“Aren’t you supposed to be talking into your sleeve or your collar or something?”
This one was young, probably new to the job, unlike the seasoned guys back in Washington. Jack knew in his gut the man had one of the special gold shields somewhere on his person. Hopefully it was stuck up his ass. Obviously no one had told him he was supposed to snap and snarl. He was wearing his government-issued aviator sunglasses. Someone should tell those guys the glasses were a dead giveaway. Plus he smelled like a cop.
The smile stayed on the agent’s face. “Or something. I have a message for you.”
“Yeah, I bet you do. I bet I even know what the message is. Is it, ‘Get back on the plane and go home?’ I can’t do that. I have things to do and places to go. Me and my friend here like being up front right from the git-go.”
The good-looking guy threw his head back and laughed. The sunglasses didn’t even budge. It was a nice sound, Jack thought.
“Wrong.” He handed Jack a slip of paper that was folded. Jack unfolded it and read:
Spritzer and Robinson in LA. Do what the messenger tells you to do.
—CM
CM had to mean Charles Martin. Like he was really going to fall for this. On the other hand, maybe it was for real. Now that he was out of the closet and on the Pinewood ladies’ team, Martin might really be trying to warn him. “How do I know this is for real?”
“The sender of the note said you would say that.” The special agent smiled, showing a glorious row of sparkling white teeth. “He said if you did ask, I was to tell you he is looking forward to walking Nikki down the aisle and handing her over to you.”
“He said that, did he?”
“Yes, sir, he did.”
“Okay, what’s our next move? We’ve eliminated the need to knock each other’s heads off, right?”
“Yes, sir. There are those in the Capitol who have long memories. I’m not one of those people. I don’t even like Washington. No offense, sir.”
“None taken. I’m not real crazy about the place myself. You should think about relocating yourself, this place is going to go into the ocean sooner or later and then all those sharks and barracudas in Washington will eat you guys up. What now?”
“Your call, sir. By the way, the agents in DC are the ones who alerted me to the arrival of the parties in question. I planted a homing device on their vehicle. I know where they’re staying, the make of the car, how much their room cost and I even know where they are right this minute. A colleague is following them. I can take you to them. I can haul their asses to wherever you want them delivered or I can fade away into this glorious sunshine and pretend we’ve never meant. It’s your call, Mr. Emery.”
“Listen, I need to think about this a few minutes and I have a few calls to make. I’ll have an answer for you shortly. By the way, what’s your name?”
“Call me Six. It’s an old navy term for covering your ass. That’s what I’ll be doing.”
“I knew that,” Jack mumbled. Like hell he did.
The agent stepped away, offered up a sloppy salute of sorts and then lit a cigarette.
“What the hell was that all about, Jack? Jesus Christ, what are you involved in? Who is that guy? Look, all I want is Yoko. You can do all this superspy shit on your own time. I just want my girl.”
Jack turned to Harry and his face was grim. “Well, listen up, you dumb shit. Your girl is involved, just the way my girl is involved, in all this superspy shit. Now shut the hell up while I think. Let me say right now, this is not a good thing. I was not expecting this. Right now I don’t know what to do so shut the fuck up until I decide. Don’t even breathe, Harry.”
Jack squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think. When nothing came to him, he hit the speed dial on his cell phone and waited for Nikki to pick up.
Chapter 21
“What now, Super-Sleuth Spritzer?” Ted Robinson demanded. We’ve been up and down this road ten times. Are we going in or are we going to drain the gas tank?”
Maggie’s grip on the steering wheel was fierce. “I’m thinking, Ted. You need to keep quiet while I make a decision. Take a nap or something.”
“Look, Maggie, we dropped everything to come cross-country. We’re on shaky ground with the executive editor we report to. I say we send the story now and the editors can fill in the gaps as we call them in. Assuming we can fill in those gaps. If we file the story now, we’ll be the first ones out of the gate. The paper will hold the story until we give the okay.”
