Upside Down (39 page)

102

The emergency room doctor gave Faith Ann two shots of antibiotics and a bottle of more antibiotics he wanted her to take for a few days. Winter received the same treatment. It was going on midnight, and even though she was yawning and fighting to keep her eyes open, she told Winter that she wanted to see Uncle Hank. She really needed to see for herself that he was alive.

When Winter and Faith Ann walked into the reception area on the ICU floor, a man Winter said was Hank's doctor was writing on a chart. When he saw Winter he smiled. “You got my message.”

“No, I didn't,” Winter said. “What was it?”

“Hank Trammel's conscious. He's been in and out since we reversed the coma drugs. A nurse was at the bedside and he asked her for a scotch on the rocks, that he was thirsty. She said she'd get him water and he told her, not that kind of thirsty.”

They followed the doctor to a cubicle where he drew back a curtain before hurrying off.

Faith Ann clenched Winter's hand and took a deep breath as they drew closer to Hank's bed. She stood there for long seconds, silent and white-faced. Her uncle's face was horribly swollen, the trademark handlebar mustache gone, and bandages covered the familiar gray hair. Both of his arms and his legs were encased in plaster.

“Uncle Hank?” she said softly. “You awake?”

There was no response from the man on the bed.

“The doctor said he was awake,” she told Winter. “How can he still be asleep?”

“Beats me.”

“Why can't he hear me?”

Winter shrugged.

“I'd give anything to hear him ask for a drink of whiskey,” Faith Ann said. She saw a slight shiver run through her uncle. She leaned in closer.

“Uncle Hank?” she repeated, praying. “It's me, Faith Ann.”

Her uncle's eyelids fluttered.

“Faith Anna-banana pants,” he murmured. “Did I hear you talking about whiskey?” he asked her.

“They said you can't drink whiskey in the rooms,” she said. She had never felt so absolutely thrilled.

“Faith Ann, you know what?”

“No, what?” she said.

“Of all the Porter women I've ever seen, you are the most beautiful. Nice haircut.”

103

Michael Manseur stared through the two-way glass at Jerry Bennett. The nightclub owner was sound asleep, his head rocked back, his mouth wide open. Bennett's toupee looked like it was made from straw, his makeup was smeared. There was blood on his face and his shirt from using a baseball bat on Suggs.

“Looks like a man without a care in the world,” Manseur said to his partner, Larry Bond.

“He said killing Suggs was self-defense. Says he didn't hire any killers. Doesn't know yet that we have the negatives. Let's wake him up and show them to him.”

“Killing Suggs probably was self-defense. Get Ellen Caesar—you two handle it.”

“You serious?” Larry asked him.

“As a heart attack.”

“This is your case, Michael. It's a big fat juicy one.”

“Yeah. Well, it's just a case. And I'm about done in from doing everything myself while you were off lazing about. Ellen's good with self-deluded fools like Bennett.”

Manseur enjoyed the perplexed expression pasted on his partner's face. It was nice to surprise people sometimes.

Manseur accepted the congratulations from the other detectives as he moved through the bull pen. He stopped at his desk to get his coat. He probably would have spent the night with Larry interviewing Bennett, but for three things: first, Bennett was toast; second, he really needed to see, kiss his daughters and his wife; and third, the superintendent of police had told him that morning that he was going to get the slot Suggs's death had left empty.

He slipped on his coat and looked at Suggs's open office door. Inside, two detectives were searching files, paper by paper. Michael took one last look at his desk and saw a white envelope from the print lab in his in-box.
The corpse in the Rover
. He opened the envelope, pulled out the paper, and put on his reading glasses.

He read the name of the owner of the two partial prints three times, trying to figure how he had could have contaminated the request. Obviously he was looking at the wrong inquiry. Some technician must have put two things together somehow. It was simply impossible. The burned corpse in the Rover couldn't be who the FBI claimed it was. Somebody had to be playing a joke on him.

He read the name one more time, still thinking he was reading it wrong, that it would become something close to what it said, but not the same name at all.

Nicholas Green

101 Bobcat Lane

Houston, Texas

Licensed private investigator

Nicky Green.

Even though it wasn't possible, Manseur grabbed the computer keyboard and typed in a request for the Texas driver's license and P.I. license picture of Nicholas Green.

The screen showed two images of his Nicky Green. He stared into the eyes, studied the shape of the head, the jaw, and realized that, although the man he knew as Nicky Green was a dead ringer for the corpse Nicky Green, he wasn't him.

It hit him like a bullet in the chest. Winter Massey had it all wrong.

