a politically correct academic, which meant feminist, pro-life, anti-gun, and all the rest of the chorus, but what the hell, these days you never knew. Maybe she carried a shooter in her purse just in case. Please God, don’t let her shoot me!
I raked the pick while maintaining pressure on the knob. I felt one of the tumblers go up. I raked the pick savagely, releasing and reapplying subtle pressure to the knob, trying to make all the tumblers pop up at once and catch them there.
After six or eight rakes, the door opened. Yes!
She was on the phone, staring at me wild-eyed, screaming, “He’s coming through the door now!” I must have been a fearsome sight — it had been a long day and I had seen too many dead people, some of whom I killed myself.
I bounded across the room and popped her once on the jaw before she had time to rabbit. She went down like a sack of potatoes.
The suitcase full of paper was right there on the floor by the coffee table. She had been going through the contents when I showed up.
I shoved everything into the suitcase and tried to close it. Had to put it on the floor and use a knee on it to get the latches snapped. Then I threw her over my shoulder. Out on the porch I put the suitcase down and closed the door until it latched. I must not have been thinking too clearly, because I took the time to wipe off the doorknob. As if they didn’t know who I was.
The suitcase went in the trunk of the heap. She went in the passenger seat.
Out on the street I glanced at my watch. How much time did I have?
I drove toward the subdivision exit as far from her house as I could get and still see her driveway, which was only about seventy yards due to the way the street curved. There was a house sitting there with black windows and a FOR SALE sign in the yard, so I backed into the driveway and killed the engine. Then I used the duct tape on her wrists and mouth, then taped the seat belt to her arms so she couldn’t pull them out of the belt. She was moaning and starting to come around as I snapped the seat belt in place to hold her. I checked her jaw — didn’t seem to be broken, although the bruise was turning yellow and purple and swelling up right before my eyes.
She came to slowly, began thrashing as she realized she was restrained, eyed me wildly.
“Did you call 911?”
A look of defiance crossed her face.
“We’ll just sit here and see who shows up,” I said, and rolled down my window to let some air in — and so I could hear a chopper overhead, if one showed up.
After two or three minutes, she calmed down. At least she stopped squirming, trying to get loose. I ignored her facial expressions, just watched the street. I had about decided that everyone in the neighborhood had burrowed in for the night when a hardy soul wearing a raincoat came along walking his dog. Apparently the dog needed a potty break rain or shine. The man paid no attention to us in the car, didn’t even look our way.
Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. I checked my watch occasionally. After twenty minutes had gone by, I remarked, “These Virginia cops are certainly Johnny-on-the-spot. Good thing you weren’t getting murdered or raped, huh?”
After twenty-two minutes a ten-year-old rattletrap rolled down the street — woofers thudding — and parked in a driveway two doors away from Erlanger’s house. The driver went inside.
The bad guys arrived in two unmarked cars twenty-seven minutes after I parked in the driveway. I pushed her down and ducked my head as they went by. The cars went slowly down the street, one behind the other. At least two men in each car. They stopped in front of Erlanger’s house, doused the lights.
“Doesn’t look like cops to me,” I remarked. “Plainclothes, no cruisers.”
She was watching intently. Although the distance was about seventy yards, the streetlight beyond her house limned the men. One of the four men stayed by the cars while the others went toward the house, out of our line of sight.
“Seen enough?” I asked her.
For the first time she looked my way. There was fear in her eyes.
I started the car, snapped on the lights, and got under way toward the subdivision entrance. No one followed me.
When we were rolling out on the freeway, I ripped the tape from her mouth. She screamed.
“Hurts like hell, doesn’t it?”
“Who are you?”
“I told you, lady. Tommy Carmellini, CIA.”
“Who were those men back there?”
“They sure as hell weren’t street cops speeding to assist an honest taxpayer in distress.”
“They came to kill me, didn’t they?”
“Probably.” I shrugged. “A friend of mine got your address from the telephone company. The only reason I reached you first is because I knew your name.”
“Why me, for God’s sake?”
“Someone doesn’t want Goncharov’s notes read by anyone. You’ve seen them. You might know too much.”
“I don’t know anything!” she shrieked, then began sobbing.
I was fresh out of sympathy. The ditsy broad stole my car, which was now sitting abandoned in her driveway. Whatever slim chance I once had of talking my way out of trouble had evaporated. No doubt the hit men were looking for me, too.
The rain started again. I turned on the wipers and tried to concentrate on driving but found that impossible. What should I do now? How was I going to stay one jump ahead of hit men who showed up when someone called the police? If the police were tipping them off, intentionally or inadvertently, no doubt the FBI was also cooperating. Hell, maybe the hit men were FBI.
I felt like a man driving to his own execution. “Get this tape off me,” she said. “You gonna bail at the first stoplight?” “No.”
I thought a little clarification wouldn’t hurt. “Those people back there came to kill us, lady. I thought they’d show up before long looking for you, which is why I went to get you out of there.”
“A knight in shining armor,” she said acidly.
“You’ve been told. You want out of this car, that’s fine with me. I’ll drop you anywhere you say. Call the cops, the FBI, your boss, your boyfriend, your mama, whoever. Someone kills you, that’ll be your tough luck.”
I pulled over to the side of the road and ripped the tape off her arms. It must have hurt like hell, but she stifled the scream.
“You got a cell phone on you?” I asked when we were rolling again.
She swabbed her face with the tail of her blouse. When she finished she said, “Yes.”
“May I use it?”
She removed it from a pocket and passed it over. I threw it out the window.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The neighborhood where my lock shop partner, Willie the Wire, lived was quiet that soggy evening. I drove through once, looking for cars parked with people in them. Didn’t see anyone, so I decided to try the dead man’s cell phone.
I turned it on, waited for it to find the network, then dialed Willie’s number.
“Yeah,” Willie growled when he picked up his phone. He answered the telephone at the lock shop the same way — a nasty habit I had tried to argue him out of.
“It’s me.” He had told me a dozen times that relying on other people to recognize your voice was impolite, an ego trip, but I wasn’t going to drop it until he said hello in the conventional manner. Okay, so we were both a bit childish.
“Where are ya?”
