Rainy Night To Die

by Caleb Pirtle III

Did he see Daemon when she came for the sheet music?

  Did he follow her?

  Did he arrest Daemon?

  What did she tell him?

  Nothing.

  Pauline knew Daemon.

  She would die first.

  But Petrov?

  He would kill the jazz singer if he knew what she knew.

  He would kill her even if he only thought he knew what she knew.

  Petrov grabbed a fistful of her long hair and lifted Pauline to her feet.

  She bit her lip to keep from screaming.

  He stared into her eyes.

  They were wide with fright.

  The time had come, she knew.

  She would not sing tonight.

  The dead had no songs to sing.

  Her lips were quivering.

  “I can look into a woman’s eyes and tell if she is lying to me,” Petrov barked.

  “I have no reason to lie to you.” Pauline was struggling to pull each word from her throat.

  Petrov turned abruptly and walked toward the bedroom, dragging her by the hair behind him.

  Pauline grabbed his wrist.

  Its muscles were taut like steel springs.

  She could not tear his fingers loose.

  He began to laugh as if he knew the punchline to a joke no one had told.

  He dropped her to the floor, and she fell across the Russian uniform where Petrov had left it lying rumpled beside the bed.

  He stood with his legs spread wide above her.

  “Do you love me, little Pauline?”

  She fought to catch her breath.

  “You know I do, Nikolay.”

  “Then why do you play Judas with Nikolay?” His words were coming in short breaths. “Why do you deceive me?”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  She wiped the blood from her lips.

  “Do you think I love you, little Pauline?”

  “Of course, I do, Nikolay.”

  “You lie. I lie. We all lie.”

  Petrov spit on her face.

  She rubbed the spittle off with the back of her hand.

  “Tell me about the man we know as Cantrell,” he said.

  His voice was harsh and taunting.

  “I don’t know anyone named Cantrell,” she said.

  Her eyes were darting around the room.

  Was there time to run?

  Could she escape him?

  She knew better.

  No one could run fast enough or far enough to hide from the long reach of Nikolay Petrov.

  “You know him by the patch on his eye,” Nikolay said. “It is black. The color of your hair, the color of your heart, the color of your grave.”

  Pauline waited.

  She was afraid to speak.

  “Our people tracked him from Odessa to London,” Petrov said as calmly as if he were discussing the weather.

  “Your hired assassins?” Pauline spit the words out.

  Petrov sneered.

  “They are only working men,” he said. “They had a job to do. We don’t ask how it is done.”

  He wiped his mouth with the palm of his hand.

  Pauline tried to stand.

  “I don’t know the man with the patch.” Her voice was a snarl.

  Petrov drove her back to the floor with the heel of his bare foot.

  “He seems to like your music a lot.”

  “Many come to hear me sing. He is just one among them.”

  “Do you know what we found in his luggage, little Pauline?”

  She shook her head.

  “He was carrying the sheet music for your songs.”

  Pauline flipped her hair back out of her eyes. “You can find them in any music store,” she said.

  “He did not buy these.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The musical notes were made by hand, using leaded pencils.” Petrov’s grin was bitter. “We hired a piano player to play the songs. But, alas, the songs had no melodies. How can you sing a song that has no melodies, little Pauline?”

  She looked away.

  She felt all energy drain from her muscles.

  “Maybe you hired the wrong piano player,” she said softly.

  “You have no more reasons to hide what you have done, little Pauline. We know what the notes said.” Petrov took a deep breath. “It was a simple code for us to break. You should not have stolen my words and sent them to London. It was not a wise thing for you to do.”

  “What happened to the man with the patch?” Pauline’s words were barely audible.

  She felt each syllable breaking apart in her mouth.

  “He was a brave man when he died,” Petrov said. “He did not blink when the shot fired. His good eye was still open when the bullet struck him. He saw death before death saw him.” He shrugged. The grin finally reached his eyes. “I wonder how easy it will be for you to die.”

  Petrov was slowly rubbing his hands together.

  Pauline knew what was coming next.

  He could crush her windpipe with one hand.

  Or would he make her suffer?

  Would he make her beg?

  Would he beat her and rape her again and again until her body bled on the sheets and soaked red into the mattress?

  She rubbed her hand across the crumpled uniform.

  Petrov’s voice trembled but only for a moment.

  “You betrayed me, little Pauline,” he said. “What will my superiors think of me? Some of them will look at me as a traitor. Some will think I am a fool. Some will want to sentence me to prison. Some will want me shot.”

  His laugh was guttural.

  She felt the wide leather belt and then the holster among the wrinkles beneath her hand.

  “But don’t worry, little Pauline. I am stronger than they are. If we fight, I will win. I always do. But what about you?” He dropped his shorts, and they fell down around his ankles. “Once more,” he said, “and it will be as hard on you as I can make it. Then you won’t feel the pain or remember Petrov at all. Death has a wonderful way of making you forget.”

