The Blonde (4 page)

“No,” Jack whispered. “The airport.”

“If you’re sure.”

The way he figured it, he had another ten minutes before the next attack. Fortunately, they were close to the airport. He’d have about seven, eight minutes to race back through the gate, hit the airport lounge, and pray like hell that she was still—

Fuck. How was he supposed to get into the airport bar
behind
the main gate? Only ticketed passengers were allowed through. Once you left, you weren’t allowed back in without another ticket.

His return ticket was back in his luggage, in the hotel room. Theresa had ordered them through a discount travel Web site; they’d been printed and mailed to his new apartment. It was the only small spark of kindness he’d seen in her in months. Since everything slipped off the rails. Since she’d hired Donovan fucking Piatt. Friend of Theresa’s mother. They went way back.

Fat lot of good the return ticket was doing him now. How was he going to get into the airport?

“Okay. That’s twenty-six-twenty-five. Flat rate.”

He reached for his wallet, pulled out a twenty, a five, and two ones. He held them through the gap in the Plexiglas partition.

“Oh,” the driver said, looking at the bills.

What did the guy want? A five? There probably should be a law: guy going through a divorce, no need to pay tips. Not in a cab, restaurant, or strip club. If a man’s about to be bled dry, cut him a break on the loose change. One brother to another.

Jack walked into the arrivals terminal. To buy a ticket, he needed to be in departures. There had to be another way. Jack checked his watch. Two till midnight. It had been over two hours since he’d left her at the bar. Chances were, she’d gotten lucky with some other poor idiot.

Wait a second.

Jack approached the Continental customer service kiosk. “Hi. I need to page someone.”

“Sorry, we don’t do that. If you’d like to contact a representative of the airport’s security—”

“It’s
really
important.”

“We
really
don’t do that.”

Jack knew there was probably some clever way of convincing
this agent—a modelish-looking guy with the name tag
BRYON
— that it was of utmost importance that this person be paged. That, in fact, it was a matter of national security, or something. Happened in movies all the time. But Jack couldn’t think of anything clever. He was feeling that knot in his stomach again, and his head pounded. His skin felt hot. He was out of charm. Out of goodwill.

Jack walked away, heading in the general direction of baggage claim. Farther up were the rest rooms. He was sure he’d be needing the men’s room again in … oh, six minutes. Then beyond that, the taxi stand. He should hit an ATM machine, take out another forty dollars, catch a ride back to the hotel. Warn the driver in advance: Halfway through this trip, I’ll probably have to lean out of the cab and puke blood. And then return to the room and call Theresa and tell her what had happened and maybe—

“See! There he is! Jack!”

It was a girl’s voice. His girl from the bar.

The blonde.

Jack turned around. She was standing there with a paunchy middle-aged guy who had a black
MEMBERS ONLY
jacket draped around one shoulder. A green backpack was slung over the other.

The blonde ran up to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. She whispered, “Go along with this or you’ll die.”

Members Only stuck his hand out. “Damn pleased to meet you, Jack. Your sister Kelly is quite a character.”

Kelly—was that really her name?—kept her arms locked around Jack.

“Name’s Ed Hunter. I do tax law. Kelly tells me you’re a newspaperman.”

Kelly pressed her cool palm to his forehead. “You feel hot, baby.”

“I am,” he said in reply to both. He was both feverish and a newspaperman. But how did his blonde—Kelly—know that? He’d
said nothing in the bar that would have tipped her off. He’d been careful. Tell someone you’re a journalist in a bar, and then everybody and their grandmother has a story idea. No thanks.

“So you guys ready to enjoy the best martinis you’ve ever had in your life?” Ed asked, draping an arm around Kelly.

“Ed wants to take us to a place called Rouge,” the blonde explained.

“That’s French for
red
. Owner went bankrupt, lost his entire restaurant empire, but he’s kept this one open. Best martinis you’ll ever have.”

“You look like you could use a drink, Jack,” she said.

“Sure.” He was too stunned to say much else. The trio—thank God, not wrapped up in a bear hug anymore—walked out the sliding doors to the cabstand. Kelly kept her hand on his arm, as if she was afraid he’d slip away. No chance of that. Not until he received his antidote.

