Marvin the Bouncer listened to Ariel"s flute float out over him soft and sad into the snowy night as he stood in the open doorway of the Bonhomie Club, his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing only jeans, a denim shirt, and a vest, a man impervious to the cold. He wanted the patrons to know that even though he was from Savannah, he was no stinking wuss. Truth was, it was cold and getting colder, under thirty degrees now for sure, and snow was coming down steadily, white and thick as his granny"s lace curtains, in the lights around him. They always had lots of lights around the Bonhomie Club entrance, but outside their circle, it looked black as pitch, except for an occasional halo of light from the two streetlamps that still worked. The other streetlights were out again, smashed by some pork-brained kids. The neighborhood was supposed to be gentrifying, and Ms. Lilly had told him everything was right on schedule with Washington"s hundred-year plan.
He turned a hairy eyeball toward Sherlock-who"d told him to call her Delsey tonight-and Agent Sullivan, who was supposed to be her date. They"d gotten out of Sullivan"s truck, seemingly alone, and were trying to walk normally, tough because they probably had their SIGs pressed against their legs. Savich had told him about some Latino gang trying to kill this woman Delsey, but he still couldn"t believe any yahoos would try to kill her here of all places, or would the idiots not realize the FBI was expecting them? If those tattooed morons couldn"t figure out there"d be half a dozen FBI agents hiding around the club, they deserved all the pain that was coming to them.
Savich was in charge, so Marvin wasn"t worried. And because he wasn"t worried he hadn"t told Ms. Lilly what was going on. Savich had agreed that wouldn"t be a good idea. She was hunkered down in her office playing poker with some hotshot ragweeds from Pittsburgh, and very probably winning big.
He met Sherlock"s eyes, gave her a slight nod. He had his Dirty Harry"s big-a.s.s .44 Magnum in his pocket, ready for action. He saw Agent Davis Sullivan turn slightly, speak to Sherlock.
Davis said low, "We"re giving them all the chances they could want. I"m thinking the gang has been called off or written Delsey off as too much trouble. I also think Delsey"s going to belt all of us for not letting her come out tonight and play."
Sherlock said, "She"s got Sean to play with, well, along with Lucy Carlyle and his grandmother. It could still happen, Davis. Stay alert."
It helped, Davis thought, that it was cold and snowing, so Sherlock was all bundled up. Even though she didn"t look a thing like Delsey, what with that hood pulled over her head, no one could tell if she was Delsey or G.o.dzilla.
"Delsey kept saying she"s the Trouble Magnet, so if we wanted trouble, she should be with us." He gave his head a shake and said, as if the words were being pulled out of his throat with pliers. "The girl"s kinda cute, though."
"That"s what she said about you, Davis, or something close to that."
Davis called out, "Hey, Marvin, is that Ariel playing?"
Agent Dane Carver shouted from behind them, off to their left, "Under the black Toyota!" Both Sherlock and Davis dove to the ground and rolled, pointed their guns toward a row of parked cars on the street, Marvin right beside them, trying to pull Sherlock under him with one big hand, and aim his gun in the other. Even though Marvin was a civilian, it didn"t occur to her to tell him to get away, not Marvin. There was a single shot, then a long burst of gunfire from all of them, and a yell. There was silence for a bare second before Savich called out, "You shot him, Dane. Sherlock, you and Davis okay? Marvin?"
"Yeah," she said. "Regular snow angels. Marvin? He"s a lovely, very big snow angel. Hey, Marvin, get off me, I can"t breathe."
There were two more shots from the night, unexpected, and then Coop shouted, "Another one down, over here." They waited, then searched the street. There was no one else.
Savich looked down at the two tattooed young men in turn, both painfully young, both moaning and clutching their wounds. One of them was close to the sketch of the man Griffin and Delsey saw in the alley in Maestro, the same man who"d tried to use the extension ladder to break into his house last night, if he had to guess.
Savich prayed they"d survive and one of them would talk. He heard sirens approaching as he leaned down and searched one of the young men"s pockets. No wallet, no ID, nothing, and so he couldn"t believe it when his fingers closed over a cell phone. He pulled out a small flashlight and looked at it, Sherlock, Davis, Marvin leaning over his shoulder. It was a throwaway, but it was a start.
Marvin was pumped. He slipped his gun back into his pocket and announced, "That all happened in a drunk second, didn"t it? It"s really fine to see these morons whupped right outside my club. Stupid is as stupid does, right, Sherlock? Sorry I nearly squashed you."
She grinned up at him. "Hey, thanks for protecting me."
Marvin patted her cheek and walked back into the club to deal with all the excited voices he heard coming from inside. He closed the door behind him. He was bombarded with questions, but simply raised his hands and said, calm as a judge, "It"s all over, folks. The FBI are outside, and they"ve asked everybody to stay inside here for a minute. Everyone can have a beer on the house while we"re waiting."
There was a cheer, and he quickly nodded to Ariel. She looked a bit on the pale side, true, but she was game, he thought, proud of the tiny Croatian woman who hardly spoke a word of English but played like an angel. She put her flute to her mouth, and her achingly beautiful melody was instant balm. The buzz still circling the room quieted, and the patrons slowly returned to their seats and their free beers-not the imported beer, though, the cheap beer on tap. Ms. Lilly"s people knew her well enough for that. They didn"t want to get punched in the nose.
