The Great Escape

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  Joan’s eyes widened, her heart pounded. She shook her head, whimpering, “You. You killed Mr. LoBianco.”

  He shrugged. “It was business.” And removed his glasses, tossing them aside, then peeling off the fake eyebrows and mustache, which he flicked away, too. Revealed now was a broad, craggy face, like a bulldog’s. He pulled from his waistband a really big gun, which he pointed at her. “Sorry I gotta do this. You’re a nice girl and all. But you’re just too smart.”

  “No, you’re wrong,” Joan blurted. “I’m actually very stupid.”

  “No, you ain’t—you figured out Tony’s numbers was all wrong. See, I went through them books you dropped. Not that I was in Taos to check up on you. I was supposed to off Tony before he ratted out the boss to the cops. But Tony begged, said I could have the money he’d skimmed if I’d let him disappear. I said how much money. He said he didn’t know because you had the books.”

  Figuring as long as he was talking, she was breathing, Joan kept up her end. “So…you waited for me to show up?”

  “Yeah. But then Tony got wise that I was going to keep the money and kill him. And you, too. He went nuts, said you was an innocent, said I wasn’t goin’ to touch you. Then he came at me with his own knife. I had to kill him.”

  A tremor of guilt and sadness shook her. Mr. LoBianco, a mobster and murderer and all-around rat-fink, had died trying to protect her life? The shock…she couldn’t absorb it. She stared helplessly at her would-be assassin. “And then I came along and saw you do it.”

  “Yeah, so I couldn’t leave you alive. The boss wouldn’t be none too happy. I guess you should’ve called in sick that night, Miss O’Leary. ‘Cause now…I gotta kill you.”

  11

  THIS IS WHAT I NEED, Dan fumed. He knelt on one knee in the dirty snow behind the Dumpster. A turkey-shoot of a showdown with the mob—while it’s pitch-black night and freezing cold. Oh, and over there? A lodge full of helpless old folks and the woman I just might love. Thus…buoyed, Dan scooted forward to peer cautiously around the smelly bin’s cold metal side.

  “Whoo-whoo.”

  Dan jerked around, tensing to keep from firing at the first thing that moved. Then his brain identified the sound for him. Owl. Dan shook his head as he exhaled his flash of fright and again turned toward the black hulk of the lodge, which jutted out of the mountain, resembling a ship plowing through a high sea. He then cut his gaze to the parking lot, seeing only a big tour bus, a few cars and surrounding them all, the overcast darkness, unrelieved by moonlight.

  Come on, show your face, Dan silently urged his unseen adversary, the one whose bullet had almost taken his head off a minute ago. Lucky for him, he’d also missed Mark who’d just sprinted, under cover of Dan’s fire, back to the safety of the lodge. Dan tried not to think about where the gangster might be this minute. Because he feared he knew. Inside. Where Joan was. And all those old folks. Talk about your nightmares. But since he couldn’t be sure, couldn’t just stick his neck out to find out, here he was. Stuck outside until he could work his own way back to the lodge.

  What he wouldn’t give for a minute of moonlight to show him his quarry. But no. Dan gritted his jaw and tried to stay so still he could maybe hear the mobster. Probably right behind me, the way my last few days have gone. Not that the thought spooked him, but he jerked around again, wagging his 9-mm from left to right.

  Only to find himself…alone. Whew. Okay, so the hit man wasn’t on his butt. Check that off his list of possible hiding places. Dan pushed up to his feet, crouching low but working his muscles lest they become sluggish from the cold All his training said to keep moving around, give the enemy a mobile target, make him show his position. And use yourself as bait.

  Dan silently counted to three—hook, line, sinker—and then slouched away from the overhanging pine branches and the Dumpster’s squat body. Hustling forward, crunching snow underfoot, he headed for the two-story-high forest of treated-wood beams that staked the lodge’s decking. Half expecting to feel the white-hot bite of a bullet slam into him at any moment, he didn’t risk even a breath until he’d achieved the relative shelter of the rows of milled trunks.

