by Alan Hruska
No problem. The pick in her pocket makes short work of locked doors. This one: only a low click when opening, and Birdie’s in the front hall. Which is quiet. They must be upstairs, maybe even in bed. Then Birdie thinks she recognizes the source of her hesitation. Not me, she thinks. I’m okay. It was those two in the coffee shop, feelings on display. Even more, their wish to hide them. A shame, really.
Birdie stops, shoulders drooping. Silently she laughs at herself. What’s this? Sentimental? Me? Ridiculous!
She takes the stairs slowly but two at a time. They’re solid, no creak at all. At every instant she’s ready to fire. The rifle has a silencer; it’s her own design. She bursts into the bedroom and opens fire, thumping four shots into a mattress populated by pillows.
In the back of a bus, Tom talks to Charlie by cell phone, and Elena wants to know what’s happening.
“He’s sorry he didn’t believe us,” says Tom, turning away from the phone.
“She actually went to the house?” Elena says.
“Let me talk to the man,” Tom says to her; then to Charlie, “So what did you see?”
“The bed’s shot to hell,” Charlie says. “I’m looking right at it.”
“She shot up the bed, thinking we were in it?”
“Apparently,” says Charlie. “Or she was just pissed off you weren’t. I’ve put out a five-stater. Might pick her up. Doubt it though. So tell me. Nice kids like you, what you involved in? Paid killer coming after you, shooting up my bed?”
“I tried to tell you from the bus earlier.”
“Now I’m listening.”
“We’re being framed, Charlie, for something we didn’t do, and whoever’s framing us is trying to make sure we don’t get out of it.”
“I’ll be damned!” says Charlie.
“Imagine how we feel.”
“So where you going? Houston or New Orleans?”
“Can’t tell you that.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Not out of the frame yet,” Tom says. “Or free of that killer.”
“You think I’m gonna tell her?”
“You’ll tell someone who might tell her. How’d the hell she find us in Ashaway?”
“Why not just come back?” Charlie says. “We’ll work something out.”
“Oh, yes? You going to protect us?”
Long silence.
“See your point,” Charlie says.
“You’ll tell Horatio?”
“Yeah, will.”
“See ya, Charlie,” Tom says. “Thanks for everything.”
Tom hangs up and turns to Elena in the next seat. “We’re having an adventure,” he says.
She’s not amused. “They’re not going to stop looking for us.”
“So we’re going to have to go in. Soon. I’ll call Rauschenberg, make the best deal we can, then back to New York.”
“How long will that take, Rauschenberg, a deal?”
“Can’t take that long,” Tom says, knowing it’s unpredictable whether any deal could be made at all.
“They can figure out we’re headed to New Orleans,” she says. “Only so many buses out of Ashaway in that time slot.”
“New Orleans is a big city. Lots of places to hide.”
“With money, yeah. We don’t have any.”
“We have a little.” He puts his arm around her, and she doesn’t squirm away.
She says, “We should get a ticket to another city. As soon as we arrive.”
“We can’t afford that,” he says. “Not right away. I’ll get Rauschenberg to wire us some money.”
“I can get money.”
“Yeah? From someone you can trust?”
She blows her cheeks out in frustration.
He says, “This will end well, you know. Someone tried to kill us. Goes a long way to showing we’re the framees here. And more than that. Killing us would have worked only if they could have hidden the bodies, made it look like we just went underground, vanished. After an attempted shooting that fails, the whole thing loses its point for them. Shooting us doesn’t put the blame on us, so why bother?”
“Let’s not play it out.”
“Okay,” he says. “Where’s the hole?”
“You know damn well. They have my phone.”
“Frankly, I forgot that.”
They ride in silence.
“You’re too damn smart,” he says. “But we’re better off in New Orleans for a while anyway.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Jockery’s apartment in Time-Warner Plaza has its own gymnasium in which LJ works out every morning. It’s a good place for private meetings as well. With people whom Jockery employs. Those who won’t be offended by sweat. Or who won’t matter, if they are.
Downstairs, Teddy Stamos is shown to the back elevator, which, on the top floor of the building, opens on LJ’s exertions. Teddy blinks at the light streaming through the extra-large windows, glinting off the shiny machines. He’s greeted by a shout from a whirring XTERRA. “Bungled, Teddy! Flat out bungled, fucked up!”
“Yes,” Stamos agrees. “Someone tipped them. What’s worse, we don’t know what gave her away.”
Lowell comes off the machine. “Her. Right. Who the hell is she? I thought you’d employed two men.”
“I employed a firm. Two men and a woman, the woman’s the boss. They’re all first rate. But we thought it best, at this juncture, to send the woman, and it’s well that we did.”
“Oh?” says Jockery, mopping himself with a towel.
“Had we sent the men, there’d be no fix to the thing, you see.”
“I’m listening.”
“Now we have a scenario that’s more elegant, though a bit more expensive. The police here were told by our eyewitness, the janitor, that Riles was shot by a woman.”
“Yes, and?”
“I have Elena’s BlackBerry. Very simple password, as it turns out. It will now be evident to anyone who finds the device that she sent an email to this professional assassin just two days ago, laying out a devious scheme.”
