The In Death Collection Books 6-10 - J. D. Robb [595]
It had taken guts, he’d give ’em that.
Linus stopped by a corner glide-cart for a late-morning snack, loading down a pretzel with bright yellow mustard.
“Hey!” The operator snatched at the tube with a hand protected with ratty, fingerless gloves. “You gonna use that much, you gonna pay extra.”
“Up yours, wigwam.” Linus added another blob for the hell of it.
“You use twice too much.” The operator, a battle-scarred Asian with less than three months on the corner, danced in place on tiny feet. “You pay extra.”
Linus considered squirting what was left in the tube in the man’s pruney face, then remembered his upcoming fortune. It made him feel generous. He dug a fifty-cent credit out of his pocket, flipped it in the air.
“Now you can retire,” he said as the operator snagged it on the downward arc.
He sucked at the mustard-drowned pretzel as he strolled away.
He was a little man, and skinny, too, but for the soccer ball–sized potbelly over his belt. His arms were long for his height, and ropey with muscle. His face was like a smashed dish badly glued back together, flat and round and cracked with lines. His ex-wife had often urged him to spend a little of his hoarded savings on some simple cosmetic repair.
Linus didn’t see the point. What did it matter how he looked when his job was, essentially, not to be seen?
But he thought he might spring for some work now. He was going to take himself off to Tahiti, or Bali, or maybe even to one of the resort satellites. Bask in sun and sand and women.
The half million he’d be paid to keep his little observations to himself would pump up his life’s savings nicely.
He wondered if he should have asked for more. He’d kept the payoff on the low end—nothing an actor couldn’t scrape up, in Linus’s opinion. He’d even be willing to take it in installments. He could be reasonable. And the fact was, he had to admire the guts and skill involved here, and the choice of target.
He’d never met an actor he’d despised more than Draco, and Linus hated actors with almost religious equality.
He stuffed the rest of the pretzel in his mouth, wiped mustard from his chin. The letter he’d sent would have been delivered first thing that morning. He’d paid the extra freight for that. An investment.
The letter was better than a ’link call or a personal visit. Those sorts of things could be traced. Cops might have everybody’s ’links bugged. He wouldn’t put it past the cops, who he distrusted nearly as much as actors.
He’d kept the note simple and direct, he recalled.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID AND HOW YOU DID IT. GOOD JOB. MEET ME AT THE THEATER, BACKSTAGE, LOWER LEVEL. ELEVEN O’CLOCK. I WANT $500,000. I WON’T GO TO THE COPS. HE WAS A SON OF A BITCH ANYWAY.
He hadn’t signed it. Everyone who worked with him knew his square block printing. He’d had some bad moments worrying that the note would be passed to the cops, and he’d be arrested for attempted blackmail. But he’d put that possibility away.
What was half a million to an actor?
He used the stage door, keying in his code. His palms were a little sweaty. Nerves and excitement. The door closed behind him with a metallic, echoing clang. Then he breathed in the scent of the theater, drew in the glorious silence of it. He felt a tug at his heart, sharp and unexpected.
After today, he’d be giving this up. The smells, the sounds, the lights, and lines. It was all he’d really ever known, and the sudden realization of love for it rocked him.
Didn’t matter a damn, he reminded himself, and turned to the stairs that led below the stage. They had theaters on Tahiti if he wanted a busman’s holiday. He could even maybe open his own little regional place. A theater-casino palace.
That was a thought.
The Linus Quim Theater. Had a ring to it.
At the base of the stairs, he turned right, down the twisty corridor. He was humming now, happy in his own space, bubbling lightly with anticipation of what