3 Great Thrillers

by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric

  Soon police and firefighters were on the scene, yelling at us to clear the area. Knowing these guys were better equipped to handle things, Quinn and I withdrew and began picking our way through the mass of people converging on the area where one of Southern California’s premier boutique hotels had stood majestically a scant fifteen minutes earlier.

  “The whore did this?” asked Quinn.

  “She did,” I said.

  “On purpose?”

  I’d been wondering the same thing while searching the blast site for survivors. She didn’t strike me as the type who would blow up a building on purpose, but she was obviously the type who would hide a bomb in my room.

  Quinn’s cell phone rang with a text message. He read it silently, and his lips moved as he did so. “Coop followed her home,” he said.

  “Text him and have him send us the address,” I said. “Tell him to stay put till we get there. Tell him to follow her if she moves but keep us informed.”

  Quinn gave me a look that offered more attitude than a ghetto crack whore. “You see these fingers?” he said. “You know how long it would take me to text all that?”

  We walked. Quinn called Coop and gave him the message. He had Coop order us a sedan from a local limo service and told him where to pick us up. Since no cars were moving, we’d have to walk at least a mile to get beyond the traffic jam.

  Around us, news crews were scrambling to set up live cams. Television reporters rehearsed eyewitnesses, prepping them for their big moment on live TV. Sirens blared from all directions. Above us, thwacking blades from a dozen helicopters sliced the sky.

  “How’d she detonate it?” Quinn asked. “Cell phone?”

  “That’s my guess,” I said. “Or maybe she just placed the bomb and someone else detonated it.”

  Hundreds of locals rushed past us, jockeying for the best views from which to observe the unfolding drama. Shell-shocked tourists aimed cameras and video recorders at the human carnage, and I cringed, thinking about how these grizzly images would be played and replayed and plastered all over the news. Talking heads would speculate and argue, and politicians from both parties would point fingers and assign blame to the opposition.

  I asked, “Any idea why she waited so long to detonate the charge?”

  He thought about it a few seconds before answering. “She might have made me from the balcony,” he said.

  I remembered how she made a funny smile when she arrived at the room, standing near the balcony. Could that have been what made her smile? Quinn? Would she have reason to know him? If so, the terrorists had infiltrated our organization much deeper than I’d thought. “She saw you behind the hotel and then made you in the car afterward?” I asked. “That doesn’t seem likely.”

  “No. When she came out the front of the hotel, we got stuck in traffic. I told Coop to just follow the beeps while I jumped out of the car to follow her on foot. She probably saw me getting out of the car ’cause she took off like a poisoned pig!”

  “And you couldn’t catch her? Skinny little girl like that?”

  “Runs like Callie,” he said.

  “No one runs like Callie,” I said. “But I get the picture.”

  Quinn said, “Last time I saw her, she was passing a Krispy Kreme Donut shop. Then I heard the blast and ran back.”

  “What was that, two blocks? You call that a run?”

  “Hey, you’re my size, two blocks is an Olympic event.”

  “So Coop the driver followed the beeps, and we’ve got the address where she stopped,” I said, patting myself on the back for placing the tracking device in her purse.

  “Might take us a while to get there,” Quinn said.

  He was right. In fact, it took an hour to get the car and another twenty minutes to fight the traffic. Finally, after what seemed like forever, we spotted the miniscule split-level ranch with the peeling yellow paint on Vista Creek Drive to which Coop had tracked Jenine. Coop had parked his car a block away from the house, so we had our driver park a block beyond that. Then we signaled Coop and waited for him to return the signal. He didn’t, which meant either he was sleeping or …

  He was dead. We knew it the minute we saw the bullet hole in the driver’s window. Coop had been shot from the blind side, just behind his left ear. His head hung down, his chin resting on his sternum. His blood was everywhere. Quinn opened the driver’s side door and lifted Coop’s head.

  “What’s that in the bullet hole?” he asked.

