by R. J. Jagger
Waterfield shook his head.
“Go tell him,” Waverly added. “Tell him exactly what I’m going to do. Tell him one more thing, too. Tell him to get that look out of his eyes.”
“What look?”
“Just tell him, he’ll know what I’m talking about.”
Waterfield shifted his feet, looked down at them and then back up.
“I guess this is it between us.”
Waverly sighed.
“I can’t give the photos back.”
Waterfield nodded.
He understood.
“We did have something though, didn’t we?”
She squeezed his hand.
“We did.”
Waterfield looked into her eyes.
Then he turned and was gone.
54
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Afternoon
River kept one eye on the ground for rattlesnakes and cactus and the other eye on Alexa Blank walking beside him. As the graveyard of rusty machinery loomed closer and closer, the woman’s eyes took on a more pronounced edge. She was picturing what it would be like out here alone at night.
“Do you get out into the country much?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“You’ll hear coyotes,” he said. “Sometimes they bark like dogs and sometimes they yelp like wolves. Most likely they’ll be far off. If they get your scent though they might come close to try to figure out what you are. They might even sound like they’re circling and getting ready to attack. They won’t, that’s the thing to remember. No matter how many of them there are or how close they get or how loud they get, in the end they’ll just go away. Do you understand?”
“I don’t think I can do this.”
River put a hand on her shoulder.
“This is the safest place in the world for you right now. Trust me.”
“I don’t like being alone.”
“You’ll be fine,” he said.
“What about mountain lions?”
“They’re rare.”
“But they might come around, right?”
“Theoretically I guess it’s possible.”
A hundred steps later they passed the first rusty hulk and then wound deeper into the guts of the mess. River pointed to a trailer.
“That’s your new home.”
The woman stared at it in disbelief and shook her head.
“No, no, no. I can’t do this.”
River grabbed her hand and kept her in pace. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
Inside the dead hulk he showed her rope, chains, food, toilet paper and all the rest.
“I set this up to keep you here,” he said. “This proves that I wasn’t joking when I said I was hired to take you. Take a good look around because this is what my replacement is going to do if he gets his hands on you.” A beat then, “Wait here.”
He stepped outside.
Thirty seconds later he came back and handed her a gun.
“I had this stashed for emergencies,” he said. “You take it, you keep it with you at all times. Use it if you have to. Do you know how to fire it?”
No.
She didn’t.
“I’ll show you before I leave,” he said. “Here’s the important thing. Stay inside this structure. You need to look like you’re being held captive.”
“Why?”
“Because, what I’m going to do is say I took you before I got the message that the contract was rescinded,” he said. “Someone might demand proof. They might make me bring them here. If that happens, I can’t have you sitting around outside getting a suntan. Do you understand?”
Yes.
She did.
“I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you,” he said. “Well, correction, it will either be me or a woman named January.”
The woman’s face contorted.
“I can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t be alone out here at night. There’s no way.”
“This is the best place.”
“I want to go to a hotel or something.”
“No, you need to be here. It needs to look like you’re being held captive.”
She shook her head.
“I can’t stay here.”
River shifted his feet and frowned.
“I hate to do this but you’re not giving me a choice.”
With that, he flung her over his shoulder, carried her to the back wall and chained her leg.
“You tricked me!”
“No I didn’t. This is for your own good.” He tossed her the gun. “To fire you flick the safety off and pull the trigger. Spend tonight figuring out who wants you taken. The sooner we figure that out, the sooner we can deal with it.”
She flicked the safety off and pointed the barrel at River’s chest.
“That wouldn’t be a good move,” he said. “I’m the only one who knows where you are.”
He turned and headed out.
The gun exploded.
A bullet passed so close to his head that his hair moved.
“You better come back tomorrow,” the woman said.
River turned and looked at her.
“I already told you I would.”
Then he left.
55
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Afternoon
Dollface.
That was the name of the bar Brittany Pratt was at in New York the night she died, according to the reporter’s notes. It was an upscale jazz club in Manhattan. “Sounds something like the Bokaray,” Wilde said as he dialed.
A gruff man’s voice answered on the third ring.
It turned out to be the manager, a guy named Marty Brown. Wilde explained that he wanted to know if a man who looked like Robert Mitchum was in the club on August 14, 1949, the night a woman named Brittany Pratt took a dive off a roof.
“You’re asking me about something that happened three years ago? That’s nuts.”
“Yeah, I know. But-”
“Ask me what I had for breakfast. That I might remember. I’d have a fifty-fifty chance.”
Wilde exhaled.
