Shadow Files

by R. J. Jagger

  The world immediately disappeared.

  She swung her feet over the edge of the bed to find she was still in the same clothes as last night. She stripped them off as she headed for the bathroom, took a long hot shower, then found Jundee in the kitchen making pancakes and eggs for her.

  He handed her a cup of coffee.

  “Afternoon sleepyhead.”

  She yawned.

  “What time is it?”

  “Three.”

  It was dark in the house.

  All the coverings were closed.

  “What’s with the windows?”

  “Just a precaution,” Jundee said. “I got a bad phone call a little while ago.”

  She took a sip of coffee.

  “About what?”

  He peeked outside, saw nothing of importance and let the blind fall back.

  “Do you remember that PI I hired?”

  ‘Whitecliff,” she said.

  “Good memory, I’m impressed,” he said. “Anyway, I gave him another assignment, to see if the Vampire woman had contacted the guy you stole the car from. He did some snooping around. The Vampire woman must have written down the license plate of the car you were driving out there in the desert, because when Whitecliff called the owner to see if he’d been contacted, he had.”

  “By Vampire?”

  “No, by an investigator down there in Santa Fe by the name of Randy Richardson,” Jundee said. “Whitecliff knows the guy pretty well and called him to see if he’d tell him what was going on. Richardson was pretty cooperative. He said he was hired to find out who stole the car. He did a little snooping around and found it was taken from a restaurant parking lot, the same restaurant where you worked and never showed up at that morning. He told his client that the person who stole the car was probably a young woman named Fallon Leigh.”

  She shoved a forkful of pancakes in her mouth.

  “That’s my name.”

  “Yes it is,” Jundee said. “Richardson stopped being cooperative when Whitecliff asked him who his client was. That information, he wouldn’t divulge.”

  “It has to be Vampire,” Fallon said.

  Jundee shrugged.

  “Whitecliff had the impression it was a man.”

  “Vampire’s not a man.”

  “True,” Jundee said. “The bottom line is this. Someone’s looking for you, someone who wants to find you bad enough to throw money at a PI, enough money to make him drop everything he was working on.”

  “It’s the briefcase,” Fallon said. “They don’t want me, they want the briefcase.”

  “That may be but their sights are on you,” he said. “They know your name. They probably know what you look like.”

  Fallon frowned.

  “What we should do is just take the damn briefcase, put it on Vampire’s doorstep, ring the bell and run.”

  Jundee shook his head.

  ‘No. They’re all spies or something,” he said. “If they get that briefcase, they’ll have the complete package. I guarantee you it will be in the hands of the Russians by this time next week.”

  “So let’s just destroy it.”

  “Can’t,” he said. “It’s our only bargaining chip if they capture you or me.”

  He rubbed her shoulders.

  “Thanks for doing what you did last night.”

  “Sure. Do you really think Vampire’s a spy?”

  “Look at it this way,” Jundee said. “She was out there in the middle of nowhere when the guy went off the cliff. She was out of her car waiting for you when you came up. She wrote down your license plate number, we now know that in hindsight. She went down to the wreck and got the second briefcase.”

  “If that’s true then why didn’t she just confront me when she had the chance?”

  “You had the guy’s gun, remember?” he said. “That probably saved your life.” He exhaled. “Either she’s a spy or someone found out about her after the fact and is getting her to cooperate with them.”

  “Why would she?”

  “Maybe they’re pretending to be FBI or CIA or something,” he said. “I don’t know. My money is on her being a spy all along. One thing I do know for sure, you’re a serious target.”

  “Then so are you,” Fallon said. “Vampire’s seen you. She’s seen us together. Sooner or later she’ll put a name to your face.”

  He nodded.

  “That’s why the blinds are closed,” he said. “We need to get that briefcase out of your hotel room and find a new place to hole up.”

  116

  W ith Visible Moon dead, Shade had no more business in Denver. The CIA was in town hunting her down. The cops were after her in connection with the shooting of Jack Mack. The only rational course of action was to get out now while she could.

  Mojag couldn’t stress that enough.

  “Don’t go back to your hotel, don’t flash your face around for even one more minute, don’t do anything except get in my truck and head back to the reservation with me,” Mojag said. “You’ll be safe there. Let things cool off and then decide what you want to do.” He nodded at London and said, “You can come too, darling. You’re more than welcome.”

  London looked at Shade.

  “He makes sense.”

  A cop car rolled through the intersection up the street.

  Mojag flicked his cigarette into the street.

  “I need to beat feet before that lawyer starts stinking up a storm and the cops start wondering who got him that way.” He walked towards the truck and said over his shoulder, “You can come or not, your choice, but I’m not hanging around to see what the local jail looks like.”

