She was imagining life in Mexico, as Mrs. Rufus, when she stepped outside and noticed the guy walking toward her through the shadowy lot. She couldn’t see his face well but, fuck, there was no doubt he was Greek, and he looked familiar somehow. Then he passed under a lamppost and she saw why he looked familiar. He was a dead ringer for Georgios. She remembered the woman back in Santorini, vowing vengeance for Georgios’ murder, and she knew this had to be connected. A voice inside her head was saying, Oh, come on, stop with the paranoia, you’re starting to sound like Max. The Greek network for tracking people down is good, but it couldn’t be this fookin’ good.
But she knew that little voice was fooking wrong as soon as she saw the knife in the guy’s hand. He was coming at her, baring his teeth, and somewhere in the distance she heard a woman shriek. The man was almost on her, and he was saying something – it sounded like “she-devil.”
She managed to reach into her handbag, grab the gun. Before the guy could reach her she whipped the gun out and fired a shot, hitting him right in his goddamn face.
Then she ran, past the guy’s idling car, trying to get to Rufus. She didn’t make it. She had her hand on the door when she felt an intense pain ripping through her chest. The next moment she was on the ground, lying on her stomach with her cheek on the pavement. She saw a blurry image of a guy leaning out the open door of the idling car, holding a gun. It was Sebastian, that bastard.
Her last vision was of Sebastian, smiling, blowing spoke away from the barrel of the gun. She couldn’t believe it. Of all the guys who could’ve done her in, it had to be that useless fookin’ wuss? Talk about last laughs. That God, he had some fucking sense of humor.
Twenty
“Because the way things turned out, hearing what he heard, seeing what he saw, knowing what he knew, it was no way to live.”
Sebastian was getting a tad cranky, just how long were they going to follow this bloody car? They’d dropped back when Yanni had realized they’d been spotted, but then had caught up with Angela again a few miles further on, and as far as they could tell, no one in Angela’s car had noticed them since.
He had another shot of gin and realized he needed a piss and bad. Paula, awake now in the back seat, was scribbling notes – didn’t that make her sick, writing in a moving car like that? He hefted the Walther in his hands and by golly it was true, the gun maketh the man. That and a Savile Row suit, carnation in the buttonhole, of course. The car in front finally showed brake lights and Yanni stopped, cut the engine. They could see a trailer park, and Sebastian thought, A rather shabby one, my dear.
Darkness was coming but they could see Angela, the Fisher chappie, some brooding-looking white guy in a combat jacket, and the mammoth black guy. Yanni raised his gun and hissed, “Now you die, you whore.”
Sebastian could hear Paula take a deep breath and he put his hand on Yanni’s arm, a very risky gesture, and said, “Steady on, old bean, you do it now, it’s too quick, she doesn’t get to feel it – and most importantly we don’t get any money.”
Yanni withdrew the gun, muttering a string of obscenities. Sebastian could swear his own beloved Mummy was in there.
Paula said, “I didn’t know there was going to be, like, you know, shooting and stuff.”
Yanni turned to her, spat on the seat, said, “Shut your mouth, you harlot.”
Sebastian thought that was more than a little rude and really, wasn’t it crossing the line? He began to wonder if ol’ Yanni had just the tiniest issue with women.
The trailer door opened and Angela and the black chappie came out, got in the car and took off.
Yanni, putting the car in gear, asked, “What is this?”
Paula said, “Probably going to get supplies. There’s gotta be a 7-Eleven close by. You got a trailer park, you got a 7-Eleven.”
Sure enough they pulled up outside said establishment and, lordy, was Angela necking with the black fellow?
Sebastian muttered, “Get a room. And herpes.”
Finally, she got out and went into the store.
“Herpes,” Paula said. “That’s funny, Max was just telling me the story today, how Angela gave him herpes and how she said she got it from her ex-boyfriend, the Irish hit man.”
Just what Sebastian needed to hear – the bloody history of his condition.
“I kill the she-devil right now,” Yanni said, leaving the gun on the seat and pulling out a long-bladed knife he’d brought along.
“Let’s be sensible, shall we?” Sebastian said. “I wouldn’t mind doing away with the cow myself, but I don’t think you want to be committing a murder on CCTV now, do you?”
Paula, from the back seat, said, “Wait, you guys aren’t serious, are you? You’re not really going through with this, right?”
Then Angela was leaving the store, smiling blissfully, carrying an overstuffed bag of junk food, and Yanni was out of the car, charging her like a madman.
Paula shrieked, “Oh my God!” and then Angela pulled out a gun and shot Yanni right in the face. Sebastian had to give the ol’ gell credit, she had some tricks up her sleeve. Or, rather, in her purse.
But Sebastian couldn’t let her get any ideas and try to shoot him as well, could he? Beating her to the shot, so to speak, he aimed the Walther and fired at her back as she passed, hitting her spot on. Not bad at all. Rather like shooting pheasants.
Sebastian was still feeling right proud of his accomplishment when he remembered the black guy waiting in the car. He was going to walk over, do away with him as well, but, dammit, the car was already speeding out of the car park.
Watching Angela get killed had been sad and horrifying, of course, and the image of the puddle of blood pooling around her on the asphalt would stay with her forever, but Paula wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything. What true crime author gets a ringside seat for a homicide? A double homicide if you included the crazed Greek. After The Max was written and published and beloved by millions, the demand would be huge for a book solely about Angela Petrakos. She was the ultimate femme fatale – hey, that wouldn’t make a bad subtitle, got to write that down – and who would be more qualified than Paula to tell her story? The ideas were vivid, so fresh in Paula’s head, she started scribbling them down in her pad, afraid she’d forget them.
She’d written maybe three pages when she snapped out of her writer’s high and realized she was in the back seat of a car with Lee Child’s homicidal half-brother driving.
Suddenly terrified, Paula asked, “What’re you going to do to me?”
Sebastian said, “Nothing much. No offense, gell, but I don’t really fancy lesbians, I’m afraid. And least when it’s not a menage.”
He pulled over on to the shoulder, took all her cash and jewelry, and ordered her to get out of the car. She shut her eyes and cringed, afraid he’d shoot her, but he just said, “ Ciao, mi amore,” and left her in the dust.
Twenty-One
“Shit, he thought, as his eyes glazed over and the roaring in his ears slowly receded.
I can’t believe I’m dying in a goddamn trailer.”
M ICHELLE G AGNON, The Tunnels
When Rufus returned alone, Max instinctively got his piece and put it in the waistband of his jeans, like the cool guys did in the movies. Rufus entered the trailer, fell to his knees, sobbing like a baby, and began to spill out a story of some white guy offing Angela.
Max felt his heart lurch, Angela gone? He couldn’t fucking believe it.
He shouted at Rufus, “Yeah, and how come you’re still alive? And where’s her body – you just left her lying there? I treat you like my son and this is what I get?”