“That was his business there, right? And he’s still here, a legit dealer, right?”
“Yes. Legit all the way. Which means he is probably very very careful, cautious in his dealings, or else actually legit. Which way are you leaning?”
“The very very cautious way.”
“That would be my guess. He crops up traveling in some rough places, working as a security consultant -- Bogota back in the 80s, Peru doing security for coffee buyers, still has a hand in a security company in Johannesburg, diamond security work in Angola…”
“Mercenary?”
“Not technically. He’s a security consultant in some hard places.”
“How many people has he killed?”
“Good question,” Myron said. “We don’t have anything hard and fast on him, just some CI reports that he was involved in some undocumented shootings in Joburg and Bogota. Nothing. Squeaky clean. State gives him a clean bill of health, and ICE has a favorable recommendation for his citizenship. He’s good to go.”
“And the other?”
“Ah,” Myron said. “James Wylde. He is an interesting guy.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“Because there’s stuff, but I can’t get it.”
“What do you mean you can’t get it?”
“You know what the Department of Defense’s Special Personnel Register is?”
“No.”
Myron leaned back, happy in having knowledge and being able to pass it on. “It’s the database where all the deep cover operators and Tier One Units have their personnel records. Technically, no one in the register exists. They get transferred from their regular unit and their records just…disappear. There’s a whole slew of holding companies for the civilians and non-existent military units for the active duty guys, that’s who issues the checks, pays the insurance…but you can’t get into it.”
“Wylde is in that?”
“I didn’t say that,” Myron said smugly. “What I found is that James A. Wylde was a warrant officer in Special Forces, 7th Special Forces Group…came over from the 82d Airborne Division as an infantryman. Desert Storm vet. Then his service record says attached temporary duty to the Joint Special Operations Command HQ. Then he disappears…”
Myron grinned. “But I worked the data deep dive program we got, started looking at the time frames, and his profile…and somebody with the same name showed up on a wounded personnel roster came back from Afghanistan in 2004. The other names on the roster indicate these were CIA guys…contractors working for a cover company. Then he shows up in Walter Reed, then here in Lake City. Works in a bar, but you knew that already. What’s remarkable about this guy, is that there is nothing on him. No credit history, no academic records, just the military stuff. It’s like he dropped out of the sky into the Army, and then disappeared again.”
“So what does that tell you?”
Myron whispered, “Spook. Serious spook. You know, you hear stuff, you work CT long enough, that and Counter Intelligence. There’s a lot of guys out there, just like great white sharks, running by themselves, get their directions from wayyyyyy up high, working alone…and that’s the kind of stuff nobody wants to know about, not really.”
“Why?”
“Because if you start digging around in that world, you disappear.”
“Oh, bullshit.”
Myron shook his head. “No lie, Nina. Careers don’t just get ruined over this shit. People go away and are never heard of. We’re a country at war, and the regular rules don’t apply anymore. Bad shit doesn’t just happen to the bad guys…it can happen to the Regular Joe that stumbles across something and doesn’t have the good sense to leave it alone.”
He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.
“People disappear,” he said. “Be careful with this one.”
***
Irina dialed the phone number she had for Deon. Waited a moment, then heard him answer. “Yes?”
It sounded like yiiisss, with the Afrikaans accent.
“This is Irina,” she said. “I have thought over your proposal.”
“Yes?”
“Perhaps we should put the idea to the test. Do a deal together, see how we work together. With the understanding that at this point, it is one project only. And then we will consider the possibility of doing more joint ventures in the future, or some kind of partnership. Does that appeal to you?”
“Yes. It does appeal to me. Perhaps we should meet and discuss the particulars.”
“I will be occupied, and away for a few days with business. Perhaps when I return. Can I find you in your bar, or at this number?”
Deon laughed. “I’m quite regular in my evening habits. You can always find me at the bar.”
“It’s dangerous to be so predictable in our business.”
“Oh, I’m regular. That’s not the same as predictable.”
“Yes. I see. I will speak to you next week.”
“Till that day.”
“Yes. Till that day.”
Irina allowed herself a smile, and wondered if she should have Dee Kozak take the South African alive, and bring him to her. It would suit her to see him in her chambers. But it was always dangerous to mix business with pleasure, wasn’t it?
***
“She’s going to try and kill me, oke,” Deon said as he sat his cell phone back down on the table.
I laughed. “Then all is right in the world. Regular, huh? Not predictable? That’s a mouthful, my friend. A real mouthful.”
“Maybe I should drink elsewhere for awhile.”
“You’re hurting my feelings. Besides, where else can you get the ambience?”
Deon looked around the bar, slowly filling as darkness fell outside.
Laughed.
“It’s what makes the place, oke. Ambience.”
Chapter Forty
Darkness fell over Lake City.
In her apartment, Lizzy Caprica sat in an armchair beside the window. No work tonight. Just quiet time alone, a book in her lap. No music. Silence. The peace of it. Jimmy was working, though. She toyed with the thought of going down there to see him, the same way he’d come to see her. She’d been in Moby Dick’s, with Lisa, when she’d had that trouble, when she first met Jimmy.
