Suspicion (27 page)

H
alf an hour later, Danny pulled into the parking lot of a generic-looking redbrick three-story motel-like structure.

The Ambassador Suites Extended Stay Hotel of Waltham.

No white van in sight.

He parked and switched off the engine. In front of the hotel was a portcullis over a concrete T that led to the main entrance. The grand entrance. It was a dismal, antiseptic-looking place. It pulsed with loneliness and desperation and transience. Most of the guests here, he figured, were midlevel business executives from places like Oracle or Raytheon or Biogen Idec who’d just “relocated” to the Boston area and were searching for housing. Or maybe visiting “teams” from Google or Microsoft or Genzyme here on some short-term project for a couple of lonely weeks. Skilled construction engineers working on a job, here for a month or two, away from home.

But what about a couple of ex-DEA agents running some sort of scam? Were they here?

A gray Mini Cooper came around the side of the hotel and pulled out into the street. And he realized there was more parking behind the hotel. He started up the car again and moved around to the back. Two rows of parked cars, broken in the middle by the rear entrance to the hotel and a lane perpendicular to the cars that led to a street. Directly across the street from the hotel was a big concrete and steel parking garage, almost a block long.

In the back row of cars on the left, nestled among the rented-looking economy sedans, was a white panel van with
INTERSTATE FOOD &
BEVERAGE
on the side.

They were staying here, at this hotel, and they were probably in their room. This wasn’t an area where anyone walked anywhere. There were no sidewalks, and the distances were too great. If they’d gone out, they’d have taken the car.

They were here.

He parked, slung his laptop bag over one shoulder, and walked under the portico into the main entrance. The lobby was small and dimly lit and smelled of burnt coffee and fast food. The reception desk was small, with a marble-topped counter. Fluorescent light flickered. No one seemed to be behind the counter.

There was a bell, the kind you hit to make it go ding. No one, not even Pavlov’s dogs, likes being summoned by a bell. He called out, “Hello?”

A bulky young man, midtwenties, trundled out. His name badge said
MATT
.

“Can I get a room just for the night, Matt?” Danny asked. Maybe the one-week-minimum policy was flexible. He shifted the bag on his shoulder. It bulged on one side with the mass of Galvin’s pistol, but the shape wasn’t obvious. Still, he couldn’t help feeling self-conscious.

“Sure,” the clerk said. Simple as that. Plenty of vacancies and the policy goes out the window.

“Got anything at the back of the hotel?”
Where the white van was parked
, he thought.

The clerk hunched over a keyboard that was a little too low for comfort.
Tappa tappa tap tap tappa
.

Danny’s chest felt tight. He was on the verge of doing something pretty damned dangerous. But it was better not to dwell on the odds.

It was like a Wile E. Coyote moment where you fall if you look down: the cartoon laws of physics.

So don’t look down.

“That’ll be one hundred four ninety-nine.”

Danny handed him a credit card, held his breath. After a moment, he saw the charge had gone through okay. This one he’d paid down. There was room on the credit line. He exhaled.

The clerk took a sheet of paper from the printer and slid it across the counter. Danny signed it.

“Help you with your bags, sir?”

“I’ll bring them up later.”

 • • • 

His room was on the second floor. It was entirely possible that he’d bump into Slocum or Yeager or both, and he had no explanation prepared.

If they saw him, he was pretty well screwed.

The room was small and efficient. A queen-size bed, a desk, and a chair. A kitchen area with a dishwasher, refrigerator, coffeemaker, two electric burners. Everything a relocating executive could need to make his lonely little home for a few weeks.

The window looked out over the back of the hotel and the double rows of cars.

The white van was still there.

Slocum and Yeager were in the hotel. But where? In which room? There were ways to find out. Pretexting, it was called. Pretending to be someone you’re not, or pretending that something had happened.

But maybe he didn’t need to go that far.

He unzipped his laptop bag and took out his PowerBook, and plugged it in, and he signed on to the free Wi-Fi service.

