The windows had gone a deep winter's-evening blue by the time Lisa realized a hand was clumsily stroking her hair. She raised her head, turned, her shoulders stiff and cold. Looked.
Rippner looked back at her. He frowned in muzzy concern.
"Not as bad as all that, is it?" he whispered hoarsely.
The apartment smelled of brine. Saltwater, cold sweat, and bile. The lamp near the sofa possessed wattage insufficient to displace the dusk that had invaded the living area in the handfuls of minutes, the leaden coalescence of hours, that Lisa had believed Rippner dead. The apartment's overheads seemed as distant as stars in another branch of the galaxy.
"Yes, it was," Lisa said, looking at Rippner there in the semi-dark. "It was as bad as all that."
The hand with which he'd stroked her hair came to rest against her cheek. "Very courageous of you to come here, Lisa. And very kind."
The tentative beginnings of tenderness in his expression and touch. Or simply lingering pain, numbness, and shock. She wasn't sure which it was for herself, let alone for him.
Lisa wiped her eyes.
"We need to get you to a hospital," she said.
"No," Rippner countered. The "please" remained unspoken. "Let's go home."
Cautiously, he sat up. She could see him shaking. She fetched her coat from the kitchen area, found his in a closet to the right of the apartment's door, where Leon, good, murderous host that he was, must have hung it.
"He called, said we were teamed on a job," Rippner said, watching her. "The company works that way sometime. Safer to have us share information face-to-face. More secure than telephone or e-mail."
Lisa came back to the sofa, the plastic on the floor crinkling under the soles of her boots. The same sound she'd heard over the phone, when Leon went to kick Rippner. He made no complaint as she helped him up, and that's how she knew how weak he was: he hadn't the strength to waste on sarcasm. Rippner shrugged slowly, painfully, into his coat. She wondered how badly, in addition to the poison, Leon had hurt him.
"Told me he had the job files loaded up, offline, on his laptop," Rippner said. "Took my coat while I went to have a look." He moved unsteadily, speaking, toward the kitchen area. Lisa went with him. She had no choice, really: he was supporting her as much as she was supporting him.
He went to the sink. He had in his free hand the knife that she had used to slit his sleeves.
How--?
Even in his weakness, he'd picked it up that smoothly, that invisibly. She hadn't seen him do it. Rippner turned on the tap at the kitchen sink and carefully washed the blood from the blade. He washed his hands, too. Red dish towels hanging on a steel bar to the side. Rippner took a towel, dried the blade of his knife, and reached across himself, under his suit jacket. A slender scabbard, in line with the jacket's side seam, zipped or velcroed into the suit's lining. The opening faced downward; Rippner carefully slid the blade up into it, secured the handle with a strap and snap. A weapon that a cursory side-pat under his jacket wouldn't reveal. While he washed, dried, concealed, he spoke softly:
"He offered me a cup of coffee. I said no, thanks. Professional mistrust. He was a chemistry freak, Lise. No secret there. I knew; he knew I knew. Wouldn't drink anything he gave me if I'd come straight out of the Kalahari. 'That's okay, Jack,' he said. By then I was waking up his laptop, cueing up the job files. Thought I was. There was nothing open on the screen. Right when I realized what he'd done, he said it for me: 'The poison is on the keyboard.'"
He stopped speaking, went quiet. Lisa could see more plainly now, now that they were standing in more light: the sweat on his chest was mingled with vomit. His chin was spattered with it, too. She shuddered, feeling sick and clammy herself. She looked over at Leon's body, and a wave of primal revulsion washed through her.
"Are you okay?" Rippner asked.
"Not really," Lisa replied.
"Wait." He left her, went unsteadily to the apartment's resident corpse. He bent at the waist with all the uncertainty-- understandable-- of a man who'd been poisoned, kicked, and left for dead and took a cell phone from Leon's pocket. He hit a number on speed dial, paused, and said into the transmitter: "This is Rippner. Leon is dead. Carter, tell the rest of the junior varsity: if they want the position, they go through HR, or I will kill every one of them. Clear?"
He didn't wait for a reply. Likely talking to an answering machine. He shut the phone again and dropped it on Leon's back. He picked up and pocketed the empty Walther. Then he took his other knife and scabbard from the kitchen table.
"Okay. Let's go."
*****
Possibly the first and only joke of the day: the certainty with which he said "Let's go."
Not so bad, leaving the building, save for when the elevator doors closed on the back of Rippner's coat and nearly jerked him-- and Lisa-- over backwards. Still no one around to see.
