In The Cut (23 page)

“Did it look like this?” Grace stared at him through the slits of her eyelids as she tightened her lips against her teeth.

“Yeah that’s it.”

“Well, Olivia and I are going to be in the front row. So, if your self-esteem needs some boosting, just glance our way. Trust me, we’ll be giving you that look.”

Glenn straightened out his three-piece, double-breasted electric blue suit and kissed her lightly on the lips. “That’s why I love you so much.”

“After the show I have a surprise for you.”

“Really?”

“I picked up a little something from Victoria’s Secret this afternoon.”

“A little something?”

“A
little
something.”

Glenn bit his bottom lip and looked her up and down.

“Focus on the show. You’ll have the rest of the night to focus on me.”

“I love you.”

“I know you do,” Grace said seductively walking off.

Glenn was feeling himself so much that he put a little more man into his voice when he answered his cell phone. “Talk to me, but make it quick.”

“Mr. Lemora. My name is Jean, I’m Marion Claude’s personal assistant. Please hold.”

Glenn’s hand started to shake as he fought to keep the shakiness out of his voice. “I don’t have time to—”

“Glenn! We have a serious problem.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean you better contact Saint and call him off.”

“Call him off? Mr. Claude, I haven’t seen him or heard from him since—”

“Let me put it a different way. I don’t care how you do it, but you contact him and you make him understand that if anything happens to me, you won’t be paying for a wedding, you’ll be paying for your fiancée’s funeral.”

“What—”

“I have men in the Theatre, right now, all I need to do is give the word. Am I making myself clear?”

“Marion, wait—” Glenn’s last words were spoken to a dial tone. Shaking like a leaf, he tried dialing Josephine’s number. He cut his phone off and shut his eyes so tight that he started seeing tiny red dots. He calmed himself and steadied his fingers as he tried dialing her number again. It rang about thirty times before someone answered.

“May I help you?”

“I need to speak with Josephine, right away.”

“Miss Delacroix isn’t available at the moment, may I take a message?”

“Make her available! I need to speak with her, immediately!”

“Sir, if you would like to leave a message—”

“Saint told me to call.” The voice on the other end didn’t respond. “My name’s Glenn Lemora. I have a message for her from him. It is important that she gets this message, right now!”

“Please hold.” The forty seconds Glenn was on hold felt like forty years. “I’m connecting you, now, sir.”

Glenn tapped his foot as the phone rang.

“Yes.”

“Josephine, Marion Claude just called me.”

“And?”

“And he’s going to kill my fiancée, if I don’t call Saint off. What the hell is going on, Josephine?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“What? Did you hear what I just said? He’s going to kill my fiancée.”

“Don’t worry about him. He has more important things to worry about than sending someone to kill you precious fiancée.”

“He doesn’t have to send anyone. They’re already here, in the Theatre.”

“Really?”

“Call Saint off, Josephine, please.”

“I’m sorry, Glenn.”

“Josephine, please don’t do this.”

“Good bye, Glenn.”

Glenn kept begging on his phone long after Josephine hung up.

“Glenn are you okay?” Mr. Seeger asked as he walked up on him.

“I have to get Grace out of here.” He tried to push past him but the fifty year old caught him off guard when he slammed him against the wall. “You listen to me very carefully. You have a show to do and you’re going to do it. You try and get Grace out of here, Marion’s men will kill her.”

Glenn’s complexion paled.

“Marion called me as soon as he hung up with you. He wants you to call off Saint.”

“I can’t.”

“And we don’t want you to.”

“We?”

“My men will be sitting right behind Grace and Olivia. I give you my word, nothing will happen to them. By the end of the show, Marion Claude will be dead, and you will have nothing to worry about.” Seeger backed away from him as one of the models headed toward them.

“Glenn, I can’t get this latch to stay fastened,” she said, turning her back to him to take a look at it.

“Stay focused.” Seeger flashed him a crooked smile and walked off. Glenn pushed the model out of his way and threw up in the wastebasket.

Van knocked on Josephine’s suite five minutes after she called for him. She opened the door and let him in. she was wearing a nightgown and her hair was pinned-up.

“Were you asleep?” she asked.

“I won’t sleep until we’re out of this grimy city,” Van spat.

“New York City isn’t so bad.”

“It’s terrible. When are we leaving?”

“Soon. I just got a call from Glenn Lemora.”

“And?”

“He’s having a show at the Apollo tonight.”

“You already know that.”

“What I didn’t know was Marion Claude called him, threatening to kill his fiancée if I didn’t call off Saint.”

“Figures he would do something like that.”

“And he has men in the Theatre.”

“He probably does.”

“Do we have anyone there?”

“Why?”

“Do we?”

“No, I didn’t see any reason to send anyone. Should I now?”

“No.” Josephine walked to the door.

“Goodnight.”

Van walked to the door and acting as if it was an afterthought said, “You want me to stay?”

“If I wanted you to stay, I wouldn’t be standing at the door saying goodnight.” She watched the vein on is forehead appear and then throb. Van nodded and left.

Saint continued driving on the main road. The rain had stopped momentarily, and the sun was just ducking below the horizon. He looked up in the rearview mirror when he saw the flashing lights and smiled. He was looking for the police. Instead, they found him. Well he would have to improvise. He pulled over to the shoulder of the road and rolled his window down.

The officer climbed out of his yellow SUV and walked up to Saint’s window. “Sir, it’s pretty nasty out here. You should be indoors. This storm is going to get worst.”

