‘—care of it. Thanks very much. Bye.’
She hung up but it was too late to get back across the street. He was almost there. He was so close she could see those cold reptilian eyes staring at her through the open window.
She took off her shoes and ran. She ran faster than she had ever run in her life. She could have made the Olympics, she ran so fast. She ran away from the street, through the darkness, down a long narrow alleyway, toward the beach.
Hinge stopped and jumped out of his car.
Eliza ran along the beach until her breath was gone and her legs ached and finally she fell on her hands and knees in the sand. She turned quickly and looked back expecting to see Hinge. But the beach stretched behind her, gray in the moonlight and empty.
She looked all around.
Nothing.
Overhead, ominous clouds were beginning to chase the moon and lightning glittered near the horizon.
Great. Now it’s going to start raining.
She sat for a few moments to catch her breath, then walked up to the line of trees that ran adjacent to the water’s edge, and using them for protection, started cautiously back toward her
But Hinge had opted not to go after the girl. There was no time for that. He watched her run frantically into the darkness and he thought, Who is she? What in hell is her problem? Is there something about this I don’t know? Or is she just some flake?
He stopped beside her car and looked inside. In the glove compartment he found the rental agreement.
Eliza Gunn. Staying at the Half Moon Bay Club, cottage 16.
He put the contract back and slammed the glove compartment shut.
Smiling, he returned to his car and drove off. He had other things to do. There would be time to handle the girl when he was finished with Lavander.
When Eliza reached the street, it was empty. No sign of the red Datsun. She hesitated for several minutes, hiding in the darkness of the shrubs and trees near the road, building up her nerve before she ran across the street and jumped in the car.
She felt lucky as she started the car and drove back to the hotel. She had not talked to either O’Hara or the Magician all day. Perhaps, she thought, they had intercepted Lavander and everything was all right.
It was dark when Lavander strolled into Trelawney Square but it might have been the middle of the day. The shops were all open and there was a carnival atmosphere about the place.
He found himself opposite the pastry shop and stepped into a gift shop. Walking to the back, he picked over some things while watching the square. Then he went through the back door and walked around the block, staying in the shadows, and appraised the street.
Derek Frazer, the man who had been described to him over the phone, was sitting near the window of the Nelson Pastry Shoppe. Lavander concentrated on him for a while. Frazer had the kind of sharp features some women consider handsome. Lavander knew the type. A typical corporate flunky dressed by Brooks Brothers, with an innocuous title, vice president in charge of something or other, some catchall term to cover a variety of sins.
Frazer was sipping his coffee and reading the wretched Kingston Journal.
Well, that wouldn’t take him long. Lavander chuckled to himself. He was sure nobody was following him.
Lavander was right: Hinge did not have to follow him. All Hinge had to do was watch Frazer. It was an old but effective trick, shopping the contact instead of the mark, one that would never have occurred to an amateur like Lavander.
Frazer had spotted the consultant the minute Lavander entered the square, watching him benignly from over the top of the newspaper as the little man played out his odd melodrama. Frazer assumed that the assassin was also watching.
Lavander finally crossed the street and entered the pastry shop. Frazer looked up, smiled, raised a finger and his eyebrows, and stood as Lavander walked to the table, offering his hand. He almost crushed several of Lavander’s fingers. He’s taken the executive-handshake course, I see, Lavander said to himself.
‘Hi, I’m Derek Frazer.’
How jaunty, the little man thought. ‘Lavander, here.’
‘Well, this is quite an honour, quite an honour indeed. It isn’t every day one meets a living legend.’
His voice, cultured early in some executive-training program to be flat, authoritative and intimidating, was oddly patronizing toward Lavander. The Britisher found both Frazer’s attitude and his looks manufactured and offensive.
Lavander shrugged. ‘Yes, there aren’t that many of us about.’
Frazer thought, An egomaniac. An absolute, flying, whacked-out egomaniac.
‘What would you like?’ Frazer asked, motioning to the waitress.
Strong tea and something sweet. A napoleon, I think.’ The waitress nodded and left.
