Alien Hunter (Flynn Carroll)

by Whitley Strieber

  “DMV probably has one.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard. “Got it.”

  “That was a couple of seconds.”

  “Fast hands.”

  “No wonder Oltisis wanted you, you’re a friggin’ genius.”

  “Always been my problem,” she said tightly. “Makes you think you can get away with any kind of shit. If that hack I did on the Grand had gone down the right way, I’d be in Tahiti now, not a worry in the world.”

  “Tahiti’d get old, be my guess.”

  “No older than catching car thieves and pushers.”

  “Yeah, as screwed up as this is, it’s better.”

  They laid the driver’s license photo side by side with a blowup of the face of the man Elizabeth had met in the lobby.

  “It’s close,” she said.

  “It’s a maybe. Let’s talk to the father.”

  “We lose time.”

  “A little.”

  “What do we gain?”

  “You never know.”

  Leaving the Grand, Flynn thought that they were entering a new and far more dangerous world. How had the baddies ever taken out Chicago?

  “You did warn them in that call?”

  “Absolutely. Oltisis said he was aware of the problem and all over it.”

  Flynn said nothing.

  As they walked through the port cochere, past the line of parking valets, Vegas was gold with late sun, the neon just gaining definition against the blazing western sky. Looking toward the mountains to the west, blue now, he thought of the tiger on its strange journey, and what it had seen and what it knew.

  They were alike, him and the tiger, two hunters. The only difference was in their choice of prey.

  Diana sat beside him in the car, her hands folded in her lap, her face as pale as a cloud, her eyes hard and quick and scared. The eyes of the hunted.

  “Where were you in prison?”

  “Lesbian Island.”

  “But you’re not one.”

  “I was put there, okay? End of subject. I do not wish to talk about old lives that are dead.”

  “After I lost my wife, I left Menard. Couldn’t stop going. I’d dip in here to hit a few casinos for money.”

  “You counted good enough to get booked. That’s impressive.”

  “I have a trick memory.” His mind was a warehouse full of file cabinets, full of details that he could never escape. “I recall every hand I ever played. And not just cards. I can tell you about the breeze on the night of August 14, 1997. I can tell you about the T-shirt Abby wore on June 11, 2006. You name it, I’ve got the details.”

  “Details suit a detective.”

  He turned onto Thirtieth. “I guess. At least I don’t need a GPS. Saves a little money.”

  “What if you’ve never been there before?”

  “I’ve seen a map.”

  The father lived in a single-family home on Langdon, a short street that dead-ended into a condo complex. They pulled up in front and got out of the car.

  “It’s empty,” Flynn said.

  “You’re a mind reader, too? Do you have a cape? Some kind of leotard?”

  “Yeah, I have a leotard. Asshole Patrol.”

  She knocked on the door. As he expected, there was no answer.

  She said, “You’re sure this is going to be productive, because now we’ve got to look for him.”

  “If it wasn’t him at the Grand, then we have a picture of a member of this group, so yeah, it’s going to help.”

  “He’s not here and we’ll never find him.”

  “Let’s go back to the car.”

  “And go where?”

  “Nowhere. Wait.”

  “Wait?”

  “What a detective does, mostly.”

  They said little, and that was how he preferred it. You chatted during a stakeout, you missed things. It was all about focus.

  The sun went down, the sky to the west raged with the light of the strip. Bats darted past the car. The air turned cool, then cold. Diana rolled up her window. “I hate the cold,” she said. Her hand went to her neck. He knew that she was remembering the Hoffman stakeout.

  It was nine twenty when a man came walking slowly down the street.

  “It’s him and don’t get out of the car until he enters the house and closes the door. If he’s gonna run, you want him to start from a confined space.”

  “Why would he run?”

  “No idea.”

  He was old and stooped and used up. Whatever he’d had, Vegas had taken it. Flynn watched him go up the walk, enter the house, and close the door.

  “Okay, now.”

  They got out of the car and followed him. Flynn put his hand on his badge wallet. The big star on his badge was a giveaway for Texas, but if he flashed it fast, maybe the guy wouldn’t notice. Diana’s credential would likely work better.

  He knocked, then again, then the door was drawn open. Mr. Starnes stood there in a black undershirt.

  “Yeah?”

  Flynn did his badge. “May we come in?”

  “You’re cops so it’s about Lizzie. I’m finished with her. Whatever she’s done, she’s done. Not my problem.”

  “When did you last see Elizabeth?”

  “Dunno. Three years? Five? Last time she showed up high. Sick of it. Sick of her.”

  Flynn thanked him and returned to the car, Diana following.

  “You hardly asked him a thing. I think he knew something.”

  “He knew nothing and he’s not the man she met in the lobby.”

  “Oh. Is that good?”

  “It’s good. Now we have a face. A real face, of somebody we know is involved, maybe the perp himself.”

  She followed him to the car and they headed back to the Grand.

  “With a face,” he added, “we have a shot at finding a name.”

  “How would we do that?”

  “The old-fashioned way. We get the picture fixed up as clear as the computer genius can make it, then we hand it out to the staff. We show it to maids, bellmen, valets, anybody who might be able to help.”

