“I smell like tea and sandalwood, don’t you think?”
“Hell no. You smell like water-buffalo shit.”
He propelled me by the shoulders into the bathroom and opened the shower-stall door. I stepped in, smiling. Without closing the door, he turned on the water—a blast of cold, quickly turning hot—and grabbed a couple of toy bottles of shampoo from the counter. Then he palmed a wet washcloth and lathered me all over, scrubbing me in quite intimate ways, which I enjoyed.
My skin felt scalded. He shut off the water with a bang of old pipes and pulled me out of the stall. I turned coyly for his inspection.
“Where’s your stuff?” he asked. I had brought nothing with me, not even Rob’s papers. They might have been in Lissa’s car, but they certainly weren’t in the hotel room. Or had we left them in the office building to burn?
I could not remember.
“The papers,” I said, with sudden concern.
“Put on your clothes,” he ordered.
“I’m wet.”
“Do it.”
I dressed, pulling sleeves and pant legs over wet skin, jerking them into place seductively. While I was buttoning my shirt, he slung me over his shoulder and hauled me roughly through the narrow door to the parking lot.
The lot glowed an unreal orange under the streetlights. The whole neighborhood was quiet, waiting. “It sure is spooky,” I said, looking up and around from my slumped vantage.
The car was a Mercedes S-class, very nice, dark red that looked black.
He put me down on my feet on the asphalt beside the car. Someone opened the driver’s side door and stepped out as if to help.
It was Banning.
“Rudy!” I said.
“That,” said Banning, without a touch of humor, “is a disgustingly sloppy grin.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Saving your life,” Banning said. “Please hurry.”
I wove back and forth like a drunk to get a closer look at the big guy. He was in his early sixties, with big round shoulders and hairy hands. He lugged a solid beer belly.
The big guy opened the back door and pushed me in. I sat.
“How wonderful for you, Rudy,” I said. “Nice German car.”
Banning stared fixedly through the front windshield.
The big guy sat in front and passed me a gallon plastic milk container. “Drink this,” he said. “Drink all of it. It will make you sicker than a dog, and you’ll spew from both ends. Let us know when the rumbling starts.” He looked at his watch. “Might take an hour.”
“I’ll warn you,” I said earnestly.
I started drinking. It was not milk. It tasted awful, like very sour yogurt laced with Angostura. I did what they told me, not because I was compelled to, but because a fresh, frightened, but still-small voice told me that I had almost killed myself, and that these were friends.
The big guy watched me drink. “Let’s go before they come back to check on you.”
Rudy swung a quick look around the parking lot, put the Mercedes in gear, and drove away from the strip motel with old-world ease.
“We’re taking you to a plane,” the big guy said. “Then we’re going to New York. I’ve already been there.”
“I know Rudy, but who are you?” I asked between gulps.
“I’m the bastard who shot your brother,” he said, with a bitter twist of his face.
PART FOUR
BEN BRIDGER
32
JUNE 20 • MANHATTAN
“It’s got to be like moving chess pieces by walkie-talkie with someone wearing kitchen mitts,” Rob said, as the Amtrak pulled into Penn Station. He had just come out of a heavy snooze, with loud and liquid snoring. His eyes were dreamy as he goggled at the stone and brick walls outside the train. He looked terrible. “Hands-off, three and four removed, waiting, hiding out . . .”
I asked him what he was talking about.
“Silk,” he said.
“They’ve stomped us so far,” I said. We stepped off the Amtrak, crossed the platform, and hauled our two bags—LA thrift-store cheapies—up the stairs to Pennsylvania Avenue. I looked for a taxi.
“Don’t take a cab that’s waiting,” Rob said. “Don’t take a cab if they seem to be looking for us. In fact, let’s walk a few blocks.”
