Kill and Tell

by Linda Howard

  She slipped her cold feet out of her wet shoes and hurriedly pulled on a pair of sweats, then some thick socks. She was cold and tired. She thought longingly of heat and sunshine. Once, when she was only two years old, they had been stationed at a base in Florida. Karen didn't really remember it, but when she closed her eyes, she still had the impression of wonderful heat, of long days under a brilliant sun. Jeanette had often talked of Florida, with longing in her voice, because those days had been relatively happy. Then Dexter had gone to Vietnam and never really came home. Jeanette had moved back to the mountains of West Virginia, where they were originally from, to be close to their families while she waited for her husband's tour of duty to be over and prayed for his safety.

  But one tour had turned into another, then another, and the man who finally showed up on their doorstep wasn't the same one who had left. Karen had clear memories of those days, of his sullenness, his long bouts of drinking, tiptoeing around him lest she set off his temper. He had turned mean, and not even Jeanette's unwavering love could hold him. He began disappearing, at first just for a day or two, then the days became weeks and the weeks turned into months, and then one day Jeanette realized he was gone for good. She cried into her pillow a lot of nights; Karen could remember that, too.

  They had moved from West Virginia to Ohio so Jeanette could get a better job. There had been those few phone calls, a couple of letters, and once Dexter had actually come to visit. Karen hadn't seen him; he was gone before she got home from her classes. But Jeanette had been glowing, softly excited, and at nineteen Karen was adult enough to realize her parents had spent the visit in Jeanette's bedroom. That was ten years ago, and Jeanette hadn't seen him since. She hadn't stopped loving him, though. Karen couldn't understand it, but she accepted her mother's constancy. Jeanette had been infinitely loving, even with the husband who had abandoned her.

  After a lonely meal of cold cereal, Karen made herself pick up the letter again.

  "Jeanie—Here are some old papers of mine. Put them in a safe deposit box and keep them for me. They may be worth some money someday—Dex."

  That was it. No salutation, no "dear," not signed with love. He had just mailed his junk to her mother and expected her to keep it for him.

  And she would have. Jeanette would have carefully followed his instructions and even kept that curt note, placing it with the pitifully small stack of letters she had saved from when he was in Vietnam.

  Karen's instinct was to toss the box into the trash. Out of respect for her mother, she didn't. Instead, she carried it into Jeanette's empty bedroom and placed it in one of the boxes that held her mother's things. She couldn't bring herself to get rid of anything yet; she had rented storage space and would keep it all there until that day came.

  The packing was all but complete. There were only a few items left, sitting on top of the dresser. Karen added them to the box and sealed it with several strips of masking tape across the cardboard.

  With luck, the house would sell soon, and spring would come, and she would be able to see sunshine again.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  August 5, New Orleans, Louisiana

  Almost midnight. Someone was following him. Again. Dexter Whitlaw turned his head just enough to see the flash of movement with his peripheral vision. Excitement pumped through his veins, and he almost grinned. There was nothing like the hunt, even when he was the prey. They had been after him for almost six months, and he delighted in using his old skills to evade them. He had led them on quite a chase, zigzagging back and forth across the country, surfacing in the larger cities to place another call. He hadn't expected it to be easy, and he hadn't been disappointed, but he knew his man.

  After the initial "Go to hell" had sounded in his ear, Dexter had begun his game of cat and mouse. Blackmail could be as brutal as an amputation or as delicate as reeling in a world-record trout on gossamer line. First, he had established his evidence—just a little of it, just a taste of what could be released if certain conditions weren't met.

  As he had expected, the pigeon had reacted with fury. Far from being intimidated, he had called all his dogs and sicced them on Dexter. Most men would have been dead by now, but Dexter had spent a three-year lifetime crawling on his belly in Nam, learning patience and strategy and the ability to conceal himself so well that the unsuspecting dogs had several times walked right past him, just as Charlie and the North Vietnamese had done in Nam.