  Once there, and breathing hard, listening, adjusting his vision, he jammed a shoulder against a pillar. And snapped to rigid attention. There. Above him, on the topside deck…Dan got his bearings…in front of the ski-equipment store. Had he heard footsteps? Dan swallowed, swiped sweat out of his eyes, looked straight up, and two-handedly raised his gun along with his gaze. Got you, you murdering son of a bitch.

  GROUCHO’S DARK EYES and grease-slickened black hair glinted in Joan’s beam of light as he took a step toward her. She knew she should move, run, dodge, do something. But tell that to her feet. They’d grown roots. Therefore, her last moments on Earth would apparently be spent shining her little light on her murderer. That visual finally unlocked her muscles and her brain. So why am I making it easier for him? I don’t have time for this. Dan’s life is in danger.

  Duh. She flicked off her flashlight, plunging the room into blackness as she leaped for the bed. Groucho cursed, fired at where she’d been, and missed. Joan hit the mattress with such force that a yelp escaped her as she bounced onto her back and lost the flashlight, her only weapon.

  Then suddenly the man’s weight was atop her, all but crushing her, forcing her breath out in a whoosh. Grunting, straining, he grappled with her, trying to grab her arms and pin them above her head. Having to fight her long hair and him, Joan twisted and elbowed and gouged, finally gaining one hand free of his grip. She flung it back, away from his clawing fingers, only to whack the heavy table lamp above her head.

  Like a bowling pin hit low, it flew forward, missing Joan but catching Groucho’s head. It broke over his skull, thus nobly sacrificing itself, and rendering Groucho dead weight atop Joan. For one unreasoning second, she lay there among the lamp shards, under her attacker, blinking and numbly contemplating the funnel-shaped shade that now perched like a coolie hat on Groucho’s head.

  But in the next second, she became a blur of panicked limbs as she freed herself of the man and scooted off the bed. Two giant steps and she was across the room, her back and palms plastered against the wall. Breathing hard, she stared at him. Maybe you ought to get out of here. Right. Another flurry of motion, and Joan had the flashlight and her coat. She spared the man another glance. He hadn’t moved. But could.

  So, get out. Still a good idea. She jerked around, cutting and running for the relative safety of the hallway, down which she scampered, and really flew when she heard a growl of noise, jerked around, saw Groucho stumbling out of the room, gun in hand. Joan screeched and took the stairs in a stumbling, tumbling run down to the lobby. “Mr. Garrison!” she called as she went. “Help me! Groucho’s after me!”

  Downstairs, white-haired heads turned her way. General Garrison separated himself from the group, came toward her. Joan flung herself into his embrace, noting the startlement on his face. Scared, shaking in reaction to her ordeal, she hugged him fiercely and cried out, “The hit man. It’s Groucho. He has the tattoo and those were fake eyebrows and stuff. He tried to kill me, but the lamp attacked him and then I—”

  Mr. Garrison pulled her back by the arms and brushed her hair back from her hot, damp face. “The lamp…attacked Groucho?”

  She jerked her gaze up to the stairs. Empty. So far. “Yes. Up there. Hurry. We have to get him. Give me a gun. Quick.” A brief pause. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  OUTSIDE, a sudden break in the clouds revealed the moon’s light and silvered Dan’s surroundings. Loading a fresh clip into his Beretta, he glanced up at the moon in gratitude and reconsidered his position. Standing with his back to the parking lot, his hip abutting the wooden railing of the broad steps that led to the deck above, and his eyes narrowed in concentration, he glanced this way and that, and—What the hell is that?

  Immediately he ducked to one side of the railing. He’d seen something…a movement. At the head of the
stairs closest to the lodge. A shadow. He chanced another peek, saw nothing, and straightened up. He was losing it. Shaking his head, Dan lowered his gaze to check—only to pop his head right back up, like a jack-in-the-box. What the—? Apparently, he wasn’t losing it, because there it—they?—were again.

  They? If he didn’t know better…Dan rubbed his eyes, looked again…he’d say there was a band of old geezers, all of them armed to the teeth, coming toward him. Oh, sweet Georgia Brown. I have a posse. Right out in the open. His insides, blood and guts and all, curdled. Sighing, certain the world had gone mad, leaving him the only sane person left, Dan stepped into the moonlight, very cautiously, and stage-whispered, “Pssst. Over here. Don’t shoot. It’s me. What in the hell are you doing out here?”

