by Paul Moomaw
“How the hell did you get in here, anyway?” Pray asked as the man herded him and Gabriela toward the front door.
The man sneered. “I have my methods,” he said.
Gabriela giggled. “God, we’ve walked into a bad movie,” she said.
“You!” The man pointed at her. “Throw your purse down. You will not need a purse.”
Gabriela jutted her chin defiantly. “Screw you, buster. A lady never goes anywhere without her purse.”
The man stepped quickly over to her and grabbed the purse, pulling Gabriela off balance as the shoulder strap caught on her arm. He opened it and pawed through the contents, then snapped it closed and handed it back to her.
“The very finest ladies sometimes carry guns,” he said with a smile. “Keep it if you wish.”
Gabriela clutched the purse against her side with one arm. The other hand, hanging at her side, formed a white-knuckled fist. For a moment, Pray thought she intended to slug the intruder. Then the hand relaxed, and so did he.
The weather turned as they opened the front door. Pray stopped and stared at the rain, which wasn’t the misty shower Seattle got so often, but a hard, steady downpour.
“Move,” the black-haired man said.
“Oh, come on,” Pray said. “You don’t expect us to go out in that.”
The man cracked Pray in the small of the back, hard, with his gun barrel.
“To the car, now.” He bumped the gun up against Pray again. “Your car. Walk slowly.”
With a reluctance he didn’t have to feign, Pray stepped into the rain and walked toward the Mercedes.
“He hates to get wet,” Gabriela said. “I bet you don’t let a little thing like that bother you, do you?” she added in a syrupy voice.
The intruder didn’t respond. Gabriela shrugged and caught up with Pray.
“Maybe he just doesn’t like girls,” Pray said.
“He’s afraid of something,” Gabriela said. “And it sure isn’t us.”
The intruder ordered Gabriela into the front next to Pray, and settled into the rear seat, the pistol held loosely, but with an air of total competence, between his thighs.
“You know Discovery Park?” he said. “Drive there, to the old military buildings.”
“Are we going jogging?” Pray asked.
The man didn’t answer.
“Maybe he just doesn’t like boys,” Gabriela said.
* * *
The sun had gone completely, and the park lay in shadows.
“Over there,” the man in the back seat said, pointing toward a small cottage which stood a little apart from the other buildings. “Park there, and turn your headlights off.”
Pray parked the car and waited to see what came next.
“You go inside. The lady and I will wait here. Perhaps we can discuss purses.”
“Oh, I knew you had to have a sense of humor,” Gabriela said. “But I don’t let my man go anywhere without me.” Before their captor could object, she had slid from the car, and was walking toward the front door of the cottage.
“Coming, Adam?” she asked over her shoulder.
“There will be no need, Miss Villani.” Pray recognized the high, tenor voice immediately. “Mr. Pray and I can speak right here.” Facundo Hesse stepped from the side of the building. He walked with a slight limp, and his face was drawn, as if he hurt somewhere inside.
“I need your help, Mr. Pray,” he said.
“I’m not in the mood, Herr Hesse,” Pray replied.
Hesse smiled tightly. “I didn’t imagine you would be. But you probably also are not in the mood to see your lady friend damaged, yes?”
Stalemate, Pray thought. “What kind of help are we talking about?”
“I find your country not to my tastes right now.”
“So leave.”
“I would love to. Unfortunately, I expect my face is plastered all over your airports. In point of fact Rafael, here, tells me I am a television celebrity since night before last.”
“I don’t see how I can help that.”
“You have connections, Mr. Pray. You can connect me with the people who can, as they say, spirit me away.”
“Are you naming names?”
“Just one. Mr. Terrence Parker.”
“I’m afraid he and I aren’t on speaking terms right now.”
Hesse took a step toward Pray and raised a fist, then stopped and gasped, holding his side. Pray found himself measuring distance, automatically, to see if a quick side kick would reach the injury, whatever it was.
