A Deadly Shade of Rose

by Douglas Hirt

  “Nice going, amigo,” Marcie said.

  I grimaced. “You’d think I’d get used to mayhem, hanging around you. Now I know why they name hurricanes after women.”

  “Women? Isn’t it about time you got off that deserted island you’re living on, Granger? They put a stop to that sexist system years ago.”

  I hadn’t been living on an island, and it had only been three years since NOAA began incorporating male names into the hurricane roster, but now wasn’t the time to be having this discussion.

  Marcie plowed ahead without a pause, “Okay, a plan?” She was talking fast. Like me, she expected the cavalry to come charging down the stair steps at any moment.

  I shrugged. “I suppose we ought to be getting out of here.”

  Her eyes widened with mocking amazement. “Brilliant, Einstein. Can you fly a plane?”

  “No.”

  “I can—after a fashion.”

  “Then the plan is to make it out to the runway without getting shot full of holes,” I replied watching the stairs and listening for the sound of pounding feet. So far so good.

  “And that’s a very good plan.” Marcie started for the staircase.

  “But!” Sherri had finally found her voice. She looked at Louis and then to me. “We can’t just leave him there to drown.”

  Marcie’s jaw unhinged. “Your prissy girlfriend wants to stay here and nursemaid the beast?”

  I gave Marcie a sharp glance. “You can lighten up on the heavy-handed routine now.” Caring for people was what Sherri was about and I didn’t like it being rubbed in her face. I turned to her and said patiently but firmly, “Sherri, if we don’t get out of here now, we never will. We’ll be killed and that’s certain.”

  “We can’t just leave...”

  I took her hand and pulled her after me. She resisted, of course, but I suspected that was only to make it easier on her conscience later on when she thought back on this moment if she...we were lucky enough to live that long.

  Marcie took the lead up the stairs. Brian and Sherri followed. Brian, thank goodness, showed no great compulsion to linger and help the fallen. He seemed quite happy leaving them lay where they’d fallen. Sensible fellow, Brian. My opinion of him hitched up a notch.

  At the top of the stairs Marcie peeked around the corner. The whirr of a mildly muffled engine came from somewhere outside the house. The sound of it might have masked the crash and clash of the battle we’d just fought below. Luck had paid us a visit, I mused, knowing that Luck was a fickle lady and might move on at any moment.

  “All clear.” Marcie glanced bright-eyed back at me, that big .45 in her small hand, my big hand clutching the tiny .25. There seemed an almost comical inconsistency here. I’ll admit to being just as brilliantly egotistical as any male, and maybe borderline chauvinistic too, but this was not the time or place to let pride trip us up. Marcie was the more competent of the two of us. She’d make better use of the fire power than I. Besides, for what I knew had to be done, the quiet little .25 was eminently more practical. “What’s that sound,” she asked.

  The low, raspy hum reminded me of a little VW beetle a college girlfriend used to drive. “Sounds like an air-cooled Volkswagen all revved up.”

  She frowned.

  I said, “You ever hear of something called a speeder?”

  “No.”

  “I think I spied one earlier when we got off the plane.”

  Her forehead furrowed, remembering. “That funny looking red bathtub parked alongside the hangar?”

  “Uh-huh. My guess is it’s fitted with a VW engine, a propeller, and a pair of skis.”

  “Hm. That may be more convenient than the plane. Let’s see if your guess is right, Granger.” We moved along the hallway single file. It opened onto the great hall. Across the way a pair of men wearing heavy, white parkas were just crossing the wide floor to a door on the other side, their attention ahead, not behind.

  When they’d gone, I said, “Doesn’t look like anyone called out the cavalry.” I glanced toward the closed door the two men had entered. “That means Stratterford hadn’t been listening in on the intercom.”

  Marcie looked worriedly back the way we’d come. “You thinking what I’m thinking, Granger?”

  I nodded. “We left three living bodies downstairs and all any one of them has to do is push a call button and everyone on Stratterford’s payroll will come charging in.” I though a moment, considering the notion I’d had a few minutes earlier, glancing at the diminutive pistol in my hand. “I’ll buy us some time. Take Brian and Sherri out of here and get to the plane or the speeder, or even that old jeep by the hangar. I’ll take care of the problems in the basement.

