Glass Houses

by Stella Cameron

  “Vanni said for me not to get you. And you know he doesn’t want you to call him back.”

  “I know all about that. Vanni has to call the shots on when we talk now.”

  “Yes, and he’ll call again. He said he would.”

  Aiden rested his brow on Olivia’s. It helped to feel how softly feminine she was, because he could switch on his natural protective urges then, rather than follow other instincts and break every one of her tiny bones. “Okay, okay. I don’t understand, but I’ll have to accept that you don’t always line on all cylinders. Now it’s even more important to make sure we aren’t recognized. We don’t want to be seen at all if we can pull that off. Let’s go shopping.”

  They got out of the car and Aiden said, “Show’s over,” to the grinning teens. They giggled and sighed, and Olivia didn’t have to guess who was turning their oversexed minds to mush.

  She had to trot to keep up with Aiden’s long, loose-limbed strides. They went into the shop and Aiden took a cart. “What size are you?” he said.

  “What size are you?” she snapped back, incensed at his audacity.

  “Big,” he said. “Underwear first.”

  She ran her eyes over racks of serviceable cotton panties, then some made of nylon. “I prefer silk.”

  “Those are silk,” he said, pointing a long finger. “It says so.” And before she could study the selection, he whipped a black, lace-trimmed thong from the bar and held it against her.

  “Aiden,” she said through her teeth. “People are watching us.”

  “Again? Think of us as public servants. We’re providing entertainment. That looks like the right size.” The minuscule black panties landed in the bottom of the shopping cart, to be followed by similar garments in an array of colors. “Now, the other. Thirty-eight?”

  Olivia sputtered.

  “Thirty-six?”

  “Thirty-six D,” she told him in a croaky whisper. “I can see to it myself, thanks.”

  He glanced around and, as if he hadn’t heard her, located silk bras. From what Olivia observed, he apparently thought it best to add every one he could find in the right size before he swung the cart toward another department. This time his quest was for his own underwear.

  “You don’t need to try any of these on, do you?” he asked suddenly, picking a red silk bra to waft aloft. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “No, thank you. That won’t be necessary.”

  “Good. There must be some extra toiletries you want. Are you going to need tampons or something?”

  “This isn’t happening,” Olivia said, crossing her arms and staring at the floor. “I’m sure you grew up with sisters, and none of this means a thing, but you’re embarrassing me.”

  “I don’t have any sisters. I’m an only child. I’m practical, that’s all. Sorry if I’m too brash. Damn. I should have asked you about birth control.”

  Olivia’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Oh… Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Aiden gathered her into his arms and silently dared anyone to offer help. “We’re both under a lot of pressure. I’m sorry. It’ll be okay. I used protection this morning, but last night kind of got away from me. But don’t worry. If you’re pregnant, you and the baby will never want for anything.”

  Her tears broke loose.

  This was, Aiden thought, what came of not spending enough time around females—a guy missed little things like learning how touchy they could be. “You’re exhausted, that’s what all this is about. Hell, I’m probably exhausted. If you want to cry, cry. You’ve got a right. You’ve been through too much.” He stroked her hair and became even more conscious of the spectacle they made.

  “It’s not that,” she said through sniffles. “I take the pill— not for birth control, for something else.”

  “Not that?” he said, casting around for what other reason there might be for taking birth control pills. “What then?”

  “I forgot the other thing Vanni said. He’s absolutely sure Ryan intends to—to kill us.”

  They were doomed to misunderstand each other. “Why do you think he’s following us? Because he misses my company?”

  This would, Winston Moody decided, be the last journey he took in the company of Rupert Fish. In a manner of speaking, the forced trip to America was fortuitous. Getting rid of someone was so much simpler in a big country than in a little one. Rupert would simply have to disappear. Perhaps Detective Lemon would help with that—particularly if Winston pointed out that Rupert couldn’t be trusted to remain loyal. Of course, Lemon had proved he couldn’t be trusted either.

