Body of Shadows (10 page)

Suppose she found out after the fact.

Would she turn him in?

That would be doubtful.

She’d have too much fear that the story could unravel to the point of origin, namely her communication with Drift on the 16
^th
Street mall.

She’d end up disbarred.

She’d also officially elevate herself to being a target.

No, she wouldn’t tell.

With a disposable cup
of coffee in his left hand, Drift walked north on Bannock, past the courthouse, and then two more blocks.

September Tadge practiced out of an old two-story house that had been converted to an office. Drift walked past on the opposite side of the street with his face pointed forward.

In the front was a postage stamp yard with dead brown grass and a fancy wooden sign that said, “September Tadge – Attorney At Law.” The structure was kept up, the paint was fresh and the old single-pane windows had been replaced with sliders. They were all up meaning the place probably didn’t have air conditioning.

It sat deep in the shade of a 25-story luxury hotel.

Across the street was a parking lot.

Behind the house was an alley looking into the backside of restaurants and old brick structures.

Drift walked an additional half block then found a planter in the shade. He sat on the edge and called Dr. Leigh Sandt, the FBI profiler.

“I have some possible information on our guy,” he said. “It’s unverified but I have reason to suspect that it’s reliable. One, the guy picks his victims out at bars then stalks them for one or two or three weeks. Two, he has a small part of his left ear missing, compliments of a bullet. Three, he refers to himself as Van Gogh. Spread the word and see if it loosens anything up.”

“Who is this?”

He smiled.

“Funny.”

“You sound stressed.”

He exhaled.

“Between you and me, I’m thinking about bending a few rules.”

“Don’t.”

“We’ll see.”

“I’m serious Dent,” she said. “You’re good enough to get him the right way.”

“We’ll see.”

He hung up
and took a long hard look at September’s place.

“Just leave one of those windows up tonight,” he said.

Then he headed back to the office.

30

Day Two

July 19

Tuesday Afternoon

Yardley followed
Madison Elmblade into the financial district where the woman disappeared into the revolving doors of a high-rise.

Someone tapped on her shoulder.

She turned to find the James Dean face of Sanders Cave staring at her with a serious fix.

“Hot today,” he said.

“I want Deven.”

“Did you know that Miami was a set up?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“I’ll be honest,” he said. “I’m half tempted to believe you.”

“In that case get fully tempted because it’s the truth,” she said. “I’m just a middleman. You know that as well as I do. I don’t make decisions, I don’t call the shots. I just do what I’m paid to do. In your case I was paid to give you an assignment. I don’t know anything about it, not a single thing.”

Cave ran his fingers through her hair.

“Why is it that you and I never fucked?” he said.

Yardley exhaled.

“Deven has nothing to do with anything,” she said. “Just let her go.”

He ran a fingertip down her arm.

“Who set me up?”

“I don’t know. I just take orders.”

“Who hired you to hire me?”

“Come on, Cave, you know I can’t tell you that. I’ll end up dead. Whatever’s going on is between you and her. You both need to leave me out of it.”

“
Her?”

“Don’t act surprised. I’m sure you already knew that much.”

He nodded.

“You referred to her as a her once, a long time back,” he said. “I don’t even think you realized it at the time.”

“Look, right now I’m not against you,” she said. “If you hurt Deven though everything’s going to change and it’s going to change fast.”

“If I go down you go down,” he said.

“I’ll do it from a distance,” she said. “I’ll already be gone.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“Good, take it as one,” she said. “I’m going to say it one more time. Let Deven go and leave us out of it.”

Cave shook his head.

No.

No.

No.

No.

“This is your one and only chance,” he said. “If I have to walk away, I’m going straight to Deven and drag her into the deepest hell she could ever imagine. Once I start there won’t be any turning back.”

He kissed her on the forehead.

“Now, I’m going to ask you one more time,” he said. “You’re going to give me an answer and then I’m going to walk away. That will be the end of our conversation. There won’t be any more. This is it. Understand that all the way deep into your bones. Are you following me?”

She nodded.

“Say it.”

“I understand,” she said.

“Good. Now, last time. Who hired you to hire me?”

Yardley looked at the ground.

She shifted her feet.

Then she locked eyes with Cave.

“Her name’s Madison Elmblade,” she said. “She lives at 1775 Marian.”

He nodded.

“Is that the woman who came to your store this morning?”

“Yes.”

“What did you two talk about?”

“About how she would kill me if I ever told you what I just told you,” she said.

“You were following her just now,” he said. “Why?”

“I wanted to talk to her again.”

“About what?”

She opened her purse and tilted it so Cave could see a gun inside.

“About how she needed to back off,” she said.

“You were going to kill her?”

“Not right this second,” she said. “I was just going to warn her. Now I don’t have to bother, do I? Because you’re going to kill her.”

