Rainy Night To Die

by Caleb Pirtle III

  He pulled the collar of his long coat tight around his neck.

  He was still holding the Walther PPK in his hand.

  “What took you so long?” Reagan asked.

  Sand glanced at his watch.

  “It’s only been two minutes and forty-six seconds,” he said.

  Sand sounded out of breath.

  “What happened to the taxi driver?”

  “He and I came to an agreement.” Sand’s smile looked crooked.

  “He won’t be coming after us, will he?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  Sand shrugged. “Not tomorrow either.”

  “How do you know?”

  Sand took a deep breath. “The taxi driver is a deep sleeper.”

  Reagan grimaced. “Did you kill him?”

  Sand shrugged again. “Night’s still young,” he said, walking to the end of the block and stopping beneath a lamp post.

  He reached into his pocket, withdrew the napkin, and carefully unfolded it, shielding the note the waitress had given him from the rain.

  He held the napkin close to his eyes.

  The light was blurred, and the inked words were fragmented by the rain.

  “Can you read it?” Reagan asked.

  Sand nodded.

  “The Frapelli Hotel,” he said, shoving his pistol behind his belt and buttoning his suit coat.

  “Have any idea where it’s located?”

  Sand nodded again.

  “Where?” Reagan asked.

  “Odessa,” Sand said.

  NO ONE AT the hotel paid them any attention when Sand walked into the lobby of the hotel, Reagan just a step behind.

  A crowd of unhappy guests shoved and shouldered their way around the registration desk.

  Sand listened to them intently.

  They didn’t like the rain.

  Too heavy.

  They didn’t like their rooms.

  Too small.

  They didn’t like the lounge singer.

  Too old.

  No one mentioned Pauline Bellerose.

  Sand tuned them out.

  He took Reagan by the arm and walked toward the staircase.

  “What floor?” Reagan asked.

  “Fourth.”

  “Why not take the elevator.”

  “Don’t know who’ll be standing there when the door opens.”

  “Maybe Pauline.”

  Sand chuckled. “Maybe a Russian tank commander.”

  “You’re not a very trusting soul are you, old boy?” Reagan pushed his wet hair out of his eyes.

  “In my line of work,” Sand said, “the first person you trust is sometimes the last person you ever see.”

  Reagan frowned. “Not a very happy thought.”

  “Not a very happy line of work.”

  Sand walked with Reagan to the landing on the first floor without speaking.

  They met an aging gentleman with a gray-haired lady on their way down to the lobby.

  Sand saw Reagan’s face grow tense.

  The gentleman nodded.

  The lady looked away with disgust on her face.

  Sand kept walking.

  “He could have killed you,” Reagan said, “and you didn’t even notice him.”

  “Who?”

  “The old man?”

  “Old men with gray-haired ladies never kill you.” Sand was matter-of-fact in his assessment. “The old man who walks down the stairs with a young blonde on his arm can be quite deadly.”

  “How do you figure?”

  Sand ran his hand across the scars on his bald head. “If he is an agent, he’s thinking that tonight may be his last night on earth. One target. One shot. Who shoots first. Who’s still standing. The blonde might make it all worthwhile.”

  Reagan’s laugh was dry and harsh.

  “Then why are you with me instead of a blonde?” he asked

  “Tonight may be somebody’s last night,” Sand said. He walked down the hallway on the fourth floor. “It won’t be mine.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “The Good Lord won’t let me die.”

  “Why not?”

  “Then what would He do for laughs?”

  Sand stopped abruptly in front of room 426.

  He pressed his ear against the door and listened.

  He cautiously removed his Walther PPK and made sure there was a bullet in the chamber.

  He knocked softly.

  No answer.

  He knocked again, louder this time.

  No sound came from the room.

  He picked the lock in less time than it would have taken him to use a key and let the door swing slowly open.

  The room was pitch dark.

  Sand stepped inside.

  He flipped the switch.

  “Jesus Christ,” was all Reagan said as light flooded the room.

  He fell back against the wall.

  Another step and he would have walked across the swollen body of a naked dead man.

  Where did the flies come from?

  “It’s too cold and wet for flies,” Reagan said.

  It was a whisper.

  The flies had left their tiny footprints in the blood pooling beside a hole in the naked man’s orbicular belly.

  Rainy Night 13

  NO PLACE WAS as quiet as a room shadowed by the night where death had entered and had no interest in leaving.

  The lamp flickered.

  It cast strange reflections that scampered up and down the wall, shades of yellow and red turned to lavender, a sunset in the dead of winter on a cold day.

  All Sand could hear was the sound of Reagan’s ragged breathing.

  There was a whistle deep in his chest.

  His face was ashen.

  He had turned his back to the corpse.

  It was obvious that Alistair Reagan had not spent a lot of time with the dead, especially not with someone whose life had been taken so suddenly between his last thought and the one he would never have.

  No time to worry.

  No time to be afraid.

  No time for regrets.

