Yeah, his living room looked like an electronics store, but hell, this was where he lived—at least for now. He loved his gadgets, especially his recently hacked USSB satellite system, but he couldn’t think of anything here he couldn’t walk away from. He had bank accounts all over the world, and he could always buy more toys. He moved once a year anyway. Presently he was renting this neat little Cape Cod on a cozy, tree-lined street in Alexandria.
He waved to his neighbors when they waved first. He was perfectly happy not knowing any of their names. Why bother? He’d be moving again when this gig was over.
No attachments. They colored your thinking. Tied you down. Women were the worst. Like leeches, always wanting to latch on. Who needed the hassle? He could download all the women he needed from the net.
He returned to the keyboard and tapped in his final patch on the switching program. Now, as far as the C&P Telephone computers were concerned, his phone line and Dr. John Vanduyne’s line were the same.
He dialed the number of Holy Family Elementary School in Bethesda. He’d been given loads of intelligence on the place. A lot of politicos and well-connected people sent their kids there, and the principal, Sister Louise Joseph, had a rep as a pretty sharp cookie. Who knew? She might have a caller-ID rig on her phone. Snake wasn’t taking any chances.
He told whoever answered the phone that he was Dr. John Vanduyne and he needed to speak to the principal on an urgent matter about his daughter. Half a minute later a cool, clear voice came on the line.
“Yes, Dr. Vanduyne. This is Sister Louise. How may I help you?” Snake closed his eyes and tried to be someone else.
“Good morning. Sister. It’s about my daughter, Katie.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Well, yes. Her mother was in a serious car accident in Atlanta.”
“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. I just got a call from the trauma unit and she’s in critical condition. I’m going to have to pull Katie out for a few days and take her down there. I don’t know how much school she’ll miss…”
“Easter vacation begins next week, so you don’t have to worry too much about school.”
Easter? Was Easter soon? Snake hadn’t even thought about that. But he couldn’t let the sister know.
“I know. And that’s good, I guess,” he said. “This may be the last time Katie will see…” He let his voice trail off into silence.
“I’m so terribly sorry,” Sister Louise said. “If there’s any way we can be of assistance.”
“Thank you. I have to run over to my office now; then I’m heading home immediately to pack our things. I’ve sent a driver to pick up Katie and bring her home.”
“A car? What service will you be using?” A thrill of alarm shot through him. He hadn’t planned on telling her in advance. She might decide to look it up.
“Oh, I haven’t called one yet. I have a few I use now and then. Whichever one can get a car over there the soonest, I suppose.”
Silence on the other end of the line. Obviously she didn’t like the idea of not knowing precisely who to expect.
Snake looked at the phony ID he’d made up. Reliance Limo existed but he had no idea what their company IDS looked like. Neither would Sister Louise… he hoped. He’d give her the name if he had to, but he’d hold back as long as he could. This was kind of fun.
Finally she said, “Well… just make sure the driver has proper identification. We make a point of being very careful about any break from routine with our little charges.”
“Which is one of the reasons I enrolled Katie at Holy Family. But please don’t say anything about the accident. Just tell her it’s a surprise trip back to Georgia.”
“Which is very much the truth.”
“Unfortunately, yes. I’ll explain everything to her when she gets home.”
“Very well. Have your driver present himself at my office when he arrives and I’ll have Katie brought here. I’ll explain to her that you called before he arrives.”
“Thank you very much, sister.” He terminated the call and leaned back, his heart racing, his nerve ends twitching. He felt so great, he laughed aloud.
“God, I love my work!”
10
Paulie parked the panel truck on the bottom level of the under ground parking garage like he’d been told, and looked around. Not too many cars down here, and no people.
He turned on the radio again. The old van had only AM. He spun the dial, hoping in vain for some music. Any music. Yeah, like he had a chance. Only old farts, news junkies, and born-agains listened to AM.
