By the time the two RCMP constables had returned Joe Winalagilis to the abandoned patrol car and transported him the two blocks to the Vancouver City Jail, all three of them were freezing cold and shivering out of control. The guard at the booking desk on the third floor took one look at them with a gambler's eye then turned to his partner and said: 'Five bucks says at least two of these three come down with pneumonia.' His partner checked them over and refused to take the bet.
A few minutes later while riding down in the elevator that would take them to the alley out back of 312 Main, Scarlett nudged Spann and said: 'How 'bout a steam?'
'What do you mean?'
'Look, by the time we get you to your place and me to mine, we could both be freezer material. Just a block from
here there's an old Japanese steam bath with separate and private rooms. If you're not hung up on modesty, we can get warm and send our clothes out for a dry. If you are hung up, then drop me off and you go down with the ship.'
Katherine Spann shivered once more and said: 'Let's go.'
Fifteen minutes later Rick Scarlett was sitting alone in a small, very old, pipe-lined room. With a towel wrapped around his waist, he slouched listening to the hiss of water vapor as he waited with anticipation for Spann to come in-through the door.
On checking in they had paid a young Japanese to take their soggy uniforms to a local one-hour laundry, and then Spann had disappeared into the bathroom. Scarlett now occupied himself by imagining Katherine taking off her clothes.
His mind had her down to her panties when the door swung open. Scarlett nonchalantly counted the number of tiles on the floor.
He did not look up as the woman took two steps into the steam room and then stopped in order to adjust her lungs to the vapor. She had tied a towel around her waist in a Polynesian style. She stood near the door breathing in shallow breaths, her chest slowly rising and falling as she stretched her spine and her muscles. When she finally climbed onto the wooden bench and sat back against the wall, Scarlett looked up for no more than three seconds and muttered, 'Not bad, eh?'
'Not bad,' she said as he looked back down at the floor.
The next time Scarlett turned back, Spann had closed her eyes and was reveling in the warmth. Slowly he looked her over from head to toe. Then he stopped at her breasts.
Spann didn't open her eyes. She was lost somewhere in a world of warmth and relaxation. The man turned his attention to the towel around her waist. The steam and the sweat from her pores were making it stick to and outline her body. He stifled an almost irresistible urge to reach out and rip off the towel, and instead he bent forward to lean his arms on his thighs to hide his growing erection.
Now all he had to do was bide his time.
Soon the moment would come.
The Birthday Present
4:45 p.m.
It was a quarter to five by the time that Scarlett and Spann returned to Headquarters. The place was alive with activity as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police prepared for next day's roundup. There were computer printouts everywhere, sweep sheets being distributed, each with a mug-shot photo attached for each suspect and a key word to open the software circuits printed at the side. Bulletin boards around the parade room were pinned with lists of assignments. As Scarlett went to check on the role that the two of them would be playing, Spann found the nearest free telephone and dialed Corporal Tipple at Commercial Crime. This time she made contact.
'You're a hard man to get hold of, sir. My name's Katherine Spann.'
'Good,' Tipple said. 'I've been waiting for your call. You working the Hardy angle?'
'Yes.'
'And you want to see the transcripts?'
'Very much so.'
'Okay. How about tomorrow morning before you go out on the sweep? I've been reassigned to your squad and right now I'm in the process of putting the Damballah ones together. I'll have 'em for tomorrow.'
'Damballah?' Spann asked, knowing the word had a voodoo connection.
'Damballah Enterprises. That's Rackstraw's holding company. You'll see what I mean tomorrow.'
'When and where shall we meet?'
'Roll call's set for seven a.m. So how 'bout six-fifteen? In the parade room?'
'We'll be there.'
'Right. Bring your reading glasses. These guys are very busy dudes.'
11:56 p.m.
'Is it lonely up at the top, Robert?' Avacomovitch asked.
'Oh hello, Joseph,' DeClercq said, turning from the window. 'I was just turning tomorrow over in my mind.'
'Okay if I interrupt?'
'Of course. I'd like the company.'
It was closing on midnight and the room was filled with shadows cast off by the desk lamp. The surface of the desk was piled high with computer sheets and projections, police files and copious notes in DeClercq's even hand. On the edge of the desk closest to Avacomovitch a space had been reserved for a picture in a silver frame. It had not been there the last time that the scientist was in here. The Russian picked it up and looked at the woman in the photo.
'She has very intelligent eyes,' he said, 'set in a beautiful face.'
'Yes, doesn't she,' the Superintendent replied. 'I'm a lucky man.'
There was something in his voice that arrested Avacomovitch's attention. For more than half a minute he took a long close look at the man. DeClercq did not look well. There were now heavy bags under his eyes and lines of tension radiating out to the edge of his face. Though he tried hard to mask it there was also a nervous tic to his mouth. It appeared as though he had been robbed of sleep and left utterly exhausted. He looked as if the weight of the investigation upon his shoulders might buckle his legs at any moment. But strangely, more than anything else, it was a sense of irony that the Russian picked up from this man.
His heart went out to DeClercq.
Carefully, Avacomovitch replaced the photograph on the edge of the desk. He turned it so that the woman could watch DeClercq when he sat in his chair. He thought:
'May I be blunt?'
'By all means do.'
'You're too hard on yourself.'
'Funny. That's the same thing Genevieve said this morning.'
'I think you're taking too much on your shoulders. I want this guy as much as you, you know?'
'I believe you do.'
'So share the burden. Spread the load around. The Head-hunter is taunting you because you're the figurehead among his adversaries. It builds him up by having a rival equal to himself. It could be anyone, sitting in your chair.
'The trouble is, I think, you take it personally. Don't you see that lets him get to you? And that's just what he wants. If this were chess, he's making you play the defensive game.'
