Salvation Row (28 page)

Babineaux stood there, unsure of what he was supposed to say. She didn’t give him the chance. The two of them walked around him and went down the corridor.

Dubois approached him.

“What did she say?”

“There’s no talking to her. They won’t see sense.”

“Do you want me to step it up?”

“This man, you’ve met him?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He seems very proficient.”

“You’re confident? I’m depending on your judgment, Jackson.”

“I am. He’s a professional.”

“Tell him to do it.”

“And her, too?”

“No. Not while this case lasts, it’d look much too convenient.”

“This man can make it look natural—”

“I said no, Jackson. That man looking after her. The Englishman. Him. Start with him.”

MILTON STAYED in his car outside the Comfort Inn all night. He parked in the lot, choosing an angle that allowed him a clear view to the front of the building. He knew that it was unlikely that they would make another attempt on her life while she was in the hotel, but, since he couldn’t rule it out, he was not prepared to take the chance. He hadn’t told Izzy that he would be there because he knew that she would have objected. The stakes had been raised now, and he knew that it was likely that another attempt would be made to force Izzy to drop the case.

They had tried once, and failed.

They would try again.

His vantage point made it very difficult for anyone to approach the building without him noticing. Hotel guests had returned to their rooms until the small hours, but, once the last stragglers had been accommodated, it stayed quiet. A light was overhead, throwing its dead white glow over the car. Milton had plugged his phone into the car’s sound system and listened to his music. He had ordered a delivery pizza at midnight, picking it up from the delivery driver as he pulled into the lot. He had eaten it and drank a bottle of Coke, listening to the old albums that made him think back to his time in the regiment and the innocent times before that.

He looked at his watch. Six thirty. She would be up and about now, getting her things ready for the day in court. Milton had said that he would pick her up at nine. She would be safe once she was inside the courtroom, and he anticipated that he would be able to grab a couple of hours’ sleep then. He thought it would be safe to leave her until he came to pick her up. He rubbed his palm across the stubble that covered his cheeks and chin. He needed a shower and a shave. He started the engine, put the car into drive, and headed back to his motel.

MILTON SAID hello to the woman on the desk, went to his room and undressed. He showered, turning the tap to cold and standing under the jet until his skin tingled. He washed, then filled the bowl with warm water and shaved with the straight razor that he always carried with him in his pack. He dressed in fresh clothes and packed his case. He had left his razor in the bathroom and went back to get it.

There was a small window. Milton’s room was at the end of the row, and the window offered a view of the parking lot that wasn’t visible from the main room. He saw a car pull up. A plain-looking sedan. Something about the car snagged his attention, but the sun was bouncing off the windshield and obscuring the interior. Milton watched and, as he idly ran his finger along the blade of the razor, the car backed into a space. It stopped and, after a moment, both doors opened.

A man and a woman got out. The low, early sun was in his eyes, and he couldn’t make out their faces. The man had an athletic build and a confident gait. The woman was slender, with good legs.

There was something about the man that caught Milton’s attention.

It made him uneasy.

They walked over to the motel rooms, coming closer to the window.

Milton frowned. He squinted into the sun, and as he did, a cloud scudded across the sky and a pillar of shadow rushed across the lot.

Milton gaped.

Avi Bachman?

What the…?

He almost dropped the razor in shock.

He was supposed to be dead.

Bachman reached a hand into his jacket and took out a pistol.

Milton thought as fast as he could.

What were the odds that Avi Bachman, who was supposed to be dead, was here, at a low-rent motel in New Orleans, at the precise same time as he was? A million to one. A
billion
to one. It couldn’t be a coincidence, and if it
wasn’t
a coincidence, then it could only mean that Bachman was here for him.

What to do? Bachman was armed: a 9mm. Milton had his Sig Sauer on the bedside table. The M16 and the MP5 were in the trunk of his rental. But there was no time to get to them.

He hurried into the main room.

