Gray Area (23 page)

“So they were terminated,” Diamond said.

“We—I tried to keep it simple,” Linda said, recovering somewhat from the
momentary crying jag.  “Tried to make it look like a jealous husband
getting revenge against a faithless wife.  I would have succeeded—”

“Except for me,” Diamond finished for her.

Linda smiled at this.  “Marshall brought you in because Robert
August had told them what they were planning and suddenly got cold feet. 
He was sure he and Jason would be targeted.  Marshall didn’t want to
believe any of it.  He was your typical lawyer:  just make money for
your client and don’t analyze too closely what your client does for a living.”

She took a few steps toward Diamond.  “Marshall wasn’t like you,
Lou.  You were the odd man out in all of this.  The one who should
never have been involved.”

“My brother didn’t know about you?”

“He didn’t want to make waves,” she said.  “Arc-Link pays fifty
million dollars in legal fees to this firm every year.  I have something
to do with that, of course.”

Diamond nodded.  “Marshall just wanted me to close the case up
fast.  So he was no danger to Arc-Link—”

Linda shook her head and held up her hand.  “No, he knew too
much.  They figure it’s better to clean an old slate—and start new
someplace else.”

“Which means,” Diamond said, feeling renewed rage well within him, “kill
those people closest to their smallest affairs so no one talks, then move
on.”  Diamond began thinking of something else.  “The night you went
to Don Simpson’s house.  Why?”

“To convince him that he should hide, that he was in danger,” Linda
said.  “I told him it was the mob.  Told him they were connected to
the firm.  That Marianne and he were in danger.  He hid in the cellar
when the police came.  It was a little touch—but it compounded his
guilt.  Or probable guilt.”

“You killed Simpson in the hospital. So there’d be no embarrassing
questions later.”

Linda nodded, tears again forming in her eyes.  “Yes.”

“Then they killed Robert August, stashed his house full of coke to make
him look like a dealer or distributor,” Diamond said.  “No one ever
considers Arc-Link in any of this.  A little coincidental though, so many
killings happening in the same law firm within seventy two hours, wouldn’t you
say?”

Linda smiled, shrugged.  “Any more coincidental than what happened
up in San Francisco back in ‘92?”

Diamond flogged his memory for a reference.  Nothing immediately
loomed.

“Pettit and Martin,” Linda said.  “Client walks right into the firm,
through security, pulls out an Uzi and kills eight lawyers in broad
daylight.  Why?  Because he was unhappy with the billing hours on his
twenty thousand dollar real estate fraud transaction case.”

“There is one small problem left,” Diamond said carefully.

Linda nodded.  “Yes.  That problem is you, my love.”

Diamond turned and looked at his brother’s corpse near the doorway. 
“Marshall.  These bodies.”

“Arc-Link personnel are untraceable,” Linda said.  “But they took
precautions with some of these guys.  Put fake leads to Columbia. 
With August murdered the night before, Homicide will call all this a
massacre.  Drug related, of course.  Berenson & Marelli was into
the drug cartel business.  Stranger things have happened.”

Diamond privately agreed.  “You’ve got it all figured out.  Not
bad, counselor.”

“We monsters have our days,” Linda said softly. 

“You have to kill me, too,” Diamond said, squaring off, facing her
directly.

“I didn’t want them to do it,” she said miserably.  “Is that
strange?”

Her gun hand wavered but Diamond could tell it was raising.  “I have
to do this,” she said.  “Or they’ll kill Patsy.”

“One thing bothers me,” Diamond said.  He had to keep her
talking.  Slow down her response time.

“What?”

“You.  Why did you want me to keep digging?  Was that part of
the act?”

Her gun hand again trembled and she lowered it.  “I told you once,
Lou—I wanted you to save me,” she said softly.  “I wanted you to find
out.  And then maybe—maybe, find a solution to all of this.  Because
I fell in love with you.”  She swallowed and looked down at the gun in her
hand.  “Even we monsters have a frightened little girl inside of us. 
A child that wants someone strong and good and heroic to come along and make
everything alright.”

She looked back at him, and this time he saw the expression of a
bewildered child.  “Did you at least—like me, Lou?  Ever?”

The question caught him completely off guard.  He was surprised to
hear his own voice.  “I loved you, Linda.”

