Willing Hostage (6 page)

“But the Volks has been sitting out there all day.”

“Yes … well, we mustn't tempt fate any longer. Every minute that car sits there puts you in jeopardy.” He picked up the phone on the bedside table and dialed. “Brian? Is the Vega ready?… Well, hurry it up!… No, she's all right, no thanks to you and Sheila.… I haven't asked her yet. Just keep your eye on this place and hurry that Vega. Better send Sheila for the Volks.” He hung up and picked her keys off the dresser. “Do you have all your belongings out of the car?”

“Yes, but … now wait just a minute! How do I know you are who you say you are or that any of this is true? How do I know you're not just stealing my car?”

“Miss Harper, no matter who I was, do you think that if I were going to steal a car it would be that little yellow mess outside your door?”

She had to admit he had a point. “But this is all going too fast, I don't understand—”

“I realize this seems heavy-handed at the moment and I will explain everything shortly, but too much time has been lost already. It's partly our fault that you've become involved in this and it's the least we can do to replace your car with a safer one. There's a blue Vega on the way. It's newer than your Volkswagen and just the thing for you.” He leaned toward her and Goodyear gave a warning moan with his mouth closed. Maybe this man was with the FBI. The cat was not fond of the good guys.

Sheila couldn't have been far away because a knock sounded at the door just then and Joseph Welker handed the car keys out with a “You know where to hide it. Now step on it!”

Leah reached for the phone and caught a glimpse of troubled blue eyes in a pale face and a wisp of flaxen hair peeking under a stylish presewn bandanna.

Welker closed the door and turned as Leah dialed the operator. She asked for the police and expected him to try to stop her, but he merely brushed cat hairs from his suit and waited patiently as she announced, “This is Leah Harper, Room Ten at the Shangri-La Motel. There's a man in my room who claims to be—”

“The FBI,” the languid voice of the deputy Leah had met at breakfast interrupted. “It's okay, Miss Harper. He's legit. Just be a good girl and do what Mr. Welker wants.”

“But—”

“You're outa my league now, lady.” And he hung up.

Leah stared dumbly at the silent receiver until Welker replaced it for her. “Now that the Volkswagen and my identity are taken care of, perhaps we can talk.”

Leah swallowed. “About what?”

He took her back over every detail of her adventure from the time she'd met Glade and his companions at Ted's Place to the moment she'd fallen into the arms of the state patrolman.

“And you haven't been disturbed or seen or heard anything suspicious since this morning?”

“Not until you came.”

“Yes. Well, you've been lucky.” He pried more cat hair from his pant leg, studied the varnished knots on the pine paneling. “Miss Harper, I understand you are presently unemployed and”—he gestured to the tiny crowded room—“and low on funds.” He stood and walked around the bed and back as if he would have liked to pace but there was no room. “I have a job for you. If you weren't already involved I wouldn't suggest this but … I have to get a message to Glade. It's urgent.”

“But I don't know where he is.”

“I don't either. But I do have a list of probabilities and not enough people to cover them all. I'd like to send you to one of the places where he could show up.” Joseph Welker pulled his wallet from an inside breast pocket and Leah glimpsed the strap of a shoulder holster.

“Mr. Welker, I do need a job, but not a dangerous one. I've been through a lot in the last week and last night was—”

“If I thought you'd be in any danger, I wouldn't propose this, believe me. But with a different car and your hair covered there's no reason why you should be.” He removed some bills from the wallet and laid them on the dresser. “All I want you to do is to take the Vega and go to Oak Creek, a small town not far from here. Stay here tonight—I'll have a watch kept on this place—leave in the morning. That'll give him time to get there if that's where he's headed. I'll have people watching other areas. Hang around Oak Creek tomorrow. If you see him give him this message. One, Welker is willing to meet any reasonable terms for the property, and two, the company has hired goons and they don't want him alive.”

“What property?”

“The less you know about that, the better. Then take the money and the Vega and leave this part of Colorado. Just stay six, eight hours in Oak Creek, walk around so that he can spot you. If you don't make contact, leave before dark and go on your way, a richer woman driving a better car.”

