Highway 61 (30 page)

The suits came back up firing. Bullets tore through the Chrysler Sebring I was hiding behind; someone’s going to be pissed, I thought. Vicki sat on the gravel next to me, her back against the car, holding her hands over her ears.

“What are we going to do?” she shouted above the gunfire.

Before I could answer, another vehicle arrived, a Buick. This one stopped on the far side of the Altima. Big Joe and Little Joe parked at an angle just like the suits, using the Buick for cover. I threw a single shot at them. They threw a lot more back at me. Some of them whizzed past the suits, who promptly returned fire. I stayed down. Without Vicki and me as targets, the suits and the Joes seemed perfectly content shooting at each other. The air became thick with the pungent odor of nitroglycerin and graphite.

“This is crazy,” Vicki shouted.

I agreed.

“Stop it,” I said. “Stop it, stop it, cease fire.”

Amazingly, both the suits and the Joes stopped shooting at each other. I slowly rose from cover. Probably I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been wearing Kevlar. I held the Beretta by the trigger guard so they could see it wasn’t an immediate danger to anyone.

“What do you want, McKenzie?” Big Joe asked.

“What do I want? What do you want?”

Big Joe drew a bead on me. I waved my hands.

“No, no,” I said. “Listen to me, please listen.”

“Go ’head,” Little Joe said.

“We’re listening,” said one of the suits.

“You guys are making a terrible mistake shooting up the place,” I said. From their expressions, neither group wanted to hear that. “Now listen to me. You guys”—I was speaking to the suits—“you were hired to take Vicki’s files so you can protect the men she’s blackmailing, and you guys”—now I was talking to the Joes—“want her files so you can do the blackmailing yourselves. Am I right?”

At least they didn’t say I was wrong.

While I was speaking, Vicki crawled on elbows and knees away from the Sebring and edged her way toward the motel room. I thought she was looking for a better place to hide until, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her change course and move toward the Altima.

“So?” asked Big Joe.

“You guys know what a dead man’s switch is? Of course you do. Well, Vicki has one in place. An accomplice that you don’t know anything about, that I don’t even know. If Vicki is hurt or killed, the accomplice will automatically upload all of Vicki’s files onto the Internet and everyone is screwed. You guys”—I was talking to the suits again—“will be screwed because the johns you were hired to protect won’t be protected. Who’s going to pay you for that? And you Joes”—I gestured toward the brothers—“you’ll be screwed because the johns won’t have any incentive to pay you off. You guys will lose your big payday.”

“What are we going to do about it?” a suit asked.

Good question,
my inner voice said.

“We can make a deal,” I said.

I had no idea what that deal would be. I was playing for time. After all, I was standing in a strip mall in Hastings. You would think the cops would show up sooner or later.

“It don’t matter,” said Big Joe. “Whatever you come up with, you can’t make a deal with both of us.”

He had me there.

“We’re tired of waiting,” a suit said. “Give us the girl and the files or we’ll kill you all.”

“Fuck you,” said Little Joe.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Who are you calling stupid, asshole?”

It was then that Vicki started the Altima, threw it into reverse, quickly backed as far away from the motel as she could get, shoved the transmission into forward, and gunned the engine. The Altima spit gravel and sand as it fishtailed out of the parking lot onto Highway 61 heading north. The four assailants raised their guns to shoot, and I yelled, “No, no, no, think of the money,” and they all lowered them.

“Shit,” said Big Joe.

“You dumb-asses,” a suit said. “Now look at what you did.”

“What we did?” Little Joe repeated. “If you assholes would mind your own business…”

The suits had holstered their guns and were settling back in their German sedan. The driver called to Little Joe out of his window.

“You guys are so fucking stupid you made that dumb blonde look smart,” he said.

Little Joe raised his gun and killed them both.

He probably would have shot me, too, except I was running as fast as I could past the motel rooms toward the gas station at the far end of the strip mall. They did not pursue. Instead, the Joes climbed aboard their Buick and drove off.

By then a sizable crowd was gathering. The question “What is happening?” was asked.

“I think a couple of guys just got shot over there,” I said and pointed at the German sedan.

