by R. J. Jagger
“Tell me I’m yours.”
Wilde lit a book a matches on fire, let them burn down to his fingertips and threw them out the window.
“I don’t want you to see him again,” he said. “This isn’t a game.”
“See, you are jealous.”
“No I’m not. The thing is, just because he didn’t want to go to a roof doesn’t mean he’s not the dropper. Who knows how these guys think? Maybe he’ll just store it away for a week and jack off to it. Then one night seemingly out of nowhere he’ll say, Hey, didn’t you mention once about wanting to see lights?”
“Jack off to it,” Alabama said. “You’re such a poet.”
Wilde nodded.
“I’m a poet and don’t know it,” he said. “I can make a rhyme any time.” He put a somber expression on his face. “I’m serious when I said not to see him again.”
“He’s a good lover,” Alabama said. “You’re probably better but then again I don’t really know.”
“Alabama—”
“Look at it this way,” she said. “If he’s not the dropper, no harm done and I get a little very-much-needed R&R. If he is, he’ll suggest that roof thing at some point. I won’t go up, don’t worry, I’m not that stupid. Either way, we win.”
Wilde lit a cigarette.
“I’ll fire you if I have to.”
“Go ahead and try.”
“Fine, remember it was your idea,” he said. “You’re fired.”
She ran her fingers through his hair.
“Looks like it didn’t work,” she said. “I’m going to pick up some donuts. You want any particular kind?”
He paused.
“White cake with chocolate frosting.”
She tweaked his nose.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Two minutes after she left, the door opened and Secret walked in wearing white shorts and perfect golden legs. She pulled a pink tank top up and rubbed her stomach on Wilde’s.
“Tonight,” she said.
Wilde knew what she meant.
They hadn’t done it last night thanks to Alabama’s little disappearing trick.
“Tonight?” Wilde said. He put his arms around her waist. “What’s wrong with right now?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
No.
He wasn’t.
He wasn’t at all.
To prove it he flung her over his shoulder, locked the door, took her into the adjacent room and kicked the door shut with his foot.
There were no windows.
The darkness was pure magic.
He laid her on the floor, stuck a knee between her legs and kissed her deep.
She responded.
Slowly.
Then she responded more.
Suddenly a terrible thought entered Wilde’s head—Alabama; she’d be back with donuts right in the middle of everything.
He got to his feet and said, “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Wilde—”
“I’ll be right back.”
At the main door, he hung his tie on the outside knob and relocked everything tighter than tight.
Figure out the code, Alabama.
Figure it out or I really will fire you.
Back between Secret’s legs, he picked up where he left off, except the woman had something to say. “I remember what I wanted to tell you. Something popped into my head this morning. I think I read something back in New York a couple of years ago about a woman falling from a building.”
“You mean like here?”
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “All I remember is thinking that it would be a horrible way to go.”
Yeah.
Right.
He didn’t care.
At this second he cared about one thing and one thing only.
His mouth went to hers.
His hand went between her thighs.
44
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Afternoon
The talk at Fisherman’s Wharf was small and inconsequential, neither focused on business nor anything of significance. In the end, Waverly wasn’t sure if Bristol’s appearance was planned or accidental. When she got back to the office, however, the top sheet of the scratch pad—the one she wrote Bristol’s home number on—was gone.
Had Bristol spotted it as he walked past?
Did he wonder what his home phone number was doing on Waverly’s desk?
Did he tail her and swing by, as if by chance, to get a feel for her?
Did he connect the dots between the number and the events of last night?
Bolt.
That’s what her gut said, bolt.
Something ugly was headed her way.
The phone rang with calls all afternoon. A good number of them were for Bristol who never tipped a hand when Waverly patched them through. Then an unexpected call came, for none other than Waverly herself, from Su-Moon.
“I’m outside the building on the street,” she said. “Find an excuse to come down here. I need to talk to you.”
Five minutes later Waverly slipped out, bypassed the elevator and bounded down the stairs two at a time to street level.
Su-Moon was clearly excited.
“Big news,” she said. “I wasn’t finding anything, not for a long time, but my mind kept going back to this Land Camera that was stashed in the top dresser drawer. At first I didn’t know why it kept nagging me, then I realized that it was because I hadn’t come across any photos—only the camera, no photos. That’s when I started to dig deeper.”
She pulled an envelope out of her purse.
“I found this taped underneath the bottom drawer of the dresser. Take a look.”
Waverly opened it.
