by R. J. Jagger
She informed him about the London encounter yesterday which didn’t result in either of them being killed, followed by their attempt to meet up with Mojag last night, which did result in someone being killed.
A man named Jack Mack.
“Jack Mack,” Wilde repeated. “Never heard of him.”
“He’s a local,” Shade said. “Me and London paid a visit to his apartment this morning. From what we can tell, he’s nothing more than a two-bit punk with a record as long as your dick.”
Wilde smiled.
“He must have started in the 1800s.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” she said. “The point is, he’s not the kind of guy the CIA usually hires to do jobs. The fact they hired him means they wanted me out of the picture yesterday. They didn’t even have time to fly someone into town.”
Wilde flicked ashes into a tray.
“So what’s the rush?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I do know one thing. They wouldn’t sit back and see if he got the job done or not. They’d have someone en route just in case he blew it. That person will get into town today.”
“That’s not good but it’s only half of it,” Wilde said. “The other half is that the cops will be looking for you. Did you leave a trail?”
“Not that I know of,” she said. “It was pretty dark. The guy was a scumbag. Do you think the cops are really going to be looking that hard?”
Wilde shrugged.
“They might, if they think another scumbag did it and they can get two for the price of one.”
Shade tilted her head.
“Well, if they catch me, at least I know a good lawyer.”
“Who’s that?”
“Someone named Stuart Black,” she said. “That’s the one my friend Mack used to stay on the streets.”
Wilde froze.
“Stuart Black?”
She nodded.
“Yeah, there were papers in his apartment.”
“What kind of papers?”
“You know, correspondence, bills, payments, that kind of thing. Why? What are you making that face for?”
He told her.
Stuart Black’s phone number was written on a piece of paper he found in the house of Jennifer Pazour, a pinup victim.
SHADE MASHED what was left of her butt into the ashtray and lit another, two actually, one for Wilde.
“What’s weird,” she said. “This guy’s name, popping up in two places.”
Wilde pulled a book of matches out of his pocket and set it on fire with the cigarette.
Tail scampered into the corner.
“You just took a life out of that cat,” Shade said.
“He’s still got three or four.”
“Well, then, don’t worry about it.”
The flames caught the flap of the matchbook and rose higher. Wilde watched them burn.
“Earth to Bryson,” Shade said. “Are you there?”
He shook the fire out and threw the remains in the ashtray.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
Stuart Black was the pinup killer.
Wilde could feel it in his blood.
“LOOK,” Shade said. “The reason I’m here is because I might end up dead today, or arrested, or who knows what. I want to be sure you find Visible Moon if something happens.”
Wilde nodded.
“I already promised you that.”
She blew smoke.
“I’m going to be looking for Mojag today,” she said. “I may or may not end up finding him. If I don’t, I want you to help me meet up with him tonight. If I disappear between now and then and don’t get back to you by this evening, I want you to do it on your own. Let me tell you how to do it. You’ll need to find his truck and meet him there at ten. It’ll be parked within a couple of blocks of here.”
“What’s it look like?”
She told him.
“You’ll meet him, if I don’t show up?”
Wilde nodded.
“I will.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“And hope to die?”
“And hope to die twice,” he said. “Good enough?”
She nodded.
99
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
WHEN SHADE LEFT, Wilde headed over to Senn-Rae’s and told her about his theory that Stuart Black was the pinup killer.
She wasn’t impressed.
“I see the connection to the Pazour woman since his number was written down,” she said. “That’s the only connection I see though. So what if he did defense work for some two-bit scumbag who took a potshot at this other client of yours. How does that tie him to the pinup murders?”
“I think he has Visible Moon,” Wilde said. “She’s either a victim or a victim-to-be.”
“She’s not pretty, right?”
“Right.”
“All the pinup victims were beautiful, right?”
“Right.”
“Do you see where I’m going with this?”
He did.
He didn’t care.
“What I’m going to do is get this Stuart Black guy on the phone,” he said. “I want you to listen to his voice and see if he’s your mystery client.”
She shrugged.
“Okay but don’t expect anything. I can already tell you you’re off base.”
“You’ll be honest with me if it is him, right?”
“How can you even ask me something like that?”
“Does that mean, yes?”
She shook her head.
“For a smart guy you sure know how to say a lot of dumb things.”
He nodded.
“It doesn’t come natural,” he said. “I have to work at it. Where’s your phone book?”
She pulled it out of a drawer.
Wilde looked up the lawyer’s number and dialed.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Damn it.
