by C R Trolson
“Look at it this way,” he said. “I thought enough of your information to spend a portion of my golden retirement years to come all this way to see you.” It even sounded phony to him and she wan’t buying it.
“I’ll bet you aren’t married. And probably don’t have any kids.”
“None that will claim me.”
“I knew it. You don’t have anything better to do. Nothing to tie you down. I’ll bet the LA cops don’t even know you’re here.”
“You want ID?”
“No,” she said, “I recognize your voice from the phone and the picture, your tiny picture.” She shook her head. “I’m used to playing the hand I’m dealt, and if you’re all I got, so be it.”
“That’s reassuring,” he said. “How long’s Dean been missing?”
“Missing? He’s dead and Ajax Rasmussen got Dean same as he got the others who’ve come up missing. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? That’s why you’re here. You are here to kill Ajax, aren’t you?”
“How long?” he asked her again, ignoring her question about killing Ajax Rasmussen. “How long has your husband been missing?”
“A year,” she said. “He had a meeting with Ajax and that’s the last I heard of him.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“Ajax owns the police,” she said. “Telling them did about as much good as if I’d put Dean’s face on a milk carton.”
“And the police said?”
“Two choices,” she said and counted off her fingers. “One, Dean ran off with another woman. Two, he jumped into the ocean. Suicide.”
“And you think the police were influenced by Rasmussen?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not influenced. They do exactly what he says. To the letter. He runs this town, point of fact, when he’s not trying to take over the world. You talk to our Chief of Police, you might as well be talking to Mr. Ajax Rasmussen himself.”
“So, Ajax is responsible for killing your husband and for Homer killing thirteen women?”
“You’re a quick study,” she said. “I’m not so sure about Homer killing those girls. That’s your story. That’s your alibi, Mr. Policeman.”
“So, in your opinion,” he was on the verge of saying “dreams” but didn’t, “Ajax Rasmussen plans to kill a few million people?”
She rolled her eyes. “Now you got it.”
“Maybe you can tell me why Ajax is planning to poison the blood supply? For fun? For profit? He’s got nothing better to do?”
“Because Ajax is the only one with the antidote, and when people start dying, he’ll have all the power. He’ll be one popular boy.”
“Ah, the antidote.” He drank the coffee. It had gone bitter. There was always an antidote in the disease of the week theories. “You should get out more.”
“He’s also a vampire, Mr. Wisenheimer. There’s something you can hang your hat on. A vampire and he’s greedy, mean, and vicious.”
“I knew there had to be something else,” he said. “You mentioned missing persons? Does Ajax Rasmussen have plans for an army of zombies?”
“Ten in the last few years,” she said, ignoring his sarcasm. “And don’t sit there acting like you don’t know who Ajax is, because if you don’t, you wouldn’t be much of a detective and, if that’s the case, you’ll only get yourself killed you hang around here. You’d be better off taking your little fingerprint kit and heading back to la-la land.”
“You’re right,” he finally said, “I wouldn’t be much of a detective if I didn’t know about Ajax Rasmussen.”
He told her about the blood he’d found at the California Hotel. How the units had been factory-sealed by Cirrus Industries, and when he’d called Cirrus, how they’d claimed that since they only shipped blood to hospitals, the only way a private citizen could obtain their product was to steal it from a hospital. The LA hospitals, he’d called over thirty of them, had never heard of any blood being stolen or lost. And since their inventory was scrupulously accounted for, he should ask Cirrus. It was probably only a small mistake in their accounting.
“They had you going in circles,” she said. “Welcome to the club. You didn’t need much proof when you killed Homer.”
“How do you know I didn’t make a mistake?” he said and watched her as she warmed his coffee and sat down. “How do you know that?”
She considered this for a second, then reached over and touched his hand, much like a grandmother would calm a small child, “Kill him.”
“You could get in trouble for saying that. That’s twice now. I’m a retired police officer,” he said, a little smugly, wanting to see if he could scare her. “Retired police officers are supposed to report all threats.”
