Her face clenched as if she were about to scream, but the words came out with a quiet hiss, like steam from a pinhole.
"Okay, so you don't believe Sylvie either. Just like the cops, just like everybody. Well, hell, I don't give two shits what you believe, Mr. Thorn. You aren't here to help Sylvie after all, are you? You're just another gutless dickhead, like all the rest of them. Coming on like Hemingway, but when it gets right down to nitty-gritty time, you got nothing inside your shirt. You got a mirage for a heart."
She snorted, and bowed her head, and her lips began to twitch with wordless curses. In her temples the blood churned.
Thorn rose and went to the bathroom. He washed his hands and rinsed off his face. He dried himself and looked in the mirror. His face seemed changed, eyes were heavy and mouth sagged. As if the grieving had burrowed deep below the flesh and had begun to leave its indelible mark.
Staring at his image, he ran Sylvie's story through again, and matched it against the facts he knew. On the surface everything corresponded. But Sylvie's loopy manner undermined it all. She seemed just as capable of telling a story about green midgets kidnapping her for a joyride in their Swiss cheese rocket ship.
Maybe that's what Darcy had thought as well. Maybe it's what had troubled her so much. Causing her to dismiss Sylvie's claims at first, then spend the next week second-guessing herself. A growing fear that someone was going to be hurt, maybe even be killed if she didn't do something soon.
But maybe Sylvie was right. He should shake off Sugarman's Dudley Do-right influence, forget the police, drive back out to Harden's farm, extract whatever truth he could from the man, then work out a quick, crude approximation of justice. Or else, he could return to Judy Nelson's office, pick up his car, drive back to the other coast. Just go home and forget it all. Hunker down once more behind his high, hard wall of seclusion.
He ran the cold water till he was satisfied it would not get any cooler, then he splashed another double handful on his face, dried off, and went back into the room.
She was gone.
He went to the balcony and for a dizzy second he looked down into the hedges eight stories below. Nothing.
He walked back into the room. Saw Darcy's fuchsia bag sprung open on the bed. Hurriedly, he went to it, dug through his stuff. Sylvie had her choice of three pairs of underwear, two rumpled shirts, his single-bladed Gillette razor, a worn-down toothbrush, a half-empty bottle of roll-on deodorant, or his loaded Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum.
She'd chosen the Smith.
CHAPTER 21
Not as nice a room as Thorn's. This one much smaller, didn't have the pretty artwork, and looked east out at the parking lot. The chintzy bastard. Worth nine or ten million dollars according to Fortune magazine, and Peter Lavery reserved the budget-plate special.
Lavery was on the phone with somebody, his stockbroker it sounded like. Joking around with the guy, but with a serious edge, money involved. When Sylvie knocked, he'd come to the door with the phone wedged between his cheek and shoulder, just covering the receiver long enough to find out who she was, then waving her inside. He'd been on the phone ever since, leaving her to browse, but Sylvie was aware of him watching her, while he jerked himself off, buying, selling, one company, then another.
Lavery was tall, thin, a bony face. One of those fast-growing beards that no matter how often he shaved always left a shadow, which in Sylvie's experience usually meant the guy had undesirable hair on other parts of his body. Sylvie not drawn to the type at all. Not that it mattered a whole hell of a lot. She wasn't planning on rolling around with this guy. But it was a strike against him anyway.
She could tell he was winding down his conversation, made enough money for today, got his blood a little redder from the excitement of transferring all that cash from pile A to pile B.
She sat down on the foot of the bed like Thorn had done upstairs. Seeing him in her head, how calm he seemed to be, how unblurred his eyes could get. Thinking maybe if she made her body do some of the same moves he made, her mind would follow, that Pavlov thing with the dogs. Body first, mind following.
Because the truth was, the whole cumulus thing was becoming a drag. Changing to suit whichever man she was with. Finding his buttons, pressing them long and hard. Speed-talking, witty comebacks. All it ever had been really was a defense. Like that shield they used on Star Trek to defend the Enterprise against enemy lasers, just an energy field, a lot of wired activity to block out the incoming shit. That's all she did, blurred her dragonfly wings real fast, made a bunch of static in the air and then hid behind it.
