First Drop

Fourteen

“There’s someone under the house.”

“What?”

For a moment I didn’t compute what Trey had said to me. His voice was little more than a whisper. I stuck my head round the kitchen door and stared at him across the narrow hallway.

He was sitting with his back ramrod straight against the open bathroom door, hardly daring to move more than his eyes.

“There’s someone under the house,” he insisted. “I can hear them.”

And when I listened, I could hear them, too. Nothing overt, just the faintest cautious scuff and slither of someone trying to ease their way into a position. I felt my mouth dry so that my tongue stuck to the roof of it. So, Oakley man was trying to keep me talking while his men outflanked us.

I looked at the floor, as if I was going to be able to spot some sign of this invasion like a lump under a carpet. I’d known when I’d first seen Henry’s house that it was constructed off the ground, hence the rotting trellis round the bottom of the outside but it hadn’t occurred to me that the gap might be big enough for a person to squeeze into. If I had I might have considered it as an escape route for Trey.

And now, it seemed, it was too late for that.

Somebody had beaten me to it.

“Get into the bath and keep your head down,” I said. The bath tub was old-fashioned enamelled steel and a heavy enough grade to offer some measure of protection – either from the side or from below.

I waited until Trey was safely in, then edged back across the hallway, trying to move very quietly. When I checked out of the kitchen window again, only the Hispanic man was visible, covering the front. There was no sign of Oakley man or Ginger.

Maybe now would be a good time to make a break for it . . .

I thought of Oakley man’s last words. So we were doomed anyway. The defeat tasted dirty, like spoiled food. Better to go out fighting, even with a pitiful supply of ammunition.

“Trey?”

He lifted just the top of his head over the rim of the bath and gave me a What now?look.

“Change of plan,” I said, urgent. I jerked my head towards the front door. “Let’s go.”

I waited until he’d climbed out and moved up close behind me. “If anything happens,” I said carefully, glancing at him, “you run like hell and you keep running, do you hear me? You don’t stop and you don’t come back, no matter what, understand?”

He stared at me, then nodded, reluctant, even a little sullen.

“Try and stay away from the police if you can,” I said and on impulse added, “Go to Walt and Harriet’s place on the beach. They’ll take care of you.” And I realised as I said it that it was true. I trusted the canny old man without quite knowing why.

I also realised, in a detached kind of way, that I wasn’t expecting to get out of this alive. So, I’d fooled Oakley man once but that was when he wasn’t expecting me to be up to the job. I’d fooled the two men in the Buick, too – I could only assume they were his accomplices – when they hadn’t been expecting me to be armed. But now he had the measure of me, for what it was worth.

I stood in that dingy hallway and felt the full reality of it settle on me, like a sense of calm. I was twenty-six years old. I always thought I’d feel more emotion at the prospect of my own death, when I’d thought about it at all. I wondered if I would have been approaching it with such equanimity if I’d known Sean was out there somewhere, moving heaven and earth to get to me.

I tried to reach out, get a feel for him. I’d hoped for some kind of connection, some suspicion that he was alive or dead, but there was nothing. A big empty void where once he’d engaged some space in my mind. Perhaps there would be a time to grieve for him later.

If I made it.

I eased the locks clear and opened the newly ventilated door just enough to peer through the gap. Still the only person I could see in front of the house was the Hispanic man with the earring. His attention was focused off to my left, towards the corner of the house.

The blood had dried on my hands but new sweat made it tacky again. I took a moment to wipe both palms down the sides of my trousers, then yanked the door wide.

I kicked the screen door open and came out at a kind of sideways run across the porch, leading with one shoulder and the SIG straight out in front of me. I sighted on the centre of the Hispanic man’s body mass, and felt the muscles in my forearms tense as I began to take up the pressure on the trigger.

I knew I’d come out fast, but my opponent seemed to be faster, swinging his gun up with the kind of easy movement that suggested long hours of practice and a professional familiarity with firearms.

