by R. J. Jagger
He frantically fumbled for consciousness.
“Someone’s in the house,” London said.
Wilde felt around for the gun in the dark but couldn’t find it.
Then he had it.
The steel was cold and heavy.
“Where?”
“Downstairs.”
Wilde focused with a pounding heart.
He heard nothing.
Suddenly a heavy silhouette bounded into the room. An arm raised and a knife stabbed down at London’s head. Wilde jerked the woman to the side with one hand and pulled the trigger with the other.
71
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Night
The dark silhouette of a man emerged from the shadows of Su-Moon’s building. He pulled a black hood over his head, hunched his shoulders against the storm and headed up the street at a brisk walk.
He was coming their way.
Waverly and Su-Moon wedged into the shadows.
Twenty seconds.
That’s how long they had, twenty seconds, then he’d be on them. He almost certainly had a gun, that or a knife, not to mention his fists. He hadn’t seen them yet but he would. He’d catch strange shapes in his peripheral vision.
He’d turn.
He’d focus.
He’d see two women.
He’d focus harder.
He’d recognize them.
“He found the photos,” Su-Moon whispered.
Waverly’s veins pounded.
It was too late to run.
It was too late to do anything.
She closed her eyes and held her breath. The storm was too loud to hear footsteps.
Any second, that’s when he’d be on them.
She pressed her back against the building and kept her body motionless.
A swift menacing figure emerged in her peripheral vision. She fought to not turn her head towards it but her muscles didn’t listen.
Her eyes focused.
Her face twisted.
A dark hood turned in her direction. Inside that hood, Waverly could see no face, only an empty blackness. Suddenly the man stopped. The hood turned directly towards her.
A beat passed.
Then a hand grabbed her neck.
Python-strong fingers wrapped around her throat, squeezing and lifting at the same time.
Her oxygen stopped.
Her lungs froze.
No air went out.
No air came in.
She let her legs fall out from under her and twisted her body wildly in an effort to break free.
It did no good.
The grip tightened even harder.
Suddenly glass shattered and Su-Moon had the broken edge of a bottle pressed against the man’s face.
“Don’t move!”
The fingers around Waverly’s neck stayed in place but loosened.
“Let her go!”
The fingers loosed even more.
Waverly punched them off and choked out stale air, then sucked in oxygen, sweet sweet oxygen. The man’s face came into focus, at first no more than a shadowy blur, then more pronounced.
It wasn’t Bristol.
It was someone she’d never seen before.
His eyes drilled into hers.
They were predator eyes.
“Search him,” Su-Moon said. “Get the envelope.”
Waverly heard the words.
She understood them.
She didn’t move though.
She couldn’t.
“Damn it woman, do it!”
72
Day Two
July 22, 1952
Tuesday Night
Get to cover, get to cover, get to cover-that was the one thought and the only thought that River allowed his brain as he hit the dirt. There was no time to worry about losing the gun. There was no time to feel the gravel cuts in his face. He rolled, took a long leap and rolled again, waiting for an explosion of gunfire followed by a bullet tearing into his body.
No shots came.
No bullets landed.
The storm pummeled down but no one killed him.
He got to a boxcar, made his way underneath to the other side and ran to January.
She wasn’t there.
“January!”
No voice called back.
“January, where are you?”
She didn’t answer.
He searched, first frantically, then methodically.
She wasn’t where he left her.
She wasn’t at the parking lot.
She wasn’t at the boxcars.
She wasn’t anywhere.
He crumpled to his knees and put his face in his hands. The storm raged down, nipping at his skin with sharp little teeth.
He didn’t care.
January was gone.
She’d been taken.
He’d let it happen.
73
Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Morning
The B-17G Flying Fortress was a bomber equipped with four Wright supercharged Radial engines and a distinctive roar that could be heard two countries away. For much of the war, Wilde sat in the rear turret of that firebird with his hands on the trigger of a 50-caliper machine gun. Most of the men he’d killed in his life got killed from there. Although they got taken from a distance, they weren’t necessarily impersonal.
Wilde would watch the flames and smoke and death spirals.
He would picture their terror.
He didn’t regret doing it, even today.
He didn’t enjoy it though.
Not then.
Not now.
Not tomorrow.
Since the war he’d taken two additional lives, both fully justified, both with his back against the wall in a him-or-them situation. The events of last night brought that number to three.
“Had it coming.”
Those were the exact words of Casey Ballard, the barrel-chested, yellow-cigar-teethed homicide detective who responded to the scene last night for all of fifteen minutes, just long enough to ask a few questions and get the body out of there.
