It took another fifteen minutes before Cat could usher out the last of the instantly drunk partyers, and then only by promising they'd be down soon.
Then he locked the door behind them.
Then he went to the window and joined the rest of the Team.
And then they went out the window and down the fire escape and into Deputy Thompson's patrol car waiting in the alley. They hunkered down in the back seat until they were outside the city limits. Twenty minutes later they made their, rendezvous with Annabelle and Davette at a trailer court thirty miles away.
Then they sat down and ate the food the women had ready while Jack Crow curled their hair with his plan to enter the police station, subdue whatever cops were on duty there, go downstairs into the basement where the cells were, and, without a trace of sunlight to aid them, slay however many master vampires were down there waiting for the night to come.
"It's three thirty," he announced. "Five more hours of, daylight. We gotta do it right. And we gotta do it now. Questions?"
There were one or two.
But Jack didn't seem to care. He leaned back in the room's faded and moth-eaten easy chair and smoked cigarettes and let them rant for some time.
Then he grinned, leaned forward, and said, "Relax. I've got a Plan."
Cat eyed him sourly, disgusted. "Think you can give us a hint, O Great Leader?"
Jack laughed. "Sure. Remember the flare Felix bounced on that woman?"
Cat was still suspicious. "Yes..." he replied cautiously. "It didn't hurt her a bit."
"Didn't harm her maybe. But it did hurt her."
"So," replied Jack easily, turning to the deputy, you know where we can get some thermite?"
Part Two Chapter 16
Somehow, in all the comings and goings through the three rooms the team had rented in the trailer court, Davette ended up alone in the same room with Felix.
And she didn't think she was up to it.
It was only the third time she'd seen the man. The first she remembered quite well. He had called her a "siren," while boring shivering holes in her with his angry eyes. The second time was again at his saloon office. By the time she had arrived accompanying Annabelle and Adam, Felix was sitting behind his desk examining Jack's check for $50,000 and studiously ignoring her. And that had been as bad, somehow, as being stared at.
But this time was the worst of all. Because this time she knew what he'd just done. She had sat there beside Annabelle while Cat patiently related the events of the day. There was no time to do a hypnotic total recall - the Team was on again in two more hours - but Cat was a natural storyteller, wise in his use of detail. Besides listening raptly, Davette noticed, Annabelle kept a small tape recorder going as he spoke.
And that had gotten to her, reminding her of just how incredibly dangerous their line of work was. They had to make records now because it was entirely possible that every single man on the Team could be dead by sunset and someone had to be able to pass on what they had learned so far.
But what had really gotten to her was the story itself. The Felix part of the story. The lightning-fast, deadly accurate, cold-calm-killer part of the story.
"He saved our lives, Annie," Cat had said with quiet sincerity, carefully looking her in the eye. "We'd all be dead without him, sure as hell."
And Annabelle had smiled that knowing smile she had and asked him gently, "Then you're happy with him, Cherry?"
He had smiled back and softly replied, "Got to be."
Davette hadn't been at all sure what that had meant. But she was sure of one thing: Felix was not happy.
He hadn't actually said so. He hadn't actually said much of anything, now that she thought about it. But she could read it. And so could everyone else. He moved slowly about the edges of their chaotic planning. He did answer when asked a specific question or even when asked for an opinion on some aspect of Jack's Plan. And his answers were concise and to the point. But he wasn't really with them.
"Are you all right?" people kept asking him and he kept saying he was. But he didn't look it. He looked stunned. Almost dazed.
But no one pursued this, because Jack Crow did not.
And now he sat there in the dusty easy chair in the corner