Читать книгу Dead on Arrival - Mike Lawson - Страница 11

7

As the cab cruised down Main Street at precisely thirty miles per hour, Jeremy Potter took in the neat shops, the old-fashioned lampposts, the courthouse that had been the background for a Rockwell cover on The Saturday Evening Post – and he immediately begin to relax. The last two months had been very hectic. He was so glad to be home.

For two months, he’d worked like an absolute slave. He’d spent hours on the Internet and had taken trips to Washington, New York, Philadelphia, and Trenton to observe people who often lived in minority neighborhoods and where, being a small white man of fifty-three, he’d felt quite vulnerable. And then there’d been the meetings with the two government people. Those meetings hadn’t taken long, but they’d been extremely stressful, by far the riskiest part of his assignment. But now it was finally over and he’d been successful, and Mr Lincoln had been very pleased.

He didn’t know why Mr Lincoln had asked him to do what he did, but that wasn’t at all unusual. He would be given a task – typically research, sometimes surveillance, frequently duties as a courier – but he would rarely know how his role fit into Mr Lincoln’s grand design. Come to think of it, it seemed as if this time he knew much more than he normally did. He was certainly able to see a pattern in his research, and the government men – well, in order to bribe them, although bribe may not be the correct term, he had to be very specific regarding Mr Lincoln’s expectations.

Yes, he could definitely see the outline of Mr Lincoln’s plan. He couldn’t see every detail – not how it would be executed, or why or when or by whom – but he could see enough that it made him feel uncomfortable.

In most respects, Mr Lincoln was an ideal employer. He paid well, he was invariably pleasant in conversation, and his directions were always perfectly clear. But he had always suspected that knowing too much of Mr Lincoln’s plans could be dangerous – terminally dangerous – and right now he had this little mental itch, this tickling sensation at the back of his brain, that said maybe, just maybe … ?

Oh, quit being such a nervous Nelly, he told himself. He’d worked for Mr Lincoln for years. He was a trusted employee. A valued employee. And he’d been paid. He patted his chest and felt the reassuring lump of cash in the envelope in the inside pocket of his blazer. Mr Lincoln certainly wouldn’t have paid him if his plan was to harm him. That would be illogical, and Mr Lincoln was never illogical.

The cab stopped at his address. He tipped the driver exactly fifteen percent and stood for a moment on the sidewalk admiring his home. He privately thought of it as a cottage – loved his small patch of lawn, the ivy crawling up the chimney, the daisies that grew near the door – and he didn’t care one whit that his white picket fence was considered by some a cliché.

He unlocked his front door, dropped his suitcase in the foyer, and silenced the alarm. It was so, so good to be home. His only disappointment was that Mabel wasn’t there. But he’d pick her up from the kennel later, and then he and his cat would spend the next week reading, relaxing, and cooking – and thinking about how they’d spend the money in the envelope. Maybe they’d take a trip to Martha’s Vineyard; they hadn’t been there in years.

He walked into the living room. The first thing he thought when he saw the woman sitting on the loveseat holding a silenced automatic in her hand was not How did she get in without setting off the alarm? No, his mind leaped right past that question.

His first thought – and his last thought – was that the person Mr Lincoln had sent to kill him was very beautiful.