Critical Space (34 page)

"That's the best description." He risked a glance over his shoulder, to the stairs, and apparently Alena hadn't regained consciousness, because when he looked back our way, he was still smiling. "Okay, I think we're ready. I can finish down here when we're done. Ms. Logan, if you'll step this way?"

"Fuck off and die," she said.

Oxford made a sound that was part exasperation, part laugh, then moved the barrel of the Neostead back to me. "Do it or I'll kill him here. I won't like it, it's not the effect I'm after, but as I already said, I improvise superbly. Trust me, I can make it work."

"The effect you're after?"

"God is in the details, Ms. Logan."

She looked at me, and she had her fear under control, but it was obvious that the leverage was working. She started to where he was standing and he let her close to about six feet before ordering her to stop and turn around. When she did, he pushed the barrel of the shotgun to the base of her skull hard enough to keep it there with one hand. With his other, he took hold of her by the hair.

"Kodiak, to the foot of the stairs and pick her up," he said. "You're not going to be able to rouse her. I hit her with etorphine, she's going to be down for several hours yet. If it makes you feel better, she won't feel a thing."

Alena still hadn't moved, still unconscious, and I crouched and got my arms beneath her. It was a different lift than before, and she was heavier in my arms.

When I was up again, he said, "Her bedroom. Put her on the bed."

I started up the stairs, desperately sorting through my options. There wasn't a lot in Alena's bedroom that could double as a weapon, at least nothing that I could think of off the top of my head. The Korth was still in the bathroom, as far as I knew, but there was no way I could get to it without getting Bridgett killed. If Miata had been inside maybe I'd have had a chance, but he wasn't, and it was just as likely that Miata was dead. I had no idea how long Oxford had been in the house before he'd revealed himself to me, though I suspected he had entered when Havel and Bridgett had, using them as cover.

Behind me, I heard Oxford ordering Bridgett to follow me, to take it slow.

I reached the top of the stairs, moved through the open doorway into Alena's bedroom, and set her on the bed. The clock and lamp were on the near-side nightstand, but neither could do me any good; the clock was too light to use as a weapon, and the lamp too clumsy.

They entered close after me, as I was turning from the bed, and as soon as Oxford was through the door he gave Bridgett's hair a tug, halting her. She grimaced, furious.

"When was the last time you flicked our friend on the bed there?" Oxford asked me.

"Never."

"Please. I'm asking because it's important, and I need the truth."

"Never," I repeated.

"I understand how awkward this is, confessing your infidelity in Ms. Logan's presence, but I don't have time for this. Now, when was the last time you fucked her?"

"I've never had intercourse with her."

"After all this time here, just the two of you?"

"Shocking, I know," I said.

"What did you do all those long nights?" he wondered.

"We watched a lot of ballet."

"Huh." He considered. "Ms. Logan, turn around. Face me."

The muscles in Bridgett's jaw were jumping as she turned. He still hadn't let go of her hair. When she was facing him, he set the barrel of the shotgun beneath her chin.

"There's a bottle in the fanny pack. Reach inside with your left hand, slowly, and remove it. If you make any sudden moves, you'll die. And Mr. Kodiak..."

"I understand," I said.

She took almost half a minute to do it, but it felt a decade longer. When the bottle was in her hand he ordered her to turn around again and hand it to me. I took it, feeling the sweat from her fingers on the plastic. I could hear pills rattling around inside as I turned it to read the label. It was a bottle of Viagra, 50mg tablets, the prescription in my name.

"Take two of them. Then set the bottle on the nightstand."

Bridgett looked at me, and the horror that was creeping onto her face told me that she'd finally figured out the full extent of what Oxford had planned.

I stared at the bottle in my hand but didn't open it.

"Take them."

"No."

He sighed, then twisted the handful of Bridgett's hair until she winced. "If you're saying you don't need any help to get it up, that's one thing. There are guys who can climax easily under these circumstances, believe it or not. You don't strike me as one of them. So you'll take the pills, because if you do, there is a chance I will let Ms. Logan live. If you do not take the pills, I'll kill all three of you."

