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anyone. I talked to people who knew them, and saw them march
her into the hotel. Just so you know why I won t quit while any of
them are still breathing. He toyed with his coffee cup, glanced at
the door and then at Stix,  Judith lived three days, during which
time the electrical shocks, the whippings and the rape never quit.
 Did she tell them what they wanted to know?
104 DAVE MEAD
 I wish that I could say `no. I honestly don t know.
 I m sorry about your wife. But what happened to the
photographer?
 Judith went to his room at the hotel and told him that she was
to meet with a rebel who had information on the cartel. A plane
and pilot were waiting to take her, alone, to a remote landing strip
in the jungle. The story line was that she was killed in the plane
crash. He believed what he was told and flew home a day before
I got there.
 Is everyone in the CIA involved?
 No. Of course not. But the ones who are use the entire CIA
arsenal to track me by filling out phony reports. If they need local
involvement to roust me, they say I m someone else -- someone
with Colombian drug trade connections who they believe is in
whatever town they think I m in to assassinate a prominent
political figure. Thus they can make me move, and moving I m a
target. Holed up, they have to come to me. And then they die.
 You never went back, did you?
He didn t hear her.  I lied to you earlier. I wired money to Jim
so he could rent a private plane to fly him down to a dirt strip in
Colombia. No passport, no visa, and no record of him ever
leaving New York. He came down and helped me set every thing
up. Otherwise I wouldn t have lasted a week.
She asked again,  You never went back to New York?
 No. So I wasn t around when Jim and Jerry went into a
vacant warehouse on Christmas Eve and were gunned down and
left to die.
 Who shot them?
 Unsolved random shooting. It looked like they walked in on a
drug deal and were both knocked down during the firefight.
Jimmy told me that he thought Jerry, for sure, and maybe him,
too, got lead into a couple of the shooters. I guess there was
never any evidence of it though. They were left to die, laying in a
puddle of ice water with the snow drifting in on them. Jimmy
managed to pull his partner up on top of himself to keep him out
of the ice water on the floor. That s how back-up found them two
hours later. Jerry had died and Jimmy should have. He looked
STIX 105
at her for understanding,  I couldn t even go back for the
funeral. He laughed at his own private hell.  You want to know
what I did to celebrate Christmas?
 Yes and no. I think I d rather hear the truth than guess.
 I went hunting. He paused, reliving that night.  And then
there were nine. He said in a singsong voice that Stix thought
was probably a mimic of his Judith. She wasn t sure why she
thought that, maybe just intuition.
 Where were the other nine?
 I don t know.
 It sounds to me like the other nine had also gone hunting.
And Jimmy was their quarry.
Slowly Spruce stood up, his eyes burning into hers.  Say that
again.
 It sounds to me like the CIA guys figured out that Jim helped
you so they ambushed him and his partner as a Christmas present
to you.
 Jim said that he checked it out and they didn t do it.
 What else do you think he d say? That it was your fault that
he got shot?
 Fuck! He stood up and began pacing, the veins on his neck
were swollen, pulsing; he didn t want to hear someone else say
what he believed.
 Do you have any family? she asked, trying to mollify him.
 Just Jimmy.
 Do you stay in contact with Judith s family?
 For their safety, I ve never gone back, nor have I called
them.
 I think you should let them know what happened.
 The day after Judith s last killer dies, I ll ring their doorbell.
 Have you ever tried to let the CIA know about the rogues?
 No. They would just cover for them, and in doing so conceal
and destroy any evidence that there might be about them. And it
106 DAVE MEAD
is conceivable that I may at some point need the evidence to clear
myself.
 So after Jim got shot, what happened to him?
 Well, after he was shot he was in rehab for awhile, then spent
a year in rehabilitation therapy as an outpatient. His shoulder was
so fucked up that he couldn t even put his shirt on by himself.
And I think he was hurt worse in the head. You know, he couldn t
stand to pick up a gun. I m surprised that he went after the bait.
He shrugged, and then gave her a wink.  Anyway he did, and
that s life or at least the end of life.
 Please go on, she said, ignoring his attempt at irony.
He looked at her, nodded and said,  So then when he moved
out here, he started going to a chiropractor. In fact that s why he
chose Hillsboro, because of her, he said that she is the best of the
best. Every Monday morning he had an appointment with her and
I would call him collect at her office. We figured that no one was
going to go through her records looking for a phone call from me
to him.
Stix was sure that it had been Jimmy who had set up the
phone call system. She wondered how long Spruce was going to
live now that he didn t have Jimmy to keep him alive.  So she
knew about you?
 Yeah. But it was through Jimmy, and she can claim doctor-
patient confidentiality. I went by to see her while you were in the
hospital and the two of us shredded all of her phone bills. She
said that if I d come see her, she might be able to make a lot of
the pain from being shot in the face go away.
 I didn t know you were in pain.
 I m not. Just like you aren t hurtin every time you get up on
those battered legs of yours.
She ignored his remark and went on,  Will she tell anyone
about you?
 I offered to buy her silence, and she offered to throw me out,
he grinned,  And damn if I don t think she thought she could. He
was obviously pleased by her spunk.
 So where do we go from here? She picked up her empty
mug and stared into it.
STIX 107
Spruce shook his head at her.  You re not very subtle, he said
as he reached for her mug. When she held it out to him he took
her hand in his and continued,  For one thing, you never
answered me when I told you that you had to destroy your
journal.
 I don t want to. It s how I relax.
 Okay, if you have to write, at least cut the pages out and burn
them afterwards. Spruce dug a butane lighter out of his jacket
pocket,  Here, use this. He pushed her empty coffee cup over to
her and said,  Crumple them up and burn them in this. Then rub
the ashes around in the cup. Sometimes you can read some of
what s been written on a page after it s burned. The ink doesn t
burn, and if the ash from the paper doesn t fall apart, words can
be gleaned from the ash.
 Really?
 Yeah, really. Now burn the damn pages.
 I want to read them first. Alone. Then I ll do as you ask.
He nodded, she didn t think he believed her, but he went on as
if he did, and as if the journal issue was a done deal.  I think the
 Boys will come back now. And I imagine that they will come
callin on you.
 Why?
 They ve got to know that the Feds were set up. And setting
people up is my trademark. That s how I kill them. They can t [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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