Mask of a Hunter

by Sylvie Kurtz

  RORY MADE HERSELF walk slowly to the ladies’ room. She was pitifully grateful when she found it empty. The heartbeat of rock boomed a dull pulse against the walls and door and matched the pounding in her head. Every inch of her was shaking. Tears were about to mutiny. And she wanted to throw up.

  She took off the cold, wet T-shirt. It hit the floor, which was missing half its tiles, with a splat. She’d buy Felicia a new one. There was no way she was touching that one ever again. She balled a handful of paper towels, wet them under the spigot of the lone sink with the rust stains, then washed the sticky residue of beer from her torso. Feeling somewhat better, she put on her bra and zipped the jacket all the way to her chin.

  As she was pinching life back into her pale cheeks, the door behind her opened, letting in a blast of Black Sabbath. A woman glided in like a queen. Her stiff black hair—surely unnatural—was bobbed around her face. Her striking blue eyes were rimmed with black. All the black leather and silver chains made Rory think of a dominatrix. A big one. Rory definitely wouldn’t want to meet in her a dark alley—or an empty bathroom. She whirled to leave when the woman spoke. “You looked good out there.”

  “Uh, thanks.” I think.

  “Laci.” The woman took the spot Rory had vacated in front of the mirror.

  Laci seemed somehow too girly a name for an Amazon like that. “Rory.”

  “That’s different.” Laci glazed her plump lips a bright red with a tube of lipstick. “You’ll have to watch your back. There’re a couple of girls with an eye on your man.”

  “Okay.” Oh, yeah, you’re making a big impression here. Make yourself useful. Ask her about Felicia.

  “Prime beef like that doesn’t come along often.”

  Prime beef? What could she possibly say to that? “Uh, no.”

  Laci primped her hair, jiggling the watch with the wide turquoise band against the collection of silver bracelets at her wrist. As she glanced at Rory in the mirror, her lips curled into a smile full of satisfaction. “I’d take a go at him myself if I wasn’t already taken.”

  Laci turned, setting her chains in motion, and something on her chest winked in the dull yellow light. When the object came to rest, Rory gasped. Forgetting her intimidation at the big woman, she crossed the room and reached for the opal pendant nested between Laci’s breasts. “Where did you get that?”

  The large oval cabochon set in silver belonged to Felicia. Of that, Rory was certain. Their mother had given the custom pendant to Felicia after a trip to Australia. It was one of a kind. An opal for an opal, she’d said to her changeable daughter. And Felicia had cherished it.

  “My boyfriend gave it to me.”

  “Your boyfriend?”

  “Deacon.”

  “Do you know where he got it?”

  Laci’s eyes narrowed. She jerked the thumb-size opal from Rory’s grasp and stuffed it into her cleavage. “A lady doesn’t ask where a gift comes from.”

  Especially if it’s stolen. “It’s very distinctive.”

  That smile again, mysterious and self-satisfied. “He has good taste.”

  “Yes.” At that instant, Rory wished for her tote, for something to keep her hands busy. “Do you know my sister, Felicia Cates?”

  Laci cocked her head. “Mike’s old lady.”

  “Yes. Have you seen her around?”

  “I heard she walked.” Laci puckered her lips and air-kissed her mirror image.

  “Walked?”

  “Got mad and took off.”

  “Oh.” Rory pressed her lips tight. “Do you know where she goes when she…walks?”

  Laci reached into the back pocket of her jeans and took out a pack of cigarettes. “She tries to make Mike jealous by latching on to anyone with pants.”

  Not with Hannah around, Rory wanted to say. “Who’s she with this time?”

  Laci perched a thigh on the sink, lit up and took a long drag. “Saw her hanging all over some guy last week.”

  “Who?”

  Laci shrugged and blew out a contrail of smoke. “Never seen him before. Don’t think he’s in any clubs around.”

  “Can you describe him?” she said breathlessly. Take it easy Rory. One question at a time.

  “Shorter and scrawnier than your man. Can’t see how he’s going to make Mike jealous.”

  “Where was this?”

  Laci’s smile turned vampish. “Aren’t you the curious one?”

