Veronica by Nicholas Christopher

Author:Nicholas Christopher
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780440338017
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-06-24T04:00:00+00:00

36

SO I HAD a switchblade in one hand and a pistol in the other when that hinged wall slid open behind me and someone burst in, shouting, “Freeze!”

Slowly Veronica lifted her arm from the aquarium, her eyes stony. Keko’s head slid back down and was swallowed up in her hair.

“You!” Veronica snapped.

“Put your hands on your head,” the voice commanded. A gravelly voice.

Veronica obeyed him.

I started to turn around.

“You, don’t move again unless I say so. First, put the gun on the floor and kick it aside. Now the knife. Slowly. Now put your hands on your head.”

I had heard that voice before.

“I’ve already called the police,” he said. “They’ll be here pronto, reading you your rights.”

“You can’t frame us for this,” Veronica said.

“You’re already framed,” he retorted. “They have a description of you, and your friend here.”

“And the motive?”

“How about a love triangle?” His laugh rattled in his throat.

“A crime of passion.”

Veronica’s face contorted. “How long have you been working for Starwood?” she said with disgust.

“Long enough. You, turn around, and take two steps away from her.”

I did as he said, and now I could see the man outlined against the dim light of the foyer, holding a gun. It was the derelict I had seen in the car headlights near Otto’s building. Oversized coat, hat pulled low, and the cane in his left hand. The head of the cane was a panther’s head, carved of ebony.

At the same time, I placed the voice: it was Wolfgang Tod.

He shook out a yellow handkerchief and blew his nose. “I told you you didn’t know what you were mixed up in,” he said to me. “See, I wasn’t lying to you about White being murdered,” he snickered. “I just got the dates mixed up. I’ve been trying to find out when it’s going to happen.”

He walked toward us, his washed-out eyes narrowing to slits. Clement had said he was a reptile, and as he walked toward us, I heard a swishing sound behind his coat, on the tiles.

“Starwood killed Keko,” Veronica said. “And he’s still here—I can feel it.”

“He’s had you boxed in all along,” Tod said, “in a box so big you didn’t even know it was there.”

“But he didn’t get the second note from Janos,” Veronica said thickly, “or you wouldn’t be here.”

Again the rattling laugh. “That circus freak ate enough poison to kill a horse,” Tod sneered.

“But it wasn’t enough,” Veronica said. “Was that your job—to put him out of the way first? You blew it.”

“Yeah? Well, she’s still dead, isn’t she. And you’d better shut up or I’ll stick you in there with her.” His tongue flicked a spot of foam from his upper lip. I could still hear Keko’s voice as she explained to me that the aquarium had been placed over the worst “killing-point” in the building, to counteract the negative chih.

“I can tell you,” Tod added, “she didn’t die easy. And she doesn’t look so pretty anymore, huh.”

Veronica opened her mouth to reply, but the buzzing across the room had suddenly grown so loud that we all turned our heads.

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