The Trashman Page 11

  “So you’re saying he is dead?”

  “Aren’t we all? Dead or dying?”

  More word games. God how I’d missed her.

  “Why are you here, Cynthia? It can’t be just to torment me, although I know how much that would excite you. I get the feeling this place isn’t on a map.”

  “You misjudge me, Steed. Tormenting you gives me no great pleasure; you simply present so many opportunities that it seems rude to pass on all of them.”

  “I’m glad to see you still have the famous Witherbot deflection I once knew so well,” I said. “Avoid direct questions by insulting the questioner. But to give credit where it’s due, you do raise bitchiness to a new standard.”

  My ability to give back as good as I got is what attracted Cynthia to me in the first place, and vice versa. It’s what made the sex so hot, and so dangerous, like two bad-tempered badgers getting after it, because we hated each other’s guts from the get-go and couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I could easily have strangled her a dozen times and wept as I did so because of how much I loved her. This wasn’t like with Dawn, this was deep, soul-crushing adoration. Comparing her to a black widow seems unfair to the spider. Then one day she left without warning and I got served with divorce papers. I later heard she had a kid and didn’t envy the father having to deal with her for 18 years while it grew up.

  Sitting on a wicker bench under the porch’s broad roof, sipping tea with lemon and a sprig of mint, she motioned me to sit beside her. Instead, I sat in a matching chair across a small table, on which stood a second glass of tea, which I assumed was for me. After finishing the cigarette, I lifted the glass to my lips.

  “Should I feed it to my dog first?” I said.

  “I heard. You and your dogs,” she said.

  She’d heard? How?

  “I like them better than most people I know. Present company included.”

  “They told me you quit smoking.”

  “Who is ‘they’?”

  She wore a light sundress in a floral pattern. I tried not to be obvious about drooling over the well-toned calf exposed by her crossed legs, but I knew where that calf would lead me if I followed it upward. Try as I might, those memories couldn’t be fully suppressed, and that forced me to cross my own legs. There is one physical reaction men can’t control when their thoughts turn to sex, which they do about every seven seconds, and given my response to being so near the woman I hated above all others, I was no exception. Cynthia Witherbot’s pheromone levels must be off the charts.

  I sipped the lemonade and fought hard to control my pleasure; damn, but that was good! The sugary sourness played perfectly against the taste of tobacco. And while my poker face had won me a lot of money, Cynthia knew me too well not to read my reaction. She glanced at my lap, and the slightest upturn at the corner of her mouth was her way of laughing out loud.

  “It fills your mouth doesn’t it?” she said, knowing exactly what I’d been thinking. “Something beyond words to describe, yet which forever draws you back for more.”

  “Be nice for once and answer my question before the poison gets me.”

  “Poison?”

  “I’m making assumptions. Maybe I should have said venom.”

  “Question?”

  God she could be tedious, which allowed me to surreptitiously study more of her body. She had aged very well indeed.

  “You forget that I know your games. Why are you here, Cynthia?”

  “Oh, that!” She fished around in a purse that probably had multiple weapons inside, and I half expected a handgun to appear, but instead she withdrew a red leather wallet. “Since you are once again a Shooter, you will likely need these.”

  Embossed on the facing side of the wallet was the LEI logo. It was the standard holder issued to all Shooters to hold their credentials: badge, ID, and license to kill. I don’t know how he’d done it, but Keel had gotten my death sentence lifted. Who had that kind of clout? Who was this guy?

  “Try not to lose them this time.”

  “Don’t worry, I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid.”

  Cynthia rolled her eyes, probably the biggest thing I hadn’t missed about her. She could pack more disapproval into an eye roll than any woman I’ve ever met.

  “Remember, it’s a Class Two license, it’s only good for contracts assigned to you by your new employer. If you go freelance, you’re in violation of the conditions, and your credentials are null and void.”

  “Meaning I’ll be fair game again.”

  “Yes, precisely.”

  “I’m a Trashman.”