  Dexter was having a hell of a time. He hadn't felt so blazingly alive since he had looked down his scope into that Russian's scope and known one of them had only a split second to live.

  The dog following him now was better than the others. Not as good as ol' Dex, he thought exuberantly, but good enough to give him a thrill. Hell, he even knew this one; unless he missed his guess, he was being dogged this time by no less than Rick Medina, one of the CIA's best wet men back in their old green hunting grounds, twenty-five years ago. Another time, another world, but here they were, the same old players playing the same old game of hide and seek.

  Dexter blended into the shadows, hunkering down for a minute while he waited for his follower to make another move. A less cautious man would have shot first and checked his identity afterward, but this guy was smart. Assume Dexter didn't know he was being followed; a hasty killing of the wrong guy would send the real prey so far underground it might be weeks before they could pick him up again. And don't forget to factor in the unwanted attention of the cops. True, for the most part, the cops didn't worry much about the unexpected demise of a street bum, even when said demise was caused by a bullet in the brain. But you could never tell; they might be having a slow day and want some excitement, or a TV news crew might happen on the scene, and the bright lights would prod the cops to reluctant activity—the random occurrence of feces, as one erudite patron of a soup kitchen in Chicago had put it.

  Dexter waited. Slowly, his movements ghostly, he smeared dirt on his face and hands to disguise their relative paleness. Then he ducked his head down and remained motionless, comfortable in the knowledge that he was virtually invisible to anyone peering into the deeply shadowed alley.

  After several minutes, he listened to the shuffle of footsteps as they moved closer. Maybe it was the hunter; maybe it was just another bum. Dexter didn't move.

  The footsteps paused. Dexter pictured what anyone looking down this alley would see: scattered trash, broken bottles, a pile of malodorous refuse too small to conceal a man, except that it did. It had rained earlier; the street lights shimmered on puddles of water. Any empty cardboard boxes that had littered the alley a few hours ago had been taken to provide shelter from the rain. To the average hunting dog, the alley would look empty and unproductive, but Medina wasn't the average dog; he, too, had trained in Vietnam, so he knew how to be patient and wait for the prey to make a mistake.

  Well, in this case, Dexter thought happily, he would have a long wait. Dexter Whitlaw didn't make mistakes, not in this. He might have screwed up everything else in his life, but he'd been a first-class hunter. So he waited, long after the shuffling footsteps moved away, long after other sounds of other footsteps took their place. A rat sniffed around his shoes, and he waited, motionless. After a while, he was rewarded when those same shuffling footsteps made a return visit, once again pausing at the alley. The hunter was comparing the way the alley looked now to the way it had looked earlier. Nothing had changed. Satisfied now that his prey wasn't there, the hunter moved on, still using the shuffle because a good hunter never broke his disguise.

  The deceptive gait might have worked, if Dexter hadn't once seen Medina use the same drunken shuffle to bait two bully boys in a Saigon dive, drawing them in with the false assurance that the Yankee was too shit-faced to put up much of a fight. The two specialized in drunk American soldiers and had fun beating the helpless boys to bloody pulps after stealing their money. The week before, one of the boys had died of internal injuries, and a cert
ain American faction had begun a ruthless search for the two Vietnamese.

  As the man who had found and identified them, Rick Medina had the honor of taking them out. Two clean shots to the head would have done it, but Medina had wanted to play with them first.

  Medina was a neat, all-American type guy, good-looking and slim, with his brown hair cut in a short crew and his clothes pressed and creased even in the oppressive heat. He was intelligent and affable—for the most part. When he was pissed, or when he was working, the affability disappeared as if it had never existed, and in his blue eyes was the cold light of a killer.

  Medina had lured the two Vietnamese out into a dark alley; they hadn't even tried to conceal the fact that they were following him, so certain were they of his helplessness. They closed on him like hounds on a rabbit, but at the last second, the rabbit had whirled, all signs of drunkenness gone. The knife in his hand had a dull black blade, so it wouldn't reflect light. The two Vietnamese likely never even saw it. All they knew was that suddenly their bodies were licked with fire, Medina's hands darting and leaving behind slashes that never went quite deep enough to kill—not yet, at least. Medina had shredded the two, all the while whispering to them in their own language, so that they would have no doubts about what was happening and why.