Inside were dozens upon dozens of black-and-white Polaroid film photos.
All of them were of women.
Most of them were naked or close to it, posing in lewd positions.
“There are at least five different women in these photos,” Su-Moon said. “I’ll bet dollars to donuts that one of them is Kava Every. That’s what you need to find out.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, just do it.”
Waverly handed the envelope back.
Su-Moon wouldn’t take it.
“You keep it,” she said.
Waverly shook her head.
“You need to go put it back,” she said. “He’s going to find it missing.”
“Who cares?”
“We care.”
“No we don’t,” Su-Moon said. “Wait, give it to me a minute.” She took it, flipped through the photos until she got to one near the back and said, “These. These are the ones that interest me.”
Waverly studied them.
There were seven or eight photos. In each one the woman wore a dress. A fan was underneath her, blowing the dress up.
They were very erotic.
“What about them?” Waverly said.
“Look at their dresses.”
“I am.”
“And what do you see?”
“They’re blowing up.”
“Does that strike you as strange?”
“They all strike me as strange.”
“Let me put it this way,” Su-Moon said. “That’s what their dresses would look like if they were falling off a building.”
She handed the envelope back to Waverly.
“Go find out if one of these women is Kava Every.”
45
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Morning
Alexa Blank was a blue-eyed princess with strawberry pigtails and a spring in her step. Looking into her eyes, River was glad the contract was rescinded. She’d be a hard one to kill. She pulled a pencil and pad out of her apron and said, “What’ll it be, cowboy?”
“Coffee.” A beat, then he added, “But not here.”
She wrinkled her forehead.
“Not here?”
“No, not here
,” he said. “Down the street.”
“Down the street?”
He nodded.
“At a different restaurant. With you.”
She shifted into a sexier position, edging in ever so slightly.
“With me, huh?”
“Right. With you.”
“You’re hitting on me.”
“I am.”
She studied his eyes and found no lies. A smile worked its way onto her mouth.
“Be careful,” she said. “I might call your bluff.”
“Start calling because I’m dead serious.”
She stood there deciding, then slipped out of her apron, tossed it across the counter next to the donuts and said, “Mary, I got to run a quick errand. Be a peach and take my tables for ten minutes, will you?”
Outside she locked her arm through River’s as they headed down the street.
“I don’t do this with just anybody,” she said.
“Me either.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She moved her hand up and felt his muscles. “You remind me of Tarzan.”
“You mean I’m someone who belongs in a jungle?”
She punched his arm.
“No, I mean it in a good way. What’s your name?”
He hesitated.
“River,” he said. “Dayton River.”
She shook his hand.
“I’m Alexa Blank.”
“I know.”
She furrowed her eyes.
“You know? How do you know?”
“I know because someone hired me to abduct you,” he said.
46
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Morning
Alabama was sitting behind the desk munching on a donut with her feet propped up when Wilde opened the door into the main room. By the look on her face she was getting a kick out of the one on his. “How long have you been here?”
She ignored him, looked at Secret and said, “I hope he’s better than he sounds.”
Secret smiled.
“He was okay.”
Wilde looked at her.
“Okay?”
She nodded.
“Just okay?”
“There’s nothing wrong with okay,” she said, “Especially for your first time. You’ll get better.”
“My first time?”
“Right,” she said. “We all have one. We’re clumsy and awkward then we improve.”
Wilde lit a cigarette and blew smoke at her.
“Not funny.”
Alabama picked a tie off the desk and threw it to Wilde. “You forgot that on the doorknob.” To Secret, “Don’t count on him improving. He’s not all that trainable.”
“I already figured that out.”
Wilde hated libraries.
He hated the musty smells and the squeaky wheels of the shelving carts and most of all he hated the quiet air. He couldn’t think when it was that quiet. Well, that wasn’t completely true, he could think but what he usually thought about was the fact that he needed to keep quiet.
After Secret left, Wilde told Alabama that Secret remembered reading something about a woman falling from a building in New York two or three years ago.
“Go down to the library, dig through the old New York papers and see what you can find out about it.”
“Why?”
“I’m curious if the woman was wearing a red dress.”
“You think there’s a connection to what happened here?”
He shrugged.
“That’s what you’re going to find out.”
She pecked a kiss on his cheek and headed for the door
“Yes, master.”
Then she was gone.
He stood there in silence.
Something was wrong.
His brain was trying to grasp a thought but was having trouble.
Then it came to him.
He leaned out the window and waited for Alabama to appear at street level.
