The Jack Frost Thrillers - Box Set Page 19

  Susan sat behind the wheel, her nakedness forgotten, aglow in the knowledge that Frost had obviously beaten the Indian. But then, where was he? And why was Red Sleeves here? “Where are we going?” she said.

  The Indian said, “I am taking you to Hoover Dam, where I will exchange you for Tina Giovanni.”

  For a moment Susan felt pity for him. He had enormous dignity; the loss to Frost must have been devastating. She pulled on the shorts and blouse, then walked aft and sat down in a jump seat.

  Red Sleeves took her place behind the wheel and stared straight ahead. He did not speak another word for the rest of the journey.

  Chapter 16

  I shut the bathroom door behind me and pulled off my ripped, bloody clothes. I studied the damage in the mirror. The cuts would not slow me down, but my hip was stiff and discolored.

  After a hot shower, I cleaned and disinfected my wounds, then pulled them together with small strips of tape. I got into fresh clothes and walked gingerly back into the living room.

  I did not think I would have to face the Indian again. I hoped he was as miserable as I was. I had to admire the man. I’d given him some good shots, and he’d walked away under his own power.

  After I got Jilly on the phone, I said, “Unless something goes radically wrong, the swap will happen at four-thirty. Varchetta will be a nervous wreck. That’s exactly the same time Giovanni’s plane is supposed to land. No matter how quickly we make the transaction, he’ll be at least an hour late getting there with Tina.”

  “How’s she handling all of this?” Jilly said.

  “Not well. She’s shallow as hell on the surface, but underneath, something really bad is going on. What do you know about this kid?”

  “Her mother killed herself, slashed her wrists, I think.”

  “Yeah, she told me that much. Do you know why?”

  “Giovanni went to great lengths to keep this hush-hush, but from what I gather, Tina’s mother had a homosexual lover for years before Giovanni found out. It was such a shock to his male ego that he arranged to have his wife’s lover killed. Then, for whatever reason, he told her what he’d done—in detail. Apparently he wanted her to know that if it ever happened again, he’d do the same thing to every new lover who came along.”

  Jilly paused, then went on. “Evidently she really loved this gal that Giovanni killed, and she just came apart.”

  Jilly seemed to be having trouble finishing his story. “C’mon, Jilly, spit it out. What else do you know?”

  “Giovanni’s wife turned her attention on Tina, who at that time was only fifteen years old.” Jilly hastened to add, “Now all of this is just rumor, Jack.”

  “My God . . . she seduced her own daughter and took her as her lover?”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  “And Giovanni found out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d he handle that?”

  “To say the least, not well. He took the kid away from her. Never let them see each other again, in fact. Then he kept his wife locked away like some turn-of-the-century misfit.”

  “And that finally drove her to suicide.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What a horror story,” I said. “Why didn’t you volunteer this information before? Why’d I have to dig it out of you?”

  “I didn’t think it was important, Jack.”

  “Well, you were wrong.” I was edgy, and I regretted my tone of voice.

  “Jack, you’re under a lot of pressure. It’s all gonna work out. Just take a deep breath and go get your lady.”

  I exhaled and said, “I’ll call you later, Jilly.”

  I walked to Tina’s bedroom door and knocked. “Let’s go,” I said. There was no answer. I knocked again, then opened the door. She was sitting on the bed.

  “I’m not going,” she said.

  “We’ve been through this, Tina. You have to go.”

  “I’m staying here with you.”

  I started to tell her that I understood, then decided against it. Frankly, I wasn’t sure how stable this young lady was, and this was no time to experiment. “Tina,” I said, glancing at my watch, “we can’t be late.”

  “I’m not going.”

  As much as I hated to, I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her off the bed. She swung at me, her hands formed into a claw, damn near catching me in the eyes with her long fingernails. I managed to grab her wrists and walked her out the door and into the bright sunlight. That seemed to calm her down. She looked up at me.

