The Doll Brokers (29 page)

“What time do you get off?” he asked the bartender.

“Half an hour. But then I got to clean up.”

“Two hundred fifty for one more shot.”

“You're crazy, man.”

“You don't know the half of it.”

By the time the guy finished, Patrick was into him for three hundred dollars and he had a decent buzz on. He felt the tension in him—all that gnarly, nasty fear that had gripped him for days—melting away. He could finally think again.

If his house was locked, if Irene really was gone—and he'd called her three times from the clinic without getting an answer—then there was always the extra key in the potting shed out back. If she'd taken that, too, then he'd break through one of the rear windows. He kept a little cash taped to the lid of the toilet tank in his bathroom for just such an emergency. He thought there was probably about five hundred dollars there.

By the time they got into the kid's car—an ancient Ford with a muffler problem—Patrick spotted the time on the dashboard clock—twenty past four in the morning. How long had he wandered through those woods? Now that they were warm again, his feet were giving in to a stinging burst of pain that was beginning to radiate up his ankles.

“So where exactly are we going anyway?”

“My … brother's home,” he lied.
The bastard who was fucking Ann Lesage.
Pat was sure of that now. They'd been too chummy at
the court house. Comrades-in-arms. Bowling him over, punishing him, tucking him away like a common criminal.

The sky was going gray by the time they reached Patrick's home. He went to the front door and tried the knob. Locked. He rang the bell. Nothing. He pounded his fist on the door.

No response. Irene—the ungrateful bitch—was really gone.

He returned to the car. “Hold on a second,” he said to the guy. “I'm going to go around out back.”

“Oh, man, if you got me all the way out here with nothing to show for it, I've got a fist for you.”

“That won't be necessary,” Patrick said. There was still a drop of brandy in his blood, and the prospect of more right behind those den windows. He'd get into the house somehow. “Just sit tight.”

He went to the rear of the property, limping. He let himself into the potting shed and ran his hand over the upper shelf just inside the door. His fingers closed over the small piece of metal. Relief hit him with a jolt.

He went to the back door, turned the key in the lock and let himself in. The house smelled empty and stale. She'd probably been gone since the night he'd run from the cops, Pat thought. Irene had abandoned him in his worst hour of need.

He went upstairs to his bathroom and found the money. He hurried back to the front door and minced his way to the driveway on tender feet, screaming with pain. “Here you go,” he said to the guy. “Three hundred dollars.”

The bartender reached out and grabbed it. “No shit,” he said. “I thought you'd stiff me for sure.”

“You saved my life,” Patrick told him, and meant it.

The guy half-saluted, got into his dented Ford, and was off.

Patrick went back inside his house. To the den. To his Courvoisier—only to find that Irene had poured every last drop of it down the drain. Four empty bottles stood sentinel in the bar
cupboard. Spite, Patrick thought, nothing but spite. Why hadn't he seen how nasty she was before he married her?

He was angry enough to want to throw one of the empty bottles against the wall. The sound of smashing, tinkling glass would be satisfying. But Patrick had no time for recriminations. He had to get a grip on himself. Come up with a plan. The bar was still stocked with vodka, Scotch, rum, and wine. Any one of those would do as well.

He made himself a strong rum and Coke and went upstairs to his bathroom, getting into the shower to wash the stink of the clinic off his skin. He had two more drinks while he dressed, then he took a straight shot, undiluted and right to his gullet, to get him through the pain of easing his battered feet into shoes.

The sun was up by the time he let himself out of the house to greet the waiting cab. He had business to see to. He had to get to the bank and get some money—if Irene hadn't cleaned their account out, too. He needed money to wheedle back into Verna's good graces. He was going to need her help, her support, in the days to come. He hoped it wasn't too late, He prayed she'd give him a chance, now that Irene was out of the picture.

The cab took him to the train station and Patrick rode into the city. It was after seven by the time he arrived at Verna's apartment. The door was ajar, which immediately struck him as odd.

“Verna? It's Patrick. Hello?”

