William Lashner - Marked Man

“Does this mean you’re not writing a book?” I said as I frantically tried to figure out what the hell to do.

“Why would I worry over words when this is so much simpler?” she said.

“No agent? No proposal? No advance? I thought we had a future together.”

“Oh, Victor,” she said as she waggled the gun at me. “We do. It’s just going to be very short.”

“What’s going on?” said Monica. “Victor?”

“She’s going to kill us.”

“Of course she’s going to kill us. But why?”

“It’s payback for what we done to your sister,” said Joey. “Karma with a gun.”

“Chantal wouldn’t have wanted that.”

“But it’s what she’s getting,” said Rhonda. “And after what I heard, I think I’m doing everyone a favor.”

“You look good for a Korean War vet,” I said.

“That’s my father,” she said. “But with two false hips, he doesn’t get around so well anymore, so I took over the family business. One step up from animal control.”

“You led them to me again, you idiot,” said Charlie.

“I guess I did.”

“As a lawyer you might be okay, Victor,” said Charlie, “but as a bodyguard, you’re the-”

Before he could finish, I jerked up the door latch and slammed the door with all the strength in my shoulder. I expected to feel the weight of her bang away from the taxi, but she did a graceful sidestep as the door swung wildly open. I almost tumbled to the ground, held up only by my seat belt, when the door swung back and smacked me in the head.

She pulled the door away from me and kicked me in the chest, so I was flung back into the taxi.

“Let’s not make too big a mess,” she said. “The cleaners are already on their way.”

With her side to the now-open door, she pointed her gun toward Charlie in the backseat. And then we heard it.

An engine revving nearby, a rustle of weeds behind us.

Rhonda looked up just as a small, dark car burst out of the vegetation and headed right for us.

Rhonda’s gun arm swiveled.

The onrushing car’s high beams burst on.

She threw up an arm.

The car jumped forward.

There was an explosion near my head. And then, with a blast of hot air on my face, with a jumble of red hair and white limbs, with an aborted cry and the dying scream of torn metal, the car came upon us and beside us and rushed past us.

And just like that, the gun, the open car door, and Rhonda Harris had all disappeared.

Well, not quite disappeared.They lay about fifteen yards away, in a jumble of blood and bone and metal, all the elements mercifully indistinct one from the other in the darkness. To the side of the mess was the little car, its motor still running, its lights now washing across the weeds at the far side as it slowly started turning around.

I unbelted and stumbled out of the now-doorless entranceway of the cab. My knees were shaking so hard I lost my balance and fell to the ground, ripping my pants, before I climbed to my feet again. The night smelled of exhaust and cordite and terror, coppery and hard. And something else, too, something vaguely sweet and vaguely familiar. I looked around. The others were now out of the taxi also, looking as dazed and confused as did I. The three stared at me. I shrugged. Slowly, we approached the little car. We approached hesitantly, with undue care, as if it were a wild animal, turning so that it could gather us into its sight and leap ferociously at our throats.

I tried to peer inside the little car, but the headlights were now shining brightly in my eyes, and even with my hand up to shield me from the sharp light, I could see nothing but the dented bumper, the bullet hole in the windshield, and the cracked glazing over the twin beams that were coming ever closer.

Then the car stopped, the door opened. Out climbed a silhouette, small, dainty. It stepped forward into the light.

Lavender Hill.

“Toodle-oo, Victor. Isn’t it a beautiful night? Reminds me of the bayou, not that I am a habitué of the bayou, mind you, I have all my teeth, and I have never had leech stew, but this little stretch of New Jersey does have that unpredictable scent of violence about it, doesn’t it?”

“Lav, dude” was all I could muster.

“Yes, well, always one with the quip, aren’t you, Victor? You must tell me all about your trip west. Did you see any stars? Alan Ladd, now, that was a star. Is he still alive, do you know?”

“What are you doing here, Lav?”

“You told me you were bringing your client home so he could sell me the painting. I thought I better make sure you all arrived safely. Is that him there?”

“Charlie Kalakos,” I said, “let me introduce you to Lavender Hill.”

“Yo,” said Charlie. “Thanks for-”

“Saving your life? Oh, it was nothing.” He turned to look at the remains of Rhonda Harris. “Well, maybe not nothing.”

“But how did you get here?” I said. “How did you follow me, with all the precautions I took?”

“I’m sure your precautions were stunning in their design, though, of course, seeing that you ended with a gun in your face, not quite as effective as you might have hoped. But no, I didn’t follow you, dear Victor.”

“Then how?”

“I followed her,” he said, indicating the mass of bone and blood on the ground. “From the start I sensed she was trouble. I know the type. I am the type. Didn’t I tell you she was a killer?”

“I thought you were speaking metaphorically.”

“I’m a very literal person, Victor. You should know that by now. I followed her to this spot. I realized she was setting up a rendezvous. I slipped my car into a clearing in the woods and waited. Just me, my car, and my long-distance microphone. Quite the clever gadget, but one I would never use out in the open. The headphones make me look like Princess Leia.”

“So you heard about the girl,” I said.

“Yes, I heard. Too sad for words, actually, so why even try to speak of it?” He glanced at his watch. “But the woman with the gun mentioned something about cleaners coming. I assume she means Charles’s friends from the Warrick gang, hurrying this way as we speak to dispose of your bodies. So maybe we should cut our little gabfest short. Charles, are you ready now to sell?”

“No,” he said. “I’m sorry, and I think I owe you, what with you saving our lives and all, but I’m not going to sell it. I just want to give it back.”

“Are you sure? I’ve already made arrangements to dispose of the item without its going to your old friend.”

“I don’t want nothing good to come from what happened, ’cause it’ll only turn out bad, you know what I mean?”

“Not really, no. And what about you, Joseph? Are you willing to let such a payday disappear after all these years?”

“Good riddance, I say,” said Joey.

“Ah, the disappointment, but it seems there is little I can do. A wave of cheap sentimentality has seemed to overcome you both and I wouldn’t dream of crashing the party, though I’m quite shocked that you, Victor, have not endeavored to change their minds. But it would have been a pretty thing to gaze at before I delivered it on, don’t you think? All right, then, take my advice, all of you, and flee, madly. I too need rush off. There is a Fabergé egg available in a trailer park in Toledo. Imagine that. Toledo. The provenance is not quite clear, but with a Fabergé egg it never is, don’t you know. I mean, the last true owner was killed by Lenin in a pit. After that, it’s open season, don’t you think? Ciao, friends.”

We watched as he climbed back into his dented car, flicked his lights as if in farewell, and pulled around the taxi, past the picnic table and the collapsing shed, and onto the narrow two-lane road, heading west, toward Ohio, I assumed. He’d swept into my life, threatened it, saved it, swept out of it again. Funny the kind of people you meet in this business. I’d almost miss him.