The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [114]
“It has to stop.”
I gazed down at my lap. My suit pants were torn at the knee where I’d caught them climbing through the bathroom window at the motel. I’d done a lot of things I hadn’t expected to do that day. I’d killed a man. No matter how I felt about it, I couldn’t walk away now until I was done.
“It will,” I said. “I promise. Everything’s going to be fine. You still got Joe’s nephew there?”
“And his partner. They’re playing cards with Kate.”
“Good. You and she should get your gear packed, okay? I don’t like the fact that Smith knew where we were staying. I want to change hotels, maybe move over to the Waldorf. They must have good security—they’ve always got diplomats staying.”
“Fine,” she agreed, still sounding upset. “When are you going to be home?”
“Maybe half an hour. Be ready to go. I don’t want to take any more chances.”
My phone rang forty-five minutes later, as I was getting out of the taxi in front of the Meridien. Crosstown traffic had been terrible. I checked the screen. The number was unfamiliar.
“Mark Wallace,” I answered.
“It’s Reggie.”
“How’s—”
“I’m on a taped line,” he interrupted immediately. “Joe and I are both all right, but everything went to hell at the motel after you climbed out the window. The detectives who caught the case want to talk to you.”
I pulled open the lobby door and entered the hotel.
“Of course. You got any idea yet who the guys in the parking lot were?”
“I can’t talk about that. The investigation’s being run out of One Police Plaza. Deputy Chief Ellison is supervising. He wants to send a car to get you.”
“Shit. Ellison the only senior guy you got in that department?”
“No. But he’s taken an interest.”
“Great.” I spent a moment thinking about everything I needed to get done in the interim. I had to wash up, ditch my shirt, and move my family. “Tell the chief that I’ve spent a lot of time at One Police Plaza. I can get myself there. Figure an hour, hour and a half, maybe.”
I heard a familiar voice in the background. It sounded like Lieutenant Wayland.
“Be better if we had a car pick you up,” Reggie said flatly. “Powers that be are anxious to chat.”
“Doesn’t work. I got a couple of things to get squared away first.”
The same voice spoke again, angrily. Reggie cleared his throat into the phone.
“You at your apartment?” he asked, suggesting the lie to me.
“Will be soon,” I replied, following his lead. It didn’t matter to me if Wayland dispatched a couple of cops to hang out in my lobby. “See you in an hour.”
“Right.”
I hung up and stepped into an available elevator, hoping like hell that Reggie was right about how his department was going to respond to everything. It hadn’t sounded like anyone wanted to give him a medal. I touched the button for my floor as two men boarded behind me. One pressed the button for the third floor. The other turned toward me, a gun in his hand.
40
“This is a good time for you to be very calm, Mr. Wallace,” the man holding the gun said. The weapon was small, but the opening looked like the mouth of a cannon. My heart was pounding, but my only thought was of Claire and Kate.
“You going to shoot me, shoot me now,” I said, the words coming out with surprising firmness. “I’m not taking you to my family.”
“We prefer not to shoot you,” the second man said. “And we’re not interested in your family. We want only a few minutes of your time. Our superior would like to speak to you.”
They were both big and swarthy—Italians maybe, or Greeks. The guy with the gun spoke like an American, but the second man had a familiar, nasal accent I couldn’t place.
“This superior of yours have a scar on his face?” I asked, thinking they might not have heard about the shoot-out. “Because if he does, you’re on a fool’s errand. He’s not going to be talking to anyone.”
“You can find out for yourself,” the man with the accent said. The elevator doors opened on the third floor. “Shall we?”
I didn’t see that I had any choice. He led me off the elevator and to the right, the man with the gun following.