by Glenn Smith
Bill Murphy didn't think it over. He had already decided. "Yes. If you are telling the truth, and if I am still alive to create a new file, what goes in it won't be something you object to."
Gina resumed eating and so did the others. Even Murphy got a few bites swallowed. With dinner finished, Gina suggested that Ava, Freddy, and Murphy stay the night at her house. She thought Flint and Mary should go back to the Bristol. Everyone agreed.
Gina called Flint aside and took him into the library. She unlocked a large wooden cabinet, pulled out a dark gray Sig Sauer pistol with a Crimson Trace Laser sight on the top right grip of the handle. She gave it to Flint along with two spare magazines with seven .38 caliber rounds in each. "A little insurance," she said. "It was my son's. He should have taken it to New Jersey and he would still be alive." She added, "it isn't registered so if you need to toss it aside it won't be traced back here."
Flint said thanks and slipped it into his jacket side pocket. The extra clips went into his jacket on the other side. "And thanks for dinner," he added. "It was delicious."
Gina called a taxi for Flint and Mary, showed photos in three newspapers of angel trumpet assassins to each of them. The angel trumpet society was not referred to in the picture captions. Mary and Flint hugged Ava, shook hands with Murphy, Freddy, and Gina, went with the guard to be put into a taxi at the iron gate.
At the Bristol Flint suggested they both sleep in Ava’s room because it had a bedroom and a sitting area that was separate. He did not want to risk an incursion by the angel trumpet assassins into Mary’s room without his being able to offer some protection.
At the front desk, Mary asked for her own room key and for Ava's, explaining that Ava had gone on to the door of her room because of something heavy that she was carrying—a gift. Flint took his key. After stopping at his room to turn the light on and leave it on, he tapped quietly on Ava's room door.
Mary let him in. They decided that Mary would sleep in the large bed and Flint would take a long sofa in the sitting room. Mary wanted to ask Flint questions, but the long flight and demanding evening had her so tired that she fell asleep immediately. It was early. Flint was awake, thinking about Gina and everything she had said. His mobile phone signaled a call. Laura spoke a cheerful hello.
Chapter 8
As Flint said hello back to Laura, his watch told him it would soon be 11:00 P.M. in Sorrento. So it was nearly 4:00 Sunday afternoon in Austin. Shana Street, nursed her Shiner bock beer. She had initially ordered a gin and tonic because she liked hearing herself say, "I'll have a G & T please." She had cancelled that, switched to a longneck, but her cashmere skirt and matching sweater said G & T as in Bombay Sapphire Gin with Fever Tree tonic water. She sat alone at a table for two in the Driskill Hotel Bar in downtown Austin.
Sometimes, on a Sunday afternoon, Shana dressed in her nicest outfit and went to an expensive bar for one drink. The warm leather, crackling fireplace, muted colors, well framed mirrors, and polished hard woods made her feel like more than a nearly penniless actress waiting to be found by Mr. Right. Today was different. She was meeting Laura Syms who wanted to buy her a drink.
Shana was early; Laura was late by ten minutes. She had parked her 2009 Honda sporty convertible on the street two and a half blocks from the hotel. She hung up with Flint as she strode comfortably through the huge, two-leveled lobby of the Driskill. Laura had a Perrier with a twist. Shana took another Shiner longneck. Laura's highly developed small talk skills weren't needed for Shana. Instead, she pulled from her purse the phone found in Flint's car, laid it on the small table between them.
"The Texas Rangers found this in Flint Rock's wrecked auto. I think you put it there."
Shana looked down, averted her eyes, stayed quiet.
"You might as well tell me," Laura continued. "The Rangers will haul you in now if I make a phone call. They don't know where you are or where you live. I do."
Shana breathed a defeated sigh. "Damn. I knew it was too good to be true." She paused. "Look, will you help me if I tell you? I don't want any police trouble."
Laura watched Shana scrunch her shoulders, which made her look smaller. Laura said, "if I can, I will. I already know that you have a police record in Nevada under the name Margaret Alice Cavendish. Your birth certificate from Pittsburgh gives your name as Margaret Alison Conch. Now tell me about the phone."
Shana looked like she was about to run. Laura slipped the phone back into her purse, pulled out her own smart phone, started to dial.
"Don't do that, don't do that," Shana blurted. "I'm going to tell you. It was a guy I met in Vegas. I was working in a casino there till a few months ago and this guy caught me stealing two $50 chips. I needed it for my rent. I ran. I hitched a ride with a trucker who ended up dropping his load of computers in San Antonio. I got a job at the Menger Bar. That was four months ago. I was doin okay, but this guy, Steve is his name, showed up two days ago, Friday afternoon. He said I had a choice of going under arrest or he pointed out the man you were sitting with. Said he would pay me $1000 to find a way to put the cell phone in his pocket or in his car and that would be it. He'd forget about the chips I took."
"So," Laura said, "you lucked out when I asked you to take that card to Flint."
