by R. J. Jagger
Fun to kill.
Took a long time to die.
Delicious face.
A second piece of paper was also in the folder, namely a page torn out of Dames in Danger. Wilde recognized it as the same one he found in his earlier research.
He opened the next file.
Charlotte Wade.
Inside was a sheet of paper with pencil handwriting:
Charlotte Wade
July 19, 1951
Top of abandoned barn west of Brighton
Dames in Danger, Dec. 1945, page 41.
Bitchy.
Deserved to die.
The corresponding page from Dames in Danger was also in the folder.
There were four more files but they’d have to wait a few seconds. Wilde set them on a table next to the Jack Mack files, headed for the restroom and took a piss that had been too long in the making. He was just about to flush when he heard a key turning in the front door.
Someone was coming in.
He was trapped.
He opened the bathroom window as quietly as he could and found he was on the north side of the house near the back. Across the alley three hotel workers were milling around, smoking and talking animatedly. He recognized one of them as a guy who got drunk at the Larimer bars. They’d seen each other dozens of times. The guy didn’t know him by name but could finger him if he wanted to.
Damn it.
The front door slammed shut.
Whoever was coming in was in.
106
T he cops shined flashlights into the interior of the vehicle, one from the driver’s side and one from the other, lighting up the vinyl seats and Fallon’s legs. One of the lights played briefly on her crotch then moved up the front of her body. A rap came on the window.
She rolled it down.
The cop had a square jaw and mean eyes.
“Step out of the car please.”
Her heart pounded. For a brief second she considered flooring it. They didn’t have guns drawn. She’d at least get a head start.
No.
Don’t.
That would be suicide.
She pulled up on the handle and swung the door open.
“Turn the engine off first.”
She did.
Then she stepped outside. The cop backed up to give her room, but not much. He stayed closer than he should have.
“What’s your name?”
She hesitated.
“Mary Green.”
As soon as the words came out of her mouth she wanted to suck them back in and swallow them.
“Mary Green?”
She nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah? You don’t sound too sure.”
“I’m sure.”
“Do you have a driver’s license, Mary Green?”
She had a license, it was right there in her purse. It didn’t belong to Mary Green though.
“Not with me.”
“Does that mean you have one?”
“I do but it’s not with me.”
The cop grabbed her elbow and led her to the back of the car.
“Put you hands on the trunk and spread your feet,” he said.
She froze.
“Do it.”
She complied.
“Don’t move a muscle, do you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“No.”
“Do you know why we pulled you over?”
“No.”
“You didn’t have your headlights on,” he said.
That wasn’t true. She knew it because she could read the speedometer.
“Yes I did.”
“You had your parking lights on but not your headlights,” he said. “Do you know who usually does a little trick like that? Someone who’s been drinking.”
“I haven’t been drinking.”
“Search it,” the cop told the other one.
The search didn’t reveal anything other than her purse. Inside that purse was a driver’s license, one belonging to Fallon Leigh.
“She’s not Mary Green,” the other cop said. “She’s really Fallon Leigh.”
The cop with the square face wrinkled his brow.
“Is that true?”
She said nothing.
“I said, is that true?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so,” he said. “That’s a lie to a police officer. Why’d you lie to me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” he said. “Do you know why people lie to cops? Because they have something to hide. Do you have something to hide?”
“No.”
The man paced back and forth behind her.
“This is bad,” he said. “Very bad. Don’t move.”
He walked over to the other cop and they had a private conversation. Then he came back and got his face close to hers. “There are two ways we can handle this,” he said. “We can take you down to the station and book you. Is that what you want?”
“No.”
“The other option is this,” he said. “Our primary concern is that you were driving drunk. We haven’t found any cans or bottles in the car but that doesn’t mean you don’t have any on your person. If you want, we can search you. If we don’t find anything, you’re free to go.”
She exhaled.
“Well, what’s your pleasure?”
“Search me.”
“Is that what you want us to do? Search you?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, we’ll oblige if that’s what you want. Don’t move while we’re doing it. Do you understand?”
Yes.
She did.
He squatted down, put both hands on her left ankle and walked his fingers up and over her calve, up to her knee, giving her leg a good feel.
“Nothing so far,” he told the other cop.
He did the same to the right leg.
“Still nothing.”
“She’s got something, I can tell,” the other cop said. “Be thorough.”
“Don’t worry, I will.”
He went back to the first leg, started at the knee and worked his fingers slowly up her thigh, going up higher and higher until he got to the crack of her ass.
