by Jeff Abbott
“No.”
“Hired muscle?”
“You could say.”
“Sam is useful to you, isn’t he?” Belias said, a knife in the tone that the woman couldn’t miss.
Mila could see Belias wanted to kill her. He could try. She thought she could kill him with a single blow to the voice box—deliver the punch and run. He’d stumble, clawing at his throat, choking, and people wouldn’t think it was murder. They’d think he was having a seizure. She could walk away very quickly, vanish.
But she needed him alive right now. If he was dead, then the network was lost. And there were too many people around. Everyone had a camera these days. So annoying.
Belias almost smiled at her. And then he turned and walked away.
Mila’s earpiece crackled into life. “Umm, she’s trying to kill me,” Sam said evenly.
43
Saturday, November 6, midday
I RAN TOWARD THE INTERSECTION, away from the park and Audrey Marchbanks’s house, heading toward our car two streets over, when all hell broke loose. I was tapping my earpiece to reconnect with Mila, to tell her to leave Audrey and go, when I heard the surge of an engine behind me.
I turned and saw Holly Marchbanks in a Mercedes, fury discoloring her face, jumping the curb, ramming all that German horsepower right toward the small of my back.
I ran. The streets of Pacific Heights are normally quiet, and the roar of the engine broke the Saturday hush. Dead in front of me was a garage with a townhome’s patio atop it. I scrambled up a brick wall that went halfway up the garage as the Mercedes dodged, going past me. I jumped, yanked myself to a balcony, pulled myself over.
Brunch goers stared at me; I was interrupting a private party. One man, big and burly enough to be a former 49er, started toward me.
I ran across the patio, past a table loaded with egg casserole, fruit, and croissants and the makings for Bloody Marys and mimosas, and vaulted back down onto the street.
The Mercedes had shot past my position, cars careening to avoid it. Honks filled the air. The Mercedes wheeled back hard in full reverse, Holly readying her aim at me. To my left was the rise of a straight, steep hill, nowhere to easily dodge her; she could corner me and shoot me as easily as run me down. To my right, the Mercedes. Ahead, a wall of a large building, with fifty windows looking out like eyes, and two fire escapes running down the side.
I ran for the fire escape as Holly aimed at me again. Vaulted off the wall, hit my foot against the windowsill of the first floor, seized with fingertips the bottom of the metal grating making up the escape.
I swung my legs up as she barreled the Mercedes beneath me.
Here I was an easy target. I scrabbled out from under the grating, running up the side of the fire escape, feet clanging on the metal. I glanced down, and below me she’d gotten out of the Mercedes, her hand buried in her jacket, weighing the costs of shooting me in public. In the movies it’s always gunplay first; but here there were witnesses, and there could be evidence implicating her and Belias in my pocket from her ex’s house. If she shot me dead on the stairs, she couldn’t necessarily reach me before the police did.
Windows and curtains flashed open as I ran past them; I was interrupting the Saturday morning calm. I reached the red-bordered roof, yanked myself up the sloping territory. I heard Holly yelling, indistinct to me.
I ran to the other side of the roof. The drop to the neighboring building was far too much to make. I found a maintenance door on the roof, picked the lock. I didn’t hear a cry of sirens yet; I figured the brunch host was at least calling the police.
I got inside, found the elevator. This was a risk. She could be waiting on the first floor, she could be outside. But I had to get out of the building; staying here was a trap.
I took the elevator down to the first floor. Exited into a beautiful art deco lobby.
I went out the front door. A barred door with an ornate grate marked off the entrance from the street, and I went through it.
She stepped from the corner. Hand in her jacket. Not there because the day was cold.
“I told them you threw a bottle at my car…” Her voice was a slicing whisper. “Give me what you took from Audrey’s. And I’ll let you go.” Her voice was strained wire and she regarded me with a fresh hatred.
“Come with me,” I said. “I’ll hide you and your children from Belias. He’ll never find you. You’ll be free.”
The color drained from her face. “That’s not possible.”
