by R. J. Jagger
The woman studied him.
Then she told him.
Wilde stood up.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Do you want some advice?”
“No.”
“Too bad because here it is,” Lace said. “If you screw with him, you better be prepared because he’ll rip your head off and piss in the hole.”
“My head doesn’t come off that easy.”
Lace blew smoke.
“You might be surprised.”
Twenty minutes later Wilde skidded Blondie to a stop in dusty gravel at the far end of the BNSF railroad yard. He pulled his gun out of the glove box, stepped out and shouted, “Tarzan, you got company.”
No one answered.
Nothing moved.
There were several boxcars converted to living quarters and some kind of tent canopy stretched between them. At the north end of it all was a car, a battered car that looked like it had been hit a hundred times by a freight train.
Wilde felt the hood.
It was cold.
“Tarzan, come out, come out, wherever you are.”
The noise of colliding couplers and straining steel came from up the tracks. Other than that, though, silence ruled the world.
Alexa Blank was here somewhere.
It was the perfect place.
Wilde cocked the trigger and headed for the closest boxcar with a pounding heart.
104
Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Night
The bathroom window dumped Waverly and the spankee into a dark alley behind the Flamingo, which they took east towards traffic. Halfway there, Waverly grabbed the blond by the arm, yanked her to a stop and said, “Follow me.” She headed up a dark fire escape at the backside of a building. At the first landing she looked back.
The blond wasn’t following.
She was standing there, looking up.
“Come on,” Waverly said.
She continued up.
The next time she looked back, the blond was in tow, a floor behind.
They got to the roof and walked across to the front of the building. Larimer Street sprawled out four stories down.
“Why are we up here?”
“There was a guy who came into the bar,” she said. “I want to get a better look at him. I think he broke into my apartment. I’m pretty sure Bristol hired him.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m on to him about being the murderer and he knows it.” A beat then, “What’s your name?”
“Jaden.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Waverly.”
Hiding behind the parapet as much as possible while still keeping an eye on the street outside the Flamingo, Waverly gave Jaden the gruesome facts, the most important being the murder of Kava Every, the young associate Bristol had a secret relationship with, the second most important being the murder of Charley-Anna Blackridge in Denver this past weekend.
Jaden hadn’t known anything about either one.
She wasn’t impressed.
“Bristol wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“He did and he will again,” Waverly said. “You’re next or if not next at least on the list.”
“He’d never hurt me.”
“Take a good look down because this is the exact kind of place he’s going to bring you sooner or later. You’ll even be wearing the same dress you are now.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Let me ask you something. Why are you two in Denver?”
“He has business here.”
“What kind of business?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t particularly care, either.”
“Well, let me tell you what it is,” Waverly said. “Either he came here to put a stop to me, that’s one possibility. The other possibility is that after he killed the woman here this past weekend, something unraveled. Maybe he found out there was a witness or something like that. He’s here to fix whatever it is that’s coming unraveled.” A beat then, “If I can prove it, will you do me a favor and get yourself somewhere safe? Or, better yet, help me bring him down?”
Jaden exhaled.
“How could you possibly prove it?”
“He met with a lawyer this afternoon,” Waverly said. “Someone named Gina Sophia.”
“I know that.”
“She took notes,” Waverly said.
“And?”
“Those notes are the proof.”
“You have no idea what she wrote.”
“Not yet, but I’m going to find out.”
“How?”
“Break in to her office.”
“Break in?”
Waverly nodded.
Jaden shook her head in disbelief.
“You’re nuts. You can go to jail for that.”
“I’m breaking in and you’re coming with me,” Waverly said. “You’re going to see them with your own two eyes. You’re going to know that I didn’t fabricate them. Then you’re going to save your life.”
105
Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Night
River stepped silently off the boxcar ladder and onto the ground, then stood there with a pounding heart, listening. Distant city sounds wove faintly through the pitch-black night, but other than that the world was still. He took a careful step, then another, until he was around the edge of the boxcar.
There he stopped.
He didn’t move a muscle.
He waited.
Spencer was out there.
River could feel him.
He needed to take the man alive. He needed to find out if January was still alive.
Another sound came.
It was farther away than the first one.
River listened harder.
No sounds came, not in the next few seconds or the next minute. He turned on the flashlight, scouted around, and spotted some type of animal scrounging around off in the distance.
That’s all it was.
It wasn’t Spencer.
