21
The black Chrysler cruised slowly up Constitution Avenue. The limousine pulled in to the curb and stopped behind the Post Office Building. For a moment there was no movement in the car; then the door opened and Chalice stepped out. The Chrysler pulled back into traffic. Chalice hesitated, then began to walk slowly along Constitution Avenue in the same direction. Eddie followed her from behind in the rented car. She walked aimlessly, circling the downtown streets at random. After twenty minutes he was convinced that there was no tail on her or on him, and that Crowfoot had kept his word. At a crowded intersection, as she waited for the light to change, he tapped his horn lightly, and opened the door near the curb. Chalice turned, saw him, and slid into the car. Twenty minutes later they had cleared the city and were heading south on Interstate 95. Until then, neither of them spoke. Only when they were moving freely on the highway did Eddie turn to her.
"Do you know about Vasily?"
She put her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. "Crowfoot told me. He said you called. He wants you to know that the laser has been removed. He knew you'd be worried."
"I had to do it."
"Vasily? Yes, of course you did."
"If you hadn't been inside . . ."
"You still would have had to. These things don't happen by accident." Her voice was strangely removed. "Freddy's dead, too. I saw it happen."
He nodded absently, trying to keep his eyes on the road, trying to fight the need for sleep.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"Virginia Beach. I left everything there and I've got to pick things up. Then to sleep. Maybe for a day or so. After that . . . you name it. Anywhere. Except San Miguel. Too many memories there."
"He would have killed you, Eddie."
"I know. That should make me feel better, but it doesn't."
After that they drove silently, stopping only for gas, and twice for coffee which Eddie poured into himself to keep awake. By the time they reached Virginia Beach it was nearly three in the morning. A half moon had risen, silvering the edges of the clouds and casting a smooth, lambent light on the empty beach. He parked the car in the hotel lot and found his room key in the glove compartment.
"It's so beautiful," Chalice murmured. "Couldn't we walk on the beach?"
"If I collapse," he said, chuckling with weariness, "you'll have to carry me back."
"Just a little walk. To look at the moon."
"All right."
They walked in silence on the hard wet sand that sloped near the water's edge, listening to the rush of the night surf and watching the glitter of phosphorescence as the waves boiled and cracked far out near the jetties. The calmness of her mood puzzled him.
"What is it, Chalice? I know there's something. You'd better tell it to me now."
She stopped, drawing a little bit away from him. "Do you feel like making love to me now?"
"Right here? On the beach?"
"Yes."
He laughed and said, "I never thought I'd ever say no to you again, but I couldn't do it. I've had it for tonight. In the morning, cupcake. That's a promise."
"But suppose there is no morning?"
"Hey . . . don't even joke that way."
"I wasn't joking. You trusted Crowfoot, Eddie. You believed everything he told you."
"Yeah, I did." He was frowning. "What are you trying to
say?"
"The old man is evil. He lied. He lied to me in the beginning and then he finally told me the truth. But he lied to you all the way."
Quickly and nervously, Eddie glanced around in all directions. They were alone on the beach in the moonlight under scudding clouds. A dark cloud moved overhead and the silvery light was blotted out, taking the color from Chalice's violet eyes, obscuring her expression. But he watched, fascinated, as she unbuckled her leather shoulder bag, reached into it, and brought out a long black object: a pistol with the silencer firmly screwed onto the barrel. Even in the dim light he saw that it was a Walther PP.
Almost tonelessly, she said, "This is the gun they used to kill Freddy. I watched them do it. You know how I like that trip."
"I know, but we don't have to talk about that now."
"It's the same gun. Crowfoot gave it to me afterward. He told me to use it on you."
She pointed it at Eddie's chest. Her breath came quickly.
"Put that thing away," he said.
"Crowfoot offered you a truce, but he lied," she said. "The Russians would always have gone after Vasily, but you saved them the trouble. And Crowfoot would always have gone after you. But now he doesn't have to."
"Why not?" he asked, but he had already begun to understand.
