“Dead. Sorry about that.”
“Well,” he said. “One in Boston, four in Central Park—plus the one you crippled—and now this. You’re leaving quite a trail of bodies behind you, Adam.”
You ever talk to someone and think, his voice just isn’t that deep? That was the impression Robert Grindel was giving me.
“Whose fault is that?” I asked.
“Mine, I suppose. Can’t guarantee law enforcement will see it that way. Should I call them? Tell them who they should be looking for?”
“You wouldn’t do that, Robert.”
“No. I guess I wouldn’t,” he agreed. “Killing the demon was particularly impressive. He’s been quite a mystery for the local coroner.”
“Has he?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve been reading their files. Nobody protects anything properly any more, you know. The lack of security is really amazing. They say half his body had disintegrated before it even reached their office, and the entire thing dissolved completely overnight. I don’t know about you, but I find that fascinating.”
Actually it was sort of fascinating. The idea that demons had a self-destruct mechanism would explain how a creature that large could go virtually unnoticed by the modern scientific community. “What do you want, Robert?” I asked, getting back to the point. “Why have you been doing this?”
He laughed, temporarily straying into a more natural higher octave. “I want you to come visit me.”
“And this is how you go about asking?”
“I couldn’t have you saying no,” he said.
“I might not have,” I argued.
“Your instinct is to run, Adam. I think that’s been firmly established. Look at what you did to my man in Boston before you even understood what was happening.”
“I suppose you read that report, too?”
“I did. And I understand. I really do. Underneath that veneer of modern sophistication, you are still the feral ape man lashing out instinctively when cornered.”
“Gosh, you make it sound so romantic.”
“It is,” he said, sounding genuinely impressed. “Your brutality is a marvel. It’s one of the things I admire about you.”
Zeus, was he going to ask me out on a date, or what? “Look, Robert, let’s skip ahead. Is the girl with you?”
“Not yet, but I expect her here very soon. I look forward to meeting her.”
“Great,” I said. “Listen, I probably don’t need to tell you this, but if you hurt her you’re going to get an up-close look at that brutality thing you find so marvelous.”
“Of course. But I highly recommend haste on your part. I can’t guarantee her safety forever.”
“Two days,” I said. “And you’d better call off your hunters. I’m coming in on my own.”
“I’m glad. Once you’re here I’m sure you’ll appreciate what I’m trying to accomplish.”
I didn’t think so. I was planning on going in, getting the girl, and leaving. “What might that be?”
“Something historic. But I can’t go into details now. You understand. Now, let me give you the coordinates.”
He dictated a series of numbers to me, which I dutifully wrote down despite not having a clear idea what they meant. He assured me anyone with a basic understanding of navigation could figure them out. He was kind enough to give me a hint. It was somewhere in Arizona. Guess he’d left Seattle.
“Don’t be late,” he recommended before hanging up. “I don’t want to hurt her, but… you understand my position.”
I hung up by pressing the button a second time. As soon as the call was disconnected the digital display blinked out. The phone was a one-use-only device, as I’d thought. Which was okay, because I really didn’t relish another conversation with Mr. Grindel. But I had two days to worry about that.
Tossing the device back into my bag, I retrieved the cell phone I’d taken from John in the minivan. I checked my watch. It was six in the evening in Zurich. They’d take my call anyway. Money buys lots of things.
Chapter 23
The first thing Patti did, when I handed her the coordinates Grindel had given me, was check her map and confirm. “There’s no airfield at that location.”
“It’s in Arizona somewhere,” I offered helpfully.
“I know it’s in Arizona. It’s probably a dried lake bed or something. Not my point.”
She sat down and made a few calculations and then a few phone calls, and in another twenty minutes, she had the entire itinerary planned out. Patti seemed very competent, which was good. I always look for competence in someone who’s going to be flying me somewhere. I’m still pretty sure man was not meant to fly, so the confidence that the person doing that flying is not also a raving nut job helps me cope. I knew more than a couple of self-professed geniuses in my day who managed to turn glue and some bird feathers into inadvertent suicide.
The problem with the lack of an airport, as Patti explained to me shortly after takeoff, was refueling. If she wasn’t landing on an airstrip she needed to get to the coordinates with enough fuel to cover a trip to the nearest one. “It changes the dynamics of the flight plan a bit.”
It turns out it doesn’t take all that long to make it across the United States. This is one of those things I still can’t quite get used to. For most of my life, distances were calculated by how long it would take to walk from one place to the next. Then it was how long a good horse could take you in a day. Now it’s motorized vehicles and planes, and I’ve only had a century to adjust. Flying in general doesn’t bother me so much—as long as I don’t think about it all too long—because it’s conceptually so far removed from any other experience that I have nothing to compare it to. It’s the efficiency that messes me up.
As Patti pointed out when handing me the itinerary, she could have drawn up a plan to get me there in under a day if I wanted. I didn’t, mainly because as expected, the cell phone I was using couldn’t pick up a signal at thirty-thousand feet. And I had a follow-up phone call or two to place.
* * *
We made small talk for most of the flight. Patti was decidedly professional about the whole thing, not once bringing up the gun in my bag or her suspicion that whatever I was involved in, it was in all likelihood illegal.
Instead, we talked about Patti and her sordid love life. The bulk of her tale lasted about three hours and took us through two states. Which was plenty of time to learn more than anybody who isn’t a priest or a lover should have any right to know about another person. The good news was I hardly had to talk at all. Sure, I could have volunteered something to the conversation—I have learned enough to know that when a woman talks, one should at least nod and grunt appreciatively from time to time—but once she got into a rhythm there was no stopping her.
“Oh, listen to me!” she said finally, shortly after the amusing tale of Dan, the garbage man who liked to dress in a tutu at night. “I’ve been doing all the talking. Sorry, it’s a nervous thing. I talk a lot when I’m nervous.”
“I make you nervous?”
“Not you exactly, no,” she said, without elaboration. She meant the gun. “So what’s your story?”
“You don’t really want to know, do you?”
She glanced over at me. “Kinda,” she said. “You just don’t seem the type.”
“The type for what?”
“To be involved in… whatever. Crime, I guess. There’s a big black cloud of trouble around your head.”
“You reading my aura now?”
She smiled. “Pilots know clouds.”
I laughed. “So how does a person who is, as you say, involved in crime, act ordinarily?”
“There’s two types—nervous or way too calm. The nervous ones spend the whole time bouncing up and down and staring at shit on the dashboard and asking stupid questions. I hate that. But the calm ones are worse. They just sit there and don’t move, or talk, or anything. The whole flight is one uncomfortable pause. I hate that.”