would serve as tools for breaking and entering.
The last few days had either made me a better detective or a better criminal.
Getting to the elevators. Using the elevator without detection. Getting to Islip’s office without detection. I wasn’t overly worried about the safe. I knew where it was, and there’s no such thing as an uncrackable safe. I was worried about getting out. If I had to hurt someone to get up there, I’d have less than fifteen minutes before the flags went up. And despite what I’d said to Trix, I knew that calling the cops wouldn’t do a goddamn thing unless I got very creative.
The whiskey was shivering in the glass. My hand was shaking. I polished off the last of it and placed the glass upside down on the nearest table.
Chapter 52
The ride into Beverly Hills was dark and hot. The black handheld in my jacket pocket jabbed into my chest for most of the way there. I cradled the unloaded Ruger in my hands, thinking furiously. Running every possible move and outcome in my head. My heart was hammering, and my nerves jangled with stress. I found myself grinding my teeth, and forced myself still. I wanted a cigarette. I wanted a cigarette and, stupidly, pemmican. I read all the James Bond books as a kid, and, in one of them, Bond prepares for an infiltration by holing up someplace until night, smoking cigarettes, and eating wedges of pemmican. I wanted cigarettes and pemmican and to be James Bond. Instead, I was sweating myself to death in the trunk of a lawyer’s car en route to Beverly Hills.
Brom finally popped the trunk. I sat up sharply. We were in an underground carport, dark and cool. Like a good boy, Brom had parked far away from the elevators, several whitewashed concrete stanchions obscuring us from whoever might be over there.
I pulled the ammunition from my jacket pocket and began to reload the Ruger. “How many?” I whispered.
“Just one, by the elevator. There’s a restroom around the corner from that.”
“Good. Brom, when all hell breaks loose, and it will—you grab Trix and you get the hell out of there. That’s all you have to do. Is that clear?”
Cogs worked in Brom’s brain. “You’re going to let me get away?”
“Get Trix out of there and no one needs to know you were ever involved. And I’m sorry about the crack on the head and all, but I was kind of pissed.”
Brom stuck out his hand. “So we’re even?”
My face must’ve changed significantly, because he instantly went pale. “No, Brom, we’re not even. I am simply choosing not to care about you. And if you don’t get Trix somewhere safe, you don’t get to live until the end of the week. Are we clear on that?”
He stuck his hand in his pocket.
I clambered out of the car. Trix waited beside it, very quiet.
“Just stick to the sidelines,” I said to her, “and get the fuck out of Dodge when it all goes off. I’ll get your money to you in a couple of days.”
“I don’t want the money,” she said.
“So what do you want?”
She didn’t say anything.
I looked around. It was just us in the carport.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do something really goddamn stupid.”
Chapter 53
I moved around the carport, taking cover where I could, as Trix and Brom walked directly to the elevators—two of them, side by side, with an alcove beside the far one—talking loudly, as I’d asked. The uniformed security agent wasn’t young, but looked beefy. He was deferential to Brom and Trix, which was good. There are two kinds of security—the kind who thinks he works for the security firm, and the kind who thinks he works for the firm’s clients. The first kind are tough and alert, because they work for the reputation of the firm. The second kind concentrates on appearance to keep the client pleased. This guy was definitely the second kind, which meant I had a chance.
I listened to his voice as he spoke to Brom and Trix, marking him and his plus-one off on his clipboard. Phlegmy, slow. He thumbed the radio on his shoulder, letting security upstairs know the pair were coming up. He walked them to the elevator, saw them into it, and turned around.
As the doors were closing, Brom and Trix must’ve seen me jab my thumb and forefinger into the security guy’s throat from behind, and then drive the butt of the gun into the back of his head. He almost shrugged off the first blow, gagging as I killed his voice. The fourth took him down.
I almost popped a rib dragging the bastard around the corner into the toilets. I gagged him with a wad of toilet paper and his own tie and cuffed him around the toilet before locking the stall from the inside. Coughing some spit down into my throat, I reached around and thumbed his radio.
“Need the john. Ate something bad. Clipboard’s by the elevators—come down and cover me for ten minutes. Gonna sign off, this hurts like hell.” I switched the radio off before anyone could answer, and climbed out of the top of the stall with the clipboard.
Outside, I propped the clipboard on the corner, so whoever came down had to turn their back on the elevator and walk away from it to retrieve it. I dashed to the alcove and waited.
Two minutes crept by. Just as I was sure I’d fucked it up, the elevator pinged, and a skinny security man came down. He looked around for the clipboard. Spotted it. Walked toward it. I very silently moved to the elevator. He bent down to pick the clipboard up. I reached a hand inside and above the elevator door. Found what I hoped for, and smacked it to the right with my finger. Slid in and punched the door-close button, pressed against the left side of the elevator.