No answer.
“It’s Saturday,” Senn-Rae said.
Right.
That it was.
Saturday.
He checked the phone book again to see if the man’s home number was listed.
It wasn’t.
HE GRABBED HIS HAT and dipped it over the left eye.
“Where are you going?”
“To his office.”
“He won’t be there.”
“That’s why I’m going.”
“What are you going to do, break in?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” A beat, then he added, “The things I do for you. You should be impressed.”
“Are you doing it for me or the retainer?”
He opened the door, turned and said, “Yes.”
Then he bounded down the stairs two at a time.
HALFWAY DOWN he turned and trotted back up.
Senn-Rae jumped when he opened the door.
“You’re impressed, right?”
She smiled.
“Yes.”
Then she got serious.
“Be careful, Wilde, just in case you’re right.”
“Okay.”
“What I’m saying is, if you have to get shot be sure it’s not between the legs.”
He pictured it.
“Trust me, if he’s pointing there I’ll tell him to go for the heart.”
100
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
THIS WAS THE WORST IDEA Fallon ever had but she couldn’t live another minute without knowing if the man Jundee fought with was dead or not. She was the reason that encounter came to be, meaning if Jundee was a killer then it was her fault.
She fired up the engine, shifted into first and pointed the front end towards Vampire’s house.
When she swung by, the lights were out and no activity appeared.
Did the woman make a pol
ice report?
She’d seen Fallon, not only earlier tonight but also from the wreck. She could describe her with particularity. She’d also seen Jundee, albeit for only a moment, but the moment would be fresh in her mind. If the police were looking for her then they were looking for her. There was nothing she could do about it.
Screw it.
She didn’t know exactly where the fight took place but had a pretty good idea from Jundee’s description. It wasn’t on a sidewalk. It was several steps off in a yard next to some bushes. She drove down the street where it happened according to her best guess and didn’t see anything unusual.
She went by Vampire’s house again.
It was the same.
Dark.
Inactive.
No other headlights were anywhere in the area. All the sane people of the world were sleeping. She parked two blocks over and headed back on foot, hugging the shadows where she could and trying to not look suspicious.
She realized she was wearing white shorts.
Brilliant.
Underneath she had black panties.
Should she do what she was thinking of doing?
She chewed on it, then slipped the shorts off and tucked them up her T-shirt into her bra.
There.
Better.
She was pretty sure she had the correct street, which was the one behind Vampire’s. Starting at the first house, she ducked into the yard fifteen steps and walked parallel to the sidewalk.
She saw no body.
Suddenly headlights came around the corner.
Damn it!
SHE LOOKED FOR COVER and ended up flat on her belly behind a grouping of junipers in the front yard.
The car motored past without slowing.
She poked her head up just enough to take a quick look after it swept by.
It was a cop car.
Two cops were inside.
Her heart pounded.
Were they trolling the area because of a murder or was it just a normal routine?
She headed for the next yard.
No body was there, at least that she could see. It was too dark, though. She could be almost on it and not even know.
She kept going.
There was no body in the next yard.
Wait.
Bushes were coming up.
A black shape was next to them, not much darker than the ground but discernable nevertheless. Fallon swallowed and headed that way one careful step at a time.
The shape was a body.
She shook it and got no response.
It was hard and muscular, like Jundee described. The head was tilted at a strange angle.
She felt for a pulse and got none.
Then she wiggled the head.
It moved freely as if the skull was no longer connected to a spine.
SUDDENLY HEADLIGHTS SWUNG onto the street from around the corner several houses down. It came from the same dark area that the cop car disappeared into.
Fallon laid on her stomach next to the body.
A second passed.
Then another.
Her arms shook.
Then her bladder gave out.
Warm urine filled her panties and spread.
Her instinct was to move.
She couldn’t.
Her chest was tight.
She couldn’t breathe.
101
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
TODAY WAS THE DAY Shade would die. She could feel it in her blood. It would be violent which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Violence was quick. The adrenalin would weaken the pain. Wilde would carry on with Visible Moon. He said he would and was telling the truth. What they hadn’t discussed, though, is whether Wilde would kill the man if it turned out that Visible Moon was already dead.
He probably wouldn’t.
He’d beat the daylight out of him.
He’d turn him over to the police.
He wouldn’t kill him though.
Wait, what needed to happen was for Wilde to give the information to Mojag.
She was two blocks away from Wilde’s office.
She turned back.
She needed to be absolutely sure that Wilde got the information to Mojag. She needed to get his promise that he’d handle it like that.
