by Lex Lander
Standing side by side, Maura and I watched the Jeep and its dust cloud descend to the town.
‘Is she always like this?’ I asked. ‘When they take her away, I mean.’
‘It varies.’ Maura’s cheeks were damp too. She mopped at them, her shoulders drooping.
‘Going to tell me what’s the deal?’
‘Sure. Let’s get airborne first, before we die of hypothermia.’
She was right. The setting sun was throwing out no heat. I shivered, despite the parka. At this altitude, you could die out in the open.
The mile walk to the airport warmed us up. She was quiet, eyes down, hands in pockets, absorbed in her demons. I let her be, sensing that conversation was not what she was seeking right now.
Back at the airport, we made use of the rest rooms. On coming out Maura consulted the tetrahedron-shaped wind indicator. Wind speed was about 3mph, direction veering between south and south east.
‘Not enough wind to make any difference,’ she decided. ‘We’ll be taking off into it anyhow, as we’re parked at this end.’
Five minutes later, we were unsticking from the asphalt, and simultaneously climbing and banking sharply to the south-east. Maura was back in her element. She drew my attention to a stack of cumulus clinging to the mountains of the Sierra Nevada.
‘That’s the stuff they warned us about in Vegas. It won’t bother us, too far away.’
As we levelled off at around eight thousand feet, she set the auto pilot and gulped water from a small bottle.
‘That was hell,’ she said soberly. ‘I can’t bear it any more, Drew. I need to do something about it.’
‘I guess you do.’
She did some minor tinkering with the controls, and I noticed the direction indicator shift from 105 degrees to 107.
‘Let me fill you in on the history.’
The “history” began when her husband, Jeff Heider, died. Thanks to me. From being his wife, and a trusted insider, she became an outsider, and almost an outcast. Respect for Jeff’s memory, and the refusal of Richard Heider to play along, saved her and her daughter from early graves. She became, as she put it, ‘the woman who knew too much’. Yet her part-ownership of the Pieces of Eight gave her a role in the business, and she proved to be more than competent, not to mention innovative, at the helm.
Her life settled into a pattern, agreeable enough if somewhat empty, until, about seven months after she was widowed, she tentatively dated a guy. It didn’t lead anyplace. However, it did serve to awaken Carl Heider, always neurotic about security (not unlike me), to the potential for divided loyalties. The possibility that Maura might enter into a relationship and even marry, had not occurred to him until then.
His method of maintaining family solidarity was forcibly to remove from her the thing she valued above all – her daughter. Notwithstanding Maura’s hysterical pleadings, Belinda was transported out of the state and into the care of Justine Heider, at a location in California. That this constituted a capital offence troubled Heider and son not a bit. Richard spoke out against it, but retreated before vague threats about his expendability.
A regime of twice monthly meetings, weekly Skypes, and emails as often as she liked, was established. It helped close the void between coping and not coping with the segregation.
‘Do you always meet in the same place?’ I asked.
‘No. In the sixteen months since they took Lindy away we’ve met at five different sites. Mono Lake is the farthest. The nearest is Victorville, in California, which is less than a hundred miles as the crow flies.’
‘What’s to stop you going to the police? Get them to stake out the meeting place, Justine arrives with Lindy, the cops pounce, and voilà. You get your daughter back.’
Her eyes probed me. ‘That’s how it would play out, you think?’
‘I don’t see why not.’ But then it wasn’t my daughter at risk.
A high-flying jet was crossing the darkening canopy of the sky from left to right, trailing a wake of contrails. Caught in the rays of the now invisible sun they were converted into streamers of silver. While I watched it another solution came to me.
‘Why don’t you just threaten to blow the lid off their operation if they don’t return Lindy?’
‘Hah! Carl’s mean enough to kill her just for spite, or make sure I never see her again.’ She gnawed her lip. ‘But that’s not the issue. I’m sure the police could handle it. The problem stems from Carl’s influence at high level. Several senior officers in the police and members of the City Council are beholden to them. If I made contact, it would be bound to reach their ears. That would be enough to tip Carl and Nick over the edge from merely applying duress, to ... what do they call it in gangspeak? Whacking us?’
