The Payback Assignment (30 page)

           
Morgan’s charge seemed to struggle briefly as he was dragged toward her, but she saw Morgan’s free hand dart into the man’s midsection.
 
There was another grunt and the struggling stopped.
 
Morgan drew himself to attention in front of Felicity, holding the smaller man so that his toes barely reached the ground.

           
“Sergeant Stark reporting,” he said in a deep voice.
 
“So, what did you want to talk about?”

           
Up close, Felicity recognized the man’s face, despite its being distorted by fear.
 
She held her left elbow, her left index finger pointing at their captive.
 
“You were tailing us this morning.
 
You were originally across the street.”
 
The man’s eyes widened to silver dollars circles.

           
“You don’t sleep much, do you?” Felicity asked quietly.
 
“But you’re no gunman.
 
They just left you staked out for us, right?”
 
Morgan shook his prisoner by the neck, and the man nodded his head.

           
“Glory, does everyone in the city know where I live?” Felicity asked.
 
Her brows knit as she faced Morgan, “We may have to find another place to stay.”

           
Morgan’s sigh was more exasperation than anger.
 
He pulled his fighting knife free of its scabbard and held it in front of his charge, making sure the blade caught the moonlight.
 
“Who else knows?”

           
The captive shook his head.
 
“When I found out about the price on your heads I found the girl’s place, but I didn’t tell anybody but my own posse.
 
Willy and Joe won’t tell anybody else, on account of they know somebody else will get you.”

           
“Willy and Joe,” Felicity said.
 
“That would be the other two following us this morning?
 
You guys are pretty good.
 
But you don’t look particularly dangerous.
 
Now my friend here, now he is.
 
Particularly dangerous, I mean.
 
Were you really thinking of butting heads with him?”

           
The little man’s eyes moved from Felicity’s face to the knife blade to Morgan’s face.
 
“I don’t know what we were thinking.”

           
Morgan looked at Felicity, waving his knife under his captive’s nose as if it were a fragrant flower.
 
“What happens if I kill him?”

           
“Questions.
 
Hassles.
 
Big pain in the arse.”

           
Morgan turned his charge’s head toward himself, as if the man were a ventriloquist’s dummy.
 
“What happens if I let you go?”

           
The smaller man took a few seconds to think, as if he realized the importance of giving the right answer.
 
“I go away?” he asked tentatively.
 
Morgan stared.
 
“I go away and tell Willie and Joe to disappear too.”
 
Felicity waved her hand as if she were trying to draw more out of him.
 
“Oh, and we don’t tell anybody where you at.”
 
         

“What do you think?” Felicity asked Morgan.

           
“Well, I’m in such a good mood and, like I said, I don’t want to spoil the day.
 
We can go catch and release with the small fry I guess.”

           
“That’s me,” their captive said.
 
“Small fry.
 
Not worth the hassle.
 
And I been thinking of taking a long vacation.
 
Florida maybe.”

           
Morgan grinned and dropped the man to his feet.
 
“Get the hell out of here.”

           
Approaching the door of Felicity’s apartment gave Morgan a small flash of déjà vu, but this time his natural senses told him that no ambushers lay in wait for them.
 
Once inside, Morgan dropped his jacket and holster rig on the guest room bed and pulled off his boots.
 
He sat for just a minute, testing the idea of going to bed and finding it wrong.
 
He wandered down the hall to watch Felicity, pouring herself a glass of wine in the kitchen.
 
He wasn’t sure what she was thinking about, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t lying down with him.
 
He was equally surprised to find he had no sexual urges toward this woman with whom he had spent such a glorious day.

           
Still, he wasn’t ready to be alone.
 
It was an awkward moment for him.
 
If he even mentioned going to bed, would they go together or alone?

           
“You don’t look tired yet,” Felicity said over her shoulder.
 
Was she shielding her eyes from him?

           
“Thought I might see what’s on TV,” he vamped.
 
He dropped onto the velvet couch and fired the remote toward the screen.
 
He was flipping through the choices without really seeing them, until Felicity called out.

           
“Hey!
 
Isn’t that the opening music to The Magnificent Seven?
 
Now there’s a classic film.”

           
“One of the great action flicks,” Morgan said, turning it up.

           
Before Steve McQueen stopped the coach at boot hill Felicity was seated beside Morgan with a bottle of white wine, some cheese, sausage and crackers.
 
