by Mason Cross
He laughed out loud. “That’s the spirit. I’ll talk to you in two hours. Make sure you answer, otherwise ...”
I hung up on him, feeling the smallest scintilla of satisfaction in the minor act of rebellion. It would be the last one I would get: Gage was running the show now.
Carol looked down at the bag, and then looked at me.
“He has Sarah,” she said. A statement, not a question. There was nothing I could tell her that she hadn’t gotten from hearing my side of the conversation.
I nodded.
“I guess we don’t have much of a choice, do we?”
“We don’t.”
“Can we trust him? To let Sarah go, I mean?”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I do know that we can trust him to kill her if he doesn’t get what he wants. As to whether he’ll play nice if we give him what he wants? I hope that he’ll take the line of least resistance. No reason for him to make things messier than they have to be.”
Carol looked down at the bag containing the diamonds and shook her head. For a split second I wondered if she was thinking about refusing to go along with the trade. The sheer frustration in her next word told me she hadn’t changed that much.
"Fuck." She let out a long sigh.
Two million dollars. Even with the hefty commission the fence would take, it was certainly enough for the new start she needed. I couldn’t help but sympathize a little. I almost wanted to say sorry.
“You’re putting a lot of faith in him acting reasonably,” she said after a minute.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “I try not to put faith in anything, without good reason.”
“How could I forget. Okay, Blake. What’s the plan?”
62
Gage smiled as the phone went dead and looked across at Sarah Blackwell. She was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, her hands cuffed together in her lap. He would have to be careful when getting her out of here. And that had to be his next move. If Sarah knew about this place, then Blake knew about it too.
“Good news,” he said. “Blake is cooperating.”
Sarah’s expression didn’t change. “How do you know he can find Carol? What makes you think she’ll give him the diamonds?”
Gage glanced down at the old man’s body on the floor. “If he can’t, I guess we’ll have to think of something else to try. Let’s just hope your old neighbor liked you.”
Her brow furrowed as he switched her phone off and dropped it to the ground. As he lifted his foot up to stamp down on it, she called out.
“Wait!”
He paused, mid-stamp, and left the heel hovering over the screen. He cocked a questioning eyebrow at her.
“Won’t you need it? So Blake can get back in touch, I mean.”
“That’s a good point,” he said. Then he brought his heel down hard, splintering the screen and smashing the inner workings of the phone against the tiled floor. “But no.”
Gage had high hopes that Blake would find Carol, if he hadn’t already. He was confident of it. Now he needed a location. Somewhere quiet and private. Somewhere with more than one exit.
He turned and walked over to the window. He looked out at the city. It wasn’t late enough in the day for it to actually look like itself. Vegas was like an empty theatre, still hours from showtime. The city sprawled before him, all of those thousands of miles of neon tubing waiting patiently for the sun to dip below the hills.
And just like that, it came to him. He had the perfect place to meet Blake.
There was an old sweater hanging over the back of the swivel chair at the desk. He picked it up and tossed it to Sarah. “Cover your hands, we’re going outside.”
Sarah stood up carefully and made an effort at concealing her bound hands beneath the sweater. Whether because the task was difficult or because she wasn’t motivated to obey, the sweater kept slipping off. He picked it up from the floor and wrapped it around her hands. As he stepped back from her, her eyes found the old man’s corpse on the floor again. He had noticed she had avoided looking at it before. Her eyes rolled in her head and she staggered on her feet, pitching forward. Gage caught her and pushed her gently back down in the chair. He slapped her lightly across the cheek.
“No time for a snooze, let’s go.”
Sarah opened her eyes and took a deep breath. She got to her feet again, avoiding looking at the corpse, and leaned on him as they walked toward the door. He was glad he hadn’t parked too far from the building.
63
Sarah thought her faint had been reasonably convincing, all things considered. To tell the truth, between the heat and the second dead body she’d seen in as many days, it hadn’t required a lot of acting talent. The aim was simple: to waste a little more time. She kept playing woozy, dragged her feet as Gage escorted her back down to the sidewalk, but whenever she got too slow he would grip her arm tighter and force her to up the pace. In all, she probably managed to delay an extra couple of minutes.
The whole way down she was listening for sirens, hoping against hope that she had managed to buy enough time. Gage had used her phone as a way of letting Blake know he really had her. What he couldn’t know was that Detective Costigane had already tracked her location once using that phone, and that he would no doubt be informed when it was switched on again. Sarah was reasonably well versed in cell technology from her days at the Tribune, but her knowledge was a couple of years out of date. She knew a phone would check in with the nearest cell tower as soon as it was switched on, whether a call was made or not. She just had to hope that Costigane’s people were on the ball. In barely an hour, she had gone from obsessively hoping the police wouldn’t find her, to praying they would. She knew it was an incredibly slim chance. It had been ten minutes or so since Gage had made the call—could that possibly be enough time?
