Cut and Run

by Ridley Pearson

  He then heard a series of quick footfalls and looked in time to see the intruder hurry off the bus.

  Landing out on the parking lot’s pavement, the uniformed man’s voice shouted, “Someone call for help!”

  Larson came to his knees. His head swooned. He looked around for his gun through blurry eyes.

  Hampton saw the slender state trooper throw his hands in the air as he called for help. He was bleeding. The man sank to his knees in front of the door to the bus.

  Hampton held his weapon extended and stepped out from behind the tractor-trailer. “Hands behind your head,” he called out, not feeling great holding a gun on a man in uniform.

  As the trooper sat up, Hampton saw a yellow-white muzzle flash. He took the first round in the thigh, driven back by the impact and losing his balance. He sprawled back onto the hot blacktop, rocking his head to the right and watching the suspect run off. He fired two rounds from his side.

  As Larson dragged himself toward the front of the bus, he tried to lock down anything he remembered about the intruder: thin and wiry; strong; the uniform; a scar. He focused on the scar. The lines of pink, beaded skin crossed, forming a stylized infinity sign on the inside of his forearm. Larson’s vision filled with a purple fringe, the dark, throbbing color coming at him from all sides. His shoulder was cut badly. Sticky down to his waist. He felt faint. Sounds echoed. Again he smelled the tangy air, laced with black powder and sulfur. Bitter with blood. His stomach retched. He felt as if he were being pushed and held underwater-dark water-by a strong, determined hand. He resisted, but felt himself going. Deeper.

  His last conscious thought was more of a vision: not an infinity sign at all, but two triangles facing inward, touching, point-to-point.

  Like a bow tie.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE PRESENT

  Of all things, Larson thought he recognized her laugh. Here, where he least expected it. It carried like a shot, well past his ears and spilling down into the audience where it ran into a waterfall of others-though none exactly like it-and broke to pieces before the footlights and spots that made the dust in the air look like snow. It might as well have lodged in his chest, the way it stole his breath.

  He’d started the day perfectly, the way he wished he could start every day, busting his body into a sweat while pulling on twin sticks of composite carbon painted on the scoop in a diagonal of rich burgundy and black, the owner’s college colors no doubt, driving the borrowed scull through swirls of no-see-ums and gnats so thick he clenched his teeth to filter them out, the occasional dragonfly darting swiftly alongside as if challenging him to a race. He’d been up before the birds, and would be done-put away and showered, Creve Coeur Lake behind him-before the rush-hour traffic made the city’s famous arch stand still.

  He’d taken in the play on a whim, calling the box office to see if there were any singles available, a guilty pleasure he wouldn’t have told anyone about if he hadn’t engaged the receptionist, Lokisha, in a discussion of Shakespeare on the way out the door.

  The fact was that in over five years of secretly searching for Hope at Shakespeare festivals and performances-in places as far away as Ashland, Oregon, and Cedar City, Utah-he’d become passionate about the Bard himself: the violence, the romance, the lies and deceptions, the cunning, the manipulation, the symmetry of the plays. It had never occurred to him that he might find her here in his own backyard. The belief in coincidence had been trained out of Larson in the way a dog could be made to lie by the dinner table and not look up to beg.

  He’d felt his BlackBerry purr silently at his side several times over the past ten minutes, but it was after hours and it did that for any incoming e-mail, spam or legitimate, and he wasn’t about to bother the people sitting next to him by lighting up a pale blue electronic screen in his lap while they tried to remain firmly in the sixteenth century. The intermission was fast approaching. He’d check e-mail and messages then.

  This city was the last place-the absolute last place-he might have expected to hear her laugh: a combination of wild monkey and a Slinky going down a set of stairs. Even almost six years later he would have known her musical cackle anywhere. But St. Louis, in the Fox Theatre? Not on your life. Not on hers, either.

  But it was Shakespeare, which he knew to be in her blood. If he were to find her, it would be at a performance like this-and so a part of him was tempted, even convinced, that he’d finally found her.

