The Night Cafe

by Taylor Smith

  She shook her head and mouthed, Not safe. Friends?

  He thought about it, then nodded.

  She took the pen. Go as fast as you can. Call Trav from the car and tell him what’s going on. I’ll call later to explain.

  The television was still blaring when she got back to her condo and Teagarden was on his cell phone, a finger in the opposite ear so he could hear the other end of the conversation. After he hung up, he came over to her.

  “Did you talk to them?” he murmured.

  She nodded. “They’ll leave soon.”

  “Where will they go?”

  “Don’t know, don’t want to know.”

  “I called Towle. He’s doing some checking. Meantime, let’s go someplace where we can talk more freely. Best we leave before your neighbor,” he added. “That way, if you do have a tail, you’ll draw them off.”

  “We hope.”

  “Indeed. I’ll leave ahead, see if I can spot anyone who might be following you.”

  She nodded and wrote down a location not far from the FBI field office where they could meet. A few minutes later, the Brit left.

  Hannah gave him a five-minute head start, then grabbed her messenger bag and headed out to the garage. Before she lifted the door, she crab-walked around her Prius, checking out the underside, feeling inside the wheel wells until she found what she was looking for. Damn! She pulled the GPS tracker off the right rear fender and stuck it in her pocket. Then, she jumped in the car, hit the garage-door opener and backed out onto the street.

  She saw Teagarden in the rental he’d described, but they didn’t make eye contact as she sailed past him down the hill. When she turned onto Sunset Boulevard, she wondered if he’d spotted the boxy black Volvo that had been parked at the corner. Watching in her rearview mirror, she saw the driver let a couple of cars get ahead of him, then pull out and follow. As she drove toward the freeway, she toyed with him just a little, slowing down slightly, speeding up a tad, changing lanes, but never erratically enough for him to think he’d been made. No matter what she did, he always remained a couple of car lengths back.

  “All right then,” she muttered. “Showtime.”

  She picked up speed, racing for the Santa Monica Freeway. He stayed with her. On the freeway, he settled into the standard two-car-length tail. She drove like a bat out of hell, changing lanes like a pinball, daring him to be coy with her now. Just when she thought she had him figured, though, he signaled right and took the next off-ramp.

  She wasn’t lulled yet. Sure enough, a hundred yards up, two cars came up the on-ramp and merged behind her. One of the two started executing the same crazy zigzags she had, but when the teenager passed her, car vibrating to the beat of the rap music blaring from his stereo, she wrote him off. That left the Honda holding a steady two-or three-car tail on her. After another mile or so, it was clear this was her guy.

  She moved over to the fast lane, forcing him to work to keep up. Then, as they approached Robertson, she saw a semitrailer come up on her right and got ready to make her move. At the last possible second, she veered across the front of the semi, earning a blare from its air horn. The Honda was wedged between the semi and the carpool lane as she dodged across two more lanes and dropped down the Robertson off-ramp.

  At the bottom of the ramp, she pulled over as soon as she could and rummaged around under the seats for the half-empty soda bottle she’d been hearing roll around under there for the past couple of days. Her hand wrapped around it and she pulled out one of Gabe’s half-drunk Dr Peppers. This was one of those times when it paid not to be too fastidious about cleaning her car.

  Air escaped with a hiss when she opened the bottle. She took the GPS bug out of her pocket, dropped it in the soda, then closed the cap again and gave it a good shake. Talk about effective electronic countermeasures—nothing beat water and good old acidic soda pop. Spotting a trash can up ahead, she pulled up and lobbed the bottle in.

  “Score!”

  She drove away smiling.

  Ruben packed clothes for the three of them to last a few days, plus Chucky’s bowls and a supply of dog food. Taking the phone from the earthquake kit, he loaded everything up into the Mustang. It was a tight fit.

  But the moment Mellie awoke, he knew they were in trouble. She screamed, tugging at her ear. She was prone to devastating ear infections and the pediatrician had warned them to be careful, lest she acquire hearing loss on top of her other problems. He put in a call to the urgent-care center covered by Travis’s insurance, bundled her into the car and headed out. Terrorists and criminals would just have to wait.

  Afraid he might be followed, he took surface streets, following a circuitous route.

  “But let’s face it, sweetie,” he said, looking at Mellie’s unhappy face in his rearview mirror, “we wouldn’t know a tail if it came with a matching pair of bunny ears, would we?”

  He couldn’t help but wonder what the social worker assessing their adoption application would think about all this. Well, what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

  Hannah arrived at the rendezvous point with Teagarden before he did. The UCLA sculpture garden was both open enough for them to be able to talk without fear of eavesdropping, yet contained enough to spot watchers.

  While she waited for him to show up, she dialed Travis’s cell number.

  “What the hell is going on?” he demanded as soon as she identified herself.

  So she guessed he’d heard from Ruben.

  “Ruben said we can’t go home, we can’t go to the cabin, and Mellie’s got another ear infection, the third since Christmas.”