Silence. Some … twitching thing, deep beneath the liquor, told him this was not good.

Patrick leaned on the door a little. It gave way. And there she was, her body twisted on the wood floor in the entrance to the apartment. Blood everywhere. Even fortified by the booze, it was too much for Patrick to handle. He began to scream. Screamed until he grew hoarse. Screamed again and again, without being able to stop.

T
hey made love in the morning, slowly, methodically, without the crazed rush of the day before. Ann found it sweet, something to savor. After they showered and dressed, and with breakfast completed, they prepared to go their separate ways in search of Charles Ling.

Jonathan turned to Ann and took a moment to study her. “Take it down,” he said.

She paused and looked at him, confused. “What?”

“Your hair. Why do you always put it up like that?”

“I don't know. I look … it's more … professional.”

“I like it down. Pushed up like that it's too severe. Not feminine.”

“Well, when I'm doing business, I don't want to be feminine.”

He reached behind her head and pulled out the clip, just as her cell phone rang.

Ann quickly reached for it.

Frank Ketch uttered a single word to her hello. “Trouble.” Felicia, she thought.
Oh, dear God, not Felicia.
But if something had happened to her, then Cal or Lacey would have called them, not Ketch.

Patrick, then. It had to be Patrick.

“What did he do now?” Her voice ended in a squeak of despair.

“He strolled out of the rehab clinic last night.”

“Strolled?”
Her voice rose another notch as she looked to Jonathan. “Your brother,” she mouthed.

First there was confusion on his face. Then anger. Then tired acceptance. “He checked himself out?” Jonathan asked.

“He checked himself out?” Ann repeated to Ketch. “That wasn't supposed to be possible!”

“It's not. He just walked out the door. No one is sure how.”

“Where is he now?”

“Back in jail.”

Ann thought distractedly that by now she ought to be accustomed to this sensation in her legs—the emptying of emotion from her heels. The noodle effect. “Why?” she asked, not really wanting to know.

“His secretary is in the hospital, beaten to a pulp. She's in critical condition, currently comatose, hanging on by a thread.”

“His
secretary
?”

“Patrick turned up at her apartment first thing this morning and says he found her like that, then he called 9-1-1. The paramedics arrived with her half-dead and Mr. Morhardt sitting beside her in a puddle of various body fluids, intoxicated. Yesterday I was in front of the judge going through the motions of dismissing the cocaine charge. Now this.”

“Are you telling me you're quitting?”

“No, no. But I'll need more of a retainer.”

She laughed a little crazily. Ann removed the phone from her ear and shoved it at Jonathan. “Here. You talk to him.”

She turned away and took a seat on the unmade bed, afraid she might throw up everything she had just eaten. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, willing her stomach to settle. Mind over matter, she told herself. When she could take air in again without everything rolling inside her, she straightened and looked back at Jonathan. He was off the phone. He stood in the middle of the room, looking empty.

Ann approached him on unsteady legs. “I'm sorry.” She gripped his arm. His muscles were tense, hard as a rock beneath her fingertips.

“How the hell did he come to this?”

“I don't know.”

“What a legacy. And … Matt … Mattie was … such a good kid.”

“Mattie had wings.” He'd been an angel, Ann thought. In her darkest moments, she'd been sure that God had only loaned him to the Morthardts. She let go of Jonathan's arm. “I loved him. But he really was too good for me, Jon. I knew that from the start.”

He turned to her, took her chin in his hand to make sure she couldn't look away. “What about me?”

Where was her voice? “You're tough as beef jerky.”

“Not always. This takes the wind out of me.”

Was he talking about Patrick's latest mess? Or what was happening between them? “I think … I hope … you're strong enough … for the likes of me.”

“So far, the likes of you are just fine.”

He dropped his hand. She already missed his touch. “About Patrick…”

“If he hurt that woman, there's no saving him, Ann.”

“Your mother—”

“We have to get home to her.”

Yes, she thought, they did. “What about Charles Ling? We can't forget about him.”

