“We leave now?”
“You haven’t finished your drink.”
“Who cares. We leave now.” She reached out and took his hand.
Once in the old beat up car she asked, “Know why I like you?”
“It is curious.”
“Know why?”
“Because we talk. Isn’t that what you said?”
“No, never said that. It’s because you different.”
“Amen.”
“You not like the men my age. They all try and be someone they never be. They think they all movie stars, big men, like that. You just Roy. Cute Roy. I like you, Roy.”
“I’m glad, Rosie. I like you too.” He thought, And this is one of the strangest conversations I’ve had in my life. “Now, where should it be? Golden Garden has a nice view of the Sound. Gasworks has a good view of the lake—”
“Take me to your home, Roy. I want to see your home.”
He swallowed. So you are part of it, Rosie. Disappointment caused his face to sag. “Sure thing, Rosie.”
“You mad at me for saying this?”
“No, Rosie, I’m not mad. My place is a great idea. From the roof of my building you can see at least a block.”
“You make fun of Rosie.”
He turned a corner and stopped at a light. “Yes, I suppose I did, Rosie. I’m sorry for that.”
She cheered up immediately and laughed. “At least a block… that funny, Roy. That funny.”
***
Rosie sat on the couch, moving a dirty shirt out of the way. Kepella went into the kitchen, took down the bottle of Popov—Papa, as he called it, his old drink—broke the seal, and asked her if she wanted one. She said yes. Hidden from her view, he poured a shot of vodka and swished it around in his mouth, spitting it out without drinking any of it. It was a trick he had been pulling for a while now. His breath smelled like vodka, just like it had in the traffic accident. Very convincing. He poured a short glass of water for himself, vodka for her. The charade had worked so far, but each time he swished the booze around in his mouth he thought about just gulping it down. Why not? He hadn’t been to a meeting in a few weeks, and it was beginning to take its toll. But he hadn’t taken a drink yet. He couldn’t. He returned with the drinks and downed his water in the first toast to bury the evidence. He glanced over at Rosie, wondering if Holst had hired her.
Of course he had hired her, he told himself. Why else would a young broad with her looks come on strong to an old fart like him? He didn’t want to believe it. He liked Rosie.
She reached over and placed her hand on his chest. She smelled good, like moist flowers. She pressed against him.
He didn’t want this. He liked her too much. They were friends. She fumbled with his buttons. Not like a whore to fumble with buttons, he thought. Kepella had taken an occasional weekend to Reno, once, twice a year. Two hundred dollars would buy him a grind. The whore would moan and squirm and make him last a long time, make him feel young. She knew her business. A few times. But he had quickly learned that sex didn’t come close to love. It was one of those things Roy Kepella had learned too late in life.
Rosie ran her fingers over his pale, hairy chest. Her hands were warm. She bent over and kissed a nipple. It felt good, too good. He was utterly confused. He liked her. Was she part of this or not? If not, then he should turn her away now. Keep her away from it all.
He kissed her black hair, reached out and drew her close to him. She was a wisp of a woman; he could almost connect his hands around her waist. She giggled and kissed him on the mouth, tasting like sweet cinnamon. She giggled again, pulled back, and reached behind herself. The zipper sang. She pulled the dress off her arms. Her chest was bare. Beautiful. She had the firm, pert breasts of a young woman. She pulled his head down between them and slowly lay back on the couch.
“Can I stay with you tonight?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
***
Iben Holst was staying at the Washington Plaza, adjacent to the majestic Four Seasons Olympic. The Plaza had small, comfortable rooms, a rickety elevator system, steam radiators that kicked on in the cool Seattle evenings, and a great breakfast spot next door. It cost thirty-three dollars a night. He had intended to stay aboard The Lady Fine with Marlene. But following the long ride to Seattle on an oil tanker out of Panama, he couldn’t conceive of even another five minutes on a boat. He had been sick to his stomach for the entire ten-day voyage. That was why he needed a skipper. Someone had to get The Lady Fine into Canadian waters, and it wasn’t going to be him.
