Slow Burn (36 page)

Abby began to
march out, Spaulding in tow.

Brie Meyerson
saved the day. 'Ifs true," she said, then addressed her mother. "Bart
and I are having a relationship." She took a deep breath. "You can
shut me out if you want to, just like you did Penny—" Her voice broke, and
she took a moment to compose herself. "But that won't change anything. All
you'll have is another daughter you don't talk to. I'm going to Cleveland with Bart. We're going to—"

"Don't you
dare . . ." Abby began.

"No!"
Brie shouted.

Abby's jaw
clamped shut.

"Just this
once, Mother, just this once, let me finish a sentence all by myself,
okay?"

Bart walked
over and put a sheltering arm around the girl.

Abby's lower
jaw resembled that of a large-mouthed bass.

"I'm
taking a semester off from college; I'm going to Cleveland with Bart. I'm sorry
if that’s not what you had planned for me, but that’s how ifs going to
be."

For a fleeting
moment, I harbored a sentimental vision seen so often in old Mickey Rooney
movies, where the hardbitten authority figure is finally won over by young
love. Later, the kids borrow a barn and stage a show to raise money. You know
the plot.

In that version,
Abby would melt right before the camera, run over, eyes streaming, throw her
arms around her daughter and cry, "Oh, my dear, I'm soooo happy for
you." So much for that version.

In real life,
Abigail Meyerson merely opened the door, beckoned Spaulding out before her and
left without a word.

The lovebirds
played it just right. Without a way to gracefully leave, they waited to see
what I knew. I'd have done the same thing.

Dixie
, on the other hand, was enthralled with
the idea.

"Well,
I'll be," she said, looking from Brie to Bart and back again. "If
that isn't just the cutest thing."

Brie tried to
stay upbeat. She was on the verge of tears, but she looked at me and said, 'Tt
was the Josta, wasn't it? That silly Josta drink?"

"It was
the Josta catalyst," I said. "When I remembered that I'd seen those
bottles on a room-service cart while I was standing in the hall talking to
Mason Reese, that opened up a whole new range of speculation for me. The minute
I considered that the room-service order might have been yours, suddenly a
whole bunch of other stuff fell into place."

"What
stuff?"

"Oh, like
how your brother spends all day every day making fun of people and you ignore
him, but he makes a little fun of Bart and you punch him in the mouth with a
burger."

"You kids
let me know when you get a pattern picked out. I'll send you down a little
somethin' for forty," Dixie said.

I suddenly
turned on Candace and Rickey Ray. "When you two got off on the eighth
floor the first time, Brie and Bart were in the hall, weren't they? that’s why
you had to jump back on the elevator, and that’s what set you off your feed so
bad you had to stand there for five minutes figuring out what to do next."

Lawrence
looked confused, so I told her about
the tape. As I spoke, Rickey Ray colored slightly and shifted in his chair. I
said a silent prayer that the skinny cop up on the dais was a lot badder than
he looked.

Candace had the
right idea. Stonewall it. She said, "I'm sure I don't know what you're
talking about. I can't speak for Mr. Tolliver, but I, for one, have never been
on the eighth floor of this hotel."

The tips of
Rickey Ray's ears were bright red. He'd been running his own movie and hadn't
heard what she said. Like all the rest of us on the planet, he'd have been
better off if he'd listened. Instead, he said, "Ain't you never pushed the
wrong button, podna?"

The moment
would have made a good silent movie. In a single glance, Lawrence and I
exchanged one "holy shit," two "told you so's" and one
"damned if you weren't right."

On the far side
of the room, Detective Lobdell slipped back through the door. He looked like
somebody had stolen the shoulder pads from his suit. Jack's alibi had checked
out. Lobdell was in deep sewage. He'd sacked the rooms of the rich and famous,
been duped by a planted gun and arrested the wrong millionaire. Today, he might
have been eligible for heaven.

"That
explains everything," I said to Candace. "Why you jumped in when Brie
needed an alibi. How you knew for sure she'd go along with the program. You weren't
trying to give her an alibi, you were strengthening your own. And you knew
she'd go for it because her alternative was to tell her mother she was sleeping
with Mr. Yonquist."

Candace rose
and smoothed her skirt.

I kept talking,
"That was what had me stumped. I couldn't for the life of me figure out
how you could be sure Brie would go along with the he. Especially when it was
bound to get her in hot water with her mother. It was a brilliant, gutsy
move," I said. "It was Sir Geoffrey who pointed out to me that the
only reason anyone would willingly jump into the frying pan was to get out of
the fire."

Miles made an
"it was nothing" face.

Candace
Atherton reached down and picked up her purse. "As much as it pains me to
admit," she said, "I fear Ms. Meyerson had the right idea. This is
absurd." She started for the door. Rickey Ray got to his feet and hustled
after her. Lobdell moved away from the door.

"Don't let
them leave," I told Lawrence. 'They killed Mason Reese. If you let them
walk now, you'll never get them again."

I didn't say
any more because Rickey Ray had spun on his heel and started back my way. Sir
Geoffrey rose and stepped behind his chair. I thought about getting under the
table.

"No,"
Candace said. Rickey Ray slowed, then stopped about five feet away from me, his
eyes wild in his head, his hands stiff and straight.

"No,"
she said again. "Don't dignify these lies."

I knew what the
look meant. He was right. I was lucky.

Lobdell, his
self-confidence in shambles, edged aside and allowed the pair to leave the
room. I looked at Lawrence.

"Those two
have systematically ruined Jack Del Fuego," I said. "They've stolen
from him. They've turned him .against his most trusted advisors. They've
repeatedly sold him out to his enemy, Ms. Meyerson. They've used his own money
to buy up his notes. They've played on his vanity and encouraged him to. do
absolutely insane things, and then, for their grand finale, they tried to frame
him for murder."

