Cool Heat (4 page)

She smiled. Hard not to like this guy, whatever he was.

As they approached the half-dozen casinos on the South Shore, Sydney said, “You should take the Lake Parkway loop. It probably didn’t exist when you were here last. It’ll get you past the slow traffic at the casinos.”

They went around back of the Montbleu, the newest of the hotels. Then she had him get off on the Pioneer Trail, avoiding Lake Tahoe Boulevard traffic altogether. It was longer but safer, the road most used by locals.

He asked, “This house you’re going to safe?”

“The owners are very private. I come over every now and then to check to see it’s not been messed with. I don’t broadcast when I do that.”

“How far?”

“A mile or so before you get to Tahoe City,” she said. “It’s past The Pines.”

“Neighbors who might pay a visit?”

Babysitting her a little. But she was thankful. “The house sits back in the trees by the lake. No close neighbors. It’s very secluded.”

As they headed down a back road behind the State Line casinos, he said, “How deep is my uncle involved in whatever this is?”

“Half the people in Tahoe are knee deep in it one way or another,” she said.

She watched him as he checked every truck and car, rode the mirrors constantly, and tried to keep from getting bottled up. When they approached the busy intersection of 89 and the 50, he slowed, pulled off, and waited a bit until the lights were turning in their favor, then he shot through and headed up the western side of the lake toward Camp Richardson.

Sydney had been so isolated since getting let go from the DA’s office that appreciating somebody who might understand what she faced was hard to resist. But she couldn’t drag him any further into this, much as she might want to. What the future would be, once he hooked back up with his uncle, was another story.

They headed north up 89, past Camp Richardson and past Emerald Bay, the traffic not nearly as heavy as around the South Shore. But there was little room to run if somebody was parked along the road waiting for a red Mustang convertible. Then, past Emerald Bay, it thinned out.

“We close?” Marco asked.

“Just up ahead.”

“It has a feeder road?”

“Yes. You can go down with lights out. I’ll tell you when we’re close”

7

Shaun Corbin couldn’t believe his bad luck. He’d shot at least fifteen goddamn bullets at the woman and she still got away.

You goddamn fool. You botched it. She got away. Thorp will have you killed for this
! Now he was in the crisis of his life
.
He’d made a big, big mistake. His whole thing was that he would get her before his cousin brought in a pro. It’d make him a hero. This greatest of all ideas he’d ever had—killing Sydney Jesup so his cousin would finally accept him as worthy—now looked like the stupidest idea he, or anyone, had ever had. Hitting the steering wheel and dash with his fist, he knew he’d made the biggest screwup of his miserable life.

“I didn’t kill her!” he yelled to a deaf universe. “She was right there! Right there and she got away!”

I’m a fucking dead man.

He was horrified, astounded. “I had her right there, right in front of me, and I missed.” His stomach—a swamp polluted with an acidic compound of alcohol, speed, and fear—felt as if it would eat through the walls.

Corbin sat numb in his truck in the Barton Memorial Hospital parking lot looking at his laptop for all the damn medical centers around the lake. There had to be twenty of them or more. And medical-care places all over South Lake. More in Incline. Urgent cares and a Kings Beach Wellness Center.
Jesus!
She could be anywhere. And no sign of that red Mustang.

He felt sick to his stomach. Why in hell had he thought this was the greatest move ever? He would have to check them all and do it fast. She wouldn’t go to her condo. She wasn’t stupid. And who the hell was the guy who picked her up? A boyfriend? Or some random asshole? At least the fool drove a car you couldn’t hide.

I need to find that damn car, Corbin thought.

How bad had she been hit? He’d seen her limp. He hoped she died but doubted she would. Not with his stinking luck. He knew, to keep up the search, he’d have to take a hit of speed, but he was still too drunk.

Out loud, in a self-hating voice, he said, “You don’t get her, you’re a dead man. You moron. You were drunk. Jesus, what’s the matter with you?”

He put his head back on the headrest for a moment. He’d actually attempted to kill her, to jump in and make himself a hero to his damn cousin. The king of kings. Now it seemed like the stupidest decision he’d ever made in his life. He hated his obsession with trying to please his cousin. He hated the man yet couldn’t escape the need to get his acknowledgment.

