by R. J. Jagger
“Do you know her?”
The man nodded.
“That’s Jennifer.”
“No, I mean the one with the black hair.”
The man studied it.
Then he shook his head.
“No, a face that pretty, I’d remember. I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
“Okay, thanks for everything.”
82
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Night
WHEN VAMPIRE’S UPSTAIRS LIGHTS went out, Jundee pointed and said, “She’s done primping. We’re getting close.” Five minutes later a black car pulled into the driveway. The headlights stayed on, no one got out. The mansion door opened and the silhouette of a woman appeared, a woman wearing a long tight white dress and a large fluffy hat.
“That’s Vampire,” Fallon said.
“She’s not what I expected.”
A red scarf dangled off the woman’s right shoulder. She slid into the passenger seat and the car pulled away almost immediately.
Jundee and Fallon ducked down as it drove past.
After the taillights disappeared around the corner, they got out and headed for the house on foot. The lower level was still lit but no shadows or movements played behind the window coverings.
The gate was open.
They walked up the driveway and knocked on the front door.
No one came.
They knocked louder.
Jundee tried the knob and found it locked.
“Come on.”
They headed around to the back.
The privacy was absolute.
No one from a street or house could see them.
All the windows at ground level were closed and locked but the upper floors were open. Fallon climbed a trellis, which brought her four feet to the left of a window. She took a deep breath and jumped. One hand bounced off the sill but the other got a grip. She muscled in then came down and unlocked the back door for Jundee.
They were in.
“We’re officially insane,” Fallon said.
“Shit,” Jundee said.
Fallon followed his eyes to her leg.
Blood was tricking out of the bottom stitch, not rampant but already trailing past her knee and halfway down her calf.
She looked around for something to wipe it with.
A washer and dryer were to their left.
In the corner was a large basket of dirty clothes. Fallon grabbed whatever it was on top and wiped her leg. What she used turned out to be a white blouse. They could wash it for two days and still not get the blood out.
“We need to take that with us when we leave,” Jundee said.
“In that case—”
She ripped off a strip and tied it around her leg. The rest of the garment got stuffed into her back pocket as far as it would go, with the rest hanging out.
“Let’s get this over with.”
“Right.”
They headed into the guts of the structure, across the first floor, under a crystal chandelier, past a large saltwater aquarium and up a winding oak staircase with a fancy oriental runner.
“It’s up here,” Jundee said. “I can smell it.”
“Something doesn’t feel right.”
Jundee halted in the middle of a step.
He heard nothing he shouldn’t.
“It’s okay,” he said.
Fallon shook her head.
“No, something’s wrong.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Something.”
Jundee continued up the stairs.
“Your nerves are playing tricks on you.”
She didn’t follow.
“Let’s just forget it and get out of here,” she said.
“No, we’re already here.”
83
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Afternoon
SHADE TOLD LONDON everything she knew about Visible Moon—how the woman was abducted, how Tehya was scalped, how Mojag was in Denver trying to spot the man he saw in the bar that night, how she hired a PI named Bryson Wilde, how she found the rental house down south where Visible Moon had been held captive and, most importantly, the scribbling on the floor to the effect that Visible Moon would die that night.
“Mojag said he didn’t feel Visible Moon’s presence in the world any more after last night,” she said.
London pulled her baseball cap off.
Her hair was matted and sweaty.
She ruffled it.
“What about you? Have you felt her presence?”
Shade wrinkled her brow.
“In the end, that’s all just mind play. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” London said. “How about before? Did you feel her presence then?”
She nodded.
“I hate to say it, but yes.”
London put her hat back on.
“To me, none of that mind stuff is real. It has no basis in reality. What we need to do is focus on why the guy took her in the first place. What’s his agenda?”
“Unknown.”
“You must have some idea.”
“I do, but it’s not grounded in any facts,” Shade said. “I picture him as a snake. He ate Tehya, which got him full. Then he took the remaining food and is keeping it alive for later, when he gets hungry again.”
THEY WERE NEAR MARKET STREET and swung by the mailbox to see if Mojag had marked it.
What Shade saw she could hardly believe.
There on the back of the box was a big red X.
It was written in lipstick.
“I can’t believe it. He actually spotted the guy.”
“You think?”
“It’s either that or something’s going on that’s so important that he wants to meet tonight,” Shade said. “I can’t imagine that anything happened since this morning other than he spotted the guy.”
“So now what?”
“Let’s head down to the financial district and see if we can find him.”
