Woman on the Run (new version)

by Lisa Marie Rice

  The curiosity that welled up was impossible to repress. Julia didn’t even try. This isn’t gossiping, she told herself primly. Just a healthy interest in human nature. And a healthy interest in the nature of the man who’d become her lover. She leaned forward and tried to keep her voice casual. “His wife? What was she like?”

  “Who, Melissa?” Alice made to pour more tea, but Julia shook her head and placed her hand over her cup. “Melissa worked for Coop’s stockbrokers in Seattle. You wouldn’t know it from his lifestyle, but Coop is actually a very rich man and Melissa knew what he was worth. They did all their courting in Seattle and he just showed up one day with this woman he’d married.” Alice wrinkled her nose. “We all made an effort, for Coop’s sake, but she never really fit in.”

  “What a shame.” Julia barely stopped herself from tsk-tsking.

  “After a while, Melissa was complaining to everyone about how boring Coop was.” All of a sudden Alice skewered Julia with a sharp, pale-blue gaze. “You don’t think Coop’s boring, do you?”

  Julia was startled. Cooper? Boring? She shifted in her seat and felt well-used muscles ache. It took her until midmorning to get over the stiffness in her thighs.

  “No,” she answered truthfully. “I think he’s mysterious and fascinating and a little frustrating—but boring? Never.”

  “Okay.” Alice blinked. A slow smile creased her pretty young face. “Okay. That’s great. I had this feeling about you—”

  “Ahm, Alice, look.” Julia shifted uneasily. Did the whole town match-make? This…thing, whatever it was, with Cooper was temporary. Julia was shooting back to Boston just as soon as the mess with Santana was over. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking—”

  Alice stood up, not listening, clearing the table. “I knew it, I just knew it. This is great. ‘Bout time Cooper got laid again. And you’re much too smart to pay any attention to that stupid curse.”

  Julia froze. Curse? Had she missed something here? Some important conversational cue? “Alice? What curse?”

  But Alice had disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Alice? Alice?” Julia raised her voice, almost shouting. “What curse are you talking about?”

  Alice stuck her head out from the kitchen. “The Cooper Curse, of course.” Her eyes widened as she looked past Julia. “Hi, Coop. You’re sure looking spiffy. You get all dressed up to get married or buried?”

  “He’s just upped the ante by another million.” Aaron Barclay tossed a thumb drive at his boss.

  Herbert Davis didn’t bother lifting his eyes from the file he was reading. He simply reached out and plucked the thumb drive from the air. Davis glanced up to catch the look of surprise on his assistant’s face and bit back a smile. His wind and his waistline might be gone, but there was nothing wrong with his eye-hand coordination. “Who?” he asked, “upped what?”

  “Santana.” Aaron Barclay grimaced in distaste. “It’s all right there. His lieutenant just sent out word to the street from Santana that the price for Julia Devaux’s head has been increased by another mil.”

  Davis stopped fingering the cassette and stared. “Fuck,” he breathed. “Santana’s offering—” Davis stopped for a minute, hardly believing his own words, “six million dollars for—for…”

  “Julia Devaux’s head.” Barclay’s voice was grim. “That part hasn’t changed.”

  “But that—that’s crazy.” Davis caught himself. “Well…crazy. What does the word ‘crazy’ mean when applied to a psychopath like Santana? And what the hell does he care what he’s spending? If Devaux’s dead, he gets off and he’s still got another 348 million in the bank. But still—this is…this is against the rules. This means we’re going to have every two-bit wiseguy wannabe in the country wanting to make his bones and earn a fortune all at the same time. It’s going to be a zoo out there. What brought this on? I thought S. T. Akers was doing a pretty good job of stalling.”

  Barclay perched a hip on Davis’ desk. “Yeah, but Judge Bromfield has decided that pending the trial, Santana is to be remanded to Furrow Island. Judge Bromfield has this thing about mobsters and she’s making a point, probably for the benefit of Akers. His boy wants to stall, she’s going to make him pay for it.” Barclay shuddered. “Tell you the truth, boss, if I had six mill to hand, I’d use it to stay out of The Furrow myself.”

