Cavalier was parked across the street from the apartment building. Sean could just barely make out someone in the front seat. “Dayle?”
She sat up, suddenly alert. “What?”
“Is there a another entrance to your building?”
For a moment, Dayle didn’t seem to understand. Then Sean nodded at the Cavalier—and the lone figure inside it.
“There’s a side entrance,” Dayle said. “But I have to call the night watchman to let me in.”
“Cellular’s in my purse,” Sean replied. She turned down the cross street in front of Dayle’s building. The Cavalier was too far away for her to tell if its occupant had noticed them. While Dayle fished out the cellular and called the night man, Sean studied the other cars parked along the street. All of them looked empty. She found the building’s side door, and pulled up to the loading zone beside it.
“We’re waiting here now,” Dayle was saying into the phone. “Thanks.” She clicked off and handed the cellular to Sean. “He’ll just be a minute.”
“Let’s stay in here until he shows,” Sean said, putting her phone away. She nervously glanced around— particularly at shadowy bushes alongside the building. Then she checked to make sure the car door was locked. “Why didn’t you tell Lieutenant Linn about these guys who have you under surveillance?”
“I really wasn’t thinking about them.” Dayle shrugged. “Besides, she’d only think I was paranoid. She’d say these guys are with the tabloids. I’ve been through this before with her. Ditto my assistant, Dennis. You’re the only one who really seems to believe me, Sean.” She sighed. “Listen, I can’t thank you enough. If you weren’t with me tonight—”
The sudden noise gave Sean a start, and she swiveled toward her window. It was only the night man, pushing open the side door for Dayle. He smiled and waved at them.
Dayle finished thanking her, and said good-bye. Sean watched her trot around the front of the car to the door. Once Dayle was inside, Sean pulled forward and turned at the next intersection. Near the end of the block on the cross-street, she saw someone leaning against a parked Taurus, talking to the driver inside. He looked about forty- five, with sneakers, white pants, and an ugly, shortsleeve turquoise blue shirt. He puffed on a cigarette. Only a couple of cars behind was the Cavalier with the front door cracked open and the interior light on.
Sean remained idling around the corner from them. She must have caught them during the changing of the guard. They didn’t seem to notice her. The man in the ugly shirt was still talking to his friend. He was laughing about something. He tossed away his cigarette, slapped the hood of the Taurus a couple of times, then started toward his own car. Then the Cavalier’s headlights went on, and it started to pull away from the curb.
Sean turned the corner and began to follow him. She passed the parked Taurus, then glanced in her rearview mirror. The man inside didn’t seem to notice her. He had his window rolled down, and he was looking up at Dayle’s building.
Forty-five minutes later, the Cavalier turned into the parking lot of a seedy-looking hotel called the My-T- Comfort Inn. It couldn’t have been all that
Sean pulled over to the curb, near the motel sign. She watched the Cavalier wind around to the back of the hotel. Grabbing her purse, she climbed out of the car. The November night air had turned chilly, and Sean shivered as she crept along the wild shrubbery that bordered the parking lot by the hotel. She ducked behind a Dumpster, then watched the man with the ugly shirt step out of his car. He’d parked beside two Corsicas. He ambled to room 18, and let himself in. Sean pulled a piece of paper and a pen from her purse. She started scribbling down license plate numbers from the rental cars.
After a couple of minutes, Ugly Shirt Man emerged from his room again, an ice bucket in his hand. He knocked on the next door down, number 17. The door opened, and a stubby man with a mustache and greasy brown hair stepped outside. He wore army fatigues and a gray T-shirt, which revealed a tiny beer gut. Sean watched him punch his buddy in the arm, very macho friendly. The traffic noise from the street was too loud for her to hear what they were saying. Inside the room, she could see his TV was on. A laptop computer sat on the desk. The two men laughed about something, then both stepped inside the room and shut the door.
Sean finished jotting down the plate numbers and car descriptions. Another midsize, rental-type car pulled into the lot, the beams from its headlights sweeping across the bushes for a moment. Sean stepped back. The car, another white Taurus, parked in a space in front of her. She had a good view of the driver as he opened the car door. He didn’t look like the others. He was about forty, with strawberry-blond hair; the boy next door, grown-up handsome. He wore a navy crew neck and khakis. At first, Sean thought he wasn’t with them. But then he reached below the driver’s seat and took out a handgun. He glanced around for a second, then checked the gun for something. After a minute, he slipped it back under the seat, climbed out of the car, and locked the door.
Crouched in the bushes, Sean kept perfectly still and watched him. Suddenly, the cell phone in her purse rang. She almost jumped out of her skin. She ducked further back, and grabbed the phone out of her purse. It rang again—louder this time, without the purse to muffle the sound. Mr. Boy Next Door stopped and glanced in her direction. A truck roared by on the street, drowning out the third ring. Sean switched off the phone, then held her breath and waited to see what the man would do.
He gave a little shrug, then walked across the parking lot, where he knocked on the door to room 17. Mr. Stubby Macho answered it. They shook hands. Sean noticed that the nice-looking one wore a pager. Then she realized they both sported pagers. These guys were soldiers, on call. They had a ringleader somewhere, pulling the strings. The two men stepped into cabin 17, and shut the door.
After jotting down Boy Next Door’s license plate number, Sean scurried around to the front of the hotel. She peeked past the finger-smudged glass doors toward the front desk. She needed to know how many of them there were; she wanted names, where they lived—information the desk clerk might provide. At the moment, her potential source was leaning against the front counter, lazily paging through what looked like a skin magazine. He might have been handsome with some grooming, but he was too gaunt, and his long brown hair looked unwashed. Dayle guessed he was about thirty. His T-shirt hung on him as if draped over a skeleton.
Sean turned away from the door. Opening her purse, she checked her wallet: eleven dollars and some change—hardly enough for bribe money. She sighed, then caught her reflection in the window of a nearby parked car. Frowning at herself, Sean put down the purse, then unbuttoned her navy blue blouse. Despite the cold, she tied the shirt up in a Calypso fashion so her bare midriff showed. She didn’t look much like a hooker, but this was the best she could do. Rolling her eyes, she retrieved her purse, then started into the lobby.
She was hit with a waft of warm, moist air that smelled of moldy carpet and stale coffee. The lobby had two orange plastic, bucket-style chairs and a Formica coffee table with a dusty, fake fern that had seen better days.
The desk clerk quickly stashed his skin magazine under the counter. “Want a room?” he asked.
Approaching the desk, Sean saw a ratty, tired-looking German Shepherd curled up at the clerk’s feet. The dog gazed up at her with disinterest. “Atta girl, Anita,” the clerk mumbled.
“Actually, I’m supposed to meet someone,” Sean whispered, with her best coy smile. “There’s these guys in a block of rooms—like sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen? I can’t remember this particular guy’s name or which room actually. Could you tell me the names of the guys in those rooms? I think they all checked in together a couple of days ago.”
The desk clerk gave her a wary look. “Well, I dunno…”
“Oh, c’mon, be a sport,” she said. “I don’t want to knock on the wrong door tonight. C’mon, whaddaya say?”
He frowned. “It’s against the law to give out peoples’ names. I’ve got to be careful about stuff like that with these cops around.”
“Cops?”
“Yeah, they checked in tonight. The squad car is on the other side from where your buddies are.”
“What are they here for?” Sean asked. “Are they with the others?”
