by C. F. Waller
Gazing over the top of my coffee cup I try and gauge his age. I assumed he was my elder, but not by a wide margin. Studying him, I see no grey hair or wrinkles. He is wearing his usual suit jacket and slacks. The white cuffs of his dress shirt folded over the ends of the sleeves. Next to my polo shirt and jeans, he does have the upper hand on fashion. His demeanor is very mature, but I doubt the new waitress could tell which one of us was older.
“You can’t be much older than me,” I snort. “How long do I have to live to prefer dinner and drinks to a sleep over?”
This brings a very superior look, accompanied by the hint of a smile. The waitress comes back by and clears his plates. She gives me the opportunity to order something but I decline. When she’s gone, he’s still grinning.
“Well?”
“It’s appreciate dinner and drink, not prefer,” he explains. “That’s an important distinction.”
“How many years until I start appreciating?”
“Hundreds,” he says matter-of-factly. “Literally hundreds.”
We take a cab to a used car lot on the outskirts of town. Bill won’t have his name on anything and doesn’t want a new model. The salesman, of which there appears to be only one, shakes my hand and pushes a card on me. It takes several minutes for me to get the sales guy to slow his sales presentation enough to get a word in. Indicating that we want to walk down the line of cars and look around, he goes to help another customer.
The other guy looks like he is selling his car, rather than buying. This happens a lot when out of town gamblers fall on hard times. I imagine half the cars we are looking at were once owned by bright eyed dreamers who found out the hard way that gambling rarely pays. Every visitor should stop and look around when they get here. What they seem to miss is that all the amazing buildings and entertainment were not paid for by letting people leave with more money than they came in with.
There is a sharp looking Mustang GT with 19,000 miles, 19,000 dollars written on the windshield in some sort of red grease paint. I’m peeking in the driver side window when Bill taps me on the shoulder.
“Not this one.”
“Why not?” I ask, just curious what his reaction will be.
“Too much. Has to be under ten.”
“You’re not out of money, are you?” I worry, thinking that yesterday he gave me thirty thousand dollars.
“Hardly,” he bristles. “I’ll be paying cash.”
“Oh,” I relax as it dawns on me. “Under ten thousand and there’s no reporting paperwork on where the money came from?”
“Yes, I’d be hard pressed to show visible means.”
Two cars down is a mustard yellow 82 Corvette. The paint on the windshield offers 82, air blows cold, $9,200. I step around the Vette and slap my hand on the chrome tee-tops.
“How about this one?”
“You are aware my intension is not be in an accident are you not?” he grumbles.
“Of course, this is why you hired me.”
“I also said we were meeting someone,” he declares. “That car has only two seats.”
I step down the row to a very interesting looking Cadillac, but before I can speak he is shaking his head.
“Fine, which one do you like?” I complain.
Bill walks past me, pulling up short the sales guy, whose name turns out to be Ricky, and the guy trying to sell his car. Standing on the outside we listen to Ricky low ball the guy on his Volvo station wagon. The out-of-towner is trying to get the price up, but he looks like he needs a shower and a nap. Ricky seems to understand he’s in a bad way for cash and stands firm at three thousand on a car probably worth closer to ten.
“I’ll give you six for it,” Bill interrupts.
The Ricky looks astonished, but Bill pulls a money clip out and peels off crisp bills, setting them on the car’s hood. When he’s done counting, the man nods excitingly, pointing a finger at Ricky with glee. At first angry, Ricky receives a handshake from Bill that exchanges an untold number of folded over hundred-dollar bills as hush money. The happy seller signs over the title and heads to the bus stop a half mile down the road. I notice he left the license plate on the car.
“Let me guess,” I shrug. “No paperwork, license plate still on the car and insurance slip probably in the glove box.”
“Yes,” he agrees, tossing me the keys. “Let’s take her for a spin.”
