Текст книги "Before The Killing Starts"

Автор книги: James Harper

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Chapter 26

Evan took a deep breath before answering his phone. It was Ellie—or at least it was Ellie's phone. He couldn't be sure after the bogus texts he'd received. And if it was really her he was going to need a big dose of self control—something he wasn't generally known for—to stop him from ripping into her. So much had gone on since he last talked to her, so many questions needed to be answered.

He pressed the green button but he didn't say anything.

'Evan?'

It was her. But was she alone? Somebody else had either sent the texts from her phone or made her do it. Were they listening in now? She sounded normal, not stressed or worried. Then again, all she'd said was Evan. And she was a two-faced bitch, after all.

'Ellie. I wondered when you'd call. Where have you been?' He didn't try to hide the annoyance in his voice.

Silence came down the phone line at him. He was surprised. He would have thought she'd have her excuses all ready for him, try to drown him in a deluge of lies and bullshit.

'Hello?' he said, as the silence stretched out.

'I know you probably don't trust me now,' she said, avoiding answering his question, 'but we really need to meet.'

He snorted. 'That sounds familiar. How about I come to your hotel room? You know, third time lucky.'

'I can explain everything.'

'Yeah right, you mean like those texts? Doughnuts or danish? Except that you couldn't make it and sent a couple of friends instead.'

He heard her let out an exasperated rush of air. 'I didn't have any choice.'

'How do I know this is any different now?'

Answer that one if you can.

'You'll have to trust me.'

Evan gave an exaggerated laugh. 'You wouldn't know what trust was if it jumped up and bit you on the ass.'

'I don't know what I can say to you to make you believe me.'

'I can see how you might have a problem with that, seeing as telling the truth isn't in your DNA.'

He thought about ending the call. Just talking to her, hearing her voice, was enough to make him want to punch the wall.

'How about you tell me from start to finish what's going on. Then I'll make a couple of decisions. One: do I believe a word you've told me, and, two, do I care enough even if I do?'

He knew that he'd never just walk away from it all, not now that he'd found the other half of the photograph with what he was increasingly certain was Sarah's arm in it. But she didn't know that. Or did she? Would she have gone back to the hotel to get her stuff? Even if she had, would she have noticed that it was missing? She might have thought that whoever tossed the room—the same two guys presumably—had taken it. Anyway it was worth the gamble.

'Why don't you start by telling me who Dixie is.'

'He's just a guy I know.'

Bad start, Ellie.

'So he's not an undercover cop?'

That made her pause for a second.

'Do you know what happened to me when I started asking about him in that dive of a bar?'

'No.'

Was that the slightest of pauses before her answer?

'First of all I ended up in a fight. That might or might not have had something to do with asking about Dixie. It could also just be that the pond life that inhabit places like that feel threatened by people with a double digit IQ and so attack them as a matter of course. Makes me wonder what Dixie might do if I find him.'

Ellie didn't say anything.

'Then I got chased by a couple of thugs who wanted to know why I was looking for Dixie. Luckily for me the cops turned up and I got away. And then, surprise, surprise, the same two guys send me a breakfast invite on your phone and turn up at the hotel instead of you. So I'd like to hear a good reason why I should ever believe another word that comes out of your mouth.' His voice had risen to a shout and he wished he'd said filthy mouth while he was at it.

She started to say something but Evan hadn't finished.

'Did you know Dixie is an undercover cop? Yes or no?'

There was another pause while she weighed up the pros and cons of telling the truth.

'Yes or no? Five seconds before I hang up. Five . . . Four . . . Three . . .'

'Yes.'

'Ha! Do you know I think that's the first thing you've ever said that I believe? We're finally starting to get somewhere.'

Something else suddenly crossed his mind.

'Are you an undercover cop? Or just a regular cop for that matter? Or anything else that I might like to know? Like an FBI agent? Or CIA? DEA? WTF?'

'Don't be ridiculous.' She spat the last word out as if it were contaminated.

'What's ridiculous? It seems to me that anything can happen here.'

'Well I'm not any of those things.'

'So what's your connection to Dixie if it isn't a professional one . . .'

A noise in the background on her end of the line made him stop mid-flow.

'What was that?'

