slacks slid down her legs and bunched up on the floor. She stepped out of them. The floor was concrete. It looked cold to Jack.
“You come all the way here. At this time of night. In this kind of place … to talk? Oh, Jack, my man. You could have saved yourself a lot of money and gone to Silk City Diner down the street. There’s always some interesting conversation there.”
Her panties were purple but, like her bra, very basic. No satin, no thongs. Just functional, everyday underwear. The kind Jack’s wife wore, except on their anniversary or for weddings.
“I need a moment to think,” Jack said.
“And I want to get off,” Angela said. “Very badly.” She reached up and grabbed a remote that was hanging by a wire from the ceiling. She pressed a button. The plastic nub hummed to life, and even though Jack had never seen anything like it before, its design and purpose were suddenly clear. “Don’t you?”
Jack didn’t answer, because as soon as he figured out the saddle, another fact hit him cold. The saddle was across the room. Easily more than ten feet away.
And Angela was getting ready to mount it.
“No!” Jack yelled. “Wait!” He pushed his weight against his arm restraint; it was fiercely strong.
Angela took the remote in her hands and thumbed the button. The humming stopped. She looked wary. Afraid, even.
Explain it to Donovan Piatt.
Or Callie, someday.
Okay, Jack, calm down.
Then it came to him. His pants.
“I need help with this,” he said, holding his belt buckle in his free hand.
“I can’t touch you…. You know that, right? One of your buddies on the force explained this to you, I hope.”
“Sure.”
“People can have all kinds of ideas. Like me being a hooker, or something. I don’t play that way.”
Angela walked up to him and unbuckled his belt. She smelled like she’d been in an Italian kitchen all night. There was perfume there, too, something warm and flowery and lush, but beneath that was the scent of garlic and tomatoes and even cigarette smoke.
She was careful not to touch his skin, only leather and buckle and fabric. And then his pants dropped to the floor.
“What if you moved that closer to me? That saddle thing?”
“The Sybian?”
Lightbulb. All of a sudden, the driver’s reference to a “Sybian club” made sense. Clue phone, for Mr. Jack. Line one.
Angela regarded him carefully now. Suspicion was in full bloom. “This isn’t your first time here, is it? Because I specifically requested that—”
“No, no … I’m just slow this late at night.”
She looked at the Sybian, then back at Jack, who was still pinned to the wall with metal clamps and brackets.
“You seem like a nice guy. But I’ve had trouble before. In fact, I was the stone-cold bitch who insisted that they move that thing back a good ten feet, away from the wall. I’m all for the mutual masturbation, up until the point where you catch a hot load in the face.”
What was Jack supposed to say next? That he was nearsighted? The words
“So I’m going to go over there, okay?” She took a tentative step backward.
“What if I didn’t”—Jack searched for the phrase—“do anything? Just watched, I mean.”
That suggestion, apparently, was as bad as not knowing how to identify the garden-variety Sybian.
“And I’m supposed to what, just watch you staring at me while I come?”
“Then unlock me. I’ll be good.”
“Until you decide to rape me. Uh-uh. No thanks.” She patted his wrist. “Look, I’ve had a long night, and if it’s okay with you, I want to hop on the machine and screw my brains out. If you don’t want to jack off, whatever, at least humor me and pull your dick out. Or if you’ve changed your mind, I’ll go get someone to escort you out of here. You tell me.”
With a flick of her thumbs, her panties slid from her hips, then made their way down her legs. They stopped at her knees.
“So?”
“Thing is,” Jack said. “I’m nearsighted.”
4:10 a.m.
Kowalski found Just for Men hair dye in Room 508, along with a black leather jacket. Can you say
The man’s absence was all the better for Kowalski, of course. But still. The guy should be at home sleeping if he was worried about dying his hair blond. Less stress in your life.
A pair of black jeans from another room, along with a pair of reading glasses from still another—Kowalski nabbed ‘em right from the nightstand in that case, with their sleeping owner two feet away—he was finally ready to say hello to Charles Lee Vincent.
Who didn’t recognize him at all.
“So this is a DHS matter, huh?”
Kowalski smiled nervously, adjusted his glasses with his good hand. Kept his right tucked in the jacket pocket. His wrist was throbbing, and he didn’t want it to give him away.
“If this is the guy we’re looking for, then yes. He assaulted you?”
“He got lucky. If it hadn’t been so late …”
“Of course. But don’t feel bad. This man I’m after is well trained. Got deep with Mossad, did some mercenary work in Afghanistan.”
“Still, I say he got lucky.”
“You feeling okay, Mr. Vincent?”
“I’m fine. But I’m standing here thinking, you look so goddamned familiar. You sure we haven’t met up somewhere else?”
“Pretty sure,” Kowalski said. “Unless you used to be on the force here, because I was out in San Diego. Possible we met at a convention or something.” That sounded vague enough to be true, and wide open enough to send Mr. Vincent here searching his memory bank in the wrong part of the building.
“Yeah, maybe that was it.”
Kowalski asked about Jack Eisley, the guy in the room with the blonde. Vincent didn’t know much: He had his