They emerged onto the heat of the sidewalk. Still no sirens. Gage steered her toward a beat-up pickup truck parked at the side of the road.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he said under his breath. He didn’t have to worry. The few pedestrians nearby barely glanced at them as they walked straight ahead, focused on their own business. Gage opened the passenger side and told Sarah to get in. She hesitated, scanning the street. She saw no police cars, heard no distant sirens. Goddamn it. She had been banking on him taking the phone with him.
Gage grew impatient and put one hand on her shoulder, the other on her head, and pushed her inside, slamming the door. As he circled around to the driver’s side, Sarah saw a gray sedan turn the corner at speed and then immediately slow down as it approached the building. She allowed herself to hope for a second. But then the car slowed further and stopped, fifty yards from where they were parked. Gage glanced in the direction of the car and then checked his mirror as he turned the key in the ignition. Sarah’s heart sank. There had been just too little time. By the time Costigane made it here, all he would find would be a dead body and a destroyed cell phone.
Gage made a turn in the street and headed west. After he had made a couple of turns, he seemed to relax. He fiddled with the air conditioning, coaxing a weak stream of cool air from the vents.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s cooler where we’re going.”
64
With no idea of where we were going to end up, Carol and I decided that the best place to wait was somewhere that would give us the maximum number of options. We took both cars and drove three miles south from the hotel, parking in a vacant lot on Las Vegas Boulevard across from Town Square Park. Right by the cloverleaf where two major routes intersected: the 15 and the 215. Traffic permitting, this position gave us a lot of options.
Carol got out of the Civic and sat with me in my car while we waited. There were no awkward silences. The current situation gave us more than enough to keep us occupied. But neither of us talked about what had happened six years ago. The closest we came to that was when I handed Carol my gun and asked if she was confident to use it.
She tur
ned the Beretta 92FS over in her hands, checked the load, made sure the chamber was clear, clicked the safety off and then on again. “I’ve learned a lot over the past few years. You’d be surprised.”
I didn’t doubt that, but said nothing in response.
“Why did she get herself into this?” Carol said after a minute.
“She was worried about you,” I said. I had told her about Sarah’s concerns when they had disappeared, and how they had crystallized when she saw the men breaking into their house later on. When I mentioned that the note had made her curious from the beginning, Carol rolled her eyes.
“That was Dom. He told me about it later. He knew we were friendly and thought leaving the note meant Sarah wouldn’t worry.”
“Bad idea. It just made her more curious.”
“Yeah, well he was full of bad ideas. I seem to be able to pick ‘em, huh?”
Gage kept us waiting a little longer than he had promised. As the minutes counted down, I kept the phone on the dashboard, resisting the urge to call Sarah. I knew it wouldn’t do any good: he would have dumped her phone right after the call. The next call would come from a burner.
At one thirty-eight, I was proved correct. The screen of my phone lit up with a call from a private number. Carol and I exchanged a glance and I put it on speaker. Gage’s voice filled the interior of the car. I listened for anything in the background that might give a clue to his whereabouts, but could hear nothing. I guessed wherever he was, it wasn’t outside.
“I hope I’m not going to be disappointed,” he said.
I glanced into the back seat to reassure myself the bag was still there.
“It’s your lucky day, assuming you’ve kept your end of the deal.”
“Don’t worry about that, Blake. She’s just fine.”
“Let me speak to her.”
“She’s not with me right now, you’re going to have to take my word for it.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s going to have to be.”
As he raised his voice, the quality of the sound changed slightly. Was that an echo? It sounded like he was in an enclosed space, like a concrete stairwell.
He kept talking. “Do you remember payphones, Blake?”
My confusion lasted a second before I realized what he was talking about. “Where?”
“They still have one at the 7-Eleven on Wyoming and Commerce. Can you get there in twenty minutes?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m not from around here.”
“Do your best.”
The line went dead. Twenty minutes. And if we couldn’t make it in that time? What then?
No use dwelling on it. I looked at Carol and repeated the address. She had the map of Vegas splayed on her lap and traced her finger to the coordinates. “Wyoming and Commerce ... It’s all the way downtown.”
“Can we make it?”
She looked doubtful. “It’s going to be tight.”
I didn’t waste time debating it.
“Go. I’ll follow.”
Carol took the gun and got out. She jumped in the green Civic, turned the key in the ignition, and peeled out of the vacant lot. I pulled out into traffic behind her. We reached the cloverleaf and turned onto the 15, headed north. I was grateful the evening rush hadn’t kicked in yet. As it was I almost lost her a couple of times as she weaved in and out of traffic. I kept glancing at the clock. Carol took exit 40 with five minutes left. We got delayed for almost a minute at an intersection as a big rig took its time negotiating the turn. The minute felt like a decade. Carol ignored the light turning to red and moved ahead. I followed to a chorus of horns from oncoming traffic. Two blocks later, she hit her hazard lights briefly, and then signaled left. I looked over at the left side of the road and saw the payphone at the 7-Eleven on the corner. Carol continued ahead without pausing, as we had arranged. I assumed Gage was going to send us from payphone to payphone. We had no idea how many links there would be in this daisy chain, and I didn’t want to risk him spotting Carol.
