Dark Star (24 page)

“Showtime’s been around for a while, little
sister. I doubt they’re looking for extra publicity. Besides most
of that’s died down anyway.”

“True. That’s true,” she said pulling out of
his arms and turning back to her computer. “But I’ve got to calm
down and finish my work.” Nate grinned at her and shook his head,
but resumed his seat on her desk. He’d regained most of the weight
he’d lost, but his face still had a drawn and hollow quality that
made her heart ache. His recovery from the gunshot wound had been
slow and painful.

“Who’s that guy?” he asked nodding his head
in the direction of the foyer.

Tonya looked out to see a tall well-built man
entering Roshonda’s office. “That’s Tim, Ro’s ex-boyfriend. What’s
he doing here? He ran off with some other girl months ago. Good
riddance.” She rose and walked around her desk. “He must have run
out of money.” She headed toward the office as raised voices echoed
in the small area. They arrived in time to see Tim standing with
Roshonda in the doorway of her office. She was clearly trying to
get him to leave. Nate was moving toward the couple when Tim
grabbed Roshonda’s arm. Before Nate could intervene, Deringer
suddenly appeared from...somewhere. Quick as a striking snake he
had Tim pinned to the wall the other man’s feet dangling in the
air.

“Damn. Somebody’s going to die tonight,” Nate
said.

His words were enough to snap Tonya out of
the trance she’d been in as the situation went from troubling to
lethal in a split second.

“Wait, you can’t just go around killing
people like this,” she said.

Both men looked at her as though surprised,
but it was Nate who spoke. “We can’t?”

“No. You can’t. People are bound to talk.
Dare. Please put him down.”

Deringer hesitated, his facial expression
eloquent with his obvious desire to break the other man in half.
Then just as suddenly as he’d picked him up he dropped him to the
floor.

For a moment Tim lay there looking confused
as the three of them looked at him. Then apparently he regained at
least some of his bravado and rose to his feet. He turned to
Roshonda, who still hovered in the doorway of her office looking
painfully embarrassed and enraged at the same time. “This isn’t the
end. Your bulldog won’t always be around.” Then he turned to
Deringer stretching to his full height yet still failing to reach
higher than the other man’s chin. “Who the fuck are you
anyway?”

Tonya caught her breath. Hadn’t that fool
heard what Nate said? Did he have a freaking death wish?

“I’m the last man you’ll ever see if I ever
hear of you coming within miles of Roshonda again. Matter of fact,
I suggest you leave town. Otherwise, you might accidentally think
about talking to her again, and you wouldn’t want me to
misunderstand your intentions, now would you?” Deringer said in a
voice so soft the syllables trembled in the air before the meaning
sank in. Tonya saw Tim’s expression change as realization dawned.
He nodded as though he feared that even the slightest movement
would set the man off, then with one more terrified look, he turned
and scurried away.

Tonya watched in bemusement as the deadly
agent turned to Roshonda and asked if she was okay. Then he
gathered her into his arms as though she was made of spun sugar.
When this happened she looked at Nate who didn’t seem at all
surprised. He just took her arm and led her away, presumably to
give the couple some privacy.

“If you keep me locked up in this room any
longer I’m going to cut my own throat.”

Tonya shook her head at Nate. “It’s only been
six weeks and the cutters said -- ”

“The cutters said I could go out when I felt
up to it. Tell you what; let’s go up to Amicolola Falls. I haven’t
been there in years. We can take a picnic and just relax.”

“I don’t know Nate -- maybe we should call
the cutters.”

“Now why would we want to do that, little
sister? I told you, all I’m going to do is lie on a blanket with my
head in your lap and let you feed me grapes. You can even peel them
if you’re so worried about me getting hurt.”

“I don’t think we have any grapes...Okay
we’ll go, but if you have a setback and end up losing a lung don’t
come running to me,” she said.

“Doubt I’ll be doing much running with only
one lung, but I’ll take that under advisement.”

