by R. J. Jagger
They needed him to find out where the scroll was discovered, if he knew, which he might not if he stole it from someone.
Her heart raced.
Slow down.
That’s what she needed to do.
Slow down.
She was getting too intoxicated by the sudden appearance of hours that weren’t mundane. She was riding an ancient wave in a way that had already twisted her. She was too convinced that this was her one and only chance at something special.
Her pact with Taylor was in place, at least verbally. Whether the woman would actually steal the scroll was yet to be determined.
They needed a foolproof charade.
That was the key.
They also needed to set it up without bringing a third person into the mix if possible.
The heat of the day was giving way to the thin Rocky Mountain air and dissipating more and more as the sun dipped lower. Jina got a glass of wine, turned the radio to a blues station, crawled out the window and sat out on the fire escape.
Tomorrow would be a big day.
She shouldn’t drink too much tonight.
The bottle was half gone when she thought she heard a noise from inside.
Faint.
Barely there.
But something.
It tingled her spine with the same tension she’d felt this morning in her office. She turned and looked in the window.
She saw nothing.
She heard nothing.
Then she crawled through the window, ever so quietly, while her blood raced.
25
Day One
July 15
Tuesday Night
The Bokaray was built for sin and seduction, with upholstered walls and ceilings, crystal chandeliers, a long curved bar with a mirrored backdrop, countless tables, armless chairs, glass ashtrays and floral carpeting. Wilde got there fifteen minutes before the show was set to start and found the place already packed and resonating with a familiar texture of cigarettes, perfume and liquor.
Nice.
It would be a good night.
Leigh Monroe was standing at the bar with a glass of wine dangling in her hand, allowing a few of the more rich and relevant to get an up-close taste.
Ever the schmoozer.
Wilde headed over, wondering if he’d end up taking her home tonight.
Time would tell.
With Leigh, you never knew.
She spotted him, broke out of her ring and intercepted him.
She put her arms around his neck, pressed her stomach to his and gave him a long loose kiss.
“Half the ladies are here tonight because the word got out about you being here,” she said.
“I doubt that.”
“Too bad they came in vain,” she said. “You’re mine tonight so be warned.”
“Be warned yourself, I might call your bluff.”
She rubbed her chest on him.
“Start calling, cowboy.”
Life was best with a pair of drumsticks in hand, a right foot on the bass and a left on the cymbal. Music was a drug to listen to. It was ten times that when you were the one creating it, and twenty times that when a smoky packed club was busy getting lost in it.
Wilde’s style was different.
He didn’t stay in the background.
He didn’t resign himself to a simple beat.
Instead he pounded and flailed and shook it up.
He laid in hooks.
He got loud.
He busted up the rhythm.
He led.
All the while he dangled a cigarette in his mouth.
He got drunk and let the liquor take over. That’s when he was the best, when the sticks moved on their own.
The first set was good.
No, not good, Good.
Leigh’s voice was pure sex.
During the break, something happened he didn't expect, namely Alabama showed up out of nowhere wearing a short blue dress, lots of cleavage and perfect legs encased in dangerous nylons. She put her arms around Wilde’s neck, gave him a big sloppy kiss and said, “I found out something tonight about our client, the good detective Warner Raven.”
“Oh, really—what?”
She nibbled on his lower lip.
“You were right about him.”
“I was, was I?”
“Yes, you were,” she said. “I already figured out my reward for doing such a good job.”
“And what might that be?”
“Let’s just say it involves you.”
26
Day One
July 15
Tuesday Night
Sitting in her car down the street from the hitwoman’s hotel, Zongying realized that she should have dyed her hair, in case the $5-guy tipped the woman off about her and Durivage.
Too late now.
Twilight came.
The lights turned on in the woman’s room and every now and then a shadow moved behind the curtains.
Zongying waited.
Patience.
That’s what this game was about.
Patience.
A half hour after dark the woman emerged wearing high-heels and a sexy red dress with a black belt and got into a cab. Zongying fired up the Packard and followed her to the Bokaray where the woman disappeared inside. Zongying was underdressed in black pants and a blouse but came prepared. She pulled into an alley, moved over to the passenger side of the front seat, and changed into a tight black dress, nylons and black high heels. She found a place to park a block down and rolled ruby-red lipstick over her mouth as she walked towards the club.
Inside the place was packed.
She knew why.
Leigh Monroe was playing tonight.
