John Locke - Lethal Experiment

I gestured toward her open suitcase on the floor.

She stared at me with a blank expression, trying to read me, but that was getting her nowhere. I’ve made a career out of not being predictable. I tilted my head toward her suitcase. “This would be a good time to get moving, Alison.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “Knock yourself out, then.”

She slid out of the bed and began pulling an outfit together: clean underwear, pink tank top, gray sweat suit, socks, jogging shoes. As she stepped into her panties she said, “I knew your name wasn’t Cosmo Burlap.”

“It’s that type of perception that makes you a good job candidate,” I said.

“What type of work do you have in mind,” she said. “Killing people? Because I don’t think I can do that.”

“We can talk about it later. Right now there’s work to do. You ready?”

She laced up her jogging shoes and nodded.

We crossed the floor to the connecting door. I turned the lock and put my hand on the doorknob and paused.

“You need to prepare yourself for what you’re going to see in here,” I said. “Try not to scream.”

“I’ve seen dead bodies before,” she said.

“I’m talking about Quinn,” I said.

Chapter 31

Entering the room, this is what we saw: Quinn, sitting at the table with a Diet Coke, finishing a phone call, two guys laid out peacefully on one of the queen-sized beds. One of the robbers was weasel-faced, with thick black hair slicked straight back. The other had a shaved head and a Fu Manchu mustache. Both were big and covered with prison tats. I made my voice as eerie as possible and whispered, “I see dead people.”

Quinn said, “Sixth Sense, 1999.”

Alison surprised me by walking straight up to Quinn with her hand extended.

“I’m Alison,” she said.

Quinn looked at me before responding. I nodded, and he got to his feet. Alison took a step back to accommodate his size, but never took her eyes off him. He placed her hand in his and studied it, as if it were a plaything and he was a gorilla. He lifted her fingertips to the area of his face where lips are normally found, and made a kissing sound.

“I already like you better than your friends,” he said, gesturing toward the bodies.

Alison looked them over carefully. They were dead, with no visible injuries.

“How’d they die?” she said.

Quinn looked at me. I nodded again.

“I Pronged ‘em,” he said.

It was Alison’s turn to look at me.

I said, “Robert Pronge was a fearsome psychopath who discovered a way to mix cyanide with dimethyl sulfoxide, which he used to put in spray bottles. He sprayed his victims in the face like they were bugs, and like bugs, they died within seconds.”

To Quinn I said, “These guys are big. How’d you manage to spray both of them?”

“One came in while the other stood guard in the hall. The first guy kept the door cracked so he could leave quietly after robbing you.”

He glanced at Alison, and she dropped her eyes and looked away.

“The guy searching the room finally opened the bathroom door. When he did, I sprayed him and grabbed him by the shirt to keep him from falling. Son of a bitch was heavy, and hard to maneuver onto the bed, but I managed. Couple minutes later the other one’s getting antsy, puts his face near the open part of the door and whispers to his partner, ‘You need help?’ I whisper back, “Yeah!’ He comes in and I Pronge him and lay him next to the first guy.”

“Alison,” I said. “You know these guys?”

She looked at me through eyes of sincerity. “I’ve never seen them before. But Hector knows them.”

“Hector the bellman?”

She nodded. “This whole thing was Hector’s idea.”

“You’ll only get this one warning,” I said.

Alison looked at Quinn.

“You’d kill me?” she said.

“At first I would,” he said.

Alison said, “I’m not sure what that means, but it’s so creepy I want to amend what I said just now. Okay, so yes, I planned the robbery. But it was Hector’s idea to use these guys. He was supposed to rob you.”

We were silent a moment, and Alison said, “You understand, none of this was planned with you specifically in mind, right?”

“You’d planned it beforehand, and I happened to be the mark.”

“Right.”

“But I’m not the first.”

“At this hotel you would have been the first.”

“So you’ve done this elsewhere.”

“Couple of places.”

“Denver?”

“Not yet, but I was hoping to talk to Adam about it.”

Quinn said, “Adam?”

“Adnan Afaya, the terrorist,” I said.

Alison said, “Guys, I swear to God I didn’t know he was a terrorist. He approached me last time I was here. He wanted to apply for a driving job. I told him we didn’t have anything. He said the job wasn’t for him, said he was rich and the job was for his cousin, trying to get a work visa. He offered me a thousand dollars to get his cousin a job.”

“You took the money?”

“Yes. But I told him his cousin had to go through all the proper channels. He’d have to start cleaning cars, work his way up.”

“When was he going to start?”

“He started last month. When Adam—or whatever his name is—picked me up at the airport, he gave me some more money to get his cousin pushed up to driver.”

“You give him a time frame?”

“I said I’d do my best.”

“And he said?”

“I’d get a thousand dollar bonus if his cousin was driving a van by the first of December.”

I fi shed out my cell phone. “You guys chat a minute,” I said, punching in Darwin’s number. I went into Alison’s room, closing the door behind me. My new information had Darwin concerned. This was either the very beginning of a major attack, or closer to the end stage, and we had to find out which it was. I completed my call and opened the door. Quinn and Alison both looked up.

I said, “Alison, how would you like to make some real money?”

“It’s all I ever wanted,” she said.

“Then, lucky day.” To Quinn I said, “You packed and ready to roll?”

He nodded. We moved our suitcases to Alison’s room and watched her finish packing. Then we went back into the room with the dead guys, or as we say, “the Bernies.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Alison said.

I waited.

“What are you going to do with the dead guys? And when can we get out of here?”

“That’s two questions. But the answer’s the same: we wait for the door knock.”

Alison said, “I’m new here, remember?”

“What I mean is our cleanup crew is on the way. In addition to the bodies, they’ll eliminate all trace evidence. When they get here the three of us will move to your room and leave with our luggage.”

“No offense,” she said, “but you can’t possibly get away with this.”

“Why not?”

“Umm, gee, I don’t know,” she said sarcastically. “Dead bodies? Security cameras?” She tilted her head, spread her palms out, gave me a you-can’t-be-serious look.

“The cleanup crew will disable the cameras when they get here,” I said, “and confiscate all tapes of the last twenty-four hours.”

She closed her eyes a moment, thinking things through.

“If you’re about to ask me how they do it, don’t waste your time,” I said, “Because I have no idea. I only know they’re clean freaks—not like your Aunt Ethel, who doesn’t like a messy home. No, these guys want to clean a crime scene like Rainman wants to see Judge Wapner. They’re abnormal, they’re sick, and look about as professional as Nick Nolte and Mel Gibson after a hard night on the town.”