THIRTY-THREE

Giles could tell he was hit badly.  Two rounds in the stomach, one
in the shoulder.  He looked down at the matted redness especially dark
under his right rib.  Probably got him in the liver.  He’d be dead in
twenty minutes, no matter what, and nothing on the planet could save him.

He closed his eyes, listening distantly to the sounds of Lou Diamond and
Linda Barely speaking.  They must have seen him crawl out of sight … but
they must have figured he was dying or dead by now.

They weren’t wrong.

He smiled and then chuckled to himself.

He’d never have that boat now, and forget about kicking it in the
Caribbean.

Well, that’s the way things go, Giles thought in customary, philosophical
fashion, even now, in extremis.  Sometimes you get the gold chain behind
Door Number One, and sometimes you get the pile of steaming dog shit behind
Door Number Two.

Life’s like that sometimes.

He grimaced, fighting back the blaze of pain in his gut.  Tears
rolled down his cheek in agony.  Still…

One last duty to perform.

“I love you, too, Lou,” Linda said, and smiled.  A sad, hopeless
smile, but one which Diamond could tell was one hundred percent sincere.

Suddenly, her smile disappeared.  Her gun hand came up very quickly.

Diamond only had time to react.  He raised his own gun to
fire.  Linda’s gun discharged three times.  The bullets sang past
Diamond.  Diamond assumed her aim was off and he automatically fired back
in response.

The bullets lifted Linda Baylor off the ground, slamming into the
opposite wall.  The screams of surprise behind Diamond caused him to roll
and turn, gun up.  Giles had caught yet another bullet in his arm, then
once again retreated, out of sight.

Diamond suddenly understood what had happened.  Linda had fired at
Giles him. 

She had saved his life.

My god … I thought she was firing on me
. 

And he, of course, had returned fire.

“Oh, no,” he groaned, as he crawled over to where Linda was breathing
with difficulty, her eyes straining to remain open.  

“Linda,” he whispered.

“That—was Giles,” she smiled, reaching out to touch his face. 
“Professional assassin.  He’s still alive, Lou … be careful …”

“I have to get you to a hospital,” Diamond was speaking on automatic,
trying to plug bullet holes in her chest with his hands.

“Don’t,” she urged him, “It’s fair.  Makes sense.  Not your
fault.”

“I thought—”

Her hand, blood smeared, touched his lips.  “I know.  Remember
your promise,” she said.

Diamond nodded.  He remembered.  She continued to smile. 
“Always—surprising me,” she said at last, then died with one brief rattle.

He put his head against hers, fighting back tears.

“Diamond!” Giles called out from someplace down the hall.

Diamond’s head snapped up, turning to the source of the assassin’s
voice.  Instinctively, he moved behind a desk, scanning the hall space
directly ahead.

“Who are you?” Diamond snarled.

“An admirer,” Giles coughed, blood gurgling in his throat.  “I—like
your style, Lou.  Sorry about the mess.”

“You don’t know
how
sorry, asshole!” Diamond yelled back.

“She was … very effective while she lasted, so I’m told,” Giles
struggled.  “Nice ass, too.”

“You’re dead, fucker!” Diamond said, running from behind the desk to the
corner of a wall, simultaneously checking how many rounds he had remaining in
his weapon.

“Yes,” Giles agreed.  “Quite dead.  By the way—my name is
Giles.  Always feel introductions are important.”

Diamond tried to gauge where the voice was coming from.  There were
three desks and cubicles directly ahead, along with a stand-alone printer and a
huge plant that looked like it probably came from someplace in Bora Bora. 
Most likely fake, Diamond thought, and surprised himself that he was actually
speculating on the nature of the fucking fauna in this place.  He glanced
back at Linda, dead on the floor.

“Giles, I’ll give you one chance and one chance only, motherfucker,”
Diamond said.  “Come out, hands in the air, and I don’t give a fuck if you
have to crawl.  Otherwise, I’m coming after you.”

Giles smiled to himself and nodded.  This was a good way to die, he
thought.  In the harness and faced with the most significant and dangerous
adversary of his life.  The universe had blessed him.  He would take
full advantage of it.

“Sorry, Lou,” Giles said.  “We’re going to have to do this the hard
way.  Apologies for the inconvenience.”

