBIS.
One of them met my eyes, and his eyebrows rose, but then the doors slid shut and the elevator went down.
Well, that was taken out of my hands.
I stopped at the nurses’ station. “Do you have something I can put these flowers in?”
“Oh, violets! How pretty!” The very young nurse smiled at me. “Just a second, I’ll see what we have.” She went into a room labeled “Clean.” When she came out, she was blushing. “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t have anything.” I raised an eyebrow, and her blush deepened. “Well, only male urinals.”
