Lone Wolf #9: Miami Marauder Read Online Free Page B

fish.

4
    Calabrese was ready for the call when it came. He had the black man Williams and his two guards in one room, he had the girl Tamara and a guard in another, both with extensions; he had his own phone ready. Wulff knew about Williams but he did not know of the girl; that would be a nice surprise for him. Calabrese was looking forward to that. He was looking forward to almost every aspect of the call but particularly hearing the sound of the bastard’s voice when he knew that Calabrese had him and that his options were over. But first there was the waiting.
    There was the waiting and nothing to be done about it. It infuriated Calabrese; here
he
held all the cards and yet it was Wulff who was deciding the time of the call; all that he had said was three or four hours until the next check-in and here it was going on five and no sound from the bastard. Of course that could mean the best kind of news; some freelancer, say, had spotted Wulff wherever he was and had killed him. That would be fine and actually Calabrese should not be so nervous, should not feel pressured. But he doubted his luck. No, the son of a bitch was toying with him again.
    “Where the fuck is that call?” he said to the man in the room with him. The man said nothing, he was well trained. He shrugged impassively, showed his palms, looked at the floor. “Ah, fuck you,” Calabrese said and went out of the room, went down the hall, looked in first at the room where the girl and her guard were, the two of them against the wall, drinking coffee, the girl looking at him with wide, luminous eyes. He wondered what it would be like to have fucked her. He would not touch, by force or desire, anything which Wulff had touched, would not corrode himself but it would be interesting. She was a piece of ass all right. “How are you doing?” Calabrese said.
    She held the coffee cup, said nothing. “I said, how are you doing?” Calabrese said again, and the guard poked her.
    “You’re going to regret this,” she said, “that’s how I’m doing. Kidnapping is a capital crime.”
    “This isn’t kidnapping,” Calabrese said, “this is a pleasure,” and then, feeling disgust overwhelm him, turned, went from the room and into the next one down the hall, the one where Williams was sitting with his two guards, the three of them, of all things, playing poker, nickels and quarters on the table. Williams looked up at Calabrese, nodded, then looked down at the table. He was cool, this one. He had established a wonderful relationship with the men guarding him. He was Wulff’s buddy, that meant that he had qualities of adaptability.
    “I’m waiting for your friend to call,” Calabrese said.
    “Me too,” Williams said, not looking up from his hand. “Me too, I’m waiting for him to call.”
    “You know why he hasn’t called?”
    “Shit no,” Williams said. “If I knew why he hadn’t called I’d tell him to call because I’m getting pretty sick of this crap. I’ll raise a dime,” he said and shoved two coins onto the table. The near guard grunted, peered at his hand.
    “You must think this is some fucking kind of vacation,” Calabrese said and the guard looked up, the three of them looked up, Williams put down his hand, something seemed about to happen in that room and the phone to the left of the table rang.
    Calabrese paused, waited for it to ring again so that he could be sure that this was really happening and it was not some kind of ploy with himself as the butt. Then when the phone went off he went out of the room quickly, leaving the door open, went back to his office and picked it up quickly, feeling the dampness circulating through his palm as he picked it up and straightened it against his ear. The operator said that the call was collect, would he accept? Calabrese said he would without even asking for the name of the party and after a moment the voice of the enemy came on.
    “Put him on,” he heard Wulff say, “put him on right now. I