The Way You Look Tonight (33 page)

‘That’s OK,’ she said, opening the back door and climbing in. ‘You sound like me – I have more books than I know what to do with. Even so, I’m arranging to
have a trunk-load of them shipped over from England. Must be mad.’

She closed the door with her left hand and stuck out her right. ‘Stella Arnold.’

He was checking his mirror before pulling out into traffic and put his own hand over his shoulder without turning around.

‘Henry Stewart. Pleased to meet you, and thanks for doing this.’

‘It’s a pleasure. I only hope I can give you something you can use.’

He suddenly coughed. When he’d recovered, he apologised. ‘It’s the grippe. Hope I don’t pass it on to you.’

‘Oh, I had my summer cold a month ago,’ she said. ‘What do you make of this Cuba thing?’

She saw him shake his head. ‘It’s just blind panic. Soon as I’ve done this with you my paper wants me to interview the mayor of Key West. People here are freaking out, lots of
crazy talk about being invaded – Christ knows who by – or the air base here being nuked. Personally, I think it’ll all blow over just fine.’

‘Me too,’ Stella agreed. ‘Anyway, we haven’t much time. I suppose you’d better start asking me some questions. What do you want to know?’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ he told her. ‘This ain’t much of a way to do an interview. There’s a quiet street just up here. I’ll park up and get in the back
with my reel-to-reel so we can talk face to face.’

‘Fine, but remember I only have a few minutes.’

‘Sure.’

He turned into the street. It was the same one in which he’d murdered the hooker. He drove to the same patch of deserted waste ground and stopped the car.

‘Hold on, Stella, I’ll just get my stuff.’

‘OK.’

He climbed out with his bag and looked around. There were a couple of people walking up the street about fifty yards from the car but they were headed away from him. With his back to
Stella’s window, he removed the chloroform and cotton pad and drenched it in the chemical.

‘Sorry,’ he called to her. ‘Just threading up the tape. All done now.’

He walked around to the other side of the car and climbed in the back next to her.

‘So,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Let’s get started. Question one. Ever been chloroformed?’

He yanked her head back by the hair and crammed the soaking pad over the lower half of her face.

Stella’s eyes widened above it as she stared at him in shock and terror.

‘John Henry Woods at your service, Stella. Have a nice sleep. I’ll see you when you wake up.’

Her eyes rolled back to the whites.

Lee pelted back to the steps of the town hall as fast as he could run.

Ben was still there. The big man was staring up Duval Street and shielding his eyes against a sun that was beginning to drop noticeably lower in the sky as the afternoon wore on.

‘Ben! Ben! He’s taken her!’

The sergeant wheeled around. ‘What? Come again, sir?’

‘Woods has abducted Stella Arnold. He impersonated a newspaper reporter, set up a fake interview, and he’s got her. God knows where, but he’s got her. I’m certain of it.
And I agreed the interview, Ben! This is all my fault!’

The sergeant stared at him for a moment. He was even taller than Lee, a reassuringly substantial figure, in his mid-forties and with a kindly face that nevertheless managed to communicate an
inner toughness. He looked like the kind of cop who’d probably seen it all before. Now he placed large hands gently on the younger – and senior – man’s shoulders.

‘Right. Now calm down, Lee, and let’s take it from the top. You’re on the edge of panic and that’s not going to solve anything. When was this interview arranged and how
do you know it was a set-up?’

With an almost superhuman effort, Lee managed to force back the waves of icy dread that were threatening to engulf him and freeze his mind.

‘Stella got a phone call at her hotel last night. I was with her – we were having dinner together. It was about eight o’clock, an hour or so after JFK’s TV address . .
.’

By the time he’d finished, Ben had taken out his pad and was scribbling notes.

‘And you’re sure this Henry Stewart you just spoke to was the real deal? No chance of a mix-up?’

‘None. I’m telling you, Ben – Woods has her.’

‘OK . . . assuming the pick-up took place at two-thirty, she’s only been with him for approximately forty-five minutes. I’m going to radio an immediate stop-on-sight for the
car.’ He checked his notes. ‘A green and cream Ford Country Sedan, right?’

‘Right.’