And Oggie, as his asshole, big-shot buddies called Ogden Thorp, would not react well to this. Thorp was the most powerful man in the Sierra Nevada, and the man had always had a very low opinion of him. Even when Shaun had gotten his PI license, nothing really changed. He was still the gofer. The pimp for the big parties, bringing in high-class pussy.

Killing Sydney Jesup had seemed like such a great idea. It all started when that lowlife bastard Gary Gatts, the supplier of party drugs, the guy who had the skinny on everything and everybody, told Corbin what was in the works. A pro was coming in to take care of the former investigator because she was still causing problems and had sullied the name of the Thorps. It was literally an historic kind of deal, Gatts had said. The Thorps had been killing their enemies since the Gold Rush and Indian days.

It came up in some casual conversation when Corbin was up to Gatts’ Mountain View Restaurant to get himself resupplied with his medications of choice. Gatts was the Grand Central terminal for drugs coming up from Mexico.

They’d sampled a little, gotten high together. Then Gatts had started running his mouth.

Corbin couldn’t remember how, exactly, but the Jesup woman had come up. “Don’t worry about that bitch,” Gatts had said. When Corbin pressed, Gatts went off on how it was already a done deal. They were bringing in some guy from New York. A guy Vegas used from time to time. Gatts didn’t say how he knew, but Corbin had learned long ago that when Gatts said something, it came from the horse’s mouth.

They were both pretty baked that night when Corbin got his biggest idea ever. He’d save his cousin the money and get the job done. And the more he’d thought about it over the next few days, the more brilliant the idea sounded to him. Finally, he’d be taken seriously.

How many times had he imagined walking into his cousin’s Incline Village estate, saying, “Got the bitch!” and Thorp would be shocked, surprised, and finally have no choice but to acknowledge him.

Now, as the last remnants of the miserable day slipped away, night covering the lake, he went over the shooting again and again in his mind.
She was twenty feet away! He’d unloaded a whole clip!
Then he thought maybe Gatts was just setting him up and knew it would get
him
killed. He tried to think of something he’d done to Gatts.

“Jesus, you fucking drunk asshole,” Shaun Corbin said of himself. At times, he despised himself more than anybody on the stinking planet.

He took a sip from his whiskey flask, lit a cigarette with a shaky hand, and thought of what to do next. Failure wasn’t an option. Failure was a death sentence.

And he knew he didn’t have much time. His cousin was down in Vegas making some huge deal. Big boys. Silicon Valley types and Chinks all looking to put money in Tahoe. And his uncle was busy buying, stealing, grabbing properties all around the lake. And next weekend was the big party of the year, the Great Gatsby Gala.

Then he thought about the pro they were bringing in.

I gotta find out when. I gotta finish this first. Or it’ll be me the bastard comes for.

First thing he needed to know was when his cousin was coming home from Vegas. The only other person who might know was the top girl on the string Corbin ran, Kora North. Thorp had a thing for her. She was to be his Miss Daisy at the big Gatsby gala.

He took out his phone. Tried to think straight, get his brain into the moment. He felt lethargic and took another hit followed by a pull on the flask, then lit another cigarette with shaky hands. Lately he found his hands shook a lot. He managed to press in Kora’s number.

When she answered, Corbin said, “Kora, it’s me. Look, I’m in something of jam. A big damn problem.”

“You’re a big problem,” Kora said. “I’m busy.”

“Don’t hang up. This is serious. This is life or death, Kora. You got to help me out here. I got enough on you to send you up for five life sentences, bitch, so listen to me.”

“Shaun,” Kora said, “piss off.” The bitch hung up.

Enraged, Corbin smashed his cell on the dash again and again. When he calmed down, he knew one thing for certain: He had to find Jesup, to kill her and that bastard who picked her up.

And he had to do it tonight.

8

Sydney told Marco where to pull off. He turned down toward the lake, lights out, and then stopped in front of a padlocked gate. “You have a key?”

“Yes. I’ll get it,” she said, starting to get out, but he stopped her. “I’ll get it. Sit tight.”

“The post on the right. The cap unscrews. It’s underneath. Old technology.”

Marco found the key and opened the padlock. He swung the gate open, then slid back behind the wheel.

