Safe House (26 page)

And go their separate ways, until the next time.

A temporary alliance of predators.

I had called Pryce a lone wolf, and he hadn’t argued. But professionals never correct mistakes you make about
them.
And what had Wolfe called him? A bounty spotter? Maybe . . .

I kept his hands pinned to the table with my eyes, waiting.

When he couldn’t wait any longer, he said: “And then there’s the money.”

“Which you can’t front,” I responded, back to where I was.

“How
could
I front it? I work on spec. All the risk is on my end. There’s no contract. Strictly COD. You know how that works. It’s all on the come, but I’ll go fifty-fifty when it shows. What could I do to convince you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Name it and it’s yours,” he said. “But I have to have that baby.”

“
A
ny surprises?” I asked Herk. We hadn’t talked all the way down on the subway, but now we were in the Plymouth. Heading north.

“Nah. He’s a weak little punk, Burke. All that stuff about being a warrior and dying for the Race. His fucking ‘brothers.’ Like I don’t know he’s gonna give them all up, right?”

“Yeah.”

Silence after that as the Plymouth ate up the miles.

“You ever know any of them?” he asked suddenly.

“Nazis? Sure. When I was in—”

“Not them. Jews. You ever know any Jews?”

“Herk, for Chrissakes. Who do you think put that tattoo on your chest?”

“Oh. Yeah. I wasn’t—”

“Vyra’s Jewish,” I told him.

“Vyra?”

“Yeah, Vyra. The girl with the shoes.”

“
She’s
Jewish?”

“Sure. What’s so—?”

“I dunno. I never thought about . . . I mean, listening to that Lothar and all. Reading them books you got me. I never thought about
girls
being Jewish.”

What do you say to that?

“
C
an you do it?” I asked the Mole.

“It wouldn’t be precise,” he said calmly.

“But you could make it look like this?” I asked, pointing to a sheet of graph paper on which I’d roughed out a sketch. “And it would work?”

“Yes,” he said, giving me a look of mild surprise.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him.

“It’s very . . . intelligent,” the Mole said.

“
W
hat’s this?” Pryce asked, taking the thin flesh-colored wrap from my hand. It was three days after I’d gone to see the Mole.

“It’s an ankle cuff,” I told him. “The latest thing. Weighs less than a quarter of what the old ones did. Space Age plastic with titanium wire. For monitoring pedophiles in those outpatient programs. You put it on, I seal it, it stays on until I take it off. If you have it cut off yourself, that’ll break the signal.”

“And you expect me to wear this?”

“That’s the deal,” I said. “You wear this, I know where you are. Not precisely, but close enough.” He couldn’t know how much of a lie that was. The major dope cartels use satellite tracking systems that can show the precise location of a tiny boat in hundreds of miles of empty sea. But they have the millions to hire Silicon Valley whiz kids to write the software, and billions’ worth of product to protect. Me, what did I have?

He thought it over for a minute. “And what good would that do you?” he finally asked.

“If you try and run with my money, I’ll know it. And I’ll find you easy enough.”

“How do I know you won’t just—?”

“Take you out when you deliver the cash? I don’t expect you to trust me either. You can mail it. I’ll give you an address. The cash shows up, you’re off the hook.”

“But you’ll still be able to track me.”

“Only for about thirty days—that’s all the battery’s good for. You can have it cut off as soon as you’ve sent the cash. The transmitter doesn’t have that much of a range. I’d know you ran, but I wouldn’t know where to.”

“But in the interim . . . ?”

“I
already
found you,” I reminded him. “I found you tonight. Every time we’ve been alone, it’s like I found you, right?”

“So I wear this bracelet and you give me the baby?”

“You wear this bracelet and I let Lothar
see
the baby.”

“Yes.”

“And one more thing.”

“Which is?”

“I need an address.”

“Yes?”

“Porkpie hasn’t been around lately,” I explained it to him.

“Once Hercules goes in,” he said quietly. “And Lothar sees the baby.”

“Deal.”

He took a breath. “You don’t expect me to put this on now?”

“Why not?”

“You’re not an engineer, are you?”

“No.”

“Well, neither am I. It isn’t that I don’t trust what you said, but I’d like to have this . . . device examined before I put it on.”

“Take it with you,” I told him.