When I open the driver’s door the smell of sweat and fast food wrappers hit me like a rogue wave. The backseat is full of paper bags containing lord knows what. At least a half dozen Starbucks cups litter the floorboard on the passenger side. Bill nudges them from under his feet, before pulling his legs in. The car starts right up and seems mechanically fine. I hold my hand over the vent and cool air pours out.
“Would there be a spot that we could take this for a bath?” Bill whines, obviously unhappy about the clutter.
“Yeah, there’s a detailing place on the other side of town. For a hundred bucks they will make it look and smell like new.”
“Then that is our next destination,” he nods, pulling his door shut and jerking his hand back as if he touched something unclean. “I will settle for smells like new.”
“You are aware that Volvo’s are one of the safest cars on the planet, aren’t you?” I ask, thinking this was more than just a paperwork dodge.
“Perhaps,” he mutters, pulling on his safety belt.
“Why so paranoid?” I chuckle, pulling out onto the road.
“I’m not paranoid, just safety conscious.”
“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero,” I explain, quoting Edward Norton in the movie Fight Club.
“Timelines vary, he replies solemnly.
Chapter Seven
Dominick Dunn
My phone goes off while I’m in the shower. I hear it, but don’t make any move to answer. The water is warm so I linger and enjoy it. Peeking around my small belly to see my feet I recall a resolution to exercise more. Someone needs to eat a salad and take a walk. After drying off, shaving and pulling on some jeans, I count six missed calls, all from Rahnee.
“Six calls over ten minutes and not one voice mail,” I ponder, tossing the phone on the disheveled bed. “When I met her she barley spoke, now she’s a chatter box.”
I decide right there and then that the next time she makes an offer that seems remotely like a sexual invitation I am jumping at it. Deciding this now will eliminate another missed opportunity.
Over the next half hour, I pack up my clothes, carefully folding the items and fitting them into the small carry-on, I try Rahnee back twice, but she doesn’t pick up. As I pull up the handle and push the rolling bag to the door, someone knocks on it. In truth, it’s more of a pounding than a knock. A look through the peephole reveals a middle-aged man in a tee-shirt and jeans. I reach across the bed for my suit jacket and try and recall if I have seen this man before.
“Coming,” I yell as the door thumps a third time.
My hand hesitates on the door handle. Was she calling to warn me about something? Possibly I am just paranoid. A quick look through the peephole doesn’t show me anything new. A very plain looking guy stands impatiently in the hallway.
“Mr. Dunn,” a voice calls from the hall. “My name is Decker. Rahnee sent me to get you.”
“To get me,” I whisper, opening the door.
“Decker, Cooper Decker,” he blurts out as he pushes his hand into mine and peeks around me to see if we are alone. “You can call me Coop.”
Decker’s shirt is red and has the words You Are Here in white block letters. Under that is a large X to mark the spot where the wearer is located. It’s a funny shirt. He’s tall with an athletic build. Other than an anchor tattoo on the underside of his forearm that I see when we shake hands, he’s unremarkable.
“Okay Coop,” I echo, backing up to give myself room to breathe. “Where’s the fire?”
“This all your stuff?” he exhales, pointin
g at my rolling bag.
“Yes, now what’s this all about?”
“We got to move,” he orders, pushing past me and grabbing the handle of my bag.
“Why do you think I am going to go with you without knowing what’s going on?” I balk, grabbing his arm as he pulls my bag. “I think you have the command structure mixed up. Rahnee works for me, not the other way around.”
“You both work for someone else,” he corrects me, pulling his arm free and rolling the bag into the hall. “Come or don’t, that’s on you. Rahnee said you might be a pain in the ass.”
With this, a silence falls between us and then he reluctantly leans closer and lowers his voice.
“We found the girl,” he whispers. “Beatrix Moffatt, but someone found us. I have a plane an hour from here and Rahnee is going to meet us.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“That’s not how this works,” he shakes his head and backs up a step. “She’s doing you a solid pal. I think you missed the part where I told you that someone also found us.”
“Yeah, you care to elaborate on that? Or anything really? You’re a little short on actual intel.”