She said, “You don’t need to come in. I can handle things from here.”

He didn’t respond, just drove on in, got out, and went back to lock the gate behind them. When he came back, she had gotten herself out of the car but was feeling a little wobbly. He grabbed her. “Easy. You need water. There a house key?”

“Beneath the second bird feeder.”

“Whatever works,” Marco said.

The Shaw house was secreted in the trees along the water, well hidden from the highway, guarded by thick stands of trees on both sides shielding the place from any neighbors. There was a boathouse, a small dock, and a detached garage.

He came back with the key. “Alarms?”

“Yes. Inside the door. Five, five, six, one, one.”

He opened the door and turned off the alarm as she waited, leaning against his car and feeling like she might pass out.

“Who’s place is this?”

“Bernie and Meredith Shaw,” Sydney said. “He’s an Indie filmmaker. His wife’s his producer. She acts in their films.”

He helped her inside. “How do you know them?”

“I was an adviser on a small project they did when I was working with the sheriff’s department in Sacramento.”

“How’d the film do?”

“Straight to video.”

He started to escort her to a chair, but she told him to get a towel from the kitchen. She didn’t want to mess up the furniture. There was a nightlight in every room. It wasn’t much but enough so they didn’t have to turn any lights on.

He came back with a towel, spread it on the chair, then opened a bottle of water and gave it to her. While she sat and drank and tried to get herself together, he went and quickly checked other rooms downstairs, then up on the second floor.

“Where are the Shaws now?” he asked when he came back down.

“Some Greek Island…looking for a location.” She was exhausted but already responding to the water. It was time for him to leave, if he was going to leave. “I’ll be okay now,” she said. “I have a car, and my friend is only a few minutes away in Tahoe City. You’ve gone way above and beyond, and I really appreciate it.”

He gazed through the French doors to the porch that overlooked the lake. “You know if he’s even home?”

“I’m sure he is, but I’ll make sure.”

She called, and when James answered she said, “You home alone?” He said he was. “I need to come over. Be there in a few minutes. Keep it to yourself.” She hung up before he could ask questions.

Marco said, “Ready?”

“I don’t need you to drive me over there.”

“When you’re in good hands, I’ll leave. No guns in the house, are there?”

“There’s a gun upstairs in the master bedroom. A Beretta. The bottom drawer of the nightstand next to the bed, in back of the socks. Should be two clips. And, if you would, bring a pair of slippers from the closet. My feet—I’m messing up the floor.”

He came back down a couple minutes later with the Beretta and slippers.

“Great,” she said, reaching for the slippers. He pulled them back. He had a wet towel over his shoulder. He cleaned her feet and then put the slippers on.

“You don’t need to be moving around, bending down. At least not until your doc friend gets you fixed up,” he said.

When he handed her the gun, she handed it right back. “You have better mobility and speed in case it’s needed. Until I’m, as you say,
fixed up.
”

They went back outside and over to the garage. He pulled the Range Rover out and the Shelby in.

“They pay you for keeping everything in order here?” he asked as he helped her into the front seat.

“Because I consult on their films when they involve cops and robbers, and they like to have somebody reliable keep a watch, it’s a quid pro quo. It’s nice to come over and sit quiet and away from my life.”

“Doc’s the only one knows?”

“Yes. He’s a good friend. I dated him for a while, but we proved much better as friends.”

He nodded and walked around to get into the driver’s seat. When they were on the highway heading for Tahoe City, Marco suggested any doctor treating a bullet wound was obligated to report it.

“He’ll deal with it in the best way to protect me. He can write a report, if he’s so inclined, and neglect to submit it.”

After a few moments of silence, Sydney decided to ask a question that had been bothering her. She turned to him and said, “You aren’t on the run, are you, by any chance?”

“I had problems, but I paid my debt. I’m clean.”

“You do time?”

Marco nodded. “Nearly two years in a really nasty system below the border. Then I got rescued and did some work for Uncle Sam. In turn, I got my records sanitized, so now I’m a free man with no record.”

“What’d you do?”

“A colleague on the border, and a good friend, was ambushed and killed. The killers escaped back into Mexico. I took a leave, hunted them, and brought them to justice. Unfortunately, I didn’t get away clean.”