“You have a car?”
He glanced back. The men had dispensed with their professional facade and tore after them. They both held handguns, jerking in their sprint.
Jan uttered a surprised cry. “Hurry! Around the corner!” The men were closing and suddenly Jan was thinking he'd made a mistake. His heart pounded as much from the rush of adrenaline as from the run.
She raced beside him now, matching his pace with two steps for each of his, but as fast nonetheless.
But the men behind were still gaining. And the car was still out of sight.
The next time he saw Karen might very well be from a hospital bed, speaking past a bandaged face.
You did what?
Well, I tried to rescue this junkie . . .
“Where's the car?” Helen panted in near panic.
They were on the sidewalk now. He flung a hand forward, pointing. Behind him shoes clacked onto the concrete. And then one stopped. Kneeling to fire?
“Where is it?”
A white Cadillac suddenly pulled away from the curb and roared full-throttle toward them, flashing its lights. Helen pulled up beside him and Jan snatched her hand.
“Come on!”
The Cadillac squealed to a stop alongside them.
Jan yanked the door open, spun Helen around and shoved her into the backseat. He cast one last glance to the side and saw that both men had pulled up and hid their weapons. He clambered in after Helen.
“This is your car?” She was staring through the tinted window at their pursuers, panting and exuberant.
“Yes. Thank God, Steve!”
Steve pulled a squealing U-turn and punched the accelerator to the floor. “Good night, Jan! What on earth was
that?
”
Jan didn't answer directly. “You okay?” he asked Helen.
“Yes.”
“What was that, Jan?” the driver asked again, glancing repeatedly in the rearview mirror. “What on
earth
was that?”
Jan gripped his hands to fists to still their tremble and he giggled.
It was a short chuckle-like giggle, but it was the first time he'd giggled in a long time. “Whoooeee!” he hooted. “We made it!”
Steve grinned wide, infected by Jan's relief. Helen let out a cry of victory. “Yeehaaa! Boy, did we!” She slapped Jan's thigh in an elemental gesture of congratulations. “Boy, did we!”
They sped around a corner. “Jan,
what
on earth was that?” Steve demanded again.
Jan looked at Helen with a raised brow. “I don't know, Steve. I really don't know.”
GLENN LUTZ peered past the smoke glass wall on the thirtieth floor of Atlanta's Twin Towers to the crawling city below, ignoring the sweat that snaked down his nose.
It was green and gray down there, a hundred thousand bushy trees deadlocked with the concrete in a slow battle over the territory. The gray was slowly winning. Pedestrians crawled along the streets, like ants scampering to and fro in their senseless rush. If one of them were to look up and see past the reflective glass surrounding Glenn they might see the city's best-known city councilman frowning down, hands on hips, feet planted wide, dressed in white slacks and a Hawaiian shirt, and think he was gloating over his power.
But Glenn Lutz did not feel any of wealth's pleasures just now. In fact he felt buck naked, stripped of his power, robbed of his heart. Like a man just learning that his accountant had made a mistake. That he wasn't the city's wealthiest man after all. That in fact he was quite decidedly broke. That he could no longer afford the hefty lease payment on the top three floors of Atlanta's most prestigious towers and must be out in twenty-four hours.
Glenn pulled his lips back over crooked teeth, bit down and closed his eyes for a moment. He lifted thick fingers to his chin and pulled at his prickly jaw. Sweat darkened his shirt in large fans under each armâhe hadn't showered in two days and this pointless pursuit of Helen had left him frantic. He hadn't brushed his teeth either, and he was reminded of the fact with a blast of his own breath. Two days of alcohol had not entirely weakened the heavy odors of dental decay.
Glenn turned from the window and glared at the wall opposite him. It was solid mirror from black tile to ceiling and now his image stared back at him. It showed a tall man, six foot five and thick like a bull. The flesh was firm. Bone-white, hairy, and layered in cellulite maybe, but solid. His stomach could use some trimming. Helen had told him so just three days ago and he had slapped her face with an open palm. The memory sent a chill through his arms. Never mind that she'd had her arms wrapped
around
his stomach when she'd made the remark.
