“Twelve, but don’t expect her. She’s probably working somewhere else or somebody’s decided to take her with them to the islands, and she just couldn’t resist.”
“Well, is anybody else who knew Susie going to be there?”
“Could be. You’ll have to ask them yourself.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Sure.”
Rendon hung up the phone. What kind of crazy world did those girls live in? He got in his car and tried to take the interstate back to the health department. Stop and go, bumper to bumper, it took him an hour instead of twenty minutes. On the Georgia Tech sign, he watched the minutes click down to the Georgia Games. Sweat gathered on his forehead.
Nine
The phone in the telephone booth rang. Andrews picked it up as he surveyed the people walking past. The hotel lobby was full of conventioneers. They wore hats with the logo “roper data management” on the front. Apparently, it was some kind of computer-programming company.
Across the carpeted space from the phones, in a comfortable-looking armchair, sat a man who appeared to be reading the day’s newspaper. Andrews had watched him. The man had not turned a page in ten minutes.
“Hello, Dr. Hollinghurst?” Andrews said into the receiver, cradling the phone with his shoulder so that he faced away from the tail.
“Yes?” The voice on the other end of the line had a definite midwestern nasal twang to it. Hollinghurst taught at one of the eastern Ivy universities but had been raised in Minnesota. Andrews had read the file. Hollinghurst took frequent sabbaticals. He worked for the agency.
“This is William Andrews. I believe we’ve met.”
“Who?”
“Andrews, sir. I met you at a…conference in Seattle last year. It was sponsored by our agency.”
“Oh, yes, I remember. The tall, gray-headed one who sat next to me for the briefings. But no one told me I would be speaking to you. Is there a problem?”
“No. I’m working on a project and need some basic medical information. Thought you could help. I didn’t go through channels; not that big a deal.”
“OK, but you know how we are—specialized to the sublime. I’ll answer if I can, but my area is retroviruses. If it’s anything outside of that, you’ll need to find someone else. Sometimes,” he said and laughed, “I think we’re too damn specialized for our own good.”
“Uh-huh. I believe you’ll do fine, Doctor. I was wondering about viruses. How do they normally spread?”
There was a pause. “There are numerous carriers. Is there something specific?”
The man’s voice had taken on a slight edge. Andrews noted the change and paused to reconsider his strategy. Perhaps he should not tell the whole story. “Are there any commonalities in the way viruses spread. Like do you get ’em from bad food, water, whatever?”
“No. Usually the vector is moist, warm, and often living tissue or cells, particularly for retroviruses.”
“And the viruses would die outside of that?”
“Yes, often.” There was a pause. “Why are you asking?”
“I’m working on a case in Atlanta.”
“Is there anything else?” the doctor said.
“I’ll call back if I can think of anything. Thank you.”
“I’m a busy man, Mr. Andrews. Go through channels if you need anything further.”
Andrews hung up the phone and frowned. At the meeting in Seattle, Hollinghurst had not been the most sociable man, but he hadn’t seemed cold. Now he had turned from willing to suspicious just at the mention of the methods that viruses spread. Could there be any connection? Or was the doctor just busy and not interested in talking with an agent with no clearance? That was probably the most likely. Most of the scientists had negative feelings about working for the agency to begin with—not enough to keep from getting paid, of course.
Andrews put in several more calls. What had been the last job Hollinghurst had worked on for the agency? The answer was startling. The job had been long-term, recently finished, and it was buried under so much secrecy the president probably couldn’t find out what had happened. That too did not necessarily mean anything. But, maybe it did. The man across the lobby put the newspaper down and then immediately brought it back up again. Andrews pushed through the crowd and skipped down the escalator to the motor lobby. He pushed a dollar into the doorman’s hand and hailed a taxi, not waiting for the valet to pull his car around to the front or even for the doorman’s thanks.
Andrews had the taxi drop him off at a hotel across Peachtree Street, and from there, he raced through the lobby, down through their parking garage and into another taxi. With luck, he’d lost the tail. He had the second taxi make a number of sharp turns through downtown Atlanta while he occasionally glanced behind them. No one appeared to be following. Nonetheless, Andrews had the cab drop him in a residential neighborhood near Piedmont Park. The former field agent walked through the tree-lined streets. He stopped at corners and looked both ways, as if checking before crossing. There was little traffic.
The trees were leafless, brown sacrifices to a cold winter. A few hardy couples, some of them all male, lay on blankets. The sun warmed a little, but his breath still fogged in front of him. It took him half an hour to reach the rendezvous, a series of steps near the park’s lake. He circled it before finally taking a seat on one of the steps.
Five minutes later, he watched an attractive young woman approach him. She looked doubtful, turning to look around every few yards. Andrews sat still, in his mind running through the information that had been in Dr. Rendon’s notebook—a notebook that had been hard to photograph and equally difficult to read. The doctor had terrible writing—no surprise—and he rarely left the notebook out of his sight. It had taken several hours for one of Andrew’s contacts at the Georgia bureau to get hold of the thing. But it had been worthwhile. According to the CDC doctor, Burton was hiding something. Andrews was going to find out just what she hid.
