Dead Men's Dust jh-1 Page 16

  "Do you think I'm an idiot?"

  "No, like I said, I've a healthy respect for you. You got the drop on me. In fact"—Cain laughed in good humor—"you ambushed me exactly the same way I was planning for you."

  The thief sniffed. There was a hint of self-conceit in his eyes. He was proud of his accomplishment and equally pleased at its acknowledgment. Conceit and vanity, both weaknesses Cain could exploit.

  "You're too good for the likes of me. I should've known better than trying to sneak in here."

  "Don't patronize me," the thief warned.

  "I'm patronizing no one. Just showing my appreciation of your skills."

  "Just cut the crap, will you? Tell me why you're really here?"

  "To regain something that belongs to me. I told you."

  "Something that belongs to Hendrickson, you mean?"

  Hendrickson? Who the hell is Hendrickson?

  "I've no idea who you're referring to," Cain told him. "I think you're confusing me with someone else."

  "I'm not confusing you with anything but a piece of lying crap."

  "Oh, but you are," Cain said. "And if you would only let me take off my hood, you'll see."

  The thief paused. Considering. Then he shook his head.

  "No, I don't want you to move."

  "Then you take off my hood. It'll explain everything."

  The thief considered a moment longer, then he pointed his gun at Cain's head as he snatched the hood away. His look was testament to the confusion Cain's face produced.

  "You're that weirdo from the desert?"

  "Got it in one."

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "I've told you."

  "You're trying to regain something belonging to you. Yeah, you already said. But that's—" The thief shook his head. "You want your SUV back. Is that it? You can have it and you're welcome to it. Has a flat tire anyway."

  "I'm not bothered about the car," Cain said. "It's something personal to me that I want."

  "If you're after revenge, you can forget it. I'm the one holding the gun, remember?"

  "Not revenge, either," Cain said.

  "What the hell is it, then?" The thief's face was a picture of concentration. If only for a second or so. "Oh, I get it. You want your knife back."

  Cain smiled.

  "Well, you're wasting your time. I threw it away. All this has been for nothing."

  Cain shook his head. "I don't believe that."

  "Believe what you want."

  "Why'd you throw away a perfectly good Bowie knife?"

  The thief shrugged. He'd be useless in a game of poker; deceit was painted across his features as plain as a billboard advertising Honest John's Quality Used Cars. "What good was it to me? I've got a gun. Why would I need a knife?"

  "If that's the case, why did you take it?"

  "Because I wanted to," the thief said. "And anyway, I don't need to explain myself to you. You're the one who needs to start giving me answers."

  "There's nothing more to say. You stole my knife, I followed you, and I want it back. End of story."

  "Can't help you."

  Cain shrugged. "You could at least tell me where you left it, so I can go and find it."

  "Who says you're going to walk out of here alive?"

  "Oh, come on," Cain said. "We both know you're not going to shoot me. If you were any kind of killer you'd have left me for dead out in the Mojave."

  "I did leave you for dead," the thief said with no conviction. "I didn't think a soft ass like you would survive more than a few hours."

  Cain laughed. "Next to a major highway?"

  "I made a mistake."

  "You made more than one," Cain told him. "Haven't you wondered how I found you so easily?"

  The spark in his eye told Cain he was intrigued. Maybe more than intrigued, perhaps a little concerned.

  Cain sat back on the bed, resting his shoulders against the wall. The inconspicuous movement had a twofold purpose: one, he was attempting to disarm the thief by appearing relaxed; the other, he was subtly relieving the pressure from his hands. "It's obvious you're on the run from someone. This Hendrickson guy you mentioned—you're afraid of him, right?"

  As ebullient as a piece of driftwood, the thief sniffed.

  Cain went on, "When you're trying to lose yourself, there're a number of things you don't do. For one, you don't use any credit cards or ATMs."

  "I know that."

  "I believe you do," Cain said. "Next, you don't use an alias that's anything like your real name. For instance, if you're called David Johnston, you don't go calling yourself John Davidson. It's too easily spotted."

  "Yeah, I know that, too," the thief snapped.

  "Third, you never write anything down that'll give away your hiding place." Cain paused, waiting for the truth to dawn on the thief. "Or if you do, you make sure it's destroyed."

  The thief nodded. "I wrote down the telephone number for this shithole."

  "Uh-huh."

  "But how did you find it? I threw the damn thing out the car window."

  "The wind must have blown it back in." Cain's shoulders lifted. "Hey, don't be so disappointed. We all make mistakes. I made a mistake by underestimating you, didn't I?"

  "Yeah, you did," the thief reminded him. "But don't think I'm gonna underestimate you. I know what you're trying to do. Trying to get me to think of you as someone with my best interests at heart. I can smell the bullshit from here, so you may as well give up now."