  The balcony. He imagined her selecting a seat that offered the strategic advantage of elevation, because that was just the kind of thing he’d taught her.

  Onstage, Benedick, having dived into a horse trough, addressed the audience, his black leather riding pants and billowing shirtsleeves leaking water. Another volley of laughter rippled through the crowd, and there it was again. Larson felt like a birder identifying a particular species solely by its song.

  He was no longer laughing along with the others. Instead, driven by curiosity, he was turned and straining to look up into the balcony.

  Being too large for the closely crowded seats, his temperature spiked and his skin prickled. Or was that the possibility running through him? He represented Hope’s past, her former self. Would she want that as badly as he did? Had she somehow found out about his transfer? Through all his training, coincidence nipped at his heels. Baffled, unsure what to do, he stayed in his seat.

  The Fox Theatre, a renovated throwback to a bygone era, dwarfed its audience. Its combination of art deco, gilded Asian, quasi-Egyptian splendor, with anachronistic icons, like a twenty-foot-tall cross-legged Buddha, lit in a garish purple light, looked intentionally overwhelming. Despite the vastness of the hall, Larson felt impossible to miss. At well over six feet, and with shoulders that impeded both the theater-goers on either side of him, he would stick out if he stood. It seemed doubtful she might spot him, might recognize him from the back at such a distance, but he hoped she would. He glanced around once more, amused and concerned, intrigued and feeling foolish, his muscles tense. His shoulder ached, as it had ached for the past six years every time a storm drew near. He’d carried the same badge all these years, though now his credentials wallet showed a different title, Larson having been reassigned, along with Hampton and Stubblefield, to the Marshals Service’s elite Fugitive Apprehension Task Force. Part bounty hunter, part bloodhound, part con man and actor, FATF marshals pursued escaped convicts and wanted felons in an effort to return them to their predetermined incarceration.

  If she spotted him before he spotted her, what would come of it? Larson wondered. Would she fight through the crowd to be in his arms? Would she run? Again he put his own training onto her, deciding for her that she’d selected an aisle seat near an exit. She’d probably make for that exit rather than risk running into him.

  He’d lost all track of the play. The audience erupted in laughter, and he’d missed the joke. He continued to imagine various ways this could possibly be her, but none made sense. Not here. Not St. Louis. Not unless she, too, were looking for him.

  Six years. It seemed alternately to him like both a matter of days and a lifetime. What would he say to her? Her to him? Would she even care?

  Larson wiped his damp palms on the thighs of his khakis. Again, a wave of laughter washed over the crowd. But this time, something different: her distinctive laugh was no longer a part of it. Larson turned again in his seat, scanning various exits. No sign of Hope, but slightly behind him, a pair of men in dark suits stood with an usher, both dutifully scanning the crowd.

  In an audience of twenty-five hundred, there were plenty of men wearing suits-but none quite like these two. Conservative haircuts, thick builds. The big guy looked all too familiar. Federal agents, like himself. Though not like him at all. FBI maybe, or ATF, or even Missouri boys, working for the governor. A WITSEC deputy? The federal witness security and protection service was now a separate entity, but had recently been part of the Marshals Service.

  Larson knew many of those guys, but not all. T
hese two, WITSEC? He doubted it.

  He might have thought they were looking for Hope, but the big one looked right at him and locked on. This man somehow knew the row, the seat-he knew where to find Larson. Cocking his head, the agent directed Larson to meet up with them. Larson held off acknowledging while he thought long and hard about how to play this, the earlier buzzing of his BlackBerry now more persistent in his memory.

  As with Hope’s laugh, two deputy marshals, or agents, materializing at the Fox was anything but coincidence.

  He felt tempted to check the BlackBerry but didn’t want to leave his head down that long. The big guy’s posture and the way he bit his lower lip revealed a gnawing anxiety, a nagging unrest. This wasn’t a social call.

  A nearby woman wore too much perfume. He’d been struggling with it through the performance, driven to distraction. Only now did he find it nauseating.

