“You got the car shot half to hell, lost the back window, and managed to let Agent Carling collect two bullets along the way,” she corrected. “I believe you’ll have to do better this time.”

  She dug in her big purse and came up with her ball of yarn and knitting needles, frowned, and dug again. She came up with a handful of ammunition clips that she slipped in the pockets of her big black slouch coat.

  “Do I get a gun?” he asked. Agent Jennings, who was silently donning his bulletproof vest a few feet away, looked up. He had two expressions, the second one was disgust. It vanished as quickly as it appeared. A car drove through the parking lot, speakers booming bass. Agent Jennings turned to track its progress and only relaxed when it disappeared back to the road and sped away.

  “No, dear,” she said, speaking carefully as if Martin had a hearing impairment. “You drive the car.”

  “Shouldn’t you be calling in the local FBI agents?” he guessed. “The police? The boy scouts? Somebody?”

  Mrs. Womack left him to join Agent Jennings at the trunk of the car. She reached in and clicked open a case, took out a shotgun, and racked the shells with terrifying precision.

  “Bryce dear, I think you might want to take something with more range, perhaps the Mac-10. We should have some extra clips in here somewhere.” Without looking away from whatever assortment of death-dealing weapons she had in the trunk, she said, “Mr. Grady, I don’t think you fully understand our position. We are not, per se, here in an official capacity.”

  “What?” He watched the two of them load guns and felt weak at the knees. “What? Excuse me?”

  “Oh, it’ll be quite all right, you’ll see. All you need to worry about is driving.” She paused a second and sighed. “I do wish Adrian were here. I wish that very much. She’ll be so disappointed to have missed it.”

  Agent Jennings slammed the trunk shut and walked around to open the passenger-side door for Mrs. Womack. Martin stood flat-footed and openmouthed, breathing in air cold enough to sear his lungs, until she clucked her tongue and came back to him, rooting in her oversized purse.

  “I almost forgot,” she said, and came up with the blue scarf she’d been knitting in Carling’s room. “Here, dear. Keep your neck warm. It’s going to be very cold tonight.”

  The car was a nondescript-looking blue, American-made, new but not flashy. He wasn’t even sure what model it was, but it was automatic and had a lot of power under the hood. He pulled out of the hospital parking lot and followed her directions east. Apart from the directions, she had nothing to say to him. He felt like he was sixteen again, taking his driver’s exam. If she asks me to parallel park, I’m dead.

  “Where are we going?” he asked after ten minutes. She gave him a beatific smile.

  “Don’t ask silly questions.” Her tone was steel. “Agent Jennings?”

  He was doing something with electronics in the backseat, producing beeps and bleeps and blips. She turned to look over her shoulder; a green CRT light gave her a gargoyle complexion.

  “The truck’s still parked behind the dry cleaners,” he reported. She nodded. “I should be able to tell when they start moving.”

  “That’s excellent. Very good work. Martin, Mr. Jennings visited our friend’s dry cleaning establishment today and dropped off some suits. While he was there, he took the liberty of a quick tour of the back rooms, and in one of them there was a large stack of boxes ready to be loaded for shipping. What did you find in the boxes, Bryce?”

  “Dallas Cowboys sweatshirts,” he said in between bleeps. “Nice thick ones.”

  “Now, I don’t know about you, Mr. Grady, but I am such a football fan, and sweatshirts like those sell. And not just in America. They could be sold in Russia, for instance. In England. To American troops abroad.” Mrs. Womack turned back face-forward. “I’d guess this is just the first stage of a larger operation.”

  “But—wait—what about the ones who’ve already died? What were they? Accidents?”

  Surprisingly, it wasn’t Womack who answered, but Jennings.

  “Object lessons. We think he was proving the effectiveness of the process to potential buyers—one of the buyers, for example, was probably based in Louisiana, so he picks a Louisiana preacher in Dallas for a religious convention, gives him the special dry cleaning, and tells the buyer to watch for the preacher’s name in the papers.” One of the electronic tones changed to a higher pitch. “I’m getting movement on the box.”

