by R. J. Jagger
She held the door open.
“Come in.”
THEY ENDED UP at the kitchen table where the professor carefully went through the documents, particularly those portions referenced in the key. Jundee and Fallon stayed quiet and let her concentrate.
Ten minutes passed.
Then a half hour.
Then the woman leaned back in her chair and looked at Jundee and said, “How much do you know about fission bombs?”
He tilted his head.
“I know that atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” he said. “I know we’re in an arms race with the Russians. Other than that, not much.”
“Hold on.”
She pulled a bottle of red wine out of a kitchen cabinet, filled three water glasses half way and handed one to Jundee and Fallon. After taking a long swallow out of hers she said, “Let me give you a little background.”
Jundee took a sip.
The wine was cheap and sweet.
Still, he’d had worse.
“Okay.”
“The atomic bombs that we used on Japan in the war were developed under something known as the Manhattan Project, which was basically a joint venture between the United States, Canada and England, led by American physicist Robert Oppenheimer. The scientific knowledge was centralized at a secret laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The goal was to develop a fission bomb. That goal was met. The end product was the atomic bomb which was eventually dropped on Japan and led to the end of the war.”
Jundee nodded.
“Okay.”
“Shortly after we bombed Nagasaki, the United States government released an official technical history of the Manhattan Project, mostly to justify the huge expense,” she said. “In hindsight that was a mistake. The Russians used that report as a blueprint to develop their own atomic bomb, which they tested on August 29, 1949, latter dubbed Joe-1.”
Jundee took a sip of wine.
It dropped into his stomach and tingled his blood.
“I’m with you,” he said.
Good.
Very good.
“Anyway,” Golden said, “the Russian’s bomb totally took us by surprise. We knew they’d eventually develop it but had no idea it would be so far ahead of our projections. Within months of Joe-1—I think it was January 1950—President Truman sent the United States into a crash program to develop a super bomb, which was projected to be a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb. It would be based on hydrogen fusion. That was the official start of the nuclear arms race. The best scientific minds were brought back to Los Alamos where the Manhattan Project had been developed.” She exhaled. “There’s been a rumor floating around the community that they were getting close. The problem, as I understand it, was to separate the fusion and non-fusion components of the weapon and use the radiation produced by the fusion bomb to first compress the fusion fuel before igniting it.”
Jundee raised his hands in surrender.
“Hold on,” he said. “I was with you until that last part.”
“What I’m saying is that these documents—together with the ones that are missing, meaning the ones from the second briefcase—appear to give the blueprint for a hydrogen bomb.”
“One that actually works?”
“Unknown,” Golden said, “but my suspicion is, yes. A good portion of these documents appear to give the answer to the one remaining technical issue, namely how to use the radiation to compress the fusion fuel before igniting it.”
“Wow.”
Right.
Wow.
“If you can find the rest of the documents, I’ll be able to give you a definitive answer.”
77
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Noon
IN THE LADIES’ ROOM, Shade splashed water on her face and looked at herself in the mirror. At any second, London could storm through the door and pull a trigger. Shade didn’t want to get the bullet in the back. She wanted it in the heart. She wanted to be facing the woman when it happened. She wanted to see the finger squeeze on the trigger. She wanted to see the bullet as it came out. She wanted to know the exact second she would die. She didn’t want to be surprised.
A second passed, then another.
The door didn’t open.
Without drying her face, she walked over to the window and pushed it up. It didn’t budge, then she saw why—it was screwed shut.
She punched it with the palm of her right hand, making contact just enough to break the glass but not so powerful as to not be able to pull back at the exact right time.
The glass shattered.
There was no blood on her hand or wrist.
Jags stuck out from all four sides.
She pulled her tennis shoe off and knocked them out, then threw the shoe out and climbed into the opening, keeping as much weight as she could on the outside edge of the sill where the jags couldn’t shred her. The plan was to twist around and drop to her feet. That wasn’t going to work. There wasn’t enough room to swing her legs around. She protected herself as much as she could with her arms and dropped down headfirst.
Her face hit the ground but not with full impact.
There.
She was out.
She was free, in an alley.
SHE PULLED HER SHOE ON as fast as she could and ran. At the end of the alley, London came around the corner. Her stance was wide. Her gun was out and pointed at Shade’s heart. A silencer was screwed into the barrel.
Shade stopped as fast as she could.
Five steps away, that’s how far she was.
Too far to charge.
Her instinct was to turn and run but an image of the bullet burying itself into her spine stopped her.
She froze.
She couldn’t go forward.
She couldn’t go backwards.
All she could do was stare into the woman’s eyes.
They were dark.
They were filled with intensity.