It was just some stupid old animal.
He grabbed an Old Milwaukee from the fridge, wedged the top off with a bottle opener and took a long swallow.
January.
January.
January.
Was she still alive?
Where?
Suddenly he had a sick thought. When he drove the motorcycle out into the terrain this afternoon and found her gone, what if he hadn’t looked in the right place? What if he had veered a little to the right or the left, or hadn’t gone far enough? What if Spencer hadn’t taken her at all? What if she was still out there, hogtied, alone in the night?
A chill ran up his spine and straight into his brain.
He was positive-at least almost positive-that he’d looked in the right place. He had to admit though that he wasn’t a hundred percent sure.
Damn it.
He needed to know; not in the morning, right now.
If by some miracle she actually was still out there, he couldn’t let her stay in that position for even one more second than absolutely necessary.
He fired up the Indian, flicked on the headlight and spun the rear tire.
Unfortunately, he’d driven his car back into town this afternoon, meaning it no longer marked the spot where he first pulled over and got tangled up with Spencer. It no longer marked the spot where Spencer pulled January out of his trunk and carried her into the terrain.
Now, River could only guess.
Plus it was night.
He kept going anyway, deeper and deeper into the country.
Night bugs were in the air.
They splattered into his face, not a lot but enough to keep him guessing. He kept his eyes squinted.
He suddenly realized how lucky he’d been.
If January was in fact still out there and River had simply missed her, and then if River got killed tonight waiting for Spencer to show up, January w
ould have rotted to a slow death and it would have been River’s fault.
He needed to grow some brains.
He wasn’t thinking things through.
He was letting his emotions get the best of him.
He needed to stop that stupid shit and stop it now.
He needed to focus.
He needed to play things out.
He got to where he thought he should be and weaved left and right as he slowed, sweeping the headlight back and forth. It looked like the right place but he wasn’t sure. He pulled off the road, turned off the engine and killed the lights.
Out of the bike’s bag, he pulled the flashlight but left the knife and gun where they were.
Stars filled the sky.
They provided almost no light.
What he needed was a moon, but that was way down on the horizon.
He flicked on the flashlight.
Then he headed out into the terrain.
Twenty steps later he came back and turned on the bike’s taillight.
It would be an anchor without draining too much of the battery. It would let him gauge how far he’d gone.
He headed as straight away from the road as he could, sweeping the flashlight from side to side, trying to memorize the patterns of the rabbit brush and yucca and rocks.
Off in the distance a coyote howled.
He got a hundred steps in.
Then he took a second hundred.
He turned and looked at the taillight to find it wasn’t much more than a red speck. He guessed he was about the right distance in but had to admit he could easily be off by fifty steps, a hundred even.
Suddenly a sharp pain came from the bottom of his foot.
He toppled.
The flashlight dropped and went out.
River pulled his shoe off.
With it came a thick, two-inch cactus needle.
He pulled it out of the shoe, made sure there were no broken ones lurking around and put his shoe back on. The pain was still there although not quite as sharp.
His foot was already swelling.
The terrain was darker than death.
He felt around until he found the flashlight and flicked the button to no avail.
It was ruined.
He couldn’t see two feet.
He had no option except to get back to the bike and bring it out into the terrain. That would give him a 99 percent chance of ending up with a flat.
How would he get back to the city?
Screw it.
He’d worry about it later.
Right now what he needed to do was just get the damn bike out here and find January.
He turned to find the taillight and get his bearings.
He didn’t see it.
It wasn’t there.
It was gone.
All he had in every direction was darkness.
106
Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Night
Wilde stopped pacing long enough to light a new cigarette from his old one, then continued his back and forth trek from one wall of London’s living room to the other. London watched him from the couch, saying nothing. On the coffee table in front of her was a telephone. Next to it was a fake map. It was two minutes to eleven. If the universe worked the way it was supposed to, the phone would ring before Wilde finished his smoke.
Today had been a bust.
Crockett Bluetone was nowhere to be found. Wilde stopped by the man’s office a dozen times. Each time he was out and no one knew where he was, at least that’s what everyone said including the redhead receptionist, who Wilde believed. He wasn’t at his house either. That meant the original map was somewhere out in the universe and the game had to be played tonight without it.
Equally bad, Tarzan hadn’t shown up at his lair all day.
Wilde searched the boxcars and every adjacent inch of space and found no signs of Alexa Blank, current or past. No one had been held prisoner there in recent history, either that or all traces had been meticulously erased.