No one seemed much interested in me after that. The crowd moved cautiously toward the car. The sound of police sirens seemed to come from everywhere. I extradited myself from the group and made my way into Hastings. No one stopped me when I walked past or pointed or asked where I was going. Eventually I found a chain restaurant that had an open booth. The Vikings football game was being broadcast on each of about a dozen TVs scattered throughout the restaurant. Despite what the taxi driver had to say the night before, they were actually playing pretty well. A waitress the same age as Vicki set a menu in front of me. I ordered a beer to start, and she went off to fetch it. It was then that I noticed my hands had stopped shaking.

Now what?
my inner voice asked.

I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t even have a car. Although …

Although what?

I did have Vicki’s BlackBerry.

EIGHTEEN

Margot suggested that I make a fancy candlelight dinner for two as payment for her driving all the way into Hastings to pick me up and then driving me to Eden Prairie.

“With wine,” she said. “Plenty of very expensive wine.”

She also said something about keeping her in bed for at least two days, but I thought she was joking about that.

My plan was to have Margot drop me off and then wait at the Eden Prairie Center until I called. I changed it when I saw the Altima parked in the lot adjacent to Caitlin’s apartment building.

“Are you sure?” Margot asked.

“I’m sure. Go home.”

“Okay, but if I have to come out here again, that’s going to cost you another day in bed.”

I made my way to the lobby as Margot drove off. Back in the good old days, it was fairly easy to gain entry to a secure apartment building without permission. Just hit all of the buzzers for each apartment. Sooner or later someone was bound to let you in without bothering to call down and ask who it was. Caitlin’s building was somewhat more sophisticated. It demanded that I call the tenant directly from the lobby, using her phone number and not an apartment number, identify myself, and ask for a code that changed daily that I would then punch into a keypad next to the locked door. The problem was, I had no idea if Caitlin would let me in or not. If there had been only a thin piece of wood between us I could cajole, plead, bribe, even pound on the door and shout her name like Stanley in
A Streetcar Named Desire
until fear of annoying her neighbors caused her to open up. Only how hard would it be to hang up a phone and then take it off the hook? Which is exactly what I thought she did during the long pause after I identified myself.

“What do you want, McKenzie?” she asked.

“I want to talk about Vicki.”

“What about her?”

“May I come up?”

There was another long pause before she gave me the six-digit code.

Her apartment was on the top floor, and I took a slow-moving elevator to get there. The first time I had visited Caitlin, she had been waiting for me when I got off the elevator, standing in the corridor while holding her apartment door open. This time I had to press her doorbell. Even so, she kept me waiting a full fifteen seconds.

Finally, “Come in,” she said.

I stepped across the threshold, and she closed the door behind me.

“I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t told you already,” Caitlin said.

She moved to her expensive sofa and sat down, curling her bare feet beneath her as she had before. Instead of a running outfit, Caitlin was wearing a black sleeveless dress with a plunging neckline and a wide white belt. There were two strands of saltwater pearls around her pretty throat. She looked like a little girl playing dress-up.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Who?”

“No games, Cait, c’mon. Tell me where Vicki is.”

“I have no idea.”

“The rental car she stole is in your parking lot.”

Caitlin had to think about that for a moment.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

I made a big production out of pulling the Beretta from its holster. Caitlin gasped loudly and rose up onto her knees. She held the back of the sofa to keep her balance.

“McKenzie, what—what are you doing?” she asked. Not once did she take her eyes from the gun.

“One last time, Cait…”

“McKenzie.”

The voice came from behind me. It belonged to Vicki Walsh. She stepped out of the corridor and slowly walked into the living room. She was wearing the same outfit as earlier. She pointed at the Beretta.

“McKenzie, are you going to shoot Caitlin?” she asked.

“I’m glad to see you,” I said. I put the gun away. “It saves me the trouble of forcing Caitlin here to tell me where you live.”

“Were you going to shoot her? Caitlin doesn’t know where I live. We both figured it would be safer if she didn’t know.”

“Certainly it worked out that way. Otherwise, you’d probably be dead by now.”

“McKenzie, what are you talking about?” Vicki asked. “Why did you come?”

“To save your life, of course. How long have you been here?”

“About an hour. I drove around for a long time to make sure I wasn’t being followed after I left the motel. I’m sorry, McKenzie. I’m sorry I left you like that. I was so scared.”

“You have every reason to be scared, doesn’t she, Caitlin?”

“What do you mean?” Vicki asked.

“Vicki, has Caitlin used the phone since you’ve been here? Has she sent a text or an e-mail?”

Vicki stared at Caitlin as if she weren’t sure whether she should be suspicious of her or not.