  She cocked her head, which was new, and I didn’t see any obvious signs of sarcasm or disapproval.

  “Yes, you’re a Trashman now, Steed, but I would not be too down in the mouth about it. Your education is at the start. It may not mean what you think it does and, anyway, I should think it infinitely preferable to having worms devouring your cold flesh.”

  “I did until you showed up; now I’m not so sure.”

  She ignored the dig. “If your new bed-bunny agrees to join you, let me know, and I’ll deliver her credentials personally. I’d like to meet the woman who got the acerbic and workaholic Duncan Arthur Steed to throw away everything for a sniff of her dirty panties.”

  “It’s Arthur Duncan Steed, and you know it.”

  “It sounds better my way.”

  “There’s a reason you’re known as the British Bitch, Cynthia.”

  That brought out the harsh giggle that was like fingernails on a chalkboard to anyone who heard it, especially me.

  “Of course, there is. Who do you think thought it up?”

  “You?”

  “Can you think of anyone else brave enough to call me that? Besides you that is.”

  For once, I had a comeback equal to the occasion. It might piss her off, but then everything I’d ever done pissed her off.

  “We’ve been divorced a long time, Cinny.” That was her father’s pet name for her when she was a kid, and I used it during our marriage, but I knew that level of intimacy angered her now. “What I do and who I hook up with is my business. Besides, I heard you replaced me pretty fast, and gave him what I wanted.”

  That was a low blow—I knew when I said it—and it was a direct hit. But her response made me wonder if I’d overplayed my hand. In all the times I’d seen her mad, I’d never seen the reaction I got now. Her eyes widened and her face went ghost white, her skin pulled tight against her cheekbones like canvas over a frame. The generous lips on her narrow mouth that formed a natural kiss withdrew into a thin line, the blood pressed out of them in her rage.

  “Never again speak of my daughter,” she said in a low, breathless voice. “Do you hear me, Steed? Never again, or so help me God I will kill you.” She paused on the way to the car and turned at the waist. “I saved your life. The company wanted to make an example of you, but I argued against it.”

  “You should have let them kill me,” I said. The one thing I couldn’t abide was being in Cynthia’s debt.

  That made her smile again. “No, this way is a lot more fun. For the rest of your life, every time you look in the mirror, you will do so only because I spared you, and that will slowly eat away at your soul.”

  “Sounds like it’s your soul that’s being devoured, Angel.”

  “You know me better than that, Steed. I don’t have a soul.”

  I watched her get into the car, hips moving in that exaggerated swivel that was part of her natural walk. In that moment, I hated her so much that I nearly forgot how much I loved her.

  After her car vanished down a road into the curtain of jungle, most of me was glad to be rid of Cynthia Winterbot. Most, but not all. Somewhere deep inside, I was glad I saw her again, but not enraged like my last remark made her. Truth to tell, she scared me. I’ve wandered alone on the high peaks of Tora Bora hunted by the Taliban and been less frightened than I was of Cynthia Witherbot.

  So, when she stormed off, calling over
her shoulder that she had to be in Dallas the next day to test a Provisional Shooter, I got my first inkling of why she was there. A terrible thought rose in my mind, but I shoved it back down, deep. There was no way that could happen.

  Whatever her reason for being here, it was probably for the best that she left. Despite her cynicism about my character, the overwhelming evidence indicated that I sometimes do lose my mind to the right mix of estrogen and pheromones. I suppose I have a type: beautiful, athletic, dangerous, and with a well-honed streak of conniving. To this day I shudder every time I remember Paula Emery.

  I thumbed my new badge, which was identical to my old one except for being silver instead of gold. I’d never heard of a Second Class license before, but the logical assumption was that only First Class licenses got a gold badge. It didn’t restrict me from doing my job, though, or if it did nobody had mentioned it. As the language in my new contract said, the only real difference seemed to be that I could only accept contracts through a broker like Keel instead of generating new clients the way I had when I owned a franchise. That and I got paid a lot more money. That part didn’t make sense, higher pay for a downgrade?

