The Crush Part 35

Furthermore, he understood how they worked.

With a minimum of mouse clicks, he could enter any secret chat room, generate a deadly virus, or crack any security code. If Weenie had possessed any imagination or larcenous impulses, he could potentially control the world from this old, ugly, smelly, cluttered apartment in a rundown neighborhood in the shadow of downtown Dallas.

Lozada thought it a woeful waste of talent. Weenie's level of know-how should belong to someone who would exploit it, someone with panache and style and cojones.

Had Lozada been in another field, he could have used Weenie's genius to steal huge quant.i.ties of money with little chance of getting caught. But where would be the chal

lenge? He much preferred the personal involvement his occupation required. He relied on Weenie strictly to provide him with information on his clients and his targets.

He told Weenie that was what he was after tonight. "Information."

Weenie pushed up his slipping eyegla.s.ses. 'You always say that, too, Lozada. And then the person I get you information on winds up dead."

Lozada fixed a cold stare on him. "What's wrong with you tonight?"

"Nothing." He picked at a crusty scab on his elbow.

"What makes you think something's wrong?"

"You don't seem very glad to see me. Didn't I pay you enough last time?"

"Yeah, but..." He sniffed back a nostril full of mucus.

"I've got no quarrel with the money."

"Then what's the matter?"

"I don't want to get into trouble. With the law, I mean.

You've been in the news a lot lately, or haven't you noticed?"

"Have you noticed that it's all been good news?"

"Yeah, but this time, I don't know, the police seem to be closing in tighter. That Threadgill's got it in for you."

"He's the least of my worries."

Weenie looked plenty worried. "He comes across as a man with a mission. What if they, you know, link us? You and me."

"How could they do that?"

"I don't know."

Lozada remembered that whining tone from elementary school. It had annoyed him then, and it annoyed him even more now. He was in a hurry, and this conversation was wasting precious time.

"What I mean is," Weenie continued, "I don't want to become an accessory. I was watching Law and Order the other night. And they charged this guy with being an accessory before the fact. He went down for almost as long as the guy who did the actual killing. I want no part of that." "You're afraid?" "d.a.m.n right I'm afraid. How long do you think a guy like me would last in prison?" Lozada looked him up and down. He smiled. "I see your point. So you'll have to be doubly careful not to get caught, won't you?" Weenie went through his routine of nervous twitches again with the eyegla.s.ses, the scab, the snot in his nose. He avoided making eye contact. Lozada didn't like it. "Sit down, Weenie. I'm in a hurry. Let's get started." Weenie seemed to consider refusing, but then he reluctantly sat down in the rolling desk chair in front of the bank of computer terminals, all of which were oscillating with a variety of screen savers. "Rennie Newton," Lozada told him. "Doctor Rennie Newton." Again Weenie groaned. "I was afraid you were going to say that. I saw her being interviewed on the news about that cop. What do you want to know?" "Everything." Weenie went to work. His nose stayed within inches of the screen as he squinted into the glare. His fingers struck the keys with impressive speed. But Lozada wasn't fooled. He could tell Weenie was dillydallying. It went on for at least five minutes. Occasionally he mumbled with frustration.

Finally he sat back and said, "Bunch of dead ends. Truth is, Lozada, there's not much on her." Lozada slipped his hand into his pants pocket and removed a gla.s.s vial with a perforated metal cap. He unscrewed it slowly, then upended the vial over Weenie. The scorpion landed on Weenie's chest. He shrieked and reflexively tried to roll back on the chair's casters, but Lozada was standing behind it, trapping Weenie between him and the computer table. He clamped his hand to Weenie's forehead, pulled his head back, and held him still while the scorpion crawled over his chest. "He's been mine only a short while. I've been waiting for the perfect time to show him off. Isn't he a beauty?"

Weenie emitted a high-pitched squeal.

"All the way from India, meet Mesobuthus tamulus, one of the rare species of scorpions whose venom is toxic enough to cause death in humans, although it may take days for a sting victim to die."

Weenie's gla.s.ses had been knocked askew. His eyes rolled wildly as they tried to focus on the vicious-looking scorpion crawling up his chest. "Lozada, for the love of G.o.d," he gasped.

Lozada calmly released him and chuckled. "You aren't going to pee on yourself again, are you?"

He calmly scooped the scorpion onto a sheet of paper, then formed a cone and funneled it back into the vial.

