The Night Cafe (27 page)

Saturday, April 22

S
he hadn’t heard from Russo since she’d left the interview at the West Hollywood station, but Hannah wasn’t all that surprised. No doubt he was insanely busy, coordinating the interagency case with the LAPD, the FBI and God only knows who else. There was also a good chance he was feeling the need to distance himself from her at the moment. She couldn’t blame him, but it was a bummer just the same.

She showered, dressed and tiptoed out to the kitchen to switch on the coffeemaker she’d set up the night before. Teagarden was snoring rather loudly in the living room, but after she’d slipped out to pick up the paper from the driveway, she returned to find him peering at her over the back of the sofa.

“Good morning,” she said. “Coffee?”

“Mind if I shower, first?” He rolled off the sofa, gathered the blanket around himself toga-style, picked up his shirt and pants, and shuffled off down the hall. She poured herself a cup of coffee and settled in to look at the paper. The
Los Angeles Times
had August Koon’s murder on the front page and another piece inside the
Arts
section. Rebecca’s death, on the other hand, merited scarcely a couple of paragraphs on page eleven.

The shower was running in the bathroom when her phone rang. Reading the puff piece on Koon, she answered distractedly. “Hello?”

“Hannah Nicks? You have something that belongs to me, Ms. Nicks.”

“Mr. Gladding? Is that you?” She faked a note of relief. “I was so worried. I thought you’d been killed.”

“I’m quite alive.”

“I arrived at the villa and found—everything. Everyone…it was awful.”

“Did you see who did it? See anyone leave?”

“No. Nobody was there. Nobody alive, at least. I was terrified. I just jumped on a plane and came back to Los Angeles. Have you heard what happened here? Rebecca Powell has been killed, too.”

“I heard. I was shocked.”

In a pig’s eye, Hannah thought.

“But I’m a little confused, Ms. Nicks. You ran away, and yet I understand from sources of mine that you didn’t take the painting back with you.”

“I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get it back into the country. But I left it somewhere safe.”

“I believe you were paid to deliver it. I would like my painting.”

“You want it delivered in Puerto Vallarta?” She decided to go for broke, just to see how he’d react. “There’s an American down there, Donald Ackerman. I think I could get him to pick it up.”

Gladding said nothing for a moment. “Did you enjoy your lunch yesterday, Ms. Nicks?”

“Excuse me?”

“Those two friends of yours—and that sweet little child they have. Pity about her health problems, though. It would be a shame if anything were to happen to her caretakers.”

“Wait a minute—”

“You have until nine p.m. tonight to deliver my painting. I’ll call again later with instructions on where and how. Are we clear?” He didn’t wait for a reply.

Staring at the phone in her hand, dial tone buzzing, she didn’t notice that Teagarden’s shower had long since ended. She turned as he stepped into the kitchen and took the receiver from her hand and hung it back up.

“Gladding?”

She nodded. “He wants the painting, he wants it yesterday, and he’s made a threat against some close friends of mind.”

“Tell me.”

She recounted Gladding’s message, including the threat against Travis and Ruben. “How could he know I met them yesterday?”

“He must have you under surveillance. He might even have a bug on your car—and on your phone, for that matter.”

“Well, if he wants to tap my phone, he’s probably had to stand in line, given how many people want a piece of me at the moment.”

She glanced around. What were the odds her house wasn’t bugged, too? She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, cranking the volume up loud. She moved in close to Teagarden.

“I need to go and warn my neighbors,” she murmured. “I can get to their place through the garages without going outside. There’s a connecting double door and we each have keys to the other’s side.”

Teagarden nodded. “Be careful. And take that gun of yours, will you? While you do that, I’ll make some quiet phone calls.”

Hannah grabbed her gun and keys, slipped through the kitchen entrance into her garage, and from there into Ruben and Travis’s bay. Ruben’s Mustang was there, but his partner’s Jeep was gone. She tried the door to their kitchen. Unlocked.
Dammit, Ruben
. She tiptoed inside, dreading the silence.