  “Furrow Island.” Davis had been to Furrow Island once, to take a deposition. It was an experience he wasn’t eager to repeat. Bleak cinderblock buildings on a bleak, windswept island. Inside had reigned something as close to hell as he ever wanted to see on this earth, a sort of legal no man’s land where the most violent and crazed prisoners were sent. It was basically a dumpster for the deranged.

  Davis knew that Santana was a tough man, with the violent makeup of the born criminal. But Santana had been a rich man for many, many years now and rich men grow soft over time. They become used to having other people do their dirty work for them and no matter what else it is, violence is dirty work.

  Davis wondered how many years it had been since Santana had got his hands dirty—or his knuckles bloodied. He wondered if Santana remembered how. Well, if Santana was headed for The Furrow, it would doubtless come back to him. Fast.

  In the meantime, they were left with a problem.

  “Pressure’s really going to be on, now,” Barclay mused.

  “Yeah.” Davis rolled his head. The muscles in his shoulders had suddenly seized up. “Not too many hotdoggers out there are going to turn down the possibility of six million bucks… Shit!”

  He banged his fist on the desk in frustration. “How many people we got in Boise?” Davis began running through the options in his head.

  “Eight.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Davis said indignantly. “Hell, any metropolitan service station worth its gas pump has more staffing than that.”

  “Budget cuts,” Barclay answered laconically. “And they’ve been cutting deeper and deeper.”

  Davis drummed his fingers. “What are the resources in Boise?”

  “Here.” Barclay handed over the Boise station file and Davis rifled through it. There was no one from Boise who could be spared. As a matter of fact, he didn’t know how they kept their Boise office open and running. He looked up at Barclay. “Could we take Grizzard and Martinez off the Krohn case?”

  Barclay shook his head. “We’ve got a personal request from Senator Fillmore about that one. He wants it to be given ‘maximum consideration’. His very words. And you know how much political interest there is in the Krohn case. Santana’s just a crook. Big-time crook, admittedly, but his case is nothing compared to the Krohn case, where a conviction will be worth ten thousand votes. Elections are coming up. So…nope. Politics always win out over crime around here, especially since…” Barclay jerked a thumb upwards, “took over.”

  Davis nodded wearily. “Can’t put trainees on a case like this, that’s for sure. Who’s left?” He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “What about Pacini?”

  Barclay crossed his arms, a small smile on his face. This was going to be fun. “Pacini’s on…paternity leave,” he said.

  “What!” Davis rose out of his chair like a rocket then sank heavily back. He took in a deep breath then let it out slowly until he could make his voice neutral. He rolled his eyes. “Paternity leave. Oh, God, just what we need. I can’t believe this. Paternity leave. What’s next? Sick leave for hangnails? Compassionate leave when your dog bites it?”

  “Come on, Herb. I’ve heard the Old Timer’s Lament until it comes out my ears. How tough you guys were, how nothing stopped you.”

  “Damn straight.” Davis nodded. “You got shot, you took two aspirin and reported for work the next day. In my day, when a kid was born, you got the afternoon off and a cigar. No exceptions.” Davis knew he was sounding like a dinosaur. Hell, sometimes he felt like a dinosaur. Old and scaly and on the verge of extinction. “I missed two of my kids’ deliveries.”
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  “I didn’t see my firstborn for a month.” Barclay’s voice was low with regret. “Maybe that’s why my wife left me.”

  Davis looked at his assistant’s bare left hand with the white line on the ring finger. The guy was having a tough time dealing with the divorce. Office scuttlebutt had it the wife was taking him to the cleaners, too.

  There was an uneasy silence.

  “So…enough of that.” Davis changed gears and flipped through the Boise file once again. “Looks like we’re not going to have any extra manpower available for another what—two, three months? By that time, Julia Devaux will either be testifying in court under oath or she’ll be…” he hesitated.

  “Toast,” Barclay said.

  Chapter Eleven

  Julia started to settle into the pickup’s roomy front seat when she froze. Her eyes widened. “C-Cooper?”