His mind softened.
Helen, dear Helen. How could you do this to me? How could you leave me so empty? We had a deal, baby. We're knit from the same cloth, you and I. What can you possibly be thinking?
Glenn ground his molars. Indirect lighting cast a soft atmospheric hue over the mirrored walls. His eyes stared back at him, vacant, like two holes drilled through his head. It was his most remarkable trait, he thought. His driver's license said they were dark brown, but beyond ten feet any reasonable soul would cross themselves and swear those eyes were black. Jet black. He had started dyeing his hair light blond to accent the eyes a week after high school graduation. Now his hair hung nearly white around stubbled jowls.
Glenn lifted his chin and frowned. Truth be told, slip a black robe over his shoulders and he would look more like a warlock than some business tycoon. Now
that
would do wonders with the women. On the other hand, forget the coat; the image in the mirror was enough to terrify most women as it was.
Most. Not Helen. Helen was special. Helen was his goddess.
He glanced around the office. Over here in the business tower there was nothing to show but a single bare oak desk set on the shiny black tile. The decorator's idea had been to create a stark impression, but Glenn had fired her before she'd completed the job. Thankfully the foulmouthed wench had finished the suite on the adjacent tower; the Palace he called it. That had been three months ago, just before he'd met Helen, and to say that the Palace had delivered would be an absurd understatement. It was either pleasure to the bone or raw pain over there. Ecstasy or agony. The chambers of exotic delights. Which was appropriate considering the fact that he ran one of the country's largest drug rings out of the suite.
The phone on his desk rang and he started. He swore and strode for the black object. He snatched up the receiver. “What?”
“Sir, we really do have to talk. You have calls stacking up andâ”
“And I told you not to bother me with this junk!”
“Some of them look important.”
“And what could be so important? I'm occupied here, if you didn't notice.”
“Yes, of course I noticed. Who wouldn't notice? And meanwhile you have legitimate business piling up around you.”
Glenn felt heat flush his neck. Only she could say such a thing. He took a deep breath. “Get in here,” he said, and slammed the receiver onto its cradle.
Beatrice strutted in with her chin leveled. Her black hair was piled high in a bun and her lips curved downward, matching the arc of her large nose. She was fifty pounds overweight and her cinched belt exaggerated the folds of fat at her belly. It was a symbiotic relationship with her. If she didn't know so much he might have ditched her long ago.
“What's so important?”
She slid into a burgundy guest chair and lifted a yellow steno pad. “For starters, you missed the council meeting last night.”
“Immaterial. Give me something that matters.”
“Okay. The renovations on the lower floors of the Bancroft Building are running into a snag. The contractor's screaming aboutâ”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“You
own
the building.”
“That's right. I
own
it. I don't build them, I buy them.”
“They're saying it'll go over budget in excess of a million dollars.”
“I don't care if it goes over budget two million. Right now I don't care if it goes over five million!”
She blinked at the outburst. “Fine. Then I guess you won't be interested in the rest of these matters either. What's a few million?” She was trying to bait him.
“That's right, Beatrice. And if anybody does anything stupid, I'll deal with them later. But not now.”
She unfolded her legs as if to stand. “Yes, not now. Now you're taking care of more important business.”
“Don't step over this line, Beatrice.”
“She'll ruin you, Glenn.”
“She's my life.”
“And she'll be your death. What's come over you with this woman?”
Glenn didn't respond. It was a good question.
Beatrice looked at him and shook her head. “I've seen them come and go, Glenn, but never like this one. She's controlling you.”
Shut up, you witch!
