Persuader (51 page)

Doctor Zhivago was still there on a side table.

One down.

I closed the parlor door on him and headed for the stairs. Went up, quick and quiet.

Stopped outside Duke’s room. Eliot was sprawled just inside the doorway. Dead. He was on his back. His jacket was thrown open and his shirt was stiff with blood and full of holes. The rugs under him were crusty. I stepped over him and kept behind the door and glanced into the room. Saw why he had died. The NSV had jammed. He must have taken Duffy’s call and been on his way out of the room when he looked up and saw a convoy coming toward him on the road. He must have darted toward the big gun. Squeezed the trigger and felt it jam. It was a piece of junk. The mechanic had it field-stripped on the floor and was crouched over it trying to repair the belt feed mechanism. He was intent on his task. Didn’t see me coming. Didn’t hear me.

Shoot to kill. Them or me.

Two down.

I left him lying on top of the machine gun. The barrel stuck out from under him and looked like a third arm. I checked the view from the window. The wall lights were still blazing. I checked my watch. I was exactly thirty minutes into my hour.

I went back downstairs. Through the hallway. Like a ghost. To the basement door. The lights were on down there. I went down the stairs. Through the gymnasium. Past the washing machine. I pulled the Beretta out of my pocket. Clicked the safety. Held it out in front of me and turned the corner and walked straight toward the two rooms. One of them was empty and had its door standing open. The other was closed up and had a young thin guy sitting on a chair in front of it. He had the chair tilted back against it. He looked straight at me. His eyes went wide. His mouth came open. No sound came out. He didn’t seem like much of a threat. He was wearing a T-shirt with Dell on it. Maybe this was Troy, the computer geek.

“Keep quiet if you want to live,” I said.

He kept quiet.

“Are you Troy?”

He stayed quiet and nodded yes.

“OK, Troy,” I said.

I figured we were right underneath the dining room. I couldn’t risk firing a gun in a stone cellar right under everybody’s feet. So I put the Beretta back in my pocket and caught him around the neck and banged his head on the wall, twice, and put him to sleep. Maybe I cracked his skull, maybe I didn’t. I didn’t really care either way. His keyboard work had killed the maid.

Three down.

I found the key in his pocket. Used it in the lock and swung open the door and found Teresa Daniel sitting on her mattress. She turned and looked straight at me. She looked exactly like the photographs Duffy had shown me in my motel room early in the morning on day eleven. She looked in perfect health. Her hair was washed and brushed. She was wearing a virginal white dress. White panty hose and white shoes. Her skin was pale and her eyes were blue. She looked like a human sacrifice.

I paused a moment, unsure. I couldn’t predict her reaction. She must have figured out what they wanted from her. And she didn’t know me. As far as she knew, I was one of them, ready to lead her right to the altar. And she was a trained federal agent. If I asked her to come with me, she might start fighting. She might be storing it up, waiting for her chance. And I didn’t want things to get noisy. Not yet.

But then I looked again at her eyes. One pupil was enormous. The other was tiny. She was very still. Very quiet. Slack and dazed. She was all doped up. Maybe with some kind of a fancy substance. What was it? The date rape drug? Rohypnol? Rophynol? I couldn’t remember its name. Not my area of expertise. Eliot would have known. Duffy or Villanueva would still know. It made people passive and obedient and acquiescent. Made them lie back and take anything they were told to take.

“Teresa?” I whispered.

She didn’t answer.

“You OK?” I whispered.

She nodded.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Can you walk?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Walk with me.”

She stood up. She was unsteady on her feet. Muscle weakness, I guessed. She had been caged for nine weeks.

“This way,” I said.

She didn’t move. She just stood there. I put out my hand. She reached out and took it. Her skin was warm and dry.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Don’t look at the man on the floor.”

I stopped her again just outside the door. Let her hand go and dragged Troy into the room and closed the door on him and locked it. Took Teresa’s hand again and walked away.

She was very suggestible. Very obedient. She just fixed her gaze out in front of her and walked with me. We turned the corner and passed by the washing machine. We walked through the gymnasium. Her dress was silky and lacy. She was holding my hand like a date. I felt like I was going to the prom. We walked up the stairs, side by side. Reached the top.

“Wait here,” I said. “Don’t go anywhere without me, OK?”

“OK,” she whispered.

“Don’t make any noise at all, OK?”

“I won’t.”

I closed the door on her and left her on the top step, with her hand resting lightly on the rail and a bare lightbulb burning behind her. I checked the hallway carefully and headed back to the kitchen. The food guys were still busy in there.

“You guys called Keast and Maden?” I said.

The one nearer me nodded.

“Paul Keast,” he said.

“Chris Maden,” his partner said.

“I need to move your truck, Paul,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s in the way.”

The guy just looked at me. “You told me to put it there.”

“I didn’t tell you to leave it there.”

He shrugged and rooted around on a counter and came up with his keys.

“Whatever,” he said.

