Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause

“Don’t do anything,” Tim said, his voice dead calm. “I’m as nervous as you are.”

After another moment he twisted the. 22, slowly, and the kid released it. Tim slid out the cartridge, cleared the bullet from the chamber, and handed the gun back to him.

“Step back from the counter, please. Thank you.” Tim let his jacket fall back over his gun and walked around to the other side. He patted the kid down gently, using his knuckles. “What’s your name?”

“Sam.”

“All right, Sam. I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to rob you. I just need to get my hands on your security tapes from the past few weeks. Could you please open that office door? Thank you.”

Between a tiny desk and a large, lined wastepaper basket sat a cabinet with a row of security VHS tapes, marked by date. Above the cabinet a Sunset Boulevard one-sheet, probably hiding a safe, fluttered with the breeze from the AC vent.

“Why are there two tapes for each date?”

Sam was trembling a bit. “They only fit eight hours on each, so we split them, day and night. We recycle them every month or so.”

“All right, Sam. I’m going to borrow the night tapes. Is that okay?” He waited for Sam to nod.

“Shit, man, if that’s all you want, you can keep them. Just get out of here.”

“Okay. In a second. Will you help me put them into this bag? This one here? Thank you.”

They silently loaded the tapes into a plastic wastepaper bag, then Tim stepped back, fisting it like a cartoon robber. He pulled the toothpick from the kid’s mouth, turned him around, and cinched a flex-cuff around his wrists.

Pulling out his Nextel, Tim dialed 911. “Yes, hello, I’ve accidentally locked myself in the back room of Cinsational Videos in El Segundo, and I’m trapped. Can you please send help?”

He stepped out into the store proper, shut the door behind him, then jammed the toothpick into the keyhole and snapped it off. He pulled the tape from the security camera overhead. On his way past the counter, he paused, the movie credits catching his eye. He counted out four hundreds and laid them on the floor behind the counter, then unhooked the VCR and tucked it under one arm.

He hurried nonchalantly to his car and drove away, Cinsational’s CLOSED sign peering out after him.

•Back in his apartment, Tim watched tape after tape on fast forward, a process more tedious than time-consuming. The tapes were color and surprisingly good quality, providing a clear angle encompassing the counter and front door.

He lucked out on the fifth tape, February 4 at 12:53 A.M. Nearly forty minutes passed without a single customer, then a car pulled up and took one of the front spaces, its headlights shining into the store interior. When the driver pushed through the front door, Tim recognized his distinctive conformation. The Stork poked around off camera, reappearing when he shambled up to the counter with three videos. He paid cash and left, climbing into his car.

When the car backed up, Tim saw it clearly, bathed in the streetlamp’s glow-a black PT Cruiser. With its forties-style narrow hood, rounded fenders, and sloping liftgate, it seemed a perfect, slightly embarrassing match for the Stork’s aesthetic.

Tim froze the frame, leaning close to the screen. The license plate was lost in one headlight’s reflection off the glass door. Rewinding, he slowed the tape just as the Stork pulled up. Again the plate was illegible, bleached out in the headlights’ gleam. When the Stork turned off the car, the grill fell immediately into shadow, backlit by the streetlamp. Tim let the tape play, watching for the enhanced spill of light from the door when the Stork entered; it illuminated the dark grill for a split second, still not enough for Tim to read the license number. He inched the tape forward and back but couldn’t make the plate resolve.

He reached Dray at the sheriff’s station. “Tim?” He could hear her shifting the phone, and then she spoke in a hushed voice. “Bear’s bringing the heat. There were deputy marshals all through the house last night, searching through our stuff.”

“What’d you tell them?”

“I told them we’re no longer in touch. That I hadn’t seen you since Thursday morning. Mac never saw you when you came back here after Rayner’s.”

Dray upheld fire-forged allegiances above all else, a trait Tim was forced to attribute to her four brothers or at least to her growing up with them. She was your strongest ally, once you had her.

“And Bear believed you?”

“Of course not.”

“Any progress on the safety-deposit key?”

“No. I’ve been flatfooting my ass to different bank branches every spare moment I have, but nothing so far. I’ll match it up, just a matter of when.”

“Listen, Dray, I don’t want to involve you further in this, but-”

“What do you need?” Her voice said, Shut up and tell me.

“Chrysler PT Cruiser, black, registered somewhere in El Segundo. Give me a ten-mile radius around city limits. There can’t be that many of them-I think they just started making it in 2001. Pull up license photos, cross-check them against a picture of Edward Davis, former FBI sound agent, Caucasian, Quantico, New Agent Class Two of ’66. Strange-looking guy-you’ll know him when you see him.” He heard her pen scratching on paper. “Also run the alias Daniel Dunn, see if anything rings the cherries.”

“Check.”

“You have any good intel?”

“Bear’s being pretty tight-lipped around me, but he’s also checking in every few hours, I think just to hear my voice. It must remind him of saner times.”

“Or to press you for info.”

“He did mention Tannino’s leaning toward a press conference this evening, though he wouldn’t say what they’re releasing. My guess is they’ll put out a shout to Bowrick, who they still haven’t located. If he’s not dead already. Oh-and they had to release that retarded guy. The janitor, accused of molesting those kids.”

“What? When?”

“Just a few hours ago. It’s tough to keep protective custody on someone against their will-you know that. He was agitated as hell the whole time. You can probably understand why.”

Tim felt his heartbeat pounding at his temples. “I gotta go.”

“I’ll get on the car for you. I’ll need some time to get it done quietly.”

“Thank you.” He moved to hang up, but then an image caught him-Ananberg back at Rayner’s after the break-in, dead eyes hidden beneath her sleek hair. He brought the telephone back up to his face. “Dray, I really…thank you.”

“I’m a deputy in Moorpark. What the hell else am I gonna do?”

•Something in the Acura’s dash started to rattle at ninety miles per hour. As Tim screeched off the freeway exit, it occurred to him that he might be heading into a cleverly devised setup. Dray would never betray him-that he knew-but if Bear wanted to disseminate misinformation to Tim, she was a plausible route. And Dobbins a plausible lure.

Not Bear’s style, but it was a possibility Tim couldn’t ignore.

When he reached the vicinity of Mick Dobbins’s apartment, he was torn between urgency and caution. He did a quick drive through the surrounding blocks, closing on the building, but in the end his foot approach left him ambush-vulnerable.

No answer when he rang Dobbins’s bell. No one visible through the window.

He turned at a slight movement beside him, expecting to see Bear and a legion of deputy marshals, but instead it was the same old woman from before, wrapped in the same fluoride-blue bathrobe, her hair still contorted in curlers. She drew back in a posture of exaggerated caution, one liver-spotted hand clenching her bathrobe closed at the throat.

“Look who’s poking around here again. Mr. Twenty Questions.”