First Drop tcfs-4

by Zoe Sharp

  “Yes, OK,” I allowed, “but what’s Keith doing that’s so vital to the US government that they would go to those lengths to protect him?” I looked from one of the boys to the other, but they just shrugged. “He’s just a computer programmer who writes financial software, not anything for the military.”

  For a moment the only noise in the loft was Scott clicking that stud against his teeth again. Downstairs, over the drift of MTV I could hear the earnest murmur of Aimee’s voice, giving Trey a pep talk.

  I sighed. Keith Pelzner worked in an industry where talent made you rich and the bottom line was that he wasn’t a wealthy man. The house in Lauderdale had been rented by the company who employed him. He’d flashed his cash around but even that had all been provided by them. So what made him important enough for this?

  It just didn’t fit together. I couldn’t reconcile a geek like Keith, however talented a programmer he might be, playing any role vital to national security. Nothing that would explain armed men being sent out to try and kill his son, at any rate. I saw again the man in the Buick falling. I pushed it away.

  “Try another search for me, would you?”

  “OK,” Scott said, sitting forwards again, “but we’ve been through just about everything I can think of.”

  “This one’s just for any reports on a man’s body turning up in the last twenty-four hours. He’ll have been shot.”

  Scott glanced at me and his eyes gleamed as the realisation hit of exactly who I was looking for. He bent over his keyboard with fresh vigour, his fingers rippling across the keys. He went back and checked most of the same places where he’d just been looking for any sign of Trey’s mother. We came up with the same result. Nothing.

  “He’s probably ‘gator food by now, man,” Xander said with a certain amount of relish. “Plenty of places in Florida to get rid of a body, if you know where to go.” He glanced at me sideways. “That’s if you’re sure you really wasted him, huh?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. I’d known instinctively as soon as I’d shot the man in the Buick that he was dead. There was something about the way he’d dropped, the sound he’d made. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I’d known, nevertheless. Now it seemed that whoever he’d been working for was big enough, or powerful enough, to dispose of the body without leaving a trace.

  Did that just make them organised?

  Or did it make them federal?

  I looked at the boys, found them watching me expectantly. “Maybe,” I said slowly, “we can’t discount some kind of government involvement after all.”

  “All right!” Scott whooped, punching the air and grinning. “I just knew this was a big conspiracy.”

  Aimee reappeared at the top of the stairs at that point, with Trey trailing behind her. He wasn’t quite dragging the toes of his scuffed trainers along the carpet as he came, but it was a pretty close-run thing.

  “Hey, man,” Xander said, clapping him on the shoulder, “looks like this is all part of some major cover-up. You know what that means, huh?”

  The four of them looked at each other with the air of cartoon characters who are just about to rip off their shirts to reveal they’re all wearing different coloured superhero costumes underneath.

  “We need Henry,” Trey said. He even managed to raise a smile.

  “Who the hell is Henry?” I demanded.

  For a moment none of them spoke, just stood and grinned inanely at each other. The way kids do when there’s an in-joke on the go and you’re firmly on the outside of it.

  Finally, it was Scott who took pity on me. Maybe he was just a better judge than the others of how far I could be pushed without exploding.

  “Henry’s this really cool guy who moderates a site about conspiracy theories – y’know, who shot JFK, are the government covering up the existence of aliens, all that kinda stuff.”

  “Henry will know what’s going on,” Xander put in firmly, “He’s the man.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t like it, but still there was no word from Madeleine. What other choices did I have?

  ***

  Scott sent a cryptic e-mail to the mysterious Henry asking only if he could shed any light on events currently in the news. Whatever my personal doubts about contacting a stranger, at least he was paying more attention to his e-mail than Madeleine.

  A reply came winging straight back. It was misspelt and curiously constructed, but at least it was prompt.

  scott, if told u evrything i know about wots going on behind evry news story, wed be hear forevr, it said. specifics?!

  “Hang on a moment,” I said as Scott reached for the keyboard again. “What exactly do you know about this guy?”

