Cook's Night Out (22 page)

Klaw stood with Warren beside a pillar
.
“It's almost seven-forty,” Klaw said. “We'll say we're going backstage now to get ready for the auction. People are asking where Hodge is, damn it. I'm telling them he was delayed trying to find shelter for a widow and her three kids. These Goody Two-shoes eat up that kind of crap.”

“We need to get out in five minutes or less,” Warren reminded him.

“Don't you think I know that? Where's Lili, anyway?”

“Last time I saw her, she was talking to some rich guy from Silicon Valley. Maybe she wants a job in high tech.”

Klaw frowned. “Or maybe she thought he said silicone. She's starting to sag.”

“Did you tell her to meet us out by your van?”

“Hell, no. She's more trouble than she's worth. It's you and me, Warren.”

“Oh, Mr. Clausen.” Mary Ellen Hitchcock hurried up to him and placed her hand on his arm, smiling prettily. “Isn't this a lovely turnout? Everything looks so beautiful. I can't understand where Reverend Hodge is, though.”

Klaw stepped back from her. He never could stand the cherubic, chatty type. “The reverend was delayed, Mary Ellen. He'll make the start, though, don't worry.”

“But even Angie Amalfi is late,” Mary Ellen continued, puzzled. “I thought for sure she'd be here to listen to people ooh and aah over her centerpiece. It's simply exquisite! Everybody's talking about it, trying to figure out how she got that big angel inside the lattice ball. They're trying to find seams, or spots where she tried to fudge—so to speak—by melting chocolate back together, and they can't.”

Klaw glanced furiously at Warren.

“Excuse me, Mary Ellen,” Warren said, taking her arm and turning her quickly from Klaw's side. “Why don't you and I check on the caterers, since Miss Amalfi isn't here?”

“Why, I didn't know you were interested in food, Mr. Warren.”

“I'm interested in a lot of things, Mary Ellen. Call me Van.”

 

“You're, like, all tied up!” Lili cried. “This is totally mind-blowing.”

“Untie me, quick!” Angie screeched.

“Thank God! A miracle!” Reverend Hodge cried.

“Lili, you're wonderful,” Paavo said calmly. “You did everything exactly right.”

“I watched and waited, just like you said.” She ran over to him. Then she smiled. “Wait till you see. This is too unreal.” Pulling a switchblade out of her purse, she
cut the ropes binding his hands. “A girl's got to protect herself. Some guys are such retards. Show them this knife, though, their behavior turns all sublime fast.”

“I'll bet it does,” Paavo said. He took the knife and freed Angie and Hodge.

“We've got to get out of here,” Angie cried. “That bomb will go off in about fifteen minutes.”

“As if!” Lili said, looking from one to the other. “No joke?”

“Lili, there's one more thing I need you to do for me,” Paavo said. “Will you do it?” He took the notebook that he used to take notes at crime scenes from his breast pocket, ripped off a sheet, and started writing.

“Name it.” Lili leaned close to him as he wrote. “Just like this time. I waited until it was all clear, then came in. I was way good, right?”

“Totally good, Lili. Now, out at the gate is a police inspector named Yosh. Take this note to Yosh—it tells him there's a bomb set for eight o'clock. He's got to clear the place right now.”

“Yosh.” She nodded. “Got it.”

He took hold of her arms and looked her straight in the eye. “After that, get far from the building and hide until it's safe to come out. And keep away from Klaw. He wasn't going to warn you about the bomb.”

Her fury grew slowly, filling her face, as his words penetrated. “My God! That dirtbag! After all I've done, riding goddamn smelly buses and crowded BART trains. I am so totally pissed—”

“Take the back exit,” Paavo interrupted. “Now go!”

She ran like a woman possessed.

Paavo, Hodge, and Angie took a deep breath, then ran up to the main hall. Klaw stared in shock as the three of them burst into the room. Hodge grabbed the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention?
We've just received word that someone may have planted a bomb in this hall. We need to clear the premises right now. Proceed out to the far end of the parking lot.” People began screaming. “Stay calm, and walk!” Hodge ordered. “There's no immediate danger. We simply need to ask all of you to leave quickly.”

