Azrael

by William L. DeAndrea

  Trotter smiled at him, something halfway between sad and cynical. “Keep playing by the rules, Joe,” he said.

  Trotter thanked him for the hospitality, asked him to try to hurry Rines up on those background reports he was supposed to be getting.

  Albright was tempted to ask him if there were any in particular he was interested in, but he fought it down. He already felt childish and unsophisticated. He didn’t want to see that damn smile again.

  They shook hands; Trotter left. Albright sat and thought about what he could do for his country. The only thing he could come up with was to get closer to Tina Bloyd, a pleasant assignment if there ever was one.

  He was working on ways and means when he heard the shots.

  Chapter Seven

  IF IT HAD BEEN August instead of October, Trotter would already be dead. In the summer, people stay out later, television sets blare through open windows. Insects and the birds that eat them fill the air with their cries. The soft click of the hammer of a .38 being cocked would get lost against all the other sound.

  In the chilly nights of autumn, people stay indoors with their windows closed. The bugs are dead or sleeping, and the birds have migrated to warmer places. A man who’s heard the gun noise before will hear it now and recognize it. He’ll drop to the macadam of the road and let the bullet spiderweb the window of the door he’d been about to open.

  Times like this sometimes made Trotter want to reconsider his policy about carrying a weapon. Generally, when he carried a gun, he found himself constantly thinking about it, as if it were a boil that had come to a head, and that he was tempted to squeeze for the explosion. He would catch himself not listening to people because he was thinking about the gun. He had decided long ago that he would only arm himself when he thought there was a definite possibility he’d have to kill someone before he got back home.

  It was a decision he’d been happy with, but it had the flaw of making no allowance for times when bullets came at you out of the dark.

  Trotter was off the ground again in a second, scrambling around the front of the car. He wanted to get the mass of it between him and whoever that was behind the tree across the street. He couldn’t really see anything—it was a big tree, and the street lighting in this part of town was nonexistent.

  Trotter didn’t mind the dark. It was the one thing he had working for him. He crouched behind the left front tire and took big, silent breaths while he sized things up.

  He heard no footsteps, which made sense. His playmate across the road had no way of knowing Trotter was unarmed. It would, unfortunately, occur to him eventually, and he would gather his courage and come look, and shoot Trotter dead.

  It would do no good to try to get into the car from the passenger side. No matter how quickly he got in and started the motor, he couldn’t keep the dome light from giving him away, and he couldn’t drive off in less time than it would take a man to get close and kill him.

  So he had to run. The idea was to do it in the way that gave him the best chance for survival. The destination was easy—back toward Albright Salvage/Reclamation. Better to be running toward help than away from it. The whole neighborhood would have heard the shot, but, Trotter knew, they’d chalk it up to a car’s backfire or something. To most Americans a gunshot was that dynamite-bomb-in-an-echo-chamber effect they dubbed in for movies or television shows. Joe Albright, though, would recognize the sound for what it was, and he’d come to investigate.

  Trotter had about eight yards to go before he could reach the corner of Wilvoys Road, and for the whole distance he’d be naked to gunfire. There wasn’t much he could do to hide, either. The light was bad, but it wasn’t that bad.

  In front of him was the car, and in front of that was a man with a gun. To either side was bare sidewalk. He might dive for it and scramble behind the next tree, but behind the tree, he’d have all the same problems he had now.

  Behind him was a privet hedge. It was a tall privet hedge, as tall as Trotter himself. He could get over it, but he couldn’t do it without letting the man with the gun know what he was up to. It might not matter. Even if it did, it was the only chance he had.

  Still in his crouch, Trotter turned quietly until he had his back to the car. He planted his left foot against the tire and brought his right knee up to his chest in a classic sprinter’s stance. He was sizing up distances and guessing the effort required when he heard footsteps crossing the road. That was enough; no starting gun was needed. Trotter exploded toward the hedge. About five feet away from it, he launched himself into the air at a forty-five-degree angle, exactly as if he thought he was Superman and could simply fly away from his troubles.