The truth was, when she met somebody like Thorn, somebody who'd apparently had his own major traumas but had worked them out, had found a wide, calm middle terrain, then it tugged at Sylvie, made her think maybe it was possible after all, maybe she could do it, mimic somebody like Thorn, imitate her way toward some kind of normal goddamn existence.
But then again, probably not. Probably she was cursed. Weakened down in the spirals of her DNA somewhere. Like circuits that had been so overloaded once with a power surge, they couldn't ever carry the proper voltage again.
Yeah, Sylvie was doomed. Not going to have a normal life. She'd fluttered those transparent wings too long, already worn deep grooves of habit in the air around her, and now there was no way to break the cycle. Sylvie was going to be Sylvie was going to be Sylvie was going to be Sylvie, forever and forever. Sylvie the cumulus, Sylvie the dragonfly. Having to work every second a hell of a lot harder than normal people did just to keep herself aloft.
Finally, Lavery hung up the phone, turned on her and gave her a rude once-over. A rich man, blunt and smug, afraid of nothing. Probably been bossing people around since he was two years old, gotten real good at it.
"I guess I'm not what you pictured," she said.
"I was imagining older. Thirty-five, forty."
"It must be my mature telephone voice," she said. "It fools everybody."
"All right, so what's the plan? Go to the farm now? Meet the fisher king?" The man was all business, just flipping from one thing to the next.
"If I were you," Sylvie said, "I wouldn't make fun of Harden Winchester to his face. He takes himself pretty seriously."
"I'll try to remember that," he said. "So are we going or what?"
"What's your hurry? Aren't you tired after your long flight?"
"I drove," he said. "And no, I'm not tired." And he twisted his face into a condescending scowl. Guy had never been tired in his life. Pawing at the ground, always ready to go.
Strike two.
He was wearing a green flowery shirt. A Hawaiian variety, with a single green parrot over his heart. He had on a pair of khaki trousers, boat shoes without socks. Sylvie hated boat shoes, especially polished ones like his. Made her want to walk over, step on them with her muddy cowboy boots, grind her heel.
Sylvie came a little closer to him.
"So, Peter, tell me something. You ever save anybody's life before? Slay the dragon, climb the tower, rescue the maiden?"
He chuckled to himself.
"Not that I know of. Not intentionally." He chuckled again, amusing himself with his wit.
"Ever kill anybody? Hand to hand, like that? Or maybe even seriously injure somebody? Back over someone in your Lincoln Continental maybe?"
"Certainly not. What're you talking about?"
"I didn't think so."
He scowled at her.
"What is this? Some kind of weird interview?"
"Yeah," she said. "That's what it is. And how it looks is, you're not going to get the job. I got one Peter Lavery lined up already, and he's actually a little more what I had in mind."
"Now see here."
Strike three. Talking British.
Abruptly Sylvie turned around and went out the door and into the hallway. She walked halfway down the hall till she located the glass box fixed on the wall. She reached under her Raiders jersey and took out Thorn's pistol. Looked both ways down the hall. No
one. Sylvie raised the gun butt and smashed the glass, and pulled down the fire alarm.
In a second or two the sirens went off on the roof, whooping their two notes, low and high, like those European ambulances, the kind that always reminded her of The Diary of Anne Frank, the part where the Nazis came to get her and the rest of her family out of the attic. Anne Frank — now there was a girl Sylvie could identify with, a girl with her own set of dragonfly wings. Having to work awful hard just to do the normal things.
Sylvie walked back to Lavery's room. Lavery coming to the door, shaking his head at her, blocking the doorway.
She lifted the pistol, showed it to him, then aimed at his face, and he backed into the room. The hallway was beginning to fill with people, but she didn't think anyone saw her.
She stepped inside and closed the door.
"You bring the million three?"
Lavery was looking at the pistol.
"So this was all a trick? A robbery? You went to all this trouble simply to rob me?"
"Did you bring it? The cash, like we agreed?"
"Carry around that much cash, are you crazy?"
"I told you, Lavery, no uncertain terms, it had to be cash. Greenbacks, nothing else."
