Neal nodded. ‘We’ll make a great team,’ he said. ‘Marta’s brains, your guts, and my gun.’
‘Only problem is,’ Sue said, ‘she probably hates me already.’
‘I doubt if she hates you. Yet. Right now, she’s just feeling a little nervous. You’re sort of a vague threat to her.’
‘Well, ya made me out to be an imbecile.’
‘Wait till she meets you.’
‘Then she’ll know I’m one.’
‘No. She’ll see, right away, that you aren’t the brain-dead teeny-bopper I made you out to be on the phone. She’ll see . . . the real you. But she’ll figure out right away that we . . . you know, have a thing going.’
Sue grimaced at him. ‘Think she’ll know we did the nasty?’
‘The minute she sees us.’
‘What’ll happen then?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘She’s gonna hate me, that’s for sure.’
‘Probably hate us both.’
‘That don’t sound like much fun.’
‘No, I’m sure it’ll be . . . terrible for everyone involved.’
‘Specially for poor Marta.’
‘Yeah.’
‘She won’t kill us, will she?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Ya know what?’ Sue asked.
‘What?’
‘We got lotsa time on our hands. What we oughta do is think real hard and figure out how to make it happen different.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know. Make it so she doesn’t find out we’re in love and everything.’
‘How do you propose to accomplish that? Shoot her? Blind her?’
‘Maybe if I hide out. If she never meets me . . .’
‘Stash you away in a hotel somewhere?’
‘Yeah, there ya go. I could be yer silent partner. Just tell Marta I got run over and squished on the interstate.’
‘I’d hate to lie to her.’
‘That’s a real problem, then. Ya can’t fool nobody if y’ain’t willin to lie.’
‘I’d rather not. She’d catch me at it, anyway, if I tried. She knows me too well.’
Sue frowned in silence for a few moments. Then she said, ‘That’s okay. I don’t much wanta get stuck away in some hotel, anyhow. Not unless yer with me. What I really think we oughta do is stick together.’
‘What about Marta?’
‘We’ll figure out somethin.’
Thirty-Seven
They arrived in the alley behind Neal’s apartment building fifteen minutes before midnight. Nobody seemed to be lurking about. He saw nothing to arouse his suspicions. But as he neared his parking space, he said, ‘Let’s keep going. I want to look around.’
‘What kinda car does Marta drive?’ Sue asked.
‘A green Jeep Wrangler.’
‘A four-wheel-drive Jeep?’
‘Yep.’
‘Wow!’
‘I don’t think it’s around here, though. She ought to be getting to work about now.’
‘What days off has she got?’
‘Thursday and Friday nights.’
‘This is what, Wednesday?’
‘For a few more minutes.’
‘So she doesn’t work tomorrow night or the next.’
‘Not unless they had a shift change she didn’t tell me about.’
He suddenly realized they were nearly to Karen’s building.
What if she sees me?
She won’t. Not unless she comes out to dump her garbage, or something.
Nobody seemed to be in the alley.
‘What’s the matter?’ Sue asked.
‘Just watching out for an old friend,’ he said.
‘Karen? The gal that scratched yer arms?’
Did I tell her about that?
Oh. Right.
Anything Sue doesn’t know about me?
‘The one I punched. Yeah.’
‘She sure lives awful close.’
‘I may move.’
‘On account of her?’
‘On account of a lot of stuff.’
Neal stopped at the end of the alley, waited for a car to pass, then turned onto the road. He quickly made another turn, and drove past the fronts of the apartment buildings.
‘Everything looks okay,’ he said.
‘I didn’t see no Jeep Wrangler.’
‘Neither did I,’ he said, and stopped at the end of the block. ‘I didn’t see no Rasputin, either.’
‘Any,’ Sue corrected him. ‘Any Rasputin.’
He stretched an arm over to her side of the car, slipped a hand under her ponytail, and rubbed the nape of her neck. Then he took his hand away, turned and headed for the alley.
‘We gonna go in this time?’ Sue asked.