  I figured I was now what the gossipmongers called a Trashman, limited to carrying out jobs assigned by the company that other Shooters didn’t want. That’s what I thought it meant until I noticed the other difference in the badges, beyond the metal from which they were cast. As with my First Class badge the corporate logo LEI took up the center, only my new one had some tiny script below that. I had to hold it close and turn it until the light struck it just right to make out three letters: SAD.

  Special Assignments Division.

  Wracking my memory, I vaguely remembered that some of the Trashman rumors mentioned such a department, but it was like all such stories, heavy on speculation and short on facts. Everybody knew somebody who had a friend whose cousin’s husband’s neighbor had all the inside info. At the moment, I had no idea what it meant and didn’t worry about it too much. If the day came when I needed more info, they’d tell me. In the meantime, against all odds, I was back in the game. Even with a Second Class Badge, I was off the table for contracts from LEI Corporate, which is mostly who I’d been worrying about. The mutually assured destruction standoff with Dawn could have ended anytime, sure, but neither of us wanted to die. LEI couldn’t be deterred so easily. I had thought there was no escaping the hellhound on my trail so I decided to live it up while I could. Except, apparently, my new employer had somebody by the balls. Corpse or not, Mister Keel had influence.

  I lit another cigarette and sat on the bench, wondering what would happen next when the dust boiled behind an approaching car. It turned into the long, paved driveway that ran between rows of perfectly spaced oak trees. Judging by their canopies, they had be ancient, maybe even pre-Civil War, with moss hanging nearly to the well-cut lawn beneath, and shadows cooling the crushed coral roadbed. I had no doubt that I was somewhere in Louisiana’s bayou country. A break in the tangled oak branches allowed a shaft of sunlight to gleam off the polished black body of an approaching Bentley Continental GT. Once upon a time, I could have afforded one of those—at least I could have afforded the payments. Two men with perfectly groomed black hair, which must have been plastered down because not one strand moved as air whipped over the windshield, occupied the front seats. The car stopped at the foot of the broad steps leading down from the porch.

  The guy riding shotgun got out and nodded toward me. He might have been a 19th Century mortician, with only a white shirt to contrast the black of the rest of his ensemble, except that his tailored suit probably cost more than the Bentley. Did everybody wear better suits than me? I’d met a lot of morticians and funeral directors in my life, and few bothered to buy anything better than cheap, off-the-rack suits most people wouldn’t consider good enough to dress their dead loves ones in for burial. Most had dandruff, too.

  “Nice car,” I said.

  He smiled, withdrew a pink handkerchief from his breast pocket, and used it to wipe a dust speck off the right fender.

  “Thank you, it is a fun toy. I am Jürgen and this is my brother Ribaldo. We are to be your mentors in Special Activities Division, but at the moment we will escort you to the airfield for your flight back to Jamaica.”

  “That’s good to hear, I could use a vacation after having the last month off.”

  “Yes, quite. We can discuss your immediate mission in the car.”

  So much for scrounging up a sandwich. Maybe they’d serve dinner on the plane. Jürgen was deceptively big and moved with the grace of an athlete, and despite the quality of the suit I saw the slightest crease of a gun under his right armpit. I made a mental note in case it was ever important, Jürgen was left-handed.

  “We’re not gonna pass a McDonald’s are we?”

  He laughed politely, probably figuring it was a lame joke. It wasn’t. The cheeseburger on the plane seemed like days ago.

  Jürgen got in the back seat, no doubt with the pistol ready in case I did something stupid. Even though I was one of them again, I knew that without having to ask that he wasn’t taking any chances. Ribaldo didn’t speak or nod and wore an impatient expression as I buckled in and slipped on the blindfold they’d provided, but in the few seconds I had to study him I realized they were twins.

  “Another blindfold? I thought we were all on the same side now?”

  “I’m afraid it’s protocol.”

