The Midnight House (40 page)

“Let’s give it a couple more days, see if anything breaks. It’s just possible Murphy’ll get bored, go for a drive on his own. Or a run, even better.”

“Two days,” Wells said. “No more.”

 

 

AND SOMETHING DID BREAK,
though it wasn’t what Wells had expected.

Three p.m. Saturday, the seventh and final day of surveillance. Shafer was watching his daughter play softball, so Wells was alone. He had just cruised by Murphy’s house in a Verizon van. The armored van sat out front, as usual, a red Ford Econoline with two unsmiling men in front.

Then he saw two cars in the driveway of a foreclosure that was the closest empty house to Murphy’s. The first was a blue Audi A4 with a vanity Virginia license plate: “SLHOUSE.” It belonged to Sandra (“Call me Sandy”) Seward, a Century 21 agent who had several listings in the area. Wells had met her during his house-buying excursion. The second was a black Toyota Tercel. Wells had seen it before. Precisely three nights ago, stopping in front of Murphy’s house. At the time, it had worn a Domino’s Pizza sign on its roof. The driver hadn’t gotten out of the Tercel. He’d simply lowered his window, said something to the guys in the van—asking for directions, presumably—and driven off. Wells kept driving, reached for his phone, called Shafer.

 

 

 

“He’s doing the same thing we are,” Wells said. “Casing Murphy, staking out the neighborhood as quietly as he can.”

“Because if you’re right, then we have to throw everything out. Murphy’s not involved. The killer’s on the outside. Unless Whitby’s put a contract out on Murphy. Which makes even less sense.”

“I’m telling you, this is the guy.”

They decided not to go after him at the house. They had no authority to make an arrest, and if the guy pulled a weapon, they risked getting the real-estate agent hurt and alerting Murphy’s guards. Instead, they would have to chance tailing the Tercel. Wells guessed the guy, whoever he was, was staying at a low-rent motel in D.C., a place that would take cash so he didn’t have to use a credit card.

They split up, positioned themselves at intersections on Braddock Road, which ran between Kings Park and the Beltway. If they missed him, they would have to alert Murphy’s guards to watch for a black Tercel. But Wells much preferred to find the guy himself, figure out who he was, before getting the agency or the Feds involved.

For an hour, Wells sat in a bank parking lot on the corner of Twin-brook and Braddock, watching the lights change. The Tercel didn’t show. He wondered if they had lost the guy, or if maybe he’d been wrong all along.

Then his phone rang.

“I got him,” Shafer said.

Fifteen minutes later, the Tercel was on the Beltway, Wells and Shafer behind. They crossed the Woodrow Wilson Bridge east into Maryland, then turned north on 295. The driver kept in the right lane at a steady fifty-eight. Probably he was worried about being pulled over in a car with fake plates. But caution made him an easy tail.

At Route 50, the Tercel turned west, into D.C., over the narrow, sluggish Anacostia River. Wells felt a faint thrill as he crossed over the bridge. He would always remember meeting Exley at the Kenilworth gardens, barely a mile from here, on the night that Omar Khadri had called him to New York.
Exley.
He didn’t know how to leave her behind. And yet he had. Maybe he just needed a cute New Hampshire cop who would take him on hikes and bust his chops when he retreated too far into himself. Maybe he needed to give that a try, anyway.

Two miles west of the Anacostia, Route 50 became New York Avenue, a rambling strip of liquor stores, strip clubs, fast-food restaurants, and cheap motels. Surveillance here was trickier. Shafer jumped the Tercel, so that they would at least have a chance at him if he made a light that Wells missed.

Just past Montana, the Tercel turned into the parking lot for the Budget Motor Inn. Wells cruised by in time to see the Tercel pull into a spot in front of room 112. Ten minutes later, Wells and Shafer were sitting down the block at a KFC.

Shafer had insisted on buying a four-piece dinner special, giving Wells the dubious pleasure of watching him eat. As he chewed, he spun the drumstick like an ear of corn. Disgusting but efficient, like so much that Shafer did.