He took out the prepaid Samsung TracFone. Then he took out Galvin’s Beretta and a box of ammo and set it on the desk next to the laptop.

The Beretta smelled of gun oil. It didn’t smell like it had ever been fired, or at least not recently. It was new-looking and unscratched. He popped the magazine release and pulled out the magazine. It was still loaded with fifteen rounds. He picked it up and held it in a two-hand grip the way his father had taught him and sighted on the right bedside sconce. Then he turned and aimed it out the window at a blue Prius. A traditional dot-and-post system, a half-moon rear sight with a red dot, and a front post with a red dot.

The pistol felt substantial in his hands, heavy yet balanced. It was a serious gun—was there such a thing as an
unserious
gun?—and his aim had always been decent. Nothing great—he was no sniper—but not bad for a guy who fired a gun no more often than every couple of years. At most. And that was standing in the range at the Nauset gun club with his dad. In controlled, artificial, ideal circumstances.

In the real world, he was a rank amateur.

Facing off against someone who used weapons on a regular basis? Forget it. Danny would be dead. Facing off against a semiautomatic assault rifle? Don’t even think about it.

So what did he need the Beretta for? Could he in fact use it, under duress?

He put the thought out of his mind. It was simply better to have the thing than not.

He could call Jay Poskanzer now and have him give the FBI this address. The exact location of two former DEA employees who were pretending to still be on the payroll, impersonating law enforcement officers.

But as long as he was here, he could get a lot more.

Beginning, he realized, with the license plate number of the white van. He looked out the window.

Just in time to see Slocum and Yeager getting into it.

T
he elevator was too slow in coming, so he raced down the stairwell to the lobby. His footsteps clattered and echoed. He slowed to an unhurried pace as he entered the lobby.

He caught a glimpse of Matt, the rotund desk clerk, behind the counter. Danny went to the glass door at the rear of the building and, standing to the side, looked out.

The white van was gone.

He circled back to the front desk. He smelled French fries. “Those guys who just left in that van?”

“Excuse me?” Matt was still chewing. He tilted his head politely.

“Man, did I screw up,” Danny said. “I hit their van when I was parking earlier, and I wanted to leave them a note. You know who I’m talking about? The white van?”

Matt swallowed. “Um, I don’t know anything about a white van, sir. I don’t really notice what kind of cars guests drive.” A shred of lettuce nested among the hairs of his goatee.

“The two guys who just left—the skinny one with the black hair and the squat bald guy? Just walked out?”

He nodded. He knew who Danny was talking about. “Would you like me to leave a note for them?”

Danny shook his head, looking horrified by the idea. “I can’t take that chance. I mean, if they see the damage and file a claim against—well, I’m just screwed, because I’m driving this company car without going through all the paperwork, and I could lose my job. Will you be around later tonight?”

“Tonight? No, my shift is over at five, but Leslie will be here.”

He probably worked an eight-hour shift, nine to five. Of course he wouldn’t still be here at night. Danny was counting on that. “All right, let me write down their room number.” Not
What room are they in?
“I’m going to have to get an insurance form and a personal check, and—I’ll just slide it under their door when I get back here tonight.”

Matt hesitated. He inhaled. His expression looked like he was about to apologize. To say something officious and bureaucratic.
I’m sorry, sir, we’re not allowed to give out room numbers of hotel guests. It’s hotel policy
.

But then he noticed the twenty-dollar bill that Danny was sliding across the counter.

“That’s—that’s not necessary, sir,” he said with an embarrassed smile.

“I know it’s not much. My job’s worth a lot more than that. But . . .”

Once Matt snapped up the bill, the deal was sealed. It wasn’t the twenty bucks that did it, of course. It was Danny’s desperation. It would have been churlish to refuse to help.

Matt
tap-tap-tapp
ed
away and said quickly, quietly, “They’re in rooms 303 and 304. I really can’t give you their names, though.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary. All I need is the room number. Thank you so much. You have no idea what a huge help this is.”

