No tricks.
No attacks.
No surprises.
All he did was perform the least interesting striptease I have ever witnessed, discreetly turning his back to me at the finish, his arms-muscular, decorated with various USMC tattoos-hanging as slack as his muscular buttocks were taut.
He glanced back at me for his orders.
“The shitter,” I told him.
And I marched the dejected DeWayne into the bathroom. The young soldier wasn’t looking for an escape route, or at least I didn’t think he was. He seemed relatively unafraid, probably figuring I’d have killed him by now, if that was the point.
Just inside the cramped bathroom, he again looked over his shoulder and said, “You mind a little friendly advice? Don’t tangle asses with Mr. Green. I know you’re not happy about how this went down. But just…go your own way.”
“Semper fi, Mac,” I said.
There was no tub, just a shower stall with the familiar pebbled glass.
He swallowed. “Now what?”
“Get in.”
This seemed to alarm him, and his head swivelled on the muscular neck. “What the fuck for?”
Keeping it low-key, sticking the nine back in my waistband, I said, “I’m going to wedge something against the door, and lock you in. Buy me some time.”
“I told you I wouldn’t-”
“Right. Get in.”
Compliantly, DeWayne opened the door and stepped in the stall, and stood there with a good-size dick hanging and an expression that was neither moronic nor intelligent-perfect makings for a Marine.
“And?” he asked.
“And,” I said, “be careful, DeWayne. You’d be surprised how many accidents happen in the bathroom.”
He squinted at me, not getting that, and I used both hands to slam his head into the shower stall wall, with all the force I could muster.
The sound of his skull cracking wasn’t loud but it was distinct, and perhaps DeWayne even had time to hear it; either way, he was already dead, wide-eyed and frozen in time, as he slid slowly down the wall, leaving a bloody snail-smear behind him.
He sat there quietly, pretty blue eyes staring into eternity, his limbs like kindling, as I unwrapped a motel bar of soap and then flipped the thing to land near DeWayne’s big dead feet. I’d been careful to bash his head into the wall on the side where my fist had hit him earlier, the only blow I’d delivered in our hand-to-hand exercise.
Then I turned on the shower, nice and hot (to make time of death a mystery), and let the steamy spray do its tapdance on the corpse.
I hadn’t touched much in the room-the soap would be worn down by the needles of water-so I didn’t have much cleaning up to do.
Not in Homewood I didn’t.
Fifteen
The massive ornate granite gravestone was a family affair, reading on top:
MARY ANN GREEN
(1940–1985)
Beloved Wife and Mother
JONAH ALLEN GREEN
(1938-) and below:
JANET ANN GREEN
(1975–2005)
JULIA SUSAN GREEN
(1985-)
Cherished Daughter
From my post behind some rich man’s mausoleum, I couldn’t see that lettering; but I’d been at the cemetery since last night, and had taken in the inscription by moonlight. I’d been by far the first to get here for Janet Green’s farewell appearance.
Her casket, on the other hand, I could easily see from here, my position elevated enough to view the copper capsule, which had already been deposited in the ground, the metallic tubes of the lowering device still in place. I’d skipped the funeral, not really feeling wanted, and the graveside ceremony was long since over.
The morning was crisp and cold with moving clouds that sent phantom-like shadows gliding across the snow-brushed grounds of Oak Brook Memorial Cemetery. The mourners had drifted away, though a few lingered to pay their respects to the grieving father-Jonah Green, in his dark gray Saville Row topcoat, saying nothing, just nodding severe thanks with that square head with its square jaw, the shortcut bristly haircut giving him a vaguely military cast.
And now Green was a solitary figure at his daughter’s graveside, standing with hands figleafed before him, head lowered, making a mournful picture that maybe, maybe not, had some real feeling in it.
Who knows-could be there was some humanity left in this son of a bitch. Could be he felt a pang about killing his oldest daughter to gain more of his late wife’s money. He certainly seemed truly mournful as he bent to collect a handful of piled graveside dirt, then standing and tossing it in. Even from where I was tucked back watching, I could hear the soil shower the casket like hard, brief rain.
The final cars drew away, leaving only the Cadillac hearse and a second vehicle, a BMW. The mourners, other than Green himself, were gone. The only company remaining was keeping a respectful distance, but staying alert: half a dozen scattered security men in dark raincoats and sunglasses, peppered here and there on the periphery, keeping in touch via headsets.
Not that I’d give them high marks, since I’d easily kept out of their sight when they did their advance sweep of the cemetery, early this morning. Nor were they aware that the uniformed chauffeur assigned to drive the hearse was currently tossed in the back of the vehicle wrapped in more duct tape than a leaky drainpipe.
Which was why-when the liveried “chauffeur” in cap and sunglasses approached Jonah Green at the graveside-neither the millionaire nor any of his six security boys thought anything of it.
I stepped to Green’s side and, head still lowered, he said, “Just a few more minutes, Roger-I’m…I’m not ready just yet.”
“My final payment hasn’t reached my off-shore account,” I said, removing the sunglasses and tucking them in a breast pocket. “Why the delay?”
Green looked at me sharply with those money-color eyes, but he’d been to the rodeo a few times himself, so his surprise and alarm quickly faded to a weary bitter smile.
“Quarry. Nice of you to come.”
My cap was in hand now, respectfully. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
He turned back to the grave, looked down into it.
“As for your payment, well…you didn’t do the work, did you?”
“You interfered with the job. Or, anyway, that dope of yours did.”
The square head swung toward me again, his forehead creased with a frown but his mouth a straight line. “Was that really necessary? What you did to DeWayne?”
“Not as necessary as you killing your daughter…Nice turnout today.”
He stared down into the grave again. “Not many of them knew Janet-they were kind to pay their respects.”
“Where was her sister? Was Julie at the funeral? Didn’t spot her at the graveside service.”
He was maintaining an admirable cool; on the other hand, he knew we had that security crew of his, all around us. Still, he was well aware what I was capable of, and a certain tension, even nervousness, flicked in and around his eyes.
“I thought maybe you knew where Julie was,” he said. His tone was surface cordial, underlying contemptuous. “Hell, I thought I might get another phone call from you, wanting more unmarked money.”
“That hurts.”
He lifted his shoulders and set them down again. “All I know is, Julie’s dropped out of sight.”
“Well, maybe she’s afraid Daddy might be thinking of doubling up on the trust fund action.”
Green glared at me. “I would never harm that girl.”
“Sorry. How could I ever think such a thing?”
“I adore that child!”
“I was just thinking maybe it was a set-up all along-that maybe you engineered that snatch… After all, you said yourself you had certain business connections, in those circles.”
He sneered. “Don’t be an ass.”
“Makes sense-the wild child dies, Daddy inherits. But I came along and screwed it up for you. So Plan B was daughter number one.”
He was shaking his head, looking out past the gravestone, at the world beyond; mostly all you could see of that world was more gravestones, some trees, and the gray tombstones of suburban Oak Brook’s business buildings.