‘Probably.’
‘I sure hope so. Gotta see the man about a dog.’
‘Guess we’d better quit dawdling.’ He swung into the alley and picked up speed. ‘We’ll leave our stuff here,’ he said. ‘Except for the gun.’
Moments later, he pulled into his parking space. He stopped, killed the lights and engine, and threw open his door. He opened the back door. His overnight bag was on the floor. Bending down, he unzipped it. He felt around for the pistol.
Sue came to his side of the car. She stood behind him, but didn’t say anything.
As if she simply wanted to be near him.
He found his Sig down at the bottom of the bag and pulled it out.
‘So that’s yer gun,’ Sue said when he turned around.
‘This is it,’ Neal said. He shut the door. ‘Let’s go.’
Sue stayed close to him as he led the way to the rear gate. ‘It’s all loaded and everything?’ Sue asked. ‘Yer gun?’
‘Yeah.’ Afraid someone might see him with it, he slipped it into the right front pocket of his trousers. But he kept hold of it.
‘Don’t go and blow off yer dingus,’ Sue whispered.
‘It’s not cocked.’
‘Neither will you be.’
Neal shook his head. He saw the white of Sue’s teeth. In the dark, he couldn’t tell whether she was smiling or grimacing.
With his left hand, he opened the gate. It squawked on its hinges.
Sue followed him through, then eased the gate shut.
Coming up beside him, she whispered, ‘Ya got a swimmin pool.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I love swimmin pools.’
He nodded. He started walking toward the stairs.
The pool was dark, the courtyard deserted. Lights glowed above several of the apartment doorways, but most of the windows were dark.
At Neal’s apartment, no lights showed.
He stopped.
His windows facing the balcony were dark. So was the bulb above his doorway.
‘What’s the matter?’ Sue whispered.
‘My porch light isn’t on. It has one of those sensors so it comes on automatically after dark.’
‘Uh-oh.’
‘Maybe it just burnt out,’ he said. But he felt shaky inside.
‘We’re still goin up, aren’t we?’
‘I guess so.’
They started to climb the stairs.
As Neal climbed, he listened. He heard the wheeze of air-conditioning units, some distant traffic, a helicopter that sounded as if it might be circling a few blocks away, his and Sue’s footsteps on the stairs.
When they reached the balcony, he whispered, ‘Maybe you should wait here. I’ll go in and make sure everything’s okay.’
‘What if everything isn’t okay?’
‘Run for it.’
‘Run for it, my butt. Think I’m gonna run for it while yer gettin knifed to death, or something?’
‘I’ve got the gun.’
‘Ya got me, too. Now, let’s go ’fore I wet my drawers.’
‘You aren’t wearing any.’
‘That’s besides the point,’ she said.
‘At least let me go
first.’
‘Be my guest.’
As they walked along the balcony, Neal slightly ahead of Sue, he pulled the automatic out of his pocket.
They walked past his picture window.
The curtains were drawn. Neal could see nothing through them.
What if he’s in there?
He’s not.
Might be.
Maybe I got away just in time, and he’s been inside waiting for me ever since.
Unscrewed the light bulb . . .
The bulb probably just burnt out, Neal told himself.
He switched the pistol to his left hand and reached into his pocket for the keys.
‘Give ’em to me,’ Sue whispered. ‘I’ll unlock the door, and you get ready.’
‘No. You stand over there.’ He nodded toward the far side of the doorway, where there was stucco wall instead of window.
Sue stepped past him and took the position.
Neal unlocked the door. He pushed it open, leaving his key in the lock. As the door swung his keys into the darkness, he switched the gun back to his right hand. He stood there, gazing in.
Saw nothing but shadows and motionless shapes.
Heard nothing.
After a few moments, he stepped inside. With his elbow, he brushed the light switch up. The lamp came on.
Nobody in his living room.
It seemed to look the same as when he’d left for the Fort.
While he scanned the area, Sue came over behind him. ‘Is it okay?’ she asked.