"I guess. All of a sudden he was gone while I was talking to Steve. I wasn't sure I would be able to find him. I saw how you looked at him. I didn't think you'd let him leave."
"Did you get Steve's thousand?"
"No. I was afraid he'd double cross me. Now I don't have a job, and the Menger didn't pay me for last week cause I'm afraid to go back. Please don't tell the cops. I had to tell the Menger my address. Like an idiot I gave them the real address. I figured Steve would get the address from the bar tender. Your friend gave me a ride back to the Menger, but I was scared so I ran. I grabbed my little suit case and a few toiletries and hitched a ride to Austin.
"Laura looked around them at the well appointed bar. "You picked a stylish place to stay."
"You crazy? I'm not staying here. Friday night a nice looking guy in his twenties gave me a ride in his pickup, bought me supper on 6th Street and let me stay with him. He lives in Austin."
"So you moved in with him?"
"Oh, no. I left while he was still asleep this morning. He told me that this is the most high class hotel in town. I came down here to sort of eyeball the place, see if maybe I could get a job here."
"Did you?"
"I didn't ask yet. I'm not sure if I am more afraid that I might get the job or that I won't. I'm wearing the only nice outfit I have."
"Where will you sleep tonight?" Laura asked.
"No idea. Maybe I will get a job here and the bartender might get me a key to an unused room just for one night."
"You ever done that?'
"Once, when I was eighteen. The night clerk in a nice hotel in Pittsburg let me use an empty room. Turned out he wanted me to earn it, you know, with sex."
"Was it worth it?" Laura wondered.
"Yeah. Not very satisfying, but it didn't take long and I did have a place to sleep."
"You have two arrests for prostitution on your Vegas rap sheet. What about that," Laura inquired.
"No convictions. The cops like to roust new girls in town. There are always young babes, like I was, running from somewhere and dreaming of rolling in money. The pay's not that great. Casinos don't want girls distracting guys; they want guys playing till they lose it all. Depressed broke guys aren't worth much to a girl."
"Does Steve have a last name?" Laura wondered.
"Stevenson Karbouski. Don't know if it's his real name."
"Description?"
"Thinning black hair, brown eyes, five feet maybe six or seven inches, thirty pounds overweight, very white even teeth. He likes black pants and silk shirts and his pants are always too tight in the waist. I always thought he was about to threaten me. Maybe he was once a cop. Not a pleasant voice."
Laura excused herself, walked to the bar. Three minute
s later, she slid back into her chair and told Shana, "turns out I know the bartender. He says they are short a cocktail waitress. He'll try you out for a week if you want to see if it's a fit."
"Shana looked astonished. Said nothing for half a minute. "Really!" she finally exclaimed. "Tell him yes."
"Tell him yourself,” Laura said. She and Shana were sitting at a table for two some distance from the six sided bar. “Come on I'll introduce you. Oh. And I told him you are a friend. So don't embarrass me."
Laura left them talking as she took twenty-five steps away from the bar. She pretended to admire a statue of two cowboys on a pedestal in the center of the room under a gorgeous cupola of green stained glass. She dialed Harry Johnson, gave him the description of Stevenson Karbouski and spelled the name.
Shana shook hands with the barman, sealing their agreement. Laura walked back to the bar. "I didn't ask him about a room yet, Shana confided."
"I have a better idea about that," Laura declared. Why don't you stay with me during the tryout week. I am living in a three bedroom house a few blocks north of here, not far from the University of Texas. My father owns it. He's a realtor. He bought it below market but hasn't been able to flip it yet because it is architecturally different and it has a lot of expensive elements. So I am living there alone till it sells. What do you say?”
"I say YES, thanks." She stepped from where she and Laura had been sitting to a dark nook along the wall where she had left her carryon.
Chapter 9
Stevenson Karbouski stepped onto a local train at Pompeii, a suburb of Naples, Italy. He had taken a United Flight at noon the day before, Saturday, and arrived in Rome at 8:00 A.M. the following day, Sunday. By the time he reached Naples on a non-express, it was a little past noon. His stop at a military surplus store on a back street not far from the central station did not take long because he had called ahead. He left a credit card that had a spendable value of $100,000 and took away a shoe box containing a mobile phone trigger and some T4 Plastico explosive.
A few minutes before 6:00 P.M., Steve was walking away from the House of the Vetti brothers in Pompeii. He had slid the shoebox between vertical bars on the see-through iron gate that had been added to the entrance of the house. Then he used a sawn off broom handle that he brought with to push the small box till it was out of reach from the gate. It rested on the tiled floor just underneath a fading three foot high fresco, a painting at eye level directly on the wall. The subject was a Greek mythological figure called Piriapus. He was depicted as a strong man, having an erect phallus, exaggerated in length and resting on a scale to illustrate its extraordinary size.
The House of the Vetti once attracted many curious visitors, but had been temporarily closed much of the time for ten years. The house contained many frescos but only those in the vestibule, which included the one of Piriapus, could be viewed without unlocking and entering through the front gate.
