Kim Oh 3: Real Dangerous People (The Kim Oh Thrillers)

by K. W. Jeter

  “She’s dead.”

  Both men looked over at Curt.

  “Huh?” Foley’s brow creased. “What’d you say?”

  “You heard the man,” said Elton. “You might not get it, but I do. Whatever the deal might be with Kim, it’s nothing you have to worry about anymore. She’s dead – or good as.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “And you think you’re so smart.” Elton showed a thin smile. “Figure it out, man. Say what you want about the gal, but she knows her stuff. Probably better than you do. That wasn’t any lucky shot when she took care of Dodd. She chased the guy down and nailed his ass. Right in front of Falcon’s eyes. So he knew what that meant. He might’ve been figuring beforehand that bringing her onboard would mess up the crew, make it easier for Johnny Dodd to kill us off – but as soon as he saw her in action, he must’ve known he was wrong. ’Cause it all sure didn’t happen that way.”

  “Then . . .” Foley slowly nodded, figuring it out. “Then she’s a problem. For him.”

  “That’s right,” said Elton. “Now Falcon’s gotta figure out a way to get rid of her. If he hasn’t already, while we’ve been sitting here.”

  “It’s like this.” Curt wiped the gun’s barrel with the rag. “She’s a good kid – I don’t have anything against her – and she seems to know her business. But she’s got to look out for herself. Same way you and I have to. That’s why I didn’t say anything to her back at Falcon’s place, when he said he wanted her over at the hotel. Working with Karsh’s bodyguards.”

  “Wait a minute.” Foley leaned forward, peering into Curt’s face. “You’re saying that was a setup?”

  “Chances are good. Why else would Falcon want to peel her away from the rest of the crew? He doesn’t know how the rest of us might react, if the hammer came down on her right in front of us? Sure, Kim hasn’t been working with us very long, but she’s still part of the crew. If Karsh’s guys came after her, once they got her someplace out of the way, the rest of us might not take too well to that. We might either be successful at keeping them from blowing her away like they’ve been ordered to – and maybe take out a couple of them in the process – or we wouldn’t. Then whoever’s left of us would be standing there, looking at her lying on the ground. And if we had any doubts before about Falcon looking to eliminate the crew, we sure as hell wouldn’t have them anymore.”

  “Yeah,” said Foley, “but we know that already. We found that out from Moretti.”

  “Falcon doesn’t know that we did. He doesn’t know that we all went up there to Albany. So he probably figures we’re just as clueless as before, about what’s happening. So he’s over there at the Hilton, kicking back and relaxing with his wife. And getting ready to go to the opening of Karsh’s stupid Polynesian restaurant tomorrow.”

  “Huh.” Foley mused it over some more. “You know . . . you’re right. You must be. ’Cause if Falcon did know we’d found out all that stuff from Moretti – we wouldn’t be sitting here right now. Thinking about our options. He’d have had his buddy Karsh send his guys over to take care of us.”

  “Way to go, Einstein.” Elton started reassembling his own gun. “You should go on Jeopardy or something like that. You know, and win a prize.”

  The remark didn’t trigger anything with Foley.

  “You’re right,” he said, a little more softly. “That musta been what’s happened to her. Shit.” He shook his head. “You know, that’s a shame. A real shame. I kinda liked the little broad.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Elton. “Sure you did.”

  They went back to finishing up their gun-cleaning ritual.

  Mae came out of the back of the lounge, drying a glass with a bar towel. She looked over to the booth where the crew was sitting. Their regular one.

  “You know,” she said, “I don’t like you guys doing that in here.”

  Curt looked around to her.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s the last time. I promise.”

  FOURTEEN

  As much as I hated to admit it, Foley was right.

  About Curt being right.

  And I really hated Curt being right. Because it meant that I was in a world of crap.

  Maybe if I hadn’t been sandbagged by the social worker showing up at the apartment, then having to use all my brain cells to try and figure out what to do about her – maybe then I would’ve been able to figure out what Curt and the rest of the crew had worked out.