Ignoring him, the crowd pushed and shoved, rushing toward the exit. Almost immediately, uniformed policemen appeared and began shepherding people out of the hall.

“Hurry, Angie!” Paavo turned her toward the door. She started to run along with everyone else. Paavo didn't follow. He scanned the crowd for Klaw, spotting him finally on the opposite side of the room, heading for the east exit. He started after him.

“Hold it right there, Smith.” Van Warren stepped up behind him, his gun steady on Paavo's back. Klaw reached the back of the crowd that was squeezing through the side exit and began to knock people out of the way to get through. He was about to escape. Paavo whirled on Warren and jammed his elbow into the arm that held the gun. Then grabbing the arm, he raised his own knee and slammed the arm down on it with all the force he could manage. The bone cracked.

Warren shrieked and dropped to his knees. Paavo hit him in the jaw, stepping into the punch with all his strength. Warren skidded across the highly waxed floor, out cold.

Paavo clutched his side, trying to breathe and focus despite the pain, and hurried as best he could toward the door Klaw had used. But Klaw was no longer in sight.

 

“Hold it!” Angie grabbed Hodge's arm just as he made it out the doorway. “We've got to try to find the bomb.
There are people all over the building. They'll be killed.”

“That's their tough luck!” Hodge tried to pull his arm free.

“We can try to find it,” she said, “and get it out of here.”

“You can, maybe. I don't even know what a bomb looks like.”

“I do. I once had one in my dishwasher.”

“Why doesn't that surprise me?”

“Anyway, I was in the room before the caterers set it up. I know what they brought with them. Anything else has to be the bomb.”

“That's why I'm out of here!” He slipped away from her hold.

“Reverend!” She caught his coattails. “Stop! It's thirteen minutes to eight. We can spend five minutes searching and still get out in plenty of time. We've got to try.”

“What if it's with the donations? We'll never find it.”

“The donations are all the way across the terrace. Klaw put us under
this
hall, saying the floor would come down on us. The bomb's got to be here.”

“Maybe. But Klaw's insane. Who can trust an insane man?”

“There's no insanity in his self-preservation,” Angie said. “We can do it, Reverend.”

Hodge's shoulders slumped. “You're right. People will die and it'll be all my fault.” Hodge straightened his jacket with dignity. “Let's search.”

“I'll check around the food and under the tables,” Angie said. “You look in garbage cans, in corners, under chairs. Whatever.” She ran over to where the food had been set up. There were a number of chafing dishes for the hot hors d'oeuvres, with stands rigged to pump gas to the flames under the dishes. She was almost positive
that she'd find the bomb in that area. An explosive side by side with canisters of gas—that was a great way to create maximum damage.

But she didn't see a single object that seemed out of place or even resembled a bomb. Not that she was sure what a bomb would look like, despite what had happened to her dishwasher, but it was most likely bulky with lots of wires and some tubes or pipes or dynamite—in other words, weird and dangerous-looking.

She hurried over to the long table where her angelina sat and lifted the skirt. She saw another tablecloth. Lifting it slightly, she saw that it covered a huge wooden box—over six feet long.

“Reverend! What's this?”

He ran to her side. She tried to pull the box out into the open, but it was too heavy. She motioned to Hodge to take the far end of the table. They easily slid it out of the way.

Angie lifted the tablecloth off the box, fully expecting to see something that looked like a bomb inside.

Instead, she screamed.

So did Hodge.

The two clutched each other and looked down at a young, very dead African-American man. On his finger was Axel Klaw's opal ring. Against her will, Angie's gaze lifted to his mouth. It was puckered and shrunken as if he had no teeth.

Except, maybe, Axel Klaw's.

“Oh, God!” Angie spun around, and the world kept spinning. Bile rose in her throat.

“Let's get out of here!” Hodge cried.

“Right.” She took a deep breath, then stumbled toward the centerpiece. “I'm taking my angelina with me.” She tried to pick up the plastic tray. It was heavy. Very heavy.
Too
heavy.

“Reverend!” she cried. “My angelina!”

