“You handled the esteemed assemblyman?” he asked.
“Excessively,” Candy said.
Ten blocks later, when Slatcher parked at one of the seedy tourist motels off the 101 near Universal Studios, she emerged from the car a new woman. She wore clunky espadrilles, a shapeless skirt pulled too high at the waist, and a loose blouse with fussy ruffles to hide her va-va-voom figure.
Slatcher unfolded himself from the car. He was quite tall at six-three, but that didn’t account for his size — it was more his breadth. He wasn’t athlete-stacked but rather pear-shaped, bulky like the outermost Russian nesting doll. His capacious midsection always surprised Candy, and yet there was no flab, just firm mass and muscle, a rock-hard gut billowing beneath a checkered taupe golf shirt. His true-blue jeans, pleated, served as another nod to out-of-towner aesthetics, as did the Oakley wraparounds worn backward on his head to rest at the bulge in his neck.
He hoisted three ballistic nylon Victorinox suitcases from the auto-opening trunk and set them down. Brusquely, he handed her a floppy sunhat, which she set gently atop her Farrah Fawcett wig. The brim wobbled expansively around her head, every tourist’s bad beach-fashion statement.
Telescoping one Victorinox handle up, she tilted the case onto its embedded wheels, feeling the weight of the contents as they clanked. Side by side, like mismatched flight attendants, she and Slatcher headed for the tiny reception office.
Their entrance was heralded when the opening door knocked a bell — actually cheery jingle bells—affixed above the frame. A wattle-necked woman looked up from a paperback. “Welcome to Starry Dreams Motel,” she said.
“Heavens to Betsy,” Candy said, arming sweat off the band of brow exposed somewhere between her big shades, the feathery Farrah hair, and the straw brim that shielded much of her face. “Such a dry heat.”
“Where you folks in from?”
“Charleston,” she said. “Checking in under Miller.”
“Ah, yes,” the woman said. “I have you in Room Eight.”
“Will you please put hypoallergenic pillows in our room?” Slatcher asked.
“I’m afraid we don’t have hypoallergenic pillows here.”
Candy rested an elbow on the counter. “You know what they say. They just don’t make men like they used to.”
Slatcher gave an annoyed marital grunt.
The woman processed two key cards and handed them across.
“What time does breakfast open?” Slatcher asked. “We’re heading early to Universal Studios.”
“There’ll be coffee and Danish out from six A.M.”
“Bless my stars,” Candy said. “We’d better not be waking up that early.”
“It’s three hours later for us,” Slatcher said. “That’s nine.”
“Look at that,” Candy said, grabbing her suitcase and heading for the door. “He can add, too.”
The minute they entered their room, Candy yanked the sunhat off, Frisbeed it onto one of the queen beds, and tugged her head free of the wig. She scratched at her hair. “Fuck me,” she said. “That shit is hot.”
They unzipped the suitcases, laying out pistols, magazines, and boxes of ammo on the floral bedspread. Candy inspected the barrel chamber and bore of a Walther P22. “So this broad. Katrin White. What’s our leverage?”
They’d spoken briefly on the phone on her way down the mountain.
“Our leverage is Sam.”
“Who we have a bead on.”
“Sam,” Slatcher said, “is under control.”
“Then why’d Ms. White drop off the radar?”
“Because he took control of the situation.”
“The Man with No Name?”
“That is correct. He killed one of my freelancers.”
“Kane?”
“Ostrowski.”
“Huh,” she said. She’d never liked Ostrowski.
“I’ve brought in a field team for us,” Slatcher said. “Former Blackwater.”
“Hoo-rah.”
“This guy’s very dangerous.”
“I assumed as much.”
“He does not want to be found.”
Candy unzipped her duffel bag. “Well,” she said, hoisting out a jug of hydrofluoric acid, “then let’s make his dream come true.”
15
Tick, Tick, Tick
It all checked out.
Katrin White, the divorce from Adam Hamuel, the dead mom, the father in Vegas, even the byzantine contortion of family trusts into which her ex-husband’s money had vanished.
What didn’t check out was the direct-dial number Katrin had for the kidnappers. Camped out in the Vault, chewing a tart Granny Smith apple, Evan traced the eleven digits through various electronic switchboards as they ping-ponged around the globe and then vanished into the Internet ether in a manner he found frustratingly familiar.
They wouldn’t be backtraced any more than he would.
Time was key. There was no point in chasing his tail around Las Vegas searching for an itinerant backroom poker game. Evan had to be in touch with the sniper and his people soon. He didn’t want their vexation to simmer, turn to rage, then desperation.
He ran his hands over his face, gave Vera a look. She looked back from her nest of cobalt blue pebbles, offering nothing. At the base of his brain, he felt the tick, tick, tick of paranoia. His gaze moved from the little plant to the RoamZone phone beside it. He removed the SIM card, crushed it under his heel, and replaced it with a new one. Then he jumped online and moved the phone service from the outfit in Jiangsu to one in Bangalore.
Earlier he’d lifted Katrin’s fingerprints from the passenger-side door handle of the Chrysler sedan, which he’d wiped clean before approaching her in Chinatown. From the databases he knew that she was who she said she was, her story literally battle-tested. Nonetheless, in honor of the First Commandment he went back through everything again, plumbing her Social Security records and bank accounts, looking for the slightest hiccup or red flag.
Nothing.
Though she’d been stoic when he’d left her in the hotel room, he could read the fear in her eyes. He’d returned to bring her food, some toiletries, and new clothes of various sizes, which she seemed to find vaguely amusing. Then he’d driven back to Chinatown.
At least ten police units had been on-site, lights flashing, as well as multiple unmarked sedans. The shattered windows of Lotus Dim Sum gaped, a row of jagged mouths, and shards still littered the sidewalk. Across the street from Central Plaza, cops swarmed the apartment building. Slowing as he drove along Broadway, Evan picked out a solemn congregation of detectives on the balcony of the third-floor apartment, centered almost precisely on the spot he’d picked up the glint of the scope. Getting a look at the crime scene would have to wait. Evan had coasted by, then switched out cars at the safe house and driven home.
In the Vault now, he took one more bite of apple and tossed the core toward the trash bin in the corner. He bricked the shot, the remains bouncing wetly onto the concrete. He stared at the disobedient apple core, his jaw tense. Then he rose, picked it up, and wiped the floor clean.
As he dropped back into his chair, his eye caught on a rugged gray-haired man peeking out from the clutter of open windows on his computer desktop. With a click of the mouse, he brought the DMV photo to the forefront.
Sam White. Katrin’s father.
Held hostage this very minute by men unafraid to fire into a crowded restaurant in broad daylight.
Sam wore a half smile that crinkled his eyes, his skin toughened from sun exposure. He’d worked as a construction manager and looked the part. A guy you’d want to share a beer with, watch a game. Someone to teach you to play poker.