The Living End (32 page)

“I’m gambling that you want the cash more than you want revenge. Like you said yourself, eventually a light is going to shine down on all of Lauren Carmichael’s dirty deeds. You won’t get away clean. You need to be thinking about your retirement options, somewhere far away from Uncle Sam’s reach. Hundred and twenty-five Gs will go a long way toward buying your very own tropical cabana.”

“You mean three hundred,” Meadow said.

That was when I knew we had her.

“You’re asking a lot,” Caitlin said.

“No,” Meadow said, “you are. Just asking me to set foot in that tower again is worth a hundred easy, let alone taking the risk of crossing Lauren. I can get you in. I can tell you everything you need to know. Nobody else can. I want three hundred thousand dollars. I’m betting the First Bank of Hell is good for it.”

“One hundred and seventy-five,” Caitlin said.

“Two seventy-five.”

“Two hundred and ten thousand dollars.”

“Two thirty,” Meadow said.

Caitlin nodded. “Agreed. But you do everything you’re told, when you’re told to do it, or the deal is off. Until Lauren is dead, we
own
you. Understood?”

“I just live to make people happy,” Meadow said. “Where do we start?”

She held out her hand. I gave her the USB stick. She clutched it tight.

“We start with Lauren,” I said. “When’s the attunement ritual?”

“Any time now. She’s been pent up in the Enclave with her little mad scientist nerd buddies, getting ready for the big day. The killing cells below are all stocked with only the finest and ripest of unbathed street trash, just waiting for the sacrificial knife. Figuratively speaking. I mean, knives? You know how long that would take?”

“Are there any traps?” I said. “Anything that would kill the hostages if an alarm sounds, like the tanks of lye at the New Life building?”

Meadow smiled. “Did you like that one? My idea. I would have
loved
to see that thing go off. But no, Lauren wouldn’t let me touch shit at the Enclave. Something about misaligning the ‘perfect occult circuitry’ of the walls. Besides, with all the work it took to snatch that many people off the streets, can you imagine if they all got smeared by accident and we had to start over? Timing is kind of a thing here.”

“So how does the sacrifice work?” Jen asked.

“Funneling glyphs set into the cell floors in mosaic tile,” Meadow said. “Huge ones. Those Xerxes assholes are gonna do the job when Lauren sends the command down. They’ll just open up with assault rifles and shoot through the cell bars, gun ’em all down. Corpses drop, souls fly up to the penthouse. Crude, and not much fun, but all Lauren needs is one big-ass harvest of life energy. That’ll do it.”

“Lauren’s in the penthouse?” I said.

Meadow nodded. “Top floor is
all
penthouse. It’s this big open space tiled with invocation patterns on the floor, windows all around. Nedry and Clark have a space set off to the side for all their science-geek shit, but they spend most of their time downstairs near the cells. They don’t want to be near Queen Bitch any more than the rest of us do.”

“I’m going to need a floor plan,” I said. “Hand drawn is fine, whatever you can remember. How about those mannequins of yours? You have any left?”

“I keep a few in a storage locker, in case of a rainy day. And no, I’m not telling you how they work. That secret isn’t for sale.”

I shook my head. “No need. Just get ready and do whatever it is you do to make ’em jump up and boogie. Oh, and I’m going to need you to do one other thing before we go in.”

I told Meadow my plan—the part she needed to know about, anyway—and she nearly tried to walk out right then and there. It took twenty minutes of arguing and Caitlin bumping the payment back up to two hundred and fifty grand, but finally Meadow came around.

She held on to my collateral as she sauntered out the door, brandishing the USB stick like a schoolkid with a permanent hall pass. Out front, Bentley, Corman, and Margaux stood close and talked in low tones. They glared daggers at Meadow as she strolled by, and she responded with a sneering wave.

A bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin, Bentley’s brand, sat on the counter next to a couple of empty glasses. Some people drink to celebrate, some drink to numb the pain. There wasn’t a celebratory face in the room.

“Ta for now, kids,” Meadow said. “I’ll call as soon as Her Highness summons me to her royal court. You miss the call, it’s not my problem.”

“Yeah, it is,” I said, following her out of the back room. “You’ve got your instructions. Follow them.”

“Long as I get paid,” she said.