If
there was an antidote.

If there was a poison.

Ed led the way.

“This one’s on me. Besides, it’s a flat rate. Twenty-six-twenty-five takes you from the airport to anywhere in Center City. That’s what we call our downtown, by the way.”

Again with the flat rate. What, was it printed on the side of the Liberty Bell?
Happen to be traveling by cab to the airport? Well, friend, Philadelphia has a helluva a deal for you
.

Kelly opened the back door before the driver even had a chance to pop out of his seat. “You first, Jack. Slide over.”

Jack did as he was told. Sliding over to the opposite door wasn’t a problem, either. The knot was tightening, and if he was going to throw up again, he wanted to do it in the privacy of the opposite side of the cab. Kelly might have poisoned him, but Jack was still too proud to vomit blood on her. And there was Ed to consider.

Through the open door, Jack saw Kelly pivot to face Ed. What was going on? He ducked his head to look out the window.

Oh.

Oh Christ, they were French-kissing.

That’s French for
red.

It went on for a while. He could hear an audible slurp now and again. The driver looked at Jack, who could only shrug his shoulders. Hey, search me, buddy, he wanted to say. Guess my sister’s a ho.

The knot in his stomach tightened.

Philadelphia International Airport

G
ood thing Philly International was a one taxi stand kind of joint; Kowalski didn’t have to bounce around a bunch of them. There were only two options: Kelly White was here or she’d left. The bartender in the Terminal C bar remembered a girl fitting her description leaving around 11:30. She left with a man, middle-aged, in a black jacket. Bartender assumed he’d picked her up. “They were real clingy,” she said. Chances were, they were still around.

Okay, so two likely options. They’re somewhere else in the terminal, or they’re going to catch a cab. Headed somewhere else to get friendly.

Once Kowalski checked the terminal a few times to his satisfaction, he decided to flush them out.

He approached a Continental manager, flashed a card identifying himself as an agent of Homeland Security—which was sorta true, only not official. Kowalski’s organization, CI-6, was buried in
a blur of funding, obscured by a purposefully murky organizational chart. Even Kowalski didn’t know whom his boss reported to, if anybody. For all he knew, his boss ran the world.

But the card looked legit enough. Even had the new embossed foil with the holographic flying eagles.

One minute later, Kowalski heard the page he’d requested:

Passenger Kelly White, please report to the Continental customer service kiosk. Passenger Kelly White, report to the Continental customer service kiosk
.

No way White would go to the kiosk. If she did, the manager was prepared to detain her and page Kowalski. Most likely, she’d shoot for the exits. One set of sliding doors led to the taxi stand. The other led onto the long-term parking lot. Since White wasn’t from Philly and, according to his handler, had only landed recently, a car seemed unlikely. The cab was going to be it.

Sure enough, there she was. Kowalski saw Kelly and that middle-aged guy in a black jacket. They were embracing in front of an open cab door. And inside … oh, another guy in the backseat. Kowalski fixed his eyes on the orange box of an alternative newsweekly across the street, then headed forward as if to retrieve a copy. Meanwhile, he reached into his jacket pocket and sent a text message—“So glad you remembered”—as he memorized the cab’s license plate. The next step was up to his handler.

Kelly and the unidentified male were still going at it. Kowalski wondered, idly, what the deal with the guy in the cab was. He couldn’t see the man’s face. Had Kelly proposed some kind of three-way scenario?

Not that it mattered. He didn’t know why the female subject was wanted. That was the way it was with CI-6. No need to dig up a motive. Just simple, clear objectives. Which made his job quantifiable, if not exactly satisfying.

Which was why he was so eager to return to his current project in Philadelphia. This time, it was personal. He knew the reasons—
most of them anyway. He knew the net effect of every action. He had a singular purpose, and it was extremely satisfying when he completed each task he’d designed to achieve that purpose.

Vengeance of Katie.

Katie was a girl he’d met a year ago; she became pregnant with their child. Unfortunately, Katie’s brother was a professional criminal who had embroiled himself with the Philadelphia branch of the Cosa Nostra. After too many double crosses to count, the mob took their payment out on Katie … and, by default, their unborn child.

They killed her.

They smeared her with peanut butter so that rats would destroy the body after they’d dumped her.