“I have friends who can hide you. I can give you your freedom right now, if you’re brave enough to take it. He can’t touch you, your mom, your kids. We can go get them right now, before he knows.”
It is not often you have to decide your whole life in one fiery second. She bit her lip, torn by indecision. “I can’t trust you. You…you…my husband…”
“Holly?” Audrey Marchbanks, in sight over Holly’s shoulder, hurrying down the sidewalk toward her.
“Now or never. Or are you going to gun me down in front of her? I’m sure she’d love to see you in jail.”
Holly said nothing. Offer rejected. I turned. I ran. Our car was parked another block away. When I got there, I remembered Mila had the keys. I touched the Bluetooth earpiece again; gone. It must have fallen from my ear, and in the excitement I hadn’t noticed.
Police lights flashing. I saw a police car pull up by the brunch patio, people with mimosas in hand calling down to them, pointing at me, Holly’s accused car vandal.
I ran.
A block away I saw a young man wearing jeans, an oversized fedora, and a T-shirt from one of my favorite bands getting out of a small black car that made me think of a little bug, a Fiat Abarth. I knocked him aside, grabbed the keys, told him I was sorry. He started calling me names and screaming and I drove down the street, downhill.
Rearview: the police car, taking the turn fast, staying behind me. They wouldn’t engage in a high-speed chase. This wasn’t Bullitt. It would endanger people and it wasn’t necessary. The maze of streets in San Francisco would make it easy for them to trap me as soon as other officers responded.
But I couldn’t not go home to Daniel.
I roared down the hill, hoping Mila was okay, wishing I hadn’t lost the earpiece. Behind me the sirens took on a harder, brighter sound. I veered right, veered left again. Right now all I had to do was get away. I powered the Fiat down the next hill, spun it out by shifting and slamming on the brake. The Fiat spun neatly in a 180-degree turn, serenaded by the horns of the cars that had stopped, and I blasted straight at the police car. The driver tried to veer to stop me, and I plowed onto the sidewalk, shot past the cop car, and heard the crash of the police car. Rearview mirror told me the police car had been sheared on the side by a big SUV with a construction logo on its side.
I’d bought myself maybe two minutes. I had to get out, ditch the car, vanish. I wheeled up the hill, powered hard over to the left. Another police car responding. I shot past it. Clearly the officers had been given the car’s description. The police slammed on brakes as I careened the Fiat down the street.
The cop car revved hard behind me. In front of me I saw cars ahead of me slowing, trying to figure out how to get out of the way. Along the opposite side stood scaffolding, stretching along three houses being redone. I veered across all the lanes of traffic, roared the small Fiat under the scaffolding, past the stopping and slowing cars. Inches to spare on each side. One miscalculation and I’d wreck, likely bringing three stories of scaffolding down on me. I bulleted out at the end of the scaffolding, out back into the intersection, horns blaring as I blasted through a red light.
Suddenly, I was hit. And spinning.
I’d been nailed by a cab as I ran the light. It caught the back edge of the Fiat, and I got to see the nice view of the neighborhood, all 360 degrees, in three seconds. The Fiat fought for purchase on the road, and I straightened it out, the police car’s sirens echoing hard through the narrow streets.
Bu
t the cab was a momentary block. You think in terms of seconds in a chase, seconds bought, seconds lost. I shot past the trendy shops and boutiques along this stretch of road. The Saturday crowds were only at the coffee shops, not the bars or the clothing shops or the spas. But too many people, too many witnesses, too many cell phones that might snap my picture.
I had to ditch the car now, disappear into the crowd.
I took another hard left, saw a large home under construction, marked with emerald-green wrap covering the front and the side of the building. I drove the Fiat straight across the small paved yard, into the curtain of green. The moorings tore down behind me, draping the car. Again, thinking in seconds—would it be seconds after the cop car veered past me that they would notice the wrap was partially down?
