The Bricklayer

ELEVEN

KATE WALKED INTO THE EMERGENCY TREATMENT ROOM AT THE hospital, nodding at the two surveillance agents who stood conspicuously at either side of the door. Inside, a doctor was stitching up a wound in Vail’s back caused by a chunk of plywood from the explosion. “Are you all right?” she asked, putting her hand on his forearm and squeezing it without realizing what she was doing.
“I’m about to get up and walk out of here. Any time you can do that after tangling with a Claymore, you’re having a pretty good day.”
The doctor taped a bandage in place and said, “You’re all set. Just watch the stitches.” The doctor handed him a prescription slip. “You’re going to need this for the pain when that local I gave you wears off.”
Kate picked up Vail’s shirt and held it for him while he put it on. A jagged hole was surrounded with drying blood. “I guess we owe you a shirt.”
“Since I lost the three million, why don’t we call it even.”
“Hildebrand has the whole office out at the tunnel. The LAPD bomb squad is checking the main section, but it’s going to take a while, since they can’t use lights. Because of the device at the exit, they’re taking the entrance warning as gospel. They have to use night-vision goggles to go in. Actually I think they’re making entry where you blew the hatch and are working backward. One of the sergeants is going to call me once they find out what they’re dealing with.”
“That’s another reason I asked for you to come along.”
“Which is?”
“Because you’re a handsome woman, you can get favors outside the FBI.”
“Handsome?”
He had finished buttoning his shirt and took a step closer to her. His voice softened. “Do you think I should have said…beautiful?” He was looking into her eyes now.
It took a moment for her to compose herself. “I think that painkiller has worked its way up into your brain.”
Carefully, Vail started tucking in his shirt. “How’s Kaulcrick taking all this?”
“Not as well as you are. In his mind, he got bested by Bertok.”
“Maybe,” Vail said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means there are an awful lot of moving parts to this thing to be only one person. I have to think about it for a while.” As they walked out the door to the parking lot, Kate saw him discreetly slip the pain prescription the doctor had given him into a trash receptacle.
Once they got to the hotel, she walked him to his room. “Sure you’re all right?”
“If I’m not, what did you have in mind?”
“The standard stuff—CPR, tourniquets, a kidney.”
Vail smiled. “Thanks for the ride.”
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
As he turned to put his key in the lock, surprising even herself, she gave him a light kiss on the cheek, but immediately regretted it. He was the last man in the world she wanted to think of her as an emotional female. She reminded herself that Vail, however, was not most men. And maybe it was a good thing to show him that she was capable of a certain degree of intimacy. If nothing else, it would keep him from figuring her out as easily as he did everyone else. “There’s a conference call with the director at nine a.m. If you don’t feel up to it, I’m sure he’ll understand.”
He stared at her for a second. “Thanks for hanging in on my side. I know that people like Kaulcrick see it as being disloyal.”
“That’s all right, I plan to do a lot of sucking up to him over the next few days. And should push come to shove, I’ll give you up in a heartbeat.”
“If you do, I’ll tell him you kissed me.”
“He said, she said, bricklayer.” She turned to go. “I’ll see you in the morning.”


NO SOONER HAD VAIL gotten his shirt off than he heard a soft knock on the door. Thinking Kate had returned, he was surprised to find Tye Delson standing in the hallway.
“Hi,” she said. “Came to see if you’re all right.”
“I’m good. How’d you know?”
“The pickup truck that was used to lead your surveillance crew away. They needed a search warrant.”
“I’m sorry, come on in.” He opened the door wide and stepped back.
She gave the room a quick look and said, “Thought maybe you could use a drink.” She pulled a silver flask out of her purse and held it up with ceremony. “I’ve brought bourbon. The shopkeeper told me it is the traditional celebratory for a near-death experience.”
“So we’re celebrating?”
“Actually he said it was good for calming the nerves, but if I thought you were that kind of man, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
“Let me get some glasses.” He opened a drawer and pulled on a T-shirt.
“How many stitches?” she asked when she saw his back.
“It felt like seven or eight.” He walked over to a side table and picked up two glasses. “Do you want ice or water?”
“This is twelve-year-old Kentucky sipping whiskey. The clerk insisted that it not be defiled with California groundwater.” Vail came back, and she poured a couple of ounces for each of them. Then she took out a pack of cigarettes. “Do you mind?”
“It won’t be the first time I smelled smoke tonight.”
After she lit one, she held up her glass and said, “To surviving.” They both took a healthy swallow. “So how bad was it down there? In the tunnel.”
“It wasn’t the best of times; it wasn’t the worst of times.”
“How very non-Dickensian. From what they told me, it sounded pretty bad. They don’t know how you weren’t killed.”
Vail studied her for a moment, trying to figure out why she was there. The first time they had met, she admitted liking to hang out with agents, but this seemed more than that. She was wearing a dark workout suit that, unlike the long, loose dresses he had seen her in at the office, revealed an amply feminine figure. Was he a curiosity to her, someone who seemed so uncontrolled by the Bureau, yet the person called when there was a problem? “Is this a California thing, where the AUSAs make house calls?”
“No,” she said mischievously, inviting more questions.
“Then why?”
“Just to make sure you’re okay. Sort of.”
“Sort of what?”
She took a long drag on her cigarette to make him wait for an answer. “You know, to see what you’re like away from work. You’re interesting. No, that’s a little overused. You’re enigmatic. I don’t get much of that.”
“Funny, I seem to be getting too much of it lately.”
She pulled a piece of tobacco from her lip. “How do you and Kate get along?”
“She’s been a good boss on this.”
“I don’t know you real well, but from what I’ve seen, you’re not the kind of person who allows himself to have a boss. Is that what happened before? Why you used to be an agent?”
“That observation would hardly qualify you as clairvoyant. So that’s it, I’m enigmatic? That’s why you’re here?”
She stared at him for a moment searching for any hidden motive and then laughed. “You really don’t have any idea of the effect you’re having on people around here, do you? You’ve been here—what—two days, and you’ve already found all that evidence in Bertok’s apartment, virtually solving the case, and then tonight, you survived death, apparently with great casualness. You’re becoming quite the celebrity, so I thought I should try to get here before the crowds get too large.” She took another sip of her drink. “I was hoping you might need some company. You know, all that testosterone stirred up and looking for an outlet.” She brought the cigarette up to her mouth and used her tongue to slowly moisten the entire circumference of the unfiltered tip before taking another deep drag, her eyes never leaving his.
“I’ve heard of picking off the weak and wounded from the herd, but never the overstimulated.”
“Sooner or later overstimulation leaves a man weak.”
“Is that something you picked up from Stan Bertok?”
Tye laughed. “I can honestly say I never had the pleasure, or displeasure, depending on your point of view,” she said. “Oh, I see. You’re wondering if I’m some sort of Bureau camp follower. Well, I’m not. This is a very limited offer.”
She drank the rest of her drink and poured another ounce into her glass, holding up the flask to him. “No, I’m good.”
“On the drink or my offer?”
“I know in the not too distant future, I’ll regret this, but both.”
Vail could see a sadness flood through her, not one of rejection, but of having to be alone.
She threw back the remaining bourbon and swallowed it. “That’s very diplomatic, but please don’t take that tack. I doubt I would find you nearly as interesting if I thought you were the kind of man who was capable of regret.”