  “Are you at work?” she asked.

  “Hell, no. I’m on my way to meet Rube and Mellie at the clinic.”

  “I’m sorry about her ear infection.”

  “Hannah, what is going on?”

  She gave him an abbreviated version of events—which still didn’t come out sounding very optimistic. “Is there anything you can tell me, Travis?”

  He sighed. “Not really. There’s been some increased chatter lately, but the few specifics I do know, I can’t share. They wouldn’t help you anyway. Suffice it to say that things seem to be heating up.”

  Reading between the lines, she could only guess that Homeland Security had picked up intelligence about a possible domestic terrorist attack. “Is it possible that’s why Gladding is so anxious to get that painting?”

  But did that even make sense? Whatever other sins he might be guilty of, Hannah thought, Gladding was an American citizen. Why would he target his own country? Or was that even what Travis was talking about?

  “I can’t say. Truthfully,” he told her. “Stuff heats up like this and then sometimes it just dissipates again. A false alarm. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “Fair enough. But in the meantime, Travis, this threat I got from Gladding—it’s not a false alarm. I am so sorry to have brought this down on you. Just lie low, okay, and I’ll let you know as soon as the coast is clear. It shouldn’t take more than a day or two, one way or the other.”

  And her own demise, Hannah thought as they signed off, would be one sure sign that the guys were safe to go home again.

  Kyle Liggett ate yet another meal in his car as he sat outside Gladding’s Beverly Hills Hotel, waiting to call in again.

  The previous afternoon, he’d called to tell the old man he was ready to head back from San Onofre, only to have the bastard tell him to stay put down there for the night. Keep an eye on things, make absolutely certain no new security measures were being slipped into place under cover of darkness.

  What a crock.

  Instead, he’d spent the day tailing the old fart around Beverly Hills after he left Musso & Frank Grill, stopping in at a couple of Rodeo Drive boutiques. Shopping, for God’s sake!

  Liggett swallowed the last of his Coke, then dialed the number Gladding had given him.

  “Where are you?”

  “Near your hotel. Just got back to town.”


  “Where did you spend the night?”

  “Camping on the beach at San Onofre, just like you said. Nothing much going on there. Same ol’, same ol’.”

  “I told you to call before you started for L.A.”

  “Had some trouble with my phone.”

  “Well, get another one on your way over to Silver Lake.”

  “What’s in Silver Lake?”

  “The condo where the courier lives. She has some friends living next door, a gay couple. They have a child, handicapped, it seems.”

  Liggett narrowed his eyes. Fags? With kids? Please…

  “I want you to get inside, secure them there. Then call me.”

  “Why don’t I just take down the broad instead?”

  Gladding sighed. “Because she, unfortunately, is in the wind at the moment. Until we have a fix on her, we have to make do with the next best thing, which at the moment is her friends.”

  “Fine.”

  “And Kyle? Don’t be creative, all right? Don’t use any more force than the minimum required to get the job done, and don’t interfere with the care of the child. Do you hear me?”

  Oh, he heard all right. He just didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  Hannah was beginning to seriously worry that Teagarden had gotten lost or worse when he finally showed up, toting a laptop shoulder bag. They found a corner table where they had a good three-sixty view of the area and Teagarden pulled out his machine and booted it up.

  “Sorry to be so slow,” he said. “I’ve been on the phone to Towle. He’s been doing some digging on that fellow you said Ackerman mentioned. The one with the nasty torture fetish? He thinks they’ve got a line on him and he’s trying to dig up a picture now to send over. He wants to know if it’s the same man you spotted at the airport when you were leaving Puerto Vallarta.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Young fellow by the name of Liggett. Kyle Liggett. Apparently Gladding talent-spotted him in Iraq where Liggett was working for a security contractor.”

  “Whoops. I think I resemble that remark.”

  Teagarden looked at her, bemused. “So I gather. My, my, but you are a busy girl. In any case, I’m sure you wouldn’t have been keeping company with the likes of this fellow. Seems Liggett did a very brief stint in the U.S. military before being unceremoniously shown the door. Loose cannon, apparently. One of Liggett’s little quirks is that he likes to blow things up. Then he got himself hired on with one of those private security contractors. Also not a happy experience. Seemed to be more interested in mowing down civilians than winning hearts and minds.”

  “A lot of that going around these days.”

  “Isn’t that true, though? In any case, Gladding took him on as a bodyguard-cum-leg-breaker and, Bob’s your uncle, Gladding’s naughty driver and semiretired CIA handler go down for the count in Puerto Vallarta. Now, inquiring minds want to know if young Mr. Liggett did Gladding’s dirty work there, since we know Gladding himself takes a ‘clean hands’ approach to these things. If so, I think our friends in Washington will be on the lookout for Liggett, too.”

  His laptop had come to life. Teagarden entered a password and signed onto an encrypted network.

  Hannah was impressed. “A wireless modem?”

