She reminded herself to retrieve the snake gun before she went back to her room. But then she realized she couldn’t go out in the snow-covered parking lot in her bathrobe and slippers. She’d have to go back up there and get dressed first. Screw it, she thought. I’ll get it when I go up to bed for the night.
It took Heismann all of ten minutes to find the Shelby, which was parked in the rear lot of the Garrison Lodge. He’d tried two ski resorts first, then remembered that he’d seen no ski phernalia in her house. He’d stopped in a gas station, asked which was the biggest non-ski hotel in town, and found the car immediately.
He never slowed down when he spotted the car, driving instead in a lazy loop around the lodge parking lots and then back out the main entrance. He turned left and headed back the way he had come, aiming for that cheap-looking motel he’d seen on the outskirts of Garrison Gap. He’d get a room there and then rest. In the late afternoon, he would make the requisite changes, then go to dinner at the Garrison Lodge. After that, he’d just need to find her room number. Or perhaps stage a diversion with that antique automobile; get her to come out into the parking lot. There were many ways to do it. It was simply a matter of picking the right one. And since tonight he would be a woman, he figured he should be able to move with impunity. He’d make it a test of his ability to change shape. Perhaps get right in front of his target. Remembering that savage kick to his genitals, he was looking forward to this.
Swamp struck out all across town with calls to various duty officers at Justice, the counterterrorism task force, the Bureau, the Agency, and the Secret Service. He’d had to make three calls to penetrate to the FBI duty officer, whose gate-keepers didn’t believe Swamp was who he said he was, even after the OSI duty officer interceded. But no one owned up to having any sort of surveillance on a Ms. Connie Wall. He called Cullen back at 5:30 P.M., almost hoping the detective would have gone home. But he had not.
“Nada,” he said. “Or at least nobody on my end is fessing up to tailing the Shelby or the pretty nurse.”
“Then who the hell is following her in a black Suburban with red emergency lights?”
“Maybe nobody?” Swamp said. “Maybe total coincidence. I mean, it wasn’t like he was actually on her tail. It was—what, five, ten minutes later that this guy came down the hill?”
“Two or so, according to the cop,” Cullen said. “But that’s probably a guesstimate.”
“Did they get a plate number on the Suburban?”
“Shit no. He just said it looked like a D.C. plate. Actually, he said he thought it was a D.C. plate. That’s what the report actually says.”
“Well, there you are,” Swamp said. “Now, it’s possible someone’s shining me on here, but I can’t figure out why. There’s one woman I need to reach. She’s the deputy at the Secret Service Protective Research Unit. But she’s in New York, apparently, at some weekend conference about vetting the UN people for the inauguration.”
“Why her, if the duty office said no?”
Swamp hesitated. “Well, let’s just say she might know shit the duty officer doesn’t. I admit, she’s probably a dry hole.”
“She wouldn’t thank you for that label,” Cullen said.
Swamp laughed. “You’d need to meet her, then decide. So, you guys locate Ms. Wall?”
“Yeah. She’s at the Garrison Lodge in Garrison Gap, West Virginia. Staties found the car in the parking lot. Verified she checked in there.”
“Okay, so she’s taking the weekend off. Going into the hills for what West Virginia does best—some gorgeous scenery, reasonable prices, and a chance to read one of our four-page phone books.”
Cullen started laughing.
“You working tomorrow?” Swamp asked.
“I don’t know about work,” Cullen said with a sigh. “But I’ll be here. We got all these guys tearing up the weeds for the cutter who did Ballard. And we don’t even know what his ass looks like. Except maybe he’s a German. Maybe real old, or real good at disguises. Carries a liquid Taser, so we’re rousting every source of Tasers on the planet. He talked to the big-hair type at Steve’s Vintage Motors, so we’re canvassing the whole neighborhood around his place. Shit like that.”
“Gotcha,” Swamp said. “Motion, if not movement. Hey, I know it’s late, but did anybody talk to that Chevy dealership across the street from the garage? If by some chance this Suburban is our guy, maybe he bought the damn thing right across the street.”
