Crimes of Passion

by Toni Anderson

  “There you go again! Listen to me carefully: You’re a gorgeous, desirable woman, and the hours we have spent together these past few days have been wonderful. They have meant more than I can say. Love is a word I’ve pretty much avoided, one I’ve been saving, but I know that I could love you, easily, with the tiniest bit of encouragement.”

  She forced a laugh, at the same time screening her eyes with her lashes. “I’m the one who invited myself for a weekend with you, remember?”

  “Only because I didn’t dare invite you, didn’t dare think you might consider it.”

  For the first time since they had left New Orleans, Anne was certain she had Dante’s complete attention. Her laugh was more than a little breathless. “How good you are for my ego, among other things.”

  “That wasn’t my intention.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  “My intention was to find out if you could bring yourself to want more than a weekend with a middle-aged Cajun-Italian with graying hair and too-ample love handles.”

  “What gray hair? There’s only a little salt among the pepper yet. As for love handles, you look like a well-proportioned Greek statue, and it’s my opinion you know it very well.”

  Anne looked at him then, waiting with her heart in her throat for what he would say. It was too soon, this talk of love, or at least it was too soon for her to believe in it. She wanted to, though, she wanted it more than she had anything in a long time.

  He met her soft hazel gaze, seeing the apprehension there and the warmth, and a smile rose in his dark eyes. With consummate tact, he followed her lead. He insinuated his hand under the sheet that covered her from the waist down with smooth ease and began to stroke the sensitive inner surface of her thigh.

  “All right, have it your own way,” he said on a mock sigh. “I’m an Adonis, a prince, a paragon among men. I’m also so mad for your body that if you give me up with such saintliness again, I refuse to be responsible. Isn’t there anything at all about me you would like to have your own way with?”

  “Well, now that you mention it…”

  “Yes?” he inquired, the picture of restrained hope.

  “Well…”

  “Only tell me what you want.”

  There were times, Anne discovered, when ecstasy could be vocal and still lovely.

  There was a light mist falling when Riva left the Staulet Building on Friday afternoon. Earlier there had been a thunderstorm that had washed the streets, flushing the usual trash and debris into the gutters. The many pumping stations of the low-lying city had drained away the excess water; still, the streets steamed gently, as if the city surrounded by its bowl of levees was a giant, simmering cauldron.

  George met Riva at the door with an umbrella and put her carefully into the car. She thanked him, though she would just as soon have felt the rain on her face. She could have used that moment of freshness.

  It had been a long day. She felt guilty about being away from Bonne Vie for so long. She had intended to be at the office only the few minutes it would take to sign some papers that couldn’t wait, but she had gotten involved in a hundred other details. She should have known it would be that way. It always was.

  She had stopped for a moment at Noel’s office on her way out. He had still been working. When she told him it was time to quit, he had looked at her as if she were crazy. She wasn’t sure whether his expression meant he could not believe she was actually ready to leave or just that he had not realized the time. She supposed the latter, since he was as much of a workaholic these days as she was. At any rate, he had glanced at his watch, laughed, and begun to shuffle papers together, putting them away. She had waved and walked on.

  The traffic heading out of town was dense; it seemed everyone wanted to get away for the weekend. Driving conditions were not the best. The earlier rainstorm had dumped enough water to stir up the viscous mixture of oil and dirt and auto exhaust on the roads, but not enough to wash it away. The mist still drifting down was just right to keep the road surface slick. In addition, the overcast sky made for an early dusk. Some drivers had turned on their headlights for safety, but there were more than a few who hadn’t bothered.

  They were delayed for ten minutes while the police straightened out a lane-blocking collision between a shrimp truck and a thirty-year-old, fin-tailed Cadillac. As they idled in one place, George turned the radio on and tuned in a weather station, listening to the report of the tropical storm in the gulf. Riva tuned in her own radio and turned up the volume. Any gulf storm could turn into a hurricane this time of year, and any hurricane in the gulf could swing at a moment’s notice and make for New Orleans. It was best to keep up on conditions.

