Well, she’d never wept in public and rarely at all-proud of her control over emotion. But she wouldn’t be able to let it out now if she wanted to. It was the same as so long ago…
And Alred couldn’t stop thinking of her dead dog, Dorado, who’d run away never to return.
This had nothing to do with pets.
She’d look for Porter and take his approach to life, drowning herself in a few cups of the old man’s hot chocolate.
Her dog was dead.
“Alred!”
She stopped, but her head continued to sway, filled spontaneously with synapse-destroying poison. Her eyes dug through the dark of the alleyway that bent between the cafe and another building and then behind Bruno’s place.
“Back here!”
It was a shouted whisper.
Sighing with a drunk groan, Alred was thankful she was on friendly terms again with Porter. But she wished he’d stop all this spy vs. spy garbage. Didn’t he understand no one could do anything to him if he stayed in a populated area? Bruno’s would suit, but inside was where all the people were, not behind the place.
“Hurry up!”
She took a step into the alley. Her head rocked on her soft neck. Her mind seemed lighter, her brain somehow warmer than normal.
Then Alred felt a hand against her, holding her away from the alley. But there was no one there, no one keeping her from walking alone into the darkness, away from the streetlights, away from the populated area where she was headed. It was as if all the molecules that made up her figure began leaning in the opposite direction, attempting to keep her out of the darkness.
Was she losing her equilibrium?
She’d found Ulman. Finally. But now…
Putting a hand to her forehead, she closed her eyes and leaned against the cold wall. “Porter,” she said, not loud enough for him to hear, however, “I…think I’m in shock. I need to sit down.”
“Alred!”
“All right!” she said, throwing her body against the current.
Weaving to the end of the alley crowded with rolled debris that looked like discarded carpets, garbage cans in perpetual use, and heaps of broken tiles and forgotten paint cans, she came out behind Bruno’s where there was little room but for the rubbish and the dark.
Something moved among the filth. “Where are you,” she said, not afraid to talk out loud. She tried to examine the cans, the soaked boxes, the plastic bags with nifty ties that were already busted open to wait for the scavengers flying around Stratford. Opposite the back of Bruno’s, an ancient chain-linked fence protected an older wooden fence rising some seven feet behind the first. The rear door to a ‘70s style hair salon pinched off any other exit from the darkness. The black wall hugged Bruno’s building. Some useless two by fours were piled up against it, as far as she could see. Large boards leaned against the black wall behind her, which climbed another two stories. There was no light.
“Porter?” she said, squinting, though it didn’t help.
Alred could barely make out the details and frankly had little time to do so.
“Turn around…slowly.” It wasn’t Porter’s voice.
Alred did as directed and stared into the face of a dark-skinned man with a Latino accent. For all she knew, the voice could have been faked. She’d left all normality last semester. “Where’s John Porter,” she said.
“I want the codex!” said the man before her. He lifted a hooked knife that had been there in the dark, but which she didn’t see until it came within inches of her face. “I know about the ancient book you got from Mrs. Ulman. She was stupid to lie. Now it’s gonna cost her. But not until you pay.”
“You’re going to kill her,” said Alred, her lips quivering.
Alred saw the gun go off twice in her mind, Dr. Ulman falling to the blacktop.
She felt the blood rushing through every part of her figure, every appendage. The surge was powerful and her legs were ready to dart for the exit of this hidden hole in the city. But she’d never make the alley before he did, before he “No talking!” His voice was a hiss as he closed in on her, pushing her backward with the knife point. “You’re gonna give me the codex, or you’ll tell me where it is, and all this will be over! Understand?!”
“I haven’t understood any of this from the beginning. Did you kill Dr. Ulman?” she said, seeing the gun go off over the hood of the Crown Victoria. Again, the flare of light like a silent sun, there and gone, there and gone again. If this was one of the assassins who’d murdered her favorite professor a short time ago, she would definitely not leave this alleyway in her bodily form. Guns with silencers…
But why the knife?
“Who said anything about him?!! I said you’re gonna give me the codex, now let’s have it!!!” Alred could see him trembling with adrenaline.
She smelled the twisting rot of tossed meat and wet salad thrown out days ago, and she wondered if it was the man’s breath. He was no professional. Not like the others. He wore a sweater with a pattern she couldn’t make out in the dark. A goatee hung lazily around his mouth. His eyes were full of shiny darkness, and she could make out no white. He wasn’t like the others.
But he could kill her just the same.
“How much longer do you wanna stay alive? Huh?!?” he said, tilting his head with a jerk.
“I don’t have it,” she said, backing up a little more, feeling the wall close behind her, the discarded waste at her heels.
“I’ll end all your troubles here and now, little girl! Now talk to me!!!” he said, taking another step at her, jabbing the blade in the air.
“I said I don’t have the codex!”
“You wanna be in the hospital like your friend?!!” he said.
Alred stopped, her heart sinking. Her head rocked without weight as she collated his words and examined the data. Hospital? Calmly, she said, “Porter’s…got it hidden away somewhere. He won’t even let me see it.”
“You just don’t understand me, woman!” he said, pointing the cutting edge at her chin. “I’m supposed to kill you and make it look like a mugging! But you’re Snow White and I’m the hunter, got it?! I don’t have anything against women, and I wanna get outta here!!! You tell me-”
Pinching her lips together into a twisted knot, Alred reached quickly with both hands for the fist holding the blade before her.
His words still caught in his mouth, the assassin went silent as Alred grabbed the pinkie side of his right hand and swiveled it over up and left with a jolt.
The knife disappeared.
Slamming her left elbow into his right elbow as he screamed against the hyper-extension of his arm, Alred forced the man to the frigid ground in one second. As the blade chattered against brick and stone, she released him just in time to pull herself upright and drive the pointed tip of her shoe into the center of his chest.
He yelled a painful moan as Alred started for the alley.
But another man stood in her way, a shadow in the blackness. She could make out the dark suit coat with sharp shoulder pads, perfectly pressed, and the raven-colored turtleneck beneath the blazer, the slick hair, the hard gaze, and of course the raised 9 mm Smith and Wesson, silencer already screwed in place.
The new assassin shook his head and glanced at the writhing thug on the ground. “Figeroa, you fool.” He looked up. “Good evening, Ms. Alred. Let me assure you that I never underestimate women.”
With his thumb, he pulled on the black hammer.
It locked into place.
He smiled without another word…and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER TWENTY — FIVE
