A Devil's Bargain Page 10

  “I shouldn’t be venting at you,” he said.

  “It’s alright.”

  “Why the hell was Gil Sharps trying to break into the bar?”

  “No idea. Let’s table it. You go do what you need to. I’m showering and sleeping. Agreed?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  She watched him shrug into his suit coat and make a halfhearted swipe at getting his tie in order. Darren’s eyes were red-rimmed. He looked drained and haggard, but he spared her a quick smile and a kiss on her forehead before stepping into the foyer and lacing on his shoes.

  “I’ll call him from the bank that handles our transfers. If there’s a branch manager in the room I’ll be less tempted to shout obscenities when Luther answers.”

  “Good idea,” she said.

  He walked out. A moment later he walked back in and up the stairs.

  “Phone?” she called up.

  “Phone,” he called down. “Got it now.”

  When he was gone again, Issabella stretched, yawned, and heavily climbed the stairs up to the second floor bathroom. She showered and changed into her nightclothes. Under the blankets of their bed, she closed her eyes and pushed Bob Portidge and Judge Sherman out of her mind.

  Just a nap, she told herself. A few hours is all. You don’t want to screw up your sleep schedule. Get a little recharge and then you can get back to work.

  She sat up, reached into her nightstand and came out with a little pad of sticky notes and a pen.

  Pester them to answer the discovery demand now, not later. Be a pest, she wrote.

  She peeled off the note and stuck it to the top of the nightstand. She was about to put the pad and pen away when another thought occurred to her.

  Find out how to get an Illinois criminal history check and run one on Gil Sharps.

  When that second note was affixed beside the first, she kept on.

  Check out Detective North. FOIA for disciplinary history.

  Re-walk the crime scene. Check everywhere. Take pictures.

  As each new item that needed attention occurred to her, two more sprang into existence behind it. After a couple minutes, the nightstand surface was covered in little yellow squares and Issabella knew she wasn’t going to sleep.

  She stared at the last note she’d written on top of the pad in her hand.

  Help Darren get the box open so he doesn’t go crazy.

  “Right,” she said and pictured the giant power saw down in the living room. The blade was several inches long and its line of large teeth looked designed for severing the arms of unwary users.

  Still, she climbed out of bed and padded in her bare feet down to the living room. She stood over the reciprocating saw and stared at it, hoping the reality of the thing was less threatening than the image she’d summoned in her mind’s eye.

  It wasn’t. The thing looked like a medieval weapon some madman had decided would be improved with the addition of an electrically powered motor. She imagined herself struggling to heft it, imagined it jouncing wildly in her grip as she tried to get it to shear through the locks on the suitcase.

  “Maybe there’s an instruction manual,” she mumbled, and started looking around the room.

  Chapter Seven

  Luther poured himself half a glass of his smoothest whiskey from a one-of-a-kind fluted crystal decanter. It was a gift from a Major General of the Uganda People’s Defense Force, in appreciation for moving the dialogue forward on finally tapping that nation’s oil reserves.

  But it wasn’t oil on Luther’s mind.

  He added a splash of water to the glass and sat down on one of the two brown leather sofas in his office. Between them sat a low mahogany table with a map of the world engraved upon it in fine, exquisite detail. Another gift, this one from a Texas cattle baron whose unsavory sexual proclivities had threatened to come to light just as the man was gearing up to run for statewide office. With thanks, the accompanying note had read. You ever need a favor, a real favor, then I’m your man.

  But it wasn’t favors on Luther’s mind.

  He sipped the glass and stared at the map engraved upon the table. Illinois was a little smudge, just big enough that the Texas cattleman had been able to pay the table’s creator to work in two five-pointed stars upon the map—one inside the big swath of Texas, and the second right where Luther dwelled now atop the city of Chicago.

  He’d sat and stared at the star many times over the years. It was a fine indication of how he saw himself: a fixed point, his influence radiating outward in all directions, to even the most distant reaches of the world.

  Luther took another swallow of whiskey and his eyes drifted east, sliding off his star and coming to rest on the mitten-shaped form of Michigan. There was no star for Detroit, but his eyes were drawn to its location all the same. Detroit.

  Detroit was on Luther’s mind.

  “Sir? You wanted me at noon?”

  Farah Jacobie’s voice was smoother than the whiskey in his glass, but Luther was neither fooled by its silky warmth nor the suggestive phrasing of her question.

  He inclined his head toward his workstation near the south window-wall so the phone’s speaker system would pick him up, and said, “Go ahead.”

  “Gil hasn’t called and his phone is still off. I’ll keep trying.”

  Luther scowled and drained his glass as he stood up.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Farah?”

  “Do you need anything?”

  Luther stared into the bottom of his empty glass. He wanted a second one. He wanted there to be no reason why he shouldn’t have a second one.

  “I don’t need anything,” he said after a pause.

  He stood in front of the liquor cabinet, torn between the urge to shut the cabinet’s doors and the impulse to just go ahead and have that second belt of whiskey.

  Farah’s voice returned.

  “A poor decision trumps indecision, sir.”

