A sleepy baritone answered. “You had better not be a telephone solicitor,” he growled.
“I’m selling male sexual enhancers. We’re counting on you for a big order. Sorry about the pun.”
There was a moment of silence, then he said, “That you, Tommy?”
“No names.”
“You asshole, it’s… it’s damn near three o’fucking clock in the morning. Couldn’t this have waited until daylight?”
“This is the only time I could sign out of the sewer where I’m hiding.”
“No shit. What do you want, anyway?”
“Is that any way to talk to your boss?”
“What do you want, asshole?”
“I want to talk to you. I’m in front of your building. Buzz me in.”
Silence. “And to think I could be getting a good night’s sleep in a hole in Afghanistan right this very minute.” He hung up. I’ll admit, Joe Billy Dunn had a rough personality. The system sent me a holy warrior from Delta Force that I was supposed to transform into a cool, collected, accomplished burglar.
The door clicked, and I entered the lobby. I stood there with the cell phone in my hand, waiting. If Joe Billy Dunn called the cops or CIA security, Sarah would immediately call me. I checked my watch. A long minute passed, then another.
Maybe Dunn couldn’t find the telephone number. Then again, how hard is it to dial 911?
After three minutes I called Sarah.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Okay.” I walked over to the elevator and pushed the up button.
Standing outside Dunn’s door, I patted the Grafton’s Colt for reassurance. I didn’t want to shoot him for any reason under the sun. I needed his help. On the other hand, if he had a gun in his hand when he opened the door, this might get a little dicey.
Of course he did. A Beretta 9 mm. He stood back, waved me in.
“You packing?” he asked when I was in the center of the room with my hands up.
“Yeah.” So much for the Mexican standoff.
“Drop it on the floor, real slow.”
I did as he asked.
“Now sit on the couch.”
Only when I was well away from him did he bend down to pick up my shooter. He squatted, never took his eyes off me. The Beretta looked like it was welded into his hand. Okay, maybe he was as good as the Army said he was.
“Explain to me why I shouldn’t call the agency and tell them that I’m holding a traitor who sold out to the Russians at gunpoint in my apartment.”
“Because you know I’m not a traitor.”
“They’re looking all over hell for you, Tommy. Claim you murdered a bunch of agency people in West Virginia.”
“I was there. We were hit by some guys. I got a couple of the killers and got away in one piece.”
He took a seat on a chair against the far wall, as far from me as possible. Although he was wearing only his underwear, there was not a sliver of doubt in my crooked mind that Joe Billy Dunn was a first-class pro who could handle anything in my limited repertoire.
I went through it, explained everything, holding nothing back. When I finished he put the pistol on the countertop and asked, “Want some coffee?”
“Sure.”
“They wouldn’t tell me anything at the office. Just that you were wanted and to call them immediately if I heard a peep out of you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t believe a damn word of it. Not that I’ve known you that long, but I can’t see you for cold-blooded murder. I’ve known a few killers. They like it; you can sense that.” He went into the kitchen and began making coffee. I retrieved my shooter and took a seat in front of the counter. His pistol was lying beside my elbow.
I took my phone out and laid it beside the pistol. Sarah would call me when and if she learned someone was on the way to arrest me. If they had the place bugged and were merely listening, she wouldn’t know that unless someone called a telephone she was monitoring. Every minute I was here was a risk.
If you think that I knew Joe Billy was on my side, think again. It had crossed my mind that he might be planning to pump me and dump it in person at the office tomorrow. If he did that I was screwed.
Joe Billy got his coffeemaker going, then turned and leaned on the counter. He crossed his arms. “So why haven’t you called in?” he asked.
“Would you?”
He took his time before he answered. “No, I guess not.”
“The president is going to be nominated for his second term next week in New York. His campaign is using the New York Hilton as their HQ. I don’t know if the president will stay there, but Dell Royston, the campaign manager, surely will. We want to bug the Hilton.”
Joe Billy whistled softly.
“Going to need your help to pull it off.”
“We going to share a cell in the joint, or will we each get our own?”
“Hey, man, you can say no. I’m in this to my eyes, but you aren’t. You don’t want to dive in, I understand.”
He busied himself with cups and milk from the fridge, then poured us coffee. Only when we were both sipping did he say, “What do you want me to do?”
“I need bugs and transmitters and a truck.”
“Have to steal it.”
I nodded, sipped some coffee. It was too acidic for my taste, but I drank it anyway.
“You know what I heard? When I got assigned to your division? Someone said you were a jewel thief before you were recruited for the CIA.”
I let that one go by without comment.
“There was also a rumor that you were a suspect in the murder of a microbiology professor a couple of years ago.”
“Jesus!” I roared. “What watercooler have you been hanging out at?”
“Never end a sentence with a preposition.”
“… Hanging out at, asshole?”
“Much better,” Joe Billy said. “I deserve that, I suppose. Okay. I’ll get you the stuff. Shouldn’t be too hard — just gin up a fake work order and put it though the system, then pick everything up at the warehouse.”
“How come?”
“You remind me of my older brother.”
“Who is?”
“Dead. Killed by a suicider in Iraq.”
“Okay.” I didn’t ask any more questions. I guess I didn’t want to know. I gave him the specifics of what we needed and my cell phone number, shook hands, and left.
At some level you just have to trust people, yet when the stakes are large, it’s damned hard.
I took the elevator down.
As the door opened at the bottom I started through it — and found myself staring at the muzzle of a silenced pistol. The silencer looked as big as a sausage, but the hole in the middle made it all business.
The man holding the pistol pushed it at me, and I stepped backward. He climbed on the elevator and glanced at the buttons, then pushed the top one.
He was about forty, of medium height, reasonably fit. He grinned broadly as the door closed. “The great Carmellini. You ran over a friend of mine, then shot at me.” He raised the pistol and sighted over the silencer at my head. “You don’t look so goddamn tough—”
His mistake was talking when he should have been shooting. And he was too close to his victim. I lashed out with my left hand, sweeping the pistol aside, and kicked with my right foot. Got him in the balls.
The pistol popped as he crumpled. I grabbed the weapon with both hands and ripped it out of his hands. Then I kicked him again, this time in the stomach. The third kick, in the neck, crushed his larynx.
He convulsed. With both hands around his throat, he writhed on the floor, trying to get air somehow.
I picked up the gun. Working fast, holding him down, I checked his pockets. He had a ring of keys, which I appropriated. He also had a cell phone, which I didn’t think he’d need anymore.