Deadly Powers (Tapped In Book 2) (14 page)

“Men, we’ve got bigger problems right here in town. You’ve all been warned. Some of the meanest, most notorious criminals are among us. You may see them on the road into Tombstone—our own little town on the east side of the property. Or sitting right in front of you at a poker table, or in the process of robbing the Tombstone Bank. You don’t want to be caught around these parts unarmed. Listen to me now: I want you all to draw your weapons.”

John Wayne drew one of his own single-action Colts and held it up. He flipped it around, then pointed to the butt of the pistol. “See this green sticker? Well, you should have the same sticker on your own six-shooters.”

Every man in the room looked at his gun. And sure enough, I saw a green sticker on the butt of my Colt.

“If your gun doesn’t have a green sticker on it, come see either me or Jude right away. Remember, all ammunition must strictly come from the Morning Hawk Ranch armory. Is that perfectly understood?”

I flipped open the gun’s cylinder and examined my six chambered rounds. Each bullet had the telltale red tip—they were blanks. I saw the other men in the room doing the same. There were more than a few nods of relief.

A blonde, middle-aged woman stood, two tables over. She wore a matching leather jacket and pants—both fringed in copious amounts. Like John Wayne, she too had six-shooters holstered on both hips.

“Calamity Jane … you have a question?”

“Two things: First, just because I’m a woman I hope you don’t expect me to be joining the kids’ morning ride.”

“I’d expect you to pass on that, Jane,” John Wayne said. “Second?”

“So you’ve swapped out all our ammunition … to blanks, right?”

From his stern expression, John Wayne obviously didn’t like Calamity Jane discussing such information in public.

“My question is this: If there is an … altercation … a gunfight, how’s it determined who’s the winner?”

With a peek at Calamity Jane’s thoughts, I discovered I was wrong. Her question was prearranged. She was a plant—she worked for the Morning Hawk Ranch. Then I noticed Jude standing off to the side, surveying the crowd. The other cowhand, Jordan, joined him and whispered in his ear. I could inwardly hear their conversation, as easily as if I were standing beside them, but this time, I read Jordan’s thoughts.

Jordan:
I checked through their luggage … all their stuff.

Jude:
What did you find?

Jordan:
Nothing. Oh, and he doesn’t have an electric razor. I thought that was weird.

John Wayne spoke up again: “Thank you for your questions, Ms. Jane. Altercations, as you put it, can happen in a place like this. It’s the way of things, in the old Wild West. I want you all to take a good look around the room, around the perimeter. See those men?”

Sure enough, there were now quite a few, maybe fifteen, ranch hands surrounding our tables. They looked serious and surprisingly dangerous. Arbitrarily, I read a few of their minds and came to the quick determination that all was not good—not good at all. In an attempt to employ local help, these men were hired almost entirely from Guffy—the local town’s worst gene pool. Some of them were the same men Sheriff Corki warned me about. Maybe Corki exaggerated and they weren’t all perverts and degenerates, but from what I was seeing and hearing, I wasn’t particularly optimistic.

The Duke continued: “These men will be watching … always around. They’re trained and know what to look and listen for. A determination will be made as to which man drew down first and if his, or her, aim appeared dead on. They will determine who is the winner.”

“What happens to the loser?” a colossal-sized, rosy-faced man in the front of the room asked. He was sporting a silver belt buckle the size of a butter plate. Even from a distance I could make out a pair of small gold pistols, their muzzles crossed, affixed to the buckle’s center. I recognized him as a U.S. congressman, from one of the southern states. Maybe Georgia or West Virginia.

“Well, then he’s dead, Butch,” he replied, with a deadpan expression.

The room went quiet in anticipation of some further explanation.

John Wayne smiled and further said, “He or she will be taken into custody and placed into our jail for a period of no less than five hours. Being slow on the draw in these parts has certain repercussions.”

The Guffy ranch hand nearest me was close enough for me to see his holstered Colt. Instead of a green sticker on its butt, there was a red one. I stood and caught John’s attention.

“Mr. Holliday?”