  It might be the best way to go.

  Sand counted three bullet holes in the bloated remains of a man who left without being properly dressed.

  One just below the hairline.

  One in the throat.

  One just above the kidney.

  Either of them could have killed him.

  There were four more holes in the wall, scattered randomly between the ceiling and the oval mirror atop a dark mahogany dresser.

  Whoever fired the pistol so many times must have been frightened.

  Or angry.

  It was probably a woman.

  Sand guessed it was Pauline.

  He walked into the bedroom, and his gaze sorted out the details of a relationship suddenly gone very bad.

  The sheets were rumpled.

  A pillow had been kicked to the floor.

  It was smeared with black streaks, no doubt mascara.

  The lady may have been crying.

  He doubted it.

  A red, silk evening gown was thrown across the foot of the bed.

  A military uniform lay in a pile of wrinkles beside the pillow.

  It looked as if it had been hastily discarded by a man who was too distracted to feel condemned by the treachery of human conflict in a time of hostility, where the lines between love and lust were often blurred and mostly erased when night again ventured into the light of day.

  Sand knelt and picked up the jacket.

  He checked the insignia on the collar and whistled under his breath.

  No wonder Pauline was such a valuable asset, he thought.

  She was not sending rumors, gossip, or second-hand information home.

  The strategic plans and revelations in the reports she filed were coming straight from the top.

  God rest his soul.

  Had she gotten careless?
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br />   Had someone betrayed her?

  Did the major know who she was and what she was?

  What were those last seconds like before she pulled the trigger?

  A spy would be hanged.

  A spy who murdered a Russian officer would be shot down in the street and left for the dogs.

  She was a lady on the run now.

  But where would she go?

  She had a head start.

  How many hours?

  He had no idea.

  But the Russians had eyes on every street in Odessa.

  There was no place for her to hide.

  Chances were the lovely Pauline Bellerose would disappear before the dawn, and her name would be erased from history.

  The British would never say she lived.

  The Russians would never say she died.

  She would simply become an unknown, unnamed, and unaccounted for casualty in a war that did not officially exist or count its dead.

  “Any sign of Pauline?” Reagan asked as he walked into the bedroom.

  His face was still pale.

  He looked like a man who had risen against his will from a crypt.

  Sand shook his head.

  “Do you think the Russians have her?” Reagan was nervously rubbing the palms of his hands together.

  “The Russians would not have taken her and left behind the body of a KGB major,” Sand said. “He may have been important once. Now he’s an embarrassment. She’s in the wind, but she’s alone. My guess is the Russians know where she is even if they don’t yet know why she’s running.”

  Reagan sat down on a chair beside the dresser. “There may be one little detail I forgot to mention, old boy.” He pulled the collar of his suit coat tight around his throat.

  Sand stood and let the uniform fall through his fingers.

  “What’s that?”

  “She may not be alone.”

  Sand’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

  “Pauline had an accomplice in Odessa.”

  “One of yours?”

  “She works for a dry cleaners,” Reagan said. “She deliver’s Pauline’s gowns before each nightly performance and picks up the sheet music with the coded messages. The ladies hardly ever speak. They merely exchange one package for another. The transaction takes less than fifteen seconds.”

  “Did the accomplice have a name?”

  “I only knew her as Daemon.”

  “A guardian spirit?”

  Reagan shrugged. “I figured it more like a demon.”

  “What did she do with the sheet music?” Sand wanted to know.

  “She wrapped it inside a sailor’s laundry bag and carried it to a tugboat down in the harbor. He took the clean laundry and gave her his dirty laundry, and she was back on the little road leading toward Odessa.” Reagan beamed. “It was a pretty slick little sleight of hand if I do say so myself.”

  “Your operation?”

  “I got credit for it.”

  “How about the sailor?”

  “What about him?”

  “Is he one of yours, too?”

  Reagan shrugged. “I trained him myself,” he said.

  “Could Pauline have gone to the tug boat?” Sand had walked to the window, opened it, and stood gazing down at the lights of Odessa after dark.

  “It makes sense that she might have tried to find refuge there. The boat was the last lifeline she had in the city.” Reagan removed his pipe from his pocket and tried to light it. “Can you close the window, old boy?” he asked. “We might catch a death of a cold in this draft.”

  Reagan smoothed his white mustache with his fingers. He leaned back in the chair and propped his feet on the bed.

  Sand frowned.

  He thought he heard something.

  He held his hand up to silence Reagan.

  There it was again.

  A clicking sound, so soft, so high-pitched, he could barely detect it.

  Sand walked to the bed and lifted the mattress.

  Strange place to keep a Bible, he thought.

  He picked up the prayer book and opened it.

  The Old Testament was intact.

  A rectangular slot had been cut out of the New Testament, beginning with the gospel of Luke.

  It held a small tape recorder, still running.

  The tape had come to the end of the roll, but the recorder had not shut off.

  “What’d you find, old boy?” Reagan crossed the room and looked over his shoulder.