“Why me?” Just the thought of seeing the dark man with the gun again made her shudder.

“Because he knows you, should know that you're no danger to him. He's desperate and running and he's not likely to show himself to me or my people. It's a long shot, I know, but you just might bring him out of the woodwork. The chances are good that even if he sees you in Oak Creek, he won't let you see him, but all I ask is that you try.” He added another bill to those on the dresser.

Leah licked dry lips. “Is that real money?”

“Yes, Miss Harper. And all you have to do to earn it is to go to Oak Creek. Probably the easiest money you'll ever earn. But most important, you might save a man's life and your government a good deal of trouble.”

“Were Charlie and his friend at Ted's Place goons?”

“No, they're … with another organization.”

“How do you know I won't just take the money and not go to Oak Creek?”

“I admit I haven't had time to check you out. About all I know for sure is that you don't have a police record in this country and that you haven't traveled abroad. But I've learned to be a fairly good judge of people. You seem levelheaded enough and frankly I'm pulling out all the stops, doing everything I can to reach this man before he's murdered. You are only one of a number of plans being set in motion.”

Leah looked at the pile of bills. It was a lot of money. “If I did make contact with this Glade, how do I know he wouldn't murder
me
? I find him a lot more frightening than any goons.”

He appeared startled for the first time since she'd met him. “I'll admit he's capable of it. But he can be a reasonable man and he has no reason to harm you. He knows you're not Sheila. You don't pose any threat now that he knows who you really are. He's also known to have a special weakness for blondes. That's why I sent Sheila to—”

“He doesn't have any weaknesses and—”

She was interrupted by the sound of a car in front of her unit. Welker stepped outside and she could hear him talking with another man. At one point he exploded with “Holy Jesus!”

She pushed Goodyear off her lap. “You know, kitty, it would be heaven to not have to worry about finances for a while but—” She opened the door almost to collide with Welker.

“Listen, something's come up. I have to run.” He handed her a set of car keys. “Think it over tonight and I'll talk to you first thing in the morning. You can go out to eat. I've put a tail on you. But don't wander all over town.”

“Hey, wait! I've decided not to take the job. Hey.…”

But Joseph Welker was gone and Leah was left staring at a blue Vega.

Chapter Eight

“Give me one good reason, kitty, why I should want to save that big brute's life.” Leah slid into a dress and zipped it up the back. “No way am I going to Oak Creek. Not for all the money.…” The bills still lay on the dresser. She looked away and yanked a comb through her hair.

“I'm going out to dinner. Why don't you just go? I keep telling you I can't afford a pet.”

Goodyear jumped to the dresser and sat sniffing the strange pile of money.

“Oh, no, that's not mine. I'm not taking the job. I'm going to find something more relaxing.”

The cat moaned a warning and struck at the money.

“What's the matter? Is it counterfeit? Or does it just smell like the law to you?” Leah went into the bathroom to wash her hands and returned to find the money on the floor, Goodyear still crouching smugly on the dresser.

Next to her shoe lay a twenty-dollar bill. “Cat, you were right. This has got to be counterfeit.” She picked up more twenties, some with wet, frayed corners. “Of, for … Government jobs must be cushy in a depression. No, this has got to be fake.”

Leah counted. “Goodyear, if he'd pay me this much to make an uncertain contact with Glade what's-his-face, what must he be willing to offer Glade for the property, whatever it is?”

Goodyear answered in Siamese fashion, the irises of his eyes vertical slits in the devil's fashion.

“Well, I'm not going to do it, you devil. He's probably with the Mafia. They've always got lots of money. He probably conned the local sheriff's office with phony papers or something.” But she tied a scarf over honey-blond hair. Too much of it showed underneath, so she wound the long strands into a knot and pinned it tight to the back of her head.

“I can't just leave all this money lying here, though.” She stuffed the bills into her purse. “I am going to get dinner and you are going.”

