Without remorse - Tom Clancy [99]
'The best. Same as the sample we gave you two weeks ago. Same shipment and everything,' Piaggi assured him.
'And if the mule gets burned?' the man from Philadelphia asked.
'She won't talk,' Tucker assured him. 'They've all seen what happens to bad girls.' As they watched, a man got out of the Roadrunner and got into the Dart's driver's seat.
'Very good,' Rick told Doris.
'Can we go now?' she asked him, shaking now that the job was over, sipping nervously at her soda.
'Sure, baby, I know what you want.' Rick smiled and started the car. 'Be nice, now. Show me something.'
'There's people around,' Doris said.
'So?'
Without another word, Doris unbuttoned her shirt - it was a man's shin-leaving it tucked into her faded shorts. Rick reached in and smiled, turning the wheel with his left hand. It could have been worse, Doris told herself, closing her eyes, pretending that she was someone else in some other place, wondering how long before her life would end too, hoping it wouldn't be long.
'The money?' Piaggi asked.
'I need a cup of coffee.' The other man got up and walked inside, leaving his briefcase, which Piaggi took in his hand. He and Tucker walked off to his car, a blue Cadillac, without waiting for the other man to come back.
'Not going to count it?' Tucker asked halfway across the parking lot.
'If he stiffs us, he knows what happens. This is business, Henry.'
"That's right,' Tucker agreed.
'Bill Murphy,' Kelly said. 'I understand you have some vacant apartments.' He held up the Sunday paper.
'What are you looking for?'
'A one-bedroom would be fine. I really just need a place to hang my clothes,' Kelly told the man. 'I travel a lot.'
'Salesman?' the manager asked.
'That's right. Machine tools. I'm new here - new territory, I mean.'
It was an old garden-apartment complex, built soon after the Second World War for returning veterans, composed exclusively of three-story brick structures. The trees looked about right for that time period. They'd been planted then and grown well, tall enough now to support a good population of squirrels, wide enough to give shade to the parking areas. Kelly looked around approvingly as the manager took him to a first-floor furnished unit.
'This is just fine,' Kelly announced. He looked around, testing the kitchen sink and other plumbing fixtures. The furniture was obviously used, but in decent shape. There were even air conditioners in the windows of every room.
'I have other ones -'
'This is just what I need. How much?'
'One seventy-five a month, one month security deposit.'
'Utilities?'
'You can pay them yourself or we can bill it. Some of our renters prefer that. They'll average about forty-five dollars a month.'
'Easier to pay one bill than two or three. Let's see. One seventy-five, plus forty-five ...'
'Two-twenty,' the manager assured him.
'Fine.' Kelly took out his wallet, handing over the bills. He stopped. 'No, six-sixty, we'll make it three months, if that's okay. And I need a receipt.' The helpful manager pulled a pad from his pocket and wrote one up on the spot. 'How about a phone?' Kelly asked.
'I can have that done by Tuesday if you want. There's another deposit for that.'
'Please take care of that, if you would.' Kelly handed over some more money. 'My stuff won't be here for a while. Where can I get sheets and stuff?'
'Nothing much open today. Tomorrow, lots of'em.'
Kelly looked through the bedroom door at the bare mattress. He could see the lumps from this distance. He shrugged. 'Well, I've slept on worse.'
'Veteran?'
'Marine,' Kelly said.
'So was I once,' the manager replied, surprising Kelly. 'You don't do anything wild, do you?' He didn't expect so, but the owner insisted that he ask, even ex-Marines. The answer was a sheepish, reassuring grin.
'I snore pretty bad, they tell me.'
Twenty minutes later Kelly was in a cab heading downtown. He got out at Penn Station and caught the next train to DC, where another taxi delivered him to his boat. By nightfall