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We stood absolutely still, listening. An intake of breath? A cry surprise? Nothing but a car accelerating in the distance.
"No problem," LuEllen said.
We would have been safer, probably, going down the elevator shaft again. LuEllen convinced me to go over the side of the building. "There's nobody on the balconies. We're good," she whispered
"Jesus."
"Ten seconds from now, we're gone."
Not ten seconds, exactly. I insisted on a last look around I apartment, staying away from the computer but tracking more grease around. We packed up the black bag, and went over the edge on the climbing rope. On the ground, she gathered in the climbing rope and took the bag, while I tried to take the safe. I managed to carry it a hundred yards or so, before I had to stop. Then we wrapped it in one of the sheets, made a couple of handles out of the knots, and in ten minutes got it to the corner.
I sent LuEllen to get the car, with the sheets. She spread them on the backseat, and when she pulled up next to the fence, I threw the safe over, crawled over after it, then picked it up and humped it over to the car.
No problem.
CHAPTER 18
LuEllen always gets cranked when she's been inside a place she's not supposed to have been. Dealing with her was like handling a hyperactive child: you try to keep her under control, slow her down. Tonight, she wanted the car, the safe, and the tools.
"Where're you going?"
"Back to Shreveport," she said. "If I give him the tools back, he'll cut the safe for free."
"We don't want it blown up or anything."
She rolled her eyes. "Jesus, Kidd, nobody's blown a safe since Bo
She dropped me at the hotel and took off. As I got out, I said, "Cruise control."
"Absolutely."
When you're ru
Get out on the Interstate, set your speed two miles an hour above the speed limit, and no cop on earth will look at you. If you're not on cruise control, your adrenaline will eventually get to you and you'll go flying past some cop at a hundred and ten, and it'll feel like forty-five.
With LuEllen gone, I walked six blocks to a drive-in phone on the edge of a gas station parking ramp, checked in with Lane, and afterward got online with my dump box.
Lane was almost as cranked as LuEllen.
"What'd you get? How come you're not up here?"
"We don't know what we got. It's in a safe and we've got to cut it open. LuEllen's taking care of that tonight, but she won't be back until morning."
"How about the computer?"
"We should be online with him. I'm going to check in a few minutes."
"Damn it, Kidd, it freaked me out, even though we were outside. Freaked me out. Something for the memoirs."
"Better fuckin' not," I said. "This is not even for your memories."
The dump box was a mailbox I'd set up especially to take everything Corbeil typed on his computer terminal. There was nothing in the box. I hadn't expected anything. Corbeil, the social butterfly, the model-dater, wouldn't be back until late, if at all, unless somebody found the broken door.
Finally, I went out to Bobby. He had nothing more to offer on Jack's Jaz disks, but was certain that the attack on the IRS was coming from Europe.
got some numbers in germany and id'd zombie computers here in states that are feeding attack. will pass along to nsa contact and try to steer her from old names.
she's no wizard. you may be putting too much hope in stupid people.
must push them off. they still thrash after old names.
take care.
and you.
I got to bed a couple of hours before dawn, still worrying about LuEllen. I got three hours of sleep, and, still groggy but unable to keep my eyes closed, got out of bed and nearly fell on my face. I'd felt a little creaky the night before, but now every muscle in my body was screaming at me. That goddamned safe. I know what muscle-pulls feel like, and I had what some docs called micro-pulls, the kind you get shoveling snow off a sidewalk. No major muscles, but hundreds of tiny pulls.
I hobbled into the bathroom, took six ibuprofen out of my dope kit, swallowed them, shaved, and then spent fifteen minutes in a scalding shower. You're supposed to use ice, rather than heat, but this was ridiculous: I'd have to bury myself in a snow drift to chill everything I'd pulled. The heat made it feel better, anyway.
I was toweling off, slowly, when I got the sudden feelinga premonition without the negative vibethat LuEllen had just gotten back. I walked over to a window, opened a slit in the curtain, and looked down at the hotel parking lot. Yet another wonderful day, su
So much for premonitions. As I finished toweling off, I had another one: I'd just seen something important, but I didn't know what. What was it? I wandered around, looked out the window again, looked at myself m the mirror, looked at the towel. What the hell was it?
I couldn't figure it out, gave up, and got dressed, slowly. My back and underarms hurt the worst, and the i
"Saw you in the parking lot," I said. "How'd it go?"
"You got a big industrial lathe, cutting a safe is like cutting cheese," she said. She pushed the door shut. "If you can mount it and turn it, you can cut it." Then she stepped up to give me a big kiss, and I winced.
"What's wrong?"
"That fuckin' safe. I pulled every muscle in my body."
"The penis is a muscle."
"It's pulled," I said. Then. "You seem pleased. Maybe even chipper."
She dug in her pocket and took out something glittery, held out her fist, and I cupped my hand underneath it. She dripped a platinum-and-diamond necklace into it "Remember that model chick we saw going into his place? She wasn't wearing it going in. She kept touching it coming out. Looked too nice to be an outright gift. I thought it might be in there."
"How much?"
"Lots. I called my guy in Georgia, and he said he could probably get me a hundred and a half. They're all small, one-carat, but they're top quality, like the necklace was made to sell. A bank account."
"That was it? The necklace?"
"Nope." She gri
"Computer disks, printouts."
She shook her head. "Nothing like that. Some personal papersa mortgage, birth certificate, his passport. I brought it all back, but I don't think there's anything for you. There was enough to make it worthwhile for somebody like me to hit him."
"So maybe he'll be less likely to look at the computer."
"Maybe. I'll tell you, Kidd, you've gotten me in some shit over the years, but we've always made money, huh? Every time."
"Just lucky, I guess."
She tagged along for breakfast and then said she needed a nap. Having her sleepy made me sleepy, and we went back to her room, put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign, and slept into the afternoon. Green called at three o'clock and asked what the hell we were doing.
We ate di