  They tried to get away but found the alley blocked by several blank-faced Americans, all holding pistols. Trapped, hysterical, they reckoned Medina the least threat and turned to fight him. Big mistake.

  Rick Medina was a regular Veg-o-Matic that night. He sliced and diced with mechanical precision. He weaved and darted, and each flick of the knife relieved someone of a body part—an ear, a finger, a nose. The two were hoarsely screaming before he finished them, neatly slicing their throats and letting them drop. Stepping over the bodies, he rejoined the silent group at the head of the alley, his face set and expressionless.

  Medina had gone off by himself, shrugging away the offers of company, and when he surfaced the next day, he was his old affable self again, the killings handled and put behind him.

  That was it about Medina, Dexter thought. He was a stone killer when the occasion called for it, but not a murderer. As brutal as the executions had been, they were just that: executions. A lesson taught. After that, the young American soldiers had enjoyed a bit more safety when carousing in the Saigon bars and whorehouses. Medina had known he would pay a personal price for doing the two kills and accepted the cost.

  Whatever line was drawn in Medina's soul, he had never crossed it. All of his kills had been righteous.

  When Dexter considered it, he realized he probably respected Rick Medina more than any other person in the world. Medina had held to his code; Dexter himself had not, and he had spent all these years paying for his lapse.

  If anyone could catch him, Medina could.

  Knowing that gave extra life to the game.

  Dexter finally rose silently to his feet. A glance at the stars told him roughly two hours had passed.

  It was time to lose the street bum disguise. It had worked for a long time, but Medina was on the scent now. The alleys and soup kitchens would be the first place he looked, so Dexter would have to make it a point not to be there. Too bad; street bums had an anonymity that almost no other group possessed, because people actively avoided looking at them. The cops didn't waste any time on them, and they in turn weren't likely to talk to cops about anything they saw. But there were other disguises that would serve him almost as well; the trick was to blend in with his background, whatever that background might be.

  New Orleans offered a rich variety of possibilities, and Dexter considered several of them as he took a circuitous route to the Quarter, which was always awake no matter the hour or the day. After crisscrossing St. Charles a couple of times, doubling back, always checking, he finally reached Carondelet. All the time, he watched his flank, alert to any sign of a tail, but saw nothing suspicious.

  He now went straight down Carondelet and crossed Canal, where Carondelet became Bourbon Street. Tourists still strolled the uneven pavements, newly emerged from the restaurants and bars and strip joints. Some were obviously drunk, holding plastic cups sloshing with beer or Hurricanes. More than a few wore cheap plastic necklaces in a variety of colors, and sequined masks were evident as well, though Mardi Gras was months past.

  The bar lights glittered on the wet pavement, and jazz wailed out of the open doors of the bars, colliding with the more discordant, driving beats coming from the strip joints, where bored-looking dancers, both male and female, gyrated their hips and humped poles and pretended to be sexy.

  Laughter rippled from one group of tourists, three prosperous-looking young men whose arms were clutched by glittering young women in cocktail dresses. As Dexter watched, a briskly walking man brushed past the group and went on his way, turning at the next street and disappearing from view, with at least one of the young men's wallets inside his shirt. Not one of the tourists realized anything had happened.

  It was like watching a movie, as if he didn't inhabit the same world as the tourists. They were oblivious to him, looking past him, through him. Dexter shivered suddenly, despite the thick heat of a New Orleans summer night. He had been disconnected since Nam, but abruptly he felt even more distant, as if the tourists wouldn't be able to hear him even if he shouted.