'What was what?'

'It sounded like someone coughing. Is there somebody there with you?'

'For Christ's sake Evan. I'm in a diner. There's loads of people in here. But they're not with me, they're just eating and drinking—and coughing. I'll ask the guy to go outside next time he wants to cough. Or sneeze. Okay?'

Actually it wasn't okay as far as he was concerned. He had no way of knowing if she was telling the truth or not. What he did know was that she hadn't gone somewhere private to make what should have been a very private call. He couldn't think about that now.

'What's your connection to Dixie?' he asked again. 'Because the events of the past couple of days tell me that he's not just the long lost love of your life that you've suddenly realized you can't live without.'

'I worked for him.'

Now they were getting somewhere.

'Worked past tense or still working?'

'Both I suppose,' she admitted.

He had a fairly good idea what that work involved.

'Doing what?'

A long pause followed. Evan wondered if he could correlate the length of the pauses with the likely truthfulness of her replies.

'Doing what?' he said again.

'I was one of his snitches.'

At least that seemed to make sense. It felt about right for the mess he found himself in at the moment. On the other hand it didn't seem to make any sense at all.

'Then surely you don't need me to make contact with him for you.'

'It's all very complicated. I'll tell you all about it when we meet.'

If it hadn't been for her promise to help him find Sarah—a promise given extra credence by the photograph sitting in his pocket as they spoke—he'd have cut the call and walked away. She was still holding information back, that was for sure. And it could still all be another trap. But that didn't really make sense. If somebody was holding her and forcing her to make the call to try to trap him, she'd presumably be there when they caught him. All he'd do then would be to tell them that he was only looking for Dixie because she asked him to. So everything would be back on her head and they wouldn't need him any more. It sounded okay in theory, unless the people who had her had a rule about disposing of anybody they didn't need anymore. It made his head hurt to think about it.

'Okay,' he said cautiously. 'Where do you want to meet?'

He was sure she was gloating on the other end of the line. She was getting her own way again. He remembered that was another thing he'd always hated about her back in the day.

'I've moved hotels—'

'That's another thing. When I went to your hotel it was obvious somebody had searched the place. What were they looking for?'

'You'd have to ask them.'

Okay, that was it. He cut the call.

It rang again immediately as he knew it would.

'Last chance, Ellie.'

'I promise I'll tell you everything when I see you.' Her voice was a nasty mix of pleading and whining. If she thought a tone of voice like that would persuade anybody to do anything for her—apart from give her a good slap around the face—she was sadly mistaken. However, in this case, it was going to work . . .

'Give me the address,' he said, hoping he sounded like he was in charge now.

She gave him the details and they arranged to meet a couple of hours later. If nothing else, Evan wanted a couple of hours to get there early like he had before. He wondered what the equivalent phrase to like a lamb to the slaughter was when you knew damn well what you were getting into.

Chapter 27

Evan had only just got off the phone to Ellie when his phone pinged. He checked and saw that he had a text from Tom Jacobson, the dentist who had the office below Evan's. Call me was all it said. Jacobson happened to own the whole building which made him Evan's landlord as well. Over the years he'd had to put up with quite a bit of strange goings on as result of having Evan as a tenant.

'Mr Buckley,' Jacobson said when he picked up.

Evan bit back the wisecrack that had been on the tip of his tongue. Something was wrong. Despite all the aggravation that Evan's presence had caused for Jacobson over the years, they were firm friends. Jacobson had been very supportive to Evan, both financially when Evan's business had been on the rocks and personally when he went through his bad patches over Sarah's disappearance. The usual greeting would have been Evan or perhaps Evan, you sorry son of a bitch.

'Mr Jacobson,' Evan said, instead of Tom, you old bastard.

'I hope you don't mind me calling you,' Jacobson said, 'but there's a young woman here to see you. She said it's urgent. I didn't want to let her into your office, so she's here in my waiting room.'

'Did she tell you her name?'

'Yes. Her name's Sarah.'

If he hadn't been sure something was wrong before, he was now. Jacobson knew all about Sarah and he knew the effect her name would have on Evan. He might as well have shouted they're here waiting for you with a gun to my head.

'Okay, tell her I'll be right there.'

