Silence

33

TILL AWOKE AND LOOKED at the clock beside the bed. It was seven in the morning. He inhaled slowly and smelled Wendy’s scent on the pillow, then turned to face her. Her facial muscles relaxed during sleep, so her face looked smooth and untroubled.

He took his cell phone, slipped into Wendy’s room, then into her bathroom, closed the door and called Max Poliakoff. He got Poliakoff’s voice mail. “Max,” he said. “This is Till. The man who is after Wendy Harper is named Scott. I don’t know if it’s a first name or a last name. But now you know what I know. I’ll talk to you later.”

He called Holly’s number, but her phone was turned off. He said, “It’s just me, your early-bird father. I love you. Have a great day.” He disconnected, and went to Wendy’s window to look outside. As always, the sidewalks and the path to the rock were full of tourists—men wearing baggy shorts and women in unflattering hats. He studied them, and after a minute he had satisfied himself that there was no sign of suspicious activity, so he closed the curtain again.

He went back to his room, and when he stepped in, he saw that Wendy’s eyes were open, looking at him, and he smiled.

“Good,” she said.

“What?”

“When you saw me, you didn’t frown and think, ‘What the hell have I done?’”

“I didn’t want to wake you up. I’m sorry if I made noise.”

“You didn’t,” she said. “But it was time to get up and get moving. I’m feeling energetic today.”

“Why? What happened?”

“You know what happened.” She smiled. “Don’t start pretending you weren’t in your right mind or something.” She stood up, threw her arms around him, and held him.

They embraced for a long time, and kissed. Then he pulled back a bit. “Do you think you’re up to going the rest of the way to L.A.? I think it’s time to go finish what we started.”

They stood there together for a few seconds, and then she said, “I think you’re right. Let’s do it.”

They went about packing, showering, and dressing without speaking. The silence was new. There was an intimacy to it, a change that came over them because they had slept together, but there was also an element of dread. As Jack packed his suitcase, he thought about the trip to Los Angeles, and about the man named Scott.

The telephone on the nightstand rang, and startled him. He supposed she had probably asked for a wake-up call. He picked it up. “Yes?”

“Mr. Till?”

“Yes.”

“This is Rob Sheffield of the Cheapcars rental company, San Luis Obispo office. I hate to bother you, but I understood from the police that you were staying here, and if you could spare me a few minutes, we could get the accident report out of the way for the car you rented in San Francisco.”

Till said, “Do you already have the police report?”

“That’s been received at the San Francisco office, but I don’t have a copy with me at the moment. I was out when I got the call, so I’m in the lobby, and I thought maybe you would come down to speak with me for a few minutes.”

“All right. I’ll be down as soon as I can.” Till hung up.

Wendy appeared at the connecting door. “Who was that?”

“There’s a guy downstairs who wants to talk to me. Just a second.” He went to the desk where he had left his belongings, and found the papers for his rental car. He dialed a number from the back sheet. “Hello,” he said. “My name is Jack Till. I’m a customer, and I was wondering if you could tell me if you have a Mr. Sheffield at your office. You do? Is he in the office today? No, that’s okay. Thanks. I’ll talk to him later.”

“What’s wrong?” Wendy asked.

“Just a precaution. The other night, the cop promised he wasn’t going to write down where we were staying. Maybe he forgot to tell his partner. There’s a workout room off the back hallway on the ground floor. You know—treadmills and weight benches and stuff. I saw it when I came in the back door a couple of nights ago. Go in there and wait for me.”

She nodded. “Okay. Are we in trouble?”

“Sorry. It’s just another precaution. If this isn’t about you, then there’s no reason for him to know about you. I’ll come for you when I’m done.”

“Fine,” she said.

He opened the door and they walked down the hall to the stairwell. They descended to the first floor and he led her to the door of the gym, looked through the small window to see who was inside, and opened the door for her. “Nobody there. See you in a little while.”

“Right.”

He returned to the stairwell, ran up the stairs and along the hall to the elevator, then took it to the lobby. As Till stepped out into the lobby, he saw the man who was waiting for him. He was tall, about forty years old, wearing a gray sport coat, white shirt, and a red tie. He looked like a former high-school athlete who already had the bad knees and the slight belly, and would probably have the heart attack in a few more years.