Just buy the time, I thought. Take the pills and buy the time. There is a way out of this, you just haven't seen it yet. Take the pills, buy the time.

After I'd swallowed the second pill I put the bottle on the nightstand as he'd directed.

"Good," Oxford said, and he gave Bridgett a shove, letting go of her hair and again taking hold of the shotgun with both hands. The push put her off balance, and she bared her teeth as she righted herself, pulling up just in front of me. Her eyes met mine briefly, the look in them tormented.

"Back away from him. Just past the foot of the bed. Stay there and don't move."

She took the position as ordered, and he tracked her with the gun the whole time. When she stopped, her eyes fell to where Alena lay.

"Don't let her fool you," Oxford said. "She was extremely dangerous once."

"Once?" Bridgett asked.

"Before she lost her nerve."

"Now what?" I asked.

"It'll be about thirty minutes before the drug kicks in, so we'll take things slowly," he said, adjusting his grip. "Undress her. Start with her shoes."

Time, I thought. Time. There is a way out.

I started with her shoes.

He was very particular about each article of clothing, where he wanted me to set it in the room. The shoes were actually her ballet slippers, and Oxford had me toss those out the door, so that they fell on the stairs. Her shirt ended up just inside the room. She wore a sports bra, and that he had me fling to an opposite corner.

"The touch of passion," he called it.

The rest of her clothes ended up in a heap by the side of the bed.

"How you feeling?" he asked when I'd finished.

"Sick."

"And how's the cock? Any rumblings?"

"All's quiet on the western front." I wasn't lying. So far, the only thing I was feeling was nausea, though I couldn't tell if that was the drug or the fear.

Bridgett, who had remained motionless at the foot of the bed, said, "It doesn't matter if you do what he says or don't, he's going to kill all of us."

"No, Ms. Logan," Oxford said. "If Kodiak does what I require, you'll live. You'll be the subject of a massive manhunt, obviously, but you're resourceful. You can probably stay free for a while, at least."

"My ass," she said. "If you let me go free I just tell the police what happened here."

"They won't believe you."

"They will."

"They won't, trust me. I've done this before. When the cops are done, they'll have mountains of evidence, both circumstantial and physical. And your word in the face of that, Ms. Logan, will be less than liquid goose shit."

"No one will believe..."

"Goddamn, you're naive! You don't even see it, do you?"

She glared at him, hatred pure and savage. "It won't work."

He seemed encouraged by that. "Kodiak here is hardly a model citizen. The public, the authorities will find it quite easy to turn on him. The media's been kind so far, but with a little digging, a little light cast in the right corners, a different picture will develop. He'll be seen as a failure and a fraud, as a man who has gotten not only his friends killed through his own negligence, but also his clients. A man who has worked in sex clubs, who has lived with the daughter of a woman he shot to death. A girl who is a minor, in a relationship that could easily be interpreted as sordid.

"Take all of that, Ms. Logan, and now consider... suddenly he is famous, he is wealthy, due in part to his success in defeating a 'world-famous assassin.' People believe that Havel's book is truth. But once they see her dead here, presumably by your hands, once they see a sordid sexual relationship between Kodiak and his sworn enemy, they will be outraged. And when the authorities discover that money has traded hands, that Ms. Havel paid Kodiak, either to help perpetuate the fraud, or, better, because he's blackmailing Havel, they'll believe they have been conned. For that, they will hate him. They will hate Ms. Havel. They will disregard everything they ever heard about Drama or The Ten, because if the public detests one thing more than any other, they detest betrayal."

"There are people who know the truth," Bridgett said. "People who will..."

"Inconsequential." He hit each syllable with equal emphasis. "What is one hundred or five hundred or even a thousand men and women who know the truth in the face of millions of beer-chugging natives who believe a lie? The damage will be irreparable."

"I'll know," she said.

"Which brings us back to my point, Ms. Logan. No one will believe you. If Kodiak is a failure and a fraud, you are even worse. A cursory investigation will confirm that you've been his lover. A cursory investigation will reveal that you're a junkie, which the authorities and the public will both take to mean that you are unreliable at best, a criminal at the least, and most certainly never to be trusted. And when the forensic examination of the scene here comes into play, when your prints are found on the shotgun and Kodiak's semen is found inside Drama, the theory of the crime will suggest itself naturally. Kodiak vanished with his new lover, you forced Havel to lead you to them. You arrive, find them in bed together, and in a fit of rage, you shotgun them to death. In an attempt to conceal your crime, you murder Havel.