He plugged the phone line into his Hewlett-Packard portable computer and selected the configuration that automatically dialed and logged-on to CompuServe. A few seconds later he was hooked up to Electronic Mail. He left a message on the service for user number 52-765-00012-9: The Mariner.
The beauty of the EMAIL service was that it was entirely private, inaccessible to anyone without his password. No need to write in code, no worry the information might fall into the wrong hands. Even so, he used a stylized notation, so that a computer hack stumbling into this user-area would not go running to the authorities.
He typed in a message that read:
MARINER: MARK FIXED. POSITION SECURED. REQUEST INFORMATION BIOGRAPHY ON A JESSE CLYDE BECKER. AGE APPROXIMATELY 30 YEARS. ALL ACCORDING TO PLAN AND SCHEDULE. MARK DOWNHILL. PHASE TWO BEGINS TOMORROW. LOOKS GOOD. PLEASE ADVISE ON BECKER SOONEST—ALBATROSS
He felt uncomfortable with his code name. He had read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner as a youth. The arrival of the albatross brought good fortune; but the blood of the albatross had brought bad luck. Iben Holst had no use for bad luck.
He left the message area, typed “BYE,” and CompuServe disconnected him. Connect time: 7 mins. 54 secs.
He put the computer away.
The sign at Beji’s read ALL NUDE GIRLS. He had seen the sign a few days ago. Last night he had parked across the street, slipped a man ten bucks, and now he had a name.
First Avenue, teeming with winos and whores, pimps, loners, and perverts, was cooking. Beji’s rocked, with tassel-swinging dancers on the stage behind the bar, oiled and shining, grinding and thrusting, dipping and writhing, doing their best to earn another buck or two from the toothless strangers staring goggle-eyed from the stools they had owned for the past five hours and would own until closing. One of the girls got daring and flashed some beaver at a customer in a cowboy hat who had already laid three twenties on her. She yanked her G-string down, dropped down onto her back, and parted fur practically in the big spender’s face. Sweat broke out across his forehead and before he knew it the glimpse was gone; he wasn’t even sure the flash of pink had been real, or just a fantasy image floating on the sea of booze in his mind.
Louis Mandez, half Hispanic, half black, sat arrogantly in the corner, a girl on each arm, a chinchilla draped around his neck. He wore earrings in both ears—two in the left—a little lipstick, and his shirt open exposing a rug of black body hair down to his navel, in which he had miraculously affixed a paste sapphire. Louis Mandez’s street name was King Rat, given to him by a street bum, a former Berkeley professor who had hit the skids.
Holst walked over to Rat and stood facing him. He wore his usual black leather jacket, blue jeans, and leather running shoes. A toothpick bobbed in his lips, below his dark glasses.
“You catch that beaver, Short?” Rat called every white man Short. The two black girls smiled. Holst liked black girls. The one to Rat’s right stared at Holst’s crotch and licked her lips. She wore a surprisingly simple red dress with a thick black belt. Her breasts bulged from the dress. Her face was hard, her hair straight; she wore lipstick the color of the dress and blue eye shadow. The whore to Rat’s left had coffee skin and Oriental eyes. Her left breast poked out of her wallpaper-print shirt, it’s olive-skinned nipple looking like a third eye. She appeared far too high to see clearly. She stared past Holst. Her third eye bobbed up and down when Rat adjusted his postu
re.
Holst said, “I understand you provide certain escort services.”
Rat smiled. His teeth were flawless—three thousand dollars’ worth of flawless. “The bitches provide the services, Short. The man do the business.” The girls giggled. The one on the right still stared, making Holst warm. “You got some business?”
“I would like to speak with you.”
“Vell, vell. I would like to shhpeak with you, too. Yah! Sit down, Short. We do business.”
“Not in front of the girls.”
“Sit down, my man, or take it elsewhere. I don’t like it when people stand. You dig?” One look from Rat drew a bouncer’s interest, who moved toward the table, inspiring Holst to sit. “That’s better. You want a babe, no problem. Rat’s your man.”