“A little while ago, fifteen minutes ago—she said she was canceling a date with a client.”

“Come with me. It’s time to go. Now.”

Vicki backed away.

“No, McKenzie,” she said. “I’m not going with you. I went with you before and I was nearly killed. I’m safe here. I’ll be safe until I leave, tomorrow.”

“No, Vicki, you’re not safe. You won’t be safe.”

“I’m staying.”

“You don’t understand. Caitlin’s the one who sold you out. She’s the one who sent the thugs to the motel.”

“No,” Caitlin said. She brought her hand over her mouth. “No, McKenzie, please don’t say that.”

“I don’t believe it,” Vicki said. “Caitlin’s my friend.”

“She was. Not anymore.”

Caitlin revolved on her knees on the cushion of the sofa until she was facing Vicki.

“You know me,” she said. “You know I’m your friend. Vic? When you started all this, did I tell? I’m the one who said, ‘You go, girl,’ remember? I never told Roberta what you were planning to do or anyone else. I even watched out for you, told you what Roberta was up to, what she was telling the clients. Remember? I never told anybody that we hung out. Instead, I told everyone that you retired, that you moved away. Vicki? I told them that. You know I did.”

“That’s true, McKenzie,” Vicki said. “Caitlin has been my friend. She’s kept all my secrets.”

“It used to be true,” I said. “Something changed, though. What changed, Caitlin?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

I held up the purple BlackBerry. Vicki reached for it, but I pulled it away.

“Like all good cell phones, yours has a call log,” I said. “Incoming and outgoing. According to the log, eighty percent of your calls in the past month were to Caitlin.”

“I told you she was my friend,” Vicki said.

“Caitlin called you late Saturday afternoon just after I spoke to her, after I told her what happened to Denny Marcus. You called me a short time later. According to the log, you didn’t speak to or text anyone else that night.”

Vicki lunged for the cell again, but I kept it out of reach.

“Yet a couple of assassins knew exactly which coffeehouse we were meeting at and when,” I said. “Who could have told them if not Caitlin?”

“The bug,” Vicki said. “What did you call it, the bumper beeper? That’s how they found out.”

“This morning, while I was sleeping”—I could kick myself for that—“you called Caitlin again. Right after you got off the phone, I got a message that lured me from the motel. The Joes arrived soon after and tore the place apart looking for you, followed by a couple of guys in suits who were looking for you, too. How did they know what city we were in, much less the exact room number of the exact motel? How did they know I was protecting you, unless Caitlin told them?”

“I didn’t.” Caitlin was sobbing now.

Vicki stood perfectly still, her arms at her sides, her face blank, as if she were waiting for the details to fill it in.

“Vicki,” I said, “did you tell Caitlin that you were meeting me at the coffeehouse?”

She didn’t answer.

“Vicki?”

She spoke so softly I could barely hear her.

“Yes,” she said.

“Did you tell her this morning that we were hiding at the motel?”

“Yes.”

“What changed, Caitlin?” I asked.

She didn’t reply.

Vicki moved toward her slowly.

“Vic?” Caitlin said.

Vicki slapped her so hard the force of the blow nearly knocked her over the back of the expensive sofa.

“Why?” Vicki asked. “Why? Why? Was it the money? Tell me why.”

Caitlin spoke in between sobs.

“I was afraid,” she said. “They kept threatening me. Roberta. The men she hired, these guys who were always wearing suits. The Joes, too. They told me what they would do to me if I lied to them, horrible things. Rape me. Burn me. But I kept telling them that I didn’t know where you were or how to contact you. I told them I hadn’t seen you since July. I protected you. And then, and then … McKenzie told me what happened to Denny Marcus. I was so afraid. I knew Denny. He was my friend, too, remember? I didn’t want—I didn’t want what happened to him to happen to me. Vicki, you were always smarter. You were always stronger and braver. You had friends. Sean and Tony. McKenzie here. McKenzie was your friend and he didn’t even know you. But I was alone. Look at me. I’m a four-hundred-dollar-an-hour whore and I was alone. Do you know what that means, to be all alone? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but I tried to help. I really did. I called Roberta first. I told her about the coffeehouse because I knew she would send the guys in the suits. I knew they weren’t going to hurt you, just take your files. Not like the Joes. When I heard that you got away—I saw it on the news and I was glad. I really was. I thought you would run, then. Vicki, why didn’t you run?”