The house was empty and I bolted from the car. I’d managed to smash into paint and drywall and the floor was now painted a tasteful forest green. I didn’t want to step in the paint—it would leave quite a trail. I lowered the driver’s window, pulled free the wrapping that had cocooned the car, stepped on the wrapping to the windowsill. I dropped down twelve feet to a small backyard that was full of construction equipment and supplies. I bolted over a fence, ditched my denim jacket, pulled my long sleeve shirt straight. I went back over another fence, the sirens loud now, and walked out onto a neighboring street. Down half a block was a café, and I sat outside in the nice bright sunlight, ordered a cup of herbal tea, and watched two more cop cars race by while I texted Mila.
On my way, she said.
Our friend B? I said.
He walked away from me.
He had? That surprised me. I don’t like being surprised by what bad guys do. Bad guys should be consistently predictable. He wasn’t.
But was Holly giving my name to the police right now? I might not be able to go back to the bar.
I didn’t even know if that was Mila answering my text. What if it was Belias? He could have killed her and taken the phone, and here I’d just given him my location.
I sat, drinking my tea, wondering which of them was going to show up.
44
Saturday, November 6, midday
Las Vegas
SINCE HER ARRIVAL in Las Vegas yesterday, Janice had watched the man they called Lucky. He routinely walked the floor of his casino, greeting gamblers, posing for pictures. There were always two guards with him. She accidently drew attention to herself when she stared at him, four tables away, and forgot to place a bet. He would leave the casino floor via a private exit, or he took an elevator to his penthouse apartment.
That Friday night he went to dinner at a new restaurant off the Strip, and she followed him. The limo drove to a high-end apartment complex, where Lucky picked up a lovely young woman. The two of them sat in the back, the bodyguards in front, one of them driving. She’d had to drive past the limo; simply hanging back would have drawn attention. She was able to trail him, though, to the Thai restaurant.
The bodyguards ate at a different table. They kept their gaze wandering the room. She decided she could not follow Lucky to another dinner; she was afraid the bodyguards would notice her, remember her face. She ate at the bar, risking glances over the crowded room when she sipped at her mineral water.
The bodyguards were going to be a serious problem. The two were big, young men in suits who looked like they might have been football players. They made her think of panthers, all coiled muscle and no mercy. She knew she couldn’t outfight them, and trying to shoot three people when she only needed one dead offended her idea of economy. Plus, Belias wanted Lazard’s death to look like a suicide. She needed to either find a way to get them out of the way or find a way to get close to Lucky Lazard while the bodyguards weren’t around. The thought of killing the young men was repellent to her. No one should die just because they took a job.
Lucky liked to eat and she made a note of that; she still had the bottle of poison in her purse. He’d brought last night’s dinner companion back to the Mystik; she’d followed them back from their meal, and seeing him surrounded by a large, boisterous party in his nightclub, she’d abandoned the night’s pursuit, furious that he didn’t seem to be alone often.
Now it was Saturday. She stopped at a computer store, bought the latest operating system disk, and she installed it on Barbara Scott’s laptop, which overwrote all the previous data. If she was caught or arrested, she couldn’t have the police finding that she had the dead woman’s laptop. She’d learned all she could from it.
She missed Diana. One of the bodyguards was just the kind of guy that Diana liked: big shouldered, short haired, tall. She thought of the insanity if Diana was here with her; she would have chattered about the guy, while her mother thought about how to kill the white guy in the corner. Hmm, she realized, Diana could have distracted the bodyguards. She thought that, then felt ashamed.
She resisted the urge to call Diana and see how she was doing. She was supposed to be where there was no cell phone access and she had to stick with the lie, but knowing that she couldn’t talk to Diana made her want to talk to Diana.
As the laptop finished its wipe she picked up the promotional Vegas magazines on the desk. The cover story had caught her eye before. LUCKY LAZARD: THE KING OF VEGAS REAL ESTATE, the caption read, under the plain face of a well-built fiftyish man, smiling for all he was worth, arms spread, the backdrop of the sprawl of Vegas behind him. Arms spread as though for crucifixion, she thought.
And I’ve got the hammer and nails.
She opened the package that had been waiting for her at the bell desk at the Mystik.