No: the fun began when they stepped outside.
Maybe twenty feet separated them from the silver Beemer, the 325i. That was all. Twenty feet of gray, cityworn sidewalk.
And blasting wind. And ice.
Being from a less seasonally tormented region of the United States, that is to say a region whose seasons featured temperatures that rarely, if ever, dipped below thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, Lisa had had, she would admit, but limited contact with ice and snow, and then only in the context of ski vacations. Snow and ice were exotic to her, things to encounter voluntarily, a treat.
In short, freezing rain-- not to mention a meteorogical mess like the remainder of the shit-storm waiting for them beyond the outer doors of Leon's building, comprised of snow and sleet driven almost horizontally into her face and Rippner's by a steady northwest wind-- was entirely outside her realm of experience.
And here she was, tired and sick and the next best-- or worst-- thing to stoned, with an only recently resurrected Rippner leaning on her for support.
Step.
Slip.
She nearly went down. He did, too. Water on ice on the sidewalk. They spun to face each other--
Caught each other by the upper arms like a pair of skydivers. Miraculously, the sidewalk stayed where it belonged, beneath their feet.
Between the two of them, they seemed to have approximately two and a half usable legs. They propped one another to the 325i like a pair of drunks. The sleet as much as sandblasted away the remainder of Lisa's strength; thankfully, the windows and doors of Rippner's "baby Beemer" were still warm enough to be mostly clear of solid ice. His Five-Series looked like a small black glacier. Lisa got Rippner buckled into the passenger seat of the 325i, secured herself in the driver's seat, and started the engine.
The streets were terrible. Largely empty, the locals obviously having hearkened to the advice of the weather gods and forgone their travel plans for the evening, but awful. Even with the sedan's sure footing, the stability control and good tires. While Lisa vise-gripped the steering wheel and peered through the ice battling the car's defroster for control of the windshield, Rippner relaxed back in the passenger seat. He yawned. He was half-facing her with his eyes closed, his head scrunched comfortably between his shoulder and his seat's headrest.
"Good thing I'm driving," he mumbled absently. "You wouldn't have a chance on these roads, Lise."
Great.
Just as the corollary struck her, there in her weather-jittered, semi-drugged exhaustion-- Am I really driving--?-- a light immediately ahead went from yellow to red, and she hit the brakes.
And slid halfway into an intersection.
With a police car approaching to her right.
They missed one another, graciously, the BMW and the Crown Victoria. No point in stopping, even less in backing up. Lisa ran the red, and the lightbar on top of the big black-and-white Ford now behind them flashed out an invitation. She pulled over to the snowy, sleety, icy curb and brought the 325i to a halt.
Rippner raised his head, opened his eyes, looked about with a muzzy frown--
We're being stopped by the police.
He shifted in his seat, straightened. Lisa saw him tense slightly as he spotted the lights flashing behind them.
We're being stopped by the police. We're both wasted. He's armed--
A man's form, dark and jacketed, trudging up on the Beemer's driver's side. Beside her, Rippner was watchful. He had his hands in his lap.
We killed a man today. He tried to kill us, and we--
A muffled tap to the left of her head. Lisa put on her customer-service face. Calm, open. She reached for the control on the armrest and looked up as the window opened. She smiled sheepishly as the wind gifted her with a peppering of sleet. "I'm really sorry about that."
The officer was about forty-five, weathered, blue-eyed. He looked with amiable caution from Lisa to Rippner, back again.
"Got away from you a bit back there?" he asked Lisa.
"Yes, sir. I'm not used to driving in weather like this."
"Let me see your license, please, miss."
She'd thought-- thank God, she'd thought-- to bring her purse. She handed the officer her license. He shone a penlight on it.
"Florida." He smiled, professionally, as he handed the license back. "This must seem like a nightmare."
"Yes, sir."
He hadn't asked for registration. Likely he'd already run the plate, had seen that the car wasn't reported stolen.
"What are you doing out on a night like this?"
A question at the very edge of search-and-seizure. Nothing between her seat and Rippner's, nothing immediately apparent in the back seat, either. No visible drugs or weapons. No incriminating odors, either, as far as she could tell. Lisa hesitated.
"Oysters," Rippner said.
"What's that, sir?" the officer asked.
"Oysters." Rippner looked over, smiled up at him wanly, a little drunkenly. "At the Drake. I hit a bad batch. We thought it best that Lisa drive us home."
Traces of vomit on his chin, a touch of glassiness to the ice-blue eyes. The officer asked Rippner: "Have you been drinking, sir?"
