by R. J. Jagger
Yes.
He was.
“Can we share the ride, I’ll pay.”
He scooted over.
“Sure, no problem.”
“Thanks, you just saved my life.”
He smiled.
“That’s good. It looks like a life worth saving.”
Durivage kept the woman in the corner of his eye but said nothing, getting ready for some clever words when she finally broke down and made a move.
She didn’t make a move, however.
Instead she kept her face pointed ahead.
She wore a perfume that could have been French.
Very sensual.
Not too strong.
Her nylons ruffled when she moved her legs.
Downtown the cabbie dropped Durivage off, the woman looked in his direction just enough to say, “Thanks again,” and that was it. At the last second, Durivage asked how far she was going then paid the cabbie to get her there, plus a tip. She said, “Thanks,” and disappeared from his life.
Sixteenth Street was bustling with the proportionate vigor of Champs-Elysees. Durivage stepped back against a building out of the way and checked his wrist.
10:28 a.m.
He had two minutes to kill.
He could still smell the woman’s perfume and hear the rustling of her nylons.
When he closed his eyes he could taste her lips.
He should have gotten her number.
4
Day One
July 15
Tuesday Morning
Jina Savannah was a lawyer but not a big-time one, meaning her ratty, one-room law office had no air conditioning, hence the sticky downtown heat would radiate through her windows later today with full intent and opportunity to beat her senseless, once again, for the tenth day straight. She already pictured herself walking over to the window fan, lifting her skirt and letting the wind blow up her 28-year-old legs.
Hot.
Hot.
Hot.
Too hot.
She tossed the morning paper on her desk, got the coffee going and checked her face in the mirror. A mildly but not wildly attractive woman stared back, a woman with black glasses, light brown hair, a good nose and white teeth. She did a little repair to her blush but stopped midstream.
Something was off.
It was almost as if someone had been inside the office.
She looked around for something out of place.
There was nothing evident.
Still, the feeling was inescapable.
Did someone break in?
If so, why?
There was nothing worth taking, except maybe the Royal, but even that had a sticky e key, so it would almost be a blessing if it disappeared.
It hadn’t, though.
There it was, sitting right there in the middle of her desk.
She walked over to it, hit the b key three times, then looked around some more.
If someone had broken in, they hadn’t left any marks.
She opened the paper and saw something shocking on the front page. Grace Somerfield got murdered Saturday night.
Damn.
Jina had met her in the lobby once last year, back when she still worked at Denver’s largest law firm, Bender, Littlepage & Price, P.C., before she went solo.
Grace was a good person.
Whoever killed her needed to rot in hell.
5
Day One
July 15
Tuesday Morning
Durivage’s contact didn’t show up at 10:30 or even 10:35 for that matter. He punched a phone booth, paced, and decided he’d give the guy five more minutes.
That was all.
Five minutes.
Then—poof!—he’d be gone.
Four minutes later the Asian bombshell from the cab walked up and said, “I’m your contact.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t get it,” Durivage said.
“You mean the cab?”
Right.
The cab.
“I was scoping you out,” she said. “I’m particular about who I work with.”
Durivage smiled and shook his head.
“I take it I passed,” he said.
“You passed enough to get this far,” she said. “Whether you get any further remains to be seen. Tell me what the project’s about.”
“What’s your name?”
She hesitated then said, “Zongying.”
“Zongying?”
“Right, Zongying.”
“Have you had breakfast yet?”
“I don’t eat breakfast,” she said. “I’ll take some coffee though.”
They ended up in a booth at a nice place called the Paramount Café where coffee cups were five times bigger than what Paris served. Zongying took a careful sip, studied Durivage and leaned forward. “Tell me about the project.”
Durivage shrugged.
“The project is pretty simple,” he said. “It’s to find a woman named Emmanuelle Martin.”
“Emmanuelle,” Zongying said. “Is she French?”
Durivage nodded.
“Your wife?”
“No.”
“Your lover?”
Durivage narrowed his eyes.
“Occasionally,” Durivage said. “That pretty much came to an end a few days ago when she tried to kill me.”
“She tried to kill you?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“It’s complicated,” he said.
“Were you cheating on her?”
He grinned.
“No, nothing like that,” he said. “She was a lover but only when it was convenient for her. We weren’t exclusive by any means. Like I said, it’s complicated.”
Zongying wasn’t impressed.
“Un-complicate it for me,” she said.
“Trust me, none of what you’re asking is relevant,” Durivage said.
Zongying almost got up and left.
“What happens when we find her?” Zongying asked. “Are you going to kill her? Are you going to teach her a lesson for messing with you?”
“Would that be a problem?”
“Not really.”
