Natalie's Revenge (38 page)

CHAPTER 31

1:52 a.m. Tuesday, 19 August

Awakened by his cell phone, Clint Hammer jolted upright, grabbed his cell phone off the bedside table and barked, “Hammer.”

"Clint!" Jason’s voice, high-pitched with excitement. “I found her! She's staying at a bed-and-breakfast on a side street off St. Charles Avenue. Parades-A-Plenty. I just talked to the owner. Man, was she pissed. She screamed at me in this God-awful voice for waking her up in the middle of the night.”

He pumped his fist. At this very moment the gook-bitch was fast asleep. An adrenaline rush flamed his body, hotter than napalm hitting the huts in a Vietnamese village. He wrote down the information as Jason read it to him.

“Good work, Jason. I’ll handle things from here on out.”

He located Parades-A-Plenty on his street map. Excellent, just three miles from his hotel. It was almost 2 a.m., the perfect time to execute a black ops sortie. Catch the enemy while they were deep in slumber. He’d done that a few times, not with a female target, but women had to sleep, too.

He flexed his fingers, imagining the damage they would inflict on her throat. Then he remembered what Jason said about the owner. If he went there now, he'd have to wake her up again. If she raised a ruckus, it might alert his target. That wouldn’t do. He wanted to catch the bitch unawares. The way she'd caught Oliver unawares, pulling a gun and murdering him in cold blood. He ground his teeth and felt a sharp pain in his jaw.

Maybe he'd call those NOPD idiots, tell them he knew where their killer was and get them over to Parades-A-Plenty. Then he’d have backup in case the bitch tried to escape out a window. But the thought of asking those dimwits for help disgusted him.

No, he'd go there at sunrise when the owner was awake and sweet talk her. Tell her she’d rented a room to a dangerous killer but he’d take care of it. A cold fury settled in his gut, a silent rage, spurring him on.

Oh yes, he'd take care of that gook-bitch all right.

_____

Her head throbbed as loud disco music bled through the restroom door. Two empty stalls stood on one wall, their doors ajar. Opposite them, two sinks were set into a pink-marble vanity. Above them a rectangular mirror outlined with light bulbs illuminated the room. She used the toilet and went to the sink. Her hands felt cold and clammy, the way they'd felt twenty years ago when the NOPD detective told her Mom was dead.

She ran hot water over them and gazed at herself in the mirror. The harsh lights made her skin look sallow.

An image of the ugly gargoyles above Notre Dame entered her mind, reminders of her ancestral ghosts. Reminders of her mission. If everything went according to plan, she would avenge her mother’s murder tonight.

But she had no illusions that it would be easy.

She checked her watch, the minutes crawling by like a line of cars in a traffic jam. Five more minutes to wait. She took a blister-pack of No-Doze out of her new tote, a charcoal-gray pouch with a leather shoulder strap. It was bigger than her old one, roomy enough to hold everything she needed. Her body was so charged with adrenaline she might not need any No-Doze.

No, better to be careful. Chip was a dangerous adversary. She had to stay alert. She gulped down two No-Doze and left the restroom. Loud music hit her, a visceral wall of sound to accompany the frenzied dancers on the stage.

She went to the foyer, nodded to the bouncer and left the club.

A sleek black BMW pulled to the curb in front of her. Like BoBo, Chip traveled in style, corporate jets, fancy cars. She opened the door and got in.

"Relax and get comfortable, dawlin," said Chip, smiling at her as he put the car in gear. "We're gonna have us a good time tonight."

She had hoped he would take her to a nearby hotel, but he drove to the nearest highway entrance and got on the I-10. That made her nervous. Where was he taking her? Even at this hour traffic was heavy, people leaving town to escape Hurricane Josephine, she assumed.

Chip didn’t say much, just glanced at her now and then, his expression inscrutable as she prattled about how much she loved New Orleans.

When he took the Airline Drive exit off the I-10, she knew where they were going. This end of Airline Drive was lined with cheap, no-tell motels where hookers took their johns. Her moment of truth was fast approaching.