  The audience laughed uproariously.

  Larson chanced a last strained look toward the balcony, then gave it up.

  Hope didn’t miss anything. Whether she’d seen Larson or not, she’d likely have spotted the suits by now, and therefore was already well on her way to gone.

  Intermission arrived with a wave of crushing applause. The stage fell dark. By the time the houselights came up, Larson had already slipped past four sets of knees, avoided a handbag, and laid his big hand on a stranger’s shoulder.

  Hope would now head in the opposite direction from the two agents; she would quickly put as much distance between herself and the theater as possible. Seek cover. Avoid public space. She would never look back and would not hurry, no matter how desperate she believed her situation. Her walk would be controlled, yet deceptively swift, her demeanor casual though determined. She would never return to the theater again, no matter what the show. If he were to catch her, he would have to run; and if he ran, the two bloodhounds were sure to follow; and if they followed, and if he led them to her, then he’d prove himself a traitor to her.

  Stuck. Larson tested the agents’ purpose by mixing himself into the throng and making for the opposite exit. But his head traveled a full head above most, like a parade float.

  As expected, the two immediately followed, rudely pushing open a route to attempt to intersect Larson’s path. Larson got caught in a snag of people as a wheelchair blocked the aisle. He cut through a now-empty row, working away from the men. Copies of Playbill littered the floor. He joined the right flank and pressed on toward an interior lobby, where people mingled looking lost.

  Out of habit, he tested his skills, scanning the crowd for any woman wearing a headscarf or a hat, any woman making quickly for the main lobby and the doors beyond. He didn’t spot her, and all the better. He had no desire to get her tangled up with these two.

  Someone shouted and he knew it was for him. Adrenaline pricked his nerves. His stomach turned with the mixture of human sweat, cologne, and perfume. He pushed on to his left, his swollen bladder taking him down a long, wide set of elegant stairs as he joined a phalanx of men eager for urinals. He heard his name called out and cringed. It reminded him, not favorably, of being singled out by a coach, or the school principal.

  He hazarded a look: The big one with the leather face and edgy disposition was following him, the younger one immediately on his heels.

  He stopped on the stairs, and the current of impatient men streamed around him. He addressed his two pursuers as they drew closer, the face of the more senior of them revealing his surprise that Larson would allow himself to be caught.

  “Gimme a minute of privacy,” Larson said as he continued down, determined to appear unruffled.

  Reaching the basement level, he entered a cavernous anteroom that held only a mirror, a small wooden table, and twin tapestry chairs that looked to be from a museum. Beyond this anteroom was the actual bathroom, about the size of a soccer field. Sinks straight ahead. To his left, a room of stalls; to his right a roomful of old porcelain urinals-there must have been thirty or forty of them. Built into the wall and floor, and so obviously antiques, the urinals looked surprisingly beautiful to him.

  Larson took his place in line and emptied his bladder. One of the great pleasures in life.

  “We need to talk.” The same low voice, now directly behind him. The big one had followed him down. Junior Mint was no doubt standing sentry at the top of the stairs, ensuring that Larson didn’t slip out.

  “And I need to pee,” Larson said, not looking back, but the magic of the moment spoiled.

  A hand fell firmly onto his shoulder.

  “Fuck off!” Larson shrugged and wrenched himself forward, dislodging the grip. Thankfully the man stepped back and let him finish. As he washed his hands he saw two images of the big pain in the ass in the cracked mirror.

  “That was unnecessary,” Larson cautioned. He wanted to establish some rules.

  The agent said, “We were told you could be slippery. To respect that in you. That’s why the hardball.”

  The guy at the next sink over stopped washing and eavesdropped on them.

  “You trying to butter me up?” Larson asked. “You’ve got a funny way of doing that.”

  “I’m trying to get a message to you.”

  Larson had to stare down the man at the adjacent sink to get him to leave.

  “So, deliver it.”

  “Here?”

  Larson turned and faced the man, Larson taller by several inches. “Here.”

