number.”
“Bingo,” said Sam. “False address, false identity. This is our man.”
“But we’re no closer to catching him,” stressed Gillis. “He left no trail, no clues. Where are we supposed to look?”
“We have a sketch of his face circulating. We know he was wearing some sort of uniform, possibly a bellhop’s. So we check all the hotels. Try to match the sketch with any of their employees.” Sam paused, frowning. “A hotel. Why would he be working at a hotel?”
“He needed a job?” Gillis offered.
“As a bellhop?” Sam shook his head. “If this is really Vincent Spectre, he had a reason to be there. A contract. A target…” He sat back and rubbed his eyes. The late hour, the stress, was showing in his face. All those shadows, all those lines of weariness. Nina longed to reach out to him, to stroke away the worry she saw there, but she didn’t dare. Not in front of Gillis. Maybe not ever. He’d made it perfectly clear she was a distraction to him, to his work, and that distractions were dangerous. That much she accepted.
Yet how she ached to touch him.
Sam rose to his feet and began to move about, as though forcing himself to stay awake. “We need to check all the hotels. Set up a lineup of bellhops. And we need to check police reports. Maybe someone called in that bicycle accident.”
“Okay, I’ll get Cooley on it.”
“What we really need to know is — who is he after? Who’s the target?”
“We’re not going to figure that out tonight,” said Gillis.
“We need more to go on.” He yawned, and added, “And we need some sleep. Both of us.”
“He’s right,” said Nina. “You can’t function without rest, Sam. You need to sleep on this.”
“In the meantime, Spectre’s at work on God knows what catastrophe. So far we’ve been lucky. Only one bombing casualty. But the next time…” Sam stopped pacing. Stopped because he’d simply run out of steam. He was standing in one spot, his shoulders slumped, his whole body drooping.
Gillis looked at Nina. “Get him home, will ya? Before he keels over and I have to drag him.”
Nina rose from her chair. “Come on, Sam,” she said softly. “I’ll drive you home.”
Heading out to the car, he kept insisting he could drive, that he was in perfectly good shape to take the wheel. She, just as insistently, pointed out that he was a menace on the road.
He let her drive.
Scarcely after she’d pulled out of the hospital parking lot, he was sound asleep.
At his house, she roused him just long enough to climb out of the car and walk in the front door. In his bedroom, he shrugged off his gun holster, pulled off his shoes, and collapsed on the bed. His last words were some sort of apology. Then he was fast asleep.
Smiling, she pulled the covers over him and went out to check the windows and doors. Everything was locked tight; the house was secure — as secure as it could be.
Back in Sam’s room, she undressed in the dark and climbed into bed beside him. He didn’t stir. Gently she stroked her fingers through his hair and thought,
Sighing, he turned toward her, his arm reaching out to hug her against him. Even in his sleep, he was trying to protect her.
Nothing could hurt her. Not tonight, not in his arms.
She’d stake her life on it.
THEY WERE SHOWING his picture on the morning news.
Vincent Spectre took one look at the police sketch on the TV screen and he laughed softly. What a joke. The picture looked nothing like him. The ears were too big, the jaw was too wide, and the eyes looked beady. He did not have beady eyes. How had they gotten it so wrong? What had happened to the quality of law enforcement?
“Can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man,” he murmured.
Sam Navarro was slipping, if that drawing was the best he could come up with. A pity. Navarro had seemed such a clever man, a truly worthy opponent. Now it appeared he was as dumb a cop as all the others. Though he
Vincent Spectre was alive and back in the game.
“Just wait till you see how alive I am,” he said.
That Cormier woman must have described his face to the police artist. Although the sketch wasn’t anything for him to worry about, Nina Cormier did concern him. Chances were, she’d recognize him in a room of anonymous strangers. She was the only one who could link his face to his identity, the only one who could ruin his plan. She would have to be disposed of.
Eventually.
He turned off the TV and went into the apartment bedroom, where the woman was still asleep. He’d met Marilyn Dukoff three weeks ago at the Stop Light Club, where he’d gone to watch the topless dance revue. Marilyn had been the blonde in the purple-sequined G-string. Her face was coarse, her IQ a joke, but her figure was a marvel of nature and silicone. Like so many other women on the exotic dance circuit, she was in desperate need of money and affection.
He’d offered her both, in abundance.
She’d accepted his gifts with true gratitude. She was like a puppy who’d been neglected too long, loyal and hungry for approval. Best of all, she asked no questions. She knew enough not to.
He sat down beside her on the bed and nudged her awake. “Marilyn?”
She opened one sleepy eye and smiled at him. “Good morning.”
He returned her smile. And followed it with a kiss. As usual, she responded eagerly. Gratefully. He removed his clothes and climbed under the sheets, next to that architecturally astonishing body. It took no coaxing at all to get her into the mood.
When they had finished, and she lay smiling and satisfied beside him, he knew it was the right time to ask.
And he said, “I need another favor from you.”
TWO HOURS LATER, a blond woman in a gray suit presented her ID to the prison official. “I’m an attorney with Frick and Darien,” she said. “Here to see our client, Billy Binford.”
Moments later she was escorted to the visiting room. Billy “The Snowman” took a seat on the other side of the Plexiglas. He regarded her for a moment, then said, “I been watching the news on TV. What the hell’s all this other stuff going on?”
“He says it’s all necessary,” said the blonde.
“Look, I just wanted the job done like he promised.”
“It’s being taken care of. Everything’s on schedule. All you have to do is sit back and wait.”
Billy glanced at the prison guard, who was standing off to the side and obviously bored. “I got everything riding on this,” he muttered.
“It will happen. But he wants to make sure you keep up your end of the bargain. Payment, by the end of the week.”
“Not yet. Not till I’m sure it’s done. I got a court date coming up fast — too fast. I’m counting on this.”
The blonde merely smiled. “It’ll happen,” she said. “He guarantees it.”
Ten