"Enough to wash down the oysters. Lisa stuck to Cobb salad and Perrier. Smart girl. Right now, I have to admit, sir, I envy the hell out of her."
"I can imagine." The officer's smile became just a trace more sympathetic. He looked again at Lisa. "You want to take it easy on these roads, miss."
"Yes, sir. I will. Thank you."
He returned to the Crown Victoria. She let him pull off in front of them. She didn't say anything. Neither did Rippner.
Before Lisa put the BMW back in drive, he reached over and squeezed her hand.
*****
In the parking garage of Rippner's building, they kept their arms around each other's waists as they staggered to the elevator. More as veterans of a shared war, comrades, far less as lovers or friends. Inside his apartment, she got him to his bedroom. He refused to rest without cleaning himself; she could tell he was ashamed of his weakness, the shaking in his limbs, the vomit, the sweat-salt coating his skin; she didn't tell him he was being silly. Rippner shrugged out of his suit jacket, let it fall to the floor. He stood before the bathroom mirror and picked with shaking fingers at the buttons of his dress shirt. Concentration on his handsome, pale face, his brushy eyebrows lowering in mounting frustration. Lisa stilled his hands, unbuttoned his shirt for him. She felt his eyes in their unreal blue quietly watching her as she worked, her hands just that much more steady than his. There was a greenish-black bruise the size of her paired hands forming high on his right side. His breath whistled sharply past his lips when she brushed it in passing, pushing his shirt from his shoulders. While he stepped into the shower, she went to find him a fresh pair of boxer-briefs and a clean white t-shirt. He wasn't ashamed of his nudity, and she wasn't embarrassed by it.
While he showered, she cleaned herself at the sink. Washed her face and hands, ran a wet, warm washcloth up her arms, across the back of her neck.
Help yourself to anything.
It was as though she'd read the words a year ago. The note was still on the nightstand, where she'd left it. While Rippner showered, Lisa in his dresser found for herself a pair of gray sweatpants, a midnight-blue sweatshirt, a heavy pair of tube socks. The room blurred briefly as her head emerged from the neck hole in the shirt. She braced herself for the cramping she thought would follow; instead, a slow wave of dizziness broke over her. She stumbled against the foot of the bed, sat down. Felt her weakness in the trembling across her chest and shoulders. So much for going anywhere else tonight, even barring the weather, even discounting the fact that she'd just dressed herself for a night in: transferring to the convention hotel would have to wait. As for the convention itself--
She shook herself awake. She'd nearly fallen asleep right there, sitting--
Nearly?
She looked, panicked, at the bedside clock.
Ten minutes had passed.
The shower was still running. Lisa went to the bathroom. Through the frosted glass of the stall door, she could see Rippner. He was on his feet, not moving.
She gently rapped the glass. "Jackson?"
No response.
"Jackson--?"
Nothing.
Lisa slid the door open, got herself a faceful of soap-scented steam. Rippner was leaning against the wall of the shower stall, the water beating down on his chest and flat belly. His eyes were closed. He was snoring softly.
Asleep on his feet.
Lisa reached to the side, shut off the water. Rippner's hand shot out and caught her wrist. Hard.
He had large hands for his size. Strong, capable fingers. They locked on her like titanium now. She felt her flesh bruising against the bones of her wrist.
"Jackson," she said, again, very calmly. Her hand was still on the tap handle. She turned her head slowly to look at him.
At first his eyes were as distant and cold as lunar ice. Then he frowned and said, a little sheepishly: "I fell asleep."
"Yes, you did."
"I'm sorry." He released Lisa's wrist. She straightened, took a towel from the rack, held it out for him.
"It's okay--"
He fell into her, into her and the open towel. Lisa caught him, got her terry-wrapped arms around him. Rippner clung to her, panting. His naked body was hard and shower-warm and wet against her, slick and unsteady in her arms. He chanted in breathless frustration against her neck--
"Shit, shit, shit, shit--"
Lisa held him tighter. Patiently. Though if she had another dizzy spell herself, right now, they'd be in a pretty mess. What a pair. She kept her eyes on his shoulder while she waited for Rippner to stabilize. Counted the pale freckles on his paler skin. His wet hair was dripping on her neck.
At last, he took a deep breath, gently disengaged himself. Quietly dressed himself before her weak, watchful eyes. Carefully rinsed his mouth, brushed his teeth. He staggered as they left the bathroom. Lisa slid her arm again around his lean waist. "Here, baby." The first time she'd called him by a pet name. Neither of them noticed right then. She guided him to the bed, and Rippner as much as fell facedown onto it. He was asleep before Lisa finished covering him.
