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Chapter Thirteen

Dallas, Texas, the Present

The first breath was the hardest, like the first breath after being born. No one remembers that one, and it's just as well. It is a terrible struggle to inflate new lungs, to exchange the comfort of warm fluid for harsh, cold air, screaming at the unfairness and pain.

Richard wanted to scream, but was too consumed with the effort of trying to take a second breath.

He couldn't quite work out what was wrong beyond being paralyzed. His mind was separate from his inert body; he was a sleeper on the edge of waking, unable to move, and panicking at his helplessness. He could only focus on the absolute necessity to move. If he could shift but a finger it would break the spell holding him, and he'd wake from the nightmare.

Alas, it didn't work that way. He had to take a third breath.

Then a fourth.

Air shuddered reluctantly into him and too easily departed. In between, he endured the terror that he would stop altogether. That gave him impetus to try again.

Days later, it seemed, the process gradually became less of a fight. The panic receded.

After a month or so, he didn't have to think about it at all, only drift and dream. They were sad, those dreams, and always fled from him when he tried to take hold of one to find out why.

He wanted to turn over in his sleep, to interrupt the mild frustration of the not-dreaming. Eventually, he thrashed out with one arm, cracking his knuckles against something cold and hard. The floor.

It broke the spell.

He groaned, a clumsy, thick sound, his voice box responding sluggishly to express his discomfort. He was sprawled where he'd fallen in the kitchen, bathed in the cold downdraft from the open refrigerator. Its overworked motor hummed a loud complaint at the abuse.

Pulling himself together had a special meaning to him now as he strove to organize each limb to work with the rest. Now he knew what it was like to be one of those puppets made of hollow balls with a single string running through it. It would lie loose and disorganized until the string was pulled taut, then assume shape and function. He was doubtful about being able to retie things back to normal. An order to his leg set his arm to twitching. Trying to close his fist made his foot kick.

He gave up for a while and went back to breathing. At least he knew how to do that.

His second attempt met with more success, and he managed to peel himself from the floor. From there it was just a matter of time until he could stand and flex the rest of the numbness from his muscles. His fingers felt like they were encased in gloves. When he slapped them against a counter corner, he felt the impact, but not the sting.

And some people do this to themselves on purpose? 

But he was past the curve. To speed things up, he drank more blood.

That helped.

How had his would-be killer gotten in? There was state-of-the-art security on the doors, but for every measure, a good home invader could devise a countermeasure. It had been a professional job, and Alejandro could afford the best. Like, perhaps, Jordan Keyes.

Richard checked the time. It was nearly three—in the afternoon. Where was Luis? He should have come up here by now.

Richard retrieved his revolver from the bedroom floor and went to the elevator. He punched the button five times and sweated through the short descent. The door opened to a deserted flat. Luis was quite gone, along with his laptop case.

What the hell had happened?

On the return trip, Richard worked it out. Luis had wakened, come up to the penthouse, and found the apparently lifeless body of his only ally. What he'd made of the blood bags if he'd noticed them did not bear thinking. He'd have fled, but where?

He'd want Michael, though. How to find him? Luis would have gone through Richard's desk, of course, hoping to find an address book with a listing for a doctor.

Richard looked there for signs of a search and found them. Everything had been hastily tossed. The computer, when he tapped a key to make the screen saver disappear, had been subject to an attempted search, but Luis wouldn't have had the luxury of a password to crack into the right file.

But . . . next to the computer were the prescription chits with the access codes Bourland had provided. One of them was gone. The codes would have been meaningless, but not the name, number, and address of the clinic printed at the top of each sheet.

Luis would have called the clinic and gotten Dr. George's home number from the answering machine.

That was a relief, but only for an instant. Once Luis had Michael he'd run far and fast, and it still wouldn't be enough for him to escape Alejandro. Richard immediately punched in Sam's home number, but got only his machine. Damn, should have tried the pager first. 

He tried the pager, then called Helen's cell phone. No answer. A recorded message cut in to explain why. He tried information for her home phone, but the machine at the Mesquita residence was just as unhelpful.

The clinic. A long shot, but what the hell.

Miraculously, a live human voice answered. Instead of the usual business greeting announcing the clinic's name, he got a shaky sounding "Hello."

"Helen? Is that you? It's Richard Dun."

"Mr. Dun?" She seemed unconvinced.

"Yes. What's going on? Has Michael's father contacted you?"

"God," she said, then there was a clatter. Her shout rang loud in the hollow distance. "Dr. Sam! Come here! He's all right! It's Mr. Dun—he's on the line!"

Another clatter, then Sam's breathless voice. "Richard?"

"Yes, Sam. What's happened?"

"You . . . we thought . . . oh, God." He broke off as his voice caught. "We thought . . . are you hurt badly?"

"What?"

"You need to call 911 right away."

Richard realized what misapprehension they were under, and regretted the fact he could not hypnotize people over the phone to restore calm. It took him some minutes to convince Sam of his good health.

"But Luis said you were dead," Sam insisted. "That you'd been shot."

"He made a mistake. All I did was knock myself out when I ducked . . . oh, never mind. Luis took off. I presume to see you to find Michael."

"Yes, he tracked me down. I thought he might be a ringer and was careful to set up a meeting at a public place. We met at one of the malls; he showed me his driver's license and talked about what had happened. He was in pretty bad shape, took me a while to settle him down, then I had to find Helen. It seemed best for us all to meet here at the clinic."

"How's Michael?"

"He was the same."

"Was?"

"Luis has him now."

Damnation. I knew it. "You didn't talk him out of it?"

"Of course I tried to, but the man was scared. He insisted on leaving. I insisted he stay. Then things got out of hand."

"How do you mean?"

"He just grabbed Michael and walked. I tried to stop him, but he . . . well, he sort of decked me."

Richard sighed. It was understandable, but so bloody unnecessary. "Are you all right?"

"Just sore. Got me in the gut. Surprised the hell out of me more than anything. By the time I got mad enough to get up, he was gone."

"What kind of car was he in?" He feared Luis had taken the rental.

"A cab. Helen got the number."

"Brilliant woman. Remind yourself to give her a raise. Tell her to phone the cab company and find out where the driver dropped that fare, then get back to me."

"What if they don't give out that information?"

"Tell them it's a medical emergency, that the boy needs insulin or something. I have to track Luis before he completely disappears, so hurry."

Sam rang off. Richard used the interval to clean up, selecting a blue industrial-style work shirt and drab gray trousers from his closet. He matched these with thick-soled black work boots. By the time he'd dressed, the phone trilled.

"I got it," Sam said proudly. "Damn, I feel like a TV detective! The driver took them to the Anatole Galleria by the tollway, not too far from where you are. Said they went right in."

Luis must have opted for the better security of an expensive place over that of another fleabag. "You did very well, Sam. Want a chance for more?"

"What? Call the hotel?"

"Yes. They probably won't give information on guests over the line, so you may have to go there in person. He'd have used a false name . . . but they tend to want to see ID up front, though. He might be there under his real name . . . God, what a mess. Get the manager on your side; use the medical emergency story. Describe Luis and just ask to be put through to his room, then sort him out about my condition."

"Why don't you go there?"

"I have to track down the person who decked me. I think he may be my strongest lead to find Alejandro."

"But what if he decks you again?"

"It won't happen."

"But—"

"Even if it does, you have Philip Bourland's number."

"God, I'd forgotten what with all the—"

"Just tell Luis to phone him. He'll be flying into D/FW tomorrow morning. He'll know how to deal with everything."

I hope. 

The rental, happily, was still there and functioning, though before starting it, Richard went over the thing looking for bombs. None present. Mr. Jordan Keyes must have been quite confident of his booby trap.

Richard put the crossbow and the bolt on the passenger side. If things came down to it—and he was certain they would—he planned to dispatch Keyes with his own device. It seemed only fitting.

The drive to the man's house was a tedious one. There were no fast ways to get from Addison to west Fort Worth in the late afternoon, even on a Sunday. Traffic was as dreary here as in any overcongested metropolitan area. An hour and a half later he was finally speeding along a clear patch of I-30, having spent a quarter of it in an inexplicable stop-start jam on the long bridge that spanned the downtown area. He'd have done better to brave a line of side street stoplights, but road construction had trapped him in. During the long wait, stewing and burning in the sun, he grew thoroughly sick of staring at the backside of a dump truck he'd gotten stuck behind.

By the time he reached the exit for Hulen he was in a fine mood to commit murder.

Keyes's neighborhood was a mild surprise. As a hit man for Alejandro Trujillo and others like him, he would have made enough to buy a palace. Instead, he resided in a quiet, well-tended neighborhood of seriously unpretentious houses built during the fifties boom. Some had been added onto over the years, but most were of the infamous shoe box design, cheap-looking and unfashionable to current tastes.

A few sun-tolerant teens glided noisily past on their in-line skates. No one else was out. This was the hottest, most sweltering portion of the whole hellish day. Blinds and curtains were drawn shut, their owners sensibly within watching their cable TV and drinking beer. Not a bad life at all.

Richard made a slow circuit of the meandering roads, fixing in mind the various exits available to him. The quickest led to the highway via a northbound back street. He marked that down as his primary escape route, should he require one.