She laughed at him. “Being a cop didn’t stop you killing Homer. And if he did what you said, killing all those girls, well, then he needed killing. He needed killing just like Ajax Rasmussen needs it.”
“That was self-defense. I killed Homer in self-defense. I need proof. You’ve heard of it? I need your help finding proof against Ajax Rasmussen.”
“Proof? I don’t have time for that and neither do you. Since when did proof ever stop you LA boys? It has to be done, so do it. You’re big enough. You don’t need me holding your hand. Proof isn’t going to stop Ajax. Kill him. And you’d better do it before he knows why you’re here and if I know Ajax, he knew you were coming way before you did.”
She was probably right. He pushed himself away from the table. He did not want to waste any more time telling her he wasn’t going to kill Rasmussen. “I’ll do what I can.”
She was not impressed. “Ajax isn’t going to cut you any slack, boy.”
He headed towards Foggy Ben’s. He was not hungry. Hannah Everett had fixed a good breakfast, but he wanted coffee and a paper to read. A slice of pie was not out of the question. He wanted to think.
He saw Foggy Ben’s in the distance and heard the waves hitting the breakwater. A dredger worked the channel. Gulls dived at the wake. Fishing boats made their way out of the harbor. He was positive that Hannah Everett was crazy. He was sorry he’d talked to her. Kill Ajax? He wished it were that simple.
He bought a newspaper from the outside rack and walked inside Foggy Ben’s. He said hello to the waitress. She seemed happy to see him and smiled back, patting his arm and escorting him to a table like he was her new best friend.
He was about to ask what kind of pie they had when she set the coffee down and slapped the front page of some tabloid in front of him, smoothing it out with red hands.
He saw the picture of himself in the blue uniform taken at the LA Police Academy twenty years ago and next to that a picture headed “Richard Lamb” with crude fangs zig-zagging down his mouth, painted in. In slow motion his hand jerked, sending the coffee to the floor. People turned. Mouths flashed. Coffee shot across the floor. The waitress two-stepped around the coffee and gushed, “I knew it was you yesterday, Reese Tarrant, Vampire Killer.”
Father Ramon wrapped the leg carefully in linen from a three foot roll he’d found years ago and kept in his closet. He then set the wrapped leg gently in the shade of the garden wall and glanced at the ditch. Three feet deep, but only twenty feet long, the backhoe perched at the end like some infernal insect. The workers had certainly not accomplished much.
He’d sent the ditch-diggers home; he’d locked the cemetery door; he’d called the police. He’d never called the police before, not even when the rectory had been burglarized, and he wondered if he’d made a mistake. If he’d made a mistake, though, it was only because he was following the new rules of cooperating with the authorities. Then why feel guilty?
He cursed himself for causing the leg to be discovered in the first place. It had been his lack of self-image that had needed a gazebo. It would have been nice, though, a place of serenity in which to contemplate God. A place of his own. And now this. Still, he was not surprised by the leg. He’d been expecting something to turn up for some time. He was always expect
ing something to turn up. His life hung on revelation.
He could still have his gazebo if he could clear up this matter with the leg. It may be nothing. A stray leg near a graveyard was nothing to panic about. All he had to do was find the body that belonged to the leg, have it all moved thirty feet into the graveyard, a small ceremony perhaps, and continue with his plan. It was probably only the mummified remains of a stray Indian, dead for centuries. Simple. Well, maybe not that simple. He reached under his robe and tightened the spiked corset. He sighed and climbed into the ditch. It was up to him.
He crawled along the rocky bottom. Dust choked him. Sharp rocks gouged his hands and knees. The dirt smell changed to sweet rot. He felt a rough knob like sharkskin. He saw a knee joint, brown skin shrunk tight around the patella, dry as parchment.
He grabbed a shovel and went to work. In twenty minutes he’d uncovered the body.
The skin had shrank in tight folds around the bones, as if drawn by vacuum. The genitalia had shriveled into a wrinkled line. The eyes were dry and flat. The mummified body, missing the lower half of the right leg, was naked except for the remaining sandal on the left leg. A burial shroud, at least, would have added dignity.
He sobbed once. Decorum was needed in the burying of another human being.
