A Deadly Shade of Rose

by Douglas Hirt

  When modern heating and cooling needed to be retrofitted, the most expedient course was to hang the plumbing from the ceiling where it was out of the way. The result being an even lower ceiling, which lent a cluttered appearance overhead but was no real inconvenience except perhaps to the occasional basketball star visiting the Office of the Registrar.

  The low ceiling with its spaghetti network of exposed pipes painted the same color as the walls reminded me of another set of narrow passageways. They were tighter, with lots of up and down via iron-rung ladders, but the sameness was enough to bring a knot to my stomach. I recalled the constant rumble of pumps and whooshing of ventilation fans, and unlike the nice white paint everything wore here, those passages were painted navy gray.

  It had been my first and only time inside a submarine; a hectic seven hours of squeezing down narrow passageways, of waiting in a pretty well-equipped messroom, drinking coffee, listening to soft chatter from the sailors on break, trying to ignore the persistent background noise of one of the more complicated machines ever built. Eventually the brain learned to block most of it out, but at first, after the chopper had lowered us aboard somewhere in the Sea of Japan, the noise, the hiss of compressed air rushing through the pipes overhead, that was all that I was aware of.

  By time I started getting used to it, we were breaking surface under a moonless sky. The coast was black and rose and fell as the vessel beneath us rode the waves. The inflatable dinghy was black too and looked like a wet seal. There was barely enough room in it for my partner and me, our gear including the long, hermetically sealed aluminum rifle case, and the two sailors from the boat who rowed us ashore.

  I’d never worked with Randall Potter before then—they seldom let operatives get that familiar with each other—but the man made me a little nervous. Randall seemed to be the sort who lived every second as if he had a lit stick of dynamite shoved up his rear end and no idea how much longer the fuse had to burn. He had an unusual affinity for the black rifle resting across his knees, as if it might be a viable substitute for good old fashion common sense. I tried to put the worry out of mind. We were both taut. It’s always like that on one of these in-and-out missions.

  We got in all right, make the touch—a Vietnamese general named Phan—and left the sniper-scoped Russian Mosin Nagant where it was sure to be found. It all was going as planned and we would have been out of there in a couple hours but for the gook patrol. Randall opened fire on them before I had a chance to raise my hands. He died there in the jungle. I was taken to their command post and interrogated. I would have died too if not for a sleepy guard who was too young and too inexperienced for the job. He died by his own bayonet instead.

  I pulled my thoughts back to the present and turned a corner into a wider hall with classrooms one either side and a door to the outside at the far end. And just then, a Saturday class let out and I found myself in the middle of a swarm of young faces heading for the doorway. I shed my coat, tucked it under my arm and joined the crowd. Outside, I veered off hurrying around one of the newer brick buildings. The shade dropped the temperature at least ten degrees and I was shivering when I came around the front corner. The Porsche hadn’t moved. Well, I hadn’t expected it to leave without us.

  I wouldn’t exactly say the campus was awash with students heading for their cars, this being Saturday, but the traffic was heavy enough for me to blend in without being noticed now that I wasn’t wearing the coat, which after all this time should have been a sign the man in the red car was looking for. As it turned out he wasn’t looking for me at all but had his binoculars focused across the parking lot on Marcie and my truck. She had a comb in her hand and I wondered how long she’d been pulling it through her hair. Marcie was quite good at following orders, I decided as slipped the Smith and Wesson from my pocket and leaned into the open window, pressing the cold steel barrel against the neck of the gent inside.

  He stiffened and the binoculars crashed against the gearshift knob and bounced onto the floor. “What...?” he yelped.

  He was definitely an amateur and he showed it. I said in the most dangerous tone I could muster, “Think twice about your next move, mister. This pistol is resting on your carotid artery. It’s a twenty-two and won’t make a lot of noise, especially when muffled by skin.” I kept the revolver hidden under the coat folded over my arm and fitted an amiable smile on my face just in case anyone cared enough to be watching us. I waved at Marcie over the top of the car. Keeping my voice low and threatening, I said, “Try anything clever or stupid, I’ll turn all this pretty beige leather and carpeting red as the outside of this expensive piece of German machinery. Understand?” Sure, I was playing up the drama, but I had a feeling the chubby fellow was susceptible to melodramatics.

