The Woman (26 page)

Theresa Abernathy fired, then laughed, then fired again, then laughed again, and again, stopping only after the gun had emptied.

Webster hit the off button on the remote, turning off the camera. Then he said, “Give the gun to Victor, my dear. He’ll dispose of it.”

The widow Abernathy did as Webster had instructed. Victor placed the gun in a plastic bag, checked Senator Abernathy to confirm he was dead and gave the plastic bag to Webster.

The widow Abernathy, no longer laughing, sagged. Her arms dangled at her sides. Her knees began to buckle. Victor slapped her across the face.

“Get in the car, Ms. Abernathy,” Victor said. “You’ll drive. I want you to end up in the parking lot of the National Cathedral. I’ll follow and bring you back here.”

“Back here?” she said, speaking in a monotone, her face blank.

“Yes, Theresa,” Webster said. “You and the late senator had joined me for dinner. His office had knowledge of the dinner engagement as well. I’m sure you recall that after dinner, your husband looked at his watch and said he had to meet someone. That he would be back. You and I and Victor had drinks and waited. He never returned. Later, we called the FBI, which we’ll do after you and Victor return. Victor and I are your alibi. You were here with us.”

“Put this jacket on,” Victor said, holding it out for her to slip her arms into. “Now this hat and scarf. Wrap it around your neck. And, here, take these dark rimmed glasses, they’re your prescription. Put on these gloves before you get in the car.”

The widow looked at Victor with a puzzled expression, then slowly nodded and dressed as she had been told.

“Mrs. Abernathy,” Webster said sharply. “Listen to Victor and do exactly what he tells you. Exactly. Are you listening to me?”

The widow nodded and turned to face Victor as he said, “You are to drive to the National Cathedral. You’ve been there many times, correct?” The widow nodded again. Victor continued. “Take Massachusetts and turn right onto Pilgrim Road. You are to park near the George Washington Equestrian Statue. Lock the car with the key and throw the key in the bushes. Cross the street and walk up the stairs to the south side of the Cathedral. I will pick you up there.”

After Theresa Abernathy showed an inability to repeat the directions and instructions, Victor told her not to worry, that the glasses she now had on included a small speaker. That he would talk her through it. Theresa Abernathy got behind the wheel of her husband’s black Cadillac. Victor pushed closed the driver’s door with the smoke tinted glass. A moment later, she started the car and drove away without saying another word.

Victor followed, a short distance behind.

Chapter 39

Linda had slept without either setting the alarm or calling the front desk for a wake-up call. When her eyes opened, she rolled toward the clock radio: eight-fifteen. She had enjoyed the erotic show at the Crazy Horse Paris, and she had experienced dreams in which she had made love with a man. Her mind would not identify the man, but he was not her ex-husband.

By eight-forty-five she had showered, brushed and flossed, fussed with her hair just enough, and slipped into a pair of chocolate brown sweat pants and a lightweight white jersey with thin straps. No underwear. The polish on her toes was getting a bit worn, but she had no time for that now. She slipped on a pair of white sandals, the kind with a strap between the toes and picked up her purse, she wasn’t about to leave all that cash in a hotel room, and the card key Ryan had given her.

Three doors he had said, on the same side of the hall. She raised her hand as if to knock, then shrugged and inserted the card key. He had said to come on in, and if she had the wrong room the door would not unlock.

Here goes.

The card worked.

Ryan sat on the corner of the bed with a cup of coffee in his hand. He was naked except for black boxers. A blonde was in his bed, propped upright against the numerous pillows the MGM Grand had left for such occasions. The sheet and comforter warmed her up to a point, just under her naked breasts.

The blonde raised her cup, smiled, and took a drink, without bothering to pull the bedcovers higher.

“You told me to come down if I was—oh, go to hell.” Linda turned to leave.

Ryan’s voice blunted against her back. “Linda. Don’t go. Hey. Come on.”

The room door closed on her second,
go to hell
.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Linda heard a knock on her door. She squinted to look through the peephole. As she expected, it was Ryan. She pulled on a matching chocolate brown sweatshirt and opened the door.

“What do you want?” she asked, standing with her arms crossed below her breasts.

Ryan came in. “What are you so mad about?”

“If you don’t know, I can’t tell you.”

“Come on,” he said, taking a seat on the edge of her bed. “You made it clear you had no interest. And, you have to admit, the Crazy Horse show was very inspiring.”

Linda sat on the opposite corner of the bed, her arms still crossed. “She was the blonde in the red dress. The one you pointed out in the restaurant.”

“After you were safely in your room, I went back to the bar. She was still there. I almost called your room to see if you wanted to join us. She was willing, but after you were so uptight and disinterested in our even being a twosome—” He left his words to trail off.

“I don’t do threesomes.”

“Only even numbers? How about foursomes?”

“Oh, go to hell.”

“Undoubtedly I will. I’m just hoping it won’t be soon.” Ryan broke her cold stare. “Were you coming down . . . to take me up on my offer?”

“Go to hell, Ryan Testler . . . or whatever your real name is.”

“Lighten up. I know your vocabulary is broader than just go to hell. Talk to me. Are you angry with me for my having acted normally or yourself for not having been honest the night before?”

“I don’t know. You I think. Both I guess.”

“I wish I had known you were coming. I would have preferred to be with you.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“I don’t begin to know that answer. I can tell you that missing out being with you made her the consolation prize.”

Linda started to smile, and then fought it back. “Get out of here. I need to get cleaned up. I’ve got some banking to do. Give me an hour.”

“Come by my room,” Ryan said.

“Will
she
still be there?”

