by Susan Dunlap
“Plums?”
“Portland Ladies’ and Men’s Bicycle Society, the Purple Wind. I was part of the crew that made up our first T-shirts—half a dozen purple plums flying in a gust.”
“And your guy was a plum?”
Ellen swallowed, eager to clothe him in words, yet knowing the end would be that much sooner. “Wes rode. He started about a year after I did. At first he just rode for the pleasure of being outdoors. But it’s hard not to get hooked. And soon he was coming out for tours and cross-country races, too. I’d see him in the beginners’ heats.”
“He wasn’t as good as you?”
Wes, not as good? How could she think…“He saw things that I’d never have glimpsed without him. He kept things in perspective. Distance and time and winning didn’t matter to him, not in the beginning…” Not when they first rode in the redwoods. Or even later, on the routing trip, the two of them stopping in a sun-dappled glade, resting their bikes against the redwood boles, standing in the center of the ring of huge trees, pretending to be absorbed in deciding which path the riders should take, pretending not to notice the heat off his body as he leaned over the map next to her.
God, she couldn’t let herself go that deep, not here in a café over yellow eggs and bacon.
“But then?”
She had to swallow so her voice didn’t humiliate her. “Then we were at a rathskeller with the Plums after a cross-country I had won—”
“You won?”
“Yeah.”
“You beat men and women?”
Ellen laughed. “You can hardly believe it, can you? My life was that different. I wasn’t the lumpy kid anymore. I had muscles in places I’d not only never thought of having muscles, but places I’d never thought of at all. And that night I was flying. I had a few beers and I was going on about what it meant to me to win and how everybody should at least try. Wes was just sitting there, drinking his beer.” She could see him there, feel him—She pushed the memory away. “But the next time we raced, it was clear to everyone he’d been working out.”
“Did he beat you?”
“No.” The single syllable thudded between them. Ellen swallowed but it did no good. She could see the reflection of her own pain in Liza’s face. “Not then,” she managed. “He kept getting better. One race through the redwoods he almost beat me.”
“And?”
“And after that day I never saw him again.”
“How come?” Liza’s egg-laden fork was drooping from her hand.
Ellen stared hard at the Formica between them. She couldn’t look at Liza; she couldn’t bear to see the redwoods. “Not because I didn’t try, Liza. I called him. I had a friend from the club call for me. Finally I wrote a note, and when it came back unopened I gave up. I guess you could say I was a little slow on the uptake.”
Liza slammed her fork down. The table shook. “Stupid, inadequate macho asshole! You can do better than that, a whole lot better, Ellen. You don’t have to—”
Ellen swallowed. “Don’t! I can’t handle that. I know you care; that matters. But I just can’t handle—Look, the phone’s free. I’m going to call Harry.”
“You okay to do that?” Liza gave her arm a squeeze as she stood, and even that touch was almost too much. She squeezed her lips together and hurried the few steps across the room.
The phone was in a cubby between the men’s and ladies’ rooms, about as private as standing in the YWCA shower with ten other women. But at least her back was to the room. If her face turned three shades of red no one would see. She punched in Harry’s number, got the numbers wrong, hung up and punched it again. He’d be smiling when he heard her voice. A hot thick wave of guilt washed through her. Jeez, now her face probably was purple. Nine o’clock Sunday morning; he should be home. He wasn’t. His message asked for her particulars.
The guilt evaporated. Where was Harry? He had to be home; he was probably mowing the lawn. When he heard the phone, he’d be racing into the house. She took her time telling him she was okay, no longer in San Francisco at all but driving north, taking the scenic route, going toward Eureka. She missed him, she added and realized she meant it. Still he didn’t pick up.
She swallowed hard and gave up the pretense. “Where are you, Harry? I need to talk to you. This is important, real important.” She paused, strained to hear his footsteps racing across the soft grass two thousand miles away. “Okay, look, I’ll call you the next time I’m near a phone. Don’t use your phone, don’t go out. Oh, and Harry, I miss you.”
