Liquid fear

CHAPTER SIX

The collision was much more dramatic than Martin Kleingarten had planned.

The clatter of the broken glass cascading along the sidewalk and the length of the sedan was satisfying, and the snapping of a steel mullion reminded him of the time he’d been forced to break a bookie’s fingers for dipping into the till.

That was small-time mob work, steady pay but little chance for career development, and Kleingarten’s new employers had a flair for the creative. That suited Kleingarten, although the risks were a little higher. What was life without a few risks?

The sedan plowed through the interior of the restaurant and smashed the counter, breaking it from the floor and slamming it against the grill. Hot fryer oil, which had leaped in rancid arcs with the impact, rained down on the screaming customers, and those who hadn’t been lacerated with glass shards had suffered nickel-sized burns on their flesh.

One old lady, hair tinted with blue rinse, tried to raise herself on her walker, but one of its legs had been twisted in the wreck and the walker collapsed, sending her sprawling with a shriek that stood out even in the cacophony that erupted in the moments after the “accident.”

The short-order cook in the filthy apron yanked open the crumpled door of the sedan. Kleingarten smiled, the swell of his cheeks pushing up on the lenses of the binoculars. The cook’s mouth stopped in mid tirade and dropped in surprise.

No driver.

Kleingarten, who had boosted his first car at the age of eleven, could easily have started the sedan with the key, aimed the steering wheel, and let the good times roll. The American Disabilities Act required three handicapped parking spaces near the front door, none of which were currently occupied, so he’d had a large window of opportunity. To make it more of a challenge, he’d hot-wired the vehicle and left the key in his pocket, leaning a brick on the accelerator.

He swung his binoculars to the left. The Chinese woman appeared to be unhurt and was busy helping up the blue-haired lady. Good. His instructions had been to leave both women scared, and they’d been sitting far enough from the window that they were out of danger.

Kleingarten twisted the lenses to focus on the Slant. Wendy Leng. Why are my friends so interested in you?

Her eyes had the classic Oriental shape, but her hair was brown instead of raven-black. Her teeth were small and she had a mole on her right cheek. Her eyes were light brown, unusual for an Asian, so Kleingarten figured her for a half-breed. As if “breed” meant anything these days, the way everybody fucked outside their own kind.

The Slant was cute, if you liked that sort of thing, with a rounded, flat face and mouth-sized knockers. The one who had been sitting with her, though, deserved a closer look.

She seemed a little familiar, but with her trendy haircut, big sunglasses, and bright red lipstick she was hardly distinguishable from all the other scrawny thirty-somethings who watched Sex and the City and took Internet tests to determine whether they were more like the slutty character or the quirky character.

“Hey, babe, what you doing after the tragedy?” Kleingarten whispered to himself.

Her forehead was bleeding from a cut, but the wound didn’t appear serious. She was also to remain unharmed, according to orders, and he was pretty sure that as long as the two targets walked out alive, he’d played by the rules.

One person, though, was not going to be walking anywhere. The man in the greasy army jacket had picked the wrong counter stool. The car’s grill had chewed him up like a piece of toast and then spat him back out.

Most of him, anyway. One khaki-clad arm still pointed in the air, a fork gripped in the bloody fist.

If Kleingarten had calculated wrong, the car might have swerved, hit a pothole, or even struck another car, which might have caused it to veer into the back booth where the Slant and the Looker had sat with their coffee cups.

He wasn’t sure his employers would appreciate the serendipity, but if they wanted it done a certain way, they should have given better instructions. And paid better.

“Inducing a state of panic” could have been interpreted in any number of ways. The Looker’s dose had been administered last week, in a bottle of Perrier. The Slant had got hers, appropriately enough, in an order of General Tso’s chicken three days ago. But they’d needed the adrenalin boost, apparently, for the stuff to take effect. Briggs had called the accident a “trigger,” the same as Roland Doyle’s trigger had been to mess with his identity and play on his guilt.

The first siren arose from the east end of town, toward Durham. Kleingarten tightened his gaze on Wendy Leng and the trendy chick one last time. The Slant had helped the blue-haired woman to the sidewalk and now rejoined her friend, who was dabbing at her wound with a napkin.

No plastic surgery would be required, but Kleingarten suspected she’d wear a little extra powder while the wound healed over the next few weeks. A looker like that was bound to be a vain bitch.

Anger flared through him, the type of anger that was riskier than any crime he could commit. He could have scared them the old-fashioned way, stalked them from a distance, figured out their patterns, then jumped them one at a time in some dark alley or parking garage, get a little action as he No. With DNA tests, you couldn’t do hands-on work anymore. Why, just squirting a little harmless sperm in a stranger was enough to get you two dimes in Raleigh’s Central Prison, and if she happened to stop breathing on you in the middle of getting acquainted, you’d find yourself on the skinny end of the needle.

Risks were one thing, but fatal consequences were another. No snatch on Earth was worth a death sentence.

Of course, after the number he’d done on that hooker in Cincinnati last night, any other charge at this point would be a bonus prize. And it’s not like she’d taken his kill cherry, either.