“What if we don’t get anything to fill in the gaps? Then our story is out there and by ‘out there’ I mean at the paper. You know how many people are going to read it before it goes to print. We have to get in Lyons’s house and warn him, that’s all there is to it. Okay, let’s go back and go right up to the guardhouse and…and announce ourselves. I’ve never heard of a movie star that turns away good press.”
“There’s a first time for everything. I’m for anything right now that will get us off this road. All right, let’s give it a try. If we don’t get in to see the man of the hour, what then?”
“Then we wait for Rutledge and de Silva to come out. Then we try again and allude to the security guard, who will then allude to Lyons that we’re here to warn him and maybe then he’ll agree to talk to us. It’s a gamble, what can I tell you. If you have a better idea, I’d like to hear it.”
“We’re flying blind. We don’t know what he’s done. All we know is those women from Pinewood know what he did, and are after him. In my book that just ain’t good enough. Damn, you hit that pothole again. That makes nine times in a row. You know it’s there, why don’t you steer around it? You’re going to break an axle and we’ll be stuck out here.”
“Stop whining, Ted. Okay, I’m going to turn around and we’re going to attempt to get in to see Mr. Lyons. I said attempt, Ted.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine what that guy could have done to bring down the wrath of those vicious women. Which brings me to my next thought: Where the hell are they? It occurs to me, and it should have occurred to you by now, that maybe those damn women are setting us up.”
Maggie waited for a break in traffic before she made a U-turn in the middle of the road. “Oh, they’re out there, trust me on that. There’s no way they set us up. No one knows we’re here. Those two old ladies are simply the first string. The others will move in for the kill when the old ladies give the signal. That has to be how it’s going to work because nothing else makes sense. Your problem is you think like a man. Rutledge and de Silva soften up the guy and then when the time is right, the Pinewood cavalry arrives. They’re way off their own turf now. My woman’s intuition tells me they’re a little nervous just the way you and I are nervous.”
“Maybe so but I’d feel a whole hell of a lot better if I knew where those women are right this minute.”
Maggie chewed on her lower lip as she pulled into the shale driveway that led up to the secluded guardhouse. She took a deep breath and muttered, “I would, too.”
“How much longer are we going to cruise these streets? I feel like I know Los Angeles like the back of my hand,” Kathryn snapped.
Nikki took her eyes off the road for a split second. “Until we come up with a plan. We don’t even have a base of operations. Charles told us to abort the mission. We’re flying solo here, Kathryn. We should call Myra again. Do it now, Kathryn. Maybe she’ll answer this time.”
Kathryn was still in a snapping, snarling mood. “Maybe you should turn your cell phone back on, Nikki. If you see Charles’s number pop up, don’t answer it. All right, all right, I’m calling Myra.”
Nikki was driving blindly, up one street and down another. Finally, she turned into what looked like a residential neighborhood and pulled to the curb. “We need to talk right now and make some kind of hard-fast decision.”
“No answer,” Kathryn said, snapping her cell phone shut. Nikki’s phone beeped. She looked down at the number and clicked it on. “Jack!” She listene
d, her hand trembling on the phone. The others leaned over the seat as they tried to understand what was going on.
“I know they’re here. Myra saw them at the airport. Charles told us to abort the mission but…we voted to continue. We think Myra and Annie are at Lyons’s house but aren’t sure. They’re not answering their phones. Charles is livid. Actually, he’s beyond livid. We’re in a car sitting by a curb in a residential neighborhood, and no one is following us, Jack. We’ve been driving aimlessly trying to decide what to do. You’re here! Here in California! With Harry Wong! You didn’t tell him, did you, Jack? Please, tell me you didn’t tell him. No, Jack, you didn’t have to tell him. Why didn’t you take a damn ad out in the Los Angeles Times, for God’s sake? No, no, I don’t want to hear that. Wait a minute, yes, I do want to hear that. There’s a gold shield here and he’s your new best friend. Are you sure about that? Okay, okay, what’s the bad news? The reporters either found the tracking device the gold shield put on their car or it fell off. Yeah, that is bad news. That means you don’t know where they are. Is there any good news? You’re going to call Ted Robinson? Where are we exactly? Hold on a minute.”