She put down the phone slowly, as if the wordless air before the click still linked her to him. She wanted to call again, hear his voice again. Maybe he’d heard the last ring of the phone and run inside too late to catch it. She glanced across the room. Liza was gazing out the window at the redwoods, the kind of smile on her lips that said she was pondering Wes and the bike trail mapping. There was no way she could face Liza in that state.
She dialed her own number and punched in the code for her messages. Old Mrs. Hellman, across the hall loved the opera. She couldn’t thank Ellen enough for surprising her with those tickets. She’d found them there slipped under her door when she got up yesterday morning. She hadn’t had a wonderful surprise like that since she was a girl. It was such a shame Ellen had to go out of town all of a sudden and miss it, the opera she meant, not the surprise, though she wished Ellen could have seen that, too. But she did so enjoy it and when Ellen got back she’d have to come to dinner—Mrs. Hellman would make her pot roast, Ellen knew she was famous for her pot roast—she added with a little laugh, before another gush of thanks.
The second message was from Harry. He cleared his throat as he always did as if the imminent necessity of speech hadn’t occurred to him. She felt her shoulders relaxing and herself smiling. “Ellen, this is Harry.” But it wasn’t the low, sweet, safe voice she’d been longing to hear. She hardly recognized the throaty tone, the frightened cadence. “El, honey, where are you? Listen, I don’t want to worry you but I can’t just not let you know. Something’s going on. Like I said, I don’t want to worry you, but I got a suspicious, well, threatening call, last night. It’s connected to Jay Silvestri’s shipment. Some crazy man is frantic to find it and threatening me. Sorry, El, you kept asking me about Jay Silvestri and I guess I should have told you, but I just didn’t want to worry you. Hon, there’s something real strange going on here. I hate to say this about your friend’s husband, particularly as he’s dead, but I think the man’s a liar. There’s no memorabilia in Hollywood worth this kind of threat. And if there were he sure wouldn’t be sending it to Richland, Washington. There’s something else in that container. El, I vouched for them. If something happens with this lunatic who’s looking for them, I’m going to lose my job. Even after all—” The message clicked off.
She pictured him standing looking down at the phone in his hand, his sweaty hand. Him, threatened, in danger of losing the work he loved, all because of her. Because of Liza. Because of Jay fucking Silvestri.
Twenty-Nine
DEVON MALLOY SLIPPED IN the office door. The old guy, Cooper, was staring at his terminal, so caught up in the computer he would not have heard a tank smashing through the door. Malloy eased across the floor. Cooper did not look up. The sour smell of Cooper’s sweat cut through the dull stench of oil and dust. Cooper must have raced in so fast he had not stopped to turn on a light. Only the paler gray from the computer stood out from the gray metal desk and cabinets in the hazy dawn light. Hunched forward, staring at the screen, not typing in, not scrolling down, Cooper himself was part of the gray. Here it was the tail end of the night and the man was dressed in a suit. Just like the bureaucratic vermin at Hanford when they spouted their lies to the media. Cooper’s suit was even vermin brown.
He moved directly behind Cooper. “Cooper, when will my shipment arrive in Richland?”
The guy nearly shit in his pants. He spun around in the chair so fast he kicked.
Malloy had the Luger out. He held it an inch fro
m Cooper’s face. “Do not cross me, Cooper.”
“Wha—”
“The time of arrival! When does my shipment arrive?”
“Your ship—”
Outside the sky was growing light. Men would be coming to work soon. “I do not have time to coddle you, Cooper: When does my shipment arrive in Richland? Which train? What is the container number?”
“How did you get my name? Did Silvestri—”
He smacked him, not hard. He was not done with the man.
Blood dripped from Cooper’s mouth.
“That is it on the computer, right?”
Cooper was holding his face with both hands, like it was the only face that mattered, like his brother had not mattered. If he had allowed himself to feel emotion—But he did not, especially now when he still needed this man.
The monitor showed a form. He scanned the lines till he spotted a name: Silvestri, J. Location: OR 102. That meant nothing to him. Destination: Richland, WA. Okay. Container number. Too long to remember; he’d have to write it down. Other numbers. Nothing about the time of arrival.
