The Winner

by David Baldacci

  the trailer like some hunting dog telling its master: There’s the kill.

  Two men dead, the story said. Drugs involved. As LuAnn read the name Duane Harvey, a teardrop splattered onto the page and blurred some of the text. She sat down and did her best to compose herself. The other man had not yet been identified. LuAnn read quickly, and then she stopped searching when she found her name. The police were looking for her right now; the paper didn’t say she had been charged with any crime, although her disappearance had probably only increased the police’s suspicions. She flinched when she read that Shirley Watson had discovered the bodies. A canister of battery acid had been found on the floor of the trailer. LuAnn’s eyes narrowed. Battery acid. Shirley had come back to avenge herself and had brought that acid to do the job, that was clear. She doubted, though, if the police would care about a crime that had not occurred when they had their hands full with at least two that had.

  While she sat staring in shock at the paper, another knock on the door almost made LuAnn jump out of her chair.

  “LuAnn?”

  She took a deep breath. “Charlie?”

  “Who else?”

  “Just a minute.” LuAnn jumped up, hastily ripped the news article out of the paper and stuffed it in her pocket. She slid the letter and the rest of the newspaper under the couch.

  She unlocked the door and he entered the room and shrugged off his coat. “Stupid idea, like I’m going to be able to spot somebody out on those streets.” He slid a cigarette from its pack and lit up, thoughtfully staring out the window. “Still can’t shake the feeling that somebody was tailing us, though.”

  “It could’ve just been somebody looking to rob us, Charlie. You got a lot of that up here, don’t you?”

  He shook his head. “Crooks have gotten more daring lately, but if that was the case, they would’ve hit us and run. Grabbed your purse and disappeared. It’s not like they were going to pull a gun and stick us up in the middle of a million people. I had the sense whoever it was was tracking us for a while.” He turned to stare at her. “Nothing unusual happened to you on the way up, did it?”

  LuAnn shook her head, staring back at him with wide eyes, afraid to speak.

  “Nobody followed you up to New York that you know of, did they?”

  “I didn’t see anybody, Charlie. I swear I didn’t.” LuAnn started to shake. “I’m scared.”

  He put a big arm around her. “Hey, it’s okay. Probably just paranoid Charlie going off on nothing. But sometimes it pays to be paranoid. Look, how about we go do some more shopping? It’ll make you feel better.”

  LuAnn nervously fingered the newspaper article in her pocket. Her heart seemed to be climbing up her throat, seeking a larger space in which to explode. However, when she looked up at him, her face was calm, bewitching. “You know what I really want to do?”

  “What’s that? Name it and it’s done.”

  “I want to get my hair done. And maybe my nails. They both look kinda crappy. And with the press conference going on across the whole country and all, I’d like to look good.”

  “Damn, why didn’t I think of that? Well, let’s just look up the fanciest beauty parlor in the phone book—”

  “There’s one in the lobby,” LuAnn said hurriedly. “I saw it coming in. They do hair and nails and feet, and facials, stuff like that. It looked real nice. Real nice.”

  “Even better then.”

  “Could you watch Lisa for me?”

  “We can come down and hang out with you.”

  “Charlie, I swear. Don’t you know nothing?”

  “What? What’d I say?”

  “Men don’t come down to the beauty parlor and watch the goings-on. That’s for us females to keep secret. If you knew how much trouble it takes to get us all pretty, it wouldn’t be nearly as special. But you got a job to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You can ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ when I get back and tell me how beautiful I look.”

  Charlie grinned. “I think I can handle that one.”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be. I might not be able to get in right away. There’s a bottle ready in the refrigerator for Lisa for when she gets hungry. She’s gonna want to play for a while and then you can put her down for a nap.”

  “Take your time, I’ve got nothing else on the agenda. A beer and cable TV” — he went over and lifted Lisa out of the baby carriage — “and the company of this little lady, and I’m a happy man.”

  LuAnn picked up her coat.

  Charlie said, “What do you need that for?”

  “I need to buy some personal things. There’s a drug store across the street.”

  “You can just get them in the gift shop in the lobby.”

  “If they’re anything like the prices at the last hotel, I’ll go across the street and save myself some money, thank you very much.”

  “LuAnn, you’re one of the richest women in the world, you could buy the whole damned hotel if you wanted.”

  “Charlie, I’ve been scraping pennies all my life. I can’t change overnight.” She opened the door and glanced back at him, trying her best to hide the rising anxiety she was experiencing. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Charlie moved over to the door. “I don’t like it. If you go out, I’m supposed to go with you.”