Manseur didn't know when the real Nicky Green had been killed—precisely when the switch had been made—but it had happened after the real Green left Hank and Millie at the guesthouse and before the new Nicky Green had appeared on the scene of the hit-and-run. He had either run them over himself or had someone else do it so he could take Green's place. The real Green's body must have been in the Rover when it hit the Trammels. An accomplice did drive it off and dump it because the fake Green—Styer—had been back at the scene taking Green's life over.

Winter thought Adams was the bad guy. Manseur grabbed his phone, called Winter's cell phone, then remembered he had ruined it in the river.

Massey was probably in the hotel suite with Nicky Green, the man who had been sent to kill him. Manseur dialed the hotel and asked to be put through to Winter's suite. Massey answered.

“Massey, thank God,” he said. “Are you alone?”

“No. What you need?” Winter replied.

“Listen to me carefully. You are in danger. I got the burned corpse's prints back, and Jesus, Massey, you won't believe it . . . they belonged to—”

“Nicky Green.”

Manseur was stunned. “You knew?”

“He's long gone, Michael. It's finally over.”

104

Winter hung up the phone. Every muscle in his body ached, and he wanted to get into a hot bath to rid himself of any remaining trace of the Mississippi River.

Just outside the door, Faith Ann, wearing one of his T-shirts, was lying on the bedroom's couch, sound asleep. She had wanted to sleep close to Winter, and she had certainly earned the right to some peace of mind. Whatever the future held for her, Winter was certain it would be vastly better than the recent past had been. The child had amazed him and everybody associated with this, especially the bad guys. He wondered if she'd had any idea how terrible the odds of her survival and of getting the evidence to the governor had really been.

Winter lifted the note he had found on the bedside table in Nicky Green's cleaned-out bedroom, held in place by the Trammel Colt .45.

Winter,

I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed the exercise. I suppose sooner or later you will discover that Adams wasn't Paulus Styer, that I am. I regret what happened to the Trammels, but please believe me when I say it was for the game. You are alive because I was no longer obliged to kill you after I learned about my handler's deal with the CIA. I did stick around the rest of the evening to have some fun, which I certainly did, but I can't see the point in hanging around waiting for John Adams's pals to show up looking for me. While they might not have minded if I had killed you, I seriously doubt they will bother you now.

You know, Massey, you're a very talented man, but you have been elevated by that talent into a world of monsters where you do not belong. You should get out of the business before you find that out the hard way. Take care of the Porter kid, although going by what I saw, it may be she who ends up taking care of you. Don't think of trying to track me, figuring you might owe the Trammels some debt. If you and I ever meet again, I will not hesitate to finish what I started.

Wishing you and yours only the best.

P. Styer

Winter ripped the note into small pieces and flushed them down the toilet. He undressed and slipped into the hot water, sliding forward in the long tub until the water's surface brushed his chin. He leaned his head back, placed the wet washcloth over his face, and willed his mind to slow, to find a soft place to rest itself.

Epilogue

The dapper Phillip Dresser sat alone at a small table in a coffee shop, watching the passersby. The night before, he'd eaten dinner at Brennan's Steak House so he could monitor the Masseys and Faith Ann, who had been seated at a nearby table.

He had decided that the safest place to hide from his enemies, who would assume he was heading back to Moscow, was in New Orleans, at the Pontchartrain Hotel. He would repay his handler for the betrayal, without even lifting a hand. Yuri Chenchenko would spend his life in a perpetual cold sweat anticipating Styer's return—seeing ghosts until he died, hopefully many years down the road.

Styer looked at his watch.

Any minute now,
he thought.

Moments later they came into sight, moving along the concourse. He smiled as he watched Winter, Sean, Rush, and Faith Ann strolling toward their flight to Texas. They were headed there to bury Kimberly Porter and Millie Porter Trammel. After that they would fly back to Charlotte. In a month, Hank would be able to return to North Carolina. Styer envied the old man. Hank would spend his last years surrounded by people who loved him. He wondered if these people really knew how lucky they were.
Of course they know
.

Faith Ann looked directly at Dresser. The girl couldn't recognize him—she, like Winter, had been far too preoccupied to have noticed him in the crowds, disguised and shadowing their party during the past days, listening to their conversations. She looked as skinny as ever, and her butchered hair was tousled and uncombed, but the happiness he saw reflected in her eyes warmed him.
You raised yourself a special daughter there, Kimberly Porter,
he thought.
She does you proud.

Styer had an hour before his flight to Denver. He put a new toothpick in the corner of his mouth. The wooden pacifier was something he'd picked up recently—a habit he found oddly soothing.