The frame house he wanted was on a corner lot, one large tree shading the back yard, two aged cottonwoods deteriorating branch by branch in the front. It seemed rather vulnerable seated on a slight rise, but from the windows the occupant had a fine view of the crossroads because the building was set on an angle to them. This detail did not escape Richard's notice. Nor did he miss the fact that a security camera was neatly mounted under the eaves of the carport. Its viewing range took in much of the street.

He could admire the man's paranoia.

It looked to be that Keyes was home. A battered black Escort with a cracked windshield rested patiently in the carport. It had been new a good decade and a half ago. Amazing that the thing still ran. Perhaps Keyes kept his real money invested elsewhere. That, or he was a tightwad. Good God, the front grill on the little car was actually sporting duct tape to hold it in place.

I could have the wrong house. 

Richard refused to consider that possibility just yet, and assumed the rest of the working-man persona he'd opted to try. He fitted his black baseball cap forward on his head, then reached into the back seat for a clipboard. It was the same one he'd taken from Officer Henebry, looking battered enough to sell the ruse. He parked his car facing north toward the highway, tucked his revolver under his belt, and got out, pencil in hand.

The heat. It wasn't the humidity that killed, it was the heat, the god-damned bone-melting heat.

The asphalt street radiated it up to him in waves as he crossed and went boldly up Keyes's driveway to the front door. The blinds were shut fast here, but for the sake of any hidden camera he'd missed, Richard looked at his watch, noting the time down on the clipboard, which concealed the presence of the gun.

Richard had a great respect for clipboards. Used the right way they could take a person anywhere. They made you important, yet invisible. They were one of the great unsung inventions of the world, like paper clips. A calm-faced man writing on one was a universally harmless man, at the most an annoyance, but never a threat.

The welcome mat had GO AWAY blazoned on it in bright red letters. Richard stepped up and tried the bell, just barely hearing an electronic version of the chimes of Big Ben within. No one answered. After a reasonable interval—made short by the blistering sun—he knocked, the sound booming through the house as he pounded on the sturdy metal door. He noticed the discreet sign of a commercial security firm shoved into the baking grass of a walkway planter. That was amusing. It was a company Richard himself had founded back in the sixties. He still had a controlling interest in the stock. Nice to know that Keyes wanted only the best.

One of the blind slats twitched. Richard caught the movement and stood up straighter, as though anticipating an answer. A little late, he wondered if Keyes had been provided with a photo or description of his New Karnak target. Assume he has. 

There was a click of a dead bolt being drawn back and the door opened three inches. A soothing, air-conditioned draft hit him.

Then he hit the door.

He intended to smash it hard into whoever was behind, then take him down. Instead, all his force turned into an overcalculation. The door crashed wide open with no resistance at all, bouncing against a wall to come back at him. It struck his shoulder, throwing off his balance. Despite this, he kept to his feet, dropping to a crouch, his revolver already in hand.

The room was dark. His eyes weren't nearly well enough adjusted to see, but he sensed a presence behind and to his right and whipped around to meet it. At the same time, something cracked down mercilessly hard on his wrist and he lost his gun. He grunted once, too busy to worry about pain, and struck out with his leg in a back kick, connecting with a solid body. There was a crash as it fell.

Richard followed through, his eyes just picking out the shape of a man on the floor scrambling to right himself. In one hand was a baseball bat. He'd managed to retain hold of it. He made a short arcing swing at Richard's legs, but missed. Richard dove forward, landing on him before he could recover, driving out all his breath with a well-placed fist. The man gasped and dropped the bat, his hand open and palm up in surrender.

"Okay! Enough!" he wheezed out. "Stop wrecking my house!"

"Jordan Keyes?"

"Who wants to know?"

Richard recognized the voice from Nick Anton's answering machine. Interesting. "The man you tried to kill last night. Me."

"Oh, really? Good trick since I was home the whole evening. Who the hell are you?"

"All in good time."

"No, right now, asshole. Get off me. Now."

Richard felt a no-nonsense prodding in his left side. While distracted by the man's flapping hand and the discarded bat, he'd forgotten to check the other hand. It held a rather large gun. If it went off it would tear a sizable hole laterally through his chest, taking out both lungs and his heart. That would hurt.

He decided to be cooperative for the moment and carefully removed himself.

Keyes got to his feet first. "Face down, lie flat, arms out, spread your legs. Don't think it over, just do it."

Not one of my better days, Richard thought, obeying.

Keyes kicked the front door shut. "Start talking. Who are you?"

"My name is Dun, Richard Dun."

"And why the hell are you here?"

"I'm looking for a mutual friend, Nick Anton."

"Wrong. He's no friend of mine."

"A mutual enemy, then."

"Wrong again. I've nothing against him, either. One more bad answer and you win the fuck-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on prize, and I can promise you won't like it. Do I have your attention?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now what's this about me trying to kill you last night?"

"Just what I said."

"Trust me, if I'd been trying you wouldn't be here. Who put you on to me?"

"You did."

"You trying to make things hard on yourself?"

"Not at all. The weapon used was a crossbow, the tip on the bolt had a glass vial with curare in it."

A brief silence from Keyes. "The hell you say."

"Missed me, though."

"Then that should tell you it wasn't me. I don't miss."

As the man was in full charge of the situation, he had no logical reason to lie. Richard did not always trust in logic; however, his instinct told him something was decidedly odd here. "Look, I think we've some talking to do."

"That's right. You stay there and talk."

"Mr. Keyes, you are a professional and so am I. Given sufficient precautions on your part, I'd prefer to be able to sit up and face you for this conversation."

Keyes thought it over. "All right. Slowly. You will stay on the floor and sit on your hands."

Fair enough. For him. More than fair enough for Richard once he made eye contact.

They'd not wrecked the house too much. A table and lamp were in pieces, and a big leather sofa askew. They managed to miss a large entertainment center in the low, rectangular box of a room.

Standing by the shaded front picture window, Keyes had his back to what light did seep through. In his thirties, medium in height, but with powerful shoulders under an innocuous brown polo shirt, he held a Walther P-99 in one strangely delicate hand. His alert stance smacked of military training, though there was no mention of it in his files. He matched the DEA's grainy photo, a bald man with a well-shaped skull, his fringe of remaining hair cut very short. He now sported a precisely trimmed goatee; close up, his resemblance to Lenin was positively uncanny, but without the facial hair he'd have been Mr. Invisible . . . except for the eyes. Richard recognized a fellow killer.

Keyes returned the study. "It's an okay cover," he said, with a nod to Richard's clothes. "Except for your car being wrong, the hat the wrong color and the fact it's Sunday, you might pass as a city worker to anyone else."

"I thought it worth the chance."

"You had a fourth strike against you. I was expecting someone like you to show up."

"Because you quit working for Alejandro?"

Keyes's eyes sharpened. "You know an awful lot. Tell me where you heard that."

"On Nick Anton's answering machine. You've a distinctive voice."

"And why was Nick letting you listen in?"

"He wasn't there at the time. I broke into his place last night looking for him."

"Keep going."

Richard smiled. "I think we may have a common enemy—Alejandro Trujillo. If you were expecting someone like me, then you know he doesn't like it when people leave his employ without his blessing."

"His retirement plan sucks. I figured if the news came through Nick it'd soften things. Maybe."

"Nick was your go-between with Trujillo?"

"Sometimes."

"I take it you didn't like what he arranged in Addison?"

"What do you know about it?"

"Quite a lot . . ." There. Eye contact. And Keyes was sober. His partial silhouetting by the window made it hard for Richard to be sure if his focus was working, but the silence between them grew profound. "Are you ready to listen to me, Mr. Keyes?"

"Yes."

That was a relief. "I'm going to stand up now. You will remain still. Got that?"

"Yes."

Richard stood and stretched out the kinks, rubbing his extremely sore wrist, flexing the fingers. He'd taken a good crack there; it might have shattered the bones on another man. As it was, he'd have full use of it within the hour.

He found his revolver, shoving it back into his belt, then turned on Keyes. "You may put your pistol down now."

He set it on the window sill.

"Mr. Keyes, you will start cooperating with me. You trust me. I am your friend. You will always tell me the truth. Is that clear?"

"Yes." His killer eyes were dimmer now, his stance more relaxed.

"Excellent. Now tell me where Alejandro Trujillo is."

"I don't know."

"Does Nick Anton know?"

"Maybe."

"Where might I find him?"

"He's got a place in Euless. Rest of the time he works at Bubba Rob's."

Shit. This was getting entirely too frustrating. "I want you to contact him again."

"Okay."

"You feel very comfortable talking to me; trust that feeling. Because of it you will do nothing to harm me or cause harm to happen to me."

"Okay."

"Now, how did you get into my flat?"

"I didn't."

"Then who did?"

"I don't know."

That was it, the situation was now officially beyond frustrating. Richard did not put his fist through one of the walls. He was still healing. But damn it all to hell, he wanted to. "All right, Keyes, let's sit down and have a heart-to-heart."

Keyes's expression changed in some subtle way, becoming almost good-natured. "Sure thing. Want a beer?"

"Ah . . . no thank you."

