Orphan X: A Novel by Gregg Hurwitz Page B

was more his breadth. He wasn’t athlete-stacked but rather pear-shaped, bulky like the outermost Russian nesting doll. His capacious midsection always surprised Candy, and yet there was no flab, just firm mass and muscle, a rock-hard gut billowing beneath a checkered taupe golf shirt. His true-blue jeans, pleated, served as another nod to out-of-towner aesthetics, as did the Oakley wraparounds worn backward on his head to rest at the bulge in his neck.
    He hoisted three ballistic nylon Victorinox suitcases from the auto-opening trunk and set them down. Brusquely, he handed her a floppy sunhat, which she set gently atop her Farrah Fawcett wig. The brim wobbled expansively around her head, every tourist’s bad beach-fashion statement.
    Telescoping one Victorinox handle up, she tilted the case onto its embedded wheels, feeling the weight of the contents as they clanked. Side by side, like mismatched flight attendants, she and Slatcher headed for the tiny reception office.
    Their entrance was heralded when the opening door knocked a bell—actually cheery jingle bells —affixed above the frame. A wattle-necked woman looked up from a paperback. “Welcome to Starry Dreams Motel,” she said.
    “Heavens to Betsy,” Candy said, arming sweat off the band of brow exposed somewhere between her big shades, the feathery Farrah hair, and the straw brim that shielded much of her face. “Such a dry heat.”
    “Where you folks in from?”
    “Charleston,” she said. “Checking in under Miller.”
    “Ah, yes,” the woman said. “I have you in Room Eight.”
    “Will you please put hypoallergenic pillows in our room?” Slatcher asked.
    “I’m afraid we don’t have hypoallergenic pillows here.”
    Candy rested an elbow on the counter. “You know what they say. They just don’t make men like they used to.”
    Slatcher gave an annoyed marital grunt.
    The woman processed two key cards and handed them across.
    “What time does breakfast open?” Slatcher asked. “We’re heading early to Universal Studios.”
    “There’ll be coffee and Danish out from six A.M. ”
    “Bless my stars,” Candy said. “We’d better not be waking up that early.”
    “It’s three hours later for us,” Slatcher said. “That’s nine.”
    “Look at that,” Candy said, grabbing her suitcase and heading for the door. “He can add, too.”
    The minute they entered their room, Candy yanked the sunhat off, Frisbeed it onto one of the queen beds, and tugged her head free of the wig. She scratched at her hair. “Fuck me,” she said. “That shit is hot.”
    They unzipped the suitcases, laying out pistols, magazines, and boxes of ammo on the floral bedspread. Candy inspected the barrel chamber and bore of a Walther P22. “So this broad. Katrin White. What’s our leverage?”
    They’d spoken briefly on the phone on her way down the mountain.
    “Our leverage is Sam.”
    “Who we have a bead on.”
    “Sam,” Slatcher said, “is under control.”
    “Then why’d Ms. White drop off the radar?”
    “Because he took control of the situation.”
    “The Man with No Name?”
    “That is correct. He killed one of my freelancers.”
    “Kane?”
    “Ostrowski.”
    “Huh,” she said. She’d never liked Ostrowski.
    “I’ve brought in a field team for us,” Slatcher said. “Former Blackwater.”
    “Hoo- rah. ”
    “This guy’s very dangerous.”
    “I assumed as much.”
    “He does not want to be found.”
    Candy unzipped her duffel bag. “Well,” she said, hoisting out a jug of hydrofluoric acid, “then let’s make his dream come true.”

 
    15
    Tick, Tick, Tick
    It all checked out.
    Katrin White, the divorce from Adam Hamuel, the dead mom, the father in Vegas, even the byzantine contortion of family trusts into which her ex-husband’s money had vanished.
    What didn’t check out was the direct-dial number Katrin had for the kidnappers. Camped out in the Vault, chewing a tart Granny Smith apple, Evan traced the eleven digits