The Winter Man (10 page)

“How is she?” he asked his friend.

“Shaken,” he replied. “She couldn't stop talking about the way the man got into her apartment so easily, even before she had time to take off her overcoat. She figured he was watching and followed her home.”

“That would be my guess, too.”

Something in Tony's tone was familiar to the man who'd
known him for so many years. “You never really get used to shooting people, do you?” he asked.

Tony sighed. “No. It goes with the job description, I guess, but in recent years I've been more of a planner than a participant. It's been a long time since I had to throw down on an assailant.”

“You've got too much heart, and too much conscience, for the line of work you're in,” Frank said flatly. “You need to consider a change, before you get so old that they retire you. Imagine having to live on a government pension,” he added, and chuckled softly.

Tony laughed, too, but his heart wasn't in it. “Your friend the lieutenant have anything more to say about last night?” he asked.

“About the killer, you mean? He knew the guy, actually. He'd weaseled out of two homicide charges, just in the past year. In one of them, he shot a pregnant woman, killing her and the child. Funny thing, the two witnesses died in strange accidents, about a week before they were going to testify against him. He said the guy would do anything for money, and it's no loss.”

“He was still a human being,” Tony said in a dull, quiet tone. “He had family that must have loved him, at least when he was little. He had a mother…”

“He pushed her down a flight of stairs and killed her when he was eight,” Frank mused. “It was in his juvy record. The psychiatrist figured it was a terrible accident and shouldn't be held against the poor orphan.”

“You're kidding me!”

“The psychiatrist was later sued by the victim's family.”

“No wonder.”

“So stop beating your conscience to death,” Frank counseled. “I'd like to tell you about my new job.”

“In Dallas, I guess. Angel was over here—” He stopped dead. That had been a slip he shouldn't have made.

There was a long pause. “So that's why Millie went home alone, huh?” Frank asked, and in a different tone of voice. “Don't tell me—you made a heavy pass at Millie, she ran, you called Angel to come over and soothe you so that Millie could hear it all and see what she'd missed.”

“Damn!” Tony muttered. Frank knew him right down to his bones, and he didn't like it.

“She's a virgin, you idiot!” Frank grumbled. “That sort of woman isn't going to go running headlong into a one-night stand. She believes it's a sin.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn't exactly thinking clearly at the time!” Tony shot back.

“Now you are, and you've blown it,” Frank advised him. “She doesn't want to see you again, ever.”

Tony's heart felt as if it were weighed down with bricks. “Yeah. I sort of figured that's how she'd feel.”

“Someday, you're going to fall for a woman. I hope for your sake that she doesn't treat you the way you've treated Millie,” Frank replied. “She's special.”

“I guess she'll marry you and live happily ever after, huh?” Tony asked sarcastically.

“Don't I wish,” Frank sighed. “Why do you think I'm moving to Dallas? I'm sick of eating my heart out over Millie.”

“You might try candy and flowers and soft music,” Tony replied, trying to sound lighthearted.

“I've tried everything. She told me once that you can't make people love you,” he added bitterly. “She was right. So I'm cutting my losses.”

“She'll have nobody left to talk to,” Tony said quietly. “She doesn't mix well. She's never had a real girlfriend that she could confide in. She won't let people get close to her.”

“You don't know much about her, do you?” Frank asked.

Tony hesitated. “Not really, no.”

“Her father was a roughneck, worked on oil rigs. When he came home, he drank. Excessively. Millie's mother tried to leave him, but he kept Millie with him and threatened to cut her up if her mother didn't come back. She was too scared of him not to do what he said. Millie's whole childhood was one of stark terror, of being afraid to trust anyone. It was almost a relief, she told me, when he died of a heart attack. She and her mother finally had some peace, but it was too late for Millie to reform her character. She doesn't trust anybody these days. And especially not after what John did to her. It was her father all over again, only worse.”

Tony felt even smaller. “She never told me.”

“Why would she? I'm sure she knew that you weren't interested in her.”

“Yeah.”

There was another long pause. “What's next on your agenda?” Frank asked.

“What? Oh. I've got an assignment over the border. Very hush-hush.”

“Most of them are.” Frank chuckled. “Well, I'll leave my forwarding address with Angel. You can come see me up in Dallas after the first of the year.”

“I'll do that. I won't have any reason left to come back to San Antonio, once you're gone.”

They were both talking around the fact that Millie would still live there.

“Can you tell her I'm sorry?” Tony asked after a minute. “I mean, really sorry. I tried to tell her just after I got the hit man, but she was too scared of me to listen.”

“Is that surprising? Most people are scared of you.”

“I don't mind it with most people,” Tony said gruffly. “She's gone through a lot. More than she should have had to. If I hadn't listened to John, maybe I could have spared her some of it.”

“If.”

“Yeah. Your lieutenant thinks she's out of the woods, then?”

“He does. One of his men's confidential informants said
that the gang boss who was holding the money for the contract killer decided he needed a nice new car, so he wasn't passing the contract along. Good news for Millie.”

“Very good.” Tony was relieved. At least she'd be safe now, from John and his postmortem attempts on her life.

“So you can get on with your life now.”

“I can.”

“Keep in touch,” Frank said.

“You know I'll do that. See you around, pal.”

“You, too.”

Tony leaned back and stared blankly at a painting of Japanese flowers and characters in the frame on the wall. It was all over. He'd go back to his assignments, Millie would go back to work, Frank would take up his new job in Dallas, and nothing would draw the men back to San Antonio ever again. Well, Frank's mother still lived there, so he'd go to see her, probably. But he was willing to bet that Frank wouldn't contact Millie again. Anyway, he consoled himself, he wasn't emotionally attached to Millie. It had been a physical need, brought on by abstinence and proximity. He'd be over it in no time.

