by R. J. Jagger
He didn’t know.
WHEN HE GOT BACK to the office, Alabama was hanging up the phone. She studied his face and said, “What happened to you?”
He tossed his hat at the rack.
He did it so quick he forgot to aim to the right.
The hat flew past the rack on the left, hit the wall and fell to the floor.
Alabama picked it up and tossed it back.
He tried again aiming to the right this time. It flew through the air on the exact path as before and ended up on the floor.
“I’m never going to get it.”
“No you’re not,” Alabama said. “So answer my question. What happened to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No, nothing,” he said. “I just stopped over at Senn-Rae’s to say hello.”
Alabama rolled her eyes.
“What part of your body did you do the talking with?”
He wrinkled his forehead.
“What’s that mean?”
She picked up the hat and tossed it to him.
“What do you think it means, cowboy? On second thought, don’t even tell me. I don’t want to get the picture stuck in my head.”
Wilde shrugged.
Okay.
Fine.
“Well, just tell me one thing,” she said. “Were there any rug burns involved?”
Wilde tilted his head.
No.
“A bloody lip, that’s it. Not on purpose, by accident.”
“That’s all?”
He nodded.
“Remember,” he said, “it’s still morning. I’m not fully warmed up yet.” He put a serious expression on his face and said, “Senn-Rae’s client Mr. Smith is the pinup killer.”
“How do you know?”
He lit a book of matches on fire and looked at her through the flames as he told her about the Mr. Smith, the second Mr. Smith, the one who inquired about the rental property.
Alabama was impressed.
“So our work’s done,” she said.
“Not quite,” Wilde said. “She doesn’t know who he is, remember?”
“She doesn’t need to,” Alabama said. “All she needs to know is that she has a problem. Just tell her to make up a story about why she has to drop out of the case.”
“That won’t get her off the guy’s radar screen.”
67
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Morning
FALLON SHOOK Jundee’s limp body and got no response. The left side of his head was matted with blood but it was dry. The bleeding had stopped. His face was still warm and breath came from his lips. A faint pulse thumped in his neck.
He wasn’t dead.
He might be in a coma but he wasn’t dead.
She gauged the climb up and decided she couldn’t do it; maybe later but not now. The struggle of staying awake all night on the ledge was assaulting her strength. She laid down next to Jundee with her face pointed towards the sky. The dirt was gritty on her back. The valley was still thick with shadows and would be for a long time. She put pressure on her leg.
Sleep.
She needed sleep.
There might be rattlesnakes.
Too much blood might seep out of her leg.
She didn’t care.
The only thing she cared about was closing her eyes.
She needed everything to turn black.
Nothing else mattered.
If she died, she died.
Her life had been good, relatively speaking.
She had no regrets.
She closed her eyes.
The darkness felt like cool, clean water.
Then everything went black.
THE NEXT FEW HOURS were surreal. Jundee regained consciousness. They made it out of the valley and hitched a ride into Santa Fe with a cancer-nosed farmer who had a half-inch spit-gap between his front teeth. Fallon got her leg stitched up, Jundee got diagnosed with a mild concussion, then they hopped on the first Greyhound pointed towards Denver and claimed the back seat. The New Mexico desert rolled along at 65 outside their window.
“All that for no briefcase,” Jundee said.
Fallon patted his knee
“Well, at least we had fun.”
A smile crept onto his face.
Then he got serious.
“That was the worst feeling of my life, when I got out of the car after the crash and couldn’t find you anywhere,” he said. “Blood was dripping into my eyes, my head was spinning and I thought for sure you were squashed under the back of the car. That was the worst moment of my life, realizing that I’d killed you.”
“Next time bring longer rope,” Fallon said.
He shook his head.
“You’re too much.”
“The briefcase is cursed.”
“There’s no such thing as cursed,” he said. “There’s such a thing as stupidity and I had more than enough of that to go around last night. But cursed, no.”
“There’s nothing good about any of this,” Fallon said.
“We can’t turn back now.”
Fallon pulled back and focused on his face.
“You’re not serious,” she said.
“I am. We need to find that second briefcase.”
“I don’t understand your obsession with it.”
He frowned.
“I think the two briefcases together are the plans for a bomb.”
“An atomic bomb? Like Hiroshima?”
He shook his head.
“No, something bigger.”
“What’s bigger than Hiroshima?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out. We need to find out more about the guy who was transporting the briefcases, too. I’m pretty sure he’s a spy of some sort.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Is it? He had the documents sorted into two briefcases that couldn’t be put together without a code,” he said. “He was also carrying a gun and lots of cash. Don’t forget about the two guys in the car who chased you, too. My money says they were CIA or FBI; either that or they were other spies who knew the guy was en route and were out to steal everything from him. Whatever’s going on, it’s huge.”