  “It appears that Pauline had a backup plan.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “Insurance.” Sand clicked the button to stop the recorder. “If she went down, she was making sure the major went down with her.”

  “If he found it, he would have killed her.”

  “But why did she kill him?” Sand was thinking out loud.

  “What do you think is on the tape?” Reagan asked.

  Sand closed the Bible and dropped it in his jacket pocket. “I think we’ll hear a naked man die,” he said.

  He returned to the window and stared out at the city.

  Only a handful of cars wound their way down the streets beside the hotel.

  A bus had pulled to a stop at the far corner.

  Two women departed, but both were older, wearing gray raincoats, red and green scarves pulled over their hair.

  Raindrops danced on the window, blurring his view.

  The world below him was at peace.

  No.

  He knew better.

  The Russian major was at peace.

  Sand still had a war to fight.

  It was a small war, perhaps, and in the overall scheme of life, the feuds, the fights didn’t amount to much.

  But war took its toll, one life at a time, lives that would be grieved on Friday and no longer be remembered come Monday.

  “What’s the name of the tug boat?” he asked Reagan.

  “It’s classified.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Reagan sighed. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  “Afraid not, old boy.” Sand grinned.

  Reagan pulled a pen from his coat pocket and scratched the name of Chernihivske on a piece of scratch paper left lying on the dresser.

  Sand glanced down at it. “Hell of a name for a boat,” he said.

  Reagan smiled. “Pretty damn good beer, though.”

  Sand headed for the door.

  “Shouldn’t we wait until the rain slacks up a little?” Reagan asked.

  “If Pauline is compromised,” Sand said, “the tug boat is out of operation. It’s useless to you. If Pauline talks, and the KGB has wicked little ways to make women talk, then the boat will be destroyed before it ever has a chance to leave the harbor. We have to get there before the Russians do.”

  “What about Pauline?” The pipe trembled in Reagan’s hands.

  “If she’s on the boat, we all leave Odessa together.” Sand shrugged. “If she’s not, we have a long night ahead of us.”

  Reagan pulled himself to his feet and stretched. “You don’t allow yourself much sleep, do you?”

  “Don’t have to.”

  “Why not?”

  Sand winked. “One of these days,” he said, “we’ll be sleeping, you and I, for a long, long time.”

  Rainy Night 14

  THE RAIN WAS steady but not as hard as it had been.

  It would wash away the dirt from the street.

  It flushed dirty secrets into the river.

  It made the flowers bloom and the rivers flood.

  But it would never wash away Sand’s iniquities.

  They were as dark as the alley, and the alley was pitch black but empty.

  Even the cats had left the trash cans to the rats and departed.

  In a crease between the buildings at the eastern end of the alley, he could glimpse the rise and fall of white caps boiling across the Black Sea.

  The sea was aptly named.

  It was the color of ink.


  Sand ignored the rain in his eyes.

  He quickened his pace.

  He could hear Reagan breathing heavily behind him.

  Sand stood back in the shadows and waited for him where the crease between the buildings touched the sidewalk.

  The stars had abandoned Odessa.

  The moon had gone elsewhere.

  Sand knew he should have gone with them.

  But he wouldn’t leave without Pauline.

  His job was to keep her alive.

  No one mentioned whether or not they were concerned with his survival.

  The world would go on nicely without Roland Sand.

  No one would miss him.

  No one with the possible exception of Roland Sand.

  He let Reagan catch his breath as his eyes swept across the road and toward the seaport where ships large and small had been masked by a thick mist of rain and swallowed up by the night.

  There was no discernible line between the sky and the sea.

  There was no line at all.

  “Where do we find this little tug boat of yours?” Sand asked.

  “On the southern end of the docks,” Reagan answered slowly. “I imagine all of the boats are in port. Nobody in his right mind is sailing on a night like tonight. Our boat will be the third from the last.”

  Sand nodded and walked briskly across the street.

  Reagan hurried after him.

  “Wilcox is a good man,” he said, his words whipped back and forth by an unruly wind. “If he has Pauline, she’s safe.”

  “He the captain of your boat?”

  “Been with us going on twenty years.”

  “In Ukraine?”

  “In ports around the world.”

  “His is a dirty job.”

  “He likes his work.”

  Sand laughed bitterly.

  “None of us like our work,” he said, “until it’s over, and we’re headed home, and nobody knows where we’ve been or if we’ve left, and who will have to clean up the mess we left behind when we’re gone.”

  Reagan chuckled.

  He stopped abruptly and squinted, wiping the rain away from his eyes.

  “There it is,” he said.

  “The boat?”

  Reagan nodded.

  “It looks empty.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “Why?”

  “Wilcox is there.”

  “Let’s hope Pauline is with him.”

  Sand climbed the ladder and stepped on the deck.

  Once the boat had been white.

  But that was years ago.

  Now it was gray, the color of a seashell lying too long in the sun, unwashed by the rain.