"I've never killed anyone, Eddie, not really. Not since a long time ago, and that's too long a story to tell. I always wanted to again, and I never did. It was enough to be close to it, to people like Freddy, and then you and Vasily. But the old man knew I wanted to do it. He knew the time would come when I'd have to do it. Why do you think he let me go? Just to keep his word to you? You know those kind of people. You know what their word is worth."
"I'm getting the drift," he said.
"He didn't tell me until after he had Freddy killed. Then he told me that they couldn't let me go. I knew too much. They were always planning to break their word to you, but he couldn't let me live either. Not unless I did something for him, something that would save them a lot of time and trouble. That's what he told me after Freddy was killed. They thought it might be a long time before they reached you, Eddie, and you were smarter than you realized. If you caught on, you could make it difficult for them."
"And you could reach me fast . . . because I trusted you. And you could buy your way out by killing me."
Chalice nodded. "And then I'd be free."
The moon slipped out from behind the cloud, shining coldly down on the black barrel of the pistol and the long tubular silencer. With widening eyes, Eddie stared down at it. He knew now that it was not Chalice who pointed the gun, but Thomas Crowfoot.
"And then why won't he come after you?" he said casually. "I mean, after you kill me, if you do . . . what's to stop them?"
"Nothing. They probably will. But I've got money and a good long head start. I told Crowfoot we were flying south. That's where he'll look. I could run in the other direction, or I could even go east. Maybe even Moscow. I know the right people to see, and I'd have a lot to bargain with. I think they'll protect me. It wouldn't be such a bad life."
"Don't do it, Chalice." He could not keep his eyes off the pistol bathed in silver moonlight.
She took a single step backward so that he was effectively out of arm's length. Eddie sighed softly, and her lip curled.
"Are you afraid to die, Eddie?"
He thought for a minute, and then said, "I'm just not ready for it, I guess. And it hurts a bit to think that I was in love with you . . . and you with me."
"Love doesn't count."
"No, I suppose with you it doesn't. But what does count? Life? Or death? Which is it you really want?"
"They're part of the same thing."
He smiled bitterly. "Then pull the trigger, Chalice. Get it over with."
"You take it well," she said. "I love that. I really do. I love you for that, Eddie. I could almost change my mind."
"But you won't. People like you never do." He stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked at her coldly. "Because you've got to get your kick. You've got to make your trip. Because you're a freak, a death freak, a . . ."
The pistol was pointed at the center of Eddie's chest, and he never finished the sentence. Her eyes flaring, Chalice squeezed the trigger. There was a muffled pop, the same wooden sound she had heard when her husband had died. The pop was the last sound Catherine Parker ever heard, as Thomas Crowfoot finally kept his word.
The Little Devil blowback silencer designed by Eddie Mancuso twenty years before, six inches of black steel with the same velocity that would have sped a bullet from the
muzzle, detached itself and slammed back along the gun barrel and smashed through her chest just an inch to the right of her heart. The force hurled her three feet backward, and then she dropped to the sand and rolled slowly down the slight slope to the surf.
Water washed over her face, her hair, her limp hands. Her dead violet eyes stared up at the moon. For a moment, Eddie peered down into them, trying to fathom her expression. There was none.
"I hope you enjoyed the trip," he said sadly.
He walked slowly along the empty beach the mile or so to his hotel, and then took the elevator upstairs. First there would be sleep, healing sleep. After the sleep it would be time enough to start to run.
***
(Please continue ...)
Dear Reader,
If you enjoyed this book, please tell your friends about it. And if you have a few moments, you can post a review. Thoughtful and positive opinions encourage a writer.
And of course they help sales. Writers have to live and eat (just like real human beings).