The barrel of the weapon rose from the heart to the face.
“You left me no choice,” London said.
Then the gun fired.
78
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Afternoon
WILDE HAD A BAD FEELING about Jennifer Pazour’s raven-haired friend in the photograph. Every time he closed his eyes he pictured her dressed up in some pinup outfit and sprawled out on top of a roof. The plan was to call every phone number that they’d found in the victim’s apartment and find out who answered.
Wilde picked up the phone.
Before he could dial, Alabama snatched it out of his hand. “I’ll do the talking.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the one who knows how to be nice,” she said.
“And I don’t?”
“You’re okay but you’re not me.”
“You almost shot me once,” Wilde said. “Did we forget about that?”
“That was a warning shot and you know it.”
She dialed the first number. As it rang she added, “Don’t stop arguing just because you always lose. One of these days I’m going to let you win.”
“Let me?”
She nodded.
“It might even be this week. You never know.”
OVER THE NEXT HOUR they got a lot of empty phone rings. The few people who did answer didn’t have much to say. None of them were particularly close to Pazour. Then something happened that they didn’t expect. A ringing phone was answered with, “Law firm.”
“Law firm?”
“Yes, Stuart Black’s office. Can I help you?”
“Is Jennifer Pazour there?”
“Nobody by that name works here.”
“We’re trying to find her and this number was in her notes,” Alabama said. “Maybe she’s a client.”
“Hold on.”
A hand went over the phone.
The woman on the other end was shouting something to someone
.
Then she was back.
“I just talked to Stuart. He’s never heard of anyone named Jennifer Pazour and neither have I. Sorry.”
“Why does she have your number?”
“I wouldn’t know. Maybe someone referred Stuart to her.”
Right.
That made sense.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
79
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Evening
AFTER DARK FRIDAY NIGHT Fallon and Jundee drove past Vampire’s house. The woman’s car was in the driveway, most of the lower level was lit and two upper rooms had lights on. “She’s getting ready to go out,” Jundee said. “That smaller window on the upper level is probably the bathroom. The one next to it is a bedroom.” They pulled to the curb as far down the street as they could while still maintaining surveillance and killed the engine.
“Maybe she’s just going to bed,” Fallon said.
Jundee tapped two Camels out of a pack, lit them both and handed one to Fallon.
“No,” he said. “If she was doing that she would have turned the downstairs lights off first. She’s going out. Her wild side’s calling her.”
“That’s right. It’s Friday night, isn’t it?”
Yes.
It was.
“You know what?” Fallon said. “After we do this we should go out somewhere and get drunk.”
“Deal.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Nothing changed at Vampires while they smoked their cigarettes.
Fallon wore black shorts, white ankle socks, tennis shoes and a dark blue sleeveless blouse. The streetlights were a good distance away.
The interior of the car was dark.
Jundee flicked his butt out the window, still lit, and watched it bounce across the street. Then he squeezed Fallon’s knee.
“TAKE YOUR SHORTS OFF.”
She hesitated, then pulled her shoes off and wiggled her shorts down.
Jundee twirled them on a finger and tossed them on the dash.
Then he put a hand on each one of her knees and spread her legs.
She let him.
She wore white cotton panties.
“Don’t move a muscle.”
“Okay.”
He got down on the floorboard between her legs and nibbled on her knee.
It tickled.
She wiggled.
“No moving.”
“Sorry.”
“Stay perfectly still.”
“Okay.”
He nibbled his way up to her panties but didn’t touch them, not with his tongue, not with his chin, not with anything. Then he did the same up her other leg. Her breathing was deep and she started to moan.
He brought his face up and pressured his mouth and chin between her legs.
She spread her knees wider.
He nibbled on the cotton, soaking it.
Then he put a hand on each side of her panties and ripped them off.
He threw them out the window.
Then he ran his tongue up and down between her legs and didn’t stop until he owned her.
80
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Afternoon
THE BULLET passed so close to Shade’s head that the vacuum actually moved her hair. “If you ever make me pull this trigger again the results won’t be as pretty,” London said. “Do we have an understanding?”
Shade knew the right answer.
What came out of her mouth was the wrong one.
“No we don’t have an understanding. You’re either going to have to kill me or let me go.”
She turned and walked.
“Stop!”
She didn’t.
“Last chance!”
She braced for the bullet but kept walking.
“Damn you’re a little bitch.”
Shade stopped and turned.
“I’ll make you a deal,” London said. “We stick together until this Visible Moon thing is done. You don’t try to shake me and I don’t kill you. When the time’s right, though, after it’s all over, you come back with me with no resistance. You don’t try to escape. You don’t do anything to force me to kill you.”
