“I pretend curiosity about you for thirty seconds. Mr. Jones, si? From New York.”
“You spend a lot of time in England?”
“No.”
“How ’bout Cuba?”
“No.”
“How ’bout South Beach? The Blue Moon Apartments over on Washington Avenue? Specifically apartment 3-A where that SWAT guy got himself whacked in his bed?”
“No.”
“Slip your mind, maybe. You stole his Leupold & Stevens sniper scope.”
“One more dead cop, what does it matter if I did?”
“See? That’s better. Won’t do you any good to lie. The truth set you free. Take them mirror glasses off, my man. Look me in the eye.”
“You want the truth? I’m going to enjoy killing you. Slowly, with my scissors, because you have insulted me. Then, I’m going to kill your friend over there. The same way. Three more bodies for the alligator fiesta out in the Everglades. End of story, senor.”
“Maybe for me. Ain’t the end for you, Scissorhands. We got folks expecting us. We don’t show up back home, your trouble is just beginning, if it isn’t bad enough already.”
“Where do you get this name?”
“Scissorhands? What your homeboys all call you, man, you know that. Back in the old country. Before you stuck your scissors in Fidel’s back and sided with them cocaine cowboy generals. You talk to Fidel lately? I imagine he’s pissed at your ass. Wouldn’t surprise me he wasn’t the one been trying to whack your ass lately. That’s what I’d do, I was him.”
“Shit! Guards!”
“See? Now you’re raising your voice. Means I got your attention. Take those glasses off, Slick. Let me see your eyes. Maybe you’re not even the guy we looking for. If not, we say we sorry, we’re out of here, no hard feelings. Come back when you open to the public.”
“You fuck now with the wrong man, senor.”
“My friend over there. One you drugged? Name is Ross. He’s Scotland Yard. You look in his pocket, you’ll see a warrant for your extradition and arrest.”
“Arrest? Ridiculous.” That’s when the guy flashed the scissors right under Stoke’s nose.
“Leaving a murder weapon stuck up in a tree at the crime scene, now that’s ridiculous—hey, get them scissors out my nose. You liable to do something you regret later, you—”
“You are under arrest for the murder of Lady Victoria Hawke,” Ross said suddenly. Sound of his voice, Stoke could tell he’d been awake for a while, just playing possum. “On the steps of the Church of St. John’s, Gloucestershire, at eleven o’clock on the morning of May 15th last. You bloody bastard.”
“See? Ross is back. That’s good. Now you got Scotland Yard plus a big-city homicide dick on your ass. Now the odds are better, traitor. Two against twelve, you don’t count Fancha. Look at her, girl be smiling at the old Stoke again.”
“Guards!” the Cuban guy shouted and he heard them all rack the bolts on their assault weapons.
“I’ll kill this one,” the Cuban guy said to the guards, “Just blow the other one away.”
Stokely felt a white-hot pain as the man slowly drove the razor sharp scissors upward inside his left nostril, headed no doubt for his brain. He tried to twist his head away, but the thing was too far up his nose. He thought he heard Ross yell something about getting down, and then he was sure he was going to black out from the unbelievable pain, and then all the windows and doors of Vizcaya exploded inward.
Stokely jerked his head back, planted his feet and rocked his chair backwards, getting away from the damn scissors, the flying shards of glass, the flash-bang and smoke grenades somebody was now lobbing in from outside the house, and all the wild bullets the panicked Chinese pajama guys were spraying all over.
That’s when the main explosion occurred, blowing all four walls apart to make room for the roof and chimneys and all kinds of damn shit to come down on top of them. Just before all his lights went out, Stokely had one last thought.
Hey, Stoke, guess what?
You one dead cat.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Cotswolds
A FIRE WAS BLAZING IN THE MASSIVE HEARTH AT THE FAR end of the dining hall. The three men sat at one end of the long mahogany table. Down the length of the table stood a row of gleaming silver candelabra and Pelham had lit every candle.
It was a fine, richly paneled room, with a vaulted Adam ceiling picked out in blue and white. A massive Victorian chandelier hung from the center, modeled after a nineteenth-century hot air balloon. Alex himself had purchased it, upon learning that the huge glass balloon had been originally designed to contain live goldfish. He’d intended to try it himself, but had never quite gotten round to it.
After the wine had been poured, Pelham withdrew from the room and returned to the kitchen to ensure the first course was ready.
“Tell us about it, Tex,” Alex said, as gently as he could manage. It was obvious that the aging Texas Ranger was suffering deeply.
“That message,” Patterson said, “the one came down here by courier from London. It was from my station chief in Madrid. I knew what it was before I even opened the thing. Heck, I knew this was comin’, sooner or later.”
“What happened, Tex?” Alex asked.
“The father of those two wonderful little kids up in Dark Harbor,” Patterson said, choking the words out. “The husband of the beautiful Deirdre. Evan Slade was his name. As fine a gentleman, father, and husband as ever I met. A great American.”
“The bastards got him too, Tex?” Hawke said, leaning forward, lacing his fingers under his chin.
“Naw, it wasn’t like that, Alex. Evan was sitting at his desk at the embassy over there this morning. Had the al-Jazeera network on the TV. All of a sudden they showed the—the pictures—the goddamn movies of Dierdre and the children, Alex! The whole thing. He put a. 45-caliber gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He just wasn’t— strong enough—to see that, Alex. To see his kids—in their beds—”
Hawke stood up and went around to where Patterson sat, slumped forward. He put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Tex,” Alex said, looking down at Patterson’s shattered expression. “None of us would be strong enough to see that. None of us. You know that.”
“Dreadful business,” Congreve said. “Horrific.”
And then everyone was silent while Pelham served the first course. It was some kind of creamed soup, served hot. Leeks or celery or something like that. Hawke could care less. He’d lost his appetite.
Each man picked up his spoon. Hawke, a bit unsure about what to do with the sprig of rosemary that lay atop the soup, put down his spoon, plucked the sprig of rosemary from the soup bowl and held it to his nose.
“Don’t touch that soup!” he barked at his two companions who were in the midst of lifting their spoons to their open mouths. “Drop the spoons!”
Patterson and Congreve looked up at him in shock, lowering their soupspoons.
“What on earth, Alex?” Congreve said.
“I intend to find out,” Hawke said, pressing the button mounted under the table that would summon Pelham from the butler’s pantry. A moment later, he was at Hawke’s side.
“Something wrong with the soup, m’lord?”
“Pelham, do we have any new staff in the kitchen? Any recent hires, I mean?”
“Well, there is the one, sir, joined us the month before you arrived home from America. Excellent qualifications. She was sous-chef at l’Hotel de Paris and—”