“A foreigner?”
“If he’s got cash money and a valid passport, a car dealer’d sell him his mother.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Well.”
“It’s getting late. They may be closed. But I’ll send some of these guys out. Get ’em out of my hair so I can get some chow anyway.”
“You know where to reach me,” Swamp said.
Heismann stepped back from the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door to admire his handiwork. Looking back at him, wearing a simple lace-bodiced knee-length black dress, stood a slim Hispanic-looking woman. The transformation had taken a full two hours. He’d begun by re-shaving his head and then pasting on the hairpiece pad, to which he pinned a shiny jet black Liza Minelli shag-style hairpiece. Then the eyebrows, colored to match the wig. A small flesh-colored rubber prosthesis, stuck like a suction cup along the bridge of his nose and smoothed in with makeup base, relieved the pronounced hook shape of his new nose. A very careful and detailed shave of his face, visible sideburns, and neck to achieve an expanse of smooth, lightly olive-stained skin, followed by foundation for the coming makeup. Then he had shaved his chest, arms, armpits, and legs all the way to his groin, which always took a surprisingly long time.
The breasts had also taken longer than he’d anticipated. He first had to sterilize the pump tubing and his nipples, massage the loose folds of skin to shape them properly, and then pump each one up with saline solution through the stoma in the nipples to achieve the desired shape and size. His nipples stung after he was done, and he wondered if he’d done the sterilization procedure correctly or if it was just the saline solution. But the surgeons had performed their work beautifully: The breasts were just what he wanted—round, saucerlike, and balanced in size and shape, the nipples perhaps being a bit too large in proportion to the rest. But they were real enough: Any man seeing his naked torso would know he was looking at a woman. He finished shaping his upper half with a lightweight nylon bustier for support instead of a bra. It also helped to narrow him at the waist. He had a slim athletic build anyway, with almost no abdominal fat, so he needed the bustier to create the illusion of female hips. It also had a special compartment down against the small of his back to accommodate the flat five-inch-long Smith & Wesson stainless-steel throwing knife.
He’d spent some time over the past few months visiting Washington’s surprisingly extensive transvestite shopping scene, where friendly large black ladies had taken him through all the paraphernalia available for whatever illusion he wanted to achieve. He had thought about telling them it was all for some play or act, then realized they’d heard every such lie under the sun and assumed he was just one of “the girls,” as they put it, so he’d simply gone along. It was all amazingly private and discreet, requiring only lots of money to get everything he needed with absolutely no questions asked. The tight spandex bikini underwear effectively rerouted his genitals up into a surgically expanded groin pouch, so that even a suspicious grope between the legs would find correct “female” anatomy. He wished he’d had them on the night that woman kicked him. He wore a pair of black nylon briefs over the spandex; they were lightly augmented with padding across the buttocks to make up for his own relatively flat posterior.
Panty hose, simple black patent-leather pumps cleverly designed for a male foot, a half hour’s worth of final makeup work, a touch of perfume, and the effect was complete. He’d practiced elements of this transformation many times once the breast work had been completed, and he’d even indulged i
n walking lessons at an acting studio that specialized in teaching men how to move like a woman. Standing in the motel room, he felt faintly ridiculous. If his old Stasi comrades could see him now! He had to admit that there was something mildly erotic about it, this wearing of women’s clothing. But the truth was, he felt hot with his body encased in all this nylon and spandex. He shook his head. The things a woman had to put up with to attract a man. Amazing.
He looked at his watch. Almost 9:00 P.M. He’d called the Garrison Lodge and asked about the lounge. They’d told him the bar scene got going after nine. His plan was to go there, scout the lobby and the registration desk, check out the lounge, have a drink, and then find some way to get her room number. If he was lucky, she might even show up in the lounge herself. If so, he would do it directly—follow her to the ladies’ room, slice her spinal cord, and stuff her body into a toilet stall.