Putting myself in the place of a parent was outside my emotional range. It was only because of my attraction to Maura that I could empathize with her. She was hurting, and I could feel the pain right alongside her. The cure for her ailment was to be reunited with her daughter. If the means to that end was not the law, what was left?
Then it dawned on me. What was left was me.
‘Your daughter is a sweet little girl, Maura. But you didn’t bring me here to meet her just to show her off, did you?’
She looked away towards the darkening western horizon, where mountains and sky were beginning to blend.
‘Maybe,’ she said huskily. ‘Maybe not.’
‘So you just want my services, my skills, if you like, to solve your problem. Is that it?’ When she didn’t answer, I shook her arm. ‘Admit it. Be honest with me, Maura.’
At last she faced me. In the semi-darkness of the cabin, her skin tinted red by the control panel, she was inscrutable.
‘Maybe,’ she said again, and a sob caught in her throat. ‘Maybe not.’
And that was all I could get out of her on the subject.
SIXTEEN
Back in my room at the Club de Soleil, over a double tomato juice from the fridge, I thought long and hard about obligations. Maura’s life had been screwed up when I killed her husband. Sure, he was an A1 bastard and she needed to be rid of him. That didn’t alter the fact that she and her daughter had been ripped apart because of my deed. If she had been merely unhappy before, she was downright heartbroken now. It was up to me to reunite them, because nobody else was going to volunteer for the task.
After an untroubled flight and bump-free landing at North Vegas Airport, Maura had driven us back to her house. If a police car attached itself to us, it did a first-rate job in staying invisible. I was reluctant to leave her alone because of the revenge threat posed by Silvano Tosi. She reassured me by demonstrating the security systems, the heavy duty locks on all windows, and her prowess with another handgun that she kept by the bed.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘Promise you’ll call me if you need me.’
She promised. I was already sounding more like a lover than a friend, if I was even that. Just wishful thinking. I booked a taxi to collect me at the corner of Vegas and North Durango Drives, to guard against a police tail. They still had no reason to be interested in me, but I wasn’t about to let up on the precautions.
In my room, with the drapes drawn, I retrieved the gun that Cesare Tosi would never need again from my safe. The Ruger P345 automatic would not have been my personal choice of firearm, but it has no vices worthy of mention. Ruger is often derided by purists as a manufacturer of target pistols and single action revolvers of an earlier era. With the introduction of this automatic, they made a serious pitch to join the big boys – Colt, Smith & Wesson, and Browning.
Operation of the P345 is simplicity itself: rack the slide, squeeze the trigger, and keep on squeezing until all eight rounds are fired. The three-dot sights are spot on.
For those for whom safety is paramount, it has a loaded chamber indicator. Avoids mistakes, reduces the risk of shooting yourself in the foot – literally. Then there is the magazine disconnect that locks
the gun when the magazine is not in place. Neither of these helps you shoot straighter. They just make it more forgiving.
It’s quite short for a .45, at 7.1/2 inches overall, yet the barrel length is an exceptional 4.1/4, making for good accuracy. Weight is less than 2 lbs. The single column magazine keeps it comfortably slim.
Automatics occasionally jam. You can’t eliminate that hazard, you can only take steps to forestall it. Step one is to take it apart. Remove the magazine, lock the slide. Next, you rotate the ejector pin downward, to allow the slide to go forward. With the slide in that position, you push the lock lever to the left and separate it from the polymer frame. Child’s play so far. To remove the slide and the barrel assembly simply move them forward. Invert the slide, allowing the recoil spring and guide rod to part company from the barrel. Then the barrel is lifted at the rear and eased backward out of the slide.
All done. The gun lay in pieces on my bed. Step two is reassembly, which takes longer. When it was back to being whole, I would be satisfied that the innards were as they should be, no deformities or misalignments. The gun and I would be good to go.
