I tried not to grind my teeth at her refusal to admit defeat. “Nice to see the myth of the dumb blonde lives on,” I said conversationally. “What do you hope to gain by keeping up this act?”
“I’m not the one who needs a new act, Charlie,” she shot back, lip curling. “Maybe you’ll have time to think on that while you’re rotting in a penitentiary somewhere serving your life sentence.”
“If anyone’s going to prison, Gerri,” I said, giving it a little more bite this time, “that will be you.”
“Ladies, please,” Brown said, starting to look nervous. “Quiet down, huh? I don’t want no cat-fight in here.”
“Quite,” I drawled, pointedly dabbing my fingertips against my cheek. It had stopped bleeding and was starting to scab over.
Gerri’s gaze ran over me briefly, lingering on the wound she’d inflicted as if next time she’d like to rip my throat out and spit down the hole.
Not if I get to you first . . .
Brown took a slurp of his coffee and swallowed before he turned to me. “So what was it you said about Trey being part of some program?”
“Keith was writing a program that would accurately predict the stock market,” I explained. “He was having problems getting part of it to work but Trey has apparently solved the problem. Something to do with the neural network, I believe. I don’t understand the technicalities.”
Brown’s eyebrows went up, matching the wispy scraps of hair on his high domed head. “Young Trey?” he said, sounding doubtful. “I mean, I know he’s a bright kid an’ all, but you really reckon he’s done something his dad couldn’t?”
“No, of course he couldn’t,” Gerri snapped. “It’s ridiculous to think for a moment that he could. Keith’s a highly talented programmer, otherwise the company we work for wouldn’t be basing just about their entire future on his work.”
“So why was Whitmarsh trying to kill Trey right up to the point where he found out that the kid might be involved with the program? Then, all of a sudden, Whitmarsh has a chance to shoot the pair of us but he lets us get away because he’s afraid of damaging him.”
“How did he find out that Trey was involved?” Brown asked.
“Trey went to a guy he knew called Henry for help,” I said, not adding my own feelings on the subject. “But Henry contacted Whitmarsh to sell us to the highest bidder. After he’d tried to up the price by telling Whitmarsh what the boy was really worth, Henry attempted to lure us into a trap and when it didn’t quite go according to plan he got a bullet in the brain from Haines for his trouble.”
Brown went silent, his placid face troubled. “So where’s the boy now?”
“He’s safe,” I said, thinking of Xander and Aimee who were standing guard over him. And Walt, ready to take over if anything went wrong. Not to mention Special Agent in Charge Till, and all that he represented.
“Oh I get it,” Gerri said with contempt. “You don’t make a phone call by a certain time and he and Keith both get it. Am I right?”
“Something like that,” I agreed, wondering why I hadn’t thought of telling them something along those lines in the first place.
“Well,” she said, smiling nastily at me as she blew that one out of the water, “I’m sure the cops will sweat it out of you in plenty of time to retrieve them both.”
She finished her coffee and got to her feet, like this conversation was over. I studied her but couldn’t find the faintest sign of panic.
Why on earth had her men killed to prevent Trey and me falling into police hands if she was so eager to see me put there now? It didn’t make sense. Unless she was just trying to get me out of here, to get me somewhere quieter and with less witnesses.
“Don’t you think it might be an idea to check out what she says, even just a little?” Brown asked and I could have cheered at the cool note that had crept into his voice when he spoke to her.
Gerri gave a short laugh. “Why?” The laugh died when she caught the solemn expression on his face. “Oh come on, Livingston! How long have we known each other? You surely can’t believe a word this lying little bitch tells you?”
Brown made a ‘maybe, maybe not’ gesture with his hand. “Don’t do no harm to check it out, even so,” he said easily.
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“Let her call your feller Whitmarsh and offer to make a deal with him for the boy,” Brown said. “If he’s as crooked as she reckons, he’ll go for it.” He smiled at me and those bright, clever eyes stared out from beneath their droopy lids like he was a young man inside a geriatric costume mask. “And if he does, well I guess we’ll just take things from there.”
***
Gerri didn’t like it. In fact if she’d liked it any less she would have been wailing but clearly she wasn’t in charge here. Brown pushed the heavy cream telephone he’d been using when I’d first burst into his office across the desk towards me. Then he opened one of the drawers and began pawing through the contents.
“My late wife, God rest her, used to love those gadget catalogues,” he said while he searched. “You know the ones? A thousand answers to questions you never needed to ask? She was always buying me stuff I never had the heart to send back. Ah, here we are.”
He pulled out a small tape recorder, similar to the one that Walt had given me. It jogged my memory and I slid my eyes sideways and spotted the strap of my bag, just poking out from underneath the broken chair.
Brown, meanwhile, was untangling the wires that came with his recorder, which had knotted themselves together the way wire or string has a tendency to do when it’s left to its own devices and gets bored. When he’d unravelled these they separated out to reveal a set of headphones at the end of one, and a small sucker at the end of the other.
“You kinda stick that to the receiver, then you can tape your phone conversations,” Brown said, checking the batteries were still working in the recorder. “I used it once or twice, just for fun. Can’t remember the last time.”
He attached the sucker to the side of the handset and pressed the record buttons, then Gerri stabbed in the number of Whitmarsh’s mobile phone. Her movements were impatient, her lips compressed. Would her man betray her, I wondered, or was he too canny for that?
She and Brown shared the headphones, putting their heads together awkwardly so they could have one earpiece each. The phone rang out four or five times before Jim Whitmarsh picked up. I don’t know what number appeared on the display at his end, but his voice was wary.
“Yeah?”
“Whitmarsh,” I said. “It’s Charlie Fox.”
Gerri Raybourn and I silently locked gazes while I spoke. She sat with her body rigid, as though she was being made to listen to an obscene phone call.
There was a pause at the other end of the line, then I heard Whitmarsh let his breath out in a long rush, close to a sigh with a soft laugh at the end of it.
“Well now, Charlie,” he said, voice rich with satisfaction like he’d always known I wouldn’t be able to resist him for long. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Cut the crap,” I said. “Do you still want the kid?”
“Trey?” Whether it was the abrupt tone or the offer, I felt his surprise. His interest quickened. “You bet.”
“Dead? Or alive?”
He laughed again. He had a slightly wheezy laugh, as though he was a heavy smoker. “If I’d wanted him dead, neither one of you would have walked away from us yesterday,” he said, coldly matter-of-fact.
“Well, I’m offering him to you now,” I said. “What’s it worth to you?”