“Let's go.”

“I think the bomb is in it. It wasn't this heavy before.”

“Isn't it solid chocolate?”

“It's light, airy fudge. And the base is a wooden box I turned upside down. A bomb could fit in there—I think.”

“Lift off the chocolate and let's see.
Wait!
On second thought, what if that triggers the bomb?”

“Let's carry the whole thing out of the building,” Angie said. “We can take it out back by the trees.”

“There's no time!”

She checked her watch. “Eight minutes. We've got to.”

He gritted his teeth. “You just won't listen, will you? Grab one end. We haven't got all day!”

They each picked up a corner of the plastic the angelina sat on, and they started running out of the building. They went out the back, away from the parking lot and the public. Reverend Hodge's face turned red, and he was breathing hard.

Angie urged him on. They were outside the building. The hillside fell away, and off in the distance was the ocean. A narrow walkway with some stairs led to a service area with a small parking facility. Beyond was Lincoln Park. “To the trees,” Angie said. Hodge was wheezing, perspiration dripping from his forehead. When they reached the few steps that led down from the outside walkway to the service area, he was trying to blink away the perspiration and hold on to the angelina with sweaty palms. He tripped.

“Don't!” Angie screamed. She held the board tight, afraid that if it fell and hit the ground, that might trigger the bomb. She locked her knees, trying to hold the whole thing up herself and somehow steady the reverend, who was wobbling wildly. He, too, was afraid to let go of the angelina. As he gyrated, trying not to fall,
he pulled her forward. She stepped down hard, still trying to brace herself, and stepped right off the walkway and onto the hillside, about twelve inches below the pavement. Her high heel hit, then broke off, her foot twisting in one direction while the rest of her twisted in the other. The pain that shot through her ankle was so great that for a moment she thought the bomb had exploded.

She cried out as she went down, the reverend right behind her, but somehow they managed to keep the chocolate from bouncing onto the ground. The globe cracked but didn't shatter. The angel remained intact.

“Oh, God, Angie,” Hodge said, “are you all right?”

“I don't know,” she replied, her voice small and shaky.

“We've got to get up.” He was panting hard, almost wheezing. “It's three minutes before eight. Come on, Angie. We've got to get this thing away from us.”

She tried to stand, to put some weight on her foot, but the pain made the world sway.

 

Paavo searched the crowd for Klaw. It was pandemonium. After Paavo had called for immediate backup, Yosh had brought the detail they'd planned to bring later that night, at eleven o'clock. Paavo hadn't been sure exactly what might happen, but he'd been certain something was going to—and well before eleven o'clock. He'd been right. Now patrol cars and officers swarmed over the grounds. Some people had gotten into their cars and pulled out of the parking spaces into the driving lanes. Everyone wanted to go in different directions, and the result was gridlock. Horns honked and tempers flared.

The pedestrians weren't any better. They shoved
each other, fists swinging, as they all tried to run as far from the Palace of the Legion of Honor as they could.

Paavo wiped his forehead, blinking hard, searching among the blurry figures for Klaw or his black Lincoln. He scanned the crowd for Angie and couldn't find her either. Nor did he see the reverend. But Angie was small; she could easily have been swallowed up by the huge crowd. She must have gotten out. He'd seen her and the reverend heading toward the exit when he went after Van Warren. There was no need to worry.

He spotted Lili having an animated conversation with a young policeman. She looked fine, but where were the others?

At the edge of the lot, in the distance, he saw a light blur—a
blond
blur—down the hill among the trees on the ocean side of the grounds. Could it be Klaw? He peered hard, desperately. The stature, the stance. It was him.

Klaw must have circled around, trying to stay out of sight, and was now heading through the trees to the back side of the Palace of the Legion of Honor.

Paavo ducked to the side of the Palace. From there, he could see a van parked in a small area probably used by janitors, gardeners, and other service people. The van must be Klaw's. That was probably why he didn't see Klaw's black Lincoln in the regular parking lot. He and Klaw were about equally distant from the van, but he could go downhill to reach it, while Klaw had to go up. He had the advantage.