Ragged Man (13 page)

Then it happened. Something stole into her mind, pushing her into the background. All pleasure left her body as she fought to stay in control. A tortured pain ripped into her brain, causing a scream that had nothing to do with ecstasy or euphoria to shoot out of her mouth.

And then she was gone.

“
Smell—your—fear,” Sam Storm said.

“
Smell yours!” Judy Donovan said.

“
I don’t understand,” Storm said.

“
We’ve met before, you and I.” She glared into his eyes.

“
No,” he croaked.

“
We have, and we’ll meet again.” She sensed his fear. “I’m going to the bathroom to clean up. When I get back, be gone.”

He was out the door before she started the shower.

She felt the water, prickly cold, cascading down her back. She reflexively grabbed the hot water spigot to warm up the beating spray. She was in the shower, safely enclosed by the stone brown tiles and the sliding glass door. Familiar surroundings, but how did she get there?

She remembered the dinner and remembered that maybe she’d had too much to drink. She remembered leaving the restaurant. After that everything was a blank. Except for that horrible black out.

She was revolted. She must have had a lot more to drink than she thought. Blacking out was a new experience for her, and one she didn’t want to ever repeat again. She felt used, abused and incredibly thirsty. She raised her mouth to the spray and drank, hoping that the nauseated feeling would vanish with her thirst. It didn’t.

She thought of Sam Storm, charming and delightful. She remembered the tempting thoughts she had of enticing him to her bed and she realized she was sore. So she did have sex with him, and from the way she felt it must have been wonderful.

“
Damn,” she muttered. Wonderful sex and she couldn’t remember and over a year without. Did she politely resist, then let him persuade her or did she submit willingly and jump straight into bed? She wished she could remember.

She opened the shower door slightly and reached out for the shampoo. She poured a generous amount on her wet hair and soaped it thoroughly. Then with a soapy hand, she rubbed herself between her legs and winced. She really was sore. She vowed never to drink again and she wondered if she would ever see Mr. Sam Storm again.

She rinsed herself off and stepped out onto the cold tile. She was kind of glad the mirror was covered with steam, because she wasn’t in the mood to look at herself and she was afraid that tonight she might not be the fairest of them all.

She toweled herself off, wrapped the towel around her hair, turban style, then padded into the bedroom and was startled to see the bed still made up. She’d expected it to be rumpled with the covers and pillows tossed on the floor. Where had she done the deed if not in the bedroom?

Trying to puzzle it out, she left the bedroom, crossed the hall and went into the living room, where she found her clothes strewn all over the floor.

Did she grab him, pull him down on top of her and do it right here on the floor? She didn’t think so, more than likely she walked in alone, drunk, tore her clothes off and made straight for the shower. Therefore, she concluded, they must have gone to Sam’s motel after dinner for fun and games and after they were finished, he probably dropped her at the door without coming in.

He probably didn’t want to be here in the morning when J.P. came home. What a gentleman, she thought.

Maybe it would all come back to her after a good night’s sleep.

She made her way back to the bedroom, satisfied that she had the evening figured out and eager to hit the pillows. She turned down the bed, turned off the lights, unwrapped the turbaned towel, shucked the robe, climbed between the sheets, and wondered why she was thinking about Rick Gordon as she dozed off to a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Eight

Sam Storm sat four tables away from the stage and brooded. Damn the woman. How dare she? How could she? How did she?

Everything had been going along just fine. She had been doing exactly what he’d wanted, but when the time had come to kill her, she’d made him do what she’d wanted. It wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. Ever since that day in the convenience store, he had been in control of his destiny, right up till three days ago.

Now he was tormented with confusion. New York had been easy. Tonight would be easy, but something had happened and that woman was responsible.

The next time he would tie her, blindfold her and make her suffer.

He felt the knife under his jacket and a hot glow coursed through him.

He could be whatever he wanted. Do whatever he wanted. After he rid himself of Rick Gordon. But before Gordon died, he would know that everyone he loved had been destroyed. Gordon would suffer before Storm captured him and skinned him alive.

That was his task, make Gordon and all his bootlegger friends pay for the humiliation he’d suffered all these years. Nobody made a fool out of Sam Storm and stayed alive.

And he owed it all to the knife. The knife gave him the strength. No longer was he hampered by liberal laws. He was Sam Storm and he would stamp out the bootleggers. And then, when free of those that had shamed him so often, he could finally rest.

He pulled his thoughts back to the task at hand and watched the man on stage, who he planned on killing before the evening was over. He was tall, gangly, bearded and in the middle of an Irish folk ballad, his fingers running up and down the neck of the guitar like a tape on fast forward.

Like with the one in New York, he had no set plan for killing Danny Morrow. He would wing it, but he was beginning to soften toward Danny, the Dylan collector. He liked Irish music and Danny Morrow played it well.

He had been drinking draft beer in the Bourbon Street Irish Pub for the last three sets, clapping and stomping with the music, enjoying himself as he hadn’t done since college. He luxuriated in Danny’s New Orleans brand of Irish folk humor and was laughing and clapping at the end of a bawdy joke, when he noticed Danny signaling the audience to silence with raised hands.

“
Ladies and gents, I have to leave early tonight.” He was interrupted by shouts of “No,” “Stay,” and, “More,” but he kept his hand raised till the audience quieted. “Sorry, but I’ve got a date with a river tomorrow in West Texas. We do, however, have what I think is a pretty fair replacement for you tonight. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present Susan O’Malley.”