  The pickup dipped to take Cooper’s weight and he pulled the driver’s door closed with a soft whump.

  “Mmm?”

  “Cooper.” Her voice sank to a whisper as she leaned close to him. “There’s a—a gun in here.”

  Cooper threw an indifferent glance behind him, then put the pickup in gear. “Nope,” he said.

  “No?” Julia asked, confused. The pickup shot forward and she hung onto the seatbelt.

  “Not a gun.”

  Julia had been astounded at the difference the sleekly cut businessman’s suit had made. It hadn’t made him handsome—nothing could do that—but it had certainly made him look…imposing. Forbidding.

  He had stood before her in Alice’s shabby little diner in his elegant suit, tall and large and powerful, face cold and hard and remote and for just a fraction of a second, Julia had had a panicked jolt of fear at the thought of driving out alone into the wilderness with this man who looked so forbidding. It was a flash of feeling, gone in an instant.

  Cooper wasn’t dangerous to her. She knew that. After all, she’d been sleeping with the man this past week. But it was very easy to separate the man who warmed her bed at night from this powerful, dangerous-looking man.

  Then Alice had shoved a slice of that awful diabetic’s nightmare of a pie in his hand and Cooper had gamely eaten it. Julia had watched him and their eyes had met for a moment, and she could tell they were thinking the same thing—isn’t it awful? But he had praised the pie in a low gentle voice, and smiled faintly when Alice beamed at him, though the smile had faltered when Alice had cut him a second slice, “on the house”. And, to his everlasting credit, he had choked that down, too.

  Julia could imagine a lot of things—it was one of her many failings—but she couldn’t imagine a violent man choking down a second slice of that pie for friendship’s sake. And when he had looked up at her, all she could see in his dark-brown eyes was kindness and maybe some loneliness. A little like Fred’s.

  But here she was, driving off into the wild blue yonder with a man who had a gun, right in the cab of the pickup, in touching distance, and her imagination started overheating again. Then Cooper started doing that sexy business with his thighs and something else started overheating. Julia looked away for a moment, then brought her eyes back and fixed them determinedly on Cooper’s face. “You’re trying to tell me that that—” she jerked her chin, not wanting to touch the wretched thing “—isn’t a gun?”

  “No,” Cooper said, “it’s a Springfield. Good hunting rifle.”

  “Oh.” Julia was silent for a moment then twisted in her seat. Sure enough, there it was still, long and gleaming and deadly. She had never shared a space with a gun—a rifle—in her life. She didn’t even think she’d ever shared a space with a person who shared a space with a gun. Or rifle.

  “You planning on shooting anyone in Rupert today?”

  Cooper thought. “Well, now that you mention it, I wasn’t too happy with the quality of the feed Davis Walker sold me last week—” He turned at her gasp. “That was a joke, Sally.”

  “Oh.” The panic subsided but the worry didn’t. “That’s good. That’s very good. So what do you need—” she jerked her chin backwards again, “—that for?”

  “Actually, it’s not mine. Bernie’s the one who usually uses this pickup and that Springfield is his. I prefer shotguns myself.”

  “And what does Bernie use a gun—a rifle for?”

  “Varmints.”

  Outside of old reruns of Bonanza, and a zillion B westerns, Julia had never heard the term used in real life. “Varmints? Like what—cattle rustlers?”

  Cooper was still doing that little dance with the clutch and brake pedal, accompanied on the gearshift, and she was trying not to stare in fascination, so she missed his expression but she did hear what sounded a lot like a chuckle. From Cooper?

  “What?” They were moving out towards the highway now and his legs stayed put and Julia could relax. She looked at him and thought she could detect a smile.

  “Not many cattle rustlers left and we don’t have cattle anyway. Bernie shoots at muskrats and jackrabbits, mostly. In hunting season, he might bag a deer or two. We’re all partial to venison.” He glanced at her and frowned. “Does the gun bother you, Sally? Do you want me to stow it in the back? Though it’s safer in the gun rack. And I promise you it’s unloaded. Ammo’s in the glove compartment.”

