There Fell a Shadow (5 page)

“When I can. Right now things are kind of busy.”

Colt sat relaxed, one leg crossed over the other at the knee. But his eyes stayed sharp. His hand gripped his glass tightly. “When's the last time you saw her, Wells?”

“What?”

“You don't see her. I'd bet cash money on it. You never see her.”

“What is this, Colt?”

“Ah,” he said drunkenly. “You don't give a shit. I know your type.”

“You're drunk.”

“I know your type. You don't give a shit about anything.”

“You're drunk. What is this garbage?”

He pointed a finger at me. “You're workin' all the time. Right? You bury yourself in your work. You don't
want
to give a shit, that's what. That's why you keep away from Lansing.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You think I don't know you.”

“That's what all this is, huh. That's what it is.”

“I know you, Wells. I know you. I was just like you once. I was just like you.”

I'd had it. “Cut the shit, Colt. Just because Lancer kissed you off, I don't have to take this shit.”

That seemed to stop him finally. The fire in his eyes dimmed. He looked down at the standard, hotel-issue shag rug.

We sat in silence for a few seconds. My head was spinning. My mind was dull. Vaguely I found myself wondering about the incident in the bar. The confrontation between Colt and the haunted man. We'd all politely let it go unmentioned, but it had cast a pall over the night. It had sparked the serious drinking. Now it seemed to me that this discussion was related to it in some strange way. Some way I couldn't make out. It was all too complicated for my pickled brain.

Colt started talking again. To add to my confusion, he seemed to have gotten off on a whole new topic.

“We were in Jacobo when the rebels broke through.” He was still staring at the rug. He spoke quickly, in a low, feverish murmur. “Me and Wexler. We knew the capital, Mangrela, we knew it was going to fall. You have to understand. There'd been weeks, months of … of boredom. Of nothin' but the heat and the mosquitoes. Then there'd be some sudden rush of vengeance out of all them jungles around the cities. The rebels would come whompin' down on some little town, kill the men, rape the women. Then the government'd hit back and a bunch of rebel sympathizers'd up and disappear. And then … and then it would all calm down. All sink back into the heat and the boredom. It didn't seem to us like anything would ever really … happen.”

He took a long breath. It shuddered as it came out. He wiped his mouth with one hand. “And now it was comin'. Finally. All of it. The bloodshed … not just bloodshed … the … the torture, the mutilations. The long, long killings in the hot, hot sun. Mangrela was goin' to fall, man. Me and Wexler, we knew we had to get back.” He lifted his eyes to me. Eyes as haunted now as those of the man in the bar. “Not just to get the story, Wells. Not just to get the story. We had to get out. That's where the yank choppers were. The capital. And once the capital belonged to the rebels, we were finished. All of us.”

His whole body shook once in the chair as he let out the memories of a decade ago. He blinked—hard. He was fighting the liquor, but soon it would win. He wanted to get it all out first.

“We didn't even know if we could make it back,” he said softly. “I left that morning, as soon as we got the news. Wexler thought he'd have a better chance in the dark.” Colt's eyes filled. I could barely hear him. “It gets awful dark in Sentu at night. The stars … I was afraid to travel in the dark.” He started to bring his drink to his lips, then lowered it. Another shot would probably have finished him. “Even in the day, it was a nightmare. The shellfire never stopped. The jungle was exploding everywhere. The roads … the dirt roads. They were filled with refugees … children, women, bleeding, desperate, dead. And soldiers—you couldn't tell what side they were on anymore. They'd stop you, check your ID. You didn't know if they were goin' to blow your head off or let you pass. They didn't know. It depended on … God knows … luck, their mood. It was chaos. It was a jungle where all the animals were humans, and all the humans left were either murderers or dead.… They stared at you out of the undergrowth. And the shells kept falling.… Wells, I've never been so afraid.”

I stared at that weathered face of his. It was not the face of a coward. Not at all. It was the sort of face you wanted beside you when the shooting started. Calm, hard, unwavering.

“You see what I'm sayin'?” he said to me quietly. “You see what I'm tryin' to say?”

I opened my mouth to answer. I didn't answer. I didn't see. I didn't understand why he was telling me this. I was drunk and I couldn't make sense of it.

Colt ran his hand up through his dense brown hair. With the other arm, he pushed to his feet. As he did, his drink fell from his loose grip. The glass tumbled onto the rug, spat its liquor into the shag. I saw the shag darken with scotch. I heard, in my mind, the beer glass shattering when he dropped it in the tavern. I couldn't shake the idea that everything was connected.

Colt towered over me where I sat. He swayed. He put his hand to his forehead.

“I didn't just go back there for the story,” he said. “Not just to get the story. Not just to get out.” Stumbling, he headed for the bedroom door.

“Colt,” I said. It came out slurred.

He reached the doorway. He faltered, leaning against the jamb. I heard him say something. His voice cracked as he said it. I couldn't make out the words.

He straightened, swayed. This time, I heard it.

“Eleanora,” he muttered. “Eleanora, Eleanora, my love, my love.”

He staggered out of sight into the bedroom.

I waited. There were no other sounds.

It took me a moment to fight my way to my feet. I set my drink down on the coffee table. I walked to the bedroom door as if I were balancing on a tightrope. I peered in. Colt lay sprawled facedown across the nearest bed. I saw his back lift and fall with his breathing. I heard him start to snore.