  “Oh he’s, like, ex-CIA,” Scott said airily, trying to be ultra casual. “He worked in Iraq and the Middle East and he was in Kuwait during Desert Storm.”

  “So says he,” I muttered under my breath. I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind about this. I didn’t know much about the CIA, but I’m sure they at least require their personnel to be able to pass a basic literacy test.

  Scott was waiting, expectant, his hands hovering over the keys. “Well?” he said. “Do I tell him, or what?”

  Trey flashed me a defiant glance. “Yeah,” he said. “What have we got to lose?”

  So Scott typed in, Trey and Keith Pelzner.

  Almost as soon as he’d sent it, Henry was back again. both been kidnapped, he’d put, keiths work v intresting. i no lot of hi up folk love to see him fail. software co in big truble without him!

  “See?” Trey said as soon as he’d read the message. “He’s plugged right in, I’m telling you.”

  “Not quite,” I said. To Scott I added, “Try telling him that Trey hasn’t been kidnapped. Tell him that he’s right here.”

  I glanced at Trey while Scott tapped in the words. The kid was looking even more morose than usual, head down, hands stuffed into his pockets. Mind you, the way Aimee was clinging on to his arm and murmuring in his ear, maybe he didn’t have a reason to drop the troubled teen act.

  It took Henry longer to reply this time and when he did his e-mail seemed to have more attention to it.

  u r in big truble. i can help. i can negotiate on yr behalf. MUST meet with u! trust nobody!

  He didn’t say if this last was himself included, but I was way ahead of him on that one.

  “He’s never suggested a meet before – like, never,” Scott said, sounding slightly awed. “What you wanna do?”

  Trey sighed and rolled his eyes, as you would if someone’s just asked a stupid question to which the answer is obvious. “Like, yeah,” he said. He didn’t even glance at me for confirmation.

  Where and when? Scott sent.

  Henry must have been poised over the keys waiting for an answer. He came back right away, naming a small bar near the Port Orange Marina, on the Atlantic side of the Intracoastal Waterway that separated the Beach Shores from the rest of Daytona. be in parkng lot in 27 mins, he’d added. i in red vette. come alone.

  “No way,” I said. For the start, specifying such an exact time smacked of pretension. Like someone who’s watched too many spy movies, rather than someone who’s ever been involved in the real thing. Secondly, if you’re involved in the undercover world you don’t drive round in a red Corvette. You have some sludge-coloured invisible saloon. And as for the ‘come alone’ bit, he must think Trey was even more stupid than he . . .

  “I gotta go!” Trey said, his voice whiny. “Your people never even got back to you, so how can—?”

  “Trey, I’m not trying to stop you going,” I said, cutting him off in mid-whinge, “but no way are you going on your own. I’m coming with you.”

  “He told me to come alone,” Trey muttered, sulky.

  I moved across to him and linked my arm through his on the side that wasn’t already attached to Aimee. “You’ll just have to tell him you’d got a hot date then,” I said, “won’t you?”

  Aimee pointedly disengaged herself. �
�That might work,” she told him, smiling sweetly. “If he believes you go for much older women . . .”

  ***

  Scott dropped us off just outside the marina twenty minutes later. Xander wanted to lurk nearby to catch a glimpse of their mysterious hero but Trey was against the idea.

  “He’ll spot you right off,” he complained, “and then he won’t show.”

  The others reluctantly agreed that someone with Henry’s eclectic espionage background was bound to check out the area thoroughly before he made contact. They withdrew to the safety of a diner two blocks away and said they’d wait for Trey to call.

  Trey and I waited in silence in the shadows, listening to the rumble of traffic over the bridge behind us. I’d noticed a sign on the way across that told me it was the Congressman William V Chapell Jr Memorial Bridge. Some memorial.

  Everywhere was the buzz and click of exotic insects. There was a slight breeze coming up from the water that stirred around my bare midriff. Underfoot, the dark asphalt was still warm from soaking up the sun all day. It was now slowly giving out heat like it was exhaling.

