Secret of the Seventh Son (31 page)

Hearing this, the fire captain and the CEO edged a little closer to check out the ball path.

"For Christ's sake! Don't jinx yourself!" the Wynn guy yelped.

Elder's backswing was slow and flawless, and at the top of the arc--a moment before a bullet ripped through his skull, splattering the foursome with blood and brains--it occurred to him that life was extremely good.

DeCorso confirmed the kill through his sniper scope, then efficiently broke the weapon down, tossed it in a suit bag, and exited the eleventh floor hotel room with its desirable view of the pristine golf course.

When they got back to their suite, Kerry wanted to make love, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He begged off, blaming the sun, and retreated to take a shower. She kept nattering through the door, too excited to stop talking, while he let the powerful shower drown out the sound of his crying.

The Realtor had told Kerry that Cut, the restaurant in their hotel, was to die for, a comment that made him wince. She pleaded to go there for dinner, and anything she wanted, he was going to give her, though his fervent desire was to hide in their room.

She looked stunning in her red dress, and when they made their entry, heads turned to see if she was a celebrity. Mark carried his briefcase, so the betting-man scenario was an actress meeting her agent or lawyer. This skinny fellow was surely too homely to be her date, unless, of course, he was filthy rich.

They were seated at a window table under a massive skylight, which by dessert time would bring the moonlight flooding into the room.

She wanted to talk of nothing but the house. It was a dream come true--no, more than that, because, she exclaimed, she never dreamed such a place even existed. It was so high up it felt like being in a spaceship, like the UFO she'd seen as a girl. She was like a kid with her questions: when was he going to quit his job, when were they going to move, what kind of furniture would they buy, when should she start acting lessons, when was he going to start writing again? He would shrug or answer monosyllabically and stare out the window, and she'd race to the next thought.

Suddenly she stopped talking, which made him look up. "Why are you so sad?" she asked.

"I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"No, I'm not."

She didn't look convinced but let it pass and said, "Well, I'm happy. This is the best day of my whole life. If I hadn't met you, I'd be--well, I wouldn't be here! Thank you, Mark Shackleton."

She blew him a kittenish kiss that broke through and made him smile. "That's better!" she purred.

Her phone rang from inside her bag.

"Your phone!" he said. "Why is it on?" He scared her with his panicky expression.

"Gina needed a number if they accepted our offer." She was fumbling for it. "That's probably her!"

"How long has it been on!" he moaned.

"I don't know. A few hours. Don't worry, the battery's fine." She clicked
ANSWER.
"Hello?" She looked disappointed and confused. "It's for you!" she said, handing it to him.

He caught his breath and held it to his ear. The voice was male, authoritative, cruel. "Listen to me, Shackleton. This is Malcolm Frazier. I want you to walk out of the restaurant and go back to your room and wait for the watchers to pick you up. I'm sure you checked the database. Today is not your day. It was Nelson Elder's day and he's gone. It's Kerry Hightower's day. It's not your day. But that doesn't mean we can't hurt you badly and make you wish that it were. We need to find out how you did it. This doesn't have to be hard."

"She doesn't know anything," Mark said in a pleading whisper, turning his body away.

"It doesn't matter what you say. It's her day. So, stand up and leave, right now. Do you understand me?"

He didn't respond for several heartbeats.

"Shackleton?"

He shut the phone and pushed his chair back.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"It's nothing." He was breathing hard. His face was twisted.

"Is it about your auntie?"

"Yes. I've got to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back." He fought to keep himself together, unable to look at her.

"My poor baby," she said soothingly. "I'm worried about you. I want you to be as happy as me. You hurry back to your Kerry-bear, okay?"

He picked up his briefcase and walked away, a man to the gallows, small shuffling steps, head bowed. As he reached the lobby he heard the sound of breaking glass followed by two full agonizing seconds of silence, then piercing female screams and thunderous male shouts.

The restaurant and lobby were a whir of bodies, running, scrambling, pushing. Mark kept walking like a zombie straight out the Wilshire entrance, where a car was idling at the curb, waiting for the valet. The parking attendant wanted to see what was going on in the lobby and made for the revolving doors.