  “Are you in there?” I said.

  “Yes, I’m in here! I don’t want to be, but I am.” We walked down the motor home steps, leaving Ripper behind.

  Forty minutes later I parked the car on the Arizona side of the dam. The heat hung pall-like over the lake, the sun a hideous burning eye, overhead. The top of the dam was dotted with tourists, many aiming their cameras over the concrete railing at the awesome chasm below.

  At the other end of the span I spotted Varchetta’s black Mercedes, just as its doors opened and three people got out. Susan was captured in Red Sleeves’ grip. All three of them walked toward the center of the bridge, Susan in the middle, bracketed by the two men. She looked weary, but okay.

  “C’mon, Tina,” I said. She reached into the car, picked up the ledgers, and clutched them tightly to her breasts. She looked up at me with a face so sad it made we want to apologize for what I was about to do.

  “Do I really have to?” she said.

  “I’m sorry, I really am. But I have no choice.”

  She looked at the approaching trio. “Then let’s go,” she said. We crossed the road to the sidewalk, which was bordered by a cement railing. It was a magnificent day, which only made this scene that we were playing out seem that much more unbelievable.

  As we got within twenty yards of each other, I put a hand on Tina’s shoulder. She stopped and looked up at me, tears welling up in her eyes. She touched my bandaged cheek with her fingertips. “Goodbye, Jack.” She forced a smile. “Too bad we never had that romp in the hay. You missed something good.” She paused, then said, “I think maybe I did too.” Then the smile was gone, and she turned away.

  Red Sleeves released Susan’s arm. The two women began walking toward each other. They hugged each other fiercely when they met at the center of the span, then Susan rushed the remaining few yards into my open arms.

  Tina turned and watched us for a moment. Then she fixed a steady gaze on Varchetta and Red Sleeves. Before anyone could move, she clambered up on the narrow cement railing and teetered there, the ledgers clutched in her arms.

  Nearby spectators screamed and mothers pressed their children’s faces into their skirts. The Indian started toward her, but Varchetta grabbed his arm and said, “No, don’t try anything! She might jump!”

  Varchetta took a cautious step toward Tina, a pleading look on his face. “Come on down here honey, I’ll take you to see your daddy, right now. Tina? He’ll be happy to see you!”

  “I’m not going back to my father,” she said to no one in particular. She was a heartbeat away from jumping.

  Then something overhead attracted her attention, and she looked up. I followed her gaze. A gleaming jumbo jet banked for its final approach to McCarran. “What time is it, Jack?” she said, her eyes still on the plane.

  I knew what she was thinking. It might not be the jumbo jet that her father was on, but then again, maybe it was. She really wasn’t expecting an answer. She looked at me, a small triumphant smile on her face.

  “I’m going now.”

  “Tina!” Before I could move, she stepped off the railing. For a moment she seemed suspended in mid-air, her eyes fixed on mine. Then she dropped away, plummeting down through the hot Nevada air toward the gleaming Colorado River, far below.

  Around us, spectators screamed. I rushed to the railing and looked down just in time to see her body glance off the sloping face of the dam, hundreds of feet below. It bounced far out away from the conc
rete surface, then dropped straight down like a rag doll until it finally splashed into the water, far below.

  Susan put her hands over her face, then buried her head in my chest. Red Sleeves stared at me for a moment, his face impassive. Finally he turned and quickly headed toward the Mercedes, Varchetta close behind.

  I put my arm around Susan and began to walk toward my car. She was moaning, and I found myself saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” realizing how ridiculous it sounded. What had just happened was definitely not okay, but it was all I had to offer.

  We stepped to the side of the road as the Mercedes roared past us, the Indian looking straight ahead.

  When we reached the Jaguar, I opened Susan’s door and helped her into the passenger seat. She was overwhelmed by what she had just witnessed. By the time I got in behind the wheel she was crying uncontrollably into her hands, her shoulders shaking. I put an arm around her and leaned my head against hers.