Shade chewed on it.
“I made a promise to ferret out a mole,” she said. “If I let you take me back, the mole wins.”
London made a mean face.
She pointed the barrel straight up and pulled the trigger.
“You’re not making this easy for me.”
“Do this,” Shade said. “Help me find Visible Moon. I won’t escape or sneak off. We’ll work out the rest of it later.”
London frowned.
“Like I said, you’re a little bitch.”
Shade nodded.
“I trust that means we have a deal?”
London unscrewed the silencer and shoved it in her purse, followed by the gun.
“It looks that way,” she said.
“Good. You won’t be sorry.”
THEY WALKED DOWN the alley to the main street.
“You were right about what you guessed before,” London said. “It was Penelope Tap who hired me. She didn’t do it directly, she did it through a chain of command, but she was the one at the top of that chain.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Is she the mole?”
“I’m almost positive,” Shade said. “Maybe you can help me get the proof.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
No.
She wasn’t.
Not even a little bit.
“You have ties to her,” Shade said. “Maybe we can use that somehow.”
81
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Afternoon
JENNIFER PAZOUR was a taxi driver before she disappeared. “I’ll bet dollars to donuts the guy who killed her started out as a fare,” Wilde said, grabbing his hat. Fifteen minutes later they walked into the main office of the Yellow Cab Company and asked to speak to the main guy in charge.
“That’s Gunny Bob. He’s out back.”
Out back they found a man bent into the open hood of an earwax-yellow vehicle with grease up to his elbows and a cigar dangling from his mouth.
“You Gunny Bob?”
The man looked up, first at Wilde then at Alabama.
“Yeah.”
“Someone said you’re in charge of this place.”
“I am. You want to shake my hand?”
He extended his hand.
Wilde fixated on the grease, pictured it migrating to his suit in spite of his best intentions, but extended his hand anyway. Gunny Bob pulled back at the last second and said, “Okay, you passed. What can I do for you?”
“Jennifer Pazour worked here,” Wilde said.
The man nodded.
“Worked is the right tense,” he said. “She stopped showing up, never called or nothing.”
“We know, we’re trying to find her,” Wilde said.
It was a lie but it made things simple.
“Why, what happened to her?”
“She disappeared,” Wilde said. “I’m a P.I. and this is my assistant.”
Alabama grabbed Gunny Joe’s hand and shook it.
“Actually I’m his boss,” she said. “He just has a hard time admitting it.”
The man smiled.
“I’ll bet you are.”
He handed her a rag, the cleanest one around.
Alabama took it, wiped her hands and said, “We were wondering if she picked up the wrong guy.”
“You think she’s dead or something?”
She shrugged.
“We’re trying to find out.”
Gunny Bob frowned.
“She was too pretty to be a driver,” he said. “I told her that a hundred times. She always dressed down, never wore any makeup or anything like that, and kept her hair tucked under a baseball
cap. She tried to look like a guy as much as she could. Even with all that, though, she was still a looker. It always bothered me that she was too pretty for the job, especially driving nights.”
“She drove nights?”
He nodded.
“Four nights a week,” he said. “She liked to keep her days free.”
“For what?”
“Modeling,” Gunny Bob said.
“For magazines and stuff like that?”
Right.
That.
“Plus she modeled for art classes,” he said.
WILDE SPOTTED a rusty Coke can by his feet and kicked it. “What about her fares? Did anything weird happen before she stopped showing up for work?”
Gunny Bob didn’t hesitate.
“One guy, she complained about,” he said. “He was paying with a $5.00 bill and it dropped into her lap. He reached down and picked it up before she even knew what was going on. In the process he made contact, if you catch my drift. He didn’t grab her or anything, but there was a brushing involved.”
“Tell me about him.”
“That’s it,” Gunny Bob said. “I don’t know any more than what I just told you.”
“Did she describe him or tell you his name?”
No.
She didn’t.
“Where’d she pick him up?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She never said.”
“When did it happen? How long before she stopped coming to work?”
Gunny Bob wrinkled his forehead and scratched his nose.
When he took his finger away grease marked the spot.
“I’m guessing so don’t quote me on this,” he said. “It was a week or so ago.”
WALKING BACK to Blondie, Alabama said, “Do you think the crotch guy killed her?”
“Maybe but it’s more likely he was just a pervert,” Wilde said. “I’m a lot more interested in the modeling she did for art students. If the killer is the pinup painter, maybe that’s where he meets his victims.”
He hopped in, fired up the engine then shut it off.
“Be right back,” he said.
He trotted around to the back, pulled Gunny Bob out of the engine compartment and showed him a picture of Jennifer Pazour and a raven-haired woman.