Without wasting another second, Ben put out the call to all units. When he’d finished, he turned to his boss.

‘That’s done. Now, sir, I suggest you take five to just—’

‘It’s OK, Ben, I’m back on the horse – thanks to you. I know what I need to do. One of the last things Stella said to me this morning was that she thought the key to
where Woods is hiding lies in his pretence at being homosexual. She and I were going to go to the Springfield Tavern after the press conference to re-interview the owner, see if he was holding
anything back, or if he’s remembered something that he doesn’t think is all that important. Do you have a spare radio?’

Ben reached behind his back and unclipped a walkie-talkie from his belt.

‘There you go.’

‘Thanks. If I get anything out of him, I’ll call you right away. If we find the car, radio me immediately. In the meantime get every man we’ve got out looking for that car or
any sign of Stella.’

‘Yes, sir. And the news conference?’

‘Cancel it. All they really want to write about is Cuba anyway.’

Lee turned to leave for the Springfield, barely two hundred yards up the street. He intended to run every step of the way.

‘Sir?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m real sorry about this, sir.’

‘Not as sorry as that piece of shit’s going to be when I get my hands on him.’

Lee started running.

He drove straight into the garage and switched off the engine.

She was still completely knocked out in the back, but he knew from experience that it wouldn’t be much longer before she started to come round. Five minutes, ten at most.

He got out of the car and walked down to the sidewalk, looking up and down the street. Deserted, as usual. There’d be more life in a cemetery.

Even so, he wasted no time going back to the car and pulling her out by her arms. As her body began to slide off the back seat he squatted down and caught her under the armpits, lifting her
as he stood up again and throwing her over his shoulder in one smooth movement.

Even though he knew there was no one around, he moved as quickly as he could across the splintered, sun-bleached boardwalk to the front door, and kicked it open with one foot. He’d
deliberately left it slightly ajar when he’d left the house barely twenty minutes ago. He didn’t want to be fiddling around with keys with an unconscious girl draped over his
shoulder.

He slipped inside and back-heeled the door shut. She moaned faintly.

‘You’ll be making a lot more noise than that an hour from now, I promise you,’
he told her as he climbed the stairs. A
lot
more.

There was only one barman on duty in the Springfield when Lee ran into the Tavern, and no customers at all. It was low tide, between lunchtime and happy hour.

Lee’s heart faltered. He needed to talk to Tom Bilson right now, not in an hour, not even in ten minutes. Now.

He flashed his badge to the kid, a trainee, whose bored expression turned immediately to one of fear and suspicion.

‘It’s OK, you’ve got nothing to worry about,’ Lee reassured him, trying to control his rapid breathing after the 200-yard dash. ‘This isn’t a raid or a
set-up. I’m just here to see your boss. Where is he?’

The boy pointed to the ceiling. ‘He’s up in his apartment. He’s taking a nap.’

‘Which is his apartment?’

The boy blinked, confused. ‘What? I can’t just—’

‘
Which is his fucking apartment!
’

The boy flinched. ‘OK, OK. It’s second door on the right once you’re up there. But you can’t just—’

Lee was already on the stairs. He took them two at a time.

Tom Bilson was asleep on his couch. He was dreaming of a thunderstorm, one of those huge ones that terrified visitors to the Keys but which locals knew were all sound and fury and not especially
dangerous. Then the dream changed. A gun was being fired, bang bang bang bang—

He jerked awake. Someone was pounding on his locked bedroom door. He planned to keep it locked until the maniac who’d been sheltering under his roof was caught.

‘Who is it?’ he asked tremulously.

‘FBI. Open up, please, Mr Bilson.’

‘I want to see some ID first.’

After a moment a slim wallet was pushed under the door. Bilson looked at it, and fumbled with the door key. ‘OK, come in, Mr Foster.’

Lee stepped into the room, still breathing heavily. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry to disturb your rest but something extremely serious is happening right now. You know that the man who
worked here killed again, the night before last?’

‘Of course. Some poor wretched hooker, wasn’t it? But how can I help, Mr Foster?’

Lee wiped the perspiration from his face with the sleeve of his jacket. ‘This afternoon – within the last hour – we believe the man you knew as Dennis Clancey abducted a young
woman from her hotel here on Key West.’