The words were true.
The guy had it coming.
No question.
No doubt.
Still, Wilde’s heart wasn’t quite right, exactly like it wasn’t quite right when one of his 50-cal presents found their mark. It wasn’t quite right even though London was alive this morning because of him and only because of him.
He got to the office early, just as the sun crept into the sky. He took a shower, changed into fresh clothes and sucked down coffee and smoke. None of it cleared his head. He couldn’t get the dead man’s face out of his brain.
He needed to know the guy’s name.
So far, that was still a mystery.
The man carried no identification.
London didn’t recognize him.
Neither did the cop.
He was in his mid-thirties with a rough, no-nonsense face. That’s all Wilde knew about him; that and the fact that he died with a bullet in his neck.
Alabama showed up an hour later wearing a pre-caffeine face. She headed for the pot, filled up and took a noisy slurp. Then she looked at Wilde over the edge of the cup and said, “So, how’d it go last night?”
Wilde wrinkled his face.
“Not good.”
He filled her in.
She listened without interrupting then said, “The guy actually stabbed at her head with a knife?”
Wilde struck a match.
“Right.”
The smoke snaked towards the ceiling.
“Why?”
Wilde waved the flame out and tossed it in the ashtray.
“What do you mean, why?”
“He was after the map, right?”
“Right.”
“So how was he going to find it if he killed the only person who knew where it was? It doesn’t make sense. I could see him going there
to interrogate her. I could even see him killing her after she told him where it was-but before that? No, no way.” A beat then, “Something funny’s going on.”
Wilde tapped a cigarette out and lit up.
He blew smoke.
“You love complicating my life, don’t you?”
“That’s not the question.”
“Okay then, what’s the question?”
“The question is, why aren’t you on your way over to the little lawyer’s house to ask her point blank what the hell is going on?”
“Why, what do you think she knows?”
“I don’t know. What I do know, though, is that she’s keeping it from you, whatever it is.”
74
Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Morning
A throbbing pain behind Waverly’s left eye pulled her out of a fitful sleep. The room was dark and silent except for the heavy breathing of someone sleeping next to her. The crazy storm of last night had diminished to a drizzle or had disappeared altogether. She raised her hand to the ache in her head and felt dried blood. Then the memory of last night flashed.
She recalled reaching for the man to see if he had the envelope.
She recalled his sudden move.
She recalled Su-Moon being knocked violently to the ground.
She recalled a scream coming from her throat followed by a heavy punch to the side of her head.
She recalled her legs buckling.
She recalled her face hitting the ground so hard that water splashed into her nose and choked the oxygen out of her mouth.
In hindsight, the man didn’t kill them.
He took what they had-the black book and the money-but he didn’t kill them.
They made their way to Su-Moon’s and confirmed that the envelope was in fact gone. Then they washed their wounds and went to bed.
That was last night.
Now it was dawn.
All their proof was gone-the pictures, the black book, the money, everything. Bristol was too smart to try to hide it again. He’d destroy it. He’d burn it or rip it to shreds or something equivalent. It was forever gone.
Waverly flipped onto her back and closed her eyes.
Now what?
Nothing, that’s what.
It was over.
Over.
Over.
Over.
Wait-
Maybe it wasn’t.
No, it definitely wasn’t.
They had one more thing to do, namely warn the woman from Bristol’s houseboat-the one who was draped across Bristol’s lap in the red dress getting spanked.
They owed that to her.
Plus, maybe Bristol actually had feelings for her. If she left him, it might actually hurt.
He had it coming.
Suddenly Waverly had a wild thought, so wild that she shook Su-Moon awake.
“I have a plan,” she said.
Su-Moon exhaled.
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Go back to sleep.”
“I have a plan,” Waverly said.
“Good for you,” Su-Moon said. “Tell me in the morning.”
“It is morning.”
“The afternoon, then.”
75
Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Morning
At the break of dawn, barely awake before a shower or coffee, River threw on sweats and scouted the grounds for January. Last night’s storm was now a humid mess up top and sloppy puddles down below. A light breeze was breaking up remnants of gray-bellied clouds and herding them to Kansas.
January was nowhere to be found.
Her live body wasn’t there.
Her dead body wasn’t either.
The latter brought enough relief to let him set out on a run, almost a sprint, letting his stride lengthen and his lungs dig. A mile clicked off, then another. The sky softened and an eerie mist lifted off the ground.
It was possible that January had left of her own volition.
Maybe she spotted the guy but couldn’t call out.
Maybe the guy spotted River and called it off.
Maybe January followed him.