He stopped at a random number somewhere between 800 and 900 and heard a replay of part of the President’s drug talk from last night.
He grinned. Some shocker, that one. Legalize drugs. Who’da thunk? The commentators all saying it wasn’t such a big surprise to anyone paying attention—the Pres and his boys supposedly sending up signal flares over the past six months—but Paulie had never been much into politics.
Legal drugs? Weird to think of dropping by the liquor store and pick up a six of Rolling Rock longnecks, and, oh, yeah, while I’m at it, how about a couple of B-40s and a pack of Wowie Maui filter kings? Or buying a box of Little Debbie hash brownies from Abdul at the local 7-Eleven.
Didn’t seem right. The whole street ritual was half the fun… finding your source, negotiating the price, passing the green, slipping the buy into your pocket, and drifting away, feeling cool ‘cause you scored clean once again. Getting it legal seemed so damn… ordinary. Like being a citizen.
Irritably he wrenched the radio power knob to off. What was the goddamn world coming to, anyway?
Had to calm down. He felt like an overwound spring, ready to go ‘sproing!’ and bounce all over the inside of the truck. He wanted to get this over with.
Easy enough to baby-sit a package: Snake drops him off, you spend a few days to a week cooped up in a rented house keeping him blindfolded and tied to a bed; a couple times a day you feed him and take him to the bathroom. And when the money’s paid, you let him go and leave the house behind. Simple.
But this… actually doing the snatch. This was a whole other deal. He had a sudden vision of half a dozen Metro squad cars, lights flashing, sirens screaming as they screeched to a halt all around him, doors flying open and a swarm of steely-eyed SWAT dudes, all armed to the teeth, pointing their Glocks and shotguns in his face.
Paulie shuddered. He didn’t like guns. He didn’t even own a .22. I’m a lover, not a fighter, as he liked to say.
And he wanted to reach thirty. What was that old expression? Do it by the time you’re thirty. Well, he was just about thirty and he’d just about done it all.
Grew up mostly alone—his mother working two jobs to keep food on the table while his lard-assed dad shacked up rent free with some bimbo on the other side of town and didn’t contribute a goddamned penny because he was “disabled.” Yeah, right. An ambulance chaser and a coked-up quack had got him declared totally and permanently disabled after a car accident. But not disabled enough to keep him from lifting weights in his girlfriend’s garage. The only thing total and permanent about his father was that he was an asshole.
But before Paulie left home for good, he’d made an honest man of his dad. Waited for him in the parking lot outside his favorite bar. Got him with a Louisville Slugger as he was unlocking his car. Never knew what hit him. Took his wallet to make it look like a mugging and left him with a ton of broken bones.
Now you’re totally and permanently disabled, you son of a bitch.
He got something out of his system with that. Pretty much the first and last totally violent thing he’d done in his life.
But he’d done just about everything else. Steal, cheat, swindle, lie, threaten, do second-story work; he’d be a mule, a numbers runner, a courier, or a wheelman. You need something done, you call Paulie Dicastro. He’ll take care of it.
But not anymore. Not after this gig. With the money Ma
c was paying, he wouldn’t need to work for a looong time.
And besides, Poppy had had it with this life. She’d changed after the last baby-sit. She’d started exercising and eating vegetables and that sort of stuff. And to tell the truth, she was looking damn good.
Not that she hadn’t turned heads before. He still remembered the first time he saw her. He was sitting at the bar at The Incarnate Club on Avenue A in Manhattan when she walked in. She’d poured herself into this slinky tight black latex outfit that showed off every curve of her not-too-thin-but-no-way-fat figure. Tall—had to be pushing five-ten—with nice hips, long sweet legs, and a real nice set up top.
