The John Milton Series Boxset 2 Page 4

  “Have you ever met either of the men you attacked before?”

  “Never. Have you?”

  Bennington shuffled a little in his chair.

  “You arrested them, too?”

  Bennington shuffled a little uncomfortably. “No.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Cliff Manziel and Johnny Robinson.”

  Milton frowned. He remembered a sign on the wall as they were booking him last night. “Manziel––that’s the Sheriff’s name, isn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “And let me guess—Cliff is his son?”

  Milton closed his eyes and smiled. Just his dumb luck: out of all the drunken bullies he could’ve gotten into a brawl with, he had to pick them. He had no idea the guy was the son of a cop. He just looked like some idiot in a bar. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference, but he might have handled it differently. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so inconvenient.

  “Did you have any other questions?” he asked the detectives.

  “Not now.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “We arrange a bail hearing for you.”

  “And until then?”

  “You’ll be transferred to the county lockup. It’ll be a couple of days before we can get you in front of a judge.”

  Milton sighed. He’d beaten the son of the local sheriff. That couldn’t possibly be good. If daddy was upset, and he would be upset, he was going to want to get some revenge. That spelt trouble. He could imagine what it might mean for him in the short-term: a few good ole boys in an empty cell back at the lock-up, a fight where he would be badly outnumbered and retaliating would just make things worse for him. He would have to suck it up and take it. And what then, assuming they didn’t put him in the hospital? The judge would undoubtedly be a friend of the sheriff. The jury, if it was to be a jury trial, would look at him as an outsider who thought it was acceptable to start bar brawls with the sons of local dignitaries. Texas was an insular kind of place. That kind of thing was probably a big deal. All kinds of witnesses would turn up to say that the attack was unprovoked. He would end up convicted and in the penitentiary, just like that. He would end up with a long stint in some dismal establishment.

  Although, of course, it would never get to that.

  He doubted whether he would even get to the bail hearing. Control would find him before two days were up. His prints and personal details had been taken when they booked him last night. They would have been transferred by now, passed between servers, an electronic handshake that would trigger an alarm somewhere. The Group had located him easily enough when he was in Ciudad Juárez and that had been a pit. How much simpler would it be to find him in Texas?

  Options? He looked around the room. It was secure––bars across the window, a double-locked door––no obvious way for him to get out. Bennington and Kenney were armed but he would have been able to disable them both without much difficulty, but where would that get him? What would he do then? He was inside a locked room in a police station. Even if he managed to escape, how far would he be able to get? Victoria was a town he didn’t know. He had no means of transport. He had looked out of the window as they brought him to the interview room. It was mid-morning and the sun was already burning bright, heatwaves radiating off the scorched ground. Not the kind of weather to be hiking across open country. He figured he’d have five minutes to find a ride before the locals had enough time to raise a posse and come after him. Five minutes, maybe ten if he was lucky.

  And then what?

  It was pointless. Hopeless. He was going to have to let things play out. He started to prepare himself for the inevitable: a beating and then, much worse, whatever would happen to him when the Group finally found him. Forced rendition back to London if he was lucky; a bribed guard to press a shiv into his heart in the penitentiary showers if he wasn’t.

  It turned out he was wrong about that; he was wrong about all of it. It turned out that he was wrong about a lot of things, and his day was about to take an unexpected turn.

  Chapter Ten

  IT WAS EARLY EVENING when he heard footsteps approaching down the corridor. He had been lying on the squalid cot, staring up at the ceiling. The bugs had come out of the cracks and were marching across the ceiling two by two. He lay there, his fingers laced beneath his head, watching them with vague disinterest, when he heard the cage door at the end of the corridor open and swing closed. He swung his legs off the bed and stood, bracing himself. Here they come.

  The key turned in the lock and the door swung open.

  It was Bennington.

  He was alone.

  “What is it?”

  “Up you get, partner.”

  “What for?”

  “You’re free to go. The charges have been dropped. Come with me, please.”

  Milton hid his surprise. He followed Bennington out of the cell, along the corridor and out into the office beyond. There was a desk, two chairs and a couch pushed up against the wall. A woman was sitting on the couch. Medium height, slender build, long legs, lots of red hair. Milton had never seen her before.

  Bennington touched his hand to a cardboard box on the desk. “Here are your things,” he said. Milton looked inside: his wallet, cigarette lighter, leather jacket and shoelaces. “Sign for them, please.”

  Milton signed the form and took his belongings.

  The woman stood. “Mr. Smith?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Frances Delaney. I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “How can I help you?”

  She paused and turned to Bennington. “Is that all, detective?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s free to go.”

  “Thank you. Mr. Smith, will you come with me, please?

