“I don’t know. I got an envelope with a thousand in cash and a note with Jenkins card attached. The note said make sure Hannah Masterson made an appointment with Jenkins right away.”
“Was it John, her husband?”
“I don’t think so — I mean, why would he do it that way?”
Good question, Neeley thought. Maybe Howard wasn’t totally stupid. "You know, Howard, if you tell anyone about this little chat, I will have to drop everything in my life and spend the remainder of my days hunting you down. You don't seem to be hard to find so I'm not reluctant to commit the time because I don’t think it will take me more than a day or two. Do we understand each other?"
The lawyer's whisper was hardly audible. "Yes."
Neeley rapped the barrel hard against Howard's temple. "Good," she said to the unconscious body.
Walking out of the garage into the night, Neeley looked like any of the other late-fleeing secretaries of the downtown business district. Her simple kit dress was neither stylish nor well-fitted and the loose jacket did little for her figure except to hide the shoulder holster. Even her tennis shoes on stocking feet drew no notice since pumps had become passé. Neeley remained alert to her environment but allowed the majority of her thoughts to formulate the next step.
The Cloverleaf Motel was in Alton. It was on the east side of the Mississippi River, north of the Gateway Arch. Neeley drove her truck across the Eades Bridge and pulled over at the first gas station. She got the key and unlocked the door to the filthiest toilet she had ever seen. Neeley hadn't been this repulsed in Morocco when she’d gone there with Gant.
She quickly pulled some more practical clothes from her backpack and put them on the cleanest spot on the counter she could find. She only kept the sneakers on, putting the Glock and its holster on top of the clothes. After stashing the other clothes in a zippered pocket of the pack, she reached into the pack's main compartment.
She retrieved a second gun, this one a Model 59 Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol with a MOD O silencer attached. She slid a magazine of Gant's specially made 9mm, subsonic rounds into the handle and pulled back on the slide, chambering a round. She let the slide go forward, and then locked it down so when she fired it wouldn't jump back and make noise. She would only be able to fire one shot at a time like this but the gun would be almost perfectly quiet when she did so. She put the pistol on top of the new clothes.
She strapped a thin, double-bladed Fairburn knife to her right calf. Another, even smaller knife, went in the exact center of her back, clipped to the top of her panties, a spot Gant had told her police often miss in searches.
She slipped on a pair of comfortable jeans, then made sure the thin wire garrote was still in place on the inside waist, held there by single loops of thread along its length. She pulled on a loose fitting t-shirt and then the shoulder holster for the Glock. On top of that went a sports jacket with large pockets. She slipped the Model 59 into the right pocket.
When she was done, she looked in the mirror. The woman staring back was calm and determined. Satisfied, Neeley returned to her truck.
The motel was in a dingy industrial area. Not exactly top of the line and a long way from the South Seas. She drove around the block once until she knew what was the area was like.
Room 27 was on the second floor. It opened onto a walkway and was about twenty feet from the outside stairs. The parking lot was nearly empty but there were two cars next to the stairwell. One was a rental and the other was a heap.
She drove to the payphone across the street and checked the page she had torn from the phonebook at the gas station. She punched the numbers and was put through to room 27. There was no answer, but that didn't mean anything.
Neeley moved her truck as far away from the motel office as possible yet still be in a position to see the room’s door. Darkness had slid over east St. Louis and the area looked even more forlorn. Neeley sat in the shadows and waited. After a few minutes she could see the glow of a light come through the fabric on the inside of the window in 27.
Neeley quickly got out of the truck and moved up the stairwell, her hand on the grip of the Model 59 in the coat pocket. She stood to the side of the door and knocked. She mimicked the voice as well as she could, hoping the door provided a muffler. "John, it's me, Hannah. Let me in! Hurry, please, John!"
She heard rapid footsteps and the locks clicking. She had the silenced gun in his chest, pushing him back into the room before he could say a word. She kicked the door shut behind her.
John Masterson looked haggard, as if the despair of the room had broken his spirit. "Where's Hannah?" he choked, barely registering the gun.
Neeley shoved him back to a chair and he fell into it with an audible plop. He was at least twenty pounds overweight and had that soft, pinkish exterior that Neeley had always associated with weak men. She couldn’t believe he had ever known Gant. When she didn't say anything, he began to stammer.
"Who are you?"
"Gant sent me," Neeley said.
"How do I know you're not from the Cellar?" John asked.
"You don't," Neeley said.
"Where's Gant?"
"He's dead."
John nodded. "He called me fifteen days ago and told me he was dying. He told me someone would be coming from him."
"Is that why you ran?" Neeley asked.
John gave a strangled laugh. "Hell, yeah. Who knows what Nero's going to do now? And how did I know I could trust whoever Gant sent?" John cocked his head and looked at her more closely. "If you're from Gant, then you have the videotape," John said. "Let me see it."
Neeley paused at this unexpected development. "I didn't bring the tape with me," she said. "That would have been stupid." As she said these words she caught the shift of John's eyes to a metal briefcase lying on the cheap wooden table.
"But you know where it is?" John was growing nervous again.
"Of course," Neeley answered.
John licked his lips. "Maybe we can get things back to normal then. Maybe Nero will deal."
"What do you have to deal with?" Neeley asked. She regretted the question as soon as she asked it.
"Gant didn't tell you shit did he?" John didn't wait for a reply. "No, that son-of-a-bitch wouldn't. He always played everything close to the vest and didn't trust anyone. And he couldn't tell you. We promised Nero we would never tell anyone. And Gant, oh boy, he sure was one for doing exactly what he was supposed to do."
"I've got the tape," Neeley said, trying to keep him talking.
"Maybe," John said. "But then again, maybe not. I shouldn't have hung around. I should have left town right after Gant called. God damn Nero, pulling strings. God damn it."
“Who is Nero?”
“The head of the Cellar,” John said.
"Why did you leave your wife like you did?" Neeley asked, her head spinning from John's words, trying to make sense of it all.
John now focused on the gun. "Look, my wife is out of it, OK?”
“Out of it?” Neeley felt the sliver of metal under her finger and she forced herself to ease off the trigger. “You leave her high and dry and she’s out of it? Because you say so?”
“I wish you'd quit pointing that gun at me. Those damn things are dangerous. Hannah knows nothing," John insisted.
“Why did you have Brumley send her to that shrink right away then?”
The confusion on his face was real. “What are you talking about? Jenkins?” His face crumpled as if hit. “Oh shit.”
Neeley felt the floor almost shift under her feet as she realized there was another layer to all this, but she knew she didn’t have the time to get into it right now. "Why did you run if Gant told you I was coming?"