“This is important,” he said. “Let me rephrase it. Have you ever seen a man in there that looks like Robert Mitchum?”
A beat then, “Yeah.”
“You did?”
Yeah.
He did.
“When?”
“I don’t know. He shows up once a year, maybe twice. He’ll be here for two or three days in a row then he disappears.”
“You remember him, though?”
“I remember him. He gets my share of the ladies.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyone who might know his name?”
“Not offhand.”
“When was the first time you remember seeing him? Was it at least three years ago?”
Silence.
“It could have been.” A beat then, “Eggs. That’s what I had for breakfast this morning. I just remembered.”
“Eggs.”
Right.
Eggs.
“I had coffee and three Camels,” Wilde said.
“Did you remember right away or did you have to think about it?”
Wilde smiled.
“I had to think about it.”
“There you go.”
Wilde hung up, looked at Alabama and said, “Mitchum’s the killer.”
“No he’s not.”
“Yes he is and he’s been at it for at least three years. The only question is how many more has he done besides the one in New York and the one here in Denver.”
“None, that’s how many.”
Wilde tapped a Camel out of the pack, set a book of matches on fire and lit up.
He blew smoke.
When the flames got to his fingertips he shook them out and tossed them in the ashtray.
“Stay away from h
im,” he said.
Alabama hardened her face.
“You’re wrong about him.”
“This isn’t negotiable.”
“Good because I’m not negotiating.”
“I’m serious, Alabama.”
She opened the door, stepped through and said over her shoulder, “So am I.”
The door slammed.
Wilde was alone.
From the window he watched Alabama huff down the street and disappear around the corner.
He didn’t go after her.
He knew that she knew he was right.
The best thing he could give her at this moment was time alone, time to work through it.
He finished the Camel, mashed it in the ashtray then leaned back in his chair. His feet went up on the desk and his hat went over his face.
He closed his eyes.
The darkness was cool water for his brain.
Tonight he’d guard London.
Something was going to happen, something bad, Wilde could feel it in his bones. He reached into the drawer, pulled his gun out and set it on the desk.
“Rest up.”
56
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Afternoon
Mouthing off to Sean Waterfield about what Waverly was going to do was one thing, gathering the intestinal fortitude to figure out if she was bluffing or not was something else. She stayed hidden in the apartment until Su-Moon showed up. The woman got filled in and then said something unexpected. “Tom Bristol and Sean Waterfield are in cahoots.”
Waverly grunted.
“That’s not the impression I got.”
“Think about it,” Su-Moon said. “Whose side is he on now that everything’s hit the fan?” Silence. “Answer, not yours, and that’s been true from the start. Don’t trust him, don’t talk to him and don’t see him. That’s my advice.”
“Well, you’re too late. We already decided that ourselves.”
“He’ll be back with a big apology and a dozen roses,” Su-Moon said. “When he does, keep him at bay. In the meantime, I have a plan. You’re going to wander around Chinatown. I’m going to follow and see if Bristol or one of his dogs follows you.”
“One of his dogs?”
“He knows you’ll be watching for him,” Su-Moon said. “He’ll hire someone.”
Waverly tilted her head.
“How do you come up with this stuff?”
“It’s called growing up on the streets.” She patted Waverly’s knee and said, “It’s time for you to get outside and start playing rabbit.”
Waverly used the facilities.
Then she hid the envelope in a box of cereal and headed out.
Less than an hour later they had their answer. “You were being followed by two Chinese guys,” Su-Moon said.
Waverly wrinkled her forehead in shock.
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
“Two?”
Su-Moon nodded.
“I didn’t recognize either of them. They had tattoos. One of them had a long braided ponytail and was wearing a blue bandana. The other one-the muscular one-had short hair and was wearing a white muscle shirt.” A pause then, “The fact that they knew you were here goes back to my prior comments about your little lover-boy. He knew you were here, Bristol didn’t.”
Right.
Damn.
“What we need to do is get back into Bristol’s houseboat,” Su-Moon said.
Waverly looked for a trick but didn’t see it.
“You’re serious.”
Su-Moon nodded.
“Dead,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to find out who the women are in those photos, right? To see if any of them mysteriously disappeared?”
“Right.”
“To do that we need to get names. That means we need to get a hold of Bristol’s little black book. That’s either in his pocket or at his office or at his houseboat. He’ll be out hunting for you tonight. While he’s doing that we’ll pay a visit to the boat.”
“We already checked it.”
Su-Moon considered it.
“Okay fine,” she said. “We’ll do his office.”