He cut the call and tried to think what to do. It had to be the two guys again—Juan and José. It all made sense. They'd seen him give his card to the bartender in Kelly's Tavern. They must have gone back there and got it after the police had scared them off and rescued Evan. After they'd missed him at the hotel, his office was the obvious next step. In a way he was surprised it had taken them so long.

He wondered what sort of a state Jacobson was in. He'd sounded okay apart from the forced formality of the conversation. Hopefully the thugs didn't suspect him of alerting him. They weren't to know what sort of relationship Jacobson had with his tenants. Presumably they'd all agreed beforehand what he would say to persuade him to come back to the office. Luckily they'd settled on a young woman waiting. That made it so much easier for Jacobson. He wondered what Jacobson would have said if they'd told him to say a man was waiting.

There's a man waiting to see you. He says it's urgent. His name's Jesus H. Christ.

The question was what to do now. He couldn't go back there. There was nothing he could do to help. What was he going to do—shoot it out with them? Then it came to him.

'Not dead yet?' Guillory said when he picked up. 'I'm waiting on a call any moment to say they've found you dumped in an alley somewhere. They'll probably ask me to ID you.'

Evan laughed. 'It's not me you need to worry about,' he said and told him about the situation at his office. 'I really don't want to do Ryder any favors, but if he gets his fat ass over there, it'll be on a plate for him. They're probably carrying all kinds of unlicensed firearms and other stuff. He'll get lardy-ass detective of the month.'

Guillory laughed. 'You have no idea what a fiercely fought battle that is every month.'

'Shame the same guy wins it every time.'

'Okay, time to get off the line. I'll get him over there as soon as you get your skinny ass off the line.'

'Don't forget to tell him who he owes for his good fortune. Tell him he owes me.'

'No problem. I'm sure he'll be more than happy to give you a call later and let you know when it's safe to go back to your office. He'll enjoy that.'

Damn, Evan thought.

'Whose side are you on?'

But the line was already dead by then.

Chapter 28

Evan was surprised how persistent the two guys—and whoever they worked for—were. But did that make it any less or any more likely that the meeting with Ellie was another set-up? Were they looking to get two bites at the cherry—his office and her hotel—or could he assume that their presence in his office meant they'd given up on the hotel?

He suddenly laughed to himself at his own stupidity. What the hell was he worrying about? As a result of the tip-off to Ryder, they were likely to still be in police custody when he was meeting Ellie.

However, just to be on the safe side, he'd head over there straight away. The two guys would still be at his office now, waiting for him to turn up, so even if they decided to go to the hotel as well they wouldn't be able to get there before him. And that was without the added complication they would face with the police. That would cost them a good few hours even with some slimeball defense lawyer working to get them out. It would also give him time to get his car back and change the wheel.

But, despite what most people he knew believed, he wasn't a complete idiot (well, maybe sometimes) and he decided to buy himself even more time. He got his phone out and shot off a quick text to Jacobson: Traffic completely snarled up. I'll be another twenty minutes. Ask Sarah to wait.

That only left one problem. What to do about the whole situation with Ellie when he met her? He turned things over and over in his mind as he took a taxi across town to her hotel and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that her whole story was one big lie. There were just too many holes and inconsistencies in it. She'd lied to him more times than she'd told him the truth—if she'd told the truth at all. Even though he'd thought her story about being Dixie's snitch sounded plausible at first, it just didn't ring true now. Why didn't she have some means of contacting him?

And then there was the situation at her hotel room. What did she have that made them want to turn her room over? If she was a snitch, it would be information that she dealt in. Not something physical that you could hide in a hotel room and people could search for.

And what about the piece of paper he'd found with a date, the letter 'J' and the name of a bar? If she was a snitch and that was the information that she wanted to deliver to Dixie then she was a very stupid one for writing it down and tucking it in her diary. Whatever else she was, Evan didn't think she was stupid. Far from it. Conniving, manipulative, duplicitous—yes. Stupid? Not so much.

On top of all that, there was one overriding principle that he knew he could rely on. Whatever else might happen, he could be certain that whatever was at the bottom of all this, it was all about her. She was using him for her own purposes. And if it hadn't been for the photograph in his pocket he would have been one hundred and ten per cent sure that she was stringing him along with her promise of information about Sarah's whereabouts.

