So “David” had the same employer as Roland, which made a practical joke easier to rig. Except that theory had no legs because no one knew Roland was in Cincinnati, much less which motel room he’d be staying in.
Aside from Harry and his deep-seated need to be of service to a fellow addict, Roland had remained aloof from his coworkers. Because he traveled and serviced his own regional accounts, he wasn’t part of a “team,” and he only checked in at headquarters for the monthly sales meetings. Most of his employer contact was via phone and e-mail.
Laptop?
He looked under the bed. Nothing but dust bunnies big enough to mate.
“Maybe David has it,” he said, thinking it would be funnier if he said it aloud. Instead, utterance gave the words a palpability and weight that made the statement not only plausible but menacing.
Six minutes until checkout and his head was still throbbing, mouth still dry, tongue like a dirty sock. He was thrusting the fabricated business card back into its sleeve when he saw glossy paper beneath. He shuffled through the few cards, looking for photographs that would give David Underwood context or maybe clarify the faint tingle of familiarity the name evoked.
Did David have a family? Roland had never had time for children, though Wendy had once gone off the pill, back when she still held out hope that she could cure him solely through the power of love.
Fortunately, considering the ultimate outcome, the seed hadn’t taken root, and the separation agreement had been nothing more than dollars and cents instead of a Solomon-like cleaving of flesh.
Stop it right there. You can’t even remember your own name, and you’re wishing you could BREED? More little Roland Doyles or David Underwoods or whoever the fuck I am, running around playing their own brands of the Blame Game?
Three minutes to dress, pound on the front desk, and get to the bottom of this mess. The anger lit its pissed-off-villager torches inside his chest, ready to storm the castle of his head and build a bonfire.
Self-righteous indignation was an emotion that alcoholics could not afford to acknowledge, let alone embrace.
Anger, hell. In a few minutes, he’d be in a rage. And damned if it wasn’t going to feel good. The Blame Game had a new contestant.
He grabbed his jacket on the way to the bathroom, hoping he’d brought his shaving kit. He was eager to brush his teeth and rid his taste buds of the horrible, sticky residue of last night’s indulgence.
He could worry about contrition and guilt later. The twelve-steppers had stacks and stacks of white chips for that. God was built of forgiveness, and God probably knew the difference between Roland and David. He could start the day with a clean face, if not a clear head.
He nudged the bathroom door the rest of the way open.
A woman lay sprawled on the ceramic-tiled floor. She wore a peach fleece bathrobe, parted to reveal the snowy flesh of her thighs. One arm dangled over the rim of the tub, its hand smooth, graceful, and young. Raven hair splayed across her shoulders, obscuring her face.
Judging from the angle of her neck and the coagulating pool of blood beneath her, she was quite dead.
CHAPTER SIX
The collision was much more dramatic than Martin Kleingarten had planned.
The clatter of the broken glass cascading along the sidewalk and the length of the sedan was satisfying, and the snapping of a steel mullion reminded him of the time he’d been forced to break a bookie’s fingers for dipping into the till.
That was small-time mob work, steady pay but little chance for career development, and Kleingarten’s new employers had a flair for the creative. That suited Kleingarten, although the risks were a little higher. What was life without a few risks?
The sedan plowed through the interior of the restaurant and smashed the counter, breaking it from the floor and slamming it against the grill. Hot fryer oil, which had leaped in rancid arcs with the impact, rained down on the screaming customers, and those who hadn’t been lacerated with glass shards had suffered nickel-sized burns on their flesh.
One old lady, hair tinted with blue rinse, tried to raise herself on her walker, but one of its legs had been twisted in the wreck and the walker collapsed, sending her sprawling with a shriek that stood out even in the cacophony that erupted in the moments after the “accident.”
The short-order cook in the filthy apron yanked open the crumpled door of the sedan. Kleingarten smiled, the swell of his cheeks pushing up on the lenses of the binoculars. The cook’s mouth stopped in mid tirade and dropped in surprise.
No driver.
Kleingarten, who had boosted his first car at the age of eleven, could easily have started the sedan with the key, aimed the steering wheel, and let the good times roll. The American Disabilities Act required three handicapped parking spaces near the front door, none of which were currently occupied, so he’d had a large window of opportunity. To make it more of a challenge, he’d hot-wired the vehicle and left the key in his pocket, leaning a brick on the accelerator.
He swung his binoculars to the left. The Chinese woman appeared to be unhurt and was busy helping up the blue-haired lady. Good. His instructions had been to leave both women scared, and they’d been sitting far enough from the window that they were out of danger.
Kleingarten twisted the lenses to focus on the Slant. Wendy Leng. Why are my friends so interested in you?
Her eyes had the classic Oriental shape, but her hair was brown instead of raven-black. Her teeth were small and she had a mole on her right cheek. Her eyes were light brown, unusual for an Asian, so Kleingarten figured her for a half-breed. As if “breed” meant anything these days, the way everybody fucked outside their own kind.
The Slant was cute, if you liked that sort of thing, with a rounded, flat face and mouth-sized knockers. The one who had been sitting with her, though, deserved a closer look.
She seemed a little familiar, but with her trendy haircut, big sunglasses, and bright red lipstick she was hardly distinguishable from all the other scrawny thirty-somethings who watched Sex and the City and took Internet tests to determine whether they were more like the slutty character or the quirky character.
“Hey, babe, what you doing after the tragedy?” Kleingarten whispered to himself.
Her forehead was bleeding from a cut, but the wound didn’t appear serious. She was also to remain unharmed, according to orders, and he was pretty sure that as long as the two targets walked out alive, he’d played by the rules.
One person, though, was not going to be walking anywhere. The man in the greasy army jacket had picked the wrong counter stool. The car’s grill had chewed him up like a piece of toast and then spat him back out.
Most of him, anyway. One khaki-clad arm still pointed in the air, a fork gripped in the bloody fist.
If Kleingarten had calculated wrong, the car might have swerved, hit a pothole, or even struck another car, which might have caused it to veer into the back booth where the Slant and the Looker had sat with their coffee cups.
He wasn’t sure his employers would appreciate the serendipity, but if they wanted it done a certain way, they should have given better instructions. And paid better.
“Inducing a state of panic” could have been interpreted in any number of ways. The Looker’s dose had been administered last week, in a bottle of Perrier. The Slant had got hers, appropriately enough, in an order of General Tso’s chicken three days ago. But they’d needed the adrenalin boost, apparently, for the stuff to take effect. Briggs had called the accident a “trigger,” the same as Roland Doyle’s trigger had been to mess with his identity and play on his guilt.
The first siren arose from the east end of town, toward Durham. Kleingarten tightened his gaze on Wendy Leng and the trendy chick one last time. The Slant had helped the blue-haired woman to the sidewalk and now rejoined her friend, who was dabbing at her wound with a napkin.
No plastic surgery would be required, but Kleingarten suspected she’d wear a little extra powder while the