“You wouldn’t care if I killed her?”
“People kill people,” she said. “It’s none of my business.”
“That’s pretty cold,” he said.
“I don’t make the temperature,” she said. “I just dress for it.”
A waitress swung past with a pitcher and topped off their cups. Durivage said, “Thanks,” then refocused on Zongying. “If she finds out I’m looking for her, that will be her thought, that I’m trying to hunt her down for revenge. Actually, the reason I’m trying to find her is the exact opposite.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m here to save her.”
“From who?”
“From someone who’s going to kill her.”
“Who?”
“A hitman.” He pulled an envelope out of his suit pocket and slid it across the table to her. “That’s half,” he said. “You get the other half when we find her.”
Zongying stuffed the envelope in her purse.
“Do you have a picture of her?”
He pulled one out of his wallet.
Zongying studied it and said, “She’s pretty.”
6
Day One
July 15
Tuesday Noon
Shortly before noon, Jina locked her Blake Street office, maneuvered her five-foot-two frame down the wooden stairway and got dumped into a dirt alley. From there she walked over to 16th Street in the heart of downtown, where she hugged the shady side of the street and threw a penny into the cup of every third beggar. A string of cars rattled up and down the street and spit plumes of smoke at anything that looked like it had lungs.
Up ahead was the tallest building in Denver, the Daniels Fisher Tower, which coincidentally housed the biggest law firm in the
city—Bender, Littlepage & Price, P.C.—a firm that had air conditioning, tons of it, so much in fact that half the lawyers had to keep their windows cracked to keep from freezing to death. Jina knew because she worked in that meat grinder for two years before it fully dawned on her that the paycheck wasn’t worth it.
She left last year, almost to the day.
Taylor Lee still worked there.
Taylor Lee was a lot tougher than her.
Just about everyone was, for that matter.
Mike’s Eatery was between 16th and 17th, on Welton. Jina crossed her heart to help ensure the air conditioning would be working, then opened a glass door and stepped inside. A cold blast hit her in the face and made the corners of her lips turn up ever so slightly.
Oh, yeah.
This is what she was talking about.
She looked around, spotted Taylor Lee at a back booth and headed over. The woman looked exactly as she should, namely too good, with her 26-year-old dangerous-dame face, her curvy body and those incredible raven-black locks, styled with high-cut Bettie Page bangs. Right now not much of that body showed, given the fact that she was in lawyer mode.
She pushed an iced-tea across the table as Jina slid in.
Cold.
Delicious.
Slurpy good.
“One more day,” Jina said, wedging her purse against the wall. “That’s the longest I can wait for this heat to break. After that I’m going to go out somewhere and buy a gun, then wipe the sweat off my forehead one last time and start shooting everything in sight.”
Taylor smiled.
“Come back to the firm. The door’s open. The air conditioner’s running.” She paused and added, “You can get some new clothes.”
Jina took a sip of tea and tilted her head.
“The meat’s grinding, too.”
Taylor nodded.
“There is that.” A pause, then, “So, how’s life on the outside? Are you making it work?”
Jina shrugged.
“Some days are better than others. It helps that I’ve learned how to survive on insects. Believe it or not, everything you need to know about bug nutrition is right there in the Encyclopedia Britannica, under Insects, not Survival. I read this morning that Grace Somerfield got murdered. Was she still using the firm for her legal work?”
Taylor nodded.
“Not me personally, but some of the uppity-ups,” she said.
“I met her in the lobby once,” Jina said. “She was friendly.”
They ordered chicken salads and got their tea topped off.
Halfway through the meal a movement in Jina’s peripheral vision caught her attention. She looked up just as a man set a package on the table. He didn’t say a word and left as quickly as he came.
What the hell?
She looked at Taylor.
“Is that for you?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Me either,” Jina said.
The package was a brown, cardboard box the size of a breadbox. All the corners were taped shut. There was no writing on it. There was, however, an envelope taped to the top. Taylor pulled it off and opened it to find a typed letter inside:
I will be hiring you as my attorney. What’s inside the box pertains to my case. Please keep it safe until we can meet. If you do not hear from me by noon on Wednesday, that means I’m dead.
Jina picked up the box to gauge the weight, which she estimated to be fifteen or twenty pounds.
“So is this mystery client yours or mine?”
Taylor held her hands up in uncertainty.
“Could be either,” she said. “Open the box. Whatever’s inside will probably sort it out.”
Using a fork, Jina cut the tape until the top lifted. Something cylindrical was inside, thickly wrapped in cellophane. She found the edge and unwrapped it.
Underneath was something that looked like a rolled up scroll of gold, about 18” wide, length unknown, inscribed with ancient markings.
“Does this relate to you?”