Good to kill.
The sound suppressor was a bonus. It made the gun cumbersome to handle and difficult to conceal. Still, you never knew when it might come in handy. So I would hang on to it, and use it when silence was a priority.
Like it or not, it was going to be my personal sidearm for as long as it took me to extricate Maura from the mess she was in, and with any luck extricate myself in the process. If lethal force was required, I wouldn’t shrink from it.
I dined late, went to bed late, and only woke next morning when my cell phone summoned me.
It was Maura.
‘Hello,’ she said, and her voice was strangely echo-ey. ‘If I sound funny it’s because I’m in the rest room at work. They’ve bugged my office phone, as I told you, so I’m having to call from here.’
‘Sensible precaution, but it’s Saturday. Why are you working?’
‘Busiest day of the week is why. The thing is, last night I was doing a lot of thinking. I need to see you this morning. I want to try something.’
‘Yours to command.’
A muted laugh. ‘Very British of you.’
We arranged to meet in the Lorenzi Park at eleven. I didn’t know where it was but my GPS would be sure to.
‘Look for an open structure with a blue roof,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you on the side facing the pond.’
I drove to North Las Vegas Airport and left the Beamer in the parking lot there. It was a bit over a mile from there to the park, and I walked it. She was there ahead of me, sitting on a bench. Few people were about. If any of them were watching her, it wasn’t apparent to my seasoned eye.
‘Hi there,’ I said, coming up behind her.
She started, then beamed with such real pleasure that I was taken slightly aback. She got to her feet. She was in business attire, pants instead of skirt, hair captured in a clip instead of loose and sexy. Even then, she still managed to be sexy.
‘Want to walk?’ I suggested.
‘Maybe in a minute.’ She seemed nervous. ‘There’s something I want to try.’
‘So you said. What is it?’
‘This.’
She closed up on me so that my chest touched her breasts; her right hand went up behind my neck and pulled my head towards hers. I didn’t fight her. We kissed, and I still didn’t fight her.
It was a real kiss too. Not a peck, not a fleeting brush of the lips. Hers were soft and yielding, and mine conformed to them. It lasted maybe a minute. No tongues, just a gentle yet intense mouth-to-mouth contact.
When we finally separated, she was flushed and breathing hard, and I was seriously aroused.
‘Well,’ I said.
She grinned, and now I saw the likeness to her daughter.
‘Is that all you can say?’
‘I’m lost for words.’
Now she looked anxious again. ‘Is that good?’
‘I can’t believe you’re asking. It was a whole lot better than good. It was also long overdue.’
By tacit consent, our hands found each other’s.
‘You’re right about the long overdue,’ she said. ‘I’ve wanted to do that almost since I first met you.’
‘Pity you waited so long.’
She nodded. ‘Can we do it again?’
Oblivious of passers-by we did it again, for longer and with even more intensity. The smell of her, a subtle fragrance, blended with the kiss and my arms went around her so that our bodies moulded as well as our mouths.
‘Oh my,’ she said after it was over. ‘I really really needed us to do that. You kissed how I hoped you would.’
‘How’s that?’
She wrinkled her nose at me. ‘Gently, but with passion.’
We sat there talking, and the passing minutes became meaningless. It wasn’t love talk. It was getting-to-know-each-other talk.
‘Why did you wait so long?’ I asked her, ‘if you wanted to do it when you say you did.’
‘Do you need to ask? I waited so long because of who you are, what you do. How could I be attracted to a man who killed my husband, even if they were his just desserts? That’s what I asked myself. I had a long internal struggle with my scruples. I despised myself for the feelings I was having towards you, so I blanked them out.’
‘And there I was thinking you wanted to keep me at arm’s length. What triggered the change of heart?’
She clicked her tongue, let go a drawn-out sigh, and said, ‘I guess the clincher was the way you interacted with Lindy. I could tell you’re not entirely at your ease dealing with kids, but you made a real effort to make her relax with you. It was a challenge for her too, and I was surprised when she responded so well.’
