by R. J. Jagger
“I can’t breathe.”
“Everything will be fine.”
Her breath got short.
She gasped.
Her chest ached with pressure.
“I can’t breathe!”
“Stop it, they’re going to hear you.”
“I can’t stop it. I can’t breathe!”
She scooted out from under the bed and headed for the door.
“Fallon! Come back here!”
She heard him.
She knew he was right.
She couldn’t stop though.
Not in a million years.
She needed to get out of there.
She needed to get outside.
She needed to get air before she died.
89
A t the Kenmark, Shade spent Friday evening playing the bait while London watched the fire escape through a crack in the curtains from Alabama’s room. Outside, the heat of the day still trickled from the asphalt and concrete. That would change in a half hour.
She took a cool shower, as cool as she could stand it.
The spray bounced off her face and hair and head.
Tonight would be pivotal.
Tonight she’d learn if Visible Moon was alive.
Tonight everything would come to a head.
She was ready for it.
The sun sank.
The night came.
She dressed in all things black. In her purse was the Colt 45 Wilde bought for her, together with a folding knife with a six-inch serrated blade. She stepped out of the room, made sure the door was locked and knocked on London’s door.
“I’m heading out.”
“I’m coming with you.”
Shade knew the woman would say that. She had prepared the negative words but suddenly they weren’t right. Suddenly things were serious. London would be a good person to have at her side.
“I’ll leave it up to you.”
“Then let’s go.”
At street level Shade said, “Thanks for coming.”
“Not a problem.”
It was 9:20.
The secret was to find Mojag’s truck, which was supposed to be parked within a couple of blocks of the Metropolitan. That’s where they’d meet at ten o’clock, his truck.
Being Friday night, Denver buzzed.
Cars were cruising.
Drunks were drinking.
Socialites were being seen.
Lovers were groping.
Eaters were eating.
Hustlers were hustling.
Mojag’s truck wasn’t on Larimer. That wasn’t surprising given the fight for parking. The women headed over to Market. There the night was darker. This is the kind of place Mojag would pick.
Lots of people had the idea of parking there and walking over to 16th Street.
There were enough cars for one to block the next.
The women walked farther and farther down the street.
The activity got less and less.
The cars got fewer and fewer.
Then they spotted the silhouette of a pickup truck way down, next to a Volkswagen.
“That’s got to be it,” Shade said.
“Right.”
They picked up the pace.
Headlights approached from behind, moving slowly, not much faster than a walk. It was almost as if someone was studying them—a couple of guys looking for action?
Shade’s heart pounded.
She didn’t need any extra trouble right now.
The lights didn’t speed up or slow down.
Shade pulled the gun out of her purse.
“I don’t like this.”
“Me either.”
Suddenly the car pulled into a parking spot and the lights went out.
A door opened.
Shade turned to make sure nothing was happening that shouldn’t be.
The dark silhouette of a man was standing next to the car.
He was facing them but wasn’t approaching.
His arm rose up.
Then orange fire exploded from the barrel of a gun.
London screamed, “I’m hit!”
The gun fired again.
90
W hat got Wilde’s attention behind the shed was a mound with all the suspicions of a grave. Three large rocks were on it but they couldn’t mask the fact that the vegetation was shorter, much shorter. If something had been buried there, it happened this summer.
Alabama tried to roll one of the rocks off but couldn’t.
“Whoever put these here was a gorilla.”
Wilde laid his suit coat over a rabbit bush, threw his tie on top, rolled his sleeves up and went to work on the rock. He couldn’t stand it up to where he could roll it but was able to pull an edge over three inches, then the other, and work it to the side. The other two were bigger but rounder.
His breathing was heavy.
His body was on fire.
He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.
“We need something to dig with.”
“Hold on,” Alabama said.
She trotted to the shed and came back with a broken two-by-four.
They scrapped the dirt off, taking turns.
The soil was loose.
Something had definitely been buried there.
They got down a foot and still found nothing.
They kept going.
The sun beat down with every ounce of soul-sapping radiation it had.
“Ouch,” Wilde said.
“What’s wrong?”
He examined his finger.
“Great.”
Alabama took a look. It was a splinter under the skin a good half-inch but wasn’t totally embedded. The edge stuck out, not far, but enough to grab with her fingernails.
“Hold still,” she said.
“Don’t break it off.”
“I won’t,” she said. A beat then, “I’m going to push it through so it comes out the other side.”
Wilde pulled his hand back, not sure if she was serious.
“Relax,” Alabama said. “I only do that with arrows.”
