Nine

“Very fu

She fell asleep in the Suburban not long after he started to drive toward the mountains. He called Meghan’s cell phone. They had checked in with each other several times since last night, much to Spooky’s a

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine. The view from my new room is gorgeous, and I want to be outside. Feeling restless, in fact.”

“Just a little while longer. The taxi will pick you up at the service entrance. You’ve cleared that with the hotel?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He gave her the name of the man from the security company who would be meeting her. “He will already be in the cab, and he’ll make sure you get safely to the tram.”

She thanked him and started to summarize a soap opera she had just watched. He wasn’t familiar with the show and could make little sense of the story line as she presented it, but he knew she was nervous and going stir-crazy, so he let her talk. Before long, though, he started losing the signal, and they were forced to end the call.

Frederick Whitfield IV was in a foul mood. Grimly, he thought he could wait it out. Since leaving the little victory party in the bar yesterday evening, he had been subject to one mood swing after another.

Stealing the old man’s Thunderbird had not worked out as pla

Not an hour later, these words would seem prophetic. Sure that he had given the old man enough time to stop worrying about his T-bird, Frederick moved nearer to the car, ready to pop the lock and hotwire that baby, simple tools at hand. He hadn’t stolen a vehicle in a few years, and as he pulled his gloves on, he found himself joyfully anticipating this test of his old skills. In the next instant, he heard a screen door open, and turned to see a ferocious, noisy mutt bearing down on him, barking loudly. The dog had been allowed to chase Frederick back to the rental car. To be forced to haul ass out of perfect setups twice in one day was nearly more than Frederick could stand.

So, using the handheld GPS device he had with him, he drove to the closest shopping mall that had a big theater complex in it. He watched a middle-aged couple leave their pickup truck and walk to the theater box office. It took less than ten minutes to transfer his belongings from the rental car into the truck and be on his way.

The cab of the truck, though, was redolent with an odor he could hardly withstand, an aroma emanating, he was sure, from the half-empty bags of corn chips, wadded-up Kleenexes, and other souvenirs that awaited him courtesy of the previous occupants. He felt some punishment was due, and, reaching into the glove compartment, learned the owners’ address for the car registration. He used the GPS again, drove to the address, and spent a therapeutic forty-five minutes tossing the place completely. He made the happy discovery of a Ford Bronco in the garage. Not only did he now have keys for it, it was cleaner than the pickup truck. He switched vehicles and gleefully drove off.

He found a room for the night in a small but clean hotel. He had no intention of sleeping there. He merely shampooed in the hair color he had brought with him, coming closer to his natural blond. He wasn’t especially pleased with the result. He considered another set of tinted contact lenses, but he was uneasy about these props after the mishap at the Sandia Towers. He yawned at the face in the mirror, a wide, uninhibited donkey yawn. Everett would have hated to see him show such a lack of refinement.

“Tough,” he said aloud.

He lay on the lumpy mattress to watch the latest update on CNN, thinking he would see happier news of himself, but he fell asleep during a stock market report.

At four in the morning, angry at himself for having dozed off, he peered cautiously outside, saw no one else stirring, and quickly changed into jeans, a white T-shirt, worn leather aviator jacket, and black boots. The pair of Ray-Bans that went with this outfit were already in the jacket’s right pocket. He didn’t put them on now, but knew that when he did, he’d looked an awful lot like James Dean. A really buff James Dean. He left the room.

He realized that if he showed up in the parking lot at the Sandia Towers at this time of day, he would attract undue attention. He drove to the highway, eventually found a truck stop, and ate a hearty and-he could not help but believe-manly breakfast. He mistook the other patrons’ quick dismissal of him as a sign that his aura of dangerousness had been perceived. After all, he hadn’t shaved that morning, so he was probably looking pretty much like a bad-ass kind of guy.

Don’t even think about messing with me, he thought, as a beefy-armed trucker went by. I have killed, and I will not hesitate to kill again.

He wished he could say that aloud, stand up on the table and shout it.

Much better, though, to know something others didn’t know. Frederick had always loved secrets, both keeping and finding them. Everett called Frederick his spy. He always said it with respect, with gratitude. Frederick had never met anyone who appreciated his talents as much as Ev did.

He wondered briefly what Ev would make of his disobedience. The thought made him uneasy, and he paid his bill in cash and went back out to the Bronco.

He stopped at a twenty-four-hour supermarket to buy a few supplies to help him survive the hours of surveillance ahead of him. He bought a cheap foam cooler, some ice, and a lot of bottled water. He bought some bread, a small jar of mayo, cheese, some lettuce, some sandwich meat, and a knife.

He felt pride in his purchases. He hadn’t learned to make a sandwich until he met Everett. Everett had no more need to prepare his own food than Frederick did, but he had forced the members of Project Nine to learn, as he put it, to “stop acting rich,” for those times when they would need to blend in with less important people. Thinking of Ev as he entered the checkout lane, he placed two packs of nearly every brand of chewing gum into his basket. This was another act of defiance-Ev hated gum chewing.

He prepared his new cooler and then drove over to the Sandia Towers Hotel. He had managed to kill about four hours. Eight in the morning was not such an odd time, though, so he approached the parking lot attendant’s booth. He was a little disappointed to see that a different attendant was on duty, because he had looked forward to testing his change of appearance. He found a space from which he could watch Meghan’s car. He rustled through the plastic shopping bag with the gum in it and began a taste test.

At noon, he called his parents, who were staying in their Italian villa through the end of the summer, when they pla

At one o’clock, hotel checkout time, he stretched. Seeing that Meghan hadn’t brought her luggage down to her car, and concluding that this meant she was staying another night, he devised a ruse that he thought might work well. He would disguise his voice, ask for her room, and when co