Three Jack McClure Missions Box Set (42 page)

“That’s a pretty bleak outlook.”

She shrugged. “Par for the course for a nihilist.”

“You need a boyfriend,” Jack said.

“Someone to tell me what to do and how to do it, someone to leave me at night to go out with the guys, someone to roll over in bed and snore his way to morning? You’re right. I need that.”

“How about someone to love you, protect you, take care of you?”

She tossed her head. “I do that myself.”

“I see how that’s working out for you.”

Through her armor, she gave him a wry smile.

“Come on, Leelee, you need to believe in something,” Jack said.

“Oh, I do. I believe in courage and discipline.”

“Admirable.” Jack nodded. “But I mean something outside of yourself. We’re all connected to a universe more mysterious than what we see around us.”

“Think so? Here’s the truest thing I know: Don’t for a moment let religion or art or patriotism persuade you that you mean more than
you do.” She took another deep drag, gave him a challenging, alpha-dog look. “That comes from a play called
Secret Life.
I bet you never heard of it.”

“It was written by Harley Granville-Barker.”

Leelee’s eyes opened wide. “Shit, yeah. Now I’m impressed.”

“Then give me a hand here.”

“I could bust your hump, but you’ve taken all the fun out of that.” She swept her hair behind one ear. “Does your tattoo artist have a name?”

“Ian Brady,” Jack said. “Or Ronnie Kray. Or Charles Whitman.”

Leelee took the butt from between her lips. “You’re shitting me.”

“He was a customer, right?”

“More than.” She didn’t look as if she was interested in smoking anymore. “Charles Whitman owns S-and-W.”

The evening was furry with sleet, but as Jack worked his way south toward the District, it became an icy rain his wipers cast off either side of his windshield. The roads were slick and treacherous, peppered with spin-outs and fender benders, which slowed him down considerably. He returned from Mexico with an address for Charles Whitman. He had no way of knowing whether this was Brady’s current residence, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. The approach had to be thought out in detail.

As soon as he entered the house, he turned on the stereo, along with the lights and his stove top. But the only meat he had—a steak—was frozen solid, so he turned off the burner, sat down at the kitchen table with a jar of peanut butter and one of orange marmalade. Using a teaspoon, he scooped out mouthfuls from one jar then the other.

Afterwards, he went through his LP collection without finding anything he wanted to listen to. That’s when he came upon Emma’s iPod. He’d stuck it on top of a Big Bill Broonzy album that contained two of his favorite songs, “Baby, Please Don’t Go” and “C C Rider.” Tonight, he didn’t want to hear either of them.

He took up the iPod, plugged it in because the battery was low. Using the thumb wheel, he browsed through Emma’s collection of MP3s. There were the usual suspects: Justin Timberlake, R.E.M., U2, and Kanye West, but he was startled to see tracks by artists he loved and had played for her: Carla Thomas, Jackie Taylor, the Bar-Kays.

Searching through the shelves that housed his records and videocassettes, he found the box containing the iPod dock he’d bought but never used. He took it out, plugged it into the aux receptacle in the back of the stereo receiver. Then he put the iPod into the dock.

He decided to listen to something of Emma’s at random. This turned out to be an album for some reason called
Boxer,
by a band called The National. He thought of Emma, imagined her listening to these muscular songs—he particularly liked “Fake Empire”—wondered what would have been going through her mind.

As the music played, he fired up his computer, went online. According to Leelee’s records, the address where Brady had his logwood delivered was on Shepherd Street, in Mount Rainier, Maryland. He pulled up Google Maps, punched in the address, and clicked the HYBRID button, which gave him both the map and the satellite photo of the area. The address was only five or six miles southeast of where he was born. The thought gave him the shivers.

Forty minutes later, he got up, rummaged around the house for several items he thought he might need, stuffed them into a lightweight gym bag. He checked his Glock, shoved extra ammunition in his pocket, grabbed his coat. On the way out the door, he called Sharon. There was no answer. He disconnected before her voice mail picked up. With a sharp stab of jealousy, he wondered where she was. What if she was out with another man? That was her right, wasn’t it? Yes, but he didn’t want to think about it. He climbed into his car, his heart hammering in his chest. Driving to Shepherd Street, he thought, this could be it, the end of a road twenty-five years long.