  “Ah, yes, my dear. Not a complete Neanderthal, your Will Teagarden. All the mod-cons, don’t you know?” He opened an e-mail that she saw came from J_Towle@fbi.us.gov/lafo, then clicked on the attachment. “Is this the man you saw at the Puerto Vallarta airport?”

  “I only caught a glimpse,” she said, studying the two photos in the attachment. They showed the same wholesome-looking face, altogether unremarkable. He looked young in the first photo, dressed in an army uniform, the haircut high and tight. The second appeared to have been taken a few years on, not quite as young or as spit polished. He was not someone she would have looked at twice, had it not been for the fact that he was staring so intently at her when she saw him at the airport. That, and the shoulder-holster bulge under the jacket he wore over a white tee.

  “That’s him.”

  “All right, let me send a quick confirmation to Agent Towle. Then, I think we’d better get onto Captain Peña in Puerto Vallarta and see about picking up that painting if you’re to have any hope at all of meeting Gladding’s deadline tonight. Towle wants us to come over to the Federal Building. He’s working with his contacts on ways to expedite things.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Travis Spielman arrived at the pediatrician’s office just as Ruben was checking out.

  “Same song, twentieth verse,” Ruben said wearily. “Doc prescribed an antibiotic.” He handed Travis the scrip. “Do you mind going downstairs to the pharmacy while we check out here?”

  “No problem,” Travis said. He rushed down the stairs, relieved to be doing something useful. Relieved, too, that at least they’d caught this now, before inflicting a sleepless night with a crying child on the friends in Studio City who were taking them in.

  He was pacing by the pharmacist’s counter when Ruben and Mellie arrived. “We have another problem,” Ruben said. The look on his face said he dreaded delivering more bad news. “I left in such a hurry I forgot Saggy-Bag.”

  “Damn.” Mellie loved the loose-skinned stuffed elephant named after an ancient storybook that Travis had had since he was a toddler. Without her Saggy-Bag, she wouldn’t sleep. “We can’t go back,” Travis said.

  “We have to.”

  “Maybe the meds will make her sleepy.”

  “It’s an antibiotic, not a sedative.”

  Travis was working up to an argument when the pharmacist called Melanie’s name. He paid for the meds and met Ruben and Mellie by the door.

  “I have a plan,” Ruben said.

  “Like pretending to be Monica and offering Hannah a kitten?”

  “Okay, so that wasn’t so great. Give it a rest already.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “We go together. Leave the Mustang parked here. It’s too full for a passenger anyway. We’ll run by the condo, you stay in the Jeep with Mellie and Chucky and leave the motor running. I dash into the house—”

  “I’ll go inside.”

  Ruben snorted. “Sweetie, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m bigger and also in better shape.”

  He had a point. Together, they transferred their things and Chucky to the Jeep and got Mellie buckled into her car seat in back. Travis jumped behind the wheel. Ruben was just getting in the passenger side when he snapped his fingers.

  “Oops! I forgot to lock the Mustang. Be right back.” He slammed the door and dashed across the lot to his car.

  Travis was trying to get Chucky to stop kissing Mellie when the Mustang roared out of the lot. As Travis cursed and turned the key in the Jeep’s ignition, his phone rang.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Travis bellowed. Mellie started to cry.

  “I’m going alone. Do not follow me, Trav, I mean it. I’ll meet you guys in Studio City.”

  “I’m coming.”

  “No. Look, it’ll be fine. I love you and I love Mellie, but we can’t risk taking her back to the house.”

  Travis could see the logic, but he didn’t have to like it.

  “Besides,” Ruben added, “worst-case scenario, if anything were to happen, you’re the breadwinner, cup-cake. You have a better shot at getting Mellie the care she needs.”

  “Crap.” Nobody could offer a child like Mellie—hell, any child—the care and attention she got from Ruben Hernandez.

  “Hey, don’t worry. I’ll just run in and out,” Ruben said. “Anyway, that Jeep of yours is such a rattletrap, me and my beautiful Mustang will be there hours ahead of you. Later, gator!”

  There was a crowd milling around the sixteenth-floor boardroom of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office. Several of the people there were wearing visitor badges clipped to their lapels, but it was a safe bet, Hannah thought, that she and Teagarden were the only civilians in the bunch. She couldn’t begin to
guess which agencies all of these people came from. From the sideways glances she and the Brit were getting, though, most of them had no idea what earthly reason might exist for the two of them to be included in what seemed to be some frenetic goings-on.

  “Included,” in fact, was a stretch. Agent Towle seemed to have convinced his superiors that there was a legitimate reason for them to be focusing on the recovery of the van Gogh, at the very least as a stalling tactic while they tried to work out what Gladding and Liggett might be up to. The quickest way to do that seemed to be to make use of Hannah, and of Teagarden’s local contact in Puerto Vallarta—especially since the two of them didn’t trust anyone else not to destroy the painting and possibly get Hannah killed in the bargain.