by Ray Hoy
There was an agonized gurgling sound from the fallen animal, as blood flowed from the gaping hole where his throat had been.
Ripper stood over the dying shepherd, a huge chunk of raw meat hanging from his jaws. Blood dripped from his lips which were still curled back over those great white teeth. Then Ripper turned his head and stared at the handler, who stood there with an ashen face, his mouth open. The man backed away.
I watched Ripper walk slowly to where Red Sleeves stood. With marvelous arrogance, my little buddy dropped the shepherd’s bloody throat on the Indian’s Gucci loafers.
“Well, with that out of the way, let’s get on with it,” I said.
Red Sleeves could not hide his disgust. He simply gestured toward the Mercedes and turned and walked away. I glanced at Ripper, and forgave him for pissing on my car.
I opened the back door of the Mercedes and climbed into the cool interior. Varchetta greeted me with a cold stare. “You’re a real pain in the ass, Frost.”
“I try.”
“What we have here is a standoff.”
“Appears so.”
“Let’s cut the bullshit and get to the bottom line. I’ve got your woman and you’ve got Giovanni’s daughter and the ledgers. He’s coming in on a flight tomorrow afternoon—but I’m sure you’re aware of that, you bastard. He’s going to be expecting to see Tina waiting for him with open arms. If she isn’t there to meet him, my ass is raw meat . . . so let’s trade.”
“Red Sleeves doesn’t know about the ledgers, does he.”
Varchetta’s face gave him away. “No, of course not, and you know he doesn’t, you sonofabitch.”
I smiled. “I moved here specifically to make you pay for what you did to Felicia Martinez. But I never took Susan into consideration. I have no choice but to make this swap with you. But it will be a clean swap, in plain view, with a lot of people around.”
Varchetta spread his open palms in a gesture of agreement. “Fine, fine, whatever. Where and when?”
“When’s Giovanni’s plane due in tomorrow?” I said.
“Four-thirty.”
“Then we’ll make the swap at Hoover Dam at three-thirty.”
“Jesus Christ! That’s cutting it kind of close!”
“I’ll park on the Arizona side with Tina and the ledgers. You park on the Nevada side, with Susan. We’ll meet in the middle of the span and make the swap.”
“You’ve seen too many movies, Frost.”
“One more thing,” I said. “If she’s harmed in any way, I’ll kill you—and that’s a promise.” I stared at him for a moment, then got out and shut the door behind me.
The Indian leaned against the Jag, not a drop of sweat on him, his arms folded casually across his chest. As I walked up to him he said, “Do we have a deal?”
“We do.” Ripper piled in when I opened the door. I turned and looked at Red Sleeves for a moment. “Unharmed, you understand?” He returned my gaze, an amused smile on his face. I got into the Jag and pulled away.
Fifteen minutes later I pulled up in front of the theater. I went into the cool darkness and found her munching on popcorn. She jumped when I touched her arm. She followed me into the late afternoon heat. “Well, what happened?”
“We arranged for a trade.”
“A trade for what?”
“You and the ledgers for Susan,” I said.
Her eyes went wide. “Well, you just made a trade you can’t keep, asshole!”
“Get in.”
“I damn well won’t get in!”
I opened her door and shoved her into the car. While she and Ripper scrambled for space, I shut the door, walked around the long hood, and got in behind the wheel.
“I am not going back to Varchetta!”
“That’s right, you’re not,” I said. You’re going back to your father. He’s due back from Europe tomorrow on a four-thirty flight.”
She settled down a bit and looked at me. “Then I’m still staying with you tonight?”
“Yes, you are.” I turned right on Boulder Highway and headed for Boulder City.
“Where are we going?” she said.
“I’ve got to pick up the ledgers.”
“Where are they?”
I ignored her question and glanced at my watch. It was 7:00 p.m. “We’ll grab a motel somewhere and stay the night,” I said.
“How far is it?” she said.
“Fifty or sixty miles.”
“This big-ass dog has to sit on my lap for sixty miles?”
“I’ll stop now and then and give both of you a break.” I ran the Jag up to an effortless hundred miles per hour.
“You always drive this fast?” she said.
I ignored her.
After a while she said, “Are you in love with her?”
It took me a few moments to answer. “I’m not sure.”
“That means you are,” she said.
I started to reply, then decided to simply shut my mouth. God this woman is irritating!
“Jesus Christ, you don’t even know you’re in love with her! Men are so damn stupid,” she said. Out of the corner of my eye I caught her glancing down at her chest. “She doesn’t have any more than I’ve got. No woman has more than I’ve got.”
“Tina, there’s more to a woman than big breasts! You can’t expect every man to fall in love with you just because you’ve gone out of your way to give Mother Nature’s handiwork a big boost.”
She pouted. We rode on in silence for a while before I finally said, “Tell me about your father.”
“What’s to tell?”
“I know a lot about him as a man. I’m talking about him as your father.”
“He’s a great father,” she said. Then, after a few moments of heavy silence, she said, “He’s a lousy father.”
I glanced at her. “Why?”
