Suddenly the cloakroom door burst open and a couple of noisy teenage girls entered, giggling when they clapped eyes on the state of Danny. She brushed regally past them and stormed — limp and all — out of the hospital.
The rain was still bucketing down but the wind had eased off. By the time Danny reached her car she was soaked to the skin again, hair plastered down her forehead.
If only she had been returning home to a husband or loving partner and some TLC. That would have made things much more bearable. But to go through all this and skulk back to an empty house, pleasant though it was, and wait, usually with disappointment, for her married lover to call by or ring, made her want to cry.
All she craved was some uncomplicated love. Was that too much to ask?
Chapter Two
As Danny Furness accelerated tiredly out of the hospital car park onto East Park Road, it was 11 p.m. British time. Three thousand miles to the west, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, in Miami, Florida it was 6 p.m., five hours behind. The weather in Dade County that day could not have been more of a contrast to its British counterpart. At its height the sun had pounded down an unbearable 90 degrees, making the city of Miami airless and oppressive… but now a light breeze whisked in across Biscayne Bay and promised a pleasant evening.
Perfect for dining out on the terrace, thought Steve Kruger, who had just wrapped up a day which had started eleven hours earlier. He was looking forward to getting home, throwing off his work suit and changing into baggy shorts, busting open a bottle of Hurricane Reef Lager and preparing the barbecue ready for the arrival of his son, daughter-in-law and their two kids.
It had been a long, tedious day at the office. Because it was the month-end and not a zillion miles away from the end of the financial year, Kruger had spent most of his time stuck behind his desk in air-conditioned splendour, neck-tie discarded, locked into strategic and tactical planning with his secretary, accountant and three company directors. Specific plans for next year and outline plans for the next three had been thrashed out.
Some of the more nuts-and-bolts stuff had also been finalised. Such as tidying up some files and putting together a huge batch of bad-debt bills which the secretary had posted off today. If they were all paid by return, Kruger’s cash flow would be $150,000 to the good. In reality he knew he’d be lucky to get 30 per cent of them paid off within six weeks. He’d been chasing one debtor’s ass for seven months — a lawyer, of all people — who owed over ten grand. Kruger had sent that son of a bitch a final FINAL demand, together with a mildly threatening letter which intimated — subtly — that no one ever welched on a Kruger Investigations Final Demand notice with success.
It had been a pleasure to dictate that letter, safe in the knowledge that it didn’t matter whether the guy paid up or not, because the one positive thing to emerge during the day was that Kruger Investigations’ net profits were going to be very healthy indeed. Five per cent up on the previous year. Somewhere in the region of two million dollars.
Not bad for a firm which had only begun operating five years earlier, employing only himself and his second wife (now ex) as a secretary. She had long gone, but Kruger had stayed at the helm and after a very worrying first eighteen months had built up a business employing forty people and fast approaching inter-state expansion time.
With these happy thoughts in mind, Kruger, bulky, muscle-bound, ex-Marine, ex-cop (Homicide), qualified lawyer, married and divorced three times (his third wife had also split), and the boss of one of the country’s fastest-expanding security agencies, whistled tunelessly whilst walking across the secure parking lot, jacket slung casually over his shoulder, to his Chevrolet Astra Van. Professionally speaking he was a very contented individual; in personal terms, though, at the age of forty-six, with three wrecked marriages behind him and no one in his life at present, he was nowhere near.
His van was a 1989 model which he’d owned from new. He also owned a Porsche and a Corvette, but preferred to drive the Chevy around the city. It gave him the advantage of height, a necessity in the Miami traffic, which had been described as worse than Rome, New York or Calcutta. He swung his lightweight jacket off his shoulder and fumbled in one of the pockets for the keys as he got closer to the vehicle.
Out of the corner of his right eye, Kruger caught the shadow of movement behind another parked car. A pair of feet belonging to someone crouched down, trying to hide. Kruger’s guts reacted with a little twirl. The peculiar bitter taste came into the back of his throat that was the first flush of adrenaline washing into his system.
Two possibilities immediately sprang to mind.
Robbery; or the angry husband of some client out for revenge.
The first option was the most likely. Kruger knew of two people who’d been rolled in this parking lot in the last month — even though it was advertised as Safe ‘n’ Secure 24 hours a day and the only way in and out was through barriers and past a gatekeeper.
Well, let’ em try, Kruger thought. His eyes shone. The prospect of a tussle fired him up.
The man rose from his hiding place, brushing down his suit. His suit? Didn’t look like any normal street mugger. Young. Smartly dressed. A touch of Hispanic somewhere in the blood. Could easily have been one of Kruger’s own operatives. Maybe he’d simply been tying his shoe-laces and maybe Kruger was putting more into the situation than was really there.
Until Kruger saw he was wearing loafers.
Okay, maybe he’d dropped something instead? Aw, what the hell, Kruger thought. Lemme get home. He fished out the van keys and the remote alarm, pointed and pressed. The vehicle responded with a high-pitched squawk and a double flash of the indicators. He opened the driver’s door, tossed his jacket across to the opposite seat.
‘ Hey, man,’ the guy called to him.
Kruger raised his eyebrows. He was still feeling uncomfortable, but at least there had been no attempt to approach him.
‘ Lost ma keys, wouldya believe it? You seen any?’
‘ No. Sorry, pal.’
‘ Damn — thanks anyway.’
The brief conversation had been just enough to put Kruger off guard, keep his attention fixed for a vital few seconds and allow the guy’s running partner to slip out from behind the Chevy, take two long strides so that he was directly behind Kruger and ram the muzzle of a. 22 right up under his left ear.
‘ Hands up, fella. Put’ em on the roof of the car.’
Kruger knew he could have easily turned, swept the gun away and disarmed this man, grounded him with a blow to the neck and probably one to the chest — but the position of the first guy and his unknown abilities made Kruger wary of trying anything rash.
He dropped the keys onto the tarmac and failed to keep a sneer of self-contempt off his face for missing the second guy who must have been just as easy to spot as the first one. If he’d been switched on enough.
Getting old and stale, he thought to himself.
He laid the palms of his hands obligingly on the burning hot metal roof of the van. ‘I’ve got sixty dollars and one credit card in my wallet,’ he explained calmly. ‘There’s a state-of-the-art cell-tel in my jacket an’ I don’t carry anything more with me.’ Then he thought, Shit, I hope they don’t notice my watch.
It was a Rolex Oyster Day-Date Chronometer in 18-carat gold with the President bracelet. He had bought it in London on the honeymoon of his third marriage, eighteen months before. Buying it had been one of those ‘Big Life Moments’, or ‘BLMs’ as he called them. Ever since he’d been a teenager reading National Geographic and seeing the Rolex ads in there on the wrist of some great adventurer or explorer, he’d promised himself that one day he would buy one. And when the time came, thirty years later — just as the firm was beginning to make real money — he had cherished the moment. In a grand, rather tacky gesture, he had paid hard cash. Truly a moment to remember and savour. Apart from when he made love (and sometimes even then), the Rolex had never left his wrist.