Beautiful.
I leaned forward, just a shade, and my eyes locked onto his. “You may have something there. But we have to find a way for me to trust you. And for you to trust me. Any ideas?”
“Absolutely,” he said, and I slapped the nine mil from his hand and the gun flew past the shag carpet and into the kitchenette where it skittered on the tile. This I heard, not saw, as I was diving for him, taking him back over the section of couch onto the floor.
He hit hard with me on top of him, but he reacted fast, getting a hand under my chin and shoving me off and back, where I clanged into the metal fireplace, feeling the heat. I crumpled in on myself and he hit me in the jaw, dropping me to the shag. He looked toward the kitchenette, apparently having seen where the nine mil went, and was on his way there, hunkered like a tackle looking for a quarterback to cripple, but I kicked him in the ass with the flat of my running shoe, shoving him back down to the floor again. Him on his belly, like a flopping fish on deck, gave me a less than ideal path to his balls, but his legs were apart enough that I could send the toe of a shoe between and under his ass cheeks.
His howl meant I’d judged right, and then while he was busy screaming, I went past him to retrieve my nine mil, which was resting by the cabinets under the sink.
But then he was on me, even as he whimpered from the gonad goal I’d kicked, and hugged me from behind, around the waist, like he was going to fuck me whether I wanted him to or not. He had my arms pinned and I hadn’t made it to the nine mil, so we were locked in a kind of awkward dance there in the small area.
Suddenly he let me go and his hands came up and fingers gripped my either ear and he slammed my head into the kitchenette counter. That left me reeling, all but unconscious, and he had the nine mil again and dragged me into the living room and threw me on the floor.
I looked up at him. And down the barrel of the silenced nine mil.
He was breathing hard, but then so was I.
He came down on top of me, shoving a knee in my stomach — apparently he was in no mood to get kicked in the balls again — and I turned my head to one side and puked up some of my breakfast.
Again, I could only think of a rapist as he held me down, kind of sitting on me, knee in my belly, gun snout in my face. He was as out of breath as I was. “Where... where’s... the... fucking... list?”
“Not... here.”
“Don’t... fucking... lie... to me...”
“Tear... the place... up. Go for it.”
“Where is... is it, then?”
“Bank. Safe deposit... box.”
“Then there’s... a key. We’ll get... get the key... and go... go to the bank.”
“Never... never mind.”
“What?”
“The list... is here.”
He grinned, said “Good,” then the cough of a silenced handgun made me think, momentarily, he’d accidentally shot me.
But that wasn’t it.
His eyes were wide — not at all hooded — and a gaping hole in his forehead spewed brains, bone and blood on my already puke-flecked face, while a projectile whizzed over my scalp, practically parting my hair.
Somebody came over and yanked the dead weight off of me. I sat up, blinking. Somebody ran water. Somebody brought me a towel. I cleaned my face off. Looked up at who had saved me.
A beautiful woman in a forest-green jumpsuit loomed, too slender for her voluptuous breasts, her almost Asian eyes dark and staring.
“Hello, Jack,” she said.
“Hello, Lu,” I said.
Six
Glenna Cole was the name she used at first.
Ivy was what the Broker called her.
Lucille was how she introduced herself when we met.
Lu?
That was what I called her.
Ten years ago or so, when I came into possession of the Broker’s list, ready to make my first attempt to follow a professional killer to an intended victim, I selected from that list the name Glenna Cole/Ivy. I’m not sure I could tell you why I zeroed in on one of the handful of women on the Broker’s team.
But I did.
Maybe I figured a female would be easier to handle, to control, to overpower, physically. The emotional side never occurred to me. How foolish are the young.
Or I might have been challenging myself to see if I had it in me to dispatch a woman with the same dispassion I routinely brought to my other assignments. I’d never killed a woman before, except in self-defense a few times.
Anyway, for whatever reason, Glenna Cole was the name I settled on, which led me to a “swinging singles” apartment complex in Florida. Maybe that was another factor in my choice of Broker’s “Ivy” — the opportunity to exchange the Midwest cold for some fun and sun. A vacation with pay, right?
Stupid.
Right.
Ivy, of course, was a name typical of the cute, droll monikers the Broker bestowed upon those of us on his roster — referencing poison ivy, probably. Or it could have referred to Lu’s tenacity, her ability to cling to her marks.
Or maybe he was alluding to her seductive qualities, indicating she used her charms as a means to get close to a target. But if that were the case, I never knew about it.
In Florida, I’d kept my distance, having ingratiated myself with another bikini-resplendent resident of the Beach Shore Apartments, inhabited mostly by youngish divorcees flush with alimony — stewardesses and waitresses who got lucky with rich old fucks.
This led to the males being the sex objects at the redundantly named Beach Shore, specimens usually five or ten years younger than the females. I had so much sex with Nancy Who’s-It, my dick got red and I wondered if I’d caught something.
Glenna Cole probably had five years on my twenty-five at the time. But otherwise she hadn’t at all fit the pattern of the sun bunnies of the Beach Shore. Her hair was dark blonde and shoulder-brushing, fairly standard here. Her face was a narrow oval, her nose thin and long, her eyes large and almond-shaped, an Asian cast.
That mouth of hers, under that slightly beaky nose, seemed too wide, and her gums showed when she smiled. She was taller than my five ten by at least an inch. Her legs were on the skinny side and she lacked the narrow waist of the classic hourglass beauty. Her breasts were large enough to overwhelm her tall, slender frame.
And yet.
She had easily been the most strikingly beautiful female among the many bikini babes at the Beach Shore. Those Asian eyes were dark blue, flecked gold. That bosom rode full and high and proud. And she carried herself with a confidence that was the glue putting all the disparate elements together, which added up to one lovely goddamn woman.
Down at the Beach Shore, I had never spoken to her. Never locked eyes with her. I was on surveillance, after all. I was in full beard, trimmed enough to not look like a hobo but still conceal the planes of my face; that, and constant Ray-Bans, did the trick. Plus, I was hiding in the anonymity of one tanned healthy body after another tanned healthy body, female and male, a sexual buffet at this swinger’s paradise.
At all times I did my best to keep the pool between Glenna Cole and me, but once or twice she climbed out of the water dripping, right in front of me, her flimsy top slipping down to tease with dark circles of areola. Her unique features and bosomy height made quite the droplet-pearled sight, which of course I pretended not to see.
But I saw, all right. And there was something about her that wasn’t purely physical.
Something that made a man want to fuck her, sure, but more than that want to know her, in more than the Biblical sense. Before long I was regretting choosing her name from the Broker’s list. There were any number of things I would have liked to do with her, and to her, but killing her wasn’t one of them.