Within minutes she was snuggled up under his arm and he could hear her breathing drop to the steady pattern of sleep just before his own eyes slid shut.

-26-

           
“I can’t believe I slept to one o’clock,” Morgan muttered as they stepped down from the bus.

           
“One-twelve, actually,” Felicity said.
 
“I was only up a few minutes before you, lad.”

           
“Yeah, but you made good use of the time.”

           
“Just doing what comes naturally,” she said as they strolled down the short block toward Bryant Park, backyard of the New York City Public Library.
 
What came natural to her in this case was making connections.
 
She had made phone calls to two society friends and a fellow thief who traveled in those circles.
 
Those calls had led to an enjoyable conversation with her contact at the hall of records.

           
“So you’re sure your pals gave you the right address?”

           
“Morgan, this is what I do for a living,” she said.
 
“The mark’s name is Adrian Seagrave, and there’s no doubt about the building he lives in.
 
And guess what?
 
His view of the river is a lot clearer today than it used to be.
 
You could see the World Trade Center from his windows before 9-11.”

           
“So that killer Pearson didn’t lie.
 
Glad I let him go.”

           
Felicity glanced at him, and looked away trying to hide her surprise, but Morgan saw her smile.
 
“Now Mick’s agreed to meet me at the library with copies of the official blueprints, diagrams, building history, the lot,” she said.
 
“With them in hand, I’ll be having no trouble getting in and getting our just due.”

           
They started up the long gray stairway to the front door of the New York Public Library’s central building, walking at the far right edge of the steps.
 
About halfway up, Morgan stopped to look fondly at one of the gigantic marble lions that guard that depository of knowledge.

           
“Remember when you asked me why I became a merc?”

           
“Don’t tell me it has something to do with lions.”
 
Felicity started to laugh but stifled it when she saw the serious expression on his face.

           
“Not lions, Red.
 
These lions.
 
I think maybe it all started here.
 
This was the first library I ever went in, and it was the lions that made me want to go in.”

           
Felicity took a seat on the steps.
 
“Okay, you’re saying it was reading that set you on the soldier’s path.”

           
Morgan’s eyes went upward, and his brow knit as he realized how implausible that sounded.
 
“Red, this town is a tough place to grow up in.
 
One day I wandered in here looking for an escape, I guess.
 
I wanted far away places.
 
A smart librarian handed me Tarzan of the Apes.”

           
“You’re kidding,” she said.
 
“You mean she hands you that book, with the great white hunters and all those daft natives running around?”

           
Morgan smiled.
 
“Black people are treated a lot better in the book than in the movies they made later.
 
Anyway, I ended up reading the Tarzan novels straight through, all twenty-four of them.
 
Then, just about when I outgrew them, I discovered Hemingway.
 
That’s how I found out how much world there is out there.
 
So, I set out to see it all, to get as much experience as I could.”

           
Felicity nodded her understanding.
 
“So all the time since then you’ve just been, what, living?”

           
“Yeah, I guess.
 
That and killing commies.
 
Course, I’m starting to run out of them.
 
But it’s been a good life, at least for me.”

           
They entered, and Morgan was pleased to see how little had changed.
 
The library still had the kind of solid, metal-clad doors that imply that the books inside are a treasure worth guarding.
 
Inside, both light and sound were muted.
 
It seemed cooler, but Morgan thought that might be an illusion caused by the cave like surroundings.
 
He wondered if the air really was thicker here than outside, and if he really could smell the dust of yellowed, crumbling pages of type.

           
“Just where in this huge place are you supposed to meet your friend?” he whispered.

           
“The most public place,” Felicity answered in equally soft tones.
 
“The main reading room.”

           
This was what Morgan had thought castles must be like when he was a child.
 
The library’s main reading room was so vast that its long row of twenty-foot tables did not appear at all crowded in.
 
The ceiling was so high, its collection of electric chandeliers could only provide atmosphere.
 
For reading, each long table held four evenly spaced lamps.
 
A mezzanine wound around the room, bordered by a three-foot high wrought iron railing.

           
Felicity moved directly to the middle of the fourth table, her pleated skirt swinging around her thighs as she walked, making a subtle sound, like quiet breathing, which could not be heard anyplace else.
 
The man she sat next to was clearly familiar.
 
They would chat for a few minutes and when they were both comfortable Felicity would exchange a previously agreed upon amount of cash for a cardboard tube containing the blueprints.