by R. J. Jagger
“How’d you get in?”
“The door was open.”
Alabama pointed, “That door?”
Right.
That door.
“I thought for sure I shut it,” she said. “Do me a favor and don’t tell Wilde, okay?”
Shade paced by the windows.
“Did Wilde tell you about me shooting a man named Jack Mack last night?”
“You shot someone?”
“In self defense,” Shade said. “Wilde knows all about it, I told him this morning. When’s he coming back?”
“Unknown.”
“Where is he?”
“Same place, unknown.”
Shade tapped out a Camel and offered one to Alabama who wasn’t interested. She lit up, blew smoke and said, “Give him an update for me. Tell him the cops showed up at my hotel room this morning. London was there, I wasn’t, and she ducked out. I don’t know exactly why they were there but my suspicion is it’s because of Jack Mack. What I need Wilde to do is find out what the police know about London and me. Do they know we did it? Do they have a description of us? That kind of thing.”
“I can probably handle that,” Alabama said.
Shade tapped ashes into the ashtray.
“Either way,” she said. “What I’m really interested in knowing is where they got their lead. Did someone see us? That’s the question.”
Alabama wrinkled her face.
“A witness,” she said. “That’s the kind of information they don’t just blurt out.”
“I think what you’re going to find out is that it was an anonymous phone tip,” she said. “My guess is that it came from the CIA, who hired the guy in the first place. It’s their way of tightening the net around us. In fact, they probably knew he’d get killed from the get-go.”
Alabama nodded.
“Understood.”
“One more thing,” Shade said. “Tell Wilde that if I die and he later finds out who took Visible Moon, tell him to share that information with Mojag.”
“Okay.”
“Mojag will know what to do with it.”
“Understood.” She looked around. “Was there a cat here when you came in?”
“No.”
108
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
WILDE CLIMBED OUT the lawyer’s bathroom window with every ounce of self-control he could muster, keeping every movement quieter than death itself. It paid off because he dropped to the ground without anyone running through the door. He knew to keep his face pointed away from the hotel but was so desperate to know if anyone saw him that he threw a quick glance that way.
Bad move.
The three workers were staring directly at him. The face of the one he knew from Larimer Street broke into an expression of recognition.
The man actually waved at him.
Wilde waved back and headed away.
Damn it.
All he had to do was not turn his face.
He headed towards the thick of the city and turned into a suit in a sea of a thousand others. At the first public phone he opened the white pages and flipped to the C’s.
Caster.
Cordoza.
Cedarwide.
Corbin.
Corbin, Bob.
Corbin, Lana.
Bingo.
She lived at 1329 Marion.
She was the pinup girl from the boxcar.
He called and let the phone ring ten times before hanging up. No one answering might mean she lived alone, although she might not and the other person might be at work. He’d sneak in later after dark and find what he could.
RIGHT NOW he was more interested in the crime scene of Natalie Levine, who’d been missing since March 7th. If the lawyer’s file was correct, her body was at SOUTH PLATTE INDUSTRIAL PARK, ABANDONED GRAY METAL BUILDING, ROOF BEHIND HEATING DUCT.
He headed for Blondie, who was parked two doors down from his office.
As he passed under his windows he heard, “Hey Wilde,” from above.
It was Alabama.
“Where you going?”
“Field trip.”
“Hold on, I’ll go with you.”
He felt his front pocket and found it was empty.
“Bring some matches with you.”
“No, you’re going to burn the world down.”
109
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
FALLON DROVE through a black world paying enough attention to the eerie nightscape as the headlights punched through it to stay on the road but using all her energy to build images of herself killing the cops.
She’d do it.
There was no question.
It might take years but she’d do it.
Thirty minutes later even the fringes of civilization were gone.
She could drive for two more hours and still not be in a place any more remote than where she was right now.
Okay look around.
Find a good spot.
Find a spot where the body won’t be seen or smelled or stumbled on for the next ten years.
Find the last corner of the universe.
The night was blacker than black.
There were no other cars.
Low clouds blotted out the stars and the moon.
It was difficult to tell what was out there, other than the immediate road in front of her.
She pulled to a stop, turned off the headlights and put her shorts on.
The blackness was absolute.
She couldn’t see her hands.
She couldn’t see her legs.
She couldn’t see the steering wheel.
She took a deep breath, killed the engine and stepped out. No sounds came from the night, not a coyote or an insect or a twist of wind.
She felt her way along the side of the car to the back.
It took a while for her fingers to locate the trunk latch and a little longer to get the key in the hole.