  He nodded, breathing hard, eyes bulging as if on the verge of a coronary. His neck had gone stiff as concrete and his face was almost as pale. Little beads of sweat pricked his cheeks and forehead. Physiologically speaking, I’d have judged him to be the type who’d have sweat a lot anyway, but now he had more than ample reason to do so. Up close he looked younger than my first impression of him. Probably twenty-eight or thirty. Thick eyebrows gave the impression of age, as did the dated plaid cap, a piece of apparel from an earlier era when driving a sports car involved getting intimate with your car under the hood. He sported a pale blond mustache and jowly, beardless cheeks. He obviously lived a fat, easy life. His face, while presently drained of blood still showed evidence of a rich tan; he’d either been traveling in warmer climes or lounging under sun lamps.

  I said, “Turn your head slowly and look at me. Keep in mind I’m an expert marksman. Any foolish heroics and I’ll pull this trigger, and there’s not a thing you can do to stop me.” I was spreading it on pretty thick. I’d never been much of an expert marksman with anything that had a barrel shorter than an M1 Garand...or a Mosin Nagant...but there was no reason he needed to know that.

  His head turned in a jerky manner, his eyes widening at the revolver then lifting toward my face. His lower lip fell away from the mustache in surprise. “You...you’re him!” he sputtered, his view leaping to the building I’d entered a few minutes earlier.

  A worrisome gnawing began to chew at my stomach. His reaction wasn’t right. None of this felt right. It was either a trap or I’d made a huge mistake. I said, “You know who I am?” That was a dumb question. Of course, he’d have been told something about who he was following.

  He swallowed hard and nodded, his view fixed on the revolver.

  “Then you’re one up on me, mister.” My pickup truck pulled behind the car and the door squeaked open. His view swung momentarily toward it as Marcie climbed out.

  “What are you going to do with that gun?” he asked haltingly.

  “Probably shoot you if you don’t behave yourself. What do you think I’m going to do with it?” That had been a naive question and I was getting the uneasy feeling. The gent wasn’t just an amateur, he wasn’t even in the game.

  He blinked sweat from his eyes and licked it from his lips. “I won’t do anything to provoke you. Please don’t point that thing at me.”

  Marcie stopped alongside me, quietly observant.

  I said to him, “I’ll decide when to put it away, but first a few questions.”

  “I’ll...I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” he stammered.

  “Who are you working for?”

  “Working?” He seemed genuinely surprised at my question. “I’m not working for anyone.” That gnawing in my gut took a big bite and I glanced around hoping we weren’t attracting unwanted attention, like from a curious campus cop. I said to Marcie, “Recognize him?”

  “No.”

  I said, “Then why have you been following us?”

  He gulped and blinked the shine from his eyes. “I wanted to know who you were, what you were like, what you do.” He sounded embarrassed to confessed it.

  This was taking a disturbing twist. I began to run through the charges I could
be facing. Brandishing a weapon, intimidation, assault. I took a long breath and let it out slowly. “Let me get this straight. You picked us up in Woodland Park and practically sat on my bumper all the way down the mountain just because you wanted to see what I was like? Personal curiosity-?, or is there a point behind this?”

  “I had a reason,” He said softly. He seemed to be having trouble getting the words out. “I was hoping to get something on you, something I could use against you.”

  “Against me? Why? For whose benefit?”

  He hesitated, lowered his chin to his head, and said regretfully, “My own.”

  Now I was totally confused. I glanced at Marcie hoping to find some insight there, but she only shrugged, as mystified as I was. I said, “Spell it out, buddy.”

  He drew a breath and said, “I wanted to get something on you. Something I could use in my defense, okay?” His voice held a sharp note of indignation. “Something I could hold up in front of Sherri to prove you weren’t the right guy for her. That I was. That’s why I was following you.” He scowled and took in another breath.