  Rory stuck her hands inside the jacket’s pockets. “My sister isn’t the brightest person around. I can’t believe she’d go and abandon her baby like that. I want to find her and drag her home. You know, make her take care of her responsibilities.”

  Laci tucked the packet of cigarettes into her pocket. “Well, good luck finding her.”

  Laci breezed by, trailing a wake of menthol and musk.

  The door opened and Social Distortion pounded against Rory’s brain.

  “Laci?” Rory shouted. “Where did you see Felicia?”

  “Claremont.”

  Seeming to have no care in the world, Rory squeezed her way back to Ace’s table. Slanting him a smile, she sat on his lap and looped an arm around his neck. While pretending to kiss him, she whispered, “How soon can we leave?”

  “After the presentation.”

  “Presentation?”

  He shrugged.

  Dark eyes bored the back of her jacket, making the space between her shoulder blades itch.

  “Righteous lady, man. Yours?” the man she presumed was Taz asked. His voice was a rough scratch. His crooked smile revealed dental indifference.

  “Just renting.” It was the proper response for a biker, but she could not get used to it.

  “Well, you’re spending your money right.”

  Taz’s square hand landed at the curve of her bottom and squeezed. A squeak escaped before she could cage it. “Let’s spread some around, baby.”

  Her heart stopped. Her breath was stuck somewhere in her throat and she couldn’t breathe. Her fingers dug into Ace’s neck. She was in a room filled with sociopaths and she was stuck here. She knew she should have taken her own car. Hadn’t her mother warned her daughters always to have a way out? You never knew when a date could turn sour.

  “Any reason why I shouldn’t spread you around?” Ace asked Taz in a voice that rumbled low and dangerous like thunder before a storm. His reaction to Taz’s offer started her heart pumping again. She was relieved Ace was big and tough and on her side.

  “You coming down on me, man? That ain’t right.”

  “What ain’t right is your manners. You don’t borrow my scooter. You don’t take my boots. And you sure as hell don’t make for my old lady without asking.”

  Taz’s jaw clenched and his hand moved toward his side. Was he armed? A knife? Worse, a gun? They were going to be butchered and Ace didn’t seem to care at all. His slow smile was menacing, but he didn’t reach for a weapon of his own. “Whatever you come up with, dude, you’re gonna eat.”

  “Hey, man.” Taz struggled to control his anger. “I’m just telling your lady here she’s dynamite. I don’t appreciate taking crap from a prospect.”

  “Prospect?” Ace’s whole body stiffened beneath her.

  “That’s right.” Mike thumped Ace on the back. “You’ve proved you can hold your mud. Church meeting last week, I put you up for membership in the Sons of Steel.”

  Applause broke out all around them.

  “Every brother felt the way I do.” Mike signaled toward the bar. The bartender reached beneath the bar and brought up a white box the size of an atlas and as thick as a dictionary. The box was passed from hand to hand until it reached Mike. Mike passed it to Taz who withdrew a vest. The name Ace was tooled into the soft leather on the front and on the back there was a white rocker with Nomad embroidered in black.

  “The patch you’ll earn after probation,” Taz said. “Congratulations.”

  Ace slid her off his lap, stood and accepted the vest from Taz. The bandage on Ac
e’s arm, the bruise on his face, reminded everyone why he was one of them. He shook hands all around, mumbling thanks, slipped on his new vest and sat.

  Well, it looked as if they’d both come out winners, Rory thought as she almost gagged on the beer that had appeared in her hands. He had his ticket into the workings of an organization her research had informed her was nearly impossible to penetrate. And she had a lead on Felicia.

  But she had the niggling suspicion one was going to cancel the other.

  Chapter Nine

  Before he’d even stopped the bike, Rory hopped off and raced up the stairs to Felicia’s apartment.

  What had lit that fire under her? Ace wondered, following her up. It wasn’t just the wet T-shirt contest. No, she’d been on edge since she’d come back from the ladies’ room.