She was just rounding the corner onto Larimer Street when a cab pulled next to her and screeched to a stop. London rolled down the window and said, “Get in!”
The woman’s stress was palpable.
Something was wrong.
She hopped in.
London hit the driver on the arm and said, “Go!”
The vehicle pulled away with a stiff acceleration that sent Shade falling back into the seat. A car honked, cut off and not happy about it.
“What’s going on?”
“Not now,” London said.
She turned and looked out the back window.
To the driver, “Make a left at the next corner.”
“You got it, lady.”
102
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
THE LAWYER, Stuart Black, practiced out of a pretty nice three-story standalone building on Bannock that looked like it started life as a mid-sized mansion and then got converted. The front door was locked and the lights were out. Wilde knocked, got no response and cupped his hands on the glass to see inside. A receptionist area had a desk cluttered with papers. Gray plastic covered a typewriter. A green banker’s lamp was off.
Wilde headed around to the back.
There he found an alley but not anything private by any means. On the other side was the rear end of a four-story hotel. Two weathered oak doors were propped open. Between them was a large dumpster. Someone could come out any second. They’d be steps away.
Speed was important.
The back door was locked, no big surprise, but the mechanism wasn’t the old skeleton kind from the earlier days.
It had been updated.
It would be difficult to jimmy.
Wilde punched the glass out with his elbow, reached through and unlocked the latch.
Then he was in.
No one was in the alley.
Someone might have seen him from one of the upper windows of the hotel, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Okay.
Get moving.
Don’t dawdle.
THE FIRST FLOOR was filled with the reception area, a large conference room that doubled as a library, restroom facilities and a kitchen.
Wilde headed up a wooden staircase with a fancy oak banister to the second level. The front half of that floor was a large office paneled with dark wood. The back was a room with an old desk and scores of boxes stacked on top of each other along three walls. Handwriting on the ends identified the client files that were stored in those boxes.
Wilde ran his eyes from one to the next until he found the one he was looking for—MACK, JACK. Inside he found four separate expandable files pertaining to the man. He pulled them out, set them on the floor at the top of the stairs and then read the outsides of the remaining boxes.
No more were relevant to the Mack.
He headed into the lawyer’s primary office.
He didn’t like being on the second floor.
There was no way out.
He was vulnerable.
No sirens were headed his way. That was good. If someone from the hotel had seen him, the cops would be on their way by now.
Stop thinking.
Keep moving.
THE DESK was piled with papers, none of them relevant to anything. Pencils, pens, paperclips, junk—that’s what was inside the desk drawers.
In the corner was a gray metal filing cabinet.
He opened the top drawer.
Inside were client files, probably current cases still being worked on. He riffled through them, reading the names on the tabs.
N
othing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
He opened the next drawer.
More nothing.
It wasn’t until he got to the bottom drawer that he found something of interest, namely that it was locked. He pried it open with a pair of scissors. Inside were more client files. One of the names jumped out at him, it was so unusual.
Vampire.
Rebecca Vampire.
He kept going. The very last file was an expandable one with several manila folders inside.
The word Shadow was written on the outside.
103
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
THE HEADLIGHTS MOVED eerily slow as they came up the street and punched out images of curbs and sidewalks and manicured grounds.
They dimly sprayed on Fallon.
They sprayed on the dead body next to her.
The spray was indirect, hardly a spray at all.
It was enough though.
It was more than enough.
Keep going.
Keep going.
Keep going.
They did.
They passed.
It was the cop car.
Then they suddenly stopped. Fallon didn’t move, not a muscle. The wetness between her legs was cold. She didn’t care. The driver had his foot on the brake. The taillights threw an orange mist into the nightscape.
Suddenly one of the doors opened.
Fallon scooted over to the hedges and crawled backwards, keeping her eyes pointed at the street. Suddenly the dark silhouette of a man appeared at the edge of the yard. He walked towards her.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
She got onto her knees, ready to bolt, hoping beyond hope she could outrun him. He’d shoot, no question, but it was almost pitch-black. If she zigged and zagged she might live.
Suddenly the man stopped.
There was a slight motion to his body. What was he doing, pulling out a gun? Then a strange sound came. She’d heard it before but couldn’t place it.
“Ahhh.”
Pissing.
The guy was pissing.
He was pissing on the bushes.
She breathed in and out through an open mouth, as controlled and quiet as she could. The man sneezed, zipped up and left.
The taillights disappeared into the night.