فصل بیست و یکم

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

On the Run

From Cincinnati, Mitch flew to Nashville. He hired a van and drove to the apartment. On the way he bought some equipment from a photography shop.

When he arrived Tammy gave him some food. At ten he called the Perdido Hilton.

He asked for Rachel James, but she hadn’t arrived. He asked for Lee Stevens. After a few moments someone picked up the phone.

‘Yeah?’

‘This is Mitch. Congratulations.’

Ray fell on the bed and closed his eyes. ‘It was so easy, Mitch. How did you do it?’

‘I’ll tell you when we have time. But at the moment there are a lot of people trying to kill Abby and me. We’re on the run. Don’t ask me about it now. It’s the Mafia and the FBI.’

‘Is that all?’

Mitch laughed. ‘Abby will be arriving at your hotel soon. Check that she isn’t being followed, OK? She’s calling herself Rachel James.

’ He gave Ray the number of the Brentwood apartment. ‘Remember that number, Ray.

If I’m not here, someone called Tammy will be. You can trust her. Take care of my wife and call me when she gets there.’

‘OK, Mitch. And thanks.’

Abby arrived an hour later in a hired car. She parked and walked towards the front door of the hotel.

She stopped for a second and looked behind her.

Two minutes later a yellow taxi from Mobile also parked. Ray watched the taxi. A woman got out of the back and walked into the hotel.

Ray followed her. The woman approached the counter and asked for a room.

Then she said, ‘What’s the name of that lady who just signed in here? She seemed familiar. I think she’s an old friend.’

The clerk looked through his cards. ‘Rachel James,’ he said. , ‘Yeah, that’s her. What room is she in? I’d like to say hello.’

‘I can’t give room numbers,’ said the clerk.

The woman pulled two twenties from her purse and slid them across the counter. ‘I only want to say hello.’ The clerk took the money. ‘Room 622.’

‘Where are the phones?’ the woman asked. ‘Around the corner,’ said the clerk, and pointed. Ray got there first. He grabbed a phone and pretended to be talking to someone.

He heard only a few words of the woman’s conversation:’. Mobile. Room 622. send some help. an hour? OK.’

Ten minutes later there was a knock at the door of her room. The woman jumped up from the bed,

grabbed her gun and stuck it into her trousers under her shirt. She cautiously opened the door.

Ray burst in and knocked her against the wall. He jumped at her, took her gun and pinned her to the floor.

With her face in the carpet, he pushed the gun into her ear. ‘If you move or make a sound,’ he said, ‘I’ll kill you.’

He opened her suitcase. ‘Open your mouth,’ he said, and pushed a pair of socks in.

He tied her up tightly with clothes from her case and slid her under the bed. Then he left with her gun.

The phone went at 1 a.m., and Mitch was not asleep. He was studying documents.

‘Hello,’ he answered cautiously. ‘It’s Ray.’

‘Where are you, Ray? I can hear music’

‘In a bar. We had to move out of the hotel. Abby was followed.’

‘Abby’s there? She’s safe?’

‘Yeah. Now what?’

‘Drive to Panama City Beach and get two rooms at the Holiday Hotel. Call me when you’re there.’

‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’

‘Trust me, Ray.’

‘I do. but I’m beginning to wish I was back in prison.’

‘You can’t go back, Ray. We either disappear or we’re dead.’