  He was in the air before he thought of Cyclone fences. People often grew privet hedges around Cyclone fences—the fence for security, the hedge for looks. There hadn’t been enough light to inspect this particular hedge, but if there was a metal fence in the middle of it, Trotter was in big trouble.

  Because to get to the other side of a privet hedge, it is not necessary to jump clean over it. All you’ve got to do is jump high enough to hit it with your body below your rib cage, let your weight and momentum bend the hedge under you, and lower you softly to the ground on the other side.

  If there is a Cyclone fence, or anything unyielding in the middle, you will rupture your liver.

  Trotter was in luck. Not only did he encounter nothing unyielding, he also missed the ancient Sears Roebuck J. C. Higgins Flightliner bicycle someone had left to rust away in the front yard of the boarded-up house the hedge had been guarding the privacy of.

  It would probably take a few seconds before the man with the gun decided to follow him. Trotter decided to invest a little of the time moving the bicycle so that it rested right on the place the hedge had left him. Trotter took off around the house. The grass was tall and made for slow running, but at least it was quiet. Once he had the corner of the building between him and his pursuer, he’d be hard to catch.

  As he reached the shelter of the side of the house, Trotter smiled as he heard the jangle of metal, and curses mingled with grunts of pain. That would teach the bastard to take the easy way over a hedge—from now on, let him bend his own bushes.

  The hedge ran around the entire lot, so Trotter had to do his trick again. This time, though, he deposited himself neatly on top of a metal trash barrel filled with empty oil cans. Albright’s neighbor, the garage. He’d forgotten.

  The noise was astounding.

  And that will teach me, Trotter thought, not to be overconfident. He could hear his father’s voice—“Keep alert, son. It might take the other fellow a while to realize you’ve turned the tables on him.”

  Trotter had smashed his foot against the rim of the barrel. He wasn’t doing much more running, at least on that foot. He’d have to stand and fight. Or crouch and fight, or crawl and fight. “Fight” was the operative word.

  By now, the pursuer would know Trotter had no gun. He would also remember the bicycle trick. All right, Trotter told himself, enough about your disadvantages. What have you got going for you?

  Well, for one thing, he wouldn’t know about the sore foot. And he might not know about Joe Albright, who would be coming to the rescue any minute now.

  Trotter hoped.

  Another possible advantage Trotter could see was that while the man with the gun would know that among pieces of cars and scrap metal there’d be something Trotter could use as a weapon, he wouldn’t think there would be anything that could be effective long-distance.

  Trotter knew better. He limped around to a few cars and armed himself. He was glad the owner of the garage did not keep a dog.

  Trotter heard the rustling of the hedge before he was ready. He’d meant to get a lot more stuff, but he’d have to be content with two hubcaps and a car antenna. He dragged his foot to cover as quickly as he could.

  And here I am again, he thought, crouched down behind an automobile, waiting for a man with a gun.

  Who had, as Trotter
guessed, wised up since last time. He was going through the hedge the hard way, walking his way through by main strength. Trotter had hoped that might be what he’d try.

  The hedge stopped rustling; there was a dull clang as a piece of metal got kicked into the garbage can, then silence.

  Trotter pulled the radio aerial out to about half its length, and held it in his left hand. With his right, he grabbed one of the hubcaps by the rim, concave side toward his body. He was all set, assuming his pursuer passed Trotter’s hiding place to the right.

  It was a fifty-fifty chance, but Trotter had learned that the way to stay alive in this business was to figure out a way to adjust the odds. It frequently didn’t take much. In this case, it took a pebble. Trotter put the aerial down for a second, picked up a pebble, and threw it across his body, where it pinged against the door panel of another car.

  Trotter backed a few feet away from his hiding place, to give himself room to move. The man with the gun smelled the kill, now. He let his footsteps crunch the gravel. He might as well have been yelling out coordinates.