Thomas Bilson blanched. ‘That’s awful. But why have you come here? What could I possibly know about that?’

Lee took a beat. He remembered how Stella had warned him about frightening the man off. That was why she had offered to come with him here.

He came to a sudden decision.

‘Mr Bilson, I’m going to take you completely into my confidence. The young woman in question is my girlfriend. She’s an expert on psychopaths like Woods and she’s been
helping our investigations. We’ve – we’ve—’

He ground to a halt. He was dangerously close to tears, and that wouldn’t do at all.

But Bilson stood and swiftly crossed the space between them, taking one of Lee’s hands into both his own.

‘I’m so sorry. She’s that beautiful English girl I read about in the papers, isn’t she? Susan . . . Sharon . . .’

‘Stella. Stella Arnold. She was going to come with me to see you this afternoon. She’s a very, very smart person, and she was –
is
– convinced that Woods is
taking refuge in the home of one of your customers. A man he may have formed some sort of relationship with before his cover was blown.’

Bilson dropped Lee’s hand and shook his head in genuine regret.

‘Sincerely, there’s nothing I can tell you about that – not because I won’t, but because I can’t. I made it clear to your colleague that Dennis – I mean Woods
– always kept himself completely to himself, so much so that, to be honest with you, I wondered if he was becoming confused about his preferences and leaning toward the idea of . . . well,
being with a woman. He never flirted with my customers or asked for anyone’s phone number. That’s the truth.’

Lee tried to fight back the despair that began to swirl around him again.

‘Of course, I can see that . . . but have any of your regulars stopped showing up here in the last couple of days?’

Tom shrugged helplessly. ‘Not so I’d notice. As you say, it’s only been two days, hasn’t it? It’s simply too soon to tell.’

Lee stood up to leave, utterly defeated.

‘All right. If you think of anything –
anything –
call me or Sergeant Moss immediately.’

‘Of course. I have your phone numbers. I’m so sorry I can’t help you. I’ll say a prayer for her.’

Lee looked wearily at him. ‘You’re a religious man?’

‘Yes. Why? You think my sort aren’t allowed to believe in God?’

‘Of course not, I didn’t mean to . . . Anyway, thank you for your prayers, Tom. I’ll see myself out.’

Lee was almost at the head of the stairs when a voice behind him called out: ‘Wait!’

He spun round to see the bar owner hurrying after him.

‘I’ve remembered something. It’s probably irrelevant, but . . .’

Lee felt the faintest flicker of hope. ‘I’ll be the judge of that. Go on, Tom.’

‘I told you that Woods never responded to anyone’s advances, and most people got the message and left him alone. But there was one customer, one of our regulars going back years
before my time here, who simply wouldn’t give up. He’s a sweet old thing, must be well into his seventies now. I think he used to be bit-part actor. Goes by the name of Charlie
Booker.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, he was always flirting outrageously with Denn—
dammit
– Woods, buying him drinks, leaving ludicrous tips. I don’t think Charlie seriously thought he stood
a chance – and neither did we. There must have been over four decades between them – he was just fooling around, having a bit of fun. That’s why it never occurred to me to mention
it.

‘Anyway, the other night – the night before Woods disappeared, now I think of it – I saw Charlie trying to give what looked like a coaster to him. I’d seen him –
Charlie, that is – scribbling something on it a minute or two before as he sat alone at his usual table.

‘At the time I thought it must be some sort of naughty message or a rude joke or something – Charlie was pretty canned by then – but it could have been his phone number. I
wouldn’t put it past the old queen. Anyway he tottered off into the night and, as I say, I forgot all about it.’

Lee didn’t move.

‘What did Woods do with the coaster?’

‘That’s the strange thing. I think I saw him put it into his back pocket. I can’t be sure, but it certainly wasn’t on the bar a minute or so later.’

‘Have you seen Charlie since?’

‘No. He’s not been in. But there’s nothing unusual about that. He’s not in here every night, like some of them.’

Lee felt the flicker of hope begin to burn a little brighter.

‘I don’t suppose you have Charlie’s address?’

Tom Bilson nodded.