  “Damn.” Marcie grimaced. “I don’t like us splitting up now.”

  “No other way,” I said, “now get moving.”

  “Don’t get yourself killed, Granger. I still need you.”

  I grinned. “Already told you I didn’t know how to fly an airplane.” I knew that wasn’t what she’d meant. Our relationship had subtly turned a corner. We’d bonded in an unfathomable way that oftentimes happens on a battlefield. She didn’t have to say the words. Her eyes showed me what she was feeling.

  “Oh, shut up,” she said because it was the appropriate thing to say at the moment, and because Marcie wouldn’t know how to express a truly tender sentiment. She thrust the .45 at me. “Take it.”

  “No, you’ll need it more than me. You’ve three people to think about. Besides this peashooter is sufficient for what needs to be done.”

  Sherri’s eyes got big. “Paul, what are you doing. Don’t leave.”

  I didn’t what to explain it to her, instead said, “You and Brian go with Marcie. I’ll meet up with you in a few minutes.”

  “But...” she glanced at the pistol and then looked away. She understood.

  “Marcie, if there’s any trouble-”

  “I’ll take care of it,” she said confidently.” Marcie herded them across the foyer to the tall door. A blast of snow swirled inside, the sound of the idling VW engine increased briefly and then subsided as the door closed. I stood there, alone now. We’d need maybe ten more minutes. I was guessing. I didn’t know what Marcie was going to encounter out there.

  I started back down the staircase. This was something I should have taken care of before we’d left, but I didn’t want Sherri or Brian to have to watch. The thought stopped me halfway down the stairs and I stared at the tiny pistol. How long had it been? Ten...twelve...fifteen years? Oddly, I couldn’t remember. Maybe it was the concussion making me forget? That war was over. My job in it over. The files on one Paul Granger closed, and with them all rights and privileges canceled. I was a peaceful, law abiding citizen now. A biology professor at a small-town university who suffered pangs of guilt sacrificing a laboratory rabbit or pithing a frog. And here I was on my way to dispatch three humans to clear a path to freedom and not a single pang of guilt in sight. The white plaster walls about me might just as well have been bamboo; this house in the middle of a steaming jungle instead of on a snowy mountainside above a Colorado ski resort.

  Reality is a hard thing to hold onto when the past and present merge. I knew that same surge of excitement, that same twisting terror in my stomach. I thought it had been buried back there in Nam. Resurrected now, the frightening truth was that I was enjoying the feelings.

  My reminiscing lasted maybe all of three seconds before I looked away from the gun and returned my thoughts to the task at hand. I could damn well worry about my inner conflicts and murky motivations later. I started down the stairs again with a firm resolve to dispatch Alexander, Louis, and Raymond; to do it quickly and to get out as fast as I can.

  I emerged into the basement instinctively knowing something was not right. Before I figured it out, something like a baseball bat slammed down on my wrist and the gun flew from my fist. At the corner of my eye I spied a second bat swinging toward my face.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Th
ey weren’t Louisville Sluggers; of course, they were Louis sluggers. The first blow landed like a lump of gnarled old hickory at the end of a three-foot shaft. Louis had struck violently as if he was angry at me or something...I guess he had good reasons. At least a dozen cuts and gashes trickled red from his unlovely head and neck like some gruesome character out of some late-night horror movie. The giant was wet, bleeding, and half drowned, and by the wild look in his eyes, he was determined that his right fist was going to grind my nose to mush.

  I had other ideas, and just enough time to relocate my face from his incoming trajectory. His fist went through the wall plaster. I tumbled under his arm and hit the carpet in a somersault that brought me back to my feet.

  Louis yanked his fist from the wall tearing out a chunk of plasterboard. He shook it off and came toward me in a jerky, mechanical fashion, like a Disney animatronics robot.

  I shucked off my coat to give me a bit of freedom to move. He was sluggish due to his medical condition and no doubt his recent encounter with a cue stick and a sheet of aquarium glass, even so, if he managed to get a hand on me, I’d not be rejoining Marcie and the others.