  Which was that I was in deep trouble. And didn’t know it yet.

  So I finally got back to the hotel, the one Falcon and his wife checked into. I took the elevator all the way up to the top, to the Presidential Suite. The most expensive digs in the place – either Falcon was splashing out big time, from his own pocket, to make it up to Mrs. Falcon for all the nerve-wracking stuff she’s had to go through lately, or Karsh was paying for it. Just to cement his friendly relationship with his new partner, plus rub it in about how much better off things are with Karsh’s people taking care of security, rather than Falcon’s old crew.

  The elevator finally let me off, after a long vertical ride. Sure enough, two of Karsh’s people were right there, stationed on either side of the suite’s enormous gilt-decorated doors. I’d already met these two goons. The one with the crew cut was named Collier; the one with the heavy black-framed glasses was Amboy.

  “Mr. Falcon’s been asking about you.” Collier had that kind of stupid smirk on his face, that school kids get when they think one of their little classmates is in trouble. “Wondering where you were.”

  “I got held up.” I pointed to the door. “All right if I go in?”

  “Sure.” He ran a swipe card through the reader at one side, then turned the ornate brass knob and pushed the door open. “Your funeral, sister.”

  He was obviously hoping that I was about to get completely reamed by my boss. These guys were making Curt’s crew seem positively charming by comparison.

  “Mr. Falcon? Hello?” I could’ve stuffed a dozen apartments the size of mine into just the suite’s front room. It was done all in white, like some decorator’s idea of an updating of a movie from the 1930s, about disgustingly rich people. Any plusher, and it would’ve been an old Soviet movie about rich people. I walked farther into the place and called out again. “It’s me, Kim –”

  “Is that you? Oh, thank goodness. I was so hoping –”

  It wasn’t Falcon who answered me, but his wife. She smiled as she looked out from the doorway of one of the suite’s bedrooms, only slighter smaller than the room I was in.

  “I just really need your opinion, Kathy.” She had on a dressing gown that came down so far to the floor that I was afraid she was going to trip on the hem. As if I couldn’t tell that she was just as genially toasted as most of the other times I’d encountered her, she had a highball glass in one hand, chiming with ice cubes melting in some kind of greeny-yellow liqueur. She took a sip from it as she dangerously navigated toward me. “I just can’t make up my mind what to wear.”

  “Pardon me?” I was poised to catch her if she went down. “Wear? To what?”

  “You know – to the opening. Of the restaurant.” She made her way to the wet bar and topped up her glass from one of the bottles there. “So looking forward to it. That Karsh fellow has been ever so sweet. I mean –” Alcohol slopped over the glass’s rim as she swung her arm around. “Just look at this place.”

  So I’d been right on that one. It was one Karsh’s tab. Maybe he owned a piece of the hotel and got a discount.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s . . . really grand.”

  “So I do want to look nice. But what does one wear to a Polynesian restaurant? I mean, for a special occasion. Like its opening.”

  Asking me for fashion tips was like asking a NASCAR racer for the best way to drive a school bus. Sure, there was a wheel at each corner and an engine somewhere, but the resemblance ended pretty quick after that. To me, one of the advantages of being on a crew like th
e one Curt had been running for Mr. Falcon was that the job was light on the business wear requirements. I hadn’t worn pantyhose since I’d gone with Cole to scope out the office building where we’d set up to kill our old boss McIntyre.

  “I don’t know.” There weren’t many pictures of that sort of thing inside my head. “Maybe you could just wear a regular-type outfit – I mean, a nice one – and stick a flower in your hair. Like right over your ear. Would that work?”

  “You know,” she mused, “I thought of that. But then I remembered something I heard a long time ago – maybe it was in a movie. That in Tahiti – or someplace like that – if a girl wears a flower over her ear on one side of her head, it means she’s married. And if she wears it on the other side, she’s still looking. But I can’t remember which side is which.” She giggled as she took another hit from her drink. “I’d certainly hate to make a mistake in public about something like that.”