"I got some ice tea." He left his spot by the window and went into a very small kitchen, Richard trailing him. Keyes started to open an avocado-green refrigerator covered with magnet-pinned photos and food delivery ad cards, but froze, glaring. "Whisky! Soda! Goddamn it! Get out of there!"

Two gray-striped cats shot down from a counter where they'd been crouched over an open pizza box. They tore past Richard's legs and vanished somewhere deeper into the house.

"I'm gonna kill those two one of these days," Keyes muttered, checking on the pizza. "Okay, they didn't do any permanent damage. I should have shut the lid, but you came banging on my door. Want some supper?"

"No, thank you."

"Damn stuff got cold." He shifted two slices onto a plate and shoved it in a microwave. As soon as he hit the cook button, a loud mournful yowl went up, like a soul crying from hell. He interrupted the heat cycle and looked behind the oven, which was at an angle in a corner, creating a triangle of space. "Monster, what the hell are you doing there? Well, come on, babyness. Aw, poor Mr. Monster."

The unhappy white and black cat he pulled out lived up to its name. It had a small head compared to the rest of its body, which had to weigh at least twenty pounds.

"You stupid cat, you trying to get irradiated? You're already a mutant." He held the huge feline on its back, fingers digging into its vast expanse of stomach. The beast yowled again, a long, sad wail of protest. "Shut up and get some loving." Monster had other plans, though, successfully struggled free, and hit the floor. Suprisingly fast, he shot toward a cat door cut into a wall and, after a minor struggle, oozed through.

"He's not much for visitors," Keyes said. "Paranoid for some reason. You like cats?"

"More or less. You certainly seem to."

"I hate the little freeloading bastards, but they're more important to me than most of the people I know."

"How many do you have?"

"Enough to put me on everyone's weird list." He opened a cell phone sitting on a counter and started to punch in a number. Richard asked for an explanation. "I'm calling Nick, like you wanted. Change your mind?"

"Not at all."

The other line buzzed a few times, then the answering machine kicked on with a basic message. "It's me," said Keyes in a stern tone. "Something's happened your boss will want to know about. Call me back immediately. This is serious so don't fart around." He disconnected. "That should do it."

Richard waited as the man heated his interrupted meal and opened a beer; then they went back to the living room. Keyes put it on a foldout TV table, sat on the couch, and dug in. Richard found a chair opposite for himself, using the respite to massage his wrist.

"Sorry about that." Keyes said.

"Part of the job. I'd have done the same."

"So who are you, Mr. Dun?"

"One of Alejandro's targets."

"And you think I was trying to hit the bull's-eye? If they used a crossbow, I can understand you making that mistake. A very select few are aware of what I do with them, but the truth is I never heard about you until today."

"You weren't contacted to do a job here?"

"I didn't say that."

"What do you know about the Addison explosion, then?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Richard focused, giving him a slight nudge. "You first. Tell me everything."

Keyes blinked awake. "About two weeks ago Nick called to say Trujillo wanted a job done. A pretty big one, a business rival he wanted blown to kingdom come. I turned him down."

"Why?"

"Too clumsy, too spectacular. Use a gun, then it's only another murder for the cops. Use explosives and you've got the Federales and all their cousins on your ass. There are simpler ways to take people out. Besides that nonsense, it was local. I never do any job like that locally, always out of the country."

"Killing international drug lords for fun and profit?"

"Why not? Someone has to." He washed down a gulp of pizza with beer. "And the pay is good."

"Working for another drug lord?" Richard kept any and all judgment from his tone.

"If not me, then someone else. I'd rather the money come to me. I got a family to support." A slender black cat jumped onto the couch next to him, highly interested in the pizza. He pushed it off, growling. "Not now, Dot. Go away."

"You trust Trujillo?"

"Absolutely not. But I trust his agenda, which is to be the richest damn bastard down there by taking out the competition. He might make it, too, or would have. Without me running errands for him he's going to find it a lot harder. He doesn't have anyone else with my special skills that he can trust not to screw up. It's easy to find someone who can kill, but damn near impossible to find someone who's smart about it."

"Are you entirely out of work, then?"

"I never said that." Keyes's eyes almost twinkled. "There's plenty to be had, you just have to be careful who you work for."

"Meaning if someone contracted you to kill Trujillo . . ."

"Anyone come up with the money for it, I'd take him out just as easy as the rest. Nothing personal, just business. Since he's in the business, he knows that that's a possibility. So he's always paid me more. Call it insurance."

"How did Trujillo react to your refusal?"

"He wasn't happy, but I explained my reasons. He offered me a hell of a lot of money, but the deal smelled bad. I put that in his face, and said I wouldn't be able to do other work for him if I got caught. The forensic boys up here are pretty damn sharp. I might be able to get around them, but it isn't worth the risk for me to try. I never dirty my own back yard, that's one of my rules. Trujillo wasn't giving me much information, either, just that I was to wire up a house and set things off at a certain time, and that's all. That's what smelled to me. He's always got more information than a library on who he wants out of the way, but not for this one. So I backed right off."

"Did you sense he might put a hit out on you for that?"

"No, it was just business as usual. He didn't press things. I'm more valuable to him for those out-of-country sanctions. I figured he'd find someone else with less smarts for the job, and it turned out I was right. Soon as I saw the news report I knew that was what he'd wanted me to do and why he'd been so cute about not giving details. There was some woman and a couple kids in there; he knew I'd never have gone for it."

"An assassin with principles?"

"Call me old-fashioned, but killing women and kids is just wrong." He leaned forward, tapping on the table with one finger, each tap emphasizing a word. "When you have a job on, you go in like a surgeon and take out that target. Collateral damage, as they call it, is just being stupid." He sat back, face consumed with disgust.

"Then you severed relations with him."

"Business is run on trust, and he screwed up." Keyes made more pizza disappear. "Now you tell me someone went after you with a crossbow? No way would I do anything as damn-fool as that up here. The DEA is just looking for an excuse to turn me over and see what shakes out. I don't know why they're so anal; I'm doing most of their work for them."

"I may have an explanation."

Swig of beer. "I'm listening."

"Trujillo wants us both out of the way. He set up a crossbow booby trap to take me out. The idea being when my body's found the DEA traces the weapon to you. A very neat copycat frame to enrich your life."

"But it missed, so you come looking for me. Either way, one or both of us is taken out of the picture, and Trujillo gets a good laugh. Most neat. But how did you even know about me?"

"Computer search."

He grimaced. "Damn things. I'll have to retire before they lead to my downfall—unless that's already happened?"

Richard gave no direct answer. He'd not yet made up his mind on what to do with the man. "Your name and Anton's came up in connection with Trujillo. You were on my short list of people to interview in order to get to him."

"Why are you interested in him?"

"The house explosion. It's personal."

"How so?"

Richard frowned. "The woman was a good friend of mine. Her little girls were my goddaughters."

Keyes put his beer bottle down. "I'm sorry to hear that. Was he after you through them?"

"No. The woman's husband is Trujillo's brother, Luis. The one who turned evidence on him. Their deaths had to do with punishment, revenge, and to make an example to others."

"I heard about that case. The brother dropped out of sight a few years back."

"Yes. I'm the one who disappeared them all."

"Because of the woman?"

"And the children. But Alejandro found them. You saw what he did. Now I wish to find him."

"I don't fault you for that. Not much you can do until Nick returns my call, though."

"Then we'll wait." Richard's cell phone trilled. "Excuse me."

"It's me," said Dr. Sam.

"What news?"

"I couldn't find them."

"Damn," he muttered. "What's happened?"

"I don't know. Helen and I drove to the hotel and talked to everyone from the manager to the maids. A few people remembered seeing a man and little boy, but not where they went. I was very insistent about the need to find Michael, described them both a hundred times over, had the clerks check the guest roster twice, even called a couple of likely prospects in their rooms. Nothing. Then Helen and I split up and went to search the Galleria Mall and got the security people there alerted for them. When that didn't work I phoned the cab company again and asked if they had any pickup fares from the mall or the hotel. They had their dispatch talk to all the drivers. Nothing again. That's when I started calling the other cab companies. Helen's still in the manager's office working on it, but it's probably hopeless. Luis and Michael just walked in and disappeared."

"You were very thorough, Sam, not your fault." In fact, he'd been outstandingly thorough.

"Maybe he got a bus or hitchhiked . . ."

"Sam, it's all right. Some things can't be helped. When I've dealt with details at this end, I'll see what I can do. Chances are he will shortly contact that other friend of mine for help and we can sort it out then." Even with Keyes hypnotically persuaded to being an ally, Richard had no desire to mention Bourland's name in front of him.

"I hope so," Sam said unhappily.

"Perhaps you'd best go ahead and phone him first; let him know what's going on so he doesn't have to take news of my untimely death seriously. I've told him who you are."

Sam seemed to brighten. "Okay, I'll get on that."

"Good man." He rang off and hoped Sam talked to Bourland before Luis did. The man did not need news of anyone else's death unless it was Alejandro's.

"Where's that crossbow?" said Keyes, who had finished his beer and pizza during the interval. "I'd like to go see it."

Richard shifted mental gears. "No need. I brought it with me."

