The Detachment - Barry Eisler [44]
The conversation was so familiar I might have been having déjà vu. It was appalling, how natural it felt to be doing this again. How…normal. As though I’d been forced to use only my weak hand for the last few years, and was at last again able to use my strong one.
“I’ll tell the others.”
“Good. And if you’re heading back to the area where we previously met, I’d like to see you again.”
Alarm bells went off in my head. “Why?”
“To brief you on the next one.”
“Why do we have to meet for that?”
“Because I’m not going to put the details in writing or say them over the phone. Look, under the circumstances, I completely understand your hesitation. So, needless to say, we can meet anywhere or anyway that’s comfortable for you.”
I didn’t like it. Ordinarily, the probable quality and quantity of the opposition were such that I could implement satisfactory countermeasures. But Horton could bring some exceptionally heavy firepower into play if he wanted to. I imagined a SWAT team, briefed about the presence of Shorrock’s armed-and-dangerous killer, surrounding a restaurant with me inside it.
“The guy who just left the project isn’t enough?” I said, stalling for time.
“Not quite. I need two more personnel changes to make sure the project doesn’t get off the ground. If it does, it’s going to cost the company a lot of money. You’ve proven you’re the man for this. Finish the job and there’s a hell of a bonus.”
I didn’t know if I wanted this. But what did I want?
“Where are you now?” I said, improvising.
“In the city.”
“Close to where we met before?”
“I could be there in twenty minutes.”
“Go to the same hotel. I’ll call in less than an hour.”
“Good.”
I clicked off.
“He’s got some more work for us?” Dox said.
“Two more. And a big completion bonus, apparently. How’s that sound to you?”
He smiled. “Sounds like money, partner.”
“Maybe. How do you feel about a face-to-face?”
“You worried he’s gonna be Jack Ruby to our Lee Harvey Oswald?”
“Something like that.”
He reached under the seat and produced the Wilson Combat. “Old Oswald should have carried one of these.”
I thought about it for a moment, and decided there was a way. “Head to West Hollywood,” I said.
When we were off the highway and had driven a couple of miles west on Santa Monica Boulevard, I called Horton again. At this point, anyone listening in wouldn’t have time to scramble a team after us, so the momentary breach of communication security I was about to commit would be harmless. “Urth Caffé,” I told him. I knew the place from previous visits to L.A., and though I liked their coffee, we wouldn’t be enjoying it today. “Corner of Melrose Avenue and Westmount Drive.”
“I’ll be there in under ten minutes.”
I clicked off. Horton was a precise man, and it occurred to me that he must know the city reasonably well to be able to instantly offer such an estimate. I wasn’t sure what that meant, if it meant anything, but I filed the information away for subsequent consideration.
We parked on Westmount, just south of Melrose, and got out. The air felt cool compared to the blast furnace heat of Las Vegas, and the late morning sky above the mixed palm and deciduous trees was a clear, hard blue. We both headed to the restroom in Urth, squeezing past tables of chattering, oblivious Angelenos clustered around metal tables under the shadows of green umbrellas on the sidewalk and patio. The coffee smelled like heaven, but we didn’t have time and I was already amped for the meeting with Horton. Maybe later.
We went back to the car, Dox in the backseat this time while I took the wheel. I drove around the block, right turn following right turn, single family bungalows, walk-up apartment houses, low slung commercial establishments like Bodhi Tree Bookstore and Peace Gallery, repeat. Knots of pedestrian shoppers shifted and glided along the sun-drenched sidewalks, but no sign of Horton. And no sign of anything untoward, either—black Chevy