  Bouncing the door into the wall, she rushed into the apartment and went straight for the bookcase. She snatched an album from the shelf. Like a pixie on speed, she flipped page after page, ripping out photo after photo. Her breath sounded like an engine running too fast. Her hands shook. Her hair writhed as if she’d put her hands on a charged battery.

  “Here.” She thrust picture after picture at him, not even waiting for him to grab them. “This proves it.”

  “Proves what?” He managed to catch one of the photos. Felicia, smile a mile wide, holding a brand-new Hannah.

  “Felicia…” Her breath hitched. “Mike…” She shook her head. “Deacon…”

  He knelt down next to Rory, took hold of her shoulders and shook her once. “Rory, look at me.”

  Her eyes were lit with a manic fire he found scarier than facing a gang of angry Hell’s Angels. “Felicia.”

  “What about Felicia?”

  Rory took one of the photos and jabbed a finger at her sister’s image. “The opal. Laci was wearing Felicia’s opal.”

  “Maybe it’s one that just looks like it.”

  She shook her head, tickling his cheek with her hair. “It’s a one of a kind. Made specially for her.” She thrust another photo at him. “See. She’s wearing it in all the photos. All of them. And now it’s hanging around Laci’s neck.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It means everything. She said Deacon gave it to her. How did he get it?”

  “I don’t know.” He tried to still her, but she just recoiled from him like a pinball.

  “What do you know about her?”

  “Not much. She runs a small health-food store. Does tarot and astrology and all that woo-woo stuff.”

  She shook her head, scuttled away from him as if he had suddenly transformed into a rattler. “Hannah. I need to get Hannah.”

  She jumped up and headed toward the open door. She would do Hannah no good in this spinning-top state. He reached the door before she did and partially closed it to stop her escape. “I’ll go collect Hannah. You go take a nice hot shower and calm down.”

  She looked down at the leather jacket she wore as if seeing it for the first time. “You’re right. I need a shower. Then I need to go to Claremont. I need to go to Manchester.”

  Why? He didn’t need this right now. He still had to put in a report and sort out his next move. “It’s past midnight.”

  “Felicia’s out there. I need to find her.”

  She tried to shove past him. Holding both of her elbows he stopped her. “Not tonight.”

  “She’s out there. Somewhere.” Bending over at the waist, she slapped both her hands over her mouth.

  “Rory—”

  She shook her head and looked up at him, pleading. “She could be hurt. She could be…”

  Dead. But Rory wasn’t going to listen to logic at the moment. “There’s nothing you can do about it tonight.”

  “I can look.”

  “But you won’t see. Not when you’re so worked up. Let’s meet for breakfast, then I’ll drive.”

  “She needs me now.”

  “She needs you together, not falling apart at the seams. Take a shower. Get a good night’s sleep. We’ll look tomorrow.”

  Before he said—or did—something he’d regret, he swiveled her back toward the bedroom. She just stood there, looking small and lost, and he wanted to promise her the moon.

  “Ace?” She wrapped her arms around her middle as if it ached.

  It was the first time she’d called him by his name, and he wished it meant she finally trusted him. After what had happened at the clubhouse tonight, he doubted she ever would.

  “Thanks.”

  That simple word was a kick in the gut. His hand thumped the doorframe once as he nodded. “I’ll go get Hannah.”

  An hour later, after he got Rory and Hannah settled for the night, he returned to his apartment to a waiting message on his machine. He glanced at his bed with regret, then headed back out the door to find a pay phone. At the convenience store, he bought a box of animal-shaped graham crackers, a box of Triscuits, a chunk of cheddar, four apples and two bottles of water. If they were going for a joyride tomorrow, they’d need some food. He thought of throwing in a six-pack of beer to help himself relax tonight, but decided he’d need a clear head to deal with Rory tomorrow. That woman was exhausting on the best of days. Outside, under the glare of a spotlight, back to the graffitied wall, scanning the area, he reached for the pay phone and dialed.

  “Lyon,” he said when Falconer answered.

  “Millhauser made it easy for us,” Falconer said without preamble. “He got himself stopped for driving while intoxicated after clipping a row of mailboxes. Not the brightest crayon in the box. He was carrying a .25, loaded and cocked, in one pocket and his ice in another.”