  “You should have made sure you didn’t give me the checks and the money together, Winston. The envelopes couldn’t have stuck together then,” Rupert said. “I’m almost relieved not to be in London right now. I just know those people are telephoning to demand their merchandise. They expect to get it once they’ve paid. I don’t want to talk to them until we’ve got answers.”

  “What repulsive countryside this is,” Winston said, giving himself time to prepare the most demoralizing onslaught possible. “Uncivilized. All looks the same.”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck about the scenery.” Rupert could manage a nicely clipped accent when he remembered.

  “Charming,” Winston said. “Your fly’s unzipped.”

  Rupert looked into his lap and Winston promptly clutched a handful of his partner’s hair and yanked his head back and forth. He dug his fingernails into Rupert’s hairline, deep into his hairline. The car zigzagged back and forth between lanes.

  “Pull yourself together,” Winston shouted. “You’re driving erratically.”

  “My God,” Rupert howled. “You’re psychotic. You want to be killed. I can’t see, you fool. There’s blood running in my eyes.”

  Winston took him by the ear and peered to see what damage had been done. “Very little blood,” he remarked. “The rest is tears and sweat. The people you keep harping on are criminals, Rupert. Those checks are payment for stolen property. What are they going to do—have us arrested? They can wait. We’ve got to get the FitzDurham woman and her bloody photographs. And that cop. Before they slip through our fingers and start blackmailing us. Then we have to make them dead. Then we’ll deal with the greedy ones in New York.”

  This was it, Rupert thought, absolutely the last straw. He found a handkerchief and wiped his face. “You’re right, Winnie old boy. I never did have your clear head.” Flattery got the old bastard every time. “D’you think Fats Lemon will decide our idea is clever? If he’s there to meet us when he’s supposed to be? He should relate very well to our hiring a hit man.” And while Flynn and FitzDurham were being executed, an extra bonus to the shooter would take care of Winston, too.

  “I think Lemon may approve. After all, he doesn’t seem to have an original idea of his own.” And once Flynn and FitzDurham were done for, Rupert would be despatched the same way. “I never thought I’d be glad he was in on everything, but I am. Without him we’d be up a gum tree.”

  “Lemon’s useful to us now,” Rupert said. “I hope. But we’re not going to like any three-way cuts.” And he, Rupert, couldn’t even work up enthusiasm for sharing at all.

  “Lemon won’t be getting a cut of anything,” Winston said. “Although, if you don’t object, we might send him on his way with one prize. Kitty, do you think? Since she’s apparently so chummy with him. She knew him before. I can’t get over that. And they’ve been planning to get together all along? Mark my words, she’s been spying on us. And now she’s acting as his go-between with us, if you can imagine such a thing.”

  Rupert knew when to tread carefully. He had other plans for Kitty—after she’d been taught the error of her ways, of course. She had a lot of bravado but no real courage, and she was away from her support system at The Fiddle. Yes, indeed. Give him a few days with Kitty, alone, in a remote place, and she’d sing a different tune about how forceful he was or wasn’t.

  Winston slapped his ear yet again. “I ask
ed you what you thought about making sure Lemon’s forced to get Kitty from wherever she is and take her with him.”

  “Perfect.” Rupert almost grinned. Why waste energy on the old bag of wind? “But concentrate on our two pigeons first, Winnie, there’s a good chap.”

  “You know,” Winston said, “when we get back to New York we should celebrate. Why not pay a little visit to The Dakota and look up some old friends?”

  Rupert shuddered and raised his shoulders to his ears. “The ones waiting for their… well, you know, waiting?”

  “Yes, indeed, Rupert. How quick you are. We visit them— or him really. The communications always refer to ‘we,’ but I think it’s a one man operation, one very powerful man. I know he’ll want to fund this trip we’ve had to take to protect his interests. I imagine he’ll show us a jolly old time.”

  The cell phone Winston still didn’t like rang, and he picked it up cautiously.

  “Answer the bloody thing or give it to me,” Rupert snapped.

  Winston applied the tip of a forefinger to the “on” button and raised the instrument to his ear. “Yes?” he said.

