‘No,’ I told her, ‘we’ll stop somewhere, pamper ourselves, take a little time off.’
Problem was, where did you pamper yourself in the wasteland between Salt Lake City and Seattle? A detour to Portland wouldn’t make sense. The answer started as a sort of joke. We decided to stop at a place called Pasco, for no other reasons than that it was a decent size and Bel’s mother’s maiden name had been Pascoe. But on the road into town, alongside all the other cheap anonymous motels, there was a Love Motel, with heart-shaped waterbeds, champagne, chocolates, adult movies... Our room was like a department store Santa’s Grotto, done in red velvet and satin. There were black sheets on the bed and a single plastic rose on the pillow.
‘It’s like being inside a nosebleed,’ Bel said, collapsing on to the bed. When it floated beneath her, she managed a laugh, her first in a while. But after a bottle of something that had never been within five hundred kilometres of Champagne, everything looked better. And lying on the bed, as Bel pointed out, was a bit like still being in the car. We didn’t watch much of the porn flick, but we did take a bath together. It was a spa-bath, and Bel turned the jets up all the way. We started making love in the bath, but ended on the waterbed. We ended up so damp, I thought the bed had sprung a leak. I’d not known Bel so passionate, holding me hard against her like she was drowning. It was the kind of sex you have before dying or going off to war. Maybe we were about to do both.
We fell asleep without any dinner, woke up late and went to an all-night store where we bought provisions. We sat on the floor of our room and ate burger buns stuffed with slices of smoked ham, washed down with Coke. Then we made love again and drowsed till morning. We still had over 200 miles to go, and decisions to make along the way, such as whether it would be safer to stay in a motel out of town or a big hotel in the centre. It made sense to have a central base, but it also made sense not to get caught.
Snow-tipped Mount Rainier was visible in the distance as we took I-90 into the heart of Seattle.
There were things I wanted to tell Bel. I wanted to tell her why I hadn’t cried over Max’s death. I wanted to tell her why I didn’t do what she had done out on that parking lot. I wanted to tell her about bottling things up until you were ready for them. When I met Kline again, the bottle would smash wide open. But somehow I didn’t find the words. Besides, I couldn’t see how they would help.
It was another hot dry day, and the traffic was slow, but no one seemed to mind too much. They were just happy to be here and not in some other more congested city. The placement and layout of Seattle are quite unique. From the east, we crossed on to Mercer Island and off it again on to the narrow stretch of land which housed the city itself, squeezed between Lake Washington and Puget Sound. We came off the Interstate into the heart of the downtown grid system, Avenues running north to south, Streets east to west. Last time I’d been here, I’d taken a cab from Sea Tac, which took you through a seemingly unending hinterland of sleazy motels, bars, and strip joints advertising 49 Beautiful Women... and 1 Ugly One. This was a much better route. There were a few prominent hotels, all outposts of known chains catering mostly to business travellers. The first one we tried had a vacancy, so we took it. It was a relief to garage the car and take our bags up, knowing we now had a base. We’d decided to stay central, since it would cut down travelling time. We checked in as Mr and Mrs West, since we’d bought pawnstore rings. Bel flicked through the city information pack while I made a phone call.
I spoke to someone on the news desk.
‘Can I speak to Sam Clancy, please.’
‘He’s on a sabbatical.’
‘That’s not what I’ve read. Look, can you get a message to him?’
There was a pause. ‘It’s possible.’
‘My name’s Mike West and I’m staying in a hotel downtown. I’d like Sam to contact me. It looks like we’ve been following a similar line of inquiry, only I’ve been working in Scotland, near Oban.’ I waited while he took down the details. ‘That’s O-b-a-n. Tell him Oban, he’ll understand.’
‘Are you a journalist?’
‘In a way, yes.’ I gave him our room number and the telephone number of the hotel. ‘When can I expect him to get this message?’
‘He calls in sometimes, but there’s no routine. Could take a few days.’
‘Sooner would be better. All I’m doing here is pacing the floor.’
He said he’d do what he could, and I put the phone down. Bel was still studying the information pack.
‘I’ll tell you what you do in Seattle,’ I said. ‘You go up the Space Needle on a clear day, you visit Pike Place Market any day, and you wander around Pioneer Square.’
‘Michael, when you were here before... was it business?’
‘Strictly pleasure,’ I said.
‘What sort of pleasure?’ She wasn’t looking at me as she spoke.
‘Whale-watching,’ I said. Now she looked at me.
‘Whale-watching?’
‘I took a boat up to Vancouver Island and went whale-watching.’
She laughed and shook her head.
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing, it’s just... I don’t know. I mean, you’re so normal in a lot of ways.’
‘You mean for a hired killer?’
She had stopped laughing now. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’
‘I’m still a killer, Bel. It’s what I do best.’
‘I know. But after this is over...’
‘We’ll see.’
The phone rang, and I picked it up. It was Sam Clancy.
‘That was quick,’ I said.
‘I have to be careful, Mr West. The desk downstairs tells me you only checked in twenty minutes ago.’
‘That’s right.’
‘You’re not losing any time.’
‘I don’t think either of us can afford to.’
‘So tell me your story.’
He didn’t sound far away at all. He had a soft cultivated accent, which just failed to hide something more nasal and demanding, a New York childhood perhaps. I told him my story, missing out a few details such as my profession and my true involvement in the whole thing. I said I was a journalist, investigating the murder of one of my colleagues. I told him about Max’s death, and how the gun dealer’s daughter was with me in Seattle. I told him about the Americans we’d met on the road out of Oban, just after a visit to the Disciples of Love. I probably talked for twenty or thirty minutes, and he didn’t interrupt me once.
‘So what’s your story?’ I said.
‘I think you already know most of it. There have been two attempts on my life, neither of them taken very seriously by the police. They couldn’t find any evidence that someone had tampered with my car brakes, but I found a mechanic who showed me how it could be done without leaving any trace. Never buy an Oldsmobile, Mike. Anyway, since Seattle’s finest weren’t going to do anything about it, I thought I would. Then the paper ran my story, and that merely confirmed for the police that I was seeking publicity, nothing more.’
‘You think the Disciples were responsible?’
‘Well, I asked my ex-wife and it wasn’t her. That doesn’t leave too many enemies. Jesus, it’s not like I wrote The Satanic Verses or anything, all I was doing was asking questions.’
‘About funding?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What did you find?’
‘I’m still finding. It’s just not so easy when I have to walk everywhere with my head in a blanket.’