Bernard DeLeo - Cold Blooded

“Hello, Mr. Robinson.” A seated man’s shadowed face appeared on the screen.

“You have an urgent matter?”

“We found someone -”

“You’re running my location. The price just doubled.” The man referred to as Mr. Robinson closed his notebook computer with satellite uplink and packed it away. He left the empty Pacific Grove beach after taking a last look at the surging waves. The overcast dawn gave the ocean surface a grayish hue.

It took him only minutes to travel the road which ran along the coastline. With his gear safely stowed in the trunk, the man mentioned as Mr. Robinson drove his nondescript gray Chevrolet Malibu away from the beach to Lighthouse Avenue, where he parked near Monte Café. With a different laptop, the man walked into the nearly empty restaurant and sat down. He smiled and nodded at the middle-aged couple having breakfast a few tables over.

“You’re up early, Nick.”

Nick grinned over at the balding man with deeply lined, tanned face. “It’s not that early, Dan.”

“Working on a new novel?” Dan’s wife asked.

“Always, Carol,” Nick answered. “What are you and Dan doing up? I thought you retirees hated getting up before noon.”

“Yeah, right. We haven’t been in a bed past seven in fifty years, you slacker. Carol and I actually accomplish things in reality. We can’t all make a fortune writing about killers.”

“Dan!” Carol admonished, slapping her husband’s shoulder.

“I asked for it.” Nick chuckled as a harried man in his forties, wearing white cook’s garb rushed toward Nick’s table. “Uh oh, you short again, Joe?”

“Nancy’s still out with the flu. What can I get you, Nick, the usual?”

“Yep, and I’ll get my own coffee. Don’t hurry my order. I’ll fool around on the computer for a while,” Nick replied, standing up.

“Thanks,” Joe said, on his way to the back again. “I’ll bring you your rye toast in a few minutes, big spender.”

Dan and Carol laughed at Nick’s stricken look as he trudged to the coffee pot. Nick brought the coffee over to the couple. He refilled their cups before retrieving a cup and saucer from the coffee station for himself. Nick returned to his table, ignoring Dan’s remarks about slow help. He opened his notebook computer and accessed the internet. An anonymous bulletin board carried the message with the identifying code he was looking for. The post contained only one word: agreed. Nick typed in a new time for one hour later and closed his notebook.

“Wow! That was a quick entry.” Dan helped Carol get stiffly to her feet.

“I’m outlining today, nothing serious.”

“That killer of yours is scary, Nick,” Carol said. “How do you come up with those awful plots?”

“I do the job and then I write it out like a diary.”

Dan chuckled appreciatively. Carol clucked her disapproval at Nick’s ad lib.

“Why don’t you write a nice romance for your next one,” Carol urged, as the couple walked toward the door. “I’ll bet – ”

“Oh, yawn,” Dan cut in, glancing at Nick. “Don’t you dare, Nick. I want to read all about a new Diego assassination gig. Have him blow up congress like Tom Clancy did in his book.”

Nick laughed. “I’ll think about it. Hey, Carol, Diego had a romantic interlude in the last one. Didn’t you -?”

“Nick, that was so nice.” Carol turned around excitedly, leaving Dan holding the door open for her. “You should give him a steady girlfriend.”

“Might as well give him gardening and quilting hobbies, too, while you’re making him into a sissy.” Dan scowled at Carol as she took another shot at his shoulder, and the two shuffled out the door, still arguing.

“You set off Dan and Carol again. I can’t believe those two both read your pulp. Here’s your rye toast, Hemingway.” Joe set the plate down in front of Nick with an exaggerated flourish. “Thanks for getting your own coffee. Give yourself a big tip.”

“How about I find a new restaurant to get insulted in?”

“Oh no, Nick.” Joe played along, wringing his hands on the way to the kitchen. “There goes my vacation in the Bahamas.”

“You’ll be sorry when you don’t have Nick McCarty to kick around, Joe,” Nick called out after him, before digging into his rye toast breakfast.

Within the allotted time, Nick again sat out on the Pacific Grove beach. Although a few joggers and walkers passed by along the stone divider separating the road from the sand, no one had descended to the chilly beach.

“We were taking precautions,” the man on Nick’s screen explained.

Nick rearranged his ear piece. He projected only a blank screen, his words in text form, with a computer generated voice. When Nick was satisfied his contact had no tracking gear on him, he spoke.

“Send the package, and I’ll be in touch.” After the transmission was completed, Nick acknowledged reception.

“This is a small window of opportunity.”

“I’ll let you know,” Nick ended the conversation and packed up his portable satellite uplink once again.

Nick drove to Lighthouse Avenue again; but turned right on 12 thStreet, stopping two blocks down in front of a two story home with a white picket fence, porch, and balcony. It was one of his few excesses. He loved the sprawling four-bedroom place more than anything else in his life.

Inside, tan walls highlighted the dark oak woodwork throughout. Oil paintings of seascapes dominated the wall space. With the satellite gear stored in his downstairs safe room, Nick took a cup of coffee with him to the balcony. He opened his notebook computer at the table. After scanning and opening the burst transmission, the attached picture gripped him as nothing had in decades.

A young woman with sandy hair and shining blue eyes peered out at him, her smile accenting the sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She looked so much like a woman he had known in high school that Nick’s sense of reality slipped momentarily. He swallowed and searched the data in her file. At thirty-three, she was five years younger and in no way the girl he had known. The file revealed her name to be Rachel Hunter. Nick’s prospective employer wanted her dead by week’s end. Rachel was under federal witness protection in Pleasanton, California, just north of Nick’s Pacific Grove place.

Nick locked up his house. It took him under two hours to reach the Applebee’s restaurant where Rachel worked. He followed the greeter in and was seated at a window table with a menu. Rachel’s tables were in an area further down on Nick’s right, where he could see her movements without obstruction. She had to pass by his table to reach the kitchen. Nick ordered the soup and salad special with iced tea. He noticed Rachel glance his way as she walked by. Nick smiled at her, and Rachel blushed as if embarrassed he had noticed her looking at him.

Six days later, an immaculately dressed man entered his plush office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He walked to the huge window behind the desk, where it seemed the world lay at his feet. Gazing out at what he thought of as his world, he wondered if the detestably arrogant Mr. Robinson had brought the little blue-eyed canary to room temperature yet.

The fifty-caliber slug went in dead center between his eyes, opening after impact to leave little of his head intact. The man was never to be disturbed during these morning hours. His secretary would not discover the body until nearly noontime. By then, Nick was off the island and on his way west.