Money for Nothing (25 page)

Meanwhile, the other thug went around to the trunk, opened it, and took out two bags. One was a standard black wheeled flight bag with a handle that raised up, the other the small overnight bag he remembered from Jeremy's room, that had so upset Eve. The thug carried both into the house, leaving the door open. Faint exhaust from the tailpipe showed that the driver, still inside the car, had kept the engine on.

She'd been leaving. Her job finished here, she'd packed and started to leave, and they had intercepted her. At the apartment? At the airport? They'd intercepted her and brought her here. Intercepted her,
handcuffed
her, wrists behind her back, and brought her here. Why?

He thought again of that angry fragment he'd heard from her: "Take me to Andrei!
He'll
know—" Angry, but was it also frightened?

What had she done to make them turn on her? From what Mr. Nimrin had said, that time they'd sat on the bench pretending not to talk to each other, Tina Pausto was a longtime valued part of their group. What had gone wrong? Had she told Mitch Robbie the truth, so he wouldn't be killed? Had her heart swayed her head, and now she would suffer the consequences? Somehow, Josh doubted that could be true. But what else could have happened?

The two thugs came back out of the house, without Tina and without the luggage. They got back into the Lincoln, and it purred away around the driveway and out of sight.

Everything's getting unstrung, he thought, not just my nerves but everything. Out at Kennedy, at that parking lot, he'd decided he could no longer be passive, no longer just do what everybody else wanted, but here he was again. Stopped, static, waiting for
them
to act.

No more, he told himself, and at last turned away from the window. He looked at the door. It was time to get out of there.

THE ARMOIRE WAS ESSENTIALLY a freestanding closet, with two mirrored doors that opened to show a tall empty space within, a wooden rod for hangers across the top. Below the doors were two drawers, side by side, with ornate brass handles, in the same style as the knobs on the doors.

The drawers were empty. Half a dozen metal hangers hung on the rod, nothing more. On top of the armoire was a thin folded blanket. There was nothing under the bed, no other furniture except the chair he'd been seated in. The only electric light was a ceiling fixture, with a flat etched pink glass shade under it like a flying saucer.

What else did he have? They were so little concerned about him they hadn't even searched him, so what did he have? Wallet, keys, a little change, his watch. His clothes. Nothing else.

When he stooped to look through the keyhole, his view was blocked by the key, an old-fashioned skeleton key from the era when this garage was built, nothing ever renovated, updated. He could hear the television faintly, but couldn't see past that key.

He needed to see. Straightening, he examined his own ring of keys and chose the one for the mailbox, the thinnest of them, but also the shortest. Stooping again to the door, he slid his key in next to the other one and pushed it a little to the left, jiggling it, and the key in the lock turned. Just a fraction, but enough to clear the view.

Could he turn it the rest of the way, unlock the door? What if he broke off a piece of metal clothes hanger, bent it, used it to push the key up and around its orbit?

No. He might get it almost halfway up one side or the other, but then his lever would run into the body of the key and stop. He could only get at it from below, and that wouldn't be good enough.

But at least now he could see. He went to one knee this time to peer through the keyhole, and now he realized that, even more than a railroad apartment, this was what was called a shotgun apartment because the doors were lined up in a row and, with them all open, a person could fire a shotgun from the front and the charge would go through all the doorways and out the window in back. Which also meant he could see through the open doorways into the living room and look at the thug there, sprawled in an armchair he'd moved to the middle of the room, so he could keep an eye on this door. His right profile was to Josh as he sluggishly watched what sounded like some sort of sporting event. Saturday afternoon sports. Golf? No, it sounded a little louder than that. Tennis, maybe.

Josh straightened. If he were very silent and managed to get this door open, he might ease through and out of the line of sight without attracting that guy's attention. But the first question was, how to silently get this door open.

It opened outward, meaning the hinges were on the other side, so he couldn't get at them. The lock was old-fashioned, but it was still a lock, a metal bolt extended into a metal-enclosed hole in the doorjamb. How to get that out of the way, without making noise.