  Finally, she managed to take a deep, ragged breath. After a few moments she said, “Jack . . . what’s going to happen to everyone now? What’s next?”

  I paused, trying to come up with an answer. “Well, Red Sleeves will simply disappear, that much I know. A man with his skills will find a new employer with no problem, but probably in another country. However, he can look forward to spending the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. As for Varchetta . . . he’s a dead man walking. He’ll never be able to run far enough or fast enough, and he doesn’t have the cunning and skills of a James Red Sleeves to save himself.”

  But I didn’t tell Susan that somehow I knew that, even while plummeting toward the glittering surface of the Colorado, Tina had undoubtedly been filled with elation.

  Epilogue

  It’s strange how the mind works. Even now, in the quiet of deep night, with Susan in my arms, her head resting against my chest in fitful sleep, my mind—perhaps out of a sense of comic relief—conjures up a picture of Red Sleeves and Varchetta in the Mercedes as they hurry back toward God-knows-what awaits them in Las Vegas. And Varchetta turns to Red Sleeves and says, “James, what will we do now?”

  And Red Sleeves turns that dark, stoic Indian face on Varchetta and utters the old joke: “We? What do you mean we, white man?”

  Out in the living room, Ripper stirred.

  The whole world is restless tonight.

  Susan shifted with a small whimper, planting a heavy breast against my bandaged ribs. I winced. She murmured against my chest, “Been awake a long time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long before they find her?”

  “Not long. When they do, they’ll turn the ledgers over to people who will be very interested in what they contain.”

  “Do you really believe she’ll still be holding the ledgers when they find her?”

  “Yes I do,” I said. “Her final act of revenge.”

  “Will Giovanni’s people come after you?”

  I paused, then decided to ignore her question. It wasn’t lost on her; she didn’t ask again.

  In a few moments she ran one hand over my belly, then worked her arms under and around me and squeezed me with all her might.

  “Make love to me, Jack. Make these ugly pictures in my mind go away.”

  I gently kissed her while I tried to seal off my own ugly picture . . . the one of Tina’s broken body, tumbling along the rock-strewn bottom of the Colorado River, long dark hair streaming outward in the current.

  – THE END –

  This one is for my Forever Friends,

  Tom & Darlene Madigan

  “Paradise Postponed”

  Over the Gateway, a sign,

  a message for our times:

  Abandon hope all

  ye who enter here

  Abandon hope

  and then

  Pick up your gear.

  From Joker’s Wild, a book of poetry

  by Alan MacDougall (1935-1999).

  Used by permission of his sister, Barbara G. Dan,

  who owns all rights to her brother’s books.

  Chapter 1

  The old blue GTO was filling my rearview mirror all too rapidly. At last glance, my classic old Jaguar’s big round speedo showed 80 mph, which meant that this Detroit relic from the “Muscle Car” era was bearing down on me in the neighborhood of 90 or 100 mph.

  There was sure as hell no place to pass. At this time of the year, Route 95 between Boulder City and Searchlight is a narrow, two-lane undulating chunk of desert road that is heavily populated with snowbirds in their slow-moving motor homes.

  Warning bells started going off in my head as the GTO closed in on me. I could see the driver clearly now, a young black gal busily fixing her lipstick in her rearview mirror.

  As I crested a hill, I saw the top of a motor home dead ahead. I tapped my brake pedal rapidly, hoping my brake lights would get the GTO driver’s attention—but no one behind me was watching.

  She was so close now that I could see the sheet metal from a torn front wheelwell flapping in the wind, and the out-of-balance front tires—undoubtedly bald and not under the influence of anything remotely resembling shock absorbers—bouncing wildly against the pavement.

  I was right on top of the motor home. At the last possible moment traffic opened up ahead. I mashed the throttle. The Jag lunged ahead and I fled safely around the RV.