“No inconvenience at all,” Diamond said softly.

And that’s when he ran straight for the bank of desks, diving over the
stand-alone printer, his gun firing even in mid-air.

Giles would have expected no less of a spectacular tactic from
Diamond.  He was, predictably, too slow to respond to the airborne Diamond
and realized this even as he sluggishly tried to negotiate his own gun into
some kind of feasible potential.  Instead, Diamond’s bullets smashed into
his chest and face before Giles was able to get off a single shot.

Diamond rolled painfully on the floor, emptying his cartridge into the
bullet-ridden corpse, not fully content until his clip was completely
discharged.

Giles lay twisted in a kind of strange, surrealistic position, not unlike
a rag-doll haphazardly dropped on the floor, contorted unnaturally in every way
possible.  Most of Giles’ large intestines were exposed, the gray-red mass
of sausage-like tissue strewn over the corpse’s stomach, and now lying
piece-meal on the floor.

There was nothing that remained of Giles’ face.

Diamond looked away, then turned over and lay on his back, staring up at
the muted fluorescents above him.  Somewhere in the distance, a long way
away on the streets below, he could hear the approach of sirens.

He didn’t want to deal with the police.  Once Arc-Link discovered
that he had survived, they would be after him again.  After him—and his
daughter.  Like Giles, Diamond knew he had one last duty to perform before
he disappeared forever.

The front door opened, and Diamond found himself facing a friendly,
matronly woman of around fifty.  Before he could speak, she smiled and
held out her hand.

“Mr. Diamond?” the woman said.

“Yes.”

“I’m Susan Trent.”

“Hi, Susan Trent.  You’re a friend of Linda’s, I presume?”

“She asked me to watch the girls earlier today.  When Patsy comes in
to town, I sometimes give Linda’s cousins a break and turn into neighborhood
nanny.”

“I see.”

“Linda mentioned you might be stopping by.  And your daughter is a
doll.  Patsy and she are already fast friends.”

“That’s nice to hear,” Diamond said.

Susan glanced past him out the door.  “Is Linda with you?”

Diamond took a breath then shook his head. “No.  She’s been
delayed.  I’m the messenger boy.  Linda, well … Linda won’t—”

“Ah, her trial, I’ll bet,” Susan said.  “Lawyers, they go 24/7.”

“Yeah, true.”

Suddenly, Sonia shouted out.  “Daddy!”

The child ran from the living room, trailed by Patsy.

“Best come in, Mr. Diamond,” Susan said, opening the door wider, just as
Sonia fairly threw herself into her father’s arms.

Diamond fell to one knee and hugged Sonia.

“Hi, sweetie,” he said huskily, holding her too tight, but not caring.

“Say, I don’t mean to abandon my post,” Susan said, “but I could use half
an hour to run some chores, and—”

“I’ll take it from here, Susan.  Nice meeting you.”

Susan smiled then turned to Sonia and Patsy.

“Bye, girls,” she said, walking out the door.  “See ya later!”

But Susan Trent was already a distant memory for the children.  Lou
Diamond was the new Big Person in their life. 

Diamond looked at Patsy approaching him, her face all smiles, touched
with just a little confusion.

“Where’s mommy?” she asked.

Diamond kissed Sonia, then waved Patsy over.  The little girl ran to
him, and he put his arm around her.

“Is mommy coming?” Patsy persisted.

“No,” Diamond said gently.  “But she gave me a message for you.”

Patsy cocked her head, waiting.

“She said do whatever the nice man tells you to do,” he said.

Patsy giggled.  “You’re the nice man, aren’t you?”

Diamond nodded, tired beyond all reasoning.

“Yeah,” he said.  “I’m the nice man.”

He held Patsy close to him and kissed her head.  He then pulled
Sonia close and hugged both little girls while he stared out the distant
terrace window, at the dark Pacific ocean, thinking of Mexico.

THIRTY-FOUR

Ted Burke had been restless.  Still trapped to a hospital bed, his
wounds were healing and he was anxious to get back to work.  He’d been
apprised of the madness with the Berenson & Marelli murders and had
absorbed every detail from the file he’d been given—a file ostensibly accumulated
by Turner Sage and Lou Diamond.  Both associates, sometimes rivals.
 
Sage
was dead, murdered by the Arc-Link operatives.