  “What if he doesn’t have an identity?”

  “There’ll be something somewhere. There always is.”

  “You know that? Despite how careful they are.”

  “I know it.”

  They returned to their small office. Willard came in. “I’m getting my hotel fixed. Nobody can figure out how that hatch was cut. You guys got anything for us?”

  “Not our lookout,” Flynn said.

  “But you’re government. You’ve got resources.”

  “Report the kidnap to the FBI. Get them involved.”

  “No, thank you. I’ve got the LVPD to worry about already.”

  “Then don’t ask.”

  “Don’t ask? Fine. I got a front office that’s about to wring my neck and your only fucking response is don’t ask?”

  Flynn sighed. “If we told you, we’d have to kill you.”

  “That bullshit line. Is that from a movie?”

  “No doubt. Look, tell your front office that it’s classified and it’s all under control and they will never hear from us or the asshole with the tiger again. Or the tiger.”

  “I hate the government so much I’m even afraid to vote Republican,” Willard said.

  “Get out.”

  He left, slamming the door behind him.

  “You were nice.”

  “Thank you.”

  As Diana passed the image through a software photo processor in her laptop, it became clearer and clearer.

  “It’s a disguise.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “The hairline’s too perfect. The face is too tan. Likely, it’s makeup.”

  “One that you can see in a picture, but that Elizabeth Starnes bought from three feet away? I don’t think so.”

  “For whatever reason, she wanted to buy it.”

  “Well, it doesn’t help us, Flynn.”

  “There’s more info
rmation out there.”

  Parking valets at places like the Grand sometimes remember things, so their first stop was the port cochere.

  The encounter in the lobby had taken place just after noon. He’d already looked at a list of the Grand’s shift patterns, and the shift that was on right now would have seen anyone who left at that time.

  He said to Diana, “I need you to fade while I do this. Unless these guys think I’m a private dick, they’re going to clam up, and PIs don’t roll with beautiful assistants.”

  “And cops do?”

  “Question marks do, and that’s what they don’t like.”

  She stalked off down the port cochere. Traffic was light, so there were six valets waiting. He wasted no time, he knew the drill.

  “I need some help,” he said, holding up the picture.

  Eyes moved toward it. Brains calculated. Flynn knew the question that these guys were asking themselves: could this asshole be stripped of a c-note with a lie? He headed that one off at the pass. “I know the man’s name, that’s not the problem. What we need to know is if he was in a Hertz car.”

  Interest dropped a little. Not a divorce case, so less money was going to be involved. But then again, Hertz was a big outfit.

  “We don’t like our cars getting boosted,” he continued, “so anything you know.” He rubbed two fingers together.

  One of the guys took the picture and looked at it. “This wasn’t a rental car,” he said.

  “You closed it out?”

  “I worked a double shift today. I opened it, too.”

  Flynn watched the other guys. No trace of a suppressed smile anywhere. “So, okay, what’ve you got?”

  “Nightlights Limo both directions. Two passengers inbound, three outbound.”

  Another of the valets sighed as if he was a tire losing air. The fool had just given up the money.

  “That’s one of them in the picture,” the fool added. Then he fell silent.

  Not a fool, then. Pretty good at what he did, actually. “Okay, so give.”

  Silence. Not a gesture, not a sound. He’d been doing this job for a while. Discreetly, Flynn showed a hundred-dollar bill. The guy rubbed his cheek with three fingers. Was the Grand this strict about this kind of tipping? He hadn’t thought a casino would be. Live and learn.

  Flynn played the game, rubbing his own cheek with two fingers.

  “See ’em,” the guy said.

  He took out two hundred-dollar bills. They changed hands.

  “That’s the second passenger in the picture. Obviously not the lead guy. The boss was wearing about five grand, one of those suits where the guy’s name is woven into the pinstripe.”

  He fought down his excitement. “And the name was?”

  “Morris. In the pinstripes.”

  “Morris looked how?”

  “He looked rich is how.”

  “Give me a description. Hair, eye color, anything you remember.”

  “He stayed well back in the car. I’m guessing at five eleven, say. Full head of black hair. Suit and tie, unusual around here. You’re looking at a film star, sort of, but old-fashioned. Am I helping you?”

  “Names?”

  “Morris in the pinstripe. And he might have said ‘Jay.’ Might have said that name.”

  “Like he was talking to somebody or about somebody?”

  The valet shook his head.

  “Anything more you can tell me?”

  “Look, we’re deep into this and obviously it has nothing to do with Hertz, so I’m gonna need another couple of memory sticks.”

  “Anybody else got anything, now’s the time.” He put his hand on his breast pocket where he kept his wallet.

  Another of the men said, “I put number two back in the vehicle. One of our managers was with him.”

  “That we know.”

  It took a hundred-dollar bill to get him to go any further. “The guy who went and got her was well dressed.”

  “This was Jay?”

  “I didn’t hear that. He thanked me for opening the door, that was it.”

  “And your manager? How did she act?”

  “Drunk. High. Couldn’t tell. Not walking the walk, that was for sure.”

