Peter Leonard - Trust Me

Fly could be a real dick.

Karen wanted to drive to the Bingham Center and say goodbye to her friend Mika, a former model from the Czech Republic who ran the Elite Model Agency, the company that had represented her for fifteen years, but realized it was too dangerous. Karen phoned her from Schreiner's house.

"I can't believe you're leaving," Mika said, a hint of an accent still there after twenty years in the U.S. "I'll miss you."

"Me too," Karen said.

"Listen," Mika said. "There were two men here looking for you earlier. One asked for you by name. He said he wanted to hire you."

"Hire me for what?" Karen said.

"A new clothing line, but it didn't sound right, like he was making it up on the spot. I said, give me your card. But he did not have one," Mika said.

Karen said, "What was the name of his company?"

"I asked him," Mika said, "but he did not answer."

"How many clients walk in off the street," Karen said, "and ask for a specific model?"

"They are the first in twenty years," Mika said. "They give me the creeps. Do you know them?"

"No," Karen said. But she knew who they worked for. She was nervous now. "What did they look like?"

"The one that did the talking had dark hair and a fancy beard, you know like it was sculpted, perfect. The other one was tall and thin and never spoke, not a word. He just stare at me."

Mika had just described the two guys who were with Ricky at Lou's house the night before.

"I told them you are not available," Mika said, "you quit the business and left town."

Karen said, "What'd they say?"

"Nothing," Mika said. "They walked out. Ever see the movie Men in Black? That's who they remind me of-those two guys who wear sunglasses, there was something strange about them. They are not from around here, I can tell you that."

This was one of four locations on the list from Ricky, 3945 Schaller Drive in Garden City. The name confused Tariq. There was no city and there was no garden, just small houses lined up one after another. They had been sitting in the splendid Cadillac Escalade, a gift from Tariq's uncle, since two o'clock in the afternoon and it was now five o'clock. He saw no one enter or exit from the house. Tariq had read Sada Alwatan, the Arab American News, every word, from the front to the back. The large headline on the cover page said: "Uncertainty Hangs over Mideast." He was thinking, of course, what else? He was thinking about his four years in the elite Republican Guards, the Hammurabi Mechanized Infantry Division, wondering what so was elite about marching behind Soviet T-72 tanks on maneuvers in the desert for weeks at a time. Or loading shells into Austrian GHN-45 howitzers, firing at targets they could not see, even with the aid of binoculars. He wondered too about the namesake of his military unit and its connection with the ruler who established the greatness of Babylon in 1792 b.c., uniting Mesopotamia with his code of laws.

He was also thinking of his good fortune to be living in America, away from the suicide bombers and the craziness of Baghdad. To Tariq it made no sense-Arabs killing Arabs. Why? But that part of his life was over. Now he was looking to the future and saw himself as a man of great wealth. When they found Karen Delaney and brought her to Ricky, he would give each of them $25,000, a considerable sum of money. If they found her within forty-eight hours, he would give each of them $50,000. Ricky was desperate to find this woman, but he did not tell them why.

They sat in silence, Omar was not one for conversation. Words seemed precious to him. He did not want to give them away. Talking to Omar was the same as talking to a wall made out of bricks and mud. Instead, Omar sat next to him, singing the lyrics to "Kol El Aarab" by Marwan Khoury, and at the same time ejecting the magazine from his Beretta semiautomatic and snapping it back into place- click click, click click, click click — until Tariq could not listen any longer and said, "Enough." Omar turned his head staring at Tariq but not saying anything. "Put the gun away. If someone sees the gun they call the police, and then we have problem."

Omar had no expression, his face was blank as always.

Tariq studied the piece of paper Ricky had given to him. He turned the ignition, watching the navigation screen rise up in front of him, displaying a map. The second address was in Birmingham. He entered 564 Wallace Street, Birmingham, Michigan, on the screen, and a voice said, "Turn right in fifty yards…"

Karen saw someone come across the patio and moved to the glass-paneled French doors. She thought it was Schreiner until he got closer and pressed his face close to one of the glass panes, looking in the house. He had a dark beard and dark hair. He was one of Ricky's men she'd seen at Lou's the night before, and one of the guys Mika had described. She heard him turn the door handle, moving it up and down. Thank God Schreiner had locked the door.

She was in the breakfast room. She heard the doorbell ring. She moved through the kitchen and looked down the front hall past the dining room to the front door. She could see someone standing on the porch. He knocked on the door. She heard glass break and looked behind her and saw Beard's hand come through the busted-out pane, trying to unlock the door.

Karen got down on her hands and knees and crawled back into the breakfast room. She crawled through the room and down three steps and opened the garage door. It was dark. Her car was parked, pointing out, Schreiner's suggestion. She got in and turned the key and heard the engine trying to start. It sounded weak like the battery was going. She turned off the radio and air-conditioning and tried again. It cranked a couple times and then started. The garage door opener was on the console between the seats. She pressed it and the door started to go up and light came across the floor. That's when Beard came at her out of the darkness and startled her. The window was down. He reached in, grabbed her arm and tried to pull her out of the car. She panicked, trying to fight him off, and then buried the accelerator, taking him with her, Beard hanging on to the doorsill, fear in his eyes now, then letting go as she blew out of the garage, just missing the door that was still rising.

She saw him go down hard on the concrete, and looked through the windshield and saw the other one standing in front of her on the driveway. She turned the wheel, aimed the front end at him, tried to run him over, and he jumped out of the way. She went right on Wallace and saw them running to the Escalade that was parked on the street two houses away.

Karen took a right on Stanley and crossed Lincoln and went left on Bates, a boulevard, pulse accelerating, speeding past parked cars through a residential neighborhood, going seventy in a twenty- five. She checked the rearview mirror but didn't see them, tension easing, letting up as she went left on Fourteen Mile Road.

Karen went to Lim's Palace, a Chinese restaurant in Clawson. This was the last place anyone would come looking for her. She parked in back and went in the rear door and sat in a red Naugahyde booth in back. The inside was so dark nobody would recognize her even if they knew her. The bar was to her right and most of the seats were taken by serious drinkers with boozy lowball cocktails in front of them. She ordered a Coke and sat there waiting for Virginia.

She saw a flash of light as the front door opened and Virginia came in and stood next to the cashier, her eyes trying to adjust to the darkness. Virginia moved through the tables in front, and came toward Karen down the narrow aisle that separated the bar and the booths. Karen waved. Virginia saw her and slid in the booth across from her.

"Could it be any darker in here? I'm going to need a seeing-eye dog when I go back outside," Virginia said. "What's with the hat? I barely recognized you."