He moved a rock that covered the jaw. Yellow fangs curved into the leathery, flat lower lips. His heart stopped.
There was something else - wood? - protruding from the chest. No. Impossible. He pulled himself out of the ditch. He could not breathe. He loosened the corset, easing the spikes, and ran along the path to the rectory. This was no ancient Indian, he thought, and immediately damned Ajax Rasmussen. He saw a group of tourists watching him. He waved at them and one snapped his picture. He slowed to a walk. He took deep breaths. He prayed for the guidance of God, a thing which he had not done in some time.
6
Rusty Webber trudged through San Francisco’s airport feeling spent. Her right hand grasped the handle of a blue airline bag purchased at Heathrow to carry paperbacks, extra plane food, toothpaste, and deodorant. Her left hand held a small suitcase packed with clothes bought at Harrod’s.
One month ago she’d escaped from Romania with her life, barely. From being nearly executed in the courtyard of a Romanian hospital, to being escorted to the stairs of a waiting Lufthansa 737 had taken five short, head-spinning hours, four of them aboard a Blackhawk helicopter. Another five hours on the 737, with a stop in Hamburg, had put her at Heathrow.
Medics had bandaged Ambassador Harrington’s head, and he’d flown with her on the Blackhawk to Bucharest. On the flight, Harrington had explained through headphones, talking over the whirring turbines was impossible, that the Petazi district police, acting on an anonymous tip, had originally found her underground in an open-stone coffin, lying on her back, bandaged and unconscious.
The police had also found three headless soldiers. When she told him for the tenth time that she hadn’t cut off any heads, that she could recall, Harrington nodded politely, but when she reached over to adjust his bandage, he jumped like she was making for his throat.
For a month now she’d been hiding in London, trying to figure out who’d pulled her out of the freezing snow. Who’d saved her life? Leading suspect - Ajax.
And who’d cut off the heads? No matter how ridiculous a notion, had Ajax been waiting for her inside the casket, carved with a face that could have been his twin? And for what reason?
After landing at Heathrow and taking a cab into London, after withdrawing five thousand dollars on Cirrus Industries’ credit card, she’d spent four weeks in a travelers’ hotel, bathroom down the hall.
Four weeks trying to relax, going to museums and antique shops, jogging along the Thames each morning, trying not to think about Romania or Ajax or Radu or almost getting gang-raped and shot against a lonely hospital wall, but it hadn’t helped.
She’d not called Ajax to tell him how she was or what had happened. That was Harrington’s job. In fact, she didn’t care if she ever spoke to the billionaire again. His inept planning and the slip-shod way he’d prepared the trip had nearly gotten her killed. Radu had been killed, but he was no innocent and might have been letting her walk into a trap of Ajax Rasmussen’s design. The big question remained, What had Rasmussen been up to?
And if he’d been waiting for her, how had he gotten there? Private jet? Maybe. Would there be records of Ajax landing in Bucharest? Probably not. Ajax had the money to buy any amount of discretion, especially in eastern Europe.
She walked past the luggage carousels and outside to the cab rank. She put her bag down while the attendant whistled her up a cab.
She gave the driver her address and settled back as he wheeled out of the terminal and got on 101 heading south. The driver, a Pakistani or Indian, perhaps, looked a lot like the driver who had taken her to Heathrow. It was funny how the cab drivers of the world all looked the same. So did the rich and the poor and the stupid. So did Ajax Rasmussen and a fifteenth-century knight.
Hours earlier, somewhere over the Atlantic on the red-eye flight to New York, she’d woken herself and everyone else on the plane with a long scream. While she’d sat there wondering if she was losing her mind, the stewardesses henned up at the rear of the plane, eyeing her and shaking their heads. One of them later brought her a drink, brightly saying that fear of flying was normal, but she had nothing to worry about, planes were actually safer than cars.
She gave the driver a twenty for the fifteen-fifty fare and walked up the stairs to the studio apartment. She lived on a street of Chinese elms and poplars, a quaint street with bungalows starting at a half-million. She’d paid one year’s rent ten months ago and had spent a total of six weeks living here. Three good weeks living with Clark, three hell weeks after losing Clark in Syria.