  My body was tense but a part of my mind was on standby. It began pondering on the completely different outlook that was required when you lived in a consistently hot climate like Florida, knowing you can rely on the weather most of the time. It might be constantly sunny, but it was also harsh and somehow unforgiving.

  I thought of my bikes sitting at home, the new Honda not yet seriously ridden because I didn’t want the final dregs of the winter road salt to pit its pristine aluminium frame. The last time I’d seen it seemed a long time ago.

  A sudden image of Sean rose up out of nowhere. A brief snapshot of a country house restaurant he’d taken me to the month before, near Henley-on-Thames. Perhaps it was the very Englishness of it, against such a setting, that had sparked off the memory.

  I’d dressed up for the occasion, probably the first time Sean had seen my legs in public. We’d eaten in an elegant high-ceilinged dining room, our table lit by a pair of tall silver candlesticks. The cool ivory linen was so starched the napkin had barely drooped when the waiter had laid it across my lap.

  And afterwards, when they’d cleared the debris of our meal, I’d glanced up and found Sean watching me intently and frowning.

  “What is it?” I’d asked.

  “You do realise,” he’d said carefully, twirling the stem of his wineglass between those long and clever fingers, “that what you’re proposing to do for a living is not exactly the safest profession in the world, don’t you, Charlie?”

  It was the first time he’d voiced it out loud and that had made me pause a moment before I’d replied.

  “Yes,” I’d said, my voice calm, “but I also know what I am.” I shrugged, a little helplessly. “What else would you suggest I do with it?”

  He’d smiled. One of those slow-burning smiles that made the blood thump in my ears so hard I could hardly hear other people speaking because of it.

  Nobody observing us then – just another absorbed couple out for another quiet supper – would have guessed the violence that laced our history. Sean slid into the cultured skin very well. It hadn’t come naturally to him, but he’d persevered until it fitted and perhaps because of that there was always an air of contained force, of submerged danger about him. He had taught himself how to walk the thin line between civilisation and savagery and was just as at home on either side.

  And he was just too good at what he did to have been taken out so easily. I had to cling to that thought.

  Or what else was there for me to live for?

  The vision snapped shut again, its passing riffling the air like the closing pages of a heavy book. I blinked and the hazy reflections of the flames against hallmarked silverware and gilt-edged bone china re-formed into the glitter of streetlights on the darkened water.

  Trey nudged my arm. “He’s here,” he said.

  A red Corvette swung a touch too fast into the parking area, its tyres letting out a protesting squeak as it made the turn.

  I haven’t come across a lot of Corvettes, but even I could tell this wasn’t a collector’s item. It was just at that age where it’s too old to be a new car, but not old enough to be a true classic. At that moment it was probably languishing right at the bottom of its depreciation curve.

  The body was mostly red, as though its owner had got halfway through rubbing it down and then got bored with the idea. When he pulled up and cut the engine, one of the pop-up headlights didn’t close all the way. The car looked like an outclassed boxer at the end of a tough fight.

  Trey took a step forwards but I grabbed his arm and kept him in the shadows. I had the bag Aimee had given me slung over my shoulder and I’d already partly unzipped it. Now I put my hand inside and curled my fingers around the SIG’s pistol grip.

  “Let’s just see what he does,” I murmured.

  The driver climbed out and peered around him, like his night vision wasn’t too good. Henry was both younger and fatter than I’d pictured him. Even in the light air he was sweating noticeably.

  “Hey, Trey!” he yelled, turning a slow circle. “You out there, man?”

  I pulled Trey further into cover behind a parked minivan. “The guy’s a total waster,” I whispered, trying to keep my disgust mostly hidden. “The nearest he’s ever got to the CIA is watching a Tom Clancy movie. Let’s get out of here.”

  Trey yanked his arm out of my grip and glared at me, shifting to the corner of the van so he could take another look at Henry.

  “Hey, c’mon, Trey,” Henry called, his voice still louder than I was happy about. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. What did he have to be so nervous about?