He peered out through the curtain and saw light snow blowing across the parking lot. Not enough to coat the cars and trucks yet, but given time, it might. He made sure the bean-shaped Coach handbag he was going to carry had the hooded lightweight nylon tracksuit rolled into it, along with some trainers. He’d taken down the emergency light rack from the luggage rack on the hood of the Suburban and put it in the back, along with the two whip antennas. Now it would be just another dark-colored SUV among dozens of others in the lodge’s parking lot.
He tugged at the hem of the dress and smoothed down the fabric around his hips and across his bust. So strange, having a real bust. He’d never been a breast man, really, but even so, it was interesting to touch them. To touch himself. What would it feel like to press these beauties up against another man and feel his reaction? He felt himself flushing red. If he kept this up, he’d soon be—what did the British call them? Nancy boys. That was it. Then he grinned a very unfeminine grin. Wait till these Ammies see what this nancy boy is going to do to them. Soon. Very soon. But he was going to have to rethink his movements right after the attack. This had taken much too long.
So he needed to get going. Time to take his lovely breasts out for a trial run. He patted the cold steel lump in the small of his back with his fingertips and felt the flattened eight-centimeter arrow-shaped blade. First-class, probably German, surgical steel for the surgical nurse. She’d appreciate the compliment, but not for long.
Swamp was finishing dinner at his usual corner table when Lila brought him the portable phone again. It was Cullen.
“No joy on the dealership angle,” he reported. “Place closed at five, won’t be open again until Monday.”
“Can’t you locate the owner? Get him down there?”
“Yeah, we could, but my boss says that this line of inquiry is pretty improbable. I mean, that this guy could go in and buy an expensive vehicle just like that. He’d need all sorts of ID, and it would mean letting people get a look at him, something he’s avoided pretty well so far. And the boss also said what you said—that the Suburban might just have been on the road, nothing to do with Ms. Wall. Two minutes behind at sixty-five—that’s about two miles. Pretty loose tail.”
“He’s probably right,” Swamp said. “We’re snatching at straws here. But I’m a little concerned that Ms. Wall is all by herself out in Garrison Gap.”
“No way he could know that.”
Swamp thought about that. “You got a name and home number for the girl at the classic-car place?”
Cullen told him to hold on while he found his notebook. Then he came back and gave Swamp the name and number. “You gonna call her?”
“Yeah, I think I will. Assuming she’s home on a Saturday night. Maybe walk her back through what she told the German guy.”
“She said it was all about that car.”
“Let me drop the entire weight and majesty of the United States Secret Service on her, see if she may have revealed anything else. If by some chance she told Herman the German where Wall was going, he wouldn’t have to tail her. He’d just have to go there. And probably not in some conspicuous Suburban.”
“And find her how?”
“Same way you guys did—find that muscle car.”
It was Cullen’s turn to be silent for a moment. “Okay, fine, what the hell. You get a hit, call me back?”
“Absolutely.”
Swamp looked at his watch. It was 9:15. He finished his glass of wine, glanced around at the other people dining at the inn that night. The standard mix of weekend couples, thinned out a little by the snow. No one seemed to be interested in what he was doing at his corner table. He called the girl’s number.
A young man answered, his voice loud in order to make himself heard over the noise of a party going on in the background. Swamp asked for Dorie. The man told him to hold on, and then Dorie got on the phone. She sounded as if she was out of breath. From dancing, Swamp hoped. He identified himself. She said she couldn’t hear him, told him to hold on. There was some banging around of telephones, and then she came back on in a much quieter setting.
“Who is this is, again?” she asked. He could hear her drinking something. The party sounds remained at full blast in the background.
“This is Special Agent Lee Morgan, United States Secret Service,” he announced in his best federal voice. “Detective Cullen of the District police gave me your name and number. I need to ask you some questions about the foreigner who came into your shop asking about Connie Wall’s Shelby.”
“Oh, that,” she said, finally getting her breath back under control. “I told the detective. Like you said, some foreign dude. Wanted to buy the Shelby, wanted—”
“Dorie? We know that part. Here’s the thing. We think that guy was BS’ing you. About the car, I mean. We think he’s after Connie.” Connie, our mutual good friend, he thought.
