F Paul Wilson - Novel 04 (6 page)

Besides, he had a lot more riding
on this one. Other people involved. Heavy people. Snake preferred to operate on
his own, but the heavies had come to him and made an offer he couldn’t
refuse. Literally. Offered him a fortune for this job, but even if they
hadn’t, you didn’t say no to these guys.

He’d been startled that they
were even aware of his little enterprise, and rattled by how much they knew.
They told him they liked the idea that he was experienced in the art of the
snatch and so they were hiring him. That was it. Not: Do you want to do one for
us? More like: Here’s what we want you to do.

Snake was trusting Paulie not to
screw up. He knew this would be the last job with Paulie. Poppy would see to
that. Snake had the distinct impression the only reason Paulie was in on this
one was because the payoff was so big. Poppy’d got all spooked when the
last snatch got a little rough. Last time he’d seen her she’d
looked like a rat on an electric grid, waiting for the next shock.

Too bad. Paulie was a reliable
dude. Hard to replace. But that’s what you get when you let yourself get
attached.

He stretched, picked up the
snub-nosed.38 special he kept by the keyboard—a Colt Cobra…
something about that name—and swiveled in his chair, sighting at the toys
that filled his current domain. Three computers—two Pentium 166s and a
Mac 7100/80 Power Station—each with a hex-speed CD-ROM drive, all of them
up and running twenty-four hours a day, connected to an HP 1200-C printer and a
flatbed color -scanner; three cellular phones, all hacked to the same account;
a projection TV with Surroundsound, a laser-disk player, two VCRS, a CD player
with a 100-disk switcher, all hitched to a pair of Bose 701s and a monster
fourteen-inch subwoofer.

Yeah, his living room looked like
an electronics store, but hell, this was where he lived—at least for now.
He loved his gadgets, especially his recently hacked USSB satellite system, but
he couldn’t think of anything here he couldn’t walk away from. He
had bank accounts all over the world, and he could always buy more toys. He
moved once a year anyway. Presently he was renting this neat little
Cape
Cod
on a cozy, tree-lined street in
Alexandria
.

He waved to his neighbors when they
waved first. He was perfectly happy not knowing any of their names. Why bother?
He’d be moving again when this gig was over.

No attachments. They colored your
thinking. Tied you down. Women were the worst. Like leeches, always wanting to
latch on. Who needed the hassle? He could download all the women he needed from
the net.

He returned to the keyboard and
tapped in his final patch on the switching program. Now, as far as the C&P
Telephone computers were concerned, his phone line and Dr. John
Vanduyne’s line were the same.

He dialed the number of
Holy
Family
Elementary School
in
Bethesda
. He’d been given
loads of intelligence on the place. A lot of politicos and well-connected
people sent their kids there, and the principal, Sister Louise Joseph, had a
rep as a pretty sharp cookie. Who knew? She might have a caller-ID rig on her
phone. Snake wasn’t taking any chances.

He told whoever answered the phone
that he was Dr. John Vanduyne and he needed to speak to the principal on an
urgent matter about his daughter. Half a minute later a cool, clear voice came
on the line.

“Yes, Dr. Vanduyne. This is
Sister Louise. How may I help you?” Snake closed his eyes and tried to be
someone else.

“Good morning. Sister.
It’s about my daughter, Katie.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Well, yes. Her mother was in
a serious car accident in
Atlanta
.”

“Oh, dear, I’m so
sorry.”

“Thank you. I just got a call
from the trauma unit and she’s in critical condition. I’m going to
have to pull Katie out for a few days and take her down there. I don’t
know how much school she’ll miss…”

“Easter vacation begins next
week, so you don’t have to worry too much about school.”

Easter? Was Easter soon? Snake
hadn’t even thought about that. But he couldn’t let the sister
know.

“I know. And that’s
good, I guess,” he said. “This may be the last time Katie will
see…” He let his voice trail off into silence.

“I’m so terribly
sorry,” Sister Louise said. “If there’s any way we can be of
assistance.”

“Thank you. I have to run
over to my office now; then I’m heading home immediately to pack our
things. I’ve sent a driver to pick up Katie and bring her home.”

