The House That Death Built (6 page)

Not Rudolfo's policy, of course.
But you have to make every job at least a little fun, or else what is it really
worth?

Finally, he let the man off the
hook. "And where shall I tell the cab company they will be taking
you?" he asked.

Another moment for that to crawl
slowly to the dwindling thought-centers of the other man's brain. Robert had
timed it perfectly: the man's blood was still receiving the alcohol that had
made its way to the other man's stomach. Another few minutes and he wouldn't be
buzzed, he'd be stinking drunk. And that would have made him all but useless
for Robert's purposes.

Perfect timing.

Things are looking up.

The man finally mumbled,
"It's, uh… uh…."

This time Robert resumed his
place as knight-errant – the noble creature who existed only to seek out
chivalrous adventures. Not in a medieval setting, a castle in old Britain. No,
Robert was a man who moved from table to table, searching for moments of
perfection and aiding them with a pleasant word, a quiet refilling of a woman's
cup, a discretely blind eye when sixty-year-old men showed up with women a
third their age who were so clearly uncomfortable in their eveningwear that
they could only be hookers.

"Perhaps your driver's
license might assist you?" he said.

The man blinked again. Then:
"Yeah… good. Yeah."

Another fumble through his wallet,
which Robert noted was from Barney's. The man finally managed to pull his ID
out of its sleeve. Before he held it out, though, he showed Robert something
inside. A picture of a smiling woman and a teenager, both with dark
shoulder-length hair and deep brown eyes. Both striking – beautiful.

"My wife and daughter,"
said the man. And the way he said it was a rarity in this place: he loved them,
pure and simple.

Rob thrilled. This was not a
family, it was a perfect dream. One to get what was necessary, two more for
leverage.

Robert nodded. Swept the ID out
of the other man's hand. He glanced down at it. "Jason Crawford," it
said, and the address was one that wasn't in the best part of town – it was a
town unto itself.

Perfect
.

"Excellent, sir," he
said of the picture. "Quite beautiful, both of them."

"Yeah," said the man,
that love –

(
that weakness
)

– oozing out of the word.

Robert felt vaguely sick. Rob
would have been gagging.

None of this showed on his face.
He gave a small bow, then went to the telephone. The manager raised an eyebrow
as he passed, a very genteel, "What the
hell
were you doing over
there?"

Robert shrugged and smiled his
most ingratiating smile. He didn't want to lose his job. It paid the bills and,
more importantly, found him the best scores.

He raised the man's – Jason's –
ID and mouthed, "Cab." The manager frowned just
so
, then
nodded.

Jason called the cab. Asked them
to hurry and said Rudolfo's would pay a guaranteed gratuity – all part of the
Rudolfo's experience – then returned the ID to Jason. A few minutes later he
received notification that the cab was waiting.

He returned to the table with
Jason's coat, then graciously offered him an arm and saw him down to the street
and into the cab.

The instant before the man got
into his ride, he turned and swept Robert into a drunken "you're the best,
pal," embrace.

Robert endured. He even smiled.
"Take care, sir," he said. "Congratulations on your day."

Then the cab was off. Robert
waved, a smile in his eyes. Nothing but sincere happiness at a patron's good
luck.

The cab turned a corner.

The second the city swallowed it,
something disappeared. Robert was suddenly and completely gone, replaced by the
Rob who had been champing at the bit, waiting for his moment.

Rob pulled a cell phone from his
pocket. Dialed in the first number he would have to call before returning to
Rudolfo's.

The phone picked up. Without
waiting for so much as a hello, Rob said, "I need you to pull some
records."

Tommy's voice answered instantly,
as though he'd just been waiting for Rob to call, even though it had been
months since their last –

(
attempted
)

– job. "New score?"

"Yeah," said Rob.
"But we gotta hit it fast. Can you get the records this late?"

He could practically hear Tommy's
grin. "You cover the extra charge, I'll get what you need."

Rob gave Tommy the address he'd
seen on Jason's ID. Tommy repeated it, then hung up without wasting time on
goodbyes.

Rob steeled himself.

Made the call he didn't want to.
But there was no real alternative.

Unlike Tommy, this voice sounded
insecure. Sleepy, like he'd been woken from an early bedtime.

"Hello?" said Aaron.

Nikki Peters was overworked,
underpaid, and sadly aware of both facts.

Working at Building and Safety
Records was a crappy job on its face, but after her first day she realized that
there were several different levels of crap. There was normal crap, which
everyone had to deal with sometime.

Then there was grotesque, awful, never-ending
crap. Like you've sampled every bit of half-rotted food from every street
vendor in every third-world country on the earth.

BSR was the second kind.

When she got the job, she was
grateful – it beat continued unemployment, which was where she had landed
after…
borrowing
a bit of petty cash from the office she used to work
in. But that was only when she got the job. After actually
doing
the
job, the gratitude turned to bitterness.

Life had crapped on her again.
The number two of all number twos. And worst of all, there was nothing she
could do about it. She owed too much money to too many people – some of them
not exactly legitimate businessmen, but the kind of people who took out
interest in broken bones or worse – to quit.

BSR existed in that no-man's land
between the warring states of Boredom and Overstressed. Half her time was spent
archiving old documents – soil reports, plot plans, approved building plans,
board files, admin approvals, and a host of other papers which could each
induce fugue states upon reading.