A Glock 9mm gun. Three magazines for the gun. A Canadian passport in the name of Catherine Bonheur with her picture inside, in case this very difficult kill went wrong and she had to run fast under a new name. Five thousand in cash. And a passcard to Enchant Club for Marian Atkins, the name she’d used to register at the Mystik.
Thank you, Belias, she thought.
She put the goods in the bottom of her purse. Next to the poison, hidden in an eyedrops bottle. She went downstairs.
She sat at a slot machine and, bored, fed it coins. She’d lost a fair amount of Belias’s money when she spotted Lazard, walking through the lobby, a thick-necked man walking behind him. It was the bodyguard she thought Diana would like.
Lazard smiled, nodded, spoke to several of the casino employees. The man with the common touch. Enchant, the hotel’s private club, lay in the far back corner of the Mystik, and she saw him enter, nodding and laughing at the bouncer at the entrance. The club wasn’t busy; she knew the private club served brunch to the casino’s VIPs.
She walked over to Enchant. She showed her membership card to the bouncer, who scanned it, presented it back to her with a smile, and she stepped inside. The interior was that of a four-star nightclub. Beautifully upholstered chairs in crimson and gold, tables with built-in ice coolers for bottle service. There was a simple but elegant brunch buffet set up in the corner. A chef making eggs to order. A bartender serving pomegranate mimosas and fancy Bloody Marys with applewood bacon slices for stirrers, with bits of cold, grilled tenderloin and fat olives on skewers. Not crowded, quiet. She took a newspaper from the counter and ordered a pomegranate mimosa and sat and watched Lucky Lazard.
She hadn’t had a drink since her last drink with Felix at The Select. She suddenly missed him, missed The Select. She liked talking with him, the sound of his voice, the shape of his mouth, his kind eyes. Of course she’d meet a nice man when she had no time left for romance.
Time. No time left. She wanted this done and to go home, and she cautioned herself not to rush. If she rushed, she would die sooner than the cancer could claim her or she would be caught.
Lucky Lazard talked with another man at a table, the bodyguard standing a respectful distance away. Presumably it would be insulting to the club’s members to be accused of being a danger to Lucky and so the guard let his gaze roam politely over the small crowd—a dozen or so. He met Janice’s gaze, and she smiled
and returned her attention to the newspaper. She didn’t want him catching her looking again, but surely Lucky Lazard got stared at…at least in the casinos he owned.
“Is your drink all right?” She glanced up to see Lucky Lazard, smiling, impeccable in a gray suit and a silver tie. He’d gotten up from his confab and was playing the host, making a genial circle of the room.
For one awful second she thought she could pick up her purse and fire a bullet right through the thin leather, into his chest. But she had to escape, and that wasn’t a possibility if she killed him in plain sight.
“Oh yes, it’s delicious. Just a bit early for me still. I’m a slow sipper.” The calm in her own voice stunned her.
“Then you should go play some poker, you’ll have an advantage.” He laughed at his own joke and Janice smiled. She couldn’t quite bring herself to laugh in the face of the man she was here to kill.
“Lucky Lazard.” He offered his hand and she hoped hers wasn’t slick with sweat. “I own the Mystik.”
“Oh, wow! I’m Marian Atkins.” She made herself put on an impressed smile. In real life I would have thought it was fascinating to meet you. To maybe recruit you as a client. But this isn’t real life. This is what lies under my real life.
“I hope you’ll enjoy your stay at the Mystik, Marian.” He gave an automatic smile to the automatic wish.
“It’s a stunning resort. You are indeed…lucky.”
“I am. I endorse what Thomas Jefferson said. ‘I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I have.’”
“That’s very true,” Janice said, knowing that for her it was a lie. Her luck had been bought and paid for. She could remember Belias’s words to her, smooth as silk in her ear: What would you do for a perfect life, Janice? One where the major obstacles just don’t exist anymore? That was luck, she thought. Luck that was made for you.
“Please do let me know if there’s anything you need.” Smile and nod, a practiced combination move.