Allyn Allyn - Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

“If so, he’s not a local. Detroit P.D. couldn’t assemble a fake ID this elegant. More likely he’s some kind of Fed. Customs, maybe, or an FBI undercover.”

“In every sense of the word,” Marcy said grimly. “He played me like a fish, didn’t he?”

“We don’t know that,” Flo said uneasily. “Look, babe, I know you’re ticked off, but don’t flip out on me. You can’t just kill him, you know.”

“Why not? It’s a lot cheaper than running.”

“Think, Marcy. If he’s an undercover cop, they’re already onto our smuggling operation. He’s probably stringing you along to get a line on our suppliers. But if he’s not a cop, then he has to be some kind of a heavyweight to have a cover this deep. Those Russians up in Warsaw Heights have stiffed us on two deliveries. Maybe they’re making a move to squeeze us out.”

“We’ve always dealt with them through cutouts. They don’t even know who we are.”

“We tracked down Brad. Maybe the Russians found us somehow.”

“Or maybe Brad’s exactly what he says he is. The dates could be a coincidence.”

“He must be super bad in bed if you believe that crap.” Flo sighed. “Want me to call up Plymouth Correctional, tell ‘em to reserve our old cell?”

Flo flinched from Marcy’s prison-yard glare, cold enough to crack concrete.

“I made this mess,” Marcy said abruptly. “I’ll clean it up.” Popping out the bottom drawer of her Victorian roll-top desk, she took out a Walther PPK automatic, checked the magazine, then jacked a round into the chamber.

“What are you going to do?” Flo asked.

“If he’s a cop? Nothing. It’s already too late. If he’s with the Russians? I’ll cap him and leave him in an alley. They’ll get the message.”

“And if he’s a straight citizen?”

“Maybe we’ll live happily ever after in a quaint little cottage with a picket fence. But he’s not a citizen, Flo. Is he?” It wasn’t a question.

“No,” Flo said. “Probably not. Sorry, hon.”

“The hell with it,” Marcy said. “It was all a pipe dream anyway. Take a bus to Taos, Flo. Call me in three days. It’ll be settled, one way or the other.”

“Or you’ll be dead. Or in jail.”

“Don’t sweat it. Either way, I won’t rat you out.”

“Nah, I think I’ll stick. I’m too wide to hide, anyway. And we’ve worked too damn hard to run from this mutt. C’mon, I’ll help you do your hair and makeup. By the time we’re finished, you can sit next to Brad in a taxi without being made.”

Flo’s redo wasn’t quite that dramatic, but it was damned effective. A dark rinse took Marcy’s hair from blond to mousy gray. Gum pads bulged her cheeks. Heavy framed glasses and strategic padding made her dumpy and anonymous as a babushka.

She could have walked through a saloon full of drunken steelworkers without drawing a wolf whistle or a second glance.

Using a nondescript rental car, she staked out Brad’s apartment building the next morning, hoping against hope that he’d drive to the airport and take a flight to Minneapolis to analyze somebody’s assembly line.

But he didn’t. He came out at noon dressed in gray coveralls with a slouch cap pulled low. No luggage. Not even a toolbox. He climbed into a battered, anonymous pickup, got on I-75, and drove straight south to Toledo.

She had no trouble tailing him. He was in a hurry, seemed distracted. Laying well back, Marcy trailed him to a rundown apartment house in Maumee, near the river. From up the street, she watched him circle the block once on foot before ducking inside.

Hurrying to the entrance, she glimpsed him disappearing into the rattletrap elevator. No doorman, no security cameras. She waited until the elevator stopped on the fifth floor, then took the fire stairs, racing up five flights, taking the steps two at a time.

Panting, sweat-soaked, she eased the metal fire door open — and froze. Brad was walking away from her down the dimly lit hallway, checking the apartment numbers. Stopping at an apartment door, he checked both ways, then rapped sharply on the door with a short piece of iron pipe.

The door opened the width of a safety chain. She could hear the guy inside telling Brad to get lost.

No hesitation. Brad kicked in the door, trashing the guy’s face, then hammered him to the floor with the iron pipe.

The guy was screaming, “No, don’t!” Tried swinging a wild punch at Brad, a huge mistake. Casually deflecting the blow, Brad twisted the guy’s wrist, then jammed the pipe across his elbow joint, dislocating it!

“Ahhhh! God! Lady, help me, call nine-one-one!”

Brad whirled, spotting Marcy, who’d opened the fire door wider than she’d meant to. He didn’t even blink. Jerking an automatic from his coveralls, he calmly shot the screamer in the head. Twice. Point-blank. The silenced rounds barely louder than a cough.

Before she could react, Marcy found herself staring down the gun barrel into the coldest eyes she’d ever seen. He kept the gun on her as he kicked the dead man back into his apartment and pulled the door shut. Trotting to the fire door, his weapon still aimed at Marcy’s head, he thrust her back into the stairwell, closing the door behind them.

Frisking her quickly, he found her Walther, and shoved it into his pocket. “Walk down two flights,” he said quietly. “And don’t do anything sudden.”

She did exactly as ordered. His tone was flat. Lifeless. She knew she was only a heartbeat away from being as dead as the man on the fifth floor.

“Stop here. Turn around.”

She faced him, keeping her hands where he could see them. The gun was centered on her heart.

He scanned her made-over face curiously, then nodded. “You’ve got one second to tell me why you’re here. If you lie to me, you’ll die.”

“Your identity bounced. Brad Sullivan died in nineteen seventy-three. I needed to know who you are. Why did you kill that guy?”

“He saw you, you saw him. The people I work for never leave witnesses.”

“So I’m next?”

He didn’t answer, which was an answer of sorts.

“Who was he?”

Brad hesitated, then shrugged. “A degenerate gambler. Took the Bulls over the Pistons, dropped sixty grand he didn’t have. Thought a few crummy mob connections would buy him a pass. How did you crack my ID?”

“We hacked into a LEIN program that scans death certificates.”

“Are you a cop?”

“No. The shop’s a front. We run a high-end smuggling operation. Chinese speed and forged art, mostly.”

“So... there’s no Auntie Em?”

“Every single thing I told you from the first moment we met was a lie. I grew up in foster care, got pimped out at fourteen, hooked in hotels till I knifed a john who beat me. Did eight years in Plymouth Women’s Correctional. All I know about happy families and antiques I got from TV or the prison library.”

“Why the digital dating thing?” he asked. “Trolling for suckers?”

“No, that... was personal. You grow up in foster care, you dream about having a nice family. Like the Brady Bunch or something. You?”

“Not so different,” he admitted. “Ran away, got ganged up. Did some people before they did me. Turned out I’m good at it. But I always work alone, no friends, no backup—”

“—no witnesses,” she added.

He nodded. “Years go by, you get hungry for some kind of normal life. ‘Honey, I’m home.’ All that crap.”

“But instead of Susie Housewife, you got me. Tough luck.”

“Tough’s all I’ve ever had. Should’ve known it wouldn’t work.”

“Actually, it did. Sort of.”

“How do you mean?”

“Don’t you get it? We both fed the dating service the same bogus histories. Good families, Lassie Come Home childhoods. So naturally, they matched us up. A hooker and a hit man. It’d be funny. Except for the part where I get killed. Can I ask you one favor?”