by John Locke
“I can do that,” I said.
Over the next twenty minutes I forced myself not to laugh as Alison pinched, tugged and slapped various parts of her body while performing an over-the-top vocal medley from her sexual songbook: high-pitched, chirping sex sounds, throaty moans, and some sort of maniacal horse whinny toward the end that erupted into a crescendo of low-budget porn passion.
Which taught me that sex, when you’re not a participant—can be hysterical. I’ve never been disinterested in sex before, so this was a ground-breaking experience for me. It gave me a sense of power I’d never felt before.
So this is what it must feel like to be the woman, I thought. To have all the sexual power in the relationship.
When Alison’s last gasps and spasms had subsided, I said, “I need to make a quick call.”
I brightened the light, lifted her phone from the cradle and dialed my room number. Alison heard the phone ringing next door.
“What the—”
I held up a finger to silence her. Quinn answered, said a few words, and I said “Okay.”
I hung up the phone and said, “Alison, we need to talk.”
She sat up in the bed and covered her breasts with her arms, a gesture that seemed odd, considering what we’d just been through.
“What’s going on?” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, but failing miserably.
“There are two dead bodies next door.”
Her eyes grew wide. She instinctively looked at the door that adjoined my room, then back at me.
“What are you talking about?” she said.
I looked at her. “Alison, I genuinely like you, but you’ve stumbled into something far more dangerous than you think. But I’m going to try hard to keep you from getting killed, because I have a job waiting for you when this is all over.”
Something in my voice gave her the reassurance to say, “If you think I’m going to sell jewelry for a living—”
“Alison, listen up. I’m not a jewelry salesman.”
I let that sink in for a minute before continuing. “I’m an assassin for the government. I kill terrorists.”
She started laughing.
“I admire the fact that you can laugh at me when there are two dead men lying on the floor next door, men that are dead because you and the bellman tried to rob me tonight.”
She stopped laughing.
“You know the big, scary guy that was following you tonight?”
She tried to speak, but the words didn’t make it out of her throat. She swallowed and nodded her head slowly, not wanting to hear about the big, scary guy.
“His name is Augustus Quinn,” I said. “He works for me.”
There was a long pause. When she finally spoke, her voice had lost most of its power.
“What’s going to happen now?” she said.
“You’re going to get dressed and then we’re going next door and see if you can identify the two goons on the floor. Then we’re going to have a little chat about the bellman and your boyfriend.”
“What boyfriend?”
“The guy in Denver. Adnan Afaya.”
“Who?”
“Maybe you know him by a different name. But the guy you’re dating in Denver is Adnan Afaya, a known terrorist.”
Alison let out a gasp that sounded much more convincing than the sexual sounds she’d made a few moments earlier. Her face went pale and she seemed about to faint. Either she was the best actress in the world or she was genuinely frightened.
Again it took a little time before she was able to speak.
“Would you be a gentleman and turn your head while I put on my clothes?” she said.
“No.”
She did a double take. “Why not?”
“I turned down enough action tonight to make me eligible for sainthood. This might be the last opportunity I’ll ever have to see you naked.”
“I can guarantee it,” she said.
I gestured toward her open suitcase on the floor.
She stared at me with a blank expression, trying to read me, but that was getting her nowhere. I’ve made a career out of not being predictable. I tilted my head toward her suitcase. “This would be a good time to get moving, Alison.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “Knock yourself out, then.”
She slid out of the bed and began pulling an outfit together: clean underwear, pink tank top, gray sweat suit, socks, jogging shoes. As she stepped into her panties she said, “I knew your name wasn’t Cosmo Burlap.”
“It’s that type of perception that makes you a good job candidate,” I said.
“What type of work do you have in mind,” she said. “Killing people? Because I don’t think I can do that.”
“We can talk about it later. Right now there’s work to do. You ready?”
She laced up her jogging shoes and nodded.
We crossed the floor to the connecting door. I turned the lock and put my hand on the doorknob and paused.
“You need to prepare yourself for what you’re going to see in here,” I said. “Try not to scream.”
“I’ve seen dead bodies before,” she said.
“I’m talking about Quinn,” I said.
Chapter 31
Entering the room, this is what we saw: Quinn, sitting at the table with a Diet Coke, finishing a phone call, two guys laid out peacefully on one of the queen-sized beds. One of the robbers was weasel-faced, with thick black hair slicked straight back. The other had a shaved head and a Fu Manchu mustache. Both were big and covered with prison tats. I made my voice as eerie as possible and whispered, “I see dead people.”
Quinn said, “Sixth Sense, 1999.”
Alison surprised me by walking straight up to Quinn with her hand extended.
“I’m Alison,” she said.
Quinn looked at me before responding. I nodded, and he got to his feet. Alison took a step back to accommodate his size, but never took her eyes off him. He placed her hand in his and studied it, as if it were a plaything and he was a gorilla. He lifted her fingertips to the area of his face where lips are normally found, and made a kissing sound.