The man stepped forward and held out his hand. “Mr. Till? Rob Sheffield. Thanks for setting aside the time to talk to me.”

Till shook his hand. “No problem. What do we need to do?”

“You tell me the whole story of what happened to the car, I go back to the office and fill out the forms, and the company takes care of getting it appraised and sending it to the shop.”

“All right. By the way, how did you find out where I was staying?”

Sheffield smiled. “The rental papers, I imagine.”

Till didn’t smile. “I didn’t know where I was staying when I rented the car.”

“Then I suppose it must have come from the police report after the accident. I really don’t know. I was out and the office called me and asked me to stop by. Maybe I can find out for you later.” He took a small notebook and a pen from his coat. “Would you like to begin by answering a few quick questions? First one, your full name.”

“John Robert Till.”

“And the car. What was the make and model, if you can remember?”

Till stood up. “I’ve got the rental papers upstairs. I’ll be right back.”

Sheffield held up his hand. “That’s not necessary. I just—”

But Till was walking quickly to the elevator and could not be stopped. He saw that one of the two was empty with its door open, so he punched the button and rode it up to the second floor.

He hurried up the hall, stopped at the door to his room, and confirmed his suspicion. The woodwork was gouged and compressed beside the lock, as though the door had been pried open with a crowbar. He pushed the door open gingerly, then stepped inside and quietly moved into Wendy’s room. There was no sign of the intruder, and his suitcase and Wendy’s were where they had left them, apparently undisturbed. The intruder had not been interested in them. He had come for Wendy.

Till picked up the two suitcases, hurried down the hall to the stairwell, and descended to the first floor. He set the suitcases down, then went out the door to the hall, stepped to the gym door and looked in the window, but there was no sign of Wendy. Instead there was a short, stocky man in his thirties in a navy suit and a tie. The man walked across the exercise room toward the locker rooms. As Till watched, he walked to the door marked “Ladies,” opened it, and stepped in.

Till moved quickly into the exercise room, opened the door of the women’s locker room, slipped inside and kept the door from swinging to, then eased it shut. From somewhere around a corner, he could hear a slow drip of water.

Till waited.

When he heard a set of hard-soled shoes step onto a tiled floor, he moved toward the sound. He came to the corner of the entry and saw two rows of blue lockers with wooden benches in front of them. As he sighted along the row, he heard a faint shuffling sound on the tiles behind him. He turned and saw the man, already in motion, his arm swinging downward toward Till’s head, a short iron pry-bar gripped in his hand.

Till ducked so the swing missed his head and struck a glancing blow off his right shoulder. He threw a quick left hook into the bridge of the man’s nose, then a hard punch to the man’s stomach. The man bent over and the bar clanged onto the tile floor. His left hand clutched his bloody nose.

Till saw that the man was using the crouch as a way to hide the movement of his right hand into his coat. Till squatted, snatched the pry-bar, and swung it in one motion. It hit the man’s shin and buckled his left leg. Then he swung again quickly and hit the man’s right forearm just as the gun appeared. Till’s blow knocked the arm aside, but the man maintained his grip on the gun. Till popped up and swung the pry-bar once more, this time into the side of the man’s head.

The man fell onto his side and lay motionless. Till lifted the man’s gun out of his hand, pocketed it, took a deep breath and said in a normal voice that sounded loud in the empty locker room, “Wendy? It’s me, Jack. Wendy!”

He heard a metallic clank on the other side of the first row of lockers, and came around the end in time to see one of them open. He came closer, and watched Wendy sidestep out of the locker. She saw him. “Jack! I thought I heard—”

“You did. Come on! There’s at least one more.”

“Come where?”

“The car.” He put the gun into his belt where his sport coat would hide it, and they hurried out the gym door and across the hall to the stairwell where he had left their suitcases. He pointed to hers. “Take whatever you can’t replace, and we’ll leave them.”

She knelt and opened her suitcase, took a large stack of currency out and put it into her purse. Jack opened his suitcase, found his gun, slid a new magazine into it, and then pushed both suitcases into the dark space under the bottom flight of stairs.