“
S
ee the baby?” Crystal Beth said. “No way.”

“It’s the
only
way,” I told her. “Lothar won’t be able to snatch the kid—we’ll have him covered. But without that card, he’s not gonna play. And if he doesn’t, then Pryce . . .”

“You believe he’d do it?” Vyra asked me. “Bring everything down?”

“Yeah,” I told her. “I do.”

“I don’t trust him,” Crystal Beth said. “I’d
never
trust him. He doesn’t have to do this. He’s a pig. A filthy, lousy pig.”

Vyra stood up. Walked near the window, bending her left hand at the wrist so the afternoon sun would fire the big emerald-cut diamond on her hand. She admired it for a minute. Turned to Crystal Beth like I wasn’t in the room. “That’s the only way you get truffles, honey,” she said.

Crystal Beth walked over to where Vyra was standing. Put her hands on Vyra’s neck and pulled her close. Whispered something.

Vyra walked to the door, swinging her narrow hips hard. She slammed it behind her.

Crystal Beth left the window and plopped on the bed, face up. She patted the covers for me to lie down next to her. I did it. She tugged at the back of my head. “What?” I asked her.

“I want to tell you a story,” she said, guiding my head into her lap, twirling her hands in my hair. I closed my eyes. “When I was a little girl,” she said, “I was afraid of heights. Not great heights, like in a city. There wasn’t anything all that tall on the land we had. But we had a shed. For storing machinery. It was probably only ten feet off the ground, but I was afraid to go up there. On the roof, I mean. We were playing, and the ball got stuck up there. It happened all the time. We took turns going up there to get it. But when it was my turn, I wouldn’t go. I was afraid. . . .

“Nobody made me go. But I felt bad. On the farm, everybody had to take turns doing stuff. But climbing that shed, I could never take mine. I never told my parents. I was . . . ashamed, I guess. Anyway, one day, one of the other kids teased me about it. And my mother heard.

“So she made a jump pool. Like a swimming pool, but out of blankets. And mattresses. And some bearskins she had. It was
huge.
It took hours and hours to make it, everything piled so high and soft. Then she got a ladder. I went first. She was right behind me, arms wrapped around me so I couldn’t fall. Then we just sat up there. Everybody was watching. My mother told me we could sit up there as long as we liked. She told me stories. The kind I loved. About polar bears and sled dogs and seals and whales. And after a while, it was time to jump.

“We stood up and we held hands. My mother said we would be polar bears, jumping into the water from a little cliff. She was the mother bear and I was the cub. We did it, holding hands.
Everybody
cheered. It was so great. I was never afraid of heights after that.”

“Your mother knew how to do it,” I said.

“I thought that too. For a long time. Then my father told me the real story. My mother was afraid of heights herself. Where she was raised, it was all flat. Going up scared her. My father said she didn’t even like to go in elevators.”

“She had a lot of guts.”

“Enough to give me some. I know how to jump into things now,” she whispered.

Then she reached down and tugged at my hair, pulling me up to her.

“
G
ot him,” the Prof’s voice barked over the cellular.

I cut the connection. Pryce was about four blocks away, rolling toward the meet in the same white Taurus he’d used at the airport. I’d told him the meet was coming a couple of days ago, told him to have a cell phone handy and to get me the number. I rang him an hour ago, asked him how long it would take to get to an address in East Harlem. He said to give him an hour. We had a spotter up there too. I rang in on his cellular as soon as the Taurus turned into the street I’d given him, told him about the change of plans. It was just a short hop over the Willis Avenue Bridge to the new address, twenty minutes ETA.

Finding an abandoned warehouse in the South Bronx is no great feat. Securing the premises was another matter, but we’d had people in place since noon the day before, thirty-four hours ago.

From my vantage point on the second floor, I could see the white Taurus pull up. Pryce was all-in now—he couldn’t know this wasn’t a hit, but he couldn’t get to the baby unless he ran the risk. One of the Cambodian trio stepped out from the shadows and walked toward the Taurus, right hand in his coat pocket. He motioned with his empty hand for the window to come down. It did. He walked right up to the driver’s side, leaned in and said something. Pryce and Lothar got out. The Cambodian slipped behind the wheel and the Taurus took off.

