I handed my rental car off to a valet and started to march toward the hotel lobby. I’ll admit my concentration wasn’t where it should’ve been. Instead of keeping my eyes on my surroundings, I was thinking about Emily Parker and who could’ve done something like that to her. That was my error.
Before I even made it to the front door, someone shoved me hard from behind. I stumbled forward and caught myself before my head crashed into a set of four tall valet lockers.
Before I could recover, a strong forearm across my back pinned me to the lockers. The clang echoed. Maybe it was only in my head. I managed to look from the empty valet stand toward the entrance to the hotel. No one was around. What kind of hotel was this?
Then someone spun me around. I should’ve guessed. It was Jeremy Pugh.
He had a buddy with him. A wiry guy about thirty with thinning hair. The kind of balding that drives young guys crazy.
Now Pugh had his forearm firmly across my chest. An ACE bandage was wrapped around his wrist where the Army Ranger had blocked his punch. I turned my head quickly but still didn’t see anyone around.
Pugh said, “You think you’re smart, huh?”
I said, “Not to brag, but I did graduate from Manhattan College with a degree in philosophy.” I shifted my eyes back and forth between my assailants. “Sorry, you two know what graduate means, right?”
Pugh pushed a little harder on my chest. I think I felt my internal organs shift. “Hey, asshole, I went to USC.”
“No shit? You went to the University of South Carolina?” I was shocked.
“No, University of Southern California.”
“Wait. What?” I wondered if the shove into the lockers had scrambled my brains. “You went to Southern Cal?”
“We don’t ever call it that. Just SC or USC. And I did three years there studying marketing.”
I just stared at him. I had so many questions.
Pugh said, “Don’t look at me like a monkey in a zoo. Accents don’t indicate intelligence, no matter what you might think.”
“Why’d you leave school?”
“I learned the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Unless we hold shiftless politicians accountable, we’ll never make progress. We fight oppression wherever we see it.”
“By oppressing people?” I was pinned. I couldn’t do too much except play for time.
Pugh said, “We know who you are. You paid for your coffee at Barbucks with a credit card. We got your name. We got eyes everywhere. We figured out where you were staying.”
I smirked. It was hard with this gorilla holding me. “You mean you called every hotel in DC until someone put you through to a room. I’ll admit that’s smart. It’s not as scary as having eyes everywhere, but it’s smart.”
Now the little guy said, “You’re a New York cop. You’ve been following us.”
“I think you’ve got it backward. This is my hotel. You’re following me.”
The little guy said, “You were at the National Mall when that cyborg came after us.”
I had to chuckle at that one. I also subtly moved into a bent-leg stance. I didn’t want to break this up yet. Not while Pugh thought he had the upper hand.
I looked at the little guy and said, “C’mon, Rogaine, you’re not that stupid, are you? He wasn’t any kind of cyborg.”
That was just to get a rise out of him. In fact, I now realized Jeremy Pugh had been playing a role. He was much smarter than I’d realized. He’d misled me like a Texas Hold’em poker player. That also made him much more dangerous in my eyes.
Now Pugh said, “I even know why you’re here in DC.”
This was a surprise. I stifled my smart-ass replies. I swallowed and said in a calm voice, “Why do you think I’m here?” I really wanted to hear this. For some reason, Jeremy Pugh decided to take a dramatic pause and glance around for witnesses.
Chapter 39
When Pugh refocused his attention on me, I managed to keep my mouth shut. That was no small accomplishment. Not considering I was raised by Seamus Bennett.
Then Pugh said, “It’s about that New York Times asswipe we got into a scuffle with in Manhattan. It was nothing. I don’t care what he said.”
I didn’t remember hearing about a Times reporter getting into a fight. What the hell was he talking about?
Pugh said, “We were just having some fun. Maybe it got a little out of hand. Why aren’t you trying to arrest real criminals?”
I stared at him. Son of a gun, he was right. I needed to be more active on Emily’s case. If Pugh was a suspect, I needed to deal with him. Not let him think he could assault a cop without me doing anything about it.