  I wasn’t going to point out to Mrs. Falcon that she was a nice-looking enough lady, but at her age, she wasn’t likely to get hit on for sending out the wrong flower signal.

  “Well . . . then let’s skip that. What did you have them bring over from your home?” Through the bedroom doorway, I could see a ziggurat-like stack of matching luggage. “Maybe you have something in, like, an orchid color.” I wasn’t even sure what that would be, but I was desperate by this point. “That would be sort of Polynesian, wouldn’t it?”

  “Actually, Karen –” She turned and wobbled back toward the bedroom. “I called up one of my favorite shops and asked them for help. Those girls there are so clever; they’ve helped me out before. And they sent over some really lovely outfits.” There was nothing in the glass but melting ice by then. “Come on – you can help me choose.”

  I scanned around for Mr. Falcon as I followed her. The suite was so big, he could have been lounging about anywhere, and I wouldn’t have been able to see him.

  She had the outfits spread out on top of the bed. It was big enough that she could have laid out a whole wardrobe on it – maybe not hers, but certainly mine. Then again, mine she could’ve spread out on one of the overstuffed pillows.

  “What do you think?” She reached down and raised one of the outfits partway up. “I just can’t make up my mind. This is when somebody else’s opinion is so valuable.”

  My opinion right then was that these people were taking advantage of her. The girls at whatever shop had sent these over must’ve been laughing their asses off about what they’d just unloaded. Just because Mrs. Falcon was an older woman with more money than taste, plus a skinful of liquid lunches, that didn’t mean they should stick her in these schmattas.

  It annoyed me. I had actually kinda gotten to like her. Even if she didn’t seem to actually know what my name was.

  “Well, this one’s just wrong.” I pointed to the other one, still lying flat on the bed. The garish fabric had big ugly birds on it. “Toucans aren’t from Polynesia. They’re like South American.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.” What was I, an ornithologist? It was just something I remembered from school. Or maybe an old Disney cartoon that I’d watched on TV with my brother.

  “I just don’t know . . .” She fussed back and forth, from one outfit to the other. “Oh, I almost forgot –” There was a bag with handles also sitting on the bed. She picked it up and held it out to me. “I called up another shop – kind of a specialty place. This one’s for you.”

  “What?” I looked at the outfit folded up in the bag, then back to her. “Why?”

  “You’re going to the restaurant opening as well, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know . . . nobody said anything . . .”

  “Well, I want you there, so you’re going. And that’s that. I’ll see that you’re on the list.” She pointed to the bag. “I just wanted to make sure you had something nice for the occasion. That suited you. And I know money’s tight for a young person like you.”

  “That’s . . . nice. Of you. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Take it out and see. I think you’ll like it.”

  I pulled the outfit from the bag and held it up by its shoulders. I just about fell over when I saw what it was. She was really a nice lady and all . . . but still . . .

  “Okay,” I said, stuffing it back into the bag. “Thanks. I mean that. But we need to get back to choosing your outfit.”

  “Don’t you want to try it on?”

  “Not just now.” I pointed to the dress lying on the bed that didn’t have the birds on it. “I’m kinda thinking this is the one.”

  “Perhaps . . . I just don’t know . . .”

  “Why don’t you ask your husband and see what he thinks? He’s got a pretty good eye for this sort of thing, doesn’t he?” I didn’t know whether Falcon did or not. I just wanted to get myself off the hook.

  “Well, I would – but he’s not here.”

  “What?” Every segment in my spine locked up tight as I turned toward her.

  “Oh, he went out, sweetie. About an hour ago. I think he might’ve gone over to the restaurant with that nice Mr. Karsh.”

  Crap. I really must’ve been tired. If my brain had been working at even half-throttle, I would’ve seen that something was up.

  Two of Karsh’s security guys stationed at the door, I come up looking for Falcon – and they tell me to go right on in? Like they didn’t know that he wasn’t there?

  That meant they wanted me in here. Bottled up.

  “Okay,” I told Mrs. Karsh. “I need you to do something for me.”

