Her eyes flashed. “I think it’s exciting.”
“I mean…of the month.”
That made her laugh. She raised an eyebrow. “Other ports in a storm…?”
“Maybe later,” I said, and smiled.
She looked like AIDS-bait to me. I could be reckless, but not that reckless.
Disappointed, she took a step away and accepted the cell phone, and within seconds was saying, “Daddy?…I’m fine, I’m fine…yes!..Daddy, you know that man you sent…what?”
She frowned up at me in confusion. “He says…he says he didn’t send anybody.”
I gestured impatiently for the phone and she gave it to me.
“Good evening, sir. I have your daughter. As you can hear, she’s just fine…Get together one hundred thousand dollars in unmarked, non-sequential tens, twenties and fifties, and wait for the next call.”
I hung up.
She looked at me with wide eyes and wide-open mouth.
“Relax,” I told her. “I’m not going to kill you-just turning a buck.”
“You bastard! You prick! ”
She spit in my face.
I wiped it off with a hand and gave her a look.
She started backing up, her eyes wild, and I got hold of her, carried the squirming creature back to her bed and dumped her there.
I thrust a stern finger in that cute face. “Look! I gotta get some sleep. Pipe down, or I’ll duct-tape your little trap.”
She behaved after that, though she cried and sniffled and tried to make me feel as sorry for her as she did for herself, which would have been impossible; on the other hand, some of it was genuine-she did have cramps. I cuffed her to the bedpost and she was able to recline. I even covered her up.
Then I went over and curled up on the other bed, nine millimeter in my waistband.
I’d taken some risks tonight.
I lived and worked on this lake, after all. But it was winter, and the bodies wouldn’t turn up for a long time, if ever, and the Outfit had used this part of the world to dump its corpses since Capone was just a mean street kid. Very little chance any of this would come back at me. And killing Harry and Louis had, at least, killed my insomnia.
For the first time in a long time…
…I slept like a baby.
Four
The Log Cabin, true to its name, was a log cabin, a roadside gas station and latter-day diner a good hundred miles from Lake Sylvan, a minor intrusion of civilization into a world of snowy pines. At eleven A.M., breakfast was a memory and lunch the future, so the graveled parking lot was home to only a couple of cars and two trucks.
I was keeping watch through binoculars on the slope across the two-lane highway, sheltered and concealed by more of those snowy pines; the ground had only a dusting of snow but the air was brittle with cold. I’d left the ninja-black wardrobe home-in daylight, it would have only made me stand out against the winter whiteness-and was in work boots and jeans and a brown corduroy fleece-lined jacket that were comfortable enough. I’d been keeping tabs on this ransom drop for half an hour already, and it took that long for the girl to speak.
“He won’t come himself, you know.”
Julie Green was seated like an Indian, leaning back against a big nearby tree, looking utterly bored, an old brown leather jacket of mine loose over her shoulders, her nipples perked under the black hip-hop t-shirt that peeked out, her designer jeans brushed with snow, her handcuffed hands in her lap.
Basically, she looked like a surly high school student waiting outside the principal’s office.
“Well, Daddy should come,” I said, “if he has any use for you. Those were the terms.”
She shrugged and smirked. Her teeth chattered now and then. “He doesn’t have much use for me. Plus, don’t ever forget-he’s a lying untrustworthy shit.”
I lifted the binoculars again. “Good to know.”
A money-green Lexus was pulling in, taking one of half a dozen stalls next to the restaurant. I re-focused the binoculars and watched millions of dollars get out from behind the wheel.
Jonah Green was not exactly a typical patron of the Log Cabin. At least sixty, he had a commanding presence, even from a distance, six foot one and perhaps two-hundred-twenty pounds with only a slight paunch and a close-cropped, almost military haircut that minimized both the gray and the receding hairline. His face was square, including his jaw, and grooved with lessons learned and given.
From my perch I couldn’t see his eyes, but they were searching the landscape and, for one unnerving moment, his gaze seemed to linger on me, even though he couldn’t be seeing me, not without his own binoculars.
I lowered mine. “Your father.”
“No shit!”
“He’s early-a good hour.”
“So are you.”
I raised them. “I’m a lying untrustworthy shit.”
“…Good to know.”
From a pocket of his topcoat-dark gray and probably Saville Row, unbuttoned and providing a glimpse of a well-tailored gray suit over Italian loafers-he withdrew something. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed to be a cell phone.
He spoke into it, briefly.
The object was returned to the topcoat pocket, and Green stood there inhaling deeply and exhaling smoky breath until, within a minute, a second car pulled in, a nondescript number, a brown Taurus.
This gave me a momentary start, because the car was similar if not identical to the rental Harry Something had driven, an automobile I had yet to deal with (it would need disposal, probably in one of the gravel pits intended for Julie, before I came along).
But this turned out to be a coincidence-and how I hate those-when its driver got out, a brawny dip-shit in a brand-new green-and-black hunting jacket and matching flop-ear Elmer Fudd cap. In his early twenties, this ripe specimen had broad shoulders and close-set eyes in an oval face that seemed utterly blank from this distance. I had a hunch a closer look wouldn’t fill that oval in much.
The two men began to speak, though Green did most of the talking, gesturing, giving orders. At the start of this one-sided exchange, Green’s flunky took off the Fudd cap respectfully, revealing blond hair, cut even shorter than his boss’s; he would nod when it seemed appropriate.
I centered on their faces, and I had a good three-quarter angle on Jonah Green, with a decent side view of his boy. Much of what I have done over the years involves surveillance, and while I never studied the art, I’d picked up lip-reading early on.
Green was saying, “Prick’ll probably show early. Stay sharp.”
“How will I recognize him?”
“Oh, I don’t know-maybe because he has my daughter with him?”
The subordinate blushed. I’m not lying. He fucking blushed, and shook his head and said, “Right. Right! Sorry. That was dumb. Really dumb.”
The millionaire just looked at him, for the longest time, then said, “Form the thought. Examine it. Decide if it’s worth sharing. Understand this concept, De-something?”
Green didn’t say “De-something,” obviously; I just hadn’t gotten the name-DeWitt maybe?
Whatever his handle, the Fudd-hatted fool nodded, his eyes lowered, ashamed. “Yes, sir.”
Then his disgusted boss, with a dismissive gesture toward his subordinate’s brown rental, headed inside the restaurant, and the doofus got in the Taurus and drove it over and parked in the graveled overflow lot, turning the engine off but not emerging.
Keeping watch.
I lowered the binoculars again. “Your daddy’s not alone-young guy. Blond. Body builder.”
“That would be DeWayne.”
“DeWayne.”
She shrugged, not giving a shit. “He was some kind of…I don’t know, super soldier.”
I looked at her. “Really.”
She shrugged again. “Cleans things up for Daddy, these days.”
“…Too young for Desert Storm.”
“Iraq.”
That made me smile, and she said, “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” I said.
An hour went by, during which the girl said she had to pee, twice, and I ignored it the first time and the second time said, “Hold it. You can use the restaurant’s john.”