by Alan Hruska
“Ah.”
“He must have been in your class too, Mr. Rauschenberg.”
“You know he was.”
“Three was always a tricky number,” Mariah says.
She exits with a smirk, leaving Harry wondering, for the thousandth time, why he continued to allow put-downs from his secretary.
Charlie drives Tom and Elena in a cop car to the rented house after swinging by the shopping strip to point out the local food market and clothing stores. He’s a cheerful man with a small round head and sizable belly. The old red Chevy he’s renting them is parked in the driveway. There’s no garage. The house is a slender two stories, white wood frame, with a front porch. The first floor has a front sitting room, with a loveseat and wood chairs, and a kitchen in back. Upstairs, there’s a tiny bathroom and closet, both off the one bedroom, which features wallpaper of faded florals, door and window frames of dark varnished wood, and a huge double bed with four posts but no canopy. Charlie is running the tour; Tom and Elena are staring at the bed.
“Great piece of furniture, don’t you think?” Charlie says. “Best thing in the house.”
“Very luxurious,” Tom says.
“Wish I was your age,” says Charlie. “Make good use of it!” He roars at his own humor.
Tom smiles. “Get your point,” he says. “As it were.”
“As it were!” Charlie repeats. “You bet! Love it!” He wipes perspiration from his face. “Well, gotta get on. You two enjoy yourselves here.” He heads off with a sly glance at the bed.
Tom and Elena don’t move as they listen to Charlie making his way out.
“You see the difference?” Tom asks.
“Between this house and where we’ve been sleeping?”
“Between the sheriff here and Seaversville.”
“Charlie hasn’t a clue,” Elena says. “And why would he, you’re saying, not having been tipped.”
“Which reinforces the tipping theory, yes.”
“Also showing they don’t know where we are. So we should be good here.” She gives that more thought. “For a while.”
“For … a while,” he says.
“They’re still tracking us.”
He says nothing.
“Whatever it is they wanted,” she says, “they’ve killed at least once already to get it. And the best way to keep it at only the one is if we disappear. Permanently.”
“We have to be very careful,” he says.
“No one can be that careful.”
Tom shrugs, returning his glance to the bed. “We have a more immediate problem.”
“What problem?” she says. “You get to sleep downstairs on the sofa.”
“You mean that loveseat? The one that fits you and not me?”
“You’re not suggesting I sleep on a loveseat?” she says in a tone of great umbrage.
“This is a very big bed.”
“Which you sure as hell ain’t getting into.”
“You ever hear of a bundling board?”
“Forget it.”
“We could stack pillows in the middle of the mattress. Use separate blankets.”
“I should trust you to stay on one side?”
“We were in a potting shed together all night, Elena.”
“You were unconscious.”
“All right,” Tom says, laughing, “let’s table it. We have things to do.”
“I need a bath.” She reflects. “You need a bath.”
“You needn’t be so vehement.”
“Believe me. Vehemence, on this subject, is not misplaced.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
By reputation among those in a position to know, Hamad bin Abdul Saeed is one of the richest and most influential men in the UAE. No doubt the richest and most influential among the very small number who eschew the trappings of wealth and power. His Dubai office is relatively small, though with a panoramic view of the harbor. Yasim studies the sight as he waits for his host to get off the phone.
It’s a vista now known throughout the world: man-made finger fjords like the giant hands of the looming glass towers. Yasim thinks of it as Disneyland meets Century City. On such matters, Yasim is conservative. In Manhattan, he appreciates urban architecture and the parks. In his homeland, he likes the desert.
“My apologies,” Hamad says presently, hanging up. “One of those calls. Sheikh Ramin bin Zayed. You understand.”
“Of course.”
“So, Yassy, you do not wish to come home.”
“It helps no one, my coming home.”
“That would be the obvious conclusion.”
“So?”
“Decisions here are seldom made for the obvious reasons.”
“What am I missing?”
“Well … you were right to come to me first.”
“You know?”
“Not entirely,” Hamad says.
“What do you know?”
“You are very blunt.”
“With you,” Yasim says. “I am blunt with you, because I trust you.”
Hamad laughs. “Well then, take my advice. Go back. Pay calls of respect while you’re here, but don’t raise the subject.”
“And let Rashid railroad me out of my job?”
“I didn’t say that. But you won’t win here. You can win—if at all—only there.”
“How?”
“Find out his plan and thwart it.”
“You don’t know his plan?”
“I don’t,” Hamad admits.
“I’m not sure he has a plan. Other than to get me sent home so he can take over.”
“Too simple. That’s not Rashid.”
“I’m in the middle of the GT&M takeover.”
“The middle?” Hamad says. “It’s barely started.”
“With all respect, it’s quite advanced, the groundwork, the players. It’s very complicated. He knows nothing about it.”
“I think you’ll find that’s not the case. No matter how you regard him personally, he’s very resourceful.”
“He’s been studying the project?” Yasim asks. “You know this? There’s a limit to what he can find out.”
“You may be underestimating again. For example, you mentioned other players.”