“Ah.”
“We had alternative plans from the start, LJ. Plan A was a simple frame. Problem is the DA doesn’t seem to be buying it. So we go to Plan B. Elena, as devious as her dad, sets up a story to make it look like someone is trying to frame her.”
“She frames herself?”
“In a sense,” Teddy says. “Making it appear someone else is doing it.”
“And her message to the hired assassin?”
“‘Come shoot up the place,’ is what she said in the email, meaning the place in Kentucky. ‘When we disappear, everyone will think we were killed by people framing us, will stop looking for us; even more, will stop blaming us, and we’ll be free.’ And, LJ, to make this airtight, we’ll have a bank record showing Elena cashing out fifty million dollars on the same date she wrote that email. Presumably, it’s the money she and her boyfriend will live on.”
“Is this plausible? The story is she killed her father for money. Billions. Now she’s supposed to have settled for fifty million?”
“In our scenario B, the fifty million may have been the original motivation. It’s in a trust fund. She couldn’t get it until Robbie Riles died. And in any event, she realizes that coming back now for the billions is too risky. She faces prison or even capital punishment. And how much does anyone really need, anyway? Fifty million, tax-free—that’s a hundred mil in ten years at least. Pretty good life.”
“What bank?” Jockery asks.
“It’s a small bank. In the Cayman Islands. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
“Who owns it?”
“I do, LJ. Though that’s absolutely not traceable.”
Jockery laughs and tosses his trowel in a bin. “So you’re a banker too.”
“Not on your scale, LJ.”
“And the cashing in of the trust account?”
“Also not traceable. Until, of course, we want it to be.”
Jockery takes a mom
ent ingesting it. “This is all quite brilliant, Teddy.”
“A little contingency planning, LJ, in case things didn’t work out on this round.”
“You’ll move the BlackBerry—”
“To their last known address, yes.”
“And the woman?”
“In pursuit. To New Orleans, where they’re headed. The BlackBerry has been overnighted to her there.”
“There is a problem, Teddy.”
“What’s that, LJ?”
“Our eyewitness. Told the cops he saw Elena herself shoot her father.”
“They showed him a photo. He said he thought it was her. But far more plausible that he couldn’t be certain, from thirty feet away. And also more plausible that she’d hire someone than do it herself. It really all fits together this way much better, LJ.”
“Not for the woman, however. She’s wanted by the police.”
“Not a problem for her,” Teddy says soothingly. “And she’s very well paid.”
“Really?”
“By her standards, yes.”
“What I admire, Mr. Stamos, is your bullshit.”
“Thank you, LJ.”
“It’s not a compliment. Your plan B might work, but only if Elena and her boyfriend disappear—quickly and forever. You understand that?”
“Of course, LJ.”
“Does your woman understand that?”
“Absolutely.”
“She just better not fuck this up any more, Teddy.”
“She’s a closer, believe me. Hasn’t failed me yet. Ultimately.”
Jockery says, “Where do we stand on the chauffeur situation?”
“In the works, LJ.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Well…” Teddy licks his lips. “Means I’m on it. Khalil and his wife have gone on a holiday, it would appear. To Disneyland, we believe. Soon to be back though. I’m tracking them.”
Lowell reaches down to grip the little man’s shoulder. “I want you to understand something more. Failure in this matter would be extremely hurtful. I mean physically hurtful. Not to me, Teddy. You read? Not to me.”
Birdie’s first stop is the bus terminal. She parks a block away, uses the Ladies in the station, strides out again into the street, communes with the atmosphere of the place, gets a sense. She’s good at this. A human compass. She just fills her mind with I need somewhere to stay, I need somewhere to stay—and lets her instinct guide her to the most likely establishment.
In this case, however, it leads indiscriminately to the French Quarter. Hotels, B&Bs, flophouses abound. They could be in any of these. Or, of course, in another district entirely. The girl might even know people in New Orleans. So might he. Or they might have traveled to a different city. In which event, Birdie wouldn’t have a clue where to look. Might as well stay in the Quarter then. If they’re here, they’ll have to come out on the streets at some time. Need a little luck. She picks a touristy bar with a good view of Bourbon Street and takes a table at the window.
Elena stands at the one large window of a third-floor room in the back of a B&B walk-up. Her view is of a small courtyard. She sees patches of grass and weeds and a little forlorn tree that might have once borne apples.
“This is an awful place,” she says, going from the window to a side table to inspect a layer of dust. She runs her finger through it. “See?”
“Fits our budget,” he says. “Barely.”
“We have a budget?”
“Get to spend next to nothing every day.”
“Sounds great. Do we have anything in there for food?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says.
“We’re fasting now?”
“We can’t go out.”
“We’re in the goddamn French Quarter, Tom. There are a million fucking tourists out there.”
“And?”
“We’d blend,” she says.
“No” he says humorlessly. “We wouldn’t.”
Elena scans the room again: spindly furniture on worn carpets; cramped space; faded walls. “She can’t be on every street at once, for heaven’s sake.”
