Shadow Kill (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (36 page)

In the interim he called Yoan Foca in Cuba, where it was the middle of the night.

The man didn’t appreciate being woken up.

He didn’t appreciate the demand that he personally come to San Francisco.

He swore and hung up.

Ten minutes later he called back.

“We’ll do what you said,” he said.

“You’re personally coming?”

“Yes. This better go perfectly. Do you understand?”

The line died.

Rail lit
a cigarette, blew smoke and looked into Teffinger’s eyes. “Foca’s afraid that Mun Yin’s going to find a way to get his hands on the painting. He wants to close the deal before that happens. That’s why he doesn’t have an interest in you trying to get the painting all the way to Cuba. That’s why he’s coming here. He wouldn’t be doing that if you hadn’t gotten me in the loop. I might have lost his painting but he still trusts me.” He took a long drag and tapped ashes. “That’s what years and years of building a reputation gets you.”

Teffinger understood.

“So, tomorrow night, then?”

Rail nodded.

“He’s bringing Susan Smith?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the best way to do the exchange with no one getting killed?”

Rail blew smoke.

“Personally if it was me, I’d do it at sea, maybe out in the Bay,” Rail said. “We’ll get each one of you a nice stable rubber dinghy, fourteen feet or so, with an outboard on the back. You can each have night vision goggles. He can verify that you’re alone. You can do the same, plus verify he has the two women. You pull together and you open the painting so he can see it’s the real thing. Then, at the same time, you get into his dingy while he gets into yours. You shove apart and go your separate ways.”

Teffinger worked through the details.

It was as good as anything he could come up with.

“I’ve done a dozen deals like that,” Rail said. “I never had a problem.”

Rail
did a double take at the window, said “Bingo,” and mashed the half-smoked butt into the ashtray. Teffinger followed Rail’s eyes behind him just in time to see a red hoodie and a black baseball cap disappear from the window.

He got up and swallowed what was left of his beer.

“I’ll handle this by myself.”

“The hell you will.”

Rail fell into step.

Teffinger didn’t care.

The tiger was out of the cage.

This was the man who stole Kelly Nine out of Teffinger’s bed.

It was the man who tried to steal Del Rey from the fleabag.

It was the man the world didn’t need.

105

Day Ten

July 17

Thursday Night

The red hoodie
was already twenty steps up Haight Street by the time Teffinger pushed out of the Dusty Beat. He followed, walking briskly through the city chill, closing the gap while Rail tried to keep up.

Lightning was in his blood.

He knew the feeling.

He knew it only too well.

It was there last week in that one-second freefall just before he unleashed a deadly blow at Jack Colder’s face. It was also there back at Oscar Benderfield’s house, when the man suddenly sprang at him with a knife. It was there a year ago when he first came face to face with the fact that someone had stolen Kelly Nine right out of his bed.

He quickened the pace.

Then he broke into a trot, a quiet, quiet trot.

Ten steps, that’s how far the gap was now.

Suddenly the man turned.

Teffinger recognized the face.

It was definitely the man who tried to steal Del Rey and, by implication, the man from the blue car who shot a bullet through the 4Runner.

Teffinger charged.

The man squared off, which wasn’t what Teffinger expected. Then he jerked to the left as Teffinger’s momentum kept him going in a straight line. At the same time, he swung at Teffinger’s head with a powerful right fist that landed with the impact of a hammer.

Colors exploded inside Teffinger’s head.

He was on the ground, flat.

Cold concrete sponged up into his clothes and sent an icy chill through his skin and into his bones. He tried to muscle to his feet and managed to get up on one knee. There he balanced precariously for a heartbeat before topping to the side.

He tried to get up again.

His muscles didn’t respond.

A terrible fight
was taking place above him.

Teffinger couldn’t get up.

He couldn’t stop the pain in his head.

Then the fighting stopped.

Suddenly iron fingers grabbed his hair and yanked his head off the concrete. A bloody face leaned in. It belonged to Jean-Luc Baxa.

“Lucky for you you’re not the mark,” he said. “Tell Rail I didn’t kill him and that makes us even. The score is settled.”

Then he was gone.

106

Day Eleven

July 18

Friday Morning

Teffinger got out
of bed before dawn Friday morning without waking Del Rey, downed two Tylenols and slipped outside for a jog. The air was cold but felt like medicine in his lungs. One major thing was clear from last night, namely that he wasn’t the target. The clarity of that came not only from Jean-Luc Baxa’s words but also from the fact that the man didn’t kill Teffinger when it would have taken only two iotas of effort.

That meant that Del Rey was the target.

Teffinger repeatedly questioned her as to why.

She repeatedly didn’t know.

“You tell me,” she said. “Kelly Nine was the target too. What do me and her have in common, other than you?”

As near as
Teffinger could figure, Baxa had somehow got onto him last night, possibly by tracing Rail. The man’s plan was to follow Teffinger to Del Rey. Luckily, Teffinger figured that out on Haight Street before he left the scene. He figured it out good enough to flag down a cab, crisscross all over town, jump into a second cab, cross the bridge and then walk through shadows the last mile to the Hotel Sausalito.

The effort proved worth it.

Nothing happened last night.

