The Widow File (15 page)

She flipped on the light in the kitchen. It had to have been more than twenty years earlier, before her mother had “taken a turn,” before Dani had spent her summers with her father in the cab of his big rig, that she used to go along with her mother on her job as housekeeper. She still remembered the badly concealed frowns of displeasure on the faces of the women her mother cleaned for, the looks of annoyance that their cleaning “girl” had brought a child along with her. Her mother always promised Dani would behave and Dani never let her down. She’d follow behind her mother like a ghost, peering into people’s laundry rooms and closets, into their medicine chests and food pantries. Dani would curl up like a mouse and watch her mother tackle soap scum and wine stains and stains on bedsheets that would make her mother blush.

Most of the time, especially as her mother’s illness took hold, she would work quietly, lost in her own thoughts, looking up only occasionally to be sure Dani was minding her. Every once in a while, however, her mother would smile while she worked, winking at Dani and sharing little secrets with her about the people whose houses she was cleaning.

“Lookie here, Dani,” she said one day as they stood in a huge, shadowed library full of heavy wooden shelves and more books than Dani
thought even the public library had. Dani crept over to where her mother stood on a stepladder, feather duster raised. “There’s nothing easier to find than that which someone thinks they’re hiding clever. Tell me what you see.”

She lifted Dani up to see the broad wooden shelf. Several leather-bound books in a series took up one end of the shelf. A statue of a dancing lady looked so pretty Dani had to stop herself from reaching out for it. There was a ceramic jar like the one they kept flour in at home, only this had all kinds of bright colors and looked like it was carved with real gold. Two girls with big noses frowned from a black-and-white photograph in a silver frame, an ugly little dog panting between them, and behind the frame sat a plain wooden box.

“See that box, Dani?” Dani nodded. “I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts there’s something wicked in that box.” Dani didn’t know what sort of wicked thing could be in a box that small, but if her mom said it was in there, she didn’t doubt it. “That’s a real good hiding place for it too. You can’t see the box unless you’re up high and even then it just looks like another knickknack. But what did they do wrong, Dani? Can you see?”

Dani studied the shelf and all the items on it. She glanced at the shelf next to it and the ones below them. They all looked pretty much the same to her. Her mother held her index finger in front of her face, making it inchworm as she whispered, “Here’s a clue.” She ran her fingertip along the edge of the shelf, leaving a clear line in the dust. That’s when Dani saw it.

“There’s no dust on the box. And there’s no dust where they pulled it out.”

Her mother had given her a big squeeze and a kiss, praising her for being so smart. Dani hadn’t wanted to let go but her mother finally put her down and got back to dusting but not before tapping her on the head with the feather duster.

“You remember that, Danielle. If you really got to hide something, it’s always better to be careful than clever. You hear me?”

And she had. She had never forgotten it. She opened the door to the white microwave that sat amid the crumbs of the toast she’d eaten at a breakfast that felt as if it had happened a decade earlier. Bracing her right hand on the inside roof of the microwave, she tilted the machine back just
enough to get her left hand to the envelope taped to the bottom. Working carefully, she peeled off the duct tape, released the last stash of cash she’d hidden in her apartment, and lowered the microwave back into place. She blew softly on the crumbs on the counter, scattering them in a random pattern that left no trace of her handprint, and closed the microwave door.

She still had a few more things to grab but she wasn’t going to rush it. When it came to hiding, Dani knew it was better to be careful than clever.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Booker hung back by the bar at the Georgetown night spot. The Black Door had enough polish to keep the drunkest of the college students out of its oaken interior but still retained enough hipness to draw an attractive crowd. Most men in the bar were dressed in a more polished version of his own wool pants, white shirt, and modest tie. Booker knew he looked like any other harried young executive in the metro area. Or maybe he didn’t look quite so young anymore. Age in his profession was calculated more along dog years. At forty, he was prime for retirement. He leaned against the bar and scanned the room.

The client would be in one of the paneled booths toward the back of the room. He saw several pairs of expensive-looking shoes peeking out from beneath tables along the dark row. They could wait. Booker wanted to try to identify any other players in this game. The client was in a free fall of panic, adjusting and readjusting to whims and mishaps with more flailing and more killing. It didn’t really matter to Booker. He got paid by the head and he got paid in advance. If it looked like the job was going to disintegrate into a law-enforcement-drawing melee, he would just absent himself from the shenanigans and disappear. What could they do? Report him?

A group of red-faced men were getting aggressive and handsy over double martinis and Booker wasn’t sure if they were getting ready to fight or have a gang bang. Or both.

Farther down the bar, two stunningly beautiful women who seemed incapable of smiling made a point of keeping their backs to the yelling
men and thus to Booker. Their thin backs and smooth skin shone under the twinkling bar lights.

