Free Little Death by the Sea by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

first, eh? And then you
give me the money. Ha! Ha! You will pay Gerard to be screwed!”
    Maggie felt perspiration form on her face.
The man might be insane, she thought. Could he have somehow gotten
into the country with a gun? Could he have gotten one since
arriving?
    “What time?” she said, her stomach twisting
in nausea.
    “Three hours. Exactement .”
    Maggie looked at the wrought iron clock
again.
    “Twelve o’clock,” she said.
    He hung up.
    Maggie took a deep breath, then picked up the
phone again and dialed the number of her father’s club. Would he
have the money? What if he didn’t have it handy? Should she call
Brownie? How can our customs and immigration people let such scum
into the country? Don’t they have eyes? Does this Gerard-monster
look normal? Does he look like some sort of safe, boring French
tourist or something? Should she bring a gun? Her dad would have
one. God! She thought suddenly: she couldn’t tell her father the
full story behind why she needed the money. He’d never let her meet
this creep all alone in a darkened mall parking lot.
    “Hello? Cherokee Country Club.”
    “Yes, could you please see if my father is
there tonight? John Newberry?”
    “Yes, of course, Mr. Newberry is upstairs.
One moment and I’ll connect you.”
    “Thanks.” How were they going to make sure
Gerard Dubois didn’t bother them again? How were they going to get
him out of their lives permanently?
    Then, her dad’s strong, gentle voice was on
the line.
    “Hello, sweetheart? What’s up?”
    3
    The towers surrounding Lenox Square, the
Southeast’s once super-eminent shopping mall, loomed over all
avenues leading to the retail complex. Mingling with the massive,
full-leafed trees that lined nearly every street in Atlanta were
the “me-too” office structures, strange testimony to an
architectural confusion the city seemed intent to promote. The
combination of trees and towers gave the part of Peachtree Road
that led directly to the front of Lenox Square a feeling of
secrecy, as if anything could be hiding behind them, from an
upscale book store to a fast food restaurant, to a maniac with a
hunger for killing.
    Maggie left the lights and late-night traffic
of Piedmont Avenue and, turning right, drove slowly down the
subdued stretch of Peachtree Road in front of the Financial Center
and the Swissotel.
    She glanced briefly at her purse in the seat
next to her. Five thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills.
Almost like her father had expected to need it handy one day.
    “Are you sure this will be enough to help
your friend, Maggie?”
    “Yes, Dad. I’ll be able to give you full
details later.”
    “I understand.”
    “It has to do with Elise, Dad,” she’d
blurted.
    “I understand, Maggie. I trust you that you,
personally, are in no danger?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Very well. Call me when it’s done.”
    And he hadn’t wanted any more than that.
    Maggie shivered. A part of her was sorry that
he didn’t want to know it all. That he hadn’t demanded the truth.
But he really didn’t want to know. He wanted to throw money at it,
to trust Maggie that this would be the end of it or, if not the
end, then that money would handle it again next time. Did she
really believe that about him? She stared at the slightly
winding, too-dim road ahead. Elise would have believed it.
    Maggie waited at the light and glanced up
briefly at the Swissotel which ascended to the west of the shopping
complex and wondered if Gerard Dubois was registered there. More
likely, he was settled in at one of the pimp-cribs downtown where
shootings and drug overdoses were as prevalent as clean towels.
Probably more so.
    Sitting at the traffic light, a movement
caught her eye, like shifting vapors behind the trees whose unruly
branches were so long they reached out and nearly touched her car.
Would Gerard come on foot, she wondered? She stared into the somber
web of trees and thought she could make out the form of