One eyebrow quirked. "May I ask why?"

"I had an idea about using it on you. Poetic justice."

Keyes looked at him awhile, lips thin, then slowly nodded. "Fair enough. I'm glad you decided to talk first."

"I'll go fetch it."

When he returned from the car, outré weapon in hand, Keyes had cleared away the TV table and was stowing the pizza box in the fridge. Two more cats appeared; they were white and black like Mr. Monster, but with longer fur. One of them yowed a plaintive question.

"Oh, shut up, Spot. Your food's right there." Keyes pointed to a bank of filled food bowls in one corner, and shoved the complaining cat in their general direction with his foot. The other, he swooped on and picked up. It also yowed. "Aw, Le Feline Nikita, wanna make funny noises? Let's make funny noises, babyness." He held the animal upside down, hand over its face, and indeed produced some strange squeakings from the creature.

"Le Feline Nikita?" Richard asked doubtfully.

"From my favorite movie. That little chickadee was most doable. She's the reason why I learned French."

"What about that TV show?"

"Now she is most tasty. Extremely doable." He glanced at the crossbow Richard had in hand.

"Look familiar?" Richard watched the upside-down squeaking cat furiously batting at Keyes, who paid it scant attention.

"Nope. That's a commercial model—a good one—I wouldn't mind having it, but I could never use it in my work. I build my own."

"You build your own?"

"Yeah, lemme show you. You'll appreciate this." He discarded the outraged cat, who landed on all fours, shook itself, and began to clean as though nothing amiss had occurred. "Short attention span. I dated a girl like that once. Good weekend, lousy week. C'mon this way."

Keyes had a very small house, three small bedrooms, one bath, minimal furnishings, all in keeping with his character of living on modest investments. The forces of officialdom would have a difficult time finding fault with him.

"Where do you keep your real money?" Richard asked.

"Some place real safe. You wondering why I live like this when I could do better?"

"Yes. Why not?"

"I like the neighborhood. I have what I need, which is a place where I can just come in and relax. Besides, it'd be a hell of a job trying to transplant this."

He went into a bedroom no more than nine by ten feet in size. It held only a chair, work desk with a computer, and two filled bookshelves. An eight-foot-wide closet with sliding mirrored doors covered the length of one wall: big storage space in compensation for the claustrophobic dimensions. He slid one four-foot-wide door aside to reveal a rack holding some plastic-wrapped suits, which he also pushed out of the way. On the floor were a couple of suitcases he pulled out. He activated some hidden mechanism behind the door jamb and a section of the closet floor popped like the hood of a car. He pulled it up.

"Interesting," said Richard, looking down into darkness.

Keyes hit a light switch just inside the cavity. The sides were composed of the house's cement foundation for a foot or so, then opened up. "C'mon." He made use of a metal ladder, quickly descending.

Richard followed, looking around, fascinated. He stood in a very efficient low-ceilinged workroom, not much more than ten by ten, but well-lit and fitted with a woodworking bench and plenty of outlets for the power tools hanging from the pegboard walls. The air was fresh, courtesy of fan-powered vents.

"You did all this yourself?"

"Yup. About ten years back I started. Took me awhile to chip through the foundation, then start hauling out dirt and limestone. For a year or so this place looked like something out of The Great Escape. I filled up dips and holes in the lawn with the extra dirt, used the rocks to decorate the backyard and build a barbeque. I tell you, doing it one bucket at a time sucks, but when I realized that I was too far along to stop. Had to go to an acupuncturist to put my back right again, but it was worth it."

"Why go to such trouble?"

"Why not? I got a hidden retreat that no cop's ever going to find. Makes for one hell of a tornado shelter, too. Couple of times me and the cats did a little duck and cover here. I hollowed out enough to give me the work space I needed, but not so much as to undermine the house. Poured in a second foundation down here, one cement bag at a time, running a waterhose from the bath tub—that was a mess. Put in those support braces to shore up the ceiling, then put in plywood walls and plastered them over so there wouldn't be any fresh earth smell coming into the house, and started hauling stuff down. I had to limit the size to things that would fit through the trap, brought the lumber down in pieces to make the bench and storage."

Keyes was clearly proud of his effort and accomplishment. This was likely the first time he'd ever had the chance to show it off.

"Very impressive," said Richard, and he was completely sincere. It was wonderful. He wanted one too.

"Thank you. None of this is going anywhere, least of all me. Not until I'm damned good and ready. If Trujillo thinks he's going to change that he's made one hell of a mistake."

"He's made several. Why are we here?"

"So I can show you what I build." Keyes then proceeded to give him a brief lecture on the construction of crossbows. He was quite the artist. He had several different sizes, all with various ranges and functions, all of them made to break apart into components. He took a number of small wooden pieces that seemed to have nothing to do with each other, and assembled them together with a small screwdriver. The only metal in it was a few brass screws. By the time he'd finished, a very wicked little weapon crouched on the workbench, only needing a string and a bolt to complete it. It was quite different from the large metal model Richard had brought in.

"I always use wood," Keyes explained. "The airport X-ray techs always see it as being part of my suitcase, so they don't make a fuss and pass me through. Once a job is done I take the bow apart and throw away the pieces."

"Hence the need to come down here and make more."

"Yeah, but it's a lot of trouble, takes time, and has become too much of a trademark pointing to me. Lately I've been thinking of switching over to blowguns for some jobs. Those are just hollow tubes, but you have to really practice to put the dart where you want it. Hey, check this out." He flicked on a closed circuit TV. It had four views, two covering the street, one the backyard, the last the front porch. "I can control the angle of the camera from here."

"Got a night vision adapter?" asked Richard, highly interested. He loved tech toys as much as the next man.

"Of course—and infrared backup."

He was starting to like the fellow in spite of himself. He'd had a bellyful of dealing with exotic assassins after his encounter with Charon some months back, but Keyes looked to be considerably more reasonable.

Keyes patted the set twice. "I got all the mod-cons. When I'm down here I don't want to be completely cut off from the world, so I ran in a phone line, cable radio. For some things I'm a gadget junkie. There's a lot of most bueno stuff out there, so I have to pick and choose—and what the hell have we here?" He tweaked one of the cameras onto a large car that had pulled parallel to Richard's rental, and zoomed in. "We got us a big-ass ol' Cadillac fulla drug muscle. Looks like I was right about Trujillo coming after me, but I thought he'd send in just a couple of guys, not a fucking army."

"How many?"

"Five—two in front, three in back."

"That's hardly an army."

"Count the five in that other car and it is." He shifted the view to the cross street, where sat a second large car crowded with men.

"In a twisted way, it's almost flattering. What do you think they're carrying?"

"Probably full autos. Trujillo likes to pass out MP-5s like party favors, and his boys love to play macho man. This could get ugly fast—son of a bitch, look at that!" Keyes zoomed hard on the second car. One of the faces in the back seat was . . . Alejandro Trujillo. "We got some serious shit here if the big boss wants to catch the fun. Okay, that's it. War is declared, but I'll be damned if I let those assholes shoot up my neighborhood."

Richard watched the car by the rental slowly cruise off. A moment later, the second car also moved out of camera range. "I think they're just checking things over first. They know you have a visitor, but are not aware it's me. As far as Alejandro is concerned, I'm dead. If I leave and make sure they see me, they'll follow."

"Not all of them. One of those cars will stick around to find out if you killed me."

"Then I suggest you get your Walther and prepare for them."

"No shit." Keyes went to a large wall cabinet. Inside, mounted on padded prongs hooked into more pegboard, was an assortment of firearms, enough to start and likely end a small revolution. On a shelf below were quantities of ammunition and cleaning supplies. Keyes caught the look Richard gave him. "Okay, so I was a little worried about the Millennium Bug. I had these on hand already. Pick out something."

"I've my revolver."

"Only six shots and no reload that I've noticed. You want more than that against these goofballs. Unless you got a problem with killing."

"Hardly. All right, I'll use the Glock then."

Keyes snorted and gave it over along with three extra loaded ammo magazines. "I thought you'd take that one."

"You don't like them?"

"They're okay."

"Why have one, then?"

"For guests, of course. They like 'em, but the Glock's never felt right in my hand. The grip on my Walther is set at just the right angle for me."

"That's the new James Bond gun, isn't it?" Richard always enjoyed those movies.

"Right you are—but I had the idea first."

"You don't like James Bond?"

"Oh hell, I'm a big fan, I just found the gun first is all. Come on." He stuffed more mags in his jeans pockets, switched off the TV, and went up the ladder. He left the trapdoor open and shoved the suitcases farther out of the way. "In case we have to beat a quick retreat here," he said, moving toward the living room.

"We may not have to."

"Why is that?"

Richard peered out through the front blinds. The sun was still bright and would be for another two hours. "They're probably covering the street exits from this area in case you should leave, but my guess is they won't actually come for you until well after dark. They're going to get bloody hot out there waiting."

"That just breaks my heart."

"Well, I'd rather not have them shooting up your neighborhood, either."

"Oh, yeah? You got another option?"

"As a matter of fact," said Richard, straightening, "I have a cunning plan. . . ."

