Death Prefers Blondes

by Caleb Roehrig

  Stepping into the hallway, the darkness was so total it was like he’d been pulled into deep space. Fumbling a pair of sunglasses out of his pack, he slipped them on and pressed a small button set into the frames, activating optoelectronic screens that had been constructed to look like ordinary tinted lenses. With a flicker, the corridor materialized around him in a palette of sickly greens, night vision technology combining near-infrared radiation with amplified visible light to bring the immediate area into focus.

  Turning left, Joaquin darted for a corner at the end of the hall, ducking around it just as the guardroom door banged open behind him and the skittering beam of a flashlight ricocheted through the air like a gunshot. Nerves streaked across Joaquin’s shoulders and down his spine, just as he spotted what he was looking for—the doorway to a back staircase, appearing in green outlines dead ahead.

  A man’s angry voice resounded: “I mean the power is out—all of it! Monitors, lights, alarms—” The custodial closet door slammed, the voice faded, and Joaquin hurtled up the hard, granite steps for the second floor.

  At the top would be a short passageway to the back of the Grand Hall—followed by a quick, if exposed, sprint to the main stairway and the Venetian exhibit on the third floor. This was the riskiest part of the strategy: the reckless race for the exit. But with an escape, speed is more important than stealth, and the quickest way out is the quickest way out.

  He pictured it in his head as he ran—his boots pounding the moonlit steps to sixteenth-century Venice, the shouts behind him when he inevitably caught the attention of the guards—and so he was taken completely by surprise when he crested the back stairs, barreled into the passageway to the Grand Hall, and nearly ran straight into something blocking his way.

  His rubber soles squeaked an alarm as he drew up short, the hulking, broad-shouldered figure of a man in a dark uniform spinning toward him in the narrow hallway, six feet away. Eyes burning like headlights in the monochrome field of the boy’s night vision lenses, the guard clutched a long, deadly-looking nightstick in one upraised fist.

  “Who the fuck is there?” he demanded.

  Distracted by the raised weapon, Joaquin didn’t notice what the man was holding in his other hand—until the beam of a flashlight blazed to life, exploding across his photosensitive lenses in a dazzling, painful supernova, blinding him.

  * * *

  Rocketing across the threshold to the rococo room, her blood warm from the sprint across the gallery, Margo switched on her night vision glasses and fit them into place. At the reception, she’d spent nearly thirty minutes at this exhibit alone—studying the paintings, gauging distances, mentally rehearsing. Mainly portraits and coy vignettes, the canvases were surprisingly small for their incredible value.

  There were three works by François Boucher, scenes inspired by Greco-Roman mythology—Venus surrounded by winged infants, Apollo embracing Daphne as she transformed into a tree, the muse Erato whispering inspiration to a peasant boy as he wooed a shepherdess. It was this final one that Margo approached first, running her fingers down the sides of its ornately carved frame.

  A little force was all it took to release the painting from its wall mounts, and two quick swipes from a pocketknife severed the lead lines that connected it to the now-deactivated alarm system—but when Margo pulled it down, she realized something was wrong. The write-up on the exhibit had provided the dimensions of each work, and the docent at the reception had explained the framing materials in exhaustive detail; she’d done her homework, crunched the numbers, and calculated how much the Boucher ought to weigh. It was off.

  Heat prickled under her arms, the guards barking tensely through their radios, still too close for comfort. With agitated fingers, she turned the painting around and slid her knife through the paper backing, peeling it away. Her heart sank when she saw a black plastic tube glued to the inside of the frame, a tiny light blinking smugly at her from one end. A security device, maybe a remote alarm, probably placed there by the French government—and no doubt equipped with GPS. Despair gusted through her and left behind the bitter residue of self-disgust. She should have expected this.

  Gripping the device, Margo gave it a firm tug, but it was hopeless; whatever glue the French had used, breaking its bonds was going to be a little ugly. Briefly, she considered prying the thing loose with the edge of her knife, but this was definitely not the time—there was no way she could afford the curiosity that kind of noise would arouse at the moment. It would have to be done later.

