The Button Man: A Hugo Marston Novel by Mark Pryor Read Free Book Online

Pendrith was talking to Harper now, and the actor held up two thumbs and disappeared into his room. Pendrith looked back at Hugo. “What? Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t start that again. I’m just trying to help. International comity, and all that.”
    “Yes, of course,” said Hugo, chewing back a smile. “You know, I have a pen and paper if you want to go ahead and get his autograph before we leave.”
    “Hush, man,” Pendrith snorted, “you’re being ridiculous.”

     
    Hugo drove the Cadillac with Pendrith sitting next to him; Harper had insisted on sitting in the back seat. “I move around a lot, want to see everything,” he’d said. They drove in silence down Saint Audrey Street toward Piccadilly, shuffling along in the traffic, the only sounds the brush of the windshield wipers and the occasional, heavy tick of the car’s turn signals. Hugo always wondered how the English stayed sane in this weather, the endless rain and drizzle and the sun setting before four o’clock in the depths of winter. Once he’d tried to shake the blues by using a tanning bed, like the Scandinavians do, but he spent the rest of that day catching whiffs of burned pork, so he didn’t do that again.
    A car honked at them as he swung onto Hertford Street, toward Park Lane and Hyde Park Corner, one of the thousands of undersized cars that in America would have been laughed off the road but that here, Hugo had to concede, were far more sensible than the hunk of metal he had to drive. He braked hard as the car hopped in front of them, red brake lights flashing. Sensible, but crushable, he couldn’t help thinking.
    “Bloody fool,” Pendrith muttered. “There’s no one in front of him, why’s he braking?”
    Hugo felt a cold hand clutch his stomach as the doors to the little car swung open. He checked the rear view mirror but a flat-nosed van was inches from his bumper, giving him no room to reverse. He looked back at the two men, now out of the car, both wearing long overcoats and hats.
    “Get down, both of you,” he snapped, pulling his embassy-issue pistol. A patter of rain blurred the windshield, but Hugo saw a black object in the right hand of one of the men, the car’s passenger. Hugo’s mind screamed Gun! and his whole body tensed as the man raised it up.
    Hugo reached for the door latch and threw the door open, instinctively hitting the button to lower the window to clear his view. In two seconds he was crouching behind the open door shouting at the men to stand still, his eyes blinking away the rain. A bright flash, then another from the passenger, and immediately Hugo knew he’d made a mistake. He swore under his breath and quickly tucked the gun back into his shoulder holster.
    “Is that Dayton Harper in the car?” the car’s driver said. “Have him step out. We’re the press. We just have a few questions.”
    “You’re blocking traffic,” Hugo said.
    “And you’re waving a gun in a public place, arsehole,” the photographer snapped.
    “Shut up, Gary, he’s just doing his job,” the driver said. He held up both hands, the peacemaker. “I’m Phil Larson, Daily Express . You his bodyguard?”
    “Nice to meet you, Phil,” Hugo said. “Sorry we can’t stay and chat.”
    “So when did he get out of jail?”
    “Call our press office, they’ll answer all your questions.”
    “Whose press office? And no they won’t, mate. You know that. If I want information the last place I go is someone’s bloody press office. Come on, do me a favor, give me something. Where are you taking him?”
    “What makes you think he’s in the car?”
    “A tip and some surveillance.”
    “Tip from whom?” Hugo didn’t much care, but he wanted to keep the reporter and photographer where they were until he figured a way out of this. A horn sounded from behind the Cadillac and the photographer shifted on his feet.
    “Can’t say, you know that,” Larson said.
    “Course not,” said Hugo. “But no harm in asking.