*****
Stillness in the apartment. She felt disconnected. She went to the living area, opened her suitcase, found her phone. Thirty-three messages. She felt as though she were standing behind herself looking over her shoulder at the glowing screen. She tallied the calls, determined a winner and a runner-up. The others could wait. She called her dad first.
*****
"Lisa, where have you been? I've been worried."
A typical Joe Reisert opening. That, for the first time in ages, his worry had been right on target was something he needn't know.
"I'm right here, Dad. I'm okay. I met an old friend on the plane; we picked up a touch of flu, that's all."
"I e-mailed you those coupons for Airborne. Didn't you use them?"
Lisa stretched out on Rippner's L-sofa. "Sorry, Dad."
"That's winter up north, Lisa. Your friend: she's sick, too?"
"He." Lisa corrected him automatically. A second later, she smacked herself on the forehead--
"He?" demanded Joe. "Who-he?"
"An old friend, Dad."
"You're not at your hotel."
She knew where this was going. She felt not unlike Buster Keaton clinging to the cow-catcher at the front of a speeding train. "No--"
"You're staying at his place, Lisa? Do I know this guy?"
"Not really-- He has a really nice sofa." That much, at least, was truthful enough.
"Who's sleeping on it? You or him?"
"Neither of us, Dad. I was going to make us some supper."
"He can't make his own supper?"
"He's lying down. In his room. I told you, Dad: he's not feeling well. Neither am I."
Joe Reisert paused. When he spoke again, his voice was gentler: "Is he a nice guy, Lisa?"
"Yes, Dad."
"You're sure?"
"He's sweet." At least when he's unarmed or unconscious and he doesn't consider you a threat.
"Will I be meeting him?"
She smiled. "Getting ahead of yourself, Dad."
"Gotta think of all those grandkids I'm not seeing--"
Now she laughed. The first time in days. The sound took her by surprise. "Oh, come on--!"
"I tell you, Lisa, nice guys don't happen by every day--"
"I'm hanging up now, Dad."
"You find yourself a good one, you've got to-- Wait: he's not gay, is he?"
Lisa chuckled. "Saying goodbye--"
"Lisa." The joking left Joe's voice. The affection didn't. "Take care of yourself. Feel better. Call again soon, okay?"
"I will."
"I love you, sweetie."
"Love you, too, Dad. Bye."
*****
Call number two: Eric.
Mighty Eric. Eric the Viking. Eric Janssen, bullet-headed, burly, career-driven. Forty-four years old, a real company man. He and Lisa were the Lux Atlantic's co-representatives at the convention.
"Reisert, where the hell have you been?"
Obviously the burdens of solo diplomacy were weighing heavily on Mr. Janssen. "Got taken ill, Eric," she told him.
"You never checked in."
That's very observant of you, Eric. "No, Eric, I didn't." She felt it as she spoke: a cluster of cramps gathering in her shoulders, chest, belly. "I'm sorry; I--"
"Are you here, Reisert--? In town?"
Lisa braced herself. "Yes--"
"You missed some great seminars today--"
She let him talk about reservation software, thread-count theories, the latest in convenience services and in-room coffee-brewing technology. All this while shells burst in her muscles and pain lit the backs of her retinas like flares in a night sky.
Still, she told herself, it wasn't as bad, not nearly as bad, as the first wave of cramps in Leon's apartment. The pain subsided just as Janssen was saying--
"If I didn't know you better, Reisert, I'd say you were shacked up with some guy."
He wasn't joking. Or he was, and it was ugly, not friendly. Months back, he'd asked her out, and she'd turned him down, and now his hurt ego was free to make assumptions about her sexuality. Never anything overt. No obscenities, no verbal slurs.
Have you ever stabbed someone, Eric?
"Maybe I am," she heard herself say. She could play her customer-service face-- or voice-- with him, and he was never the wiser.
"Somehow I doubt it."
I have. This afternoon. Then I watched someone kill him.
"I'll try to make it tomorrow--"
"You'd better. There's gonna be hell to pay."
And I was glad to see him die. I'm still glad now. You see, Eric, it's not about me. It's not about emotion-based female dilemmas. It's about male, testosterone-based cruelty.
"They can always dock my next paycheck. It's not as if I haven't always been there for them. They owe me an absence or two."