I turned unsteadily. I don't know why. I dared the tightrope back to the sofa to get my coat. I picked up the coat but decided it would be best to put it on sitting down. I sat down heavily, with the coat on my lap. The sofa seemed very deep, very soft. I blinked. I blinked again. I blinked several times over. Maybe it would be better, I thought, to put the coat on lying down. I lay down. I pulled the coat up over me. I closed my eyes.

I opened my eyes quickly when I felt the whole world start to spin. My stomach flipped as I lay on the sofa. I stared at the lamp in the ceiling to bring the room to a halt. I had to fight to bring all the split images together. For many long minutes, I hung in that precarious place where it is impossible to keep your eyes open and sickening to close them.

Then, mercifully, I passed into oblivion.

A
n insistent knock—and a taste like sand—brought me round. The room was bright with morning. It was a piercing brightness: the optical equivalent of a dentist's drill. I groaned when it hit me. I tried to go to sleep again. The knock kept on. My head ached with it. I blinked. I ran my tongue through the sand in my mouth. I sat up. I groaned.

The knocking kept on. I figured it out. Someone was knocking on the door. The door, I noticed now, was not where it usually was. The window was not where it usually was. I, as it turned out, was not where I usually was. The knocking continued to hammer at my head from the outside. A dull throbbing began to answer it from within. I called up the memory of the night before. I remembered Timothy Colt. His hotel room. I looked down at the coat on my lap.

The knocking kept on.

“All right!” I shouted. The sound of my own voice ricocheted off my internal organs like a pinball. “All right,” I said more quietly.

I tried to push myself off the sofa. It seemed a long way. I tried again, my stomach heaving.

I stood. The room rocked this way and that. The knocking—which had paused when I shouted—started up again. I cursed. I turned slowly to find the door.

“I'll get it!”

The voice startled me. It was Colt. He had come, not from the bedroom to my left, but from the bathroom to my right. He came striding out vigorously. He was dressed and pressed and ready to meet the day. His wiry frame was wrapped in a natty tan suit with a western cut. There was a string tie in a neat bow around his neck. His chin was clean-shaven. His hair was wet and slapped back on his skull as if he'd just come out of the shower.

I groaned at the sight of him. He grinned at me as he passed to the door.

“You look awful there, friend,” he said. “Go on back to sleep for a while.”

I made the only response I could think of without the use of a pistol. Colt laughed. He grabbed hold of the doorknob and pulled the door in. I stumbled into the bathroom.

I heard Colt say: “Well, hey!” He sounded surprised and pleased.

I heard a low, breathy voice answer, “Compliments of the house, Mr. Colt.”

Colt laughed. “Fine by me.”

I relieved myself, then stumbled to the sink. I splashed water on my aching face. I looked up in the mirror. It was not a pleasant sight. The usual crags and lines of a thin, fierce face had sagged in the light until I looked like a basset hound. Above the high hairline, my gray hair lay damp and tangled.

Behind this travesty, I saw the reflection of the sitting room. A bellboy had entered carrying a tray. He took it to the coffee table in the center of the room.

As he bent forward to put the tray on the table, I saw Colt come up beside him. The reporter reached into his pocket, brought out his money clip. He thumbed through it for a tip. I turned away from the mirror. Walked to the bathroom doorway.

I was looking out the door when the bellboy straightened, turned around. He and Colt faced each other in profile before me, Colt to my right, the bellboy to my left. The bellboy, I saw through bleary eyes, was dressed all in black, like the doormen. His face was dark brown with deep-set, intense eyes. He wore his hair cut close, almost in a crew cut. He couldn't have been more than twenty, if that, but dark lines creased his brow and pinched the corners of his mouth.

Colt fumbled with his money clip. He found a couple of bills and held them out to the kid. The bellboy killed him.

I saw it this way. Suddenly the kid had a knife in his left hand. He must have slid it out of his shirtsleeve. It was a wicked-looking dagger. Its blade was short and curved like a scimitar's. It flashed once as he brought it up under Colt's ribs. It went into the reporter with no more noise than a whisper of tearing cloth and flesh. Colt gave a soft little “oof.” He bent forward with the blow. As he did, his killer twisted the knife expertly. Colt's face went blank. He hadn't even had time to be surprised.

With a smooth flick of the wrist, the bellboy pulled the dagger free. As he did, Colt keeled over. He hit the coffee table. The tray rattled with the blow. Colt rolled onto the floor, landing on his back. At last he lay still, his eyes staring up at the ceiling, his arms splayed inelegantly. Blood was bubbling up through the hole in him.

That's when I realized he was dead. That's when I cried out: “Colt!”

That's when the bellboy turned and saw me.

That's when he knew he had a witness.

O
nly the slightest hesitation raced across the young-old face of the assassin. His eyes shifted toward the door. He was wondering if he should break for it. I was still staring dumbfounded, my eyes flashing back and forth from the killer to the body of Timothy Colt. Not five seconds had passed since the kid had pulled the knife.

The fountain of blood burbling out of Colt's midsection grew weaker. His white shirt was now soaked scarlet. As I fought to grasp the fact of the reporter's death, the bellboy made up his mind. He came for me.

It was an expert approach. He moved in, crouched low, the knife gripped lightly, held close to his side. He kept his intense eyes trained on my chest, like a basketball player watching for the fake.