  That was all they knew, so Flynn walked out of the port cochere and back into the hotel. Diana caught up with him in the corridor.

  “I have good descriptions of two persons of interest. And a couple of names. Last name of Morris. And Jay. Somebody named Jay was with him.”

  “Can you find them?”

  He considered that. He had descriptions. He had the name of the limo company they’d used. “Yeah,” he said, “I can find them.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The least impressive vehicle Starlight Limos offered was a stretch Mercedes 300, and that’s what Morris and company had used. It didn’t take long to identify the driver, a part-timer called Ronald Brewster. The boss gave him up for twenty bucks. He lived in a weekly rate motel off the strip.

  “On an approach like this, you need to follow procedures that I’m sure you aren’t familiar with.”

  “What sort of procedures?”

  “When a cop knocks on a door, anything can happen. So you stay behind me. Don’t try to engage at all. Just stay out of it.”

  “I’m here to do my work, just like you are.”

  “Yeah, fine. This isn’t your work. You’re here because you’re safer with me than alone. With me, you might live. Without me, you won’t.”

  They walked around a swimming pool full of brown water that smelled of dead chemicals and drowned rats. A half-inflated Batman toy floated in it. The exotic orange mildew on the chaise lounges could have come from another planet.

  It was dark now, and some of the rooms showed lights behind drawn curtains. Most did not.

  He’d probably been in motels like this hundreds of times over the course of his career, sometimes to convince some guy not to push some girl through a wall, sometimes to arrest him for doing it. The Tara in Menard was the same sort of place, where sleazebag lawyers took their nooners and people went to live out their final acts.

  He ran his eyes along the roofline, along the balconies, looking for threats. It was possible that they’d finally broken through a significant barrier on the case. For the first time, they were actually investigating real, solid human beings. In all likelihood, they’d never been expected to get this far. So the strikeback, when it came, was going to be sudden and hard.

  “Why are we standing here?”

  “I’m looking for something.”

  “May I know what?”

  “Danger.”

  That silenced her.

  “You make a move in a place like this, everybody thinks you’re coming for them, and they all generally have reason to think that. Knock on the wrong door, you’re liable to get blown away for nothing.”

  “And the right door?”

  “You’re likely to get blown away for a reason. Let’s go.”

  Brewster was downstairs, in room 103. The lights were on.

  “Wouldn’t it have been safer to call ahead?”

  “Then the lights would be off, because Mr. Brewster would be gone.” Here and there, Flynn saw a curtain part. Here and there, lights went out. There was a rasping click from two doors down. “Somebody in 121 racked a pistol,” he said. “Be aware of this.”

  He knocked on Brewster’s door.

  Silence.

  “Mr. Brewster, we’re PIs. We need a little information.”

  Silence.

  “I got a c-note for you, you open the door.”

  Nothing.

  “Okay, I’ll push it under the door. You still don’t want to talk, you can keep it.” Then, to Diana, “Gimme a hundred-dollar bill.”

  She handed him the cash. “I hope this is worth it,” she said.

  He slid the bill under the door. “There’s more where this came from, buddy.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Five minutes
, Mr. Brewster.”

  The silence extended.

  “Nobody there,” Flynn said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “The place isn’t breathing. Look, I’m gonna pop the lock, so stand away from the door. If there’s gonna be shooting, this is when.”

  “But the man with the gun is two doors down.”

  “Exactly.” He gave the door a slightly harder knock. “Come on, Mr. Brewster, there’s money out here, but it can’t wait forever.” With his free hand, he slid a credit card into the doorjamb. “They make these easy, so cops can pop them without damaging the premises.”

  When Flynn opened the door, a cloud of smoke came out—crack smoke. “Not good,” he said. Then he saw the body. “We have a problem.”

  The face was purple, the fists clenched against the throat.

  “Is he ill?”

  The man had been murdered, but this was no time to get into that. “Back out.”

  “But—”

  “Do it now!”

  She remained rooted, staring. He took her by the shoulders and pulled her out. He pulled the door closed until the tongue of the lock clicked. There would be little evidence of their presence here, unless the next door decided to yap them to the locals. Hopefully it was some paranoid, not a cop-talker.

  “Is he asleep?”

  “Get to the car.”

  They crossed the courtyard. Once they were in the car, he said to her, “The man was dead.”

  “My God.”

  “They made it look like he popped himself on crack. He didn’t.”

  “You know that? How?”

  “Trust me.”

  Unless they were very lucky, the two of them were made and this time they were going all the way down.

  “What does it mean?”

  “They were cleaning up a loose end. We’re the other one.”

  “Why not just blow us away?”

  As he drove, he glanced at her. “I like to think it’s because we’ve been a little too slippery for them. But that guy hadn’t been dead for fifteen minutes, so they’re moving fast and we’re their top priority, you can be sure.

  “What do we do next? Do we need to get out of here?”

  “Ever been to Phoenix?”

  “No.”

  “You’re going. Right now. Phoenix, Salt Lake, wherever we can get to fast.”

  He drove to shake a tail, but he doubted that it mattered. They’d have a box on the car, no question.