Storm gasped as a stunning blond ascended the stage with an electric violin in her right hand. She was wearing an A shaped, white muslin skirt that fell halfway between her knees and the floor, allowing a hint of shapely legs, but what really tore at Storm’s eyes were the twin globes of her rising breasts, reflecting the stage light as the moon does sunlight. She was both girl-like and woman-like in her peasant Spanish blouse. Her bare shoulders and creamy skin stole the looks of every man in the audience.

He was so taken with her that he didn’t notice the man he’d come to kill leave the stage, nor did he feel Danny Morrow brush past him as he made his way through the crowd on his way to the exit.

Storm, captivated by the girl’s Southern beauty, sat through four sets, applauding each song like a teenage lover. He wanted the night to never end, but at the end of the fourth set another band took the stage and his heart growled in protest. He jacked his head round the pub, but she was nowhere to be seen.

He paid his bill and left.

Once on the crowded walking street, he headed in the direction of the Sonesta Hotel. Bourbon Street was thronged with tourists, buskers and prostitutes, and flashing signs promising burlesque, boylesque, voodoo, female mudwrestling, tee shirt boutiques, bars and more bars.

He stopped at the crowded bar across from the Sonesta and looked in at all the people who seemed to be having a good time and he felt a pang. He didn’t want the good time he was having to end. It had been so long since he’d been able to enjoy himself. He fought through the haze of his memory and tried to recall an earlier time when Rick Gordon and bootleg records occupied only a fraction of his life. A part of him was tugging him toward his hotel, where his car waited in the underground parking garage, but another part dragged him into the bar.

He pushed his way to the bar and ordered a Hurricane, the tall red drink that every tourist seemed required to try at least once. The heavily alcohol-laced drink caused him to stretch his facial muscles and reminded him of the last time he had been in this city of fun and excitement. He had been young and handsome and his wife had been alive.

Hurricane lips, he thought, Louise had Hurricane lips, her lipstick matched the red of the drink he was holding. He smiled at the memory of her. She loved New Orleans and New Orleans was the last happy time for her. She went into labor two weeks after their return to California and died in childbirth. The baby, born dead, had been a girl.

He raised the drink and drained the glass. The drink itself was too sweet for his taste, but the soothing effect of the alcohol was welcome. He chewed on the ice while he waited for the bartender to notice his glass was empty.

Two drinks later he left the bar and crossed the walking street to the hotel. He pushed through the door into the lobby with a slight nod to the girls at the reception desk. He continued to the back of the lobby and the stairs down to the garage below, where his rental car was parked.

Ten minutes later he drove by the big corner house where Danny Morrow lived. He turned the corner and parked. The house looked unoccupied, but Morrow left the pub more than three hours ago, maybe he was asleep. Storm shut off the engine and got out of the car. The street was middle-of-the-night silent and Storm took care not to make any noise as he crossed it and lifted the latch to the back gate. He eased himself into the backyard and studied the turn of the century house and, for a fleeting second, thought about returning to the car and leaving town.

He banished any thoughts about turning back. He’d come to kill a man. The mission demanded it, so he wondered how he was going to get into the house. He tried the back door. It was locked. He checked the two windows that were accessible from the back porch and discovered that they were also locked. It was a big house, with a lot of windows. He started working around to the side and discovered a window with a broken pane on his fifth try. He reached his hand through the opening, unlocked it, raised it, and climbed into the house.

While his eyes were getting used to the dark, his nose told him that the house was a dusty, dusky kind of place. He knew Morrow lived alone and that he was reconditioning the house, bringing it into the twentieth century, but he had no idea the place would be covered with a decade’s worth of dust. When his eyes allowed limited sight, he saw paint peeling from the ceiling and walls and that the room was devoid of furniture.

He reached into his pocket, took out a disposable lighter and flicked it. The flame showed him the door across the room and he followed its lead to a hallway that lead into a kitchen. Through the dancing shadows he saw a fully appointed modern kitchen, complete with built in dishwasher, oven and oversized refrigerator. There was a note stuck on the refrigerator door with a Daffy Duck kitchen. He crossed the room and read it.

Susan

You’ll find plenty to eat in the fridge. I can be reached at 713-555-3487. See you in 5 days.

Love ya – Dan

He turned on the light. He was furious. He scanned the kitchen and found the phone. He grabbed it and dialed the number.

“
King’s Pride Inn,” a female voice with a German accent answered.

“
I’m trying to reach my son, he left this number.”

“
What’s your son’s name?”

“
Sam Storm,” he lied, giving the only name he could think of on the spur of the moment.

After a few moments the woman with the accent said, “Sorry he’s not registered, but maybe he’s staying with someone else, most of our rooms have two or more kids staying in them during the summer.”

“
Why?”

“
We’re one of the cheapest motels in town and we treat the river rats right.”

“
River rats?”

“
The kids who go tubing down the Comal River.”

“
Tubing, what is tubing?”

“
They sit in inner tubes, you know, those things they used to put inside of tires before they invented tubeless.” The woman had a smart mouth. She coughed, then continued. “They float down the river and drink beer all day long.”

“
Where are you located?” Storm had heard enough.

“
New Braunfels, near San Antonio.”

“
Thanks.” He hung up.

He stood for a moment in thought. Then he left the kitchen to explore the house. With the exception of the living room, all of the downstairs rooms, he counted ten, were empty. Upstairs only one of the six bedrooms was furnished, all the others had wallpaper or paint peeling off the walls, and the hardwood floors were in serious need of repair. Many of the upstairs window screens were torn or missing and the upstairs bathrooms, with the exception of the one off of the master bedroom, were not functioning. Danny Morrow had a long way to go to get his money back from this white elephant, he thought.