He smiled.

“That was my plan,” he said. “That plan just changed.”

Yardley wrinkled her forehead.

“I don’t understand.”

“Now I is we,” he said. “Instead of me doing it by myself we’ll both do it.”

“I’m not interested,” Yardley said.

“That’s strange because I thought you wanted Deven back,” he said.

“That wasn’t the deal,” she said. “The deal was that I give you the name and you let Deven go. That was the deal.”

“The deal just changed,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what. I’ll meet you halfway. I’ll take you to Deven. You can tell her everything’s going to be all right. That will calm her down.”

“When?”

Cave put his arm around her shoulders.

“Right now.”

31

Day Two

July 19

Tuesday Night

Tuesday night after dark
a thick blanket of clouds swept out of the mountains and let loose on Denver with a cool drizzle. Ordinarily Drift didn’t take the ’67 out of the garage if there was even a one percent chance of rain anywhere within a three state radius. Tonight, however, he’d be with Pantage, and adding the ’67 to the mix seemed like the absolute right thing to do.

The plan was simple.

They were going to drop into the bars Pantage frequented in the last three weeks or so. They were going to talk to the bartenders and see if they remembered anyone picking her out. Either way, they were going to grab whatever security tapes existed, if any, from the night she was there.

Drift picked Pantage up at her LoDo loft just after dark. She hopped in, shut the door and said, “How come this seat’s all wet?”

“It is?”

“Yeah, feel.”

He did.

She was right.

The ragtop was leaking.

She pulled Kleenex out of her purse, dried it off and said, “No biggie. It’s just a few drops.”

She wore a short slinky white dress that showcased her tanned little body to perfection. Down below were black high heels. Her hair was soft. Her perfume smelled like sex. “You said to wear what I usually wear when I go out,” she said. “So don’t complain.”

“Trust me, I’m the last guy on earth complaining. What was the last bar you were at?”

“That would be Tequila Rose.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, you know it?”

He did.

He did indeed.

It was Denver’s largest country bar, south on I-25 to 50
^th
, where the beer flowed hard and the women rode their cowboys even harder. “I have a story about that place that’s not very flattering,” he said.

“Tell.”

“I was a fixture there in my mid-twenties,” he said. “It was there on a drunken Friday night that I broke a hundred.”

Silence.

The wipers swept back and forth.

Drift worked through the city over to the freeway.

Once he got on it would only be a ten or fifteen minute drive.

“Broke a hundred?”

“Right.”

“A hundred what?”

“A hundred nights of pleasure, let’s say.”

“You bagged your hundredth woman there. That’s what you’re saying.”

“Bagged isn’t a word I use.”

“You did back then.”

He nodded. “I was different back then though. Now I’m older—”

He must have had a look on his face because Pantage said, “What?”

“I almost said older and wiser,” he said. “But I caught myself.”

Pantage patted his knee.

“Good catch. So what’s the number now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do.”

“Honestly—”

“Drift, no one counts to a hundred and then stops. So what is it? Two hundred? Three?”

“It’s not important,” he said. “What’s important is who’s there in the bed with you when you look at her and realize you’ve just hit your last number. You don’t need any more.”

“Have you hit that number yet?”

He smiled.

“Five or six times.”

She punched his arm.

“I should get paid to be around you.”

Drift didn’t know
if Tequila-R would be hopping or dead on a Tuesday. Judging by the sardine parking lot it was the former.

Inside the place hadn’t changed much.

Bodies were everywhere.

No one was feeling any pain.

A good band cranked out a catchy song that had the dance floor packed. Drift leaned into Pantage and said, “Three chords and the truth. That’s what country music is.”

They wedged towards the bar.

Pantage tugged on Drift’s arm and pointed to a bartender. “That guy there should remember me.”

They headed over and got his attention.

“I was here Friday night,” she said. “Do you remember me?”

“Yes.”

“Did you notice anyone stalking me?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m serious.”

“Every guy in here is stalking every woman in here,” he said.

Drift smiled.

It was true.

He leaned in.

“Does the fat man still run the place?”

Yes.

He did.

“Is he here tonight?”

“Yeah.”

They made their way
through a thousand bodies to the far back corner where Drift knocked on a black door. “The fat man’s sued everyone in town,” he told Pantage. “That’s how you know if you’re someone or not, by whether he’s sued you.”

The door opened.

A six-four cowboy appeared.

Drift looked around him a saw the fat man hunched behind a desk tapping cigar ashes into an ashtray. There was enough smoke in the room to intimidate a forest fire.

“I need to talk to the fat man.”

The cowboy stepped aside so the fat man could see.

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Let him in.”

“This needs to be private.”

“Private, huh?” To the cowboy, “Give us five.”

The room had no windows. When the door closed, Drift would have given his whole paycheck just to double the space.