“He’s talking to them? Behind my back?”
“I don’t know that,” Hamad says.
“You know him better than I do.”
“I know him … as well as he can be known.”
“So how do I get rid of him?”
“As I said, do it from there.”
“Do what?” says Yasim. “The Istithmar are here, and it’s with them the man is plugged in. I should be speaking to them directly, explaining the situation.”
“You think you should?”
“Who else?” Yasim says, and immediately sees on Hamad’s face the clarity of what he’s been missing. “Ah. They won’t take it from me.”
“Too true.”
“They’ll have to hear it from our partners in this venture. And if Rashid has been talking to them….”
“I’ve not said a thing.”
“For which I thank you.”
Hamad nods, rises, goes to a small cabinet in the corner, and brings out a tray of finely wrapped chocolates. “Would you like one?”
“Thank you, yes,” Yasim says. It would have been impolite to refuse.
After handing him the tray, Hamad unwraps one slowly for himself. “Robertson Riles was shot, I understand. Shot dead in the street.”
“Yes,” Yasim says, wondering at the sudden introduction of this subject.
“Some here did not mourn him.”
“I can understand why.”
“Yes. And you also understand, I’m sure, that people operate primarily on self-interest. Rewarding only those who serve it.”
It takes Yasim but a moment. “Rashid was involved in that act?”
“I know nothing about it.”
Now many thoughts come tumbling into place. “And again, I thank
you,” Yasim says.
“I’ve done nothing, Yassy. I’ve simply held up a mirror.”
“No one else has such a mirror, my friend. It was worth traveling five thousand miles to look into it.”
Six p.m. DA’s office, One Hogan Place. Joe Cunningham is filling in Mike Skillan on the latest, since receiving a copy of the email forwarded to them by Perry Rauschenberger. “The guy who wrote it, name of Ray Poundstone—he’s with an independent trucking firm, headquartered in Fort Lee. They’ll go pretty much anywhere, but have regular routes to and from Cincinnati, Ohio. Poundstone is one of their drivers, a twelve-year employee. He’s out on a run right now.”
Sammy Riegert walks in, having caught the end of Joe’s sentence. “Actually,” Sammy says, “he’s on the phone. Been trying to get through, he says, couple of days now. Transfer him up here?”
“Do it,” Mike says.
Sammy dials his secretary. They sit there waiting for her signal. It comes.
Mike picks up. “This Ray?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Mike Skillan, Ray. New York District Attorney.”
“Oh, right.” Belligerence seeps out of Ray’s voice.
“Hear you’ve been wanting to talk to me, Ray. Sorry for all the red tape.”
“Hey, no problemo.”
“So you picked up that couple we’re looking for, Elena Riles and Tom Weldon?”
“I didn’t know who they were. At first, I mean. Thought they were just two kids needing a lift. Then they wrote this crazy email to a lawyer in New York, accusing me—”
“Of course. We understand. What we’d like to know, Ray, is where you dropped them, what they said about where they were going, you know. So we can find ’em.”
“Sure, sure. You understand, as soon as I realized I had two killers in my car, I stopped and told them to get out.”
“What anyone would do,” Mike says. “So where was that?”
“Middle of nowhere.”
“Could you be a little more specific?”
“’Bout fifty miles south of Columbus.”
“Columbus, Ohio?”
“That’s right.”
“They say where they were heading?”
“They said Cincinnati, but I don’t think so.”
“Why’s that, Ray?”
“Instinct. I could tell they were lying. I’m pretty good at that.”
“Bet you are,” Mike says soothingly. “And you probably know this. Any bus stops near where you left ’em? Any train stations? Train tracks?”
“Some tracks, yeah. A branch line.”
“Freight trains? Going where, exactly?”
“Jesus, anywhere. Look at a map. Freights going through there can branch anywhere. I mean, They take the food right off my table.”
“I see what you mean. Okay, Ray, you’ve been very helpful. We’ve got this number—what you’re calling from—you use any others?”
“No, this is it.”
“Hold on a couple, then, will you? Gonna turn you back to Sammy.”
Mike presses “hold” as Sammy heads back to his office.
“Gotta map here somewhere,” Mike mutters, searching his bookshelves.
Joe says, “Computer, Mike. Google maps.”
“Eah!” Mike says, disparaging anything that high tech. Finding an AAA book of road maps by state, he spreads out Ohio and gapes at it. Cunningham comes around, and they both study it for a few moments.
“So we get out an alert?” Joe says.
“Ohio and all surrounding states—West Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, maybe Arkansas.”
“Why not farther?”
“Well, no harm, sure,” Mike says, still studying the map. “But concentrate on those states. If Riles and Weldon hopped a freight, my guess is they got off pretty fast.”
“Why you guessing a train?”
Mike looks up. “Why you think this guy called?”
“Covering his ass? From a charge of extortion?”
“An extortion that didn’t work, Joe. So where do you think he left them? On a highway?”
“See the point.”
“He buried them. Back road for sure. No cars going anywhere useful. A train was the only way out.”