Suddenly, Chucky-the-dog came padding out to greet her and she breathed a sigh of relief. Ruben was on the patio, reading the paper. He looked up and grinned.

“Well, hi, girlfriend! Mellie’s—”

Hannah held a finger to her lips, then waved him into the kitchen, where she found a grocery pad and pen stuck on the side of the fridge. She pulled it down and wrote:
Danger + House may be bugged. Where’s Trav?

Work
, Ruben mouthed.

She pointed at the radio on the counter, but he cocked a thumb upstairs toward Mellie’s room and mimed sleeping.

You have to get out of here
, she wrote.
I’m so sorry
.
My fault.

He patted her shoulder, then took the pen.
You sure???

She nodded fiercely.

We can go to cabin
.

She shook her head and mouthed,
Not safe. Friends?

He thought about it, then nodded.

She took the pen.
Go as fast as you can. Call Trav from the car and tell him what’s going on. I’ll call later to explain
.

The television was still blaring when she got back to her condo and Teagarden was on his cell phone, a finger in the opposite ear so he could hear the other end of the conversation. After he hung up, he came over to her.

“Did you talk to them?” he murmured.

She nodded. “They’ll leave soon.”

“Where will they go?”

“Don’t know, don’t want to know.”

“I called Towle. He’s doing some checking. Meantime, let’s go someplace where we can talk more freely. Best we leave before your neighbor,” he added. “That way, if you do have a tail, you’ll draw them off.”

“We hope.”

“Indeed. I’ll leave ahead, see if I can spot anyone who might be following you.”

She nodded and wrote down a location not far from the FBI field office where they could meet. A few minutes later, the Brit left.

Hannah gave him a five-minute head start, then grabbed her messenger bag and headed out to the garage. Before she lifted the door, she crab-walked around her Prius, checking out the underside, feeling inside the wheel wells until she found what she was looking for.
Damn!
She pulled the GPS tracker off the right rear fender and stuck it in her pocket. Then, she jumped in the car, hit the garage-door opener and backed out onto the street.

She saw Teagarden in the rental he’d described, but they didn’t make eye contact as she sailed past him down the hill. When she turned onto Sunset Boulevard, she wondered if he’d spotted the boxy black Volvo that had been parked at the corner. Watching in her rearview mirror, she saw the driver let a couple of cars get ahead of him, then pull out and follow. As she drove toward the freeway, she toyed with him just a little, slowing down slightly, speeding up a tad, changing lanes, but never erratically enough for him to think he’d been made. No matter what she did, he always remained a couple of car lengths back.

“All right then,” she muttered. “Showtime.”

She picked up speed, racing for the Santa Monica Freeway. He stayed with her. On the freeway, he settled into the standard two-car-length tail. She drove like a bat out of hell, changing lanes like a pinball, daring him to be coy with her now. Just when she thought she had him figured, though, he signaled right and took the next off-ramp.

She wasn’t lulled yet. Sure enough, a hundred yards up, two cars came up the on-ramp and merged behind her. One of the two started executing the same crazy zigzags she had, but when the teenager passed her, car vibrating to the beat of the rap music blaring from his stereo, she wrote him off. That left the Honda holding a steady two-or three-car tail on her. After another mile or so, it was clear this was her guy.

She moved over to the fast lane, forcing him to work to keep up. Then, as they approached Robertson, she saw a semitrailer come up on her right and got ready to make her move. At the last possible second, she veered across the front of the semi, earning a blare from its air horn. The Honda was wedged between the semi and the carpool lane as she dodged across two more lanes and dropped down the Robertson off-ramp.

At the bottom of the ramp, she pulled over as soon as she could and rummaged around under the seats for the half-empty soda bottle she’d been hearing roll around under there for the past couple of days. Her hand wrapped around it and she pulled out one of Gabe’s half-drunk Dr Peppers. This was one of those times when it paid not to be too fastidious about cleaning her car.

Air escaped with a hiss when she opened the bottle. She took the GPS bug out of her pocket, dropped it in the soda, then closed the cap again and gave it a good shake. Talk about effective electronic countermeasures—nothing beat water and good old acidic soda pop. Spotting a trash can up ahead, she pulled up and lobbed the bottle in.

