Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [144]
Some of the documents were photographs. Another was a letter, in Spanish, bearing the stamp and letterhead of a Mexican governmental department. One was a diagram.
“Holy cow,” said Littlemore. “Holy mother of cow.”
Why are we going down the fire escape?” asked Mrs. Cross, descending the metal stairs a few treads behind Littlemore.
“Because if anybody’s waiting for us, they’ll be out front.”
“Who would be waiting for us?”
“If I’m Elias Torres and I left these documents behind, I’m coming back for them. With some friends. And some guns. Hold this.”
Handing Mrs. Cross the cardboard cylinder with the documents inside it, Littlemore let himself down a short metal ladder, at the end of which he had to jump the last several feet to the ground. He was in the building’s rear lot, which appeared to be empty.
“Throw me the tube,” he said quietly, “and come down.”
She complied, but when she reached the last rung of the ladder, still some six feet off the ground, she looked at him and said, “Now what?”
“Let go,” he answered. “I’ll catch you.”
She hesitated.
“Jump, for Christ’s sake,” he whispered.
She did; he caught her. She had one hand on his chest: “You’re stronger than you look.”
“Is that a compliment?” he asked. “Don’t answer. Just keep quiet.”
He led Mrs. Cross around the apartment house, keeping her behind him, pressing himself against the wall when they came to the street. Peering around the corner, Littlemore saw four men, hats pulled low over their heads, outside the front door of the building. One sat on the hood of the sedan in which Mrs. Cross and he had arrived; the man seemed to be carelessly polishing his shoe. Littlemore drew his gun.
“Wait,” whispered Mrs. Cross. “I’ll go. They don’t know you’re with a woman. I’ll pick you up on Avenue of the President.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s Sixteenth Street.” She pointed the way. Then she walked boldly out into the street, displaying not a hint of anxiety. As she sauntered near the car, the men elbowed each other. One whistled; another asked her questions of a personal nature, which Mrs. Cross did not answer. When she let herself into the car and started the engine, the man sitting on the hood leaned over the windshield.
“Where do you think you’re going, honey?” he said. Perhaps he thought she couldn’t pull out with a man on her hood. If so, he was mistaken.
“If you can hang on, you’ll find out,” answered Mrs. Cross. She put the car into drive and shot from the curb, dumping the man onto the pavement behind her. Without turning to look, she gave the four men a wave of her hand and turned at the first corner. Littlemore, in the meantime, had taken advantage of the distraction to walk off, unnoticed, in the other direction.
Mrs. Cross and Littlemore, coming from opposite directions, met on Sixteenth Street, renamed Avenue of the President by its socially ambitious residents. Littlemore glanced over his shoulder before climbing in the car: no one was following them.
“Where to?” she asked.
“Your senator—where would he be right now?”
“Mr. Fall? Home—at the Wardman Park Hotel. It’s not far from here “
“Go,” said Littlemore. He checked behind them again. “Not bad, Mrs. Cross.”
“Why did you ask my first name if you aren’t going to use it?” she replied.
The central lobby of the thousand-room Wardman Park on Connecticut Avenue, which sprawled out in several wings on a bucolic sixteen-acre hill, was bright and crowded with brand-new automobiles as well as a throng of onlookers ogling them despite the lateness of the hour. “An auto show,” said Littlemore disparagingly. “The whole world’s foul, and all these people can think about is a new car.”
“Why Agent Littlemore,” said Mrs. Cross, “this is a new and darker tone for you. I thought you