Читать книгу Mysteries in Our National Parks: Night of the Black Bear: A Mystery in Great Smoky Mountains National Park - Gloria Skurzynski - Страница 7

The man liked to stack bills neatly. Ten-dollar bills on top of tens, their edges in a straight line, with separate stacks for the twenties and the fifties and the hundreds. Tonight there were seven hundred-dollar bills—pretty good earnings, he thought, in spite of the TV report that had scared some of his clients. Scared them, but excited them at the same time—five new clients had made reservations for tomorrow night. His pile of money would grow fatter still.

He’d begun to count the twenties and tens when his phone rang, and he hesitated. To answer, or not to answer? It was after hours, so the business was supposed to be closed for the night, but it could be another client, which meant more crisp bills to add to his pile.

“Yeah,” he spoke briskly into the phone. “Oh, yeah, Mr. Cabelli, I’ve been watching the reports. She wasn’t killed, just sliced and diced a bit. No, she was bloodied up, but that’s all. Don’t worry about our end. All systems are go.”

Through the window he saw a car edge into the parking lot near his office. A white car, with the words PARK RANGER and a green horizontal stripe above the front fender. It eased past the window like a shark gliding through water. Probably meant nothing, but—

“I gotta go, Mr. Cabelli.”

Quietly the man put down the phone and switched off the office lights. Then, with nothing but the soft glow of his watch to guide him, he placed the money in a bulging blue bag and zipped it shut.

Blood or no blood, he had work to do. He slipped out the side door of his office, locked the bag in the trunk of his black Town Car, and drove away into the night.