The TV came at him in slow motion, and Junior swung one arm to try and block it. He didn’t have any choice, he had to bat it aside or it would bash his head in. He connected with it all right, but his arm was bent, and his elbow hit the glass. The screen popped! and spewed glass everywhere.
He felt a shard slice open his arm above the elbow, and worse, his elbow was caught in the busted TV.
While he was prying his bleeding elbow out of the TV and cutting himself more, Joan vanished. He finally jumped up, blood slinging all over the place, and lurched after her. Before he cleared the bedroom, though, he heard the front door open, and the screen door slam shut behind her. He ran, started outside, then realized he was naked.
It pulled him up short. A naked, bleeding man running after a half-naked woman? That would draw attention in any neighborhood, even this one. He could not have somebody calling the cops before he shut Joan’s mouth for good.
He ran back for his pants. He could take a few more seconds. She wouldn’t get far on foot.
He sprinted into the bedroom.
His jeans were gone.
Joan must have grabbed them on the way out.
He cursed, then grabbed a hand towel and wrapped it around his bleeding arm. He took another one from the floor and pulled it around his waist. Then he ran for the front door.
The rental car was gone, too.
He stood there. The keys had been in his jeans’ pocket. So had his wallet, with most of his ID and cash, plus a couple of bogus credit cards. She was dressed, at least partially, in a T-shirt, and she had his pants. He was bleeding like a stuck pig wrapped in nothing but a towel. He couldn’t go out like this.
Oh, man. He was well and truly up the creek now. What was he going to do? He had to find her!
But, how?
There had been a few hotels in the area named after the two U.S. Presidents who’d worn the name “Roosevelt.” This one was new — actually, it was an old hotel that had been called something else and refurbished a couple years back, and as a result it had the old elegance, but with clean new furnishings.
Toni and Alex arrived and went to the bar. He didn’t see Cory Skye, but they weren’t there twenty seconds before a tall and skinny bellhop appeared and approached them. “Are you Commander Michaels?”
“Yes?”
“Ms. Skye begs your pardon, but she has to pack and leave earlier than she expected. She asks if you would meet her in her room.”
Alex glanced at Toni. The bellhop hadn’t seemed to notice her, or at least hadn’t been bothered that she was there.
“She’s in three-sixteen,” the bellhop said.
Alex turned to Toni. “What do you think?”
“I think your suspicions were right,” she said.
Alex nodded. “Let’s go home,” he said.
Toni frowned. “What? Why? I mean, seriously, Alex, how does this change anything?”
Alex glanced at the bellhop, who was still standing there, apparently waiting for a tip. “Would you please convey my regrets to Ms. Skye,” he asked. “Tell her I was called away on an emergency, and ask her to call me when she gets back into town.”
The bellhop, who was maybe twenty or so, said, “Are you sure about that, sir? I, uh, got the impression the lady was really looking forward to seeing you.”
“I’m sure.” Alex pulled a twenty from his wallet and handed it to the bellhop.
“Yes, sir. Have a nice night.”
Alex turned back to Toni. “I’ve been thinking about what Tommy Bender says about this guy, Mitchell Ames. The thing is, hon, he deals in suggestion and innuendo every bit as much as he deals in facts. With you along, I had no problem meeting her in a bar. No one, not even this shark, could twist that into anything that could be used against us.”
“I know, Alex,” Toni said. “That’s why I came along. What I don’t understand is how it’s different now.”
“Because it’s not a bar anymore. It’s her room. Can you imagine him putting her on the stand and asking her, ‘I understand, Ms. Skye, that Alex Michaels, the commander of Net Force, came to your hotel room.’ Can you see what that would plant in the jury’s mind?”
“But we’d have the chance to set it straight,” Toni said.
“Yes, but by then it would be too late. Tommy wouldn’t have the right to protest the question, so he wouldn’t have a chance to clear things up until he got to cross-examination, and by then the idea would have sat in the jury’s heads for too long. It’s kind of like the judge instructing them to ignore something they’ve heard. They can’t do it. You can’t unhear something, and you can’t forget something just because the judge tells you to.”
“Suggestion and innuendo,” Toni said.
“Exactly. If I had come alone, nothing would have happened. You know that. But for him to say that we met for a drink would have been enough. It would have damaged me in the eyes of the jury, made it easier for them to believe the other things he’ll say about us. Going to her room, even with both of us there, does the same thing.”
She nodded. “You’re right,” she said.
Alex sighed, suddenly feeling very tired of all the political maneuverings. “Let’s go home,” he said.
27
Ames was tooling along in his new chocolate-colored Mercedes, pushing it a little. He was doing seventy-five and was still a dozen miles or so south of Waterbury on I-84, on his way north.
He was driving up from the city for an estate sale in Wolcott, just north of Waterbury. A rich old lady he had met a couple of times, Marsha Weston, had recently passed away, leaving a medium-sized fortune and some outstanding antiques. She had owned a grandfather clock brought over from Europe a couple hundred years ago that he thought would go perfectly in his entry hallway, and he didn’t expect there would be anybody showing up for the sale who could outbid him for it. The Westons were old money, though the younger ones had gone into computers and had a fair amount of stock in several of the larger hardware companies. It was his hope that they didn’t have any interest in Granny’s moldy old furniture. But he figured if they had, the clock would never have been put up for sale.
Thinking of computers, he remembered he was going to call his pet hacker today to make arrangements for another payment.
Ames reached into the center console and removed one of the four throwaway cell phones he had there. He used a memory trick he’d learned in med school to bring the hacker’s number to mind, thumbed it in as he passed a refrigerated tractor trailer hauling frozen fish sticks, and waited for the connection.
“Thumper,” came the deep voice.
He shook his head. The hacker used a voice-altering device on his calls, a precaution that Ames thought was a waste of time. They never said anything that would identify either of them, and the cell phone Ames was using was never going to be used again. Surely the hacker wasn’t stupid enough to use his own phone for this kind of thing?
“I see our project has continued successfully,” Ames said.
“That’s the idea,” Thumper said.
“Indeed. If it is convenient, meet me at the usual place tomorrow, one P.M. for remuneration.”
“I think I can make it,” Thumper said.
Ames smiled. Of course he could make it. The man spent ninety percent of his time parked in front of a computer, he had no other life. Walking to the kitchen for another Twinkie was probably the most exercise he ever got.
Ames thumbed the disconnect button on the cheap phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat. He would take it out at his next stop and stamp it under his heel, distribute the smashed parts into a couple of trash bins at different locations, and that would be that.