  I hated putting my face that close to poor Coop’s, but Quinn was right; there was something protruding from the bullet hole. It turned out to be the tracking device I had placed in Jenine’s purse.

  Quinn backed out of the car, stretched to his full height, and looked at the house. “Any guess what we’ll find in there?”

  “Jenine’s body,” I said.

  Quinn gestured toward Coop and said, “Good thing our limo driver didn’t see this. Might have spooked him.”

  “Ya think?” I said.

  “I think you picked up that expression from the new girl, Kathleen.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  28

  We entered the house and quickly found two bodies wrapped in thick plastic. Both were attractive young women, one being Jenine. The other girl seemed vaguely familiar. She could have been anyone, but with two bedrooms in the house, my money was on her being Jenine’s roommate.

  What we couldn’t find in the house was anything else.

  No furniture, dishes, pots, pans, or silverware. No mops, brooms, cleaning supplies, paper cups, toilet paper. No computers, printers, phones, photographs, or paper of any kind. It was mindboggling. To rid an entire house of so much evidence in such a short period of time—even a small house like Jenine’s—would require a large, experienced crew. These guys were consummate pros. One or more hit men had killed three people while a full crew of crime scene cleaners waited in the wings.

  In the refrigerator, there were two unopened bottles of water.

  “For us?” asked Quinn.

  “Apparently,” I said.

  Quinn started to reach for one. “You think they’re poisoned?”

  “I do.”

  “What do we do now?” Quinn asked. “Talk to the neighbors?”

  I didn’t think so. Surely someone spotted the dead driver before we did. They’d have called the cops. Fortunately for us, most of the police were either at the hotel or heading there. Whoever they could spare to check on our dead driver was probably on their way but likely stuck in traffic. Still, I figured we didn’t have much time.

  “You got a laptop in your luggage?” I asked.

  “I do.”

  “Let’s get out of here and drive somewhere we can get Wi-Fi.”

  “What about the water?” Quinn asked. “Should we leave them for the cops?”

  “There won’t be any prints on them. On the other hand, some rookie’s liable to get killed drinking one.” We opened them and poured the water down the sink and took the bottles with us to the car.

  When we got to Starbucks, Quinn remained with the driver and I took his cell phone and laptop inside. My first objective was to access the Web site where I’d discovered Jenine’s ad. I remembered seeing lots of girls on the site, and hopefully some were local. If so, I intended to contact them and see if they knew Jenine. Best case scenario, someone might give me a lead to follow.

  There were two locals on the site, Star and Paige. Star wouldn’t be talking, since I recognized her as the other dead girl in Jenine’s house.

  I called Paige and got her answering service. I left a message to return my call as soon as possible. Then I left the coffee shop and climbed into the front seat and waited. I looked at Quinn and tried not to smile. Times like these—his huge form crammed into the back seat, knees bent, head bowed, shoulders hunched—made me realize the effort it took just to be him. He was so large he could barely fit in the back seat of the town car.

  “You did a good job at the
hotel today,” I said. “Probably saved a half-dozen people.”

  Quinn shrugged. “I was on the clock.”

  In time, we would learn that local hospital personnel labored for days to service the injured, and many of the bodies they received were charred beyond identification. The initial death toll was one hundred and eleven, but within a week the final count turned north of a buck fifty.

  The phone rang, and I answered it.

  “This is Paige,” she said.

  “You sound gorgeous,” I said.

  She laughed. “Maybe we should stick to the phone then, just in case.”

  “Not a chance. I’ve already seen your picture.”

  “Ah,” she said. “So what did you have in mind?”

  “I was hoping we could meet for a cup of coffee, maybe chat awhile, get to know each other. If we’re compatible, we can take it from there.”

  “My standard donation is five hundred dollars an hour.”

  “I’ll double that if you can get here within the hour.”

  “Don’t be offended,” she said, “but are you affiliated in any way with law enforcement?”

