‘It’s their loss. They’re the idiots. Anyway, I’m not even sure that’s what Ruskin is talking about. And he’s such a bullshit artist, who knows what he’s going to tell me when we finally catch up with him. The only thing I know is that he’s convinced whoever hired him has sent somebody to kill him.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘I believe he believes that. Which doesn’t mean it’s actually true.’
‘And you have no idea where he’s hiding?’
‘None. But he also seems to believe that I’m the only one he can trust. He thinks a number of people on his side are involved. He can’t be sure which ones. That would go along with the conspiracy, of course. So I expect to hear from him.’
She sat back; a melancholy smile. ‘I really am a small-town girl. I thought it was a big deal to have a sitting senator from here and go to parties at his house occasionally where other sitting senators and well-connected political people were hanging out. But all this intrigue — I have to slow it down every couple of hours just to take it all in. And now Ruskin insisting somebody’s trying to kill him.’
‘Robert was set up. Nothing illegal was done on either side so there’s no case against it. A senator made a fool of himself over a pretty woman. In an election cycle that can make a difference between winning and losing. What they’d planned was simple. They’d leak some incriminating photos of the Cabot woman and Robert together — they’d have the hotel clerk testify that she was afraid of him; they’d have testimony that Robert was there in the parking lot clearly angry with her — and that would be that. Robert would be finished. The Cabot woman’s murder changed everything.’
The food was served and the aromas reminded me of how hungry I was.
The salmon and Caesar salad were both tasty and the second Scotch and water so good I knew I needed to cut myself off. Be pretty easy to sit here and get hammered, especially with Jane framed in the candlelight.
‘It’s just so nice to sit and relax for a while,’ Jane said. Then laughed. ‘I keep sounding older every year. More like my mom. She worked hard all her life — she raised my brother and me after my father decided he wanted to stay in the Navy and have a girl in every port — in a place that was a forerunner of Walmart. By the time I was a sophomore in high school I was an activist because I saw how big business treated people like my mother. Long hours, no health insurance, the threat of firing if the word got out that you even mentioned anything about unionizing. So several times a week after ten-to-twelve-hour days she’d sit at our little dinner table and let one of her shoes drop off so she could rub her foot and say, “It’s just so nice to sit here and relax for a while.” I’d been doing ninety percent of the housework and washing and ironing all the clothes since seventh grade to help her out. And my younger brother always had jobs. Thank God I got scholarships for college.’ She used her fork to point to her salad. ‘Sometimes when I eat at a good restaurant I feel guilty because my mom could never afford it. She died of heart disease. I wish there was time travel so I could take her to Chicago and buy her a nice dress and take her to a fancy restaurant and get her a good car. The old Chevy she drove was almost twenty years old.’ For a few moments she was a little girl again doting on the woman who bore her and loved her and raised her. And obviously raised her well. ‘She was a wonderful woman.’
‘I’m getting the same feeling about you.’
Too much. I’d embarrassed her; I couldn’t tell if she was blushing but her expression portrayed her discomfort. ‘I’m selfish and self-centered and have a bad temper. My mom was none of those things, Dev.’ I’d also managed to irritate her. She’d mythologized her mother into a perfect creature. Now I knew better than to try and argue with her.
My cell phone toned. It was Sarah, but at a speed and decibel that defied comprehension. All I was able to get on the first pass were the words ‘scared’ and ‘screaming.’
‘Sarah, Sarah. You have to slow down. I can’t understand you.’
Jane’s eyes were fixed on mine. She’d picked up on the alarm in my voice.
Sarah was sobbing now. ‘He ran out the door. I can’t believe he had the strength to do it.’
‘I assume you mean Howie?’
‘Yes! And Hawkins went after him.’
‘Hawkins? How did he know where you were?’
‘That’s just it. Howard said you told him. He said you sold us out so Hawkins could kill him.’ Everything she said was between sobs.
‘I couldn’t have told him. I don’t know where you are.’
‘The Sleep Tight. A motel out by the airport. If you didn’t tell him, I don’t know who did.’
But I knew. It wasn’t a person, it was a thing. A tracking device. Hawkins had slapped it on their rental just as he’d slapped one on mine. Where it had been the other night when he shot at but failed to kill Ruskin. That good ole buddy of mine, the finest bellman money could buy, Earl Leonard, had lied to me, of course. And Hawkins had paid him to lie, to provide him with an alibi so I wouldn’t think an investigator for a US Attorney, a patriotic cuss and a man among men, could possibly lie under any circumstances.
‘Sarah, Sarah, listen to me. Howard is right. Hawkins may be trying to kill him. I’m on my way. You just sit tight and wait for me.’
Now she was crying so hard she couldn’t even form words. I thumbed the phone off.
‘What’s going on?’
‘I can explain on the way, if you want to ride along.’
That smile of hers could get her into Top Secret rooms without a pass. ‘Of course I want to ride along.’
I waved the waiter over. ‘I’ll leave you a fifty-dollar tip if you can get us out of here in under three minutes.’
He needed fifteen seconds to compute what I’d said then he jerked the card so hard he almost took my hand off with it. And then he was running, yes, running, toward the cash register area.
We were a little more leisurely in our sojourn to the front of the restaurant. We merely jogged there.
The well-dressed middle-aged woman who would normally have processed our card had been pushed aside by the waiter. I knew this from the way her eyes and mouth were set in a Ted-Bundy-spots-his-prey look. Later she would see to it that the manager would take care of the matter for her. Castration with a butter knife would be only the beginning.
I had no idea if he’d made the three minutes or not, but I added fifty dollars to the bill and we rushed out of there.
I spotted our bellman Earl over by the elevators, but like the restaurant manager I’d have to wait until later for my vengeance. Jane and I raced to the hall that would take us to the side door and then the parking lot.
I shot out of the parking lot and into the dark, cold night. Suddenly Howie’s conspiracy theory sounded a lot more believable.
Twenty-Two
The red and blue emergency lights bouncing off low-hanging rain clouds told a story I didn’t want to hear. And we were still three blocks away from the motel.
The parking lot on the west side of the motel was set up for making a movie. All the props and people in place. You had your three police vehicles, your four uniformed coppers, your ambulance with the back door open and you had your crowd of motel guests all bundled up against the low thirties temp. It wasn’t even quite eight o’clock but a few of the women had nightgowns showing under the hems of their winter coats. And screeching into place seconds before I turned into the lot a van with CHANNEL 6 NEWS NOW! splashed across the side in red and yellow action colors.