No one came for Del Rey.

No one came for the Van Gogh, either.

They were ghosts but it wouldn’t last long.

Luckily, it didn’t need to.

The exchange
was set for tonight, man to man with Yoan Foca, the Van Gogh for Dandan and Susan Smith. Things could go wrong a hundred different ways and the number increased every time Teffinger thought about it.

Rail would be busy today securing the dinghies, night goggles, and the rest of it.

His words from last night still resonated.

“It’s not the logistics that makes or breaks an exchange,” he said, “it’s the groundwork that takes place long before the exchange every comes to being. Each party needs to be sure the other party can’t gain anything significant from a double cross. That’s a lot harder in a case where you’re exchanging a painting for money. Both items are valuable to both sides. Neither side would mind walking away with everything. But in this case, on Foca’s side, all he really wants is the Van Gogh. He has no real use for either Dandan or Susan Smith. If things hadn’t turned out well, he would have made it his mission in life to kill Dandan, but after he gets the painting in hand, his passion for her death will quickly pass. He certainly won’t make a move before he has the painting safely tucked away. On your end of things, all you want is the women. You really don’t have a use for the painting. So the exchange should go smoothly. The only thing that could go wrong at this point is if you don’t show up with the painting.”

“We’ll see.”

“Trust me.”

Teffinger studied him.

They were still on Haight Street.

Rail was bloodied from his encounter with Jean-Luc Baxa, bloodied but alive.

“Did I ever say thanks for the help?”

“It wasn’t much help, in hindsight,” Rail said.

Teffinger grew serious and then smiled.

“Yeah, that’s true. Never mind, then.”

“I’m never minding.”

“Good.”

“This is what I look like when I’m never minding. How do I look?”

“Not very good.”

“I could say the same. Right now between the two of us, I don’t think we could get a girl unless there was money involved.”

“A lot of money.”

“And if she was blind, that would help.”

Teffinger narrowed his eyes.

“Foca has some guts coming here.”

Rail nodded.

“He’ll have men with him, you can count on that. They’ll be off-screen but they’ll be there. They’ll have rifles. They’ll have scopes. But they’ll only come into play if you try some kind of slick move, which you’re not, so don’t worry about them.”

Teffinger spotted a coke can and kicked it.

“Is he really going to let you off the hook once he gets the painting?”

Rail grunted.

“I’m not going to stick around to find out. I’ll be going deep as soon as this is over. I’ll send you a postcard.”

“Make it from Iowa.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to be jealous if it’s from Fiji.”

Rail slapped Teffinger on the back.

“We’re not so different, you and me.”

That was last night.

Now it was morning.

The jog
went for three miles.

When Teffinger got back to the hotel, something happened that he didn’t expect.

Del Rey was gone.

The Van Gogh was gone too.

107

Day Eleven

July 18

Friday Morning

Friday morning
at the firm Jori-Lee kept her face buried in papers hoping that Robertson hadn’t left the security footage of her break-in lying around where the FBI would stumble on it. If they showed up to interview her she didn’t know how to handle it.

She didn’t want to lie.

She didn’t want to tell the truth, either.

Maybe she’d just hire a lawyer and take the fifth.

Bits and pieces of what happened to Robertson trickled in throughout the morning.

Yesterday over the lunch hour he’d withdrawn $5,000 in cash from his checking account.

The murder happened in a gritty part of town given to hookers and pimps and trannys and people of the night.

Robertson had just stepped out of a sleaze-infested place called the Blackmore Hotel and was walking down the street with his head down. He was incognito, dressed in jeans, tennis shoes, a baseball cap and sunglasses.

A man approached from the opposite direction.

At the last second he stepped in front of Robertson. At first it looked like they were talking, as if the man was possibly asking for directions or for a cigarette or a handout. Then a scuffle ensued. A gun fired, twice. Robertson fell to the sidewalk. The shooter rifled through Robertson’s pockets, pulled something out and ran.

The only witness was a prostitute, across the street and down half a block. Through the distance and drizzle, she never got a look at the shooter, not even close. The rumor was that she was on serious drugs at the time.

Robertson’s wallet was found on the sidewalk fifty steps down from where he got shot.

It was empty.

His car was located on a side street, three blocks down.

Jori-Lee’s cell phone rang
and Sanders’ voice came through. “How are things going?”

“So far so good. Are you hearing all this stuff that’s coming out on Robertson?”

“Yes. I want to meet you for lunch. Can you break away?”

“Sure, if you want.”

“I want.”

108

Day Eleven

July 18

Friday Morning

Del Rey was gone
and so was the Van Gogh. Teffinger scooped up his phone as fast as his motor skills would let him and call Del Rey’s cell number. She answered on the third ring.

“Where are you?”

“Across the hall in 216.”

He went over to find her safe, with the Van Gogh.

She was crying.

He took her in his arms and pulled her close.

“There were people out front,” she said. “They were talking in some kind of an Asian language. I thought they were Mun Yin. I thought they’d somehow tracked the painting to here. I grabbed it to run out the back of the hotel. The people across the hall were just leaving. I asked them if they had any clean towels. They said they did and left the door open for me. I came in and shut the door and this is where I’ve been for the last ten minutes.”