* * * * *

Amicolola Falls was a very popular local
tourist attraction but today the parking lot was empty, probably
because school had started. Tonya and Nate stood watching the
furiously streaming water. Then he walked over to the bronze statue
of the Indian maiden for whom the waterfall was named. He read the
plaque affixed to the marble base.

“Do you think she really did it?”

“Who did what?” Tonya said.

“You know; jumped over the falls because her
father was forcing her to marry a man she didn’t love.”

“Probably. I can think of many times Mama’s
made me want to jump off a cliff -- or push her off one.”

“It’s odd that there are so many legends
about maidens dying in gruesome ways. A few months ago I was on an
island called Île de Lina. It’s named for a virgin that was thrown
into the volcano,” he said.

“Hmmm, sounds like an argument for losing
your virginity as soon as possible. If nothing else, it might save
you from being incinerated or waterboarded.”

Nate chuckled as he walked back over to the
fence where she stood looking down at the waterfall. “That’s a
pretty steep drop. Looks like about a hundred feet.”

“Yeah, but the creek is very deep, and
insanely cold even in September.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we used to play down there when we
were kids. One time a frog jumped up from behind a rock and scared
the crap out of me. I lost my balance and fell in.”

“Good grief.”

“Fortunately, I’m a strong swimmer, but a lot
of people have drowned down here. The current is pretty nasty and
it’s so deep most people who drown here are never seen again.”

“Yeah, I can see how that could happen.”

They started walking around the park,
admiring the rock formations. She giggled when Nate pretended to be
trapped in Fat Man Squeeze, a rock formation with a very narrow
opening.

“This place was a regular tourist trap when
we came here before. What happened to the petting zoo, the
restaurants and all that other stuff? There’s not even a souvenir
stand anymore.”

“In the past few years the city has made an
effort to return the park to its natural beauty. They got rid of
the playground and all the tacky little shops. The only thing they
kept was the parking lot and this bridge.” They joined arm and arm
to walk across, pausing to buy corn from a wooden vending machine
to feed to the ducks and geese that gathered in the pools above the
falls. It was a hot day and Tonya was tempted to wade, but Nate was
still recovering and she didn’t want him to exert himself. Before
long she could tell he was tiring and suggested they spread their
blanket in a meadow not far from the top of the waterfall. They
could still hear the rushing water and even see the mist rising
above it, but were secluded by a canopy of trees. Once they got
settled she and Nate enjoyed a lunch of fried chicken, potato salad
and fruit.

“I guess you are feeling better. I haven’t
seen you eat like that in a while,” Tonya said as she watched an
alarming amount of food disappear into Nate’s mouth.

“You’ve been feeding me invalid food for
weeks, little sister. What did you expect?”

After his meal, Nate curled up on the blanket
and took a nap with his head on her lap. She was feeling sleepy as
well and considering doing the same when suddenly a man came into
the clearing. At first she wasn’t particularly concerned even if it
was odd to see a single man in a business suit in the middle of the
day. Then she realized he had a gun in his hand. She must have
jumped or somehow alerted Nate because he came awake immediately
and sprang to his feet as though he’d never been asleep.

“What the hell did they do? Clone you?” he
said to the man with the gun, which confirmed her first suspicion
that this had to be the Rooster. The man didn’t look anything like
an international criminal, though she wasn’t sure what she thought
one would look like. He was almost too thin, and wore his elegant
designer suit with a casualness that only those with money ever
achieved. She looked on in horror not sure what to do, but Nate was
so still she was amazed at his calm demeanor. His control was so
good his breaths didn’t even lift his chest. After a moment she
realized he was waiting for an opportunity to strike and she
continued to watch him so she could help or at least get out of the
way.

“Not necessary Randolph. I was wounded but
not dead. You made a rookie mistake. Always verify your kill.”

“Must’ve been the bullet hole in me that
clouded my judgment.”

