Any Minute Now (12 page)

Julie found Sydny down near the far end of the room. She was sitting in one of the chairs, staring at herself in the mirror. Her gaze shifted when Julie entered her line of vision.

“I hope Derek didn't send you to me for training.” She spoke directly to Julie's reflection. “You look like you've got too much class for this line of work.”

“It's lucrative, isn't it?”

“Exceptionally.” Sydny sighed, began to take off her makeup. “Assuming you know how to work it, assuming you've got big spenders who take you into Heaven.”

“Heaven?”

“That's what we call the back room. You know, lap dances, blow jobs, quickies. Whatever.” She laughed. “No, you can't be a newbie, though, god knows, you have the face and body for it. You're blushing.” She put down the cotton ball she had been using. “So who the hell are you?”

“I'm doing a story for—”

“Say what?” Sydny frowned. “Reporters aren't allowed back here. How'd you manage it, kitten?”

Julie smiled in what she hoped was a sly fashion. “There are ways around everything and everyone.”

Sydny laughed, a deep, rich sound that came from her lower belly. “So you're a wicked girl, after all.”

Julie, who thought of herself as the antithesis of a wicked girl, pulled up a chair from the next station. “I'd like to ask you some questions.”

“Not here, you won't.” Sydny reapplied lipstick, a less lurid shade than the one she had used when dancing. She pointed. “Go through that door and wait for me. I won't be a minute.”

“How do I know you won't run out on me?”

Sydny gave her an arched eyebrow look. “Kitten, why bother? I've got fuck-all to hide.”

 

10

So it was a mobile operation. Charlie identified a single car—a black Ford sedan with smoked windows. Why did the feds and law enforcement use smoked glass in their unmarked vehicles, she wondered, when it was a dead giveaway to anyone with even a modicum of street tradecraft?

Having identified her watchers, she went home, walking at a brisk pace. As she neared her building, the rain subsided. The mist felt good on her face. She entered her apartment building, noting before she did so that the black sedan positioned itself with a clear line of sight to the entrance.

Upstairs in her apartment she went to her toolbox, selected an ice hammer and, stuffing it head first into the back pocket of her jeans, took the stairs back down to the basement. She walked past the rodent traps and the garbage cans to the rear service door, used her key to unlock it, and went through. A short flight of pockmarked concrete steps brought her up into the alley behind her building. She went down the alley, came out onto the street by the side of the building adjacent to hers. The Ford was still parked in its advantageous spot. Crossing the street, she walked at a normal pace until she was just behind the car. Then she pulled out the ice hammer and, leaning over, smashed the rear window. A shadow of spastic movement indicated there was only one man inside.

Quickly now, she strode to the driver's side window and smashed it in two powerful blows. The first one crazed the safety glass, the second caused it to disintegrate into tiny pieces.

The man behind the wheel was still turned around, staring over his right shoulder at the broken rear window. As he turned back, she spit her wad of gum into his right eye. While he was dealing with that, she grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and hauled him out through the window, until his hips got stuck. He was on his back, staring up at her.

“Who the fuck are you?” she said. With her face so close to his she was enveloped in the sour smell of the pizza and beer he'd had for dinner. “Why are you following me?”

“You're breaking my back,” the man cried.

She shook him hard. “Do I look like I care?”

“Listen, listen, I work for Universal Security, same as you.”

“Then why are you following me?”

“Orders,” the man said. “From King Cutler himself.” He gestured with his head. “My name is Mac. Go on. Call him, if you want.”

“You bet I want.” She took out her mobile and punched in Cutler's number.

“In the meantime, can you please just let me sit back down?”

“Fuck you.”

Cutler's voice came on the other end of the line. “You're inconveniencing me, Charlie.”

“Not as much as your little surveillance op has inconvenienced me.”

Silence on the other end. Then, “I have no surveillance op running on you.”

“Okay,” Charlie said. “Then I'll find out who's running this jamoke and then I'll dump his body into the Potomac.”

