Dead South (A Bryson Wilde Thriller / Read in Any Order) (14 page)

44

Day Nine

August 11, 1952

Sunday Evening

Suddenly a gun erupted.

Rojo’s face exploded.

His body fell back.

Wilde wiggled out from under the weight.

When he looked behind to see who fired the shot, he couldn’t believe who he saw. It was the singer from the band Saturday night, the rough guy with the long black hair and the red bandana.

He fired into the air twice to warn the crowd, which was already moving like an anthill that a big boot had come down on. Someone raised a gun, fired at him and got him in the leg. He fired back, got the man in the chest and swung the gun at the crowd.

Everyone ran.

Wilde grabbed the hatchet out of Rojo’s filthy dead fingers, got the rope off his ankle and cut Jori-Rey down.

Then they ran.

They made it to a vehicle, a ratty white pickup. The singer shoved the keys into Wilde’s hands, got his body and bloody leg into the back seat and said, “Rapidamente!” The clutch wouldn’t go into first. Wilde forced it into second and worked it up to speed without stalling out. Then he got the hell out of there. Another car gave chase but a bullet from the singer’s gun shattered the windshield and ran it into a ditch. It happened too fast to tell if the driver got hit or not.

They didn’t care.

They made it across the border and holed up in fleabag motel on the outskirts of town, hiding the truck in the back.

The singer spoke no English.

Jori-Rey talked to him in Mexican as she bandaged his leg.

Wilde didn’t understand a word of it.

Then something happened that he didn’t expect.

Jori-Rey cried, not a sad cry, a happy heartfelt one.

She hugged Wilde with every molecule in her body and said, “Sudden Dance is alive!”

“That can’t be.”

“No, she is! She really is!”

The story that came from the singer’s mouth was a strange and twisted one. He was Sudden Dance’s lover, the man who took her to heaven in a way that Rojo never would and could.

They were in love.

She was two months pregnant with his child.

When she started to show—which would be soon—Rojo would kill her and, worse, her first baby, Maria, wherever she was.

Time was ticking.

They devised a plan.

Sudden Dance was scheduled to pick up money in Denver. Her plan was to fake her death while she was there with the hope of getting out of Rojo’s life without him killing Maria in retaliation.

By fate she met a woman while having coffee in a place called the Down Towner. The woman she met was a waitress there by the name of Jackie Fountain. They hit it off. Sudden Dance asked the woman if she’d like to make some money. The answer was what she hoped for. That night they met and came up with a plan, most of which was devised by Jackie.

Jackie knew about a drummer who would be playing at a place called the Bokoray on Saturday night. The guy—whose name was Bryson Wilde—had a distinctive car, a small foreign job. He always parked in the alley. At the end of the night he always helped the band pack up before he went home.

Sudden Dance would go to the club that night.

She’d come on to the man. She’d be seen with him all night. She’d let him buy her drinks and get her drunk. He’d make her think she’d go back to his place with him after the show. At the end of the evening she’d find a way to wait for him in his car while he packed up the band.

Jackie would be in the club with friends.

She’d separate from the group at the end of the evening.

She’d join Sudden Dance at the man’s car.

They’d drive out into the county where her car would already be waiting.

They’d plant blood and clothing and make it look like a crime had been committed.

The next day Jackie would hire an investigator by the name of Nicholas Dent, ostensibly worried because she had witnessed a murder after leaving the Bokoray. She’d let Dent made a report to the police, leaving her name out of it. That way the police would get the report but she wouldn’t be in a position of directly lying to them.

She’d be committing no crime.

The police would investigate it as an actual murder.

The word would eventually get back to Rojo.

He’d believe that his wife was legitimately dead.

It was important that Sudden Dance and the singer not leave Paso del Norte at the same time. It might spark suspicion in Rojo. He might suspect the connection and kill Maria for spite.

The plan was for the singer to leave in three or four months. In the meantime Sudden Dance would hire an investigator to see if she could find out where Maria was.

Sudden Dance told no one about the plan, not even her sister, Jori-Rey. She later learned that Jori-Rey had made her way down to Paso del Norte and was in Rojo’s clutches. The singer promised to rescue her, if he could.

The man checked the bandage on his leg and stood up to test it. Then he looked at Wilde and said something in Mexican.

Wilde questioned Jori-Rey.

“What’d he say?”

