Lee Child - Killing Floor

I started dreaming about John Lee Hooker. In the old days, before he got famous again. He had an old steel-strung guitar, played it sitting on a little stool. The stool was placed on a square of wooden board. He used to press old beer bottle caps into the soles of his shoes to make them noisy. Like homemade tap shoes. He’d sit on his stool and play that guitar with his bold, choppy style. All the while pounding on the wooden board with his noisy shoes. I was dreaming of him pounding out the rhythm with his shoes on that old board.

But it wasn’t John Lee’s shoes making the noise. It was somebody knocking on the Bentley’s windshield. I snapped awake and struggled up. Sergeant Baker was looking in at me. The big chrome clock on the dash showed ten thirty. I’d slept a half hour. That was all I was going to get.

First thing I did was to change my plan. A much better one had fallen right into my lap. The old Krauts would have approved. Tactical flexibility was big with them. Second thing I did was to put my hand in my pocket and snick the safety off the Desert Eagle. Then I got out of the opposite door and looked along the car roof at Baker. He was using his friendly grin, gold tooth and all.

“How you doing?” he said. “Sleeping in a public place, around here you could get arrested for vagrancy.”

I grinned a friendly grin right back at him.

“Highway safety,” I said. “They tell you don’t drive if you’re tired. Pull off and take a nap, right?”

“Come on in and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” he said. “You want to wake up, Eno’s coffee should do it for you.”

I locked the car. Kept my hand in my pocket. We crunched over the gravel and into the diner. Slid into the end booth. The woman with the glasses brought us coffee. We hadn’t asked. She just seemed to know.

“So how you doing?” Baker said. “Feeling bad about your brother?”

I shrugged at him. Drank my coffee left-handed. My right hand was wrapped around the Desert Eagle in my pocket.

“We weren’t close,” I said.

Baker nodded.

“Roscoe still helping the Bureau out?” he said.

“Guess so,” I said.

“And where’s old Finlay tonight?” he asked.

“Jacksonville,” I said. “He had to go to Florida, check something out.”

“Jacksonville?” he said. “What does he need to check out in Jacksonville?”

I shrugged again. Sipped my coffee.

“Search me,” I said. “He doesn’t tell me anything. I’m not on the payroll. I’m just an errand boy. Now he’s got me running up to Hubble’s place to fetch him something.”

“Hubble’s place?” Baker said. “What you got to fetch from there?”

“Some old papers,” I said. “Anything I can find, I guess.”

“Then what?” he said. “You going to Florida too?”

I shook my head. Sipped more coffee.

“Finlay told me to stick them in the mail,” I said. “Some Washington address. I’m going to sleep up at Hubble’s place and mail them in the morning.”

Baker nodded slowly. Then he flashed his friendly grin again. But it was forced. We finished up our coffee. Baker dropped a couple of bucks on the table and we slid out and left. He got into his patrol car. Waved at me as he drove off. I let him go ahead and strolled over the gravel to the Bentley. I rolled south to the end of the dark little town and made the right turn up Beckman Drive.

I HAD TO BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT WHERE I PUT THE BENTLEY. I wanted it to look like it was just casually dumped. But it had to be left so nobody could get past it. I inched it back and forth for a while. Left it at the top of Hubble’s driveway with the wheels turned away. It looked like I’d driven up in a hurry and just slewed to a stop.

I wanted the house to look like I was in there. Nothing is more obvious than an empty building. That quiet, abandoned look is a giveaway. There’s a stillness. No human vibrations. So I opened the front door with the key from the big bunch Charlie had given me. Walked through and turned on some random lights. In the den, I switched the television set on and left it at a low murmur. Same thing with the radio in the kitchen. Pulled a few drapes. Went back outside. It looked pretty good. Looked like there might be someone in there.

Then the first stop was the coat closet off the main hallway. I was looking for gloves. Not easy to find in the Sunbelt. Not much call for them. But Hubble had some. Two pairs, lying neatly on a shelf. One was a pair of ski gloves. Lime green and lilac. Not much good to me. I wanted something dark. The other pair was what I wanted. Dressy things in thin black leather. Banker’s gloves. Very soft. Like a second skin.

The ski gloves made me look for a hat. If the Hubbles had taken trips up to Colorado, they’d have had all the gear. I found a box of hats. There was a kind of watch cap in there, some sort of a synthetic fiber. The bottom part rolled down to make earflaps. The hat was printed up in a dark green pattern. It would do.

Next stop was the master bedroom. I found Charlie’s vanity table. It was bigger than some of the rooms I’d lived in. She had a mass of cosmetics. All kinds of things. I took a tube of waterproof mascara into the bathroom. Smeared it all over my face. Then I fastened the jacket, put on the hat, put on the gloves. I walked back into the bedroom and checked the result in the full-length mirrors on the closet doors. Not bad. Just about right for night work.

I went back outside. Locked up the front door again. I could feel the huge storm clouds clamping down overhead. It was very dark. I stood by the front door and checked myself over. Put the pistol in the inside jacket pocket. Moved the zip down and checked the draw. Came out OK. Loaded, cocked. Safety on. Spare shells in the outside top right pocket. Switchblade in the left side pocket. Blackjack in the right side pocket. Shoes tightly laced.

I walked down the driveway, away from the house, past the parked Bentley, twelve or fifteen yards. Pushed through the greenery and settled in a spot where I could just about see up and down the drive. I sat on the cold earth and got ready to wait. In an ambush situation, waiting is what wins the battle. If the other guy is wary, he’ll come early or late. When he figures you won’t be expecting him. So however early he might make it, you’ve got to be ready earlier. However late he might leave it, you’ve got to wait it out. You wait in a kind of trance. You need infinite patience. No use fretting or worrying. You just wait. Doing nothing, thinking nothing, burning no energy. Then you burst into action. After an hour, five hours, a day, a week. Waiting is a skill like anything else.

IT WAS A QUARTER TO MIDNIGHT WHEN I SETTLED IN FOR the wait. I could feel the storm boiling up overhead. The air was like soup. It was pitch dark. About midnight, the storm broke. Heavy drops the size of quarters spattered the leaves around me. They built into a deluge within seconds. It was like sitting in a shower stall. Awesome thunderclaps crashed about. They ripped and banged and the lightning blazed in sheets. The garden around me was lit up like day for seconds at a time. I sat under the lashing rain and waited. Ten minutes. Fifteen.

They came for me at twenty minutes past midnight. The rain was still bad and the thunder was still crashing and rolling. I didn’t hear their truck until it was well up the driveway. I heard it crunching over the gravel about forty feet away. It was a dark green panel truck. Gold lettering. Kliner Foundation. Like the one I’d seen near Roscoe’s place on Tuesday morning. It crunched past me, about six feet away. Wide tires on the gravel. That’s what Finlay had seen up at the Morrison place. Marks in the gravel made by wide tires.