  Julia was reminded again of all the reasons why she lived in the city. The city was where you went to a restaurant with nice waiters who put on your plate things people who lived in the country had to shoot and skin.

  “N-no, that’s okay.” She didn’t want him to think of her as some kind of wimp. This was the West after all. Kids probably cut their teeth on bullets out here. “I was just taken aback for a minute. I mean after all,” she said, trying to reassure herself, “of course, you do know how to use it.”

  “Sure I do,” Cooper said and pressed on the accelerator as he came to an open stretch. He flicked a glance at her. “But I’m better with a knife.”

  Six million dollars for Julia Devaux’s head.

  The professional snorted in disdain at the message on the screen. Santana was definitely out of control.

  The whole world was out of control.

  It wasn’t like the old days when the known world was divided up among twelve, maybe fifteen strong men. Men who ruled with iron and blood, merciless and resolute and who were never, never out of control. Men who could be counted on to follow the rules. Men who would never be sending these pitiful messages from jail, clear signs of weakness.

  Five million dollars for a hit was outrageous, against all the rules.

  Offering so much money wasn’t going to get the job done any better—all it would do would be to smoke out the bolos who lived under bridges and in basement tenements and inflame them with hope. They would only get in the way of the pros and clutter up the territory. Offering another million dollars was insane. The Old Men would never have tolerated it for a moment, Furrow’s Island or not. But apparently they were gone and the quiet deadly rules which had governed the world were shattered.

  It was a sign that it was time to quit. No doubt about it. The six million of Santana’s money would be put to good use. Money was wasted on thugs like Santana anyway. He hadn’t the faintest idea what money was for. The Old Men had known that money was a precision tool—a scalpel, not a bludgeon.

  The professional stared out through the floor to ceiling windows of the penthouse apartment, watching as storm clouds gathered. The view was excellent, as the real estate agent had pointed out. The real estate agent had happily walked away from the sale thinking the view had closed the deal. The pretty, young agent had never even dreamed that the sale had been made because—short of a sniper in a helicopter—the penthouse was out of the range of gunfire.

  Sleety rain spattered the bulletproof glass. Winter was coming early. It was time to nail Julia Devaux and disappear to the Caribbean.

  The professional exercised the sternest mental discipline when focused on a mission, but for just a moment it was easy to daydream a
little about the beach house while the rain turned to hail and the sky grew dark. Lights started coming on early in the downtown office buildings in the distance. Ten stories below, people scurried for cover, the wind whipping at raincoats and jackets.

  The house on St. Lucia sat on a bluff overlooking an unbroken stretch of sand as fine as face powder. The water was the same color as the sky and you could still see the bottom a mile out.

  The professional was under no illusions about the people on the island. The Caribbean was full of shady characters, tax exiles most of them, many of them businessmen who had sailed just a little too close to the wind. People who would probably pay very good money for tips on how to shift currencies around, no questions asked. It would be very pleasant—and lucrative—advising them. It was going to be nice dealing with people whose money didn’t come in suitcases of small-denomination bills.

  The wind could be heard through the thick leaded panes, which meant that it must be howling outside. Sheet lightning lit up the sky and the clouds piled up, gray on gray.

  The professional poured two fingers of Calvados and contemplated a future of sandy beaches, eternal sunshine and a better class of criminal.

  Cooper remembered reading somewhere that scientists had figured out why some people were considered beautiful. It was a trick played on the mind by geometry. Beauty was symmetry, it was as simple as that. If the two sides of the face were equal—bingo! Movie star or cover girl.

  Cooper risked a glance at the woman sitting beside him. One front tooth was slightly crooked and her right eyebrow had a higher arch than the left. Most of the time her smile was lopsided. And yet she was stunning. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Which just went to show that scientists didn’t know shit from shinola.

  Wherever Sally was, there was a vibrancy in the air, like around a hummingbird. There was a glow to her, as if she were lit from within. As if there were a gently banked fire and all he had to do was hold out his hands and the coldness he felt inside would dissipate.