“Happy to share,” he nods, grabbing the handle and pulling it down the hall. “Get downstairs. I’ll tell you what I know in the car.”
Fifteen feet down the hall, Decker pauses to see if I am following. Returning to the room to gather up my tablet and over the shoulder bag, I join him. Down the lifts and across the lobby he moves quickly. So fast that I have to speed walk to keep up. A valet is watching his car and receives a wad of money from Decker as we slide in. It’s not Rahnee’s car, but it’s the same make and model, a jet-black Chrysler 300. Once we are moving, he kills the radio and glances over at me.
“You said someone found us?” I ask again, having had time to run the previous short conversation through my mind. “Who might that be?”
“Not sure,” he starts, pausing briefly to make a turn. “When I told her I located Beatrix, she arranged a plane and told me to come get her. Then she called back and said she picked up a tail. Said she would call you and tell you I was coming.”
“You’re a pilot?”
“Among other things.”
“And Beatrix is where?” I inquire, already thinking I don’t need Rahnee once he tells me.
“One track mind,” he chuckles. “Vegas, I picked her up on security footage at McCarran International Airport.”
“And that’s where we are going?”
“That’s one way to look at it,” he coughs and pauses for me to speak, but I don’t. “Another way, would be that we are both running away and Vegas is as good a place as any to hide.”
“Running from what?”
“Whatever is following Rahnee,” he says, gunning the car onto the highway and jumping by a semi-truck to get into the fast lane. “She told me she was going to lead it away from the plane and then double back to meet us. We just need to be sitting there when she shows up.”
“Lead it?” I repeat loudly, emphasizing the last word. “Not who, but it?”
“That’s what she said. Didn’t you get a letter that covers this?” he asks confused. “She told me you were warned?”
The letter is in my jacket pocket. I pull it out, scanning down the page. Perfect artistic loops and swirls form the old English letters. The ink is still fresh and the scent fills my nose. About halfway down the page is what I am looking for.
That said, I must be fair and honest with you, I am not offering you any reward for doing as I ask. No matter if you stop now, or continue your pursuit, you are doomed to the same end as me. When they come for me, they will not differentiate between us. Think on this very hard and do not receive it with a foolish heart. Make no mistake, we are both currently no more than the walking dead.
“When they come for you,” I whisper to myself.
“What?” Decker mutters, unable to make out what I said.
“Nothing. How far to the plane?”
“Another half hour. Small private airstrip. We can wait on the plane until she gets there.”
“That’s fine,” I agree, still thinking about the letter.
A decade ago the Cartographer said something similar to me. He claimed he had always wondered if they would come. Feeling as if Rahnee is hard to spook, I am beginning to wonder what he was talking about.
“Not like I can ask him now,” I whisper, thinking he was probably the first one they put in the centrifuge.
We ride is silence to a very small airstrip. It’s mostly chain link fence around a wide-open area. The tarmac is patchy with cracks allowing weeds to sprout up here and there. A guard in a plain grey uniform checks Decker’s paperwork, then raises a bar to let us drive in. A second security man, whose uniform shirt tells us his name is Randy, gives Decker some static, but relents and allows him to drive the car right out to the plane. By relents, I mean he received an undisclosed sum passed in a handshake.
It’s a small jet, and would seat maybe twelve passengers and three or four crew, which are nowhere to be seen. This includes the pilot, which apparently is Decker. We seem to have the plane to ourselves.
Once my stuff is stowed, I grab a Pepsi out of a well-stocked fridge, go out and lean on the car while we wait. Decker works furiously in the cockpit and then walks a few laps around the plane looking at this and that. A man in an orange jumpsuit comes over in a golf cart and the two of them converse for several minutes. From what little I hear, they seem to be discussing if the plane was fueled up and which runway is open.
Dropping my can on the tarmac, I start to step on it when squealing tires interrupt the quiet morning. What I assume is Rahnee’s Chrysler peels away from the security checkpoint and heads in our direction. The sound of the automatic transmission rapidly shifting gears is audible, even at a distance.
“That’s our girl,” I announce.