“Score!”

She drove away smiling.

Ruben packed clothes for the three of them to last a few days, plus Chucky’s bowls and a supply of dog food. Taking the phone from the earthquake kit, he loaded everything up into the Mustang. It was a tight fit.

But the moment Mellie awoke, he knew they were in trouble. She screamed, tugging at her ear. She was prone to devastating ear infections and the pediatrician had warned them to be careful, lest she acquire hearing loss on top of her other problems. He put in a call to the urgent-care center covered by Travis’s insurance, bundled her into the car and headed out. Terrorists and criminals would just have to wait.

Afraid he might be followed, he took surface streets, following a circuitous route.

“But let’s face it, sweetie,” he said, looking at Mellie’s unhappy face in his rearview mirror, “we wouldn’t know a tail if it came with a matching pair of bunny ears, would we?”

He couldn’t help but wonder what the social worker assessing their adoption application would think about all this. Well, what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

Hannah arrived at the rendezvous point with Teagarden before he did. The UCLA sculpture garden was both open enough for them to be able to talk without fear of eavesdropping, yet contained enough to spot watchers.

While she waited for him to show up, she dialed Travis’s cell number.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded as soon as she identified herself.

So she guessed he’d heard from Ruben.

“Ruben said we can’t go home, we can’t go to the cabin, and Mellie’s got another ear infection, the third since Christmas.”

“Are you at work?” she asked.

“Hell, no. I’m on my way to meet Rube and Mellie at the clinic.”

“I’m sorry about her ear infection.”

“Hannah, what is going on?”

She gave him an abbreviated version of events—which still didn’t come out sounding very optimistic. “Is there anything you can tell me, Travis?”

He sighed. “Not really. There’s been some increased chatter lately, but the few specifics I do know, I can’t share. They wouldn’t help you anyway. Suffice it to say that things seem to be heating up.”

Reading between the lines, she could only guess that Homeland Security had picked up intelligence about a possible domestic terrorist attack. “Is it possible that’s why Gladding is so anxious to get that painting?”

But did that even make sense? Whatever other sins he might be guilty of, Hannah thought, Gladding was an American citizen. Why would he target his own country? Or was that even what Travis was talking about?

“I can’t say. Truthfully,” he told her. “Stuff heats up like this and then sometimes it just dissipates again. A false alarm. That’s all I can tell you.”

“Fair enough. But in the meantime, Travis, this threat I got from Gladding—it’s not a false alarm. I am so sorry to have brought this down on you. Just lie low, okay, and I’ll let you know as soon as the coast is clear. It shouldn’t take more than a day or two, one way or the other.”

And her own demise, Hannah thought as they signed off, would be one sure sign that the guys were safe to go home again.

Kyle Liggett ate yet another meal in his car as he sat outside Gladding’s Beverly Hills Hotel, waiting to call in again.

The previous afternoon, he’d called to tell the old man he was ready to head back from San Onofre, only to have the bastard tell him to stay put down there for the night. Keep an eye on things, make absolutely certain no new security measures were being slipped into place under cover of darkness.

What a crock.

Instead, he’d spent the day tailing the old fart around Beverly Hills after he left Musso & Frank Grill, stopping in at a couple of Rodeo Drive boutiques. Shopping, for God’s sake!

Liggett swallowed the last of his Coke, then dialed the number Gladding had given him.

“Where are you?”

“Near your hotel. Just got back to town.”

“Where did you spend the night?”

“Camping on the beach at San Onofre, just like you said. Nothing much going on there. Same ol’, same ol’.”

“I told you to call before you started for L.A.”

“Had some trouble with my phone.”

“Well, get another one on your way over to Silver Lake.”

“What’s in Silver Lake?”

“The condo where the courier lives. She has some friends living next door, a gay couple. They have a child, handicapped, it seems.”

Liggett narrowed his eyes. Fags? With kids? Please…

“I want you to get inside, secure them there. Then call me.”