“You wouldn’t be joking if this was you.”
“Stop being a baby and give it up.”
He gave it to her and looked away.
She got a fingernail under the edge, then squeezed down with the other one and pulled. Instead of coming out, the edge broke off.
“Oh, oh.”
Wilde looked.
“’Bama!”
“Hey, that was an accident,” she said. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Wilde gave her a mean look.
“Honest,” she said. “It’s old wood. It’s soft.”
He sat down in the shade of a bush and scraped at the open end with a fingernail until enough skin came off to expose the end. Then he kept scraping until the whole thing was exposed and pulled it out with his teeth.
There.
Back to normal.
He stood up.
“That arrow thing,” he said. “If I ever get one, I’ll get it out myself.”
“Fine.”
She smiled.
“What about a spear?”
“I’ll do that one myself too.”
“Okay, but don’t come crying to me when it actually happens. You’re on your own.”
“I’ll take my chances. Cannonballs are different,” Wilde said. “If I get one stuck halfway in me, you can pull it out.”
“I’ll see what mood I’m in.”
They kept digging—scraping the dirt off, to be more precise. Six inches deeper they hit something.
Fur.
Black fur.
“It’s a dog,” Alabama said.
Wilde scrapped more dirt away.
There was no question.
It was a dog, nothing more, just a lousy dog.
“This is how my life works,” Wilde said. “Get used to it.”
91
F allon bounded down the stairs two
at a time, trying to stay quiet but needing to get outside before she ran out of air. She didn’t turn around. If someone was behind her she didn’t care. At the lower level she headed for the front door. As she reached for the knob the door opened and she came face to face with a woman.
It was the one from the wreck.
Vampire.
“Someone’s upstairs robbing your safe,” she said.
Then she pushed around and ran into the night.
“Wait a minute!”
She didn’t wait.
She kept running.
“Hold on!”
She took a quick glance back as she ran and found Vampire on her tail. The woman had her dress hiked up to her waist and was moving as fast as she could in high-heels, running on the balls of her feet.
Her speed was surprising.
Lose her!
Lose her!
Lose her!
“Stop, I’m not going to hurt you!”
Fallon lifted her knees up higher, sprinter style. The stitches on her leg were tearing apart and shooting hot pain into her brain. She reached down to see if she was bleeding.
She was.
Badly.
“Stop.”
The voice was right behind her, dangerously close.
Three more steps, that’s how far she got, three more steps, then strong arms wrapped around her from behind and forced her feet out from under her. She fell hard, directly on her chest, with the other woman landing on top.
The wind came out of her lungs.
She couldn’t move.
Her strength was gone.
The other woman twisted her over onto her back, straddled her chest, forced her arms over her head and pinned her down.
She struggled with her last ounce of strength.
It was no use.
She was caught.
It was over.
Vampire kept her pinned but said nothing, breathing heavily, catching her breath, sinking her weight down. Suddenly the explosion of a gun rang through the night.
It wasn’t at them.
No bullets flew by.
It came from inside the mansion.
Someone inside shot at someone else inside.
Fallon twisted but couldn’t get free.
Jundee!
92
L ondon was hit, how badly and how deep Shade didn’t know, nor did she have time to think about it. She let her reflexes take over, firing at the silhouette, wanting one thing and one thing only, to get him before he got her. Within seconds one of them would be dead.
Bam!
Bam!
Bam!
The shape slumped to the ground. It wasn’t the fast motion of someone avoiding fire, it was the motion of a body that had suddenly lost all strength and was succumbing to gravity. Shade fired again, two more times, into the darkness next to the car, where the body should be. She couldn’t tell if she hit him again or not but didn’t hear anything ricochet into the distance.
“I’m bleeding like a pig,” London said.
“Where?”
“My head.”
It had to be a graze, otherwise she’d be dead.
“Let me feel.”
The woman was little more than a black shape. Her hand made contact on the top of London’s head and she felt nothing. As she brought it down the side, though, the woman’s hair was thick with blood. Then she found the wound.
“It’s your ear.”
“How much?”
“I can’t tell,” Shade said. “Keep pressure on it and stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just stay here.”
Gun in hand, she ran over to the shooter, slowing as she got there, keeping her weapon trained. The man was on the ground, not moving, face down. He didn’t twitch or make a sound when Shade shook him. She felt a pulse in his neck and wrist, got nothing either place and rolled him over.
His face was destroyed.
At least one bullet got it.
More like two or three.
He was deader than dead.
She went through his suit jacket and found nothing. Then, in the back pocket of his pants, she found a wallet and shoved it in her bra. People were congregating at the end of the block, timid black shadows wondering what the noise was all about.