  Heat climbing inside her catsuit, Margo freed three more of the smaller artworks from their moorings, cursing their client under her breath. All they needed was the Boucher, but stealing just one painting would be as good as leaving a calling card; and because the client wanted the shepherdess in the frame, she needed to take others that way, too, to disguise their intent. She’d planned on three pieces, but not on the additional weight of their heavy tracking devices; it was going to throw off her balance.

  Determined to make all the effort worthwhile, Margo gripped her pocketknife and sliced each of the two Fragonards clean from their frames—with only a few pangs of guilt—rolling both together and tucking them into a metal-reinforced tube. Stashing everything into her satchel, she hoisted the burden onto her back and clicked her comm a few times to signal that she had the goods and was heading for the extraction point.

  The piercing shriek of a radio split the hollow silence of the sculpture gallery, frighteningly close, a half-second before a man’s voice shouted, “Intruder on the third floor!”

  Margo swiveled toward the doorway and froze. She wasn’t surprised that they had found her—and she wasn’t even surprised that they were running toward her at top speed through the graceful, twining statues of the Renaissance display. What made her blood run cold was the fact that, unlike what she’d known to expect from LAMFA’s regular watchmen, these guards were holding guns.

  * * *

  “You know what the problem is? The problem is that she gets away with everything, because nobody’s ever had the balls to say no to her! So now she just does whatever she wants, and when she fucks up, it’s all, ‘Oh, that’s just Margo! Free pass!’ Well, not this time. Not this damn time. Not when it’s my baby brother’s ass on the line!”

  Axel was still going, amazingly, and Davon’s head had begun to throb with the effort it took to not start screaming. His body was ravenous for nicotine, his electric-blue wig felt three sizes too small for his skull, and he’d probably ground his back teeth into talcum powder by now. There were a million things he wanted to say to the boy ranting and raving beside him, but he’d learned a long time ago that Axel would see any kind of engagement as an invitation to argue. It was best to just let him bitch until he ran out of steam.

  Only he wasn’t running out of steam. Axel had more steam than a fucking old-timey locomotive, and his negative energy was polluting the air with equal efficiency. The radio had moved on to Beethoven, and now the sprightly chords of Symphony no. 6 lanced through Davon’s eardrums and threatened to draw blood. He squeezed the steering wheel until he was sure something would crack—the plastic or his bones—and stared bullets into his side-view mirror at the fancy, golden-mouthed SUV parked up the ramp.

  It was an Escalade, the Cadillac insignia too damn ugly to miss, with a boxy front end making it look like a shipping container with wheels. Wheels, a four hundred and twenty horsepower engine, and a hideous, laughing golden mouth.

  Who the fuck parked a personally detailed Escalade overnight in a shitty downtown parking structure?

  “And, to be honest, I cannot believe you and Leif let her get away with this. For real, that fucking hurts. I mean, I’m not even going to ask if you knew about it and didn’t tell me, because I don’t know if our friendship would survive, but did you? I think I have—hey, where the hell are you going?”

  Shoving open the door, Davon jumped out of the van, sucking in air that smelled like gasoline, piss, and decay. It was almo
st a relief. Axel was still squawking, and Beethoven’s merry chords were tootling the fuck away, but Davon blanked it out. Flexing his fists, spoiling for a fight, he strode up the darkened parking ramp in the direction of the mysterious Cadillac.

  It didn’t belong there.

  * * *

  Dazzled by the glare of the flashlight, his vision a kaleidoscope of bright, pulsing spots, Joaquin sensed rather than saw the guard lurch forward, swinging the heavy nightstick in a lethal arc. Reflexively, the boy arched his back, nearly parallel to the floor, and felt the breeze against his face as the weapon shot by.

  Lunging upward before the man could swing again, Joaquin reached out sightlessly, his hand finding one meaty forearm; rolling under it, the boy spun inward and drove his elbow into a wall of solid muscle that passed for a stomach. Rewarded with a grunt, he bunched together the fingers of his left hand to form a point and, aiming for his right palm, drove it as hard as he could into the guard’s wrist.

