The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(45)
My new friend, minus his short-order hat, led a foursome to the edge of the path. He squinted, hand over his eyes, spotted me and gave an emphatic wave. I stepped on the gas, then froze.
The portly, curly-haired man standing next to the kid must have been Sheldon. He looked like his brother, minus the dye job and the bodybuilder’s physique. With him was a woman in her late forties, refined like an old-time stage actress, and a gangly man who looked like a hundred and fifty pounds of nervous energy. Rounding out the foursome was Meadow Brand, Carmichael-Sterling’s other resident magician. She’d recognize me the second she saw me.
I jumped out of the cart and waved emphatically to a passing caddy. “You! You! Hurry, there’s no time!”
He paused, bewildered, gesturing to a side door. “But I have to—”
“No! No time! Mr. Kaufman needs his cart now! Come on, come on, get on, here you go, just drive it right up there.” I hustled him into the cart. “There you go, quickly now, he’s a great tipper, go go go!”
I watched with relief as the cart puttered up the lane, right on schedule. Heading back inside, bag on my shoulder, I hunted for an employee restroom.
An empty stall wasn’t the most dignified listening post, but all I needed was a locking door and a quiet space. The bug’s receiver was a squat chunk of plastic about the size of a television remote, a Cold War relic with a jack for a set of headphones. A burst of static worried me, but I fiddled with the knobs until distant, scratchy voices echoed over the line.
“—Holt’s dead, my brother f*cked up, we all know that,” said a man’s voice. Had to have been Sheldon. “The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
“Absolutely nothing,” said a woman’s voice, not Meadow’s. She was beyond calm. Icy. Ethereal, like nothing could lay a finger on her. “This saves us the trouble of disposing of him ourselves, and it will take at least a week to reopen the investigations on his desk. Our work will be done by then. It won’t matter.”
The other man spoke up. “Can you guarantee that? Can you guarantee that? The risks we’re taking—”
“You haven’t risked a goddamn thing, you little pansy,” Meadow Brand snapped. “We’ve all done our parts except for you. When’s it going to be, huh? You have a new excuse for us?”
“Tomorrow night. I had to get my wife out of town, okay? She’s going to Rio for a week. I’ve arranged everything. It’s Amber. It has to be Amber—she’s the only one who qualifies.”
“Why don’t you just kill your wife?” Sheldon asked. His casual tone chilled my blood.
“I don’t love my wife,” the other man said, and a chorus of laughter spiked the needle on the receiver.
I blinked, one hand cupped over my ear. What the hell are you people up to?
Twenty-Three
“Be strong,” the calm woman said, “and remember, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing. I chose the three of you because you have the drive and the courage to accomplish this great work. We do this not because we can, but because we must, for the good of—”
“I don’t want to interrupt the pep rally,” Meadow said, “but can we talk about the four-hundred-pound gorilla in the room? How the f*ck did our succubus get free, and is it going to come after us? I don’t like loose ends.”
The other woman sighed loud enough to crackle over the receiver. “I assume Sheldon’s brother was seduced by foolish promises. ‘Release me and I’ll grant you power and wealth,’ that sort of thing.”
“He was a halfwit,” Sheldon muttered. “And what am I going to do with the trap he gave me? He totally botched the ritual; there’s not even an entire soul in there.”
“We don’t need it anyway,” Meadow said, “unless Tony here wusses out. Again.”
The calm woman said, “We’ll keep it. Just in case.”
The golf cart’s engine sputtered. Heavy canvas bags slid against metal.
“Why are you being so mean to me?” Tony’s voice grew softer as he got out of the cart, walking away from the bug.
“‘Why are you being so meaaaan to me?’” Meadow mock-whined. “When you put on your big boy pants and step up to the plate like the rest of us, I’ll start taking you seriously. You get the respect you earn.”
“Enough,” the other woman said. “Both of you. Tonight is crucial. I called our friend as soon as my plane landed. He’s covering his end of this business, but that won’t mean a thing if we aren’t working in perfect harmony.”
Perfect harmony? I thought. Oh, that’s just an invitation for somebody to mess with you. I think I’ll accept.
“Can we talk about the construction permits, please?” Tony said, his voice fading. “If we have to revise these blueprints, I need to know before next week.”
I only heard a few more words as the foursome walked away from the cart, off to play a round of golf on a bright and sunny day. I didn’t feel the sunshine. Something was wrong here, seriously wrong, and it made Stacy’s murder look like a drop in the bucket. I bagged up my kit and left the bathroom.
I figured I could loiter in the parking lot out front and shadow one of them when they left. With my car parked well outside Red Rock’s gates, though, I wouldn’t get very far. Another trip to the Carmichael-Sterling office, if I handled it right, might yield a home address or more information about the other two players. An Internet search wouldn’t hurt, either. Options riffled through my mind like poker cards as I walked through the lobby toward the exit, discarding hand after losing hand.