Deal to Die For by Les Standiford Page A

often used for publicity releases. “Es you, right?”
    She stared at him, uncertain.
    “Mr. Mawlul send me,” the man said.
    Paige shook her head, still puzzled…and then it dawned on her. “Mahler,” she said. “Mr. Mahler.”
    The little man checked something on the back of her picture, then nodded. “Right,” he said. “Mawlul.”
    Paige shook her head in disbelief. He was so painfully thin she felt the urge to guide him to a restaurant.
    Just like Marvin to arrange a car for her. For a moment she wished he were there with her, and then, as she tried to imagine Marvin with his smile and his can-do attitude, one arm around her shoulders, another around her sister’s, “Hey, let’s just sit down and talk this out, ladies…,” it all came crashing back upon her, every aspect of her life that she had tried to push away during the long flight, and she sighed, feeling as weary as she ever had.
    “I’m Paige Nobleman,” she said to the little man, finally.
    “
Bueno
,” he said. He tossed the sign into a trash can, wadded the photo in his hand. “Car is outside,” he added, smiling.
    “Let me just get my bags,” she said, and motioned toward the escalators, which, coming as no real surprise, she found to be closed for repair.
    ***
    “In Miami?” the driver said, when she gave him the name of the hospital. She’d tried Barbara’s house again from a pay phone, then the restaurant, too. The hospital was her best guess, but no one was answering at Patient Information at this hour and she didn’t have a room number. At least she’d find her mother there, that much seemed certain.
    “Miami Beach,” Paige said.
    “Long way,” the driver said. He glanced into his outside mirror, tossed his wobbling hat aside, then cut the limo through a line of traffic onto a freeway ramp.
    Paige wondered, the way he said it, if the guy were paid by the mile. He was good behind the wheel, though, unlike some of the drivers you’d get with a service, gunning the accelerator, then slamming the brakes, goosing you along. This one was as smooth as L.A. Eddie, and any other time she’d have laid her head back, tried to rest.
    Instead, she found herself staring out the window, lulled to a zombielike trance by the gentle motion of the car. She noted an exit for “Hollywood,” and wondered briefly why there were no hills in the distance, why her clothes were sticking to her despite the fact that it was December, and then she remembered where she was, that this Hollywood was a collection of high-rises on the ocean…and with great weariness, she remembered what had brought her here.
    Odd that she’d keep blanking out like that, or not so odd, maybe. Maybe it was like a mind fuse. You could take just so much and then—pop—the circuits would overload and you could sink into the zombie zone. Fine with her. She’d be happy to take a nice long nap, wake up and find everything behind her like some awful dream, some part she’d played in a grade-Z film.
    The limo was snaking through a gauntlet of barricades now: little yellow lights everywhere, a quick glimpse of men in hard hats caught in the glare of some portable lights, and a great boiling of dust about some unearthly machine, two idling police cars with their flashers turning—it looked more like a disaster zone than a highway, she thought.
    Barely was all that behind them, the road back to itself and humping high over some ribbon of darkness below—a river, a chasm?—when a pair of cars roared up, passing the limo on either side. There was an instant of deafening motor thunder that vanished as quickly as it came, the taillights shrinking into nothing as she watched. How fast had they been going? A hundred? Maybe more? She’d never seen cars go that fast before.
    “Was that the police?” she called to the driver.
    “Race,” the voice came back, crackling over an intercom speaker at her ear.
    It took her a moment to understand. She sat back in the spongy seat,