"There now, enough fun, Weenie," he said as he replaced the perforated cap. "You've got work to do."

Chapter 25.

"You don't like it?"

Wick looked up from his plate. "Uh, yeah. It's great.

Just... I think that potato-soup breakfast filled me up."

He tried to smile but knew he failed.

They'd taken their dinner trays out onto the patio behind the house and had watched the sunset while they ate, in silence for the most part. In fact, they hadn't exchanged more than a few inconsequential sentences since Wick's telephone conversation with Oren.

She stood up with her tray and reached for his. "Finished, then?"

"I can carry in the tray."

"You shouldn't. Not with your back."

"It doesn't hurt anymore.'

"Will you just give me the tray?"

He relinquished it and she took it into the house. He heard her moving around in the kitchen, water running,

the fridge door being opened and closed. Background noise for his preoccupation.

When Rennie returned, she brought with her a bottle of white wine and set it on the small table between their two teak chairs. He said, "That'll hit the spot."

"You don't get any." She poured wine for herself into the single gla.s.s she had brought out.

"Why not?"

"The medication."

"You slipped me another mickey in my chicken breast?

Or was it in the wild rice?"

"Neither. Because I don't know what you take."

"What do you mean?"

"For the panic attacks."

He thought about playing dumb. He thought about flat-out denying it. But what would be the point? She knew.

"I don't take anything. Not anymore." He turned away and stared across the landscape. "How'd you know?"

"I recognized the symptoms." His gaze moved back to her and she softly confessed, "Borderline compulsive obsessive.

Back, years ago. I never counted each heartbeat, or every footstep, nothing that extreme. But everything had to be just so, and to a great extent still does. It's all about being in control."

The topic under discussion made him terribly uncomfortable.

"I had a ... a few . . . what you'd call episodes, I guess. Rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath. That's all. A lot of s.h.i.t happened to me all at once. Major life changes."

He gave an elaborate shrug. "The shrink seemed to think there was nothing to it."

"There's no reason to be ashamed, Wick."

"I'm not ashamed." His brusqueness implied just the opposite.

She gave him a long look, then said, "Well, anyway, the drugs I gave you today would be compatible with anything you happened to be taking. Just so you know."

"Thanks, but as I said, I'm off that stuff."

"Maybe you should go back on it."

"Why's that, Doctor?"

"Because if you weighed five pounds less, I don't think the earth's gravity could keep you in that chair."

He made a conscious effort to stop fidgeting.

"Why don't you just tell me what Wesley told you?"

she said.

Again, he turned his head aside and gazed out across the rear of her property. It was a pretty spread, the kind of place he'd love to have if he could ever afford it, which he never could. He wasn't, nor had he ever been, materialistic.

Greed wasn't one of his flaws. But a place like this, this would be nice to have.

The pasture beyond the near fence was dotted with mature trees, mostly pecan. A stream cutting diagonally across the pasture was lined with tall cottonwoods and willows that swayed in the south breeze. The breeze had cooled the evening off, making it comfortable to be outdoors.

After being cooped up in the hospital for a week, he had welcomed her suggestion that they take their dinner onto the patio. But he hadn't enjoyed the al fresco meal as much as he should have. Oren's news had spoiled his appet.i.te.

"Grace Wesley left her school office today around four-thirty,"

he began. "The last couple of weeks, she's been getting things ready for the upcoming term, same as the rest of the faculty. Except that Grace is extremely conscientious.

She's usually the last one to leave the building, as she

was today. When she got into her car, Lozada was sitting in the backseat."

Rennie sucked in a quick breath and held it.

"Yeah," he said. "Scared her half to death."

"Is she ..."

"She's okay. He never lifted a finger to her. He just talked."

"Saying what?"

"He wanted to know where I was, where you were."

"Does she know?"

"No, and that's what she told him. But he must not have believed her." He looked over at Rennie. She folded her arms across her middle as though bracing for what was coming. "He told her it would be in her best interest to tell him what he wanted to know, and when she said she couldn't, he remarked on how pretty her daughters were."

Rennie bowed her head and supported it in her hand, her middle finger and thumb pressing hard against her temples. "Please, please don't tell me that--"

"No, the girls are all right too. It was a warning. A veiled threat. But a real one because he knew a lot about them.

Their names, favorite activities, friends, places they like to