by Sandra Brown
“You don’t have to worry about me grabbing you anymore,” he told her. “Or waving a pistol at you. No more jitters, okay?”
“If I’m jittery it could be because I saw a man shot dead in my home this morning.”
He’d already said what he had to say about that, and he wasn’t going to justify it again. If you got a chance to take out a violent criminal like Fred Hawkins, you didn’t stop to reason why. You pulled the goddamn trigger. Otherwise, you’d be the one no longer breathing.
How many men had he seen die? How many had he seen die violently? Too many to count or even to remember. But he supposed that for a second-grade schoolteacher’s clear green eyes, it was a shocking thing to witness, which she would always associate with him. No help for that. However, this call would put an end to her flinching every time he moved.
He was about to disconnect and try again when a woman answered. “Deputy Director Hamilton’s office. How can I direct your call?”
“Who’re you? Put Hamilton on.”
“Whom may I say is calling?”
“Look, cut the bullshit. Give him the phone.”
“Whom may I say is calling?”
Damn bureaucrats. “Coburn.”
“I’m sorry, who did you say?”
“Coburn,” he repeated impatiently. “Lee Coburn.”
After a sustained pause, the woman at the other end said, “That’s impossible. Agent Coburn is deceased. He died more than a year ago.”
Chapter 17
Diego’s cell phone vibrated, but just to be ornery, he waited several seconds before answering it. “Who’s this?”
“Who were you expecting?” The Bookkeeper asked with matching snideness.
“Found your fugitive yet?”
“He’s proving to be more of a problem than originally thought.”
“You don’t say? Those couple of clowns really fucked up, didn’t they? Letting him get away like that.” He wanted to add, That’s what you get for not giving me the job, but decided not to press his luck. He didn’t rely solely on The Bookkeeper for income, but their business relationship—if you could even call it that—was lucrative.
For years after leaving the hair-braiding salon, he’d lived on the streets, finding shelter where he could, scavenging for food and clothing. He’d survived by a wily intellect that had come to him through some unknown contributor to his cloudy gene pool, and it hadn’t taken him long to figure out that barter, theft, and salvaging only got one so much. The only currency that mattered was money.
Diego had applied himself to earning it. He observed and learned and proved to be a quick study. The marketplace for his particular skills was limitless. His business thrived regardless of the economic climate for any other field of commerce. In fact, he was busiest whenever times got hard and the prevailing dog-eat-dog law of the jungle was more strictly enforced.
By his early teens he’d cultivated a reputation for sudden and explosive violence, so even the toughest of the tough respected his slight build and small stature and, for the most part, gave him a wide berth. He had no friends and few competitors because few were as good.
As far as the state of Louisiana was concerned, he didn’t exist. His birth had never been recorded, so he never had attended school. Although basically illiterate, he could read a smattering of English, enough to get by. He spoke fluent Spanish, which he’d picked up on the street. He couldn’t point out his hometown on a map, but he knew it like the back of his hand. He’d never even heard of long division or the multiplication tables, yet he could tabulate amounts of money in his head with lightning speed. Already he was calculating what he would charge for doing Coburn.
“So is the guy caught yet, or what?”
“No. He got Fred Hawkins.”
Diego was surprised by that, but withheld comment.
“Now everyone is really up in arms. If Coburn survives his arrest, I want you to be ready to move.”
“I’ve been ready.”
“I also may need you to take care of a woman and child.”
“That’ll cost you extra.”
“I’m prepared for that.” After a cool silence, The Bookkeeper said, “About that whore…”
“Taken care of. I told you.”
“Ah, so you did. My mind has been on other matters. I’ll be in touch.”
The call ended without another word.
None was necessary. They understood each other. They had from the start. A few years back, someone who knew someone had approached him about contract work. Was he interested? He was.
He called the telephone number given to him, listened to The Bookkeeper’s recruitment spiel, and figured it was the kind of alliance he liked—loose. He did that first job, he got paid. He and The Bookkeeper had been doing business together ever since.
He slipped the cell phone back into the holster hooked to his belt, hunched his shoulders, and pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his pants. The fingers of his right hand closed securely around the razor.
Since Katrina, some areas of the city had become gang war zones. Diego was an independent operator who’d tried to steer clear of the clashes, but it was impossible to remain neutral, and consequently he’d become the enemy of all the gangs.
He appeared to be focused on the grimy pavement beneath the rubber soles of his high-tops, but in truth, his eyes were darting and watchful, suspecting that danger lurked in each shadow, constantly anticipating an ambush.
He didn’t fear much from cops. They were a joke. Sometimes a bad joke, but still laughable and not something he worried about.
In that deceptively stooped posture, he slunk down the sidewalk, turning left into the first alley he came to, scattering cockroaches and two cats on the prowl. For the next five minutes, he wove his way through abandoned buildings filled with rusting industrial equipment or refuse left by homeless people who’d used the structures as temporary camps.
The labyrinth of alleyways was no maze to Diego. He knew every square inch of it. He took a different and circuitous path through it each time, so he could be certain that no one was following him. Nobody could find him if he didn’t want to be found.