The keyhole and doorknob shared a decorative brass plate, held by two small brass screws at top and bottom. Josh put his keys away, took out his change, and found a dime. With that, which just fit snugly into the groove in the screws, and after trying for a discouragingly long time, he finally got both screws to turn. Once they started, they came right out, and then he could swivel the plate, still held by the doorknob, to expose the lock mechanism.

And there it was, a simple cylinder with the key in it, angled just slightly leftward from its bottom position. But still very tight in there, too tight for his fingers to reach in.

It was the mailbox key again that did it, pressing the skeleton key around to the left and up. At the apex, it met resistance from the bolt and he had to press steadily, teeth gritted, both hands on his key, afraid it might snap. But it didn't, and the skeleton key suddenly moved freely again, and he knew the door was unlocked.

This was the moment. He stooped again to look through the keyhole, now smelling the old dusty metal scent of the lock, and the guard was exactly as before. Commercials played on the television, but he didn't look away from the set

Still peering through the keyhole, Josh slowly turned the knob. No sound. When it was turned all the way, he pushed slightly, and the door moved open an inch. Moving his head with it, keeping the guard in view, he pushed it a little farther, and just when the angle moved the guard out of his line of sight he had the door far enough open so he could release the knob. Then he stood, put both palms on the door, and took two deep breaths before pushing it open farther, just enough to slide through, not looking toward the guard now, not wanting to know, just sliding through, pushing the door gently closed behind him as he moved away to the left, not stopping until he was out of the guard's sight, standing next to one of the unmade beds in the larger room.

He looked back, and the door was almost completely closed, the faint angle of it probably not visible from the other end of the apartment. He hoped not, anyway. And in any case, the guard seemed very involved with his spectator sport.

Rather than risk showing himself too often, he climbed over three of the beds, then pressed himself to the far wall as he peeked cautiously around the door frame there. No change. As he watched, the guard yawned and rubbed his face with both palms, then shifted his behind in the chair and blinked. Then went on watching.

This doorway was much closer, much more dangerous. Josh waited, and waited, and waited, and finally realized he was afraid to do it, so afraid that he might just stand here forever, or until they'd come for him. So don't think about it, he told himself, just
do
it.
Now
.

Into the kitchen, to the left, pressed against the refrigerator, then sidling to the right, hidden again. No reaction from the living room. He paused, facing the sink, both palms pressed down onto the front edge of the sink, looking into the sink. He could hear the television sound much louder now. Yes, tennis.

And now what? The stove was to his right Above it was suspended from the ceiling an iron ornamental rectangle with hooks, bearing three pans and a spatula. One of them was a frying pan, six inches wide, cast iron, excellent for frying a couple of eggs. And for other things as well.

Josh carefully took down the frying pan, hefted its good weight in his hand, and it reminded him of the weight of the pistol Levrin had tricked him into firing out at JFK. Well, he'd learned something there, hadn't he? He wasn't violent by nature, had never thought of himself as someone who could do violent things, but he'd learned out there at Kennedy, hadn't he, at Levrin's hands? Learned, if he had to, he could shoot a gun he believed was loaded, shoot that gun and hope and believe it would kill someone. He'd learned that, hadn't he? So this was a piece of cake.

The handle of the frying pan grasped in both tense hands, he came lunging around the door frame into the living room, not even hearing himself bellow, not even knowing the unearthly sounds he made. Two-handed, he swung the frying pan directly into that gaping, astonished, upleaping face, felt the impact, kept going, whirling like a dervish, all the way around, a complete circle, then tottering back, off balance, dizzy, thudding his shoulderblades against the wall behind him, the frying pan bouncing on the carpet as he looked down at the overturned chair, the man splayed out on his back, that ruined face gushing blood like a fountain.

That'll learn ya.

THIS GUY WOULD HAVE A GUN, of course he would. He'd feel naked without it. And now, Josh wanted it.