An almost-sexual feeling of exhilaration coursed through her body.

At long last she would execute her hard-earned and meticulously planned mission. Then she'd be free to live life on her terms, be anyone she wanted.

But a vision of the Notre Dame gargoyles killed her excitement. Would the angry ancestor spirits put yet another obstacle in her way? Another trial to overcome? The execution of her plan had to be perfect. She breathed deep and used her TKD focus to calm her racing heart.

Chip pulled into the Dixie Motel, a long one-story cement-block structure. No lamps outside the rooms, but a red-neon sign at the midpoint of the building flashed: OFFICE. Chip stopped the BMW 15 yards short of the office, took out his wallet and extracted a wad of bills.

“Go rent us a room, dawlin,” he said, peeling off twenty-dollar bills. “Here’s two hundred. I hate traffic noise. Tell the clerk you want a room out back. Tell him we’ll be out by six. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

She stared at him, incensed. He really was a chip of the old block. Twenty years ago BoBo had made her mother rent the room at the Royal Arms Hotel.

“You want
me
to rent the room?” she said, outraged.

His face hardened to granite. “A man in my position can’t register at some cheap motel. Don’t want people seeing my car neither.” His mouth smiled, but his eyes didn’t. “Go rent the room, April. Times a’wasting.”

She slung her tote over her shoulder and opened the car door.

“Hold it. Leave the bag in the car. I gave you the cash.”

Leave her tote in the car? Impossible. He might look inside. “I might need it to register,” she said and jumped out of the car.

Slinging the strap of the tote over her shoulder, she walked to the office. Above her head, bugs sizzled against the neon-red flashing light. The gray-steel door was ajar, but a screen door protected the office from bug invasions.

She stepped inside. The walls were painted bilious green, like the slime that builds up on shower curtains. Facing the door, a microwave sat on a shelf behind the reception desk. The odor of stale food sickened her. An older man with pale unhealthy skin stood behind the desk. His pink scalp showed through wisps of white hair.

Gazing at her with undisguised distaste, he said, “Okay, missy, what’ll it be?”

Feeling like a cheap whore, she set the wad of bills on the counter. “I’d like to rent a room in the back. I’ll be out by six tomorrow morning.”

“Show me a license. I let some underage girl rent one of my rooms, I’ll get in trouble.”

No way was she showing him her license. “I don’t have it. My boyfriend drove me here.”

The clerk’s eyes hardened. “Your
boyfriend
, huh? He got a license?”

Exasperated, she said, “You want to come out to the car so he can show it to you? Or do you want to rent us a room and take the cash?”

His hand scooped up the twenty-dollar bills and shoved them into a drawer below the counter. “Gotta have a name to put on the register,” he said, staring at her breasts.

“Nancy Drew,” she said, knowing the idiot wouldn’t get it.

Would Renzi? When the cops found a man shot in the head at the Dixie Motel and ID'd him as Chip Beaubien, she was positive Homicide Detective Frank Renzi would arrive in record time.

In neat block letters, the clerk printed
Nancy Drew
in the register, then plucked a key off a wallboard lined with hooks. “Room 44, out back. Leave the key in the room when you leave.”

She went back and got in the BMW. Chip held out his hand for the key, put the car in gear and pulled forward.

“Which room, dawlin? I can hardly wait.”

“Room 44, around back.”

He looped around the one-story structure and parked in front of a room with metal numerals nailed to the door. No cars parked outside the rooms on either side of Room 44. That was a plus. Twenty yards farther along the building, a pickup truck and a red Mustang stood several yards apart outside other rooms.

Other couples into their sexual games.

Far enough away not to hear a gunshot she hoped.

Chip unlocked the door, flipped a switch and waved her inside. The room stank of cigarette smoke. Directly ahead of her was a bathroom. Planning her moves, she rapidly assessed the room. It was small, no more than 12 feet square. To the left of the door, heavy maroon drapes covered a double window. Parallel to the window, a sagging double bed with a frayed maroon bedspread took up most of the space, its headboard jammed against the wall of the next room.