“Ms. Burton?” She looked at him and approached as he stood up. “Why don’t we just walk for a while.” He stood over her, looking down. It was a good position to be in, established his authority. He flipped out his identification. She stared at it blankly.
“I work for the federal government,” he said. “We’re investigating a recent rash of deaths, including your former lover, Mr. Woolbanks.” He said the word lover with particular emphasis.
She drew back at the word and then sputtered out her response. “Y-yes, a doctor came and talked to me about it. I really don’t think I know anything that can help. We broke up several months ago.”
“Ah, yes.” Andrews took her arm, and they started walking down the sidewalk. He angled her into an area of trees. “I understand you feel a bit nervous, and please believe me: we don’t think that you are in any way implicated in anything wrong. Nor are we sure”—he paused and made sure it sounded significant—“Mr. Woolbanks was involved. However, a little checking revealed that Mr. Woolbanks left your house at six thirty in the morning five days before his death.” Andrews thanked God for nosey old ladies who didn’t sleep well.
“Oh.” Burton stopped walking.
Gently tugging her arm, he led her farther back into the trees. Caution was needed. He might have been followed. He scanned the nearby woods and could see no one. “Could you tell me about any other friends Mr. Woolbanks had? Anyone we should know about?”
“I really didn’t—”
“Jane—may I call you that?”
“Well, yes.”
“Jane, I’d appreciate your cooperation. This may be an important matter, and I’d rather not feel you were…holding back information.” He kept his voice low and firm. It would have been easier with two people to interrogate her. Then the other man could have played the hard guy. As it was, she seemed intimidated enough. Her eyes were wide; her breathing, fast. The woods helped, too. Being
alone with a strange man in the middle of a group of trees would keep her off balance. He felt a little embarrassed but not enough to stop. Now he would play it soft.
“He had…a lot of other friends,” she finally replied.
“But there’s one you’re thinking of in particular, right? One that bothered you.”
He stopped her and turned her to look at him. She stared down at the pine straw–littered ground.
“Y-yes. Elaine. That was what we were fighting about. I didn’t want him to go back to her parties. But she’s dead, too. I read it in the papers. I didn’t think it would be important, you know, since she’s dead.”
Burton looked at him with wide-open eyes that seemed to silently implore him to stop asking questions. He decided there was something further to probe. “Why? What was the matter with these parties? Didn’t you like her?” he said.
“No. Nothing really. I just…Yes, I didn’t like her. I guess you’re right, and…”
“What didn’t you like, Jane? I’m not going to go spreading what you say all over the place. But you need to help. Other people could die. Do you understand?”
She nodded her head and looked miserable, her eyes full of tears. “Elaine used to have cocaine parties. Ted used to have some of the coke. I never did,” she added hurriedly.
“I do believe you, and that is what we had heard already,” he said and lied. “But we needed it confirmed. Did Ted go to these parties frequently?”
“No, just once every month or two.”
“Did he use cocaine other than that?”
“No, not that I know of. At least, not when I was around. He really was a nice man, you know. I don’t want to spread anything bad about him.”
“I’m sure. What was the problem, Jane?”
She kept her eyes fixed on the ground. “At first, I guess I liked it when he took the coke. He’d get real talkative and touched me a lot. But always the next day he was depressed. It just wasn’t worth it. Sometimes, he’d yell at me the next day.” She looked at Andrews, and tears rolled down her face.
Andrews supplied his handkerchief. “I’m sorry I had to bring it up, and as I’ve said, you’ve been helpful in confirming information that we had previously gathered from other sources.” He handed her a card with his phone and room numbers at the hotel written on it. “Why don’t you call me if you think of anything else that might be of use.”
The woman walked off, wiping her nose with his handkerchief, heading for the sidewalks. She walked rapidly. Her mascara had stained her cheeks. Her high heels dug into the soft ground, giving her an odd, off-balance stride.
Andrews mused. Cocaine. Suddenly a movement in a tree to the side caught his attention, and he turned quickly to look. He saw a man darting behind a large pine some hundred yards off to the left. There was a clear line of sight.
Andrews cursed.
Ree took Harry’s hand and led him around the side of the building. He felt light-headed from having suddenly gotten out of bed and moving around. The sun was bright. He blinked and let her lead him. She was wearing a T-shirt over tights.
The motel was located on the southern outskirts of the town at an intersection with another main highway. Behind it stretched straight rows of the ubiquitous Georgia pine trees. Occasionally, a pool of water glinted between the dark trunks.
They did not stop until the tree line. Then, she led him around through the undergrowth to a point where they could see the front of the motel again.
“See that car parked near the office?” She pointed.
“Yes.” He was breathing hard, trying to catch his breath. His side hurt with every breath. He clung to her hand for support.
“I talked to the maid,” she said. “The woman speaks mostly Spanish, and when I started talking to her, she got friendly ’cause I knew her language. She said that a guest owns that car in front of the office, and he’s been here since we have, and he’s in the room next to ours, though he didn’t park there.”
Harry stared at the car, seeing nothing wrong with any of that.
Ree tugged at his hand. “She said that she went into the room once when the man had gone across the street to the McDonald’s. She said there was a bunch of machinery in there—tape recorders.”