“He killed my mother.”
“Killed her?”
“He didn’t actually kill her with his own hands, but . . . he killed her slowly, over the years.”
“How?”
“He just did,” she said. Then she fell silent.
“How long ago did she die?”
“Three years, maybe it’s four now . . . I don’t remember, exactly.”
“Was she ill?” I persisted.
“Yes . . . No!”
“Yes? No? Was she or wasn’t she?”
The tone of my voice infuriated her, which is what I intended. She looked at me. “No, you bastard, she wasn’t physically ill! Yes, she had . . . emotional problems!”
“What kind of emotional problems?”
“Jesus, what are you, a damn shrink or something?”
“How’d she die?”
“Frost, you bastard!” She looked at me for a long time, hatred in her eyes. “A razor blade,” she finally said. “A razor blade, run enthusiastically up and down her wrists, many, many times. Up and down, not across her wrists, you understand? People who cut themselves up and down are serious, you know? The paramedics can’t stop the bleeding when they’re cut like that.” Her eyes filled with tears. Her lower lip quivered for a moment before she clamped her jaw shut. “God, I hate you!”
I stared ahead through the windshield. Well that was like kicking a puppy. You should be so damn proud of yourself, Frost.
Chapter 11
I pulled into what appeared to be a clean little motel on the outskirts of Searchlight. There were only two cars in front of the forty or so units. I glanced at my watch: 8:30 p.m.
“Where are we?” Tina said, as she stretched and knuckled her eyes.
“Searchlight.”
“Finally!” She opened her door. Ripper leaped out, eliciting a grunt from her as the big dog launched off her lap. She got out and painfully stretched.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “Stay with Ripper.”
She looked around. “Who’s gonna get me here?” she said. “Does anyone even live in this crummy town?”
A bell over the door tinkle
d as I walked in. A little old fossil behind a huge desk looked up from his book and stared at me over steel-rimmed glasses that rested on his nose.
“Howdy,” I said, figuring I should try to talk his language. I smiled pleasantly, but he just sat there and stared at me with watery blue eyes. “I’d like a room with two beds, please.”
He stood, put the palm of one hand in the small of his back, and stretched. He groaned, then stared beyond me at the parking lot. I followed his gaze.
Tina stood on her tiptoes in the red neon light of the overhead motel sign, fingertips pointing skyward, stretching fiercely, her huge breasts jutting up and out. I doubt if the old boy had ever seen anything like that.
“Hello?” I said.
He looked at me as if seeing me for the first time, then said, “Two beds?”
I literally spelled it out: “Two . . . beds.”
“We don’t allow dogs here,” the old man said.
“Most men think she’s pretty good looking.”
He stared at me for a few moments, without comprehension. Then he grinned, showing the worst false teeth I’ve ever seen in anyone’s mouth. “Hey, that’s pretty good,” he said with a cackle. He mused over my small joke for a few moments longer, then said seriously, “But I’m talking about the dog.”
“That’s not a dog.” I slid a twenty dollar bill across the counter. “Take another look . . . that’s an ugly kid.”
He peered past me, his old face growing sly as he pocketed the twenty. “Why so it is,” he said. “Anyway, I’ll still have to charge you extra for the third ‘person’ in the room. It’s the busy time of the year, you understand.”
“Busy . . . yeah, I can see that.”
The grin faded from his face. He frowned, then slid the register across the desk toward me. “Sign there. That’ll be sixty-eight dollars.”
He reached around behind him and fished a key off a board which contained about thirty or so other keys, then handed it to me. “Room twenty-two,” he said.
I walked out of the motel office. “Number twenty-two,” I said to Tina. She shuffled off in that direction while I got into the car and drove to my parking space.
We walked into the room and looked around. Appearances can be deceiving. This place looked nice on the outside; it was a dump on the inside.
“What a lovely place,” she said.
“I knew you’d handle it well.”
She looked up at me. “You’re a real smart-ass, you know that, Frost? And by the way, I’m starved.”
“We’ll see if we can find a good place to get a steak. How’s that sound?”
“Don’t try to be nice, Frost. It’s too late for that!”
I laughed. “The trip was that bad, huh?”
“Not just the trip, the whole stinking thing.”
I walked out to the car while she went into the bathroom. I broke out my little emergency kit, which consists of all the standard toiletry articles. I also dug out some dog food, and went back inside to feed Ripper.
A few minutes later we walked out of the motel room. I opened the passenger door and Tina squeezed past me—and up against me at the same time—and sat down in the bucket seat. As I pushed her door shut, she gave me a puzzled look. “Do you always hold doors open for women?”
“Always.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I’m an old-fashioned kinda guy.”
“Bet the women’s libbers hate your guts.”
“Screw ’em,” I said. She stared at me for a moment, then realized I was joking. Her infectious laugh got me started laughing, too. Maybe it was a release from the tension of the past few days. Whatever, it was a welcome change of mood.
I managed to find a good restaurant, and we spent an hour and a half over excellent prime rib, baked potato, and salad. Afterward we lingered over coffee. Finally she said, with a gleam in her eye, “Let’s go back to the motel room.”
