16
He was still up there. Watching. The sun was out again, and would glint occasionally off the binoculars, and that’s how I knew. He was up there, in that dingy little efficiency apartment, on the second floor of that decaying yellow woodpile that used to be a mansion, watching out the window, watching the brown brick house across the way.
I’d been here all afternoon, sitting in the Buick, parked along the street across from where the apartment house parking lot met the castle’s lawn. I was still dressed casually, like a college kid, and the nine-millimeter was in my lap, with Penthouse over it. It was five-thirty, and it had been a boring afternoon, but I’d found out what I came to find out.
They were going through with it.
It was a job that should have been scrapped a couple times already, but they were going through with it.
Last night Ash seriously screwed up, going in to make the kill and finding an empty house. That alone was enough to consider shelving all plans, stepping aside to let some other team come in and handle it, at a later date.
Then today, over a plate of sweet and sour shrimp, he’d learned from me I’d been in town a couple days and had been watching him and his backup man, and knew they were planning to hit somebody in that brown brick house, and had pretended even to have been taking pictures, of ’em, as I went.
And still they were going through with it.
I’d allowed Ash all afternoon to get in touch with his backup, plenty of time to tell the bogus hippie to get the hell out, which was the only logical thing to do in the situation. But here it was five-thirty, and there the guy was, sitting at his window, with his binoculars, watching the brown brick house across the way.
They were going through with it.
In spite of screwing up last night.
In spite of me.
And that meant whoever lived in that brown brick castle over there was somebody pretty goddamn special. Special enough to make a professional like Ash take risks he would normally never think of taking.
Somebody who had something to do with the takeover of Broker’s operation, maybe. Otherwise, what the hell was Ash doing behind a gun? Ash wasn’t a hit man, anymore. He was an organization man. Second in command. Setting jobs up, not carrying them out. Now that Ash was moving up the criminal corporate ladder, it would take some very special target to rate his attention.
I sat there wondering who lived in that brown brick castle, wishing I’d checked into it sooner, not having realized before the importance of the potential victim living in that house, wondering if it would do any good to take down the address and go over to the public library and check the city directory, where I could match a name to the address, but who was to say that name would mean anything to me?
I got an answer to my question almost immediately, and without going to any library.
Just after six the Pontiac Grand Prix pulled out from the garage on the other side of the brick house, and glided out of the driveway and into the street. The car skimmed right by me, but the driver didn’t notice me.
I noticed the driver.
She was on her way to meet me for an evening swim, even though I hadn’t got around to calling her.
17
She was in a phone booth, in the Concort lobby, when I caught up with her.
I knocked on the glass, she opened the door and gave me an embarrassed look, and said, “I was just trying your room…”
“Never mind that.”
“… you must think I’m terrible, chasing you like this. If you’d wanted to see me, you’d have called. I had no right coming around here and…”
I grabbed her by the arm and squeezed. Hard.
“I said never mind that.”
“Wh… what’s wrong? You’re hurting me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, easing my grip but not letting go.
“What’s this all about, Jack?”
“You really don’t know, do you, Carrie?”
“Know what?”
“Listen. Later we can sort this out. Right now I want to get you out of here, okay?”
“Why.”
“Because someone’s going to try to kill you.”
At first she smiled, at first she thought I was putting her on, but then she studied my expression and thought a minute, and it sobered her.
“Does this have anything to do,” she said, “with my husband being killed?”
“Yes, it does… and unless you’re in a real hurry to join him, why don’t you come with me?”
“Jack,… I really don’t know who you are. I mean, I… please don’t misunderstand… but you’re just a man I slept with once. Hell, not even that. We just, well, I just got laid by you a couple times, and that’s about all there is to it, between us. That’s about all I know about you.”
“That’s all I know about you, too, Carrie.”
“No. No, you know more. I don’t want to go anywhere with you until you explain this to me so I can understand it, all of it. Don’t try to force me. I have friends here at the hotel I can turn to, if necessary. Some of them within earshot.”
“You only have one friend in this hotel, Carrie, and I’m it. That you can depend on, anyway… anybody else here, who you consider a friend, is a friend through your late husband, am I right? And his friends, well, they may not be.”
She considered that for a while, then finally said, “I’ll go with you to your room. We can talk there. You had me there alone before, and didn’t do anything to me I didn’t want done, so… that much I’m willing to do. Then we’ll see where we go from there…”
I didn’t like it, really, but on the other hand I needed to clear my things out of the room, anyway; I didn’t want to be hanging around this hotel anymore, and while nothing I’d brought with me ought to be too terribly incriminating, you never can tell. So I said okay, and we got on an elevator and had it to ourselves, thankfully. I looked at her, and she seemed shaken, but certainly not unhinged. I wished I was just taking her up there to climb in the sack with her again; she really looked fine, in her clinging sweater and slacks outfit, the same light blue as her eyes. I put that out of my mind, and asked her if there was any place I could hide her out for a few days.
“Like what sort of place?” she said.
“Do you have some girl friend who’s out of town, and has a temporarily vacant apartment? Something like that?”
“Well. I think I have something better, if you’re really serious about this.”
“I’m nothing if not serious, Carrie.”
“It’s a cottage. On the Mississippi.”
“Secluded?”
“Very much so. There’s a bridge out on the only road that leads to the place. We can get there by another road, but’ll have to walk the last half-mile or so.”
“That sounds all right. That sounds pretty good.”
“The bridge’s only been out a few weeks, and the cottage hasn’t even been shut down for the winter yet. There’s still lights, and water. No heat, though. The place isn’t heated, except for an old wood-burning stove.”
The elevator doors slid open and we were on my floor. We didn’t speak as we walked toward the room, and as I was digging in my jacket pocket for the key, I heard some noises corning from behind the door.
I raised a finger to my lips, and took her by the arm and led her back to the waiting area by the elevators.
“Somebody’s in there,” she whispered.
“That’s right,” I said.
“What are you going to do?”
“Go in and see who it is.”
“Is that… wise?”
“Wise? I don’t suppose so.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get back on the elevator, go down one floor, and wait. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”
“What if you don’t?”
“What if I don’t what?”
“Join me. What if you never show up.”
I punched the down button.
“Then you’re on your own,” I said.
I put her on the elevator, and she gave me a look like a person descending into purgatory, as the doors eased shut.