A case of love me, love my daughter.
‘Drew, the other thing is that I wanted to test your reaction before I asked if you were going to help me. Because if you aren’t, or can’t, it won’t change anything. I would still have kissed you, and we can still have whatever sort of relationship lies in store.’ Again the anxious look. ‘If any sort.’
‘You’re being insecure,’ I chided, watching a man and a woman of about my age saunter past, arms around waists. We weren’t the only mature couple behaving like teenagers.
‘It’s a bit scary though, this beginning to care for you more than I should.’
‘Is that how you see it? Caring for me more than you should. What’s the “should”?
‘You know. What you do, your ... profession, if that’s what it is. Falling for a man who, to be blunt about it, kills for a living, even if it is in the past tense, would be like living my life in a swamp. Even if you only killed the sort of people who deserve it, like my husband ... like Jeff. You released me from a disastrous marriage with a guy whose idea of fun was to slap me around. But even he didn’t deserve to die for what he did to me.’ She hugged herself when she should have been hugging me. She was blinking fast, holding tears in check. ‘Even at his worst, I wouldn’t have wished it on him.’
‘I understand.’ I exhaled long and hard. Hearing this stuff from Maura caused me no joy. She had moral scruples. I respected her for that. I had a few of my own. Reverting to a clean, untainted me wasn’t an option. The road back wasn’t a road forward.
‘You want to put a stop to it?’ I said.
‘To us, you mean?’ She made a noise of distress in the back of her throat. ‘Is there anything to put a stop to? We’ve barely started, so if we’re going to call it off, now’s the moment. Before we’re in too deep.’
The prospect of stopping when the starting gun had only just been fired depressed me.
‘As far as I’m concerned we’ve started something and I don’t want it to end here and now, or tomorrow, or next week, or ... hell, Maura, who knows where it will lead? Let’s just run with it. But then, if your decision is to call it off, I have to respect that. I can’t force you to stick with me.’
&nbs
p; Until now, she had avoided my eyes. Now she turned them on me, full wattage. Saying this wasn’t easy for her. She was trying to do what was right and it was tearing her in two.
‘The past is unalterable,’ she said. ‘But the future is there for the making.’
I nodded. I couldn’t think of a single word of comfort to offer. Not and stay sincere.
‘Would you ... could you make it?’ Her scrutiny had the intensity of a laser beam. ‘With me alongside?’
‘You mean give up what I’m doing?’ I thought about Giorgy and Il Sindicato. ‘It’ll be a rocky ride.’
‘Let it be rocky. Do you think the last two years haven’t been rocky? If you’re saying it’s too much to ask, let me have it with both barrels.’ When I didn’t speak, she took it as a rebuttal. ‘So you can’t or you won’t, it doesn’t matter which. Why don’t we just keep things on a formal footing? Just get on with what we each have to do and when it’s all done we can follow our separate paths.’
Before she could storm off, I grabbed her by the elbows, dragged her close to me.
‘You’re jumping to conclusions,’ I almost snarled, my mouth inches from hers. ‘I’m not my own master.’
Then we were kissing again. Violently, our lips mashing together, our bodies melding from neck to groin. Somebody brushed against my arm, apologized.
‘Oh, my sweet,’ she breathed when at last we were free to speak again. ‘I do so want you. I do, I do! You don’t know what it does to me to have to say what I just said. But I can’t just pretend I’m okay with what you stand for.’
‘Shush,’ I said, crossing her lips with a forefinger. ‘Talk later. For now, just let me hold you.’
Holding her felt good. Her slender but strong warm body. The smell of her hair, as fresh as springtime, the tenuous soupçon of a perfume that made me think of apple blossom. Nothing about Maura was spoiled or used. Such spoiling and using as there had been was not of her doing. If I had to sum her up in a single word, it would be virtue. Not the virtue of chastity, but of goodness and morality and strength of character.