The other half of her time she dealt
with irritable contractors, angry auditors, and pretentious lawyers – all of
whom were her bosses since she was a public employee.

Still, she kept her head down.
She worked hard. She resisted the urge to punt her supervisor in the nuts every
time he leered at her or implied that a quick screw in his office would be just
the thing to loosen her up. She even smiled at least twice a day because she
had read somewhere that smiling was the best revenge.

But no matter how hard she
worked, she never made any headway. She still lived in a studio apartment
directly over a bar, which meant she was awakened at least ten times a night by
either the muted sounds of a fight or the less-muted sounds of someone playing
Piña
Colada
on the juke. She still bought booze at the liquor store whose main
decoration was periodic banners of police tape whenever someone got rolled out
front.

Part of the situation, she
admitted on long sleepless nights listening to the drunks, was her own fault.
She gambled too much, and as a result she owed money at interest rates so high
there was no way she'd ever be able to pay down the principle – not unless her
lottery investments came in. And even there she always bought the twenty dollar
scratchers since she knew they came with better odds.

Mostly, though… mostly it wasn't
her fault. Mostly it was someone else's – though she wasn't exactly sure whose.
There was just that aching sense that if only she could get one small score,
she could figure out a way out of the crap life she currently endured.

With all that, the first time
Tommy Leigh approached her and not-so-subtly implied he might be willing to
float her a bit of cash in exchange for a look at certain of the approved
building plans – unlogged, so no one would know they'd ever been viewed outside
the office – it was a no-brainer.

The cash had been less than she
supposed it would be. She had visions of supplying info to some high-level
mobster or master criminal who would easily thumb thousand-dollar bills off a
thick wad of cash, then maybe – if he was good-looking enough – invite her back
to his place for discussions of what other "business" they might do
together.

Instead, she got a couple hundred
– barely enough to buy her scratchers.

They were enough to pay off her
loan shark's interest for another week, though, so she took the cash with a
smile and let Tommy know she would be happy to help him out in the future.

She didn't offer anything more
than that. It wasn't that Tommy was bad looking. Even after he showed up once
with a trio of bright scars that slashed through his skin from over his right
eye to a spot mid-cheek, he still looked sexy enough. He was a big guy, and she
guessed he had biceps that could crush ball bearings into smaller ball
bearings. A perfect bod for some all-night roller coaster riding.

But there was something in his
eyes. He smiled at her, he was always pleasant. Yet she got the feeling that if
she ever invited him back to her place, the games they played wouldn't be
pleasant for her. There was something dangerous about him – something that made
her think if he owed money to a shark, said shark would just smile and bow and
say, "No interest – you just pay it back when you feel like it,
friend."

She looked forward to his visits
in spite of the danger, though. Money was money.

And that held true even when he
called in the middle of a game of Texas hold 'em that was actually going her
way. She cashed out and hurried over to the records office, got what she
needed, and then headed back to the street.

As always, she walked down the
stairs, turned left, and headed toward the parking garage entrance. Concrete
planter boxes followed the steps in a series of mini terraces that effectively
blocked the view into the garage, as though the building architects had
believed the garage was too ugly a sight to inflict on the people in the city building.

Or, more likely, they thought the
city building was an eyesore that might well send emerging drivers into a
series of puke-fits.

Either way, Tommy was waiting
where he always did: leaning on the planter wall that formed the inside
boundary of the parking garage entrance. It was close to the building, but she
had noted on their second meeting that it was also a dead spot. No cameras
nearby that could pick them up, but still out in the open so no casual
observers would think there was anything untoward occurring.

"You get it?" he asked.
He was dressed all in dark tones – Nikki had never seen a stitch of bright
clothing on him. She doubted it was just for their rendezvous; he didn't seem
like a happy colors guy.

She nodded and handed over the
tube she had tucked under her arm. He opened it and unrolled the architectural
plans inside just enough to verify they were what he had ordered. Then he
handed over a thin sheaf of bills, folded in half.

She counted them. "This is
it?"

"It's what we agreed
on."

"That was the old cost. I
need a raise."

"Inflation? Cost of living
increase?"

The words were joking, but there
was no mistaking the darkening of his expression. Nikki almost backed down.
Then she remembered that she'd gotten one of her middle-of-the-night visits
yesterday, and a balloon payment was coming due.

"Sure. Call it that. And
another bump for me coming in the middle of the night and practically having to
show my boobs to the security guard to get him to turn a blind eye."

Tommy didn't move. Didn't speak.
For a moment Nikki wondered if he was going to kill her right there.

At least then I wouldn't have to
make that payment to Saul.

Tommy reached into a pocket.
Pulled out a few more bills and handed them over.

She pocketed them without
counting – without even looking. That, she sensed, would be one step too far.

For once, she quit gambling while
she was ahead.

Tommy turned away from her. He
walked down the sidewalk and disappeared into the parking structure. She didn't
know if that was because he had a car in there or if he just didn't want her to
see where he went next.

Truth told, she didn't care.

She turned away as well. Back to
the street and from there to where she was parked: an outside lot three blocks
away where the cheap-ass city made midlevel employees park.

The money burned hot in her
pocket. She should use it to pay Saul his installment.

But maybe if she hurried she
could deal back into the card game first.