“But why? I mean, he didn’t even know her.”
“Remember that cop getting killed out in Cleveland Park Tuesday?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess.”
“Well, that happened at Ms. Wall’s house, Dorie. That cop was a friend of hers. A close friend.”
“Oh shit,” she said in a small voice.
“And the guy you talked to? We think he might be the killer. So it’s very important you think back. Did you by any chance tell him she was going to Garrison Gap this weekend?”
There was a long silence on the phone.
“Dorie, you still there?”
“You said you were what? Secret Service?”
“That’s right, Dorie. We’re working with the District police to find this guy.”
“Well, like, I mean, how do I know you’re not him? The foreign guy?”
“You don’t, but listen to my voice. It’s not the same, is it? Didn’t he have an accent?”
“Sorta.”
“This is very important, Dorie. Very important. Did you mention anything about Garrison Gap?”
Another moment’s pause. “Um. I might have. I mean, I thought she said Garrison Cap. Like, she’d mentioned the Garrison Cap Lodge, you know? I told him she did wildlife photography. But, man, I had no idea…”
“There was no way you could know any of this,” Swamp said soothingly. “But that’s what I needed. Here’s Detective Cullen’s phone number. Please call him, tell him what you told me. Ask him to call me back when you’re done, okay?”
“Am I in trouble here?” she asked.
Cullen was back to him in five minutes.
“Now what the hell do we do? That guy could be out there in Garrison whatever. And we still don’t even know what he looks like! Other than he’s maybe in a Suburban.”
“I say forget the Suburban—that’s a red herring. First, call that lodge. Get word to Ms. Wall that this guy may have followed her out there. Then contact local law, see if they can put somebody on her until I get there.”
“You?”
“You wanna do it? I’m an hour from Garrison Gap. Hour and a half, if this snow keeps up.”
“Shit, I don’t even know where West Virginia is. You got four-wheel
drive?”
Swamp laughed. “Better. I’ve got the original SUV—an old Land Rover. Before they Yuppied them up. I’ll go up, get her out of there. I can put her up here at the inn in Harpers Ferry.”
“Then what?”
“One thing at a time, Jake. The game now is to keep her alive.”
Cullen agreed and hung up. Swamp went into the kitchen and asked Lila to make him up a thermos of coffee. Outside, the wind picked up, as if to let him know it was waiting.
Connie chose a table for two down near the fireplace end of the lounge, away from the main bar. It was snowing in earnest outside, which appeared to have cut down on the size of the after-hours crowd. Or, more likely, it was simply too early.
She’d checked on the Shelby from a corridor window and found that it was slowly morphing into a red-and-white lump in the parking lot. Where the Shelby was concerned, though, anonymity was a useful condition. She thought about going out to get the snake gun, but her shoes weren’t exactly Bean boots. She could hear Cat telling her the whole reason Annie got her gun was because someone was trying to gun Annie. Well, maybe. But there was no way she was going to walk out there in three inches of snow right now and then live with wet shoes and stockings all evening. Maybe later. Maybe never.
A bar waitress brought her a glass of white wine and started a tab without asking. Figures, Connie thought. Lady in her little black dress all alone in the lounge, she’s going to stay for a little while at least. Although, now that she was here, she was beginning to regret coming down. It all seemed so pointless. She missed Cat and felt increasingly bad about what had happened to him. Maybe just have one drink and then pretend that she had something better to do up in her room.
The lounge area was shaped like a large U, with windows along the two sides overlooking the lighted grounds and adjoining tree-covered slopes. The bottom of the U contained the main bar, and the open end featured an enormous stone fireplace, right in front of a long dance floor. There were about fifty tables throughout the lounge, arranged in two rows, with the window row being two steps up from the inner, dance-floor row. The walls were paneled in different kinds of wood veneer, each highlighting pictures of an alpine scene framed in the individual panels. Connie found it refreshingly peaceful, and she eased her shoes off to catch some of the warmth coming from the fireplace.
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