  The man emitted a guttural shriek, dropping the nightstick to the floor, and Joaquin ducked free. Grabbing the weapon and rolling to safety, the bright spots in his vision were finally beginning to recede, but the flashlight’s beam burned like wildfire every time it hit his high-tech lenses. Swiping them off his face, he blinked into the mottled darkness—just as the man darted forward again, arm aloft.

  Joaquin thrust the nightstick upward just as the flashlight came down, plastic meeting wood with a sharp crack. The bulb flickered, and the force of the blow sent pain vibrating through his weary shoulder. The guard swung again, the device moving with such power the air whistled—and this time, although he narrowly managed to block it again, the impact knocked the stick clean from Joaquin’s grip and sent it to the floor.

  Skittering backward, pain still humming up his arm, the boy struggled to regroup. His eyes adjusted at last, and he could see his opponent now behind the glare of the flash. The man was huge, built like a grizzly bear, with a solid foot in height and at least a hundred pounds of muscle on Joaquin.

  But the boy had other advantages.

  Gritting his teeth with determination, he jumped forward into a walkover, followed by a double aerial and then a front handspring. In constant motion, his feet scything the air, he drove the man backward. Coming out of the handspring, he made a three-point landing and hammered an ox-jaw blow to the tender muscle of his opponent’s groin. The guard staggered back with an agonized oath, awkwardly lashing out with his booted foot, but the boy had already rolled out of range.

  Leaping up, Joaquin kicked off one wall and ricocheted to the other, launching himself up again, almost to the ceiling; and then he came down hard, delivering a savage elbow strike across the guard’s face with all his strength and body weight combined.

  He dropped to the floor at the guy’s feet, arm throbbing from the blow, strands of his wig sticking to the sweaty makeup on his face. The guard stumbled back a foot or two, but then shook his head and, impossibly, seemed to recover. For the first time, Joaquin felt a ripple of panic up his spine. With a vicious, bloodied grin, the towering man moved back in, throwing a club-fisted punch that the boy dodged too slowly.

  The huge fist caught him behind the ear, and the hallway erupted into bright, ringing fireworks as Joaquin toppled to the ground. His head spun and the corridor tilted dangerously, and before he could scrabble upright again, a massive hand closed around his neck and started to squeeze.

  Pressure mounted behind his eyes, blood thundering in his ears, and Joaquin thrashed in vain as he was lifted off the ground and into the air. Pinning the boy against his chest with a cast-iron arm, the guard bore down, crushing Joaquin’s lungs and squeezing his neck tighter at the same time.

  His legs kicked helplessly, and he clawed at the hand wrapped like a tourniquet around his neck, but it was useless. Joaquin couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t reach his comm to signal for help, and every move burned precious oxygen he’d never get back. His chest burning, his tongue swelling in his mouth, white pinpoints swarmed before his eyes as his vision began to fade.

  5

  Dismantling the generator was a breeze. Just after the lights went down, a digital display sprang to life on the machine—a battery-powered countdown, ticking off the thirty seconds left until electricity would be restored to the building.

  His glasses already in place, Leif turned on the night vision and made short work of the generator, disconnecting the cords and cables, uncoupling the fuel source and power output, and finally jimmying open the control panel and dragging his pocketknife through a nest of wires underneath. At five seconds to go, the digital display blipped out for good. Maybe it was overkill, but the harder he made it for the museum to undo his damage, the better his team’s chances were of getting away clean.

  Job complete, Leif snapped the knife closed and tucked it into the belt at his waist, turning for the stairs. Cast in the stark and ethereal green luminescence of his lens filters, everything looked like a lost reel from some crappy found-footage horror movie. He couldn’t wait to get out of there. Soon they’d be sending people down to check on the generator, and he’d just as soon be gone, anyway.

  Vaulting the steps two at a time, he encountered no one as he passed the first floor, hearing only the muffled shouting of a distressed guard behind closed doors; but as he came to the second-floor hallway, the unmistakable sounds of a struggle reached his ears. It was wordless, just the heavy puff of hard breathing and the scrape of bodies pressed close, but a spike of adrenaline sent Leif bursting around the corner at top speed.