"Then you flee, or, if you prefer, you turn yourself in, and spin a tale of assassins and treachery that no one will ever believe."

Bridgett was using the edge of the bed for support, her eyes moving from him to me to the woman on the bed. If I felt ill, she looked it.

"You're evil," she spat. "You are purely evil."

"I'm a professional doing a job," Oxford replied easily. "Unlike the bitch on the bed, I don't betray my employers or my profession. I do what I'm paid to do."

I cleared my throat. "And she didn't, and that's why you hate her?"

"Normally I don't give a good goddamn about who I kill or why." He looked at me. "Anyone can be a killer, Kodiak. Few can be an assassin. She let her name be known, she let her own life be more important than the job. That's despicable and unforgivable, because the job, by definition, is more important than life. I'll be happy to have capped her ass."

He stopped suddenly, as if realizing that he'd let his emotions show, then checked his watch quickly.

"You'll forgive me, I don't get to talk about my work often," he said.

"Sure, I understand. Now what?"

"Now you take off your shirt, toss it in the corner there."

I pulled the T-shirt over my head, threw it away. My heart was starting to race, and I could feel the heat of blood, the first humiliating rising of my penis. It wasn't an erection out of arousal, and it was horrifying, and I tried not to think about it. My skin felt hot all over my body.

"Pants, now."

"I have to remove my shoes."

"Yes, yes you do. You may sit on the bed and remove your shoes."

I sat down, the pressure of my body causing Alena to shift on the mattress, her bare leg resting against my back. I remembered practicing on the post with my sneakers, rejected them as a weapon. If I was closer, maybe, but at this distance they'd do nothing but annoy him. I started to unlace them, but he stopped me.

"Just pull them off. You were in a hurry, remember?"

"Sorry, I forgot." I pulled them off and tossed them.

He watched as I did so, then checked my crotch and smiled. "Okay, that's good. Now the pants."

"I need to stand up for that." I kept my eyes on him, trying not to see Bridgett trembling. The humiliation was stronger than the fear.

"Start seated. When they're below your knees you can stand."

I untied the pants, pulled them down to my thighs, then stood, seeing the legs bunch around my calves.

Ranged weapon, I thought.

I bent down and took the cuffs of each leg, stepping out of them, then straightening up again, holding them upside down.

"Where do you want them?" I asked.

"Near the door. Men tend to lose their pants as soon as they can."

"True enough," I agreed, and then I sprang, sweeping the pants up as hard and fast as I could, and he was totally unprepared for the assault. The crotch of the pants caught the barrel of the Neostead, forcing it up in his grip, and he fired high, instinctively, and the buckshot tore hell out of the ceiling, shattered the panes in the French door, and Bridgett was down on the floor but coming up again.

I kept going forward, twisting the pant legs around the shotgun as he moved to jack the next round into place, pulling left with a spin, and he fired again, this time at where I had been seated on the bed. I yanked, and the pump locked back, preventing him from bringing another round up, and all the while I was shouting that there was a gun in the bathroom, screaming for Bridgett to get the Korth from the drawer and to shoot this son of a bitch and I kept turning, driving from my hips and thighs with the pants now bound tight around the barrel, tearing the weapon free of his grip. I finished spinning, facing him again, the gun in both hands by the barrel; Oxford was trying to step back and pull Bridgett's SIG from behind his back, and I swung the butt of the shotgun into his jaw, heard the bone crack. He staggered and dropped, and I flipped the gun in my hand, and that was the mistake, because it gave him time. He came up as I turned the gun and worked the action, diving forward past the edge of the bed, past the open bathroom door, making for the broken window. I got my finger on the trigger and fired at his head, but the full blast missed him, only a portion of the buckshot raking his face. He screamed but kept going, and before I could fire again he was on the veranda, over the railing, dropping out of sight.