  “Charlie, I’m a grown woman. I can take care of myself. Besides, Lisa’s going to have to take a nap soon and we can’t leave her here by herself, can we?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  LuAnn slid an arm across his shoulder. “You look after Lisa and I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She gave Lisa a kiss on the cheek and Charlie a gentle squeeze on the arm.

  After she left, Charlie grabbed a beer from the wet bar and settled into his chair with Lisa on his lap and the TV remote in hand. He suddenly paused and looked over at the doorway, a frown appearing on his features as he did so. Then he turned back and did his best to interest Lisa in channel surfing.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  When LuAnn stepped from the cab she looked up at the towering presence of the Empire State Building. She didn’t have long to dwell upon the architecture, though, as she felt the arm slide around hers.

  “This way, we can talk.” The voice was smooth, comforting, and it made every hair on her neck stiffen.

  She pulled her arm free and looked at him. Very tall and broad shouldered, his face was clean-shaven, the hair thick and dark, matching the eyebrows. The eyes were big and luminous.

  “What do you want?” Now that she could actually see the man behind the note, LuAnn’s fear quickly receded.

  Romanello looked around. “You know, even in New York, we’re bound to attract attention if we conduct this conversation out in the open. There’s a deli across the street. I suggest we continue our chat there.”

  “Why should I?”

  He crossed his arms and smiled at her. “You read my note and the news article, obviously, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I read it,” LuAnn said, keeping her voice level.

  “Then I think it’s clear we have some things to discuss.”

  “What the hell do you have to do with it? Were you involved in that drug dealing?”

  The smile faded from the man’s lips and he stepped back for a moment. “Look—”

  “I didn’t kill nobody,” she said fiercely.

  Romanello looked around nervously. “Do you want everybody here to know our business?”

  LuAnn looked around at the passersby and then stalked toward the deli with Romanello right behind.

  Inside they found an isolated booth far in the back. Romanello ordered coffee and then looked at LuAnn. “Anything interest you on the menu?” he asked pleasantly.

  “Nothing.” She glared back at him.

  After the waitress departed, he looked at her. “Since I can understand your not wanting to prolong this discussion, let’s get to the heart of it.”

  “What’s your name?
”

  He looked startled. “Why?”

  “Just make up one, that’s what everybody else seems to be doing.”

  “What are you talking—” He stopped and considered for a moment. “All right, call me Rainbow.”

  “Rainbow, huh, that’s a different one. You don’t look like no rainbow I’ve ever seen.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong.” His eyes gleamed for an instant. “Rainbows have pots of gold at the end.”

  “So?” LuAnn’s tone was calm, but her look was wary.

  “So, you’re my pot of gold, LuAnn. At the end of my rainbow.” He spread apart his hands. She started to get up.

  “Sit down!” The words shot out of his mouth. LuAnn stopped in midrise, staring at the man. “Sit down unless you want to spend the rest of your life in prison instead of paradise.” The calm returned to his manner and he politely gestured for her to resume her seat. She did so, slowly, her eyes squarely on his.

  “I ain’t never been real good at games, Mr. Rainbow, so why don’t you say whatever the hell it is you want to say and let’s be done with it.”

  Romanello waited for a moment as the waitress returned with his coffee. “You sure you don’t want some? It’s quite chilly outside.”

  The chill in LuAnn’s eyes compelled him to move on. He waited until the waitress had set the coffee and cream down and asked if they wanted anything else. After she left, he leaned across the table, his eyes bare inches from LuAnn’s. “I was at your trailer, LuAnn. I saw the bodies.”

  She flinched for an instant. “What were you doing there?”

  He sat back. “Just happened by.”

  “You’re full of crap and you know it.”

  “Maybe. The point is, I saw you drive up to the trailer in that car, the same one in the newspaper photo. I saw you pull a wad of cash out of your kid’s baby seat at the train station. I saw you make a number of phone calls.”

  “So what? I’m not allowed to make phone calls?”

  “The trailer had two dead bodies and a shitload of drugs in it, LuAnn. That was your trailer.”

  LuAnn’s eyes narrowed. Was Rainbow a policeman sent to get her to confess? She fidgeted in her seat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never seen no bodies. You musta seen somebody else get out of that car. And who says I can’t keep my money wherever the hell I want to keep it.” She dug her hand into her pocket and pulled out the newspaper article. “Here, why don’t you take this back and go try scaring somebody else.”

  Romanello picked up the piece of paper, glanced at it, and put it in his pocket. When his hand returned to view, LuAnn could barely keep from trembling as she saw the torn piece of bloody shirt.

  “Recognize this, LuAnn?”

  She struggled to maintain her composure. “Looks like a shirt with some stains on it. So what?”

