First Drop (38 page)

She turned to me. “You really
are
delusional, aren’t you?” she said with something approaching a sneer. “Why the hell would Jim Whitmarsh kill those people?”

“You tell me,” I said softly. “Why would he and Haines be all fired-up for killing the pair of us – until they found out how vital Trey was to your precious program?”

“Now, now, ladies,” Brown interrupted, pushing a cup of coffee towards each of us, as though a hit of caffeine might calm us down. He rummaged through the little bowl, picking out four packets of Sweet ‘n’ Low which he emptied into his cup along with two packets of creamer. Then he stirred the resultant muddy-coloured gloop with one of the straws. Maybe it was a ploy to induce unity. Both Gerri and I eyed the concoction with measures of distaste.

I took my coffee black. It was out of a machine and it hit my stomach thin and sharp and greasy. It was also hotter than hell. I pushed it away.

“So, Charlie, what’s all this about them trying to kill the boy?” Brown asked then.

“Between them they’ve made three attempts so far,” I said, ignoring Gerri’s impatient gesture which I just caught out of the corner of my eye. “Four, if you count the initial attack by Haines in the amusement park.”

“Who’s this Haines character?”

“He’s a cop down in Fort Lauderdale but he freelances as a security consultant. Last year he did some work for Ms Raybourn here when she was with a company in Miami that made car parts. Looks like he’s working for her again now.”

Gerri was frowning again. “A cop?” she said, sounding artfully distracted. “Wait a minute. I remember – he was one of the guys who brought Trey back to the house after he was caught at the Galleria. I
knew
I knew him from somewhere.”

I tried not to grind my teeth at her refusal to admit defeat. “Nice to see the myth of the dumb blonde lives on,” I said conversationally. “What do you hope to gain by keeping up this act?”

“I’m not the one who needs a new act, Charlie,” she shot back, lip curling. “Maybe you’ll have time to think on that while you’re rotting in a penitentiary somewhere serving your life sentence.”

“If anyone’s going to prison, Gerri,” I said, giving it a little more bite this time, “that will be you.”

“Ladies, please,” Brown said, starting to look nervous. “Quiet down, huh? I don’t want no cat-fight in here.”

“Quite,” I drawled, pointedly dabbing my fingertips against my cheek. It had stopped bleeding and was starting to scab over.

Gerri’s gaze ran over me briefly, lingering on the wound she’d inflicted as if next time she’d like to rip my throat out and spit down the hole.

Not if I get to you first . . .

Brown took a slurp of his coffee and swallowed before he turned to me. “So what was it you said about Trey being part of some program?”

“Keith was writing a program that would accurately predict the stock market,” I explained. “He was having problems getting part of it to work but Trey has apparently solved the problem. Something to do with the neural network, I believe. I don’t understand the technicalities.”

Brown’s eyebrows went up, matching the wispy scraps of hair on his high domed head. “Young Trey?” he said, sounding doubtful. “I mean, I know he’s a bright kid an’ all, but you really reckon he’s done something his dad couldn’t?”

“No, of course he couldn’t,” Gerri snapped. “It’s ridiculous to think for a moment that he could. Keith’s a highly talented programmer, otherwise the company we work for wouldn’t be basing just about their entire future on his work.”

“So why was Whitmarsh trying to kill Trey right up to the point where he found out that the kid might be involved with the program? Then, all of a sudden, Whitmarsh has a chance to shoot the pair of us but he lets us get away because he’s afraid of damaging him.”

“How did he find out that Trey was involved?” Brown asked.

“Trey went to a guy he knew called Henry for help,” I said, not adding my own feelings on the subject. “But Henry contacted Whitmarsh to sell us to the highest bidder. After he’d tried to up the price by telling Whitmarsh what the boy was really worth, Henry attempted to lure us into a trap and when it didn’t quite go according to plan he got a bullet in the brain from Haines for his trouble.”

Brown went silent, his placid face troubled. “So where’s the boy now?”

“He’s safe,” I said, thinking of Xander and Aimee who were standing guard over him. And Walt, ready to take over if anything went wrong. Not to mention Special Agent in Charge Till, and all that he represented.

“Oh I get it,” Gerri said with contempt. “You don’t make a phone call by a certain time and he and Keith both get it. Am I right?”

“Something like that,” I agreed, wondering why I hadn’t thought of telling them something along those lines in the first place.

“Well,” she said, smiling nastily at me as she blew that one out of the water, “I’m sure the cops will sweat it out of you in plenty of time to retrieve them both.”

She finished her coffee and got to her feet, like this conversation was over. I studied her but couldn’t find the faintest sign of panic.

Why on earth had her men killed to prevent Trey and me falling into police hands if she was so eager to see me put there now? It didn’t make sense. Unless she was just trying to get me out of here, to get me somewhere quieter and with less witnesses.

“Don’t you think it might be an idea to check out what she says, even just a little?” Brown asked and I could have cheered at the cool note that had crept into his voice when he spoke to her.

Gerri gave a short laugh. “Why?” The laugh died when she caught the solemn expression on his face. “Oh come on, Livingston! How long have we known each other? You surely can’t believe a word this lying little bitch tells you?”

Brown made a ‘maybe, maybe not’ gesture with his hand. “Don’t do no harm to check it out, even so,” he said easily.

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“Let her call your feller Whitmarsh and offer to make a deal with him for the boy,” Brown said. “If he’s as crooked as she reckons, he’ll go for it.” He smiled at me and those bright, clever eyes stared out from beneath their droopy lids like he was a young man inside a geriatric costume mask. “And if he does, well I guess we’ll just take things from there.”

***

Gerri didn’t like it. In fact if she’d liked it any less she would have been wailing but clearly she wasn’t in charge here. Brown pushed the heavy cream telephone he’d been using when I’d first burst into his office across the desk towards me. Then he opened one of the drawers and began pawing through the contents.

