Put a Lid on It by Donald E. Westlake Read Free Book Online Page B

desk, dressed like a yak, so it took a few seconds to realize that
this
woman was
that
woman.
    She presented herself differently out here; not more attractive, more aggressive. Her skinny body was encased in fairly tight black slacks and clacking black leather boots and a gleaming black leather jacket, with an open zipper. Her steel-wool hair was controlled by a golden barrette at the back in the shape of a narrow bouquet of roses, and large gold hoop earrings dangled to both sides of that sharp-nosed sharp-jawed face, making her black-framed eyeglasses look more than ever like spy holes in a fortress wall.
    So this is how she dresses to go on the road; challenging. Don't dare fuck with me. Interesting. A woman wouldn't want to offer any challenges in the MCC.
    She had as much trouble recognizing him as he'd had with her, apparently, because she looked right through him until he raised his hand as though to attract teacher's attention. But that was okay; again, the context was different. She'd only seen him in the brown jumpsuit, probably looking as crappy and defeated as he'd then felt. Out here, in his own clothes, with a little scheme working, operating with people who turned about as rapidly as a battleship, he not only felt better, he no doubt looked better as well. Other, anyway. So he raised his hand, and when she furrowed her high brow at him he said, “Yeah, it's me, after all.”
    So she came over to him, there in the middle of the terminal, people all over the place going on about their own business, and she said, “You're
out?
”
    “Kinda,” he said.
    “Francis Meehan,” she said, as though to double-check her data.
    “The same,” he agreed.
    “You want to be called Meehan.”
    “Yes, thank you.”
    “Well, you're the last person I expected to see here,” she said. “I'll call you Meehan if you'll tell me
what
the hell is going on.”
    “Listen,” he said, “could you spring for coffee? They only gave me three bucks, and it's gone, and it's okay if we go to the coffee shop and sit down and get on the same page here.”
    “Everything you're saying,” she told him, “comes within a whisker of making sense.”
    “Coffee,” he said. “You buy.”
    “That figures,” she said. “Lead on.”
    So he led on, aware of the Busters on his flanks, watching him like carnivorous sheepdogs, knowing Jeffords also lurked somewhere in the vicinity, and they went to the open-fronted coffee shop that the Busters had already checked out, to be sure there was no back exit. They sat at an empty table in the front row, just off the pedestrian area, which was also part of the deal. While waiting to be waited on, Meehan said, “You had no trouble. Flights and all.”
    “All I know is,” she said, “I got a call at the MCC this morning, five minutes after I arrived, hadn't even seen my first client yet, I'm told to forget my caseload for today, other people are taking over, I'm to go home and pack for a trip, certainly overnight, maybe longer, a Mr. Eldridge will come pick me up at ten-thirty.” She gave him a suspicious look. “Who's this guy Eldridge?”
    “Never heard of him.”
    “Really? Very strange guy,” she told him. “Nervous, skinny, young, talked all the time, didn't say a single solitary useful thing.”
    A very very old waitress arrived then, to ask them what they wanted, and turned out their desires were modest: black coffee for him, a diet decaf cappuccino for her. The waitress tottered away, and Meehan said, “What the hell's a diet decaf cappuccino?”
    “A state of mind,” she said. “Tell me what's going on.”
    “Well,” he said, “there's a presidential election coming up, pretty soon.”
    “Stop right there,” she told him. “I'm forty-one years old, I don't have the life expectancy for this.”
    “It's short,” he promised. “The people working to help the guy get reelected, they found out there's an October Surprise coming up—You've heard of October