  A guard about the size of a yeti blocked the passage, all trunk-like legs and a menacing scowl, lit freakishly from beneath by a dropped flashlight; and caught like a helpless house cat in his massive arms, wriggling and gasping for air, was Joaquin Moreau. The boy’s eyes were huge and panicked when they locked onto Leif’s, the veins in his temples bulging as thick as fingers, and it was clear there was no time to waste.

  Leif didn’t even slow down. Diving into a front roundoff, he did two handsprings and then hurtled into the air at the guard, twisting his body to the side and knifing out his legs. At the last second, Joaquin let his body go completely limp; deadweight in the guard’s arms, he slipped several crucial inches into gravity’s embrace. In almost the same instant, Leif’s boot flashed past, slamming into the enormous man’s jaw.

  The guard’s head snapped back and his arms went loose, his body reeling and collapsing to the ground; Leif tucked his feet, completing a tight roll, and landed in a crouch beside Joaquin. The boy in the green wig was sprawled across the tiled floor, breathing hard and struggling to regain his composure.

  “Are you okay?” Leif asked gently, cursing himself for how patronizing he sounded. Joaquin had gone to a lot of trouble to prove himself, and probably wouldn’t appreciate being talked down to.

  Fortunately, the guy didn’t seem to notice. Gulping a couple of deep breaths, Joaquin offered a shaky nod. When he spoke, his voice was rough. “I’m okay. Thanks.”

  The guard was still facedown on the floor a few feet away, evidently out cold, and Leif stood up again. Offering his hand, he said, “Then let’s go.”

  Taking the assist, Joaquin scrambled to his feet, and they hurried past the guard, breaking into a run the second they hit the Grand Hall.

  They got there just in time to hear the gunshots.

  * * *

  Hurling the satchel of priceless artworks to the floor, Margo broke out in a dead sprint. With no fire escape, no back staircase to the second floor, and no entrance to the administrative corridor, there was only one way out of the rococo room: back through the sculpture gallery. She had one choice, and one chance.

  When the guards saw her coming, running full tilt and unbuckling her zip line harness, the one in front stumbled to a confused halt. “Stop!”

  Margo picked up speed instead, ripping the harness off and gathering one end in her fist. With ten feet to spare, the first guard drew his firearm. Planting his feet shoulder
-width apart, he jerked out the weapon and squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet hit nothing but air; the report was deafening and harmless as Margo hurled herself to the ground. Her knees bent and her back pressed to the floor, momentum sent her across the slick marble tile like a hockey puck, her nylon bodysuit putting up minimal resistance as she shot straight between the first guard’s feet. The second man was taken by complete surprise, utterly unprepared when she slid into view, legs already scissoring up.

  One boot caught him in the thigh, the other in the groin, and she brought him off his feet. Unable to get his hands in front of him in time, he went down like a condemned building, slamming fast and hard onto the unforgiving stone; a groan huffed weakly from the back of his throat, and then he went still. Margo kept moving, though, rolling up onto one knee and spinning to face the first guard. The man was already turning, firearm outthrust, and she swung hard with the zip line harness.

  The thick straps tangled around the guard’s wrist, and Margo yanked him off-balance just as he pulled the trigger a second time. This bullet slammed into the floor, while the recoil and lack of control cost the man his weapon. Flying from his grip, the gun bounced and skidded into the dense shadows that swarmed the statuary.

  Spinning again, still on one knee, Margo slammed her boot into the man’s stomach. He stumbled back, winded and gasping, and she kipped up to her feet. For a moment, they squared off; the guard had other weapons at his disposal, and her next move would depend on which he chose to attack with. He eyed her warily, backing up another step, and then his face creased in shock. “You’re … you’re just a kid.”

  “I’m kind of a problem child,” Margo admitted, panting. The man immediately grabbed for the Taser on his belt, fumbling with the holster snaps, and she darted forward. The second the weapon was in the clear, she took hold of his wrist, bracing it and stepping to the inside of his arm—her back to his front—hammering her elbow into his ribs. He responded by wrapping his free arm around her chest, pulling her against him, trying to immobilize her.