Birds of Prey : Previously Copub Sequel to the Hour of the Hunter (9780061739101) (43 page)

Christine said nothing, but I didn't expect her to reply. Mine was a rhetorical question. I already knew the answer.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a flurry of movement. Two uniformed crewmen entered through one of the Pizzeria's two entries while two others, led by First Officer Vincente, entered via the other. None of them seemed to be armed, but as they converged around our table, seven to one seemed like pretty good odds to me.

“I'd put the gun down if I were you, Christine,” I told her. “I'd put the gun down and raise my hands in the air.”

Meanwhile First Officer Vincente walked up to the table looking totally unperturbed. “You are Miss Moran?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Please put down your weapon and come with me,” he said. “I am placing you under arrest.”

“You can't arrest me,” she said. “I'm an American citizen.”

“As first officer, I am the ship's chief security officer, madam,” he told her. “Under maritime law, all ship passengers come under the captain's jurisdiction. As the captain's designated security officer, I am in charge. The fact that you are an American citizen has nothing to do with it. There are several FBI agents due back on the next tender. Once they arrive, I will be happy to turn you over to them. In the meantime, you will please come with me.”

The mention of the FBI was too much for Christine Moran. Exploding into action, she made a break for it. She shoved Marc's chair out of the way and sprinted along the wall toward the nearest exit. One of First Officer Vincente's security crew brought her down with a flying tackle. The gun spun away in one direction, while the purse, which she had clutched under her arm, went flying the other way. It skittered away across the marbled floor, scattering contents as it went. While two members of the security crew subdued Christine Moran and wrestled her into a pair of handcuffs, another crewman went across the floor gathering the purse and everything that had fallen from it. He brought the collection of loose items back to the table where Marc and I were sitting and dumped them in a heap on the marble tabletop.

The pile contained the usual kinds of female survival stuff—a comb, two tubes of lipstick, a compact, some wadded Kleenex, several pens, a small bottle of prescription medication, a change purse, and a set of car keys. The last item the sailor retrieved appeared to be a small leather wallet, but it was too thin to be a wallet—too thin and too flat. And when he dropped it onto the table, it landed with a distinctly unwallet-like clatter.

Using the tip of one of the pencils, I raised the leather top. Under it was an electronic organizer—a PalmPilot. Not the keys to Rebecca, perhaps, and not a little black book, either, but I was pretty sure that organizer would contain the phone numbers and codes that would give the FBI all the access it needed to Leave It To God. And since it seemed unlikely that PalmPilots come complete with that old
Mission Impossible
ability to self-destruct, I figured Rachel Dulles and Alex Freed were going to have a blast.

First Officer Vincente looked at the organizer. “What is that?” he asked.

“It's her database,” I told him. “Which means it's really a home run.”

Vincente looked at it and smiled. “A home run,” he agreed. “With bases loaded.”

I
T'S POSSIBLE THAT
by the time the second seating came around that night, Margaret Featherman was once again installed as reigning royalty at her table for six in the Crystal Dining Room. I have no idea whether or not that happened. After being debriefed by a roomful of at first guarded, but eventually appreciative FBI agents, I returned to my stateroom, where Naomi Pepper and I opted to order dinner from Room Service. She may have been mad at me earlier, but by dinnertime, Naomi was pretty well over it.

“So this is what it's like to be involved with a police officer,” she said thoughtfully, spearing a chunk of almond-crusted red snapper. “Every once in a while you cops just leap up and go racing off like that without a word.”

“That's pretty much it,” I agreed. “Usually, there's no time to hang around giving long-winded explanations.”

“Or even short-winded ones,” she added. “It all sounds very exciting, but I suspect it would take some getting used to. Are you planning on going back to work anytime soon?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Being a dance host on the
Starfire Breeze
seems to offer plenty of excitement. And you never know. It's always possible that you might hook up with a rich widow—or an enticing not-quite-rich and not-quite-divorced widow.”

“Who happens to like to tango?” she asked with a smile.

“You bet,” I told her. “And who has the trophy coffee mug to prove it.”

We went to bed early that night, without waiting for Hector's turndown service. The
DO NOT DISTURB
sign was prominently displayed on our door and the telephone ringer turned off. The only hazard with going to bed that early is waking up early as well. I awakened well before sunrise. The first thing I saw in the gray dimness of the room was the telephone—with its voice-mail light blinking away. Rather than call for messages from there, I eased my way out of bed doing my best not to disturb a peacefully sleeping Naomi. I went in the bathroom, closed the door, and used that phone to dial in for messages.

The message from Lars had been left a mere twenty minutes earlier. “If you get this anytime soon, meet me in the Lido Buffet for coffee. I'll be there for an hour or so.”

Naomi was still sleeping when I came out of the bathroom. I jotted a note on the notepad, left it on my pillow, then I tiptoed out into the corridor. I spotted Lars sitting at a table in the middle of the noisy room.

