Any Minute Now (11 page)

“They can't know about my time in prison,” Charlie said when she and the Elf Lord had finished their first whiskeys and got down to business. “Or anything else, for that matter.”

“Goes without saying.”

The Elf Lord spoke in a controlled soprano so rich Charlie often imagined her on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, singing arias in
Manon
or
Eugene Onegin
.

“My darling, you have had a life that should never be made public.” She gave a wry smile. “You would be so misunderstood!”

“I'm not ashamed of my stint in juvie, brief though it was.”

“Good god, after what you've been through why would you be!” The Elf Lord, sitting in her handcrafted task chair in front of quadruple tiers of monitors, often spoke with an emphasis that demanded exclamation points. “As far as I'm concerned it's a badge of honor. You did what you needed to do, you went through the system, and came out the other side.”

“Right. They shit me out.” Charlie laughed. “Thank you very much.”

As they spoke, the Elf Lord's fingers danced over her keyboards and touch screens. Monitors and peripherals were all she lived with; her powerful server banks, protected by complex algorithms that changed hourly, resided in Gibraltar, where no one could find them, let alone pry open their secrets. What Charlie wouldn't have given to spend even five minutes delving through their troves of what must be invaluable data on the Elf Lord's clients.

“So what are they going to see?” she asked.

“Whatever I want them to see—nothing more, nothing less.” The Elf Lord was grinning. “An orphan, well, that's true in its way … a street urchin …
but
you were a child prodigy.”

“In what?”

“Your choice.”

“Piano.” Charlie sang a few bars of “Stardust.” “Hoagy Carmichael played the piano.”

At once, the Elf Lord stopped inputting data and swung around. “Don't fucking tell me!”

“He came to see me a week ago.”

“The rotten sonuvabitch!”

An uncertain smile flickered across Charlie's lips like a lightbulb about to go. “Not so rotten. Maybe.”

The Elf Lord clutched her head with both hands. “
Oy vey!”
She only used Yiddish when she was genuinely upset.

“You're judging me again,” Charlie said.

The Elf Lord's head came up, her broad face flushed. “I am not! How can you so easily forget what Whitman did to you?”

“That's in the past.”

“Please!”

“Listen, holding on to the anger hasn't done me a lick of good. Anger's a poison, EL. You should know that better than most.”

From the age of five onward, Lorraine Few had been abused by her uncle, becoming his de facto mistress by the time she was fifteen. This was the main reason she had chosen a profession where she could hide away, use another name, and never be found by any member of her family.

“Okay, but I just, you know, don't want you to get hurt again.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Now.”

“Yes,” Charlie said firmly. “Now.”

Sighing, the Elf Lord returned to her task. “I'd better give you different parents, no siblings, aunts, or uncles. The simpler the better, yes?”

Charlie closed her eyes, her past glimmering darkly in her mind's eye like an old-time movie. Except in this case there was no freeing revelation, no clinch between long-lost lovers, no happy ending.

 

9

“This is bullshit,” Whitman said. “In what universe is Seiran el-Habib no longer a special person of interest?”

“In the NSA's,” Cutler said, “which means in our world, as well.”

“And I call bullshit on that.”

“Say whatever you want, Gregory, but it is what it is.”

The two men were sitting across from each other at the Louis XIV oak table in Cutler's party-sized dining room. The remains of a noble dinner lay before them, bones and skin, flecks of meat, interrupted swirls of mashed potatoes looking like week-old snow. Rain beat against the windowpanes.

So far as Whitman could tell this feast appeared to have been conceived with someone other than him in mind, but what the hell did he know?

“I don't care what Hemingway has decided. Once Flix is operational we're going after Seiran el-Habib.”

“The hell you are.”

Cutler went into the kitchen, returned with a triple chocolate cake, which he cut into quarters. Now Whitman was certain his boss had been expecting someone else—someone, he was sure, of the female persuasion. Good for him. In Whitman's estimation, a bit of relaxation would do him a world of good.

“Instead, we're going to Lebanon, is that it?”