Jimmy.
She looked up at the clock.
No.
Maybe.
Wait. Wait until the deep dark, middle of the night, say midnight, then call him. Hear his voice in her ear. Then see…
She opened the book in her lap, 100 Poems from the Chinese, translated by Kenneth Rexroth.
FULL MOON
Above the tower -- a lone, twice-sized moon.
On the cold river passing night-filled homes,
It scatters restless gold across the waves.
On mats, it shines richer than silken gauze.
Empty peaks, silence: among sparse stars,
Not yet flawed, it drifts. Pine and cinnamon
Spreading in my old garden . . . All light,
All ten thousand miles at once in its light!
Tu Fu
She looked up at the moon rising in the night sky, the evening star of Venus gleaming beside it. Not quite full, but soon. Waxing moon riding the dark of the night. But soon it would be full, rich and bright. Maybe this weekend.
It would be good to see Jimmy under the full moon light and read him this poem. She wondered how he’d like it.
She wondered about him.
***
Nina sat in her front room and watched the shadows lengthen and pool into darkness. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and the stillness. There was the ticking of a house; the creak of wood, the whirr of the refrigerator, the tock tockeety tock of the wooden clock on the mantle place.
Her breathing.
The sound of her pulse in her ears.
The dryness in her mouth.
She sat and didn’t think about the man she didn’t want to think about anymore.
***
&nbs
p; Irina sat on the edge of her bed.
Her latest plaything had been discarded. She hadn’t ordered another one.
Wouldn’t for awhile.
Reached out and brushed the pillow where Sergey’s head had lain. Found a stray short hair, black with a fleck of grey in it. Held it to her face. Pursed her perfectly painted lips and blew it away.
***
Marcus and Joe, still huddled together on the hillside, powered up their night vision adapters for the spotting telescope, whispered notes into their hand held recorders.
***
Deon sat in his corner, worked on his third beer. Shifted so that his second pistol didn’t dig into his hip bone as much. Held up his finger for Theiu to bring him another beer, and wondered when Little Dick was going to get some more help in here.
***
I ran two college boys with fake IDs off, and kept my eye on the floor in between rushes. A quiet night, it was shaping up to be. Good. I liked it that way.
***
Dee Kozak studied her face in the mirror, touched up her lip gloss, brushed a little more powder on her cheeks, dabbed at her mascara. She’d driven by Moby Dick’s and came up with the perfect look to set the mouse trap -- snug jersey dress, just too tight to be really stylish, spike heels, bare legs, thong, no bra (and she was proud of those tits, real and the result of hard work). The ad in the phone book said billiards, and hell, every man liked to watch a good looking woman in a short dress work a stick and knock some balls into holes, didn’t they? God bless men.
It might be a good night, after all.
***
Darkness fell over Lake City, under the waxing moon.
Chapter Forty One
There’s a rhythm to nightlife. Ask any one who has worked in a bar, or in the evening entertainment world. Each night has its own regular rhythm -- Fridays aren’t the same as Tuesdays, Saturdays not the same as Fridays -- and part of that rhythm comes from the venue, and part of it from the regulars, and part of it from the crowd that shows up any particular night. Part of being successful at my job -- and I defined success as having a quiet night, not having to go hands on with anybody, and everybody having a good time -- is knowing how to read and feel that rhythm, know when to step in and when to let things alone.
Leaving things alone is a fine balancing act.
Do it too much, you lose control, of the situation and of the group perception of you, which in my line of work is fatal. Appearance of weakness is the same as weakness in the bar, because you don’t run into the sophisticated opponent (guys like Deon and some of the others a notable exception) that knows how to read past the surface. So you have to be firm, but not an asshole -- a diplomat with the capability to be a general.
A nice guy who can kick some ass when it comes down to it.
Tonight was one of those funny nights. Nothing wrong, in fact everything right; busy but not too busy, crowd happy and laughing, juke box playing some old classic blues -- Son House, one of my faves -- Little Dick making an appearance and holding court down at the waitress station, Thieu hustling drinks, and the quiet gal that had started as a weekend waitress making the rounds. Deon was in his corner, stacking up dead soldiers in front of him, taking the occasional call on his cell, nodding to acquaintances and, from time to time, doing a little bidness.
Me, I sat on my stool till I got tired, got up and prowled a little bit, sipped on a Dark Lady, watched.
Something felt funny, though.
Wasn’t quite the full moon, though that was coming. That’s something else that factors in, something any cop or paramedic or bartender or bouncer will tell you -- when Grandmother Moon is riding high and full, the bull loon crazies come out of the woodwork and they will find their way to the local watering hole. Lizzy had told me once that the two days building up to the full moon, and the two days after, were actually the most intense days. Great, a whole five days of crazy.
Of course, I had a whole lifetime of crazy, so it felt like home.
And then she walked right up to me.
