“And then?”
Maxton shrugged sullenly. “She did it, of course. A couple weeks later her gig ended, so we broke it off. But I gave her the money for a car since she was driving to New York...”
Dain patted his palms on the roof of the Porsche.
“This car. Right here. Vangie didn’t expect anyone to connect her with Zimmer, probably figured the car would get stolen and that would be that.”
Maxton started pounding his clenched fists on the car roof.
“Goddam her soul to hell! My money, my car! I’ll see her dead, the rotten little bitch!”
Dain shrugged by raising one shoulder.
“That crap doesn’t do any good, Maxton. Zimmer saw her at the party, fell hard. She saw him as a way to get back at you. She must have laughed herself sick when you decided to steal two million in bonds and handed them to Zimmer for safekeeping.”
“And the fuckers are away clean! You may as well—”
“You ever consider what sort of trouble you’d have converting two million in American bearer bonds into cruzeiros in Brazil? When the rate is nearly four thousand to one and you don’t even have the language? You can bet Vangie considered it.”
“What... are you saying?”
“They never caught the plane. Doubled back to the city by airport limo, caught a bus to Texarkana, left it at some stop in between. Once they have you thinking South America, why leave the country? The bonds are legal tender in any brokerage house they walk into.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” asked Maxton almost suspiciously.
“It’s what I’m good at, remember?” He walked around the car back toward the Mercedes, Maxton following.
“I’ll get a list of the bonds to every brokerage—”
“No. You’ll spook them. She’s smart, I tell you.” He stopped, opened the driver’s door of the Mercedes. “She’ll plan to wait a few months before cashing them in—”
“My bitch wife won’t wait a few months, damn you! I’ll put an army to work on the brokerage houses, we’ll—”
“No army. Nobody. Nada. Zero. Nothing. Get it?”
Dain held the open door; after a moment’s hesitation, Maxton slid in under the wheel.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll play it your way for the moment. What’s your next move?”
“Go back to San Francisco.”
“San Francisco?”
“To wait. It won’t be long, believe me. She won’t be able to control him.”
“Wait is the goddamnedest stupidest idea I’ve ever—”
“It’s time to quit looking for your prey and start looking for what your prey is looking for. In the dry season if you’re a lion and your prey is a wildebeest, you wait by the water hole. If you’re a red-tailed hawk and your prey is a field mouse, you soar over the—”
“You think she’s in San Francisco?”
Dain slammed the door, walked away between the close-packed dusty cars. “Don’t screw it up, Maxton,” he said over his shoulder. “Wait for them to make their move. They will. Believe me.”
III
Vangie
The Big Easy
THE SECRET OF RECOGNITION
O nobly-born, that which is called death hath now come. Thou art departing from this world, but thou art not the only one; death cometh for all. Be not attached to this world; be not weak.
14
Night — soft, warm, moist, seductive — handcuffed New Orleans to the Vieux Carré’s blocked-off Bourbon Street like a kinky lover. Exotic underwear shops, crowded cheek by jowl with po’boy sandwich stands, displayed teddies and chemises and lace body stockings with open crotch panels for easy access. Traditional jazz poured out into the night from open doorways at the crowds of shirt-sleeve and summer-dress tourists.
Jimmy Zimmer strolled along a side street, stopped outside Carnal Knowledge where two strippers sprawled on straight chairs just outside the open doorway, loose meaty thighs spread wide to catch the cool outside breeze and the eye of passing males. He moved inside, stood near the stage, looking much seedier than he had in Chicago less than three weeks earlier. He seemed jumpy and determined, his eyes almost mean behind their horn-rims, his skin pale as if he spent all his time indoors.
Vangie’s face registered consternation when she saw Jimmy arrive. She was hand-cut crystal in a display of Coke bottles, her body moving to the music by its own volition. Rednecks shrieked obscenities at her, college boys made explicit suggestions, two black-leather lesbians moaned sexual dreams.
Through a gap in the fake plush curtains, Harry the Manager watched her as avidly as any john. He was a short man with a degenerate face; his bald pate, fringed with dandruff-flecked brown hair, gleamed with the urgent sweat of his thoughts.
When the music ended, Vangie came hurriedly through the curtain wearing only the required cache-sexe, her otherwise nude and magnificent body gleaming as if oiled. She had to corral Jimmy and send him hustling back to their room before her next show, and before he...
But Harry was right beside her, his short fat legs trotting to match her long muscular strides. “Baby, you’re terrific! In two weeks you’ve almost doubled the gross!”
“So double my salary, Harry.”
“Funny! Funny! Listen, baby, how about you be nice to me? I got friends. I can do you a lot of good in this town.”
She had just enough time between numbers to do it if... But Harry’s greedy fingers half cupped the ivory cone of one of her naked breasts as she tried to get through the dressing room door. She stepped back with a look of utter revulsion.
“Jesus, what a turd!” she said in a low, despairing voice.
Harry crowded her back against the door frame, grabbed her hand, pressed it against the bulging front of his pants.
“Feel it, baby! C’mon, feel it!”
She bent his little finger back, he squealed and let her go as she darted through the doorway and slammed the door an inch from his nose. She shot the bolt, yelled through the door.
“Go jerk off into a Handi-Wipe!”
Harry smashed the heel of his hand against the wall and turned away with a vicious, congested look. Inside, Vangie put her head down on her arms. Oh God, for just a little release from pressure! She raised her head and looked at her reflection in the mirror. The makeup lights made her look garish and cheap.
“They don’t lie,” she said aloud to her reflection.
She had $2 million in bearer bonds but still had to dance until four in the morning because it wouldn’t be safe to cash them in for another six months. Two million! Freedom. A way out. Worth whatever it took, worth doing damn near anything. The music reverberated through the walls and she stood up.
If only Jimmy didn’t bring the hunters down on them in the meantime.
Dain, backlit for a moment by the lights of a turning automobile, looked hulking and pitiless. It was ten o’clock and San Francisco’s financial district was zipped up for the night except for a few old-style restaurants like Schroeder’s down on Front Street. As he passed the Russ Building’s inset entrance, Moe Wexler fell in beside him to hand over a small flat packet a few inches in diameter.
“Great work, Moe. But why all the cloak-and-dagger?”
Moe’s eyes were constantly shifting, probing the empty street ahead and behind them. “When I went to check the apartment bug tonight, there was another one in place that wasn’t there before.” His roving eyes slid across Dain, were gone again. “Ah... what if we’re talking Maxton here?”