More Deaths Than One (33 page)

Looking around, he noticed his wife Lucille
coming toward him with a young man in tow. Lucy chattered
animatedly, a look of fatuous adoration on her face. The young man
stared at Evans.

Evans winced in distaste.

Lucy had recently decided she had the soul of
an artist. Instead of taking up painting, however, she had taken up
painters. A steady stream of impoverished and sexually ambiguous
young men, such as this one, had been parading through the house
for weeks now, delighting Lucy, but making him uneasy.

He felt proud he kept in such good shape for
a man of fifty. He had a small roll of fat around his middle no
amount of exercise could melt, but otherwise he was as lean and
trim as he had always been. He even liked the sprinkling of silver
in his full head of thick brown hair and the faint crinkling around
his gray eyes, thinking they made him look distinguished.

What he did not like was the way some of
Lucy’s young men ogled him with unconcealed desire.

As Evans watched Lucy and her new protégé
approach, he noticed no lust or even admiration in the young man’s
gaze. Just a bland, almost cold regard.

Though unimposing, the young man moved with
the suppressed power and fluid grace of a panther padding silently
through the jungle. He had none of the languid affectations that
usually characterized Lucy’s artist friends, but carried himself
with the easy manner of a man at peace with himself and in tune
with his environment.

“This is Mr. Noone,” Lucy announced. “He says
he’s been looking for you. He knows you.”

Evans studied Noone. The man did look
familiar, but he could not place him.

Lucy giggled, sounding like a lovesick
adolescent. “He says his name is pronounced like noon but is
spelled with an e like no one.”

“Mrs. Evans!” One of the caterer’s assistants
hurried toward them. “Mrs. Evans,” he called out again.

Lucy sighed. “Excuse me, Mr. Noone. I must go
see what he wants. Promise me you won’t leave without saying
goodbye?”

Noone held out a hand. When Lucy placed her
fingers on his, he lifted her hand and kissed it lightly.

“Oh, puh-leese,” Evans said, rolling his
eyes. He couldn’t believe Lucy actually had fallen for the man’s
phony act.

After one last lingering look into Noone’s
eyes, Lucy left to deal with the latest catering catastrophe.

“She’s a lovely lady,” Noone said.

“You keep your mitts off her.” Evans glared
at him. “What do you want? Come on, come on. I don’t have all
day.”

“I’ve come for that golf game you always
wanted.”

“What golf game? As you can see, I’m busy
right now.”

“We’re a long way from Thailand, but I hear
Denver has some nice golf courses, too.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,”
Evans snapped. “Who the hell are you anyway?”

Noone gazed steadily at him. “That is the
question, isn’t it? Who the hell am I anyway?”

Evans frowned at Noone for a moment, then his
face lit with a triumphant smile. Robert Stark! The very man he
wanted to see.

He cocked his head to study his elusive
prey.

No wonder he hadn’t recognized him. This
confident, sleekly muscled, youthful man with the burnished copper
highlights in his brown hair and the flash of amber in his brown
eyes bore little resemblance to the humble, middle-aged man he had
known in Bangkok.

“I can see why some of my men think you’re a
chameleon,” Evans said.

“You don’t agree?”

Evans hooted derisively. “You’re kidding,
right? Despite what that idiot Rutledge claimed, there is no such
thing as a human chameleon. I admit, when you lived in Thailand you
did look Asian, but that doesn’t mean you’re a chameleon. There are
such things as hair dyes and dark contact lenses and makeup, though
why you’d go through all that trouble to look like a slant-eye is
beyond me.”

When Bob remained silent, Evans added, “It
was probably a pathetic attempt to fit in, but someone like you
will never fit in anywhere.”

“Someone like me?” Bob questioned, sounding
more amused than affronted.

“A loser.”

Bob’s smile sent chills up Evans’s spine. He
shifted his feet, reassured by the feel of the pistol nestled in
his ankle holster.

“A loser,” he repeated. “The problem is you
have no ambition, no goals. You’re content to drift through life
doing as little as possible.”

“You think I should be more like you and Dr.
Rutledge?”

“At least we have goals. We’re making
some-thing of our lives. Doing something worthwhile.”

“Like using mind control to turn people with
personality quirks into ideal employees?”

“It’s for the greater good. But that’s not
all we do.”

“You also commit murder. Why did you have to
kill Harrison? He didn’t pose any threat to you.”

Evans shrugged. “He got too close to the
truth. It’s a shame. I liked the guy.”

“What about Doug Roybal?”

“My, my. You have been busy, haven’t you?
Little Dougie poked around in things that were none of his
business, just like your friend Harrison.”

“And Dr. Albion?”

“Who’s Dr. Albion?”

“The doctor at the VA hospital who requested
Stark’s service record.”

“Oh, him. We couldn’t have him putting two
and two together, now, could we?” Evans stared at Bob through
slitted eyes. “I thought we were friends—I sure wasted enough time
on you—yet you didn’t call when you returned to Denver after The
Lotus Room closed. And how did you find me? I never told you my
real name, and the phone number on the business cards I gave you
was for an answering service that cannot be connected to me in any
way.”

“I saw you at ISI and followed you home.
Since the letters in your mailbox were addressed to Mr. and Mrs.
Alexander Evans, it wasn’t too hard to figure out who you are.”

“What were you doing at ISI?”

Evans bent over to tie a shoelace that didn’t
need tying. When he stood, gun in hand, he saw Lucy, accompanied by
the senator’s wife, headed his way. But he didn’t see Bob.

“Where’s that nice young man?” Lucy asked.
“Janet wants to meet him.” Her eyes widened. “Alex! What are you
doing with that gun? Put it away before someone sees it.”

Evans spoke through clenched teeth. “Shut up,
Lucy. Shut up. There’s an emergency. Go to the front gate, find
Grimes and Clayton and whoever else is around, and tell them to get
their asses over here immediately.”

“But—”

“Now!” Evans barked. “Do it now.”

Lucy trotted off, trailed by Janet. Evans
edged around a lilac bush that had yet to lose its leaves. Since it
was the one large plant in the vicinity, he was certain that’s
where he would find Stark.

Chameleon, my ass. He had recognized the
man’s clothes—the brown pants and the mottled green, gold, and
brown sweater—for makeshift camouflage.

If the man wanted to play games, that was
okay with him. He had the home-court advantage, and back-up was on
the way. Stark or Noone or whatever he called himself would not
escape this time.

He rounded the bush with his arms
outstretched, pointing his pistol.

“Freeze, asshole!”

Even as he screamed the words, he realized he
had made the unforgivable, fatal mistake of under-estimating his
opponent. Then the bush’s cold steely fingers tightened around his
neck.

***

By the time his men arrived on the scene,
Alex Evans was dead. They found no trace of the perpetrator.