Dues of Mortality (13 page)

“
It's
not enough for
the
cause
, Tad!”

“
You
don't think I want you to succeed? It was a hung jury; they're still
trying to convict me. Gabriel can't know that I'm helping you. He
could put me in prison for the rest of my life!”

Ross
rolled his eyes. “Your old-man really knew how to evoke
loyalty, didn't he?”

“
Wallace
is worth ten times what my father is. Gabriel's only loyalty is to a
few dozen account numbers in Switzerland. What you've got planned for
Millenitech doesn't exactly extend his bottom line. You have my word:
I will find a way to get what you want when I can do it without
anything being traced back to me. Case Western is the backdoor,
true...but it’s still a way in.”

Ross
finally lowered his ass into the desk's office chair and peered
judiciously at the face on his screen. He couldn’t decide if
there was any noticeable desperation in Maguire’s perpetually
desperate voice. Did Daddy’s little heir-to-the-trust-fund have
it in him to do a doublecross?

“
Never
thought I'd see the day when you were more confident than me,”
Ross said, deflating a bit. He looked at Maguire curious. “I've
always wanted to ask you, something Tad. Everything you've done for
me, for the cause...Was it more about Beth or more about your
father?”

Maguire
looked off-screen in the same manner he always had when their
conversations got sticky. Then, without warning, he ripped open his
shirt, sending half a dozen buttons flying to the floor. He didn't
look at Ross at all—instead he just pressed his finger to a
six-inch scar across his abdomen. “See that? That's where I had
my gastric bypass when I twelve. The other kids, used to love to tell
me how I would die from a heart attack before I was thirty. They'd
stick me with pens and pencils all the time just to see if I would
feel it. When I came home crying, my father would take one look at me
and say, 'your fat-ass got what it deserved.'” Maguire paused,
looking as if he were damning up a tear. “I was terrified of
that surgery; I thought I was going die if I had it. But my father
said he was sick and tired of hearing me bitch and moan so...”

Ross
pursed his lips. He had seen tragedies in his youth that made
Maguire's story sound like a fairy tale, but he knew genuine
resentment when he heard it. And Maguire hadn't hid the onset of
crying very well.

“
Beth
was the first—the
only
—
person
in my life who loved me for who I was,” Maguire said. “With
her, I never had to waste my time trying to fit in or erase my flaws.
All I had to do was be me...and let others be themselves.” He
looked back at Ross. “That's everything they're trying to take
away from us. Is it really that difficult for you to accept that I
may actually believe in something? Because I think if it was then you
wouldn't be asking for my help.”

Ross
regarded the hapless image on his screen for as long as he could
without it getting too unpleasant. “I've got business,”
he said cordially. “I'll be in touch.”

Cleveland, Ohio, August 26,
11:50 a.m.

For
Glenda, the interview at the bank could not have ended soon enough.
She had spaced out once or twice, during, and the bank manager had to
actually ask if she'd still been listening. She hadn't. Det Robert's
suspicions about why she had been attacked were foremost in her
thoughts. At one point, she felt it might even be advantageous to
simply explain herself: that in the past twenty-four hours she’d
been assaulted and almost raped, if not murdered, her apartment had
been broken into and she was subsequently robbed of the few valuables
she had and, oh yes, there was the off chance that it was all the
result of some ill-conceived third-party revenge plot.
Wouldn’t
a potential employer just love to take all that into consideration?
Once her ass hit the door, they would fold her resume into a paper
airplane and nosedive it into the trash.
Screw
it
, she thought. There was no point in spilling one’s
guts to people who couldn’t care less.
That
sleaze of a bank manager had made that perfectly clear when he asked
about Glenda's “special skills” while gawking at her
tits.
Men!

Glenda
jogged ahead and straight into the same alley she'd traipsed through
only an hour earlier and in the opposite direction. The same shortcut
back to her Civic parked two blocks over. Downtown parking being what
it was, she was grateful to find a spot in the same county. She also
needed every penny she had these days and even an hour inside one of
those overpriced automated garages was an arm-and-a-leg compared to
your friendly neighborhood street-meter. A long stretch of brick wall
turned a corner to another long stretch between two rear buildings.
It was like walking into dusk—the light of day abruptly cut
off. A few feet ahead, were two large dumpsters on opposite sides of
the alley. Another ten feet up and to the right was a third; it was
angled kitty corner at a recess in the walls.

Hobson
smiled a big smile inside. It wasn't every day that a target made
things easy. Not only had the woman shortcut through the alley, she'd
also given Hobson nearly an hour to set the stage. He had lined up
one of the dumpsters to give him a perfect field of cover. The
section of alley was narrow and had no line of sight to the street.
The only way he would miss if she had stayed out altogether, decided
to go around this time instead of through. After finishing in the
alley, he'd returned to the street and waited patiently across from
the bank, well out of range of its outdoor cameras. He'd put on a
pair of mirrored sunglasses and scrolled through a magazine. After
thirty minutes, he got hungry, wanted to take a pee break, but acted
on neither. Instead, he'd stuck dutifully to his five-foot rule,
wandering no more than five feet from the spot where the Jameson
woman had exited the alley. He had no idea how long she would be. He
had thought of breaking into her room back at the motel, waiting for
her to return. However, he didn't know when she'd be back and she'd
chosen a motel with cameras in its lot. When she finally reappeared
from the bank, Hobson slipped into the alley and took point behind
the nearest corner; he made lookout to be sure she was heading in his
direction. Once she'd crossed the street, he fell back into the alley
and pocketed himself behind his dumpster of choice. He'd already made
sure the one across from it was slightly pushed outward to gently
guide her into his trap. From there all he had to do was listen. Wait
for the steps to get closer. Wait for them to pass by. When he saw
the woman's cute little ass wiggle out in front of him, he made his
move.