"But Mr.
Del Fuego is their meal ticket," Lobdell protested. "Jack's also
their stepfather."

Rickey Ray
meant to break his arm. I still contend the skinny cop would have been okay if
he'd gotten out in front of the pair, held up his arms and ordered them to
stop. God only knows what might have happened then. Hell, they might have
walked. They had the millions they'd bilked from Jack and a sob story
guaranteed to reduce Oprah to jelly. These days, that's all it takes.

Lawrence and I
had gotten as far as the top of the stairs when the cop screwed up. The pair completely
ignored his command to halt, so he reached out a long arm and grabbed Capdace
by the neck. Bad move.

A dull crack
and a sudden burst of air were the only sounds as, in a series of movements
nearly too fast for the eye to follow, Rickey Ray came down on the cop's arm
with the side of his hand, pulled Candace behind him, and then drove a single
blow to the officer's sternum.

The poor guy
went down on the carpet. When he tried to bring his hands to his chest, only
one came along. The other flopped obscenely at the end of a broken forearm. I
looked away. When I turned back, the cop's face was smooth and red; he'd opened
his mouth to scream but found he couldn't take in enough air. His attempts at
breathing began sounding like the braying of a tubercular mule throughout the
lobby.

People were
hustling to clear out of the way. Someone screamed, "Oh, my God!"

Candace yelled,
"No, Richard, no!" but it was too late. Rickey Ray's blood was up and
the Fates, as they are often inclined to do, gave him exactly what he didn't
need. Another challenger.

Detective
Lobdell had stood stupefied as Lawrence told the cop to bring Candace and
Rickey Ray back. I suspect he was so fully immersed in self-pity that not much
else was getting in. He'd have been better off if he'd stayed that way.

Lefs give him
the benefit of the doubt and assume he went bouncing down those stairs out of a
heroic sense of duty, rather than in a mad attempt to salvage something from
the worst day of his life. Or maybe it doesn't matter. Either way, he got the
refrigerator.

Lawrence
was shouting orders into her cell
phone. Sir Geoffrey, Dixie, Bart and Brie were spread out along the marble
mezzanine rail, keeping pace with the scene unfolding fifteen feet below in the
lobby.

"Come on,
lets go," Rickey said in a low voice.

Candace stood
her ground. "Stop it." She gave it all the -authority she had.
"Remember what we talked about."

Lobdell took
one look at the guy on the floor and pulled a big silver nine-millimeter from
the small of his back. The whooping of the injured cop filled the air. Rickey
showed his hands. Lobdell was in the combat position, holding the gun with two
hands, inching forward on widespread legs, barking orders. "Hands on top
of your head."

Rickey kept his
hands level with his shoulders.

'Tm
unarmed," he said. "Be cool."

"Don't
shoot him," Candace begged. "Please, don't shoot him."

Lobdell told
him again and moved forward. And then again. Rickey wasn't a good listener, but
he was smart.

The officer
needed help. Rickey Ray held his ground.

"No
trouble, man, I surrender."

Then Rickey Ray
backed up two steps.

"He doan
sound too good, podna."

Lobdell agreed,
covering the remaining distance in a quick crabwalk. The big automatic pointed
unwaveringly at Tolliver's chest as Lobdell dropped to one knee beside the
heaving officer. The officer's breathing was beginning to develop ragged gaps.

"Back
off," Lobdell screamed.

Instead, Rickey
Ray sat down cross-legged on the carpet. "No gun, man."

A deep rattle
rose from the cop's chest. Lobdell couldn't help it; he looked down at the
stricken man. It was human nature.

Good night,
Irene. Tolliver turned a single somersault and came up under Lobdell's chin
before the detective could so much as twitch. The impact snapped his jaw closed
and propelled him all the way over onto his stomach. Rickey dove for the gun
hand, landing in the middle of Lobdell's back with both knees, driving the
breath from his body. He grabbed the wrist in both hands and twisted it up
behind Lobdell's back. I don't know which gave first, the elbow or the
shoulder. I heard that, later that afternoon, the medics found both of them
completely out of their sockets, but maybe that was just talk.

Rickey Ray held
the automatic by the barrel.

"Come on.
We gotta go."

The lobby was
deserted. Two days ago, half the people sitting around were cops. Now, when we
needed some. . . .

Lobdell retched
a thick black pool onto the carpet. His wrist still rested on the back of his
neck, where Rickey had left it. I tasted bile.

"They'll
kill you, Richard. Don't let them kill you," Candace whispered.
"Don't let them kill you."

"We can
make it," he insisted. When she didn't move, he threw the gun down on the
carpet. "See? No gun. Come on."

Candace shook
her head. "This isn't necessary."

Rickey Ray's
head snapped around toward the other end of the lobby. I moved down two steps
so I could see that far up the room.

It was the two
cops who'd escorted Dixie and Bart upstairs. A couple of jailers, really, on
loan from the sheriffs department. They looked like they'd been working store
security for a doughnut shop, getting this assignment because they had the most
seniority and hanging around a hotel was a cushy job. I was betting neither one
of them had ever had his piece out before. They had them out now, though, holding
the weapons way out from their bodies like somebody had passed them a weasel
and they wanted no part of it.

Tolliver walked
quickly in their direction, his hands at his shoulders again. "No
gun," he said. .'Tm not armed."

"Stay
where you are," the cop on the left shouted.

Rickey Ray kept
right on walking.

When Candace
started after him, I made my move, taking the last two steps in a single stride
and then running for all I was worth over to the silver automatic on the
carpet. Lobdell was trying to roll over.

I picked up the
auto, checked the safety, then held the big -weapon down by my side.
"Rickey," I shouted.