She let herself out. The door swung shut, and the bookstore fell into a hard silence. I felt the weight of every eye in the room.

“I
don’t like it any more than you do,” I said. I didn’t have to direct my words at anybody in particular. Everyone in the room was thinking the same thing.

“I just hope you know what you’re doing,” Corman said.

“Hey, don’t I always?” I said. Nobody wanted to touch that, so I let it drop and moved on. “Jen, how are we looking on the explosives end of things?”

“Boom boom check,” she said. “Already got Winslow sourcing it for us. Speaking of, he wants to know when you’re gonna pay him for the car and the piece. He’s gettin’ a little itchy.”

“Least of my worries right now. Okay, everybody, Lauren could make her move at any time. The second she does, things are going to happen very, very fast. Be ready for it.”

The party broke up after that. There wasn’t anything left to say, and putting Meadow Brand on the payroll had left a bad taste in everybody’s mouths. Bentley followed me to the door.

“Daniel—” he started to say.

“I know.” I reached out, gently, and touched his arm. “I’m sorry. We were all close to Spengler, but Sophia was special to you and Corman. You’ve got more reason than anyone to want Meadow dead for what she’s done. I wish there was another way. I just need you to trust me right now.”

“There are times when I disagree with you,” he said, “and times when I worry about you, but I
always
trust you. Just tell me one thing and make an old man happy.”

“What’s that?” I said.

His pale eyes were grave.

“In the end,” he said, “will all debts be paid?”

I squeezed his shoulder and gave him a nod.

I should have felt more confident than I did. With Senator Roth and Meadow Brand in my hip pocket, I’d turned two of Lauren’s strongest allies into turncoats. I had the inside line on her movements and a plan in play to cut her off at the knees.

Still, I couldn’t shake this creeping feeling of doom, like everything was about to go horribly wrong.

• • •

The next morning I woke up in a suite at the Medici, swamped under too many covers and too many pillows and nursing a tequila hangover. I vaguely remembered feeling like I’d relied on Bentley and Corman’s hospitality a little too often lately. Caitlin’s bed was out—she was slated to make contingency plans and drive all night, getting ready for Case Exodus. I was better off alone for the night, anyway. After bringing in Meadow Brand, I wasn’t sure if anyone wanted me around.

Somewhere along the line I’d ended up on the Strip, barhopping from casino to casino and soaking up the night all alone. Details got a little hazy from there. Getting drunk and splurging what little cash I had left on a fancy hotel room was half bad move, half comfortable old habit.

My phone vibrated on the end table, demanding my attention. Its purple face glowed. I picked it up and mumbled something close to a greeting.

“Showtime, twinkle-toes,” Meadow Brand said. “Hope you packed your tap shoes.”

I shot upright, tossing the sheets aside. A bucket of ice water and a pot of double espresso wouldn’t have woken me up as fast.

“When?”

“Tonight,” she said. “I’m supposed to show up around seven. Fireworks kick off at nine, followed shortly thereafter by the end of the world. The
Washington Post
is calling it, ‘Do not miss, a real humdinger of a show.’”

“I need to make some phone calls and line up all the dominoes. Come meet me at the Medici as soon as you can.”

“Love their buffet,” she said. “What room?”

I looked around the suite, helpless. “I’m…not sure. Just call from the lobby when you get here. I’ll come down.”

I made four calls in quick succession. Jennifer, Senator Roth, Nicky Agnelli, and Special Agent Harmony Black. Everybody had a part to play, some more willing than others, some more clued-in than others. Caitlin was the last name on my list.

“It’s going down tonight,” I said when she picked up. “Nine o’clock.”

I could hear her breathe.

“I’m out at the Silk Ranch,” she said, pensive. “It’s hours back to the city and I’ve still got work to do here, but if I leave right now—”

“No,” I told her. “Like you said, you’ve got work to do. We both do. It’s okay. Keep at it.”

“I wanted to see you before you went in there,” she said. “I wanted…”

Her voice trailed off, but I knew where she was headed.

“If you were about to say ‘just in case,’” I told her, “forget it. You’re stuck with me, remember? Lauren won’t take me alive. Which means win or lose, I’m gonna see you tonight.”

It almost sounded good, putting it that way. Then I remembered that one of those two outcomes ended with the Earth burning, humanity extinct, and me in hell.