She got the trunk open and stuck the keys in the front pocket of her shorts.
The body had an odor.
The stench of death was already on it.
SHE DIDN’T WANT TO TOUCH IT.
The sooner she did, though, the sooner it would be over with. She wrestled it over the edge of the trunk and let it dump to the ground. She got the man on his back, grabbed his feet and dragged him into the darkness. She might be leaving a trail but it didn’t matter. Anyone driving by out here would be doing fifty and wouldn’t see it. The first rain would wash it away.
She kept going, counting her steps.
At fifty she stopped to rest.
The rest wasn’t long.
She went to a hundred.
Then two hundred.
Then five hundred.
She was going slightly downhill at that point, on the backside of a hump. No one would be able to see the body from the road. She dragged it behind a rabbit bush and nudged it into the base.
Then she checked the man’s pockets.
Strangely, there was nothing to be found—not a wallet or keys or pack of smokes or spare change or anything.
SHE HEADED BACK for the road, pretty sure she was going in the right direction but not positive.
It was too dark to tell.
She concentrated on going in as straight a line as possible. The last thing she needed to do was curve off into nowhere.
In hindsight, she should have left the parking lights on.
A coyote barked.
It wasn’t far off, less than a hundred yards.
She stopped and turned towards it.
It howled.
More joined in.
Then even more.
There was a whole pack, a big pack.
They were moving, on a run, coming towards her.
She kept her face pointed towards them as they swept behind her. They were going past, not heading for her at all, when they sudd
enly stopped.
One of them smelled her.
He barked and headed closer.
The others came with him.
“Go away!”
They suddenly got quiet.
Then they all barked, frantic and rapid.
They weren’t leaving.
They weren’t scared.
110
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Afternoon
SHADE AND LONDON split up so they’d be harder to spot but kept within sight of one another as they crisscrossed the financial district. The main goal right now was to hook up with Mojag and find out why he’d marked the mailbox yesterday. Hopefully it was because he’d spotted his man.
The only place Shade had bumped into him prior was the coffee shop so she peeked in the window every time she passed.
Early afternoon, what she hoped would happen actually did.
He was in there at the same table as before.
In front of him was a cup of coffee.
She went in and sat down.
Mojag wore a blue bandana that played nice against his tanned face. Strong arms stuck out of a black T-shirt. He was a specimen, a man’s man, born to live. He had that raw bad-boy edge that spelled danger.
His brow was wrinkled.
His eyes were stressed.
He reached across the table and squeezed Shade’s hand.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
He pushed a half-full cup of coffee to the side and said, “Not here.”
THEY WALKED to his truck, which was on California, up several blocks, away from the buzz. London shadowed them fifty steps behind, staying in the cool shady parts as much as she could.
The truck wasn’t locked.
The windows were down.
Still the inside baked.
Mojag slipped in behind the wheel and told Shade to get in. When she opened the passenger door and complied he said, “Look in the glove box.”
She opened it.
Inside was a scalp.
It was long and black.
“That’s from Tehya’s head,” he said. There was water in his eyes. “Prepare yourself for what I’m about to say because it’s not what you want to hear.”
“Is it about Visible Moon?”
He nodded.
“Unfortunately it is.”
111
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Afternoon
THE SOUTH PLATTE industrial area was a spiraling mishmash of wooden, cinderblock and metal buildings that buzzed during the war but now sat largely decayed and abandoned. The new manufacturing area was up north, closer to the rails, highways and suppliers.
The asphalt was cracked and potholed.
Weeds choked everything.
Trees were nonexistent.
Wilde pulled Blondie into the shade alongside a tall wooden building, so close that Alabama had to scoot over and hop out his side.
“Where do we start?” she said.
Wilde looked around.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Wherever we start, we won’t find her until the last place we look.”
Alabama punched him on the arm.
“Bad, even for you.” She got serious. “What are you going to do to this lawyer, now that you know he’s the pinup killer.”
“I’m not sure yet but it will happen tonight,” he said.
“Tonight?”
“Right. I’m not going to give him an opportunity to move the timetable up on Senn-Rae.”
HE POINTED at an abandoned metal building three stories high. The first floor windows were covered with plywood. The upper level windows were busted out.
“Let’s try that one.”
All the ground level doors were locked and chained. Wilde pried the plywood off a window, cupped his hands, boosted Alabama up and then muscled through. The air smelled like a thousand years of bad dust. They found the interior stairway at the north and headed up. When they got to the roof, the latch was chained shut.
“Strikeout,” Alabama said.
“Not necessarily.”
“You think there’s another way up?”