Without giving it any thought, Mark automatically got in the driver's seat of the idling car and drove off into the warm Beverly Hills evening, trying to see through his tears.

M
arilyn Monroe had stayed there, and Liz Taylor, Fred Astaire, Jack Nicholson, Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, and others whom he forgot because he wasn't paying attention to the bellman who could see he wanted to be alone and watched him leave quickly without the customary grand tour.

To the bellman, the guest looked confused and disheveled. His only bag was a briefcase. But they got all types of rich druggies and eccentrics, and for a tip, the mumbling fellow had stripped a hundred off a wad so it was all good.

Mark woke up, disoriented after a deep sleep, but despite the cannon fire in his head, he quickly snapped to reality and closed his eyes again in despair. He was aware of a few sounds: the low hum of an air conditioner, a bird chirping outside the window, his hair rubbing between the cotton sheets and his ear. He felt the downward draft from a ceiling fan. His mouth was so desiccated, there didn't seem to be a molecule of moisture to lubricate his tongue.

It was the kind of suite that provided guests with quart-sized bottles of premium liquor. On the desk was a half-empty vodka bottle, strong effective medicine for his memory problem--he'd drunk one glass after another until he stopped remembering. Apparently, he undressed and turned off the lights, some basic reflex intact.

The filtered light coming through the living room door was infusing color into the pastel decor. A palette of peach, mauve, and sage came into focus. Kerry would have loved this place, he thought, rolling his face into the down pillow.

He had driven the purloined car only a few blocks when he decided he was too tired to run. He pulled over, parked on a quiet residential stretch of North Crescent, got out and drifted aimlessly without a plan. He was too numb to realize he was more conspicuous in Beverly Hills as a pedestrian than as a driver of a stolen BMW. Some period of time passed. He found himself staring at a chartreuse sign with three-dimensional white script letters popping out.

The Beverly Hills Hotel.

He looked up at a pink confection of a building set back in a verdant garden. He found himself walking up the drive, wandering into Reception, asking what rooms they had, and taking the most expensive, a grand bungalow with a storied history that he paid for with a fistful of cash.

He stumbled out of bed, too dehydrated to urinate, chugged an entire bottle of water then sat back down on the bed to think. His computerlike mind was gooey and overheated. He wasn't used to struggling to answer a mental problem. This was a decision tree analysis: each action had possible outcomes, each outcome triggered new potential actions.

How hard was it?
Concentrate!

He ran the gamut of possibilities from running and hiding, living off his remaining cash for as long as he could, to giving himself up to Frazier immediately. Today wasn't his day, or tomorrow: he was BTH, so he knew he wasn't going to be murdered or go off the deep end as a suicide. But that didn't mean Frazier wouldn't make good on his threat to hurt him, and best case, he'd spend the rest of his life in a dark solitary hole.

He started to cry again. Was it for Kerry or for fucking up so miserably? Why couldn't he have been content with things as they were? He held his throbbing temples in his hands and rocked himself. His life hadn't been that bad, had it? Why did he think he needed money and fame? Here he was in a temple of money and fame, the best bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and big fucking deal: it was only a couple of rooms with furniture and some appliances. He had all that stuff already. Mark Shackleton:
he
wasn't a bad guy. He had a sense of proportion. It was that fucker, Peter Benedict, that grasping striver, who'd gotten him into trouble. He's the one who should be punished, not me, Mark thought, taking a small step toward insanity.

He felt compelled to turn on the TV. In a span of five minutes three of the news stories were about him.

An insurance executive had been killed on a Las Vegas golf course by a sniper.

Will Piper, the FBI agent in charge of the Doomsday investigation, remained a fugitive from justice.

In local news, a diner at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant was shot in the head through a window by an unknown assailant still at large.

He started sobbing again at the sight of Kerry's body, barely filling out a medical examiner's bag.

He knew he couldn't let Frazier have him. The chiseled man with dead eyes petrified him. He'd always been scared of the watchers, and that was before he knew they were cold-blooded killers.

He decided only one person could help him.

He needed a pay phone.