Cutler helped himself to one huge slice of the cake, licked icing off his fingers. “You'll go where I send you, when I send you.”

Whitman brought out several sheets of paper, which he unfolded. “I haven't been sitting on my hands these last few days. I've worked up an alternate approach that I know will work.”

Cutler snatched a mouthful of cake off his fork, regarded Whitman placidly while he took his time savoring the dessert. When he had cleared his mouth with a swallow of coffee, he said, “This plan of yours, was it vetted or approved by Hemingway?”

“You know damn well it wasn't, boss.”

Cutler set his cup down, cut into his cake again. “Well, then.”

“But that's the point. No NSA involvement; no leaks.”

“Unless you've forgotten, we take our orders from our clients.”

“Fuck the clients,” Whitman said. “This is the right thing to do. I mean, what happened to the NSA's near-hysterical directive to find him? Has he suddenly become a friend of the United States government? Come on, boss.” He pushed the papers toward Cutler. “At least take a look.”

Cutler paid no attention to the plan. “Seiran el-Habib is no longer at the villa. He's off the grid. NSA has no idea where he is.”

“Red Rover will find him.”

Cutler put his fork down, pushed his chair back from the table. “Gregory, I'm only going to say this once. NSA is our largest client. It pays through the nose—the bulk of your salary and mine. Now let me spin out the scenario you're suggesting. Let's say I give you the go sign. Let's say by some miracle you manage to find Seiran el-Habib. Let's say, further, that the op is a success and you bring the sonuvabitch back. Then what?”

“You tell Hemingway that we've done the impossible.”

“The op wasn't sanctioned; in fact, Hemingway told me in no uncertain terms to turn our attention to Lebanon. So what d'you think happens when I tell him we have Seiran el-Habib? He has a shit-fit—”

“He won't.”

“—he fires us; we are no longer the recipient of the government's largesse. Ain't gonna happen, my friend. End of story.”

*   *   *

Rain fell out of the sky as if it had nowhere in particular to go. It pattered on the sidewalk, the roofs of parked cars, got thrown off windshields in metronomic fashion by wiper blades. Charlie, walking home from the Elf Lord's apartment, had three whiskeys in her stomach and a sense that she was being followed.

She'd had no shadows since right after she was released from juvie, when she was still too green to know how to lose a tail—local muscle and then the odd detective, in those days. But she was clever and a fast learner. Subsequently, a tail could never hold her for more than three minutes, tops.

Now she had the feeling again—the crawling of the skin on her back, the itch at the nape of her neck. She saw no one suspicious, but they might be mobile—in a vehicle or a series of vehicles that switched off every couple of blocks. Whatever the setup, she was in someone's crosshairs. Years had gone by, and now just forty-eight hours after she had agreed to join Whit's team at Universal Security Associates, she was being monitored. For what? No clear idea, just a couple of nebulous thoughts she needed to let marinate before they would come into focus.

It was after eleven; the night was very dark, and the rain had shut down visibility almost completely. She stepped into the entrance of an all-night pharmacy. If she smoked, she would have lit a cigarette. Instead, she popped a square of teeth-whitening gum into her mouth and crunched down on it.

Several moments went by when nothing happened. The only thing moving seemed to be the rain. Then a man materialized out of the gloom. He wore a tan suit, rain-darkened at the shoulders and cuffs. She felt her muscles readying themselves as he approached her. Passing very close, he went into the pharmacy. Ten minutes later, he reappeared, paused in the entryway, stared out at the night. He did not look at her. No one entered or exited the pharmacy.

“Filthy weather,” he said in a neutral tone. He might have been talking to himself. Charlie made no reply.

“I know a place that's warmer and drier.” His tone was the one men used when they were trying to pick up girls in bars or clubs.

“Are you looking to dance with me or fuck me?” Charlie said in her least affable voice.

His head turned so quickly she could hear his vertebrae crack. He wasn't a bad-looking dude, she thought. She had half a mind to take him up on his offer, but at the moment she had more important matters to settle. Another time, another place.