Holst acted like a man afraid to touch the furniture for fear of germs. He folded his hand in his laps. Behind the dark glasses he was blinking repeatedly. Nerves.
“Speak,” Rat demanded.
The girl who had been staring now rubbed Holst’s leg under the table with a bare foot. She licked her lips again. Sweat broke out on Holst’s forehead. “I need a special girl. I would rather talk alone.”
“What kinda special, my man? Believe me, you couldn’t a dreamed up what these two ‘escorts’ have been through. You ain’t gonna surprise no one.”
“S and M,” Holst practically whispered.
Rat smiled again. “No sweat, Short. No big deal. Relax. I’m sure you understand—as one businessman to another—that certain services of my escorts come for a higher fee.”
“How much?”
“Depends how rough, dude. Three bills for an hour with one escort. Two girls for five bills. If it’s too rough, they walk. That’s how it works. Let’s say they walk and you decide you don’t like the deal? Then Harry over there tears your cock off.” The three-thousand-dollar smile lit up again.
Holst smiled privately, barely a twist on his lips. He nearly said, “What cock?”
“I do it,” said the black girl on the right. “How ’bout me, daddy?” she asked Holst, still sliding her foot up and down his leg.
Rat continued, “Now mind you, my girls can take it. They can give it out. Whatever you like, you dig? Sadie here will make you shoot before she’s got her clothes off. You want Sadie, it’s an extra fifty bills. You dig? She’s like what they call ‘private reserve.’ I got others you can check out, if you’d rather. I do business, my man. I don’t fuck around. You call it, or you move on. I got other customers.”
“She’s fine.” Sadie rose. Holst said, “Not now. Tomorrow evening. I’ll leave the stairway entrance to the Washington Plaza open. You know where that is?”
She nodded. Rat asked, “The stairway?”
“She doesn’t use the lobby. You dig? The stairs or nothing.”
“It’s cool, Short. Be easy. It’s cool.”
Holst gave him the room number and the time. He was about to leave when Rat reminded him, “Cash up front, Short. No cash, no gash.” He grinned. Sadie licked her lips and lowered her eyes.
12
Sharon Johnson had stabbed a policeman, not one of her pursuers. The incident had made the front page, with all kinds of speculation about who “the woman” was. Now the police wanted her as badly as the others. And Brian had demanded that the local police not be involved. She had taken a hotel room not far from the train station, and from there had tried again to reach the conduit by phone. She waited and waited, her impatience mounting, afraid to venture outside the room. Finally, two days later, a deep voice answered.
“Thank God,” she said, hearing him speak the code. He repeated the phrase and Sharon quickly answered with the proper response.
“Where are you?” he asked.
She supplied him with the name of the hotel, hung up the phone, and murmured a short prayer. Sharon Johnson believed God helped steer one through life, and finally getting through to the conduit had reinforced this belief. She had allowed herself fear, an agent’s most formidable foe, but now the conduit was on his way and she knew there was a chance. Hope had driven off fear for the moment.
She was washing her face in the small bathroom when the phone rang. The phone! She counted the rings. Except for the hotel desk clerk, whom she had paid handsomely to alert her of visitors, no one knew she was staying here. Perhaps the conduit was calling back, taking precautions. But after two rings the phone went silent. The signal: a single person had inquired at the desk and was headed up. She tried to collect her thoughts. What to do? How long had it taken the clerk to phone? How long did she have?
She was tempted to head for the stairway, but whoever was after her might have sent the elevator to the top floor empty, rendering it useless, while he, or she, used the stairs. The fire escape was another alternative, but again, her visitor might not be alone, and by now, only seconds from the confrontation, a backup might be in place. She was trapped. She studied the room, wondering what to do. No use hiding behind the door. Under the bed? Ridiculous. That left only the small bathroom, and it made no sense to trap herself in a room the size of a prison cell that had but one exit. She could feel the sweep hand of the clock counting down the seconds. What to do?
