hotel to drop people off and pick people up. He was thinking about the guy in the Jag and went around the hotel again to see if he was still there. He was.
This time he got a better look, studied him and thought he might be one of the Arabs who attacked Virginia. O'Clair drove to the end of the street, saw the bright blue expanse of Lake Michigan in the distance, and made a U- turn and found a parking space halfway up the block. The Jag was about twenty cars down the street. He took the Browning out of his sport coat pocket and screwed the suppressor on the end of the barrel.
Four-thirty in the morning Ricky heard his cell phone ringing. He picked it up and said, 'Tell me you've got her.'
'We are driving to Chicago, Illinois, in search of Karen Delaney,' Tariq said.
He always said her last name too. Ricky thinking, you don't have to say Delaney. She's the only Karen we're looking for. They were a couple of oddball dudes, but he had to admit they were persistent-still on the job at 4:30 in the morning, while everyone else on the payroll was sacked out, snoring. Ricky said, 'Where the fuck you at?'
'We are on Interstate 94, approaching Marshall, Michigan,' Tariq said in his straightforward, no bullshit way. He sounded like a Middle East robot.
Ricky said, 'You don't have to say Michigan. I know where Marshall's at, okay?'
When Tariq told him Karen Delaney was staying at the Drake Hotel on Walton Street in Chicago, Illinois, pronouncing the 's,' Ricky said, oh Chicago's in Illinois, huh? I didn't know that, thanks for telling me. He'd decided he'd better get up and go there himself, protect his interest. He wouldn't need the hundred grand from Wadi Nasser now. He'd be able to pay off Samir and be set for life.
Ricky called Northwest and booked a seat on the 7:00 a.m. nonstop to O'Hare, flight 1235, arriving at 7:23. He'd fly in, get there before Karen got out of bed. But it didn't go that way. Ricky was in first class, drinking a screwdriver and the plane was taxiing on the runway when the pilot said I've got good news and bad news. The good news is we're the next plane to take off. The bad news is we have a mechanical problem and have to go back to the terminal. Ricky couldn't believe a pilot would talk like that: good news, bad news. Like it was a fucking joke.
The flight was delayed for an hour while they fixed the plane and Ricky didn't arrive in Chicago till 8:22. He rented a car and called the Iraqis.
Chapter Thirty-five
Karen woke up at 8:45 and ordered room service: an English muffin and coffee. She drank the coffee and took a couple bites of the muffin, but wasn't hungry. Her nerves were still frazzled. She went in the bathroom to brush her teeth and was surprised to see the face looking at her in the mirror, still not used to her new hair. She got dressed and went down to the lobby. She bought a Chicago Cubs baseball cap in one of the gift shops. She went in the ladies' room and ripped off the tags and adjusted the cap low over her eyes, hiding as much of her face as she could.
Instead of going out the main entrance on Walton, she went out the Oak Street side of the hotel. There was something going on. Two police cars, lights flashing, were parked right there on the street. Karen could see four cops standing next to a Jaguar. She went south and crossed Michigan Avenue and walked a couple blocks to Emporium Luggage and bought a black twenty-six-inch roll-along suitcase that looked like it would hold a million six in banded currency. She stopped at a newsstand and bought a New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily and USA Today. She took a cab back to the hotel and asked the driver to drop her off at the Oak Street entrance, but the street was blocked off, so she got out on Michigan Avenue. The cops were still there and two med techs were putting someone on a gurney in the back of an EMS van.
Karen went in the hotel. She rolled her suitcase along the corridor of shops and got behind a group of conventioneers coming out of a meeting room. She followed the group to the lobby, and took an elevator up to her room. She'd transfer the money in her new bag and leave the Eddie Bauer duffel and a couple of blouses in the closet to make it look like she was still using the room.
The suite had been cleaned while she was out. She went in the bedroom and pulled the covers back on the bed and messed up the pillows. Karen went in the bathroom and wet a couple of bath towels and dropped them on the floor. She left her toothbrush and toiletries on the counter next to the sink. She was tired and stressed from worrying, and wondered if she was going to be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.
O'Clair got out of the car. He slid the Browning in his belt and buttoned his sport coat that was too small for him. It bulged against his belly and the buttons strained, trying to hold it together. He walked along the row of parked cars toward the Jag. There was a park on his right, bordering Oak Street. The Drake was on his left. Except for an occasional car he didn't see anyone around.
He flashed back to Virginia, the way he found her, all busted up. He could feel himself getting angry, getting pumped again. As he got closer to the Jag, O'Clair could see the guy's face watching him in the side mirror. He walked up to the car, the window was down and he stood behind him-an old cop trick-so the guy had to turn to see him. O'Clair was holding the Browning at arm's length down his right leg. The guy's face was pockmarked and expressionless the way Virginia had described him. The guy's right hand was in his lap, his left was hidden by the door. O'Clair said, 'I noticed your license plate. I'm from Michigan too.' He grinned. 'Where you from?'
The guy looked at him but didn't say anything.
'You don't by any chance know Virginia Delaney, do you?' O'Clair saw him turn in his seat and saw his left hand come up over the doorsill, holding a gun, and shot him three times in the chest and watched him twist and grunt and slump forward, head touching the steering wheel. 'I thought that might get your attention,' O'Clair said.
Ricky sat in his rental car parked in a loading zone on Walton Street across from the Drake Hotel. It said 'Louis Vuitton' on three first floor windows of the building next to him. It looked like a luggage store. Trucks lined the street behind him. There was a stake truck in front of him and workers were unloading construction equipment. It was so fucking hot he had to keep the engine running to keep the air on.
Ricky had gotten a call from Wadi Nasser, who told him he'd gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to get the hundred grand for him, and was he going to pick it up or what? He'd also gotten a call from Samir, who'd left an angry message: Where the hell are you? If you're not back here by noon, don't come back. You're through. You hear me? Yeah, Ricky heard him. He wasn't going to make it.
Hearing Samir's voice got him thinking. He could sit here and wait for Tariq to find Karen, or he could go in and try to find her himself. He got out of the car, crossed the street and went through the revolving door. He walked upstairs through the lobby to the front desk. A cute young girl in a blue suit was standing across the dark wood counter from him, smiling.
'Sir, may I help you?'
'I'm looking for a friend of mine, Karen Delaney,' Ricky said. 'What room's she in?'
The girl typed something on the keyboard in front of her. She studied the computer screen and looked up at him. 'Sir, there is no guest named Karen Delaney registered at this hotel.'
'She's five six, a hundred and fifteen pounds, red hair, nice-looking girl. Maybe you've seen her around.'
'No sir.'
'Try Karen Starr with two r's.'
She looked down at the computer again and said, 'I'm sorry, we do not have a guest named Karen Starr registered here either.'
Ricky didn't know if this chick was jerking him around or not, but what could he do about it? He looked behind him and saw Tariq sitting at a table in the restaurant that was half a dozen steps above the lobby.
He went back outside and heard sirens and saw cop cars speeding by on Michigan Avenue. Something was happening on the other side of the hotel. He walked around the block to Oak Street. Two police cars were parked, lights flashing, blocking the street. As he got closer he could see Omar slumped forward in the driver's seat of the Jag. Ricky asked one of the cops what happened. Guy told him to please step back on the sidewalk. Police were