But the photo was in his pocket. On top of that, she had deliberately cut the original photograph in half so that he wouldn't see her or the mystery arm. Sarah's arm. Why would she do that if she wanted him to believe her? Maybe it was some kind of psychological manipulation, knowing he would believe it more if he found it for himself.

He could go mad thinking about it. There was only one way to find out. He just didn't have any choice in the matter. At least he'd got things straight in his mind to the extent that he knew what she'd told him so far was a lie. Surely he could only move forward from here.

The taxi dropped him outside the hotel and after fifteen grubby minutes and a lot of strong language he'd changed the wheel. He got in the car, took the photograph out of his pocket and studied it. He knew he was seeing what he wanted to see, but despite that there was no mistake about the bracelet on the unidentified arm. If it wasn't Sarah's then it was one identical to it. What were the chances of that? Of Ellie having two friends who owned the exact same bracelet. If Ellie had bought it for her, then okay, maybe she bought them in bulk and gave them to all her friends. But that wasn't the case—Evan had bought it himself and given it to her for her birthday and as far as he was concerned that made the chances of it being a coincidence pretty much zero.

He put it back in his pocket and went inside to book a room.

Chapter 29

Dixie needed to find a way to get rid of Crispy before he could start looking for Ellie. He didn't want to kill him—although if it came to it he would– but he needed him out of the way for a couple of days at least. He had something of a plan but he knew he'd end up playing it by the seat of his pants. Crispy might not have chaired many Mensa meetings but he had a certain animal cunning. Added to which, Dixie didn't know what Chico had said to him. If Chico had told him to keep an eye on Dixie, he might be expecting him to try something.

As it turned out, it was a lot easier than he expected.

'Hey Crispy,' Dixie said, 'you got any duct tape?'

'I think so, yeah.'

'You think so? Have you or haven't you? I don't want to wait until we've got hold of her and she's kicking and screaming to find out we need to stop off at the hardware store and buy some. It's called thinking ahead.'

Crispy looked offended. Everybody liked to treat him as if he was an idiot. Dixie was the worst.

'I think I've got some in the trunk.'

'How about we take a look, just to make sure?'

Crispy grunted something unintelligible, the second word sounded like you, but he pulled into an empty parking lot about a mile further on. He popped the trunk and they both got out to take a look. The trunk was full of all kinds of assorted crap.

'What a mess,' Dixie said.

'What do you expect? It's a car trunk.'

'Why don't we just go and buy some now,' Dixie said, 'You'll never find anything amongst all this junk.'

'It's not junk,' Crispy said. 'You never know what you might need. Just give me a minute, will you.'

Dixie gave a small shrug like it was no skin off his nose if Crispy wanted to spend a half hour rooting through the trunk.

'Whatever. Just don't be all day.'

He took a small step backwards to give Crispy some room and Crispy leaned in and started rummaging around. He moved a blanket to one side and Dixie saw a baseball bat underneath it.

Just what I need.

This would be the moment of truth. If Crispy was suspicious in any way it wasn't going to work.

'Nice bat,' he said, leaning past Crispy and picking it up.

Crispy ignored him. Dixie let out a sigh of relief and took a step backwards to give himself room to swing.

'Hey, Crispy.'

'What is it now?' His voice had taken on a sharper tone. Dixie didn't know if he was fed up with Dixie's interruptions or he was pissed because he couldn't find the tape and he was going to look stupid. Dixie smiled to himself but then his heart missed a beat. What if he didn't have any tape? He couldn't worry about that now. He might not get another chance.

'What's this stain on the end of the bat? It looks like blood. You need to wash it off after you've beaten some guy's brains in. What if the cops caught you with it like this?'

'What are you talking about?' Crispy said and pulled his head and upper body out of the trunk.

Dixie swung the bat and caught him right on the temple. There was a sickening thump but not a worrying sharp crack. He'd judged it just right. Crispy let out a loud grunt and started to crumple. Dixie took another swing and caught him across the gut, a flat, smacking sound. The air exploded out of Crispy like it wasn't ever coming back. He doubled over and Dixie finished him off—not permanently he hoped—with a blow across the back of his neck. Crispy dropped to the floor as if his someone had cut his legs off at the knees with a chainsaw. His head landed with a dull thud on the ground, inches from the exhaust tailpipe, the fumes washing over his face.