Maybe she’d show up any minute and tell him where to find the guy.
The run turned into six or seven miles, all Tarzan style. Back home, everything was the same.
January wasn’t there.
No notes were on the door.
He took a shower.
As he was drying off, the phone rang and a deep, menacing voice came through. “Listen carefully asshole, because what you do in the next thirty seconds is going to determine whether your tattooed little friend lives or dies. Do you understand?”
River exhaled.
“Let me talk to her.”
“She’s alive, don’t worry about it,” the man said. “Now, where is Alexa Blank?”
River pulled up an image of the woman chained in the graveyard. She should still be there, alive and well, unless something went wrong.
He needed time.
“I’ll take you to her,” he said.
A beat.
“Just tell me where she is and then stay put. After I have her, I’ll release your little friend. You have my word. All I want is a fair exchange, nothing more.”
River shook his head.
“Drive south out of town on Santa Fe, about twenty or twenty-five miles,” he said. “You’ll see my car at the side of the road. Be sure January’s with you. Be smart and we’ll both get what we want. Be stupid and I’ll rip your heart out and throw it to the maggots. Go now. I’ll be waiting.”
He slammed the receiver down.
His blood raced.
Someone was going to die.
Ten seconds later the phone rang. River watched it without answering as he threw on clothes, then grabbed his gun and headed for the car with his hair dripping. Halfway there he turned back long enough to get an eight-inch serrated knife from the top dresser drawer.
The knife and gun got thrown on the seat next to him.
Then he squealed out.
The traffic was thick.
Everyone in the universe was in his way.
The minute he passed someone, some other idiot popped up in front.
Calm down.
Calm down.
Calm down.
That’s what his brain said, Calm down.
Calm down and be smarter than him.
Calm down and come up with a plan.
Calm down and kill the little prick.
Traffic loosened.
River actually got some breathing room and opened it up. Then a car at a crossroad turned right in front of him. The jerk could have waited-should have waited-but was just one more of those selfish bastards who thought they owned the road.
River got on his tail and honked his horn.
The guy looked in his rearview mirror.
His hand came up.
His middle finger came up.
The finger waved back and forth.
River put every muscle of his leg into the accelerator and swung violently into the other lane to get alongside.
The massive grill of an oncoming 18-wheeler suddenly appeared from out of nowhere directly in front of him.
Shit!
He slammed on the brakes.
The rear wheels locked and went into a fishtail.
76
Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Morning
Wilde went to the law firm to find that London hadn’t shown up for work, to the puzzlement of the receptionist. Wilde found her at home, packing a suitcase. Her face was stressed. Her eyes wouldn’t look into his for more than a heartbeat.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
“It’s over, Wilde.”
“What’s over?”
“Everything.”
He lit a cigarette, blew smoke and said, “Last night was clo
se, I’ll admit. You’re alive though.”
“This time,” she said.
He tilted his head.
“So you’re going on the run?”
She nodded.
“As far and as fast as my legs will take me.” She looked into his eyes, then away. “You can come with me if you want.”
The words rolled through Wilde’s brain with the force of a freight train. He pulled up the image of them getting into her car, heading down the road and never looking back.
“That’s quite a statement,” he said.
She walked over, put her arms around him and laid her head on his chest.
Her body trembled.
“I have some money saved up,” she said. “We’ll go down to Mexico and find the treasure. I’ll cut you in. We’ll be fifty-fifty partners.”
Wilde pictured it.
The picture was intoxicating.
Secret would be history, but London was every bit her equal. The only reason he hadn’t fallen for London yet is because he’d let Secret in first.
He’d made no commitments to Secret.
If he left, it wouldn’t be a violation.
There was chemistry with London.
He couldn’t deny it.
It was the same as with Secret, maybe even more so.
Finding the treasure and getting it out of Mexico would be dangerous, in fact damn near impossible. In all probability they’d be caught and end up in rat-infested prison cells, either that or dead. But if they actually pulled it off, if they actually got away with it, the math would be fun.
“Come with me,” London said. “Say you will. After we get the treasure we’ll buy an island and spend the rest of our lives on the beach.” A beat then, “Or first we can travel. I want to go to Hong Kong.” She pulled her stomach tighter to his and looked into his eyes. “How about you, Wilde? Have you ever wanted to go to Hong Kong?”
He grinned.
“I never really thought about it.”
“If we get the treasure, that’s what our lives will be,” she said, “thinking about things we never thought about before. Not just thinking about them, either-actually doing them. We’ll make the world ours. Everyone else will just be a trespasser.”