Sherlock heard Ariel begin her flute solo again outside the club. As usual, Marvin impressed her. He was ready for anything they could dish up. Sherlock wondered where Ms. Lilly was. Surely she"d heard the gunfire. "Uh-oh," she said. "Speak of the devil, here comes Ms. Lilly."
"A force of nature, that woman," Davis said as they watched the owner of the Bonhomie Club come steaming out, a man"s coat pulled over her white satin dress and her five-inch stiletto heels, her magnificent bosom leading the way. She wasn"t happy.
She threw back her head and yelled over the sirens, "Dillon! Where are you, boy? You brain-dead or something, bringing trouble here, to my club? And now our local law enforcement is going to come here and try to roust me? Thank you so much! Come over here, I"m gonna kick your fine b.u.t.t!"
Sherlock heard Dillon laugh, then shout, "I"ll be there in a second, Ms. Lilly; we got us two perps here who wanted to hurt Sherlock. We got it taken care of. Everything"s over. We had agents all over the place, and nothing happened inside."
"I"m going to thump Marvin"s head, not telling me what was going to happen."
"I"m surprised it did happen, actually," Savich called back. "We"ll have these bozos out of here in a minute." He looked back at her again.
Of course there were always worries, but why say that to Ms. Lilly, particularly after half a dozen cop cars arrived and there were endless explanations and rea.s.surances that the FBI had things under control. Savich a.s.signed an agent to each wounded man and watched the EMTs load them into the ambulances with the cops looking on. He turned to see Sherlock touching his coat sleeve. "What was on that phone you found in the kid"s pocket?"
"A phone number. The area code includes Maestro. Let me calm Ms. Lilly while you check this out. Then we"ll call Ruth."
He wondered how he was going to soothe Ms. Lilly"s feathers, and not just figuratively, he noticed, since she was wearing two peac.o.c.k feathers stuck in her big chignon, her signature "do. She stood waiting for him.
Savich didn"t have a chance to call Ruth. His cell sang out Billy Ocean"s "When the Going Gets Tough." It was Melissa Ivy. He smiled at Ms. Lilly. "My sincere apologies, Ms. Lilly. I"ve got to take this call, but to make it up to you, I"ll play one night for free."
She tapped a stiletto heel in the snow. "Only one night? What do you think I am, pretty boy? As easy as those baby bangers you took down here?"
"All right, two nights, for free."
She smiled at him and patted his cheek, pulled the coat around her, and tottered back through the snow and into the club, headed back to her game of Texas Hold "Em with people who should know better than to sit across a table from her with money.
"Savich here, Ms. Ivy. What"s happening?"
"Agent Savich, I was listening on my computer to one of my music CDs I like that Peter had put together for me just a few days ago-you know, to help me feel better. I normally play it on my CD player, but this time I played it on my computer, and I noticed the last file on it was a video of some kind. When I played it, I saw it was Mr. Hart in his study, talking on the phone. I think it"s the video from that surveillance disk you were looking for."
He would have rubbed his hands together after hearing that, but his cell rang again, almost immediately. It was Dane Carver calling from the emergency room at Washington Memorial. The Latino Dane had shot in the shoulder who"d been lying with his eyes closed, moaning on a gurney in an ER cubicle, had suddenly reared up, grabbed a scalpel from a tray near his gurney, and sliced his own throat before Dane could even register what he"d done. "My fault, Savich, my fault. It happened too fast-and the blood, I didn"t realize how much blood there was in a single human body, and it fountained out all over everything, including me."
"Tie the other one down, Dane."
"Already done. Ollie will keep on him, you can count on that, and if anyone can get him to talk, it"s Ollie."
Savich said, "Ollie"s good, but you"re better, Dane. Go get yourself cleaned up and deal with this, all right? You get anything out of him, you got a week"s vacation in the Virgin Islands."
Savich heard an attempt at a laugh. Good, maybe the thought of sun and sand with his wife, Nick, would get Dane focused again.
Washington, D.C.
Tuesday night
It was close to midnight when Savich and Sherlock drove to Melissa Ivy"s apartment through the steady veil of snow. There was only the occasional car on the road, so it took only eleven minutes. They"d both been tired from the adrenaline rush from the Bonhomie Club, but no longer. It was Sherlock who knocked on Melissa"s door.
The door whipped open, and Melissa"s face was manic with excitement. She was wearing cat pajamas and big fuzzy slippers, and she was waving a disk at them. "I found it! I found it!"
In a moment, she"d slipped the disk into her computer and they were looking at her computer screen, waiting for it to boot. As she worked the mouse to click the commands, she said, "I usually listen to music on my iPod, but this time I was on my computer doing a cla.s.s a.s.signment and I loaded in this disk that Peter had burned for me to listen to his favorite music. That"s when I noticed there"s an extra file on the disk that doesn"t play on my CD player, a video file. Take a look."
And there it was, a video file from the surveillance system at the Harts" house.
They watched Wakefield Hart seated at his desk in his study on his cell phone. Both his voice and the picture were sharp and clear. "Yes, Raj."
Raj? It became clear soon enough that Raj had come from a board meeting at an investment firm-Bowerman and Hayes-and he was telling Wakefield how they were putting together a buyout offer for Lancer Inc., a large supplier of transponders to the military with a forty percent premium over the market value of the stock. The buyout would be announced publicly in two weeks. Hart ended the conversation a.s.suring Raj he would get his usual share of the after-tax profits.