  “Bryce put a tracking device in one of the boxes,” Mrs. Womack said. “Isn’t he clever. Where’s it moving?”

  “South,” he said. “Downtown.”

  Mrs. Womack stopped smiling.

  “Drive,” she told Martin tightly. “And quickly. Half-time is over.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Ming

  They had been quite civil to her in the car, but, of course, there was no point in being cruel to someone about to learn the ultimate lesson. Ming sat at ease in the backseat of the limousine, hands folded in her lap, staring at the eyes of the man who sat across from her.

  He had not borne the wait well; for a small man he sweated profusely, and his body odor hung like a dirty cloud between them. He patted his knee and avoided her eyes. His larger partner, seated next to him, stared out the window, pouting.

  “She is gone, you know,” Ming said. The small man flinched as if she’d slapped him. “There is no use in killing me. I cannot bring her back, if I am dead.”

  “Look, it isn’t for me to say. I told you, eight hours or we take you in. We got to take you in.” He rubbed his stubbly chin. “Been a shitty day all around, you know? Want a drink?”

  “I thank you, no.”

  “Okay.” He fiddled with the khaki of his pants leg, picked at his thumbnail. “TV? We got TV in here, if you want to watch something. Tapes, too. Mostly sex stuff, but there’s a couple of comedies—”

  “Thank you, no,” she murmured. “I don’t laugh.”

  He tried to offer her a candy bar, then a meal at a fast food restaurant. She politely refused each, though the child inside her wanted to stop, to eat, to drink, to delay what must come.

  Paolo had failed her. She had believed, to the last, that he would call, that he would come back.

  She had not heard a word from him.

  Ahead, the black shadow of a tall building, and over it, the lead gray of clouds. Cold, so cold, and this cold did not freeze her solid but chilled her into brittle pieces. She considered jumping from the limousine, but that might only wound her; they would hardly show mercy if her legs were broken, or her back. It must be as quick as a bullet, as certain as poison, or there was no point in piling one misery atop another.

  So focused was she on seeking a way to die that she had almost forgotten the inevitable end of the journey. The dome light went on over her head to remind her. A door seal whispered open and the little man across from her said, not unkindly, “We’re here.”

  She climbed out of the car without assistance, taking each step slowly to be sure she would not fall. The elevator seemed to rise for hours, leaving her weightless and oddly unbalanced, and in the closed metal box, the smell of her captor’s sweat seemed as thick as rancid grease.

  He held the doors open and gestured for her to go ahead. The carpeted hallway stretched before her, empty. When she took a step into it, the doors of the elevator shut; she looked back and saw that he had not followed. He would be falling now, mopping his brow, breathing a sigh of relief at being rid of the responsibility. Perhaps he would be making plans for a late supper, or an early breakfast. Perhaps he had a woman waiting.

  There was no place to run. She continued walking with slow even steps to the door at the end, the plain wood door with no name and not even a lock, only a knob to turn.

  She knocked politely and went inside.

  The room was dark except for a small lamp burning on the corner of his desk, a circle of warm yellow light on blood red carpet, polished dark wood, the black shine of the toe of his shoe. He was smoking imported cigarettes; the tobacco stank like old leather.

  “Sit,” he said, voice raspy with smoke. When she had settled herself in the plain chair before his desk, he sat, too. “Maybe it was bad luck. Could have happened to anybody.”

  She refused to grab the straw and sat in silence, watching the red flare of his cigarette.

  “You know you won’t be leaving here.”

  “I know,” she said evenly. The fantasy rushed back on her, strong as the smell of his tobacco—a knife in her hand, skin peeling back from muscle, his face. “I’m sorry about your employee. The one who burned.”

  “He was getting to be a problem. Too bad about the girlfriend, though. She was a competent thief, and they’re harder to come by than psychos like Sol. Like you.”