46

What were the odds that Ian Brady lived in a hotel just four miles from Jack’s house? Yet this was what Jack saw as he cruised by the address Leelee had given him. RAINIER RESIDENCE HOTEL. SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM CORPORATE LEASES AVAILABLE the sign out front read. He didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down until he turned the corner onto Thirty-first Street, where he pulled into the curb and parked. The first thing he did was to check out the rear, which was flat, save for a zigzag of tiered black iron fire escapes. It gave out onto a concrete apron and, just beyond, a modestly sized blacktop parking lot, lit by sodium lights, from whose hard glare he kept his careful distance. But there was no rear entrance, most likely because of the same security concerns that had led to the installation of the parking lot lights.

Walking back to Shepherd Street, he found himself across the street from an ugly U-shaped structure hugging a courtyard with four withered trees, a Maginot Line of evergreen shrubs, fully a third of which were as brown and useless as sun-scorched newspapers. The hotel itself was three stories of pale yellow brick. Access to the apartments was via metal staircases at the center and either end of the U, along raw concrete
catwalks that ran the length of the building. There was a coarseness about it, a glittery shabbiness, like a Christmas present wrapped in used paper. Had it been painted turquoise or flamingo, it could have passed as a down-at-the-heels Florida condo.

Jack kept away from the occasional dazzle as passing cars lit up sections of the sidewalk. He crossed the street, found his way to the manager’s apartment. Even through the door he could hear the blare of the TV. Waiting for a seconds-long silence, he rapped hard on the door. The blare started up again, louder this time, which meant a commercial had come on. A moment later, the door was yanked open the length of a brass chain.

Dark eyes in a square, heavy-jawed face looked him up and down. “Not interested.”

Jack put his foot across the doorjamb, flashed his ID even as the door began to swing shut. “I need some information,” he said.

“What kind of information?” the manager said in a voice like a pit bull’s growl.

“The kind you don’t want to give me while I’m standing out here.”

The dark eyes got small and piggy. “You’re not from INS? All my workers are legit.”

“Sure they are, but I don’t care. I’m not from Immigration.”

The manager nodded, Jack took his foot away, and the door closed enough for Pig-Eyes to unlatch the chain. Jack walked into a low-ceilinged apartment with small rooms made even smaller by enough sofas, chairs—upholstered and otherwise—and tables of all sizes and shapes to furnish the Carson’s Chevy Chase mansion. The manager muted the TV. Images of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble chased themselves across the screen.

“You have a tenant here by the name of Charles Whitman?”

“No.”

“How about checking your records?”

“No need,” Pig-Eyes said. “I know everyone who lives here.”

“How about Ron Kray?”

“No Kray here.”

“Ian Brady.”

Pig-Eyes shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

Jack considered Brady’s propensity for misdirection. Alli had told him that the real Ian Brady had a female accomplice. “How about a Myra Hindley?”

“No,” Pig-Eyes said, “but we got a Myron Hindley. You think he’s the one you’re looking for?”

“Do the apartment doors have peepholes?” Jack said.

Pig-Eyes seemed confused. “Yeah, why?”

“Are all the door locks the same as yours?”

“You bet. House rules. I gotta be able to have access to all the apartments.”

“I need a broom, a wire hanger, and the key to Myron Hindley’s apartment,” Jack said. As the manager went to fetch the items, Jack added, “If you hear any loud noises, it’s just a truck backfiring.”

Myron Hindley’s apartment was on the third floor, at the far end of the building. Hardly a surprise, since that’s precisely where Jack would have situated himself if he were in Brady’s place. He had two choices: The first was to go in the front door. The second was to climb up the fire escape to the apartment’s two rear windows. Since it would be far easier for Brady to flee out the front door than climb out the window, he decided to make a frontal assault. He wished Nina were here to take the back of the building, but she was with Alli. Besides, ever since the explicit warning he’d received from Secretary Paull, he’d decided to continue after Brady alone. This was his fight, not hers.

Every six feet, bare bulbs were screwed into porcelain fixtures in the ceiling of the catwalk. On the third floor, Jack took off his shoes,
covered his right hand with both socks. Reaching up, he unscrewed each lightbulb as he progressed down the catwalk. The circles of illumination winked out one by one. After he’d disabled the last bulb, he put on his socks and shoes. His feet were freezing, and he had to wait several minutes for the warmth to come back so that he had full maneuverability.