It was a task that almost defeated him because twenty-first century Beverly Hills was bereft of public phones and he was on foot. The hotel probably had one but he needed to find a place that wouldn't lead them right to his door.

He walked for the better part of an hour, getting sweaty, until he finally found one in a sandwich shop on North Beverly. It was in between breakfast and lunch and the place was not crowded. He felt like he was being watched by the few patrons, but it was imaginary. He melted into the drab hall near the restrooms and the back door. He'd changed a twenty back at the hotel, so armed with a pocketful of quarters, he rang the first of his numbers and got voice mail. He hung up without leaving a message.

Then the second--voice mail again.

Finally the last number. He held his breath.

A woman answered on the second ring. "Hello?"

He hesitated before he spoke. "Is this Laura Piper?" Mark asked.

"Yes. Who's this?" Her apprehension was palpable.

"My name is Mark Shackleton. I'm the man your father is looking for."

"Omigod, the killer!"

"No! Please, I'm not! You have to tell him that I didn't kill anybody."

Nancy was driving John Mueller to Brooklyn to interview one of the bank managers in the borough's recent robbery spree. There was overwhelming surveillance and eyewitness evidence to indicate that the same two Middle Eastern-looking men were involved in all five jobs, and the Terrorism Task Force was breathing down the neck of the Major Crimes Division to see if there was a terrorism angle.

Nancy was unhappy about the second-guessing, but her partner was undisturbed.

"You can't take these cases lightly," he said. "Learn that lesson early in your career. We are in a global war on terror and I think it's completely appropriate to treat these perps as terrorists till proven otherwise."

"They're just bank robbers who happen to look Muslim. There's nothing to indicate they're political," she insisted.

"You're wrong once, you've got the blood of thousands of Americans on your hands. If I had stayed on the Doomsday case, I would have pursued the possibility of terrorism there too."

"There wasn't any terror connection, John."

"You don't know that. Case isn't closed, unless I missed something. Is it closed yet?"

She gritted her teeth. "No, John, it's not closed."

He hadn't brought it up yet but this was his opening. "What the heck is Will doing anyway?"

"I believe he thinks he's doing his job."

"There's always one right way to do things and multiple wrong ways--Will consistently finds one of the wrong ways," he pontificated. "I'm glad I'm here to get your training back on the straight and narrow."

When he wasn't looking, she rolled her eyes. She was already agitated, and he was making things worse. The day began with a disturbing news story about the sniper-killing of Nelson Elder, surely a coincidence, but she was powerless to check into it--she was off the case.

Will might have gotten the news on the car radio or a motel TV, and anyway, she didn't want to call and take the chance of waking him during one of his rest breaks. She'd have to wait for him to reach out to her.

Just as she was pulling into the bank parking lot in Flat-bush, her prepaid phone rang. She hurriedly unlatched her seat belt and scrambled out of the SUV to get far enough away to be out of Mueller's range when she answered.

"Will!"

"It's Laura." She sounded wild.

"Laura! What's the matter?"

"Mark Shackleton just called me. He wants to meet Dad."

Will was climbing, which felt good to him because it felt different. He was ragged from fighting hypnotically flat terrain, and the I-40 gradient through the Sandia Mountains was helping his mood. Back in Plainfield, Indiana, he'd caught six hours at a Days Inn, but that was eighteen hours ago. Without another rest soon he'd nod off and crash.

When he stopped, he'd call Nancy. He'd heard about Elder's murder on the radio and wanted to see if she knew anything. It was making him crazy, but there were a lot of things agitating him, including his forced abstinence. He was jittery, humoring himself in a silly voice:

"Maybe you've got a drinking problem, Willie."

"Hey, screw you, the only problem I've got is that I haven't had a drink."

"I rest my case."

"Take your case and shove it up your ass."

And he was agitated over what he'd told Nancy the day before, the love business. Had he meant it? Was it fatigue and loneliness speaking? Did she mean what
she
said? Now that he'd uncorked the love word, he would have to deal with it.

Maybe sooner rather than later--the phone was ringing.

"Hey, I'm glad you called."

"Where are you?" Nancy asked.

"The great state of New Mexico." There were traffic noises on her side. "You on the street?"

