And I almost certainly would have to.
This new enterprise I was attempting required eliminating the threat to my client, once I determined who that client might be, of course. That meant two kills, the passive and active players both; three, if I could discover who took out the contract. Back in the Broker days, all I had to do on a job was wipe out a single measly human.
Beard shaved off, I followed Glenna Cole AKA Ivy out of the sun and across the country into the cold and a cornfield casino in the Heartland, where she had arranged a job as a waitress in close proximity to her target. I got to know her, first as a customer and then as a fellow employee, and we hit it off. We dated. Mated. Just two people who casually connected.
Or so I assumed, unless maybe she had seen past the now absent facial hair and sunglasses and recalled me from the Beach Shore. In that event, I was the one in danger.
But as things worked out, it seemed she really hadn’t tipped to having seen me before, although I had made a crucial mistake by assuming she was working the active half of the assignment. She was in fact in passive mode, surveilling the mark, and this misstep on my part almost got the client killed.
Live and learn.
One positive result, though, had been my ability to approach the hit team’s target and convince him of the danger he was in, and that I wasn’t some crank or con man or just plain lunatic. As my first attempt at making the Broker’s list work for me, it had gone well. I was on to something.
And, as it happened, I was able to bring the job to a resolution without having to kill the woman with the Asian eyes and large breasts. A happy outcome. Like they say, win-win.
What I had not expected was that I’d bond with Lu in a way that would feel real. That I’d come quickly to like her. Feel real affection for her. And that she would at least seem to feel the same about me.
How that all played out has been recounted elsewhere, but I can give you this much.
Once her partner was killed under apparently accidental circumstances — and after the party who took out the murder contract had himself been removed (by me, of course) — Lu had nothing left to do but move on. We had never discussed who we really were in all this. I sensed she suspected I was responsible for both the contract, and her partner, going belly up. But, if so, that remained unspoken of.
We left on good if ambiguous terms, though there had been nothing ambiguous about the hot and heavy hump that had been our frantic goodbye.
After that, I asked her to come along with me, not even knowing what exactly I was asking, possibly thinking that together we might have a chance at some other way of life.
But her response had been, “Maybe next time,” and she’d gone.
In almost ten years, no “next time” had come.
Now, unexpectedly, it had.
“Let’s get you up,” Lu said, and she had her gun in one hand — a Glock nine mil with a noise suppressor longer than its barrel — and held my left arm at the elbow with the other. Her hair was blonder now, and ponytailed back.
But I would have known her anywhere, let alone in my living room with a silenced Glock.
She had already dragged me out from under what used to be Bruce Simmons, who was face down on my shag carpet, a little red bindi-like hole on the wrong side of his head.
Steadying myself, with her help, I said, “I’m lucky that bullet didn’t hit me in the face.”
She gave me half a smile. “Would’ve bounced off like Superman. Lost its velocity making the trip. Hiding somewhere in the shag now — I’ll find it later. You want to sit down?”
I nodded.
Lu sat next to me on a couch sectional, as far away from the corpse on the floor as we could manage without leaving the room. The Glock she tossed on another section nearby. This was a part of the couch where you could lean back, and I did.
“We have a mess to clean up,” she said.
We weren’t talking about how she had happened to save my ass — my life — or why she was here. I already knew she must have been the late Simmons’ partner. That she was his surveillance half and likely had been on the other end of the binoculars across the way in a certain cabin last night.
And she knew that I knew. Some things between a man and a woman don’t need saying. As for why she shot him and not me, I figured we’d get around to that. I wasn’t incredibly focused yet.
“Limited mess,” I said with a shrug. “Dead men don’t bleed. Maybe you noticed that before.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Be that as it may, we still have a dead body to deal with. At least he didn’t shit himself.”
“Small favors.”
The fingers of her right hand moved tentatively into my scalp. “You have blood and brains in your hair. Why don’t you take a shower?”
“Why don’t I?”
I got up and she took my arm and I said, “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re shaking.”
“Fuck I am. I’m fine. Just got a little knocked around, is all, and then splattered.”
“Worse ways to get splattered,” she observed.
“Definitely.”
She walked me to the bathroom anyway. As I was stripping down, she asked if I had anything to wrap her partner up in.
“Sure,” I said, and told her where the supplies were in one of the rooms under the loft overhang. “Plastic sheeting — drop cloth. Should be a roll of duct tape on a shelf.”
She nodded and went off.
I took a long hot shower. Washed my hair, really washed it. Blood like that cakes and brains are worse. I was in the cubicle long enough, surrounded by steam, to wonder if I had imagined the last hour or so. Maybe I’d been dreaming. Maybe I was still asleep.
But when I turned off the water and stepped out to towel off, hot water replaced with cold air, I realized I was awake, all right.
In the master bedroom I got into fresh clothes, including another long-sleeve t-shirt and jeans and back into the Reeboks. When I joined her in the living room, my beautiful guest in the forest-green jumpsuit had wrapped the dead fucker up in plastic and sealed the deal with duct tape, really cocooned the guy. She was wearing little white gloves, like this was 1958 and she was Audrey Hepburn. On the other hand, she was in Reeboks, too.
Lu looked down at her handiwork, pleased.
“Nice job,” I said.
“Thanks.” The Asian eyes had their way with me. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Why not?”
She gestured at the plastic package. “We shouldn’t dump him till after dark. Even though it’s pretty dead around here. You have any ideas?”
I nodded. “Plenty of gravel pits in the area.”
“Filled with water?”
I nodded again. “And still frozen over.”
She frowned. “That a problem?”
“Don’t think so. That package should break the ice and submerge just fine. Is his station wagon around somewhere?”
Her head bobbed. “Halfway down your lane.”
“What did you come in?”
A shrug. “Just a car I bought for the job.”
Nothing had been said yet about how I was the job.
“Used Camaro,” she added. “Lot of miles, a few dings, but still a nice ride. Let’s put him in the station wagon. After dark, I mean.”
I’d been right that a woodie like that could come in handy.
She edged over to me and smiled, one old friend to another. Put a hand on my shoulder. “Jack, you look beat. Uh, you are Jack here, right?”