  Luther repressed a rueful chuckle. He strode out of his office, down a short mahogany-paneled hallway, and into the marble-floored reception area of the Fletcher Group’s executive level.

  Farah grinned as he came to a halt on the other side of her workstation. One turquoise-lacquered fingernail tapped the speaker button on her phone, extinguishing the connection. Her blouse was earthen brown today, open to display the cleft between her breasts, and her large square earrings matched the color of her nails.

  “Is it rude to quote someone back to themselves?” she asked with feigned innocence.

  Farah was accomplished at feigning any emotion that was required. Her default falsehood was a suggestive, barely repressed carnality—an implication that she was available. But Luther knew she could just as easily slip into a guise of naivety, or churlishness, or even maternal warmth. Dozens more. Luther suspected that even he hadn’t seen the full roster.

  The truth, of course, was that Farah was not available, despite what her default sensuality might imply. Nor was she remotely naïve or churlish, and Luther was sure that the stunning woman he’d convinced to walk away from a six-figure career as a high-end escort would choose any fate over motherhood.

  “Rude? No, Farah. Not if it gets results.”

  She folded her hands over one another and mused, “It got you out of your office, so I suppose that’s a result.” Her tone changed, settling into a husky purr as she added, “Do you want to give it to me, Luther?”

  Not for the first time, he found himself staring at her in confounded silence, his tongue useless. Farah’s answering smile was knowing. She reached out and lightly tapped a nail against the rim of his empty whiskey glass. Luther blinked, startled, and regarded the glass with mild alarm. He had forgotten he was holding it.

  “Or were you going to carry it around with you
all day?”

  “Thank you.”

  He handed the glass to Farah and she set it to the side before plucking a thin file folder off her desk and setting it in his hands.

  “Carmen Ras,” she said.

  Luther flipped the folder open and scanned its meager contents.

  “I remember her,” he admitted after a few seconds. “She was hired as a favor for a DC client. What’s his name? Amsmith? Am—”

  “Sean Amsworth, from the Treasury Department.”

  “Right. This Carmen girl was a trade for services. I can’t put her in the field when we’ve got two men unaccounted for. I need someone with proven ability. What’s wrong with Dick Sims?”

  Farah didn’t move to take the Carmen Ras file back from him when he held it out between them.

  “Dick’s still on light duty from his hernia surgery. Carmen’s on-site.”

  Luther opened the folder again and started reading, more slowly than before.

  “Why on earth is she still coming in? We’ve never given her anything to do.”

  “I’ve farmed her desk work when the others get too busy. She’s eager. Her reports are unimpeachable.”

  Luther looked up and said, “I don’t need a clerk. I need someone at my side I can depend on.”

  Farah shrugged as if the entire issue was no longer a concern and turned her eyes to her computer monitor.

  “I can tell Dick to pack a suitcase,” she said. “Just make sure to help him lug it around so he doesn’t blow up his groin again.”

  Luther watched her in silence. Beneath the soft beauty of her face, he could see frustration. She was annoyed.

  “Where’s Carmen now?” he said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Farah...”

  Her smile was a sudden blossom, bright and wide. All the annoyance in her eyes vanished as if it had never been and she said, “She’s two floors down. Suite 2713.”

  Despite how well he knew her, Luther still felt a flush of nervous warmth in his gut at the way she beamed at him, now that he’d found his way to where she’d been leading him.

  “Why don’t you call ahead,” he suggested and paced uneasily over to the elevators. “Let her know I’m coming and to stay put.”

  “She knows,” Farah answered. “I had her start prepping a field bag once it was clear Gil wasn’t answering his phone. I’ll be here round the clock until you say otherwise, sir.”

  Of course you will, he thought.

  If Farah, on her surface, was most often a well-constructed and calculated lie, there was one fundamental truth about her that never changed. At her core, Farah was competent. It infused everything she did. If Luther had been forced to guess, unwavering competence was the only thing that really animated her.

  He stepped into the elevator and was facing her workstation again. He felt out of balance. It wasn’t just the potential disaster underway in Detroit. That was severe enough to put anyone on their back foot. The doors were whispering shut and he realized what needed to be done.

  Luther reached out and held the door.

  “Farah?”

  She looked up from her desk and he caught a glimpse of her self-satisfied grin before she quickly replaced it with a placid, noncommittal expression.

  “When you clean that glass and return it to my office, be a dear and empty the wastebaskets.”

  As the doors slid shut between them, Farah’s eyes hardened.

  Luther felt a modicum better as he descended. If he couldn’t yet impose order on the situation in Detroit, he could maintain it here in his own realm. And in Luther’s realm, there could be no misunderstandings about who was who and what was what.

  Two floors down he stepped off the elevator and almost collided with Dick Sims. A retired Chicago cop, formerly athletic but now just robust, with a bushy mustache and cheeks pitted with old acne scars, Dick drew up to a sudden halt and said, “I was just coming up to see if you had a minute.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Right, right,” Dick said in a rush and fell in beside Luther, who continued on down the hall. It wasn’t often that Luther had cause to appear on any floor but the uppermost. Subordinates whose names he didn’t know parted as he ignored their startled expressions and hastily mumbled sirs.