Between the window and the left side of the bed, a narrow path led to a plastic nightstand beside the headboard. On the nightstand, a brass lamp with a red shade cast a dim red glow over the room. No luggage holder, no bureau, no TV set. Of course not. People didn't come here to sleep or watch CNN.

"What's the matter, dawlin? You don't like the room?"

Forcing herself to play the part, she beamed him a smile, part seductive, part hesitant. "It's fine, Chip. I'm just a little nervous, that's all."

Nervous didn't begin to describe her feelings. Revulsion, anger, hatred and a mountain of rage. Her secret weapon. She wanted to kill this insufferable man and get out of this disgusting room as soon as possible.  

He stood by the window, a half-smile playing over his lips. “You gonna put down that tote bag, dawlin? Seems like you're holdin onto it for dear life.”

“Of course.” But she needed to keep it handy. The best place for it was on the nightstand. Her cheeks felt stiff, but she maintained her smile, sauntering toward him, swinging her hips seductively.

He held out his hand. “Lemme see that thing.”

No, no, no,
she wanted to scream. Conjuring her acting skills, she forced an ingenuous smile. “Whatever for? Girls keep all sorts of things in their bags that they don’t want guys to see.”

His eyes hardened. “That’s what I’m afraid of. Hand it over.”

Panic turned her brain to mush. If he saw what was inside . . . 

Without warning, he yanked the bag off her shoulder.

“Chip,” she gasped. “That’s not very nice—”

“This thing is heavy. What the hell you got in here?”

A kaleidoscope of ghastly images flooded her brain: Chip's malevolent blue eyes, her spurting blood, her lifeless body on the floor of this hideous room. If he searched her tote, it was all over.

“You’ve got a nerve. What gives you the right to search my belongings?”

He fixed her with his implacable gaze. “I’m bigger than you.”

He pawed through her tote and held up her tape recorder. “What the hell’s this? You planning on taping our fuck-session and blackmailing me?”

Fighting a rising tide of panic, she sucked in a deep breath and dredged up a smile. “How could you think such a thing, Chip? I figured after we had some fun I could interview you for my article.”

He pulled out the plastic handcuffs. Waving them in the air, he leered at her. “You into bondage? S-and-M?”

Her heart sank like a stone. Paralyzed with fear, she couldn't speak.

He hefted the tote. “Still feels heavy. What else you got in here?”

She backed up a step. Could she do a TKD spin move and disable him? Maybe. The spike heels of her shoes were capped with metal.

“Well, well, well, look at what we got here.”

Holding the .38 Special in his hand, he aimed it at her, his eyes cold and hard. “You fixin to hold me up and steal my credit cards, April?”

“Chip," she said, unable to stop the tremor in her voice, "it’s not what you think. I live in New York and that can be dangerous. So I bought a gun. Whenever I go to a bar at night, I always take it with me.”

His eyes glinted with anger, his face hard as granite. His hand, steady as a rock, aimed the snub-nosed .38 Special at her heart.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

_____

Muttering under her breath, Mrs. Reilly put on her bathrobe and shuffled down the hall of her apartment to the reception desk in the foyer. That girl was trouble, just like she thought. She had no idea why a CIA agent was calling her in the middle of the night, but she knew one thing for sure.

April West wasn’t the Little Miss Innocent she pretended to be.

She unlocked a drawer and took out the big round metal ring that held keys to all the rooms. Faint moonlight shone through the upper half of the front door, lighting her path through the dining room to the staircase. Clinging to the banister, she labored up to the second floor, grunting with each step. The second-floor hall was pitch dark.

An anxious shiver wracked her. She was alone in this huge house with that sneaky girl, the girl who’d lied to her. What if she was a killer? Another thought set her heart racing. What if the she was a terrorist? Maybe that’s why the feds were after her.