After pouring myself a cup of coffee, I sauntered over to his table and helped myself to a chair. “What's up?” I asked. “And where's Beverly this morning?”

“She and the Wakefield girls went for a massage,” he said. “Beverly's never had one, and she refused to go by herself. Early morning was the only time all three of them could get in together. After that, I guess they're going to have their hair fixed. Again. It's another one of those formal nights,” he added grumpily.

“Beverly deserves some fun now and then,” I said. “I know for a fact you've had yours.”

It was an uncalled-for dig, and Lars responded with a noticeable wince. “It's not what you t'ink,” he said. “Not now.”

“Isn't it?” I said.

Of course, having just crawled out of a luxuriously warm bed that came complete with a delectably willing woman, I wasn't in any position to cast aspersions.

“Maybe it was at one time,” he said. “Back in the old days, when I was fouled up on booze a lot of the time, I us'ta go to the Kiksadi Club, and not just for the drinking, either. But that was between Aggie and me, and we got it all settled, long before Aggie got sick. By then, it was all water under the bridge. But I did stay friends with one of the girls,” he added. “Friends and nothing more.”

“With Dulcie Wadsworth.”

“Ya,” he said. “The guy she was mixed up with was a real bad character. And what he did to her was all wrong. That's why, when she wanted to go into business for herself, I helped her do it.”

“You were one of her financial backers?”

“The financial backer,” Lars said. “The bank turned her down flat. Believe me, it's been a damned fine investment over the years—best one I ever made. The money's come in real steady.”

“Does Beverly know anything about your investment?” I asked with more than a slightly sarcastic emphasis on the word
investment
.

“No,” he said. “And she's not going to know—unless you tell her.”

“Come on, Lars. You two are married. You can't keep that kind of thing secret. If nothing else, it'll turn up when it's time to do your income taxes.”

“No, it won't,” he said. “It's all paid off now. There won't be any more money coming in from the Quicksaudy Club.”

“Why not?”

“Because Dulcie bought me out several years ago—lock, stock, and barrel. Where do you t'ink I got enough money pulled together to move your grandmother into Queen Anne Gardens?”

“From Dulcie buying you out?” I asked.

“Where else?” he returned. “And another t'ing,” he added. “Whatever Dulcie did before, the Quicksaudy Club never was a whorehouse, either. Understand?”

Lars looked at me defiantly through his rheumy old blue eyes. I think if I had disagreed with him right then, he would have taken a swing at me and punched me out on the spot—smack in the middle of the Lido Buffet.

“Yes,” I said. “Now that you put it that way, I guess I do understand. The Quixote Club never was a whorehouse and never will be.”

“Right,” Lars said with a smile. “Not as long as Dulcie's around. She's a fine woman, Beau. Not as fine as your grandmother by any means, but still very nice.”

There was a faraway look in his eye when Lars said that, and it crossed my mind that it was probably a good thing for Lars that he had divested himself of all financial interest in the Quixote Club. As a man I could afford to be philosophical about such things. I doubted very much that Beverly Piedmont Jenssen would be.

No wonder Lars had wanted to have coffee with me so bright and early. He didn't think she'd be philosophical about it, either.

“Don't worry, Pop,” I told him, giving Lars a playful whack on his scrawny, bony shoulder blade. “Your secret's safe with me.”

“In the world of murder and mayhem, liars are losers. And they're usually guilty.”

“There's nothing like a woman's scream to bring a man bolt upright in bed.”

“When someone giving me out-of-town directions says ‘You can't miss it,' I know I can and I will.”

“Drinking or not, being a parent is hell, almost as rewarding as trying to nail a scrambled egg to a tree.”

“Generally speaking, it's not good to hit pedestrians at all. But if you have to hit one, it's better not to do it in a marked crosswalk.”

“Middle-aged dating is hell.”

“A loaded gun in the hands of a frightened person can be a deadly combination.”

“Nobody has life completely sewed up.”

“Murder investigations don't allow any room for rage.”

“There's nothing like murder and mayhem to liven up a waning mealtime discussion.”

“In the world of homicide investigations, suspected killers become convicted ones.”

“More often than not, murderers are found within the realm of the victim's circle of acquaintance.”

J. A. Jance
is the American Mystery Award-winning author of the J.P. Beaumont series as well as eight enormously popular novels featuring small-town Arizona sheriff Joanna Brady. She has also written two critically acclaimed thrillers,
Kiss of the Bees
and
Hour of the Hunter
. Jance was born in South Dakota, brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, and now lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

BIRDS OF PREY
. Copyright © 2001 by J. A. Jance. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCopllins e-books.

EPub © Edition v 1. AUGUST 2001 ISBN: 9780061739101

Print edition first published in 2001 HarperCollins Publishers

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