  “I’m not. Are you?”

  She laughed. “No, but I played a sexy meter maid in a high school play a few years back.”

  “That might be fun to reenact some time,” I said, trying to guess where she might be heading with the comment. I wondered if her other clients sounded this retarded.

  “I still have the costume, so maybe we can talk about it when I get there,” she purred. “You’re fun; I can tell. Where would you like to meet, and how will I recognize you when I get there?”

  I told her and hung up. Then I told Quinn that Paige thought I sounded fun. He rolled his eyes.

  Paige was plenty cute, but she didn’t look like an aspiring actress. She didn’t look like a hooker, either. What she looked like was a soccer mom, which, as it turned out, she was. I slipped her the envelope, and she palmed it and placed it in her purse. She excused herself and went to the restroom. When she got back, she said, “That’s way more than we agreed on. Did you want to book more time?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I just wanted you to know I’m sincere.”

  We talked about our kids and our divorces. She talked about how different grade school had become since she was a kid. “When I was in school, if I wanted to do something after school, I had to ride there on my bike,” she said. “Or I didn’t participate. My kids have it easy. They’d never believe it, but I actually used to be somebody. These days I’m a glorified taxi driver.”

  “Well, I’ve probably got ten years on you,” I said. “But one thing that was different for me: my schools never had any moms like you!”

  She winked. “Maybe they did and you didn’t know.”

  I let that interesting thought float around in my head a minute, but the only mom I could remember clearly from grade school was Mrs. Carmodie, Eddie’s mom—Eddie being the kid with the cherry bombs. What I remembered most about Mrs. Carmodie was she had a double-decker butt. While normal butts curve like the letter C, Mrs. Carmodie’s butt got halfway through the C, then extended several inches in a straight line like some sort of shelf before finishing the curve. The shelf on her butt was wide enough to hold two cans of soda. Yet try as I might, I couldn’t envision Eddie’s mom turning tricks during the day while we were in school.

  The half hour flew by, and after we finished our coffees, I walked Paige to her car. Her silver Honda Accord had sixteen-inch Michelin tires with bolt-patterned alloy rims. She noticed the limo parked beside her.

  “I wonder whose car that is,” she said. “You think it’s someone famous?”

  “It’s mine, actually.”

  “No way!”

  “Want to peek inside?”

  She did, and when she did, Quinn grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her onto the seat. I followed her in and pulled the door shut behind me. Paige was breathing rapidly, and her heart was probably beating as fast as a frightened rabbit, but she knew better than to scream.

  “Where’s the driver?” I asked.

  “When you went in, I told him to take a walk and come back in an hour.”

  That left us a half hour to find out what Paige knew. Turns out, we only needed five minutes to learn something that hit me like a left hook to the liver.

  29

  “All of us had to share details about our customers with a man named Grasso,” Paige said.

  “By ‘all of us’ you mean?”

  “The local girls, the ones they consider hot.”

  “Jenine would obviously qualify.”

  “Yes. She’s one of the faves.”

  “What can you tell me about Grasso?”

  “Not too much. He works for a major gangster. I don’t want to say who.”

  I peeled off another grand and placed it in her hand. She looked into my eyes. “You didn’t get this from me.”

  “Of course.”

  She whispered, “Joseph DeMeo.” Then she said, “Please, mister, keep me out of this. I’ve got kids.”

  “I will,” I said, “but you’ve got to find another line of work. You’re not safe doing this. We won’t repeat anything you told us, but DeMeo knows you’re friends with Jenine and Star, and they’re gone now. You’ve got to get your kids and get the hell out of town. DeMeo won’t leave any loose ends. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  I kissed her cheek and let her go.

  An hour later, we pulled up to the guard station at Edwards. I flashed my credentials, and one of the guards informed me that all flights had been grounded due to the terrorist attack. I got Darwin on the phone, and within minutes the guard received orders from the base commander to open the gate. Our limo driver took us across the tarmac and parked us next to the company’s jet. Quinn reminded me to pop the trunk so he could retrieve his saxophone.

