by R. J. Jagger
“So she’s not a double-agent?”
“No,” Trench said. “With the so-called evidence in place, Penelope Tap through her underlings hired a freelance woman named London to bring Shade in dead or alive. Somehow Shade converted her. The next move was to hire a local named Jack Mack to kill the both of them. That failed. Another person was hired to file a police report saying that he was in the vicinity the night Jack Mack got murdered. He gave the police composite sketches of Shade and London. All the while, another hitman was sent and is probably in town even as we speak.” He exhaled and said, “We’re almost there.”
Wilde slowed down.
“Here.”
Wilde pulled to the side and stopped.
“Down that way a half mile,” Trench said, pointing to something that might have once been a dirt road. “That’s where you’ll find Visible Moon. I can already tell you it’s not drivable.”
Wilde pulled the keys out of the ignition.
“You’re coming with me,” he said.
“No I’m not,” Trench said. “Give her a kiss for me.”
Then he was gone.
Wilde got out with no intention of chasing the man.
The storm pelted his face.
He dipped his hat lower and braced it with his hand against the wind.
“Hey, Wilde.”
The words came from behind him.
He turned.
Trench walked over.
“One more thing for your information,” he said. “After Zephyr died, Visible Moon had outlived her usefulness. My two friends at the CIA wanted me to kill her. That wasn’t my thing though. I told them I’d keep her off the streets until they sent someone else to do the job. That person is scheduled to arrive in town tomorrow. So your timing’s good.”
Wilde headed down the road.
Then he turned and said, “Trench, come back here a second. I have one more question for you. You hired Senn-Rae, right?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t get why you did that.”
“Because I wanted her to find the pinup killer.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The pinup killer had just struck,” Trench said. “He killed a woman and left her on top of a boxcar. Stuart Black got his customary call about it and I learned about it from him. I went out there, saw the body and knew exactly where the guy had been. I told Senn-Rae that I had accidentally killed a woman during a bondage scene and buried her in a place that wasn’t too far from the boxcar. I told her that the body had been dug up and I had been blackmailed by someone. All that was a lie. I never killed anyone, I never buried anyone and I never got blackmailed by anyone.”
“So why’d you tell her that?”
“Because I knew she’d sniff around the area for who might have seen me burying the body,” Trench said. “I knew she’d eventually make her way over to the boxcar. I knew she’d figure that whoever killed the woman there was the same person who was blackmailing me. I was hoping that she’d be able to track the guy down.”
“Why?”
“I took some of Jennifer Pazour’s personal things from her house,” Trench said. “Once Senn-Rae found out who the pinup killer was, I was going to plant those things in that guy’s house. At that point he’d be connected to physical evidence. I’d be a hundred percent off the hook.”
“You put her at risk,” Wilde said. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“Does that mean I’ll see you in a week?”
“You might.”
“I’ll be watching for you.”
“That’s a good idea.”
133
F rom Vampire’s mansion, Fallon and Jundee went straight to Jundee’s house, bandaged up their cuts, changed into non-bloody clothes, picked up the other briefcase and drove to a dilapidated industrial park east of the South Platte River. There they broke into an abandon building, collected a pile of wood, cardboard and combustibles, and set the two briefcases on top.
“You want the honors?” Jundee asked.
“Sure, why not?”
He handed her a book of matches.
She tore a stick off, struck it and held it under the edge of a box.
It took the flame nicely.
Within minutes the fire was five or six feet high.
They watched it from as close as the heat would let them.
“No H-bomb for you, Russians,” Fallon said.
“Maybe next time.”
She laughed.
“Right, maybe next time.”
She stuck the matchbook in her purse and said, “I’m going to keep these forever. A souvenir.”
134
T he path was muddy and filled with potholes but it was also choked with weeds which kept Wilde from sinking in. The enemy wasn’t the mud so much as the darkness, which was absolute. It was all he could do to figure out where the road went. It would be easy to get off course and veer into the wild.
A half-mile up, that’s where Visible Moon was, assuming Trench was telling the truth.
Wilde didn’t even know what he was looking for.
He didn’t know if it was a structure, a 55-gallon drum or what.
Something unexpected happened behind him.
The vehicle started up, the headlights turned on and then disappeared down the road.
Wilde felt in his pocket.
The keys were there where he put them.
Trench must have had a spare key under a mat or up in the visor.
A terrible thought jammed into Wilde’s throat—he’d been set up. Trench outsmarted him. He dumped him out here in the middle of nowhere and tricked him into walking off into mud.
He kept walking, hunched against the storm.
