by R. J. Jagger
His face was destroyed.
At least one bullet got it.
More like two or three.
He was deader than dead.
She went through his suit jacket and found nothing. Then, in the back pocket of his pants, she found a wallet and shoved it in her bra. People were congregating at the end of the block, timid black shadows wondering what the noise was all about.
She ran back to London and pulled her towards the dark end of the block.
“Come on, we got to get out of here.”
93
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Afternoon
IF THE MATCHBOOK was out there around the shed somewhere, Wilde couldn’t find it. They gave up and headed through the prairie for Blondie. A hundred yards into it Wilde stopped, wiped sweat off his brow and turned around.
“What’s up?” Alabama said.
“We’re going back.”
She grabbed his sleeve.
“Bryson, it’s not there. Maybe it was once, but now it’s not. Just give it up.”
“Can’t,” he said. “Do you remember that picture of Pazour and the other woman, the one with the black hair?”
Yes.
She did.
“What about it?”
“Do you remember what was in the background?”
“No.”
“A dog,” he said. “A black dog.”
“So?”
“Do you remember what we just dug up?”
She tilted her head.
“It’s hot. Tail’s probably tearing the car apart. Let’s just get out of here.” Wilde pulled up an image of claw marks up and down the interior. It was strong enough that he actually slowed down for a step or two. Then he came back up to speed.
Back behind the shed, he scraped the dirt off the dog until it was well exposed.
“Okay, pull it out,” he said.
“If you think I’m touching that thing—”
“Just grab his front paws and pull him out.”
She shook her head.
“What does Senn-Rae see in you? I don’t get it.”
“It is baffling, isn’t it?”
“Baffling isn’t a strong enough word.”
HE GRABBED the animal’s front legs and dragged it out.
Underneath was dirt.
He scrapped it away with the board, inch after inch after inch, not getting anything other than dirt. Then what he thought might happen actually did.
He got something other than dirt.
He got a body.
“Damn,” Alabama said.
Right.
Damn.
He scooped around with his hands, clearing the lifeless form enough to drag it out. It was the raven-haired woman from the photograph, as he thought it would be.
Unlike the pinup girls, she didn’t die pretty.
“It looks like someone stabbed her in the side of the head.”
Alabama nodded.
True.
She was dressed in ordinary clothes—cotton pants, a long-sleeved shirt, white crew socks and tennis shoes. Her hair was in a ponytail.
“How come she’s not a pinup?”
“I don’t know,” Wilde said. “My guess is that Jennifer Pazour was the plan and she was more in the nature of a surprise, something that happened during the plan.”
He went back to the hole and began sifting through the dirt with his fingers.
“What are you looking for?”
“The matchbook.”
94
Day Five
June 13, 1952
Friday Night
WHEN THE SHOT RANG OUT from inside the mansion, Vampire kept Fallon pinned for a few desperate seconds, then got off and stood up, looking at the structure but not moving towards it or away. Fallon struggled to her feet and broke into a run up the driveway.
Jundee was in trouble.
That’s what the shot was about.
One of the robbers must have spotted him.
He didn’t have a gun.
The shot couldn’t have come from him.
It had to have been at him.
He was hurt or dead and it was Fallon’s fault.
She should have stayed under the bed and kept quiet.
She got to the front door and yanked it open. The interior of the structure was eerily quiet. Not a sound came from upstairs.
“Jundee!”
No one answered.
She had no weapon.
She hardly had any strength.
Her leg was bloody and felt like a volcano was erupting inside.
She didn’t care.
She’d probably end up dead but she didn’t care. She had to do what she was going to do. If she died, she died. That was it.
She bounded up the stairs.
“Jundee!”
No one answered.
She called again.
More silence.
At the top of the stairs she turned right and made her way down the dark hallway, into the master bedroom. Jundee wasn’t under the bed. She knew that would be the case but the sight still took the breath out of her lungs. She looked around for a weapon and spotted a poker next to a small fireplace. The steel was cold in her hand but it was the right weight, not to heavy to swing but weighty enough to do damage.
She took a deep breath and headed down the dark hallway towards the other end of the house.
95
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
SHADE WOKE UP to find herself in a bed sleeping next to London, whose pillow was caked with dried blood. A faint patina of golden light framed the edges of the window covering. It was daylight Saturday morning but barely so, no more than six o’clock or thereabouts.
That was good.
At this point every hour was more precious than it had a right to be.
She bent over and examined the woman’s ear.