The idea struck her in a flash. She could clearly see the progression of events of the next few minutes. She quickly shed most of her clothes and piled them on the bathroom floor, leaving on only her pantyhose and shoes. She reached into the shower stall and opened the hot water. Steam wafted from behind the drawn shower curtain that enclosed the porcelain tub. She moved the pile of clothing so that it could be seen from the room’s door. Then she pulled the medicine cabinet door open to change the angle of the mirror. Steam crowded against the ceiling of the small room and worked its way down the walls like an ominous cloud. She studied the scene she had created: bra and clothes piled on the bathroom floor, steam, the sound of water running—it looked convincing. Her time was up. She slipped under the bed, at the same time trying to slow her breathing. Her bare chest heaved against the carpet.
She had to wait only seconds. A knock on the door was followed by silence. Then she heard what sounded like cat claws scratching the door: the lock was being picked. She tried to turn her head, angry that she had positioned herself facing the wall with no view of the door. The scratching stopped; the door brushed the carpet, opening a crack. Her heartbeat sounded like a drum to her, and she was afraid he might hear it. The door clicked shut quietly. The intruder waited patiently by the door. A professional.
Her ruse worked well. The intruder walked past her, slowly moving toward the bathroom, obviously taken in by the sight of the clothing and steam. The shoes told her it was a man. He exaggerated his walk, heel to toe, heel to toe, to avoid being heard. He had obviously done this before. She restrained herself from making her move too quickly. With the medicine cabinet opened slightly and the mirror partially fogged, there would be no way he would see her as she came up behind him. Still, if she moved too soon, he might hear her—too late, and her angle of attack would be all wrong. In such a small space a strong man would have the advantage. He inched closer to the bathroom door. In his right hand he carried a black nine-millimeter Beretta with a bulky silencer. One more step. Now!
She slipped out from under the bed. He had stopped and was looking down at the clothes, the steam swirling around him. She rose to her knees, suddenly unsure of herself. The year of study, the months of training, and now this.
He lifted the gun.
She took three large steps toward him, swung back her foot, and kicked straight up between his legs and into his crotch. As he yelled and crumpled over, she pushed him forward, smashing his head into the edge of the sink. She kicked again, this time at his hand. The Beretta fell onto the pile of clothes. The blow to his head did not knock him out, but stunned him momentarily. She had a split second to decide: the head again, or the gun? She reached forward, took him by the hair, and pounded his forehead into the edge of the sink. He reached behind himself quickly and
hooked the waistband of her pantyhose, gaining leverage. She screamed. She had lost her advantage. He twisted his fingers into the fabric and muscled her slowly to his right. She pounded a fist into his back. He hooked a leg around hers and leaned against her. She felt herself falling. She spotted a red stain on the edge of the sink. His forehead was bleeding. If it was bleeding enough, his vision would be impaired. In what felt like slow motion, she fell to the bathroom floor beneath his weight. His instinct was to drive for the position of advantage and dominate her quickly. She fell onto the clothes, trapping the Beretta beneath the small of her back where she couldn’t reach it. He came crashing down heavily on her, dazed by the blows to his forehead. The sight of his bleeding forehead was so revolting that she found a reserve of strength she didn’t know she had. She rolled strongly to her right, dumping him under the sink, and searched blindly for the gun behind her. He wedged his palm beneath her chin, pushing her head back.
She touched metal. The Beretta. Her fingers searched for the butt of the gun, down the silencer, down the barrel, then she had it. His fingers had tightened on her throat. He banged her head into the door frame and rose to his knees. She swung the gun around, but before she could aim—long before she fired—he batted it out of her hand. The gun bounced on the tile and slid into the corner. She drove her shoe into his chest, driving him back and off balance. He struggled to his feet. She knew there was no time to try for the Beretta—that would be his move.
She ducked her head and charged him, forcing him against the sink. His head snapped back against the open mirror with enough power to crack the glass. Someone, she thought, someone hear us, someone call the manager, someone stop him. Please… someone stop him! Despite her training, she knew a man this size would overpower her given enough time. Training was training—this was now, and she was frightened. They could teach you how to defend yourself, even how to kill, but overcoming fear could not be taught, only learned through experience, and Sharon had had little field experience.
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