Hobson
eased
out of his
position. He didn't spring or launch himself at her. Such movements
could invite premature detection. He cupped her mouth with full-on
force, made sure his grip was secure. He then pushed the woman to the
ground and straddled her outright. He used his free hand to flick out
a glittering pearl-handled knife like a hawk extending its wing. He
then tightened his thighs and set the blade’s point directly
under her left eye.

“
Don’t
make this hard,” he said. “You scream and I will kill you
and anybody else who comes back here, you understand?”

Glenda
went ice-white. If the man's mouth hadn't uttered a word his narrow
unforgiving eyes would have done it for him. He meant exactly what he
said. He would gut her at the barest squeak of protest. He traced the
knife over her cheek, down to her neck, then further along her
collarbone. He cut open her blouse, exposing her rose colored bra and
the healthy cleavage beneath. He grinned impishly. He then moved his
hand from her mouth to her throat.

“
P...please
don't...” Glenda whimpered.

“
Where's
Kelmer?” the man asked. “Tell me where he is and
maybe
I can make this not hurt so
much.”

He
then flipped the knife, sharp end up and slid it under the bra's
clasp.
He was about to
give a yank when he felt the pressure against his occipital bone,
that little patch of skull just above the first vertebra. He had long
remembered the feeling of a gun barrel against the back of his head.
No description was necessary. One just had to resist the urge to turn
around.

“
Drop
the knife,” a raspy voice said, singeing his ear. “Back
up off the lady.”

Hobson
hesitated, weighing his options.
He
could threaten to stab Glenda, if this guy was truly all about being
the hero. But that cut both ways. The slightest twiddle of Hobson’s
wrist and his brains could be all over the broad's face.

“
Not
only stupid, but deaf,” the voice bellowed. “Back off,
now!”

Hobson
complied, dropping his knife and gently raising from his victim. He
then heard the stranger's foot strike the knife and watched his
pearl-handled beauty go sliding under a dumpster. The woman raised
her head and tried to wriggle out from under him, but the tails of
her blazer were trapped beneath his knees.

“
Hands
behind...your...head.”

Hobson
complied again, but moved slow. Listened close. Not for further
directions, but for more of that strain he'd just heard in the hero's
voice. Throaty, like a smoker who couldn't catch his breath. It made
him think about how sensitive the human respiratory system was, its
pathways from the nose to the lungs. How when those pathways are even
mildly irritated or damaged, all it takes is a little airflow to make
them spasm uncontrollably.

“
What
did you say?” Hobson asked.

“
I
said...hands...” The stranger choked on his words. He coughed
ferociously, projecting saliva in a wide spray, his eyes watering
like a broken faucet. The toxic potpourri of moldy air and garbage
that had settled in his lungs demanded to be purged. There was no
stopping it.

Hobson
didn't wait for the release of pressure from the back of his skull.
He pitched a perfect backhand that connected with the stranger's
wrist. He then heard the gun clack against the concrete and slide
away. He sprang from his knees and slugged the stranger in the face.
He kept the flow going as he went full circle and came back with a
hooked punch directly under Glenda's cheek. However, he was too late
to stop the beginnings of the word “help” from passing
her lips. The back of Glenda's head hit the concrete and she buckled
under the subsequent dizziness.
Shit
,
Hobson thought. There was no choice now, but to complete the
objective and make the getaway. He pressed his forearm into Glenda's
throat to prevent her from screaming.

“
You
pissed me off, now,” he said.

Before
Hobson could do any further damage, he was blindsided by a lazy
flying tackle coupled with the paint-peeling vapors of rot-gut
alcohol. This guy was no cop, Hobson thought. He had only glanced him
earlier for the purpose of hitting his target, but now he could
really
see him.
He
looked like something that had been reanimated by a poorly cast
voodoo spell. He wore a dingy baseball cap, pulled low over his
forehead, but not enough to hide his eyes—runny, pink nodules
set inside a pair of pewter gray circles. He was outfitted in heavily
soiled pants, worn boots and a dirty blue flight jacket.
A
bum!
Hobson
thought.
A
genuine, bona fide, honest-to-goodness, twenty-four-carat bum.
“
Fucking
kidding me?” he asked aloud.

A
wrestling match ensued with arms and elbows flying in every
direction. It didn't take Hobson long to realize that he was dealing
with an experienced fighter; the bum seized on openings that most
street-punks would overlook and attempted strikes from all parts of
the arm, like hand heels and fingertips. Hobson would have to up his
game just to get out of the alley in one piece. He got a hand free
and cracked the bum in the teeth, opening a cut on his lip. But the
punch felt weak, relegated to the outside of the mouth rather than
the whole of the jaw or closer to the temple where it would have
really rung some bells. The bum grappled Hobson's arm and retorted
with a headbutt straight across the bridge of his nose. He then
knocked Hobson to the ground and straddled him. With all the strength
he could muster, he dealt three sharp jabs to Hobson's face.

“
Son-of-a-bitch!”
the dirty man warbled. “Punk-asses like you make me sick!”
The bum then drew back his fist for one superlative blow. It didn't
happen. He stalled as his vision went blurry. He felt the churning in
his stomach and the tickle in his throat. He then lurched forward and
spewed his half-digested breakfast all over Hobson’s face.

Glenda
balked at the sight and nearly followed suit.

“
Whoa,
shit,” someone else said. It was a clean-cut teenager hefting a
bag full of trash. A busboy from the restaurant next door. The first
thing his high-school education
noticed was Hobson's face full of used liquor.

It
was all the distraction that was necessary. Hobson nailed the bum
with an uppercut and his opponent was out like a light.