Taylor shook her head.
“No, not even close.”
“Me either,” Jina said.
7
Day One
July 15
Tuesday Afternoon
Tuesday afternoon, curiosity made Wilde track down the license plate number of the car parked in front of Neva’s on Saturday night, the car that belonged to Grace Somerfield’s killer. What he found made his palms sweat. The number, FC211, was registered to a woman named Night Neveraux.
She wasn’t a stranger to him.
Anything but.
He stuck a Marlboro in his mouth, lit it, and asked himself a very serious question.
Was Night capable of murder?
The answer surprised him.
Yes, she was.
Damn it.
He bounded down the steps to street level, hopped in the ’47 MG/TC, and headed straight to Night’s house, which was a rental on Ogden Street between 9th and 10th. Parking on the street was jammed up, but he finally found a spot down near 13th and doubled back on foot.
The sun beat down.
Crazy hot.
He wore the suit jacket for a block then slipped it off and slung it over his shoulder.
Come on, Night.
Be home.
The house was a small red brick structure with no driveway or garage, set in an endless sea of other red brick structures with no driveways or garages.
The windows were open.
A fan was blowing.
Wilde held his breath and knocked on the door.
No one answered.
He knocked again, harder.
Movement came from inside, feet pounding down stairs.
Two heartbeats later the door swung open and Night’s 25-year-old face appeared. She wore no makeup, her blond hair was in a ponytail and her face glistened with sweat. She wore a green tank-top and white panties.
“Goddamn you,” she said. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Wilde pulled her stomach to his and licked the sweat off her forehead.
Then he kissed her.
He kissed her like he owned her.
“What do you think?” he said.
He threw her over his shoulder, carried her upstairs and took her like she was the last woman on earth. Afterwards she slapped his face and said, “God I hate you.”
He nodded.
“Don’t ever stop.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
Two minutes later he was back out in the sun walking to the MG.
Fire raced through his veins.
Night had a tattoo behind her ear, the size of a quarter, something new from when he’d last seen her six months ago. Equally bad, a black bag was sitting in the corner of her bedroom. It looked like one of those bags that doctors used. Jewelry was on her nightstand, expensive jewelry, the kind someone like Grace Somerfield would own.
Damn it.
Damn it to hell.
Back at the ’47 he fired up the 4-cylinder engine and pointed the roadster’s bumperless front end back towards the office. All the bumpy way there he could still taste Night on his tongue and feel her body tremble against his.
He needed to be careful.
Night was a drug.
If he let her back in his blood, it wouldn’t be pretty.
8
Day One
July 15
Tuesday Afternoon
Durivage’s theory was that Emmanuelle Martin would hole up at someplace cheap and out of the way, so Zongying drove him around her 1940 Packard Coupe and asked questions at all the right places, leaving a five dollar bill with everyone they talked to.
So far, no one had seen her.
Nor had anyone seen anyone who looked like a hitman or spoke French.
Early afternoon, they stopped by Zongying’s place to rest and regroup. It was a standalone house a kilometer east of downtown, but that was about the best that could be said about it. It was small, dark
and cramped.
“It’s a rental,” Zongying said, lighting a cigarette. “I’m in a savings mode, getting ready to buy in the next year or two.”
Durivage nodded.
He didn’t care.
This was the first time they were alone. His thoughts were on whether they’d end up tearing each other’s clothes off. Suddenly something grabbed his attention. It was a photograph in a standup frame on the lamp table. He picked it up and studied it. It was Zongying and another equally attractive female with their arms around each other. The background was simple—a window, curtains, a crooked painting, the edge of a lampshade.
“That’s me and a friend,” Zongying said.
“She’s pretty.”
“Her name was Jessica Dent,” Zongying said. “She got murdered last year, on May 12th, to be exact.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
No.
She wasn’t.
“Did they ever catch the guy?”
She shook her head.
“That’s too bad.”
Right.
Too bad.
Zongying put a distant look on her face and said, “They found her naked. There were words carved into her chest with a knife.”
“Fuck,” Durivage said. “That’s gross.”
“They said, Next time follow directions.”
“Next time follow directions?”
“Right.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Zongying shrugged.
“No one ever figured it out.”
“Weird.”
Durivage patted the woman’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “After we get this Emmanuelle business done, I’ll look into your friend’s case if you want.”
“Why, what could you do?”
He shrugged.
“I’m pretty good at figuring things out,” he said.
“The cops couldn’t figure it out.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
Zongying got a glass of water from the kitchen then unbuttoned her blouse as she walked towards him. Her mouth was open, her breathing was short and quick, and her eyes belonged to a predator.
Durivage grabbed her and pulled her in.
