An Absence of Light

Chapter 49

12:18 A.M.

“Any room facing the harbor,” the man said. He said it quickly, having put his bag down in front of the registration desk without taking his other arm from around the young woman he was holding close to him. The desk clerk noticed the guy’s thumb was rubbing the side of the woman’s bra under her blouse. Or it would have been rubbing her bra. He didn’t think she was wearing one.

“High up,” the woman said, looking at the man and then at the desk clerk, smiling at him with a smile that the clerk would have described as mischievous if he had been familiar with the word. “I want to see the boats, the lights on the boats.”

“High up,” the man said, winking at the desk clerk. “Got to see those boats.”

“High up,” the desk clerk said, checking his computer. The man was some kind of Latin, not Mexican, maybe Colombian, a real macho hunk, good-looking, well-built, early thirties. The woman was in her mid twenties, the clerk guessed. A red-blooded American thing with caramel-colored hair streaked blond by the sun and a very fine set of hooters that this Latin character was getting his thumb all over and, now, even the rest of his hand. The clerk lost track of what he was hitting on the keyboard and had to mess around with the keys again to find his place.

“What about it, huh? Have you got something?” the Macho asked. “What have you got? We’re kind of in a hurry.” He said hurry with a kind of back-of-the-throat skitter across the r’s.

No shit. The clerk cut his eyes at the girl. She was beaming at him. Jeesus.

“Yeah, sure do. Got one right here. A good view of the marina. A pretty view. It’s not at the top, but it’s two floors from it.”

“Fantastic,” the Macho said, finally taking his arm from around the woman and reaching into his suit jacket for his wallet As the Macho filled out the forms, the clerk sneaked another look at the woman’s breasts but he forgot to look at her face first and when he finally did she caught him. But she just beamed at him again and pulled back her shoulders perkily, or he thought that was what she did, and his eyes hit on her chest again on their way down to the registration form. The clerk envied the Latin Macho. The clerk’s imagination did a little number on the woman as he looked at her one last time.

When the paperwork was done the clerk started to ring for a bellman, but the Macho stopped him.

“We don’t need any help,” he said. “We’ve just got these couple of bags,” and sure enough there was another bag the clerk hadn’t noticed that the woman was carrying, one of those fancy aluminum cases. “Many thanks,” the Macho said, and they turned and walked across the lobby to the elevators.

Once inside the elevators Remberto pulled a radio from his waistband under his coat and spoke into it.

“Room 1202. She wants you to bring the other aluminum suitcase. Don’t go in the main lobby door. There is another entrance at the marina end of the lobby with elevators out of sight of the front desk.”

Within seven minutes Cheryl was standing at the floortoceiling windows in their room looking down at the sailboats in the marina below. The lights were off in the room, and they moved around in the pale glow thrown up from the strings of lights draped up and down the docks and boat slips.

“Isn’t this too far?” Remberto asked.

“Nope. Perfect,” Cheryl said as she bent down and opened her aluminum suitcase and took out a tripod and began assembling it. Remberto took binoculars out of his suitcase and began scanning the rows of docked boats. Just as Cheryl was putting the tripod in place someone knocked at the door, and she went to the eyehole and looked out “Good,” she said and opened the door.

Murray came in carrying Cheryl’s larger aluminum suitcase, and behind him was Boyd with his bags of photographic equipment and carrying his own tripod.

They worked quickly, Murray and Remberto standing on either side of the large window with binoculars while Boyd and Cheryl set up their equipment in the middle. In twelve minutes everything was in place. Cheryl sat behind her parabolic microphone mounted on its tripod, her headset in place, the receiver on her lap.

“Okay, guys. Any suggestions?”

“Yeah,” Remberto said. His binoculars hadn’t left his eyes since he got there. “See the first dock from the left? Boat slips on either side. Go out to the second dock light, from there… one, two, three… third boat. It’s a small cabin cruiser, blue trim. There are people inside, more than two, talking.”

Cheryl leaned forward over the scope of the microphone, found the boat, and began toying with the receiver dials. Everyone waited. Two minutes, three.

“I just don’t think so,” she said. “They’re talking, uh, office politics. Lou got a lot bigger raise than this guy, and this guy’s pissed because he did most of Lou’s work on the ‘Fleming deal’ and Lou never gave him credit for what he’d done except in private…”

“Okay,” Remberto said. “Fourth dock over. Between the main walkway and the dock, first boat before the first light.”

The trial-and-error process was frustrating, but everyone was used to it and remained calm and focused. They found their targets on the fourth boat.

“Got ’em,” Cheryl said, clapping one hand to her headphones. With her other hand she flipped on the recorder.