It bled during the night but the stitches were still in there. They hadn’t gone to a doctor to avoid being tied to the scene. They did the dirty work right here in the hotel room then went to bed.
She got out of bed without waking the woman, then got the shower warmed up and stepped in. She squatted under the spray, took a long heaven-sent piss, and got busy lathering up.
She killed a man last night.
A man named Jack Mack, according to his wallet.
It was self-defense.
She’d do it again.
She’d do it again a hundred times.
That wasn’t the issue.
The issue was, even though it was justified until the end of time, she still couldn’t get the picture of his destroyed face out of her brain.
Who was he?
Shade had a pretty good idea what happened. Someone saw her and London together on the streets. London wasn’t bringing her in, she was acting more like a companion or a friend. That couldn’t be tolerated. The CIA sent a new person in, Jack Mack.
Unlike London, he was a local.
SHE GOT OUT of the shower to find London sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Get in the shower, then we’re heading out.”
London stretched.
“To where?”
“To visit the apartment of our new friend, Mr. Jack Mack.”
“What for?”
“To find out who hired him.”
“I can already tell you. The CIA hired him, same as me.”
“I know that,” Shade said. “I want a name or phone number or something specific. I want to see if the words Penelope Tap are written down anywhere.”
London shook her head.
“Forget specifics. There’s too big a chance the cops will show up.”
“They have to figure out who he is first,” Shade said. “They don’t have his wallet, remember? I do.”
London wasn’t impressed.
“They have his car. He’s a local. That means they might even personally know hi
m.”
“True, but they won’t be going anywhere until they get a donut or two down the hatch. We’re going now.”
London headed for the shower.
Over her shoulder she said, “Just for the record, you’re no fun to wake up with.”
“So I’ve been told.”
IT TURNED OUT that Jack Mack lived on the third floor of a ratty apartment building sandwiched between two used car dealerships on east Colfax, neither of which could afford an electric sign but could afford tons of wooden ones to shine floodlights on.
The ugliest was a large piece of plywood with red painted letters that said, Big Sale! Today Only! It was faded with years of sun and wind. Pigeons sat on top and dropped their droppings down the face.
“Big sale today,” Shade said. “We better hurry up.”
London smiled.
No cop cars were sitting outside the apartment building. Everything looked normal. Shade parked on a side street two blocks off Broadway and said, “We’re up.”
The building had an elevator.
A cardboard sign was taped on the door.
BROKE.
They headed up the stairway, not talking.
Just after they passed the second floor, steps came down. Turning around would be suspicious. They held their course and intersected with a muscular man in a white sleeveless undershirt. He took a drag from a cigarette and ran his eyes up and down them as they passed. He was about to say something—Hey, baby, or something equivalent—but didn’t.
The encounter was too fast.
The drag on the cigarette ruined his chance.
From below, Shade could feel him looking up, studying her ass.
At the third floor she whispered to London, “Keep going.”
They went to the fourth, hung quiet for a minute to see if the man was coming back, then walked down to the third.
Jack Mack’s rat hole was at the end the hall.
The door wasn’t closed all the way.
It was actually ajar an inch or so.
This wasn’t the kind of place where you’d do something like that. It was more the kind of place that you’d make sure the lock was locked three times before heading out.
They listened and heard nothing.
Shade made her voice as innocent as she could and said, “Anyone home?”
No one answered.
She looked at London, giving her a chance to stop her.
Instead of doing it, the woman simply shrugged.
Okay.
This was it.
They both pulled their guns out of their purses and headed in.
96
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
FRIDAY EVENING Wilde showed up at Senn-Rae’s with two bottles of wine and enough cigarettes to get him through the night, unsure if she’d slam the door in his face or pull him into the bedroom by his tie.
She did neither.
She let him in, got two glasses out of the cupboard, filled them with ice and said, “Follow me.”
She took him to the roof.
There she retrieved two folding chairs from behind a ventilation duct and set them up at the west edge where the parapet was only a foot high.
A seriously stunning sunset unfolded over the mountains, fifteen miles or so to the west. A shorter building blocked most of the direct view of 16th Street but none of the sounds.
The Friday night buzz was palpable.
Electric signs were on, growing more and more prominent as the night descended.
Wilde sat down, filled their glasses and took a deep sip.
The wine was sweet.
He was more of a beer guy but tonight wasn’t about him.
“I don’t know what your day was like but it was better than mine,” he said.
“Why, what happened?”
“I spent an hour digging a dog and a woman out of a grave,” he said.