D
anny wandered the third-floor hallway in search of a housekeeper. He finally found one in room 307, where the door was propped open with a cart.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Like an idiot I locked myself out of my room. Three oh three—could you let me in, please?”

The housekeeper whirled around, eyes widening. “Oh! Sir? What happen?”

He held up a Lucite bucket. “I stepped out to get some ice.” He shook his head, scowled. But not apologetically, not really. More annoyed at the hotel. At the unexpected speed with which his room door had slammed shut. The hotel’s fault. Not his.

“What room you say?”

“Three oh three.” He shook his head, the disgruntled hotel guest.

She approached, pulled a clipboard on a string from a well in her cart. “Eh, what is name?”

“Yeager.”

She looked down the list of hotel guests. Shook her head. “I’m sorry?”

They’d probably checked in under different phony names. “I’m in three oh three. Could you hurry? I’ve got an important conference call in a couple of minutes.”

“Yes,” she said with a brisk nod. “Room 303.” She said it as if confirming it to herself.

He followed the woman out into the hallway. She smelled like a fabric softener sheet you’d toss into a load of laundry in the dryer. Or like a room deodorizer spray. It was mixed with the odor of her perspiration, the sweat of a hardworking woman. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell, but it was the miasma in which she spent her workday.

She led him briskly down the hall. She had a slight limp.

When she got to room 303, she pulled out a master key card and inserted it into the electronic card reader in the lock set unit. It probably opened all the rooms on her floor.

“Thank you so much,” Danny said as she pushed open the door. He handed her a twenty-dollar bill.

“Oh,
gracias, gracias,
señor. Eh—you want I get you ice?”

 • • • 

The room was a near-exact replica of Danny’s and looked like it had just been cleaned.

A metal Rimowa suitcase rested on a luggage stand, closed. He tried to open it, but it was locked. A suit and a blazer hung in the ample closet next to the bathroom. Nothing in the kitchenette had been left out. Just about the only indication that someone lived here, apart from the locked suitcase, was the desk.

A black Toshiba laptop was open on the desk, next to a neat sheaf of papers. He pulled Galvin’s gun from the small of his back and set it down next to the computer.

A psychedelic screen saver swirled and undulated, a rainbow of streamers in a starry night sky.

He tapped the keyboard, and the screen saver vanished and a password prompt came up. He stared at it for a few seconds. Hit
RETURN
, just in case it didn’t really require a password.

PASSWO
RD INCORRECT
.

He typed the word
password
and hit
ENTER
.

PASSWORD INCORRECT.
Well, it was worth a try. He typed
12345678
and hit
RETURN
.

PASSW
ORD INCORRECT
.

He typed
abc123
.

PASS
WORD INCORRECT
.

He hesitated. Maybe the machine would lock up after a certain number of wrong tries. He typed
999999
, then paused, then added two more 9s, for a total of eight.

PAS
SWORD INCORRECT.

Hold on
, he told himself.
You don’t need to access their laptop. Leave that to the computer experts at the FBI.
The laptop would have all sorts of compromising information on these phony DEA agents. It would be serious leverage. It would enable him to make an excellent deal with the Department of Justice.

Just take the damned thing.

He closed the laptop. Picked up the neatly stacked sheaf of papers. On top was a printout of an e-ticket. A boarding pass, actually:

Flights 401/2470 Flight 2470
operated by AEROLITORAL DBA AEROMEXICO CONNECT

Depart:
12:45 AM

New York, NY (JFK)

Arrive:
8:20 AM

Nuevo Laredo, Mexico (NLD)

Connect in: Mexico City

The ticket was in the name of Arthur Duncan, and the flight departed in three days. Maybe Arthur Duncan was the real name of one of them, or maybe it was an alias. The destination was a place in Mexico called Nuevo Laredo. Jay Poskanzer had said that Slocum and Yeager had been working there for the DEA when they were fired. But why Arthur Duncan was going there now was a mystery.

He folded the paper in quarters and slipped it into a pocket.

The door to the room came open.

Danny picked up the gun and spun toward the door.

It was Philip Slocum.