What a coincidence that this is where she wanted to take Durivage and now here she was. She looked around, didn’t see the woman and headed for the bar, jamming through bodies and getting jammed in return. She ordered a white wine and then spotted her target, standing against the wall near the stage with a small glass in her hand, the kind that held hard liquor. Zongying pulled a compact out of her purse, checked her face, then headed over.
She got next to her target as if by accident.
When the woman turned she said, “The band is good.”
The woman looked into her eyes.
They darted away, then came back.
“Oui,” she sad.
“Are you French?”
“Oui.”
Zongying smiled.
“I have a friend who knew a guy who knew another guy who wanted to go to France once,” she said.
The woman smiled.
“That almost makes us best friends,” she said.
“You think?”
The woman nodded, leaned into Zongying’s ear and said, “My name’s Nicole.”
“Zongying.”
As soon as Zongying uttered the word she wanted to suck it back in. She should have used a fake.
“Zongying?”
Zongying nodded.
“I like it.”
Zongying looked around.
“I’m going to get drunk tonight,” she said. “You want to join me?”
The woman clinked her glass against Zongying’s.
“Let’s do it.”
During the band’s break, Nicole broke away and held a sidebar with the singer, Leigh Monroe. When the band started up for the second set, Leigh motioned Nicole on stage and told the crowd, “We have a special guest with us tonight from Paris.”
Nicole took the microphone.
The band broke into Lady Day’s “Ain’t Nobody’s Business.”
Nicole sang in French.
By the time she stopped, everyone in the room was in love with her.
27
Day One
July 15
Tuesday Night
The noise Jina heard inside her apartment turned out to be someone knocking on the door, which was strange because that hardly ever happened, especially this lat
e. She didn’t have a peephole so she made sure the chain was on properly and opened the door until it snagged.
Outside was a man, a man she had never seen before.
He was big, six-three at least, with a muscular jaw, a prominent nose and piercing eyes.
“I’m your client,” the man said. “I’m here to pick up my package.”
Jina almost opened the door.
A recessed gene wouldn’t let her.
“It’s late and I’m heading to bed,” she said. “We can meet in my office in the morning.”
A crease developed between the man’s eyes.
“Unfortunately there’s been a change of plans about me retaining you.” He took two fifty-dollar bills out of a wallet and held them at the opening. “That’s for your troubles. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get my package and say goodnight.”
Jina swallowed.
“It’s not here,” she said.
“Where is it? Your office?”
“No, another lawyer has it.”
“How could that be?”
“When the package got delivered, I was sitting with another lawyer at the time,” she said. “We didn’t know if the package was for me or her. She took possession of it.”
A pause.
“Who is this other lawyer?”
Jina looked at her watch.
“Look,” she said. “I have to be in court first thing in the morning and need to get to bed. Come to my office at noon tomorrow and I’ll have your package for you.”
She expected the man to say Fine and head off.
Instead he stayed where he was.
“Did you open the package?”
“No.”
“What about this other lawyer? Did she open it?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t see why she would. What’s your name, by the way?”
“That’s not important,” he said. “I’ll be at your office at noon.”
Then he left.
28
Day One
July 15
Tuesday Night
At the beginning of the second set, something happened that Wilde didn’t expect, namely Leigh Monroe brought a woman on stage who sang “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” in French. At the end she turned around and looked directly into Wilde’s eyes before stepping off stage.
His life shifted.
Just like that.
Two minutes later the cigarette fell out of his mouth and landed on the snare, then popped up wildly when the stick came down. It hung in the air directly above him and fell straight towards his head. He leaned back and caught it in his mouth.
A few people noticed.
One of them was the French woman.
She smiled and put her hands together in a silent clap.
Wilde nodded and looked as nonchalantly as he could, as if he did it a hundred times a night.
As soon as the set was over, he’d go over and find out who she was. Not the minute it was over, he’d say hello to a few people first, just to keep her wondering. Then he’d meander over and appear to be surprised to find himself next to her all of a sudden.
His thoughts turned to what Alabama said during the break.
What she’d found out was that the detective, Warner Raven, had been in a camera club. Wilde himself had never been in one but everyone in the world knew how they worked. Pornography was technically illegal. So men formed camera clubs where they would hire a woman to pose nude while they clicked away. That wasn’t pornography in the eyes of the law; it was art, protected by the First Amendment. The beauty of the club was that the men could pose the women in whatever postures they wanted and they could also do fetish photography like bondage and spanking and wrestling.
Raven had been in a club.
It was a little sleazy, a little dirty, and a little secret, but in the end didn’t mean much. What Wilde found more interesting was that Raven stopped going to the club right around the time he got the first death threat.
It was too big of a coincidence to not mean something.