“Nice legs,” he said.
She said nothing.
He did the same to the other leg.
“She’s clean so far,” he said.
Then he reached between her legs and rubbed his fingers back and forth on her crotch, over and over and over.
“There’s something in there,” he told the other cop.
“I thought there would be.”
He slapped her on the ass.
“What do you have in there? A flask?”
“No, nothing.”
“Don’t move,” he said.
Then he reached around, unzipped her shorts and pulled them down to her ankles.
He put his hand between her legs.
“Check inside,” the other cop said. “She could have stuffed it in there.”
The man slid a finger into her.
Then two.
He slipped them in and out, again and again and again.
“Getting anything?” the other cop said.
“No bottles but she’s wet,” he said. “I think it’s beer.”
“Check between her tits.”
“Good idea.” Then to Fallon, “Lift your arms.”
She complied.
He pulled her T-shirt up and over her head, then took her bra off.
“Hands back on the trunk.”
She did it.
He reached around and cupped his hands on her breasts and tweaked her nipples.
Fallon kept her hands where they were but turned and looked over her shoulder into his eyes.
She memorized them.
She memorized his whole face.
At some point in the future at another time and place, she’d watch the life go out of tho
se eyes.
“That’s a promise,” she mumbled.
“What’d you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Damn right nothing,” he said. To the other cop, “Your turn. Be sure I didn’t miss anything.”
“You bet I will.”
Ten minutes later Fallon was back on the road, pulling away naked with her clothes crumpled in a pile on the seat next to her. The cop car did a one-eighty, turning into red taillights that got smaller and dimmer and finally disappeared altogether.
Fallon’s instinct was to pull over and get dressed.
She didn’t.
She turned on the heater and kept going.
107
F rom the warehouse, Shade pointed the front end of the Packard towards Wilde’s office, swinging around the neighborhood three or four times first to see if she could spot Mojag’s truck. She ended up parking on Market Street, exactly where Jack Mack had been when he shot at them last night.
“This is insane,” London said as they got out.
“Insaner,” Shade said. “Is that a word?”
“If it isn’t it should be.”
They got to Wilde’s office to find the door halfway ajar. “Jack, you here?”
No answer.
She checked the adjacent room.
He wasn’t there.
Then she looked out the window down onto the street. He wasn’t there smoking or hanging out or taking a walk.
“Strange,” she said.
“For someone who’s supposed to maintain confidentiality, I wouldn’t give the open door high marks.”
Shade sat in the chair behind the desk.
“We’ll wait.”
The remains of a half-dozen burnt matchbooks littered the ashtray together with a tangle of white butts. None of them were fresh. Shade dumped them in the wastebasket and washed the ashtray in the sink.
“Damn it, I made a clean spot.”
She wet a rag and wiped Wilde’s desk, the chairs, the windowsills, the door and doorknobs.
London watched without expression.
“You like him,” she said.
“Who?”
“Wilde. You like him.”
“No, not like that.”
“Like what, then?”
“Like nothing,” Shade said. “We’re from different worlds.”
“That’s probably why you like him.”
She didn’t answer.
Something was off.
“What’s wrong?” London said.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re really weird today,” London said. “When was the last time you got laid?”
Shade smiled.
“I can’t remember,” she said. “The only thing I remember about it was hearing a T-Rex running by outside the cave.”
Ten minutes later the door opened and Alabama walked in as she adjusted her bra, startled to find guests.
“How’d you get in?”
“The door was open.”
Alabama pointed, “That door?”
Right.
That door.
“I thought for sure I shut it,” she said. “Do me a favor and don’t tell Wilde, okay?”
Shade paced by the windows.
“Did Wilde tell you about me shooting a man named Jack Mack last night?”
“You shot someone?”
“In self defense,” Shade said. “Wilde knows all about it, I told him this morning. When’s he coming back?”
“Unknown.”
“Where is he?”
“Same place, unknown.”
Shade tapped out a Camel and offered one to Alabama who wasn’t interested. She lit up, blew smoke and said, “Give him an update for me. Tell him the cops showed up at my hotel room this morning. London was there, I wasn’t, and she ducked out. I don’t know exactly why they were there but my suspicion is it’s because of Jack Mack. What I need Wilde to do is find out what the police know about London and me. Do they know we did it? Do they have a description of us? That kind of thing.”
“I can probably handle that,” Alabama said.
Shade tapped ashes into the ashtray.
“Either way,” she said. “What I’m really interested in knowing is where they got their lead. Did someone see us? That’s the question.”