Wilde looked at his watch.
Eleven o’clock on the nose.
The phone rang.
He looked at London.
Her forehead was tight and her eyes were dark.
He picked the receiver up and sandwiched it between his ear and London’s.
“Hello,” she said.
“Do you have the map?”
The voice was a man’s, the same one as before.
“Yes.”
“You’re going to get one chance and only one chance to do this right,” he said. “It’s important that you understand that. It’s important that you do exactly as I say, not an ounce more and not an ounce less. Do you understand?”
She exhaled.
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said. “Are you alone?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No.”
“Think carefully about that answer,” he said. “Because if you called them, I’ll know it. I’ll see them following you. If that happens, the devil comes to pay a visit to your little friend-her first, then you later. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I hope so, I really do.” A beat then, “Here’s what you’re going to do. After we hang up, go to your bedroom and look under the pillow. You’ll find two keys there. One key fits a padlock where your little friend is being kept. The other fits a handcuff that has her fastened to something. Put those keys in your pocket. Don’t put them in your purse. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, good,” he said. “Take the map and put it in your purse. Does your purse have a zipper?”
“Yes.”
“Be sure it’s zipped tight,” he said.
“Okay.”
“There’s a cab parked outside your house right now with the lights out. Go to the window and make sure it’s there.”
She did.
It was there.
Her heart raced.
“It’s there,” she said.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” he said. “When we hang up, you go get into the back of that cab. Here’s the important part. Don’t say a word to the driver. He’s been instructed that if you say anything, even one word, he’s to pull over to the side of the road and let you out. If that happens, we get back to the devil part of the equation. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good, not one word, remember that,” he said. “He’s going to drive. At a point during that drive, he’s going to say, Get ready. When he says that, you roll down the back window on the passenger side of the car. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“At some point after he says Get ready, he’s going to say, Now. When he does that, you throw the purse out the window. Don’t look at it and don’t look back. The driver will keep driving for a while and will eventually drop you off at a phone booth. He’ll drive away. You stay right there at that phone booth. If I determine that the map is genuine and not a fake, I’ll call you there and tell you where your little friend is. You can go get her and you two can live happily ever after.”
“How do I know you’ll call?”
“You don’t. Now go get in the cab.”
The line went dead.
107
Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Night
While the seedier pockets of town still kicked with life, the financial district was quiet and motionless. The lights were out, the doors were locked and the bus stops were empty. Waverly and Jaden made their way to the alley side of the building that housed Jackson amp; Reacher, then broke a window and took a position down the way behind a dumpster to see if anyone came to investigate. After two minutes of silence, they climbed in.
Now the trick was to find Gina Sophia’s office.
They didn’t have a flashlight.
Flipping a li
ght switch would be too dangerous.
“Do you have a lighter?” Waverly asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Yeah, but you break into buildings. Come prepared.”
“You’re the one breaking in,” Jaden said. “I’m just following you.”
“That’s fine but next time follow me with a lighter in your pocket.”
“I’ll make a note.”
“You do that.”
The law firm was divided into individual offices, each with a door, each door with a glass window and a venetian blind, and each glass window stenciled with a name. Enough ambient light filtered in to read those names when Waverly got her nose right up to them.
Gina Sophia’s office turned out to be an interior one with no outside windows.
The women entered, closed the door and turned on the lights.
The place was a mess.
Papers and files were everywhere, stacked on every conceivable square inch of desk, filing cabinet and chair-even over in the corner on the floor.
“It looks like a bomb went off in here,” Jaden said.
Waverly didn’t disagree.
“Bristol came today,” she said, “so he should be on the top somewhere.” A beat then, “Try to keep things as they are as much as you can. I don’t want her to know we were here.”
“They’re going to know from the broken window.”
“They’ll know someone broke in but they won’t know that this office was the target,” Waverly said. “We’ll go into a couple of different offices and mess them up before we leave.”
“Sneaky.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not sure I meant that as a compliment.”
Files labeled Thomas Bristol didn’t materialize, not on this stack or that one or the other one or on the floor or in a drawer or in the filing cabinet.
“This is useless,” Jaden said.
“Keep looking.”
“We already looked everywhere. She must not have taken any notes. Either that or she took them home.”
“I doubt she’d do that. Keep looking. They’re here somewhere. I can smell them.”
