by Jack Adler
“Walk to those men in a circle,” Bender said, indicating the men surrounding the mayor. Without hesitation, Holly started toward the mayor’s group as the figures coughed their way toward her. But as Bender waited for her to get closer to his target, Holly slipped. Not used to the sandals Rona had picked for her, her feet skipped over each other, but she caught her balance before hitting the earth.
One security officer, his eyes still tearing, saw the suspicious occurrence and instinctively tackled the mayor, lying atop him in a protective clasp. Everyone else froze. Without hesitation Rona threw another smoke grenade, which was being held in reserve, as Bender raced out into the street and grabbed Holly by the arm. “Come with me!” he said, pushing her back in absolute frustration.
Val sat by the phone, irritated by her lack of success. She couldn't find any reference to this mystery writer group Derry was going to see, though she had gone through the phone book, surfed the Net and called a couple of writer friends. Drue Henry wasn’t in the phone book, either, but of course, she might have had an unlisted number. Then Val realized this absence of information wasn't really all that significant; there were a lot of small writer groups of this type who met at one of the members’ homes. This was especially the case, she reasoned, in Los Angeles, where so many people were writing screenplays and hungering for jackpot sales to the film studios.
Frustrated, she turned on the television to hear the latest news and was flabbergasted to learn of the assassination attempt at Windsor College.
"In more breaking news,” an announcer said with breathless gravity, “the police have learned the identity of one of the HAP terrorists."
A picture of a strong-looking man in his mid to late thirties with a military-style crew cut flashed across the television screen.
"His name is Wayne Prescott. If you see him, contact the police immediately. Prescott is considered to be armed and extremely dangerous, and the police advise maximum caution. Prescott was also seen at the assassination attempt of Mayor Waldon this afternoon with two women, one of whom may have been Holly Baxter. Stay tuned for more news."
Val immediately called Derry but could only leave messages at both his office and at the hotel's front desk. He was probably in transit now. She had a worsening feeling about his tête-à-tête. She should have taken the address and phone number from him, but he said it was in the East Valley, not all that far from her. He was so cavalier about danger. She knew his tactic was to make himself into a magnet to draw attention and possibly generate leads, but he was going to wind up a dead magnet if he wasn’t more cautious.
She deliberated a moment and then dialed again.
"Everything's worked so far except this," Bender lamented after they made sure no one was following them. He, Rona and Holly had gotten back to their safe house in a second car, now abandoned, while Luke was using the other vehicle.
Rona nodded, feeling just as forlorn. Defeat came hard, and she saw how badly BB felt in not getting the mayor who had challenged his ultimatum. And Holly was still with them, snapped out of her hypnotic stupor by Bender but evidently unaware of what had just transpired. She had retreated, as usual, to seclusion in her room. Bender would probably have to hypnotize her again.
They both felt worse as soon as they turned on the television.
"BB, they tracked you!" Rona cried out as she stared at the picture of Bender on the screen.
Usually unflappable, Bender looked pale, but then he recovered in a few beats. "So they have. Not a bad likeness. Of course, I was younger then."
"What're we going to do?"
"We're going to remain calm. They only captured my image, not me."
"What about tonight?" Rona asked. "What about Holly now? Should we cancel it and just get out now as soon as Luke gets back from the gas station?"
Bender was deep in thought. He knew all her anguished questions were legitimate. "I think we can compensate a bit for the fiasco this afternoon,” he said at last, “and tie up a few knots as well. Let's go ahead with Mr. Greene and stick to our original schedule. It's just a matter of a few hours."
Rona shook her head. BB was always so eager to wrest a modicum of victory from any setback. But she doubted it would do any good to fight him on this issue.
"What about Holly?" she repeated.
"We're going to give Holly a chance to atone for her failure this afternoon. Greene is looking for Holly. I think he ought to find her."
Rona's face creased, no matter how hard she tried to control her features, into a smile. But BB seemed displeased. “How many times do I have to tell you not to let personalities enter the picture?” Bender scolded.