  Milton was confused; he had anticipated several possible outcomes and this was certainly not one of them. Delaney stepped across the office, through the public waiting room beyond and then into the hot night outside. Milton looked around: he had been driven to the station in the back of a patrol car and it had been daylight. It looked different at night. Neon displays glowed above the entrance to bars and clubs. Youngsters hung out of car windows as they cruised down Main Street.

  A Lexus with blacked out windows was parked against the curb.

  “What’s going on?” he asked her.

  “Get in the car, Captain Milton.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Let’s dispense with that, shall we? I’m sure you’d rather get away from here?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I’m not from the F.B.I., Captain Milton. You’re fortunate that you were arrested in a place like this. Somewhere they’d leave an officer like that to look after you. I’ve managed to pull the wool over his eyes, but it won’t stand up to scrutiny. It’d be better if we got moving.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I’ll tell you later. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what you want.”

  “Just to talk, Captain Milton. Get in the car, please.”

  She took the key fob from her bag and blipped the door. She crossed the sidewalk and opened the driver’s side door. Milton paused, working out the angles. He looked out at Main Street, the cars rolling slowly by in either direction. There was a bar nearby, the sound of loud music and raucous, unfriendly hollering spilling out. It was a boiling hot evening: fighting weather. The place suddenly felt charged and hostile. The sheriff was still around, plus his boy. He didn’t know what Delaney had pulled to get him out, but he didn’t doubt that if he stayed and ran across the Manziels there would be nothing to prevent them from settling the scores. If they found out that he had been freed by deception, they would come after him. It would be even worse.

  He would have to leave. He would walk back to his hotel, collect his things and catch the first Greyhound out of town. Or he could go straight to Hertz, hir
e a car and drive himself away. He would do that. The girl was intriguing, but he hadn’t lasted as long as he had by trusting good-looking women he had never met before.

  “Thanks for your help. I’ll take my chances.”

  She shook her head. “I know about the Group, Captain Milton. I know how close they were to catching up with you in Mexico.”

  He fought to maintain a nonchalant front. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “There are some things you need to know. You should know that they’re already in the country. There are four of them. They flew out of RAF Northolt last night and landed in Houston an hour ago. They’re driving here now. The last I heard, they were in Ganado. That’s not far. They’ll be here in thirty minutes. How far do you think you’ll get with them on your tail?”

  Milton tried hard to hide his discomfort.

  “Captain Milton––John. Get in the car, please. I’d rather not be here when they arrive. And I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

  He couldn’t deny that Delaney was intriguing. There was a quality about her that made him want to hear her out.

  “Alright,” he said.

  He stepped around into the street and got into the other side of the Lexus.

  #

  THEY DROVE for half an hour. If Delaney wanted conversation then she was happy to wait to get it started. She paused behind a truck until the road ahead was clear and then pulled out behind it without a word. Milton took a moment to check out the interior of the Lexus. It was a four door, a big executive number, very fancy. He would have guessed it was six months’ old; it still had the smell of a new car and it was kept in good shape. The leather had that deep smell that spoke eloquently of money and the glass was tinted black like a hearse. There were two small suitcases on the back seat. They were identical Samsonite models, the kind of wheeled design favoured by business travellers who prefer to avoid checking their things into the hold. A garment cover was hooked on the handle above the right-hand rear door.

  The road became a three-lane interstate and she accelerated up to seventy.

  “Comfortable?” she asked him.

  “Fine.”

  “Put the seat back if you want more room.”

  “How long are we going to be driving for?”

  “About an hour.”

  The chair was motorised. Milton pressed the rocker button on the door and, with a hum of its motor, the chair slid back a few inches. Might as well stretch his legs out; he didn’t know what he was going to find when they got to where they were going and the last thing he wanted was to have his muscles cramp up.

  He thought about what she had said. He had no idea how she could have known about the Group but, if what she said was true, she had probably saved his life. He looked out through the window at the sparse traffic heading into Victoria as they sped away from it. The lights of the cars and trucks shone brightly, high-beams raking into the sky until the drivers approached and flicked them down. He looked at them and wondered if he would see a face that he recognised.

  Delaney glanced into the rearview mirror at the traffic behind them and changed lanes. Milton took the chance to look at her reflection in the windshield. She was average height, slim and had a delicately-boned face. The auburn hair was the most striking thing about her: long and glossy, all the way down past her shoulders. He guessed she was a hundred and thirty pounds and five-nine. Age? Somewhere between thirty or thirty-five, he thought, although he’d never been good at guessing women’s ages. Her eyes were vivid emerald, her skin was flawless with little make-up. She was very striking. She was wearing a trouser suit with a white shirt that had a prominent collar. It was simple and elegant and obviously expensive. Her hands were slender and her nails were polished and manicured. She didn’t wear a wedding ring. The only jewellery she wore was a discrete silver cross around her neck.