  The gun appeared first, followed by a black sleeve. If Trotter’d known that was how it was going to happen, he would have forgotten the hubcaps completely and held the antenna in his favored hand. Still, he’d made his plan, and was stuck with it.

  But the pursuer wasn’t cooperating. He just stood there, gun and disembodied arm. The temptation to switch hands and lash at the wrist was enormous, but Trotter resisted it. He didn’t dare breathe, he didn’t dare move until he made the move, the one that would decide whether he was going to live or merely go down fighting.

  The waiting went on forever—about twenty seconds of objective time. Trotter couldn’t take much more of it. Forget mental pressure. He was crouching on a painfully twisted ankle, and he was going to have to stand up soon or collapse altogether.

  To hell with it, Trotter thought. He screamed, very loud.

  The pursuer became a victim of his own professionalism. Since he knew Trotter had no gun, he wanted to make sure of a clear shot. He stepped around the front of the car, put both hands on the gun, bent his knees and fired. But by the time he pulled the trigger, Trotter had already Frisbeed the hubcap into his stomach, and the bullet plowed harmlessly into the gravel.

  It probably caused more surprise than damage, but it would do. Trotter whipped him across the neck with the aerial before he could recover enough to get off another shot, then dropped the antenna and launched himself on the man in a low, one-legged dive.

  Trotter grabbed the wrist of the gun hand and began beating it against the gravel. Once the gun came free, it was all over. Trotter suspected it might. A lot of gunmen identified so thoroughly with a hunk of metal that depriving them of it was like shaving Samson’s head.

  A voice said, “Nice job.”

  Trotter looked behind him. Joe Albright. “Nice you could make it,” he said.

  “It’s a goddam maze back here.”

  “You got a gun?”

  “Get real, will you? Of course I’ve got a gun.”

  “Good. Keep this clown covered while I talk to him. He has a great respect for guns.”

  Albright nodded and pointed the weapon at the man’s head.

  Trotter said, “What’s your name?” and got no answer. He tried Russian and got more silence, but there was a flicker of fear on the man’s face.

  “Was that Russian?” Albright said.

  “Pig Latin. Shut up, okay?”

  Trotter turned to the prisoner and spoke more Russian. “Who sent you?”

  This time he got an answer. “I had orders to shoot you.”

  “Yes. I didn’t think it was your own idea. Where did you get the orders?”

  “They came. Over the telephone.”

  “The number?”

  “I receive calls only.”

  In English, Trotter said, “The saddest thing about you is that you think I care whether you’re telling the truth.”

  The man’s eyes widened a little at that one. So he spoke English. Big deal. The Russians would hardly send in a man who didn’t.

  The big question was, what was he going to do with this guy? Chances were he was telling the truth, and didn’t know much. It was damn certain this wasn’t the man Bulanin had told him about, the one Borzov called Azrael. This was one minor wet-job specialist, willing to kill, but not especially able. He’d been sufficiently trained to take out an unsuspecting businessman, or untrained women and children, but sending him after a professional like Trotter was like chopping off his head.

  Which meant whoever had sent him either didn’t know Trotter was an agent (which seemed unlikely, after that visit to the Soviet embassy in London), or they were ready to sacrifice this guy to some purpose. Something connected to Petra Hudson? Or something totally different?

  “You,” Trotter said in Russian, “are a complication.” The guy probably knew nothing. Even if he did know something, it would take hours and expert persuasion to get it out of him. Trotter had the expertise but not the time. He also lacked a place to keep this guy until his father could send other experts. He sure as hell couldn’t take him to the police.

  “Joe,” Trotter said, “go home.”

  “What are we going to do with this guy?”

  “Just go home, I’ll handle it.”

  “But—”

  “Somebody may report these gunshots. You want to be home if the cops canvass the neighborhood.”