An hour and a half after Steve pushed the shoe box through the bars, he left a note at the desk of the Bristol Hotel. The manila envelope had printed on it the name of Flint Rock which the woman at the desk did not remember to give to Flint when he and Mary returned from Gina's dinner. She noticed it two hours later, walked it to his room and knocked on the door. He was on the sofa in the sitting room in Ava's room not far away, so he did not hear the knock.
Flint awakened at 8:00 A.M. to the sound of his phone. It was Laura, about to go to bed an hour after midnight in Austin. Shana had already turned in and Harry had asked Zeta to tell Laura what they now knew about Steve. She passed it on to Flint. Steve was a former Soviet spy, an East German with an odd Polish-sounding name, granted asylum by the United States when the USSR ceased to exist. His personal history had gaps that Zeta thought odd. She told Laura to tell Flint to watch out and to not trust him.
Laura and Flint hung up. Mary was still asleep because it was only then her body clock’s usual bedtime seven hours earlier in Texas. Flint returned to his room, opened the envelope that he found on the floor just inside his door. In it was a sheet of white paper with block letter printing: "YOU BIG PRICK—11:00 A.M. HOUSE OF THE VETTI. BRING THE SHRINK."
Flint showered, shaved, dressed and went to the rooftop restaurant for breakfast. Mary was there waiting for her first sip of coffee to be brought. He joined her, they ordered, she read the note.
"You going?" she asked him.
"Yes. Might learn something," he replied.
"Taking Ava?"
"Probably not wise, but I'll ask what she wants to do."
"Okay if I go instead?"
"Fine with me, but why take the risk?" Flint wondered out loud.
"I'll be bored if I stay here and . . . well, the note said to bring Ava. I'm about her size. You might get more if whoever this is thinks you are following directives."
Mary and Ava both had full dark hair with some curl. Both were athletic and walked smoothly with energy.
Mary called Ava. They chatted. Then Flint took the phone and read the note to Ava.
"House of the Vetti," Ava said slowly, “is at Pompeii, but that particular house has been closed for the last few years. I saw it on a school field trip when I was a young teenager. We all giggled at Piriapus."
Time was short. Flint would be late to Pompeii even if he and Mary left immediately and went directly to the House of the Vetti. After more discussion, Ava agreed to Mary's request to take her place
Flint had the Sig .38 in his right hand blazer pocket. The sunny day made his medium weight blazer just enough for comfort. The battery in the gun’s handle was fresh so the red laser sight worked properly. He would have to trust that it was sighted in for about forty or fifty yards. No time to try to find a shooting range and check it out by firing it.
Mary and Flint each had on Ray Ban aviator tear drop sunglasses. Mary took one of the two extra clips of ammo for the Sig and put it in her hand bag;
"My dad had a Sig Saur," she told Flint. It was not a .38 like this one; 9 mm instead. I got so I could beat him on the range most of the time."
"Have you fired with a laser sight?" Flint asked her.
"Yes. My father's had conventional open sights, but an army colonel at the range had a Glock with a red laser dot. I fired his a couple of times."
The local train took an hour. Another five minutes to walk to the entrance of the Pompeii restoration and get tickets for each of them. Then it was a fifteen minute walk to the street on which the House of Vetti is located. They were twenty-five minutes late.
As the pair walked up to the house entrance, the nearest person was half a football field's length away. An iron gate at the house’s entrance was locked, but Piriapus and his oversized appendage was visible through the vertical bars. Mary suppressed a laugh. Flint had been there several years earlier, before the building was closed to the public. His mind was puzzled. Why would someone want him and Ava on that spot? Then he saw the shoe box inside the locked iron gate, well out of reach.
"Run," he said loudly as he grabbed Mary's arm and followed his own directive. They were moving fast, already ten yards down the concrete and stone wall away from the iron gate when the plastique blew Piriapus to smithereens. Flint was behind Mary, so he absorbed more energy from the blast than did she. He went down. Mary almost did, but she stayed upright and was another ten yards further along when a figure stepped from somewhere across the narrow street. He twirled a set of bolas perdida above his head—the kind that Argentine gauchos use to stop people from running. They use heavier ones for cattle. It caught Mary's ankles, whipped around them tripping her.
A gun fired at Flint. The slug missed by a few inches. Flint was conscious but he had lost his breath from the hard impact of falling on cobblestones. He could not see their assailant. Mary yelled "THROW IT." He hurled the gun toward her voice. He felt a man standing over him, breathing heavy, swearing and sweating. He heard a pistol cock. Then the intense explosion of a pistol fired. The assailant collapsed, laid heavy on top of Flint.
> By the time Mary untangled herself from the bola, stood and walked to where Flint was just beginning to breathe again, the man she had fired at was absolutely still on his back. Mary kept the Sig Sauer aimed, but then she saw further precaution was not needed. Her bullet had struck him in the temple.
Mary helped Flint stand while he pocketed the dead man's passport. She handed him the pistol which he slipped back into his side pocket. Because the house was closed, no one else was close enough to be hurt.