She ran back to London and pulled her towards the dark end of the block.
“Come on, we got to get out of here.”
93
I f the matchbook was out there around the shed somewhere, Wilde couldn’t find it. They gave up and headed through the prairie for Blondie. A hundred yards into it Wilde stopped, wiped sweat off his brow and turned around.
“What’s up?” Alabama said.
“We’re going back.”
She grabbed his sleeve.
“Jack, it’s not there. Maybe it was once, but now it’s not. Just give it up.”
“Can’t,” he said. “Do you remember that picture of Pazour and the other woman, the one with the black hair?”
Yes.
She did.
“What about it?”
“Do you remember what was in the background?”
“No.”
“A dog,” he said. “A black dog.”
“So?”
“Do you remember what we just dug up?”
She tilted her head.
“It’s hot. Tail’s probably tearing the car apart. Let’s just get out of here.” Wilde pulled up an image of claw marks up and down the interior. It was strong enough that he actually slowed down for a step or two. Then he came back up to speed.
Back behind the shed, he scraped the dirt off the dog until it was well exposed.
“Okay, pull it out,” he said.
“If you think I’m touching that thing—”
“Just grab his front paws and pull him out.”
She shook her head.
“What does Senn-Rae see in you? I don’t get it.”
“It is baffling, isn’t it?”
“Baffling isn’t a strong enough word.”
He grabbed the animal’s front legs and dragged it out.
Underneath was dirt.
He scrapped it away with the board, inch after inch after inch, not getting anything other than dirt. Then what he thought might happen actually did.
He got something other than dirt.
He got a body.
“Damn,” Alabama said.
Right.
Damn.
He scooped around with his hands, clearing the lifeless form enough to drag it out. It was the raven-haired woman from the photograph, as he thought it would be.
Unlike the pinup girls, she didn’t die pretty.
“It looks like someone stabbed her in the side of the head.”
Alabama nodded.
True.
She was dressed in ordinary clothes—cotton pants, a long-sleeved shirt, white crew socks and tennis shoes. Her hair was in a ponytail.
“How come she’s not a pinup?”
“I don’t know,” Wilde said. “My guess is that Jennifer Pazour was the plan and she was more in the nature of a surprise, something that happened during the plan.”
He went back to the hole and began sifting through the dirt with his fingers.
“What are you looking for?”
“The matchbook.”
94
W hen the shot rang out from inside the mansion, Vampire kept Fallon pinned for a few desperate seconds, then got off and stood up, looking at the structure but not moving towards it or away. Fallon struggled to her feet and broke into a run up the driveway.
Jundee was in trouble.
That’s what the shot was about.
One of the robbers must have spotted him.
He didn’t have a gun.
The shot couldn’t have come from him.
It had to have been at him.
He was hurt or dead and it was Fallon’s fault.
She should have stayed under the bed an
d kept quiet.
She got to the front door and yanked it open. The interior of the structure was eerily quiet. Not a sound came from upstairs.
“Jundee!”
No one answered.
She had no weapon.
She hardly had any strength.
Her leg was bloody and felt like a volcano was erupting inside.
She didn’t care.
She’d probably end up dead but she didn’t care. She had to do what she was going to do. If she died, she died. That was it.
She bounded up the stairs.
“Jundee!”
No one answered.
She called again.
More silence.
At the top of the stairs she turned right and made her way down the dark hallway, into the master bedroom. Jundee wasn’t under the bed. She knew that would be the case but the sight still took the breath out of her lungs. She looked around for a weapon and spotted a poker next to a small fireplace. The steel was cold in her hand but it was the right weight, not too heavy to swing but weighty enough to do damage.
She took a deep breath and headed down the dark hallway towards the other end of the house.
DAY SIX
June 14
Saturday
95
S hade woke up to find herself in a bed sleeping next to London, whose pillow was caked with dried blood. A faint patina of golden light framed the edges of the window covering. It was daylight Saturday morning but barely so, no more than six o’clock or thereabouts.
That was good.
At this point every hour was more precious than it had a right to be.
She bent over and examined the woman’s ear.
It bled during the night but the stitches were still in there. They hadn’t gone to a doctor to avoid being tied to the scene. They did the dirty work right here in the hotel room and then went to bed.
She got out of bed without waking the woman, then got the shower warmed up and stepped in. She squatted under the spray, took a long heaven-sent piss, and got busy lathering up.
She had killed a man last night; shot him dead.
A man named Jack Mack, according to his wallet.