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Contents
Framed

Back | Next
Contents

Chapter Thirteen

Dallas, Texas, the Present

The first breath was the hardest, like the first breath after being born. No one remembers that one, and it's just as well. It is a terrible struggle to inflate new lungs, to exchange the comfort of warm fluid for harsh, cold air, screaming at the unfairness and pain.

Richard wanted to scream, but was too consumed with the effort of trying to take a second breath.

He couldn't quite work out what was wrong beyond being paralyzed. His mind was separate from his inert body; he was a sleeper on the edge of waking, unable to move, and panicking at his helplessness. He could only focus on the absolute necessity to move. If he could shift but a finger it would break the spell holding him, and he'd wake from the nightmare.

Alas, it didn't work that way. He had to take a third breath.

Then a fourth.

Air shuddered reluctantly into him and too easily departed. In between, he endured the terror that he would stop altogether. That gave him impetus to try again.

Days later, it seemed, the process gradually became less of a fight. The panic receded.

After a month or so, he didn't have to think about it at all, only drift and dream. They were sad, those dreams, and always fled from him when he tried to take hold of one to find out why.

He wanted to turn over in his sleep, to interrupt the mild frustration of the not-dreaming. Eventually, he thrashed out with one arm, cracking his knuckles against something cold and hard. The floor.

It broke the spell.

He groaned, a clumsy, thick sound, his voice box responding sluggishly to express his discomfort. He was sprawled where he'd fallen in the kitchen, bathed in the cold downdraft from the open refrigerator. Its overworked motor hummed a loud complaint at the abuse.

Pulling himself together had a special meaning to him now as he strove to organize each limb to work with the rest. Now he knew what it was like to be one of those puppets made of hollow balls with a single string running through it. It would lie loose and disorganized until the string was pulled taut, then assume shape and function. He was doubtful about being able to retie things back to normal. An order to his leg set his arm to twitching. Trying to close his fist made his foot kick.

He gave up for a while and went back to breathing. At least he knew how to do that.

His second attempt met with more success, and he managed to peel himself from the floor. From there it was just a matter of time until he could stand and flex the rest of the numbness from his muscles. His fingers felt like they were encased in gloves. When he slapped them against a counter corner, he felt the impact, but not the sting.

And some people do this to themselves on purpose? 

But he was past the curve. To speed things up, he drank more blood.

That helped.

How had his would-be killer gotten in? There was state-of-the-art security on the doors, but for every measure, a good home invader could devise a countermeasure. It had been a professional job, and Alejandro could afford the best. Like, perhaps, Jordan Keyes.

Richard checked the time. It was nearly three—in the afternoon. Where was Luis? He should have come up here by now.

Richard retrieved his revolver from the bedroom floor and went to the elevator. He punched the button five times and sweated through the short descent. The door opened to a deserted flat. Luis was quite gone, along with his laptop case.

What the hell had happened?

On the return trip, Richard worked it out. Luis had wakened, come up to the penthouse, and found the apparently lifeless body of his only ally. What he'd made of the blood bags if he'd noticed them did not bear thinking. He'd have fled, but where?

He'd want Michael, though. How to find him? Luis would have gone through Richard's desk, of course, hoping to find an address book with a listing for a doctor.

Richard looked there for signs of a search and found them. Everything had been hastily tossed. The computer, when he tapped a key to make the screen saver disappear, had been subject to an attempted search, but Luis wouldn't have had the luxury of a password to crack into the right file.

But . . . next to the computer were the prescription chits with the access codes Bourland had provided. One of them was gone. The codes would have been meaningless, but not the name, number, and address of the clinic printed at the top of each sheet.

Luis would have called the clinic and gotten Dr. George's home number from the answering machine.

That was a relief, but only for an instant. Once Luis had Michael he'd run far and fast, and it still wouldn't be enough for him to escape Alejandro. Richard immediately punched in Sam's home number, but got only his machine. Damn, should have tried the pager first. 

He tried the pager, then called Helen's cell phone. No answer. A recorded message cut in to explain why. He tried information for her home phone, but the machine at the Mesquita residence was just as unhelpful.

The clinic. A long shot, but what the hell.

Miraculously, a live human voice answered. Instead of the usual business greeting announcing the clinic's name, he got a shaky sounding "Hello."

"Helen? Is that you? It's Richard Dun."

"Mr. Dun?" She seemed unconvinced.

"Yes. What's going on? Has Michael's father contacted you?"

"God," she said, then there was a clatter. Her shout rang loud in the hollow distance. "Dr. Sam! Come here! He's all right! It's Mr. Dun—he's on the line!"

Another clatter, then Sam's breathless voice. "Richard?"

"Yes, Sam. What's happened?"

"You . . . we thought . . . oh, God." He broke off as his voice caught. "We thought . . . are you hurt badly?"

"What?"

"You need to call 911 right away."

Richard realized what misapprehension they were under, and regretted the fact he could not hypnotize people over the phone to restore calm. It took him some minutes to convince Sam of his good health.

"But Luis said you were dead," Sam insisted. "That you'd been shot."

"He made a mistake. All I did was knock myself out when I ducked . . . oh, never mind. Luis took off. I presume to see you to find Michael."

"Yes, he tracked me down. I thought he might be a ringer and was careful to set up a meeting at a public place. We met at one of the malls; he showed me his driver's license and talked about what had happened. He was in pretty bad shape, took me a while to settle him down, then I had to find Helen. It seemed best for us all to meet here at the clinic."

"How's Michael?"

"He was the same."

"Was?"

"Luis has him now."

Damnation. I knew it. "You didn't talk him out of it?"

"Of course I tried to, but the man was scared. He insisted on leaving. I insisted he stay. Then things got out of hand."

"How do you mean?"

"He just grabbed Michael and walked. I tried to stop him, but he . . . well, he sort of decked me."

Richard sighed. It was understandable, but so bloody unnecessary. "Are you all right?"

"Just sore. Got me in the gut. Surprised the hell out of me more than anything. By the time I got mad enough to get up, he was gone."

"What kind of car was he in?" He feared Luis had taken the rental.

"A cab. Helen got the number."

"Brilliant woman. Remind yourself to give her a raise. Tell her to phone the cab company and find out where the driver dropped that fare, then get back to me."

"What if they don't give out that information?"

"Tell them it's a medical emergency, that the boy needs insulin or something. I have to track Luis before he completely disappears, so hurry."

Sam rang off. Richard used the interval to clean up, selecting a blue industrial-style work shirt and drab gray trousers from his closet. He matched these with thick-soled black work boots. By the time he'd dressed, the phone trilled.

"I got it," Sam said proudly. "Damn, I feel like a TV detective! The driver took them to the Anatole Galleria by the tollway, not too far from where you are. Said they went right in."

Luis must have opted for the better security of an expensive place over that of another fleabag. "You did very well, Sam. Want a chance for more?"

"What? Call the hotel?"

"Yes. They probably won't give information on guests over the line, so you may have to go there in person. He'd have used a false name . . . but they tend to want to see ID up front, though. He might be there under his real name . . . God, what a mess. Get the manager on your side; use the medical emergency story. Describe Luis and just ask to be put through to his room, then sort him out about my condition."

"Why don't you go there?"

"I have to track down the person who decked me. I think he may be my strongest lead to find Alejandro."

"But what if he decks you again?"

"It won't happen."

"But—"

"Even if it does, you have Philip Bourland's number."

"God, I'd forgotten what with all the—"

"Just tell Luis to phone him. He'll be flying into D/FW tomorrow morning. He'll know how to deal with everything."

I hope. 

The rental, happily, was still there and functioning, though before starting it, Richard went over the thing looking for bombs. None present. Mr. Jordan Keyes must have been quite confident of his booby trap.

Richard put the crossbow and the bolt on the passenger side. If things came down to it—and he was certain they would—he planned to dispatch Keyes with his own device. It seemed only fitting.

The drive to the man's house was a tedious one. There were no fast ways to get from Addison to west Fort Worth in the late afternoon, even on a Sunday. Traffic was as dreary here as in any overcongested metropolitan area. An hour and a half later he was finally speeding along a clear patch of I-30, having spent a quarter of it in an inexplicable stop-start jam on the long bridge that spanned the downtown area. He'd have done better to brave a line of side street stoplights, but road construction had trapped him in. During the long wait, stewing and burning in the sun, he grew thoroughly sick of staring at the backside of a dump truck he'd gotten stuck behind.

By the time he reached the exit for Hulen he was in a fine mood to commit murder.

Keyes's neighborhood was a mild surprise. As a hit man for Alejandro Trujillo and others like him, he would have made enough to buy a palace. Instead, he resided in a quiet, well-tended neighborhood of seriously unpretentious houses built during the fifties boom. Some had been added onto over the years, but most were of the infamous shoe box design, cheap-looking and unfashionable to current tastes.

A few sun-tolerant teens glided noisily past on their in-line skates. No one else was out. This was the hottest, most sweltering portion of the whole hellish day. Blinds and curtains were drawn shut, their owners sensibly within watching their cable TV and drinking beer. Not a bad life at all.

Richard made a slow circuit of the meandering roads, fixing in mind the various exits available to him. The quickest led to the highway via a northbound back street. He marked that down as his primary escape route, should he require one.

