The Final Twist
- Автор: Дивер Джеффри
- Серия: Colter Shaw #3
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: G.P. Putnam's Sons
- ISBN: 978-0-525-53913-1
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «The Final Twist». Краткое содержание книги:
Following the enigmatic clues his father left behind, Shaw plays cat and mouse with the company’s sadistic enforcers, as he speeds from one gritty neighborhood in the City by the Bay to another. Suddenly, the job takes on a frightening urgency: Only by finding the courier bag can he expose the company and stop the murder of an entire family — slated to die in forty-eight hours.
With the help of an unexpected figure from his past, and with the enforcers closing the net, Shaw narrows in on the truth — and learns that the courier bag contains something unexpected: a secret that could only be described as catastrophic.
A battle between a settlement and a group of claim jumpers in Northern California during the Silver Rush days. The settlers planted a half-buried strongbox on the back road into the camp, and when the outlaws found it and started to dig it up, one group of settlers came in from the north side of the road, the other from the south and easily took the distracted jumpers. Shaw remembered sitting beside his father and brother and watching Ashton draw a map of the battle, as he lectured the boys about tactics.
Never attack an enemy directly when you can distract and flank...
So, no, Russell had not intended to leave. He had made stopping the BNGs his fight, as well as Shaw’s, and had come up with a good strategy to do it with no bloodshed.
They left the TL and Russell drove back to the waterfront at Hunters Point, where they pitched the drugs and the BNGs’ guns and phones and the knife into the Bay.
They returned to the safe house on Alvarez. Russell ran the plate of the van — it was not obscured, like the Caddy’s and the Rolls’s — and the information came back that it was registered to a corporation that was undoubtedly owned by an offshore entity. Russell sent the picture he’d taken of Mr. Rolls to someone — presumably Karin. Soon he received a text in return.
“Too far away for facial recognition.”
“Burlingame now. Nadler’s house.” The town was south of San Francisco, a working-class and commuter community, the home of San Francisco airport. Shaw had seen a picture of the house, which Mack had sent. It was a tidy one-story dwelling, painted yellow and set amid a small but well-tended garden.
Shaw was calling up the address when his phone dinged with an incoming email.
It was from Mack McKenzie. He read the message.
He said, “We have to make a stop on the way.”
31
Ghirardelli Square — part of the tourist magnet Fisherman’s Wharf — wasn’t busy on this cloudy day. Rain threatened.
Shaw and Russell were in the SUV, parked near the corner on which a man strummed a guitar. His case was open and people would occasionally toss coins or bills in. He was tall and lean and long blond hair flowed from beneath a cowboy hat with a tightly curled brim.
You could smell chocolate, exuding by chance or design from the Ghirardelli building. He explained to Russell how he’d come to take on the reward job to find Tessy Vasquez.
He then told him that his private investigator had, among her contractors, an audio analyst, to whom she’d sent Tessy’s message. The expert had filtered out the young woman’s voice and analyzed every sound on it.
The email Shaw had just received in the Tenderloin contained the results of that analysis. He called it up and the men read.
Music: Ambient music from outdoor café, recorded.
Music: Performers, including live guitar, drums, rap music and applause, possibly accompanying hip-hop dancers. Occasional breaks in vocal performances to say “Thanks” or “Thank you,” presumably in response to tips. Hence, street performers.
Sounds of children laughing and occasionally breathless: Playground.
Foghorns, decibel level suggesting distance of three to four miles. Echoing off tall structure nearby. Possibly Avnet Tower on California Street.
Ship horn 1: This matches the tone of the Marin Express, ferry with service from Pier 41 in the Embarcadero to Sausalito, approximately one mile away.
Ship horn 2: This matches the Alcatraz Cruiser, a ship operated by Bay Cruise Tours, approximately one mile away.
Ship horn 3. This matches the tone of the Sea Maid III, operated by Cruise Tours Unlimited, docked at Eureka Promenade, approximately 300+ feet away.
Cable car bells, from opposite directions, probably the north terminus of the Powell/Mason line to the east, and Powell/Hyde line to the west. Powell/Mason is closer.
Correlating these data, I think the location is the southwest Fisherman’s Wharf area, likely Ghirardelli Square.
“Whoever did it is good,” Russell said.
Shaw was looking around. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He climbed out of the vehicle and approached the guitarist. He pulled a twenty from his pocket and dropped it into the guitar case.
“Hey, man, thanks.” His eyes were wide.
“Got a question.”
“Sure.” Maybe hoping: Was he free to sign a multimillion-dollar recording contract?
“Do you know this girl? She’s gone missing. I’m helping her mother try to find her.”
“Oh, yeah. Tessy. Jesus. Missing?”
“When did you see her last?”
“I just got back from Portland. Before that. A week maybe.”
“You know her well?”
“No. Talked about music some. Mostly just to divide up the corners, you know. So we didn’t sing over each other. This sucks. I hope she’s okay.”
“You ever know if she had trouble with anyone?”
“Never saw it. Guys’d flirt. You know. She could handle it.”
“Was she ever with a man named Roman?” Shaw described him.
“Doesn’t sound familiar.”
Shaw thanked him. He studied the block, turning in a slow circle. His eyes came to rest on a gift shop, specializing in saltwater taffy and objets d’art based on cable cars, the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.
He caught his brother’s eye and nodded at the store. Russell joined him.
“Video?” his brother asked.
“It’s right in the line of sight. Hope so.”
The two men greeted the manager of the store, dressed for some reason like a clerk in an Old West general store. Straw hat, candy-striped shirt, suspenders and a sleeve garter. When they explained why they were here, he said, “Oh, no. Terrible.” He added that he knew Tessy. She occasionally would come into the store and exchange the tip coins she’d received from performing for bills.
He handed over the counter to another worker, and the men followed him into the back room.
He logged on to a cloud server and typed in the date and time from the call Tessy had made to her mother. Scrubbing back and forth... Finally, in fast motion, Tessy walked into view, removed her guitar from the case, which she opened for the tips, and then slung the instrument over her neck. She was in a red blouse and a black gypsy skirt. Her dark hair was loose.
She began to sing, smiling to passersby. The chord changes seemed efficient. No fancy jazz riffs. He’d heard that a guitar had never been intended as a lead instrument, but a rhythm one. That came from his distant past, from Margot, who’d been a source of much of his popular cultural knowledge. The woman had then added, “But tell that to Jimi Hendrix.”
Shaw’s own personal favorite guitarist was the Australian Tommy Emmanuel, who seemed to pry an entire orchestra from his git-fiddle.
Shaw was amused that her guitar was a Yamaha, the same brand as his motorbike. He supposed they were the same company — though that was about as diversified a manufacturing operation as you would find.
“Can you scrub to where she leaves?”
The man did. They saw her put her guitar away and pull a phone from her pocket. She made a brief call — probably the one to her mother. She then picked up the guitar case, slung a purse over her shoulder and started up the street away from the store. She walked to the corner and turned right.
“You catch that?” Shaw asked.
“The van,” Russell said.
A gray minivan, which had been parked on the same side of the street as Tessy was on, pulled into traffic as she walked by and proceeded slowly, as if following her. It made the same turn she did.