After years of living wherever he could take shelter, he now had a permanent residence, although it wasn’t on any postman’s route. He circled the vacant building twice before approaching a padlocked door to which he held the only key. Once he was in, he bolted the metal door from the inside.
Total darkness enveloped him, but it was no impediment. He easily navigated the hallways, whose walls were black with mold. They were perpetually damp. Rainwater trickled down three stories to collect in rancid puddles on the uneven floors.
Deep within the bowels of this former bean cannery, Diego had made himself a home. He unlocked the door to the inner sanctum, slipped inside, secured the deadbolt.
The chamber’s air was cooler and drier due to a makeshift ventilation system that he’d adapted from the building’s original, using scrap materials he’d collected over time. On the floor was an expensive oriental rug he’d stolen off a truck parked in the French Quarter. He’d pretended to be one of the deliverymen. No one had challenged him when he slung the carpet over his shoulder and walked away with it. All the room’s furnishings had been similarly obtained. Twin lamps shed a welcoming glow.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair with a brush that Diego had shoplifted yesterday. He’d paid for the goldfish, though. He’d passed a pet store he’d never taken notice of before. He saw the fish in their tank. Next thing he knew, he was carrying home one of them in a plastic bag. Her smile when he’d presented it to her had been worth triple what he’d paid for the fish.
He’d never had a pet before. Now he had two. The goldfish and the girl.
Her name was Isobel. She was a year younger than he, although she looked even younger than that. Her hair was sleek and so black it was iridescent. It hung straight to her shoulders, forming a glossy curtain against her cheeks.
She was slightly built, with a waist his hands could span. Diego figured he could snap her frail limbs in two with virtually no effort. Her breasts were small, barely tenting the T-shirt he’d stolen for her. And although he’d had many women of all ages and sizes, it was the delicate beauty of Isobel’s small body that made him feel feverish, short of breath, and weak with desire.
But he hadn’t touched her in that way. Nor would he.
Her fragile, youthful features had made her very popular with the massage parlor’s clientele. Men loved being stroked by her small hands. Many requested her. She had regulars. Her delicacy was a turn-on because it made those who sweated over her feel more manly, larger, harder, stronger.
Like thousands of others, she and her family had been promised that she would enjoy a better life in the United States. She was guaranteed a job in a fancy hotel or a fine restaurant, where she would make more money in one week than her father earned in a year.
Once she had paid off the debt of getting her into the States and well situated, which would take only a few years, she would start earning money to send back to her family, possibly enough to pay for her younger brother to come to the U.S. also. It had sounded like a fairy tale come true. She had bade her family a tearful but hopeful goodbye and had climbed into the truck headed for the border.
The hellish trip had taken five days. She and eight others had been crammed into the bed of a pickup and covered with a sheet of plywood. During the journey, they were given very little to eat and drink and few opportunities to relieve themselves.
One of the other girls, no older than Isobel, had become sick with a fever. Isobel had tried to hide the girl’s illness, but the driver and the heavily armed man who rode with him discovered it during a rare rest stop. The truck departed without the girl. She was left on the side of the road. The others were warned that they would also be abandoned if they interfered or caused trouble. Isobel had wondered many times if the girl had died before someone found her.
And that was only the beginning of Isobel’s nightmare.
When the truck finally reached its destination, she was made to dress in provocative clothing, which was charged against her earnings, and put to work in a brothel.
She didn’t know anyone. Even those who’d been trucked into the States with her, and with whom she’d forged a quasi-friendship founded on shared fear and despair, had been sent to other places. She didn’t know which city or state she was in. She didn’t understand the language that the first leering man crooned to her as he robbed her of her virginity.
Although she hadn’t understood his words, she’d comprehended completely what that act had signified. She was ruined, spoiled goods. No kind and caring man would ever want to marry her now. She was disgraced. Her family would disown her. Her choices were now limited to continuing to “entertain” the customers, or to kill herself. But suicide was a mortal sin, a ticket to damnation.
In essence, the only choice left to her had been what kind of hell she would suffer.
Which is why her eyes, as black and fluid as ink, had looked so wounded and haunted the first time Diego had seen her. He’d been sent to deliver a warning to the manager of the massage parlor, whom The Bookkeeper claimed was withholding payment for the protection provided to his latest shipment of girls.
Diego had spotted Isobel as she emerged from one of the “treatment” rooms, clutching a tacky satin robe around her slenderness, tears streaming down her cheeks. When she caught him looking at her, she turned away from him in shame.
He returned a few days later, this time as a client. He asked for her. When she entered the room, she recognized him. With noticeable despondency, she began to undress. He hastily assured her that he only wanted to talk.
Over the next hour, she related her story. It wasn’t the tale of woe itself but the mesmerizing way in which she told it that compelled Diego to offer to help her run away. She clasped his hand, kissed it, rained tears onto it.
Now, as he approached the bed, she set aside the hairbrush and smiled at him timidly, her eyes no longer filled with wretchedness, but brimming with gratitude.