BOON WAITED as Lila approached the door. The row of rooms was connected by a wooden veranda, the paint blistered in the sun, the planks warped and buckled. Numbers were fixed to the doors. This one was 10.

They had been given the address by the detective. The police had found out that the Bartholomews had been moved into the Comfort Inn, and it wasn’t a stretch to think that Milton would stand guard. They had followed him back here. Boon was surprised that it had been as easy as it was. Perhaps Milton was getting sloppy in his old age?

He held his pistol low, hidden from the rest of the rooms by the angle of his body. He knew that Milton would recognise him if he saw him, just as Boon had recognised him, and even though that would probably make no difference since he had the overwhelming advantage of surprise, he didn’t like to take chances. The doors all had peepholes, and there was no way of predicting how Milton would react if he saw him standing outside his door. Milton would have heard the news. As far as he was concerned, Avi Bachman was dead. Milton knew his profession, and it wouldn’t have been a difficult mental leap for someone so inherently suspicious to recognise that he was here on business.

There was a good chance that he would shoot first and ask questions later.

The alternative was to kick down the door, go in hard, gun up, and take him out. But that was messy and unpredictable and unattractive.

So, he thought,
no
, there was a better way.

Milton had never seen Lila before. She could knock on the door and confirm that he was there. He would open the door for her. Boon would wait to the side, out of sight, and, on Lila’s signal, he would step into the doorway and shoot him.

Lila stepped up onto the veranda. Boon held his breath. She took a step to the door, raised her hand, and rapped against it three times.

Lila knew better than to look across at him, or, worse, to say anything, but Boon knew from the twist to her face that something was amiss. She reached up and pressed her fingers against the door. It swung open.

“Hello?”

There was no reply.

“Hello?”

She pushed the door all the way open and, before Boon could stop her, she stepped inside.

“Hello?”

Boon gripped the pistol tight. He didn’t want Lila to be in there. Milton had been Number One. He knew what that meant.

“Shit,” Lila called out. “Baby?”

Boon stepped out and went through the open door. He stood just in front of the door, taking the measure of the room, looking to see where everything was. He held his breath, listening, trying to get a sense for the room and what it might mean. Lila was standing next to the bed. It hadn’t been slept in, but the sheets and blankets were ruffled, as if something had been placed atop them. There was an interconnecting door between this room and the one alongside. It was standing open, just an inch or two.

Boon shut the front door, put on the latch, held up a hand, mouthed “stay here,” and stepped farther into the room. He checked the bathroom, held his hand against the porcelain sink. It was damp, still a little warm, a tideline of scum just below the level of the overflow. Little bristles. Milton had shaved. He knelt down beside the shower cubicle, reached down to the tray, felt that it was wet. He had been here, and not long ago.

He went back into the room and approached the interconnecting door. He paused there, listening. A toilet flushed somewhere, and a door latch clicked. Didn’t sound like it was next door, maybe one of the rooms farther along the line. He held the gun ahead of him, his finger tight around the trigger. He only needed just an extra ounce or two of pressure to bring it all the way back and fire.

He yanked the door. A woman sat up in the bed, naked, her breasts exposed. Boon shot her three times and left her blood spread across the headboard and the wall behind it. The bathroom door swung open and a man in pajamas was standing there, his mouth open. Boon shot him three times, just as quick, sending him back into the bathroom, blood splashing onto the threadbare carpet and the salmon bathroom tiles.

Boon paused, listening. Floorboards creaked, but not here, maybe the next room over. This couple were not involved. It looked domestic, two people stopping for the night, wrong place, wrong time. Tough luck. Their cases were open, pushed up against the wall, clothes spilling out of them. The only thing out of place was the front door. It was unlatched and ajar.

Boon crept ahead, his gun arm steady, but, before he could reach the door, he heard the sound of an engine. He heard lots of revs and the screech of rubber, biting on asphalt. He opened it as a Toyota Corolla raced away, taking the sharp bend out of the lot at speed, making the road and melting into the early traffic.

“Shit,” Lila said.