“He said you don’t owe him anything,” she said. “He wasn’t there to save you, he was there to save me. He was hoping you’d be able to kill Rojo without him having to get involved.”

Wilde exhaled.

“Tell him I know where Maria is,” he said. “She’s being held in Tijuana by a man named Poncho Pinch.”

She translated for the singer.

He looked into Wilde’s eyes and bowed his head in appreciation. Then he said something to Jori-Rey, gave her a kiss on the cheek and hobbled towards the door.

“Where’s he going?” Wilde said.

“Tijuana.”

Wilde lit a cigarette, two in fact, and handed one to Jori-Rey. Then he said, “Should we go with him?”

“Yes.”

Wilde blew smoke.

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

45

Day Ten

August 12, 1952

Monday Evening

The road to Tijuana was bumpy and rough and filled with bathroom stops and humidity and dust and a temperamental radiator that liked to bend the temperature gauge to the H. In spite of it all they made it to here, ten miles outside of town, at a one pump, broken-back gas station that said Petro in red paint on a weathered wooden sign.

The evening shadows were getting long but the air still radiated.

Jori-Rey’s skin glistened with sweat.

While a greasy man in a dirty shirt filled the tank, Wilde spotted a scorpion in the brush and wandered over to take a look.

The tail was up.

The stinger was poised.

He’d been warned.

Jori-Rey joined him, wiped her brow with the back of her hand and said, “Do you hate Sudden Dance?”

The answer came easy.

“She set me up,” he said. “She used me. Because of her I almost got killed ten times over.” He nudged the scorpion with his foot and added, “This little guy here is a lot nicer.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.”

“There’s nothing else to say. She is what she is. I know she’s your sister and all and you two are close, but that’s the way I feel. I don’t ever want to see her. I’m afraid of what I’d say.”

“She’s not all bad. There’s something she did that you’re not aware of,” she said.

“Something good?”

“Yes.”

“Like what?”

“She came back to Denver to save you.”

Wilde wrinkled his brow.

“No, she never came back.”

“Yes she did,” Jori-Rey said. “She heard about that detective Johnnie Fingers going after you. She came back to show him she wasn’t actually dead, if it came to that. She wasn’t going to let you go down even if it meant giving up the fact that she was still alive.”

Wilde shrugged.

“If that’s true then she never made any contact with him.”

“No, but she made contact with you. She was by your side and ready to act if she had to.”

She shook his head.

“No she was never by my side. She never came back. If she told you that she was lying.”

“She was by your side,” Jori-Rey said. “She still is.”

Wilde looked at her with all the confusion he could muster and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“There is no Jori-Rey,” she said. “There is only me, Sudden Dance.”

“You’re Sudden Dance?”

“Yes.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s true.”

“Then who’s the singer?”

“He’s someone I paid money to on the side,” she said. “His job was to save me if I ever needed to be saved.”

“You mean from Rojo?”

“Yes.”

Wilde pulled up an image of Rojo’s face splattering into oblivion from a bullet.

“Well, he did his job.”

The woman took his hand and held it.

“Wilde, everything else I told you was true,” she said. “I needed you to know this last final thing. I didn’t want to have any more secrets from you. Do you hate me?”

Wilde tapped two cigarettes out of a pack, set a book of matches on fire and lit them up. He handed one to the woman, who didn’t put it to her lips.

She was motionless, waiting for his answer.

The cigarette dangled in her fingers.

Smoke twisted up.

Wilde took a deep drag, blew out and said, “Do I hate you? The truth is, I don’t know and I don’t want to know. What I do know, though, is that I’m in crazy love with Jori-Rey and I don’t ever want to lose her for any reason. So I’m just going to keep calling you that if it’s all the same to you.”

She put her arms around him and laid her head on his chest.

“Sure.”

“Good.”

He studied the horizon.

“Let’s go get your little girl,” he said. “It’s time.”

THE END

Copyright (c) R.J. Jagger

All rights reserved

R.J. Jagger is the author of over 20 thrillers and is also a long-standing member of the International Thriller Writers. He has two series, one featuring Denver homicide detective Nick Teffinger, set in modern times; and a noir series featuring private investigator Bryson Wilde, set in 1952. His books can be read in any order. For complete information on the author and his ebooks, hardcovers, paperbacks and audio books, as well as upcoming titles, news and events, please visit him at:

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