No. She won’t. She’s already gone. I’ll go with you, and wait outside the bank.”

* * *

While waiting for Linda, Ryan carried a small bag down to his car and used it to pack the RF receiver along with a few weapons. Then he went to the Dollar-Rent-A-Car desk in the Grand and returned the keys to his rental car. They would continue on in Linda’s car which had the RF transmitter just in case she ditched him somehow.

By noon, they drove out of Vegas south on Highway-93. “We’ll be in Sedona for dinner,” he said, “It’s less than three hundred miles.”

Linda nodded, but continued looking forward.

“Have you forgiven me for last night?” Ryan asked. “Well, this morning I guess it was. You know.”

“I don’t have anything to forgive you for.” Linda’s tone belied her words. “You got turned on. You got laid. It’s none of my business.”

“It was your fault, you know.”

Chapter 40

It was twilight when they rounded a bend and drove into the Oak Creek area south of Sedona. The red rock blending with the area’s white sandstone made the real look lovelier and more dramatic than the pictures Linda had seen. With its creek beds, pines and the aromatic juniper, Linda imagined the area looked and smelled much as it had a thousand years ago. That is except for the commercial developments that were needed to support the local population and the heavy year around influx of tourists.

After a short drive, Ryan turned left on Highway 89-A for a distance, then got out of the car and walked into the office of the Kokopelli Inn in the part of Sedona known as new town.

“One room,” he said getting back into Linda’s car, “with two beds. That way, I won’t need to stay awake to guard you.”

“Didn’t your blond bimbo satisfy you?” she asked while Ryan moved the car nearer the room he had rented.

“The room has two queen beds,” he said. “You’ll decide how many we use.”

“I’m hungry,” she said, “you?”

“Sure,” he said while unlocking the door. “You like meat?”

“What, something you don’t already know about me?” Linda tossed her carry bag onto the bed nearest the bathroom.

“The only time we ate together you had lobster and it made you cranky.”

“I wasn’t cranky.”

They looked around. Linda pulled open the drapes over the window that looked back out to the parking lot.

“You certainly fooled me.” Ryan said, after he tossed his bag on the other bed.

“Okay,” Linda said. “Let’s get this on the table. A woman goes to a man’s hotel room and finds another babe in his bed, flashing her tits. What woman wouldn’t get angry?”

“You know, your talk turns a bit saucy when you’re mad. Still, I understand. It won’t happen again on this trip. I promise.”

“Did you practice safe sex?”

“I find it encouraging that you want to know.”

“Oh, go to hell.”

“Yes I did, practice safe sex. I take excellent care of my body. In my line of work, it’s important.”

“Do you have ideas on where we should eat?” she asked.

“There’s a really cool place in old town, The Cowboy Club. It’s been there forever. I heard John Wayne used to eat there. Also Jimmy Stewart while they were filming
Broken Arrow
just outside of town. They serve buffalo, if you like that, as well as other more standard fare.”

“Give me a few minutes to freshen up.”

“I’ll take a walk.” Ryan left the room.

He had wanted to look around anyway. To be sure they weren’t being followed. He walked toward the highway looking for cars he might recognize or anyone behaving in a way that made him suspicious. He really didn’t expect to. He was all but certain they were in a surveillance warp. No one working for Webster had any information except that they were likely headed for Vegas or Sedona. For anyone to find them now would only be sheer luck. Besides, Webster had no one else to send. Not unless he assigned his bodyguards which he had never done before. Webster was likely sitting tight, waiting for his call from Vegas. Testler turned and headed back toward the room where Linda was dressing for dinner. As he came around the corner of the motel, he walked into a gusting desert breeze tossing loose papers and sandy grit. He lowered his head and pinched his eyes nearly closed.

Linda had dressed in a modestly short, red-white-and blue dress with a pair of red open-toed heels. But her eyes looked the best, lightly made up on the outside, with the real magic coming from inside, open, honest, intelligent eyes.

“One of my Carol Benson outfits.” she said, slowly turning in a circle. “Carol is the most sensual of my alter egos.”

“And which of your aliases most closely matches Linda Darby?”

“You behave yourself, you might just find out.”

Chapter 41

At the Cowboy Club, Ryan ordered white wine for Linda and for himself a double martini.

“A Martini?” Linda asked when the waiter moved away, “you drank Gibsons in Vegas?”

“Lots of people order martinis, Gibsons are uncommon. Sedona is much smaller than Vegas. I don’t want to be remembered.”

Linda shook her head. “I’m learning all the time.”

Ryan smiled. “If you don’t wish to be noticed, don’t do anything to be noticed. Every business has its ins and outs.”

“That woman,” Linda said, “the blonde in Vegas, wasn’t she a bit young?”

“She was thirty-two, not all that much younger than you.”

“I see,” Linda said. “I suppose you could tell her age from her fake boobs?”

“It’s a gift, what can I tell ya.”

“And it’s your judgment that I’m older?”

“Yes. But I like older women.”

“Oh.”

“I meant that as a compliment.”

“And how does, you’re an older woman become a compliment?”

“Older women laugh when something is funny. So many younger women have this incessant need to giggle after everything they say, funny or not, as if the giggle was some form of punctuation. Then, after the giggle, they use a head flip or a hand to move their hair.”

The waiter stopped to take their order. Linda chose a steak, Ryan a buffalo burger. He then told the waiter to immediately bring another round of drinks.

“Why do you drink so much?” Linda asked.

“To better stomach my fellow man.”

“And women?”

“And women.”

“And yourself?”

“Particularly myself.”

“So, to go back to where we were before the waiter interrupted, I’m more appealing because I don’t giggle?”