The Lazarus Trap (29 page)

Dillon returned in uniform, bearing a second maroon-and-yellow outfit in a plastic cover. He was nervous but bearing up well. Clearly he had been in tight spaces before. The only real sign of his fear was the way his eyes tightened and his cheekbones pinched white against his skin. “I can tell you already this is too small. But it's the only one I spotted.”

The uniform was scarcely better than a clown's outfit on Val. The trousers were a full four inches too short, the waist impossible to fasten. The jacket's wrists and shoulders were scarcely better. He did all of the jacket's gold buttons up the front except the one at his collar, which would have fitted him like a noose.

Dillon set a matching maroon-and-gold pillbox hat on Val's head and grimaced. “All you need is a tin cup, mate. You'd be ready for the monkey's dance down the boardwalk.”

“If I bunched my shoulders I bet I could split this thing from top to toe.”

“We'll move fast, hope nobody gets too good a look. Ready?”

They took the service lift up to the top floor. Over the clanking lift motor Val could hear the same sibilant noise he had been catching ever since news had arrived of Audrey's abduction. The sound was somewhere between a drill and a very shrill scream. The fact that the sound had traveled with him left Val in no doubt of its origin. The day was being ground down to a raw and fiery edge.

They came out of the elevator and started down an empty corridor. Val was consumed by how little chance they had of succeeding. He should never have sent Audrey away. Val no longer cared what his justification might have been at the time. It was insignificant now. He followed Dillon into the pantry. His body was a shell encasing nothing more than a void. A fragmented past and no future. And it was all his fault.

Dillon piled his arms high with terrycloth robes and fresh towels. When he was done, Val was masked from his waist to his chin. Dillon looked down at Val's exposed ankles and shook his head. “Nothing to be done about that.”

“Except move fast,” Val said. Forward motion of any kind gave him at least a shred of hope.

Dillon's gaze tightened further, as close to a smile as the guy could manage just then. “You're all right, mate.”

Val replied, “Let's do it.”

THEY FINALLY LEFT AUDREY AT THE HOUSE RENTED FOR JOSEF'S thugs because Terrance grew tired of wasting his time. Audrey might know where Val was, but they could roast her over live coals, plug her with arrows, and she would give them nothing. Audrey would relish playing the martyr. Terrance ordered them to cuff her to the radiator in the smallest of the upstairs rooms. Her mouth was taped, but nothing could be done about the daggers in her gaze. As usual, his darling sister refused to let him have the last word. Even when she couldn't speak.

The driver had already returned to the hotel, and Loupe's men did not want to leave without word from the boss. Which was fine by Terrance. He felt enclosed within a cage the size of this proper little English town.

Wally spoke to him for the first time since their arrival. “I need to walk, get a little air.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

The muscle protested, “We can't raise the boss.”

“Stay here,” Terrance replied, already moving for the door.

“The boss—”

“Your boss,” Terrance corrected.

The senior man said to one of his men, “Make sure they make it okay.”

“It can't be more than ten blocks.” Terrance protested. “Hastings hardly looks like a dangerous place.”

Loupe's man said nothing, merely walked a few paces behind them. Wally remained the silent wraith throughout. The sky was split so definitely in two they might have been witnessing a schism of the universe. To the west and south was an aching empty blue. To the north a storm approached, strong as night. Thunder rolled across the vacant reaches, bringing expressions of real fear to the scurrying tourists. Only Wally seemed unfazed by the squall. By the squall, by the day, and by the fact that they were walking down Hastings' main street, six thousand miles from where they needed to be, and still minus Val Haines.

Terrance pulled out his cell phone and checked for messages. Nothing. The action had become reflexive, something he did every few minutes. He had tried Don repeatedly for hours with no results. Not even on what Don called his red line, the number only a few people knew and one that Don had promised would lift him from the grave. Terrance had left five messages there and still had not heard back. Being this far from his home turf and not being able to contact his chief ally left Terrance extremely unsettled.

He could sense Audrey's helpless fury like smoke rising from a branding iron. He should be feeling some sense of vindication, having trapped her and isolated her and finally left her helpless and silent. But the day was not working out as it should. Terrance snapped his phone shut as the hotel doorman greeted them and held open the portal. They had to find Val. Find him and finish him. Fast.

When they entered the hotel lobby, Terrance realized that Wally was watching him. “What?”

“I didn't say anything.”

Terrance turned to their shadow. “Go on up to the suite.”

The muscle glanced uncertainly around the reception area. Clearly there was nothing of danger. Still, he hesitated.

Terrance put as much weight as he could on the words. “I need a minute alone here. We'll meet you upstairs.”

When Loupe's man entered the elevator, Terrance turned back to Wally and hissed, “As a matter of fact, you haven't said or done a thing.”

“You got a beef?”

“Of course not. What do I have to complain about? After all, you've contributed so very much to all that's happened since our arrival. Offering suggestions and advice and wisdom at every turn, that's our Wally.”

She gave a cop's laugh, a quick huff of sound without humor. “You don't get it, do you?”

“Obviously not.”

Wally shook her head. “You've lost it.”