I took the keys and went outside and checked the back of the truck. It was fitted out with metal racks on either side. For trays of food. There was a narrow aisle running down the center. No windows. It would do. I left the rear doors open and slid into the driver’s seat and fired it up. Backed it out to the carriage circle and turned it around and reversed it back to the kitchen door. Now it was facing the right way. I killed the motor but left the keys in it. Went back inside the kitchen. The metal detector beeped.

“What are they eating?” I asked.

“Lamb kebabs,” Maden said. “With rice and couscous and humus. Stuffed grape leaves to start. Baklava for dessert. With coffee.”

“That’s Libyan?”

“It’s generic,” he said. “They eat it everywhere.”

“I used to get that for a dollar,” I said. “You’re charging fifty-five.”

“Where? In Portland?”

“In Beirut,” I said.

I stepped out and checked the hallway. All quiet. I opened the basement door. Teresa Daniel was waiting right there, like an automaton. I held out my hand.

“Let’s go,” I said.

She stepped out. I closed the door behind her. Walked her into the kitchen. Keast and Maden stared at her. I ignored them and walked her through. Out through the door. Over to the truck. She shivered in the cold. I helped her climb into the back.

“Wait there for me now,” I said. “Very quiet, OK?”

She nodded and said nothing.

“I’m going to close the doors on you,” I said.

She nodded again.

“I’ll get you out of there soon,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said.

I closed the doors on her and went back to the kitchen. Stood still and listened. I could hear talking from the dining room. It all sounded reasonably social.

“When do they eat?” I said.

“Twenty minutes,” Maden said. “When they’re through with the drinks. There was champagne included in the fifty-five dollars, you know.”

“OK,” I said. “Don’t take offense.”

I checked my watch. Forty-five minutes gone. Fifteen minutes to go.

Show time.

I went back outside into the cold. Slipped into the food truck and fired it up. Eased it forward, slowly around the corner of the house, slowly around the carriage circle, slowly down the driveway. Away from the house. Through the gate. Onto the road. I hit the gas.

Took the curves fast. Jammed to a stop level with Villanueva’s Taurus. Jumped out.

Villanueva and Duffy were instantly out to meet me.

“Teresa’s in the back,” I said. “She’s OK but she’s all doped up.”

Duffy pumped her fists and jumped on me and hugged me hard and Villanueva wrenched open the doors. Teresa fell into his arms. He lifted her down like a child. Then Duffy grabbed her away from him and he took a turn hugging me.

“You should take her to the hospital,” I said.

“We’ll take her to the motel,” Duffy said. “We’re still off the books.”

“You sure?”

“She’ll be OK,” Villanueva said. “Looks like they gave her roofies. Probably from their dope-dealer pals. But they don’t last long. They flush out fast.”

Duffy was hugging Teresa like a sister. Villanueva was still hugging me.

“Eliot’s dead,” I said.

That put a real damper on the mood.

“Call ATF from the motel,” I said. “If I don’t call you first.”

They just looked at me.

“I’m going back now,” I said.

I turned the truck around and headed back. I could see the house ahead of me. The windows were lit up yellow. The wall lights flared blue in the mist. The truck fought the wind. Plan B, I decided. Quinn was mine, but the others could be ATF’s headache.

I stopped on the far side of the carriage circle and reversed down the side of the house.

Stopped outside the kitchen. Got out and walked around the back of the house and found my coat. Unwrapped the Persuaders. Put my coat on. I needed it. It was a cold night and I would be on the road again in about five minutes.

I stepped across to the dining room windows to check inside. They had closed the drapes.

Makes sense, I thought. It was a wild blustery night. The dining room would look better with closed drapes. Cozier. Oriental rugs on the floor, wood paneling, silver on the linen tablecloth.

I picked up the Persuaders and walked back to the kitchen. The metal detector squealed.

The food guys had ten plates with stuffed grape leaves all lined up on a counter. The leaves looked dark and oily and tough. I was hungry but I couldn’t have eaten one. The way my teeth were right then would have made it impossible. I figured I would be eating ice cream for a week, thanks to Paulie.

“Hold off with the food for five minutes, OK?” I said.

Keast and Maden stared at the shotguns.

“Your keys,” I said.

I dropped them next to the grape leaves. I didn’t need them anymore. I had the keys Beck had given me. I figured I would leave by the front door and use the Cadillac. Faster. More comfortable. I took a knife from the wooden block. Used it to put a slit in the inside of my right-hand coat pocket, just wide enough to allow a Persuader’s barrel down into the lining. I picked the gun I had killed Harley with and holstered it there. I held the other one two-handed. Took a breath. Stepped into the hallway. Keast and Maden watched me go. First thing I did was check the powder room. No point in getting all dramatic if Quinn wasn’t even in the dining room. But the powder room was empty. Nobody on bathroom break.

The dining room door was closed. I took another breath. Then another. Then I kicked it in and stepped inside and fired two Brennekes into the ceiling. They were like stun grenades. The twin explosions were colossal. Plaster and wood rained down. Dust and smoke filled the air. Everybody froze like statues. I leveled the gun at Quinn’s chest.

Echoes died away.

“Remember me?” I said.

Elizabeth Beck screamed in the sudden silence.

I moved another step into the room and kept the muzzle on Quinn.