There’s a coffee shop on Tenth Avenue that draws a bit of a lunch crowd, construction workers and cops, but has little traffic off-hours. Birdie sits in a booth with a cup of tea, a map, and two men: Jacob Wozniacki, a hulk with bristling black hair, a black scowl, and a flaming red scar on his cheek; and Piet Dvoon, lumpy and expressionless. It’s mid-afternoon, and they’re the only customers.
“Town by town,” she says, finger moving across the map. “Along this line.”
“And what?” Jacob says. “Just ride in and start asking everyone to look at photos?”
“I think you’re smarter than that, Jacob. I think you know where to go—”
“Coffee shops, small restaurants.”
“And what to ask.”
“New people in town.”
“You will need a cover, however. Let’s say, you’re thinking of buying some property and you’re looking for a lawyer. Maybe you’ve heard most of the good ones in town are understaffed.”
“You’re thinking this guy’s got a job as a lawyer?”
“Not unlikely. He is a lawyer.”
“Okay,” Jacob says. “Why the southern part of Kentucky? They could be anywhere.”
Birdie puts down her cup. “How long have you been working for me?”
“You want me to say, your sources are amazing, your analysis is brilliant, and you’re never wrong.”
“My intel is making you poor?”
“I think we were underpaid for the last job,” Jacob says.
“Do you?” Birdie says, with a whiff of surprise. “Why do you think that?”
“The man was a multi-billionaire.”
“And you should be compensated by a percentage of his net worth?”
“No. A percentage of your fee.”
“And so you were.”
“Right,” he says, as if tiring of the game. “I had in mind a significant percentage. With full disclosure of the numbers we’re talking about.”
“Anyone can kill people, Jacob. To be paid for it—that takes talent. And resourcefulness. Contacts, connections, the ability to plan, gather information, the whole package. Which you don’t have. So you get a flat fee. An appropriate flat fee. Okay? You good with that?”
He returns a sour expression.
“Look,” Birdie says. “I know who picked them up, where he drove them, where he dropped them off. You have that information? You even know how to get such information? And would you know what to do with it, if you even stumbled upon it?”
Blank faces.
“I’ll give you a hint,” she says, stabbing a finger at a point on the map. “Here! They were dropped right here. This is something my network gave me, and you wouldn’t learn on your own in a million years.” She points to another spot. “And here’s a railroad line. It’s a pretty big branch. Trains on that branch might end up thousands of miles away. Right next to it is a local spur line. See it?” They nod, but show nothing. “So how we know they’re in southern Kentucky?”
“You know the train they got on?” Jacob suggests.
“No.”
Jacob waves his arms in impatience.
“Research, Jacob. Local trains, for the spur, go slow enough to hop. The others don’t. You see what I’m saying. I have my role, you have yours. With different pay grades.”
“Suppose we don’t find ’em? This is a fucking wild-goose chase.”
“This time, you get a flat fee for looking, and a bonus for finding,” she counters.
“And what’s that gonna be?”
“Thousand apiece for the search, with expenses. Five thousand apiece for the find.”
“What about the kill?”
“You call me. I do the kill.”
“You don’
t trust us?”
“I do. To help get rid of the bodies.”
“We killed the old man.”
“Who wasn’t expecting it. In the middle of the street. In the middle of the night. In a city where no one gives a damn.”
“So what’s your fee for the kill?”
“Jacob,” she says, “none of your fucking business. You want in on this or not?”
With a tightening of his lips, he nods sullenly.
“And you, Gabby?” she says to Piet.
“Me?” he says with a grin. “You had me at hello.”
Mike Skillan calls Perry Rauschenberg, who picks up his own phone.
“Still in the office?” Mike says. “And no night secretary.”
“Economy measures. All over the place. What’s up?”
“If you’ve got any way to reach your clients….”
“I don’t.”
“Well, then, if they reach you—”
“Tell ’em to come in?” Perry says, with a mordant twist.
“Tell them I’m far from persuaded they did this, that they have an open field with me.”
“Despite the evidence?”
“Because of it,” Mike says. “It’s too much, and it’s too neat.”
“You know, I believe you. I believe you, because this whole thing reeks of a frame, and you’re not so dumb that you’d miss it.”
“So you’ll tell ’em?”
“I haven’t the foggiest notion where they are,” Perry says, “absolutely no idea how to reach them, and no clue as to whether they’ll ever contact me.”
“But if they do?”
“I’ll tell them.”
“Thanks,” Mike says. “And, by the way, what was your class standing?”
Perry laughs. “Stung by ‘dumb,’ were you?”
“Pretty sure I ranked you.”
“Everyone ranked me, pal. I never went to class. And would you think two grown men would still give a shit?”
TWENTY-EIGHT
At a cavernous J. C. Penney, brimming with affordable clothes, Tom selects a pair of gray summer-weight trousers and two button-down shirts; Elena picks one nightgown and two cotton-print dresses, and they both scoop up running shoes, socks, and underwear. Nothing is tried on; their transaction is fast; they’re the only shoppers in the store.