  He extinguished the cigarette in an ashtray, and now he was only a dark shape in the shadows; he could have been anyone, anywhere, anytime. She closed her eyes and lived the fantasy, felt it rush through her with the force of an orgasm.

  “Velvet was never of any importance,” she said aloud. “The idea that I will die for her is ludicrous.”

  “You mistake me,” he said. “I’m not killing you because of Velvet. I’m killing you because I’m tired of burying your hobbies, Ming. You’re a fucked-up rabid bitch, and it’s time somebody put you down.”

  The noise of his gun cocking was shockingly loud. She found herself gripping the arms of the chair hard enough to break her laquered nails, and could not force herself to relax, not now, not ever again. A childhood prayer came back to her in singsong whispers.

  Behind her, the door opened and a square of light spilled in.

  “What the fuck—I told you, no interruptions—” He was still searching for words when someone fired from the doorway, six shots, evenly spaced. He lived for several seconds, mouth working, eyes blank and puzzled. He reached out to Ming, where she sat frozen in the chair.

  She moved her foot back an inch, out of his grasp.

  When he fell sideways to the carpet, Ming turned to look over her shoulder.

  “I got here as fast as I could,” Paolo said. He looked blankly apologetic as he came toward her. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

  “That’s quite all right,” she said. There was something broken in her now, something not even Paolo’s violent intervention could fix. All the fear was out now, battering down her defenses, sweeping her screaming with it.

  So much fear. She looked at her hands, gripping the arms of the chair, and forced them to let go; they trembled violently and would not stop.

  “Paolo, you know they’ll never let us leave here alive,” she said. “You know that.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I know.”

  She looked at him with a sudden quiet feeling of tenderness, her ugly rabid dog, and reached out a hand. He came over to stand next to her.

  Outside the window, clouds boiled like gray cotton. It was a long way down, she knew.

  She took the gun out of Paolo’s hand and calmly shot him three times in the chest. He looked vaguely surprised, but there was no pain. She sat down next to him cross-legged, while the thick carpet swallowed his life, and put the muzzle of the gun under her chin.

  With her eyes closed, the cold metal felt like the kiss of a dead man.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Velvet

  The clothes Parriott had sent were second-rate. Velvet stood in the neon blue bedroom and stared at her image in the mirror, turned right, turned left, and shook her head.

  “Just wear them,” Robby said wearily from where she sat rubbing her temples. “For god’s sake, if you’re going to do it, get it over with.”

  He’d sent over a leather skirt and jacket and a full-body Spandex bodysuit, but the leather was cheap and the jacket was too tight and the Spandex felt scratchy. Velvet stripped it off and tossed the stuff on the bed, fished her own Spandex suit out of her suitcase, and yanked it on. No underwear. This was a no-underwear kind of guy.

  If he wanted leather, she’d give him leather. She put on the fringed jacket, the butter-soft skirt, and modeled for the mirror.

  “Much better,” she said. “First-rate. Worth the money. Hey, Robby, when I get back, you want to go out to lunch or something, just for old times’ sake? Kind of a goodbye?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m going to scrape up a stake tonight if it kills me, and tomorrow Jim and I will be gone.” She swallowed hard. “We’ll have to leave everything.”

  “Tonight?” Velvet turned to stare at her. “You’ve gotta be kidding. It’s two-thirty, you’ve got the shakes, and you’re so tired you’re ready to go face first in the concrete. You can’t go out.”

  “I’m going. I don’t have a choice. They’re looking for you, Velvet. They’ve gotten to Jim, they’ll get to me. I have to go.” Robby stood and started picking up clothes Velvet had scattered in piles on the floor. “I just have to find something to wear. I’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure you will. You’re gonna spend the night in jail, is what you’re gonna do.” Robby hesitated over the leather Velvet had dumped on the bed. “Want to wear it?”

  “What? Oh, no. No. I never—”

  “Come on, live a little. Jesus, I never met anybody so fucking restrained. You’ll look great, and you’ll blend in a hell of a lot better at three in the morning wearing the leather than you will in a damn suit. The Spandex has long sleeves, it’ll keep you warm. Put a big coat on top of it, man, you’ll be beating off the guys with a club.”