  I dodged and half tripped over Alexander’s sprawled legs. Regaining my balance, I spied the broken cue stick that had been Sherri’s solution to the Louis problem. Unfortunately, it was out of reach. The other sticks were neatly arranged in a rack, also out of reach. The little Colt Junior had disappeared somewhere on the soaked carpet. I retreated from Louis’s advance. The stairs were wide open for a quick dash and safe retreat, but that wouldn’t solve the problem and the reason I’d come back here.

  Hurrying around the corner of the pool table, my foot came down on something slippery and wiggling, and I landed hard on my back. Before I could move and get my breath back, mitt-sized hands caught my shoulders and tossed me like a sack of potatoes against the wall, rattling the broken glass in the aquarium’s stainless-steel frame. The hard landing didn’t do my concussed brain any good, or my vision. The chandelier over Louis’s left shoulder made slow circles of kaleidoscope flashes and the giant had acquired an out-of-focus twin.

  I felt myself being lifted from the floor again. Past the carnival flashes, Louis’s ugly lips took on a grotesque grin. I kicked, my efforts mostly spent flailing empty air, my strength giving out. It seemed Lady Luck was leaving the room. Well, I knew she was a fickle consort, but as she left, she glanced over her shoulder one last time and blew me a parting kiss. My toe struck Louis where striking a man produces the most pain; not a solid kick, or even one properly placed, but good enough to buckle him at the waist and for his hands to reach instinctively to protect the vital spot.

  My shoulder hit the floor; black swirls pulsed before my eyes. Somehow, in spite of all this, I spied the large wedge of aquarium glass laying at my fingertips, a rainbow of light glinting off its smooth surface. I reached for it and missed. My depth perception was way off. I reached again, grabbing up the sharp edge as Louis, in a blind rage swung a fist the size of a watermelon. I moved my head catching his glancing blow, then lunged at his throat.

  A spurt of blood hit my chest, and then another. Louis eyes bulged, his hands going instinctively to his neck, crimson fountains forcing their way through clenched fingers in little, rhythmic spurts. He staggered against the pool table, green felt turning red, flopping like a beached shark, dying.

  I watched the horror show slowly becoming aware of a fire growing in my hand and the warm flow of blood running down my wrist and arm. I opened my hand, but the large shard of glass just hung there, firmly imbedded in the fleshy web between my thumb and finger.

  My attention divided between my own blood and the Louis’s blood, dripping into a right corner pocket and pooling upon the carpet beneath it. His wild thrashing slowed to small quivers as his body drained. I felt sick. I recalled a little Vietnamese soldier who hadn’t been much older than fifteen or sixteen, a kid who’d never hurt me or anyone I cared about, dying a similar death. I tried to shake the memory, but hauntings never leave you alone...not completely.

  Louis was a big man and a big heart doing its damnedest to empty his huge body of blood. I turned my attention to more immediate concerns. I squeezed my wrist, pretty certain I’d severed the distal loop of the Radial Artery, which was most prominent at the wrist and a favorite target of would-be suicides. In a giddy moment that must have been the onset of shock I recalled in exquisite detail diagramming the Radial Artery on a chalk board for a physiology class I taught each semester. It wasn’t a large artery by the time it reached down into the hand, but big enough to bleed a man to death if the flow wasn’t stopped.

  Raymond watched all this from the floor where he lay with a hand covering his bleeding mouth, his eyes stretched beyond belief at what he’d witnessed. I paused briefly over him as I was leaving, debating cutting his throat too, but there’d been just too damned much blood spilled. I was sick to my stomach of it, of the memories. Raymond was out of the action and not going anywhere. I climbed the stairs, turned into the hallway, and stopped.