“No more than you,” Rona shot back. “I think you’d rather save Miss Rich Girl’s life.”
Bender shook his head. “Her ultimate death was never in question.”
“Regardless, I think you have a thing for her. I can tell. This so-called Stockholm Syndrome works both ways.”
“A woman’s so-called intuition can be perilous,” Bender said, his voice cutting like a sharp instrument. “I’ve sparred with Holly because it helped keep her from becoming so morose that she’d lose all usefulness to us. And yes, there is an appealing quality to Holly. She’s spunky. You can appreciate the qualities of those who must leave the scene as well as criticize the characteristics of those who remain.”
“Are you threatening me?” Rona asked, not showing any fear.
“I’d call it an admonishment,” Bender said. “And let’s let it go at that. We have work to do.”
I had heard about the botched assassination attempt and the identification of Wayne Prescott but wasn't able to reach Val; her line was busy. I called the office, and it was already closed. There didn't seem to be anything for me to do but maintain my schedule. I was sure Val would bring me up to date in a couple of hours. If it weren't too late afterward, when I had a better fix on where everything stood, I could still call Wolcott at home, though I’d probably be waking him. The more details I had at my command, the more willing Wolcott would be to let me stay a bit longer.
There wasn’t time to drive to my hotel for any ablutions, so I just went to my car, which I had parked on the street. Another auto suddenly pulled up alongside me, blocking traffic before I could drive away. Detective Ruiz nodded from the driver's seat.
"Long time no see," I said.
“Wait there!” Ruiz ordered. He proceeded to park his unmarked car in front of me and then approached with the walk of someone in uniform about to give a ticket. But he was a detective, so something else was up. He had on the same drab sports jacket, but no tie this time.
"Move over, sport," Ruiz said. I opened the car door and he slid in next to me. "I need to talk to you."
I glanced at my watch. I didn't want to be late for the meeting. But how could I refuse such a polite request? Ruiz was silent a moment, but then he asked, "You know what went down today, don’t you?”
"Yes, but I don't have the details. How did you make Prescott?"
"Cross-checking all the military personnel finally paid off. He was in the Air Force, retired captain, actually, and there were some interesting things in his record besides what planes he could fly, which didn’t include the Piper he used at Dodgers Stadium. He’s a mercenary, been in the Balkans and the Congo, among other places. Everything finally fits together along with what we had in physical descriptions, like his build. But we’re still trying to figure out who he’s working for.”
My hunch about the military aspect had been right, but I hadn't been able to follow through. Ruiz was being more informative than usual, and I wondered why. But identifying Prescott didn't mean Holly was free and that Tramerica was off whatever hook it was still on.
"Congratulations!" I said, and I meant it.
Ruiz nodded. "Look, despite my advice, you've been running around town."
"Have I gotten in your way?" I asked.
"You're damn tooting you have," Ruiz blurted out.
"Well, I'm sorry
. I have an appointment. Are we finished?"
"Nope. I think you're going to see a certain woman you met at lunch, and you're making a big mistake."
How did Ruiz know? Had he been following me? I couldn't believe that Val had tipped him off. Had it been Conrad? Was Conrad following me? Stacy? Corinne?
"Detective, were you listening to my talk?" I said, smiling as if he had been naughty.
Twitting Ruiz was fun; he was more vulnerable than he probably realized, and turnabout was fair play.
"That would be the day!" Ruiz snorted. "Look, Greene, I can follow you. But I have a better idea: let's go together. You can say I'm just another interested party. I read, though you probably don't think so. I don't think you were told to go alone."
Thoughts raced through my head as if they were fleeing hunters. What Ruiz said made some sense. I hadn't wanted to admit it to Val, but I thought I was being a bit foolhardy in going alone to the mystery writers’ soiree. This concern was far stronger now with the news of the failed assassination and identification of Prescott. "How did you know about this?"
Ruiz smiled. "Hey, the police have sources."
"Sure they do," I said. "Suppose I say no?"
"Then I'll just follow you. Waste of gas. Better we go together in your car."