The frame house he wanted was on a corner lot, one large tree shading the back yard, two aged cottonwoods deteriorating branch by branch in the front. It seemed rather vulnerable seated on a slight rise, but from the windows the occupant had a fine view of the crossroads because the building was set on an angle to them. This detail did not escape Richard's notice. Nor did he miss the fact that a security camera was neatly mounted under the eaves of the carport. Its viewing range took in much of the street.

He could admire the man's paranoia.

It looked to be that Keyes was home. A battered black Escort with a cracked windshield rested patiently in the carport. It had been new a good decade and a half ago. Amazing that the thing still ran. Perhaps Keyes kept his real money invested elsewhere. That, or he was a tightwad. Good God, the front grill on the little car was actually sporting duct tape to hold it in place.

I could have the wrong house. 

Richard refused to consider that possibility just yet, and assumed the rest of the working-man persona he'd opted to try. He fitted his black baseball cap forward on his head, then reached into the back seat for a clipboard. It was the same one he'd taken from Officer Henebry, looking battered enough to sell the ruse. He parked his car facing north toward the highway, tucked his revolver under his belt, and got out, pencil in hand.

The heat. It wasn't the humidity that killed, it was the heat, the god-damned bone-melting heat.

The asphalt street radiated it up to him in waves as he crossed and went boldly up Keyes's driveway to the front door. The blinds were shut fast here, but for the sake of any hidden camera he'd missed, Richard looked at his watch, noting the time down on the clipboard, which concealed the presence of the gun.

Richard had a great respect for clipboards. Used the right way they could take a person anywhere. They made you important, yet invisible. They were one of the great unsung inventions of the world, like paper clips. A calm-faced man writing on one was a universally harmless man, at the most an annoyance, but never a threat.

The welcome mat had GO AWAY blazoned on it in bright red letters. Richard stepped up and tried the bell, just barely hearing an electronic version of the chimes of Big Ben within. No one answered. After a reasonable interval—made short by the blistering sun—he knocked, the sound booming through the house as he pounded on the sturdy metal door. He noticed the discreet sign of a commercial security firm shoved into the baking grass of a walkway planter. That was amusing. It was a company Richard himself had founded back in the sixties. He still had a controlling interest in the stock. Nice to know that Keyes wanted only the best.

One of the blind slats twitched. Richard caught the movement and stood up straighter, as though anticipating an answer. A little late, he wondered if Keyes had been provided with a photo or description of his New Karnak target. Assume he has. 

There was a click of a dead bolt being drawn back and the door opened three inches. A soothing, air-conditioned draft hit him.

Then he hit the door.

He intended to smash it hard into whoever was behind, then take him down. Instead, all his force turned into an overcalculation. The door crashed wide open with no resistance at all, bouncing against a wall to come back at him. It struck his shoulder, throwing off his balance. Despite this, he kept to his feet, dropping to a crouch, his revolver already in hand.

The room was dark. His eyes weren't nearly well enough adjusted to see, but he sensed a presence behind and to his right and whipped around to meet it. At the same time, something cracked down mercilessly hard on his wrist and he lost his gun. He grunted once, too busy to worry about pain, and struck out with his leg in a back kick, connecting with a solid body. There was a crash as it fell.

Richard followed through, his eyes just picking out the shape of a man on the floor scrambling to right himself. In one hand was a baseball bat. He'd managed to retain hold of it. He made a short arcing swing at Richard's legs, but missed. Richard dove forward, landing on him before he could recover, driving out all his breath with a well-placed fist. The man gasped and dropped the bat, his hand open and palm up in surrender.

"Okay! Enough!" he wheezed out. "Stop wrecking my house!"

"Jordan Keyes?"

"Who wants to know?"

Richard recognized the voice from Nick Anton's answering machine. Interesting. "The man you tried to kill last night. Me."

"Oh, really? Good trick since I was home the whole evening. Who the hell are you?"

"All in good time."

"No, right now, asshole. Get off me. Now."

Richard felt a no-nonsense prodding in his left side. While distracted by the man's flapping hand and the discarded bat, he'd forgotten to check the other hand. It held a rather large gun. If it went off it would tear a sizable hole laterally through his chest, taking out both lungs and his heart. That would hurt.

He decided to be cooperative for the moment and carefully removed himself.

Keyes got to his feet first. "Face down, lie flat, arms out, spread your legs. Don't think it over, just do it."

Not one of my better days, Richard thought, obeying.

Keyes kicked the front door shut. "Start talking. Who are you?"

"My name is Dun, Richard Dun."

"And why the hell are you here?"

"I'm looking for a mutual friend, Nick Anton."

"Wrong. He's no friend of mine."

"A mutual enemy, then."

"Wrong again. I've nothing against him, either. One more bad answer and you win the fuck-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on prize, and I can promise you won't like it. Do I have your attention?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now what's this about me trying to kill you last night?"

"Just what I said."

"Trust me, if I'd been trying you wouldn't be here. Who put you on to me?"

"You did."

"You trying to make things hard on yourself?"

"Not at all. The weapon used was a crossbow, the tip on the bolt had a glass vial with curare in it."

A brief silence from Keyes. "The hell you say."

"Missed me, though."

"Then that should tell you it wasn't me. I don't miss."

As the man was in full charge of the situation, he had no logical reason to lie. Richard did not always trust in logic; however, his instinct told him something was decidedly odd here. "Look, I think we've some talking to do."

"That's right. You stay there and talk."

"Mr. Keyes, you are a professional and so am I. Given sufficient precautions on your part, I'd prefer to be able to sit up and face you for this conversation."

Keyes thought it over. "All right. Slowly. You will stay on the floor and sit on your hands."

Fair enough. For him. More than fair enough for Richard once he made eye contact.

They'd not wrecked the house too much. A table and lamp were in pieces, and a big leather sofa askew. They managed to miss a large entertainment center in the low, rectangular box of a room.

Standing by the shaded front picture window, Keyes had his back to what light did seep through. In his thirties, medium in height, but with powerful shoulders under an innocuous brown polo shirt, he held a Walther P-99 in one strangely delicate hand. His alert stance smacked of military training, though there was no mention of it in his files. He matched the DEA's grainy photo, a bald man with a well-shaped skull, his fringe of remaining hair cut very short. He now sported a precisely trimmed goatee; close up, his resemblance to Lenin was positively uncanny, but without the facial hair he'd have been Mr. Invisible . . . except for the eyes. Richard recognized a fellow killer.

Keyes returned the study. "It's an okay cover," he said, with a nod to Richard's clothes. "Except for your car being wrong, the hat the wrong color and the fact it's Sunday, you might pass as a city worker to anyone else."

"I thought it worth the chance."

"You had a fourth strike against you. I was expecting someone like you to show up."

"Because you quit working for Alejandro?"

Keyes's eyes sharpened. "You know an awful lot. Tell me where you heard that."

"On Nick Anton's answering machine. You've a distinctive voice."

"And why was Nick letting you listen in?"

"He wasn't there at the time. I broke into his place last night looking for him."

"Keep going."

Richard smiled. "I think we may have a common enemy—Alejandro Trujillo. If you were expecting someone like me, then you know he doesn't like it when people leave his employ without his blessing."

"His retirement plan sucks. I figured if the news came through Nick it'd soften things. Maybe."

"Nick was your go-between with Trujillo?"

"Sometimes."

"I take it you didn't like what he arranged in Addison?"

"What do you know about it?"

"Quite a lot . . ." There. Eye contact. And Keyes was sober. His partial silhouetting by the window made it hard for Richard to be sure if his focus was working, but the silence between them grew profound. "Are you ready to listen to me, Mr. Keyes?"

"Yes."

That was a relief. "I'm going to stand up now. You will remain still. Got that?"

"Yes."

Richard stood and stretched out the kinks, rubbing his extremely sore wrist, flexing the fingers. He'd taken a good crack there; it might have shattered the bones on another man. As it was, he'd have full use of it within the hour.

He found his revolver, shoving it back into his belt, then turned on Keyes. "You may put your pistol down now."

He set it on the window sill.

"Mr. Keyes, you will start cooperating with me. You trust me. I am your friend. You will always tell me the truth. Is that clear?"

"Yes." His killer eyes were dimmer now, his stance more relaxed.

"Excellent. Now tell me where Alejandro Trujillo is."

"I don't know."

"Does Nick Anton know?"

"Maybe."

"Where might I find him?"

"He's got a place in Euless. Rest of the time he works at Bubba Rob's."

Shit. This was getting entirely too frustrating. "I want you to contact him again."

"Okay."

"You feel very comfortable talking to me; trust that feeling. Because of it you will do nothing to harm me or cause harm to happen to me."

"Okay."

"Now, how did you get into my flat?"

"I didn't."

"Then who did?"

"I don't know."

That was it, the situation was now officially beyond frustrating. Richard did not put his fist through one of the walls. He was still healing. But damn it all to hell, he wanted to. "All right, Keyes, let's sit down and have a heart-to-heart."

Keyes's expression changed in some subtle way, becoming almost good-natured. "Sure thing. Want a beer?"