He handed his gun to Wendy. The gun looked big and heavy in her small hand. “Put the gun in your purse. Keep it on top so you can reach it.”

“Are you saying that I should shoot somebody?”

“I hope not. So far there’s one other man—tall, in a gray sport coat and red tie. He was trying to keep me occupied while this one got you. But there could be more.” He took out the gun he had taken from the man in the locker room, checked the load, and then slipped it back into his belt. “Now we’ve got to step out of here, walk to our car, and go. Ready?”

Wendy nodded.

They walked to the rear exit of the building at the end of the wall, and Till stopped to look through the glass door. He could see his rented blue Cadillac in the lot, about two hundred feet away. It was now the middle of the morning, so most of the cars that had been parked around his last night were already gone.

He said, “The tall guy is in the lobby, and I’m pretty sure he can see the car through the front windows if he looks. I’m going to walk toward it. You go out and inch to the left along the wall toward the end of the building. If I make it to the car, be ready to climb in. If something happens, get out of sight and I’ll find you later.”

“This is a crummy way to start a relationship,” she said.

“After we get to the DA’s office, we’ll drive straight to counseling.” He pulled her out the door with him and walked briskly across the lot toward the blue Cadillac.

Wendy began walking slowly along the side of the building toward the corner, but she kept moving her eyes to Jack Till to check on his progress.

She saw him approach the car, the key in his left hand, and she knew that meant he was keeping his right free to reach for the gun. Seeing him made her lift her purse in front of her and pretend to be searching for something with her right hand. The gun that had frightened her now seemed comforting. She kept her head down as though she were looking in the purse, but her eyes returned to Jack.

He was opening the door. He was in. She looked toward the front entrance of the hotel. A big beige car was moving across the parking lot, and she could see that there were two people in it. The driver seemed to be the man Jack had described, and the other was shorter and darker. They were driving toward Wendy.

Wendy turned away from them and began to walk quickly. She heard the car’s engine grow louder, and she was sure they were going to try to run her down. She looked over her shoulder to judge how much time she had, ran for the first row of parked cars, and crouched between two of them. The car with the two men in it flashed past her, then accelerated into the turn so fast it fishtailed.

Till’s Cadillac swung wide to come up at the end of the row of cars, glided down the aisle, and stopped beside her. Till got out and stood beside the open door with a gun in his hand, watching the two men in the beige car as they pulled out onto the street and drove off at a high speed. Till got into his car again and leaned over to push open the passenger door for Wendy. She got inside, and Till’s foot stomped on the gas pedal so Wendy’s body was thrown back against the seat by the sudden acceleration. He hit the exit from the lot at an angle so he didn’t lose control trying to hold the car on the street, but he still swerved into the oncoming lane as he roared up the road after the beige car.

He took out his cell telephone, and she could see his thumb was dialing 911. He said, “My name is John R. Till. I’m a private detective. Two men just came to the Seawall Hotel to kidnap and kill my client, who is a key witness in a Los Angeles murder investigation.”

Wendy could hear the woman’s voice on the other end say, “Sir? You’ll have—”

“They’re driving eastward on Route 41 at high speed in a full-size beige sedan, possibly a Chevrolet. One man is short and heavy with dark brown hair, wearing a navy suit. The other is taller, over six feet, wearing a gray sport coat, red tie, charcoal pants. They’re armed and dangerous.”

He clicked off, then pressed the phone again with his thumb. This number was in the memory. “Max Poliakoff, please. Jack Till. Max? I’ve got another emergency. I’m on Route 41 heading east, trying to chase down a couple of guys who just tried to kill Wendy in the Seawall Hotel. I’m not having much luck. I can’t see them. I just called the cops in Morro Bay. Can you call and tell them what you need to?” He listened. “Thanks.” Poliakoff was saying something. Till listened for a few seconds, then said, “All right. Got to drive now. Talk to you later.”

Wendy rose in her seat to watch the road ahead. “I still don’t see them.”

Till shrugged. “They’re too far ahead of us.” He let the car slow down, then pulled to the side of the road and made a U-turn.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re not going to get close enough to see them. It’s time to get you to Los Angeles.”