Reluctantly, I nodded. Ruiz didn't seem surprised. He just sank back in the seat. Perhaps if we both hadn't been distracted by our conversation, one of us might have seen another car following us.
The street we went to turned out to be a secluded semi-cul-de-sac, which brought a look of concern to Ruiz’s face. Streetlights shed some light, but much of the small street, which was curved at the end, was relatively dark. Ruiz had used his cell phone to let headquarters know where he was going and with whom. Now he was calling again from within the car to give his location. For better or worse, Ruiz and I were now on a parallel course.
We parked almost in front of the house, a one-story, ranch-style structure that looked like it was made of brick and stucco in the dark. The porch lights were on, illuminating the wide lawn and the porch itself. One light could be seen burning in an interior room.
"OK, introduce me by name but not my title," Ruiz instructed unnecessarily. Did he really think I was going to say I had brought a police buddy or bodyguard?!
We walked up the narrow stone path to the front door. I rang the doorbell. Ruiz stood off a bit to the side, though he could easily be seen by anyone glancing through the window. He was making me nervous. This was a writer meeting, not a bust. I knew he was armed with at least one gun, either in his jacket or lodged against his back; another was probably wedged against one of his socks. No weapons was visible, though. Drue Henry opened the door, giving me a warm smile that turned sour as soon as she saw Ruiz.
"I hope it's OK," I said. "I brought a friend who's also interested in writing mysteries." It would have been great to say Ruiz was the next Joseph Wambaugh when he wrote The Onion Field, just another aspiring writer emerging from a police career. I doubted, though, that Ruiz was a closet literary type.
"Come in," Drue said.
I stepped inside with Ruiz right behind me. Rona closed the door immediately. Suddenly a shot rang out, and Ruiz, with a hole in his head, fell dead to the floor. Drue, who hadn't fired the shot, produced a gun and shoved it against my ribs. "Lie down on the floor. Now!"
I did as I was told. She handcuffed my hands behind my back just as if she were the detective. A man—I was sure he must have been Prescott—came out of the shadows of the hallway. "Now why couldn't you obey instructions?" he asked me in an oddly petulant voice as I lay on the bare floor. "You're messing up our plans."
Drue—I doubted much too late that this was her real name—was conducting a quick and professional search on Ruiz's body. She found two guns as I was expecting, one at his hip and one in a sheath along his lower left leg. "A cop!” she blurted. “Just as you thought."
"Yes, and we have to deal with this situation now," Prescott said. "Help me stand the cop up," he told Rona.
They stood Ruiz up. His head hung down as a trickle of blood dripped down his chest. "Now hold him," Prescott said as he came over to me. "Lean the cop against the door facing us."
Drue, who was stronger than she looked, managed to make Ruiz lean against the door without falling down while pressing against one of his shoulders. Prescott, wearing protective rubber gloves, placed the gun against my head as Rona unlocked the handcuffs.
"Are you right-handed?" he asked me.
I didn't respond, but Drue did. "Yes. He wrote with his right hand at the lunch."
Prescott nodded and put the gun in my right hand. He shoved me to face Ruiz’s slumping body, and aimed the pistol at Ruiz's heart. "Move away!" he ordered Drue.
She darted aside, and Prescott squeezed my finger against the trigger. Ruiz slid to the floor again as a bullet ripped through his chest. I had killed a dead man.
"Now," Prescott said as Rona put the handcuffs on me again, "we can take our new volunteer for the cause with us. Someone is waiting to meet you," he said with a malicious grin. The woman, whoever she was, forced me onto the floor again. With my enormous foolhardiness, I had stumbled into the hands of the HAP. Val had cautioned me, and I foolishly went ahead anyhow. Ruiz, whose instincts were also better than mine, had been killed despite his suspicions. By the time the police discovered he was missing, this pair would have escaped with me, leaving my future very uncertain.
"Where is Holly?" I asked.
"Quite safe," Prescott said. "And anxious to see you. She’s been following your appearances with great interest."
"You seem to know a lot about my appearances."
The longer I engaged them in conversation, I thought, trying to maintain my wits, such as they were, the longer I would stay alive.
