Hope to Die (Alex Cross 22)
“Sure you don’t want one of us along?” Acadia asked.
Sunday shook his head and said, “It took me a long time to find this guy and gain his trust. I don’t want to spook him in any way, especially not now, when he’s proven so resourceful.”
“Don’t forget the honey,” Acadia said, and she handed Sunday a small gym bag with a Nike swoosh on it.
“I’m not back in fifteen, you and Cochran come looking, but slow, right?”
“Armed?”
“Definitely.”
Sunday got out, smelling the rot of spring everywhere around him. It had started to sprinkle. He decided he liked the light rain. Hitting the new leaves on the trees, it would soften all other sound and give him a chance to check out the scene before he fully committed.
Sunday slid down the bank, then found and followed an overgrown logging trail, mindful to keep the bag raised so the brambles and thorns would not tear it. Soon he smelled wood smoke and slowed to a creep. He approached a ledge that overlooked a clearing and, beyond it, a swollen creek.
To his right and below, hard by the creek bank, there was a plywood-and-tarpaper shack. Smoke curled from a stovepipe that jutted from the roof. An old blue Chevy pickup with a capper sat between the shack and a barn of sorts.
Sunday noticed the sheet across the window that faced in his direction was fluttering, and he knew he’d been spotted. So he held up the bag and climbed over the ledge and down into the yard. A door creaked open. A big male Rottweiler came bounding out toward him.
Sunday stopped and stayed perfectly still, his eyes watching the dark space beyond the door as the dog growled low and circled him, taking his wind. When the dog barked, the door opened wider, and Sunday crossed to the shack. He climbed the stoop, passing a chain saw and a gas can, and went inside.
“That necessary every time?” Sunday asked the muscular bald guy crossing the dim space to a crude kitchen. His name was Claude Harrow.
“Every time,” Harrow replied. “Puts a man’s mind at ease, ’specially now that you and I done crossed a dark line together.”
The dog came in behind him. Sunday shut the door and stood there until his eyes adjusted and he could make out the Formica table, lawn chairs, busted couch, and woodstove in the corner. The walls were bare except for a large Confederate flag and a framed eight-by-ten photograph of Adolf Hitler in full salute. The dog went to the stove and lay down by the stove, head up, watching Sunday.
“Looked like it all went according to plan,” Sunday said, smelling bleach and seeing a washtub close to him on the floor. Two butcher knives and a pair of tin snips were soaking in three inches of chlorine and water.
“Well, what’d you expect? Amateur hour?” Harrow replied, and he turned to him, revealing a thin, nasty scar on his right cheek and a tattoo of a flaming sword on the side of his neck.
Sunday noticed a mirror on the table and saw the traces of white lines on it. He frowned. “Thought we agreed no tweaking during the game.”
“We said during, not after,” Harrow replied. “Don’t worry. It’s just a pick-me-up. I been up all night and had the jitters by the time I got back here.”
Sunday debated whether to press the point, decided not to, and held out the gym bag, saying, “Balance on the first is there, plus a down payment on number two.”
Harrow motioned for him to put it on the table, asked, “How soon?”
“Tonight. The older boy.”
Sunday could tell Harrow didn’t like that.
“That kind of short notice and tight turnaround is gonna cost you,” Harrow said.
“How much?”
“To pull it off clean like that? Hundred K more on the back end.”
Sunday didn’t like renegotiations. “Quite a jump in pay.”
“Hell of a risk I’m taking. Cops involved, right?”
“I think you’d do it even if I weren’t paying you a small fortune,” Sunday said, setting the bag down.
“I might,” Harrow agreed, smiling for t
he first time. “Cops aside, I do enjoy and appreciate the cleaning work.”