“Cursed.”
THEY RODE IN SILENCE.
Immediately behind their seats, the diesel engine rumbled and spit fumes into the air. The deadly New Mexico sun beat down on the roof of the Greyhound and baked the insides.
Every window was open.
It did no good.
“I just thought of something,” Fallon said. “When I came out of the valley that first day, I had the one briefcase in my hand. There was a woman up on the road. She took a real interest in me. It was so weird that I wrote down her license plate number. Maybe she went down to the wreck after I left. Maybe the other briefcase was in the trunk—where I never looked—or on the ground, somewhere where I didn’t see it. Maybe she took it.”
Jundee’s face lit up
He kissed her.
“Bingo.”
68
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Morning
THICK BLACK SMOKE spiraled into the sky as Shade and Mojag walked away from the burning structure. Mojag stepped around a Yucca plant and said, “I have to be honest with you. Last night, I stopped feeling Visible Moon’s presence in the world.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m just saying—”
“She’s not dead,” Shade said.
Mojag gave her a sideways glance and said nothing.
The sky was warm and blue.
The air was alive with scents.
A bee sucked on an orange wildflower, paying them no mind as they walked past.
“She’s not dead,” Shade repeated. The words were defiant, daring Mojag to disagree.
“Okay.”
“She’s not dead.”
“Okay, I said.”
That was the end of the talking u
ntil they got to the car. Mojag slipped behind the wheel, fired up the engine and said, “So what’s the plan?”
“Your half of the plan is the same,” Shade said. “Get back down to the financial district and look at faces.”
BACK IN DENVER, Shade checked her hotel room and found it the same as she left it. No predators had come around sniffing for bait.
The plan wasn’t working.
She needed to talk to Wilde.
They needed to come up with new sticks to beat the bushes with. They needed to figure out where the guy would hole up with Visible Moon now that his first choice was a pile of ashes. In hindsight, Shade shouldn’t have let Mojag burn the place. Before, there was at least a chance the guy would return, possibly on an emergency basis. Now there was no chance at all.
She splashed water on her face, dabbed on rouge and lipstick and headed down to street level, making sure the door was locked behind her.
She hadn’t gone thirty steps when something happened.
A person appeared next to her and fell into step.
It was the blond with the red baseball cap, the one who was there when Shade almost got hit by the taxi, the one who Shade thought might be following her. She was about thirty. Her body had a power to it. Shade wasn’t sure if she could take her in a fair fight.
The woman smiled at her.
To a stranger, they were old friends.
“I have a gun,” she said. “If you run, I’m going to shoot you. It doesn’t matter that we’re in public. If you run, you die. Do you understand?”
The woman would do it.
Shade could see it in her eyes.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to follow directions,” the woman said. “If you do that, everything’s going to be just ducky.”
“Someone’s setting me up.”
“That’s between you and them. My job is to bring you in if I can or kill you if I can’t. Your choice.”
SHADE LOOKED AT HER WATCH.
It was 11:48.
“I’m starved,” she said. “Let’s get some lunch. My treat.”
“Funny.”
“I’m serious,” Shade said. “There are a few things you should know before you take me in—or kill me, my choice.”
69
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Morning
THE QUESTIONS WERE PILING UP so thick and deep that Wilde could hardly see over the top. Who was Senn-Rae’s client? That was the big one. He lit a Camel, took a long drag and blew a smoke ring at Tail, who was sitting on the edge of the desk. The cat swiped a nervous paw at it then jumped down.
The toilet in the adjacent room flushed.
Two heartbeats later, Alabama came out, in the process of pulling her zipper up.
She caught Wilde looking at her and said, “You want this up or down.”
He blew smoke.
“Up.”
“You’re going to say down sooner or later.”
He shrugged.
“I probably am.” He flicked ashes into the tray and said, “I’m going to make an appointment with Senn-Rae for some time later today. While I’m keeping her busy I want you to get into her office and find out who her client is.”
Alabama picked up Tail and sat on the edge of the desk.
“I thought you liked her.”
“I do.”
“You’re going to drive her away,” she said. “A girl needs her privacy.”
Wilde wasn’t impressed.
“Not this kind. This kind will kill her.”
“I’m just saying,” Alabama said. “The path you’re on, you may end up saving her and loosing her in one simultaneous motion.”
“Then that’s the way it will be,” he said. He told her about the notebooks on Senn-Rae’s desk. If there was information as to where she went last night or something new about who the client was, that’s where it would probably be. “The important thing is to put everything back exactly as you found it. Don’t move anything until you study it first to see how it’s laying. I still don’t know how she knew I was in there.”