  She blinked at me in befuddlement. “What is it?”

  “I want you to go into the bathroom –” I pointed to it. “Go in and lock the door, then lie down in the bathtub.” Without even having seen it, I knew it was probably some huge, party-sized thing. “I mean, don’t take a bath – just lie down in it.”

  “But . . .” She frowned in puzzlement.

  “I just need you to do this for me.” Whatever was going to happen, I didn’t want her getting hurt. “This is really important, Mrs. Falcon. This is one of those bad things – you know, like what happened back at your place. Only it’s here now. So just do it, okay?”

  She nodded gravely. “All right –”

  I didn’t wait to see if she did it or not. I was already sprinting out of the bedroom.

  Enough time had gone by, that I figured the two security guys would be through the suite’s front door, guns in hand, any second now.

  The suite had a full kitchen; huge hotel layouts like this always did. I stood in the middle of it and quickly scanned around. There was a huge brushed chrome refrigerator set into one wall, with a frosted glass panel for a door, so the contents could be blurrily discerned. I could use that. I shed my leather jacket, opened the fridge and stuck the jacket inside. Using the neck of one of the bottles of Domaine Chandon on the top rack to drape the jacket from, I spread its arms out against the edges of the lower racks, then slammed the glass door shut to hold everything in place.

  I could hear the suite’s front door open and the two security guys come in. Soon as they saw that I wasn’t out there in the front room, they’d start combing methodically through the place, room by room, looking for me . . .

  I had tucked my .357 into the waistband of my jeans when I had taken off my jacket. I pulled the gun out and used it to poke upward at the light panel in the kitchen ceiling. Standing on tiptoe, I was just able to flex the opaque plastic sheet with the gun barrel, enough to crack the fluorescent tubes above. A patter of tiny glass shards sounded on the plastic as I lowered my arm.

  Times like this, I was glad I was as small as I am. The sink counter was directly opposite the refrigerator. I yanked open the cabinet door under the sink and crammed myself inside. With my knees up in my face and the back of my head hunched under the bottom of the sink, there was just barely room for me. I had to grip the edge of the cabinet door with the fingernails of my free hand, in order to pull it
shut.

  I didn’t have long to wait. I heard one of Karsh’s security guys come clomping in. He tried the light switch – nothing. I held my breath, holding the butt of the .357 up against my breastbone.

  Right about then, in the darkened kitchen, he must’ve spotted the black shape of the leather jacket behind the refrigerator’s frosted-glass door. Just enough for somebody with a gun in his hand and his senses dialed up high, to think he’d spotted somebody lying in wait for him.

  He fired twice. The shattered pieces of the refrigerator’s glass hadn’t even hit the floor before I had shoved the cabinet door open from inside. He whipped around toward me as I fired into his lower torso.

  A shot to that portion of the human anatomy doesn’t kill someone, but it keeps them from doing anything more. I scrambled out of the cabinet and stood over him as he writhed on the kitchen floor. I held my arm straight down and pumped another one into his forehead. That pretty much did the trick. I scooped up his gun – it might come in handy – and ran.

  The other security guy – Amboy, the one with the glasses – wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the suite’s front room. He was probably searching through the other rooms in back. With the shots that had come from the kitchen, he’d probably gone on full alert. Whatever surprise element they might have had on me was gone now. So he’d make his way out cautiously, spine flat against the wall, scanning around. That gave me a few seconds, at least.

  I ran out the front door and hit the elevator’s call button. I was in luck – it was still there from when I had come up from the lobby. The doors slid open, and I reached in to hit the button for the ground floor. Then I turned and ran for the window at the end of the hallway, the one that opened onto the fire escape.

  Crouching down on the steel platform outside, I caught a glimpse of Amboy bursting out of the suite, just as the elevator doors closed in front of him. He didn’t waste a second, but yanked open the emergency exit door and ran down to the floor below.

  He got there in time – or so he thought. Panting to catch his breath, he hit the call button on that floor. As the doors opened, he unloaded his gun into the elevator.