84
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Afternoon
ALABAMA’S SEARCH for client information at Senn-Rae’s loft had come up empty. It was starting to make less and less of a difference given the new information coming in, but it was still the most direct path. Instead of heading over to the art school and running down that lead, Wilde went over to Senn-Rae’s and took the stairs up two at a time.
“It’s time for you to tell me who your client is,” he said.
The woman shook her head in disbelief.
“I told you, I don’t know.”
Wilde lit a cigarette and paced.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “Whoever is doing the killing is the same person who abducted the Indian, Visible Moon. We know that because the house where she was kept was too damn close to the shed where Jennifer Pazour was found.”
“And?”
“And, there’s someone in town—a Navajo—who can identify the person who took Visible Moon. I want him to have a look at your client. That’s all he has to do, just look at the guy. The client will never even know it’s happening. He’ll never know you told me a word.”
He paused, waiting.
Senn-Rae sighed.
“Okay. I’ll tell you his name.”
“Good. What is it?”
She walked over as if she was going to whisper in his ear. Instead she shoved him on the chest with both hands and infuriated her face.
“Bryson, I told you. I don’t know. Get it through your brain. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know who he is. Get it? He’s a voice on the phone, that’s all he is.”
Wilde blew smoke.
“Okay.”
“Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“God, you’re impossible.”
He smiled.
“Is that a bad thing?”
�
��Don’t press me,” she said. “I’m right on the edge.”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her stomach to his.
“The edge of what? Sex?”
“Don’t even think about it,” she said. “You’re wearing me out.”
Yeah?”
Yeah.
“It’s bordering on crazy.”
He frowned.
“Can’t have bordering,” he said. “It needs to be on one side or the other.”
He walked over and locked the door.
“Bryson, don’t even think about it.”
“Trust me, I’m not thinking.”
HE PICKED HER UP, flung her over his shoulder and took her to the bedroom. “We’re going to find out who he is tonight,” he said.
“How?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You need to think of something. Will you do that?”
“Okay.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Good,” he said. “Now where was I?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“You were just about to screw me silly,” she said.
HE STOOD UP.
“Now I remember,” he said. “I was going to run down a lead. Got to go.”
“Bryson, don’t you dare!”
“Got to,” he said. “I’ll call you in a couple of hours.”
“Don’t bother, I hate you.”
He blew her a kiss.
“I’m going to spend the afternoon thinking of ways to kill you,” she said.
He nodded.
“As long as you’re thinking of me, that’s the main thing.”
Then he left.
85
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Night
UPSTAIRS IN VAMPIRE’S BEDROOM, Fallon came across something she really didn’t expect, namely a briefcase under the bed. She pulled it out, shined a flashlight on it and said, “Bingo.”
Jundee opened it.
Nothing was inside.
“Where’s the stuff?”
“It’s the same as mine,” Fallon said. “It’s identical. Look, even the latches are the same. This has to be from the wreck.”
“It’s from the wreck alright,” Jundee said. “She must have taken the papers out.”
“Why?”
Good question.
Very good question.
“If she was going to give them to someone, I don’t see why she wouldn’t have just left them inside. My gut tells me she took ’em out to put ’em in a safe,” he said. “Put this thing back exactly how you found it.”
She did.
Then they searched for a safe.
It wasn’t in the master closet.
It wasn’t behind any of the wall paintings.
It wasn’t anywhere.
“She’s got it hidden, that’s for sure.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Fallon said. “We can’t open it anyway.”
“We can find out what kind it is,” Jundee said. “I have people I can call. They’ll be able to tell me if they can break into it or not.”
“I didn’t know you knew those kinds of people.”
“I’m a lawyer,” he said. “Remember?”
SUDDENLY a door slammed downstairs.
Someone was in the house.
They turned their flashlights off.
Now what?
They were in the master bedroom, which was the only major room on that side of the floor. To get to the other side they’d have to pass the staircase.
Voices were coming up.
There was no time to open a window and jump.
“Get under the bed!”
86
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Afternoon
MOJAG WAS NOWHERE to be found in the financial district. Shade crisscrossed again and again to no avail. Maybe he was in a deep shadow, waiting patiently for his mark to end the workday and walk out a front door. Maybe he had already intercepted the man and taken him somewhere for interrogation.
Mojag was hotheaded.
That was the problem.
He might make a move he shouldn’t.
He might do it without waiting for Shade.
“What are you going to do when you find him?” London asked.
Shade wiped sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. The city was hotter than it had a right to be. The sun was beating the life out of everything. “We’re going to find out what he did with Visible Moon. After that, let’s just say that it’s not a healthy situation to scalp Mojag’s woman and then let him get his hands on you.”
London nodded.