Dixie stepped over him and started frantically searching through the crap in the trunk. Then he stopped just moving it aside and grabbed an armful of stuff and dropped in on the ground next to Crispy. No tape.

He bent into the trunk again and scooped up another armful and dropped it on the first pile. Nothing. He started to turn back to the trunk and heard Crispy groan. Surely he couldn't be coming round already. He didn't want to hit him again if he didn't have to. He looked down at him but he wasn't moving. His breathing was very shallow which was probably a good thing—it was best if he didn't breath in too much carbon monoxide.

Dixie turned back to the trunk and offered up a silent prayer of thanks. There was a half roll of silver duct tape lying in the corner. He grabbed hold of it and knelt down next to Crispy. He flipped him onto his front, pulled his arms behind him and lashed his wrists together with the tape. He did the same with his ankles. What about his mouth? He didn't want the guy to suffocate but he couldn't risk him shouting for help. Crispy had an irritating, nasal sort of voice but did that mean he had problems with his sinuses? Only one way to find out.

Dixie tore off another strip of tape and pulled it tight over Crispy's mouth. His chest heaved a couple of times and he made a snorting noise through his nose but then his breathing settled down again. He wasn't going red in the face either so Dixie reckoned he'd be okay.

Crispy made what was probably another groan behind the tape when Dixie sat him up and rolled him onto his shoulder. Dixie got his legs under him and stood up like he was doing a squat in the gym and rolled Crispy off his shoulder and into the empty trunk. He landed at a strange angle but it was only a small drop so Dixie didn't think he'd done any damage. You couldn't break somebody's neck from that height.

It was a generous-sized trunk so there was enough room in there to pack all Crispy's junk around him. Dixie thought he actually looked quite comfortable—almost peaceful—lying there. He leaned in and dug Crispy's phone out of his pocket. He knew his gun was in the glove compartment so he could get that later. Then he slammed the trunk shut, got in the front and drove off.

He drove around for the best part of an hour until he found what he was looking for—an old abandoned factory near the railroad tracks. He drove in and around to the parking lot at the back which wasn't visible from the street. Nobody was likely to find the car here. In fact he'd probably have to let somebody know where it was unless he wanted Crispy to starve to death.

He thought he better check up on him one last time. He took Crispy's gun—a Glock 19—from the glove compartment and went to take a look. He could hear a very faint noise as he walked around to the back of the car. It sounded like Crispy was awake. He opened the trunk and looked in. He was right. Crispy was thrashing around making a guttural sound in the back of his throat. He stopped thrashing and stared up at Dixie. If looks could kill and all that sort of stuff . . .

'Save your strength, Crispy, you're going to be here for a few days.' He smiled down at him. 'Don't worry; I'll let them know where you are once I'm long gone.'

Crispy shook his head violently back and forth. Dixie patted him on the cheek. He briefly considered taking the tape off and trying to get him to tell him what Chico had told him do, but he decided against it. Crispy wouldn't tell him voluntarily and Dixie didn't have the heart for torturing people. Even people like Crispy.

'I could just set the car alight and be done with it,' he said. 'Then you could live up to your name.'

Crispy ignored the comment, didn't even grunt or thrash around a bit more. Just glared at him. They both knew he wouldn't do it. There was no point wasting any more time. He slammed the trunk lid shut. Should he shoot a couple of air holes in it like they did in the movie Thelma and Louise when they locked the traffic cop in his trunk? That was such a great movie. But was the air holes thing just some BS they made up for the movie? Surely car trunks weren't airtight. Not on an old heap of rust like this one anyway. On the other hand, it might be fun to do it just to scare the ever-loving shit out of him.

On balance he decided it wasn't worth wasting a couple of perfectly good bullets. He started walking back to the street, hoping to find a cruising cab. He pulled Crispy's phone out of his pocket and checked it as he walked. There was nothing from Chico. Nothing from Chico that hadn't already been deleted, anyway.