Something in his posture must have alerted the man Hesse called Rafael, who stepped away from Gabriela and slapped Pray across the head with his pistol.
“Ow!” Pray said, and sat down with a thump, his head ringing and the trees spinning. When he got his bearings again, Hesse was standing over him, a small black gun in his hand.
“Please get up, Mr. Pray. You and I have a telephone call to make, don’t we?”
“I didn’t know you and Parker were such good buddies,” Pray said.
“We are not, Mr. Pray. He is vermin. I respect you far more, quite frankly.”
“We agree on at least one thing,” Pray said, rising cautiously to his feet.
“All that matters is that Mr. Parker fears me, or at least fears the things I know about him.” Hesse waved the little handgun. “Let us go now, please. Rafael will stay here with Miss Villani.” He turned to the other man. “If we are not back here in one hour, kill her.”
“Is that all?” Rafael asked.
“Oh, enjoy yourself, first,” Hesse replied. He smirked at Pray, his teeth glinting in the dim light. “But watch yourself. She is more dangerous than she looks.”
“No I’m not!” Gabriela shouted the words and lunged toward the nearby trees. Rafael sprang after her.
“Don’t shoot her,” Hesse called out.
He looked after them, and Pray took advantage of the momentary distraction to hop one quick step closer to Hesse and launch the side kick that had been mentally cocked and waiting for the chance.
Hesse screamed and crumpled up. Pray stepped through and followed the side kick with a hook kick with his other foot, one that cracked into Hesse’s hand and knocked the pistol into the shadows. Then he took off after Gabriela and Rafael.
He made out Rafael’s shadow, racing between the trees. Of Gabriela there was no sign. Pray increased his stride, trying to overtake the other man. He closed enough to start deciding whether or not to try a low tackle to take Rafael down, or to grab high and go for the gun.
He almost felt the vine in time to kick his ankle loose from it, but not quite.
“Shit!” he cried out, as his body slammed into the ground, and every bit of air left his lungs. He scrambled to his feet, trying to run and fill his lungs at the same time. Rafael still ran at top speed, and seemed hopelessly far away.
Then the other man stopped in his tracks. Pray increased his own speed, got to where he thought he was close enough, and launched himself into the air. He sailed at Rafael, head first, and then was sailing over him and landing painfully on his shoulder, because Rafael was no longer standing.
Pray sat up, bewildered. Rafael lay on his back a few feet away, twitching and grabbing at his throat.
From the shadows, Gabriela emerged.
“You all right?” she asked.
“What happened?” he asked.
She helped him to his feet, then cautiously approached Rafael, who now lay still, one hand frozen at his throat. Pray watched as she bent over and brushed the hand away, then reached for something and stood up again.
“Mama’s little helper,” she said, and showed Pray a straight, short length of blackened steel, needle sharp at one end, and fletched with metal feathering at the other.
“The feathers are on springs. They fold flat. And the whole thing goes here.” She upended her purse and slid the dart into a slot in the bottom of the purse.
“Always handy, and never gets pic
ked up at airports, either. Pretty nifty, huh?”
Pray stared at her, then at the body in the grass.
“You had to be twenty feet away when you threw that thing,” he said. “I’m not sure I’d have had the nerve.”
“Just takes a woman’s touch,” she said. “What about Hesse?”
Pray flinched. He had forgotten Hesse. He turned and started to run back toward the car, then skidded to a halt and returned to Rafael’s body, where he got down on his hands and knees and started searching through the grass, feeling around in the dark.
“Are you looking for this?” Gabriela held out Rafael’s gun.
Pray stood up and took it. “Yeah,” he said. “You don’t seem to need it.” He raced off, taking high steps to keep from tripping again.
Hesse wasn’t where Pray had left him. Neither was his gun.
“Bastard is out there in the woods, somewhere,” Pray said as Gabriela caught up with him.
“Let’s just go and call the cops,” she said. “It sounds as if they’re already looking for him, anyway.”