  “Hey, either you want to know about your old man or you don’t, but don’t fuck me around, huh?”

  That did it. Trey lunged round the corner of the van before I could stop him and trotted out towards the Corvette. Cursing under my breath, I followed.

  It took Henry a while after he’d spotted Trey to notice me. His eyes narrowed.

  “I thought I told you to come alone,” he said.

  Trey half glanced over his shoulder and mumbled something that included the word “girlfriend” but I didn’t catch the rest of it.

  “Oh, OK then.” Henry smiled wolfishly at me, looking everywhere but at my face. It was the kind of smile that makes you want to go and scrub yourself down with an abrasive cleaner afterwards. I tried not to let that show.

  He turned back to the car. “You’ll have to cosy up some, then,” he said. “This baby’s only a two seater.”

  “Like, where are we going?” I asked, copying the rising inflection the American kids used when they spoke. Trey looked at me sharply but didn’t comment. Henry didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.

  “My hide-out,” he said. “I keep a little place a few blocks from here.”

  I hesitated, but Trey was already opening the Corvette’s passenger door and climbing in. It was either drag him out of there by force or go along with it, even if allowing yourself to be taken from a relatively public place to a private one of someone else’s choosing was madness in these circumstances. It went against everything I’d ever taught or learned, but I reminded myself that I was the kid’s bodyguard. If he went, I went. It was as simple as that.

  With a sigh I climbed in with Trey, uncomfortably aware of his bony body pressing against me and the fact that I probably weighed more than he did.

  Henry eased his bulk behind the wheel and grinned at the way we were tangled together alongside him. I’d tried to keep the bag reachable but, even so, I doubted I could actually get to the gun to use it if I had to.

  That jolted me. In the course of a few days I’d gone from never carrying a gun to being unhappy to be parted from it.

  We set off, the poor old Corvette’s engine occasionally firing on all the cylinders it was supposed to. The inside of the car smelt of old cigarettes and damp. Henry drove sitting upright, hunched over the s
teering wheel. He glanced sideways at us a couple of times once we were out on the road, still smiling.

  “You’ve done a real good job on those disguises,” he said casually, his tongue flicking out to wet his lips. “I wouldn’t have recognised either of you from the pictures on the TV.”

  Either of you. My heart started to belt against my ribs. Maybe Henry wasn’t quite as dumb as he first appeared.

  When neither of us responded, Henry said, “You sure don’t look like a kidnapper – Charlie isn’t it?” I gave him the briefest nod. “So what’s your angle?”

  “I’m just supposed to be looking out for him,” I said. It was a compromise statement. I knew Trey would object to my saying I was looking after him.

  Henry nodded sagely. “You wanna tell me your side of the story?” he asked.

  I gave him the edited highlights in the sketchiest form possible, little more than the fact that someone was seriously out to get Trey and there was the possibility that the authorities were involved.

  “Well, they’re sure putting out a different story to yours,” Henry commented when I was done. He turned off the road into a dimly-lit residential street. “Ah, here we are. Home, sweet home.”

  The street was in a run-down district. I didn’t have to know much about the demographic of Daytona to guess it wasn’t exactly an up-and-coming area. Most people seemed to have a dead pickup truck on their front lawn and there weren’t enough wheels to go round.

  Henry swung left off the road and brought the Corvette to a halt in the dirt driveway of an ugly single-storey building with a covered porch along the front. The whole structure was raised a couple of feet off the ground, like a mobile home that’s had its wheels removed. A patchwork of trellis covered the gap between the base and the earth.

  The house itself looked like some of the worst council-owned dives I’ve seen in the UK. Trey and I struggled out of the passenger seat and followed him up the uneven steps onto the porch.

  “C’mon in,” he said when he finally managed to wrestle his own front door open. He went ahead, flicking on lights to illuminate a dingy little one-bedroomed house. There was no air conditioning inside and the wet heat clenched itself around me as soon as I stepped through the door. I swear I saw something that was the size and colour of a stoned date with legs skitter across the cracked floor tiles.