“Sure you don’t want some?”

“Yes,” Wells said. Though he hadn’t eaten KFC in a long time and the chicken looked tasty. Terrible, but tasty. If that combination was possible. “When do we call the cops?”

Shafer laughed. A piece of chicken, or some chicken-like substance, flew from his mouth, landing on Wells’s hand. “Good one.”

“Then could you finish that, so we can go in?”

“He’s not going anywhere, and we’re not going in until after midnight.”

“He could go after Murphy before that.”

“This guy’s careful. He’s not moving until he’s sure.”

“Then I’m going home for a while, pick up some things.”

“Like what?”

“Are you really asking me that? In the middle of a
restaurant
?”

“It’s a KFC.”

“Things we might need.”

“And it’s finger-licking good.”

“Do not lose him, Ellis. You lose him, I might use those things on you.”

“You promise?”

Wells took the rest of Shafer’s chicken and left.

 

 

THE BUDGET MOTOR INN
didn’t have a lobby. It had a waiting room, like a doctor’s office, if the doctor worked in Mogadishu. Wood-grain veneer on the walls and thick bulletproof glass protecting the front desk. A sign taped to the inside of the glass explained, “Credit cards or cash only. No checks. No exceptions.” The guy behind the glass was in his late twenties, black, with a shaved head and Urkel-sized black glasses. He barely looked up from his battered copy of
Fight Club
as Shafer and Wells walked in.

“You want one bed or two?”

“We don’t want a room,” Shafer said. He held up his CIA identification.

“Lemme see that.”

Shafer slid the badge under the glass. The guy frowned at it, handed it back.

“CIA? You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not allowed to do anything on American soil.”

“Everybody’s a lawyer.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m hoping to go to law school.”

Wells pulled out his own CIA identification, held it against the glass.

“John Wells? Mr. Times Square? Seriously?”

Wells nodded.

“Where you been since then?”

“Hanging out on the beach,” Wells said. “Those fruity drinks with the umbrellas? Mai tais?”

“For real?”

“But now he’s back,” Shafer said. “And he’s better than ever. And he and I have business with the guy in room 112. Anything you can tell us about him?”

“You cannot be serious.”

Shafer slid two hundred-dollar bills under the glass. “For your college fund.”

“It’s law school.” The guy pecked at the ancient keyboard on his desk. “You’re gonna be disappointed. He’s registered under the name Michael Jackson.”

“He show ID?”

“Doesn’t say here, but probably not. You don’t have to if you pay cash up front and put down a three-hundred-fifty-dollar deposit. More than the whole room’s worth.”

“We’re going to say hi to him,” Wells said. “All we’re asking is that you ignore him if he calls you when we knock on his door.”

“What if he calls the cops?”

“He’s not calling the cops,” Shafer said.

 

 

THE TERCEL SAT
in front of room 112, as it had all night, empty spaces to either side. Even with an RV taking up five spaces, the motel’s parking lot was only half full. But New York Avenue was alive with Saturday-night traffic, SUVs cruising by, pumping rap from behind tinted windows. A D.C. police car slowed as it rolled past, the cop inside looking curiously at Wells and Shafer. They ignored him and kept walking, and he disappeared. Wells didn’t want to be here for his next pass.

The noise from the street covered their approach. Wells loosened his jacket but left his pistol in his shoulder holster. He and Shafer were going in cold. They needed this guy alive. Wells reached 112 first, flattened himself against the wall, two big steps from the door. The window shade was drawn, the room silent and dark, lacking even the glow of a night-light.

Shafer stood fifty feet away. Wells counted five and nodded at him. Shafer walked noisily to the door, rapped his knuckles against its faded red paint. “Henry! ” he shouted. “That you, Henry?”

No response.

Shafer knocked again, harder. “Henry! Come out, you two-timing prick! ”

“Get lost!”a voice inside yelled back. Wells had heard it before but couldn’t place it.