“What?!” Mac cried. “Are you insane?”

“What was that?” Cutler asked.

Charlie hit the mute button, said to Mac. “Shut the fuck up or I really will dump you.” Then she unmuted and said to Cutler, “You heard me. I don't like being followed. I have a history—”

“I've read your history.”

The Elf Lord at work, Charlie thought. “Then this guy's toast.”

“Stop,” Cutler said, after a short hesitation. “Mac is mine.”

Which was precisely what Charlie suspected. “If you ever lie to me again, you'll live to regret it.”

She heard Cutler suck in his breath. “Is that a threat?”

“Take it any way you want.”

“Calm down.”

“Don't tell me to calm down.”

“Surveillance is part of the vetting process we run on all new hires. The shadow was put there for your protection as well as for our information.”

“Are you seriously trying to feed me that line?”

Another short pause, as if Cutler was trying to regroup. She could feel that she had put him back on his heels. Clearly, he didn't like it. Who would?

“To be honest, I didn't expect you to pick up the tag. Mac is one of our best men.”

“He's not good enough,” she said.

Cutler did not respond.

“Listen, when I'm in the field—”

“You're in D.C., for Christ's sake!”

“This town can be as dangerous as any other,” Charlie said flatly. “Just ask Mac.”

*   *   *

“That was our new hire,” Cutler said when he put down his mobile.

“Charlie?”

“She made Mac. She threatened to dump him into the Potomac.”

A wry smile crossed Whitman's face. “She was never gonna do that, boss.”

“Maybe not, but I think she might have hurt him.” His hand cut through the air. “And cut the smirk, you look like a chimpanzee about to spit.”

The two men had repaired to the living room, where Cutler had been presenting the Lebanon brief for Red Rover, which was to terminate an al-Qaeda leader ID'd by NSA as Ibrahim Mansour. There were several fuzzy surveillance photos of Mansour, clearly shot through a telephoto lens while he was on the move. According to the brief, Mansour was in Beirut, recruiting locals to al-Qaeda's world jihad. Again, according to NSA intel, ridding the world of Mansour would go a long way toward smoothing the Saudi's ruffled feathers. Whitman did not have to be told that placating the Saudis was a major administration initiative, as it had been for past administrations, never mind that the 9/11 terrorists were Saudis.

The brief included the usual material: local leaders friendly to American interests, rendezvous and fallback points, recognition codes, lines of communication, exceedingly difficult in Lebanon—all the tedious but necessary information crucial to red-zone ops. There were no agents in place anywhere in Lebanon, which Whitman found particularly dispiriting.

“He'll live,” Whitman said, “I'm sure.”

Cutler regarded him with a jaundiced eye. “You seem particularly sanguine about her reckless behavior.”

“It wasn't reckless, boss. She was protecting herself.”

“She went way overboard.”

Whitman put down a map of Beirut he had been studying. “You're just pissed that she made Mac and fucked him up. Stupid.”

Cutler blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You should be elated, boss. Charlie's ours now. I told you she was better than anyone I'd ever met. Clearly, you didn't believe me. Now you have the empirical evidence.”

*   *   *

“Sure, Adam's a client of mine. A skip-tracer,” Sydny said. “He's one of the really good ones.”

“Meaning?” Julie took back the photo of Whitman she had showed Sydny.

“He's nice to me. He's a nice guy.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Why is a reporter interested in this guy? Unless you're not a reporter at all.”

Julie drank some of her coffee. “Okay, I'm not a reporter.”

Sydny stirred, as if she were about to take flight. “Who are you then?”

They were in a café not far from The Doll House, a low-lit, low-slung place with a hipster bartender and a pair of female baristas who looked like they were scarcely out of high school, if that. A burbling old-school juke was playing “Moon River.” Odd place.

You'd better get this right, Julie told herself, or the night will be a washout. “I'm a private detective, working for a client of Adam's—a potential client, I should say. My client just wants to make sure she's hiring the right person.”