  “I can’t.”

  She wanted to, though. Velvet leaned over, locked eyes with her, and said, “Can’t or won’t?”

  Robby shook her head and walked away, arms full of clothes. The leather stayed dumped on the bed. Velvet shrugged, wiggled her shoulders, checked her thick makeup, and slid on a pair of dark glasses.

  “Fabulous.” She fluffed her hair. “Hey. You’re gonna be okay. Really.”

  Robby, gone off down the hallway, didn’t answer. Velvet blew one more kiss at the mirror, tugged on her bright technicolor coat, and didn’t look back until she was at the front door, unlocking deadbolts.

  Robby was crying somewhere in the back, lonely racking sounds. Velvet closed the door quietly and tried to pretend she hadn’t heard. As she waited in the hallway for the elevator, she felt her mother’s wide, tear-filled eyes on her, heard the quiet sobs.

  Oh, honey, why? Why?

  The elevator took too long. She jammed the button again, and again, until her finger hurt. When the doors rumbled open, she hurried in, wedged herself in the corner, and watched the hallway. Hoped Robby might—

  But she didn’t. The elevator doors creaked closed and the world dropped out from under her in slow shuddering jerks.

  One more time, Mama. One more, and it’s all over.

  The street her trick had picked wasn’t her idea of a good time, that was for sure—more an alley than a real street, a race track for sanitation engineers. Dark, cold, damp, piled with trash cans and sagging boxes. The wind slashed at her exposed skin like a psycho. There were still a few drunks over in the neon-rainbowed glare of Dallas Alley, mostly wandering around giggling and shouting and laughing; the cops would be clearing it out pretty soon.

  She almost wished the cops would show; the damned place was a crime scene waiting to happen. She’d been standing for nearly twenty minutes now, hopping up and down for warmth, pacing. Under the layers of coat and leather, she had broken a sweat, but her face and hands and legs were so frozen they felt like putty.

  Five more minutes. That was all she was giving him, no matter how much money he claimed he had for her.

  Something cold and hard spit in her face. Sleet. Wonderful. Just what she needed. She pressed herself back against the wall and watched it arrive in a hissing sheet, rattling windowpanes, drawing hoarse delighted screams from drunks running for shelter. She checked her watch. Five minutes hadn’t passed.

  Watching the cobblestones ice over wasn’t quite as much fun as watching mold grow. After three minutes she’d convinced herself that maybe she ought to hail a cab out on the street to get back to Robby’s. Robby wouldn’t lock her out, would she? Not Robby.

  Maybe she ought to hurry.

  The sleet had thoroughly rained on the parade; a couple of truly drunk college boys slogged past her, heads down, faces slack, and they were the last. She watched them weave and slip and slide their way across the courtyard. No cops. Nowhere.

  Nobody willing to pay her for her wasted time, either.

  The wind whipped back in her face, splattering her with ice and rain. Her numbed cheeks hardly felt it, but cold trickled down her neck and made her yelp with disgust. That was it, absolutely. She was getting the hell out.

  She stepped out of the alley with relief that vanished when her shoes slipped on a patch of ice. She balanced with both arms out, like a wirewalker, and shuffled carefully across the courtyard toward the street where cabs would be waiting, lights on, heaters humming. She didn’t have enough money for a cab, but that didn’t matter; she’d stiffed cabbies before, or blown them for a fare—

  “Hey,” a voice said from behind her. A man’s voice. She made sure her feet were set, and twisted to look over her shoulder.

  A guy stood in the shadows of the alley where she’d been waiting. She couldn’t see much of him, but he was kind of short and well dressed. The camel-colored coat looked expensive enough to carry its own insurance policy, and he was wearing a suit underneath.

  Not bad. Not bad at all. She pasted a glittery smile on and turned to face him, letting her coat fall open. The wind, delighted, crawled in.