Kowalski had been out of town. When he arrived in Philadelphia, he drove straight to the morgue. He identified her naked, chewed, clawed, lacerated body, under the murky pretense of Homeland Security. He read the reports. Once he pieced it together, Kowalski decided to take out the mob, down to the man. He wasn’t in a rush. No need to get sloppy. He’d simply pick away at every cheeseball until there were none left. Simple, clear objectives. But
with a motive
. Which was incredibly satisfying.

Except when he thought about Katie, or what their child— might have been a son—would have looked like. Sounded like. Smelled like.

This bothered Kowalski, because he was not the kind of man to think about children.

The cell phone in his pocket vibrated. There could be no subterfuge now. Things were moving fast. The organization was reacting, planning.

He pressed the cell phone to his ear and reached down with his free hand to take a copy of the newspaper. The cover story was about beer—apparently, there was a festival in town this week.

“You have her.”

“Looking at her now,” Kowalski said.

“Who is she with?”

“Two men, one middle-aged, another one inside a waiting cab. I can’t see the second guy.”

“Okay.”

“She just finished playing tonsil hockey with the middle-aged male.”

“They were kissing?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Hold please.”

Kowalski watched the pair finally break the embrace. About goddamned time. It was wrong to flaunt that kind of thing in front of a widower, wasn’t it?

But wait. What is this?

Her pale hand on his chest. A shocked look on the guy’s thick face. The girl pushing him away, stepping backward and sliding herself into the cab, slamming the door the shut. The guy pounding on the roof. Looking really pissed. The engine revving.

“We’ve got a situation here,” Kowalski said.

“What’s happening?”

“Kelly White and the second male leaving by car. First guy left behind. He’s standing on the sidewalk. Need some direction here, sugar.”

“Stand by.”

But of course. The cab bucked backward for a moment, then lurched forward. In the meantime, the middle-aged guy was reaching for the door, as if that would do any good. Give it up, buddy. She’s got bigger and better things to do. Namely, the guy sitting next to her.

“You have the cab’s license number?”

“What you think these are, walnuts?”

She didn’t laugh at the in joke. One lazy Sunday morning together, flipping channels, finding
Sesame Street
. A Cookie Monster
skit. Ernie asking a stupid-ass question. Cookie getting indignant, pointing to his googly eyes.
What you think these are, walnuts?

“Send a text message, encrypted. Then follow male subject number one.”

“Not Kelly White.”

“Correct. Stick to subject number one as closely as possible.”

There was no point in asking why. Could be one of a thousand possibilities. Girl passing guy drugs, a document, a serum, a weapon. Girl no longer in the game; guy the subject now. That’s what mattered. Now it was time to follow the new guy. Kowalski thought about Professor Manchette. Will I have to decapitate
this
guy in a couple of hours?

Ah, the job.

1-95 North, Near the Girard Point Bridge

D
river, take us to the nearest police precinct. Immediately.”

Kelly rolled her eyes and eased back into the dark blue vinyl seat. She folded her arms.

“They are not called precincts here,” the driver said. “They are districts.”

“What?”

The driver had curly, thinning black hair. He spoke carefully and clearly. “I do not know the local districts. I operate mainly in the Northeast. I only brought someone down here to catch a late flight. I am working my way back up to the Northeast; that is all.”

“Sir, ignore my husband. Jackie boy had too many Jamesons on the plane.”

“You’re not my wife, and I’m completely sober. I don’t care if they’re districts or what, but I need a police officer.
Now.
”

Jack knew this was his safest bet. He hadn’t gone to the police before because he thought the blonde had been joking. But he’d vomited enough to know otherwise. The proof was splattered all the hell over 1-95. In fact, they could drive past it, and he could point it out to the police.
See that! The contents of my stomach! There’s more of that fucking spinach stromboli!
Even if they didn’t believe him at first, they’d hold both of them—he’d make sure of that— until they could pump his stomach (whatever was left of it) or take some blood. Or whatever. Somehow, they’d be able to prove she’d slipped him something. If it took all night, so be it. His 8:00
A.M.
appointment with Donovan “the Testicle Hunter” Piatt would have to be rescheduled. No great loss there.