Born to Run (20 page)

"Is something wrong?" she said.

"No, sorry." Jack was staring, but he couldn't help it. She was definitely familiar. "Would you like some coffee?" "No, thank you."

She was leaning on the arm of the chair with her elbow, as if she were too tired to sit up straight, and her left leg was restless and shaking uncontrollably. She seemed nervous. Maybe even a little scared.

Finally, she looked up into Jack's eyes.

More than a little scared.

"You're in a lot of danger," she said.

Jack had heard some interesting first lines from people in that chair, but this one was up there with the best of them. "Can you tell me why?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "I had a lawyer once. He did a will for my late husband and me. If I'm your client, you can't tell anyone what I tell you. Not even the police. Is that right?" "That's the way it normally works." "Am I your client?" "You are now. Talk to me."

"I think I know who killed that young reporter in Washington--Chloe Sparks. And," she said, swallowing a lump in her throat, "I think you may be next."

"Whoa," said Jack. That last part had hit a little too close to home. "What's the killer's name?" "I can't tell you his name."

"That's okay. But what do you say we back up a little and you at least tell me your name?"

She took a breath, and let it out. "Sofia." "Good. A beautiful name." "Grazie

"You're Italian?" "From Sicily."

"Is that where the killer is from?"

"No."

"Would I be wrong if I guessed he was Greek?"

She showed surprise. "How would you know that?"

"I've been doing a little investigating of my own. Chloe's sister and I tracked that down after we figured out that Chloe and I got the same curious message from an anonymous source."

"I still can't tell you his name."

"How do you know he killed Chloe Sparks?"

"I've known him a long time," she said, then thought better of it. "No, I knew him a long time ago. We talked recently."

"He told you that he killed Chloe Sparks?"

"No. In fact, he denied it."

"You don't believe him?"

The anguish was all over her face. "I wanted to. I've always wanted to. But I've known better for a long time, and I definitely know better now. He told me he was in contact with her about President Keyes. He was trying to sell her newspaper a story. It didn't work out. Now she's dead."

"You assume he killed her."

"He's desperate for money--a lot of money. The only way he can raise it is to sell what he knows about President Keyes. Once the secret is out, he can't sell it. Somehow, Chloe Sparks must have figured out what he was trying to sell her before she had to pay him for it. That was a fatal mistake. Then he tried to sell the same information to you."

Jack processed her words, thinking it through. "So if he thinks I also figured it out without paying for it, then--"

"Then you're next on his list."

Jack took it a step further, wondering if that was what had happened to Paulette Sparks.

"Are you on the list?" he asked.

She massaged away the tension between her eyes. "I have even bigger problems."

Jack took another good look at her. It was a safe bet that she hadn't slept much last night. "Are you running from someone?"

She didn't answer. She didn't have to.

Jack said, "Have you thought about going to the police?" "No!"

"It's just a suggestion," said Jack. "Can we at least talk it out?"

"I can't go to the police."

"Why not?"

"I just can't. That's not possible."

"What if you were to tell me the killer's name and then I went to the police?"

"No."

"I have a friend in the FBI."

"Absolutely no!"

Jack paused, confused. "The man killed Chloe Sparks. You think he might kill me. You look scared to death. Why are you protecting him?"

"It's not him I'm protecting," she said.

"Have you done something wrong, too?"

"No," she said, almost laughing in frustration. "This is not about me."

Jack leaned forward and looked her in the eye. "Are you afraid of him?"

Again, she was silent. Then suddenly she rose and said, "I've told you everything I can. You know the danger. Now please take care of yourself."

"Sofia, you are an important witness, and you seem like a good person. I can help you get protection. I've done this many times before."

She closed her eyes, struggling, then opened them. "You have no idea how complicated this is."

"You're right. I don't. But let's agree on this. We won't do anything today. For now, we'll just make you safe. You look like you could use some sleep. Do you have friends or family to stay with in Miami?"

"No one."

"Do you have a hotel?"

She shook her head. "I rode the train all night from New York. I came straight from the station."

He noticed that she had no luggage, but the heavy winter coat suddenly made sense.

Really on the run.

Jack helped with her coat, then grabbed a business card from his desk and wrote an address on the back.

"There's a boutique hotel about three blocks that way," he said, pointing. "The San Pietro. My out-of-town clients stay there and love it. Use my name. Tell the manager to bill it to my account."

"I can't do that."

"Please. It's right on the corner of Alhambra. A pink Mediterranean-style building with a barrel-tile roof and bougainvillea vines climbing up the walls. It will remind you of Sicily."

That brought a smile--just a hint of one, but Jack could see that, trapped deep inside, was a beautiful smile that could have lit up a room.

"Thank you," she said, as she surprised him with a kiss on the cheek.

"You're welcome," he said, and he showed her to the door.

Chapter
32

Jack caught up with Theo for lunch at the Royal Castle.

Northwest Seventy-nine Street and Unity Boulevard was Theo's old neighborhood, a hardscrabble part of town where deadly race riots had made Liberty City synonymous with violence in the 1980s. Over the years, crime had shut down or driven away scores of mom-and-pop businesses, but Royal Castle hamburgers--palm-sized patties with pickles, onions, and mustard--have been served at the same location for over half a century. The orange bubble letters on the windows and vintage sixties posters on the white tile walls were a nice touch of nostalgia, though the world's last existing Royal Castle restaurant did not have a spotless past. It had taken a civil rights protest march to bring down the sign on the counter that had once proclaimed WHITES ONLY. Theo's great-uncle Cy had been one of the first persons of color to sit himself down on one of ten chrome stools at the red-and-white counter, and he'd been coming for lunch every Friday since.