“I’ll be careful.”
She held Tail in front of her face, rubbed noses and said, “Do you want to come with me? Yes? Was that a yes?”
THE PHONE RANG.
Alabama picked it up and said, “Wilde man’s office.” Then she handed it to Wilde.
“Some lady, not your squeeze.”
He took one last drag and mashed the butt in the ashtray.
It turned out to be Jacqueline White from the homicide department.
“This call never happened,” she said.
“It absolutely never happened.”
“There’s a rumor floating around about another missing woman,” she said. “She’s someone named Jennifer Pazour.”
“You got an address?”
“No, it’s not even anything official,” she said. “It’s just something I heard on the street. I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
“Thanks, I owe you one.”
“I’ve already been thinking about how you can repay me.”
Yeah?
How?
“Take me out some night and get me drunk.”
“Done.”
“You’re messing with me.”
“No, I’m serious.”
“In that case there’s a second part too,” she said. “Afterwards, I want you to take me behind the bleachers and tickle me.”
Wilde pulled up an image from high school, out back behind the bleachers, when they used to wrestle on the grass and pin each other down, then tickle each other to death.
“You’re a bad girl.”
“I’m not a bad girl,” she said. “I’m a very bad girl.”
“Are you still as ticklish as you used to be?”
“We’ll find out.”
HE HUNG UP, pulled the phonebook out of the drawer and flipped to the P’s.
Pazour, Jennifer.
There she was.
He grabbed his hat, dipped it over his left eye and told Alabama, “Come on. We’re taking a field trip.”
70
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Afternoon
DURING A TEN-MINUTE STOP in Colorado Springs, Jundee made two phone calls from the bus station. One was to the law firm to let them know that neither he nor Fallon would be able to make it in today because they got in a traffic accident down in New Mexico on a case. The other was to a Denver PI named Jacob Whitecliff, with directions to find out who belonged to a certain license plate number, together with as much information as Whitecliff could dig up on that person in the next couple of hours.
Whitecliff had a report waiting when Jundee got to Denver.
“The plate belongs to a woman named Rebecca Vampire,” he said.
Jundee raised an eyebrow.
“Vampire?”
“Right.”
“You’re messing with me. Just go on and get to the punch line.”
“Ain’t one,” Whitecliff said. “She’s an honest-to-God real life Vampire, at least in name. Rebecca Vampire, I kid you not. That’s not the strange part, though. The strange part is that she lives in a fancy mansion up on Capitol Hill.”
Jundee waited for the punch line.
“And?”
“And, there’s no explanation for the money,” Whitecliff said. “She doesn’t work. She’s not married.”
“Must have a sugar-daddy,” Jundee said.
Whitecliff nodded.
“That’s my guess. Either that, or she’s up to her ass in illegal alligators.”
“Is she a looker?”
Whitecliff shrugged.
“I drove by but she wasn’t outside.”
Jundee asked what the damage was and paid in cash, plus a $20.00 bonus.
“This is confidential,” he said. “Don’t get drunk and let your lips wag.”
“Never,” Whitecliff said. “Does this have somethi
ng to do with one of your cases?”
Jundee nodded.
“Right.”
“You smell like diesel.”
“Thanks for noticing.”
FROM WHITECLIFF’S OFFICE, they picked up sandwiches from a deli and ate them as they walked to Fallon’s hotel. The briefcase was still safe and sound under the bed.
Fallon headed for the bathroom and closed the door.
She got the shower going, sWildeed and stepped in as soon as the temperature got up.
The soap was heaven.
The diesel fumes were no match.
JUNDEE PACED for two minutes, wondering if he dared to actually do what he was about to do.
Screw it.
Just go for it.
It’s now or never.
He took off his clothes, every last stitch, and walked into the bathroom.
Then he pulled the curtain back.
Fallon’s body was more perfect than he envisioned.
Her face was washed of all makeup.
Her hair was soaked and flat to her head.
Water ran down her forehead and cascaded off her nose.
She was too good for him.
He stepped back.
Suddenly she grabbed his hand and pulled him in.
“It took you long enough,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
71
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Afternoon
SHADE AND HER CAPTOR ended up in a dark booth next to a jukebox in a place that served as a café in the day and a bar at night. The speakers were spilling out scratchy hillbilly music through a worn needle. The place smelled like a forest fire that someone tried to put out with beer. They ordered cherry cokes and burgers without the cockroaches.
“Nice place,” Shade said. “What’s your name?”
The woman took her baseball cap off and ruffled long blond locks with her fingers.
She was pretty.
A fly landed on her arm.
She shooed it off.
“London,” she said. “My last name’s you can’t talk your way out of this.”
Shade tilted her head.