  She gently wrapped her hand around the handle of the antique TT 33 Tokarev pistol.

  She knew it was loaded.

  Petrov would never go anywhere with an unloaded gun.

  He reached down and grabbed Pauline by the throat.

  She jammed the barrel of the pistol into the folds of his bulbous stomach and pulled the trigger.

  In the closed room, the blast sounded more like an explosion.

  Petrov staggered back, a strange and confused expression plastered across his face.

  His hands clawed at a small hole just above his navel.

  He was trying to push the blood back inside him.

  Pauline remembered his words.

  It takes more than a single bullet to stop Petrov.

  She fired again.

  And again.

  She kept pulling the trigger until she heard a metallic click.

  The explosions would ring in her ears long after the sound of the shots had died away into the pale pink sunlight of morning spilling through the window beside the bed.

  Rainy Night 7

  THE CRUMBLING WALKUP hotel was little more than a stack of bricks that rose precariously four floors above the rain puddles collecting on the sidewalk.

  Two bums slept folded up in chairs in the lobby.

  Neither matched.

  Neither the bums.

  Nor the chairs.

  The elevator was broken.

  The carpet smelled of stale beer, orange peels, and urine.

  The clerk was old with a ragged scarlet sweater wrapped tightly around his shoulders.

  He took a cigar when Reagan handed him one.

  Sand noticed a glimmer of recognition between the two men.

  Both tried to keep it hidden.

  The clerk said only three words.

  “Got a match?”

  Reagan did.

  The cle
rk did not ask their names.

  He took their money and handed Reagan a key.

  They were on the stairs in two minutes and eighteen seconds.

  Sand’s sense of time had not left him.

  A bullet to the brain might erase loose fragments of his memory, but they could not disturb his instincts.

  He could not predict the future, but Sand would be prepared when it came around the corner.

  It did not always come alone.

  And sometimes it carried a gun.

  His was a job no one else wanted.

  He had been a sniper in Afghanistan and Iraq.

  He still remembered the sudden glare of the IED on a street corner in Mosul.

  The fire had burned his face but not his memory.

  He did not come home a hero.

  He came home like an escapee from a carnival sideshow.

  Who would hire him?

  Only the CIA.

  But the CIA did not claim him.

  He was a rogue.

  He took the contracts others refused.

  They made him rich.

  They made him sick.

  The jobs always ended badly for someone.

  Someday, one would end badly for him.

  He doubted if anyone would cry at his grave.

  The stairs creaked with agony beneath their feet as though the wood might splinter before they reached the top.

  Reagan turned the key and opened the door to room forty-seven, the last room on the left of a narrow hallway.

  It was small and had a single bed beside an open window.

  Rain had blown through the screen and into the room.

  The bedspread was wet.

  It smelled as though it had been wet for a week.

  Reagan fell into a chair. “Those four flights of stairs get longer every time I walk them.”

  “Stay here often?”

  “I have friends here.”

  “How good of friends are they?”

  “The GRU pays the clerk to let the Russians know who stays here.” Reagan chuckled. “I pay him more, and he and I have our little secret. He lies for me, and there are times when he lies for them.”

  “Someday you’ll get caught between lies.”

  Reagan laughed. “We all have to die sometime.”

  “But not today.”

  “No,” Reagan said. “This is not a good day. Maybe next time.”

  Sand walked the eight steps across the soiled carpet and looked out into the late-morning gloom that hovered above Odessa.

  The sky above was as rain swept as the streets below.

  An occasional snowflake trembled in the wind and fell wherever the wind wanted it to go.

  Russian soldiers roamed the streets like a pack of dogs.

  Some looked as if they were on duty.

  Most, he figured, were simply looking for a good time.

  A girl, maybe.

  A beer, most likely.

  A warm bed even if the soldier was alone.

  The rain was falling harder now.

  It had grown thick as the morning grew long.

  Odessa was a city of parks and gardens where love affairs came to be born, even when there was no love and no affairs.

  Odessa was a survivor.

  War came.

  Protests came.

  Revolution came.

  Russians came.

  And went.

  Odessa had its scars.

  Its graves.

  Its secrets.

  Its wars were fought on the streets, behind closed doors, within the inner sanctums of government, between thieves, between spies, and mostly among the shadows of night.

  Who’s a friend?

  Are you sure?

  Run together.

  Laugh together.

  Plot together.

  Die together.

  But one of you may not die at all.

  Sand had not heard it.

  He had lived it.

  Who the hell was Alistair Reagan?

  Was he a man Sand could trust?

  If not, who would make the wrong move first?

  Who would make the right move last?

  Man only chose to awaken in the morning.

  He hardly ever chose the day to die.

  Odessa also had its freedom.

  Today it did.

  Tomorrow?

  Who knew?

  “Where will we find her?” Sand asked.

  “Who?”

  “The girl with the sheet music.”

