W.E.B Griffin: The Victim

"No thank you." She chuckled, then surprised him by kissing him on the lips.

"Hot damn!" he said.

"Draw no inferences," she said. "I'm just a naturally friendly person."

When he got behind the wheel and looked at Amanda as she got in beside him, he remembered too late that he had forgotten to hold the door for her.

"I should have held the door for you," he said. "Sorry. My mother says I have the manners of a Cossack."

She laughed again, and all of a sudden it occurred to him that their faces were no more than six inches apart-and nothing ventured, nothing gained.

"God, that was nice!" he said a moment later.

"Drive," she said. "Has this thing got a vanity mirror?"

"A what?"

She pulled the visor down and found what she was looking for.

"That's a vanity mirror," she said, and replenished her lipstick. "You've probably got some lipstick on you."

"I will never wash again."

She handed him a tissue.

"Take it off," she ordered, and he complied.

"These are really nice wheels," she said a short while later. "But I bet all the girls tell you that."

"My graduation present," Matt said.

"You already dinged it," Amanda said.

"You mean the cracked turn-signal lens?" he asked, surprised that she had noticed it. "That's nothing. You should have seen what happened to myfirst Porsche. That was totaled."

"Are you putting me on?"

"Not at all. A guy in a van ran into the back and really clobbered it."

"I think I would have killed him."

"As a matter of fact, I did," Matt said. "Took out my trusty fiveshooter and blew his brains out."

He heard her inhale. After a moment she said, "You mean sixshooter," and then added, "That wasn't funny. Sometimes, Matt, you don't know where to draw the line."

"Sorry."

"That was the pot calling the kettle black," she said. "I'm sorry, I had no right to say that to you."

"You have blanket authority to say anything you want to me."

He gave into the temptation and grabbed her hand. When she didn't object and withdraw it, he kissed it. Then she pulled it free.

"Am I going to have trouble with you tonight?"

"No," he said. "We do what you want to do, and nothing else."

"Funny, I thought you were going to offer to show me your etchings."

"I don't have any etchings," he said.

"But you do have an apartment, right?"

"You're supposed to wait until I ask you before you indignantly tell me you're not that kind of girl," Matt said.

She laughed, the genuine laugh Matt had come to like.

"Touche," she said.

"After we escape from this dinner, would you like to see my apartment?"

"I'm not that kind of girl."

"I was afraid of that," he said. "No, that's not true. I knew that. You brought this whole thing up. I'm getting a bum rap."

"Daffy warned me about you," she said. "The best defense is a good offense. Haven't you ever heard that?"

"How did the kiss fit into that strategy?"

"How far is where we're going?" she said, cleverly changing the subject.

"Not far enough. In no more than twenty minutes we'll be there."

A Mercedes-Benz 380 SL convertible with its ragtop up drove onto the fourth floor of the Penn Services Parking Garage. The driver, a young woman, looked forward over the steering wheel, looking for a place to park.

She did not look toward where Charles was standing, behind a round concrete pole at the north end of the building, in a position that both gave him a view of the street down which Anthony J. DeZego would probably come-unless, of course, he sent Jowls the Bellboy to fetch the car-and also shielded him from the view of anyone who came out of the stairwell to get his car.

And she did not find a parking space, as Charles knew she would not; the fourth floor was full.

The Mercedes continued around and went up the vehicular ramp to the roof.

Charles looked out the window again and saw Anthony J. DeZego walking quickly down the street toward the Penn Services Parking Garage from the fourth-floor window. He was alone; there would have been a problem if he had had the blonde-without-a-bra with him.

He looked down at the street and saw Victor, or at least Victor's shoulder, where he was sitting in the Pontiac. It would have been better if he could have caught Victor's attention and signaled him that DeZego was coming; but where Victor was parked, the garage attendant could see him and probably would have remembered having seen some guy across the street in a Pontiac who kept looking up at the garage.

Victor was watching the exit; that was all that counted.

Charles took his pigskin gloves from his pocket and pulled them on. Then he picked up the carry-on bag and walked down the center of the vehicular path toward the stairwell. If another car came or someone walked out of the stairwell, he would be just one more customer leaving the garage.

No one came.

The stairwell was sort of a square of concrete blocks set aside the south side of the building. The door from it was maybe six feet from the wall. Management had generously provided a rubber wedge to keep the door open when necessary. When Charles decided the dame in the Benz had had time to park her car and go down the stairs, he opened the door and propped it open with the wedge.

He had considered doing the job in the stairwell itself but had decided that the stairwell probably would carry the sound of the Remington down to the attendant and make him curious. When he heard footsteps coming up the stairwell, he would kick the wedge loose and let the automatic door-closer do its thing.

Then, when DeZego came onto the fourth floor, and he was sure it was him, he would do the job. With the door closed, the noise would not be funneled downstairs.

He stepped into the shadow of the stairwell wall, unzipped the carry-on, removed the Remington, pushed the safety off, and checked to make sure the red on the little button was visible, that he hadn't by mistake put the safety on. Then he put the Remington under the Burberry trench coat. The pocket had a flap and a slit, so that you could get your hand inside the coat. He held the Remington by the pistol grip straight down against his leg.

He heard footsteps on the stairs.

He dislodged the rubber wedge with his toe, and the door started to close.

He put his ear to the concrete, not really expecting to hear anything. But he was surprised. The stairs were metal, and they sort of rang like a bell. He could hear DeZego coming closer and closer. He waited for the door to open.

It didn't.

There was a moment's silence, and Charles decided that DeZego had reached the landing. The door would open any second.

But then there came the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the metal stairs again.

What the fuck?

Lover Boy is going up to the roof. He's daydreaming, or stupid, or something, his Caddy is onthis floor, not the fucking roof! In a moment he'll come back down.

But he did not.

Charles considered the situation very quickly.

No real problem. There or here. There's nobody on the roof, and if he sees me, he doesn't know me.

He pulled the door open and, as quietly as he could, quickly ran up the stairs to the roof. He pulled the stairwell door open.

Lover Boy was right there, leaning against the concrete blocks of the stairwell, like he was waiting for somebody.

"Long walk up here," Charles said, smiling at him.

"You said it," Anthony J. DeZego said.

Charles walked ten feet past Anthony J. DeZego, turned around suddenly, raised the shotgun to his shoulder, and blew off the top of Anthony J. DeZego's head.

DeZego fell backward against the concrete blocks of the stairwell and slumped to the ground.

There was a sound like a run-over dog.