The Payback Assignment (16 page)

           
Business was slow, so Pop decided to become involved in the loading process.
 
The two veterans swapped war stories for a while, and time slid past unnoticed.
 
Four hours later Morgan left Pop’s shop with eight full magazines, one cleaned and serviced automatic pistol, three very sharp knives and a renewed friendship.
 
In the process of chatting with Pop he had mentioned his new female acquaintance.
 
While talking about her he realized that his attitude had shifted.
 
He decided that if the O’Brian girl didn’t come up with a lead to Stone by his deadline he would ask her to travel with him for a while.
 
Some indefinable quality about her drew him like steel to a magnet.
 
She was just so, well, comfortable.
 
They connected, as if he had known her all his life.
 
He thought that maybe they should team up on a long-term basis.

           
Maybe he would tell her so.

           
With thoughts of a more settled future going through his mind, Morgan was relaxed during his short taxi ride back to Felicity’s building.
 
But he was feeling a little tension when he entered the building, and a bit more when the elevator stopped.
 
By the time he reached Felicity’s floor, he stepped out of the elevator on tiptoe.
 
He did not know why.
 
The flowers were still as fragrant as they were on his first visit, and the little landing was just as quiet.
 
As he approached the door his old familiar feeling was there again, stronger than ever.
 
He put down his small gun case beside Felicity’s door, already beginning to plot his next move.
 

           
He had leaped behind the center island of foliage before he realized he had heard the elevator door open.
 
From his vantage point he saw the lone occupant emerge from the car.
 
It was Felicity, carting a collection of bundles and shopping bags that she could barely manage.
 
She wore a green and white pinstripe cotton dress and her hair, he noticed, was now tied back with a wide green ribbon.
 
It matched her eyes, which wandered warily, worry showing on her face.
 
He stepped into the open and their eyes locked for one intense moment.
 
He opened his mouth but Felicity spoke first.

           
“You felt it too,” she said, more a surprised statement than a question.

           
“Yes,” Morgan said.
 
“I’ve got kind of an instinct, a sense of danger.
 
But I didn’t know you...”

           
“Yes.
 
All my life.”
 
With no further explanation, Felicity put down the bundles and pointed to her cipher lock.
 
“Look at this.”
 

           
“What do you mean?”

           
“Right here,” Felicity said.
 
“On the edge of the button plate.
 
See these marks?
 
It’s been pried off.
 
Someone’s broken in, someone who knows these locks but got sloppy.”

“A thief friend stop by to surprise you?” Morgan asked.

Felicity shook her head.
 
“I don’t have sloppy friends.
 
So now what do we do?”

           
“Several options if they’re waiting inside,” Morgan said.
 
He was annoyed with himself for not noticing the lock had been tampered with, and was happy for a chance to take the lead.
 
“As usual, there’s a safe way, an easy way and a best way.”

           
“Well, what’s the best way?” Felicity asked.

           
“Let me teach you the cross door maneuver.”

-15-

           
Inside Felicity’s apartment a pair of dangerous animals in cheap suits waited.
 
Pearson sat on the couch half turned, gazing aimlessly out the window with his gun hand resting on his thigh.
 
By shifting his eyes he could see Shaw, who had pulled the big chair forward and pointed it toward the door.
 
Shaw looked relaxed but alert, with his Smith & Wesson .38 pointed toward the apartment’s only entrance.
 
Pearson’s ears perked up as he heard buttons being pushed and saw the doorknob slowly turning.
 
The pigeon had come home at last.
 
This was too easy a job for a pair of experienced killers, but they got the assignment because they had been in the neighborhood.
 
Stone said to kill the girl ASAP.
 
It would be a nice change to receive an assignment and complete it the same day.
 
Shaw took careful aim at the door and Pearson returned his smile as he thumbed the hammer back on his own pistol.

           
With an air of relaxation Felicity pushed the door open and entered, crossing to her left, toward the occupied chair.
 
She was staring into a grinning face and a gun barrel.
 
Her hands opened, and her packages began their fall to the floor.

           
Before her eyes finished widening, Morgan came in fast and low, crossing behind her in the opposite direction.
 
His gun barked once before Felicity’s packages reached the carpet.
 
The man in the chair didn’t move, but his chest burst open like a blossoming scarlet flower before Felicity’s startled eyes.

           
Morgan continued his charge, driving his shoulder hard into the second man’s midsection before the killer could quite get his pistol aimed at the new target.
 
As the two men grappled on the sofa, the revolver bounced across the carpet.
 
An unthinking reflex drove Felicity to snatch it up.

           
“Stop it!” she shouted.
 
The killer froze, staring into his own gun’s muzzle.
 
Morgan stood calmly, straightening his clothes.
 