The man's face still bled, though less than before, oozing instead of spouting. Josh remembered something from his reading, that dead bodies didn't bleed, because there was nothing to pump the blood, so this one was probably still alive.

It was with a kind of dull surprise that Josh realized he didn't much care one way or the other. Dead or alive, it made no difference, just so the guy wouldn't go on being a problem.

And where would he keep his gun? Pants pocket, most likely. Josh patted, not liking to touch this body, but felt the metal outline, reached into the right side pocket, and pulled out a pistol that looked too fancy to belong to somebody like that. It was small, an automatic rather than a revolver, pale brushed metal with paler marbleized side pieces added to the butt. The barrel was encased in a rectangular metal sheath, with the word BERETTA stamped into it on the left side, near the front. A piece shaped like a metal lima bean that angled down beside the trigger would be the safety; push it up, and you're ready to shoot.

There was nothing else here he needed. His legs seemed to be trembling, but not badly enough to keep him from hurrying down the stairs and through the door at the bottom, which led him out to the end of the blacktop drive. The length of the garage was to his right, the main building beyond it

Rather than go down that way, which seemed to Josh too exposed to the dead eyes of the house, he turned left, went around the corner, and hurried down the side of the garage to the rear, the gun in his right hand held at his stomach. Looking around this next corner, he saw the house again, beyond the garage, but back here the brush and spindly trees had not been cleared away. With luck, he could get to the house without being seen.

Before moving, he looked down at the Beretta. For a righthander like himself, that safety lima bean was perfectly placed, just above his thumb as he gripped the marbleized handle. Flick upward with the thumb, then pull the trigger. Simplicity itself.

Once he started along the rear of the garage, the trembling in his body grew worse, because he felt frighteningly exposed, but he bit his lower lip and stared hard at the house, and just kept moving. And, as he walked, staying close to the rear of the garage, eyes burning with the intensity of his stare at the house, a bit of doggerel circled through his head, written by some nineteenth-century British poet: "Thou shalt not kill, but need'st not strive/Officiously to keep alive."

So he must still be ambivalent about the guy he'd hit with the frying pan. But that was all right; he could be ambivalent all he wanted, just so he hit him.

He made it to the house without seeing any movement or causing any alarms. There were narrow basement windows at ankle-height, and the ground floor windowsills were on a level with his chest. The curtains inside there were old and frayed, gray with dirt, but lacy. He got an impression of what might have been some sort of living room, but there were no lights on in there and the interior was too dim to be certain.

He moved along the side of the house to the rear corner, looked around it, and saw no one and nothing. Just the blunt grim stone facade, holding its secrets. He set out along the rear, passed a window, a window, a window, and came to a door, up two shallow steps to a landing, flanked by wrought iron railing, to remind him all at once of the entrance to Harriet Linde's office. But he was a long way from that office and its implications now.

He went up the steps, peered through the windows in the door at a dim interior, not a kitchen, possibly a large pantry, but when he tried the knob the door was locked.

He needed to get in there, but how? To break a window in this door would make a sound that would be heard two or three rooms away. He had to get inside, but he had to be quiet about it.

Finally, he left that door and retraced his steps to the last window from the corner on the rear wall. Peering in, he saw some sort of library or study, unoccupied. Below that window was a narrow basement window, and when he knelt to peer in, he saw that a simple latch closed it, and that it was hinged at the top to swing in and up. Inside, the basement was very dim. No lights, no people.

The only way for him to keep going, he'd come to realize, was to act without thinking. Kneel by the basement window, see a dark empty interior, break the glass with the butt of the Beretta. A tinkling down below was quickly dissipated in the large empty space.

The latch opened easily. Pocketing the Beretta, Josh pushed the window in and up, and saw there was a metal ring on the inside of it, in the middle of the bottom strip of wood. Holding the window open with one hand, he reached the other hand up through the broken part of the glass, being very careful not to slit his wrist on the jagged pieces remaining, and found the hook suspended from a beam in there. It wasn't hard to push the window up far enough to slip the hook over the ring and hold the window open.