  “Is that you, Deputy?” some old dude called out Dan’s knees stiffened against the fear that a shot would ring out and find any one of them at any moment. “Sergeant Akins here. We were sent out to get you. We got him. Or Miss O’Leary did.”

  Sergeant? Got who? God, he didn’t want to ask. Dan swiped a hand over his frozen jaw, huffed out his warm breath and asked, “Got who?”

  The answer was a long time coming, but finally, “Why, that there gangster hit man, of course. Who’d you think?”

  Dan’s knees buckled. He clutched at the stair railing. “Did you say Miss O’Leary got him?” It was happening again. He hadn’t been there to help the woman he loved, to save her.

  A throat was cleared at the top of the stairs. Whispering ensued. Then, “Yes. Only sort of got him, though.”

  Sort of? Then, this wasn’t over. There was still time. Dan muttered a curse not fit for print and sprinted up the stairs, or as near to sprinting as he could get, what with his legs not wanting to support his weight. At the top of the stairs now, he looked at what faced him. And his heart nearly stopped. Thousand-year-old men and women with even older guns. He’d sort this out later. For now, Joan was uppermost in his mind. “Where exactly is Miss O’Leary?”

  “Right here.” Dan jerked to his right, looked over the heads surrounding him. Loud and clear, his New England tones ringing through the crisp night air, Mr. Garrison held up his gun hand and chirped, “She’s right here, young fella. I didn’t let her out of my sight. Well, except for when she went to get her coat and Groucho attacked her.”

  Attacked—? Dan’s knees gave. “Joan!” Several hands reached for him.

  Then Joan was in his arms, her arms around his waist, her hands fisted around his coat, her cheek against his chest. “I was so scared, Dan. Are you all right?”

  Dan inhaled, mouth open, eyes closed, and felt his heart begin to beat again. Joan was alive. His world was complete. Then he grabbed her arms and pulled her back so he could look into the only face he’d ever want to see lying on the pillow next to his every morning for the rest of his life. Then, careful of his gun, he ran his other hand over her face, across her shoulder, down her arm. “Am I all right? What about you? Are you hurt anywhere? Did he hurt you?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “He just tackled me on the bed, but then the lamp attacked him, stunning him. And I got away. But then he chased me down the hall—”

  “Joan, honey, where is he now? Groucho. Where is he?” God, he didn’t want to hear this answer.

  “I don’t know.”

  Which was why he hadn’t wanted to hear her answer. “You don’t know?” He looked up, searched his posse’s suddenly sheepish-looking faces. “You don’t know, either, do you?”

  “Can’t say that we do,” Mr. Garrison informed him, scratching at his wispy-white hair under his knit ski cap. “That Mark fella came in about the time Miss O’Leary came running down and said he had that emergency generator’s diesel engine up and going. We elected not to chase the hit man down in the dark upstairs, so we came out here. Can’t really say where he is right this minute, though. Could be out here, I suppose. But Mark’s inside now going through all the fuses. Should have some light on the subject here in a minute. Ought to make a search easier.”

  “Yeah. Ought to,” Dan replied dryly. “So, why are we standing around out here in moonlight, like sitting ducks? Anybody?”

  Apparently, no one wanted to field that question. Silence rained down like icicles. Dan sighed out his breath, spared his surroundings another once-over—stupid assassin must be in Taos by now if he hasn’t opened fire yet—and stared across the upper parking lot. They needed to get out of this moonlight before—

  Blink. Siz-z-le. Wink. Fo-o-op!

  The electric lights blazed on in a show of modern technological glory. Daytime. High noon. Sunshine bright. Dan froze, his breath caught. He heard similar gasps around him, felt Joan’s hold on him tighten, and looked down at her. Her face was contorted with fear. Suddenly she wrenched away from him, pushed him backward, yelled, “Dan, look out!”

  Stumbling backward to the edge of the deck, Dan couldn’t look out, but Mr. Garrison hollered, “Holy moly! Duck, young fella!” Dan ducked, hit the snow, covered his head. In the next millisecond, antique guns were ready-aimfired. Smoky booms and pings and whizzes of gunfire airplaned over Dan’s head and thudded into the snow somewhere behind him.