  “Pauline has sung for the last two years or so at a club about six blocks from here.” Reagan pitched his hat onto the bed. “She sings her last song for the evening about midnight, blows the crowd a kiss, and when the stage goes dark, she walks out the back door and into the night.”

  “She alone when she leaves?”

  Reagan twirled his white mustache and grinned. “A girl like Pauline never goes home alone.”

  “A lover?”

  “A Russian officer.” Reagan shut the window and left the rain outside. “She winds him up and lets him talk, and everything strategically important winds up on her sheet music.”

  “She in love with him?”

  “She’s in love with her country.”

  “Ukraine?”

  “She’s lived here longer than she did in Iowa.”

  Sand shook his head grimly. “She’s made the ultimate sacrifice,” he said.

  “She hasn’t given her life.”

  “Worse.” Sand walked across the room and sat down on the edge of the bed untouched by the rain. “The dead don’t remember what they’ve done. The living can’t forget.”

  The gray of the day had worked its way into the room. The carpet was striped with mint blue and green, and it had seen better days.

  Burning cigarettes had been dropped on the floor, leaving dark flecks where burning ashes had left their holes.

  The ceiling was painted a tepid shade of yellow, and the lilac wallpaper had stains of water and alcohol, probably whiskey.

  Sand felt as gray as the day.

  He had grown weary of riding trains to places he never wanted to go, trying to sleep in cheap beds in cheap hotels, drinking a dead man’s whiskey, tracking down and eliminating vermin, wondering if he had made the world a better place even when it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

  He could not recall the names.

  The places all began to look alike after a while.

  Faces had been distorted with time.

  He never forgot the eyes.

  He had been told that eyes were a mirror into a man’s soul.

  His own mirror cast no image.

  Neither reflections.

  Nor a soul.

  Others kept the sordid side of their lives written in the eyes.

  Eyes filled with sarcasm.

  Eyes filled with venom.

  Eyes filled with fear.

  Eyes turned dark when the light of life had been suddenly switched off.

  What were a man’s last thoughts?

  Or did he have any?

  Did he die with a curse?

  Or a prayer.

  And whose face did he see before he saw nothing at all?

  Sand hoped it was the face of a beautiful woman.

  God help the poor bastard if the last face he saw belonged to Roland Sand.

  “Where does she keep them?” Sand asked.

  A car horn blared.

  Tires squealed.

  Traffic must have picked up outside.

  “What?”

  “The musical scores with the cryptic notes?”

  Reagan reached up and tinkered with the thermostat.

  It wasn’t working.

  He blew on his hands to warm them.

  “We’ll ask her when we meet her.”

  “When’s that?”

  “Pauline sings promptly at nine o’clock.” Reagan was shivering from the cold. “We’ll be there.”

  “What about the Russia
n?”

  “The tattletale lover?”

  Sand nodded.

  “I’m only supposed to introduce you to Pauline, old boy,” Reagan said. His voice had lost its lilt. “The Russian is your problem.”

  Sand stared at the window.

  It had frosted over.

  Little cracks ran like spider webs through rain that was turning to ice.

  “Do you have a plan?” Reagan asked.

  Sand nodded.

  “I’ll send him to the Promised Land between the third verse and the last chorus,” he said.

  “Which song?”

  Sand shrugged and removed the Walther PPK from his belt.

  It was heavier and deadlier than it looked.

  “Depends on the Russian,” he said.

  “Can you do the job with a pistol?” Reagan asked.

  He was dead serious.

  Sand’s lips twitched with a smile.

  “I’ve never missed with the barrel shoved down a man’s throat,” he said.

  Rainy Night 8

  PAULINE SAT IN silence on the sofa as the hours dragged slowly from morning to late afternoon.

  The clock might as well have stopped.

  It no longer had any meaning.

  Just a tick.

  Then a tock.

  And time, which would outlive them all, stepped off the edge of the earth and would never be recovered again.

  It fell into yesterday.

  It would never see tomorrow.

  It was lost, gone on a one-way street that ran forever and might run into a dead end before dark, and time had taken Pauline with it.

  She had the guilt of murder hanging heavy on her conscience.

  She had watched his face as he moved toward her, a red mask of rage, his veins pulsating on the side of his head, his pupils dilating, eyes turning from dark to a deeper shade of black.

  His hands were huge, his fingernails torn ragged, packed with blood and dirt.

  His naked and bloated body was awash with sweat.

  Pauline could not forget the grin that tore across his face as though it had been scarred by a hacksaw.

  His pale lips wrapped themselves around a mouthful of yellowed teeth, each filed sharply to a point

  On more than one occasion, Petrov had bragged about biting the nipples off a woman’s breast before throwing her broken body back out on the street.

  Pauline did not doubt his story for a moment.

  The first bullet had staggered him.

  He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

  Maybe if the slug had only erased that sick and wicked grin off his face, she would not have fired again.

  Petrov’s death was self-defense, she told herself.