The business card Hannah found at the Bayshore house belonged to an Anna Marie Salvano, a broker for Weber-Sloan Realty. Hannah called her from the pay phone outside of Garcia’s Café. Got Anna Salvano’s voice mail. She left her name, her cell phone number, said she was very interested in some property Anna had listed.
Then she called local information and asked for the number for Maude Fielding and was told that there was no such listing.
“Anything close?” Hannah asked.
“There’s an M. A. Fielding on Flagler Street. And a Martin Fielding in Hialeah.”
Hannah got the number for M.A. on Flagler.
After seven or eight rings, ready to hang up, she heard a drowsy female voice answer. Too young to be J.J.’s wife.
“I’m looking for Maude Fielding,” Hannah said.
The young woman was silent.
“Are you there?”
“I’m here,” she said. Irritable, suspicious. “You got the wrong number, lady. There’s no Maude Fielding here.”
“I’m sorry to bother you.”
But Hannah kept the phone at her ear. Something in the girl’s voice wasn’t right.
A second or two went by, then the girl said, “So whatta you want with her?”
“Is this her number or not?”
“I want to know who the hell I’m speaking to.”
“I’m an old friend of hers. Trying to get back in touch.”
“What old friend? Give me a name.”
“Hannah Keller.”
The girl cleared her throat. It sounded like she was fumbling with the receiver. When she spoke again her voice was tense.
“I asked you what you wanted with Maude Fielding.”
“I want to talk to her, ask her some questions.”
“About what?”
“It’s a personal matter. Is Maude Fielding there or not?”
After a few seconds of silence, the girl hung up.
Hannah stood there for a moment looking at the receiver. She was just putting it back on the hook when her cell phone rang.
Hannah stepped beneath the awning of Garcia’s Café, out of the harsh midday sun. As she opened her phone, she looked through the large plateglass window at the two young girls in pink frocks. They’d finished their lunch and now their grandmother was talking to someone at an adjacent table. One of the little girls grinned at Hannah and waved her fingers. Hannah waved her fingers back.
“You’re interested in seeing some property?” Anna Maria Salvano said.
Hannah said yes she was and gave her the Bayshore address.
“Oh,” Anna Maria said. “That one.”
“Is there a problem?” The little girl in the restaurant was winking at Hannah. Her left eye, then her right. Showing off a new skill.
“Well, I can’t get you into that house till Friday.”
“Friday? Why Friday?”
“That’s when it’s available again.”
“It’s rented till Friday?”
“That’s right A short-term rental. Just a few days. A movie or commercial or something. I’m not sure.”
Hannah was feeling giddy. It’d been so long since she’d conned an honest citizen out of information. She was out of shape, winded already.
“I need to act today,” she said.
“Today? No, I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”
“Why not?”
“Well, beside the fact that it’s rented, I have two closings this afternoon. Even if we could get permission from the client to let you see the property, I can’t get away from the office.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” Hannah said. Scrambling, putting herself in Erin Barkley’s head for a moment, a quick hit of her audacity. “Because, you see, Ms. Salvano, I’m representing a gentleman from Zurich and I’m only going to be in town today. The Bayshore house is exactly what he’s looking for. What’re they asking for the place anyway?”
The little girl was pressing her nose against the glass, mashing it flat for Hannah’s amusement. Her grandmother was still turned to the nearby table.
“A million two,” Anna Maria said. “But I think we can get them down from that. The house needs considerable updating, a little TLC, if you know what I mean.”
“A million two is within my parameters,” Hannah said. “Perhaps you could give me the number of the woman who’s renting it and I can speak with her directly.”
Chancing that it was, in fact, a woman. Possibly the same woman whose handwriting was in her book, the woman apparently aiding J. J. Fielding with his plan. Maybe Maude, maybe someone Fielding had met since going on the run.
“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Anna Maria said. “Our clients’ confidentiality is quite important to us.”
“Listen, I spoke to her today,” Hannah said. “I was at the Bayshore house. We hit it off nicely. She offered me her phone number, but I said no, I’d rather speak to the realtor first. The normal protocol.”
“You met her? You were at the house today?”
“That’s right. All I need is a quick look inside, make sure the layout’s right. I would’ve done it this morning but she was on her way out and couldn’t let me inside at the time. If there’s a movie being made there I didn’t see any evidence of it. The place was dead quiet.”
