4 

It was a woman’s voice, mechanical and cold.

I played innocence assaulted, and trembled as best I could. It wasn’t hard. I babbled contradictory ideas together. “Don’t shoot! Where are Joe and Toni? I’m not a robber! Take my wallet! Don’t kill me! I’ll shut my eyes! I won’t look at you! Please don’t shoot me!” I thrust my hands over my head as I thought a frightened man would do in spite of orders to do otherwise.

The metal pressed harder into my neck.

“Down on your knees. Hands behind your back. Now!”

I got down on my knees and made my voice into a wail. “Who are you? What do you want? My wallet’s in my back pocket. The keys are in my car. I won’t look at you, I swear!”

“Who are you?”

“J. W. Jackson. I’m a friend of Joe’s. My ID’s in my wallet. Don’t shoot me!”

Fingers fumbled at my back pocket and I wondered if the woman might be distracted by the wallet she removed. But the pressure of the metal didn’t lessen.

“Hands behind your back!”

“Jesus! Sure! Anything you say!” I put my hands behind my back. It wasn’t a good position from which to attack a person with a gun.

The cold steel against my neck went away and I guessed that the woman had stepped backward, probably carefully beyond any kick I might have in mind, as she went through my wallet.

“Why were you kneeling there at the door? What are you up to?”

I’d anticipated the question. After all, why would any honest, innocent, ordinary person be on his knees staring at the bottom of the locked back door of someone else’s house?

“Joe leaves a spare door key down around the back step somewhere. I was looking for it. I couldn’t find it. I wanted to leave him a note but I don’t have a pen. I wasn’t going to rob him, for God’s sake! We’re friends.”

The latter claim might be dangerous since, if the woman was an enemy of Joe’s—the Easter Bunny herself, perhaps—she might not mind knocking off one of Joe’s friends while she waited for her real prey to show up. On the other hand, it was the best excuse I could think of for my being there and behaving so oddly; besides, if the woman wasn’t the Easter Bunny or a Bunny cohort, she might be less inclined to shoot a friend of Joe’s even though she had her suspicions about me.

In either case, the ice felt thin beneath my feet. It felt even thinner when her arctic voice said, “Get on your face and spread your legs. I’m going to pat you down. If you give me any grief or if you’re carrying a gun, I’ll kill you where you lie.”

“Jesus!” I squeaked. “I’m not armed. All I wanted to do is borrow a pen so I can leave Joe a note!”

“Shut up. Get down and spread out!”

I did as she said and a moment later the metal was again pressed against my neck. It stayed there as a hand began to pass over me and hook under me. The metal left my neck suddenly and pressed against my lower spine, just below the place where a bullet still snuggled close to my backbone, a souvenir of my long-passed days on the Boston PD. My irrational response to the pressure on my lower back was greater fear than when the gun had been on my neck. I lay very still while she ran a fast hand over and between my legs.

The metal left my back. “Roll over very slowly.”

I did that, and saw the woman for the first time. She was much younger than I’d imagined. Slim, pale of skin, dark of hair and arctic eye, with high cheekbones and forehead, a firm chin, and wide mouth. A snow queen; an empress of ice. Eurasian, I thought.

From just beyond my best kick she pointed a black semiautomatic pistol at my eyes and said, “Stay spread.”

“Yes!” I stretched arms and legs as far apart as they would go and she stepped quickly to me and put the pistol under my chin.

“Don’t move.”

Her free hand roamed over me, finding my pocketknife, which she tossed aside, and then lingering at my crotch. It wasn’t sex; it was a search of a popular spot for a hidden weapon. When she was satisfied that the knife was my only armament, she flowed to her feet and stepped away.

“Sit up. Put your hands behind your neck.”

I did that. “Don’t shoot me! What do you want?”

“Where’s Joe Begay?”

“I don’t know. I came here looking for him.”

“You’re lying!”

“No! Don’t shoot me! If I knew where he was I’d tell you. Honest to God. Point that gun somewhere else! Please!”