  Cain shifted marginally. He wasn't at a loss, the way the thief was. He'd just slipped one hand out of its plastic bag. His palm was slick with perspiration and he gripped the bed sheets beneath him to dry it off.

  "I'm only trying to help," he said.

  "Right," the thief snapped. "Why would you want to help me?"

  "Because I want to." Cain shook his head. "Another lesson for you, my friend. Never turn down help; it may save your skin."

  "Two things. First, I'm not your friend. Second, I don't need any lessons from you."

  "You're partly right," Cain agreed. "You don't need any lessons from me. You're the one with the gun. I'm the one made the mistake. But you might want to reconsider the friend part."

  "Yeah, right. What the hell do you take me for?"

  "Someone in need of help," Cain said.

  "I don't need or want your help."

  "Shame," Cain said, "because from where I'm sitting it looks like you need all the help you can get."

  "There you go again. Patronizing."

  "Take it as you will. I only want to help."

  "I don't need your help."

  "I beg to differ."

  "You'd be better off begging for your life."

  "Nah," Cain said. "Why bother? We've already established that you aren't going to kill me."

  The thief lifted his gun, pointing it directly at Cain's face. "Maybe not in cold blood. But who knows what I'll do in self-defense?"

  Cain smiled up at him. "Like I've already said, though, I'm not going to make a move on you. So you won't get the opportunity to test your theory."

  The tableau held for the best part of a lifetime. At least a lifetime counted in seconds. Finally the gun barrel wavered and dropped away from Cain's face.

  "So what have we got then? Stalemate?" the thief asked.

  "More like an impasse," Cain offered.

  "Same thing, isn't it?"

  "Depends on your perspective," Cain said. "A stalemate's when two enemies are at a deadlock. If we look at our situation as one of companions with a shared problem, then we can look to resolve it together."

  "Only problem I can think of is how to get rid of you," the thief said.

  "You can't very well call the police, can you?" Cain asked. "Fair enough, you could say I was an intruder, but what happens when I explain I followed you here because you hijacked my car? Two wrongs don't make a right, my friend."

  The thief pondered a moment.

  "I could tie you up a
nd leave you here, though. Then I could make an anonymous call to the cops."

  "They're still going to ask questions. They'll identify you in no time. I take it your fingerprints are all over this room? Not to mention the SUV—which, I'll remind you, is not going anywhere soon. And before you consider wiping everything down, may I remind you about the front desk downstairs? Are you positive you didn't leave your fingerprints there when you signed in?"

  The thief sniffed again. "You're assuming the police are after me. I'm not on the run from the cops."

  "You will be if I tell them you kidnapped me."

  The thief watched him and Cain smiled.

  "Impasse," Cain said.

  "No," the thief replied. "Stalemate."

  "Look," Cain said, "we could go on like this all evening. We've both wronged each other. I'll admit that. If you're prepared to let bygones be bygones, so am I."

  "I can't trust you," the thief said.

  "But can I trust you?"

  Now it was the thief's turn to smile. Honest John's Quality Used Cars had a new head salesclerk.

  Cain closed his eyes. "If I tell you something, then you're going to have to trust me. I don't want the police involved any more than you do."

  The thief shook his head. "I don't want to know anything about you."

  Cain opened his eyes slowly. "You did earlier."

  "That was then. That was when I thought you were one of Hendrickson's men."

  "And you believe now that I'm not? Well, that's a start."

  "Something's bothering me, though," the thief said. "You're not here on some stupid quest to recover a stolen knife. What's the real reason?"

  "I was telling you the truth," Cain said. "I do want my knife back."

  "What the hell for?"

  "Sentimental value," Cain explained.

  "You follow me hundreds of miles, sneak into my room like some psycho from a cheap horror movie, just to get a knife back?"

  "Yes."

  "That's it?"

  "Well," Cain said, "if you want the full truth, I did intend to make you pay for putting me to the trouble."

  Glancing down at the discarded scaling knife, the thief laughed, shaking his head in disbelief.

  "But now you want to help me?"

  "Yes," Cain said. "Believe it or not, I like you. You're a man after my own heart."

  "You like me? You're so full of crap I can't believe it," the thief said.

  "Of course, if I'm going to help you, there are conditions attached."

  "I give you back your knives so you can stick them in me first chance you get?"

  "Exactly," Cain agreed with his most disarming grin. "And one other thing. If I keep your secret, you do the same for me."

  "You don't know my secret."

  "But that's part of the bargain. It's the only way we can work together. You tell me why you're on the run, and I'll do the same. Call it leverage against one another. We have to work together to keep both our secrets. That way we can't afford to betray each other."

  "No, I'm not having any part of it," the thief said. "This is all just a trick so that you can escape. You'll drop me in it first chance you get."

  "Not if I tell you my secret first," Cain offered.

  "So what's the big secret you're hiding?" he demanded.