Now the other little girl was smushing her nose against the windowpane. Two greasy streaks against the clear glass.
“I was told we couldn’t show the house again until Friday.”
Stubborn woman, sticking with the rules. But a little crack was showing in her voice, wiggle room.
“Well,” Hannah said, “I’m pretty sure the lady would be willing to let me walk through with her. As I say, we had a nice rapport. If you give me her number, I’d be willing to call her, try to set something up for this afternoon.”
“I don’t know,” Anna said. “It’s certainly not standard practice.”
“Come now.” Hannah, playing her part, a brisk businesswoman with major money to spend. Not going to dillydally with underlings. “If I like what I see, I can leave a written offer at your office by six this evening. How would that be?”
Anna took another moment. Probably doing the math on her commission, six percent of a million two.
“All I have for her is a cell number,” Anna Salvano said. “It’s not local.”
Hannah waited. Let her silence do the work.
“I should really be the one to call her,” the realtor said.
“Listen, Anna. I’m looking at one other property, maybe I should just concentrate on that one and let this drop. Frankly, the realtor for the other listing was a lot more receptive.”
“Okay, all right then,” Anna said. “If you want to call her, I guess it wouldn’t hurt.” And she gave her the number.
Hannah said, “The young woman told me her name, but I forget what it was. Judy, Margaret. I’m so bad with names.”
“Helen,” Anna said. “Helen Shane.”
Hannah thanked her again and promised to call back as soon as she’d met with Helen.
Behind the plateglass window the grandmother had turned back to her misbehaving girls. She was lecturing them sternly. One of the girls was crying, the other grinning at Hannah.
Hannah punched Helen Shane’s number into her cell phone. It rang once, then there were a series of clicks, some kind of elaborate forwarding system, then a woman’s brusque voice said, “Go.”
“Helen?”
There was a second’s hesitation.
“Who is this?”
“I think you’ve been trying to get in touch with me.”
Slipping into Erin Barkley mode, ballsy, fast talker, quick with the bullshit.
“I said, who is this?”
“I thought maybe we could just forget this Internet bullshit. You and I could just talk directly. Doesn’t that make more sense? Woman to woman. Tell me where J. J. Fielding is hiding out. Maybe we could work out a deal.”
Hannah was fully prepared to offer a spectacular bribe, or threaten the woman with jail time for aiding and abetting, whatever it took. Winging it, rolling along in high gear.
But the connection clicked off.
Hannah dialed the number again but it was busy. She waited a second, redialed, still busy. Everyone hanging up on her today.
She’d probably been too direct, stayed too close to the truth. Probably should have given them an alias, a better cover story. A little out of practice, not as quick and nimble as Erin after all.
She snapped her phone shut and was turning away from the window when out of the edge of her vision she saw the grandmother lurch backward in her chair and tumble to the floor, and then inches from Hannah’s face, the smeared pane of plateglass splintered into thousands of diamond sparkles. The glass hanging in place for a second, then collapsing in a sheet of glittery chaos. Beautiful and strange and so utterly surprising that Hannah simply froze before the shattered window trying to absorb the scene, standing there for several dizzy moments until a few inches from her head another slug blasted the wood siding and sprayed splinters onto the front of her blouse.
Then she was crouched behind the hood of a green Lexus, old habits finally switching on. She had the .357 out and was tracking it slowly back and forth across the parking lot. Tires squealed on the asphalt, men stumbled out of shops up and down the plaza. Inside the restaurant there were shouts and shrieks, china broke, tables overturned. A UPS truck moved slowly across the lot.
Hannah squinted along the barrel of her pistol, inching it from left to right, then back again. But she heard no more shots, saw no one with a weapon, no one at all. Behind her, through the splintered glass, the two girls were huddled around their grandmother. One of them was staring at Hannah, her lips drawn back into a snarl of anguish and blame as if she believed this horror was somehow Hannah’s fault. Which, almost certainly, it was.
“Stay right where you are, Sheffield.”
When the gunfire began Ackerman didn’t hesitate. He marched directly to the rear of the van and took up his position, blocking the door. In his khakis and neatly pressed work shirt, his arms crossed over his chest, he looked like the bouncer at some preppy dance. Ackerman outweighed Frank by fifty pounds, and it looked like he meant to use every ounce of it to keep him from getting by.
