Outside of Marty’s building, Kelson called Rodman. Because Javinsky was right. Kelson had already hit the Cranes too hard and too often to expect anything but an ugly welcome. Also, if Harold Crane asked where the thumb drive was, he would tell him. And if Harold asked where Marty had holed up, Kelson would give up the street address and directions to the basement door. Kelson needed Rodman to stick a fist in his mouth or do something – anything – to keep him from talking too much.
‘Meet me at my office?’ he said when Rodman answered his phone.
‘What’s up?’ Rodman said.
‘I’ll tell you on the way,’ Kelson said.
‘The way where?’
‘Bring a weapon,’ Kelson said. ‘Or two.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Or three.’ He went to his car, opened the trunk, dug under the mat covering the spare tire, and tucked the thumb drive by a bolt that kept the tire from sliding around.
Next, he called G&G and asked the receptionist for Harold Crane’s address. ‘An acquaintance of mine is with him there,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to give out that information,’ the receptionist said.
‘What if you call and tell him Sam Kelson knows about his nipples?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Tell him I’ve seen more of him than I wanted to – more than anyone should be forced to see, though he seems willing enough to bare it all.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about, and we don’t disturb Mr Crane at home except in emergencies.’
‘What does an emergency sound like to you?’ Kelson said. ‘Do you need sirens? If I can’t talk to Harold, I can send some his way.’
‘Hold on.’ She sounded exasperated.
When she came back several minutes later, she said she’d talked with her boss. She gave Kelson an address and said Harold Crane would expect him.
Twenty minutes later, Kelson and Rodman stood in Kelson’s office. Kelson strapped on an over-the-shoulder rig and holstered his Springfield. He tucked the KelTec into his belt, then put on a blue windbreaker that mostly hid the guns.
Rodman wore a big Beretta 92 in a hip holster. He cupped his little snub-nose Colt revolver in his hand like a baby bird. ‘Harold and his own daughter?’ he said. ‘I didn’t see that coming.’ He dropped the little gun into his jacket pocket.
‘And Chip Voudreaux,’ Kelson said.
‘Swings left, swings right.’
‘And Genevieve Bower.’
‘Who now forgives all?’
‘More likely Harold scared her into giving up.’
‘Busy old pecker. When does he have time to earn those millions?’
They drove north through early-afternoon traffic. The sky was the deep blue of coming summer, but when Rodman cracked open the passenger-side window, a cool wind whipped through the car.
The gate in front of Harold Crane’s house was open. It was tall and wrought iron, with a stamped-metal image of a wading bird – probably a crane – in the middle. The driveway that extended from it was the smooth gray-black of a bicycle inner tube, and it curved around a large oak tree with the bright, tender green leaves of late May. As Kelson and Rodman pulled past the tree, Rodman said, ‘Why don’t you stay in the car?’
‘And miss the excitement?’
A giant brick house with gas lamps on either side of a big wooden front door and a gabled porch roof supported by two-story columns rose at the far end of a circle where the driveway looped back on itself. White drapes were drawn across tall first-floor windows. The second-floor windows had no drapes but, reflecting the afternoon sun, were opaque and offered no clues about the life behind them.
‘Sometimes you bring too much excitement,’ Rodman said. ‘Maybe I go in and find out the deal. If I need you, I yell.’
‘You yell? You never use more than a church voice.’
Rodman patted his pocket. ‘Or maybe I shoot someone. If you hear a gunshot, you can come in.’
‘Or maybe I go in with you and we don’t worry about it.’
‘Until you give up the thumb drive and draw a map to Marty’s apartment.’
‘I’m ready for any questions,’ Kelson said.
‘Did that ever work for you before?’
‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘A little.’
So Kelson parked at the bottom of the broad front steps, and they climbed to the broad front porch, where Rodman rang a little doorbell.
A short man in khakis opened – Greg Cushman, the G&G security officer Kelson had already rescued Genevieve Bower from once after he and his partner, Stevie Phillips, kidnapped her and Doreen from Kelson’s apartment.
‘Pipsqueak,’ Kelson said.
‘Watch it,’ Rodman said.
But Cushman knew when to grin. ‘Welcome,’ he said. ‘Mr Crane’s in the sunroom.’
The wide hallway behind him was dim and cool, and as Kelson and Rodman stepped inside, Phillips – a good foot and a half taller than Cushman – emerged. He held a handgun, which he pointed first at Rodman’s chest and then at Kelson’s.
‘My man, Stretch,’ Kelson said.
‘We’ve got to do this, you understand,’ Cushman said, and he frisked Kelson, taking his two pistols. He hesitated in front of Rodman, but Rodman said, ‘Go ahead – one in a hip holster, one in my pocket,’ and Cushman took his guns too.
Phillips lowered his gun then, and Cushman told Kelson and Rodman, ‘You get them back when you leave.’ He set the four guns side by side on a large entry table under a gilt mirror.
‘If,’ Phillips said.
‘Shut up, Stevie,’ Cushman said.
‘We understand,’ Rodman said, so calm and smooth that Phillips raised his gun again.
As Cushman led them through the wide hall toward the back of the house, he said, ‘The call from the office surprised Mr Crane. He didn’t expect you to come running – at least not so soon. He thought you’d be grateful to have Genevieve off your hands. The day has been full of surprises.’
‘For all of us,’ Kelson said. ‘You’d never guess—’
Rodman touched the back of Kelson’s neck with a big hand.
‘Nope, I never would,’ Cushman said. He seemed strangely cheerful.
‘What’s the joke?’ Kelson said.
‘No joke, nothing funny at all,’ the short man said, and led them into a high-ceilinged living room with double French doors that opened into a long sunroom. Through a plate-glass window on the outside wall, Kelson saw a swimming pool, full and sparkling in the cool weather.
Cushman stopped before the French doors and let Kelson and Rodman go in before him. Then he and Phillips stepped in behind them, as if to block the way out.
Harold Crane sat on a high-backed, plush-cushioned wicker chair, as large as a throne. He wore a bathrobe the rich blues and greens of peacock feathers. It fell to his knees, and, though he’d belted it snug around his waist, a tuft of chest hair poked from the top. His hair was wet, as if he’d come down from a shower or in from a swim. In one hand, he held an icy glass of something that included tomato juice.
Genevieve Bower sat on a wicker sofa across from him, deep in the plush cushion. She’d squeezed into a black bikini. She splayed her legs like a man taking two seats on a train. She held a highball glass of ice and a clear liquid and a fat slice of lime. She looked as drunk as when Kelson had tried to talk to her as she vomited in his office. She raised the glass to him and Rodman, nearly tipping over from the effort, and said, ‘Cheers, boys.’