“Oh, Christ.” Harry started to pull away, but Ree held his hand firmly. She didn’t move.
“Not now, Harry. If he wanted to do something to us, he would have already done it. Tonight. We find some way to mess his car up and then take off. In the meantime, let’s go back and sit by the pool. But remember: no talking about anything important in the room.”
She seemed quite calm for having just told him that they had been found. The tension was gone from her face. Harry didn’t have time to consider what that meant. She pulled him forward through the trees. Back in the room, she found suntan lotion and rubbed it on his face and then her own, even though it was still winter in South Georgia. “Come on,” she ordered.
They spent the afternoon beside what passed for a pool. There was no fence around it, and Harry wondered how they kept the kids from wandering too close and plopping right in. He looked around at the surroundings and decided there were probably no kids anywhere near. The temperature was cool. When the wind blew, he wished for a coat. He felt foolish sitting beside an empty pool filled with dead leaves.
Ree had found both of them books. Her bag contained everything. It was a miniature living room. He pretended to read. The book was some science-fiction thing about a culture that could read minds. He wished he could. He’d like to read hers and the guy’s in the room next door.
For lunch, she bought him more burgers and went back to the room. They took a nap. She lay close to him, her back against his. Her back was nubby. He didn’t sleep. Instead, he thought about what he needed to ask her.
He’d learned a lot about her, but nothing to help him figure out why men were trying to kill them. He puzzled on that as a way to not think about the man in the next room, who no doubt had equipment that would allow him to hear a flea jump. Worse, the man might kill them rather than let them escape from view.
Harry found himself wondering why he didn’t already have the information he wanted. He was a reporter. Questions came easy to him.
Dinner was burgers again. Ree chewed on the bun with methodical enthusiasm. Outside, the sun went down fast and cast an eerie red glow over. Harry leaned back against the headboard of the bed and closed his eyes.
Sometime later Ree pulled at him, waking him out of a daze. “Let’s go over to the McDonald’s and get something else to eat. I’m still hungry.” She said the words with a finger pressed to her lips.
“OK.” He shrugged. They would need to make a plan, and the McDonald’s would be a safer place to talk.
They walked across to the restaurant, entered, ordered some food, paid, and went out the side door, all at Ree’s direction. Crossing the road some hundred yards up from the hotel, they stalked back through the underbrush. Harry’s shoes slimed over with mud.
She stopped when they were near enough to see the front of the motel. The room next to theirs was dark. The door opened, and Ree pulled Harry farther back into the woods. A medium-sized but heavily muscled man came from the room, and looking both ways, he strolled casually across the street. When he’d reached the other side, he stopped and looked down the road. He entered the restaurant.
“Stay here,” Ree whispered and set off. Dressed in the dark tunic and tights, she looked a shadow sliding through the trees. A cold wind had started to blow, and Harry hugged his arms around his chest, wishing for a windbreaker. Above, the stars shone bright. The moon threw long, pencillike tree shadows around him.
When she reached the edge of the cover, Ree stopped and looked at the McDonald’s. Harry followed her glance. Their tail man was outside again, walking down the road in the direction they had gone in moments before. Harry step
ped farther back into the shadows as the fellow passed. Ree, hidden near the motel, burst out of the cover, ran to the office, slowed down as she walked past the window, and then was down beside the man’s car.
In a moment, she was up and waving for Harry to come. He ran, holding his side and gasping. Ree ducked into their room and came out with her bag. The man came walking back down the road. He looked at them and started to walk faster.
Harry eased himself into the Chevy, turned it on, and when Ree jumped in, pulled out going southbound.
The front tire on their tail’s car was flat down to the rim. Harry grinned to himself. The man started to run and then stopped. In his rearview mirror, Harry watched as the tail stood staring at them.
Ree was a resourceful woman. Harry liked that. They had gotten away free. He looked over at her and smiled. “You’re a regular little terrorist, aren’t you?”
She smiled back.
A half-eaten plate of Mongolian beef and noodles sat in front of Ferenzi. His indigestion was acting up—the people he was paying weren’t. “So they’re gone?” he said.
The man across from him nodded. “We’ve got a tracer on the car. As soon as Jerry can get the tire changed, he’ll find them again. They were headed south on 341. There’s not that much down there. Still, shouldn’t have put somebody in the room next to them, I guess. Too obvious with so few people staying there. We didn’t learn anything worth knowing, anyway.”
“But you might have. Next time just bug the room the first time they go out.”
“Sure.”
“What else?” Halfheartedly Ferenzi took another bite.
The other man stabbed at an egg roll. “We needed all the people we had on Andrews. He knew he was being followed and lost the first two. He went over to Piedmont and met some girl. Apparently, she knew one of the dead. Said he’d used cocaine with one of the other people that died.”
“Hmm.” Ferenzi put down his fork. “That may be the key. The dead dancer could have been selling it, and it could have been contaminated by the Abu woman, her roommate. The dancer and Felder were trying to run a fast one, and the Latino was the boss. The dancer dies and they get rid of Felder, and they still don’t know the cocaine is contaminated. That doesn’t explain why they were after this Lee Abu woman.”
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