Other good books by Clifford Irving are available. The titles follow, and they link to Kindle. Or you might want to visit the author's website at:
cliffordirving.com
TRIAL – A Legal Thriller
“The courtroom scenes are breathtaking . . . gripping suspense . . . riveting!” — Publishers Weekly
FINAL ARGUMENT – A Legal Thriller
“A courtroom thriller, a mean streets thriller, a Florida cracker thriller, a gritty prison thriller, and an Everyman study of good and evil all rolled into one. And every part of it is terrific. What a wonderful piece of storytelling!”— Donald Westlake, The New York Times
DADDY’S GIRL: A True Thriller of Texas Justice
“Irving builds suspense with skill and makes the people come to life . . . a fine book.” — Houston Chronicle
Clifford Irving’s PRISON JOURNAL (a/k/a JAILING)
“A tale of intelligent triumph under remarkable stress. It has the ring of truth and is highly recommended.” — Times of London
TOM MIX AND PANCHO VILLA – a Romance of Revolutionary Mexico and the 20th Century American West
“Fabulous, big, rawboned wild-blooded adventure tale that gives the sights and sounds and smells of a turn-of-the-century world real enough to touch. Clifford Irving has written a novel to make any writer proud and many readers grateful.” — Los Angeles Herald Examiner
Clifford Irving’s AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HOWARD HUGHES
“It’s almost impossible to know where fact leaves off and fiction begins, if indeed that distinction should be made. This is a hypnotizing narrative, a brilliant study of money’s power to corrupt absolutely.” — Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times
THE ANGEL OF ZIN – A Holocaust Mystery
“Exciting, dynamic, and marvelously written.”— Publishers Weekly
FAKE! – the Life of the Master Art Faker of the 20th Century
“The wild, true story of three men who raped the art world . . . one of the most sophisticated suspense sagas of our time . . . fantastic.” — Chicago Tribune
THE SPRING – A Legal Thriller
“An extraordinarily entertaining and thoughtful combination of Lost Horizons and Presumed Innocent. Not only is it a mystery--on at least two levels--but it poses troubling questions concerning prolonged life and its ultimate value.”— Booklist
STRANGER TO THE KINGDOM (formerly THE VALLEY) – a mythic novel of the Old West
"A superb novel that grips the reader from start to thrilling finish. Its solidity is that of a Greek myth." — Times Literary Supplement
PROJECT OCTAVIO – the Rise and Fall of the Howard Hughes Autobiography Hoax
“Brilliant.” – Newsday “A masterpiece.” – CBS Radio
THE DEATH FREAK – A CIA Thriller (an Eddie Mancuso and Vasily Borgneff novel)
“A suavely persuasive, anti-Establishment thriller with the bitter aftertaste of Campari and vodka. A clever, cynical, and compelling novel.” — Time Magazine
THE SLEEPING SPY – A CIA Thriller (an Eddie Mancuso and Vasily Borgneff novel)
"A dazzling combination of high suspense and hijinks, and some most unusual killings." — Los Angeles Times
THE 38TH FLOOR – A Thriller of International Politics
“Some smashing skullduggery, with shadowings, chases, and a marvelous climax.” — Sunday Telegraph
THE LOSERS – A New York Thriller
"A serious book built out of thriller elements." — London Sunday Times
CLASH BY NIGHT (formerly ON A DARKLING PLAIN) – A first novel
“A fine debut.” — New York Times
THE BATTLE OF JERUSALEM – A Personal History of the Six-Day War, 1967
“Clifford [Irving] was there, he saw what happened, and he tells it the way it happened.” – Irwin Shaw
BOY ON TRIAL – A Legal Thriller
not yet reviewed
(continued ...)
Author’s Bio:
(at the request of some readers)
Hello. I’m Clifford Irving, a man who’s had an eventful time on the planet. I was once on the cover of Time Magazine, and Hollywood made a movie about part of my life. Richard Gere played me.
I traveled twice around the world before most people living in it today were born; I stood guard in an Israeli kibbutz, crewed on a 56' three-masted schooner that sailed the Atlantic from Mexico to France, smuggled whisky from Tangier to Spain, and one spring I lived on a houseboat on Dal Lake in Kashmir from where I rode horseback intoTibet.