“Did you really—”

“Get out of here,” she said, and he did, hurrying out into the wet and the dark. Part of her actually felt sorry for him. Then she got back to work.

All the while their little encounter was unfolding her eyes had been moving, as she scoured the immediate environment for an anomaly. Now, having found it, she smiled to herself, and stepped out into the rain.

*   *   *

Julie Regan had prepared herself for the blare of music and the colored strobe lights, but she was startled by the prevailing smell inside The Doll House, especially up close to the circular stages. The stench of nearly naked human bodies was palpable. Perfume, hairspray, theatrical makeup was more or less completely overwhelmed by it. Julie's experience with strip clubs began and ended with
The Sopranos
. The world itself, in the flesh, reminded her of nothing less than Dante's
Inferno
. How men could get turned on by gyrating women who clearly had no interest in being there, let alone in them, was a mystery to her. She was far from a prude, but there were things in life she simply could not fathom. She liked sex well enough, she thought, though the missionary position was just fine by her, and she had never enjoyed the taste of a man in her mouth, though with King, through sheer force of will, she managed it without gagging.

However, sitting in the third row, watching the dancer named Sydny slide up and down the polished metal pole using just her strong, well-formed legs was a revelation to her. Sydny could have been an acrobat in the circus, but, she supposed, no circus could ever pay as well as the tips she made here at The Doll House.

And then something mysterious and terrible happened: watching Sydny's perfect body, lubed and shining, writhing in the motions of simulated sex, she found herself unaccountably depressed. All at once, she couldn't breathe. She rose so abruptly she spilled her drink, which she hadn't touched, and rushed out of the joint.

For what seemed an eternity, she stood outside watching the rain falling, silver and gold in The Doll House's garish lights. She huddled in her leather jacket and wished she had worn jeans and a sweater instead of the silk shirt and short summer-weight wool skirt she had chosen. Tears spilled onto her cheeks. Who was she kidding about liking sex? Before King, she'd been with exactly three men, two whose bumbling attempts at intercourse had scarcely included her, and a third who had cut her to the quick. He'd accused her of being frigid—“lying there like a corpse” were his precise words. Christ, she had hated that guy, and after he left her, she had tried harder with King. She thought King liked what they did together, but who could really be sure? She sure as hell wasn't going to ask him.

But now, having watched Sydny and the others, she wondered what she was doing when it came to sex. One thing was for sure: she could never let herself dance like that; no way could she be so uninhibited.

And then she thought … A shiver ran down her spine. No, she couldn't allow herself to go down that path. She stared up into the sky, wanting nothing more than to be far away from here, tucked into her own bed with the covers pulled up to her chin.

But Hemingway, damn him, had given her an assignment. She had to see it through. Screwing up her courage, she turned and went back inside. Sydny had already left the stage.

She found herself thinking about the stripper. As she picked her way toward the backstage area, she felt as if she were in a plummeting elevator. She could not feel her feet as step by step they led her toward the place where a burly security guard was standing. He stared at her as she came up to him.

“I'm looking for Sydny,” she said over the din.

“Get lost, honey,” the guard said with a sneer.

Hemingway had anticipated such a response. She held up the very real DCPD badge he'd given her. “You don't want any trouble here,” she said, with her heart in her mouth.

The guard gave her a hard stare, which was about as far as he was willing to go, then stepped aside.

“Third door on the left,” he said, his gaze fixed over her head. “Knock yourself out.”

Julie bared her teeth and brushed by him. The backstage corridor was long, narrow, and cramped. It stank far worse than the club itself; she'd need a shower when she got home, and her outfit would have to be dry-cleaned.

The third door on the left was closed. She could hear female voices, raised and frantic, as the thumping music of the club receded to a deep, dull backbeat. Pushing the door open, she found herself in a windowless room, cluttered with the stage outfits, such as they were, of the pole dancers. A lighted mirror ran along one of the long walls, with a dozen canvas directors' chairs lined up in a row for the girls to use as they put on their makeup and sprayed their hair, or whatever pole dancers did before they went on stage. There were three girls in various stages of undress. None of them paid her any attention.