"Broadway. Friday traffic. I've got something to tell you, Will."

"About Nelson Elder, right? I heard it on the news. It's driving me nuts."

"He called Laura."

Will was confused. "Who called?"

"Mark Shackleton."

The line went quiet.

"Will?"

"That son of a bitch called my daughter?" he seethed.

"He said he tried your other numbers. Laura was the only way. He wants to meet."

"He can turn himself in anywhere."

"He's scared. You're the only one he says he can trust."

"I'm less than six hundred miles from Vegas. He can trust me to fuck him up for calling Laura."

"He's not in Las Vegas. He's in L.A."

"Christ, another three hundred miles. What else did he say?"

"He says he didn't kill anyone."

"Unbelievable. Anything else?"

"He says he's sorry."

"Where do I find him?"

"He wants you to go to a coffee shop in Beverly Hills tomorrow morning at ten. I've got the address."

"He's going to be there?"

"That's what he said."

"Okay, if I keep going at this clip and take an eight-hour nap somewhere, I've got plenty of time to have a cup of coffee with my old buddy."

"I'm worried about you."

"I'll stop for a rest. My butt's sore but I'm okay. Your grandmother's car wasn't built for comfort or speed."

He was happy he could make her laugh.

"Listen, Nancy, about what I said yesterday--"

"Let's wait until this is over," she offered. "We ought to talk about it when we're together."

"Okay," he readily agreed. "Keep your phone charged. You're my lifeline. Give me the address."

Frazier hadn't gone home since the start of the crisis, and he hadn't let his men leave the Ops Center either. There was no end in sight; the pressure from Washington was intense and everyone was frustrated. They had Shackleton within their grasp, he lambasted his people, but an untrained piece of shit had somehow managed to slip the grasp of some of the best tactical ops men in the country. Frazier's rear end was on the line and he didn't like it being there.

"We need a gym down here," one of his men groused.

"It's not a spa," Frazier spat out.

"Maybe a speed bag. We could hang it in the corner," another one piped up from his terminal.

"You want to punch something, come over here and take a shot at me," Frazier growled.

"I just want to find the asshole and go home," the first man said.

Frazier corrected him. "We've got two assholes, our guy and the FBI turd. We need both of them."

A Pentagon line rang and the speed-bag man answered and started taking notes. Frazier could tell from his body language that something was up.

"Malcolm, we got something. The DIA tappers picked up a call to Agent Piper's daughter."

"From who?" Frazier asked.

"Shackleton."

"Fuck me..."

"They're downloading the intercept. We should have it in a couple of minutes. Shackleton wants to meet Piper at a coffee shop in Beverly Hills tomorrow morning."

Frazier clapped his hands together in triumph and yelled, "Two birds with one fucking stone! Thank you, Lord!" He started thinking. "Any outbound calls? How's she passing the info?"

"No calls from her home line or her cell since this one."

"Okay, she's in Georgetown, right? Get a bead on all public phones in a two-mile radius of where she lives and check them for recent calls to other pay phones or prepaid cells. And find out if she has a roommate or a boyfriend and get their numbers and call logs. I want to see a crosshair over Piper's forehead."

It was evening in Los Angeles and the heat was starting to dissipate. Mark remained in his bungalow all day with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. He vowed to do penance for Kerry by fasting but got light-headed in the afternoon and broke into the assortment of salty snacks and cookies at the bar. In any event, he reasoned, what happened to her was meant to happen, so he wasn't really to blame, was he? The thought made him feel a little better, and he opened a beer. He drank two more in rapid succession, then started on the vodka.

His bungalow had its own private courtyard hidden behind salmon-colored walls inscribed with faux Italianate arches. He ventured out with the bottle, sat on a lounger and reclined. The air was fragrant with the exotic aromas of the tropical garden flowers. He let himself sleep, and when he awoke the sky was black and it had become chilly. He shivered in the night air and never felt more alone.

The Mojave Desert was 112 degrees in the early hours of Saturday morning, and Will thought he might spontaneously incinerate when he pulled the car off the road and emerged for a pee. He prayed the old Taurus would start up again, and it did. He'd make it to Beverly Hills with time to spare.