Pray was about to say maybe she was right when a flash of light and a shot sent him diving for the dirt again. Gabriela landed next to him.
“I don’t think Herr Hesse is going to give us the option,” he said, as both of them crawled for the shelter of the cottage wall, where they crouched and waited.
“Look,” Pray said. “The keys are in the ignition. I’m going to try to flank him. If I get his attention turned, you go for the car and get the hell to a telephone.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be a hero anymore.”
“I’m just talking teamwork, that’s all. I thought women were big on teamwork.”
“Bullshit,” she said. But she nodded and crept toward the corner of the cottage.
Pray slipped to the other end of the building, took a deep breath, and sprinted for the trees. He called out “Hesse!” as he hit the first tree, and a shot and the whine of a bullet rewarded him.
Hesse fired again, and tree bark splintered just above Pray’s head.
“Wish I had that kind of night vision,” Pray muttered. He scoured the ground and found a fist-sized rock. Then he sprang away from the tree and scurried, as silently as he could, for about fifty feet. He threw the rock back in the direction he had come from.
Hesse fired again, and the muzzle flash gave Pray his bearings. He began to stalk, moving a few steps at a time, tacking back and forth. He got close enough to hear a low moan. Hesse must be hurting a lot more. That was good. Pray straightened up slightly moved in for the kill.
And stepped on something, a branch perhaps, that snapped like the end of the world under his feet.
Hesse fired as Pray hit the dirt again, head up immediately to see if the other man was moving toward him. A dim figure rose, stood momentarily. Pray pointed his pistol, but before he could pull the trigger, Hesse was running, trees blocking any chance at a shot.
Pray jumped up and started chasing, no longer worrying about silence. He wanted to keep Hesse moving, keep his mind off Gabriela, who by now should be half way to a telephone.
The trees cleared, and visibility increased dramatically. Pray saw that they had reached the edge of the woods. Beyond, a narrow stretch of rocky beach glowed a dim gray. He stopped, and then started forward again, more cautiously, looking for Hesse.
The rain had stopped, but clouds remained, reflecting the lights of the city, bathing everything in a dim, silvery glow. Pray scanned up and down the grass at the edge of the bluff. There was no sign of Hesse.
He must have ducked back into the trees, Pray thought, and had a sudden chill conviction that the other man had circled around, and now had Pray between himself and the edge of the cliff.
The slightest motion caught the corner of Pray’s vision. He spun to his right and saw Hesse racing in a wild limping run toward him. Hesse’s gun barked, and the muzzle flash blinded Pray momentarily. He squeezed the trigger of his own gun and hoped for the best.
Silence followed the double crack of gunfire. Pray blinked and waited for his night vision to return, half surprised that he still lived.
Hesse was nowhere in sight.
“Shit,” he muttered, and started to duck into the trees again. Then a glint in the grass caught his eye. He squinted at it, and moved cautiously toward it.
Hesse’s gun lay in the wet grass. Pray straightened up and looked around. Still no sign of Hesse. Then he heard another moan. It came from the trees. Pray edged gingerly toward the sound. As he entered the shadow of the woods, he made out Hesse’s prone body lying stretched out. He took a step closer, and then another, and suddenly Hesse rolled and threw an arm against his legs, knocking him down, and sending his pistol flying into the wet darkness. Hesse grabbed him around the neck and began to squeeze. Even badly wounded, the man’s strength was overpowering. Pray spread his arms out against the ground, trying to brace his body while he tucked his chin against his shoulder, trying to keep Hesse from getting a death grip on his neck. His right hand brushed against something smooth and round!. It was a rock, and God gave it the grace and sense to be lying loose on the ground. Pray grasped it and slammed it into Hesse’s head as hard as he could. Hesse grunted and kept choking Pray. It took three more strikes with the rock, the last as Pray was beginning to lose consciousness, and Hesse released his grip and slumped down flat on the ground again. He rolled over on his back.