  The storm had not quite reached hurricane strength, though it was close. It was veering toward the coast of Mexico just below the Texas border, an area where its rains would be welcome. In the meantime, there were flash-flood warnings out as an indication of high-water conditions expected from spin-off storms and heavy rains in their area, and small-craft-warning flags were flying on the bays and bayous, lakes and rivers.

  Finally they were moving again, turning off the interstate and whipping along the highway known as Airline. As their speed increased, Riva settled back and took out a sheaf of reports she had brought with her to study. Soothed by the tapping of the rain on the windshield, the regular clacking of the wipers, and the occasional clicking of the turn indicator as George sent the big car weaving in and out of traffic, she began to read.

  The next thing she knew, the limousine swerved with a squeal of tires. She was thrown forward off the seat, landing in a sprawl of books and papers on the floor. George, fighting the wheel and cursing under his breath, yelled over his shoulder, “Stay down, Miss Riva, stay down!”

  They were on the river road; she could tell from the nearness of the trees to the roadway. They must have turned without her noticing. It was not a wide thoroughfare by any means. The shoulders, where they were kept in repair at all, were of gravel. As Riva fought her way into a crouch, she could feel the car picking up speed and swinging wildly back and forth across the narrow lane from one shoulder to the other, could hear fine rocks clattering in the fender wells as they were thrown up by the wheels of the car.

  But there was a more ominous sound. It was the whining and screeching tires of another car in pursuit, careening along just behind them. From George’s actions at the wheel, she thought he was trying to keep it from passing them.

  “What is it?” she cried.

  “That car back there came off a side road out of nowhere! Tried to block the highway. Man in the front right has an Uzi!”

  It was unbelievable. Her mind refused to accept it. She eased upward until she could peer over the back of the seat.

  There were two men in a green sedan. They were wearing dark suits and mirrored sunglasses, and one was hanging out the window with a snub-nosed submachine gun in his hands.

  This kind of thing happened in Italy and Argentina, not in Louisiana. It happened to international executives, billionaires, diplomats, and political figures, the kind of people who traveled with hordes of bodyguards. It couldn’t happen to her, not in Louisiana on a designated scenic highway like the Great River Road. It didn’t seem possible it could take place on an ordinary blacktop highway full of potholes and crooks and turns, one lined with little towns and crisscrossed a hundred times a day by dogs and chickens and old men trailing cane fishing poles.

  The back window shattered under a burst of shots. Glass filled the air like a sleet storm and holes ripped across the inside roof of the car. At the same time, George shouted a warning. Riva had already begun to duck, but she threw up her arms to protect her face and dropped to a crouch with her head down and elbows braced against the seat until the glass shower ended.

  “Use the phone!” Riva cried. “Call 911!”

  “In a minute!” George yelled. He needed both hands on the wheel because of oncoming traffic.

  He held the car steady. A pickup whi
zzed past in the opposite direction. The driver’s eyes were wide and staring, but there were two teenagers in the back who leaned out and called: “Hey, mister, is it a movie?”

  It was not. It was deadly real. The limousine careened around a curve on two wheels. Wind rushed in through the back window with a boiling mist of rain and the smells of gas fumes and hot metal. The noise of the car screeching out of the curve behind them was loud. The sedan drew out to pass again, pulling up within yards of the limousine’s back bumper.

  They held their places as they sped through a small community. A man on a riding lawn mower watched open-mouthed as they flew past. Three men at a gas station with their heads under the hood of a truck snapped erect, one of them bumping his head on the raised hood. George reached for the telephone, then had to drop it as he swerved to avoid an old woman with a load of empty aluminum cans on a cart who scampered across ahead of them. The old woman turned to shake her fist. Then they were out in open country again.