"The money's in the bank," he said coldly. "When we're ready to make the transaction, you'll have your cash."
Lavery took a step back from her, watching the pistol. She glanced down at his shiny boat shoes, thinking maybe she'd shoot him in the foot or something, get his attention. Then she looked back up and Lavery was flicking his eyes to the right. To the black plastic suitcase sitting on his bed.
"You fish slime," she said. "You brought it with you just like I told you. Good little Boy Scout, following instructions."
He walked over to the bed, stood in front of the suitcase, crossed his arms across his bony chest. Trying to puff himself up. But still looking like a sniveling brat, the kind of guy who when he was a kid, if someone picked on him, he'd holler for his butler, order him to go over and slap the other kid.
In the article she'd found on this guy, there'd been no photo of him. If there had, and she'd seen what a skinny bastard he was, she probably would've dropped things right there. What she wanted was somebody with some heft to him, some muscularity. A guy who could stay in the ring with her daddy for a round or two, give him a half-decent workout. Somebody more like Thorn.
"The fish samples," said Lavery, "the photographs, weeks of negotiations. All that was just some elaborate ploy to lure me here and hold me up?"
"Tell me something, Mr. Lavery. You got any secret fantasies you never had come true?" She'd decided, what the hell, give the guy one more chance. The least she could do, him coming all this way, bringing so much money with him. And plus, she wasn't a hundred percent sure she was going to be able to get Thorn to go along with her game plan. This guy might do as a half-assed backup.
She said, "Is there something Sylvie could do for you no other woman would do? Something of a sexual nature. Finger up the butt, something like that."
"Now, look here, young lady. This isn't funny. Put the gun away. You can have the money. Just take it and go. I'm certainly not going to risk my life for a few filthy dollars."
Gutless weasel. Strike four.
Lavery glanced at the door, listening to the commotion out in the hallway for a moment. Stalling, eyes beginning to float around the room, trying to figure out a plan of action. Maybe grab one of his platinum credit cards, charge her to death.
With the fire alarm still blaring, she cocked the chrome pistol. Muscles were starting to quiver around Lavery's eyes. She was pretty sure he was on the verge of bawling.
"Okay, all right," she said. "Now, here's what you're going to do, Peter Lavery. You're going to hand me that suitcase. Then you're going to get on the next airplane to Georgia and stay there and forget this happened. You try to call the police or anything, I'll come find you, and I'll make you dead. You understand, Peter? You hearing me?"
Peter Lavery nodded, getting all docile.
Sylvie was talking tough, watching its effect on Lavery, but not meaning any of it. Using words like she always did, just to make things happen. That's all they were with her. Truth, lies, what was the difference? You said whatever you had to say to get the things you wanted. Hell, everybody did it. From the president trying to get reelected on down to the guy trying to slide Sylvie into bed with him. Say whatever it took. Everybody conning everybody else. Words, words, words.
Lavery kept staring at the pistol.
"Pick it up," Sylvie said. "Pick up the suitcase and hand it to me. Real careful like."
A single tear appeared in his left eye. Lavery took a breath and let it out. He did it again, then he turned and took hold of the black case and came back around with it, uncoiling, flinging the suitcase at Sylvie and following behind it. Doing a brave thing probably for the first time in his puny life. Coming after Sylvie, going to knock her down, take her gun and turn her over to the police.
But Sylvie fired, hit the suitcase mid-flight, knocked it off course. And the slug must've gone on through, because Peter Lavery was knocked backward onto the bed.
A puncture wound in his chest. His eyes still open, right leg twitching, lying there looking at nothing, like a gaffed fish. A silver prong hooked through its heart but the thing still having spasms. The fish was dead, but hadn't figured it out yet.
Sylvie moved close, winced as she looked at the blood seeping out. Lots of blood, more than seemed possible for such a skinny guy. She hated this. Hated it. All that blood, the fire alarm throbbing like a killer headache.
Sylvie stepped close to Lavery's body. She leaned forward and pressed the barrel against his flowery shirt, aimed into the beak of the green parrot, shut her eyes tight and turned them away. A second went by, another second. She shut her eyes even tighter, and she fired. The fire alarm picked that second to shut off, the last moment of the siren just covering the loud blast of the pistol.