  “Where are we going?” he asked her.

  “Houston,” she said.

  Chapter Eleven

  DELANEY HAD booked two rooms at a motor court that served the airport. They arrived at eleven; she checked in while he waited in the car. He wondered whether he should disappear now, open the door and fade into the busy night, but he resisted the temptation. She knew too much about him and about things she should never have known for him not to be just a little intrigued. Instead, he arched his back and reached into the rear of the car for the nearest suitcase. He unzipped it quickly and pulled open the lid. There was nothing there save for a couple of changes of clothes, two pairs of shoes and a toilet bag. He settled back into the front and opened the glove compartment: he took out the car’s manual and insurance details and put them to the side. There was some documentation from a rental agency; the car had been hired yesterday from the Hertz counter at the airport. The documents were signed in her name. Whoever Delaney was, she had flown in to pick him up. There was nothing else in the compartment, and so Milton put the documents back and shut it.

  Delaney returned. She put the car into gear and rolled into the parking lot next to a low single-storey terrace that was divided into a dozen rooms. She reverse parked the car into a space and switched off the engine. “We’ve got that one and that one,” she said, pointing towards two adjacent rooms. “Are you hungry?”

  He was; he hadn’t eaten all day. “I could eat.”

  “You could probably do with a shower, too. Why don’t you go in and get yourself sorted. I’ll order some delivery and then we can talk.”

  “Alright,” he said.

  They both exited the car. She opened the rear door and removed the suitcases and the garment holder. She draped the holder over the extended handle of one of the cases. “That’s for you,” she said. “There’s a change of clothes in the suitcase and some toiletries. There’s a suit in the holder. You’ll need to wear it tomorrow.”

  “What am I doing tomorrow?”

  “Get freshened up. I’ll explain later.”

  #

  THE ROOM was exactly what you would expect to find in a typical low-budget motel. There was a bed; a desk with a chair; a television on the desk; a kettle with little sachets of tea and coffee and sweeteners. Milton hauled the suitcase onto the bed and opened it: three pairs of boxer shorts and three white tee-shirts, still wrapped in paper; three pairs of thick woollen socks; a pair of leather brogues; a pair of Timberlands; two pairs of Levis; a pair of fur-lined gloves; a thick woollen scarf; a new toilet bag with a comb, a toothbrush, a full tube of toothpaste, a pack of disposable razors and a bottle of shaving cream. It looked as if Delaney had stopped at the shop on her way through the airport and, knowing that he was incarcerated and likely had nothing with him, had bought everything that she thought that he might need. He unzipped the garment carrier and took out the items that were inside. There was a charcoal Hugo Boss suit, single breasted, expensive, and a thick overcoat. He checked the tags: the measurements were more or less what he would have ordered if he was buying it for himself.

  What didn’t she know about him?

  He looked at the socks, the gloves, the scarf and the coat. They weren’t chosen for Texas weather.

  Where did they want him to go?

  Milton undressed and went into the bathroom. It was simple and clean and he stood beneath the shower for twenty minutes, letting the hot water slew off the sweat and grime that had accumulated over the course of the last couple of days. He scrubbed his face, softening the stubble that abraded his palms, and then spread on a handful of the cream and shaved.

  He turned off the tap, wrapped a towel around his waist and stood at the mirror. His eyes were a cold greyish blue, his mouth had a twist to it that could sometimes make him look cruel and there was a long horizontal scar from his cheek to the start of his nose, the memento of a knife fight in a Honolulu bar. There were other scars all across his body. His hair was long and a little unkempt, a frond falling over his forehead in a wandering comma. The job hauling ice around San Francisco had improved his fitness and there was more definition in
his arms and shoulders now than there had been since he had stopped working for the Group. He turned away from the mirror, catching a quick glimpse of the angel’s wings tattooed across his back, and changed into a fresh tee-shirt and a pair of jeans from the suitcase. They fit him very well. Delaney knew exactly what she was doing.

  He pulled the door closed behind him and crossed the veranda to the room next door. He knocked, twice, and heard the soft footfalls as Delaney approached. She took the door off the chain, opened it and welcomed him inside.

  Milton scanned the room. Force of habit. It was an analogue of his own, just in reverse; the furniture was arranged on the right, not the left. He went over to the bathroom and checked inside. It was the same as his, and empty.

  “Relax,” she told him. “It’s just you and me.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I’ve no idea who you are. Being here is against my better judgment.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “Let’s just say you’ve got my attention.”

  “I’ve order burgers. I hope that’s alright?”

  “Fine.”