Every square inch of his body was soaked. He couldn’t be more wet if he’d fallen off a bridge into Clear Creek.
It was hard to judge how far he’d gone.
His pace wasn’t steady.
He had no point of reference.
He kept going.
That was his only option, to keep going.
If there was even a remote chance Visible Moon was out here, he’d walk all night.
Ten minutes passed, then ten more, then ten more.
He must have gone at least a half-mile by now, maybe even a mile.
He stopped.
What to do?
Keep going?
Head back?
His legs were numb.
His body was loosing temperature. The rain was too cold to keep fighting.
Damn it.
Damn it to hell.
He kept going.
Then something strange happened.
He bumped his head on something metal.
What the hell?
“Visible Moon!”
No one answered.
He called again—“Visible Moon! I’m a friend. I’m here to help you.”
Silence.
He felt the structure and found it to be smooth and round. As he edged down it started to take a shape. It was the fuselage of an old plane. He worked his way to the end and felt a jagged edge, no doubt where the body broke. He stepped inside.
“No!”
The word came from a woman at the other end.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Wilde said. “I’m a friend of Shade’s. I’m here to take you home.”
“You’re tricking me.”
“No, I’m not.”
He inched towards the voice, slowly, moving his hands back and forth in front, not knowing what jagged edges were waiting in the dark to grab his face.
He got to the woman.
She was curled up in a ball at the farthest end.
She smelled like urine.
Wilde got down next to her.
She recoiled.
“I’m a friend,” he said.
Then he got her in his arms and held her.
Her ankle was secured in a metal cuff. A chain ran from that to the framework of a seat where it was attached with a solid pa
dlock.
“Do you know where the keys are?”
“The man takes them with him.”
“Do you have a flashlight?”
“No.”
Wilde pulled a matchbook out of his pocket and tried to light it. It was too soaked. He did the same with all the others. None of them worked.
He settled down next to the woman and rocked her.
She laid her head on his chest.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll wait until morning. Then I’ll get you out of here.”
DAY SEVEN
June 15
Sunday
135
S hade woke up in a hospital bed. Her brain was foggy, her vision was blurred and her tongue was dry. A face appeared in front of her. It was Visible Moon’s face.
“I hear you’ve been looking for me.”
It was her.
It was actually her.
Visible Moon kissed her on the forehead.
“You’re going to be okay but you’re under medication,” she said.
“Mojag killed me. He choked me to death.”
“Mojag’s dead.”
“He is?”
“Your friend London killed him,” Visible Moon said.
They talked for a long time, quietly, and made plans to go to the reservation together.
They’d get to know each other again.
They’d let everything that happened wash off.
They’d be born again.
London came in and Visible Moon gave the two women their privacy.
“I heard you killed Mojag,” Shade said.
London nodded.
“It seemed like the right thing to do.”
“Remind me to thank you some day.”
London laughed.
“I will.”
“Because you deserve a good thanks.”
“I’ll be waiting for it.”
London had some interesting information.
Shade’s boss, Kent Harvin, and another CIA uppity-up, Penelope Tap, were uncovered as moles in connection with a plot to sell H-bomb information to the Russians. They were out. It was also discovered that they tried to frame Shade as being a double-agent.
Shade was in.
She frowned.
“I lied to you about something,” she said. “I told you I was helping the white house catch a mole. That was a lie. There was no such assignment. I told you that to get some breathing room to find Visible Moon. I told you a second lie too. I told you that I was being framed as a double-agent.”
“You were being framed.”
“Okay, I was, but that’s not the complete story. The other part of the story is that even though I was being framed, it was in fact true. I was a double agent.”
“You were?”
Shade nodded.
“I’ve been selling confidential information to the Russians through my Cuban connections for years.”
“Damn.”
“Right, damn,” Shade said. “I didn’t just get money, though. I got information too, information that I passed on for the good of the order. That’s the way I structured my deals. When you added it all up and subtracted it down, I got more than I gave. That was my logic, for better or worse. If you want to get right down to the guts of it though, I liked the thrill of being on both sides. I liked the risk, I liked the danger, I liked the rush. I liked being places I shouldn’t, seeing things I shouldn’t, knowing things I shouldn’t, being something I shouldn’t. It was a drug.”
“I guess the question now is whether you’re going to continue.”
“I don’t know,” Shade said. “But if I do, I could use a partner.”
“Me?”
Shade nodded.
London looked into the distance.
Then she refocused and said, “This is crazy talk.”
“Is it?”
DAY TEN
June 18
Wednesday
136
W ednesday evening Jundee took Fallon to a dive bar on Larimer Street called the Whiskey Snake. They sat in the next-to-last booth in the back and drank wine. “Baby, I did something and I don’t want you to be mad at me,” Jundee said.
