The crowd had gone dead silent. Not betraying the least effort, I winked at the strongman, then perfunctorily forced his arm down and pinned the back of his hand firmly against the table, then stood up and walked away from the murmuring crowd. I continued to stroll aimlessly through the fairgrounds until my mistake became undeniable. Once again, I had drawn too much attention to myself. People were watching me, pointing me out to others. It was only to be expected. They were there for entertainment, novelty, a temporary respite from the monotony of their lives. By failing to keep my distance, by failing to remain detached from human affairs, I had played right into something potentially dangerous. I left the fair, and the next night I left Atlanta.
At that time, my dilemma was still working its way forward in my mind. My relationship to humans was neither simple nor natural. People may have been my primary source of nourishment, but they were not toys. They were neither passive nor harmless. In fact, they could be pretty nasty. All my new vampire powers were exhilarating, but they could also get me into trouble if I didn’t learn to control them.
Chapter 7
A large sum of cash has its own gravitational field. It pulls violence into its orbit. Violence itself didn’t bother me. But the more volatile a situation is, the more unpredictable it becomes. I was never injured during one of my little drug-money heists, but the possibility of gunplay was always present and luck could have worked against me.
That was all back in the days when I needed money. I often put a lot of work into the process of acquiring it, something that I needed as much as I needed the cash. Planning my thefts gave me something to do, a way to occupy my time. But over the years, having appropriated and invested several million dollars, I found myself less and less entertained by the whole process.
That’s where people like Richardson came in. The more I lost interest in the process of acquiring wealth, the more I liked the idea of someone just giving it to me and saving me the trouble. Or most of the trouble, anyway. The thing about people with money, the more they have, the more they invest in keeping it, and the easier it is to shield themselves against those who would like to take it away from them. The rules attached to wealth are a kind of game, and one of the rules is that the richer you are, the more immunity you enjoy when you break the rules. Which is to say, the more freedom you have to make up the rules as you go along.
In Richardson’s case, I was fairly certain he wouldn’t willingly play by my rules. He’d do what came naturally to him. He’d beef up his personal security and the next time I showed up, he would try to take me out of the game. People like him, accustomed to the prerogatives of wealth and power, always have to have their little fists pried open. But that was all right. I was good at applying leverage.
I checked my Cayman Islands account early Wednesday morning. As expected, no deposit had been made. That evening, I gave Karla a call and told her to pick me up at the footbridge at 1:00 a.m. I didn’t want anyone near Richardson’s place to see me, so I had Karla drop me off in the condominium parking lot where she’d picked me up the previous Sunday. From there, I made my way to Richardson’s on foot.
I approached the house through a wooded area that separated Richardson’s property from his up-river neighbor. The garage door was open and a car—probably his girlfriend’s—was parked inside. Richardson’s Jaguar was parked out in front of the garage, and there was a Hummer parked next to the Jag. Most likely, the Hummer came with bodyguards, and the choice of vehicle suggested a concern with image that may have taken precedence over professional competence. Or maybe not.
The first thing I needed to do was find out how many there were. I worked my way around to the front of the house. The living room was unlit, but the kitchen light was on, illuminating the large living-dining-kitchen area. A long, high counter separated the kitchen from the larger part of the room. There was a guy sitting on a stool at the counter, reading a paperback. He was big, probably six two or three, a little overweight, but he looked like he spent a lot of time at the gym pumping iron. He was also wearing a shoulder holster.
I made a complete circuit of the house. There was one other hired hand sitting in a deck chair on the unlit back porch. This guy was smaller, slender, and alert. His head leaned back against the chair cushion, so his face was tilted slightly upward, but his eyes were open. His hands were clasped loosely in his lap and his feet were planted flat on the deck. He looked like he took his job seriously, and I suspected he might be the more capable of the two.
I moved further back into the surrounding woods. The small fanny pack I was wearing held an extra long-sleeved, black t-shirt like the one I had on, some heavy-duty plastic cable ties, and a woven-leather blackjack. I took out the blackjack and looped my left hand through the strap, then moved a little closer to the house, but still well back in the shadows. I wanted to take both guards out of the picture at the same time, so I had to wait for them to get closer together.
I watched the guy in the deck chair for about forty-five minutes. He only