He got up and started packing.

* * *

Millie was back in her own apartment. Frank had called in a marker and had the people who cleaned the nightclub come over and scrub Millie's apartment. He'd paid them out of his own pocket, but he hadn't told her.

When she left Frank's mother's house, Millie was still getting over the trauma. She wasn't looking forward to having to live where a man had died. But when she got inside, she was surprised. The bedroom had been rearranged. It was spotlessly clean. There were new curtains, a new bedspread. It looked brand-new.

“Oh, you shouldn't have done this!” she exclaimed, smiling up at Frank.

He shrugged and grinned. “We're friends. It's for old times' sake. I won't be around for much longer.”

“I know.” She looked sad. “You'll like Dallas. My mother was from there. We used to go visit my grandmother, until she died.”

“I'll like it,” he agreed.

“This is great.” She looked around, touching the curtains, smoothing the bed. Her eyes were sad. “Tony saved my life, and I barely thanked him,” she said in a subdued tone. She looked at Frank, worried. “You know, he never blinked an eye. Tony was ice-cold. He never needed a second shot.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I've never seen anybody shot before.”

“It's upsetting, the first time,” Frank, a combat veteran, replied.

She cocked her head. “You've shot people.”

He nodded. “I was in Iraq, in the early nineties,” he reminded her.

She managed a smile. “It's not like they show it on TV
and in the movies,” she said. “Or in those spy films, either. This guy didn't have a metal silencer. He'd made one from a soft drink bottle and duct tape.”

“Homemade ones still do the job,” Frank told her. “He didn't want to attract attention.”

“That gun of Tony's sounded like a cannon,” she recalled. “The hall was full of people when we left, all trying to get in to see the crime-scene examiners work. I wish I'd paid attention. I was too shaken.”

“So was Tony,” Frank replied. “Regardless of the contract killer's background, he's still a human being. Tony used to go through some sort of purification thing. He won't go near the res in North Carolina, but he has cousins from his clan in Oklahoma. He hangs out with a couple of them. They build a sweat lodge and help him get through the emotional pangs.”

She was fascinated. “I never knew that. Neither did his foster mother, I guess, because she didn't say anything about it.”

“She didn't know,” he said simply. “He didn't want her to know what his job actually involved. He told her he worked for the government, and she figured that meant he was a desk jockey.”

“He protected her,” she said.

“Exactly.”

She went back into the living room silently, her eyes on the sofa where Tony had placed her so gently after the
shooting. He'd been supportive, nurturing, and she'd backed away from him. That must have hurt, especially when he'd shot a man to save her life.

“He said to tell you he was sorry,” Frank told her.

She glanced at him. “He didn't need to be.”

“About Angel,” he emphasized.

She flushed. “Oh. The glittery woman.”

He scowled. “Excuse me?”

She drew in a long, resigned breath. “You were always introducing him to girls who worked at the club,” she recalled with a sad smile. “Those were his sort of women. He told me so. He didn't want ties, ever.”

“He may want them someday.”

“Not my business,” she said quietly. “He brought her to his room to show me how little I meant to him. It wasn't necessary. I already knew that.” She turned to Frank and laughed shortly. “I'm a librarian. Doesn't that just say it all?”

He scowled. “If you'll recall, that girl in the mummy movie was a librarian. She was a two-fisted heroine as well.”

“Not me,” Millie sighed. “Thanks for everything, Frank,” she added, tiptoeing to kiss his tanned cheek. “I'll miss you.”

He looked at her with anguished longing that he quickly concealed. He grinned. “I'll miss you, too, kid.”

W
eeks passed. Thanksgiving went by in a flash, and suddenly it was almost Christmas. Millie stopped by the window of a department store when she got off the city bus at her stop. It was beautifully decorated in an old-fashioned sort of way, with artificial snow and trees and mountains, and a classic Lionel train set running through the scenery. Millie loved electric trains. One day, if she could ever afford a bigger apartment, she promised herself she was going to buy one and run it every Christmas.

It was cold, even in San Antonio. She tugged her coat closer. It was a new coat, an extravagance, but she couldn't bear to wear the old one ever again, even with the blood spatters removed. She'd given the coat to a charity drive.

She wondered how Frank was doing. He'd already moved up to Dallas. He phoned her and said he liked his new colleagues, and thought he was going to enjoy the job. He did miss San Antonio, though, he added. Dallas was brassy and cosmopolitan, a sprawling city with odd, futuristic architecture. San Antonio still retained its historic charm. It was also smaller. But what he really meant was that he missed Millie. She was sorry she couldn't care for him as he cared for her. Despite everything, even after his cruel behavior, it was still Tony who lived in her heart.

Tony.
She pulled the coat closer as she walked down the sidewalk toward her apartment building. She imagined he was off in some exotic place with some new glittery woman, having a ball. It was a modern sort of life for most women these days, rushing around from one sex partner to the next with no feeling of obligation or permanence. The movies reflected it. So did television and books. But Millie was a romantic. She lived in a past where men and women both abstained before marriage, where family mattered, where two people got to know each other as individual human beings long before they got to know each other physically. In that world, Millie lived. She devoured romance novels with characters who shared her old-fashioned views on life and society. So what if it was only make-believe. The carnal quality of relationships in real life was as empty as an office trash can on Sunday. Empty and sad. Like Tony's life.