  Seen close up, this other guy’s face carried an unintentional intensity-something, somewhere, was very, very wrong.

  The man cupped his hand and leaned in toward Larson, who did nothing to block him, as his own hands were now engaged with a paper towel. The guy’s breath felt warm against Larson’s neck, causing a shiver as he said, “I was told to tell you that we’ve lost Uncle Leo.”

  Larson dumped the towel into the bin and heard himself mumble, “Oh, shit.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Larson had picked up people from private jets before: a supervisor; some WITSEC brass; a witness or two came to mind. But he’d never flown in a private jet himself, so although the cause was a man’s disappearance, and the resulting tension inside the aircraft nearly palpable, he got a kick out of it nonetheless. Leather seats the size of first class held his large frame comfortably. Wood trim, polished like the dash of a Jaguar, surrounded a wall-mounted flat-panel TV that currently displayed their flight route over ground but probably could have handled a video, had either of the agents been interested in some entertainment. There was even an air phone that none of them had permission to use. Heady stuff, despite the lack of any offer of food or drink, beyond bottled water, and the general mood of its inhabitants, both of whom bordered on morose.

  Larson wished his parents had been alive to hear about this, but he’d lost them both to twentieth-century plagues: his father to smoking, his mother to drink. He’d had a sister once, but she’d gotten lost in her high school years and had run away, never to be heard from again. He’d never used his tracking skills to hunt her down, and he wondered if someday he might.

  The explanation for him taking this flight had been cryptic at best-Uncle Leo had gone missing. The wherefore and how had yet to reach him. But the promise of a nearly instant return flight once there, also on the private jet, had convinced him not to challenge this assignment. Few people could summon a government jet at a moment’s notice; fewer still to transport his rank of deputy marshal. He was considered little more than a glorified bounty hunter, so why the special treatment? He’d decided to ride this one out, despite his tendency to question orders and cause headaches for his superiors, because he suspected that Scott Rotem, his immediate superior and boss, was behind the order. Neither of his companions would confirm this.

  He thought once more of the woman’s laugh in the Fox, and the state of panic in him that it had caused. He laughed out loud at his flight of fancy, then covered his mouth with his hand and tried to wipe the grin off his face: Of all the unhealthy indulgen
ces. Why her? Why now?

  The agents looked at him like he was supposed to share the joke. Both of his keepers carried Justice Department credentials. The older one with the pained eyes answered to one of those names that rang familiar to Larson: Wilcox. Larson knew a couple different guys named Wilcox, one a running coach at a private college, the other a former FATF deputy said to be one of the most reliable and most entertaining stakeout partners out there. This guy was neither of them and, whereas Larson felt a little tired, Wilcox saw eleven o’clock pass still rigidly upright and wide awake in his padded seat, like he had a broomstick up his ass. He typed aggressively, as if the laptop had pissed him off in some way, or else the report he was generating was his last will and testament.

  “What about Hampton and Stubblefield?” Larson asked suddenly. Hampton and Stubblefield had survived their wounds. The two had transferred with him and were members of his FATF squad. Larson depended upon them. “Have they been called?”

  Wilcox pursed his lips and returned to his typing. “You find out when we get there.”

  Larson stared out the window, the night’s black canvas mixing with his own reflection of deep set green eyes, lips set in a constant smirk, and skin that needed a shave. Below, city lights shimmered, small and clustered. The world looked so simple from above.

  Hope’s offer, six years earlier, had been straightforward enough itself. The bus incident, the failed attempt on her life, had forced the Marshals Service to request her immediate placement into WITSEC, an unusual but not unheard-of pretrial tactic.

  There had been nothing romantic or sentimental in Hope’s proposal perhaps because, like him, she feared they were being watched. There was never time for just the two of them. While Larson appeared at briefings covering the bus incident, Hope had been placed into a safe house-the Orchard House, an old farmhouse out of town-and guarded by Larson’s team, limiting Larson’s contact with her. The days ticked down toward a full “identity” wash, after which Hope Stevens would cease to exist, even for Larson.