  The breeze blew through my hair as Ribaldo headed out the way they’d come. Brief segments of heat on my face indicated breaks in the canopy, which ceased after a while. The muckish smell of a stagnant swamp filled my nostrils, telling me that we were deep in bayou country.

  “Welcome to SAD,” Jürgen said in my left ear. He pronounced it S-A-D, enunciating each letter, and not sad. “Your life may get interesting very soon.”

  “Thanks,” I replied, trying to be non-committal since I had no idea what SAD meant, but I knew that an interesting life had never been a goal of mine, boring and rich was always the objective. Until I met Dawn Delvin, that is. Anyway, here was a chance to maybe milk some information about my new status. “How long have you been…doing this?”

  “Do you mean being a Shooter?” Jürgen said. I heard traces of an accent, maybe German, maybe English, although I couldn’t be certain. It was faint, but it was there.

  “Yeah, that and…” I let it linger, hoping they’d fill in the blanks.

  “Go ahead and say it,” Ribaldo said, speaking for the first time, and loudly to be heard over the road and engine noise. “How long have we worked in SAD?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Ribaldo knew what I’d been about to say and wouldn’t let it go. Apparently, he was the thin-skinned, easily offended sort. Of course, who isn’t these days?

  “You mean how long have we been Trashmen?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  The mask was a cheap one, which I found unprofessional for two supposed hitmen. A slight crease at the sides allowed me glimpses of my surroundings with my peripheral vision, but I stared ahead to avoid letting them know I wasn’t completely blind. That allowed me to study Ribaldo.

  Up to that point Ribaldo had said nothing and seemed more like a chauffeur than a killer until subtle changes came over his face. I couldn’t see much, but it was enough. They were nothing most people would notice, only I wasn’t most people. Just a deepening of tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth, I saw it and I knew what it meant. My initial impression was wrong. However cultured he might seem, even slightly effete, Ribaldo was a Shooter through and through.

  Jürgen laughed in my ear. “Ignore my brother, Steed, he enjoys playing tricks on those who are unfamiliar with his rather primitive sense of humor. ’Twas Ribaldo who coined the term trashmen in the first place.”

  “Haze the new guy, huh?”

  “Consider it a rite of passage,” Jürgen said.

  Chapter 12

  It was disorienting to play word
games in semi-blindness, where intermittent dapples of sunlight acted like a strobe light to further disturb my concentration. Then it dawned on me that the banter wasn’t to relay information and it wasn’t to pass the time, just the opposite, it was a very subtle bit of professionalism. Without visual input, my mind would have noticed far more about my surroundings using my other senses, so they were keeping me otherwise occupied.

  These guys were good!

  Jürgen kept up a running patter about something, which I did my best to ignore. On the way in, the details of our route hadn’t mattered, since my survival was very much in question. Now, however, I wanted to know anything and everything.

  We were driving on a crushed shell and coral road, I could tell by the smell, since coral and gravel have very different scents, and by the crunch of shells under the tires. Clouds of dust clogged my nostrils and I imagined Jürgen frantically wiping it off the Bentley. Little did I know, as I later found out, externally it was a Bentley but internally it was an armored fighting vehicle.

  The instant we pulled onto a more or less paved road, I felt it. Nor did I need peripheral vision to tell me that we’d left the swamp, as sunshine heated up my hair and the rotten egg smell of stagnant water filled with mosquito eggs was gone. Then I heard the whir of the top going up, along with the windows, and Jürgen told me I could take off my mask.

  I rubbed my eyes for a few seconds to alleviate the sparkles in my vision. Through windows tinted damned near black I saw we were speeding along a road through a sea of tall grasses, doing at least 80 on a road designed more for tractors and little old ladies than a madman driving a Bentley sports car. The nearest tree line had to be more than three hundred yards away on both sides, and very straight, as if it had been cleared. Jürgen saw me studying the distant jungle and spoke up.

  “Studies show that it’s vastly more difficult to hit a vehicle moving over 50 miles an hour when the distance exceeds two hundred yards.”

  “You’ve gotta worry about that?”

  “Have you not been listening?”