           
“I’ll keep him in line,” he said, leveling his automatic on the other man’s eyes.
 
“Got any wire or twine around?”
 

Felicity nodded, looked down at her hands and gingerly placed the revolver on the coffee table cube.
 
Then she backtracked to close and lock the front door before running down the hall to the second room.
 
It was small, but sufficient as a storage room.
 
She spent only seconds rooting through the climbing gear arrayed neatly in the closet.
 
She sprinted back to the living room with a five-foot length of nylon cord.
 
Morgan hadn’t moved, and she was surprised to see no expression of anger on his face.

           
“You know the drill,” Morgan said, accepting the rope.
 
“Turn around, on your knees, hands behind your back.”

           
Morgan held the rope in his right hand with his pistol, while he drew his big knife from under his jacket.
 
He cut a ten-inch bit from the cord, dropped the rest, and tied the other man’s thumbs together behind him.
 
It was a simple bind, but Felicity could see that it would be far more effective than big clumsy knots around the wrists and arms. Once the big man was secured, Morgan turned to Felicity.

“Stay here, Red,” he said.
 
Morgan walked his charge to the bathroom between the two bedrooms.
 
The gunman was built like a college halfback, but Morgan had no trouble alternately pushing and pulling him, keeping him off balance.
 
Once they were in the bathroom, Felicity saw the man’s shoes fly out into the hall, followed by his socks, trousers and underwear.
 
The she heard a loud thump that could only be the shooter’s beefy form slamming down into her deep bathtub.

           
“Come out, and you’ll join your partner in hell,” Morgan said.
 
Then he walked out, closed the door, and jogged to the living room.

           
Felicity had not moved and now stood facing him.
 
Her eyes were brimming with tears.
 
She glanced furtively at the corpse in her armchair, the chair she had spent weeks selecting.
 
Blood dripped rhythmically onto her light colored, hand dyed deep pile carpet.
 
Lit by the approaching sunset, the dead man looked like some bizarre, macabre statue melting in a wax museum.
 
Her lips trembled and a barely audible whisper slipped through them.
 
Morgan stepped forward and put an arm around her, cradling her head in his own massive shoulder.

           
“Take it easy, Red.
 
I know it’s kind of a shock but, well, death’s really a natural thing, I mean in nature, you know?
 
And if it’s you or them, sometimes you just got to go all the way.”

           
“It’s not that,” Felicity stammered.
 
“I’ve seen death before.
 
And don’t call me...” she stopped in mid-sentence.
 
Somehow, for the first time in her life, it seemed okay for someone to call her “Red.”

           
He was such an enigma, this great black bear of a man.
 
Only seconds ago, she had seen him show total ferocity, killing with ice cold efficiency.
 
Yet now he was able to exhibit unexpected tenderness.
 
It seemed perversely symbolic that his shoulder felt so soft and warm and comforting to her face, even as her right breast was crushed against the hard outline of his shoulder holster.
 

           
“It isn’t the death, not really,” she murmured.
 
“It’s just, he wanted to, he was going to, to kill me.”
 
She put a shaky emphasis on the last word.

           
“Yes,” Morgan said slowly, “Let’s go find out about that.”

           
With a gentle tug, Morgan eased Felicity toward the bathroom.
 
When they opened the door, their tough guy prisoner was sitting on the floor trying to look belligerent.
 
He was built like a linebacker, but now Morgan could see a bit of softness around his waist.
 
His nose had been broken and a scar was visible just below the line of his short brown hair.

           
Morgan thought he recognized that kind of scar.
 
It was probably a legacy from the less glamorous days of professional wrestling.
 
In those days guys used to go flying out of the ring and they’d always come up bloody.
 
Morgan knew they often cut themselves with razor blades in their hairline for the effect.
 
If this guy was a veteran of the small-time professional wrestling circuit, he was probably pretty tough.
 
Morgan considered what little he knew of this man for a moment before deciding how he should proceed.
 
He decided to use a reasonable, uncaring approach.

           
“You know, we were kind of lucky out there,” Morgan said, drawing his big knife out of its sheath again.
 
He pulled his prisoner to his feet and sat him back in the bathtub.
 
“If anyone heard that gunshot, they must have assumed it was something else, like a car backfiring.
 
As usual in any big city, nobody wants to hear a gunshot so they just don’t.
 
Now, turn over.”
 
The thug glared at Felicity for a moment, then squirmed over onto his stomach.
 
Morgan put his pistol to his prisoner’s head while he cut the cord, freeing the killer’s hands.

           
“You won’t be able to get out of that slippery tub too quickly,” he said.
 
“I’ll ask the lady here to keep the gun on you all the same.
 
Now turn back over.”