  "We have to make a deal first," Cain said.

  "Uh-uh, not until I know what the hell you're talking about," the thief said.

  "Okay. But first, you have to show a little faith. Put the gun down."

  "No."

  "At least point it at the floor, then. I don't want it going off by accident."

  "Don't worry, there's nothing you could tell me that'll surprise me that much."

  "Want to bet?" Cain asked.

  The thief shrugged another time, but there was something in Cain's face that made him lower the gun.

  "Come on, then," he said. "Tell me."

  "Okay," Cain said. "Drumroll please."

  "Just get on with it."

  "Fine, but it is a little dramatic. You could at least allow me my big moment."

  And then the thief made the mistake. He sighed, glanced up at the ceiling as if in search of spiritual guidance. It was the moment Cain had been waiting for. He erupted from the bed in a blur of motion. He grabbed the thief's gun hand before he could bring it back up. Then Cain's other hand was at the thief's throat as he snaked a leg around the back of his ankles. In the next instant Cain was standing over him as he sprawled on the floor. And now pointing the gun at his chest.

  "My big secret," Cain said with a look of triumph, "is that I'm a killer, and unlike you, I'm prepared to prove it."

  24

  once, i was pursued through a rainstorm that did little to dampen the fires raging through Grozny. Rebel Chechen soldiers were nipping at my heels. It was unfortunate; I wasn't their enemy. Trouble was that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, on a mission to take out a rogue Russian Spetsnaz—special forces—soldier who was just a little too fond of prepubescent girls. To infiltrate his position, I'd gone disguised in Russian uniform, and now the Chechens were after my blood. Ironic, you might say. I was there to kill their worst kind of enemy, yet here I was being hunted like a rabid dog.

  I had no intention of returning fire, so I chose to run. They were persistent. To elude my pursuers, I lay up beneath the corpse of a steer. The poor thing had avoided slaughter to feed the invading Russian troops by haphazardly wandering into a pasture sown with land mines. The steer's folly was my salvation. Even so, it was about the most miserable twenty-eight hours of my life. The stench was bad enough, but the crawling infestation of maggots made it almost unendurable. Believe me; I came close to surrender.

  Yes, I've slept in some pretty grim places in my time. But even a steer's belly can be comfortable when compared to an office chair.

  I slept fitfully, waking at dawn with a stiff neck and the feeling of an intense hangover.

  Harvey had invited us back to his split-level ranch out beyond the suburbs, but we'd declined, wanting an early start and knowing that the tranquility of a remote farmhouse and a soft bed wasn't conducive to an early rise. Struggling out of the chair, I cracked my lower back and blinked around the small office. Rink was gone. Probably a good thing. I wasn't a pretty sight. I rubbed my eyes with both hands and yawned.

  I pushed into the washroom, yawning again. Rink was standing by one of the two small sinks, his upper torso bared. The tattoo on his left shoulder was stark even against his tawny flesh. I have an identical tattoo on my shoulder, a testament to our time in the joint Special Forces unit we'd both been part of for all those years. It was a tattoo sported by only a handful of living men, and not one we ever wore when we were active in the field.

  Midstroke with his razor Rink paused, glancing at me in the mirror. "Boy, you look like shit this morning."

  "Gee, thanks," I said. "I feel like shit, too, if it's any consolation."

  "There's a spare razor if you want to use it."

  I ambled over to the sink and picked up the disposable razor. "Courtesy of Harvey?"

  "Yup," Rink said, taking another stroke at his chin. "Keeps a stock of them for shaving his head."

  I grimaced at the blade, checking for short bristles caught between the twin blades. "He hasn't used it already?"

  Rink laughed. Didn't answer. I shrugged, ran the blade under the tap. Rink tossed me a can of shaving foam. I nodded my thanks at him, then stopped.

  "Problem?" Rink asked with a twinkle in his eye.

  "You've shaved off your mustache?"

  "Can't hide anything from you, can I?"

  I grunted. "That's what makes me a damn good detective."

  Rink slapped me on my shoulder as he brushed past, heading back to the office. I washed and shaved, dried off. When I returned to the office, Rink was on the telephone to Harvey.

  "Harvey's over at Louise Blake's place. He wants us over there," Rink said. "He just watched a couple of guys go inside. Didn't lo
ok like they were selling home insurance."

  "How slick did they look?"

  "Like eels in a bucket of sump oil."

  25

  john telfer sat on his hotel recliner and stared at a blank canvas no more than a couple of centimeters past the end of his nose. Light from the overhead bulb filtered through the cloth, and if he stared closely enough he could make out the minute nuances of texture and pattern in the cotton weave. It was all he'd had to visually focus on for the best part of five hours. His other senses hadn't been given many stimuli, either, not since the man had forced the bag over his head and tied his hands behind his back with an electric cord torn from a desk lamp.