  He smiled at her. “You know, I didn’t expect you to remain this calm about it. You’re a dumb chick from Hooterville. I pictured you dropping to your knees pleading for mercy.”

  “Sorry I ain’t what you imagined. And if you call me a dumb anything again, I’ll knock you flat on your ass.”

  His face suddenly became hard and he slid down the zipper of his jacket until the butt of his 9-mm was revealed. “The last thing you want to do, LuAnn, is make me upset,” he said quietly. “When I get upset, I can be very unpleasant. In fact I can be downright violent.”

  LuAnn barely glanced at the weapon. “What do you want from me?”

  He zipped the jacket back up. “Like I said, you’re my pot of gold.”

  “I ain’t got any money,” she said quickly.

  He almost laughed. “Why are you in New York, LuAnn? I bet you’ve never been out of that godforsaken county before. Why of all places did you take off for the Big Apple?” He cocked his head at her, waiting for an answer.

  LuAnn rubbed her hands nervously across the uneven surface of the table. She didn’t look at him when she finally spoke. “Okay, maybe I knew what happened in that trailer. But I didn’t do nothing wrong. I had to get out, though, because I knew it might look real bad for me. New York seemed as good as anyplace.” She looked up to test his reaction to her explanation. The mirth was still there.

  “What are you going to do with all the money, LuAnn?”

  She nearly crossed her eyes. “What are you talking about? What money? In the baby seat?”

  “I would hope you weren’t going to try and stuff one hundred million dollars in a baby seat.” He eyed her chest. “Or, despite its obvious capacity, your bra.” She just stared at him, her mouth open a notch. “Let’s see,” he continued, “what’s the going price for blackmail these days? Ten percent? Twenty percent? Fifty percent? I mean, even at half, you’re still talking millions in your bank account. That’ll keep you and the kid in jeans and sneakers for life, right?” He took a sip of his coffee and sat back, idly fingering the edges of his napkin while he watched her.

  LuAnn clamped a fist around the fork in front of her. For a moment she thought about attacking him, but that impulse subsided.

  “You’re crazy, mister, you really are.”

  “The press conference is tomorrow, LuAnn.”

  “What press conference?”

  “You know, that’s where you’re going to hold that big old check and smile and wave to the disappointed masses.”

  “I’ve gotta go.”

  His right hand shot across and gripped her arm. “I don’t think you can spend that money from a prison cell.”

  “I said I gotta go.” She jerked her hand free and stood up.

  “Don’t be a fool, LuAnn. I saw you buy the lottery ticket. I was at the lottery drawing. I saw the big smile on your face, the way you ran down the street whooping and hollering. And I was inside the lottery building when you went to get your winning ticket validated. So don’t try to bullshit with me. You walk out of here and the first thing I’m going to do is place a call to that Podunk county and that Podunk sheriff and tell them everything I saw. And then I’m going to send them this piece of shirt. You can’t believe the high-tech stuff they’ve got in the lab these days. They’ll start piecing it together. And when I tell them you just won the lottery and maybe they should grab you before you disappear, then you can just kiss your new life good-bye. Although I guess you can afford to put your kid up somewhere nice while you rot in jail.”

  “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

  “No, what you did was stupid, LuAnn. You ran. And when you run, the cops always figure you’re guilty. It’s how cops think. They’ll believe you were in it up to your pretty little ass. Right now, they haven’t gotten around to you. But they will. It’s up to you to decide whether they start focusing on you ten minutes from now, or ten days from now. If it’s ten minutes, you’re dead. If it’s ten days, I figure your plan is to disappear forever. Because that’s what I intend to do. You only pay me once, that I’ll guarantee. I couldn’t spend all that money even if I tried and neither could you. We all win that way. The other way, you lose, slam-dunk. So what’s it gonna be?”

  She stood frozen for a moment halfway out of her chair. Slowly, inch by inch, she sat back down.

  “Very smart of you, LuAnn.”

  “I can’t pay you half.”

  His face darkened. “Don’t be greedy, lady.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with that. I can pay you, I just don’t know how much, but it’ll be a lot. Enough for you to do whatever the hell you want to.”

  “I don’t understand—” he began.

  LuAnn interrupted, borrowing phraseology from Jackson. “You don’t have to understand nothing. But if I do this I want you to answer one question for me and I want the truth or you can just go and call the cops, I don’t care.”

  He eyed her cautiously. “What’s the question?”

  LuAnn leaned across the table, her voice low but intense. “What were you doing in that trailer? You just didn’t happen on by, I know that sure as I’m sitting here.”
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br />   “Look, what does it matter why I was there?” He threw his arm up in a casual motion.