“Where’s he going to do it?”
“Back at the reservation.”
“Are you going to help him?”
“Yes, but only here in Denver. I’m going to help catch him.” A pause then, “You don’t want to be around when that happens.”
“We’ll see.”
“For your own good,” Shade said.
“Like I said, we’ll see. Tell me about Penelope Tap. Why do you think she’s the mole?”
“Come on, I’ll buy you an RC.”
THEY DUCKED INTO a fountain bar and sat at the end of the counter closest to the sidewalk. If Mojag walked past, they’d see him. The air conditioning was an arctic storm. The barstools were a gift. The ice cubes were small and chewable.
“Penelope Tap,” London said.
Right.
Penelope Tap.
Shade pulled up the image of a mid-thirties, Harvard-educated, multi-lingual bombshell who had an actual stint in the underbelly of Russia for more than five years. No one knew exactly how many kills she had logged but everyone agreed the number was big. Her smile was sugar, sweet and tempting.
“We have high-level information making its way to the Russians,” Shade said. “It mostly involves our current research and development into the hydrogen bomb, but it also involves the foundation of that program, such as policies, decision makers, dates and times of meetings, funding, timetables, and a lot more. We had no idea how big the leak was until two months ago when a Russian woman made contact with the FBI. She wanted passage to the U.S., immunity, plus protection and money. In exchange, she’d help us bring down a mole.”
“Who?”
“She wouldn’t say,” Shade said. “She gave enough specifications about the information that had been passed to demonstrate that a mole really did exist.”
London tipped her glass up, got an ice cube in her mouth and crunched down on it.
“So what happened?”
“The fourth contact that was supposed to happen never happened,” Shade said.
“She’s dead?”
Shade nodded.
“That’s the thinking,” she said. “Anyway, one thing the FBI was pretty sure about by that point is that the information was being fed through Cuba. Since the mole was high-up in the CIA, the FBI took their information directly to the white house. The white house approached me. I’d been working Cuba for the last four years, getting information from my sources as to what Russia is doing in its weapons development.”
London tilted her head.
“Why weren’t you a suspect?”
Shade laughed.
“Me? I don’t operate at those levels,” she said. “I don’t have access to the information that was being passed. Only an upper-level CIA agent, or a Senator or Congressman, or someone in the upper levels of the white house would have that kind of information.”
“Okay.”
“Anyway, I’ve been working my sources, plying them with large amounts of money in an effort to find out who the Cuban connection is. They must have been getting close because everything suddenly went to hell. Tuesday night I was in Havana. A meeting that should have gone smooth as a summer day ended up with my source getting killed and me having to steal a sailboat to make it out of the country. After not getting killed, I
’m suddenly framed for being a spy.”
“Okay, but why do you think Penelope Tap is behind it?”
“She’s the one who hired you,” Shade said. “That was the cincher. Before that, though, I already had my suspicions. She has the Russian connection. It would be easy for one of her sources over there to set up a line of communication through Cuba. Plus, I never liked the woman, not from day one. She’s too good at what she does. She’s too slick. She’s gotten too many people in the company to believe she’s the most patriotic person that ever existed.”
London got the attention of the gal behind the counter and ordered two more RCs.
“She’s a dangerous woman,” Shade added. “I hope you like bullets in your brain because if she finds out that you’re talking to me instead of bringing me in, that’s what you’re going to get. If I was in your shoes, I’d bring me in. I really would.”
87
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Afternoon
WILDE SWUNG BY THE OFFICE and honked the horn until Alabama stuck her head out. Ten seconds later she came out of the building, threw Tail in the back seat and hopped over the passenger door without opening it.
“You’re going to ruin my springs,” Wilde said.
Tail climbed between the seats into Wilde’s lap.
He tossed it into Alabama’s.
“Where are we going?”
He checked for cars, had to wait for two then pulled out. “Back to Jennifer Pazour’s house.”
“Why?”
“Because we never found the matches.”
“So what? Are you starting a collection?”
“If we didn’t find them that means we didn’t look deep enough.”
Alabama wasn’t impressed.
“You know,” she said, “sometimes it’s downright embarrassing to be your boss.”
He smiled.
Fifteen minutes later they were back in the victim’s house, hopefully without being spotted by a nosy knitter-neighbor. Tail came with them on account of the top being down on Blondie.
“They’re somewhere in her dirty clothes,” Wilde said. “We didn’t check there last time.”
They checked.
The matches weren’t there.
He did, however, find the woman’s checkbook in one of her pants pockets and stuffed it into his jacket. “We’re going to tear this place apart until we find them,” he said.