“You have won, Mr. Pray,” he said in a wheezing voice. “I respect you for that.” Then he closed his eyes and died.
“Better you than me,” Pray muttered.
“Do you always talk to yourself?”
Pray whirled. Gabriela strode toward him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked. “You’re supposed to be calling the cops.”
“The keys weren’t in the ignition, sweetie.”
Pray felt himself redden, and was grateful for the darkness. Ears burning, he reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out his car keys.
“Force of habit,” he mumbled.
“He dead?” Gabriela asked.
Pray nodded. “Just this minute,” he said.
Gabriela nudged Hesse’s body with a toe. “He sure was big,” she said.
“Sure was,” Pray replied. “Take me home, lady, and I’ll buy you a drink.”
Chapter 57
It had started to rain again. Gabriela looked up from the fireplace, where she knelt with an ornate, wrought iron and leather bellows, trying to coax flames from the log that lay in the grate.
“You need drier wood, Adam,” she said.
“Uh-huh.” Pray sat sprawled on an old leather beanbag chair, a relic of his youth, and stared distractedly around the room.
Flames crackled into life, and Gabriela stood up with a triumphant “There.” She picked up the drink she had placed on the mantel next to her purse and moved to the window.
“Looks like it will rain forever,” she said. “I wonder how long before they find Hesse’s body?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So Biven said just drop it.” She shook her head and snorted. “I can’t believe it. Just drop it. And you know what that means?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It means that bastard Parker gets away with everything, doesn’t it? Chet Tarbell could have blown the whistle on him, and now he’s dead. And Hesse could have, and now he’s dead, too, I hope. And Mr. Terrence Scumball Slimy Parker just keeps right on brown-nosing and betraying his way to the top.”
Gabriela made a face at her reflection in the window, then stepped across the room and settled next to Pray on the beanbag.
“Adam, what in the world are you thinking about?” she asked, and ran her fingers through his hair.
Pray blinked. “I just can’t decide, when my dragon boat comes, whether to put it on a table next to the window, to catch the sun, or stick it up on a shelf with artificial light.”
Something wet was spreading rapidly into his scalp. Something
wet and cold, that ran off the top of his head and dripped from his nose and down his shirt. He looked up, startled.
Gabriela towered above him, one hand on her hip, the other holding her now empty glass.
“You jerk,” she said. “You absolute and utter jerk.” She whirled and grabbed her purse. Pray flinched instinctively, then relaxed. She wouldn’t use that dart on a partner, he told himself.
Gabriela stalked to the stairs that led down to the front door of the condominium.
“I’ll tell you what you can do with that goddamn boat,” she said. Her eyes glittered, and Pray saw, with a sense of astonishment, that they were wet. “You can take that boat and stick it right up your ass,” she said, and ran down the stairs.
Pray sat there, stunned.
“What did I say?” he asked the spot where she had been standing. He jumped up and went to the top of the stairs.
“It’s raining out there,” he called down.
The slam of the front door answered him.
Pray walked to his window and gazed down in time to see Gabriela marching, her shoulders squared, into the night.
“I ought to chase her,” he said.
“No,” he answered. “She was getting to involved in my life anyway. Not the thing for a confirmed bachelor.” He paused. “Not the thing at all,” he said, louder, trying to sound convincing.
He watched as Gabriela disappeared around a corner, then walked to the bar and poured three fingers of brandy into an oversized snifter, looked at it for a moment, and added another half an inch.
As he turned to retreat to the depths of the beanbag, something bright green caught his eye, lying on the rug at the base of the mantel. It was a scarf, and Pray was pretty sure it belonged to Gabriela—was the one, in fact, she had worn the day he met her. He picked it up, and grinned.
“The females of all species are most dangerous when they appear to retreat” he said. “Marquis.”
He let the scarf fall to the table, then settled into the beanbag and gazed around the room, sipping at the brandy.
Maybe on that shelf, he thought. High up, with a golden yellow light behind it.
– THE END –