Nikki turned around. “Do any of you know exactly where we are?”
“Brentwood,” Kathryn said.
“We’re in Brentwood, Jack. I’m worried about Myra and Annie. We’re going out to Lyons’s house. I forgot to tell you those men are out there. That’s five against two, Jack. I don’t know if Annie and Myra can bluff their way through something like this. I’ll call you when we decide what we’re going to do.” Before Jack could reply, Nikki closed her cell phone. It rang almost immediately. She ignored it.
“Yoko, Harry is here and Jack told him everything. I guess he’s okay with it. Are you okay with it?”
Yoko smiled for the first time in days. “Absolutely.”
“You heard my end of the conversation, girls,” Nikki said. “There’s a gold shield out here and he appears to be on our side. He planted a tracking device on Robinson’s car but either it fell off or the reporters found it. Our guys lost them. Spritzer and Robinson could be anywhere. What that means is they are definitely on to us. We may find ourselves in the position of having to take care of them one way or the other. Do we vote no on this or go where angels fear to tread?”
It was a unanimous vote to forge ahead.
Nikki took a deep breath as she turned on her signal light and moved into the slow residential traffic. “Read the map, Kathryn, and tell me where to turn.”
From the backseat Alexis said, “We need to chat this up a little. Let’s try to figure out where we made a mistake. Was it our mistake or Charles’s mistake? I want to know.” The others agreed.
“Maybe our mistake was going to see those four guys and tipping our hand,” Isabelle said. “Maybe we should have gone straight to Lyons. Maybe the mistake was Charles hacking into Lyons’s computers and records. It’s been a sloppy mission from the git-go.”
“There are two ways to look at that. Those four guys along with Lyons make up the inner circle of his little organization. There’s no doubt at all that Lyons is the Rainmaker. The four of them headed here like homing pigeons, which proves my point. We have all five of them under one roof so I’d have to say it wasn’t a mistake,” Nikki said. “You take out the inner core and hopefully the domino effect will spring into action. We can’t lose sight of our true mission, which is Michael Lyons. The rest of it, as ugly and perverted as it is, is up to the authorities. We’re leading the way. All they have to do is step in and clean up the organization when we’re finished with Lyons. The plan is to leave all the information Charles gathered at the residence. This is just my opinion,” Nikki said.
“And if we get caught?” Alexis asked.
“Then we get caught,” Kathryn snarled. “We’ve all known from the beginning that getting caught was a possibility. This time around is no different. Just stay alert and let’s do what we do best, get Yoko’s revenge, move on, and don’t look back.”
“With Jack and Harry here along with their new buddy, the playing field is a little more level,” Nikki said as she pulled up to a STOP sign.
“I’d agree if those two reporters weren’t here. I hate being the voice of doom and gloom but those two can screw up everything,” Isabelle said.
“Only if we allow it,” Kathryn said. “I, for one, have no intention of letting that happen. Whoa, whoa, slow down, Nikki. Make a left at the next intersection and that’s going to take us right past Mr. Lyons’s house.”
“So we’re just going to bust in and hope for the best. We’re going for the gusto, is that it?” Isabelle asked.
“That’s it,” Alexis said.
“Then let’s do it! Call Jack and tell him we’re going in,” Kathryn said.
Maggie Spritzer tried her best to charm the guard standing outside his little hut, but she wasn’t having any luck. Charming Alan Nolan was a walk in the park compared to this stone-faced giant with the gun in his holster.
“I’m sorry, Miss, but Mr. Lyons called down earlier and said I wasn’t to admit anyone to the big house today. He’s not feeling well. Mr. Lyons made a point of saying absolutely no reporters were to be admitted. Move up a little and you can turn around. Next time before you make the trip up here, call ahead for an appointment.”
Maggie wasn’t about to give up. “But we’re with the Countess and her companion. They’re expecting us. She’s going to pitch a fit.”
“Then maybe you should call her on your cell phone,” the guard said, calling her bluff.
Maggie had no other choice but to pretend to make the call. “I guess she turned off her phone. Are you sure you can’t call the house phone up there?”
