“Charlie! What are you doing?” she said, her voice harsh with fright. “Have you lost your mind?”
Brown frowned at her, as though he considered making such an accusation to someone with their finger on the trigger was not a sensible move. He wasn’t to know it wasn’t going to make any difference.
I was planning on shooting her anyway.
“You must have known I’d come for you,” I said and the rusty voice that came out of my mouth didn’t seem to belong to me. It didn’t even seem to be in the same room. “As soon as you had your men kill Sean, you must have known I’d come.”
“Kill Sean? What the hell are you talking about?” Gerri demanded blankly, still doing her best to look like she hadn’t the first idea what was going on here. “Meyer’s with you.”
“If Sean was with me, I wouldn’t be here,” I said with a softness that did little to reassure her. The buzzing inside my head had reached a roar now, enormous and unstoppable like a flight of rapids after the rains. I moved closer, still keeping the SIG out in front of me. The end of the barrel never wavered.
“What was it you said to me back at the motel? That I was just going to have to let him go?” I laughed, a travesty of the sound. “Well you were right about that, weren’t you, Gerri? They pulled what was left of him out of a swamp yesterday.” The ravening alligators I couldn’t reproduce, but I could certainly make sure I shot her somewhere so that she’d die slowly and painfully. I motioned with the SIG. “Stand up.”
Gerri clutched at the arms of her chair with those jewel-encrusted taloned claws like I couldn’t kill her if I couldn’t get her to her feet.
“For God’s sake,” she said, pale and very shaken now. “You have to listen to me! I didn’t kill Sean.” Her eyes skittered sideways imploringly to Brown, who was still sitting motionless behind the desk, looking shocked and grey as he listened to the exchange.
“Of course you didn’t,” I said, almost soothing. “You wouldn’t sully your own hands with something like that. You got Whitmarsh to do it for you. Or Haines.”
She reacted at the mention of the names of her accomplices. She couldn’t help herself. “Haines?” she said and she’d started to sweat now. I could see beads of it pearling along her hairline. “What the hell’s he got to do with this?”
“You know,” I said. With a bitter irony I added, “He should have killed me at the theme park, when he had his chance.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she said, louder like that was going to convince me. She glanced at Brown again. “She’s delusional. On something.”
I didn’t respond to that. I just stared at her coldly, watching as her bewilderment turned to anger, stoked by fear into iridescence. Her temper finally snapped.
“What the hell is it you want?” she shouted.
Even if I’d had an answer to that, I didn’t get the chance to utter it. At that moment the door was rammed open hard enough to embed the handle into the plasterboard wall alongside it.
I started to turn as soon as I caught the first sound but it was travelling slower than they were and I was already too late.
Two bulky figures came through the doorway in quick succession, moving hard. One bounced into a crouch, sweeping the room for additional threats with a big silvered Colt semiautomatic clasped in both hands, up and ready.
At the same time the other man simply kept running and hit me with all the ease of a truck taking down a deer that’s foolish enough to stand in the middle of the road. I was smacked straight off my feet and bowled over, crashing on top of the chair opposite Gerri’s and through the glass-topped occasional table alongside. The table, and the lamp that was sitting on it, both shattered as they hit the floor.
My bag went flying and I lost my grip on the SIG but didn’t see where either of them landed. The man was brutal and proficient in his efforts to subdue me without a prolonged fight, and surprise as well as weight was on his side. I never stood a chance.
It was over sooner than he was happy with and I caught a couple of unnecessary extra blows to compensate for his disappointment in that respect. It took a moment after he’d quit hitting me for my head to stop swimming.
When it did I found both the two men who’d burst into the room were standing over me. The one who’d knocked me down had picked up the SIG and was handling it with approval. The other had his own gun firmly trained on me.
They were big men with thick necks and biceps that strained the elasticity of their company polo shirt sleeves. The one with the Colt had rich dark skin and slightly flattened down features – part genetic, part boxer. The other was blond and had a pencil moustache nesting on his upper lip. They looked like thugs who’d scrubbed up well and weren’t entirely comfortable with smart casual attire. I didn’t recognise either of them.
I heard a chair go back and looked sideways to see Brown’s feet appear from round the other side of the desk. He was wearing suit trousers with turn-ups and shiny black shoes, and he walked like his feet hurt in them. He stopped a short distance away and looked at the two men.
“You boys took your goddamn time,” he growled.
“Sorry sir,” one of them rapped smartly, although sounding unrepentant. They’d arrived soon enough, his attitude clearly said, so what was the problem? “What do you want us to do with her?”
My scalp prickled at the prospect of a bullet in the stomach and a ride out to the swamp. More than that I tasted the sour tang of defeat, of failure. Gerri had been stalling me and I’d let her do it. I should have pulled the trigger the moment I’d walked into the office and I berated myself for the weakness of my hesitation. Even without Walt’s tape recorder running I realised I’d needed to hear her admit her guilt before I’d done it.
“Get her up,” Brown said now and I was hauled roughly to my feet. One of the men produced a set of plasticuffs from his back pocket and used it to yank my wrists together behind my back. I was a good six inches shorter than either of them but they kept a firm hold on my arms, just in case. I don’t know quite what they expected I was going to try and do, restrained and groggy. They started to push me towards the door.
“Now wait just a minute,” Gerri Raybourn said sharply, smoothing down her suit and retrieving her fallen shoe along with her dignity. “That little bitch was going to kill me. She’s not going anywhere until I’ve got some answers out of her.”
The men exchanged a brief glance that hinted they thought the only talking that anyone should be doing with me ought to involve a pair of steel-toecap boots. But they did as they were ordered, swivelling me back towards the desk and bracing me in front of it. It was like being forcibly stood to attention and I’d been through too much of that before.
Brown had moved back to his own side of the desk by this time. He sat down, letting out a slight grunt as his knees bent so far and then dropped him the rest of the way into his seat. For a moment he regarded me, his expression one of bemused perplexity. I tried to keep my own thoughts guarded, even though all I wanted to do was fall to my knees and weep.
“There’s nothing to be said,” I said, weary when I was trying for defiant. “Just get on with it.”
Gerri was on her feet and prowling. “Oh no, you don’t get away that easy,” she said, her voice tight and vicious now the threat was over. “You can’t just come barging in here and accuse me of murder when you’re the one who’s a goddamn murdering bitch.”
When I still didn’t speak she took a couple of quick steps forwards and backhanded me across the face. I wasn’t ready for it and my vision momentarily disintegrated into jagged cracks of dark and light.