I didn’t have a map of northern Virginia in the car, so I stopped at a convenience store in Manassas and purchased one. Thirty minutes later I was cruising a subdivision in Burke, Virginia, looking for my car.
There it sat, red and dirty, in the driveway of Erlanger’s house.
I drove past and looked the neighborhood over. It was a newer suburb, with twisty streets with cutesy names that were all dead-ends and small two-story houses painted earth tones. Judging from the size of the decorator trees, the subdivision was perhaps three years old. Every house had a garage and driveway — no cars parked on the street. Lots of streetlights, fenced backyards for dogs and tots.
If the FBI was also onto Erlanger, they were here, somewhere, watching and waiting for me. Even if they hadn’t yet learned that she had survived the massacre that morning, if they had the telephone line to the lock shop tapped, they were here or on their way.
I didn’t see anyone in any of the cars.
They might be waiting in Erlanger’s house.
Only one way to find out. I parked in her driveway beside my car. The MP-5 was just visible behind the seat of the old Mercedes. The driver’s door was locked.
But not the passenger door!
The electric door lock was broken, had been for months — the passenger door had to be locked manually. Obviously Erlanger hadn’t checked the passenger door after she pushed the button.
I kept a spare key in a magnetic box under the driver’s seat. I was sorely tempted to jump in the Benz and boogie. With the key in hand, I stood beside the car for a few seconds thinking about it.
Kelly Erlanger was a ditz — stealing my car proved that. The last thing I wanted to do was play white knight to some dingdong airhead who thought I might be a hit man.
I could always call the guy in Staunton and tell him where his heap was, mail him the key.
Of course, the guys who smacked all those people this morning were still running around loose, and the people who sent them were going to get aggravated at me before too long.
The light was on in Erlanger’s living room. I saw no heads looking out. The daffy broad was probably calling the damned cops.
I muttered a four-letter word that I thought summarized the situation and transferred the submachine gun to the rental heap. My clothes and some burglary tools were in the trunk of the Benz, so I transferred them, too. God knew when I’d see this heap again — and the Benz was completely paid for. I spotted my emergency roll of duct tape, pocketed that. I closed the Benz’s trunk, made sure it latched, then selected a pick as I walked up to her front door.
I could hear something going on in there — music or a voice.
Five dollars against a doughnut she was talking to the 911 operator.
I twisted the knob on her door, made sure it was locked, then inserted the pick.
The thought occurred to me that I was going to be in big, big trouble if she had a gun. She had struck me as a politically correct academic, which meant feminist, pro-life, anti-gun, and all the rest of the chorus, but what the hell, these days you never knew. Maybe she carried a shooter in her purse just in case. Please God, don’t let her shoot me!
I raked the pick while maintaining pressure on the knob. I felt one of the tumblers go up. I raked the pick savagely, releasing and reapplying subtle pressure to the knob, trying to make all the tumblers pop up at once and catch them there.
After six or eight rakes, the door opened. Yes!
She was on the phone, staring at me wild-eyed, screaming, “He’s coming through the door now!” I must have been a fearsome sight — it had been a long day and I had seen too many dead people, some of whom I killed myself.
I bounded across the room and popped her once on the jaw before she had time to rabbit. She went down like a sack of potatoes.
The suitcase full of paper was right there on the floor by the coffee table. She had been going through the contents when I showed up.
I shoved everything into the suitcase and tried to close it. Had to put it on the floor and use a knee on it to get the latches snapped. Then I threw her over my shoulder. Out on the porch I put the suitcase down and closed the door until it latched. I must not have been thinking too clearly, because I took the time to wipe off the doorknob. As if they didn’t know who I was.
The suitcase went in the trunk of the heap. She went in the passenger seat.
Out on the street I glanced at my watch. How much time did I have?
I drove toward the subdivision exit as far from her house as I could get and still see her driveway, which was only about seventy yards due to the way the street curved. There was a house sitting there with black windows and a FOR SALE sign in the yard, so I backed into the driveway and killed the engine. Then I used the duct tape on her wrists and mouth, then taped the seat belt to her arms so she couldn’t pull them out of the belt. She was moaning and starting to come around as I snapped the seat belt in place to hold her. I checked her jaw — didn’t seem to be broken, although the bruise was turning yellow and purple and swelling up right before my eyes.
She came to slowly, began thrashing as she realized she was restrained, eyed me wildly.
“Did you call 911?”
A look of defiance crossed her face.
“We’ll just sit here and see who shows up,” I said, and rolled down my window to let some air in — and so I could hear a chopper overhead, if one showed up.
After two or three minutes, she calmed down. At least she stopped squirming, trying to get loose. I ignored her facial expressions, just watched the street. I had about decided that everyone in the neighborhood had burrowed in for the night when a hardy soul wearing a raincoat came along walking his dog. Apparently the dog needed a potty break rain or shine. The man paid no attention to us in the car, didn’t even look our way.
Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. I checked my watch occasionally. After twenty minutes had gone by, I remarked, “These Virginia cops are certainly Johnny-on-the-spot. Good thing you weren’t getting murdered or raped, huh?”
After twenty-two minutes a ten-year-old rattletrap rolled down the street — woofers thudding — and parked in a driveway two doors away from Erlanger’s house. The driver went inside.
The bad guys arrived in two unmarked cars twenty-seven minutes after I parked in the driveway. I pushed her down and ducked my head as they went by. The cars went slowly down the street, one behind the other. At least two men in each car. They stopped in front of Erlanger’s house, doused the lights.
“Doesn’t look like cops to me,” I remarked. “Plainclothes, no cruisers.”
She was watching intently. Although the distance was about seventy yards, the streetlight beyond her house limned the men. One of the four men stayed by the cars while the others went toward the house, out of our line of sight.
“Seen enough?” I asked her.
For the first time she looked my way. There was fear in her eyes.
I started the car, snapped on the lights, and got under way toward the subdivision entrance. No one followed me.
When we were rolling out on the freeway, I ripped the tape from her mouth. She screamed.
“Hurts like hell, doesn’t it?”
“Who are you?”
“I told you, lady. Tommy Carmellini, CIA.”
“Who were those men back there?”
“They sure as hell weren’t street cops speeding to assist an honest taxpayer in distress.”
“They came to kill me, didn’t they?”
“Probably.” I shrugged. “A friend of mine got your address from the telephone company. The only reason I reached you first is because I knew your name.”
“Why me, for God’s sake?”
“Someone doesn’t want Goncharov’s notes read by anyone. You’ve seen them. You might know too much.”