  Marcie started laughing.

  I said, “You’re a jealous boyfriend?” I might have shot the guy because he wasn’t able to keep his hormones under control. And where would that have left me? In jail. I became keenly aware of the students drifting past us on the way to their cars, doors opening and slamming and engines starting. Fortunately, everyone seemed more interested in getting away for lunch than in two people having a friendly conservation with the gent in the expensive car. A van drove past and parked a couple spaces away. A girl and her boyfriend walked past and kept going. So far we hadn’t drawn any undue attention.

  I lowered the hammer on the revolver and stealthily slipped it into my pocket. Oddly, I was more tense now than before. I’d broken several laws, and I would likely end up in jail if this fellow decided to talk to a lawyer about my socially unacceptable manner of communication. Marcie had stopped laughing, but her face held a silly I-told-you-so grin. I said, “What’s your name?”

  “Brian Landerfelt,” he said forcefully now that he felt he’d gotten the upper hand...and maybe he had.”

  “Well, Brian, you almost got a bullet in your fool head.”

  “Yeah? Someone ought to punch you in the nose, mister,” he came back with justifiable anger—well, justifiable I guess from his point of view...and maybe it was.

  I was about to give him a lecture on the dangers of following people you don’t know when behind me Marcie gave a startled yelp that was cut short. I started to turn when something hard jabbed my ribs. I hadn’t paid attention to the van that had pulled into the slot beside us, and now three men moved in tight around us. A glance at Marcie’s deer-in-the-headlights eyes told me she knew these men.

  I recognized one of them too.

  Chapter Twelve

  The van was a big, shiny, custom job with tinted windows, thick carpeting and deep, furry captain’s seats—two up front, two in the center, and three in back where Marcie, Landerfelt and I’d been put. The seats appeared to be quite comfortable, but I had no way of knowing that with my hands tied behind my back and the rope secured to the bottom frame of the seat. Not exactly a comfortable position.

  To my right was Landerfelt, sitting in a similarly awkward position, now and then giving forth a low whimper and a sniffle. Maybe he was thinking about what Pretty Boy had done to his expensive upholstery and sheet metal. Pretty Boy was the name I’d given the one with the pistol, styled hairdo, leather western sports coat, fancy ostrich cowboy boots with the high heels. The outfit made him look kind of feminine. It almost made me wonder about his bed mate preferences, but the way he’d manhandled Marcie into the van, his hands wandering as he’d done so, suggested otherwise.

  On my left sat Marcie; straight back, defiant chin, burning glare drilling holes through Pretty Boy in the row ahead of us. He held a 1911 .45 over the top of the seat as if seriously suspecting one of us might be a Houdini in disguise. Marcie wasn’t the least intimidated.

  I managed to catch her eye. Her glance didn’t linger long, but in that moment, there was an exchange of sorts that chilled my blood. I’d recognized something smoky and unreadable in those blue eyes, a ruthlessness I’d seen a time or two in the past—in the eyes of men who knew what had to be done and that likely they wouldn’t be coming home. I’d noted that same look last night on the hill above the restaurant; a determination that drives a person to beat unconquerable odds or die trying. And I knew then that everything she’d told me an hour ago had been just another lie. I grimaced, strangely enough not at all surprised.

  I was relieved that at the moment her hands were tied, or we might have a real mess right here, inside the van, in the middle of Academy Boulevard.

  The driver, Alexander, looked over his shoulder at us. His eyes were brown, flecked with yellow. They watched us a moment then turned back to the road. Like Landerfelt, he was a beefy fellow, but beneath the plaid hunting shirt, sleeves turned up to his elbows, was muscle, not adipose. He’d been one of the men behind the restaurant last night, and earlier the man in my rearview mirror swinging a hunting rifle toward the tailgate of my bounding truck. Outdoor living had darkened his face. He needed a shave...but then I was beginning to look a little like Gabby Hayes myself.