Leah grabbed the cat and carried him to the door, where he squirmed out of her hands and disappeared into the room. She searched under the bed and the chair, in the bathroom. No Goodyear. Her ulcer rumbled. “When I get back, I just may make kitty stew out of you,” she yelled at the infuriating critter she couldn't see and locked the door behind her. She turned to face the Vega.

It was hate at first sight.

She walked around it, kicked a tire, looked in the windows. The car smelled new, strange.

Leah walked to the drugstore to replenish her supply of Maalox, glancing over her shoulder often to see if she could spot the “tail” Welker referred to. She saw no one. She paid for the Maalox with a twenty from the FBI-Mafia-whatever and watched closely as the clerk examined it. But the woman just put it in the till, returning the change to Leah. “Thank you and have a nice evening.”

Leah stood outside, listened to the click as the clerk locked up behind her, watched an enormous round weed tumble by, saw a man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, lounging in a doorway across the street. The tail? A goon? Other than Welker's this was the only business suit she'd seen in Walden.

She hurried toward the café, peering down side streets for the yellow Volkswagen, feeling lonely without it. All the shops were closing now, only a few people ambling on the sidewalks. Rush hour in Walden was a slow affair. The little town seemed harsh, dusty, almost as alien as the mountains. If the man in the suit was following her, she didn't see him when she entered the café.

For dinner, she dared her ulcer with a steak and sat by the window to watch for the Volkswagen, or Welker, or Sheila, or the tail or even a sign from heaven to give her direction.

“Are you the gal with the stray cat?” A strange waitress stopped at her table.

“How did you know?”

“Well, Betty described you from this morning and you're kind of hard to miss. She told me to send some scraps home with you if you came back. Just a minute, I'll get them.”

When she returned with the brown bag, she said, “Funny, her thinking of your stray after getting the boot this morning. But she's crazy about 'em.”

“Boot?”

“‘Yeah, she got let go today. Not many tourists going through this summer and lots of local people are leaving to see if they can get work in the shale towns. Not enough business. Feel sorry for Betty, though. Her husband's out of work, too.”

Later, Leah found herself standing on the sidewalk, wondering what an ex-model, ex-secretary, ex-clerk, occupational failure, guilt-ridden ex-daughter with three years of college and an ulcer could do in an area where even the waitresses were being laid off.

The sun was setting in eerie pink and lavender cloud drifts behind the cemetery when she reached Shangri-La. Goodyear appeared for scraps of steak, liver, chicken, and hamburger. When she let him out, his stomach barely cleared the floor. But this time she didn't say good-bye.

Leah felt very full herself and a trifle nauseated. Feast and famine and worry were no way to live with an ulcer. She brought out her array of creams, astringents, and hair rollers for something to do and because it was a comfortable routine, and worried about her problems anyway.

She searched for wrinkles, crow's feet, gray hairs, and found none. She didn't look any different at thirty. But she felt different. That birthday was just one more step in a downhill decline. Finally she turned on the black and white television and stared at it, but her thoughts kept getting in the way.

Leah did her fingernails, did her exercises, put on her nightgown … found herself listening for a cat at the door. Perhaps she would keep Goodyear for company. But she couldn't afford his appetite. Of course, there was a great deal of money in her purse. But it wasn't hers. She opened the door to semi-dark. “Kitty, kitty, kitty?” No Goodyear. Just the strange Vega.

The evening stretched on interminably. After sleeping all day, she resigned herself to a long, slow night.

Leah missed her scrapbook and for the very reason she had burned it. Going back didn't look quite so bad after the last twenty-four hours.

“Economy worsens, congressional committee probes tax write-offs of major oil companies,” said the flickering black and white face. “Chicago woman kidnapped near Cameron Pass”—Leah jerked alert from her TV trance—“and more rain for the high country. These and other items in the news, but first this word from Enveco.”

Chicago woman kidnapped? No, it couldn't be.… She watched impatiently as a well-dressed middle-aged man dug a hole in a sandy beach with a shovel. He dumped money into the hole and explained that oil companies poured millions of such dollars down dry holes to find a few producing oil wells to provide America with the power to run its cars, industry, and homes.