  The sedan began to inch forward. It drew nearer and nearer. Riva could see the gunman. He looked as if he were pointing the Uzi at the chauffeur. George was slouched far down in the seat, with only the top of his head showing. She thought he was reaching toward the dangling phone or maybe the glove compartment. He grunted and cursed as he strained against his seat belt. The limousine swerved onto the shoulder, throwing up dirt and green bits of torn clover. The back wheels skidded, and they sideswiped a mailbox as George wrenched the long vehicle back on the road again. Then he flung himself upright. In his hand was a Smith & Wesson pistol.

  He caught the wheel with his gun hand as he reached for the control of the power windows. The glass glided down. He leaned out to fire backward once, twice.

  The sound of the shots exploded inside the car along with the nose-burning smell of gunpowder. The sedan behind checked for only a moment. The shots had gone wide. George could not drive at their present speed and aim back over his shoulder at the same time. The sedan began to ease forward once more. Its driver swung his wheel.

  The two cars slammed together with a solid thud and the grinding shriek of metal on metal. The limousine slewed off the road. Riva’s head thudded into the armrest as she was slung against it, then she surged back to her knees again as George regained control. In dazed amazement, she realized that the men in the other car wanted to force them off the road so that they would be easier targets. Or she would be an easier target.

  At the same instant, an image of Edison’s face the night before flashed through her mind. If she had wanted to kill him as she faced him in the library, it now appeared he had felt even more vindictive. The threat he had made had been real.

  Slowly the dark sedan gained. The emblem on its hood eased closer and closer. When it reached the door post just behind George’s seat, the passenger window would be even with where Riva knelt. She would be a perfect target, with no place to run, nowhere to hide.

  The emblem was at the back bumper. At the back wheels.

  A curve. George got off a shot as they rounded it. There came the tinkling sound of breaking glass as a headlight of the following car was smashed. The sedan dropped back six feet but came on again.

  If she was a target for the gunman, then he would also be a target for her. Riva threw herself onto the backward-facing seat, leaning toward George. “Give me the gun,” she cried.

  “You can’t shoot!”

  “Yes, I can! Give me the gun!”

  “All right. You got four shots left. Make ‘em count!”

  Closer the sedan came. The emblem drew even with the door post. She could see the barrel of the Uzi and the gunman’s hand on the grip, could see his face. It was the right angle. But if she could see him, he could also see her there on the forward seat. Hard on that realization, she threw herself across the space between it and the rear-facing seat. At the same moment, the Uzi spurted fire.

  Holes with jagged edges appeared in the side window and bloomed like pale, stuffing-colored flowers across the forward seat where she had been sitting. George yelled out, then cursed.

  There was no time to see how badly her driver was hit. At least he was still upright. She twisted around, rose to one knee, and steadied her arm on the seat back, then put two shots into the windshield of the sedan.

  It was a pleasure to watch the other car’s windshield turn into a glass spider web, then blow inward. She saw the two men hunker down, saw blood appear on one’s face, but the sedan swerved before she could tell how badly she had hurt them. It must have been no more than cuts from flying glass. The other car dropped back a few feet, then began to surge onward again. The man on the passenger side leaned out once more with the Uzi. Riva flung herself down out of sight.

  The shots pinged and thudded into the car’s body. Hard on them, metal crunched on metal as the sedan slammed into them. George, ducking out of the line of fire, lost the wheel but grabbed it in time to keep them from going into a ditch filled with scum-covered water. As the limousine straightened out again, he strained his neck upward to look in the rearview mirror.

  “Hot damn!” The words were exultant.

  “What? What?”

  She craned to see. She had to know what he was looking at. It might be the state police if they had passed an observation point; the troopers sometimes patrolled this road. Or it might be the parish deputies if some of the people they had seen had called the sheriff’s office.

  It was neither. It was Noel.

  He had left New Orleans behind them. Now he was closing in, a look of intense concentration on his face. His powerful BMW trailed a blowing plume of mist with the acceleration of his speed. The heavy vehicle looked as if nothing could check it.

