Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(90)

On the spur of the moment he hooks into the gift shop and buys a bunch of ’Round Here shit. When he comes out ten minutes later, carrying a bag with I HAD A MAC ATTACK printed on the side, he again glances down the hallway leading to the Mingo. Just two nights from now, that hallway will become a cattle-chute filled with laughing, pushing, crazily excited girls, most accompanied by longsuffering parents. From this angle he can see that the far righthand side of the corridor has been sectioned off from the rest by velvet ropes. At the head of this sequestered mini-corridor is another sign on another chrome stand.

Brady reads it and thinks, Oh my God.

Oh . . . my . . . God!





13


In the apartment that used to belong to Elizabeth Wharton, Janey kicks off her heels and plunks down on the couch. “Thank God that’s over. Did it last a thousand years, or two?”

“Two,” Hodges says. “You look like a woman who could use a nap.”

“I slept until eight,” she protests, but to Hodges it sounds feeble.

“Still might be a good idea.”

“Considering the fact that I’m having dinner with my relatives tonight in Sugar Heights, you could have something there, shamus. You’re off the hook on dinner, by the way. I think they want to talk about everyone’s favorite musical comedy, Janey’s Millions.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“I’m going to split Ollie’s loot with them. Straight down the middle.”

Hodges starts to laugh. He stops when he realizes she’s serious.

Janey hoists her eyebrows. “Got a problem with that? Maybe think a paltry three and a half mil won’t be enough to see me through to my old age?”

“I guess it would, but . . . it’s yours. Olivia willed it to you.”

“Yes, and the will’s unbreakable, Lawyer Schron assures me of that, but that still doesn’t mean Ollie was in her right mind when she made it. You know that. You saw her, talked to her.” She’s massaging her feet through her stockings. “Besides, if I give them half, I get to watch how they divvy it up. Think of the amusement value.”

“Sure you don’t want me to come with you tonight?”

“Not tonight but definitely tomorrow. That I can’t do alone.”

“I’ll pick you up at quarter past nine. Unless you want to spend another night at my place, that is.”

“Tempting, but no. Tonight is strictly earmarked for family fun. There’s one other thing before you take off. Very important.” She rummages in her purse for a notepad and a pen. She writes, then tears off a page and holds it out to him. Hodges sees two groups of numbers.

Janey says, “The first one opens the gates to the house in Sugar Hill. The second kills the burglar alarm. When you and your friend Jerome are working on Ollie’s computer Thursday morning, I’ll be taking Aunt Charlotte, Holly, and Uncle Henry to the airport. If the guy rigged her computer the way you think he did . . . and the program’s still there . . . I don’t think I could stand it.” She’s looking at him pleadingly. “Do you get that? Say you do.”

“I get it,” Hodges says. He kneels beside her like a man getting ready to propose in one of the romantic novels his ex-wife used to like. Part of him feels absurd. Mostly he doesn’t.

“Janey,” he says.

She looks at him, trying to smile, not quite making it.

“I’m sorry. For everything. So, so sorry.” It isn’t just her he’s thinking of, or her late sister, who was so troubled and troublesome. He’s thinking of the ones who were lost at City Center, especially the woman and her baby.

When he was promoted to detective, his mentor was a guy named Frank Sledge. Hodges thought of him as an old guy, but back then Sledge was fifteen years younger than Hodges is now. Don’t you ever let me hear you call them the vics, Sledge told him. That shit’s strictly for *s and burnouts. Remember their names. Call them by their names.

The Crays, he thinks. They were the Crays. Janice and Patricia.

Janey hugs him. Her breath tickles his ear when she speaks, giving him goosebumps and half a hardon. “I’m going back to California when this is finished. I can’t stay here. I think the world of you, Bill, and if I stayed here I could probably fall in love with you, but I’m not going to do that. I need to make a fresh start.”

“I know.” Hodges pulls away and holds her by the shoulders so he can look her in the face again. It’s a beautiful face, but today she’s looking her age. “It’s all right.”

She dives into her purse again, this time for Kleenex. After she’s dried her eyes, she says, “You made a conquest today.”

“A . . . ?” Then he gets it. “Holly.”

“She thinks you’re wonderful. She told me so.”

“She reminds me of Olivia. Talking to her feels like a second chance.”

“To do the right thing?”

“Yeah.”

Janey wrinkles her nose at him and grins. “Yeah.”





14


Brady goes shopping that afternoon. He takes the late Deborah Ann Hartsfield’s Honda, because it’s a hatchback. Still, one of the items barely fits in the rear. He thinks of stopping at Speedy Postal on his way home and checking for the Gopher-Go he ordered under his Ralph Jones alias, but all that seems like a thousand years ago now, and really, what would be the point? That part of his life is over. Soon the rest will be, too, and what a relief.