"In that case, and depending on your requirements, I would suggest one of these two weapons," he said. The first looked like it had been made in a high school metal shop, all rough edges and bent, black steel.
"This is a MAC- 10. A great favorite with drug smugglers, I understand." He handed it to me. "It's simple to operate, and this model is fully automatic. A submachine gun, if you will." He turned to LuEllen. "You pull the trigger, and a stream of bullets comes out for as long as you hold down the trigger, or until you run out of ammo. I have sixteen- and thirty-shot custom clips for it."
The gun felt big and awkward in my hand. I held it up and sighted down the length of the shop. The front sight wavered in front of me.
"You really wouldn't want to shoot it like that," he said. "Hold it closer to the body, so you can brace your elbow." He showed me.
"What else do you have?"
"Ah. This one. You may be more familiar with it." He unwrapped the second bundle and showed me a.45 Colt, identical to the one I'd qualified with in the Army.
"What do you think?" I asked LuEllen.
She shook her head. "I don't know about guns."
"If I might recommend." Drexel sounded like a wine waiter dealing with a couple of first-time drinkers. "If you need something for immediate self-protection, and don't have time for practice-I got the impression from Mr. Weenie that this was the case-then I'd recommend the MAC-10. Even the rankest amateur can do amazing damage with it, though it is a bit more expensive."
I took it, and he ran me through its operation. He also sold me one thirty- and two sixteen-round clips for the gun, already loaded.
"And for the lady?" he asked.
"Uh, I don't think I want anything," LuEllen said, looking at me anxiously.
"Let me show you this one," he said. He reached back into one of his drawers and pulled out a hand-sized, double-barreled derringer.
"A.32 H amp;R magnum. Very safe, and very simple to operate. You should use it only in the most extreme circumstances, of course. In this caliber, at five yards, you could actually miss your target. At two yards, or two feet, it's quite effective."
LuEllen looked at the tiny gun for a moment, glanced at me, looked back at Drexel, and nodded. "I'll take it," she said.
"Make sure you pull the trigger with your index finger. It's so small that there's a temptation to use your middle finger and lay your index finger along the barrel. But if your finger overlaps, it's going to catch a lot of muzzle blast. Okay?"
LuEllen nodded uncertainly.
"Just pull the trigger with your trigger finger," he said, smiling.
The two guns cost us twenty-five hundred dollars. We rewrapped them in the oiled paper and went back out to the car, the wife nodding pleasantly as we tramped through the living room again.
"If you need anything else," Drexel said as we got in the car, "don't hesitate to call."
The next stop was the airport. I left the car in the long-term parking lot, rented a nondescript Dodge, and transferred the luggage. We were an hour north of Philadelphia before I spotted the right kind of hotel-a long, low, L-shaped place, inexpensive, with two dozen cars distributed up and down its length. I told the desk clerk that my secretary and I wanted adjoining rooms, but without connecting doors.
"I've got divorce proceedings going," I said, trying out a sheepish grin. "I don't want people to think, you know."
He knew, and he wasn't interested.
LuEllen was dazed and heavy-eyed from the stress. "We have to keep going another half hour or so, and then we can get some sleep," I said.
We unloaded the box of electronics supplies in my room. The first item was a compact motion detector-a burglar alarm. I mounted it behind the door, at ankle level. Then I made a few simple changes in the telephone wall outlet. Next, using the power drill I'd bought, I drilled a neat hole through the wall into LuEllen's room, and ran two lines through.
The first line was hooked into the motion detector. If my door opened, the detector would buzz us in LuEllen's room. The second line would allow me to make and take calls in LuEllen's room from my phone. The stapler made the job neat. All the wiring ran under the edge of the carpet, along the baseboards. Even a maid shouldn't notice the changes.
"If it's the CIA or NSA, they could be monitoring everything Anshiser's got. If they trace us, it'll give us a break," I said.
We left the car one space down from LuEllen's room, in front of another room where the lights were on, and carried our suitcases, the portable, and our cash reserve down to LuEllen's.
What?
Can fast check Anshiser house lines for trace?
Yes. 30 minutes.
Need money?
No. Put terminal on receive.
LuEllen had collapsed on the bed and was out, breathing jerkily with an occasional moan, but asleep. I was crumbling when Bobby's call came in, and the terminal automatically answered.
Lines clean.
Thanx.
"Maggie's not back yet, but she's okay. I turned her around at National and talked to her in the air not more than an hour ago. We still don't know what happened," Dillon said. "It's hard to ask the right questions without admitting your guilt."
"What if they don't know what we're talking about?"
"Then we'll have to look into other possibilities. It could be Whitemark, but that doesn't seem likely. Mr. Anshiser was wondering if it might have something to do with the nature of the place you were staying? Some kind of prostitution-related activity, a mistake, just like we thought the first time?"
"That's bullshit," I said. "You don't kill somebody to get the goods on him for a divorce. They knew who we were and they were there to kill us."
"Yes, that's what I think," Dillon said. "Maggie should be back almost anytime. She wants to talk to you. Can you give me a number?"
"Yeah." I gave him the motel's phone number and my own room extension. "Have her call as soon as she gets in."
LuEllen groaned again and said "Dace?" and started to wake up. "Shh," I whispered, "go back to sleep." She frowned and muttered something, but went quiet again, I turned out the light, took off my shoes, and put my head on the pillow, feeling her breathing next to me. That's all I knew until the phone rang.
CHAPTER 15
The phone sounded like a distant dentist's drill. I'd wrapped it in a heavy synthetic blanket to muffle the ringing, and now I couldn't find it. I twisted off the bed and floundered around for a minute in the darkness and finally stepped on it.
"What?" said LuEllen.
"I got it."
The receiver came free and I said, "Yeah?"
"Kidd? This is Maggie."
"Jesus. You okay?"
"Yes. I just got back. I talked to Dillon and we'll start talking to people in Washington in the morning. But we've got another problem. Something happened to Rudy. He collapsed. He's on his way to the medical center. The ambulance just left."
"A stroke? A heart attack? What?"
"No, no, he started spouting gibberish, babbling. It could be nervous exhaustion, a breakdown, they don't know. I'll let you know when we hear."
"Okay."
"Tell me what happened at the apartment."
I told her in a few words, and she asked if we were sure that Dace was dead.
"If they weren't shooting blanks. Ratface shot him three times from a range of about two feet."
LuEllen grabbed me by the arm; I half turned, and then I heard it: the soft buzz of the alarm. The door in my room had been opened.