“Everybody lies.”
“That’s your excuse?”
Shaw set his feet on the floor and stood up. “I don’t need an excuse. I’ve got a job.”
He left Hickam standing there and went into the bathroom. He used the toilet, splashed his face with cold water, and swished with the wintergreen mouthwash provided by the hotel. But then he braced his hands on the rim of the basin and stared into it, Hickam’s question swirling around in his mind like the tap water around the drain.
Raising his head, he gave his cold eyes and uncharitable visage a good, hard look in the mirror, seeing himself as other people must. “Goddamn Hickam,” he muttered.
Back in the bedroom, he checked his pistols, holstering the nine-millimeter on his belt and slipping the palm pistol into the customized scabbard inside the shaft of his boot. He put two of the blister packs of antibiotics in his jeans pocket, then went into the living room, where the others were similarly preparing.
Wiley asked, “How was your nap? Side hurt?”
“Like hell, but I feel better. Anything important happen while I was out?”
“We contacted the printing company that did the party invitations. Took them no time at all to look up the order. It was placed and filled over six months ago. Event was bogus, and Josh used a fake name, but the invitations were shipped to the address where he was living when he turned himself in. Ms. Bennett cleaned out the apartment and paid off his lease. She claims not to have found any invitations or such.”
“He probably received stuff there, but squirreled it away someplace else.”
“That’s my thought, too,” Wiley said. “He stocked the essentials plus anything he might need in order to contact his sister.”
Shaw, who’d never met Josh, asked, “Is that a compulsion, you think?”
“Contacting her, you mean? Yeah, I think so. He had the gumption to steal millions, but then cratered before we really got tough with him. He had the wherewithal to defy us and escape, but he can’t resist calling and checking in, with us, with Ms. Bennett. What does that make him, gutsy or a goofball?”
“Both.”
“Right. You never know what you’re dealing with. Anyhow, Hick and I think he had his own safe house somewhere around here all set up and waiting for him.”
“Won’t argue that. Speaking of safe houses, how safe is the one you’re moving Jordie to?”
“Safe,” Wiley replied, looking peeved for having been asked.
“What’s the game plan?”
“Three black SUVs leave the hotel garage one behind the other. Motorcycle police block traffic for their exit. Once they leave the hotel, each peels off in a different direction.”
“You don’t think that will draw attention?”
“Exactly. If Panella is out there, he’ll think she’s in one of the SUVs. Also as a decoy, we’re leaving Hick’s car in the garage where we parked it when we got back from Tobias. But one of our agents left another car parked on the street. As soon as the SUVs peel out, Hick’ll bring that car into the garage and pi
ck up Gwen, Jordie, and me at the elevator.”
“How many officers watching the hotel?”
“A dozen uniforms. That many more undercovers in and around the lobby and at all the entrances.”
“They know to be looking for Panella?”
Wiley nodded. “To refresh memories, we circulated the last known photograph of him.”
“What’s my job?”
“To make yourself scarce until morning. You have somewhere to stay?”
“Plenty of flophouses in New Orleans.”
“We’ll reconvene early in my office. Hick and I will show you everything we have on Josh Bennett. Maybe you can spot a clue we’ve overlooked that would lead us to his hidey-hole.”