"Ah . . . no thank you."

"I got some ice tea." He left his spot by the window and went into a very small kitchen, Richard trailing him. Keyes started to open an avocado-green refrigerator covered with magnet-pinned photos and food delivery ad cards, but froze, glaring. "Whisky! Soda! Goddamn it! Get out of there!"

Two gray-striped cats shot down from a counter where they'd been crouched over an open pizza box. They tore past Richard's legs and vanished somewhere deeper into the house.

"I'm gonna kill those two one of these days," Keyes muttered, checking on the pizza. "Okay, they didn't do any permanent damage. I should have shut the lid, but you came banging on my door. Want some supper?"

"No, thank you."

"Damn stuff got cold." He shifted two slices onto a plate and shoved it in a microwave. As soon as he hit the cook button, a loud mournful yowl went up, like a soul crying from hell. He interrupted the heat cycle and looked behind the oven, which was at an angle in a corner, creating a triangle of space. "Monster, what the hell are you doing there? Well, come on, babyness. Aw, poor Mr. Monster."

The unhappy white and black cat he pulled out lived up to its name. It had a small head compared to the rest of its body, which had to weigh at least twenty pounds.

"You stupid cat, you trying to get irradiated? You're already a mutant." He held the huge feline on its back, fingers digging into its vast expanse of stomach. The beast yowled again, a long, sad wail of protest. "Shut up and get some loving." Monster had other plans, though, successfully struggled free, and hit the floor. Suprisingly fast, he shot toward a cat door cut into a wall and, after a minor struggle, oozed through.

"He's not much for visitors," Keyes said. "Paranoid for some reason. You like cats?"

"More or less. You certainly seem to."

"I hate the little freeloading bastards, but they're more important to me than most of the people I know."

"How many do you have?"

"Enough to put me on everyone's weird list." He opened a cell phone sitting on a counter and started to punch in a number. Richard asked for an explanation. "I'm calling Nick, like you wanted. Change your mind?"

"Not at all."

The other line buzzed a few times, then the answering machine kicked on with a basic message. "It's me," said Keyes in a stern tone. "Something's happened your boss will want to know about. Call me back immediately. This is serious so don't fart around." He disconnected. "That should do it."

Richard waited as the man heated his interrupted meal and opened a beer; then they went back to the living room. Keyes put it on a foldout TV table, sat on the couch, and dug in. Richard found a chair opposite for himself, using the respite to massage his wrist.

"Sorry about that." Keyes said.

"Part of the job. I'd have done the same."

"So who are you, Mr. Dun?"

"One of Alejandro's targets."

"And you think I was trying to hit the bull's-eye? If they used a crossbow, I can understand you making that mistake. A very select few are aware of what I do with them, but the truth is I never heard about you until today."

"You weren't contacted to do a job here?"

"I didn't say that."

"What do you know about the Addison explosion, then?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Richard focused, giving him a slight nudge. "You first. Tell me everything."

Keyes blinked awake. "About two weeks ago Nick called to say Trujillo wanted a job done. A pretty big one, a business rival he wanted blown to kingdom come. I turned him down."

"Why?"

"Too clumsy, too spectacular. Use a gun, then it's only another murder for the cops. Use explosives and you've got the Federales and all their cousins on your ass. There are simpler ways to take people out. Besides that nonsense, it was local. I never do any job like that locally, always out of the country."

"Killing international drug lords for fun and profit?"

"Why not? Someone has to." He washed down a gulp of pizza with beer. "And the pay is good."

"Working for another drug lord?" Richard kept any and all judgment from his tone.

"If not me, then someone else. I'd rather the money come to me. I got a family to support." A slender black cat jumped onto the couch next to him, highly interested in the pizza. He pushed it off, growling. "Not now, Dot. Go away."

"You trust Trujillo?"

"Absolutely not. But I trust his agenda, which is to be the richest damn bastard down there by taking out the competition. He might make it, too, or would have. Without me running errands for him he's going to find it a lot harder. He doesn't have anyone else with my special skills that he can trust not to screw up. It's easy to find someone who can kill, but damn near impossible to find someone who's smart about it."

"Are you entirely out of work, then?"

"I never said that." Keyes's eyes almost twinkled. "There's plenty to be had, you just have to be careful who you work for."

"Meaning if someone contracted you to kill Trujillo . . ."

"Anyone come up with the money for it, I'd take him out just as easy as the rest. Nothing personal, just business. Since he's in the business, he knows that that's a possibility. So he's always paid me more. Call it insurance."

"How did Trujillo react to your refusal?"

"He wasn't happy, but I explained my reasons. He offered me a hell of a lot of money, but the deal smelled bad. I put that in his face, and said I wouldn't be able to do other work for him if I got caught. The forensic boys up here are pretty damn sharp. I might be able to get around them, but it isn't worth the risk for me to try. I never dirty my own back yard, that's one of my rules. Trujillo wasn't giving me much information, either, just that I was to wire up a house and set things off at a certain time, and that's all. That's what smelled to me. He's always got more information than a library on who he wants out of the way, but not for this one. So I backed right off."

"Did you sense he might put a hit out on you for that?"

"No, it was just business as usual. He didn't press things. I'm more valuable to him for those out-of-country sanctions. I figured he'd find someone else with less smarts for the job, and it turned out I was right. Soon as I saw the news report I knew that was what he'd wanted me to do and why he'd been so cute about not giving details. There was some woman and a couple kids in there; he knew I'd never have gone for it."

"An assassin with principles?"

"Call me old-fashioned, but killing women and kids is just wrong." He leaned forward, tapping on the table with one finger, each tap emphasizing a word. "When you have a job on, you go in like a surgeon and take out that target. Collateral damage, as they call it, is just being stupid." He sat back, face consumed with disgust.

"Then you severed relations with him."

"Business is run on trust, and he screwed up." Keyes made more pizza disappear. "Now you tell me someone went after you with a crossbow? No way would I do anything as damn-fool as that up here. The DEA is just looking for an excuse to turn me over and see what shakes out. I don't know why they're so anal; I'm doing most of their work for them."

"I may have an explanation."

Swig of beer. "I'm listening."

"Trujillo wants us both out of the way. He set up a crossbow booby trap to take me out. The idea being when my body's found the DEA traces the weapon to you. A very neat copycat frame to enrich your life."

"But it missed, so you come looking for me. Either way, one or both of us is taken out of the picture, and Trujillo gets a good laugh. Most neat. But how did you even know about me?"

"Computer search."

He grimaced. "Damn things. I'll have to retire before they lead to my downfall—unless that's already happened?"

Richard gave no direct answer. He'd not yet made up his mind on what to do with the man. "Your name and Anton's came up in connection with Trujillo. You were on my short list of people to interview in order to get to him."

"Why are you interested in him?"

"The house explosion. It's personal."

"How so?"

Richard frowned. "The woman was a good friend of mine. Her little girls were my goddaughters."

Keyes put his beer bottle down. "I'm sorry to hear that. Was he after you through them?"

"No. The woman's husband is Trujillo's brother, Luis. The one who turned evidence on him. Their deaths had to do with punishment, revenge, and to make an example to others."

"I heard about that case. The brother dropped out of sight a few years back."

"Yes. I'm the one who disappeared them all."

"Because of the woman?"

"And the children. But Alejandro found them. You saw what he did. Now I wish to find him."

"I don't fault you for that. Not much you can do until Nick returns my call, though."

"Then we'll wait." Richard's cell phone trilled. "Excuse me."

"It's me," said Dr. Sam.

"What news?"

"I couldn't find them."

"Damn," he muttered. "What's happened?"

"I don't know. Helen and I drove to the hotel and talked to everyone from the manager to the maids. A few people remembered seeing a man and little boy, but not where they went. I was very insistent about the need to find Michael, described them both a hundred times over, had the clerks check the guest roster twice, even called a couple of likely prospects in their rooms. Nothing. Then Helen and I split up and went to search the Galleria Mall and got the security people there alerted for them. When that didn't work I phoned the cab company again and asked if they had any pickup fares from the mall or the hotel. They had their dispatch talk to all the drivers. Nothing again. That's when I started calling the other cab companies. Helen's still in the manager's office working on it, but it's probably hopeless. Luis and Michael just walked in and disappeared."

"You were very thorough, Sam, not your fault." In fact, he'd been outstandingly thorough.

"Maybe he got a bus or hitchhiked . . ."

"Sam, it's all right. Some things can't be helped. When I've dealt with details at this end, I'll see what I can do. Chances are he will shortly contact that other friend of mine for help and we can sort it out then." Even with Keyes hypnotically persuaded to being an ally, Richard had no desire to mention Bourland's name in front of him.

"I hope so," Sam said unhappily.

"Perhaps you'd best go ahead and phone him first; let him know what's going on so he doesn't have to take news of my untimely death seriously. I've told him who you are."

Sam seemed to brighten. "Okay, I'll get on that."

"Good man." He rang off and hoped Sam talked to Bourland before Luis did. The man did not need news of anyone else's death unless it was Alejandro's.

"Where's that crossbow?" said Keyes, who had finished his beer and pizza during the interval. "I'd like to go see it."