Growing up in Manhattan, I studied painting at the High School of Music & Art. At Cornell University I chased beautiful but unconquerable Ivy League coeds, rowed on the crew, and dreamed of becoming a great writer. I sailed to Europe, settled on the decadent Mediterranean island of Ibiza, and wrote my first novel. I sent it to a literary agent in New York. G. P. Putnam’s Sons published it.
Was it really as easy and as quick as that? Of course not. I was lucky. And determined.
I taught at UCLA graduate extension school, with Betsy Drake and Cary Grant among my pupils. I became a correspondent to the Middle East for NBC. And I kept writing books.
In 1970, I created a writing event which became the Howard Hughes Autobiography Hoax. Many believe that the threat of the book’s publication, with its revelations of the Hughes-Nixon bribes, caused Nixon to approve the Watergate break-in.
My reward in 1972 for these accusations (and lunacy) was 16 months in three federal prisons.
Over time I wrote write 20 books that were published to varying degrees of success in the USA by Putnam, McGraw-Hill, and Simon & Schuster, as well as translated into many languages.
All of my books are on Nook and Kindle at affordable prices: $2.99 to $5.99. That’s less expensive than a paperback and half the price of a movie. A good read is one of the amazing pleasures offered to us by civilization.
“Move over, Butch and Sundance, it’s not that I love you both less, just that I’ve come to love Pancho and Tom more”– said the New York Times Book Review about Tom Mix and Pancho Villa, which I believe is my best book. Trial, followed by Daddy’s Girl, and Final Argument – all legal thrillers – are the top sellers.
My manuscripts, notes, journals and correspondence are stored permanently at the Center for American History at the University of Texas (Austin), which acquired the archive in 2013.
(continued ...)
Further descriptions and reviews:
TRIAL
A Legal Thriller
“Terrific! Don’t begin this book at bedtime or you’ll be up all night . . . Trial is like a birchbark canoe or a seven-layer cake. You can go crazy trying to figure out how it’s made, and it’s made by a master.” — Caroline See, Los Angeles Times
“Riveting legal edge-of-the-seater, has Texas and American justice systems by the tail.” — Daily Telegraph (London)
“Jet-propelled . . . colorful, down-and-dirty characters . . . most readers will want to read
this at one sitting.” — Library Journal
A thrilling adventure into the real world of criminal law, a powerful novel that deals with murder, the morality of justice and the perils of love, Clifford Irving’s book sets a new standard for courtroom fiction.
A Texas lawyer, Warren Blackburn, defends two accused murderers in two separate cases. One of his clients is a former beauty queen and brazen owner of a topless nightclub, who shot her multimillionaire doctor lover – she claims – in self-defense; the other is a homeless illegal alien accused of killing a man for his wallet.
Without warning, the two cases become one, and Warren’s entire life and career are threatened.
William Safire in The New York Times called Trial “the novel of the year.”
FINAL ARGUMENT
A Legal Thriller
“A courtroom thriller, a mean streets thriller, a Florida cracker thriller, a gritty prison thriller, and an Everyman study of good and evil all rolled into one. And every part of it is terrific. What a wonderful piece of storytelling!”— Donald Westlake, The New York Times
“Only a handful of American authors have ever been able to transform murder and infidelity into poetry, and Irving is one of those writers . . . Not to be missed.”— Donald Porter, Mystery News
“Two cliffhanger trials, a moral crisis, violence, love . . . it’s all here.” — Mail on Sunday (London)
The startling story of a district attorney who, twelve years after sending a convicted murderer to Death Row, returns to the same courtroom to try to save that same man’s life. A masterly tale of murder, guilt, and infidelity, set in Florida and featuring that rarest of heroes – a lawyer with a conscience.
Can a lawyer represent a murderer he once prosecuted? The legal establishment insists he can’t.
THE DEATH FREAK -- An Eddie Mancuso Thriller (Eddie Mancuso And Vasily Borgneff Book 1) Page 27