Trust Me (33 page)

    Four-thirty in the morning Ricky heard his cell phone ringing. He picked it up and said, "Tell me you've got her."

    "We are driving to Chicago, Illinois, in search of Karen Delaney," Tariq said.

    He always said her last name too. Ricky thinking, you don't have to say Delaney. She's the only Karen we're looking for. They were a couple of oddball dudes, but he had to admit they were persistent—still on the job at 4:30 in the morning, while everyone else on the payroll was sacked out, snoring. Ricky said, "Where the fuck you at?"

    "We are on Interstate 94, approaching Marshall, Michigan," Tariq said in his straightforward, no bullshit way. He sounded like a Middle East robot.

    Ricky said, "You don't have to say Michigan. I know where Marshall's at, okay?"

    When Tariq told him Karen Delaney was staying at the Drake Hotel on Walton Street in Chicago, Illinois, pronouncing the "s," Ricky said, oh Chicago's in Illinois, huh? I didn't know that, thanks for telling me. He'd decided he'd better get up and go there himself, protect his interest. He wouldn't need the hundred grand from Wadi Nasser now. He'd be able to pay off Samir and be set for life.

    Ricky called Northwest and booked a seat on the 7:00 a.m. nonstop to O'Hare, flight 1235, arriving at 7:23. He'd fly in, get there before Karen got out of bed. But it didn't go that way. Ricky was in first class, drinking a screwdriver and the plane was taxiing on the runway when the pilot said I've got good news and bad news. The good news is we're the next plane to take off. The bad news is we have a mechanical problem and have to go back to the terminal. Ricky couldn't believe a pilot would talk like that: good news, bad news. Like it was a fucking joke.

    The flight was delayed for an hour while they fixed the plane and Ricky didn't arrive in Chicago till 8:22. He rented a car and called the Iraqis.

    Karen woke up at 8:45 and ordered room service: an English muffin and coffee. She drank the coffee and took a couple bites of the muffin, but wasn't hungry. Her nerves were still frazzled. She went in the bathroom to brush her teeth and was surprised to see the face looking at her in the mirror, still not used to her new hair. She got dressed and went down to the lobby. She bought a Chicago Cubs baseball cap in one of the gift shops. She went in the ladies' room and ripped off the tags and adjusted the cap low over her eyes, hiding as much of her face as she could.

    Instead of going out the main entrance on Walton, she went out the Oak Street side of the hotel. There was something going on. Two police cars, lights flashing, were parked right there on the street. Karen could see four cops standing next to a Jaguar. She went south and crossed Michigan Avenue and walked a couple blocks to Emporium Luggage and bought a black twenty-six-inch roll-along suitcase that looked like it would hold a million six in banded currency. She stopped at a newsstand and bought a
New York Times, Chicago Tribune
and
Sun-Times, Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily
and
USA Today.
She took a cab back to the hotel and asked the driver to drop her off at the Oak Street entrance, but the street was blocked off, so she got out on Michigan Avenue. The cops were still there and two med techs were putting someone on a gurney in the back of an EMS van.

    Karen went in the hotel. She rolled her suitcase along the corridor of shops and got behind a group of conventioneers coming out of a meeting room. She followed the group to the lobby, and took an elevator up to her room. She'd transfer the money in her new bag and leave the Eddie Bauer duffel and a couple of blouses in the closet to make it look like she was still using the room.

    The suite had been cleaned while she was out. She went in the bedroom and pulled the covers back on the bed and messed up the pillows. Karen went in the bathroom and wet a couple of bath towels and dropped them on the floor. She left her toothbrush and toiletries on the counter next to the sink. She was tired and stressed from worrying, and wondered if she was going to be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.

    O'Clair got out of the car. He slid the Browning in his belt and buttoned his sport coat that was too small for him. It bulged against his belly and the buttons strained, trying to hold it together. He walked along the row of parked cars toward the Jag. There was a park on his right, bordering Oak Street. The Drake was on his left. Except for an occasional car he didn't see anyone around.

    He flashed back to Virginia, the way he found her, all busted up. He could feel himself getting angry, getting pumped again. As he got closer to the Jag, O'Clair could see the guy's face watching him in the side mirror. He walked up to the car, the window was down and he stood behind him—an old cop trick—so the guy had to turn to see him. O'Clair was holding the Browning at arm's length down his right leg. The guy's face was pockmarked and expressionless the way Virginia had described him. The guy's right hand was in his lap, his left was hidden by the door. O'Clair said, "I noticed your license plate. I'm from Michigan too." He grinned. "Where you from?"

    The guy looked at him but didn't say anything.

    "You don't by any chance know Virginia Delaney, do you?" O'Clair saw him turn in his seat and saw his left hand come up over the doorsill, holding a gun, and shot him three times in the chest and watched him twist and grunt and slump forward, head touching the steering wheel. "I thought that might get your attention," O'Clair said.

    Ricky sat in his rental car parked in a loading zone on Walton Street across from the Drake Hotel. It said "Louis Vuitton" on three first floor windows of the building next to him. It looked like a luggage store. Trucks lined the street behind him. There was a stake truck in front of him and workers were unloading construction equipment. It was so fucking hot he had to keep the engine running to keep the air on.

    Ricky had gotten a call from Wadi Nasser, who told him he'd gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to get the hundred grand for him, and was he going to pick it up or what? He'd also gotten a call from Samir, who'd left an angry message: Where the hell are you? If you're not back here by noon, don't come back. You're through. You hear me? Yeah, Ricky heard him. He wasn't going to make it.