“My late wife, God rest her, used to love those gadget catalogues,” he said while he searched. “You know the ones? A thousand answers to questions you never needed to ask? She was always buying me stuff I never had the heart to send back. Ah, here we are.”

He pulled out a small tape recorder, similar to the one that Walt had given me. It jogged my memory and I slid my eyes sideways and spotted the strap of my bag, just poking out from underneath the broken chair.

Brown, meanwhile, was untangling the wires that came with his recorder, which had knotted themselves together the way wire or string has a tendency to do when it’s left to its own devices and gets bored. When he’d unravelled these they separated out to reveal a set of headphones at the end of one, and a small sucker at the end of the other.

“You kinda stick that to the receiver, then you can tape your phone conversations,” Brown said, checking the batteries were still working in the recorder. “I used it once or twice, just for fun. Can’t remember the last time.”

He attached the sucker to the side of the handset and pressed the record buttons, then Gerri stabbed in the number of Whitmarsh’s mobile phone. Her movements were impatient, her lips compressed. Would her man betray her, I wondered, or was he too canny for that?

She and Brown shared the headphones, putting their heads together awkwardly so they could have one earpiece each. The phone rang out four or five times before Jim Whitmarsh picked up. I don’t know what number appeared on the display at his end, but his voice was wary.

“Yeah?”

“Whitmarsh,” I said. “It’s Charlie Fox.”

Gerri Raybourn and I silently locked gazes while I spoke. She sat with her body rigid, as though she was being made to listen to an obscene phone call.

There was a pause at the other end of the line, then I heard Whitmarsh let his breath out in a long rush, close to a sigh with a soft laugh at the end of it.

“Well now, Charlie,” he said, voice rich with satisfaction like he’d always known I wouldn’t be able to resist him for long. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Cut the crap,” I said. “Do you still want the kid?”

“Trey?” Whether it was the abrupt tone or the offer, I felt his surprise. His interest quickened. “You bet.”

“Dead? Or alive?”

He laughed again. He had a slightly wheezy laugh, as though he was a heavy smoker. “If I’d wanted him dead, neither one of you would have walked away from us yesterday,” he said, coldly matter-of-fact.

“Well, I’m offering him to you now,” I said. “What’s it worth to you?”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to start dictating terms, lady,” Whitmarsh said but he spoke just a little too fast, his voice just a little too tense. It gave the lie to his confident words.

“Oh really?” I said. “OK, let me phrase that slightly differently for you, Jim. What’s it worth to you to get hold of him when he’s still alive and kicking, rather than shot in the stomach and dropped into a swamp?”

Another long pause. “News travels fast, huh?” Whitmarsh said then. He laughed again, dustier this time, with more strain showing through it. “Thought it might make you lose your nerve and wanna throw in the towel.”

I thought of how close I’d come to doing just that, on the beach after we’d left Walt’s place this morning. The memory of my own misery and helplessness hardened something inside me. I would see this through and I would bring them down, whatever it took.

“Well you thought wrong, didn’t you,” I said.

“So what do you want?”

“What do I want?” I repeated, letting my voice slip, introducing the rough note of someone pushed close to the edge. It didn’t take much faking. “I want to get out of this fucking country and go home,” I said, flat. “But I can’t do that unless I have something to bargain with. Give me Keith. You don’t need him any more.”

“Who says we have Keith?”

“Oh come on, Whitmarsh,” I snapped. “You took him from the house Thursday morning and you’ve had him ever since. You must have had plenty of time to copy all his files and notes. Long enough to realise the program isn’t complete. And I know Henry told you about Trey’s work on the neural net. You need the kid and you don’t need Keith. Let me have him.”

Whitmarsh didn’t say anything immediately. Gerri started to react but I waved her to silence with a curt gesture and added, “Come on, this is a one-time-only deal. Make a decision.”

“OK, Charlie,” he said and I could tell by his voice that I wouldn’t be able to trust him. “I guess we can do that. When and where you wanna make the exchange?”

For a second my mind went blank, then I remembered the Ocean Center complex. Above the main hall where the show itself was taking place were rows of deserted seating, all fed by corridors and walkways.

“Meet me upstairs at the Ocean Center on Atlantic Avenue,” I said. I checked my watch. “You’ve got an hour.” And with that I cut the connection, not giving him a chance to argue.

As I put the phone down both Brown and Gerri Raybourn peeled their earpieces out and put them down on the desk top. I raised an eyebrow at the pair of them.
Well?

Gerri dipped into the lavender handbag and produced a pack of Kools. She picked one out and lit it with hands that didn’t look quite as steady as they had done before I’d made my phone call. She inhaled deeply with all the fervour of a lapsed quitter, closing her eyes briefly.

Brown looked pained but too polite to ask her not to smoke in his office. Instead he shifted his empty coffee cup back onto the tray and put the saucer in front of her. She distractedly flicked her first buildup of ash onto his carpet anyway. Then she looked up, her eyes skating from one to the other of us in turn, hunted.

“Jim was just leading her on, trying to recover the boy,” she said but even she didn’t sound like she entirely believed it. The references to Sean were conveniently overlooked altogether. She took another drag on the cigarette and the nicotine seemed to build her tattered confidence. I could see it swelling like a reinflating doll until her skin seemed tight with it. “Of course he doesn’t have Keith to trade. It’s ridiculous.”

Brown cleared his throat. “Well,” he said slowly. “I guess there’s one way to find out.” He looked over the top of us to where the two heavies who’d come to his rescue were still loitering. “Tool up, Mason, and grab another couple of the boys,” he said to them. “We’ve got less than fifty-five minutes to get up to Daytona Beach.”