  “What the hell happened to you last night? We expected to hear from you.”

  Kitty. “What the hell happened to you? We couldn’t reach you, and you gave us the wrong instructions. They weren’t at that dump.”

  She was quiet for a while, and the dead sound suggested she’d covered the mouthpiece.

  “We don’t want to discuss that,” she said when she returned. “I was just told to check in with you.”

  “How lovely,” Winston said. “Consider us checked. Good-bye.”

  “Hang up and you’re dog meat, you old fart.”

  “So ladylike. I’m curious. When exactly did you and Lemon get so chummy?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Of course it’s my business. I thought you had a big thing for Hill. When did Lemon take over as crown prince?”

  “I forgot Hill the moment I met Fats. I know a real man when I meet one.”

  Winston found it difficult to imagine Kitty choosing wizened Lemon over beefcake Hill. Hell, what did it matter anymore. “What do you want?”

  “I was asked to find out where you are.”

  Winston held the phone away and said, “Where are we, Rupert? What did that last sign say?”

  “We’re on the interstate,” Rupert said, glaring. “Is that Kitty? Let me talk to her.”

  “Which interstate?” Kitty asked. “And tell Rupert I can’t talk now.”

  “Which interstate, she wants to know. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  Rupert scratched his itchy scalp and wrinkled his nose at the flakes that peppered his face. Dry skin was a curse. “I don’t want to talk to her either.”

  “Watched any good stuff lately, Winnie?” Kitty asked.

  Winston hated it when Kitty reminded him of what she knew about him. “What bloody road is this?” he asked Rupert. Everything beyond the car windows looked the same to him.

  Rupert said, “Interstate 80, of course.”

  “Eighty,” Winston told Kitty.

  “That’s not… I’m checking a map.” Winston knew when she put her hand over the phone again. He assumed Lemon was with her. “You mean you’re on 39 heading north, don’t you? You should really be on Highway 20 by now and going west, but Rupert was always an old lady behind the wheel. How much farther to 20?”

  “She says we’re not on 80, we’re on 39, and how much farther is it to Highway 20?”

  Rupert pushed his face forward over the wheel and squinted through the tinted windshield. “It’s not 39, it’s 80 west. We’re already almost in Des Moines; we can’t have much longer.” Winston relayed this message and settled more comfortably in his seat. It was heated and he wiggled from time to time to spread the warmth evenly.

  Kitty came back on and asked to speak to Rupert. “She wants you,” Winston said, giving up the phone.

  “Listen, you dumb shit,” Kitty told Rupert. “You’ve messed up everything you’ve ever touched in your miserable little life, but this time you’ve gone too far. You’re going in the wrong direction. Turn around. If you do everything I tell you, you’ll only be six hours late to meet Detective Lemon in Dubuque.”

  Aiden and Olivia hunched low and ran up a rocky track that took them to the top of a shallow knoll. Following Aiden’s instruction, Boswell stuck to Olivia’s side. He wanted the dog with her when he sent her back to the car alone. Below them stretched a stand of mostly beech trees. The Rover was a mile behind them and hidden behind a barn in a farmer’s field of spent corn.

  “I want you to go back now,” Aiden said, taking her by the arm. “I’ve got to watch my rear. If you’re in the Rover with Boss, I don’t have to watch yours, too.”

  “You’re right,” Olivia said, with no intention of letting him too far out of her sight. “I’ll just come far enough to see where this place is, then I’ll go.” She had her Nikon stuffed beneath the revolting black leather vest she wore over a skintight white nylon shell with long sleeves. At Aiden’s request she’d put a peach-colored bra on underneath the shell. He said it was to help the effect. She wondered who he thought was going to be looking at her, apart from him.