“I … um … noticed that your ranch hands all have red stickers on their pistols instead of green. Should we take that to mean they’ll be firing live rounds?”

“I was wondering when someone would notice that. As I’ve said, these men are specially trained and are doing double-duty as our ranch security. We’ve an important bunch of folks here, so high security is essential at Morning Hawk Ranch.” John smiled and dug into his front pocket. “For being the first one to figure that out, you win the prize. Please come on up and retrieve your award.”

All heads turned in my direction. With the exception of the servers, bringing in trays loaded with Angus chili and Mrs. Wayne’s hot cornbread, the room was quiet. I hitched up my shoulders in mock confusion, and made my way between the tables to join John Wayne.

Stepping down from his milk-carton perch, he held up a large metal star, showing it off to the crowd. “I hereby appoint you, Doc Holliday, sheriff of Dodge City.” He pinned the star over my heart and stepped back—appraising his handiwork. He turned me to face the room of onlookers, then clapped his hands. Within seconds, everyone likewise was applauding.

I held up a waving hand in appreciation and made my way back to my seat. This could complicate things. I wondered how it would impact my getting close to Rudy Palmolive and finding Pippa.

I sat down and saw the look of consternation on Carmen’s face—she wasn’t happy. Mrs. Palmolive, on the other hand, looked more than a little intrigued.

“Are you going to kill my daddy?”

I looked at the boy, sitting to the right of his father—Billy the Kid. “Well … that could happen.”

The man next door prepared for the day much the same way he had for the past fifteen days. Up at 5:30 a.m. sharp, he opened his laptop and checked on the status of the girl. Video feeds from all her rooms were operational. He clicked on the window for her bedroom and it filled the screen:
Ah
,
she’s
s
till asleep.
He hurried off to the bathroom to do the three
S
s: shit, shower, and shave. After dressing, he checked on the girl again and found her waking up. He watched as she reached a thin bare arm into the air and stretched, her long blonde hair partially covering her face. She sat up, letting the covers fall down to her lap. The man observing her noticed the top of her white panties—she was naked from the waist up. With both arms extended behind her, supporting her, she looked toward the window.

The man looked at his watch: Three hundred and sixty hours and thirty-four minutes. He liked a steady routine. At rare times, he allowed himself to ponder certain possibilities, though he never overly-invested himself emotionally either way. With that said, to deny a preference for certain outcomes would be lying to himself.

* * *

He grabbed up his white windbreaker from the clothes tree, standing to the right of his apartment’s front door, and put it on. He stood still, patiently waiting. His eyes took in the surface of the off-white front door, less than a foot from his face. Chips of paint were missing along the top edge, revealing multiple undercoats of old paint jobs—pea green, pinkish tan, and even pale blue. Paint was also missing from around the small brass peephole, positioned nearly-perfectly at eye level. He tilted his head slightly, hearing sounds from next door. The girl was preparing to leave. She coughed and cleared her throat—her cold seemed better but not quite gone. He heard the metallic rattle of the chain, first sliding then dropping away. She slid the deadbolt and turned the doorknob. The man remained perfectly still, taking slow, even breaths. The girl used her key to lock the door behind her, and hurried down the corridor. Her tennis shoes made little sound on the scuffed hardwood floors. He gave her another few seconds before unlocking and opening his own door. Standing on the threshold, he checked his watch again. It was now 6:32 a.m.—two minutes late. Mrs. Goertz never deviated from that timetable. Not once, for that was their agreement. Check-in time was 6:30 a.m., sharp.

The man in the white windbreaker hurried down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. He needed to keep Arlington in sight. He slowed when he heard her distant footfalls on the linoleum below. She’d reached the foyer. The sound of a door swishing open confirmed she’d left the apartment building. He hurried down the last few steps, sprinting for the door. He knew her routine: she would turn west, go up Colonial Way two blocks, and enter the Starbucks on the corner of Colonial and Brighton. Outside, he forced himself to slow his pace—not bring attention to himself. Up ahead, he saw her walking on the sidewalk. She was hurrying along, pulling her hair back into a high ponytail. She’d chosen a short black skirt and a gray top to wear. He’d seen both garments on her before, but not together.
She has good fashion sense,
he thought
.
Today of all days it mattered what she wore, for she would never wear something different—today’s outfit was the outfit she would die in.