“I already like you better than your friends,” he said, gesturing toward the bodies.
Alison looked them over carefully. They were dead, with no visible injuries.
“How’d they die?” she said.
Quinn looked at me. I nodded again.
“I Pronged ‘em,” he said.
It was Alison’s turn to look at me.
I said, “Robert Pronge was a fearsome psychopath who discovered a way to mix cyanide with dimethyl sulfoxide, which he used to put in spray bottles. He sprayed his victims in the face like they were bugs, and like bugs, they died within seconds.”
To Quinn I said, “These guys are big. How’d you manage to spray both of them?”
“One came in while the other stood guard in the hall. The first guy kept the door cracked so he could leave quietly after robbing you.”
He glanced at Alison, and she dropped her eyes and looked away.
“The guy searching the room finally opened the bathroom door. When he did, I sprayed him and grabbed him by the shirt to keep him from falling. Son of a bitch was heavy, and hard to maneuver onto the bed, but I managed. Couple minutes later the other one’s getting antsy, puts his face near the open part of the door and whispers to his partner, ‘You need help?’ I whisper back, “Yeah!’ He comes in and I Pronge him and lay him next to the first guy.”
“Alison,” I said. “You know these guys?”
She looked at me through eyes of sincerity. “I’ve never seen them before. But Hector knows them.”
“Hector the bellman?”
She nodded. “This whole thing was Hector’s idea.”
“You’ll only get this one warning,” I said.
Alison looked at Quinn.
“You’d kill me?” she said.
“At first I would,” he said.
Alison said, “I’m not sure what
that means, but it’s so creepy I want to amend what I said just now. Okay, so yes, I planned the robbery. But it was Hector’s idea to use these guys. He was supposed to rob you.”
We were silent a moment, and Alison said, “You understand, none of this was planned with you specifically in mind, right?”
“You’d planned it beforehand, and I happened to be the mark.”
“Right.”
“But I’m not the first.”
“At this hotel you would have been the first.”
“So you’ve done this elsewhere.”
“Couple of places.”
“Denver?”
“Not yet, but I was hoping to talk to Adam about it.”
Quinn said, “Adam?”
“Adnan Afaya, the terrorist,” I said.
Alison said, “Guys, I swear to God I didn’t know he was a terrorist. He approached me last time I was here. He wanted to apply for a driving job. I told him we didn’t have anything. He said the job wasn’t for him, said he was rich and the job was for his cousin, trying to get a work visa. He offered me a thousand dollars to get his cousin a job.”
“You took the money?”
“Yes. But I told him his cousin had to go through all the proper channels. He’d have to start cleaning cars, work his way up.”
“When was he going to start?”
“He started last month. When Adam—or whatever his name is—picked me up at the airport, he gave me some more money to get his cousin pushed up to driver.”
“You give him a time frame?”
“I said I’d do my best.”
“And he said?”
“I’d get a thousand dollar bonus if his cousin was driving a van by the first of December.”
I fi shed out my cell phone. “You guys chat a minute,” I said, punching in Darwin’s number. I went into Alison’s room, closing the door behind me. My new information had Darwin concerned. This was either the very beginning of a major attack, or closer to the end stage, and we had to find out which it was. I completed my call and opened the door. Quinn and Alison both looked up.
I said, “Alison, how would you like to make some real money?”
“It’s all I ever wanted,” she said.
“Then, lucky day.” To Quinn I said, “You packed and ready to roll?”
He nodded. We moved our suitcases to Alison’s room and watched her finish packing. Then we went back into the room with the dead guys, or as we say, “the Bernies.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Alison said.
I waited.
“What are you going to do with the dead guys? And when can we get out of here?”
“That’s two questions. But the answer’s the same: we wait for the door knock.”
Alison said, “I’m new here, remember?”
“What I mean is our cleanup crew is on the way. In addition to the bodies, they’ll eliminate all trace evidence. When they get here the three of us will move to your room and leave with our luggage.”
“No offense,” she said, “but you can’t possibly get away with this.”
“Why not?”
“Umm, gee, I don’t know,” she said sarcastically. “Dead bodies? Security cameras?” She tilted her head, spread her palms out, gave me a you-can’t-be-serious look.
“The cleanup crew will disable the cameras when they get here,” I said, “and confiscate all tapes of the last twenty-four hours.”
She closed her eyes a moment, thinking things through.
“If you’re about to ask me how they do it, don’t waste your time,” I said, “Because I have no idea. I only know they’re clean freaks—not like your Aunt Ethel, who doesn’t like a messy home. No, these guys want to clean a crime scene like Rainman wants to see Judge Wapner. They’re abnormal, they’re sick, and look about as professional as Nick Nolte and Mel Gibson after a hard night on the town.”
Alison looked as though her mind was unable to process the thought. “Two guys are going to remove two bodies and clean this room of all evidence?”
“They’re really unusual guys,” I said. “I could write a book about them. Maybe I will, after I retire.”
Quinn laughed.
“What?” she said.