“Hey,” I said, “tell you what. You know that little pizza place you like, the one at the Metropolitan?”

“What about it?” she said.

“How do you feel about a late dinner? Say, midnight, tonight. I’ll meet you there.”

“Are you asking me out on a date right now?” she said, her voice tinged with amusement.

“Damn right.”

“Then I’ll see you there, at the stroke of midnight. Don’t stand me up.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

By six o’clock I’d spent the day running from one side of town to the other. I’d done everything I could do to prepare. I had a couple of hours before the fight of my life and nothing but time on my hands.

I ended up at Tiki Pete’s, a shabby little strip-mall restaurant a few blocks away from all the action. I felt a weird flash of nostalgia as I walked through the door. Once I sat down in a vinyl-cushioned booth, glanced over the laminated menu, and ordered a mai tai, I realized why. This was where I’d met with Jud Pankow, the old farmer from Minnesota who wanted help getting payback for his granddaughter’s murder. That was the job that led me to Caitlin, and then to Lauren Carmichael.

Everything comes full circle eventually.

I looked up as Jennifer walked into the restaurant. I’d asked her to meet me here. She dropped into the booth, sitting across from me and looking philosophical. She wore a light linen jacket, a little more stylish than her usual look, and as she settled in I caught the bulge of her shoulder holster underneath.

“How’s the food here?” she said.

“Edible.”

The waitress brought my cocktail. Jennifer gave me a look.

“Just one before a job,” I said. “Something to unwind my nerves a little.”

She ordered a Manhattan for herself.

“You see Caitlin today?” she asked.

“Talked to her. I’ll see her after. When we come home safe and sound.”

“Well, your words are confident,” she said, looking at me over her menu. “The voice saying ’em, though? Not so much.”

“I don’t know, Jen. Lot of moving parts in play, lots of plates to keep spinning. I keep feeling like we’re missing something, like we’re headed right off the rails and I can’t see the crash coming.”

“Reckon that’s better than thinking everything is hunky-dory and getting spanked by surprise,” she said. “So we’ll have to think on our feet, so what? We’re good at that.”

“We’re okay at that.”

“
You’re
okay at that,” she said, quirking a smile, “I’m
great
at it. Just talked to Mama Margaux, by the way. She’s taking Bentley and Corman to the Tiger’s Garden. They aren’t happy about it, but they understand.”

I didn’t want them on the scene for this job, not when Meadow Brand was the key to my entire plan. I knew she’d antagonize them until somebody snapped. Couldn’t risk it.

I also couldn’t risk
them
. Not with so much at stake tonight. Knowing they were someplace safe—in the case of the Tiger’s Garden, a place only vaguely connected to the world, with a chance of escaping Lauren’s attention if she beat us—was one tiny bit of weight off my shoulders.

The waitress came back, and I had to make up my mind. Last meal for a potentially condemned man.

“Pineapple chicken,” I said. “And shrimp toast for an appetizer, please.”

“Beef lo mein and an order of crab rangoon,” Jennifer said.

I sipped my mai tai while the sun slid down behind the plate-glass window, slipping out of sight and staining the sky neon pink. The food came out fast. It was a little too soggy, a little too greasy, like something you might reheat in a microwave. But it filled me up and kept me from getting too much of a buzz off the cocktail, so that was something.

“Proof that we’re gonna survive tonight,” I said.

“Hmm?” She tilted her head.

I speared a triangle of shrimp toast with my fork and held it up. “We’re in one of the biggest food capitals of the world. Gourmet restaurants, celebrity chefs…what I’m saying is, this
cannot
be our last meal. That’d just be embarrassing.”

“It does have a certain death-row, Styrofoam-carryout ambiance to it, though, don’t it?”

“Crap,” I said. “Good point.”

I ate my fill and left the rest. My watch said 6:51.

“Meadow should be on the move right about now,” I said. “Getting ready for her part.”

“You think we can trust her?”

“I think we can trust her greed,” I said. “She’ll feel safe with that blackmail material to hold over my head, and we know she’s been expecting a double cross from Lauren, so she’s got no reason to betray us. Basically, doing exactly what we tell her is the smartest move she can make tonight.”

“She is nuts, though,” Jennifer said.

“There is that.”