  The fellow in the seat beside him was taller but half the weight. His eyes were set deep beneath the overhang of a bony brow-ridge topped with a caterpillar-shag of dark hair. Above the eyebrows his forehead jutted up and curved smoothly back onto a hairless pate rimmed in a tangled wreath that may have never felt the tug of a comb—well, at least that was the impression. His ears were small and his nose suggested a lineage traceable back to Sherlock Holmes. A jutting chin was made more pronounced by the dagger of hair at its end. He appeared a cheerless fellow, never speaking, ever cerebrating.

  And then there was Pretty Boy who enjoyed slashing leather automobile seats and dragging metal objects across shiny red paint. The high heel of his fancy cowboy boot had put a dandy dent in Brian Landerfelt’s door too as we were being escorted away. Pretty Boy gave the impression of a man who took long walks after a rainfall just to squish earthworms on the sidewalk. He had a fetish for combs, touching women’s breasts, and studying his reflection in car windows. I gleaned all this in the few moments it took to move us from Landerfelt’s car into the van’s open side door.

  They’d moved in on us quickly, surrounding us to keep the eyes of passing students from seeing or suspecting too much. Just a bunch of guys and a pretty gal in an oversize coat having a friendly chit-chat.

  “You’ve been making life unpleasant for all of us, my dear,” The man in the plaid shirt had said to Marcie.

  Marcie’d been momentarily knocked off stride. It didn’t take long to recover. Her eyes narrowed darkly. “You’re breaking my heart, Alexander. Wouldn’t want you to take heat on my account.” She fixed a sarcastic grin to her lips with not a trace of the fear I knew she was keeping a tight rein on. Good ol’ blood thirsty Marcie Rose! She squared her shoulders and hip-planted her hands in a defiant show of bravado. “You’re not waving around any guns. Did they take them away from you, or do you think Jeffy here has the balls to handle the hardware?”

  Pretty boy took a menacing step toward her raising the automatic. Her words must have triggered something inside him because he didn’t seem to care if anyone there in the university parking saw the gun. Alexander stepped between them. “Put that down!”

  Pretty Boy hesitated, then jabbed the pistol hard into my back to show how tough he really was. I winced and made another tick on the mental score card I was keeping inside my head. I’d settle up when the time was right. Pretty Boy was as shade taller than me, built something along the lines of a bowling pin with the widest point being the seat of his designer western style trousers held up by a stitched and carved leather belt and silver rodeo buckle. I’d have given five to ten he’d never forked a saddle and couldn’t rope a bull if his life depended o
n it, let alone wrestle one to the ground.

  Alexander took a breath when the troops settled down and looked at Marcie. “This is hardly the place to renew old antagonisms,” he said. “Jeff is quite capable of handling all the firearms that we’ll be needing for the three of you.”

  The hawk-beaked man—I figured him as the one named Raymond who Marcie had mentioned earlier—moved closer to Landerfelt and removed a hand from his long trench coat pocket and showed him a tiny pistol. Probably a .25 or .22. A Colt Junior from the brief glimpse I’d gotten of it. He slipped it back out of sight. The exercise was probably unnecessary seeing as Sherri’s spurned lover was not in any emotional condition to even think about fleeing. He hadn’t yet fully recovered from staring into the barrel of my revolver, which was still resting reassuringly in my pocket.

  “Of course, it’s not,” Marcie was saying. “Too many eyes make you nervous. A lonely mountain cabin is more to your liking.”

  Alexander grinned and rubbed the material of her baggy parka between his thumb and finger and said, “Torrance’s coat. Somewhat large for you, wouldn’t you say?” He shook his head. “Torrance was a good man.”

  “He got in my way,” she replied flatly.

  Alexander’s expression hardened. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He glanced around the parking lot, students moving purposefully toward cars or the busy highway crossing where many of them had parked along neighborhood streets. “We’ve wasted enough time here.” He said to the man in the trench coat. “I suspect the gentleman is carrying. See to it that he’s relieved of the temptation to die early. Don’t forget to retrieve the transmitter, too.”