“Cooper, get your ass over here and find—”
“It’s headed for Rich—”
“Dammit, do not tell me what I already know. The container is not in Richland yet. It has been en route so long the train could have refueled in Washington, D.C. Where the hell is it now? When will it arrive in Richland? Come on, come on!”
Cooper pushed himself out of the chair. He was bent over, staggering. Blood was running down both cheeks, soaking brown into his asinine brown jacket. He had to prop a hand on the desk as he stared at the screen. “It’s guns, isn’t it?”
Malloy let go with his backhand. The vermin’s head jerked forward and back. A slap of necessity, not from emotion, he noted as Cooper sagged against the desk. Blood coated Cooper’s teeth; it looked like his whole mouth was flowing out. “Yeah, Cooper, guns, guns that could blow this building to rubble. Now, when does it arrive?”
“Trains get delayed. No one can tell—”
He smacked the Luger across his face. Bones cracked. “Cooper, I’m giving you one last chance. You want to live?” He looked from Cooper to the form on the screen. “This scrolls down, right?” He pressed the down arrow and the rest of the form appeared. “E.T.A.? Estimated time of arrival? Eleven fourteen—tomorrow—twenty-two forty-eight. Almost eleven P.M. This it?”
“Yeash.” The man’s words were mushy through the blood.
Eleven tomorrow night, plenty of time for his men to get their trucks to Richland, ready to pull up next to the roll-on-roll-off and roll it onto Hendricks’s flatbed, drive to the transfer building Hendricks had found half a mile away, open the container and distribute the weapons. Hendricks objected to abandoning his flatbed there, but he had been made to see the overriding advantage.
Malloy pressed Scroll Up and noted the top of the form again, with the container number. He took a pad out of his pocket and turned to the screen.
Cooper groaned. The guy was lying across the desk bleeding like a pig. His eyes were covered with a disgusting film of red he seemed beyond noticing. Cooper was on his way out and quick.
“Cooper! Where is Silvestri’s wife?”
Cooper was already white as paper. But he went whiter, transparent. The man did not even try to answer. Cooper knew where she was. He knew!
Malloy’s neck tightened, his stomach knotted, his face burned. He had to struggle to keep his voice under control. “Silvestri’s wife is your girlfriend’s best friend. Do not pretend you do not know how to reach her.”
“I—” he made a gurgling noise—“don’t.”
Malloy swung the Luger back and barely caught himself before he brought it down on Cooper’s nose. He was so close to having her, the crowning touch to Hot Standby. This quivering vermin would not stand in his way. “You tell me, Cooper or I’ll get it out of your girlfriend.”
Cooper’s mouth was open, the blood flowing. Then Cooper fooled him, acted like he was going to answer with that open mouth. Instead, he grabbed a card from his open file and stuffed it in his mouth.
“God damn, you fucking bastard!” The gun went off and he watched the vermin’s forehead fly into a thousand pieces. His body slammed into the computer.
Malloy’s blood was racing as he focused back on the screen, the blank gray screen. There was data he still needed to copy down! The container number! Dammit, the vermin had made him miss that! Malloy picked up a stapler off the desk and threw it at the red-drenched body. Rage ignited him. It was all he could do to stop himself, to force himself to breathe deeply, to hold himself still and listen for footsteps in the hall, cars pulling up outside. The room reeked of urine and shit from the body.
His fingerprints were all over, but that made no matter. A day from now one more killing would be insignificant.
Noise in the hallway. Were those footsteps? He did not have time to take out anyone else here. He froze, as he had trained himself to do—freeze and assess. No, not footsteps. Not yet.
Malloy took a last look at the moaning red blob on the floor. It hardly looked like a man anymore.
He bent down, shoved open the vermin’s mouth and pulled out the soggy mess of paper. “You thought you could swallow this, Cooper? Too thick. Any fool could see that.” He unwadded the disgusting mess. The writing on the address card was almost washed away by the saliva and the blood. All he could make out was, “Ellen Bai.”