“Who do you work for?”

“I don’t work for anybody! I’m retired! I do odd jobs!” I could hear the exclamation marks in my voice. They were real.

A small movement caught my eye. It was behind her, at the far corner of the house. Joe Begay was peeking around the corner. Then he pointed a long arm at the woman. The hand at the end of the arm held the pistol he’d showed me earlier. I flicked my eyes this way and that, just in case I’d let them linger on Joe a moment too long.

“You only get this one chance,” said the woman, straightening her shooting arm. “I don’t have time to coddle you. Where is Joe Begay?”

Behind her, Begay cocked his pistol. It was a sound you don’t forget when you’ve heard it once. The woman’s body froze in place, but her eyes widened first then were instantly filled with calculation.

“No, don’t move,” said Begay, as if he could see her face, “don’t do anything at all unless I tell you to. Now, drop the gun on the ground.” He’d done something with his voice that had changed it in some small way, and I wondered if he did that often in his mysterious line of work.

She hesitated then dropped the pistol.

“That’s it,” said Begay. “Now, step away. J.W., get the gun.”

I did that and Begay said, “Good. Now you can turn.”

The woman turned and Begay said, “Well, hello, Kate. Haven’t seen you for a while.”

“Joe!” The woman stepped toward him and I saw Joe’s pistol disappear. She glanced at me and saw her gun in my hand, then looked back at him again. “Joe. I didn’t recognize your voice.”

“And I wasn’t sure that was your back I was looking at. You’re a long way from home.”

She paused and gestured at me. “Is this man really a friend of yours?”

“He is, but he’s not in our line of work. A long time ago we spent a little time together in ’Nam, but now he’s a fisherman. What brings you here, Kate?”

“I need to talk with you in private.”

“About what?”

“Something’s come up.”

“Rabbit ears, by any chance?” I asked.

She looked at me again, then turned back to Joe. “I don’t know this guy. Are you sure you do?”

“I know him,” said Joe. “Now, Kate, speak up. You can tell J.W. anything you can tell me.”

She allowed herself a thin smile. “I’ll have to shoot him afterwards, according to the rules.”

“Obscenity the rules. Besides, you tried that once and it didn’t work.”

“Only because of you. You’re sure about him?”

“Was Kate part of the trade mission?” I asked Joe.

He nodded and she frowned slightly.

“Yes,” he said. “Is that why you’re up here?” he asked her.

“The less he knows, the better for everyone,” said stubborn Kate. “He can’t tell anyone what he doesn’t know, and we’ll all be safer, including him.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Joe. “He didn’t tell you anything but you almost shot him anyway, remember?”

“He was lying,” said Kate.

“But you didn’t know that.”

The fencing made me impatient. “I know about the Easter Bunny,” I said to Kate. “I think you must be the other living member of the trade mission. I think you’re here because you think it’s dangerous to be at home, wherever that may be, and because you want to hook up with Joe in a common front. How did you know where he lives?”

“I told you that some people know,” said Joe. “Kate is one of them.”

“You trust her.”

He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Even in our business you have to trust some people.”

I’d have thought that just the opposite would be the general rule; that in the gray and black ops business you’d be better off trusting no one. Or at least not trusting anyone completely.

Still, Kate hesitated.

I could hear the irritation in my voice when I said, “Joe, if your pal here won’t talk with me around and if you think she has anything important to say, I’ll be on my way. My car is right out there in front of the house.”

“Stay,” said Joe. “Well, Kate, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Kate allowed herself a last moment of hesitation, then nodded stiffly. “All right. I don’t like it, but maybe you know what you’re doing.”

“Let’s go inside, then,” said Joe. “We can chat over a beer, like the old friends we are.”

“Fine,” I said. I saw my wallet and pocketknife lying on the grass a few feet away and retrieved them. “I’ll go check the driveway to see if we have any other visitors, then meet you inside.”