  I gritted my teeth, waiting for the sound of the crash behind me, but it never came. In the corner of my rearview mirror I saw the GTO hurtling off the road, into the desert. At the last moment she must have seen the motor home and yanked the wheel to the right.

  I glanced over my shoulder and watched the GTO soar through the air. It landed nose first in the desert, then cartwheeled end over end before finally flopping heavily on its top. The car continued to grind through the sage brush and low sand dunes until it skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust.

  I braked as hard as I could without the old boy in the motor home running over me, and pulled off the highway. A heartbeat later the Winnebago went past me, brake lights on as the white-haired driver behind the wheel fought to bring the rig to a halt.

  I spun the wheel and turned the Jag around, rear tires smoking on the hot cement. I covered the hundred yards or so to where the young woman’s Pontiac had flown off the road, and skidded to a stop. I bailed out of the Jag and sprinted across the road toward the GTO, which was virtually hidden in a mushroom cloud of dust.

  I heard excited voices and the slamming of motor home doors behind me as the old people got out of their RV.

  The smell of gas was strong as I got closer to the crumpled Pontiac. Despite the 115 degree desert heat, I felt a coldness in the pit of my stomach. I could see the young woman struggling to get out of the crushed interior, and I could hear her pitiful, terrified cries for help.

  Just as I got to the car, a fireball filled the engine compartment. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled through the open window. The flames were licking at the terrified girl’s legs through holes in the firewall, yet she appeared to be groping around on the floor for something. “My iPhone, where is it!”

  “To hell with the iPhone!” I yelled. As I reached for her, she screamed literally in my ear and clawed at me with her nails as a stiff gust of wind fanned a sheet of flames across both of us. I gritted my teeth and managed to get a grip on her.

  She let out an agonizing yell as another gust of wind once again raked flames over our exposed skin. I grabbed her by both arms and shouted at her to stop fighting me.

  One way or another, we were getting the hell out of there. I crawled backward on my belly, pulling her through the open window with me. It was no time to think about a possible broken back or neck—anything is better than burning to death.

  When her feet cleared the window, I bent down and tried to scoop her up, but she was trying to climb back into the car!

  “My iPhone!” she yelled.

  “Yeah, right!” I said. I picked her up and headed away from the burning c
ar as fast as I could run.

  She craned her neck to look back over my shoulder. “You owe me an iPhone, you asshole!”

  “I’ll buy you one, dammit!”

  We were about ten yards away when the gas tank blew. The concussion took me off my feet. I did my best to keep the bulk of my 240 pound, 6’5” carcass from landing on her too heavily, but didn’t quite make it.

  The air went out of her with a whoosh. I felt something give way beneath my left elbow, which was firmly buried in her slim ribcage. She writhed in agony as I scrambled to my feet, picked her up again and got as far away from the fire as I could.

  When we were a safe distance from the burning car, I lowered her gently to the sand and dug out my cell. I stared at the display. No service.

  As the wide-eyed old couple from the motor home arrived, I said, “There’s no cellphone service here. Do you have a CB in your rig?”

  “I sure do!” the old man said. He turned and headed back toward his rig as fast as he could go.

  I looked down at the young black girl. Her big dark eyes were wide open, and she was biting her lip so hard she was drawing blood. I bent over her. “Where do you hurt the most?”

  “Where you broke my ribs, you clumsy bastard!” she said through clenched teeth.

  I had to laugh. “Excuse me all to hell!” I said. Her eyes were glazed, but somehow she found some humor in the exchange and started to laugh, too—a laugh which terminated in a cry of pain.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said to the old woman, who hovered anxiously over the injured girl. I sprinted to the Jag, and a few minutes later returned with a light, space-age blanket, which I threw over her to keep her from going into shock.

  The Highway Patrol was there in about fifteen minutes, but it took considerably longer for the ambulance to show. The patrolman took our statements, then tried to pry information out of the girl, with little luck.