Theo kept eating, but Uncle Cy was so happy to see Jack that he got up and hugged him so hard that the old man accidentally farted.

"Ooops, my bad."

Theo nearly burst with laughter, and Cy slapped him across the back of the head, as if he were ten years old again.

"Ain't funny. Gettin' old sucks."

"You can say that again," said Jack.

Cy introduced Jack to the waitress, a striking young woman who looked like a young Vanessa Williams and whose name was Brandy.

"Brandy?" said Jack.

"Yes. Brandy."

"A fine girl," said Theo.

"And what a good wife she would be," said Jack.

"Huh?" said Brandy.

Jack was feeling all of forty again, referencing a pop song that was almost as old as he was to a woman who wasn't even old enough to know Red Hot Chili Peppers unless they were on her nachos.

"Jack, take my seat," said Cy. "I gotta run. You can have that last burger if you want it."

Theo snatched it from the old man's plate and stuffed his face.

Cy swatted him across the backside of his head again. "The boy's hopeless," said Cy.

"This, from a man who just blew his trumpet at the counter," said Theo.

Cy swatted at him again, but this time Theo ducked.

"Not even my aim's what it used to be," said Cy. "I'll see y'all later."

Jack placed an order with Brandy--two burgers for himself and three more for Theo. Theo slurped down a root beer as Jack told him all about the visit from Sofia. Theo was Jack's unofficial investigator, so, technically speaking, telling him about Sofia wasn't a breach of the attorney-client privilege. More important, Theo knew a thing or two about people on the run, and Jack needed some insight.

"You scared?" said Theo.

"A little. She did say I could be next on the killer's hit list."

"Or he might just wait for you to die, now that you're forty."

"Go to hell."

"So, you're sure that the cause of everybody's problems-- yours, Sofia's, Chloe Sparks's--is all the same person?"

"I'd bet my Mustang on it."

"It's this Zorba guy?"

"Yeah. The Greek."

"You know, it's funny," said Theo. "I once impressed the hell out of a chick by humming the theme from The Munsters and joining it seamlessly with 'If I Were a Rich Man.'"

Jack pressed between his eyes, staving off a migraine. "First of all, I don't even remember the theme from The Munsters. Second, 'If I Were Rich Man' is from Fiddler on the Roof, not Zorba. You'd know that if you were forty. And, third, why the hell are we talking about this?"

"Sorry. So, after talking to this Sofia, are you going to call the cops?"

"I was thinking about talking to Andie first."

"To get protection for yourself, or to tell her what Sofia told you?

"I'm still sorting that out."

"Don't you have some attorney-client issues?"

"The privilege starts to break down when your client is talking about a future crime."

"Except that she's not the one who is going to commit the crime. It's someone else."

Every now and then, Theo raised a legal issue that made Jack realize why his prison mates had called him "Chief Brief."

Jack said, "It's a gray area."

Theo checked out Jack's hair at the temples, searching for a pun, and for a brief instant another "forty" joke seemed imminent. He let it go.

"Meanwhile, Sofia is where?" said Theo.

"Hotel San Pietro."

"You want me to talk to her?"

"How could that possibly help?"

"You got me off death row. She might trust you better if she meets someone who trusted you and won the lottery."

The server put the burgers in front of them. Jack poured ketchup on his plate as he considered Theo's remark.

"That's not a terrible idea," said Jack.

Theo grabbed a handful of Jack's fries. It never seemed to matter to Theo that he had his own plate of food. Jack didn't even bitch about it anymore.

"Here's the thing," said Theo. "You could force her to go to the police or to go see Andie. But you know what would happen."

"She wouldn't talk," said Jack.

"And if she won't talk, you can't get her in witness protection."

"That's the worst of all worlds," said Jack. "She's clearly afraid of this guy. If he thinks she's talking to the police but I can't get her protection, she's dead."

"So you have to convince her that she wants to tell the police what she knows," said Theo. "Let me talk to her."

"I want to think more about that."

Theo finished off his root beer, sucking air through the straw.

"Meanwhile, what do you do about protecting yourself?" said Theo.

"I do keep a gun in the office."

"When's the last time you shot it?"

Jack had to think. "Been a while."

"Dude, you need a bodyguard."

"I can't afford that."

Theo put on his dark sunglasses, folded his arms across his chest, and flashed a Secret Service expression.

"No way," said Jack. "I'm not going there."

"Will work for tequila."

"Theo, forget it."

"Suit yourself," he said, then downed his last burger in one bite.

Jack said, "Can you come back to the office this afternoon and help with the packing?"

"Not today, dude. I have a jazz bar to run."

"You're taking this personally, aren't you?"

"Me? Nah. You don't want me to talk to Sofia. Fine. You don't want me to be your bodyguard. That's fine, too. I'm just stepping away from the plate before it's strike three."

"Theo, come on."

"Later, dude. Brandy, see ya, girl. It's back to my life, my love, and my lady, the sea."