“You can’t go out there,” Helen said. “You’ll blow the whole thing. This could be Hal testing to see if Hannah’s got protection. We can’t show ourselves. It’s absolutely crucial.”
Frank was staring into the senator’s hard brown eyes. The glower he used so often to frighten generals wasn’t having much effect on Frank.
“Jesus Christ, she’s pinned down, Shane. Your people aren’t doing anything.”
“She’s okay. She’s not hit. The show’s over.”
Helen was at the tinted window, scanning the lot with binoculars.
“You’re just going to let this go down? Christ, you got a woman out there drawing fire, innocent civilians in harm’s way, and you’re more concerned about safeguarding your goddamn operation?”
“That’s right, Frank,” Ackerman said, pointing a stubby finger at Sheffield’s chest, then jabbing him once. “We have higher concerns. Now calm down and step back.”
“The police can handle this,” Helen said. “They’re on their way.”
“The guy could still be out there, working his way in for a kill shot. You’re just going to leave her hanging in the wind.”
“It may not even be about her,” Helen said. “It could be stray gunfire for all we can tell.”
“A white Chevrolet Caprice,” Andy called. “That’s the shooter’s car. We got a visual on the plates. It’s left the scene, going west on Bird Road.”
“You see, Frank? There’s nothing to worry about. Your precious Hannah is safe.”
“Rosie?” Frank gave him a fierce look.
“It’s not my call, Frank.”
“They’re on your turf.”
“I’m outranked.”
“Jesus Christ, you got fifteen people on the ground, all in this one-block area, and no one’s going to try to stop this guy?”
“They have their orders,” Helen said. “We’ll pass the ID onto the local cops, let them handle it.”
Frank took a step toward the door.
“Whatever the shooting was, it’s over now, Frank.” Ackerman poked a stiff finger into Sheffield’s chest. “I can’t let you go out there. The integrity of the operation is our only concern.”
“Fuck the operation.”
Frank snatched Ackerman’s right wrist and swiveled hard, wrenching the big man forward. And all that kayaking must’ve done something for his arms and shoulders, because the senator came sprawling toward him, a large, ungainly mass of machine-tightened muscle stumbling across the narrow space of the van.
Sheffield was dodging past him when Ackerman slashed a wild right hand toward Frank’s face, trying for an eye-gouge. Some ancient football cheap shot they must’ve taught at Notre Dame back in the old days.
Frank ducked away, but the senator’s fingernails still clawed his neck. A scalding gash. Then purely out of reflex, with absolutely no malice, Frank swiveled and dug a right hand into the senator’s gut. Not as muscled as it looked. A doughy inch or two before Frank’s fist met any resistance.
Rosie Jackson, Special Agent in Charge, jumped forward, caught the senator by the shoulders, kept him from pitching headlong into the side wall, then settled him onto the floor where he sat gasping. Roosevelt shook his head.
“Not good, Frank. Not good at all.”
Frank swung back to the door, but now Shane was in his way. She’d drawn her weapon, aiming the Glock at his gut.
“Stay put, Sheffield. You step out that door and the whole thing comes crumbling down.”
“Come on, Helen. Don’t give me an excuse to hurt you too.”
“If you want to go down in flames, fine. But I won’t let you take the rest of us with you. You go out there, you put Hannah in serious jeopardy.”
“You already put her there. I’m going to try to get her out.”
“No, Frank. I can’t let you do it.”
“You people aren’t going to leave her alone till she’s played this out every step of the way. So I’m going to be her escort from here on. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she stays inside the dotted lines, plays out the rest of this bullshit scenario. Now get out of my way.”
Frank reached out and nudged the pistol aside, opened the door, and stepped past Helen Shane into the parking lot. He looked back at her.
“That was her on the phone, wasn’t it? That was Hannah.”
Helen tried to keep her face empty. But Frank could see a twitch in the corner of her mouth.
“You guys need me more than you thought.”
“Do it the way it’s written, Sheffield. You step outside the program, there’s no guarantee we can protect you.”
Frank gave her the two-finger salute.
“I’ll be out of radio contact, so don’t bother trying to give me any orders. So long, kids.”
And he turned and sprinted through the cars and innocent civilians toward the spot where he’d seen Hannah drop.