She ran a finger down his nose.
“What’d you do you bad boy?”
“Remember when we burned those briefcases?”
“Yes. I remember.’
“Well, the original document’s weren’t exactly inside them.”
She wrinkled her brow and moved back.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I thought they might come in handy for something,” he said. “So I switched them out. Over the past few days I’ve been negotiating with Vampire to return her briefcase back to her, plus ours. This afternoon we reached a deal.” He smiled. “We’re rich, baby. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She’s already delivered the money. I have it stashed in a hotel room.”
“Did you deliver the briefcases to her?”
“Well, not the originals, they burned,” he said. “I delivered the documents. Yes, she has them.”
“I thought we went through everything we did so we could destroy them.”
He kissed her.
“Well, change of plans,” he said. “We’re rich beyond our dreams. What’s the matter? You don’t look happy.”
She worked a smile onto her face.
“No, I’m thrilled. I’m just in shock.”
“You’re not in shock, you’re in rich shock. Filthy-rich shock.”
“I got to pee.”
“Then go do it, girl.”
In the bathroom, she took a long look at her face in the mirror.
Then she opened the window, hiked her skirt up and climbed out.
At the first phone booth she called the police.
“There’s a woman named Rebecca Vampire who lives in Capitol Hill. She’s a spy and she has documents about the H-bomb in her house. She’s going to sell them to the Russians. If you get there quick you can probably stop her.”
“Who is this?”
“This isn’t a joke,” she said.
“Have you been drinking?”
“Yes but that doesn’t mean I’m lying.’
She hung up and walked down the street.
137
W ednesday evening, Wilde got Senn-Rae drunk on white wine, put her over his shoulder, carried her into the bedroom and threw her on the mattress. He pinned her arms above her head and gave her a long kiss.
“You’re so evil,” she said.
“You have no idea.”
He took his time with her, peeling off one precious layer of impediments after the other, bringing her to a slow, deep boil.
Then his phone rang.
He froze.
“Don’t answer it,” Senn-Rae said.
He chewed on it then got up.
“It could be something. Give me five seconds.”
On the other end of the line was someone he didn’t expect.
“Jack?”
Right.
Him.
“This is Jackie Fontaine. I’m Stuart Black’s secretary. Do you remember me?”
He pulled up the image.
Nice face.
White sundress.
Hot for him.
“Of course I do.”
“You’re not going to believe what just happened,” she said. “I’m down on Larimer Street at the Whiskey Snake. That’s the same place you took me. In fact, I’m sitting in the exact same booth.”
“Look, this is bad timing,” he said.
“No, no, let me finish. There’s a guy in the next booth, he’s drinking with a girl. She just went to the bathroom. He’s sitting there by himself. He’s Shadow. I recognize his voice.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive,” she said.
“How positive?”
“A hundred percent. It’s him, I’m telling you. It’s him. I’d recognized his voice anywhere. It’s definitely him. The girl calls hi
m Jundee.”
“Don’t let him leave.”
He slammed the phone down and shouted into the bedroom, “I got to go.”
“Wilde! Don’t you dare—”
He didn’t answer.
He was already out the door with pants in one hand and keys in the other.
138
B londie was in bad shape thanks to Trench’s gun Saturday night. The windshield was gone, bullet holes had destroyed the hood and fenders, both headlights were shattered and the interior was trashed from the rain. She still ran though. Wilde pulled her out of the garage into the night. He hadn’t gotten a block before a drizzle dropped out of the sky and flew horizontally into his face.
He didn’t care.
There was no room in his mind for anything except what would happen.
He brought the vehicle to a skidding stop in front of the Whiskey Snake, jumped out and ran inside.
The back booth where Jackie Fontaine should be was empty. So was the one next to it.
Wilde reached over the bar, grabbed the bartender by the shirt and said, “There was a woman sitting back there. Where is she?”
“She left.”
“When?”
“Fifteen minutes ago.”
He bounded out the front door and looked up and down the street.
Jackie was nowhere.
Think.
Think.
Think.
Where’d she go?
Did she do something stupid and tip her hand?
Did the guy stick a knife in her ribs and say, “We’re going for a little walk?”
He paced back and forth, not sure what to do.
Suddenly a woman came running up the street.
It was Jackie.
“You’re here,” she said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t leave.”
“Where’d you go?”
“The guy’s girlfriend went into the bathroom and never came out. The guy left. I followed him. He went to the Kenmark hotel and got in the elevator. It stopped on the fourth floor.”