She was behind him, just inside the door. She looked at the dead woman in the bed, saw the legs of the dead man stretching out through the door to the bathroom. She wasn’t perturbed by either of them. She had seen plenty of death in the last two years, plenty worse than this. It was the sight of the open front door, the sound of the car, the evidence that Milton had evaded them. It was
that
which had annoyed her.

“Yeah,” Boon said. “Shit.”

“He knows we’re coming now.”

“Yes.”

“That was our best chance to get at him.”

“I know, baby.”

“He’ll be impossible now.”

“Not impossible. Difficult.”

“So what do we do?”

“You know what we do, baby. Leverage. We pick a different target.”

MILTON DROVE at a steady sixty. Not too fast to risk attention from the police, but not so slow that he would give Bachman the chance to get ahead of him.

His body was flooded with adrenaline. His hands were trembling.

Avi Bachman.

That was something that he couldn’t possibly have foreseen.

And it changed everything.

He took out his phone and looked at the time.

8.30AM.

He dialled Izzy, activated the speaker, and rested the phone on the dash.

“Hello?”

“It’s me. Where are you?”

“At the hotel. Just getting ready.”

“Stay there. Do
not
leave your room without me.”

“I wasn’t going to. You said—”

“Listen to me, Izzy. Your parents, too. They need to come with us today.”

“To court?”

“They need to be with us.”

“What’s happened, Milton?”

He held his tongue. No sense in worrying her any more than she was already worried. “Something has changed. I’ll tell you when I see you. But it’ll be fine. I just want us to be extra careful from now on.”

“You’re worrying me, John. I told you, no secrets, okay? Sounds like you’re holding out on me. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”

“Everything is fine. I’ll explain when I get there. Just stay in the room.”

MILTON ARRIVED at the Comfort Inn and called Izzy again. She came out five minutes later, dragging her document case behind her. Her parents followed behind. Milton left the engine running, stepped out and waved them over. The pistol was jammed against his hip, a comforting presence. He let them come all the way over to him, unwilling to allow himself the distraction of meeting them halfway. He scanned with avid, hungry eyes. If the roles had been reversed, and he was in Bachman’s shoes, this would have been a prime opportunity. He felt the buzz of adrenaline again as he looked left and right. But there was nothing.

Izzy stepped out, put a little distance between herself and her parents. “What is it?” she hissed at him.

“I’ll explain later. When we’re alone.”

“You’re frightening me.”

“I’m sorry. You have to trust me.”

Solomon and Elsie reached the car. “Morning, John,” the old man said. “Got room in the car for the two of us? Izzy says we need to see her in action today.”

“Plenty of room,” he said, opening the back door, his eyes still roving left and right.

“Thanks for the ride,” Elsie said as she lowered herself onto the bench seat.

“You’re welcome.”

Solomon got in alongside his wife, and Milton shut the door.

“What?” Izzy hissed again. “You tell me now, or we’re not going anywhere and you can explain to them what the hell is going on.”

Milton gritted his teeth. Why couldn’t things be easy, just one time?

“Someone came after me this morning.”

“What does that mean?”

“Someone I know, from a long time ago. He came to kill me.”

“What the—?”

“It’s fine. I saw him coming—”

“It’s
fine?
”

“It’s fine—”

“It’s not fine. They ran us off the road, tried to kill us, now they send someone else after you.”

He put his finger to his lips. “Not now. You want to worry them?”

Her parents were talking to each other in the car.

“When?”

“After court. Get through today, we can talk about it then. All right?”

She fired a hot stare at him. “Fine. But no sugar-coating. I need to know everything. I need to know that this is still worth it, whether the stakes are getting too high, you hear me?”

“Yes,” he said. “Get in the car, Izzy. We don’t want to be late.”

BOON FOUND the place without any trouble. It was a large, modern building, and the lights in the windows glittered in the wan light of dusk. He turned off the road and found a space in the parking lot. He switched off the engine and turned to Lila.