  “There he is,” Cockran shouted to someone just around the corner. The reinforcements had finally arrived. They were plainly searching for someone—for me. That meant something must have gone terribly wrong with Marcie’s getaway. I wheeled and headed the other direction leaving a trail of blood. The hallway ended at a pair of glass doors, steam-fogged so that I couldn’t see beyond them. I didn’t have time to worry about that and pushed through into a room filled with moist, warm air. An intricate pattern of blue and green tiles encompassing a rectangular swimming pool spread out toward a wall of windows. Potted plants and lawn furniture gave the place a tropical feeling here on the snowy slopes of the Rocky Mountains. It all seemed very much out of place against the whiteness of the landscape beyond the steamed windows.

  Cockran paused outside the automatic doors and cautiously pushed them open. I pressed against the wall, half hidden behind a heavy redwood patio chair and a small glass table. He advanced cautiously, a revolver extended in front of him, the moist air muffling his footsteps. He was alone and I wondered what had happened to the person he’d spoken too? Cockran glanced toward the water, smooth as blue glass, then slowly moved his view around the natatorium. I was briefly aware of the revving Volkswagen engine before the automatic doors whispered shut.

  Before his view found me, I scooped up the little table and flung it at him. My aim had been pretty good in spite of my bleeding hand and woozy brain. It careened off his arm skittering the gun across the floor, and then sailed on a few feet and crashed through one of the tall windows. A cold wind swirled in bringing a flurry of snow with it. Cockran fanned his hand and turned a snarl toward me.

  “You don’t think you’re going to make it out of here?” he said rubbing his right arm. Well, he had to say that just like I had said something similar to Stratterford. They were just words and we both knew it. I was getting worried about the second gent who’d not yet made an appearance, pretty sure he’d show up shortly with reinforcements.

  “Spare me the movie dialogue, Cockran,” I said scanning the floor for the revolver. It lay against the wall beneath the broken window, too far for any hope of reaching it. “Of course, I intend to get out of here, or at least make sure you don’t either.” I moved slowly toward the source of the cold wind.

  “What happened to the others downstairs?”

  “Worried about your pals?” I said sarcastically.

  He grinned. “Good help is hard to come by.”

  I gave a short laugh. “The two short ones were still alive when I left them.”

  His eyebrows rose. “You killed Louis? I’ve underestimated you, Granger.”

  “That’s always dangerous,” I said. I was pretty close to him by now.

  Cockran’s face remained unmoved, regaining its calm. My surprise attacked had startled him, but not for long. “You’re hurt.”

  I lifted the appendage in question. “Cut it on a piece of glass. Afraid I got some blood on the c
arpet.”

  Cockran shrugged. “It’s Senator Stratterford’s carpet. He can afford to have it cleaned or replace it.

  Only Cockran separated me from the gun. He began to take a wary step to widen the distance between us. I swung left-handed for his chin, missed, and found myself entangled in his arms. I arched my back and went to my knees and we both tumbled forward. The tile floor ended and we were into the pool. Startled, we let go as we each danced for firm footing on what fortunately turned out to be the shallow end, and then went for each other’s throats, madder than wet cats. I tried to not to think about the red tint spreading in the water.

  Cockran really wasn’t in very good shape. A three pack a day habit and the water didn’t help any. I threw another left aimed at his face then grabbed a hank of hair and rammed his head into the concrete edge. The fight was over almost before it began. Breathing hard, I pushed him up into the chrome ladder so that he wouldn’t drown, climbed out of the water and stood shakily, applying pressure again to my wrist. I don’t know why I was concerned about Cockran living or dying just then considering it all.

  “That’s quite enough, Granger,” Stratterford’s voice said behind me.

  I drew in a long breath that hurt my chest and turned slowly. My body weighed five hundred pounds and my muscles had turned to rubber. The natatorium’s floor tilted beneath my feet. I staggered, caught myself and dropped my chin to my chest. Breathing was a chore. A pool of red colored water grew at my feet, the roar of an ocean building in my ears. I finally raised my head. The gun in Stratterford’s hands, I noted wryly, was my very own Smith & Wesson, taken from me earlier by Alexander. It made a little jerk that meant he wanted me to move.

  “In front of that window.”

  I managed to pull myself up straight and walk after a fashion into the cold wind blowing through the broken glass. “I’m supposed to freeze to death?” I said. “That will be an easy way to explain a body on the property.”