the clothes, all the new stuff. The closet was big, but I only used one of the two doors to get inside. What I wanted was to feel the wall behind the clothes. Just feel it, not look. I didn’t take a flashlight. Besides, if there was a camera, the light would have given the game away.
The back wall wasn’t wood. Or, if it was, it was covered in soft black stuff, like a layer of foam. I kept going in and out of the closet, every time bringing a different piece of clothing and laying it out on the bed, like I wanted to see how it looked in the light.
It took me a few tries, but I found it. Just a thin cut, but it went all the way down to the floor. Any decent burglar would have run across setups like that plenty of times: a fake wall, with a door behind it. The way this one was rigged, whoever was inside the closet couldn’t use it, only someone on the other side. Probably had a pull-ring, so they could go into the closet, do whatever they wanted, and disappear back out.
A lot of work just to get clothing sizes. She couldn’t know if I was a light sleeper, so she must have been real quiet.
For what?
I flopped back on the bed, stared at the ceiling until my eyelids got heavy.
Did Rena want to see if I was smart enough to figure out how she got the clothing sizes? Or did she want to see if I was smart enough not to mention it if I did?
The only thing I knew for sure was that whoever built that setup, they hadn’t built it for me. I wasn’t the first person to be in that suite. Maybe, for the others, it wasn’t clothing sizes they wanted to check.
It had to be “they,” because Rena knew about the deal before she put me in there. And the idea for it felt like something Albie would do—if he was that much like Solly.
Maybe there was something I should be doing, but I couldn’t dope out what that might be. Fucking Solly. Go down there and nose around, huh? I haven’t been that many places, but I didn’t see why one place would be that different from another. Somewhere in this town, there had to be a joint where guys like me would go if they were looking for work—like a union hall for outlaws.
I don’t mean a trouble bar, or a biker hangout. It would be a pretty quiet place. And they’d keep it quiet. The cops might know about it, but they could never put an undercover in there. I mean, he could walk in, all right—nobody was going to eighty-six him or fix him a Mickey Finn. But the place would go from quiet to dead silence, like the undercover had a neon sign over his head: COP.
A place like that, you have to come in the first couple of times with someone. And not just anyone. Not one of those “around guys”; it would have to be someone who was already in. And they’d do all the talking.
Someone says to you, “This guy, he’s a pal of mine,” that’s one thing. But if he says, “Remember the time you and me …” you get up and walk away before he finishes the sentence.
So I was screwed. Even if there was places like that in Tallahassee, I couldn’t walk in cold.
And this business of leaving my number around, that was bullshit, too. Like this Jessop was going to call me, right? Sure, whoever gave him a message would tell him what I looked like, and that would fit. But this Jessop, he knew me. That means he’d also know I’m not a guy who puts jobs together. So I’d come off as either a rat or a fool who wanted to talk him into some freelance work. Or even a guy who wanted more than his share.
Jessop, he’d just get in the wind.
That’s when it hit me. I could make a call of my own. It wasn’t even that late. If the lawyer wasn’t in court, he’d be in his office.
I moved quick. Had the Lincoln back out of the garage and onto some road a few miles away in just a couple of minutes.
The parking lot of the Time Saver store wasn’t full. I walked away from the car, in case it had some kind of wire