The guard’s hand moved to the butt of his gun. “I’m sure. Now, turn around and leave the premises.”
“I sure hope you don’t get into trouble over this,” Maggie said.
“Let me worry about that. You can leave your cell phone number and if anyone up at the house calls about your arrival, I’ll have them call you.”
Maggie thought about the request for all of one minute. She decided she had nothing to lose. She gave the guard her cell phone number and name. She watched him copy the information onto a yellow pad. “Thanks for nothing,” she said, speeding off down the shale driveway.
“I could have told you that would happen. Now what, fearless leader?” Ted groused.
“We learned one thing, Ted. Rutledge and de Silva are still in there, and it’s been a while. If they had left, the guard would have said so.”
“That’s true but it isn’t helping us. For all we know those two women could be there on legitimate movie business.”
“Get real, Ted! We’ll just find a good spot along the road and wait it out. Sooner or later, the others will come out here. The second string. Or, if you prefer, the enforcers. Then if you think you’re up to it, we storm the guard and take matters into our own hands.”
“Are you talking about the guard with the gun?”
“That’s the one,” Maggie said, her voice full of bravado she was far from feeling.
“There’s only one thing missing in this mess.”
“What’s that?” Maggie asked as she scanned both sides of the road that ran past Lyons’s driveway so she could decide where to pull over and park.
“Jack Emery and those goddamn gold shields.”
Maggie shivered.
Inside Lyons’s mansion, Myra and Annie were running out of conversation. They were starting to babble as Lyons pretended to be attentive.
“My dear, I feel so bad for you,” Annie said in her best motherly voice. “I do wish you would allow me to call a doctor I know. He can give you a shot to curb the itching. I seem to recall they treat shingles with some powerful antibiotics. It won’t be a problem to make the call. I’m also sorry we can’t take the pictures today. Another time.”
“I’ll be fine, Countess. I just want to go back to bed.” Hint, hint, hint.
“But, Michael, how can you do that with your guests? I can take them back to our hotel. It won’t be a problem. You won’t get any rest as long as you have company. Men don’t know how to care for someone who is sick. I insist, my dear. We insist, don’t we, dear?” Annie asked Myra.
“In fact, they can use our two-bedroom suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel since we have to leave tonight. Oh, dear, I said that already. I do apologize for coming out here unannounced but I didn’t know what else to do. People make too many demands on my time. I’m just going to leave my check with you and then you can make the photo arrangements with the foundation when you’re feeling better.”
If these women didn’t get out of here soon he was going to kill them. He itched so bad he wanted to claw off his skin. He nodded as he tried to usher the women to the door. “Yes, yes, that will work. I really don’t feel well, Countess, but I will be happy to do what you want as soon as I feel better. I also appreciate the invitation to accommodate my guests but they’re leaving in an hour or so. They’re having lunch right now and then they’re leaving.”
Myra knew they’d blown it. She wanted to cry. She reached up for the pearls that were no longer around her neck. She raised an eyebrow in Annie’s direction. “I think we should allow Mr. Lyons to return to bed. Write him the check, Countess.”
Annie frowned as she dug around in her purse for her checkbook. She looked down at the balance under the last entry. She had exactly $33.11 in what she called the kitchen grocery account. She scribbled off a check for five million dollars that Lyons would match and handed it over with a flourish. She couldn’t resist a parting shot as Lyons marched them toward the door. “You can die from shingles, Michael. I do wish you would allow me to send a doctor out here for you.” She wondered if what she’d just said was true.
“Die?”
“Oh, yes, it’s one of those creeping mystery ailments doctors can’t get a handle on. They say they have cures but they don’t. My gardener had the same thing. One minute he was scratching and complaining about the pain with the blisters and then he just dropped down into a bed of pansies. I have to tell you, I cried. What will the world do without you, Michael? We all love your films. Surely you don’t want to be known as the famous actor who died from shingles. It’s such an ugly word. It’s like the difference between FederalExpress and mail from the post office. Well, it’s your body,” she blathered on.
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