Saint had his map in his lap. “I’ve seem to have lost my way, and I can’t make sense of this thing. I’m trying to get here to my hotel.” He pointed at a location on the map.

The officer bent down to get a better look.

Saint grabbed him by the collar and yanked. The officer’s head bounced off the edge of the car’s roof. He stumbled backwards, falling on his butt. Saint was out of the car and over the dazed officer before he had a chance to react. Saint punched him twice in the face, knocking him out cold. The chances of anyone driving by anytime soon was highly unlikely, but he acted fast. He hoisted the officer up and slid him in the back seat of his rental. He quickly undressed him and then cuffed his hands in front of him.

He took the officer’s clothes, keys, and gun, and ran to the SUV. Quickly rummaging through the truck’s cargo area, He found a pair of binoculars, a cigarette lighter, and a roll of duct tape, flares, a canister of gasoline, and some rope. Up front, He found a pump shot gun, a bullet proof vest lying in the passenger seat, and boxes of ammo in the glove compartment for the shot gun and the Glock he’d taken from the policeman. He ran back to his car and tossed a walkie talkie into the back seat with the unconscious cop. He got back into the officer’s truck and sped off.

Marion’s estate was tucked away in northeastern La Gomera. It’s landscape was dotted with palm trees, banana plants, and prickly pear cactuses. He studied the estate from the SUV while listening to the weather and police radio. A news bulletin came over the radio, urging residents to stay indoors and to have candles ready. The winds were nearly bending trees in half as they swayed and rocked. The rain fell in buckets, soaking everything. Saint cocked his head as he listened to the police band. The officer who he knocked out was radioing the station for help. In his Spanish tongue, the officer rapidly told the dispatch officer what happened.

Okay, Saint thought to himself. In approximately two minutes someone from the station is going to call you, Marion. The minute you landed in LA Gomera, I know you called your contacts at the police station and told them to give you a heads up on anything that happens out of the ordinary. I think an officer getting jacked qualifies as being out of the ordinary. Saint closed his eyes as he felt his body starting to tingle. Showtime!

“How’s Glenn holding up?” Olivia asked Grace.

Both women were sitting in the front row, center seats.

“He’ll be fine. You know he gets all schizo right before a show. He’ll be fine once he takes the stage.”

Two burly men approached Grace and Olivia from either end, and sat next to them.

“Umm, excuse me, but these seats are reserved,” Grace said.

“Sorry, Maam. Mr. Seeger has instructed us to sit here.”

“What for?” Olivia asked with an attitude.

“We just do as we’re told, Maam,” the man sitting next to Olivia said. She felt a chill run down her spine. She sensed something wasn’t right. Saint popped into her mind. Was he all right? Where was he right now? Is what he had to do have something to do with these two goons sitting next to them? She didn’t know why, but she turned around and caught a man quickly averting his gaze from her. He covered his mouth with his hand and began talking to a gentleman sitting next to him. Olivia’s heart started to race.

Glenn must’ve let Josephine’s number ring fifty times before he began banging his head against the wall. God, this can’t be happening. He started pacing, trying to think what Saint would do in a situation like this. He peeked from behind the curtain and his chin nearly hit the floor when he saw the two men sitting on either side of Grace and Olivia. Think, think, think, what would Saint do? He ducked back behind the curtain and hit speed dial.

“Hello.”

“Olivia,” Glenn yelled into the phone. “Don’t say a word, just listen.”

“It’s him!” Marion screamed into the phone. The police chief called him the moment his deputy told him about the call that came over the radio.

“Calm down, Marion,” The chief said. “I’m going to send a car over—”

“No! Don’t’ send anyone over. Wait a minute. I need you to do something for me.” Marion smiled, believing he knew Saint’s plan.

“Bobby,” the police chief’s voice sounded over the radio.

“I’m here, boss.”

“I need you to go to the Claude estate.”

“Roger that.”

“How quick can you get there?”

“In this storm, thirty minutes.”

“Radio in when you get there.”

“Roger that.”

The chief spoke into the phone’s receiver. “Marion are you there?”

“Yes, excellent. I owe you one.”

“Now, you know that no one is coming right?”

“Someone
is
coming. Just make sure you call that deputy on his cell phone and tell him to stay far away from here.”

“I don’t want a war breaking out on my Island Marion.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll all be over in the morning.”

Saint heard the conversation between the chief and the deputy over the radio. The officer said he would be there in thirty minutes. That gave him twenty to prepare.

“He took the cop’s uniform and his truck,” Marion said to Jean, as he paced back and forth in his study. “You see what he’s trying to do right?”

“He won’t get ten yards within our perimeter,” Marion’s new head of security, Roberts, said.

“I agree,” Jean chimed in.

“The chief of police assured me that none of his men are coming here, so as soon as he drives up to the gates, open fire.”

“You don’t think he’s just going to drive right up to the gates and expect us to let him in, do you?”

“I have to expect everything from him. Just do as I say. You see a cop, shoot him, you see that yellow police vehicle, riddle it with bullet holes, we’ve got plenty of ammo.”

“Yes, Sir,” Roberts said, leaving the study.

Saint drove down into the muddy valley, and parked the SUV two hundred yards away from the estate. He parked it where it couldn’t readily be seen. He jumped out and got to work. It would only be a matter of time before the rain eased up, and the truck would be spotted.

“What’s up with these dudes crowding us?” Olivia said into the phone.

“Who’s that?” Grace asked.