* * *

It was no mistake … no mindless miscalculation of time. Mrs. Goertz hadn’t checked in. Twenty minutes was a long enough deviation from a set routine. The girl had to be terminated—this morning. Now.

Arlington entered Shasta Park, carrying a tall latte in one hand and the straps of her small backpack in the other. The man stayed with her, never letting her completely move from view. She stopped at a waist-high iron fence and watched a mother swan with several small chicks paddle by in the park’s largest pond. Twenty yards away, he removed his jacket and draped it over the fence. He watched as Arlington suddenly reached into a front pocket of her pack and retrieved her cell phone. Her face brightened and she laughed at something the caller’d said. The man patted his front right pocket, feeling the contours of the box cutter inside. He had no real preference for one means of killing over another, but if left strictly to him to decide, knives and box cutters would be his first weapons of choice. And today, the choice was his to make. The victim deserved that much.

An elderly woman approached behind him, startling the man. She had a plastic grocery bag in one hand, with the remnants of a loaf of bread inside. She’d obviously come to feed the swans. She approached the fence and leaned over the railing, her left hand accidentally brushing his jacket. He didn’t like his things touched. She looked up at him smiling, but seeing his face—his outrage—she quickly scurried off.

The man retrieved his jacket and put it back on. Casually, he looked around the park.
Perfect
. No one else was around, just Arlington and himself. He withdrew the box cutter from his pocket, keeping it hidden in his palm. He used his thumb to slide the small protruding switch forward, till he felt the extended razor blade catch. He stayed on the path that ran alongside the fence, and walked toward Arlington. She was still on the phone—nodding at something the caller said. She was lovely, and this was an appropriate place for her demise. She deserved a pretty place. He made final determinations on how the next few seconds would unfold: Her death would be very, very quick. He would walk right past her—perhaps she would look up and smile in his direction. Once he was within arm’s length, he would lash out, catch her on the left side of her neck, and cut her carotid artery. It would all happen in a blur, and he’d be gone before she hit the ground.

Ten feet away, Arlington, leaning on the fence, was turned away from the pond—she noticed the man approaching her.

* * *

21 hours earlier …

The airport would have to wait until the following day, since Pippa insisted things go down a certain way—her way.

Heidi was anything but forthcoming about the man wearing the white windbreaker. Other than the fact he would kill Arli, once their scheduled check-in call was missed, even by several minutes. Sitting pinned between Pippa and Baltimore, Heidi clammed up—smiling contemptuously—as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Pippa knew immediately how to deal with her.

“Break her nose, Baltimore,” Pippa said matter-of-factly.

The driver of the Range Rover stole a quick glance over his shoulder toward the back seat.

“Do it so even the finest plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills has a hard time making it look right. Make her ugly.”

“I can do that,” Baltimore said. Shifting in his seat, he looked at Heidi—appraising how best to go about striking her in the face. He brought his left arm up: Keeping his palm open, he positioned the heel of his hand forward, as his fingers slowly curled inward. His hand now an effective martial-arts weapon in itself.

Heidi’s eyes were like saucers. Taffy, in the front passenger seat, was looking back at her, his expression tense.

“Wait! Let’s talk about this,” Heidi piped.

Pippa brought her face closer to Heidi’s. “What’s your check-in routine with the guy watching Arli? Tell me now or I’ll have Baltimore rearrange your features. Children will run away, screaming at your hideousness. Lie to me even once …”

“Fine … no need for all the dramatics. I check in with him three times daily: Five-thirty in the morning, at noon, and eleven at night. Happy?”

Pippa checked the clock on the dashboard. “You made the noon check-in?”

“Yes.”

Pippa gave Baltimore a subtle nod and he lowered his hand. Heidi glared at him, then at Pippa.

“Turn into the next motel, driver. We need to work things out for tomorrow morning. We’re also going to need another agent or two.”