I groaned. I had spent the entire time during dinner trying to strike up an intelligent conversation, but it was no use, it just wasn’t her bag. She was strictly into sensory pleasures, avoiding, almost with a vengeance, the hard realities of the real world.
I took a long look at this woman-child. Well, perhaps that’s the only world in which she can survive. She was totally preoccupied with the shape of her body, caring not at all about the shape the world was in. Her attention was completely directed inward, and a person like that makes for miserable company.
After I realized how futile it was, I lapsed into meaningless conversation, but Susan kept drifting into my mind. I wondered how she was and where she was. I was sitting here, well-fed and comfortable, while somewhere she might be hungry and miserable—and certainly afraid.
Chapter 12
Susan paced around the small cabin, the only sound in the room that of her bare feet padding across the wooden floor. Even if she just knew what time it was, she’d feel better, she thought. And though she knew she was probably the only human within miles, she wished that the door had a lock.
The fact that the cabin sat inside the enclosed rock grotto gave her a strange, queasy feeling.
She sat down for perhaps the tenth time and opened a book, which she had selected at random from the small library. After a few minutes of reading the same sentence over and over, she snapped the book shut and tossed it across the room. “Dammit!” she said. In exasperation, she stood again. If only she knew what was happening.
Once again the thought of striking out across the desert at first light entered her mind. She had turned the cabin upside down, searching for anything resembling protection for her naked body. But there was nothing.
The black feeling of despair was slowly being crowded out by a new feeling of anger and determination. “I’ve cried enough, and by God, I’m not going to cry any more,” she said softly. She made up her mind that when Red Sleeves returned, she would somehow find a way to overcome him.
She smiled at the thought. The prospects of that happening seemed absurd. The Indian was awesome. Perhaps even Jack Frost could not handle this man, and here she was, a naked, defenseless woman with nothing but a vicious temper.
She opened the door to the cabin and walked out on the landing. It was inky black inside the grotto, but as she glanced toward the opening at the far end of the narrow channel that led to the lake, she realized that the water in the channel was bathed in light from some outside source. She quickly realized that it was not light from an incoming boat, but the full moon reflecting off the surface of the lake.
Susan fought back the urge to cry. Instead, she picked her way down the steps in the darkness, and groped her way around the edge of the lagoon.
When she got to the mouth of the tunnel, she felt her way along the narrow rock walkway that bordered the channel. Finally, to her immense relief, she emerged from the tunnel and stood on the edge of Lake Mead. The surface of the lake shimmered under an enormous full moon.
She searched the star-studded night sky, looking in vain for any trace of lights from an airplane. Finally she gave up in despair. Red Sleeves had told her that no known air routes crossed this part of the lake. He had not lied. She had no idea what time of night it was, but it seemed very late. Still, the air over the lake was stifling hot.
Cautiously she sat down on the rock shelf. Supporting herself with her hands, she lifted herself slightly, arched her back, and lowered her legs into the water, toes pointing downward as she tried to determine the depth of the water. She could not touch bottom. Somehow she knew that it was very deep. That thought triggered a strange, primitive fear in her stomach.
She took a breath and pushed off, allowing herself to sink down into the lake until her descent was stopped by her body’s natural buoyancy. After what seemed an eternity, she finally rose to the surface. She blew the air out of her lungs and took in a breath of fresh air. Then she rolled over on her back and floated, staring up at the stars.
If it hadn’t been for the bright moon overhead, the black wa
ter beneath her would have filled her with visions of large, dangerous creatures, even though this was a fresh water lake. Perhaps Jaws had permanently put the fear into her, too, as it had so many other swimmers.
But the alternative was to go back to the cabin. That thought caused her to roll over and strike out away from shore. She swam straight out into the lake for perhaps a minute, then rolled over on her back once again and floated, staring up at the moon.
“Come find me, Jack Frost,” she said softly. “Please come find me.”
Chapter 13
I unlocked the door to our motel room, then stood aside as Tina walked past me into the room. Ripper glowered at me as I entered.
“Oh knock it off,” I said to him.
“Do you always have conversations with him? He’s a dog, you know.”
I thought about that for a moment, then decided to ignore her statement. I locked the door behind me, then turned on the TV. “Go ahead and shower, if you want,” I said to Tina. “I’ll take mine when you’re done.”
“Why don’t we take a shower together?”
“I like my idea better.”
She shrugged. “Okay.” She reached down, and in one smooth motion pulled the tee shirt up over her head and popped the fastener on her bikini top. She stood there, smiling at me, as she dropped both items to the floor. Finally, she shrugged out of her jeans and peeled off her bikini panties.
“You’re just too subtle for me, Tina.”
Her eyes clouded with anger. She whirled and walked toward the bathroom, her fanny twitching from side to side. “God, you’re a damn drag!” she said over her shoulder.
She turned on the shower, and returned to the room almost immediately. I sat in a chair staring at the television, trying to ignore all of that swinging, bobbing, swaying female flesh heading toward me.