He was made helpless, completely ga-ga by the way her purple China-doll hair swung back and forth when she walked, the way her black-lined blue eyes stared out from under those heavy bangs that looked like they’d been sliced with a scalpel. The eyebrow ring, the nostril stud, and some cool tattoos: a red heart on each upper arm, with glory inside the one on the right and 89 in the one on the left. He bought her a drink, found out she’d come in to hear the goth-industrial battle of the bands the club was featuring all week—same as Paulie.
One thing led to another and soon they were back in his place. And if he thought she’d looked good in that outfit, out of it—mama! He was starting to get a woody just thinking about her.
Yeah, Poppy was cool—in more ways than one. She had places in her she never let him see, even when she was stoned. Some major pain tucked away inside, things she never talked about. Something to do with those tattoos, maybe? She always managed to worm out of explaining them.
Whatever—somehow she got to him. What he’d expected to be just one more in a long line of live-ins turned out something more. A lot more. Beaucoup weird, but Paulie had arrived at a place where he couldn’t imagine living without her.
A tap on the side window made him jump: Mac, staring at him, leaning close to the glass. He rolled it down.
“Jesus, Mac! You scared the shit outta me.”
He said, “Back out and follow me.” Then he walked away.
“Well, hello to you too, Mac,” Paulie muttered as he started the van.
Talk about weird dudes. Mac was about as strange as they came. He looked like a college professor or something. A good six feet, big shoulders—maybe like a professor who worked out.
Always dressed in Dockers and penny loafers and crew-neck sweaters or tweed jackets; one jacket even had suede patches on the elbows, for Christ sake. Brown hair, short all around, none on his face, no jewelry, not even an earring. The ultimate straight. Until you look a look in his eyes. Paulie knew hit men, stone killers, with warmer eyes than Mac’s.
Mac. The name was something that had always bothered him, mainly because it was the only handle he had for this guy. Mac who? Mac the Knife? Maybe. He did carry a big one. Also carried a.45 automatic—always. Mac the Gun? Mac the mystery. He never saw Mac between gigs.
Paulie’d get a call, show up where he was told—could be Kansas City, Phoenix, West Palm, anywhere—baby-sit the package, collect his money, and that was it. Mac dropped off the face of the earth until the next time.
Not that it mattered much. Paulie wasn’t exactly looking to hang with the guy. Probably a security thing so that Paulie couldn’t finger him. Not that he’d ever consider it. He had his rep as a stand-up guy to consider.
And besides, Mac had always been straight up with Paulie—never shorted him or kept him hanging. He paid on time, to the dime. You had to respect that.
Also had to respect how smoothly Mac’s gigs ran. Like well-oiled machines. Everything went down by the numbers…
Except the last one.
And if Poppy was calling the shots now, that would have been Paulie’s last one too. They’d had a fight about doing this gig, with Poppy shouting and throwing things, and almost walking out. That was when Paulie realized how important she was to his life.
So they cut a deal: One last gig and then they were out of it. They’d take the money and run, find an island somewhere, and just sleep, sunbathe, eat, drink, and screw. Yes.
He cruised the truck over to where Mac was backing a shiny new Lincoln Town Car out of a slot. He motioned Paulie to pull into the space. Paulie parked the truck, then got out and ran a gloved hand over the Lincoln’s gleaming black finish.
“Flash ride. Where’d you get it?”
“Get in. We’ll talk inside.” The windows slid up as Paulie slipped into the passenger seat. All sound from the outside world faded to zero when he closed the door. Like being sealed in a coffin.
“It’s rented,” Mac said in a low voice, looking straight ahead through the windshield as he pulled an envelope from the inside pocket of his brown herringbone jacket.
Paulie checked him out: No patches on the elbow this time. “The Maryland omnibus plates are borrowed.” Paulie tried not to look too interested in the envelope, but he was hoping he’d find some dead presidents inside. He was just about tapped out. He had to hold himself back from snatching it when Mac handed it over.
“Here are some papers you’ll need,” Mac said. “Just in case.” Paulie lifted the flap, looking for green paper. The first thing he found was a supply of business cards. He held one up.