“Probably not.”
“Then it’s a strikeout,” she said. “The chain would have stopped him.”
“Not if he put it on after he left.”
Wilde spotted a bar and tried to bust the lock. It wasn’t in the mood. “Where’s my gun? In the glove box?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s in your desk drawer. I saw it there this morning.”
“How come it’s never where I need it?”
“Karma. That’s my best guess.”
He tried the bar again, this time with all his strength, and didn’t budge anything except maybe a few bones in his back.
“Let’s try another building.”
OUTSIDE he noticed a ladder bolted onto the side of the building that started ten feet off the ground and led all the way to the roof, something in the nature of a poor-man’s fire escape.
“Well that’s interesting.”
Alabama studied it.
“I thought you didn’t like heights.”
“I don’t,” he said, “but I do like you.”
She shook her head.
“You’re not getting me on that thing, no way.”
“Just don’t look down.”
“You just don’t look down.”
He got under it and cupped his hands.
“Put your foot in,” he said. “I’m going to shoot you up. See if you can grab the bottom rung and get up.”
She cocked her head.
“I’m keeping score of all this stuff, for your information. You’re going to walk in one morning and find a list and an invoice sitting in the middle of your desk.”
“I’ll be on the watch for it. Put a chocolate on top. Be careful of those rungs, they’re going to be hot.”
SHE TURNED OUT to be the slowest ladder-climber in the world but eventually made it to the top and disappeared over the parapet.
A few heartbeats later she leaned over and shouted, “You better get up here.”
112
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Morning
THE COYOTES came within five or six steps of Fallon, then spread out and put her in a circle, howling and barking with a greater and greater frenzy. They were so close they actually took shape; she could see them, blackish-gray shapes in an even blacker night. She spun, facing one way then another, not wanting to leave her back too long in any one direction.
She wanted to drop to the ground and curl up in a ball.
That was the absolute worst thing she could do and she knew it.
Don’t fall.
Don’t fall.
Don’t fall.
If she fell she was dead.
She raised her arms and swung ’em.
“Go away!”
“Go away!”
“Go away!”
They backed up, not far, but a little.
She continued screaming, even louder, then took a step towards one as if charging. It actually scampered back. Then it turned and bounded off.
The others followed.
As soon as they left the barking stopped.
She was alone.
There wasn’t a sound to be heard other than the air passing in and out of her own lungs.
She knew to get out while the getting was good but no longer had any idea which way to go.
She was totally and irretrievably disoriented.
All she could do was pick a direction, walk in a straight line and hope she got lucky.
She should have left the parking lights on.
How could she be so stupid?
SHE WALKED for ten minutes, then another ten and yet another.
No asphalt appeared.
All she got was more bushes and dirt and scratches and ankle twists and doubts.
> She was pointed the wrong direction.
She was making things worse.
Her heart beat.
The realization that she could actually die out here was starting to take a more deadly hold.
She needed to change directions.
She turned left ninety degrees and started all over.
SHE WALKED for half an hour without changing course and didn’t come to a road. Her feet were heavy, her legs were on fire, her brain was thick with fear.
Then something happened she didn’t expect.
Headlights appeared far off to the left, a half-mile distant, maybe more, barely visible over a crest.
She headed directly for them.
They were moving at a fast clip.
In a few seconds they’d disappear.
Once they did, she needed to keep a straight line without veering.
That was critical.
Suddenly the headlights slowed and came to a stop.
They backed up and pulled behind something.
It was her car they pulled behind.
Someone was checking it out.
113
Day Six
June 14, 1952
Saturday Afternoon
WHEN MOJAG told Shade to prepare herself for what he was going to tell her, she knew Visible Moon was dead. She opened the door and walked off, not strong enough to hear the words. It was almost as if a last resort defense mechanism had taken control of her; if she didn’t hear the words, Visible Moon wouldn’t be dead.
A door slammed behind her.
Strong arms grabbed her from behind.
“Shade, stop.”
She looked into his face.
He had nothing good to tell her.
“We tried,” he said. “We did everything we could.”
He pulled her close.
She fought as if he was the enemy, then she surrendered and buried her face in his chest. Her body shook and her eyes watered.
“It’s okay,” Mojag said. “It’s okay.”
London ran over.
“What’s wrong?”
“Visible Moon’s dead.”
THEY GOT IN MOJAG’S PICKUP and took off, not needing to be a visible target for some lucky cop.
“I spotted the guy yesterday afternoon walking down the street,” Mojag said. “I followed him to that tall building on 16th Street, the one with the clock at the top.”