Sydny sipped a brandy. “Okay. Like I said, Adam's one of the good guys.” In this light and with her harsh makeup off, she looked more alluring than she had wrapped around the shining pole. “Some of 'em can get a little, you know, out of control.” She grimaced. “I've got the bruises to prove it.”

Julie was appalled. “They beat you?”

“God, no. If they did the bouncers would take care of 'em. But slapping? Hell, yeah, sometimes.”

“I didn't see any marks on you.”

“Never my face—my thighs, butt, and tits, in the heat of it all.” She made a wry face. “Makeup, kitten. Makeup hides a multitude of sins.”

Julie sipped at her cup. The coffee was delicious—dark and strong. “So tell me about Adam.”

Sydny shrugged. “What's to tell?”

“Adam ever talk to you about his job?”

“Just that he always gets the bad guys he goes after.”

“I'm curious, why do you think Adam comes to see you? Is he in an unhappy marriage?”

Sydny sat back, thought about this for a minute. “Well, most of the guys, they're married, for sure. For them it's simple. They're looking for something their wives can't—or maybe won't—give them.”

“Sex, right?”

Sydny regarded her for a moment before bursting into laughter. “Wow, what you don't know about my business could fill the Library of Congress.”

Managing to brush aside the jibe, Julie said, “Enlighten me, then.”

“Sex, sure. But sex is just part of it,” Sydny said. “Scratch the surface and here's what you get: what these guys really need is someone to pay attention to them, someone who while they're with them makes them feel like a million bucks, like they're the most important person in the world.”

“But it's all fake!”

Sydny laughed. “Jesus, what isn't in life?”

Julie thought that sounded insane. Everything she knew was right and true and real. Wasn't it? Or was it? How about the blow jobs she gave King. She faked liking them. She also faked other things in bed. The thought that Sydny might be on to something gave her the willies.

“And what about Adam?” she said to get her brain onto a less frightening track.

“Adam?” Sydny finished off her brandy, raised her arm for the waitress to see, pointed to her empty snifter, calling for another. “That man isn't married—nowhere near it.”

“He tell you that?”

“Hell, no,” Sydny said. “A good part of my business is reading people—especially men. I'm aces at it. Shit, you can't make money here if you can't. No, Adam's on his own.”

“So he's just lonely—or horny—or both.”

“I might've said that, until the last time he came in.”

“When was that?”

“Couple nights ago.”

“What happened?”

“To begin with, nothing. He came in and, like always, sat and watched my show. We made eye contact, like we always do. Then, like always, he took me into Heaven and I started out giving him a lap dance.” Her eyes squinted up and the tip of her tongue appeared between her teeth as she concentrated, making her look like a little girl. “That's where things went south.”

“Meaning?”

Sydny took possession of her second brandy. “This guy, he gets as hard as a rock the minute I spread my legs, but this time,
nada
. Not a wriggle outta his snake. I asked him what the matter was.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. He had this weird look in his eyes, like he was far away, like I wasn't even there.” Sydny shrugged. “Then he pays me, like always, and beats it outta there.”

“He say anything before he left?”

Sydny stuck her nose in the snifter, inhaled deeply. “Nope.”

“What d'you make of it?”

Sydny picked her head up. “What d'you think? He's got a new girl. As long as he has her you can bet he's never coming back to me.”

 

11

Whitman sat in a plush chair on the far side of Charlie's bedroom, watching her sleep. The moon had arrived as if by invitation, its pale, silvery light etching the bold and beautiful lines of Charlie's face. She had the aspect of a lioness, he thought, recalling one winter in Kenya tracking a Chechen terrorist.

Once again returned to the magical atmosphere that surrounded her like an aura, he breathed her in. It had been a long time since he had been in here, a long time since he had sat in this chair, sleepless, watching her at rest.

“How long are you going to sit there without saying a word?” Charlie said without opening her eyes or stirring even a muscle.