  Shade stood there and watched him.

  Mojag got to his truck, hopped in, slammed the door and fired up the engine. In the rearview mirror, he watched them for a few seconds, then jammed the clutch into reverse and squealed the tires until he got back to them.

  The brakes went on, hard.

  The truck jerked to a stop at the curb.

  He leaned over and stuck his head out the passenger window.

  “Last chance.”

  “We’re wanted,” Shade said. “You’ll have a better chance without us.”

  He shook his head.

  “Your funeral.”

  Then he was gone.

  117

  D riving back to the office, Wilde couldn’t get the sight of Natalie Levine’s dead body out of his eyes, he couldn’t get the stench of her death out of his mouth, and he couldn’t get the injustice of her killer walking around free and easy out of his heart.

  He lit a cigarette and paced by the windows.

  Alabama sat on the desk, keeping him in the corner of her eye, not saying anything, letting him work through whatever it was that he was working through.

  He stopped and looked around.

  “Where’s Tail?”

  “I told you,” she said, “when I got here this morning Shade and London were in here. They said the door was open when they got here. Tail wasn’t around when they came in.” A pause. “Want me to go out and look for him?”

  Wilde shook his head.

  “You’ll never find him,” he said. “He’s probably being served up for lunch over at Wu’s.”

  He lit another cigarette.

  The cupboard door from the shed where Visible Moon had been held prisoner had been leaning in the corner. In it were the scratches that replicated the markings on the floor under the mattress. Wilde pointed and said, “What happened to the wood that was over there?”

  Alabama shrugged.

  “Shade must have taken it.”

  Wilde blew a smoke ring.

  Suddenly he mashed the butt in the ashtray, grabbed one of the red matchbooks out of his desk, dipped his hat over his left eye and headed for the door.

  “Where you going?”

  “To close in on our little killer friend,” he said. “The time’s come.”

  She fell into step.

  “I’m coming with you.”


  “No you’re not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you got the looks,” he said. “I don’t want you on the guy’s radar screen.”

  “Wilde—”

  He put a finger on her lips.

  “It’s not open for discussion. While I’m gone, follow up on Shade’s issue. Find out how much the cops know about that Jack Mack incident. Talk to Jacqueline White at homicide. Tell her the information’s for me.”

  “She hates you.”

  “Only 75 percent of the time,” he said. “Call her four times if you have to.”

  He headed down the stairs two at a time and pointed his shoes towards the lawyer’s office, the same office he broke into earlier today.

  Hopefully the man was still there.

  Wilde needed to get a look at him.

  He needed to figure out how he was going to handle things.

  He needed answers.

  Two blocks, that’s how far he walked at a brisk pace, before he even once looked behind him. When he did he saw something he didn’t expect.

  Alabama was fifty steps behind.

  He stopped and waved her over.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Watching your back.”

  “You don’t take directions very well, do you?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Tell me again why I put up with you.”

  She ran a finger down his nose.

  “Because you know that sooner or later you’re going to flop me on my back.”

  “No I’m not.”

  “Yes you are. You said it yourself that I got the looks.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Relax, Wilde. It’s destiny. Just accept it.”

  When they got within sight of Stuart Black’s office, the man was in the process of swinging the front door shut and heading for the sidewalk.

  He was about thirty, tall and powerful.

  Wilde didn’t know if he could take him in a fair fight.

  Wilde had only planned to get a feel for the man, not have an encounter. When he saw him though, something built up in his throat.

  “Stay here,” he told Alabama.

  Then he headed over. The man was walking now, going the same direction. Wilde caught up from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. It was ripped with muscles. The man stopped and turned.

  Wilde handed him the matchbook, the red matchbook with the gold B on the front, the one he found in the dirty clothes. As he did, it dawned on him that the B stood for Black.

  “You dropped this,” he said.

  The man looked down at the matches then into Wilde’s eyes.

  118

  A fter retrieving the briefcase from under the bed at Fallon’s hotel, she and Jundee drove south until they got into the sticks and booked a room at a one-story dive called the Dangling Donut. They had no idea how the place got its name and didn’t care.

  Jundee was tense.

  Something was wrong.

  When Fallon asked what it was, he said, “I keep thinking about that car that stopped by yours last night. Your license plate is EZ3.”

  “It is?”

  He nodded.

  “The point is, I never noticed,” she said.

  “It’s easy to remember,” he said. “If someone concentrated on it, it would still be in their brain. If the body shows up and gets in the paper, whoever stopped there might remember that night and call the cops. He might remember the plate number. If he does, the cops can trace it to the rental agency and from there to me.”

  “So what do we do?”

  He exhaled.

  “It would be dangerous to go back there,” he said. “Real dangerous. It might be more dangerous not to, though. I think we need to move the body.”