“I was just thinking about something that happened one time.” He chuckled again.
“Do I want to hear this story?” she said. I looked at Quinn. “This the one about the new guy and the maggot trail?”
“Jesus, guys,” Alison said.
Quinn laughed again, harder. “That one’s a classic,” he said. “No, I was talking about the 400 pound naked fat guy they couldn’t push out the window.”
“The one they had on his knees, belly stuck in the window frame, butt hanging out facing the door? That guy?”
“Yeah. And every time they pushed his ass—what’d they say? Sounded like the attack on Baghdad?”
I grinned. “Shock and awe.”
“Right. So they get a can of Crisco, then the new guy calls from the lobby, and they decide to play a prank on him?”
“The initiation ceremony prank.”
Alison held up both hands. “Please. This might be funnier in another setting, like—oh, I don’t know—the boy’s bathroom in junior high school?”
Quinn threw his head back and roared. It was good to see him happy; though I worried that hotel guests might report the unusual sounds.
After the laughter subsided, Quinn and I exchanged a silent conversation wherein I looked at him and raised my eyebrows and he shrugged in response. Which meant, “Do you think she’ll ask about Hector?” and his shrug meant that he wasn’t sure. Or didn’t care.
Alison opened her eyes. “What am I supposed to tell Hector? He’ll be calling me any minute now.”
“I think not,” I said.
She gave Quinn a look of disbelief. “You killed him, too?”
Quinn shrugged.
“I need a drink,” she said.
I went to her room and brought her a miniature bottle of vodka.
She took it, saying, “I may have touched some of the stuff in the fridge.”
“The cleaners will take care of it.”
“They’ll still have a record of us being here. You may have checked in with a phony credit card, but I didn’t. They’ll fi nd me and question me.”
“You’re staying somewhere else.”
“Oh really? And where might that be?”
“Don’t know yet. The cleaning crew will bring your key. Your credit card history will show you checked into that hotel today instead of this one.”
She looked at the door, as if mentally calculating her odds of escape. “Who are you people?” she said.
Quinn said, “It’s complicated.”
Alison finished her drink and placed it on the table. I said, “Augustus, tell me what you can about the Bernies.”
Still looking at Augustus Quinn, Alison mouthed the word “Bernies?”
Quinn said, “You know the show? Weekend at Bernie’s?”
She nodded.
“When we’re stuck babysitting dead guys, we call them Bernies.”
“Of course you do,” she said.
While Augustus picked up one of the Bernie’s forearms and studied it, Alison asked, “Why would Mr. Quinn know anything about these men?”
“They’re ex-cons.”
“So?”
“Prison tats.”
Chapter 32
Here’s what I know about prison tattoos: they’re almost always blue or black, since those are the easiest colors to make. The prison tattoo artist fashions a needle from whatever type of scrap metal is on hand: a paper clip, nail file, staple, nail, a bit of coat hanger, a piece of steel guitar string. Ink is usually fountain pen or ball point ink, but it can also be melted plastic. The artist usually puts the sharpened metal in a plastic holder like a ball point pen cylinder and attaches it to a small motor that causes the needle to move up and down. Once started, a hundred things can go wrong, ranging fro
m misspelled words to hepatitis or AIDS.
On the bed in front of us, both Bernies had the letters T and S on their forearms.
“What’s the T and S stand for?” I said.
“Texas Syndicate.”
“You know anything about them?”
“One of the oldest prison gangs in Texas.”
“Hard core?”
“Very.”
Beyond the classic teardrops below the eyes, I wasn’t skilled at reading tats. Quinn, on the other hand, was fluent. I said, “What else they have to say?”
Quinn ripped their shirts off and studied the markings like an Indian scout reading a trail.
“See the fine lines and shading on the drawings of the women? Tells me these guys were inked by an expert. In the prison world, no one gets more respect than a skilled tattoo artist.
“Big deal,” I said. “What’s this other stuff ?”
“Prison tats are the first line of communication between inmates. A guy’s tattoos tell you the gang he’s affiliated with, his status in prison, the number of people he’s killed, the city or country he’s from, his marital status, number of children he’s fathered, the tragedies he’s suffered, his religious and political views.”
“Thanks for the lecture,” I said. “What are all these numbers?”
“The first part says they’re local,” he said. “Guy on the left claims he’s killed three people, guy on the right claims two. I believe them.”
“Why’s that?”
“You don’t want to lie with your skin,” he said. “Too many people want to kill you for it.”
“What’s the thirteen mean?”
“They use marijuana.”
“And you know that because?”
“The number thirteen stands for the letter “M,” thirteenth letter of the alphabet.” He pointed to the guy on the left. See the eight on this one? Stands for the letter “H.” Means he uses, or has used, heroin. Sometimes you’ll see a guy with an eighty-eight, which means “Heil Hitler.”
“Why do they want people to know they use drugs?” Alison said.
“It tells drug dealers that they’re buyers,” Quinn said.
“What are those numbers on their shoulders?” Alison asked, getting into it.