  The men in the sedan had spotted Noel. They craned their necks backward to watch him barreling down upon them. Their vehicle’s pace slackened so that it fell back almost a car length. Then the sedan swung forward once more, the man on the passenger side firing another burst of shots. Only one struck, ricocheting harmlessly off the window chrome.

  Still Noel came on. The man with the Uzi spun around again to fire a wild burst in the direction of the BMW. Noel swerved in evasion but never slowed. The BMW was untouched. It seemed to pick up velocity. Its dark and glossy blue paint gleamed with rain. The tires sang as they sprayed water.

  Deliberately Noel lowered his electric window. He put his arm out. In his hand was a black, snub-nosed pistol.

  The men in the sedan saw their danger and tried to step up their speed. It was useless. They wove back and forth. It did no good. The heavy BMW bore down on them. Closer it came, then closer.

  Noel fired. The shot struck the sedan somewhere in the trunk section. He fired again and a wheel cover spun away like a self-propelled silver discus. Inside the sedan, the face of the man with the Uzi twisted in vindictive menace. He faced forward. He pointed his weapon at the limousine through the sedan’s blown-out windshield and clamped down on the trigger.

  Bullets sprayed with the staccato explosions, thumping into metal, shattering glass. Riva dived to hug the floor. Her heart was thudding in her chest with sickening strokes. She had been shocked, enraged, vengeful; had acted on instincts of self-preservation she had not known she possessed. Still, she had not been terrified until that moment. In the last instant of sight before she hit the limousine’s plush carpet, she saw the BMW leap forward and knew with stunning clarity what Noel meant to do.

  The BMW struck the green sedan with the sound of a battering ram. Metal shrieked and the air was filled with the stench of burning rubber. The spattering shots abruptly stopped.

  Riva leaped up in time to see the sedan, with a crumpled left rear fender, slow down, then brake in a sudden, grinding halt. In his BMW Noel whipped around the other vehicle on the right. The sedan reversed with screaming tires, swinging about in a tight circle. It bounced and jolted down into the ditch, then spun out again in a shower of mud and gravel. It zoomed away with the left rear wheel smoking and squealing, heading toward New Orleans.
r />   The BMW gained on the limousine, drew even. Noel, the planes of his face taut and his eyes gray-black with strain, turned his head to look at Riva. She stared back at him as slowly she regained her seat. Noel gave a nod, then looked at George. The chauffeur sent him a high sign. The BMW pulled ahead in the position of escort.

  George didn’t even slow down, nor did Noel. They didn’t stop until they reached Bonne Vie.

  EIGHTEEN

  NOEL GOT OUT OF HIS BMW AND SLAMMED the door as the limousine pulled up behind him. He walked to the rear door of the other vehicle before George had time to do more than turn off the engine. He pulled the door open, then reached to help Riva out.

  Her face was pale, and there were two or three smears of blood on one cheek and temple from small cuts. Her hand in his was cut also, and icy. Her suit was torn and blood-spotted, and she had lost a shoe. However, it was the sparkle of glass in her hair, like shattered diamonds, that made him pull her into his arms and hold her close against him.

  He could feel the fine tremors that ran over her in waves. At the same time, her curves against him were firm and real, and the way she clung to him for support was heart-stopping. He closed his eyes for the space of a single deep breath, then opened them again.

  George, climbing out, said, “Pair of amateurs, that’s what they were. Must’ve seen too many movies. If they’d been professionals, they’d have tried to shoot out the tires first thing, the way you did. They should’ve known it ain’t that easy to stop a car, even with one of those Israeli tommy guns.”

  Noel released Riva and stepped back. He smiled at the driver and shook his head. “They didn’t expect you to give them so much trouble.”

  “Huh, I learned to drive before them two was wet behind the ears. And the Cong in Nam would have had ‘em for breakfast if they couldn’t shoot any better than that. You’re the one gave ‘em trouble, though. It’s been a while since I saw better driving.”

  “Yes, but look at your car,” Riva said to Noel.

  Noel and George turned to look at the dented fender and bent bumper on the left front of the BMW. Noel quipped, “You should see the other guy.”