I looked over to where we’d rigged a pool of light, using a generator to drive a single hanging overhead fixture. The floor had been swept in a ten-foot circle. Two milk crates were the only furniture in the artificial island. One of the Cambodians came up the stairs first, nodding to me to indicate the speed-search had gone okay—no weapons. Then Pryce. Then Lothar. Then the third Cambodian. “That’s for you,” I said to Lothar, pointing at one of the milk crates.

“I thought you were gonna take us someplace to see my—”

“Just sit down,” I told him. “Be patient.”

Max the Silent came out of the darkness. With a baby in his arms.

“
G
erhardt!” Lothar yelled, reaching out for the infant.

Max shifted his body, throwing his shoulder as a barrier.

“Sit down,” I told Lothar. “We’ll hand you the kid, okay?”

Lothar looked at Pryce. Getting the nod, he took his seat. I made a motion to Max. He closed the gap, handed the baby down. From his shoulder, Max unslung a blue cloth bag, placed it at Lothar’s feet. Lothar held the child at arm’s length, as if examining him for defects.

“He looks thin,” he said to no one in particular. “That cunt had better be . . .” He turned to face me. “Where is she, anyway?”

“That wasn’t the deal,” I told him. “You wanted to see the kid, there he is.”

“I thought—”

“Nobody gives a fuck what you thought,” I told him, hardening my voice. “That’s your kid, right?”

“Yeah,” he said resentfully. “But I thought—”

“It’s what you asked for,” Pryce said to him, like he was a pizza-delivery guy. You asked for anchovies, you got anchovies. You changed your mind, too bad.

“I want to be alone with him,” Lothar said. “I don’t like all these . . .” He left it blank, but I didn’t need a translator. “. . . standing around watching me.”

“It doesn’t matter what you want,” I told him, no-flexibility ice in my voice. “I had to make some promises in order to borrow the kid for a few hours. One of them was that you wouldn’t be alone with him. And I keep my promises.”

“A promise to a cunt don’t mean—”

“I drove for almost six hours to set this up, and I got a long ride to take him back,” I lied. A professional habit, planting barren seeds. “And I made a deal too. You’re not getting off that box. In that bag there’s a bottle with some formula, a clean diaper, everything you’ll need. And everybody’ll step back, okay?” I waved my hand and Max did just that. Lothar’s eyes swept the room, but the harsh overhead lighting kept him from seeing anyone. Even his wife, not thirty feet away, probably holding her breath.

I tugged gently at Pryce’s coat, drawing him back deeper into the dark. He came along without protest. We moved along until I found the stairs. Then I went up one flight, Pryce right behind.

We had the next floor lit too. One room, anyway. Another pair of milk crates with a plank across them made a little table. On that table, a bowl of tepid water, an aerosol can of shaving cream, a thick white hotel towel, and a disposable safety razor in plastic shrink-wrap. Plus a half-dozen maroon-and-white sealed packets marked
CORTABALM
on the sides.

“Your turn to deliver,” I told him.

“What’s the other stuff for?” he asked.

“You have to shave the ankle before you attach the cuff. Like you would before you’d tape it up to play football, same thing. Otherwise you can sweat under there, the itch can be awesome. That’s what the cortisone patch is for. It keeps the area fresh and clean for the whole thirty days.”

He took the monitoring anklet—the one I’d let him take with him the last time—from a coat pocket. Without saying another word, he pulled up a cuff on his dark slacks, took off his shoe and sock and wet the ankle thoroughly. His hand was perfectly steady as he shaved.

No reason for him to be nervous. He’d had plenty of time to have an expert look at the cuff, tell him that there was no thread of Semtex wound through it. And that the wafer-thin battery would be damn lucky to last the thirty days.

When he was finished shaving, he toweled off the area. I handed him one of the cortisone packets. He tore it open. “Make sure it’s flat,” I told him. “Once this cuff gets clamped on, any bumps are going to stay there until it comes off.”

The white cortisone pad was thin and moist. He smoothed it down with the fingers of both webbed hands. “Okay,” he said.

I locked it on.

F
ifteen minutes later, Lothar was done. The baby was getting antsy—he knew his mother was close and he wanted that comfort back—and Lothar finally figured out the kid’s only response to anything said to him was to gurgle a few times.