“Dig into it further,” he told Alabama.
“Sure,” she said. “Where do I sleep tonight?”
When the set ended Wilde headed straight for the French woman who was at the bar with a seriously attractive Asian woman. He had one thought and one thought only, namely to get her alone in a dark room and peel her clothes off one beautiful layer at a time.
Make her nasty.
Make her scream in French.
Make her hate him for what he was able to do to her.
29
Day One
July 15
Tuesday Night
The band’s drummer walked over during the break with predator eyes but they weren’t for Zongying, they were for the French woman—Nicole. Zongying watched as the two got very touchy very fast. Within minutes Zongying was officially a third wheel.
“You kids have fun,” she said.
Nicole grabbed her hand and said, “Wait. Don’t go. Stay with me until after the show. Then we’ll all go back to my hotel, all three of us. Okay?”
Wilde looked at Zongying.
“I’m game.”
Zongying looked at him.
Then back at Nicole.
Then back at Wilde.
“What the hell,” she said.
Nicole kissed her on the lips.
“It’s settled, then.”
30
Day One
July 15
Tuesday Night
When the mysterious client left, Jina did something she would have never guessed, namely threw on shoes and followed him down the street in the shadows.
The wine made her brain spin.
It also kept her more in the open than she wanted.
Luckily the man didn’t have a clue.
He never turned around.
Not once.
He walked briskly for two blocks, stepped into a phone booth and made a call. Jina looked for a way to sneak up to hear the conversation but it was impossible.
When the man hung up, he didn’t head down the street.
Instead he lit a cigarette and leaned against the booth.
Five minutes passed.
Then more minutes.
Suddenly a cab pulled up and the man hopped in.
Jina stepped farther back into the shadows as the vehicle went past.
Another person was in the backseat, already facing the man and talking animatedly to him.
The person was a female.
Other than that, Jina couldn't make her out.
31
Day Two
July 16
Wednesday Morning
The French woman, Nicole, would have been the antidote to Night if she was in town to stay, but she wasn’t, so Wilde reigned in his memories of the threesome last night and refused to let it morph into anything deeper.
Night.
Night.
Night.
Damn her to hell.
As soon as Wilde got himself functioning Wednesday morning, he headed straight to her house, parking in the alley and rapping on the back door.
It opened.
A woman stood there.
She wasn’t Night.
She was a dark exotic thing. For some reason, he pictured her strolling on Mediterranean beaches in the day and breaking men’s hearts at night.
“Is Night here?”
“No.”
That was it.
No.
The woman said nothing else.
He’d been dismissed.
“Tell her Bryson stopped by,” he said.
“I will.”
The door closed.
Wilde hopped in the MG and headed for the office, wondering if the woman was some kind of black market trader in town to buy Grace Somerfield’s stuff from Night.
Strange.
Alabama handed him a fresh cup of coffee as soon as he walked through the door, before he could even take his hat off an
d throw it at the rack.
“I did something bad,” she said.
Wilde winced.
This wouldn’t be pretty.
He could already tell.
“Like what?”
“I slept on your couch last night, like you told me to, while you so rudely went off with those other two women to do whatever it is you did,” she said. “Anyway, it wasn’t very comfy, the couch I mean, so I went out this morning and bought a futon. It’s going to be delivered this afternoon.”
“Last night was just a one night deal,” he said “It was just a temporary thing to get you out of the Metropolitan until we can find you someplace decent.”
She shrugged.
“It’s too late now,” she said. “I already moved in.”
“You can’t do that.”
“My stuff’s already in the closet,” she said. “My toothbrush is already on the sink. I already put the toilet seat down and got a duplicate key made. Things like that can’t be reversed so just get used to it.”
Wilde took a sip of coffee.
“You put the toilet seat down?”
She smiled.
“Yes.”
“That’s just wrong,” he said.
“Get used to it,” she said. “It’s the new look. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, your little killer friend Night stopped by about ten minutes ago and picked up her bag of goodies.”
Fine.
He was glad they were gone.
“Did she ask about me?”
“Not really,” Alabama said. “She said Thanks when I gave her the bag, but that was about it.” A pause then, “What do you see in her, Wilde, other than the fact that she’s stunning?”
He pulled a book of matches out of his shirt pocket, set it on fire and looked at Alabama through the flames before tossing it in the ashtray. “We have history.”
“How far back?”
“Too far,” he said. “Eleventh grade.”
“Was she your first?”
“First what?”
“First screw, first love, first broken heart, first everything.”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
“The first is the worst,” Alabama said. “You never really get over the first.”