He sat down beside her, leaving space between them. “Como está?”
“Bien.”
He returned her tentative smile, and for a moment they simply gazed at one another. The moment lasted so long that when he raised his hand toward her, she flinched.
“Shh.” Gently, he laid his palm against her smooth cheek. He stroked her skin with his thumb, marveling at its velvety texture. He looked at her throat, noticed how slender it was, how vulnerable. Around it, she wore a thin silver chain with a crucifix. He watched her pulse beat faintly beneath the small cross that glittered when it caught the lamplight.
The razor in his pocket felt as heavy as lead.
His standard rate was five hundred dollars.
It would be over quickly. One slash and she would be relieved of her misery. She would have nothing more to fear, not even damnation. He would be liberating her, actually. He would be freeing her from pawing men and her crucified god’s harsh judgment. And he would be carrying out The Bookkeeper’s directive.
By killing her, Diego would stay in favor with The Bookkeeper, and this lovely girl would never again have her small, sweet body defiled.
But instead of applying the razor to her throat, he stroked it with his fingertips, touched the crucifix, and in softly spoken Spanish reassured her that she was safe now. He told her that he would take care of her, that she didn’t need to be afraid any longer, that he would protect her. The nightmare that she’d been living for two years was over.
Diego swore this to her on his life.
And by doing so, he was drawing a line in the sand. He’d been ordered not only to kill Isobel, but also to learn who had helped her to escape the massage parlor, and to kill that person as well.
The Bookkeeper had no idea that Diego himself was responsible.
Taking in the beautiful sight and smell and feel that was Isobel, he had a pair of blunt English words for The Bookkeeper. “Get fucked.”
Chapter 18
Tori, you might want to, you know, look at this.”
Her receptionist knew better than to interrupt her when she was with a client, especially one as overweight and undertoned as Mrs. Perkins. She gave Amber a withering look, then said to her client, “Six more of those, please.”
Groaning, the woman went into a deep squat.
Tori turned to her receptionist and, with asperity, said, “Well. What?”
The receptionist pointed to the row of flat-screen TVs attached to the wall in front of the treadmills. One was tuned to a syndicated talk show, another to an infomercial where a soap opera star was hawking a miracle-working face cream. The third was on a New Orleans station broadcasting late-breaking news.
Tori watched for several seconds. “You interrupted me to watch an update on the Royale Trucking Company shootings? Unless the fugitive is presently in the women’s sauna without a towel, why is this my problem?” She turned back to Mrs. Perkins, whose face had gone beet red. Tori thought maybe she should have asked for only five more squats.
“It’s your friend,” Amber the receptionist said. “Honor? They think she’s been kidnapped.”
Tori looked quickly at Amber, then back at the TV screen. That’s when she recognized Honor’s house as the one behind the reporter who was doing a report “live from the scene,” as the caption across the bottom of the screen informed the audience.
Astonished, she watched for several seconds before realizing that the audio was muted. “Oh my God, what’s he saying?”
“What’s going on?” Mrs. Perkins puffed.
Tori ignored her and wove her way through the workout equipment toward the wall of televisions. She grabbed a remote and aimed it at the set. After several tries, she got the sound on and adjusted the volume as high as it would go.
“… feared to have been kidnapped by Lee Coburn, the individual sought in connecti
on to the mass murder at the Royale Trucking Company on Sunday night, where, among six other victims, community leader Sam Marset was fatally shot.”
“Come on, come on,” Tori muttered impatiently. She wasn’t yet convinced that her health club’s receptionist hadn’t gotten confused. She’d hired Amber strictly for the way she looked in workout gear. She had big hair, teeth, and tits going for her, but was short on gray matter.
This time, however, she’d gotten the information right. When the reporter finally got around to explaining again why he was reporting from Honor’s house, Tori listened with mounting incredulity and anxiety.
“See?” Amber whispered in her ear. “I told you.”
“Be quiet,” Tori snapped.
“Police and FBI agents are on the scene, conducting a thorough investigation, but from what the authorities have pieced together, it’s believed that Mrs. Gillette and her four-year-old daughter were forcibly taken from their home. I spoke briefly with Stan Gillette, father-in-law of the believed victim, who declined to be interviewed for this broadcast. He did tell me that so far he hasn’t received a ransom demand.”
The reporter glanced down and consulted notes. “It appears that a struggle took place inside the house, which has been ransacked. Mr. Gillette said it was impossible to determine if anything was missing. As for the body of police officer Fred Hawkins, which was found inside the house—”
“Jesus,” Tori gasped, slapping her hand to her chest.
“—no further information has been forthcoming except that it looked like an execution-style killing.” The reporter looked up and into the camera. “Police and other state and local agencies have asked citizens to be on the lookout for the suspect and his supposed hostages. Here’s a recent photo of Honor Gillette and her daughter.”
The photograph that Honor had sent with last year’s Christmas card filled the screen. “Anyone seeing them should alert the authorities immediately. That’s all the information I have at this time, but I’ll be following this breaking news story throughout the day. Stay tuned for developments as they happen.”