She and Clark had picked Burlingame because of its closeness to Stanford where Clark, an English citizen and Oxford graduate, had been awarded an archeology fellowship.
She remembered the death call she’d made to Clark’s mother, her screaming and dropping the phone, more screaming and furniture falling. His father picking up the phone, finally, and saying philosophically, sounding eerily like Clark, “I’ve been expecting this call for some time, dear.”
In London, she’d thought about taking the train to Cornwall, their house on the coast, but she’d never found the guts or the energy. What would she have said to them? Could she have handled Clark’s father, the future version of Clark. Similar gestures and voice. And would they have blamed her for Clark’s death? Like everyone else?
Some days she blamed herself.
She sat on the couch, suddenly very tired, weeks of dust collecting on the wood floors and furniture. Home, and if she owned a hat this is where she’d hang it.
She stripped off her London clothes and showered until the water turned cold.
She toweled her hair and combed it straight back. A dozen bruises, now turning yellow, striped her legs and arms. Several elliptical welts, faint gray, lingered on her breasts from the chain links.
She put on loose-fitting cotton pants and an oversize Stanford sweatshirt, house clothes. She called a chicken joint that delivered, ordered half a rotisserie chicken, plus potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob and cornbread.
She emptied the nylon pockets of the blue parka. She had 950 dollars left from Ajax’s Visa card. Added to that she had maybe two thousand in savings and still two months rent pre-paid. She had a five year old Nissan pick-up in the carport with ten thousand miles on it that she could get four thousand for if she had to. Not much cushion, but she was not worried. She had twenty different resumes circling to various private schools where she could teach anything from French, German, or Latin to World History, though she preferred archeology if they had it. She’d started sending the resume’s the day she returned from Syria.
The deal with Ajax had been five hundred dollars a day plus expenses. Would Ajax pay for her time in the coma? And the month recuperating
in London? Plus expenses? You bet your ass he would. About twenty thousand, she figured. She’d get her money and that would be the last of Mister Ajax Rasmussen.
She noticed the answering machine blinking and hit the play button. Ajax’s voice came at her in a series of short messages. “I deeply apologize for any inconvenience.” Inconvenience? That was a good way to put it. In the last messages, his voice sounded formal and urgent. “Please, please, please call me.” Like a demented suitor.
If you overlooked the soldiers almost raping her and Bugazi, that son of a bitch, trying to execute her, Ajax was a plum of a sponsor. He had more money than sense, and he didn’t mind spending it. But working for Ajax was now history.
Tomorrow she would continue sending out resumes. Twenty might not be enough. If she had a hundred circulating, she might get a hit, a nibble at least. She’d get a job. She’d stay afloat until she could get out in the field again.
After she paid the chicken guy and ate one leg and half the cornbread, someone knocked. The mailman stood there, his sun hat too big for him, hiding his eyes. “Your box is full,” he said.
It took her a second to understand what he was saying. He thrust forward a wad of mail. She took it in both hands and dumped the letters, mostly advertisements, onto the kitchen table. When she turned around, the mailman held out a single letter. “You got registered mail,” he said.
“From?”
“You gotta sign for it,” he said, ignoring the question. She did, closed the door, and took the scarlet business letter inside and opened it.
“Dear Miss Webber, I was sorry to hear about your recent difficulties.” She stopped reading and looked at the cashier’s check. The twenty-five thousand dollar cashier’s check. “Please accept this as a bonus above and beyond all your expenses and your agreed-upon salary, plus one month salary for your recuperation, which I will be sending shortly.”
She thought it damned strange that Ajax had perfectly timed the arrival of the check with her own arrival and wondered if the mailman, who she’d never seen before, was working for Ajax. Since when did the mailman care if her mail box was full? They usually stuffed it until the seams broke. It didn’t matter. If Ajax wanted to play games, she’d take his money as fast as he could send it. She threw the check on the table. She’d deposit it tomorrow before Ajax changed his mind. She was flush.