'I could just set the car alight and be done with it,' he said. 'Then you could live up to your name.'

Crispy ignored the comment, didn't even grunt or thrash around a bit more. Just glared at him. They both knew he wouldn't do it. There was no point wasting any more time. He slammed the trunk lid shut. Should he shoot a couple of air holes in it like they did in the movie Thelma and Louise when they locked the traffic cop in his trunk? That was such a great movie. But was the air holes thing just some BS they made up for the movie? Surely car trunks weren't airtight. Not on an old heap of rust like this one anyway. On the other hand, it might be fun to do it just to scare the ever-loving shit out of him.

On balance he decided it wasn't worth wasting a couple of perfectly good bullets. He started walking back to the street, hoping to find a cruising cab. He pulled Crispy's phone out of his pocket and checked it as he walked. There was nothing from Chico. Nothing from Chico that hadn't already been deleted, anyway.

Chapter 30

Dixie only had to walk about a mile before he got lucky and a cab picked him up. He'd felt Crispy's phone buzz in his pocket while he was walking and he checked it sitting in the back of the cab, As he expected it was from Chico; demanding an update. An update on where they were specifically. He reckoned that clinched it. Chico was onto him. Why else would he make contact with Crispy—the supposed sidekick—and not with Dixie himself?

He thought about sending a message back, making up some story to buy himself some more time. But what to say? He lay back in the seat and closed his eyes and gave it some thought. He let out a short laugh as an idea crossed his mind. In the front the driver looked at him in his rear-view mirror, worried that he'd inadvertently picked up some screwball. Dixie ignored him and got his wallet out. He found the piece of paper with the details that Dave, the bartender at Kelly's, had given him over the phone.

He typed out a reply to Chico's text: I've lost him. We met up with a guy called Evan Buckley. The two of them gave me the slip. What do you want me to do?

He smiled to himself as he hit the send button. If Crispy's real purpose had been to keep an eye on him, it would make sense to Chico. If not, what the hell? He had nothing to lose. He might even get a reply from Chico.

He got the driver to drop him at the nearest car rental office and hired a medium-sized van. It was better than a sedan for a couple of reasons: one, he might need to sleep in it, and, two, if he managed to catch up with Ellie, it would be useful to hold her in while he decided what to do with her.

First things first, though. The money.

He got his own phone out and found the number of the GPS tracking device that he'd called from Alvarez's office. He hit redial and waited for the text to come back. Almost immediately his phone pinged. He opened the text and clicked on the link. A map opened in his phone's browser, the tracker's location clearly indicated. He smiled to himself again. It was the exact same location as last time. She hadn't moved it.

He put his phone away. He didn't need the map. He knew exactly where he was going. After all, he'd chosen it in the first place.

He felt a unpleasant flutter in his stomach the whole journey. He didn't know if it was excitement or trepidation. A very unwelcome thought dug its way into his mind and wouldn't give him any peace. Would Alvarez have phoned Chico after he'd left? The guy had been so full of himself, so sure that he'd solved Chico's problem in two seconds flat. He'd definitely enjoyed showing off in front of Dixie. Maybe he'd got the urge to do the same with Chico. Call him up and gloat. And give him the tracker's number at the same time. That was the problem with them, anybody or everybody could ring the number. Then he might send some of the other guys to pick up the money, leave Dixie to concentrate on finding Ellie. He'd need to be careful when he got there.

He suddenly laughed out loud to himself. They didn't have a key. What the hell was he worrying about? He must be getting old. Worrying about every little thing. Real and imagined.

It didn't take long to get there. He didn't recognize any of the vehicles in the parking lot and there was nobody waiting in any of them. He jogged across the lot, into the main lobby and took the stairs up to the second floor. He found the unit he was looking for. He still had his keys in his hand. Looking down at them he was surprised to see a slight tremble.

Pull yourself together.

He found the right key and tried it. It didn't fit. He must have mistaken it on the ring. He looked again. No, it was definitely the right one. Was it the right unit? He checked. Yes, it was the right one.

What the hell was going on? He'd have to get the manager. He ran back down the stairs to reception and found the guy. He was in the middle of eating his lunch and wasn't at all pleased at the interruption. He looked like a man who enjoyed his food. Dixie explained the problem and they went through a great long rigmarole of verifying who he was. Thank God he'd booked it using his credit card.

Then they went back upstairs and the manager tried Dixie's key. Dixie was relieved when it didn't work for him either. The guy got his master key out and the lock opened up without a problem.

'It's probably new,' he said, inspecting Dixie's key. 'We've had a bunch of them recently that didn't work.'

Dixie nodded understandingly. The feeling of trepidation that had been building inside him was getting to fever pitch. Now just get the hell back downstairs.

Despite the fact that his lunch had been interrupted, the guy didn't seem to be in any hurry to get back to it. Dixie didn't want to open up with him standing there. Was the guy waiting for a tip? Get a new locksmith.

He got the hint in the end and headed back to his office. Dixie let himself into the unit and turned on the light. His heart was thumping, his mouth dry. The unit was a small five by five space, the smallest you could rent but more than enough room for the single bag sitting in the back corner. It looked quite lonely, sitting there all alone. Like it had been discarded when its owner had no further use for it.

The bad feeling that he felt intensified at the sight of the bag. What can you tell from simply looking at a bag from five feet away? It seemed it could certainly make your stomach turn over. He took a couple of quick steps across the room and picked it up.

Empty.

Just as he knew it would be.

He didn't need to open it, he could tell from the weight. He knew there were just under five hundred notes to a pound in weight, which means three million dollars in one hundred dollar bills weighs about sixty-six pounds. The bag in his hand didn't weigh sixty-six ounces.

He opened it up and looked inside anyway. It wasn't completely empty—she'd left the GPS tracker for him. It was a little plastic box about three inches by two inches and an inch thick. He wondered if she'd known it was there or if she'd simply transferred the money to another bag—one with wheels maybe. He dropped the tracker back into the bag and threw the bag into the corner. Might as well leave it there in case somebody else came looking for it.

A sudden thought crossed his mind and made him smile—as much as anybody who's just found out they've been double-crossed out of three million dollars can smile. He could take the tracker and drop it into a dumpster somewhere. Outside a fish restaurant maybe. Then whoever came looking could spend their time rooting through all the rotting fish and food leftovers, or, even better, spend a few days tramping around a landfill site. He was glad her mind didn't work along the same lines, but then again he'd never done anything to her to piss her off that much. Had he?