I pulled in. My watch said less than a minute before the deadline. I hoped he hadn’t jumped the gun. I watched the receiver, waiting for it to ring. And then my own phone rang again.
“Hello?”
“Not bad,” Gage said.
“I thought you were calling on the payphone?”
He laughed. “Who uses payphones anymore?”
“I almost didn’t make it,” I said, hearing the anger in my voice and not caring. “You’re going to have to give me more time for the next one.”
“Easy there. Okay, the next stop is in Palm Springs ...”
For a second I contemplated whether he was joking. For another second I thought about my response, and decided on a robust one.
“Don’t fuck me around, Gage, I’ve got what you want.”
“All right. You have it with you, I take it? Is it in the trunk?”
“Back seat. In a backpack.”
“Good. When you hang up, I want you to walk back to your car and take the pack out.”
That caught me by surprise. I started to turn around slowly, watching the windows of the stores and the people on the sidewalks. I listened to the background noise again. He was on a cell phone, and this time it sounded like he was outside. I could hear traffic noise.
“Why do you want me to take it out here?”
“Don’t play dumb, Blake. You know exactly why. Once you’ve taken the pack out, I want you to take your jacket off and put it in the car. Then I want you to pull your shirt up and turn around so I can see you’re not hiding any surprises. Both legs, too.”
“Okay,” I said. “Then what?”
A horn sounded as a truck driver took issue with the bus in front of him stopping at a yellow. I heard the sound reproduced on Gage’s end, from farther off. If he noticed, his voice gave nothing away.
“You’re on foot from here on in. Keep your phone switched on.”
The background noise on the other end disappeared as he terminated the call. I kept my phone in my hand. I was careful to carry out the next move without looking obvious. As I turned and walked back toward the car, I thumbed into recent calls, found Carol’s number and hit loudspeaker, so I could talk to her without holding the phone to my ear. Wherever Gage was, he was close and he could see me.
She answered immediately. “What’s happening?”
Moving my lips as little as possible, I talked as loud as I could without making it obvious I was speaking to someone. I hoped Gage didn’t have a set of binoculars.
“He’s around here,” I said. “He’s going to call me in a minute. Mute your phone, stay on the line and listen, okay?”
“Be careful,” she said after a second’s hesitation. The concern was genuine. I tried not to let myself be distracted by the fact that felt good.
I tucked the phone into my pocket, being careful not to cut the call off, then I unlocked the car, pulled the backpack out and dumped it on the sidewalk. I followed Gage’s instructions to the letter, shrugging my jacket off and pulling my shirt out. I turned a slow three hundred and sixty degrees with my stomach and back exposed, earning a curious glance or two from passers-by. Then I knelt down and raised one pant leg, then the other, to demonstrate there was no backup piece strapped to my ankle. After that, I rose up again, dropped my hands and stood expectantly.
Ten seconds later, I heard the soft beep from my phone I had been waiting for. Not a ring, because the call with Carol was still in progress. A call waiting notification. I took the phone out and saw the incoming call from a withheld number. I tapped into conference call, putting both calls on the line.
“You’re doing well, Blake. How hard was she to find?”
“I’ve had tougher jobs,” I said.
“And did you have to get rough with her? I bet she didn’t want to part with those stones easy. I have a bruise on my head the size of a watermelon to remind me of that.”
“Let’s just say she isn’t too happy with
either of us,” I said.
“I bet she isn’t.”
“Let’s get this over with.”
Gage told me to turn around. I did as instructed. I was now facing the road. Pedestrians passed on the opposite side of this street, dallying beneath awnings where they could to take shelter from the sun. I glanced at the screen to confirm both calls were still live. I wondered where Carol was, hoping that she stayed out of Gage’s field of vision.
“Okay,” Gage’s voice continued. “You see the Thai place on the other side of the road?”
I scanned the line of storefronts and quickly found the place he was talking about.
“Thai Kitchen?”
“That’s the one. There’s an alley right next to it.”
“I see it.”
“Use it.”
I waited for a gap in the traffic and crossed the road, wishing I had a map or could use my phone to check out the path ahead. I knew Carol would look for an alternative route, rather than attracting attention to herself by passing through the bottleneck. When I reached the other side, I paused a second at the mouth of the alley. It was narrow, the buildings high on both sides. It looked like it widened out after sixty yards or so. Nowhere to run, once I was in that space.
I took a deep breath and walked forward.
65
Hope for the best, plan for the worst. I was hoping that my assessment of Gage was correct: a pragmatist who would hold up his end of the bargain. Not because he was a stand-up guy, but because he knew not doing so would be an unnecessary risk. He could either take precautions and make sure he walked away with the diamonds, or he could complicate the issue by harming Sarah or me and risking a reprisal. It was a simple cost / benefit equation. There would be no possibility of additional benefit in that scenario, and every possibility of additional cost.
A simple exchange. The diamonds for Sarah. Gage wouldn’t care too much about the method by which I had relieved Carol of the diamonds, but he would assume she hadn’t relinquished them willingly. It wouldn’t occur to him that Carol was still in the equation.