  Aiden also wore a leather vest, with nothing underneath and the front designed to show off a man’s chest. In this case a smashing chest she knew much better than she should. He’d picked up two long, heavy silver chains with oversized crosses dangling from them. He wore the chains around his neck and the crosses nestled in the bronzed hair on his chest. A rolled red bandanna circled his head, allowing the hair in his gray wig to fall over it, sexy tough-guy fashion. Temporary tattoos of snakes circled his upper arms and might as well have been the real thing. Actually, he looked intimidating and not a bit cold, which he should given the weather.

  “You ought to wear tight black-leather pants all the time,” he said to Olivia, pausing to check her out slowly. “I’m going to have to find me a Harley, baby. We’re wasted in that old man’s car.”

  The trousers he spoke of were stiff and creaked when she walked. Her bandanna—also red—was tied, kerchief-style, around her hair. She’d jammed a quite smashing wide-brimmed black felt hat on top and tilted the brim low over her eyes. She wore enough heavy makeup to clog her pores and make her hot. Aiden had applied the makeup, including black lipstick, and green lines around her eyes that gave her a Cleopatra look. Dangling earrings, cheap silver rings on every finger and her thumbs, and boots finished the outfit. Awful, but there was no point in being self-conscious when you weren’t yourself. Boswell was holding up well given the embarrassment of wearing yet another red bandanna, this one tied around his neck to make him look like a “good old boy’s” dog. Whatever that meant.

  “I’m going in now,” Aiden said and slipped over the ridge, heading toward the beeches. His manner, the fact that he’d stopped looking back, suggested he’d moved into solo mode and didn’t expect her to go any farther.

  Olivia ran rapidly along the hillside, traveling to the left and waiting until she was sure Aiden wouldn’t see her before going over the top. Her doggy escort never left her side. Quickly, she dropped down and entered the trees herself, working downhill until she could hide behind a large trunk and still have a good view of what was spread before her.

  The place was Bobby Mobo’s, a motel, steakhouse, tavern and “entertainment establishment.” The vertical siding was painted in gold and black stripes, and cattle horns made a garland around the roofline. Trucks were parked everywhere, and the men and women she saw wore either bib overalls and check shirts, or jeans and check shirts, or in a few cases, the kind of leather getup she and Aiden wore. Boots were de rigueur; so were push-up bras. This wasn’t where mummy and daddy took the kiddies for breakfast after church.

  A movement to her right and below had to be him. He might be hidden from her, but she had great visual recall. His trousers didn’t creak, and he wasn’t awkward in them. For some rea
son they clung to his very long, very muscular legs as if he’d been born in them. They clung everywhere. He had a ring at the outer tip of his left eyebrow, and several others ranged around one ear. He had amazed her by getting into the car wearing boots with a spur on one heel. A heavy rope of chain, with one end hooked to his belt and the other inside his pocket, clanked with every move he made.

  And still he was so appealing, she couldn’t concentrate on serious matters the way she should.

  This wasn’t her, wasn’t Olivia FitzDurham of Hampstead, struggling photographer. Yes, yes, of course that’s who she was. She eased out the camera and took a couple of shots of the area, making sure she got good angles on Bobby Mobo’s.

  A vehicle parked away from the rest caught her attention, or rather the man leaving a brown truck did. It was one of those trucks you saw a lot here, the ones with a top on the part that would otherwise be open, a top with windows on the sides and two doors at the back.

  She’d only seen the man for an instant before, when he drove past the Rover on his way to Aiden’s warehouse, but she remembered his thin features and tanned skin, his gray crewcut. Thank goodness details were her thing.

  She was a photographer. That’s what she did. And she was going to take photographs of anything that could be useful.

  Dropping to her haunches, she picked a course through the trees in the direction of Fats Lemon’s truck. He’d gone inside Bobby Mobo’s where, with luck, he would get drunk and do whatever else would keep Aiden safe.

  That’s when she felt Boswell grow more alert, and she saw Aiden. He broke from the trees immediately behind the truck and approached it nonchalantly with his hands in his pockets.

  Olivia worked her way closer, taking more pictures as she went.

  Aiden looked around, then circled the vehicle, looking sideways into the windows as he went. Standing by the back once more, he scanned the area, then hooked some fingers under a door handle.