Minute pieces of detail from that moment stuck in my mind. The fact that the man’s pencil moustache had been trimmed slightly longer on one side than the other, making his face appear lopsided. The fact that he wore a wedding ring on his left hand, with an ornate turquoise signet ring on the finger next to it. The fact that his gun was a 9mm semiautomatic, a nice piece gleaming with care and pride.

The shot sent me reeling. It seemed far too loud for a handgun, an almost deafening report that I knew I hadn’t fired. I’d always been told you never hear the shot that gets you but if this was it, they were wrong. You heard it twice as loud.

And then it hit me that I wasn’t.

Hit, I mean.

I couldn’t say the same for the Hispanic man. He staggered a couple of steps backwards, tottering in much the same way Scott had done. The front of his shirt was red where only a blink before it had been white. The lower tail of his tie was ripped away and missing but I hadn’t seen it go. He looked down at the gaping mess that had been his own abdomen with an expression of puzzled surprise on his face.

The man made a last laborious, heavy attempt to bring his gun up again but the weight of it defeated him. It was all too difficult, too tiring. His feet tangled, twisting him as he fell so he described an almost graceful pirouette and dropped from sight behind Henry’s old Corvette.

And directly below my own feet, under the porch, came the unmistakable sound of a fresh cartridge being jacked into the chamber of a pump-action shotgun.

I stared. The porch was only wooden planking. A shotgun blast would come up through it like it was paper. I wheeled, grabbing Trey and shoving him back into the house. The screen door hadn’t even had time to slam behind us.

I hit the locks on the front door and hustled the boy back into the bathroom. This time, I climbed into the bathtub with him and we both squatted there, tense and breathless.

Who the hell was under the porch with a shotgun? Not one of Oakley man’s team, that was for certain. Not unless he was having severe communication problems with his staff. So who?

For a second I remembered the claims that Henry had CIA connections. Supposing he hadn’t been entirely bullshitting about that? Supposing his murder had rung alarm bells somewhere and sparked a reaction that included such a retaliatory attack?

Almost as soon as the thought had formed, I dismissed it. If that was the case they would have taken the Hispanic man out of play before Trey and I ever set foot outside the house. And they would have brought something a little quieter to do it with. Shotguns were not the kind of gun you were likely to take with you on a covert operation of this type. House clearance and intimidation, yes, but for a surgical strike after a hit? I didn’t think so. Too messy.

Outside, I heard voices, raised but not far enough to hear the words, only the tone. Anger, mainly, and not a little measure of surprise. I realised there were two men speaking, voices raised. It sounded like Oakley man and another who could only have been Ginger. He hadn’t anyone else left to argue with.

I waited for another blast from the hidden shotgunner, but the man chose to lay quiet, biding his time now. If he was so ready to kill one of the men attacking us, I wondered fiercely, why not finish the rest while he had the chance?

An engine started up, something fairly hefty that throbbed through the building as it stopped outside. It sat there ticking over for a minute or so, while doors were opened and thumped shut again. Then it set off fast, the engine note rising and falling as the auto box ran up through the gears. I listened to the sound of it disappearing towards the end of the street until it receded into the background altogether.

“Have they gone?” Trey whispered.

“That depends,” I said, “on who you mean.”

“Charlie?” called a new voice, close enough to the front door to make both of us jump. I hadn’t heard any footsteps on the porch. “You can come out now. Show’s over.”

I recognised the man who’d spoken as soon as the drawling words were out of his mouth. So did Trey. I felt him flinch beside me. He was hunched down with his knees bent up in front of him and his arms wrapped round his shins. He was holding on so tight his knuckles had gone white with the force of it.

“Tell me, Whitmarsh,” I called back, “why the fuck I should trust you.”

Jim Whitmarsh gave a kind of a snort that might have signified amusement. But then again, it might not.

“Well, I can think of a coupla good reasons,” he said. There was a pause, then the sound of that shotgun again, the oiled mechanism being snatched back and ramming another cartridge home. There was no need for it. It was just a gesture. Just for show. “How’s that for a start?”

For a second I sat huddled in the bath and tried to work out what was wrong here. Besides, the obvious, that is. Oakley man had wanted us dead and only the arrival of Whitmarsh and his men had prevented that.