Alabama wrinkled her face.
“A witness,” she said. “That’s the kind of information they don’t just blurt out.”
“I think what you’re going to find out is that it was an anonymous phone tip,” she said. “My guess is that it came from the CIA, who hired the guy in the first place. It’s their way of tightening the net around us. In fact, they probably knew he’d get killed from the get-go.”
Alabama nodded.
“Understood.”
“One more thing,” Shade said. “Tell Wilde that if I die and he later finds out who took Visible Moon, tell him to share that information with Mojag.”
“Okay.”
“Mojag will handle it from there.”
“Understood.” She looked around and saw no Tail. “Was there a cat here when you came in?”
“No.”
108
W ilde climbed out the lawyer’s bathroom window with every ounce of self-control he could muster, keeping every movement quieter than death itself. It paid off because he dropped to the ground without anyone running through the door. He knew to keep his face pointed away from the hotel but was so desperate to know if anyone saw him that he threw a quick glance that way.
Bad move.
The three workers were staring directly at him. The face of the one he knew from Larimer Street broke into an expression of recognition.
The man actually waved at him.
Wilde waved back and headed away.
Damn it.
All he had to do was not turn his face.
He headed towards the thick of the city and turned into a suit in a sea of a thousand people. At the first public phone he opened the white pages and flipped to the C’s.
Caster.
Cordoza.
Cedarwide.
Corbin.
Corbin, Bob.
Corbin, Lana.
Bingo.
She lived at 1329 Marion.
She was the pinup girl from the boxcar.
He called and let the phone ring ten times before hanging up. No one answering might mean she lived alone, although she might not and the other person might be at work. He’d sneak in later after dark and find what he could.
Right now he was more interested in the crime scene of Natalie Levine, who’d been missing since March 7th. If the lawyer’s file was correct, her body was at South Platte industrial park, abandoned gray metal building, roof behind heating duct.
He headed for Blondie, who was parked two doors down from his office.
As he passed under his windows he heard, “Hey Wilde,” from above.
It was Alabama.
“Where you going?”
“Field trip.”
“Hold on, I’ll go with you.”
He felt his front pocket and found it was empty.
“Bring some matches with you.”
“No, you’re going to burn the world down.”
109
F allon drove through a black world paying enough attention to the eerie nightscape as the headlights punched through it to stay on the road but using all her energy to build images of herself killing the cops.
She’d do it.
There was no question.
It might take years but she’d do it.
Thirty minutes later even the fringes of civilization were gone.
She could drive for two more hours and still not be in a place any more remote than where she was right now.
Okay look around.
Find a good spot.
Find a spot where the body won’t be seen or smelled or stumbled on for the next ten years.
Find the last corner of the universe.
The nig
ht was blacker than black.
There were no other cars.
Low clouds blotted out the stars and the moon.
It was difficult to tell what was out there, other than the immediate road in front of her.
She pulled to a stop, turned off the headlights and put her shorts on.
The blackness was absolute.
She couldn’t see her hands.
She couldn’t see her legs.
She couldn’t see the steering wheel.
She took a deep breath, killed the engine and stepped out. No sounds came from the night, not a coyote or an insect or a twist of wind.
She felt her way along the side of the car to the back.
It took a while for her fingers to locate the trunk latch and a little longer to get the key in the hole.
She got the trunk open and stuck the keys in the front pocket of her shorts.
The body had an odor.
The stench of death was already on it.
She didn’t want to touch it.
The sooner she did, though, the sooner it would be over with. She wrestled it over the edge of the trunk and let it dump to the ground. She got the man on his back, grabbed his feet and dragged him into the darkness. She might be leaving a trail but it didn’t matter. Anyone driving by out here would be doing fifty and wouldn’t see it. The first rain would wash it away.
She kept going, counting her steps.
At fifty she stopped to rest.
The rest wasn’t long.
She went to a hundred.
Then two hundred.
Then five hundred.
She was going slightly downhill at that point, on the backside of a hump. No one would be able to see the body from the road. She dragged it behind a rabbit bush and nudged it into the base.
Then she checked the man’s pockets.
Strangely, there was nothing to be found—not a wallet or keys or pack of smokes or spare change or anything.
She headed back for the road, pretty sure she was going in the right direction but not positive.
It was too dark to tell.
She concentrated on going in as straight a line as possible. The last thing she needed to do was curve off into nowhere.
In hindsight, she should have left the parking lights on.
A coyote barked.