“Thank you, Jesus,” Rainey whispered.
The telephone rang and Sherry’s voice came over the intercom. “Mr. Masterson, Tod Peoples on one,” she said. There was a new, playful lilt to her voice.
Rainey stood and walked toward the door. “Want coffee?” he asked as he opened it.
Paul shook his head as he picked up the telephone.
Tod Peoples seemed pleased with himself. “Back from the dead? I must’ve called the Hyatt twenty times. Your cell phone was off.”
“Battery was dead,” he lied.
“I got some very hot news for you.”
“Eve is flying out today,” Paul said.
“Very old news, that. I’m talking about what our bad boy has been up to in the Crescent City.”
“He was in New Orleans?”
“Oh, yes, he certainly was. And… he most definitely isn’t working alone.”
“Tell me what you got, Tod.” Paul lit a cigarette and listened to the account of Lallo Estevez’s murder and the finding of two other bodies, one a known hit man.
“There’s no proof it was Martin,” Paul said at last.
“No,” Tod agreed. “No proof. But we both know it was.”
“Okay. I’ve got some things to do.” Paul was fighting the urge to scream out loud.
“Oh, by the way. Remember the prints you sent?”
“What? Oh, the envelope.” He felt strange, lightheaded.
“I ran them against every known and unknown. Amazing. We collect prints from all over the world and-”
“Tod, please cut to the chase. I’ve got a lot to do.” Like get things in motion and figure out what these dead Latins mean.
“Kurt Steiner’s left thumb and index finger. Maybe he mailed it.”
“You know him? Fax me a picture! Christ, that’s great!” Suddenly Paul was ecstatic.
“Can’t help you on that one, Paul. His prints came to me from a police ID card from Argentina. I only had it on file because the Colombian army came across a print or two on a weapon they happened across at a jungle training facility. One of those resorts for the cocaine barons.”
Paul was squeezing the tennis ball furiously. “So you know who he is. But not what he looks like? I presume he isn’t a mail carrier these days in Colorado.”
“Yes and no. I mean, I know who he is… but nothing else.”
“Tod. I hope you won’t take this wrong, but if you had more information on this Steiner, you’d tell me, right? I mean, you wouldn’t limit my information? I know you parcel out bits and pieces and that you have your own agenda. But, Tod. We’re talking about my children. My wife.” There was an edge to his voice that he couldn’t control.
There was a strange silence for a few seconds.
“I’ve told you what I know. I wish I could do better.”
Paul slammed down the telephone receiver, sat for a few seconds, and then lifted the phone and pressed a preset speed code.
When Rainey came back into the room, Paul was talking feverishly into the telephone. “I don’t give a rat’s ass whether she likes it or not. Get your people in that house and all around it. For the next few hours don’t let them leave the premises for any reason.” He listened for a beat. “Get what you need-agents, cops, the fuckin’ Army and the SWAT team. If she gives you any trouble, you call me.” Paul slammed the telephone down and lit a cigarette even though he had one burning in the ashtray at his right.
“Peoples?” Rainey sat on the table looking down at Paul.
“No, Thorne. Remember a Colombian coffee broker named Lallo Estevez?”
“Sure, the dapper coffee dealer.”
“We knew he was connected with the Medellin cartel, but we couldn’t pin anything solid on him.”
“Yeah, I remember him. Influential pals in D.C.”
“He’s dead. A towboat crew fished a guy out of the Mississippi River yesterday ten miles south of New Orleans. No ID, but he had his throat slit from ear to ear with his tongue pulled through above the Adam’s apple. Feds ID’d him by his prints.”
“And it was Lallo Estevez?”
“No. Was a guy named Ramon something. I’m ahead of myself. The floater was a freelance Colombian hitter.”
“Maybe it was a Colombian suicide,” Rainey laughed. Paul smiled at the fact that Rainey had made a joke.
“He was an enforcer with Perez years ago. Lallo was reported missing by his wife about the same time this guy was surfacing… so to speak. The investigating cops found something on the coffee baron’s desk-a list he’d evidently made the day he died, which they turned over to the feds.”
Paul crushed out the cigarette that he had left in the ashtray before he continued.
“Estevez’s wife called the police because he hadn’t come home. The driver, his bodyguard, didn’t come home either. The last thing on the list was an entry to meet ‘M’ at eleven on his company-owned dock on the Mississippi River. The cops snooped around the dock, and there was a place where there was a lot of broken auto safety glass and where something had scraped the edge of the pier. So they brought in a portable sonar, which picked up something downstream. They dropped cameras, and voila… Cadillac with two corpses inside.”
“Estevez?”
“The chauffeur was buckled in his seat belt with a round just behind the ear. Same gun as Mr. Necktie was killed with. Estevez was in the trunk.”
“You said he had his throat slit?”
“The hitter did.”
“Was it Fletcher? Martin has time to wander around killing everybody he’s pissed at?”
“Peoples is ready to bet big bucks on it,” Paul said.
“So he’s been in New Orleans.” Rainey had a faraway look in his eyes. “Could he still be?”
“For the moment I’m assuming that’s possible,” Paul said. “He’s capable. Thorne’s team is moving in with Laura until this is over. He’ll meet his mother in Disney World and double back for the finale, but there is a slight chance he might be planning to escape to Florida after he attacks my family and meet his mother while we’re running around chasing our tails.”
“Or he might not be after your family. He said he wasn’t going to kill them. Maybe he just wanted you to worry and commit a force to protecting them while he lounged around in Disney World with Mama.”
“Possible.” Paul allowed himself to smile. He lifted the cane and tapped it against his palm. “But I don’t think so. He’ll double back if he gets the chance. I don’t plan to let that happen.”
Rainey sat down on the edge of a chair, nervously tapping his hands on the armrests like a speed freak about to impart the truths of the universe. “Let’s think this through for a minute. If Martin killed Estevez and his pals, he’d have to be pretty sure no one could put him on the scene. At least not this fast. What if the hit man was just there to take Martin out? Maybe Estevez set him up. Martin trained the Medellin boys’ army, so maybe the hit man was working for Martin. Maybe the hit man dropped Lallo into the drink, and then he was killed in turn because he could finger Martin.”
Paul squeezed the tennis ball. “If Martin is in New Orleans to hit my family, why would he take a chance of clipping someone else in New Orleans first? He would have to assume we could find out he was there. Or he’s using the hits in New Orleans for misdirection… which is what it has to be. We look our asses off in New Orleans while he lies in the sun in Florida unmolested. Then when we’re stir-crazy a few weeks down the line, he pops in and hits my family. I can see that.”
“He wants to sucker us to New Orleans so he can be safe in Florida?” Rainey asked.
“We’re going to nail him,” Paul said. “This time it ends. One way or another.” Hell wait for me to be there before he acts. He wants me to see them die. Otherwise they’d already be dead.
Sherry entered the conference room. “Mr. Masterson, you have a visitor.”
“I wasn’t expecting anybody.”
Sherry handed him a business card, which Paul read. “A lawyer? Do I need a lawyer?”
“He says it’s important. And highly confidential.”