But I doubted that Oakley man knew who’d killed the Hispanic man. He could even have thought it was me. Going up against someone you believe to be armed with a half-empty handgun is one thing. Suddenly finding there are people lying in wait with shotguns is something else altogether. Either Oakley man had run, or he’d gone for reinforcements.

So that just left us facing Jim Whitmarsh. The man I’d seen burst into that motel bedroom with one of his men and coldly murder two unlucky innocents because he thought they were us.

He was right, though, about his argument being a persuasive one. Choosing to stay and face a shotgun in a confined space – especially one as flimsily constructed as Henry’s house – was suicide.

If they started clearing the place room by room they wouldn’t even have to aim. The bathroom was so small that all they’d have to do was put one shot round the open door, or even straight through one of the dividing walls. Not even a cast iron bathtub would save us then. Open ground was our best chance by far.

I glanced at Trey. He looked so terrified I wasn’t even sure I’d get him on his feet unaided.

“We’ve got to go out there,” I told him, almost gently. He shook his head, lip starting to tremble. I moved to brush his cheek, then noticed the blood on my hands again and ended up just touching his shoulder instead. I smiled, tentative. “Trust me,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “I’ll get you out of this.”

His bruised eyes called me a liar, but at least he didn’t say the words out loud.

I raised my voice. “OK, Whitmarsh, we’re coming out.”

We got out of the bath and moved through to the front door again.

“Here,” I said quietly, and stuck the SIG into the back of the waistband of Trey’s baggy shorts. His face paled even further. “For God’s sake don’t touch it,” I warned him. “They’re less likely to search you, that’s all.”

I unlocked the door and pushed the screen open, then moved out onto the porch, keeping Trey slightly behind me and my empty hands where everyone could see them.

Jim Whitmarsh was standing on the scrubby drive, not far from where the Hispanic man had fallen. My gaze swept across the space behind the Corvette but the body seemed to have gone. There was no sign of the man I’d shot on the other side of the road, either. So that’s what Oakley man had stopped for.

Whitmarsh was wearing an Oxford shirt and chinos and loafers with no socks. He was carrying a Beretta out of the neat leather holster attached to his belt and he was sweating in the heat. When he saw me his eyebrows went up as he took in the cheesy teenage outfit and the beaded pink locks, not to mention Trey’s shock of white hair.

Lonnie was the one with the shotgun, a Remington twelve-bore. He stood a little further forward but well to the side of Whitmarsh, giving him a decent line on us. The fronts of his combat trousers were coated with dirt and dust where he’d lain under the house and shot the Hispanic man through the trellis, unseen and unsuspected. Now, his eyes were constantly ranging across the surrounding houses and along the street, checking for trouble. He barely gave Trey and me a second glance.

I didn’t see Chris right away, not until the car arrived. A maroon Ford Taurus braked to a fast halt right outside the house and the big coloured guy jumped out of the driver’s seat, leaving the doors open and the engine running. He moved round the back of the car and opened the boot.

“C’mon,” he said to Whitmarsh, “we don’t have much time.”

“OK.” Whitmarsh nodded. “Check her over, first.” To me he said, “You exceeded my expectations, Charlie. Takes a lot to impress me, but I’m impressed.”

“Excuse me if I don’t take that as a compliment,” I said with a touch of acid.

He smiled. “Yep,” he went on as though I hadn’t spoken, holding my gaze as he added with a certain cruel deliberation, “you put up more of a fight than Meyer, that’s for sure.”

I felt my face harden but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of rising to that one. We continued our stare-out competition as Chris approached and gave me a quick pat-down search. He kept out of Lonnie’s field of fire and stepped back when he was done, shaking his head to Whitmarsh. As I’d hoped, he didn’t bother with the boy.

“OK,” Whitmarsh said, “get them both into the trunk.”

“Oh come on,” I snapped, edging closer to Trey and stamping on my fear. “If you’re going to kill us, just get on with it. You don’t have to go through the classic ‘taking you for a ride’ crap.”

