New Tricks

by David Rosenfelt

  He hesitates a moment and then says, “Dinner Saturday? Sure, I’d like that.”

  “I’m going to be there with the police in just a couple of minutes. When we get off the phone, I want you to very casually go into the bathroom, and then lock yourself in. Do not come out no matter what.”

  My hope is that Martha, realizing the police are on their way, will take Waggy and leave, and not worry about dealing with Steven. Even if she has a gun, she would be unlikely to use it to shoot open the bathroom door. It would attract too much attention. I hope.

  “Don’t worry about Waggy, just go into the bathroom. Now say something friendly about dinner.”

  “Sounds great,” he says. “What time should I be there?”

  “I’m going to hang up now. Pretend to wrap up the call and then say good-bye. And Steven, you need to act as if nothing is wrong.”

  I hang up and try to figure out my next step. There is certainly no way for me to storm the apartment, even if I were so inclined. It’s on the fourth floor, and there’s only a single staircase leading up to it. I would think somebody up there could hold off a SWAT team, so it’s unlikely that an unarmed, chickenshit lawyer is going to fight his way in. Besides, once Steven is barricaded in the bathroom, Martha is likely to be making a hasty exit.

  I reach the apartment in what must be record time, and I jump out and drop the fistful of money through the window in the driver’s lap. I go up the five steps to the door, and am confronted with the realization that I have no idea what to do now.

  I look around and cannot see any arriving federal agents; for the moment it’s only me. I also have no key to get into the building, so I decide to buzz every other apartment, and hope somebody lets me in. There are twelve total apartments in the building, including Steven’s, so I buzz the other eleven. Through the intercom, four people ask who it is, and in each case I say “UPS.” At least one of them presses their buzzer, and the door opens.

  I’m inside, and still without the slightest idea what to do. I leave the door ajar behind me, to make it easy for Corvallis and his agents to get in should they ever show up. I decide to walk up the stairs and hopefully listen through the door into Steven’s apartment; at least that way maybe I can find out if Martha’s still there.

  I’m on the second-floor landing when a door opens on one of the floors above, and I hear the telltale sound of Waggy’s feet scratching and trying to get traction on the slippery floor.

  I hear Martha say, “Take it easy. Calm down.” She’s got more chance of her command being obeyed if she tells him to fly, or sing the national anthem.

  They reach the stairs and are heading my way. It’s pretty dark in here, which is the only thing working to my advantage. I back up against the wall, so she won’t see me until they almost reach me. Unfortunately, as I do I hit my head against a fire extinguisher hanging on the wall. It makes a noise that I’m afraid she has heard.

  “Is anybody down there?” Martha calls out, and when there is no answer, I hear them coming down the steps again.

  My heart is pounding as they approach, so loud that it seems like it is echoing in the stairwell. Martha has a gun in her hand as she passes the point at which she should have seen me. But she does not see me, because she is intent on Waggy as she strains to keep him in check on the leash. He is dragging her forward so fast that she seems in danger of falling down the steps.

  “Waggy! Stop it!” she screams as I jump out from behind her. I hit her from behind, and that, coupled with the forward motion that crazy Waggy is already generating, sends all three of us tumbling down the steps.

  We land in a heap at the bottom, and I am conscious of Waggy yelping in pain. I feel a searing pain in my shoulder, but I don’t know what has happened to Martha.

  “Glad you could join us.” It’s Corvallis’s voice, and when I look up he is holding his gun on Martha. Surrounding him are three other agents, also with their guns at the ready. It might be slight overkill, because Martha appears to be unconscious.

  “Steven,” I say. “Four B.”

  Corvallis makes a motion, and two of the agents run up to the fourth floor. I get to my feet and follow them, my shoulder hurting as badly as anything has ever hurt me.

  Steven’s door is open when I get there, and I’m cringing at what I’m going to find. Cringing hurts my shoulder, as does talking, climbing stairs, and breathing. Thankfully, the cringing proves to be unnecessary, as the agents have gotten Steven to open the bathroom door and have brought him into the living room.

  “Is Waggy okay?” is the first thing Steven asks when he sees me.

  That’s my kind of guy.

  THE DRIVE TO WISCONSIN is as comfortable as it gets. It feels like Laurie, Tara, and I are a family, and we’re going on a family vacation. It makes me think that we should get an RV, leave everything behind, and just travel the country, and I mention that to Laurie.

  “I don’t think you get good television reception on those things,” Laurie says. “And you’ve got the football season and the World Series coming up.”

  So much for the RV idea.

  I separated my shoulder in the fall down the steps, and the doctor said it would take about eight weeks to heal. Fortunately, it was my left shoulder, because I work the remote control with my right hand.

  Waggy walked with a limp for a couple of days after the fall, or more accurately he ran with a limp. He’s fine now, and driving Steven crazy.

  Before we left I shared with Steven what I know about the murders. Once Martha was taken into custody, Corvallis was more willing to fill in some of my blanks. He hadn’t been aware of her involvement, and even seemed somewhat grateful to me for exposing her.

  I was right that Walter and Robinson were going to sell his discovery to energy interests for a fortune, though I was wrong that Jacoby had any involvement in the scheme. Corvallis wouldn’t tell me who was going to be the purchaser, but it may well have been a foreign government. Whoever it was placed a highly skilled agent, who turned out to be Martha, on the inside of Timmerman’s world so that they could monitor things to their satisfaction. Whether or not Timmerman was aware of who she was, I don’t know.

  Their plan was jolted when Sykes and Diana killed Walter for his money, as they planned to marry after he was dead. Faced with this situation, Martha copied all of Walter’s work in the lab, and used Jimmy Childs to plant the explosives in the house. She blew it up, unaware that the FBI had gotten to that lab first and left her with incorrect, worthless information.

  She poisoned Robinson so that he could not reveal anything to the FBI, and after that all that was left to erase any trace of Walter’s work was to have Childs kill Waggy, which of course almost resulted in Laurie’s death.

  But that is now behind us, as are New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. We’ll be in Wisconsin soon, and Laurie will do what she needs to do, and then we’ll all go home together.

  We’re leaning toward getting Tara a friend.

  A calm, normal friend.

  Just for a change of pace.