“On the contrary, I have everything under control.”

Wally huffed another laugh, a verbal pistol with a silencer attached.

“I asked you a question.”

She stepped over to where a pillar and a potted palm hid her from both the elevator and the reception desk. Having to follow Wally's lead made Terrance even hotter. Which, given the other frustrations of this rather fractious day, was not altogether a bad thing. At least he could let off some steam. “Would it be too much to ask for you to try and help me out here?”

“You're hopeless.”

The words and their flat tone stung. “I am paying you good money—”

“You're paying me what I've already earned ten times over.”

“Since our arrival you have done absolutely
nothing.”

Wally punched him in the chest with a finger of flesh-covered stone. “You think you're going to collar your guy, pay this Loupe his change, and just waltz off to never-never land. Is that it?”

“Not collar.”

“Whatever.”

“And you're the one paying Loupe, remember? It comes out of your share.”

“You just don't get it.”

“You've said that before.”

Her every breath blasted him with heat and ashes. “Listen to me. The boss is not here because his guys goofed.”

“That's what he said when—”

“Forget what he told you. This guy wouldn't know the truth if it arrived on the business end of a thirty-eight hollow point. He's here because he wants it
all
.”

A snake of fear found the weak spot just north of his navel. “All what?”

“What do you think?
Everything.”

“He can't have it.”

“Oh, is that so? And just who is going to stop him—you?”

“That's your job.”

Her final huff carried very little force. “I may be good, Terry. But I'm just one gal.”

Terrance stared around the lobby, as though searching for a way out. A bellhop stared through the front window, watching the sky with a worried frown. “I told you not to call me that.”

Wally closed in on Terrance with her lips drawn back from her teeth. A feral beast smelling of cigarettes and fear. “Listen to what I'm telling you. You want to have one single shred of anything left, you get out.”

The snake just kept burrowing deeper, lodging itself with venomous ferocity, coiling around Terrance's spine. “You mean leave? I can't do that.”

She bit off each word in even little gasps. “You have
got
to.
Now.
”

“You're running out on me, is that it?”

“Are you deaf? Do you not hear a word I'm saying?”

“All I hear is the woman who's here to protect me saying she's ready to run out on me.”

“Not me, Terry.
Us.
We leave, we live to play with what you've got.”

“But Val Haines is still out there!” The snake began dislodging oily drops of sweat that dribbled down his back. “One word from him and—”

She gripped his lapel and shook him. Punching his chest with the fist that held his jacket, while the snake fed on his guts. “Forget Val! You stay here and the man upstairs is going to take us down!”

“If I run now, Val will destroy us.” Terrance was jabbering now. He knew it but couldn't stop. “Everything I've done to keep us safe will go up in flames.”

“Safe? You call this safe?” Her eyes held a manic gaze. “I'm sitting up there just waiting for Loupe to tell one of his men to take us out back and smoke us.”

“If they do that, they lose the money you promised to pay them.”

“He's not after what we agreed on, Terry. This has gone way beyond that. We're talking
everything
. Including your
life.”

“Loupe doesn't know what I've got. Unless you told him.”

“Do I sound like a rat? You think somebody working both sides would be telling you to run?”

“No.” Terrance breathed. Or tried to. “No.”

“Loupe will get what he wants out of you. It's only a question of how hard he's got to ask before you talk.” Her gaze had gone blank on him. Just two empty glass voids, windows to nothing. “If Loupe starts asking, you tell him whatever it is he wants to know. Tell him fast.”

“This can't be happening.”

“Exactly. So we run. Now.” Wally stood so close they might have been lovers. She whispered with the coarse burr of shared terror. “So Haines is still out there. So what? Last I heard, Barbados doesn't extradite.”

“How can you be so sure about this? Loupe hasn't said a thing.”

“I know these guys. Okay? Not Loupe. His kind. The boss. I'm into one of them for a lot of money. More than that. He
owns
me. This deal, it's my only hope of getting free. So it's in my own best interest to keep you alive and get you out while we still got legs to carry us.”

“I have to contact Don. He's got to go along with this.”

“Call him from thirty thousand feet. We run now, we just might live to . . .” She caught sight of something behind them and straightened. “Heads up.”

“What now?”

“We got company.” The hard mask was back in place. Wally stepped away. “You just be ready for my signal.”

THEY CAME OUT OF THE PANTRYAND STARTED DOWN THE HALL. VAL just managed to see above the pile of bathrobes and fresh towels in his arms. They came around a corner to find two dark-suited bruisers standing outside a suite entrance. Dillon tensed but played his part well. “Can I help you gentlemen?”

The pair eyed Dillon and Val like they would a free lunch.

“Right, sirs. Anything you need, just ring room service, I'll be up in a jiffy.” Dillon guided Val to a halt at the neighboring doorway. “Six eighteen, this is where the lass said to do the drop.” Dillon knocked, then asked the bruisers, “You know if anybody's around?”

“He's out.”

“Makes our job tons easier, that.” He knocked again just to be certain, then used his passkey. He let Val enter first, then said to the pair, “Trainee.” And sniffed.