57
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Afternoon
With his gun in the hands of Alexa Blank, River was naked. From the graveyard he headed to Mile High Guns amp; Ammo on Colfax to fix that little problem. Luckily they had a duplicate of the one he already had-a Colt 45-meaning he wouldn’t have to get familiar with a different action and kick. A copy of the Beat was sitting on the counter. River flipped through it as the clerk wrapped everything up.
“Woman Falls to Death” caught his eye.
According to the article, a woman named Charley-Anna Blackridge fell to her death from the roof of a building on Curtis Street late Friday night. Police were investigating.
He closed the paper.
His head spun.
This wasn’t good.
It wasn’t good at all.
From the store he headed to the first phone book he could find and looked up Charley-Anna Blackridge. She was listed at 1331 Clayton.
He headed over and knocked on the door.
No one answered.
The structure was a small brick bungalow with no driveway or garage, slightly elevated from the street. A twist of the knob showed the door was locked. He looked around for nosy neighbors and found none. What he was about to do was stupid. He tried to talk himself out of it but it didn’t work.
His feet took him around the side of the structure to the back. An alley ran behind the houses. That’s where the owners parked.
Two houses down a German Shepherd tugged at a chain and barked.
The noise was for River.
He’d been warned.
“Screw you.”
He tried the back door, expecting it to be locked.
It wasn’t.
The knob turned.
He opened the door a foot, shouted, “Anyone home,” and got no answer.
He looked at the neighboring houses, saw no prying eyes and stepped inside
He was in a kitchen.
A yellow refrigerator vibrated with a soft hum that rose slightly above the absolute quietness surrounding it.
On the Formica counter was a bowl of fruit-apples, oranges and bananas. Everything was fresh, purchased within the last day or so.
Dishes were piled in the sink.
A frying pan sat on a cold burner. Next to it was pizza box. River opened the top to find two slices inside. He picked one up to see if it was stiff. It wasn’t, it was flexible. He closed the top and took a deep breath.
“Anyone home?”
No one answered.
He headed upstairs.
The steps bent slightly under his weight.
The third one creaked.
58
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Afternoon
Late afternoon Wilde got an unexpected call from Michelle Day, the bartender from the El Ray Club, and pulled up an image of her wiggling on the bed with her hand between her legs. Halfway through the conversation he wrote Gina Sophia on a notepad and underlined it twice, then once more even bigger. Two heartbeats later he was bounding down the stairs two at a time with his hat in hand and the paper in his shirt pocket.
At street level he dipped the hat over his left eye and tried to figure out where he parked Blondie.
He couldn’t remember.
It wasn’t in sight, either direction.
He tapped a Camel out of a pack, lit up and walked west towards 14th. Thirty steps later Blondie’s back end came into sight, parked on the opposite side of the street, peeking out from behind a delivery truck. As soon as he saw it he remembered where he parked-right there.
The top was up, mostly to keep the riffraff from using it as a waste can for butts and
candy wrappers and RC bottles. The sky above was a tasty crystal blue. He briefly played with the thought of taking it down before deciding that he was too cramped for time.
Instead he removed the window curtains and took off, almost clipping some drunk zigzagging on a bicycle with a beer in his left hand and a battered White Sox cap up top.
He drove into the financial district, found a parking spot on 17th Street near the Brown Palace, and killed the engine. Three minutes later he walked into the offices of Jackson amp; Reacher, Denver’s second-largest law firm.
A bun-haired receptionist with a wrinkled face looked up.
“I’m here to see Gina Sophia,” Wilde said.
“Is she expecting you?”
“I doubt it.”
Two minutes later he was in the office of the law firm’s only female attorney, about twenty-eight. Her face had minimal makeup and her attire was gray and conservative. That didn’t stop Wilde from seeing the beauty underneath. She looked at him without saying anything, then closed the door and sat on the desk, dangling nylon legs.
“I’ve seen you around,” she said. “You play drums down at the Bokaray.”
Wilde nodded.
“Guilty.”
“You tried to pick me up once,” she said.
Wilde didn’t remember.
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“My loss.”
“Maybe you’ll have better luck next time,” she said.
“One can only hope.” A beat then, “How come it didn’t work the last time? Did I use a corny line or something?”
“Actually you did,” she said. “If I remember right it was something like, How do you like me so far?”
Wilde smiled.
That was one of his staples.
“That is pretty bad by the light of day.”
She nodded.
“Blame it on the alcohol,” he said. “So, what line would have worked better?”
She pondered it.
“I don’t know. I don’t pick up girls.”
Wilde shifted his feet and explained that he was a private investigator working on the murder of Charley-Anna Blackridge, who got dropped to her death from the roof of a building after leaving the El Ray Club last weekend.