‘So far. Wait here.’
Leaving her in the doorway, Neal hurried through every room, turning on lights, checking to make sure all the windows were locked and intact, glancing into places where someone might hide: behind furniture, under the bed, inside closets. Even before he finished, he grew certain that there’d been no intruder.
He returned to the living room.
Though the front door was still wide open, Sue had come into the room. She stood facing the entryway, her left arm stretched out to the switch panel.
The switch nearest the door was tilted upward: it was the one Neal had hit with his elbow to turn on the living room lamp. The switch on the other side of it was down.
‘Yer light didn’t burn out,’ Sue said. ‘Nobody unscrewed it, either. Looky here.’ She pinched the down-slanted switch and jerked it up and down a few times. The outside light flicked on, off, on, off, on. ‘Wasn’t turned on.’
‘I always leave it on,’ Neal said.
‘Did ya leave it on when ya left for the trip?’
‘I never turn it off. The switch stays up all the time, and the light goes on and off by itself.’
‘Somebody turned it off.’
Shaking his head, Neal shut the door and snapped the dead-bolt into place. He stared at the light panel. Sue had taken her hand away. Both switches pointed upward. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t have a specific recollection of whether it was up or down when I left for the trip.’
‘A specific recollection?’
‘You obviously haven’t watched much of the O.J. trial.’
Sue shook her head. ‘Just seen stuff on the news. I been workin at Sunny’s.’
‘I watched it every day for the first couple of months, till it started driving me nuts. Anyway, the Scheme Team were always whining about whether people had a “specific recollection” of this or that. I don’t have a specific recollection of how I left the light switch.’
‘So maybe you didn’t leave it on.’
‘Possible. I don’t think so, but it’s possible. Anyway, nobody’s here now. And I didn’t find anything weird. As far as I can tell – except for the porch light – we didn’t have any visitors.’
‘So ya figure it’s safe?’
‘I guess so. Anyway, this is like the third night since the murder. If Rasputin hasn’t been here yet . . .’ Neal shrugged. ‘No reason to think he’ll suddenly pop in on us now.’
‘So we’re gonna stay?’
‘Might as well.’
‘Okay. Hang on just a sec. I’ll hit the john, and then we can go on down to the car and get our stuff.’
Neal almost suggested going down for the luggage by himself, but he knew that Sue would want to stay with him. He said, ‘Okay, I’ll wait here. The bathroom’s through there.’ He pointed at the hallway. ‘The light’s on.’
‘Back in a jiff.’
He watched her stride away, her ponytail bouncing and swaying. She wore her sleeveless blue shirt. Its tail hung down, draping her rump, hiding most of her black leather skirt. Even though she wasn’t very tall, her slim legs looked long. And very bare.
She disappeared into the hallway.
A few seconds later, Neal heard the door shut.
A few seconds after that, he heard it open.
‘Neal?’
She didn’t sound alarmed. Not exactly.
‘Yeah?’ he called.
‘Ya wanta come here? Ya better take a look at this.’
He didn’t much like the sound of that.
He found Sue scowling down into the toilet bowl, a look of distress on her face.
Someone hadn’t flushed.
But the mess in the water wasn’t excrement.
Blood and adhesive tape, pieces of bandage wrappers, wads of toilet paper, bloody pads.
Sanitary napkins.
‘Yuck,’ Neal said.
‘It wasn’t me,’ Sue told him. ‘I just picked up the lid and there it all was.’
‘And there it all is,’ Neal muttered.
‘Ya aren’t s’pose to throw ’em in the toilet like that. Used pads.’
‘I didn’t do it,’ Neal explained.
‘Who ya think did?’ From the look in her eyes, she already had a pretty good guess.
‘Him.’
‘Rasputin?’
Feeling weak, Neal leaned back against the sink. ‘So, he has been here. That stuff in the toilet . . . He must’ve changed his bandages.’
Sue glanced around. ‘He was mighty tidy about it.’