Nothing twitching anymore. Peter Lavery dead.
Sylvie's heart didn't know how to respond, whether to race or stop entirely. She stood there for a minute, trying to think. Her static shield seemed to have evaporated, feeling a dull ache begin to spread through her gut like she'd swallowed half a bottle of cognac. Killing someone, even to protect herself, it gave her a bad feeling. Even a priss like this, somebody probably cared about him, some other priss back in Georgia. There must've been a better way if she'd only had a little more time to figure it out.
But Lavery hadn't given her any time, and now it was done. She was standing next to the body, her own body stiffening more every second. Emotional rigor mortis taking over. And she knew she had to unlock herself from this position quick. Fight off this first stage of paralysis before it took root and forced her to stand there like a concrete shrine until the door came open, and she was discovered, her crime lying on the bed in front of her. But Sylvie's flesh continued to harden, chest filling with concrete, squeezing out her breath. Veins clotting, eyes going out of focus, brain dulled over. Those transparent wings tiring out, slowing. Sylvie, the dragonfly, tumbling out of the sky. Free-falling.
Scrambling inside, fighting it, Sylvie rocked herself forward onto her toes. Then back. Straining to loosen herself. Some sweat growing in her armpits, cold sweat, icy. Another rock, forward and back. Sneaking down a small breath. Letting it out. Little by little rocking some more and some more, easing the stiff grip, coming back, coming back to the limber world.
Finally, Sylvie could blow out a long breath, could make herself bend forward, stoop, touch her toes. And she was back. She was there again. Sylvie be nimble, Sylvie be quick.
She moved to the other king-size bed, sat down on the edge of it and got down another breath. Then she swiveled around and snapped open the black suitcase and there they were. Green blocks of cash with brown paper wrappers. A ragged bullet hole through the middle of them. Probably tore up a few hundred thousand, but there was still plenty enough to fool Harden.
God, he'd love this one. This one was going to be her best yet.
She took the silver ice bucket off the bureau and walked out into the hall. People were chattering to each other in front of their doors, wondering if this was for real or just a false alarm. Should they evacuate? Sylvie passing by to the alcove where the ice machine was, no one paying any attention to her. She filled up the bucket, went back to Lavery's room.
She put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doorknob, set the ice bucket down on the bathroom lavatory. Then she called the front desk, made sure they knew that Mr. and Mrs. Lavery were on their honeymoon, and didn't want anyone walking in on them. Absolutely nobody. Not even to turn down their bed, put a chocolate mint on their pillow at night or bring fresh towels, for no reason whatsoever. Was that absolutely, utterly clear? Oh, yes. Yes, indeed, ma'am. Whatever you say.
Then with her hands in his damp armpits, she hauled Lavery off the bed and dragged him into the bathroom and laid him out in the tub. She sprinkled the bucket of ice on his chest.
It was going to take thirty, forty trips down the hall for enough ice to keep the body from decomposing. She just needed to hold the smell down for a couple of days. After that, the trail that led to Sylvie would be too damn cold to do anybody any good.
She stood in the foyer and held her left fist up to her eye, peered through it, and cranked the camera with her right fist. She panned around the room, then brought the lens around to the bathtub, to Peter Lavery. Looking very relaxed now. A dreamy expression on his lips. Sylvie moved closer, cranked the film through the camera. Cranking it, she captured this moment, death, captured it for all time, for eternity. Death.
CHAPTER 22
Sugarman had never cared much for the Everglades. Oh, yeah, he knew how important the place was, all that groundwater evaporating, turning into heavy clouds, sucked east by the rising air heated by the city, all that water falling on Miami every summer afternoon at four. Same time every day, never varied. And the Glades wasn't just a source of rain for Miami and the Keys, but also the nesting place for a million different kinds of birds and all that. Important, yeah. But Sugarman always felt guilty riding across the place, 'cause he could never work up any real affection for it. Just looked brown and desolate to him. Nothing to do out there but traipse around in the muck, dodge alligators.
Mean High Tide (Thorn Series Book 3) Page 21