“A car? What service will you
be using?” A thrill of alarm shot through him. He hadn’t planned on
telling her in advance. She might decide to look it up.

“Oh, I haven’t called
one yet. I have a few I use now and then. Whichever one can get a car over
there the soonest, I suppose.”

Silence on the other end of the
line. Obviously she didn’t like the idea of not knowing precisely who to
expect.

Snake looked at the phony ID
he’d made up. Reliance Limo existed but he had no idea what their company
IDS looked like. Neither would Sister Louise… he hoped. He’d give
her the name if he had to, but he’d hold back as long as he could. This
was kind of fun.

Finally she said,
“Well… just make sure the driver has proper identification. We make
a point of being very careful about any break from routine with our little
charges.”

“Which is one of the reasons
I enrolled Katie at Holy Family. But please don’t say anything about the
accident. Just tell her it’s a surprise trip back to
Georgia
.”

“Which is very much the
truth.”

“Unfortunately, yes.
I’ll explain everything to her when she gets home.”

“Very well. Have your driver
present himself at my office when he arrives and I’ll have Katie brought
here. I’ll explain to her that you called before he arrives.”

“Thank you very much,
sister.” He terminated the call and leaned back, his heart racing, his
nerve ends twitching. He felt so great, he laughed aloud.

“God, I love my work!”

Paulie parked the panel truck on
the bottom level of the under ground parking garage like he’d been told,
and looked around. Not too many cars down here, and no people.

He turned on the radio again. The
old van had only AM. He spun the dial, hoping in vain for some music. Any
music. Yeah, like he had a chance. Only old farts, news junkies, and
born-agains listened to AM.

He stopped at a random number
somewhere between 800 and 900 and heard a replay of part of the
President’s drug talk from last night.

He grinned. Some shocker, that one.
Legalize drugs. Who’da thunk? The commentators all saying it wasn’t
such a big surprise to anyone paying attention—the Pres and his boys
supposedly sending up signal flares over the past six months—but Paulie
had never been much into politics.

Legal drugs? Weird to think of
dropping by the liquor store and pick up a six of Rolling Rock longnecks, and,
oh, yeah, while I’m at it, how about a couple of B-40s and a pack of
Wowie Maui filter kings? Or buying a box of Little Debbie hash brownies from
Abdul at the local 7-Eleven.

Didn’t seem right. The whole
street ritual was half the fun… finding your source, negotiating the
price, passing the green, slipping the buy into your pocket, and drifting away,
feeling cool ‘cause you scored clean once again. Getting it legal seemed
so damn… ordinary. Like being a citizen.

Irritably he wrenched the radio
power knob to off. What was the goddamn world coming to, anyway?

Had to calm down. He felt like an
overwound spring, ready to go ‘sproing!’ and bounce all over the
inside of the truck. He wanted to get this over with.

Easy enough to baby-sit a package:
Snake drops him off, you spend a few days to a week cooped up in a rented house
keeping him blindfolded and tied to a bed; a couple times a day you feed him
and take him to the bathroom. And when the money’s paid, you let him go
and leave the house behind. Simple.

But this… actually doing the
snatch. This was a whole other deal. He had a sudden vision of half a dozen Metro
squad cars, lights flashing, sirens screaming as they screeched to a halt all
around him, doors flying open and a swarm of steely-eyed SWAT dudes, all armed
to the teeth, pointing their Glocks and shotguns in his face.

Paulie shuddered. He didn’t
like guns. He didn’t even own a .22. I’m a lover, not a fighter, as
he liked to say.

And he wanted to reach thirty. What
was that old expression? Do it by the time you’re thirty. Well, he was
just about thirty and he’d just about done it all.

Grew up mostly alone—his
mother working two jobs to keep food on the table while his lard-assed dad
shacked up rent free with some bimbo on the other side of town and didn’t
contribute a goddamned penny because he was “disabled.” Yeah,
right. An ambulance chaser and a coked-up quack had got him declared totally
and permanently disabled after a car accident. But not disabled enough to keep
him from lifting weights in his girlfriend’s garage. The only thing total
and permanent about his father was that he was an asshole.