With only the ambient wash from streetlights and the odd passing vehicle to illuminate the catwalk, Jack set the gym bag down on the concrete, opened the zip, took out a small can of WD-40 and a pair of bolt cutters. Then he took off his coat, hung it on the wire hanger, buttoned it, put the collar up. Then he twisted the top of the hanger so it wound around the butt of the broom handle. He stood this makeshift scarecrow against the railing of the catwalk directly opposite the door to Myron Hindley’s apartment.

Standing to one side of the door, he sprayed the key Pig-Eyes had given him with WD-40. It slid right in as he inserted it into the lock. But he didn’t turn it over. Instead, he picked up the bolt cutter. He rapped on the door, very loudly. Just as he pulled his fist away, three bullets exploded through the door, ripping holes in Jack’s overcoat. The broom crashed over onto the catwalk.

Jack turned the key, opened the door. As at the manager’s apartment, the door opened only to the length of the chain, which Jack promptly snipped in two with the bolt cutter. Drawing his Glock, he kicked open the door. Expecting another salvo of shots, he held his ground. When none came, he pitched himself across the threshold curled in a ball, came out of it with his Glock aimed into the room.

“Relax,” a voice said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Jack found himself confronting a figure sitting at his ease in an upholstered chair that had been pulled so that it faced the front door. Only one lamp was on, so that he was cast in half light, enough so that Jack could see the handgun gripped in one hand. It was lying on his right thigh, the barrel aimed casually at Jack.

“Sit down, Jack,” the figure said. “It’s been a long run. You must be tired.”

Jack could feel the power of the man as a fish is drawn to the baited hook. “I don’t know whether to call you Myron, Charlie, Ronnie, or Ian.”

The figure shrugged. “What’s in a name?”

“Who are you?” Jack said. He was struggling against an unnamed fear that had spread its black wings inside him. “What’s your real name?”

“I didn’t invite you here to answer questions,” the figure said.

Jack felt a laugh forced out of him, but it sounded brittle and shaky. “You
invited
me?”

Brady shrugged. “Leelee told me you were on your way.”

Now the fear took flight; he was in its shadow. As if he’d received a blow, he took an involuntary step backwards.

Brady bared his teeth. “Where d’you think she got all her ideas?”

Feeling a chair behind his knees, Jack sat down dazedly.

“Truth to tell, I’ve run you like a rat in a maze.” In a trick of the light, Brady seemed to have inflated, to be larger than life. “Every time you got to another point in the maze, I moved your cheese.” He waved the hand with the gun. “For instance, Calla Myers called me the moment you left the FASR office. I knew it was only a matter of time before you followed the clues I left to the Marmoset’s house. Oh yes, I’m familiar with Gus’s nickname for him.”

Jack felt poleaxed. All the hard work he’d done to get here, the arduous path he’d followed, had been created by this monster. “It was all to get me here?” he said like a pupil to his professor. “Why?”

“That question I’ll answer. I’m as tired as you are, Jack. I’ve had a good run, but now, like the president, my term has come to an end. And like the president, it’s time for me to look to my lasting legacy.”

He shifted slightly, and Jack could see him better now. Chris Armitage had described him well. He was handsome, distinguished even,
with the kind of sexual magnetism he imagined Leelee would go for. Jack found him as sinister-looking as his horned viper and twice as terrifying.

“Your term stretches back far longer than eight years.”

“All the more reason for it to come to an end.” Brady leaned over, reached for the neck of a bottle of liquor, which he lifted into the light so Jack would be reassured. “Polish vodka. The real thing, not the watered-down crap you get here. Care to join me?”

Jack shook his head.

Brady shrugged. “Your loss.” Hoisting the bottle, he took a long swig, then smacked his lips.

“Okay.” Jack rose, gestured with the Glock. “Time to go.”

“And where would you be taking me? Not to the police and certainly not to the feds.” He possessed a crooked grin that gave him the aspect of a crocodile. There was something primeval about him, immutable, like a force of nature. This elemental quality was the source of his power. “You’re the one they’ll lock up, Jack, not me.”