“You don’t look at it as a kid. You look at it as a package. Just another package.”
“Yeah, but a young package. People get upset about an old geezer getting snatched, but, man, they go off the fucking wall about a kid.”
“It’s not like we’re going to molest her or anything.”
“Her? Oh, shit! A little girl? Just great. Poppy don’t like kids.”
“She’d better like this one.”
“She’s gonna go ballistic.”
“Poppy will do what she’s told.” Paulie wished there’d been more heat behind those words. But Mac said them with the same soft flat tones he’d use ordering a cup of coffee… black, two lumps.
Truth was. Poppy would do what she was told… up to a point…
“You’re the one who brought her in,” Mac said. “I went along. Poppy’s had a free ride so far. Now it’s time for her to earn her keep. She can be a nanny for a week or so.” He smiled… a cold flash of teeth. “We’ve called it baby-sitting all along. Now it really is.”
“Yeah,” Paulie said, slumping back in the seat. He didn’t like this… didn’t like it at all. “How old is this baby?”
“Six. Don’t let her age spook you. This is going to be a walk. I’ve called the school. They’re expecting you. You drive up, belt her into the back seat like a good, safety-conscious driver, then you cruise away and bring her back here. What could be simpler?”
“How about you doing it? That would be a whole lot simpler.”
“I would, but I’ve got to cover this end.”
When Paulie said nothing, Mac reached out and poked his upper arm with a finger. Paulie stiffened. He didn’t feature being poked. But when he looked at Mac he saw what he hadn’t thought possible: The guy’s eyes were even flatter and colder than before.
“You’re not backing out on me, are you, Paulie?”
“Nah,” Paulie said through a sigh. “I ain’t backing out.” He had to admit it: He was afraid to back out now.
“Good. Because a deal is a deal.”
“Yeah. A deal is a deal.” But how the hell was he going to explain this to Poppy?
11
Snake strolled into the lobby of the Marriott in Bethesda and went straight to the bank of pay phones.
He’d already scouted most of the larger hotels inside the Beltway—this Marriott was just inside the Beltway—and knew which ones had the kind of phone he needed.
Of course he could have called from his house or his car or a playground using the mobile PCMCIA modem card on his laptop, but that would have involved a cellular call, and cell calls were about as secure as a loudspeaker.
He found an AT&T Dataphone 2000 and slipped into the seat before it. Airports and hotel lobbies were the best places to find these phones. They provided their own keyboards or a port for jacking into laptops and notebooks.
Snake had brought his own. After charging the call to Charles Porter, a credit account he’d set up just for this gig, he jacked the phone clip on the wire running from the back of his Thinkpad 701 C into the port, then popped open his computer and let the butterfly keyboard expand.
As he waited for the rig to run through its boot-up routine, he glanced around the lobby. Only a few people about and none of them paying the least bit of attention.
He logged onto the IDT account he’d recently set up for a nonexistent someone named Eric Garter, accessed the e-mail service, and uploaded the text he’d written earlier and stored in memory.
Thirty seconds later, with his message zapping through the Internet, he logged off. He unplugged the Thinkpad from the Dataphone, snapped the. top shut, and headed for the front doors and the parking lot.
So easy, so anonymous, so completely untraceable. So safe. Too safe, maybe. Too easy. Almost a letdown.
12
Paulie eased the Lincoln to a stop before the front entrance of the Holy Family Elementary School.
Didn’t look much like a school. More like a big old house, two sprawling stories of dark stone and cement with ivy crawling all over it.
He reached for the keys but hesitated. He didn’t want to do this. It just wasn’t right.
Okay, it’s one thing to snatch a guy. He’s an adult. Another man. He should be watching his ass but he got careless, so now he’s snatched and somebody’s got to buy him back. That’s life, dude: You pay for, your mistakes.
But a kid… shit. Kids can’t protect themselves. They don’t know the rules. They’re sitting ducks. And putting the screws to some guy through his kid… that was low. Worse than low, it was unmanly.
Paulie slammed a gloved fist against the steering wheel. Goddamn, Mac!
He was tempted to shift the car back into drive and burn rubber out of here. Pick up Poppy from that rented dump in Falls Church and roar off to parts unknown.
But Mac would be pissed out of his mind. He’d come looking, and sooner or later he’d catch up to them. And that would be ugly. Only one of them would walk away from that scene, and Paulie doubted it would be him.
And besides, he’d made a deal. He hadn’t known a kid would be part of the deal, but a deal was a deal. Is that how it really is? he wondered. Or am I just yellow? How low will you go, Paulie? he asked himself. When do you say enough is enough? He should’ve listened to Poppy and stayed clear of this one.
Growling with disgust, he grabbed the keys and got out of the car. He adjusted his dumb chauffeur’s cap and headed up the front steps.
A middle-aged woman at the desk inside the door phoned, spoke a few words, then led him back to the principal’s office.
The lighting wasn’t the greatest but he kept his shades on. The less these people saw of his face, the better.
The principal’s office… jeez, did that bring back memories.
Sister Louise was an older nun, all in black from head to toe. The only skin showing was on her hands and face—and that was encased in something that looked like a cut-out Whitman Sampler box. Looked about as comfortable as a vise. She stared out at him from that box through thick rimless glasses that magnified her watery blue eyes. Her jutting lower jaw made her mouth look weird when she smiled.
Which she did when she greeted him.
“Good day, Mr… ?”
“Anderson,” he said, glad he remembered to look at the ID Mac had given him. “James Anderson.”
“And you’re here to pick up… ?” What is this? Twenty questions? She knows damn well who I’m here for.
“The Vanduyne child. Katie Vanduyne.”
“Oh, yes. Dr. Vanduyne called and told me you’d be coming.” She stuck her head out the door. “Camille, would you fetch Katie Vanduyne from K-3 and bring her here?” Then she turned back to Paulie and held out her hand. “Your identification, please, Mr. Anderson.” He fumbled in his pocket. Suspicious old broad, wasn’t she. Mac might be a mean, sneaky, rat bastard, but he’d covered all the bases. Paulie pulled out his Reliance Limo ID and hoped she wouldn’t notice how his hand shook when he handed it over. But he held back on the driver’s license. No need to appear too cooperative.
Sister Louise’s brow furrowed as she studied the ID.
“This isn’t a photo ID.”
“No,ma’am.” She looked up and studied him just as closely with those old blue eyes. She was still smiling but Paulie began getting a bad feeling about this nun. She had this sweet little-old-lady air about her but she was a sharp old bat, and suspicious as all hell.
“Do you have an ophthalmologic condition?”
“Beg pardon?”
“An eye condition, Mr. Anderson. Is there something wrong with your eyes?”
“No, ma’am.”