Chris flicked his eyes to his boss and in that instant I read just a hint of nervousness there. The sudden realisation it triggered was like someone had flicked a switch inside my head and turned on all the floodlights at a Premier League football game.

They didn’t want us dead.

In fact, having Trey dead was the very last thing they wanted. To the point where they’d actually stepped in to prevent us being shot by Oakley man and his crew.

It all made a twisted kind of sense now. I’d thought Whitmarsh and Oakley man were all in this together but, when I thought about it, I’d never seen them working as a team. Even though they’d always appeared to have a common aim.

“Maybe we aren’t of a mind to kill you,” Whitmarsh said, narrow eyed. “You thought of that?”

Lonnie paused just long enough in his constant surveillance to flick his boss a brief, pained glance, as though he considered Whitmarsh was wasting time they didn’t have on idle chitchat. Chris was tense, too. For a few moments the only sound was that of the Taurus’s quietly running engine.

“Well it certainly looked that way when we watched you slaughter that pair at the motel,” I threw back.

Surprise rocked him, then he smiled. “Maybe we’ve had a change of heart since then,” he said and jerked his head to Chris to get on with it.

Trey was right next to me and, as Chris closed on us again, I took a step back, leaving the boy to the fore. Chris’s face flickered at my apparent display of cowardice but as I moved I reached behind Trey with my right hand, as though to put my arm around his shoulders. Instead I went under his shirt and grabbed hold of the pistol grip of the SIG, snatching it free.

My left arm snaked round Trey’s neck, fisting my hand into his shirt to pin him hard against the front of my body, unashamedly using him as a shield. I brought the SIG up into view, planting the muzzle under his jawline. His head came back as his spine went stiff both with outrage and with fright. All the time I made sure I presented as small a target as possible to Whitmarsh.

He was the one who worried me. If they were as desperate to capture Trey alive as I suspected, Lonnie couldn’t risk firing the shotgun when we were so close together. Chris had nothing in his hands. That left Whitmarsh and his Beretta.

But they all froze, which gave me hope to think there might be an escape route still open to us. It was a gamble. All I had to do now was play it.

“You must think I’m amazingly stupid,” I spat. “OK, so you’ve decided you need the kid. So where does that leave me?”

I contrived a suitably whiny note of low cunning into my voice. I was dealing with men without honour. They wouldn’t have any difficulty in believing I might have my eye solely on my own interests. A rat who’d suddenly found a life jacket and decided now was the time to leave this ship.

I nudged the barrel of the SIG further into Trey’s neck, angled upwards where a single shot would scatter his brains all over the lawn and watched the alarm in their faces.

“You want him alive?” I sneered. “Well in that case you better be prepared to let me walk him out of here, because otherwise he’ll be yet another dead body you’ve got to clean up. And trust me,” I added, voice positively dripping with venom, “after two days solid in this little brat’s company, it would almost be a pleasure.”

For a moment nobody spoke and I feared I’d overdone it, but then Whitmarsh lowered his gun and nodded to the other two. They let me shuffle Trey towards the Taurus, making sure I kept him turning so they never had a clear shot at me while we got there. Not that any of them tried for one. I began to realise that whatever value they now placed on Trey must be a high one.

Getting into the driving seat without exposing myself wasn’t easy and I managed it with less style than I would have liked, but we got there. Trey was taut and ungainly, barely seeming able to fold himself into the car.

As soon as we were in I stuck the car into gear and floored it, not caring how much rubber I left stuck to the road. The boot lid bounced up and down a couple of times as we hit a few bumps, then finally latched shut. I kept hunched down in my seat, waiting at any moment for the shots to come through the back window, but they never came.

Either Whitmarsh knew when to admit defeat, or he really was terrified of injuring the boy.

As we reached the end of the street I risked sitting up far enough to glance in the rear-view mirror. It was set for a taller driver and I had to tilt it down slightly to use it, but when I did so I found that everyone had disappeared from the front of Henry’s house.

I turned and looked over my shoulder, just to be certain, but there was nobody there. Whitmarsh and his men had gone just like they’d never existed.