More people emerged from the carnage: a stooped-over man with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, a fat woman in a “Git ‘r Done” T-shirt far too small for her wobbling breasts, a boy in camo hunter’s pants with what appeared to be ketchup staining the front of his gray sweat jacket.

The cook, having overcome his shock at finding an empty driver’s seat, had collected a fire extinguisher and was hosing down a grease fire that had erupted above the grill. The oily smoke curled from the shattered entrance.

Though the rubberneckers arrived under the guise of good intentions and a helpful spirit, Kleingarten knew the truth in their sorry hearts: they were hoping for a little peek of blood, something they could tell their spouses about over dinner while waxing philosophical about God’s random hand.

Fuck God. Religion was just another calculated risk, a sucker’s bet. For Kleingarten, all the religion he needed was a Glock semi and a pile of unmarked bills. The kind of stack his employers had mailed to a Burlington post office box, the address of a fictitious consulting business Kleingarten had launched a decade ago after leaving the security industry and becoming an entrepreneur.

He’d be picking up his next stack that afternoon, in person from Briggs, the down payment on a little job involving one Dr. Alexis Morgan of the UNC medical faculty.

The lone siren amplified and now was joined by others. The wailing chorus pulsed off the surrounding buildings and meshed in the urban valley around him. From behind the tinted window of his Nissan Pathfinder, where he’d slipped after launching the unmanned auto, Kleingarten could track the approach of emergency vehicles.

He should leave the scene, but where was the joy in creating a masterpiece if the end result couldn’t be savored? Sure, the crash would make the newspapers, and already a Channel 3 TV van was zooming into the parking lot, nearly outpacing the first ambulance.

But this was reality TV at its finest, with all the color and drama of life even when viewed through a tinted windshield.

He let the binoculars rest against the steering wheel. These days everybody had a cell phone that took pictures and, since the documented beating of Rodney King had created a self-made homeless millionaire, all those budding Jerry Springers and Geraldo Riveras out there were itching for their turns. So a low profile was the next best thing to invisible.

The Looker in the fringed leather jacket had regained her composure, and she leaned against one of the cars parked in front of the restaurant.

His employers were aware of the parking setup, almost as if the entire lot was some kind of oversized game board, the cars and people nothing more than set pieces. They’d assured him the Slant and the Looker would have their regular Thursday breakfast at the Over E-Z Waffle House, they’d take a booth near the back, and the late-model Ford Escort would be parked and pointed in a direct path to the window. Little had been left to chance, which had taken some fun out of the job, although the whole game was just weird enough to keep him playing along.

He thought of them as “employers” in plural form because, even though all his communication had been with the same prick on the phone-through cryptic text messages or directly from the mouth of that eggheaded asshole Briggs-he believed some type of group or organization was behind the orders. Maybe more than one. It wouldn’t be the first time.

He couldn’t imagine one person rigging such an elaborate prank. A jilted lover, somebody still stewing because the Slant had clamped her legs shut and cut off the Bamboo Express? Or maybe the Looker was doing another dude on the side?

No, jealousy led you to act quickly and irrationally. Hell, women in general made you do that. But these folks Kleingarten checked his wristwatch. Seven minutes had passed. Soon emergency response would give way to an investigation. Even the cops, as stupid as they were, would figure out the unoccupied car hadn’t started itself and shifted into “Drive.”

But he still had a few minutes, plus he was sporting a stolen license plate that some harebrained mall shopper probably hadn’t even noticed was missing. He wielded the glasses again.

The ambulance crew debarked and sprinted to the front of the crumpled Escort, rolling latex gloves up to their wrists. The TV van screamed to a stop and a camera operator got out, one of those shaggy-assed, bearded hippies who always seemed to get the easy gigs. A chick with the same hairstyle as the Looker exited the passenger door, checking her reflection in the side mirror.

Seeing the video camera, the Slant covered her face and lurched away, apparently peering between the cracks of her fingers. Shy, paranoid, or something else?

His employers must have had a reason for targeting the pair. It wasn’t his job to know, only to follow instructions, however bizarre. But he had to admit, this situation was far more interesting than shattering a kneecap or arranging a drop for a heroin import.

The Looker seemed none too eager to make the six o’clock news, either, and the pair slipped away from the other victims, who appeared prepped for prime time. The gathered throng, including those who had gotten out of their cars when the ambulance blocked the lot exit, also wanted a piece of the action, the latest crazy move on God’s pecker-headed checkerboard.

He grinned at the notion. Games of chance, games of risk. He had a feeling his employers weren’t ready to cash in their chips just yet, that they wanted another few spins of the roulette wheel. He focused the twin lenses as the Slant and the Looker got behind the wheel of a faggoty new Volkswagen Beetle that was as silver as an alien’s anal probe-and parked outside the lot, where they weren’t hemmed in by the ambulance.

He noted the tag number. His memory wasn’t eidetic, but when he put his mind to it, a brief series of symbols was no challenge.

Martin Kleingarten started his SUV, pulled out slowly so as not to arouse any notice in the chaos, and took the rear exit, wondering how long he’d have to wait before his employers called again.

If they wanted the two women scared shitless but still breathing, Kleingarten was the man for the job.

And if they wanted to drop that “breathing” part, why, he could oblige them on that as well.

He whistled as he drove away, a man who loved his work.