“Hi there!” she said. Blond, short hair cut to her neck in an expensive haircut, grey jersey dress that looked sprayed on an athlete’s bod, firm breasts, the long legs and hard ass of a serious runner, light tan, blue eyes, spike heels -- oh she was a piece of work. And what the hell is she doing in Moby’s?
“Well, hello,” I said. “And what can I help you with, young lady?”
Dimpled. Oh hell yeah.
“Well, handsome man, I’m looking for a friendly place to have a drink and knock some balls around. Is this that kind of place?”
I laughed. “There’s some ball knocking available, that’s for sure. What kind did you have in mind?”
She punched my arm, a good punch, too. “Bad man! I heard that you have pool tables here.”
“We do.”
“So I want to work some stick. Can you help me out?”
Oh, this one knew just what she was doing. Nice smell, too. But something surely out of place when a woman of this measure showed up in Moby’s.
“And how did you find our fine establishment?”
“Looked in the phone book, handsome. From my hotel.”
“Just visiting?”
“Just business. So what’s a girl got to do to get some game?”
I pointed her to the four tables in the back. There was a desultory game going on with a couple of young guys from the welder’s shop down the block knocking some balls around, but the rest of the tables were free.
“Go on back,” I said. “You’ll get as much game as you can handle.”
“Thanks! How about you, like to knock the balls around?”
“Working, honey. But thanks for the offer. Maybe later.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing…”
She ambulated away, her hips and legs moving in erotic array on those high heels. She wasn’t a dancer, I could tell that. Serious jock, though, working out was serious business for her. And she was already working the room big time. Every male head swiveled to watch her cut a swath through the crowd. I couldn’t hear what she said to the boys at the table, but it started with laughter and ended with them racking the balls up, and her going through a long erotic evaluation of the available pool cues, running them through the O of her thumb and forefinger as thoughtfully and thoroughly as she probably handled a cock.
What a piece of work.
But something wasn’t right about her.
Deon caught my eye, tilted his head in her direction, and gave me a big grin. I shrugged, mouthed, “Go for it,” and turned to watch how the rhythm in the bar had changed. Like a shark had entered the water.
***
Nina took a half-empty bottle of Cuervo Gold Especial from the cabinet above her refrigerator, a lucky shot glass with the crest of the Special Operations Command etched on the side, a cold lime from the fridge and a sharp knife from the drawer. Sliced up some limes, took down a salt shaker and arrayed the limes and the salt shaker on a small plate. Went back into the front room, still dark, walking with a sureness through her familiar room in the dark, blinking till her night vision came back. Poured a shot, licked the back of her hand and sprinkled salt on it, licked the salt, did the shot, bit the lime.
Again.
And again.
Three was a good start to the Gold Rush.
She let the tequila steam it’s way through her system, coil and burn in her empty stomach. Thought about…
No.
She didn’t think about him anymore.
Her lip curled, and she did another shot.
Looked out the window, the moon riding high.
Picked up her Glock 30 from the table, press checked it, saw the reassuring blink of fresh brass in the chamber. Lay back on the couch, her legs kicked akimbo, the pistol in her lap, stared up at the ceiling.
She didn’t want to work tonight.
She didn’t want to be alone tonight.
Stroked the pistol down her thigh, set it bes
ide her on the cushion.
Thought about Nico, what he would look like naked. Hard muscled, with just the little edge of softness that comes with age, no matter how hard you worked the weights. Probably some grey in his body hair, since he wore no facial hair and kept his head shaved bald. Would he be shy about his body? Or bold?
The thought warmed her between her legs.
She smiled at that. It had been a long time.
Maybe it was time? Maybe she should just look at some uncomplicated fucking, just to see if she remembered all that? Her body did. Craved it, the hard rocking release, straining up against a man, or back against him, the shudder and shout of orgasm, that complete and thorough limpness that came over her after.
Right before she wanted it again.
Picked up her pistol, sighted it with one hand at the photograph of her and…
No.
Put the weapon down again, let her hand cup herself, felt the warmth there.
No. She didn’t want that emptiness. She wanted to be filled up.
But then, if she wanted that, why didn’t she just get it?
Nico, sure. He was divorced, had an on again off again girlfriend, some kind of aerobics or fitness teacher down at Gold’s Gym. But that wasn’t who she thought about.
Jimmy?
Sure, she’d do Jimmy. She remembered him running the carbine, the look on his face. She’d trusted him, and that was something she didn’t do lightly. She laughed to herself. Nina didn’t need to trust a man to fuck him. She just needed to trust herself. And something about Jimmy made her not trust herself. And there was LIzzy…Nina never let conventions stand in the way of getting something, or someone, that she wanted, but there was something very different about those two. Lizzy was surely not what she appeared to be, not just an exceptionally beautiful stripper and maybe part-time call girl; Jimmy was surely not what he appeared to be, a smarter than average bouncer in a rough bar.
Of course, Nina wasn’t what she appeared to be either, was she?
Were you, Nina?
Johnny Wylde Page 22