He remained silent while her words spun through his mind. She was right in a small way. He could hardly understand his obsession with Helen himself. Helen had waltzed into his life only a few short months ago, a ghost from his past, and now she had possessed him. But Helen . . . Helen wasn't so easily possessed. She held that power over him, and his desire for her ran like fire through his blood, in spite ofâor maybe because ofâher refusal to be possessed.
“You want her only because you can't have her,” Beatrice said. “She's nothing but a piece of trash, and you're slobbering over her like a dog. Come on, Glenn. You're neglecting your own interests. Look at you; you look like a pig.”
“Out,” he snarled, trembling now.
She stood with a
humph
and walked for the door. She was the only being on the planet who would dare make such statements. Glenn watched her bulging profile and fought an urge to leap after her and pound her into the tile. Beatrice turned at the door. “When was the last time you took a bath?”
“Out! Out, out!” he thundered.
She drilled him with a sharp stare and then strutted off with her chin level and proud, as if she'd somehow set him straight.
Glenn slammed a fist onto the desk and stormed for the far wall. He hit the glass with both palms and it shuddered under the blow. One of these days it would break and send him tumbling to his death. He pressed his forehead against it and peered at Atlanta, stretched out like a toy city. Nothing down there seemed to have changed in the last few minutes. It was still gray and green and scampering with ants.
“Where are you, Helen?” he muttered. “Where are you?”
THE CADILLAC rolled through Atlanta's western business district, silent except for the air conditioner's cool blast. They passed a large shiny Woolworth's storefront on their right; pedestrians strode along the sidewalk smartly dressed in dark business suits and dresses. Jan collected his thoughts before turning to Helen.
“So. Who were they?”
She looked out her window. “Do preachers always drive such expensive cars?”
“I'm not a preacher. I'm a writer. I wrote a book that did well.”
“I suppose you take it any way you can get it. Not that I don't approve; I do. I just didn't expect your shiny white ride to fly in just when it did, that's all.”
“I'm glad I could be of service. Which leads us back to my first question. Who were those two men?”
She shifted her eyes back to the passing road. “Where are we going?”
“To a friend's house. If I'm not mistaken, I just risked my neck back there for you. The least you can do is tell me what for.”
“They were two of Glenn's men.”
“And Glenn? Tell me about Glenn.”
“You don't want to know about Glenn, Reverend.”
“Please don't call me Reverend anymore. And again, I think I've earned the right to know about Glenn.”
She smiled at him, a tad condescending. “Yes, I suppose you have, haven't you? But trust me, you don't
want
to know about Glenn. He's like a prisonâjust because you've earned a stay doesn't mean you
want
to go. But then you've probably never been to prison, have you?”
The notion to wallop her upside the head with one of his books crossed his mind. And then another thought: that even a year ago the impulse wouldn't have entered his mind at all. He stared at a hardcover copy of his book that peered at them from the seatpocket netting. Its surrealistic image of a man's bloodstained face stretched in laughter against a bright red sky even now seemed to mock him. Ivena was right, he'd seen too much.
Jan spoke without removing his eyes from the book. “Actually, I have spent time in prison. Five years.”
Her grin softened slowly. Jan spoke while he had the advantage. “And yes, I do want to know about any man who threatens my life, regardless of the situation.”
“What prison?”
“Tell me.”
She turned away. “I told you. Glenn Lutz.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “Yes, but you didn't tell me
who
Glenn Lutz is.”
She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “I can't believe you've never heard of Glenn Lutz. The developer? He's even on the city council, although God knows he's got no business there.”
“And he's the kind of man that would have henchmen?”
“He's got money, doesn't he? When you've got money, you've always got something going on the side. In Glenn's case he's got a whole ton of money. And if people knew what he had going on the side . . .” She let the statement go. “Trust me, Preacher, you don't
ever
want to know him.”
She flipped her stringy tangles back and ran her fingers through them in a futile combing attempt. Her pale skin was smooth; her jawline sloping back to a fair neck, like a delicate wishbone. She closed her eyes, suddenly sobered by her account of Glenn Lutz.