  “What can I do for you, Dick?”

  “Whatever’s going on, I’d like to be put on it.”

  “What makes you think something’s going on?”

  Dick issued an incredulous huffing sound and shook his head.

  “Seriously? Joe Link’s AWOL. Everybody knows that. Gil’s out on something. Now Carmen’s packing a bag like she’s going on a bear hunt. I’m the only senior field guy left. Hey, restricted duty, okay. But that’s just doctor-crap. I’m tip-top. I’m good to go, sir.”

  Luther came to an abrupt stop and Dick took two steps ahead before realizing their shared march had come to an end. He wiped nervously at his upper lip and said, “If its field work, I could be useful, sir.”

  “Do you have your sidearm on you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. I need you to eject the magazine and empty the chamber.”

  Dick had worked for Luther for seven years. He did not hesitate to unholster his pistol and do as instructed.

  “What are we doing here?” he said as he slipped the magazine and the bullet from the chamber into a pocket. He reholstered the empty weapon.

  “Just a test,” Luther said. “I need to know who I’m working with.” Dick fell in beside him as Luther resumed his walk. “When I say fire, I want you to pull that sidearm and shoot me in the head, Dick.”

  Dick was silent, but then he seemed to understand because he let out a disbelieving chuckle and nervously ran a hand over his mustache.

  “Jeez.”

  “Is there an issue?”

  “Hey, you’re the boss.”

  “Yes.”

  Luther found Carmen Ras in the little office she’d been assigned since the day she’d been hired. It was hardly larger than a janitor’s closet and had no windows. As he rapped his knuckles on the door jam, Carmen turned and stood stock straight when she saw that it was him. A large black duffel bag was open on her desk.

  “Carmen, right?” Luther said.

  “Yes, sir,” she answered.

  Carmen Ras was short, only a hair over five feet tall, and had the light brown complexion of what her personnel file told Luther was a Colombian heritage on her mother’s side and Lithuanian on her father’s. Her hair was cropped very short above almond-shaped eyes that were a bright hazel, almost gold. Her caramel-colored man’s suit was tailored to disguise any hint of femininity beneath it.

  “We need to have a conversation,” Luther said and stepped into the room. Behind him, Dick Sims followed until he was standing two feet off to Luther’s left.

  “Hey, Carmen,” Dick said and inclined his head.

  “Hi,” Carmen said, then to Luther, “How can I help, sir?”

  Luther pulled her folder out from under his arm and opened it. He pretended to scan its contents again while he said, “I need some background. It says here you were born in Idaho. Went straight into the Army after high school. Military police for four years.”

  “That’s all correct, sir.”

  Luther turned a page and kept on, “Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice from Florida State. Two years with the State Police until the Secret Service picked you up. Seven years with them. Then you left and a friend of yours at Treasury called in a favor to get you hired here. I guess what I want to know is what did you do to make them fire you?”

  He looked up at her as he said the word fire and saw the mixture of confusion and anxiety on her face. The sudden, unexpected question had jarred her.

  Beside him, Dick Sims took his c
ue and yanked his sidearm out of its holster. He spun toward Luther with the weapon held out in front of him.

  Carmen Ras shot forward, quicker than Luther would have thought possible. Her left arm came down in a chopping blur and smashed the gun out of Dick’s hands. Her right fist got him in the chin and he let out a yelp of pain.

  “Enough,” Luther barked. “Carmen, that’s plenty. That’s enough.”

  The diminutive woman kicked Dick’s sidearm out the open office door and took two quick steps backwards. She stared from one man to the next with wide, adrenaline-focused eyes. No more than two seconds passed before Luther saw comprehension appear on her face. She resumed her previous stock-straight posture, her breathing slowed noticeably, and she said, “Did I pass whatever this was?”

  Luther turned to Dick, who was rubbing his chin and looking chagrined.

  “Did you manage to pull the trigger?”

  Dick shook his head and gave Carmen a sideways stare.

  “Nope. She got it out of my hands in time,” he admitted. “Hits a lot harder than you’d guess at first sight, too.”

  If there was any satisfaction in hearing it, Carmen Ras kept it off her face. She stared at Luther patiently, waiting to hear what came next. Focused, he thought. Focused and disciplined.

  Luther pointed at the duffel bag on the desk.

  “Alright, Carmen,” he said. “You’re operational. Forget packing a spare suit. You won’t need it. Just bring the bare minimum. Dick can let you into the armory and get you a weapon. Concealable. Nothing that’ll get spotted. Understand?”

  Carmen said, “Yes, sir.”

  Dick nodded his head.

  “The two of you have twenty minutes to get downstairs and meet me in the parking garage.”

  Dick put his hands on his hips. His chin was reddening and Luther suspected it might begin swelling soon.

  “Where are we going?” Dick said.

  Luther turned around and retrieved Dick’s sidearm from the hallway floor. As he did so he said, “Detroit. Get your gear. I’ll brief you on the plane.”

  He handed the sidearm back to Dick and noted the man’s disappointed expression.