He pushed fingers into his hair. “You're right. If we don't find him, then our chance of putting out the doll will be lost. Our only other option would be to go home and fly back here in a couple of days.”

“That would be a waste.” She looked at her watch. “Nine-thirty. We can probably wrap this up by mid-afternoon.”

He went over to the desk by the window and picked up the hotel phone. “Let me see when we can get a flight out of here.”

It took him a while, but he finally connected to the airline and got the information. “There's an available flight at 6:30,” he said.

“Get us on it,” Ann urged.

He made the arrangements and turned to her, handing her back her cell phone. “Where are our lists?”

Ann got them out of her briefcase as she dropped the cell phone inside. “What time do you want to meet back here?”

“I think we can safely give ourselves until one o'clock.” He paused. “Ann, it's with the utmost regret that I say this, but I think under the circumstances, we need to skip the hot tub this afternoon.”

Her gaze jumped to his. “A woman does what a woman has to do.”

One corner of his mouth tried to smile. “You're incredible.”

“Tell me that after I dismember your brother.”

He looked away. Then his eyes came back to her. “Maybe you were right about him.”

She could see how difficult it was for Jonathan to admit this to himself, let alone her. She didn't want him to hurt. Yes, she had grown to actually despise Patrick—really
hate
him for his weak, conniving ways. “He's got Morhardt genes,” she said finally. “There has to be something redeemable in him, somewhere.”

“Maybe.” Jonathan kissed her once, quickly, then they headed out of the room.

“One o'clock,” he said before setting off on his own. “No matter where you are or what you're doing, you cease and desist and come back to home base.”

“Right on, Captain.” Ann half saluted, trying to appear playful. But when she was sure he was gone, she paused and admitted to herself that maybe it was time to give up. Yes, Felicia wanted this doll project to proceed, and more than anything she wanted it for her. But at what cost? More money would be needed for Patrick's lawyer. Another million five would have to go to Ling, if they ever found him. At what point would it be too much?

A lot was working against them. Her mind spiraled back to what she had thought was the worst point in this odyssey, her previous version of rock bottom—the meeting at Kmart with Tom Carlisle. She couldn't do this anymore.

She took a deep breath. No. She would continue, she thought. She would see it through. She would find a way to do it. For Felicia, and—by association—for Jonathan. Prioritize, she told herself. Find Ling. That came first.

The cab ride took her west on a few side streets, then north on Nathan Road. In all her trips to Hong Kong, Ann had never ventured much past Mong Kok which, she now reminded herself, was actually a misnomer. The true name in Cantonese was Wong Kok but the sign painter many years ago was rumored to be dyslexic and replaced the ‘W' with an ‘M' in error. Despite herself, Ann smiled. Only in Hong Kong would this sort of thing be allowed to stand.

The cab turned east on Prince Edward Road and drove past Yuen Po Street, home of the Bird Market where, despite fears of virulent strains of flu running rampant among fowl, people still gathered in droves to admire the hundreds of songbirds. Ann remembered coming here once, but that had been many years before, when the flu was something you caught from a person, not a bird.

Just approaching Kowloon City, she became cognizant of a noticeable change. The touristy things she was familiar with—the jewelry and electronic shops, the fast food joints and pastry stores—now gave way to apartment building after apartment building, some in disrepair, stacked one next to the other.

The cab turned on a small side-street and came to a halt a hundred feet or so from the corner. Ann gave the driver seventy Hong Kong, the equivalent of nine American dollars, which reminded her that taxis were one of the few bargains left in the city.

She stood for a moment on the sidewalk, experiencing a strange sense that she was indeed a
gwilo
, a foreigner in unfamiliar terrain, and that she was being noticed.

She unfolded the piece of paper she held in her hand, meaning to verify the address, when suddenly, something impossibly hard hit her in the back of the skull. She cried out and pitched forward, losing her grip on her briefcase. It hit the sidewalk and skidded. As she went down, she felt her knees scrape the concrete. Then her chin connected with enough force to make her see stars.