“You should get on the plane,” Decker barks from the fold down stairway. “Now!”
Stepping past the can without crushing it, I start over, but am startled by a honking car horn. Spinning my head around, I am just in time to see a red SUV plow though the checkpoint. One guard disappears under it, while the second, who I recall was named Randy, is thrown out of sight from the impact. Frozen in horror, I watch Rahnee skid to a stop twenty-five yards away and jump out, leaving her car door open. She must not have shifted it into park as the car begins to slowly roll away as she turns to face the oncoming SUV, gun drawn.
“It’s going to roll into the tail,” Decker shouts from behind me, having come down the stairs. “Go put the car in park and get your butt on the plane.”
When I don’t jump into action, he shoves me from behind, before running back up the stairs. The car is barely rolling, but I jog over and slip behind the wheel, pulling it into park. I back it away from the plane just a bit, before stopping to look though the rear window for Rahnee.
She has walked away from my position and made sure the jet isn’t in the path of the red SUV, which is racing at her. Still at some distance she begins shooting, firing slowly and aiming every shot. Bullets hit the windshield and at least one shot hits the grill, releasing steam. After several shots hit the center of the windshield the SUV swerves, then hooks a sharp right, before flipping over onto the passenger side. It skids along throwing up a wall of sparks, stopping well short of us. The grinding of metal on asphalt ends with the rear tailgate window shattering, spraying the ground with broken safety glass.
“Get on the plane,” Decker barks at me from the top of the stairs.
I start to get out of the car as Rahnee empties what’s left of her clip into the deformed windshield. After stepping within a few yards of the tailgate and peeking inside, she turns back in our direction. She reloads a new clip as she moves and nods at Decker, all the while glancing over her shoulder every few seconds.
On the side of the SUV facing up, the driver door flies open, distressed plastic trim cracking before hitting the pavement. A figure
crawls out, first a hand, then another, pulling itself out of the wreck. Now on top of the SUV, which is passenger side down, whoever it is slips, disappearing out of sight.
Uttering a stream of expletives, Rahnee shakes her head. I can’t hear exactly what she’s saying from inside the car so I step out into the sun and lean on the door.
“Just die already,” she exhales and she draws the gun up.
I don’t hear the rest as the jet engines sparks to life behind me followed by a high octane gasoline smell.
A man in a blue suit jacket comes around to our side of the SUV and seems to stumble before collecting himself. He pauses, a hand on the side of the vehicle to rest. He’s dark skinned with slicked back hair and green eyes. The bright eyes are visible even at this distance. His jacket and pants have holes that seem dark and wet around the torn fabric, yet he isn’t limping. He breaks into a run, but Rahnee lets loose a flurry of shots. He’s fast and avoids the first few, but fifteen feet from her, he catches at least a half dozen in the chest and legs. Her attacker goes down in a pile, skidding across the pavement face down. Even though I can’t hear it, I see her gun click open, out of rounds. She slaps it shut and starts back to the stairway.
“What am I seeing?” I mouth silently.
At first, he just pushes himself up on his elbows, but then slowly fights to his knees. Rahnee is walking back to the plane and doesn’t see him, but I do. Staggering to his feet in a pool of blood, he stumbles in her direction. Rahnee is only a few feet from the bottom of the stairs when she turns and sees him hitting a full run at her.
“Get up from this,” I mutter through gritted teeth as I push the accelerator to the floor.
Jumping backward, the black Chrysler travels maybe fifty feet before the rear bumper slams into him, well before he gets to Rahnee. He winds up under the rear wheels and I jam the gear shifter into park, leaving the car running as I jump out. On the driver side, I see a bloody foot sticking out from under the car. Above an expensive pair of Italian dress shoes is a red sock with green stripes. The trendy kind bankers wear to prove how hip they are. It reminds me of the Wizard of Oz. The scene after Dorothy’s house drops on the Wicked Witch of the East, leaving only her ruby slippers showing. With the car between myself and the plane, Rahnee is staring at me with a shocked look on her face.