But before Paulie left home for
good, he’d made an honest man of his dad. Waited for him in the parking
lot outside his favorite bar. Got him with a Louisville Slugger as he was
unlocking his car. Never knew what hit him. Took his wallet to make it look
like a mugging and left him with a ton of broken bones.

Now you’re totally and
permanently disabled, you son of a bitch.

He got something out of his system
with that. Pretty much the first and last totally violent thing he’d done
in his life.

But he’d done just about
everything else. Steal, cheat, swindle, lie, threaten, do second-story work;
he’d be a mule, a numbers runner, a courier, or a wheelman. You need
something done, you call Paulie Dicastro. He’ll take care of it.

But not anymore. Not after this
gig. With the money Mac was paying, he wouldn’t need to work for a looong
time.

And besides, Poppy had had it with
this life. She’d changed after the last baby-sit. She’d started
exercising and eating vegetables and that sort of stuff. And to tell the truth,
she was looking damn good.

Not that she hadn’t turned
heads before. He still remembered the first time he saw her. He was sitting at
the bar at The Incarnate Club on Avenue A in
Manhattan
when she walked in. She’d poured herself into this slinky tight black
latex outfit that showed off every curve of her not-too-thin-but-no-way-fat figure.
Tall—had to be pushing five-ten—with nice hips, long sweet legs,
and a real nice set up top.

He was made helpless, completely ga-ga
by the way her purple China-doll hair swung back and forth when she walked, the
way her black-lined blue eyes stared out from under those heavy bangs that
looked like they’d been sliced with a scalpel. The eyebrow ring, the
nostril stud, and some cool tattoos: a red heart on each upper arm, with glory
inside the one on the right and 89 in the one on the left. He bought her a
drink, found out she’d come in to hear the goth-industrial battle of the
bands the club was featuring all week—same as Paulie.

One thing led to another and soon
they were back in his place. And if he thought she’d looked good in that
outfit, out of it—mama! He was starting to get a woody just thinking
about her.

Yeah, Poppy was cool—in more
ways than one. She had places in her she never let him see, even when she was
stoned. Some major pain tucked away inside, things she never talked about.
Something to do with those tattoos, maybe? She always managed to worm out of
explaining them.

Whatever—somehow she got to
him. What he’d expected to be just one more in a long line of live-ins
turned out something more. A lot more. Beaucoup weird, but Paulie had arrived
at a place where he couldn’t imagine living without her.

A tap on the side window made him
jump: Mac, staring at him, leaning close to the glass. He rolled it down.

“Jesus, Mac! You scared the
shit outta me.”

He said, “Back out and follow
me.” Then he walked away.

“Well, hello to you too,
Mac,” Paulie muttered as he started the van.

Talk about weird dudes. Mac was
about as strange as they came. He looked like a college professor or something.
A good six feet, big shoulders—maybe like a professor who worked out.

Always dressed in Dockers and penny
loafers and crew-neck sweaters or tweed jackets; one jacket even had suede
patches on the elbows, for Christ sake. Brown hair, short all around, none on
his face, no jewelry, not even an earring. The ultimate straight. Until you
look a look in his eyes. Paulie knew hit men, stone killers, with warmer eyes
than Mac’s.

Mac. The name was something that
had always bothered him, mainly because it was the only handle he had for this
guy. Mac who? Mac the Knife? Maybe. He did carry a big one. Also carried a.45
automatic—always. Mac the Gun? Mac the mystery. He never saw Mac between gigs.

Paulie’d get a call, show up
where he was told—could be
Kansas City
,
Phoenix
, West Palm,
anywhere—baby-sit the package, collect his money, and that was it. Mac
dropped off the face of the earth until the next time.

Not that it mattered much. Paulie
wasn’t exactly looking to hang with the guy. Probably a security thing so
that Paulie couldn’t finger him. Not that he’d ever consider it. He
had his rep as a stand-up guy to consider.

And besides, Mac had always been
straight up with Paulie—never shorted him or kept him hanging. He paid on
time, to the dime. You had to respect that.