  “That reminds me,” I said, and sang, “You cain’t always get h’what you wa-hant!”

  Quinn’s facial deformity prevented him from smiling, but you could sometimes find amusement there if you knew how to interpret it. I was one of the few who did.

  “Always figured you for a Stones fan,” he said.

  The pilots, who had been glued to the TV in the auxiliary terminal, were now racing across the tarmac to open the cabin door for us.

  “It’ll take us fifteen minutes to get her ready for takeoff,” one of them shouted.

  Quinn and I climbed into the cabin. While he got situated, I poured us a drink. He said, “Is your cell phone broken? Reason I ask, you’ve checked it half a dozen times since the explosion.”

  “I sort of thought Janet might call,” I said.

  “Heard about the attack, wondered if you’re okay?” he said.

  “Stupid, right?”

  Quinn shrugged and held up his glass. “To ex-wives,” he said.

  We clinked glasses. “I’m not sure that counts,” I said. “You’ve never been married.”

  Quinn drank some of his bourbon. “Never been bitten by a yak, either.”

  I held a sip of the bourbon in my mouth a few seconds to enhance the burn. “Yak?” I said.

  He grinned.

  I swallowed the bourbon and took another sip. “Me, either,” I said. “That strike you as odd?”

  Quinn’s eyes started smiling again, or so it seemed to me. He said, “One time Coop told me he got bit by a yak. Said he was in India in a town whose name can’t be pronounced by anyone who’s not from Tibet. Said they made him drink tea made from yak butter.”

  “Yak butter,” I said.

  “Coop says the average man in Tibet drinks forty to fifty cups of tea every day of his life. The teapot always has a big lump of yak butter in it. You’re supposed to blow the yak butter scum out of the way before you take a sip,” Quinn said.

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Same thing I told Coop!”

  I nodded. “To Coop,” I said, and we touched glasses again. From the co
ckpit, I heard the pilots working through their preflight checklist. Quinn silently swallowed the rest of his bourbon. I followed his lead. The co-pilot opened the door and gave us a thumbs-up, and we buckled our seat belts and settled in for the long flight to Virginia. I looked out the window and for the first time it struck me that today had been clear and beautiful, just like New York City on 9/11.

  30

  The jet made quick work of the runway. Once airborne, I told the pilot to veer toward the hotel so I could witness the scene from above. However, within seconds, an F/A-18 Hornet pulled alongside us and escorted us northeast, out of LA airspace.

  The co-pilot opened the cabin door. “Sorry about that, Mr. Creed.”

  “You pussy,” I said.

  He frowned and went back to work, leaving me to contemplate the smoldering bodies I’d seen just hours ago. I pictured families and loved ones across the country desperately dialing cell phones that would never be answered. I wondered if, when the roof fell, how many rescue personnel had to be added to the death toll.

  After we hit cruising altitude, I called Victor. When he answered, I said, “How’d you do it?”

  “If … you’re … talk … ing … about the … spy … satel … lite … you can … tell … your … people … I’m … sorry. I … won’t … do it … again.”

  “You’re sorry?” I said. “You’re kidding, right? ’Cause they have ways to make you sorry. By the way, where’s Monica?”

  I heard a shuffling sound, and a guy with a high-pitched but otherwise normal voice took over. “Mr. Creed,” he said, “My name is Hugo.”

  “Hugo,” I said.

  “That is correct,” he said.

  “Your voice,” I said. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess you’re a little person.”

  “Also correct,” he said.

  “Okay, so I’m supposed to believe your names are Victor and Hugo. Who do you guys hang out with, HG and Wells?”

  “I do not know any HG and Wells,” he said. “I am Victor’s spiritual adviser.”

  “Spiritual adviser,” I said.