“Hey, ’Bama.”
She looked up.
“What?”
“I really don’t want you to see Robert Mitchum again.”
She blew him a kiss.
“I won’t if you don’t see Secret again.”
“That’s different and you know it.”
“Actually I don’t.”
47
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Morning
When Waverly asked Waterfield if he knew where she could get a good recent picture of Kava Every, at first he had no idea. An hour later he led her to a storage room and shut the door. Leaning against a box was an eight-by-ten group photo framed in glass, now broken. “This was taken at the firm’s retreat,” he said. “That’s Kava right there.”
Waverly’s heart raced.
She was 99 percent sure that the woman was one of the same ones from the envelope under Bristol’s dresser.
She looked at Waterfield.
“Can I take this?”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Okay.”
He pulled it out, rolled it up and hid the frame behind a box.
“Are you okay?”
A beat.
Then she nodded.
“Bristol was having sex with her,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
When they opened the door and stepped out, something happened they didn’t expect.
Tom Bristol was leaning against the wall.
His arms were folded.
He was waiting for them.
His eyes fell to Waverly’s purse.
She followed them down.
To her horror, the end of the photograph stuck out. Bristol grabbed it, snatched it out and unrolled it. “This is firm property,” he said. “What else do you have in there you’re not supposed to?”
He grabbed her purse.
Then he pulled out the envelope and waved it in front of her face.
“That’s not yours either,” he said. “I called the temp agency. They never heard of you.” To Waterfield, “You knew that, didn’t you? You knew she wasn’t a real temp.”
Waterfield’s eyes flickered.
Then they got hard and he said, “If she’s not a temp, that’s news to me.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, why? What’s going on?”
“Then what’s she doing with the photo?”
“What do you think? I’m sending her out to get it reframed.”
“Bullshit.”
Waterfield softened, as if caught.
“Okay, the truth is that I brought her back here in the hopes of coping a feel,” he said. “Then I got worried about someone seeing us coming out together. I gave her the photo to have an excuse for being in here, that I was giving it to her to get it reframed.”
“Bullshit,” Bristol said. “Get out of my sight, you’re fired.” Then to Waverly, “As for you, you better learn to swim because the next time you’re in the water I’m not going to pull you out.”
Waverly couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t move.
“Get out of here and don’t come back,” Bristol said.
Her lips quivered.
Leave.
Leave.
Leave.
She couldn’t make her feet move.
“Get out,” Bristol said.
Suddenly something snapped in Waverly’s head. Thunder rolled through her veins at what she was about to do.
Then she snatched the envelope out of Bristol’s hand and ran.
“Get back here you bitch!”
Go!
Go!
Go!
Go!
Go!
48
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Morning
When River told Alexa Blank that someone hired him to a
bduct her and await further instructions as to whether to kill her or not, it took her a moment to realize it wasn’t a joke. “After I got hired, I got fired,” he added. “That’s because I was supposed to get the job done by last night and didn’t. What that means is that someone else now has the job. Since the target time was last night, my suspicion is that he’s already on your tail.” He looked around. “He might even be watching us right now.”
She stared in disbelief.
Then she walked away and said over her shoulder, “You’re cute but you’re way too weird for me. Have a nice life.”
River caught up to her, grabbed her arm and jerked her to a stop.
“I’m here to help you,” he said. “You need to trust me.”
She shook her arm free.
“Get the hell away from me or I’ll call the cops.”
Then she was gone, heading down the street and disappearing into the restaurant.
River waited for five minutes before following her in and taking a seat in the corner booth.
She was back in uniform.
Shaken.
Confused.
River waved at her and said, “Coffee please.”
She ignored him.
She didn’t disappear into the kitchen and out the back though. Nor did she head over to the phone to call the cops. River flagged down the other waitress, ordered coffee, and sipped it.
He eased back in the booth and stretched his legs out on the bench.
He didn’t stare at the woman.
He kept his eyes pointed out the front window, watching the skirts and suits parade past, ready to get up if someone looked too much like a killer.
Ten minutes passed.
He got a second cup.
More time passed.
A half hour.
An hour.
Alexa Blank was beginning to look his way with greater and greater frequency. Then, when River was hardly paying attention, she slipped in and locked eyes.
“Who hired you?”
River shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s what I want you to help me figure out.”
“How?”
He shrugged.
“Who wants you dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to know.”
“Well I might have to, but I don’t.”
River studied her eyes and found no lies.