John Locke - Lethal People

“She had gorgeous hair,” I said.

“Very stylish,” Callie agreed. “And classy.” She paused a minute before asking, “How long you think before someone finds her?”

“This close to the plantation? Probably two days.”

“You think they’ll notice the needle mark on the scalp?”

“What are we, CSI? I doubt the ME will notice it.”

“Because?”

“I put it in one of her head wounds.”

Callie thought about that and said, “She must have hit the wall head first when you threw her in the van.”

“That’d be my guess,” I said.

We rode in silence awhile, content to watch the scenery unfold. We were on A1A, south of Amelia Island, where the two-lane road cuts a straight swath through the undeveloped scrub and marsh for fifteen miles. There was a primal element to this stretch of land that seemed to discourage the rampant commercialization running almost nonstop from Jacksonville to South Beach. A couple miles in, we passed three crosses and a crude, homemade sign that proclaimed “Jesus Died For Your Sins!”

“Monica seemed nice,” Callie said. “A little snooty, but that could be the money. Or the age difference. Still, I liked her. She had great manners.”

I laughed. “Manners?”

“She had a premonition about the van,” Callie said. “But she didn’t want to offend me, so she came anyway.”

I tried the sound of it in my mouth. “She was killed because of her good manners.”

“I liked her,” Callie repeated.

“I liked her, too,” I said, “until she peed on me!”

I placed two bundles of cash in Callie’s lap. She picked one up, felt the weight in her hand.

“I like this even better,” she said.

We dropped the van off behind an abandoned barn a couple miles beyond the ferry boat landing. We removed the explosives from the wheel well in Callie’s rental car and positioned them throughout the van.

“How much you have to pay for this thing?” Callie asked.

“Four grand,” I said. “Not me, though. Victor.” Right on cue, my phone rang.

“Is it … fin … ished?” Victor asked.

“Just a sec,” I said. I climbed in the passenger seat, and Callie drove us a quarter mile before putting the rental car in park.

“Are we far enough away?” I asked.

“If we go too far,” she said, “we’ll miss the fun part.”

She got out of the car and dialed a number on her phone and the van exploded in the distance. Callie remained out of the car until she felt the wind from the explosion wash lightly over her face.

“You’re insane,” I said to Callie.

“It’s done,” I said to Victor.

Victor said, “Good. I … have … two more … jobs … for you.”

“Already?” I retrieved a small notebook and pen from my duffel and wrote down the information. The names, ages, occupations, and addresses were so different, it seemed as though they’d been plucked out of thin air. I asked Victor, “Do you even know these people?”

“All … part … of a … master … plan,” he said. I covered the mouthpiece and said to Callie, “I take back what I said before, about you being insane.” Then I said to Victor, “Are there many more?”

“Many,” Victor said in his weird, metallic voice. “Real … ly … Mr.

… Creed … evil is … every … where … and … must … be pun… ished.”

CHAPTER 9

“ I must see the Picasso,” Kathleen said.

“Then you shall,” I said.

“And the maître d’,” she said. “They have one, right?”

“They do indeed.”

“Is he stuffy? I hope he’s insufferably stuffy!”

“He will be if I don’t tip him,” I said. We were in the Seagram Building on East Fifty-Second, in the lobby of the Four Seasons restaurant.

She touched my arm. “Donovan, this is really sweet of you, but we don’t have to eat here. I don’t want you to spend this much on me. Let’s just have a drink, see the painting and maybe the marble pool. We can share a pizza at Angelo’s afterward.”

“Relax,” I said. “I’m rich.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

The Four Seasons is famous, timeless, and the only restaurant in New York designated as a landmark.

“Do you mean really, you’re rich,” she said, “or that you’re really rich?”

“I’m rich enough to buy you whatever you’d like to have tonight.”

She laughed. “In that case, I’ll have the Picasso!”

Did I mention I liked this lady?

I gave my name to the maître d’ and led Kathleen to the corridor where the Picasso tapestry had hung since the restaurant opened back in 1959. The twenty-two-foot-high Picasso was in fact the center square of a stage curtain that had been designed for the 1920 Paris production of The Three Cornered Hat . When the theater owner ran out of money, he cut the Picasso portion from the curtain and sold it. Now, with the economy in distress, Kathleen had heard the tapestry was about to be auctioned for an estimated eight million dollars. This might be her only chance to see it.

“Oh my God!” she said, her voice suddenly turning husky. “I love it!”

“Compared to his other work, the colors are muted,” I said. “But yeah, it’s pretty magnificent.”

“Tell me about it,” she said. “Impress me.”

“It’s a distemper on linen,” I said.

“Distemper? Like the disease a dog gets?”

“Exactly like that.”

She gave me a look. “Bullshit!”

“Well, it’s spelled the same way. Actually, it refers to using gum or glue as a binding element.”

She made a snoring sound. “Boring,” she said.

“Okay,” I said, “forget that part. Here’s what you want to know: Picasso laid the canvas on the floor and painted it with a brush attached to a broom handle. He used a toothbrush for the detailed work.”

Kathleen clapped her hands together. “More!” she said.

“It took three weeks to paint.”

She looked at me expectantly.

“He wore carpet slippers so he wouldn’t smudge the paint.”

I struggled to remember what else I’d read about the thing. I shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got,” I said.

Kathleen smiled and nudged up against me. “You did well,” she said.

We had a drink at the bar. Among the small crowd waiting for tables, Kathleen spotted Woody Allen, Barbara Streisand, and Billy Joel. I said, “See those two guys by the palm frond? That’s Millard Fillmore and Jackie Gleason!”

She sniffed. “At least the famous New Yorkers I’m lying about are still alive.”

A number of seasonal trees surrounded the white marble pool in the main dining room, and the head waiter sat us beneath one of them. Spun-metal curtains hung in rows against the walls, undulating softly as the air fl ow from the vents teased them.

“This is fantastic,” she said, looking around the room. “Everything is so elegant, especially the breathing curtains!”

“Especially those,” I said.

I tossed back a shot of bourbon and watched Kathleen sip her pomegranate martini. The waiter had brought us drinks and given us time to study the menus. Now he returned, ready to take our order.

“Of course I’ve never been here before,” Kathleen said, “so you’ll have to order for me.”

I nodded. “We’ll start with the crispy shrimp,” I said.

“Oops. No shellfish,” Kathleen said.

“Sorry,” I said. “How about the foie gras?”

“Goose liver pate?” she said. “Ugh!”

“Peppered quail?”

“Sorry,” she said. “Meat product.”

“Perhaps you should just pick something,” I said. She may have detected some annoyance in my voice.

Kathleen burst into a hearty laugh. “I’m just messing with you, Donny. I’d love some crispy shrimp.”