Prescott shrugged. "Good intelligence. By the way, I liked your little speech, though I wasn't able to hear it in person. It was a bit simplistic, but interesting, and with some great phrases."
It hit me like an explosion in my mind. It wasn't likely that Drue related the contents of my speech. Copies of the text hadn't been distributed to anyone. The only people who knew the exact wording were Corinne, Stacy and Wolcott, unless either of them had passed the text on to others, which now appeared highly likely.
"My office?" I said as if I were complimenting the HAP's intelligence network.
But Prescott only smiled as if the answer to the mystery would remain unanswered. He seemed inordinately proud of himself, especially for someone whose cover had just been blown.
Suddenly we heard a noise at a window fronting on the lawn.
"Backup!" Prescott shouted.
"Shoot him!" Drue told Prescott, referring to me. I squirmed helplessly, still prone on the floor. Prescott pointed the gun at me but seemed to hesitate as if he weren’t sure if getting rid of me was necessary. He was just about to squeeze the trigger when a shot rang out from within the house and he fell to the floor near me. Pistol poised, Drue spun around. For a second I thought she would shoot me, but she just backed up for another instant and then turned and ran through the front door.
After a moment that felt like an eternity, Conrad came out of the hallway. "You're a lucky guy," he said. "A minute later and you'd be dead, too." He stood over Prescott, who seemed to be still alive.
"Where's the girl?" he asked the dying man.
Three of us were lying on the floor, one dead, another bleeding to death and the third still in handcuffs. But Conrad was ignoring me.
"Come on, where's Holly Baxter?"
Prescott just stared at him and then mustered a grin on his ashen face, which served as his death mask as he expired.
Conrad turned to me as an afterthought. "Well, I tried. He wouldn't talk."
"Can you get me out of these?" I asked, impatient to be upright and get my hands free.
"In a sec." Conrad found a phone in the room. "My name is Frank Conrad." I assumed he had called 911. "I'm a private detective. Two hom
icides at 1294 Wesley Street in Burbank. Yes, I'll be here."
Conrad hung up the phone. "Hey, that floor looks cold," he said as if he were just remembering my presence.
Rona drove at a furious pace to the safe house. She was risking getting stopped by a patrol car, but there was no time to waste. BB—even she hadn't known his real name—was dead. Even if he wasn't dead, he wouldn't blab. She was sure of that. But she and Luke had to leave immediately. First they had to dispose of Holly. Too bad it wouldn't be as called for in the original plan, but now she had to improvise.
The lights were on, just as expected, and Luke was waiting for her in the living room with Holly. They were playing checkers as if nothing had happened.
"Go to your room!" Rona ordered Holly.
Without demurral Holly rose and dutifully went down the hallway to her room.
"What happened?" Luke asked with apprehension, seeing Rona's agitated appearance.
"BB's been shot. I think he's dead."
"What?"
"That guy from Tramerica, Greene, came with a cop. BB shot the cop and we set up Greene as the killer. That would have still worked out in our plan to link him to Holly. But then someone sneaked in somehow and shot BB. It wasn't the police; I don't know who it was, maybe the private detective her father hired. I didn't wait to find out."
"What do we do now?"
"Get the hell out of here! We'll drive to Wendover. The car’s already loaded."
“And Holly?” Luke asked.
"I'll take care of her," Rona said, her face contorting with grim purpose. The fun and games were long over. Time to settle matters at last with the haughty bitch!
Luke nodded with a sad expression as if he knew what would take place. He had bonded with Holly, Rona realized, but not like BB. The poor, dimwitted bumpkin fell for her helpless act. But like the good soldier he was, Luke didn’t make any comment as he left the house. Rona drew her gun from her purse, released the safety and walked toward Holly's room. There wasn't any point in dragging it out. Time was important. Kill the bitch, and get going to Nevada, she thought. She had to remember to put on her blond wig, which was in the trunk. No doubt the police would soon have a composite drawing of her. But who was it who shot BB? She didn't have time to look or even get a shot off.