Lee CHILD - Better off Dead

There were four copies of the same local paper jammed into a rack on the wall near a pay phone. I took one and leafed through it while I waited. It was light on news. Every other page either had a new poll, or the result of a previous poll. I guess the publisher thought reader interaction was more important than reporting. Or maybe it was cheaper. One thing they didn’t skimp on was the graphics. There were pie charts. Bar charts. Scatter grams. Other kinds of diagrams that hadn’t even been invented when I was in high school. All in bright, vivid colors. Addressing all kinds of topics. Should there be an armadillo sanctuary nearby? Should the border fence be repainted? Were there enough recycling facilities in the town? Should the community try to attract wind and solar power? Or oppose it?

I was on the last page of the paper when my food arrived. The Police Blotter . A fancy name for an account of all the crimes committed in the area recently. I read it carefully. There was no mention of Dendoncker. Or smuggling. Or planes. Or bombs. Just a few minor misdemeanors. Most of them were pretty tame. And most resulted in an arrest for public intoxication.

I ate my last morsel. I drained my coffee. I was waiting for a refill when the door to the street opened. A man walked in. I recognized him. He was the fourth guy from the previous night. Under the streetlamp. Who had tried to bludgeon me. And who had seen me get shot to death. He didn’t seem very surprised by my resurrection. He just walked straight up to me. He was wearing the same clothes. He hadn’t shaved. And he was holding a black trash bag.

There was something inside the bag. It was at least nine inches long, and heavy enough to keep the plastic sides taut. I gripped the edge of the table. I was ready to shove it into his legs at the first hint of a weapon. But the guy didn’t draw. He stood and sneered. Raised the bag. Gripped the lower edge with one hand. Flipped it over. And sent an item crashing onto the table.

It was a single piece, but it had three distinct sections. A socket. Shaped with carbon fiber. The kind of size that would fit a residual limb. A shank. Shiny, made of titanium. And a boot. Just like the kind Fenton had been wearing the last time I saw her.

“Follow me, or the woman will be missing more than part of her leg.” The guy turned and headed for the door. “You have thirty seconds.”

I stood and pulled a roll of bills out of my pocket. I peeled off a twenty and dropped it on the table. Ten seconds had passed. I picked up Fenton’s foot. Walked to the door. Another ten seconds had gone. I waited nine more then stepped outside. The guy was still there. He was standing next to a car. A medium-sized sedan. It was dusty. I figured it was the same one they’d used the previous night. In daylight I could see it was a Chevy Caprice. An ex-police vehicle. The searchlight on the driver’s door was a dead giveaway. Its paint was wavy and dull so I figured it had also spent time on taxi duty.

The guy grinned and opened the passenger door. He stepped back and gestured for me to climb in. I approached. Slowly. I switched Fenton’s foot to my right hand. Stepped into the gap between the guy and the car door. Then I grabbed the back of his head and smashed his face into the car roof. His mouth hit the edge of the doorframe. Some of his teeth were knocked out. I couldn’t see how many. There was too much blood. I took his gun from his waistband. Hauled him around. Jabbed him in the solar plexus, just hard enough to knock the wind out of him. I pushed him into the car. Folded him into the seat. Closed the door. Checked that no one was watching. Moved around to the other side. Racked the seat all the way back. Climbed in. Stretched across and grabbed the guy by the throat. And squeezed. I felt his larynx begin to collapse. His eyes bulged. His tongue flopped out of his mouth. But he couldn’t make a sound.

I said, “Here’s how this is going to work. I’m going to ask a question. I’ll give you a moment to think. Then I’ll relax my grip just enough for you to speak. If you don’t, I’ll choke you to death. Same goes if I don’t like your answer. Are we clear?”

I paused, then eased the pressure on his throat.

“Yes.” His voice was a scratchy gasp. “Crystal.”

“The woman got taken. How?”

“Dendoncker has a GPS watch. With a transmitter in it. He triggered an emergency signal. We caught the woman before she got out of the building. We brought Dendoncker to safety. That’s priority one. When the others didn’t return, Dendoncker sent me after you.”

“Where’s the woman now?”

“Don’t know.”

“Is this really how you want to go? Here? Now?”

“I don’t know. I swear.”

“Where’s Dendoncker?”

“Don’t know.”

“Then where were you supposed to take me?”

“To the house. That’s all I was told to do.”

“Address?”

“I don’t know the address. It’s just ‘the house.’ That’s what we call it.”

“So you get me to this house. Then what?”

“I send a text. Someone will come for you.”

“This house. Is it far?”

“No.”

“In the town?”

“Yes.”

“OK. You can show me. We’ll go there together. Then you can send that text.”

I heard a sound. From farther up the street. A vehicle engine. I looked around and saw a car moving toward us. Not fast. Not slow. Just cruising around. Looking for trouble. It was a Dodge Charger. Its hood and fender were black. It had a bullbar on the front and a slimline lighting rig on the roof. Clearly the police. Probably local. Possibly state. Either way, their timing sucked.

I let go of the guy’s neck, dropped my arm into my lap, and made my hand into a fist. “Make any kind of a move…”

“Don’t worry.” The guy pulled a road atlas out of the gap next to his seat. He opened it wide and held it up so that it covered his face. “From fry pan to fire? I’m not stupid.”

The police car drew closer. It slowed down. Came alongside us. And stopped. Two cops were inside it. They weren’t looking at me. Or the guy with the bleeding mouth. Yet. They seemed more interested in the Chevy. They weren’t young. They might have had a vehicle like it, once. Maybe even that actual one. Cops used to say the Caprice was the best patrol car ever. Maybe they were nostalgic. Maybe they were bored. I just hoped they weren’t suspicious. They sat and stared for a minute. Two. Then the driver lit up their roof bar and sped away into the distance.

I reached for the guy’s neck. He closed the atlas. Raised it. He had both his hands behind it. The cover was shiny. It was slippery. My hand slid off its surface. I wound up grabbing his shoulder. He jabbed at my eye with the corner of the map, then wriggled free. He scrabbled for the handle. Got the door open. Dived out. Rolled over on the sidewalk then scrambled up and started to run.

I jumped out and followed him. The guy was fast. He was well motivated. I’d made sure of that. The gap between us was growing. He reached a cluster of buildings. Another courtyard arrangement. The windows facing the street were all boarded up. The guy should have kept on running. I would never have caught him. And I couldn’t have risked a shot. Not in a residential area. But he didn’t keep going. The lure of potential cover was too strong. He bolted through the archway. And disappeared.

I covered the remaining ground as fast as possible and stopped just before the entrance. I didn’t want to risk presenting a silhouette. He could have had a backup weapon. I crouched and peered around the corner. I saw a bunch of disparate buildings like the ones that had been made into Fenton’s hotel. Only these had two stories. They were joined together and boarded up with solid wooden panels, like a fence. There was a scaffold tower in each corner, leading to the roof. The process of conversion was under way. But there was no buzz of activity. No sound at all. The work had stalled. Maybe it had been abandoned altogether. Maybe the market had crashed. Maybe tastes had changed. I had no idea how the economics for that kind of development worked.