    Hearing Samir's voice got him thinking. He could sit here and wait for Tariq to find Karen, or he could go in and try to find her himself. He got out of the car, crossed the street and went through the revolving door. He walked upstairs through the lobby to the front desk. A cute young girl in a blue suit was standing across the dark wood counter from him, smiling.

    "Sir, may I help you?"

    "I'm looking for a friend of mine, Karen Delaney," Ricky said. "What room's she in?"

    The girl typed something on the keyboard in front of her. She studied the computer screen and looked up at him. "Sir, there is no guest named Karen Delaney registered at this hotel."

    "She's five six, a hundred and fifteen pounds, red hair, nice-looking girl. Maybe you've seen her around."

    "No sir."

    "Try Karen Starr with two r's."

    She looked down at the computer again and said, "I'm sorry, we do not have a guest named Karen Starr registered here either."

    Ricky didn't know if this chick was jerking him around or not, but what could he do about it? He looked behind him and saw Tariq sitting at a table in the restaurant that was half a dozen steps above the lobby.

    He went back outside and heard sirens and saw cop cars speeding by on Michigan Avenue. Something was happening on the other side of the hotel. He walked around the block to Oak Street. Two police cars were parked, lights flashing, blocking the street. As he got closer he could see Omar slumped forward in the driver's seat of the Jag. Ricky asked one of the cops what happened. Guy told him to please step back on the sidewalk. Police were investigating a possible homicide.

    Ricky had no idea who popped Omar. Maybe Karen had someone working with her. He decided not to say anything to Tariq. He didn't want him distracted. He wanted him to keep his eye on the ball.

    Tariq was thinking about Omar before he saw the woman. He had tried to contact him three times without success, and now believed Omar was outside the hotel asleep in the car. He saw her enter the lobby, coming behind a business group from Millennium Software, the people wearing the plastic-coated cards around their necks. Tariq was sitting at a table in the Palm Court restaurant above the lobby, watching her from his elevated perch. This woman did not appear to be with the group. She was rolling a suitcase across the red carpeting. It was the way she was walking, angled forward that caught his attention. That and she seemed to be hiding behind the cap and sunglasses like someone who did not want to be recognized. He studied her as she passed by him and waited for the elevator. There was something familiar about her. Yes, the color of her hair was different, but he was convinced this was Karen Delaney.

    He stood up and moved down the stairs. He was halfway across the lobby, moving through the group of conventioneers when the doors to the middle elevator opened and Karen stepped inside and the doors closed behind her. Tariq watched the elevator rise up to the tenth floor and stop. He pressed the button on the wall and watched as the elevator to his left returned to the main floor. The doors opened, Tariq entered and pushed the button quickly before anyone could walk in. The doors closed and the elevator started up.

    He walked along the deserted hallway, which was covered with blue carpeting. There were many rooms. How would he find her? He walked to the end of the hall and around the corner to his right. There was a maid's cart. The door to room 1026 was open. He could hear the electric hum of a vacuum cleaner. He peered in the room. The maid had her back to him. She was vacuuming the floor next to the bed.

    Tariq entered and closed the door. He approached her from behind, bringing his right arm around her neck. She released the handle of the vacuum cleaner, and tried to free herself. He was squeezing with all of his strength and she was flailing, trying to kick him and gouge his eyes. The maid was thin, fine-boned and slender but very strong. The motor of the vacuum was still humming. He clamped his arm tighter around her neck and lifted her off the ground. When she stopped moving he laid her on the floor and turned off the vacuum cleaner. She was Asian and young. He found the master key, a white plastic card, in the pocket of her apron. He dragged her into the bathroom, bent with his knees and lifted her into the tub and closed the shower curtain.

    Tariq opened the hotel room door. He glanced in one direction and then the other. The hall was deserted. He rolled the maid's cart around the next corner and pushed it against the wall, and retraced his steps, going back to the first room next to the elevators to begin his search. He tapped on the door with the knuckles of his right hand. He listened but he could not hear a sound. He slid the plastic card in the lock and opened the door.

    Karen heard a knock on the door and heard a card slide in the lock. She had forgotten to use the safety bar. The door opened and a maid came in carrying a pile of towels. She was Asian and slightly built and said excuse me.

    Karen took the towels and thanked her.

    When she walked out of the room fifteen minutes later the maid's cart was in the hall to her right, a couple rooms away. Karen wheeled her new suitcase down the hall to the elevator. She pressed the button and waited. She turned and saw someone, a man, come out of the room next to hers. He glanced her way and started toward her. Karen got in the elevator and took it down to the lobby. She carried her bag down the stairs to the street level and wheeled it through the revolving brass door to Walton Street.

    The doorman hailed her a cab. He picked up her suitcase and put it in the deep trunk of the taxi.

    Tariq walked out of the room and glanced to his left and saw Karen Delaney at the end of the hall. Seeing her surprised him. Again, she was so close. And again, she stepped into an elevator and was gone. He ran to the elevator bank and pushed the button, glancing at his watch, impatient as always, pressing the button again. He had to wait twelve seconds for the next elevator and rode down to the lobby.

    He scanned the reception area and the concierge desk, but he did not see her. He ran down the stairs and pushed through the revolving door, and saw a glimpse of Karen Delaney in the right rear window of a yellow 2006 Mercury Marquis taxi driving away. He ran after the taxi all the way to Michigan Avenue and watched the vehicle turn left and accelerate, blending in with the traffic.