“ ‘Reliance Limousine Service.’ Is that who I am?”
“For the next hour or so, yes. You’ll find a Reliance Limo ID and Maryland driver’s license with matching names. Plus directions to your pickup neatly typed on Reliance Limo stationery.” Paulie emptied the envelope. No green, but boy, Mac was thorough. The bogus license and ID were beauties.
“Where’d you get these?”
“I made them.”
“No kidding?”
“All it takes is a color scanner, some DTP software, and a little time.”
“Amazing. I—” And then a couple of words on the itinerary caught his eye and he straightened in the seat.
“Hey, Mac. Does this say Holy Family Elementary School? Elementary School?”
Mac was still looking straight ahead. “You got it.”
“You mean I’m snatching a kid?”
“You are.”
“Oh, shit! Oh, fuck! Not a kid!” And now Mac turned to him, letting those stone-flat dirt-brown eyes bore into him.
“You got something against kids, Paulie?” he said in a voice smooth as satin… and just as cold.
“No. I got nothing against kids. That’s why I don’t want to snatch one.”
“You don’t look at it as a kid. You look at it as a package. Just another package.”
“Yeah, but a young package. People get upset about an old geezer getting snatched, but, man, they go off the fucking wall about a kid.”
“It’s not like we’re going to molest her or anything.”
“Her? Oh, shit! A little girl? Just great. Poppy don’t like kids.”
“She’d better like this one.”
“She’s gonna go ballistic.”
“Poppy will do what she’s told.” Paulie wished there’d been more heat behind those words. But Mac said them with the same soft flat tones he’d use ordering a cup of coffee… black, two lumps.
Truth was. Poppy would do what she was told… up to a point…
“You’re the one who brought her in,” Mac said. “I went along. Poppy’s had a free ride so far. Now it’s time for her to earn her keep. She can be a nanny for a week or so.” He smiled… a cold flash of teeth. “We’ve called it baby-sitting all along. Now it really is.”
“Yeah,” Paulie said, slumping back in the seat. He didn’t like this… didn’t like it at all. “How old is this baby?”
“Six. Don’t let her age spook you. This is going to be a walk. I’ve called the school. They’re expecting you. You drive up, belt her into the back seat like a good, safety-conscious driver, then you cruise away and bring her back here. What could be simpler?”
“How about you doing it? That would be a whole lot simpler.”
“I would, but I’ve got to cover
this end.”
When Paulie said nothing, Mac reached out and poked his upper arm with a finger. Paulie stiffened. He didn’t feature being poked. But when he looked at Mac he saw what he hadn’t thought possible: The guy’s eyes were even flatter and colder than before.
“You’re not backing out on me, are you, Paulie?”
“Nah,” Paulie said through a sigh. “I ain’t backing out.” He had to admit it: He was afraid to back out now.
“Good. Because a deal is a deal.”
“Yeah. A deal is a deal.” But how the hell was he going to explain this to Poppy?
11
Snake strolled into the lobby of the Marriott in Bethesda and went straight to the bank of pay phones.
He’d already scouted most of the larger hotels inside the Beltway—this Marriott was just inside the Beltway—and knew which ones had the kind of phone he needed.
Of course he could have called from his house or his car or a playground using the mobile PCMCIA modem card on his laptop, but that would have involved a cellular call, and cell calls were about as secure as a loudspeaker.
He found an AT&T Dataphone 2000 and slipped into the seat before it. Airports and hotel lobbies were the best places to find these phones. They provided their own keyboards or a port for jacking into laptops and notebooks.
Snake had brought his own. After charging the call to Charles Porter, a credit account he’d set up just for this gig, he jacked the phone clip on the wire running from the back of his Thinkpad 701 C into the port, then popped open his computer and let the butterfly keyboard expand.
As he waited for the rig to run through its boot-up routine, he glanced around the lobby. Only a few people about and none of them paying the least bit of attention.