  Fallon laid face down on the bed and closed her eyes.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Jundee said. “This isn’t your fault.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “No it’s not,” he said. “It’s just one of those things. I’d rather have the body where you put it than have it out there on the lawn. You did good, real good. We just need to make it a tiny bit better.”

  “Okay.”

  He rubbed her shoulders.

  “We’ll do it tonight,” he said. “We’ll do it right at the edge of darkness while there’s just enough light to find it. We’ll bring it back, put it in the trunk and find a new place for it another fifteen or twenty miles down the road.”

  “It gives me the creeps,” Fallon said.

  “What, the body?”

  “Right. The body.”

  “It’s just a body,” Jundee said. “It can’t hurt you.”

  He straddled her ass and massaged her back.

  She rolled over, put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  “Come here, you,” she said.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.”

  Jundee took his time with her.

  She’d never been loved that much, that thoroughly, that infinitely.

  Afterwards, Jundee stood naked in front of the mirror and raked his hair back with his fingers as he studied his face.

  He was gorgeous.

  Beyond gorgeous.

  Fallon had never seen a more perfect man.

  “After we move the body, we’ll pay a visit to the Vampire,” he said.

  Fallon sat up.

  “You’re kidding?”

  No.

  He wasn’t.

  Not even a little.

  “We have to get that other briefcase out of her hands,” he said. “Once we get the pair of them, we’ll burn them to ashes, every single piece of paper. Then it will all be over. At that point they’ll leave us alone.” He paused and added, “She won’t go to the police. She can’t. She’s a spy. That’s where she got the money for that mansion. She must have been involved in some heavy things.”

  Shade frowned.

  “That PI guy—”

  “—Whitecliff—”

  “—right, Whitecliff, he said he thought the person who hired the other PI was a man.”

  Jundee nodded.

  “Right.”

  “If that’s true then Vampire’s working with someone,” she said. “She has backup, or co-conspirators or whatever they are. They might be staying at her place.”

  “That’s a chance we’ll have to take.”

  She came over, wrapped her arms around his stomach and laid her head on his back.

  “You scare me sometimes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re not afraid of anything.”

  He shook his head.

  “Trust me baby, I’m scared of every piece of this. I’m more scared than you could ever know.”

  119

  S hade and London headed to Wilde’s office to find the door locked and no one answering. A white cat with a black tail bounded up the stairs and rubbed against Shade’s leg. They took it to the Ginn under Wilde’s office, ordered beer and a bowl of milk, and kept one eye on the street and the other on Tail.

  “So what now?” London said.

  Shade shrugged.

  “If I were you, I’d just get out of town. You really don’t have a dog in this fight.”

  “That’s actually a good idea. Come with me.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I made a promise to catch a mole,” she said.

  London wrinkled her face with disapproval.

  “That’s history,” she said. “It would have been a long shot getting the goods even when you were on the inside. Now it’s impossible. Just call your contact. Tell them it didn’t work out. Let them go to Plan B.”

  “Can’t,” Shade said. “I need to nail whoever it is that’s framing me.”

  “Penelope Tap.”

  “Probably but I’m not positive.”

  London took a swallow of beer.

  It was cool but not cold, not frosty.

  “I hate warm b
eer.”

  Shade agreed.

  “Warm beer’s only okay if it’s your fifth or sixth,” she said. “We should have gotten wine.” A pause, then, “There was something wrong with Mojag’s eyes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. They were different.”

  “Eyes don’t change,” London said. “They looked the same to me. I didn’t see anything different.”

  Shade patted the woman’s knee.

  “Thanks for being here. I really screwed your life up.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” London said. “It was time.”

  Suddenly an image jumped into Shade’s brain. It must have registered on her face because London said, “What’s wrong?”

  “I just figured something out,” she said. “Remember when we went to Wilde’s office this morning and the door was open?”

  Yes.

  She did.

  “There was something wrong, other than the door being open, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. It’s been nagging at me all day. I just now figured out what it was.”

  “So what was it?”

  Shade didn’t answer.

  Instead she stood up and gathered Tail. “Come on, I want to get back into Wilde’s office.”

  “He’s not there.”

  “That’s his problem.”

  They headed for the door.

  “Wait a minute,” a man said.

  The words came from the bartender, a gruff man with a raspy voice and too much vein pollution in his eyes.

  “You might be interested in this,” he said.

  He handed them a newspaper.

  Composite sketches of their faces were on page 5 in connection with the shooting of a man named Jack Mack on Market Street last night.

  “I don’t know if that’s you two or not,” the man said. “If it is though your secret’s safe with me. I’m not a big fan of the cops.”

  Shade gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Thanks.’