just like it that he purchased this afternoon.
The chambers were full.
He checked twice.
He had racked his brain all day, going over every inch of his past, trying to detect the slightest clue as to who had hired him all these years, and consequently currently had Vaughn Spencer under employment.
He’d come up empty.
In hindsight he’d been a fool to let such an arrangement creep into his life. He should have resisted the money. He should have just lived a normal life.
Spencer would come for him.
Hopefully that would be tonight.
River would be here.
The specter of tearing through the terrain on the motorcycle towards January’s hogtied body-only to find her gone-kept ricocheting around in River’s brain. Spencer must have been pissed beyond belief to go to the trouble of fetching the woman after he already had what he’d come for.
Where’d he take her?
He took her to the same place as Alexa Blank, clearly, but where was that?
River had spent all afternoon going from one hotel to the next, big and small, luxurious and flea-bagged, knowing that Spencer would now have a more secret place but hoping against hope that he might have taken a comfortable room when he first got into town, which was most likely in the last few days. No one had a registration for Vaughn Spencer, not at any point in the last month.
No one recalled a man with a scar down his face or a tattoo on his forearm.
So where was he?
Was he down in the old abandoned warehouse district?
Did he break into a vacant house that had a For Sale sign in the front yard?
Did he kill a farmer out in the sticks?
Did the person who hired him rent a house for him?
Something flew over River’s head, swooping within feet. It was too dark for birds. It had to be a bat. He checked the skyline and saw nothing, not for some time. Then there it was, a dark silhouette darting back and forth in a rapid, jagged flight.
River found a piece of gravel the size of a marble and waited. When it came close, he tossed it up. The bat darted for it, thinking it was a bug, then diverted just before it hit and knocked itself out.
River nodded with respect.
Good reflexes.
His eyes were getting heavy. It had been a long, long day. His thoughts drifted back to January and finding her gone. Nothing in his life had been as empty as getting to where she was and then not having her there.
He needed motion.
Sitting here wasn’t getting her found.
He heard a noise, something moving in the shadows, barely perceptible but definitely something.
A dog?
Spencer?
He held his breath.
No sounds came.
He listened harder.
No sounds came.
He shoved the flashlight in a back pocket and tucked the gun in his belt. Then with the knife in his left hand, he silently climbed down the ladder on the pitch-black backside of the boxcar.
103
Wilde found out something interesting from one of the waitresses at the Down Towner where Alexa Blank worked, namely that Alexa suddenly left halfway through her shift on Tuesday with a Tarzan-like man who had long black hair. Before she left she said, “If I die, he’s the one who killed me,” or words to that effect. She hadn’t been seen or heard from since.
There was only one man in town who fit that description.
He was a guy who frequented the Bokaray.
Wilde had seen him there on several occasions.
They’d never talked, not once.
They didn’t like each other.
They didn’t look at each other.
They didn’t acknowledge each other’s existence.
Each was too much of a competitor of the other, especially when it came to the ladies. They were like two lions in the same cage, that much Wilde knew. Other than that he knew nothing about the man, not his name, not where he lived, not a thing.
He hopped in Blondie and headed for the Bokaray.
The front door was locked but the back one was open.
He headed in and shouted “Anyone home?”
“Back here.”
The words were feminine and faint, from somewhere back near the restrooms. Wilde headed that way. The mysterious black door at the end of the hall was ajar. Inside, a woman sat behind a desk working on papers. Wilde knew her by sight as one of the co-owners of the place but didn’t know her name.
“You’re the drummer,” she said.
“Bryson Wilde.”
“Bryson Wilde, ladies man,” she said. “I’m Mia Lace. There, we’ve finally been formally introduced. Have a seat.”
Wilde complied, tapped out two cigarettes, lit them up and handed her one.
“Thanks,” she said.
He nodded.
“That woman you brought up on stage, she’s got quite the voice.”
“She does.”
“She could be a star.”
“I agree,” he said. “The reason I’m here though is because I need to get in touch with that guy with the long hair who hangs out here, the Tarzan guy.”
“Dayton River.”
“Is that his name?”