Waiters and waitresses in androgynous black shirts and pants slipped through the growing crowd, dropping off drinks and trendy little plates of elaborate tapas.

Booker watched the faces.

The front door opened and closed, more people coming than going, and the volume of the room rose. A well-built man in an Armani suit moved closer to Booker with a look of expectation. Booker took a moment before dropping his eyes and shutting off the come-on with a blink. The two beauties at the end of the bar finally found something to smile about as an equally beautiful man draped himself over their bony shoulders. This room is drunk enough, Booker decided. It was time to get on with the meeting. He shouldered his way through the crowd, lingering just long enough to decide that the martini men were definitely heading in the direction of a gang bang.

Choo-Choo asked the driver to pass the Black Door and head to the next block before stopping. He watched Tom watch the sidewalk without seeming to do so before slipping into the bar. Choo-Choo had monitored enough surveillance footage to spot a pro. Suddenly this seemed like a terrible idea.

He walked past the bar, pretending to be on the phone, before making a show of noticing the door. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest and would not have been at all surprised to open the aptly named black door and find a roomful of people with guns all pointed at him. He felt obvious and awkward until he checked himself. This was a bar. He was Sinclair “Choo-Choo” Charbaneaux. He had been getting in and out of better bars than this all over the world since he was fourteen. With a mental adjustment, he pulled open the door and sauntered in.

He almost stopped when he saw Tom standing in the shadows at the far end of the bar watching the room with experienced eyes. Again, Choo-Choo had seen enough surveillance footage in his lifetime to know the
signs. He also knew what sort of behavior triggered suspicion. Furtive wasn’t going to cut it. Choo-Choo had to make an entrance.

He saw two women frowning at the bar. He didn’t blame them. They were way overdressed for the Black Door and the closest alpha males were a clot of florid-faced ex-jock heart attacks waiting to happen. His entire life Choo-Choo had relied on his charm to smooth over life’s difficult bumps. He prayed it was now up to the challenge, corduroy jacket be damned.

Pasting an expectant smirk on his face, he strolled up to the two stiff-backed women and draped his arms over their shoulders. The look they threw back at him became only slightly less withering once they took in the details of his face. Choo-Choo tossed his hair and leaned in close between them.

“Tell me, I beg you, tell me that you two lovely ladies drink champagne. Because I’ve just gotten the most sensational news.” He leaned closer to the one on the left and purred in her ear, “I mean, sensational.” He saw the smiles in their eyes before they reached their well-trained faces. “It would just be tragic to have to celebrate all by myself.”

He didn’t wait for them to respond. Instead he caught the bartender’s eye and ordered a bottle of Cristal. The bartender brightened at that and asked how many glasses he would like. Choo-Choo raised an eyebrow and one finger. The woman on his left, whose ear he had tickled, broke first, raising one perfectly manicured finger. Her friend on the right didn’t hold out long before she too raised a finger. At his knowing wink, the two beauties threw their heads back in a laugh synchronized to perfection. He leaned in to whisper his appreciation to the woman on the right, all the while keeping his target in peripheral view in the bar mirror. When the man walked past him without so much as a glance, Choo-Choo let out the last of his tension and reached for the champagne.

The client sat in the booth along with his assistant, a pinched-face young man who Booker decided had paid way too much for his trendy haircut even if he’d gotten it for free. The young man had made a point from the first meeting of keeping his name out of the proceedings, insisting, even
though nobody had asked him, that he be referred to only as R. The client had introduced him as “an internal security consultant” but as far as Booker could see, his only job seemed to be handing pieces of paper back and forth and occasionally getting the car door for the client. It was apparent that R fancied himself a player in this drama, probably imagining he had finally reached the point in his career where he was running with the wolves. Booker looked forward to the moment when R learned that guys like him were usually the last mess to be cleaned up at the end of a job like this.

Booker didn’t care about names or titles. He knew the client’s name but he never used it. He liked to know his target’s names, for clarity and certainty. What Booker cared most about were numbers—the long strings of numbers that accompanied bank transfers. He couldn’t tell you the first names of his last three clients but he could still recite every transfer number and dollar amount, even with the international conversion. After all, he had a retirement to consider.

At the client’s nod, R slid a manila envelope across the table. He imbued this simple task with such cloak-and-dagger pomposity that Booker felt like pulling out his gun and finishing him right there. Instead he did something he knew would bother the man even more. He ignored him.

“We’ve found her car.” The client seemed likewise inclined to overlook R. “It’s in a valet parking lot off Dupont Circle. Several hotels and restaurants use the lot. The manager of the lot says he thinks hers was checked in from the Milum Inn, but we haven’t been able to confirm if she is indeed checked in there.”