  It was a peculiar feeling, making him shiver again. He walked down Bourbon, glancing in the open doors as he passed, the music and laughter echoing as if from a distance. The foot traffic was heavier here, and cops on horseback clopped by, steel horseshoes ringing on the pavement. Dexter walked faster, looking for a dark alley where he could hunker down for a minute and shake this spooky feeling. This wasn't downtown, though, this was the Quarter, and alleys were usually entrances to courtyards. If they were private courtyards, the entrances were gated and locked. If the courtyard belonged to a restaurant, he wouldn't find any privacy there.

  He reminded himself that he hadn't come to the Quarter for privacy; he had come precisely because Bourbon Street was so active, and he could lose himself in the foot traffic. All he needed to do was ignore the weird feeling and get on with business. Maybe leave New Orleans entirely, now that Medina was on his trail.

  Medina. Dexter thought about it and realized what felt so wrong, what had spooked him. Medina wasn't anybody's dog. The man had principles. Things happened to people over the years, changed them, but it would take a real sea change to turn Rick Medina into a kill-for-hire man.

  Three alternative possibilities presented themselves. One: Medina had been lied to. That was the easiest explanation but possibly the most implausible because of Medina's personality. He wouldn't take kindly to being used, and if he ever found out, there would be hell to pay.

  Two: Medina was definitely hunting him, but for a third, unknown party. Perhaps the secret wasn't as well kept as he had thought. God knows it would make great ammunition. This possibility was way out there on the edge of conspiracy, but as someone had said, even paranoids have real enemies.

  Three: Medina was here for another reason entirely. It was mere chance that Dexter had seen and recognized him.

  Yeah, sure.

  Dexter reached St. Ann Street and turned down it, not looking in the windows of the voodoo shop as he walked past. That was some weird shit, and he had all the weirdness he could handle right now. Maybe he should have stayed on Bourbon; St. Ann was empty—

  Medina stepped out in front of him, silenced .22 in hand.

  Dexter stopped, looking into those calm blue eyes. His own pistol was stuck in the back of his waistband, and he knew he'd never be able to get to it in time. Death stared at him, and strangely he thought of Jeanette. He saw her sweet face, clearly remembered how she had hugged him so tightly the last time he'd seen her, and was humbled to realize how much she loved him.

  And, looking behind Medina, he realized abruptly how it was set up. There was a fourth scenario, one he had overlooked.

  "Look ou—" he began, but Med
ina's finger had already tightened delicately on the trigger, and the bullet punched neatly into his forehead, shutting off thought and speech and life.

  Rick Medina whirled, going down on one knee, warned by the last words out of Dexter Whitlaw's mouth. He had the strong, lithe grace of a ballet dancer, but he was fifty-six years old, and his reflexes had slowed just a bit. He got off only one shot before two slugs hit him in the chest like sledgehammers. He collapsed on the uneven sidewalk, his body no longer responsive, his eyesight going even as he stared at the three shadowy figures looming over him. Used, he thought savagely. Set up and used. He felt a burst of fury, and then nothing.

  A car pulled up to the curb, and the trunk was popped open. Quickly, the three men lifted Medina's body and stuffed it into the trunk. One remembered to scoop up the silenced .22 and toss it into the trunk with the body; one swiftly patted Dexter Whitlaw's pockets and shook his head at the other two. Then they all got into the car and drove sedately away, just as a man and a woman turned the corner from Bourbon Street and began walking toward Dexter Whitlaw's body.

  The couple saw the man on the sidewalk, and the woman tugged on her husband's arm. "Let's not walk by that drunk," she said. Mellowed by a couple of Hurricanes, the man agreed, and they crossed the street to avoid coming so close to unpleasantness.

  It was another twenty-three seconds before four young women, teetering on high heels, clutching sequined purses so tiny as to be useless, and giggling together over the male stripper they had just watched, wobbled their merry way down St. Ann and made the discovery that the man lying on the sidewalk had a hole in his forehead.

  Their shrill screams tore through the music and laughter drifting over from Bourbon. Curious heads turned. A few men broke into a run, responding automatically to the sounds of female distress. More people followed, drawing the attention of a pair of patrolmen on horseback.