“The same grave?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“Well, I didn’t know it was a grave when I started digging.” With that, he gave her all the details and, at the end added, “I sifted around in the dirt thinking the matchbook would be there. If it was I couldn’t find it.”
“So what’d you do with the body?”
“Put it back where I got it.”
“You reburied it?”
“Right, the dog too,” he said.
“Why?”
“In case the guy’s monitoring the place,” he said. “We’re getting closer. I don’t want him to know it.”
“This is a dangerous game you’re playing.”
He raked his hair back with his fingers.
“You’re the one who got me into it, remember?”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I wish you’d let me fire you.”
“That isn’t going to happen,” he said. “If you want to give me a bigger retainer, though, that would be fine.”
She frowned.
“I thought you were protecting me because you cared,” she said. “Now I see you’re just in it for the money.”
“Not just the money,” Wilde said. “The other thing too.”
“Which is what?”
“Sex.”
“Sex?”
Right.
Sex.
“If you’d like to make a payment tonight, that would be fine.”
“By payment, you don’t mean the retainer.”
No.
He didn’t.
“I mean the other one.”
She gave him a kiss.
“How big of a payment are you looking for, exactly?”
He opened his arms wide.
“About this big.”
“That’s big.”
“Yes it is.”
Senn-Rae grabbed his hands and pulled them even wider.
“How about something like that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Something like that might kill me.”
THAT WAS LAST NIGHT.
Now it was morning and he was still alive, he shouldn’t be but he was. He crawled out of bed without waking Senn-Rae, lit a cigarette and headed for the shower.
When he got out, the woman was still sleeping.
Her naked body lay on top of the sheets, bathed in a soft morning light.
If there was anything more beautiful in the world, Wilde had never seen it.
He wanted her.
She was the one.
He knew it before but knew it even better now.
He gave her a kiss on the cheek and headed for the office.
97
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
FALLON WOKE IN A COLD SWEAT. It was the middle of the night—one or two or three in the morning, she didn’t know, all she knew is that it was still pitch-black outside. She needed daylight to come. She needed to get this night over with.
Jundee swung his arm around her.
“Are you up again?”
“Sorry.”
“It’ll all work out, I promise.”
“Okay.”
He kissed her.
“That’s my girl.”
He rolled away, curled into a ball and snuggled into the pillow. Almost immediately his breathing got heavy and rhythmic.
He might have killed a man a few hours ago.
They’d find out tomorrow.
Fallon couldn’t stop replaying it in her head. After she ran down the stairs, Jundee came after her. The intruder—the male one, the gorilla—heard either one or both of them. Fallon got out of the house okay. Jundee didn’t. He got attacked with furious fists.
Then a gun fired.
Jundee looked at the explosion just long enough to see a woman pointing the weapon at him.
“Don’t!” the man shouted. “You’re going to hit me!”
In that microsecond, Jundee bolted for the back door and made it out. The attacker pursued, with a kn
ife in hand. Jundee stayed ahead for fifty steps then got caught.
The blade swung at his face.
He pulled back.
The knife slashed across his neck.
He’d been cut.
He could already feel the blood.
Then something snapped.
He wrestled the knife out of the man’s hand and threw it as far as he could. The man kept coming.
He kept attacking.
He wouldn’t give up, ever.
They ended up on the ground wrapped around each other. Jundee got the man’s head in his arms and twisted as fast and as hard as he could.
The man’s power weakened.
Jundee broke loose and ran.
He didn’t know if he’d killed the man or not.
HE DOUBLED BACK and encountered Vampire in the front yard. “She’s in the house.”
He bolted upstairs.
Fallon was in a room at the end of the hall.
She was alone.
The other intruder, the female, was nowhere to be seen.
The safe was only half drilled, still closed and secure.
“Come on!”
They ducked out the back, made it to Jundee’s house and cleaned the wound on his neck. Then they curled up in each other’s arms and went to sleep.
THAT WAS LAST NIGHT.
Now it was two or three hours later, the middle of the night. Fallon flopped onto her back and wondered if she was crazy enough to actually do what she was thinking about doing.
She was.
Damn it, she was.
She got out of bed without waking Jundee, got dressed and grabbed his car keys.
Then she headed out the front door, closing it gently behind her.
The night was cool and crisp.
A dog somewhere out in the darkness barked twice and stopped.
98
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
SHADE TOOK A CHANCE on whether Wilde would be in the office on a Saturday and got lucky, finding him alone except for a cat. “Got some information for you.” She pulled two cigarettes out of her purse, lit them and handed one over.
Wilde took a long deep drag and blew a smoke ring.
“Tell.”