John Miller - Death Draws Five

“Thank you,” she said.

“Anytime, babe,” the ice cream boy called out as she drifted back into the maelstrom of the lobby. “Come see me again sometime,” he added hopefully.

The Angel took a lick of her cone and shivered ecstatically as the cold chocolate melted on her tongue. She took another lick, pausing part-way through as she caught a glimpse of a man who could be the one she was looking for, glanced at the photo to check, realized that he wasn’t her quarry, then turned and saw that she was walking right into a man who was looking at her with an expression that could only be described as predatory.

Their eyes met and she recognized him. It was the man in the photo. The man The Hand had called Billy Ray.

And then they collided.

As the Angel bumped into him words of apology were already on her lips, but his expression suddenly turned horrified and he moved quicker than anyone she had ever seen, smooth and graceful like Fred Astaire gliding around Ginger Rogers on the dance floor in those movies that her mother had always punished her for watching whenever she caught her. He was no longer staring at her, but rather at the ice cream cone which she clutched in her hand inches—just inches—from the jacket of his spotless, expensive-looking suit. The suit was very nice. Impeccable, really. He didn’t look like he’d just gotten off a plane after a long flight. He looked like he’d just come from a glamour shoot. Except, he wasn’t very handsome. There wasn’t anything really wrong with his features. His crooked nose was a little too long. His mouth a little too thin-lipped. His jaw line somehow unfitting. They just didn’t seem to all add up. It was almost like he’d had facial reconstruction surgery and had chosen randomly from a menu provided by the doctor.

His pale green eyes had transferred their gaze to her ice cream cone and its imminent impact with his faultless suit. The Angel jerked her arm back quickly and gravity did the rest.

The top scoop of chocolate shot forward in a flat trajectory and landed right where his lap would have been if he were sitting down. He looked at the soggy mass of ice cream sliding slowly down the front of his pants, then back up at the Angel.

His eyes were wild

“Oh,” the Angel said. She hunkered down and tried to wipe the mess from the front of his pants. A glob of ice cream ran down his right pant leg, leaving a rather noticeable trail. Then she realized what she was doing. All she could say was “Oh,” again.

The fury disappeared from Ray’s face, to be replaced by an expression of sudden bemusement. “If you keep that up we’ll have to get a room.” He grinned crookedly. “Good thing we’re already in a hotel.”

The Angel stood up before him. She could feel a blush infuse her features, and that made her blush all the harder.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the way you introduce yourself,” Ray said, “but who the Hell are you, anyway?”

The Angel realized she was staring at him from the distance of only a few inches. Their eyes were on the same level. Their bodies were chest to chest, almost touching.

“The Hand sent me to meet you—”

“The Hand?” Ray interrupted.

She reached out and grabbed his arm to forestall, she was sure, another off-color comment. She had always thought it a corny cliché of romance novels, which she knew she shouldn’t read but sometimes couldn’t help herself, but his eyes did burn into hers. For a wild moment she thought he was going to kiss her right there, right in front of all the passers-by who were glancing curiously at the scene being played out before them.

Then he said, “Let go of my arm. It’s going numb.”

The Angel released him, flushing again with embarrassment. Once again her cursed body had shamed her. If she had hurt this agent of The Hand. If her clumsiness had damaged him—

Billy Ray flexed his hand to get the feeling back in his fingers. He smiled at her.

“That’s quite the grip you’ve got,” he said.

The Angel backed away, confused by his lightning-quick mood swings. “We must go,” she said. “We have a job to do.”

“Maybe,” Ray allowed. “If by ‘The Hand,’ you mean Leo Barnett.”

The Angel started, barely suppressing her urge to clamp a hand over his mouth. She looked wildly about to see if anyone had heard him blurt out his ridiculous indiscretion. “You’re not supposed to say his name,” she informed Ray in a ferocious whisper.

“What, Barnett’s?” he asked innocently.

“Shhhhh!”

“All right, all right,” Ray said, laughing. “Let’s go somewhere where we can talk about this job we’re supposed to do together.”

“Where?” The Angel asked suspiciously.

“I suppose the coffee shop would do,” Ray said with a tinge of disappointment in his voice. “Although a room—”

”The coffee shop,” the Angel said definitively.

“All right,” Ray agreed, easily enough. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“The Midnight Angel,” she told him.

“Angel,” Ray repeated, nodding. “Cool. It fits you.”

“Not ‘Angel,’” she corrected. “The Angel.”

Ray frowned. “Whatever,” he said as they moved off together through the lobby. “I’m not going to call you ‘The.’”

New York City: The Waldorf-Astoria

Though it had been decades since he’d last seen it, the Waldorf-Astoria’s lobby was much as John Nighthawk remembered. Intimate lighting caressed dark wainscoting, potted palms, marble accents, and expensive carpets, as well as a huge bronze clock that dominated the room like an art deco behemoth. Nine feet in height and two tons in weight, its marble and mahogany base was topped by a bronze Statue of Liberty that gleamed in the twilight-lit lobby as if it had just been polished. Other statues incorporated into the ornate clock included Queen Victoria, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Ulysses S. Grant. It looked like a bastard to dust.

As I know well, Nighthawk thought. He had dusted and polished it himself often enough, ages ago in another lifetime before the Takisian virus had changed him and all the world.

The woman he’d been sent to meet was in a dark corner of the lobby, wraith-like in a vintage dress that made it look as if she’d been waiting for a dinner date for the last seventy-five years or so. The only thing that ruined the effect was her over-sized handbag. A small clutch purse would have gone much better with her black beaded dress and pert hat crowned by a single egret feather. Her ensemble brought back memories of the nineteen-twenties to Nighthawk. Some of them were fond.

Up close, she looked impossibly young in the uncertain light. Her brown eyes were as large and innocent as a doe’s. Her long, wavy hair cascaded down to the middle of her back like a golden waterfall. Nighthawk knew her real name, her background, and her ace abilities. But he called her the name she preferred, the name she’d taken from the bit of antique jewelry she wore on a black silk ribbon choker around her slender, elegant neck.

“Miss Cameo?” he asked.

“Cameo will do,” she replied.

Nighthawk nodded. “Mr. Contarini sent me to escort you to his tower suite,” he said. Contarini hadn’t resorted to a fictitious name for this business, but he wanted Cameo kept in the dark about his relationship with the Church. Nighthawk paused, glancing around their corner of the lobby. “I thought that you were going to bring a bodyguard with you?” he asked.

“That’s right,” the young ace said. “I did.”

“Where is he?”

Cameo held out her handbag. Nighthawk took it from her and looked inside. Among the usual trove of feminine paraphernalia was a battered old fedora.