Shafer hammered away like a woodpecker on meth. Inside, someone stood up and shuffled to the door. “I’m not Henry,” the voice said, more calmly now. “Please go away.”

“Henry! I’m gonna call the cops!”

The door opened a notch, still on the chain. “Henry’s not here.” The tip of a pistol poked through the gap between the door and the frame. “And you need to leave.”

“I am sorry,” Shafer said. “So, so sorry.” He raised his hands and stepped away.

The pistol disappeared and the door swung shut—

But even as Shafer backed off, Wells was moving. He rocketed forward, popped his shoulder into the door, carrying himself back to those crisp fall afternoons at Dartmouth. Two decades gone now. He’d been quick enough then to speed-rush from the outside, tearing past linemen and tight ends on his way to the quarterback. He wasn’t that fast anymore. But he was fast enough.

His shoulder hit the door and he felt the chain pull taut and then snap loose, the screws that held the fastener popping out of the wall. The door made solid contact with the man inside, and Wells got low and kept pumping his legs—
never stop moving your legs, that’s where the power comes from,
Coach Parker always said. The guy on the other side of the door grunted and went down, and Wells swung open the door and stepped in.

 

 

THE ROOM WAS DARK,
illuminated only by the glow from the parking-lot lights outside. The man inside sprawled in the narrow aisle between the bed and the wooden chest of drawers that sat against the wall. Wells still couldn’t see his face. The man scrabbled back, groped for his pistol.

Wells leapt down on the man. As he landed, slamming chest against chest, he saw the face of his enemy.

Steve Callar.

Wells’s shock was so complete that for the first time in his life he dropped his guard during a fight. Callar took advantage. With his free hand, his left hand, he clubbed Wells twice. Wells sagged but held Callar’s right arm, the one that held the pistol. Callar heaved his body convulsively and tossed Wells off. They lay sideways beside each other, close enough for Wells to see every pore on Callar’s face, smell the sweet-sour whiskey on Callar’s breath. Then Callar rolled on top of Wells. Wells rolled with him, trying to use his momentum to flip Callar another one hundred eighty degrees and put him on his back. But the space between bed and dresser was too cramped and instead they got stuck side by side again.

Wells chopped at Callar’s face with his right forearm, the trick that had worked on Jim D’Angelo. But he didn’t have the momentum, and anyway Callar was fighting with a rage that Wells couldn’t match. Wells outweighed Callar by at least twenty pounds, all muscle, and yet Callar was giving him everything he could handle—

Before Wells could finish the thought, Callar twitched sideways and pushed his left leg between Wells’s legs and drove his knee into Wells’s testicles.

The agony was so enormous that Wells couldn’t move. Tears filled his eyes, and the air came out of his body. Somehow he kept his grip on Callar’s right arm as Callar tried to tug down the pistol. Callar grinned at him, a hard, crazy smile, and began to wrench his arm free. Wells was holding on with his left hand, his weak hand. His strength was ebbing. In a few seconds more, Callar would have him. Callar felt it, too. His grin widened.

Wells saw the opening.

He shifted his legs to block Callar from kneeing him again. And he hooked his right thumb into Callar’s mouth and pulled back Callar’s cheek. Callar’s face twisted and he snapped his jaws shut, trying to bite Wells’s thumb. But Wells pushed his thumb in farther and tugged until Callar’s cheek tore—

Callar screamed, a desperate bleat. He thrashed his legs and swung his head sideways and scratched at Wells’s face, long fingernails clawing into Wells’s face, as Wells pulled and Callar’s cheek tore further—

When he had done as much damage as he could, Wells pulled his thumb out of Callar’s mouth and made a fist and slammed it into Callar’s jaw, a miniature uppercut. He hit Callar once, twice, and a third time, and then shifted his grip to wrap his hand around Callar’s neck, Wells’s superior strength taking over now. He clenched Callar’s neck tighter, tighter. Callar’s face turned red and his eyes rolled up and foam mixed with the blood running from the corner of his mouth and—