“There are only two main streets,” he points out.
“Right. So we’ll go on a side street.”
“No.”
“Who made you boss?” she asks.
“I’m just giving you advice, El. You’re free to not take it.”
“Then you’ll get pissed off and sulky.”
“No, but if you leave, you’ll force me to go with you.”
She sits hard on the one chair. “I’m starving, Tom.”
“You think I’m not?”
“Then let’s risk it.”
He leans down to grasp her shoulders. “We could wait until dark. And in the meantime, distract our minds from food.”
She diverts her eyes. “I’m not going near that bed. There are live things in the mattress.”
“Have you looked under the covers?”
“Of the two fears I have right now—going out on the streets and lifting those covers—I’d rather take to the streets.”
Murphy’s Law! Damn rule is inviolable. Birdie nursed drinks nearly two hours before ordering a steak. It arrives at the same time as her quarry.
She throws some cash on the table and bursts out onto the street. There! Still in view, through the stream of tourists, a block away. They dip down a side street, then into a grocery. From an adjacent storefront, Birdie waits. She thinks, I have the advantage. They’ve little idea, if any, what I look like. Presently, they come out. Walk by her without noticing as she inspects the dresses displayed on a rack in front of the store. She gives them a block, then follows. Not far. Their B&B is only two blocks away in a residential section of the Quarter.
From the corner, Birdie watches the light go on in a back bedroom on the third floor. They keep making this too easy, she thinks. Yet they’re slippery. Then: Don’t overthink this, she admonishes herself.
Two businessmen approach, a Mutt and Jeff in suits. They seem to be looking for the sort of woman who palely loiters on such a corner. The signal sent by Birdie, however—bared teeth—conflicts jarringly with their expectations, and they hasten away. She walks away herself, in the direction from which she had come, looking back intermittently at the lighted third-floor window. Then stops at another storefront, browsing for several minutes. Finally, she strolls past the house and comes back. Showtime, she thinks.
A fence would block her entrance to the backyard, were it locked, but it isn’t. The back door would impede her progress to the back stairway, but it readily yields to her pick. Before entering the house, she looks about. No particular reason. Pure impulse. She sees the backs of French Quarter houses, two neat rows of them, with their scruffy yards and pitiable fruit trees, all pulling shadows from a full moon and streetlights. Spices and a whiff of pot fill the air. Oddly, the image of the couple floods again into her mind. Oh well, she thinks, no one lives forever.
Two flights of stairs mean nothing to Birdie; she’s in great shape. The stifling air inside is more of a problem, and she’s sweating slightly when she reaches the landing. No sounds from either room on the floor. It takes but a moment to figure out which one is the couple’s. The other one looked dark from the street and is probably empty. Birdie gently tries the door handle. Locked. Out comes her trusty lock pick. Tricky. No silencer for the pick. One has to be extremely careful. She removes a handgun with a silencer from her capacious handbag, places it in her left hand. With her right, she works the lock gingerly. Click.
Swinging the door open, Birdie storms into the room, gun held in firing position.
Brightly lit, shocked silence; no one there. Still cautious, Birdie scouts the bathroom, the closet, and under the bed. No one. But on the top of the bedspread is a handwritten note. It says, “How can you stand yourself?” Birdie laughs, stuffs the note in her pocket, and drops a BlackBerry where the note had been.
THIRTY-FIVE
Elena wakes in the b
ack of a bus, surprised to find herself using Tom’s lap as a pillow. “Are we living on buses now, or does it just feel that way?”
“We’re living on buses,” he says.
“For how long?”
“Until we get to Atlanta.”
“Will she know that’s where we’re going?”
“Probably.”
“She’s like a tar baby.”
“At least we now know what she looks like.”
“Do you?”
“Not clearly,” he admits. “A glimpse in the coffee shop. Now another from a block away.”
Elena sits up. “So how, again, are you so sure it was her?”
“Believe me, I know.”
“You mean we just ran from a pretty good hiding spot on your hunch?”
“You hated that room.”
“It was safe!”
“Not once she saw us and followed us there,” he notes.
“Did she? Follow? You saw that?”
“I did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that right away?”
“I thought I’d let you drag it out of me.”
She blinks. “You actually mean that, don’t you?”
He shrugs.
“You bastard!” she says, punching him, until the others in the bus turn around. “We’re just kidding,” she informs them.
“Oh, yes,” says a woman three rows ahead. She wears what might be a fright wig and throws an arm around an older man half her size. “We do that all the time.”
Elena smiles wanly. Then to Tom under her breath. “Next stop, we have to get off this bus.”
“Can’t,” he says. “There’s money waiting for us in Atlanta.”
“Whose money?”
“Mine, ultimately. On loan from Rauschenberg.”
“He’s financing our flight?”
“Back to New York, he is, yeah. That’s the deal.”
“What deal? You made a deal for me?”
“You were asleep. Besides, at this stage, we’ve run out of good options.”
She says, as if trying to be patient, “New York is the one place that crazy tar baby will probably be trying to find us and kill us.”
“As a place for us to be, it’s still the least undesirable alternative.”