  “Son of a—!” When he’d fallen to the ground, Dan’s gun had flown from his hand to slide right over the edge of the deck. “Cease fire, dammit! Cease fire! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  The firing stopped. All was quiet. Dan raised his head, looked up, saw Joan rush to him, with Garrison’s raiders close behind. Frowning, Dan wrenched over, stared at the lit-up parking lot below him and nearly passed out.

  On his feet and reaching for the sky, his automatic rifle on the ground in front of him, was…Groucho. And he hadn’t been hit, not even once. Amazing. But obviously, since he’d laid down his weapon, the posse had made their point. A grin, a chuckle, and Dan had the hit man’s panicked attention.

  The stocky guy pointed to the army behind Dan and yelled, “Make ‘em stop, lawman. Don’t let them get me. Call ‘em off.”

  Now, that was funny. And Dan laughed to prove it. “Call them off? I don’t think so. They’ll be right with you. And my advice to you is…don’t move.”

  At that moment, Joan skidded into him, slid down on her bottom right beside him and grabbed him around the neck, crying. “I thought you were dead. You scared me. Don’t you ever do that again. Don’t you know that I love you?”

  “Shh. I love you, too. I’m fine. It’s okay. I told you it would be.” Dan wrapped his arms around her, hugging her fiercely to him, burying his face in her thick, fragrant hair. She felt so good. So right.

  And for the first time, despite all the times he’d said it to her, Dan really could believe that they would be okay.

  “NO! NOT YET.” Still breathing erratically, her skin dewy from lovemaking, Joan clung to Dan’s naked shoulders, not wanting him to roll off her, not yet. She just wanted to look at him in the bright light of the next day. With the room’s curtains open, a stray morning beam shyly crossed the room to backlight him, to glint off his black hair and bask them both in a warm glow. This moment, their world was perfect.

  “What’s wrong?” Dan grinned as he settled his weight atop her in a most delicious way, and kissed the tip of her nose.

  Joan’s breath caught in a gasping response to his hips’ movement against hers. But still she managed a pout. “What’s wrong? The snow’s melting. And the plows are clearing the roads outside, even as we…speak. And the phones are back on. You just had to call work, didn’t you? How many times has it rung since? Ten, maybe? I want you to myself. Don’t you understand?”

  Dan stared down at her, his expression as serious as the charges against Groucho, who was secured downstairs in the utility closet—and guarded by…General Garrison’s retired army. “I understand more than you know. I feel as though I have died and gone to heaven, and you are my reward.”

  Joan chuckled and shoved at his arm. Dan grinned and rolled off her—despite her renewed protests. He hel
d a hand up as if taking an oath. “I’m not going anywhere again, I swear it.”

  To prove it, he scooted next to her, on his side, his elbow propped against the sheets, his head supported in his palm. With his other hand, he sketched sensuous circles on her naked belly as he explained, “Okay, A—no more calls to work. But B—you should be glad I did call, because C— Sheriff Halverson says the D.A. is dropping the charges against you. And D—”

  Joan covered his mouth with her palm. “And D—your boss said for you to place me under your protective custody as a federal witness against the assassin downstairs. I know.”

  His hazel eyes sparking mischief, Dan licked her palm, causing her to squeal and jerk it away, but he caught it and put it right back to his mouth, kissed her palm, and then held her hand in his, against his chest. “And is that not exactly where you’ve been ever since? Under me?”

  Rolling her eyes at his male smugness, Joan half-heartedly tried, but completely failed, to free her hand from his possessive grip. “Do you hear yourself? You are some piece of work, Dan—”

  A loud rap-rap-rap on the room’s locked door cut off her words and spooked them into looking that way, even as they groaned their protest. “There’s nobody here. Go away,” Dan yelled as he winked at her. No reply from the hallway. He shrugged his shoulders. “That was easy.”

  Joan nodded, but too soon. Again, the knocking. She raised her eyebrows in question. Dan frowned and cocked his head, suddenly intent, suddenly the lawman, as he eyed the door and called out, “State your business.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, a voice thick with an East Coast accent, answered, “Mr. Giovanelli would like a word with the lady, Deputy Hendricks. A quick social call, nothing more.”