  “Trotter, I can’t—”

  Trotter turned to look at him. “All you have to do is go home. Go.”

  Albright stood there for a few seconds. Then he shrugged and left.

  Trotter turned back to his prisoner to see the man scrabbling urgently in his pocket. Trotter grabbed the man by the wrist and squeezed until the fingers came open. Trotter turned the man around and slammed him against the car, then went through his pockets himself.

  He found no weapon, just some loose change and something the size and shape of a vitamin capsule. It was made of glass and had a brownish fluid inside.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. I should have let you.”

  He turned the man back around. He forced himself to look into the gunman’s eyes. He wouldn’t let himself forget that this was a human being. Not much of one, maybe, but a human being all the same.

  In an hour, he would be part of a landfill on the west side of town.

  Trotter pulled back his arm, then struck once, knuckles on throat.

  Chapter Eight

  REGINA TURNED HER FACE to Allan’s chest and bit him. She’d never bitten a man before; she only did it now to avoid screaming, in pleasure or frustration, she couldn’t tell which.

  Trotter kissed her gently on the forehead, held her more tightly with the left arm that cradled her. His right hand played in the wetness of her, finger gliding without friction, teasing, teasing, bringing her closer and closer but not quite there. It had been going on for some time now. Regina was afraid she’d lose her mind if it didn’t stop, but she didn’t want it to end.

  She didn’t think he’d said a word to her yet. She’d heard the door bell ring in the code he’d arranged. She opened the door, he stepped inside.

  There was something in his eyes she hadn’t seen before, something sad and vulnerable. It unsettled her. He was the man with the quick answers, confidence itself, the source of any hope she had that whatever was stalking her mother and those close to her (including Regina herself) could be thwarted. Now he looked like a little boy.

  “I—I tried to phone you,” Regina had said. “I was worried about you.”

  Then he caught her in his arms and kissed her, hard. He took her to the bedroom and threw her on the bed and began making love to her.

  They were naked now, but still on top of the bed, on the quilt she used for a bedspread.

  Allan moved now, taking his hand away. Regina gasped, disappointment mingling with relief. Allan kissed her, mouth, throat, breasts. He stroked her and squeezed her, and s
oon she was gasping again.

  She reached for him, feeling him warm and hard and ready.

  She said, “Now. Now, darling.”

  Now it was. He moved over her, and inside. He kissed her, and his tongue mimicked the thrusts of his hips. Regina exploded almost immediately, but it went on. Again and again she felt herself tighten around him, felt the shudders go through her, heard her helpless, animal moans. Then one last time, when he moaned, too, then kissed her fiercely, and rolled off.

  She put her head on his chest. He stroked her hair. He murmured something; she heard it as a rumble in his chest. “What did you say?” she asked. “I said it’s good to be alive.”

  They made love again in the morning. Regina’s idea. I’m becoming positively wanton, she thought.

  When it was done, she volunteered to fix breakfast.

  “Okay,” he said. He was smiling. Together, they’d exorcised whatever had been troubling him. “But let’s be liberated about this. Next time, I’ll get the breakfast.”

  Next time, she thought, and caught herself starting to hum. Like Scarlett O’Hara. No. That turned out badly, didn’t it? Not that she kidded herself that the prospects here were any better. Today, she just didn’t want to think of it.

  Then Allan went off to the bathroom and started singing in the shower, and she had to fight down a whole new series of crazy hopes.

  “French toast,” he said as he sat down at the table. “I’m impressed.”

  “Frozen,” she said. “From the toaster. I did the bacon myself.”

  “It’s delicious,” he told her. “A tribute both to you and to American technology.”

  “This is wonderful. I can be sexed-out and patriotic at the same time.”

  “You called me darling last night,” he said.

  For a split second, Regina paused with the fork halfway to her mouth. Then she finished the maneuver, chewed and swallowed before she said, “Did I?”

  “You did. And I want you to know, I liked it.”