Richard shifted mental gears. "No need. I brought it with me."

One eyebrow quirked. "May I ask why?"

"I had an idea about using it on you. Poetic justice."

Keyes looked at him awhile, lips thin, then slowly nodded. "Fair enough. I'm glad you decided to talk first."

"I'll go fetch it."

When he returned from the car, outré weapon in hand, Keyes had cleared away the TV table and was stowing the pizza box in the fridge. Two more cats appeared; they were white and black like Mr. Monster, but with longer fur. One of them yowed a plaintive question.

"Oh, shut up, Spot. Your food's right there." Keyes pointed to a bank of filled food bowls in one corner, and shoved the complaining cat in their general direction with his foot. The other, he swooped on and picked up. It also yowed. "Aw, Le Feline Nikita, wanna make funny noises? Let's make funny noises, babyness." He held the animal upside down, hand over its face, and indeed produced some strange squeakings from the creature.

"Le Feline Nikita?" Richard asked doubtfully.

"From my favorite movie. That little chickadee was most doable. She's the reason why I learned French."

"What about that TV show?"

"Now she is most tasty. Extremely doable." He glanced at the crossbow Richard had in hand.

"Look familiar?" Richard watched the upside-down squeaking cat furiously batting at Keyes, who paid it scant attention.

"Nope. That's a commercial model—a good one—I wouldn't mind having it, but I could never use it in my work. I build my own."

"You build your own?"

"Yeah, lemme show you. You'll appreciate this." He discarded the outraged cat, who landed on all fours, shook itself, and began to clean as though nothing amiss had occurred. "Short attention span. I dated a girl like that once. Good weekend, lousy week. C'mon this way."

Keyes had a very small house, three small bedrooms, one bath, minimal furnishings, all in keeping with his character of living on modest investments. The forces of officialdom would have a difficult time finding fault with him.

"Where do you keep your real money?" Richard asked.

"Some place real safe. You wondering why I live like this when I could do better?"

"Yes. Why not?"

"I like the neighborhood. I have what I need, which is a place where I can just come in and relax. Besides, it'd be a hell of a job trying to transplant this."

He went into a bedroom no more than nine by ten feet in size. It held only a chair, work desk with a computer, and two filled bookshelves. An eight-foot-wide closet with sliding mirrored doors covered the length of one wall: big storage space in compensation for the claustrophobic dimensions. He slid one four-foot-wide door aside to reveal a rack holding some plastic-wrapped suits, which he also pushed out of the way. On the floor were a couple of suitcases he pulled out. He activated some hidden mechanism behind the door jamb and a section of the closet floor popped like the hood of a car. He pulled it up.

"Interesting," said Richard, looking down into darkness.

Keyes hit a light switch just inside the cavity. The sides were composed of the house's cement foundation for a foot or so, then opened up. "C'mon." He made use of a metal ladder, quickly descending.

Richard followed, looking around, fascinated. He stood in a very efficient low-ceilinged workroom, not much more than ten by ten, but well-lit and fitted with a woodworking bench and plenty of outlets for the power tools hanging from the pegboard walls. The air was fresh, courtesy of fan-powered vents.

"You did all this yourself?"

"Yup. About ten years back I started. Took me awhile to chip through the foundation, then start hauling out dirt and limestone. For a year or so this place looked like something out of The Great Escape. I filled up dips and holes in the lawn with the extra dirt, used the rocks to decorate the backyard and build a barbeque. I tell you, doing it one bucket at a time sucks, but when I realized that I was too far along to stop. Had to go to an acupuncturist to put my back right again, but it was worth it."

"Why go to such trouble?"

"Why not? I got a hidden retreat that no cop's ever going to find. Makes for one hell of a tornado shelter, too. Couple of times me and the cats did a little duck and cover here. I hollowed out enough to give me the work space I needed, but not so much as to undermine the house. Poured in a second foundation down here, one cement bag at a time, running a waterhose from the bath tub—that was a mess. Put in those support braces to shore up the ceiling, then put in plywood walls and plastered them over so there wouldn't be any fresh earth smell coming into the house, and started hauling stuff down. I had to limit the size to things that would fit through the trap, brought the lumber down in pieces to make the bench and storage."

Keyes was clearly proud of his effort and accomplishment. This was likely the first time he'd ever had the chance to show it off.

"Very impressive," said Richard, and he was completely sincere. It was wonderful. He wanted one too.

"Thank you. None of this is going anywhere, least of all me. Not until I'm damned good and ready. If Trujillo thinks he's going to change that he's made one hell of a mistake."

"He's made several. Why are we here?"

"So I can show you what I build." Keyes then proceeded to give him a brief lecture on the construction of crossbows. He was quite the artist. He had several different sizes, all with various ranges and functions, all of them made to break apart into components. He took a number of small wooden pieces that seemed to have nothing to do with each other, and assembled them together with a small screwdriver. The only metal in it was a few brass screws. By the time he'd finished, a very wicked little weapon crouched on the workbench, only needing a string and a bolt to complete it. It was quite different from the large metal model Richard had brought in.

"I always use wood," Keyes explained. "The airport X-ray techs always see it as being part of my suitcase, so they don't make a fuss and pass me through. Once a job is done I take the bow apart and throw away the pieces."

"Hence the need to come down here and make more."

"Yeah, but it's a lot of trouble, takes time, and has become too much of a trademark pointing to me. Lately I've been thinking of switching over to blowguns for some jobs. Those are just hollow tubes, but you have to really practice to put the dart where you want it. Hey, check this out." He flicked on a closed circuit TV. It had four views, two covering the street, one the backyard, the last the front porch. "I can control the angle of the camera from here."

"Got a night vision adapter?" asked Richard, highly interested. He loved tech toys as much as the next man.

"Of course—and infrared backup."

He was starting to like the fellow in spite of himself. He'd had a bellyful of dealing with exotic assassins after his encounter with Charon some months back, but Keyes looked to be considerably more reasonable.

Keyes patted the set twice. "I got all the mod-cons. When I'm down here I don't want to be completely cut off from the world, so I ran in a phone line, cable radio. For some things I'm a gadget junkie. There's a lot of most bueno stuff out there, so I have to pick and choose—and what the hell have we here?" He tweaked one of the cameras onto a large car that had pulled parallel to Richard's rental, and zoomed in. "We got us a big-ass ol' Cadillac fulla drug muscle. Looks like I was right about Trujillo coming after me, but I thought he'd send in just a couple of guys, not a fucking army."

"How many?"

"Five—two in front, three in back."

"That's hardly an army."

"Count the five in that other car and it is." He shifted the view to the cross street, where sat a second large car crowded with men.

"In a twisted way, it's almost flattering. What do you think they're carrying?"

"Probably full autos. Trujillo likes to pass out MP-5s like party favors, and his boys love to play macho man. This could get ugly fast—son of a bitch, look at that!" Keyes zoomed hard on the second car. One of the faces in the back seat was . . . Alejandro Trujillo. "We got some serious shit here if the big boss wants to catch the fun. Okay, that's it. War is declared, but I'll be damned if I let those assholes shoot up my neighborhood."

Richard watched the car by the rental slowly cruise off. A moment later, the second car also moved out of camera range. "I think they're just checking things over first. They know you have a visitor, but are not aware it's me. As far as Alejandro is concerned, I'm dead. If I leave and make sure they see me, they'll follow."

"Not all of them. One of those cars will stick around to find out if you killed me."

"Then I suggest you get your Walther and prepare for them."

"No shit." Keyes went to a large wall cabinet. Inside, mounted on padded prongs hooked into more pegboard, was an assortment of firearms, enough to start and likely end a small revolution. On a shelf below were quantities of ammunition and cleaning supplies. Keyes caught the look Richard gave him. "Okay, so I was a little worried about the Millennium Bug. I had these on hand already. Pick out something."

"I've my revolver."

"Only six shots and no reload that I've noticed. You want more than that against these goofballs. Unless you got a problem with killing."

"Hardly. All right, I'll use the Glock then."

Keyes snorted and gave it over along with three extra loaded ammo magazines. "I thought you'd take that one."

"You don't like them?"

"They're okay."

"Why have one, then?"

"For guests, of course. They like 'em, but the Glock's never felt right in my hand. The grip on my Walther is set at just the right angle for me."

"That's the new James Bond gun, isn't it?" Richard always enjoyed those movies.

"Right you are—but I had the idea first."

"You don't like James Bond?"

"Oh hell, I'm a big fan, I just found the gun first is all. Come on." He stuffed more mags in his jeans pockets, switched off the TV, and went up the ladder. He left the trapdoor open and shoved the suitcases farther out of the way. "In case we have to beat a quick retreat here," he said, moving toward the living room.

"We may not have to."

"Why is that?"

Richard peered out through the front blinds. The sun was still bright and would be for another two hours. "They're probably covering the street exits from this area in case you should leave, but my guess is they won't actually come for you until well after dark. They're going to get bloody hot out there waiting."

"That just breaks my heart."

"Well, I'd rather not have them shooting up your neighborhood, either."

"Oh, yeah? You got another option?"

"As a matter of fact," said Richard, straightening, "I have a cunning plan. . . ."

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Framed