“Too bad I missed before. I won’t do so
again.” He raised the gun to fire it when suddenly in a move so
fast it was a blur, Nate spun in midair and kicked the weapon out
of the other man’s hand. The Rooster fell to the ground with Nate
on top of him as the gun went flying through the air. They
struggled as Tonya, the hammering of her heart so loud she feared a
heart attack, searched through the tall grass for the weapon. Once
she found it and turned back to the fight she realized there’d been
a change in fortune; Nate was now under the Rooster who had his
hands firmly around Nate’s throat. She paused instead of following
her instinct to shoot as she realized that inexperienced as she was
she was just as likely to hit Nate as the Rooster. Of course, he
didn’t know that. She watched in frustration as the two men
continued to fight. Nate, weakened by weeks of convalescence was
definitely getting the worst of it. She was amazed at the Rooster’s
ferocity. According to Nate the man had been blown up less than two
months ago, but there was no evidence of that in the way he was
fighting.

“Stop. Get off him or I’ll shoot,” she said
with an authority that she certainly didn’t feel. It got the
Rooster’s attention, though. He looked up at her.

“You’re not going to shoot me. If you were,
you would’ve done so by now,” the man said with a sneer.

Well, she could show him better than she
could tell him. She’d written long descriptions of gunplay and with
no other experience she used them as an instruction manual. Taking
as careful aim as she could Tonya took a deep breath, exhaled
through her nose half way, and then squeezed the trigger. Having
some experience now with the percussive nature of handguns she was
shocked that there was no deafening explosion. She studied the gun
for a moment thinking it had malfunctioned in some manner, but it
was readily apparent that it had fired a bullet without making more
than a hollow whistle. Looking at the Rooster she felt a moment of
bitter disappointment thinking she’d missed him entirely, but the
sudden bloom of blood on his shoulder showed that he’d been hit.
Still she was thoroughly disgusted with the location of the wound.
She’d been aiming for his head.

The man reached up to grab his damaged
shoulder and that was all the help Nate needed. In a split-second
he used his legs to flip the other man backwards and off him. He
immediately sprang to his feet and landed a fierce uppercut
followed by a left hook and another kick. The Rooster stumbled
backwards a couple of times until he was right at the edge of the
cliff. He balanced there on the precipice for a long moment,
struggling to regain his footing by flailing his one uninjured arm
before falling over the side. Nate ran to the rim with Tonya
following close behind. They stood watching as the rapid current
slammed the Rooster on the rocks. Suddenly a huge Bowie knife
appeared in Nate’s hand and before Tonya could question him about
it, he dove over the side into the swirling water below.

What the hell? She held her breath standing
there mute with fear. The drop looked incredibly steep from here
and the water crashing onto the rocks below resembled nothing so
much as an out of control washing machine. She couldn’t see either
man in the water and feared that Nate had drowned. Just as she was
about to climb down the cliff side, he surfaced holding the Rooster
by the collar of that expensive designer suit. Within seconds a
huge rush of bright vermilion red blood appeared in the water and
she gasped, but it was soon apparent that it was the Rooster who
was bleeding out. Still holding the gun in her hand, she took a
trail familiar from her childhood and ran down the side of the
cliff. Just as she reached the bottom, she saw Nate swimming toward
the shore, his movements slow and languid. The life and death
struggle had taken its toll on him and he swam as though it was
difficult to move his limbs. She put the gun down and waded into
the water to help him out. He was soaking wet and unbelievably cold
and heavy. Her arms ached from the effort and getting him to shore
took quite an effort. More than once her feet slid on the polished
stones of the creek bank, but she was finally able to drag him out
of the water. They stood together on the bank and watched as the
current took the Rooster downstream.

“Rest in peace, motherfucker,” Nate said, his
face contorted into a vehement grimace. Then they collapsed on the
ground too exhausted to make the climb back up the cliff. They lay
there soaked to the skin, grateful for the warmth of the late
summer sun. Tonya looked around, but there were still no other
visitors, even if there had been, she and Nate looked as though
they’d done nothing more dubious than take an impulsive and
ill-advised dip in the creek. There was little evidence of the
horrific fight they’d just been through. Except...

She picked up the gun she’d left lying on the
rocky beach. “What do you think I should do with this?”