  A felon caught red-handed with a gun and drugs. “Is he going to deal?”

  “He’s being charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and being an unlawful drug user in possession of a firearm on top of the DWI. He’s falling all over himself to help us.”

  “When? Where?” A muscle car pulled in front of Big Ben’s Corner Store. Eminem punched out of the speakers. A kid with black baggy pants that seemed to hang around his knees and a red football jersey that looked like a tent strode into the store.

  “He’s meeting Curtis for breakfast at the Star Café.”

  Mike’s brother was not known to get out of bed before noon. “Curtis won’t make it. Not after partying all night.”

  “He’ll be there. Millhauser’ll make sure of it.”

  Falconer sounded certain. Ace had no reason to doubt him. “I’ll be there.”

  The kid came back out of the store with a pack of smokes and a case of beer. Not so young, Ace thought, as he cruised by the muscle car on the way to his bike. Rough living had already gouged his face and dulled his eyes with hopelessness. The answer’s not at the back end of a beer, he wanted to say, but the kid wouldn’t have believed him anyway.

  Ace straddled his bike and stuffed the grocery bag into the front of his jacket. Tomorrow Rory would learn how her sister had died. There was no way he could protect her from the truth. Watching the fire fade from her eyes was going to be hell.

  ACE HAD WARNED RORY about Millhauser and offered her an out. She’d insisted she had to hear. But the pallor of her skin and the dark rings beneath her eyes worried him. Had she slept at all? For the first time since he’d met her, she looked…breakable. And he didn’t want to be the one who had to pick up the pieces. He’d done it before, but this time, with this woman, the shards might cut too deep.

  They got to the restaurant before Millhauser and Curtis Fletcher. No big surprise there. If Millhauser could get Curtis out of bed before noon, he deserved whatever easement of the charges against him he’d traded for. The Sunday crowd was here and the place was full. The scent of cinnamon and sausage filled the air. The sleigh bells on the glass door jingled at regular intervals.

  Skyralov, blond and built like a football player, and Reed, sandy-haired and GQ perfect even on a Sunday morning, were holding a table for him and Rory catty corner to the booth F
alconer and his wife were holding for Millhauser.

  Flirting shamelessly, Meg poured him a cup of coffee and ignored Rory as if she were transparent. Ace ordered the biggest breakfast on the menu—just in case it took a while for their prey to get here. Rory followed his lead—though where she’d put away pancakes, eggs and sausage he had no idea. Meg promised a high chair for Hannah. Hannah babbled happily while reaching for anything and everything as if she were an octopus.

  Rory juggled the baby and the diaper bag. “Is he here?”

  “No.” He cracked a half smile. “Eat slow.”

  He’d expected a return smile or an acid comment, something. Instead, Rory just nodded and played keep-away with Hannah.

  Millhauser slunk in and slid into the booth Falconer and his wife were just leaving.

  “That’s him.” Ace cocked his head toward the man who looked as if he’d spent the night under a bridge. His leather jacket was torn on one side—probably earned when his bike kissed asphalt last night. His jeans bore stains that were probably better left unidentified. His hair was bed-mussed and his beard two days old. He ordered coffee, but probably shouldn’t have the way his hands were shaking. Sweat gathered on his forehead and upper lip. Great. They were depending on a guy desperate for a high to squeeze information from Curtis Fletcher.

  Millhauser was wired and kept tugging at the collar of his T-shirt as if it were too tight. His and Curtis’s conversation would be transmitted to a nearby van. But Ace’s cover would prevent him from listening to the tape, and he needed the information as much as the task force did.

  Rory glanced at Millhauser as if she were looking at something else. “He looks sick.”

  “Junkie.”

  She nodded again, trading Hannah some Cheerios for the sugar packet the baby was about to stuff in her mouth. The high chair arrived. Then his breakfast—with extra toast for Hannah. Then Curtis. His dirty-blond hair hadn’t seen the bristle side of a brush in a while. His brown eyes were bloodshot. His expression made Ace think of a hyena shredding a carcass.