‘Yeah. Looks like he cleaned the place up when he got done. Probably didn’t want me to know he’d been here.’
‘Just shut the lid and forgot he hadn’t flushed?’ Sue suggested.
‘Yeah.’ Neal slipped the pistol into his pocket, turned around and opened his medicine cabinet. Right away, he saw that things had been rearranged – slid this way and that to close gaps. It took him a while to figure out what was missing: a bottle of aspirin, a tube of antiseptic cream, a tin of adhesive bandages, a big roll of gauze and a spool of adhesive tape.
He shut the cabinet, faced Sue and told her what was missing. ‘Maybe some other stuff, too,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’
Sue bared her teeth. She looked as if she were in pain. ‘Well, at least he ain’t here now. Is he?’
‘No.’
‘Ya sure?’
‘I’m positive. I looked everywhere.’
Sue glanced into the toilet. ‘Ya can stop worryin about who found yer business card.’
‘Yeah. He knew where to come.’
‘So when he comes back to try again, we can nail his sorry ass.’
‘Or he’ll nail ours.’
‘Nothin sorry about ours.’ Sue reached back and patted her own rump.
A little too upset to smile, Neal shook his head.
‘In the meantime,’ Sue said, ‘we gotta do somethin about this. It ya try to flush with them pads and stuff in there, it’s all gonna get clogged up, more than likely.’
‘I know.’
‘And I still gotta go.’
‘Okay. Hang on a minute.’ Leaving her in the bathroom, Neal hurried to his kitchen. He found a pair of tongs in the utensil drawer. In a cupboard under the sink, he found the plastic bucket that he used now and then when he mopped the floor or washed the car. He emptied the bucket of some old sponges, detergents and rags, and returned to the bathroom.
‘Tongs?’ Sue asked.
‘
I’m not gonna stick my hand in there.’
Resting the bucket on the toilet’s rim, he bent down and dipped his tongs into the bloody water. He stirred some cloudy wads of toilet paper out of the way, spotted a gory pad, and clamped it with the tongs.
‘Where ya think he got them things?’ Sue asked.
‘Maybe Elise’s house.’
The pad came out of the water, dripping. Neal dropped it into the bucket. It hit the bottom with a splashy thump.
‘One down,’ he said, ‘three to go.’
‘How many times ya shoot that fella?’ Sue asked.
‘I don’t know.’ He fished out another sodden, bloody pad and dropped it into the bucket. ‘I got him once for sure in the head. I don’t know how many body shots. Maybe three.’ He clamped another pad between the tongs and lifted it out. ‘And there might or might not be exit wounds. I guess he could have as many as eight wounds, altogether, if every slug went in and out.’
‘Gotta be four, anyhow,’ Sue said.
‘At least. It looks like he ran out of . . . these things.’ He lifted out the final pad and dropped it into the bucket. ‘Had to make a few bandages out of gauze and tape.’
‘How come he ain’t dead, shot up that bad?’
‘That’s why I call him Rasputin.’ Poking around, Neal found clumps of gauze and tape. He removed them with the tongs, then hunted down several strips of tape, clamped them and took them out.
Nothing seemed to remain in the bloody water except toilet paper and several small bandage wrappers. Nothing likely to cause a clog.
‘That should do it,’ Neal said. He dropped the tongs into the bucket, reached up and pushed down on the handle.
The toilet flushed, sucking down the mess, filling the bowl with clean water.
‘Ya did it!’
‘Yep.’ Neal stood up. Lifting the bucket, he said, ‘It’s all yours.’
‘Right in the nicka time, too.’
Neal hurried out of the bathroom. Sue quickly shut the door.
Wandering into the kitchen, he wondered what to do with the contents of the bucket. He could toss it in the trash, throw it out with the garbage.
It’s blood evidence.
Evidence of what? he asked himself. What could it possibly prove? Just that Rasputin’s been here.
And that he’s the same guy who bled in Elise’s house.
What’ll that prove?
Maybe nothing, Neal thought. But I’d better keep it, just in case.