Thirty
THE CRACK OF THE phone against the wall startled Liza. The phone was hanging by its cord and Ellen was leaning against the wall next to it. Liza raced past the empty café tables to her. “Ellen, what’s the matter? Did you get Harry?”
“Harry’s dead.”
“Dead? That can’t be. You must be—”
“Crazy? I wish.” Tears ran down Ellen’s face; she made no attempt to wipe them away. “I called Harry; I…got…his machine again.” A tear dropped off her chin onto her breast.
Liza wrapped an arm around her shoulder and led her into the bathroom. There was only one stall and it was empty. “You called…?” she prompted.
“I was going to call my own messages, even though…though…they wouldn’t have changed in an hour.” Ellen’s voice was without inflection. “I called Mrs. Hellman down the hall from me, the woman I gave the opera tickets to. I thought maybe Harry had come by. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Why would he have come when he knows I’m not there?”
The barrage was to keep away the moment she couldn’t face, Liza knew that. She could feel Ellen’s panic roiling in her own stomach. Opera tickets? She had no idea what Ellen meant but she didn’t interrupt.
“As soon as I said my name, Mrs. Hellman said, ‘Harry Cooper, isn’t he your gentleman friend?’ That’s how she talks, gentleman friend. I said yes, and she said, ‘He’s been shot. An execution-style slaying in his office.”
“Did you ask—”
“I didn’t ask anything. She wouldn’t even know what execution-style is, much less anything else.” Ellen glared at Liza. “But you know, don’t you? That’s how your husband died, execution-style. That’s why Harry is dead like this, because of you.”
Liza gasped.
Ellen shoved her aside and lurched at the door.
Automatically Liza braced the door shut. “No! Ellen, pull yourself together!”
“Harry is dead!”
“You can’t go running out of here and have everyone on a counter stool staring and asking each other what’s going on with those two girls?”
“I don’t care!”
“Wash your face.”
“Don’t—”
“Ellen, look at your face. It’s all red and blotchy. Put some water on it.”
“I’ve got to get out of here. Back home. To Kansas City. I need—”
“Okay. Look, I’ll get us to the airport. Let me go outside and make arrangements. You take care of your face. Use the toilet. We don’t know how far it is to the airport. Just let me check
my own messages to make sure nothing else has happened and we’ll go. We can’t be that far from an airport. It’s just after seven. By noon you’ll be back in Kansas City.”
She walked slowly out of the bathroom, trying to move like she had some control. How could Harry Cooper—that silly man with no interests but railroads, and no passion but for Ellen—be dead? She could see him at that reunion in Portland, his stubby hands whipping back and forth, illustrating some train thing, his so-ordinary face glowing with sweat and fervor. And then when he turned and saw Ellen, his face lighted up. So sweet. So innocent. How could he be dead?
She leaned against the wall by the phone, her whole body icy and shaking. What had she done to Ellen? To poor innocent Harry? How could this be happening? She felt a great leaden sorrow for the tiaras, the secrets, for having a real friend.
She had to pull herself together. The one thing she could do for Ellen now was get her out of here. The rest she’d worry about later. She was, she reminded herself, a pro at not thinking about things.
She walked to the counter.
When she came back ten minutes later Ellen was still standing at the sink. “Sorry I took so long,” she said, knowing Ellen had no sense whether she’d been gone a minute or an hour. “The woman behind the counter called a pilot in Eureka for us. So that’s all set up. I checked my messages. There was only one, and it was from Bentec saying he had something important I should know. I thought maybe it was about Harry. Though Bentec probably hasn’t heard about Harry’s death. A shooting halfway across the country, why would he? And even if he did, why connect it with Jay and the shipment?”
Ellen’s face was going blotchy white, her face moving in little spasms as if her mental gears almost caught each time before they slipped.
“But Bentec’s call wasn’t about Harry,” Liza said quickly. “Bentec went on forever and then in the end he didn’t say anything except that I should call him right away. Nothing new. But, look, we’ll be in Eureka in an hour. The pilot will be waiting. It’s all set up. Come on, we have to go.”