At that, Eric paused. She could sense him sniffing his way around her words, the tone in her voice. She was never weak with him, but she was never this direct, either.
"Were the Keurig representatives there, Eric?"
Triviality. She threw it to him like a life ring.
"What-- Yeah: they say the new B-17 in-rooms will be ready to go by second quarter."
"That's great, Eric."
"Yeah, it is. Make a hell of a cup of coffee, those things--"
"Goodbye, Eric."
"Wait a minute-- Reisert--"
She hung up. She switched off her phone and lay on her back on Rippner's sofa while the cramping subsided and weariness took its place. She felt curiously free.
*****
In the freezer above the refrigerator, she found bag-packed meals. One plastic sack identified itself as butternut-squash soup. She warmed it, per directions, in the microwave, and ate it feeling less hungry than she knew she actually was. Something simply to settle her stomach, to take the edge off her unsteadiness.
She went back upstairs. She brushed her teeth, then stretched out beside Rippner on the bed. Rippner's eyes remained closed, his breathing deep and slow. She took her share of the sheet and blankets, nestled herself, then lay watching him.
"You could have left me." The words were a soft, subterranean rumble. He opened his eyes, looked at her sleepily. "You didn't. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Rippner smiled; he raised up a bit, eased closer. He kissed her gently. Lisa trembled. Belly and loins, a whisper of wanting. When their lips parted, she smiled back at him-- and then she kissed him just as gently in return.
It was a revelation, that leisurely kiss. Touching him not out of reckless-- or misguided-- lust or curiosity, but because she wanted to, because it pleased her to do so: this was something new.
It seemed to be a revelation for Rippner, too, even if revelations might at the moment lie outside his zone of appreciation. He lay for a long moment afterward, once Lisa had re-parked her head on her pillow, simply looking at her. She wouldn't presume to be able to read him with absolute precision, but at a guess she would say he was having trouble staying awake. His eyelids drooped, the ridiculously long lashes nearly meshed, top and bottom, and his eyes, thus slitted, were glowing forth their extraordinary color, the high clear blue you might see if you were looking up at the sky from the bottom of a mountain crevasse. Which image sent shivers through Lisa, though she was anything but cold.
"Get some sleep," Rippner said softly.
"You, too." She reached across and brushed hair away from his eyes. His hair was thick, and he'd fallen asleep with it wet; he'd have a magnificent case of bed-head in the morning. "Do you want anything? Water? Maybe some soup? Toast--?"
"No. Not right now. Thank you."
The "thank you" all but slurred from him. Rippner let his eyes close. Almost immediately, his breathing deepened and slowed, and Lisa knew he was asleep again. She snuggled closer to him and closed her eyes.
*****
She woke. According to the clock, an hour had passed. The lamp on her side of the bed was still on. Rippner was still facing her, lying peacefully, his eyes closed. A soft murmuring was coming from deep in his throat. She eased herself away from him, got up, padded downstairs. Thirsty for something other than a glass of water from the bathroom tap. She stood in the kitchen, the only illumination the pale light from the refrigerator, and felt sneaky as she drank orange juice from the bottle she and Rippner had bought yesterday at Babbitt's Deli.
Behind her, the door handle turned. She froze. Her heart jolted like a brick in her chest. She heard a click, a key slotting into a lock. A deadbolt-slither. She set the bottle back in the refrigerator and closed the door. Then all she could think to do was to step to the right of the apartment door. Soundlessly, in sock-feet.
The door opened. Lisa pressed herself to the wall behind it.
A man entered. Very tall, dark-haired, ostensibly well built. He brought with him, in passing, cold from outside. Dampness lingered on his dark jacket; icy droplets pattered softly to the kitchen floor. He was carrying two large paper bags, one in each hand. He set down one bag in order to pocket a set of keys; as the door closed behind him and Lisa pressed herself that much more tightly to the wall, he hoisted the bags by their handles onto the kitchen table.
Then he reached to his waist, under his jacket, and unholstered a gun.
He looked through the kitchen to the stairs leading to the apartment's second level and Rippner's bedroom. He walked cautiously through the dark living area, toward the the slant triangle of light coming from the open bedroom door.
Not again.
Lisa was stock-still.
He can't be alive. He can't.
Moving away from the wall was an act of will. Fear and shock pressed her back with all the gravitational force of a space launch. It was as though she could feel her lungs collapsing.
She was still looking after the stranger as she reached for the knife block. She kept her eyes on his back as he started up the stairs, as her fingers closed on a hard, round handle and she drew forth a knife.
Silently she followed him.
*****