Zero Day (John Puller 1)

“Because I am lonely,” she said.

He looked at the others in the crowded bar.

“I don’t see how that’s possible. I’ve seen you in here before. The men are very friendly towards you.”

She pulled out a cigar

ette and asked him for a light.

He produced the match, struck it, and ignited the end of her smoke. He waved the match out and gazed again at her.

She took a puff, blew the smoke to the stained ceiling where a fan with bamboo blades slowly moved the hazy air from one side of the bar to the other. It was hotter in here. He could feel the sweat stain his armpits.

“You are not local,” she said in English.

“I know I’m not. But you are?”

“Since I was in the womb. Why do you come here?”

“Why does anyone go anywhere?”

“I have never been anywhere. I would like to get away from this place.”

“To get away.”

“What?”

He felt the urge to talk to her, he wasn’t sure why. Maybe he was lonely too. “That’s why I’m here. To get away.”

“To get away from what?”

“Life.”

“Was your life so bad?”

“Pretty bad. But also pretty good.”

“You are not talking sense.”

He sat straighter on the bar stool. “It does make sense. If you put it in context.”

She gazed at him, obviously perplexed. “Context? What is this context?”

He finished his drink and tossed up his hand, ordering another. It was produced a few seconds later and he drank that down too, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. He wiped sweat from his forehead.

“Context is everything. It’s truth. It’s really the only thing that matters.”

“You talk funny, but I like you.” She swept one hand through his hair. Her touch, and her smell, awoke something in him.

He thought he now understood why she had come to him in the bar.

He paid for his drink and then for hers.

She kept her hand on his shoulder, and then it dipped to the small of his back. He kept one hand near his wallet, but he was reasonably sure that wasn’t what she was after. Well, in a way she was.

Money.

For services.

He had a desire to be serviced.

They left the bar thirty minutes later. They walked back to his hotel. It was only five minutes. It was the best hotel in the city, and it was still a dump. But he was not going to be staying here. Not for long, anyway.

They went up to his room at the top of the stairs. He took off his hat and his jacket and let them fall to the floor. She unbuttoned his shirt, helped him off with his shoes. When his pants were off, she said, “Give me a few minutes to freshen up.” He put his hand on her substantial rump and squeezed. She kissed him on the neck. His hand went under her skirt and glided over smooth flesh.

She kissed him again, tonguing his cheek, his ear.

His other hand reached for her breasts, but she was gone. Off to the bathroom. To freshen up. He lay back on the bed, in the dark. The ceiling fan whirred overheard. He watched it, counted the revolutions, then closed his eyes, waited for the bathroom door to reopen, see her silhouetted there. Perhaps naked, perhaps nearly so. His life had changed so much in such a short period of time.

It was both terrifying and exhilarating.

Then a man said, “Hello, Bill. It’s time we talked.”

CHAPTER

93

BILL STRAUSS SAT UP when he heard the man’s voice. His body started to tremble. It was an immediate, visceral reaction that was paralyzing.

He watched as the silhouette came forward. The bathroom door opened, the woman slipped through it and then out of the room, closing the door behind her.

A setup. He had fallen for it.

The silhouette turned to hard flesh.

The man stood in front of Strauss and looked down.

John Puller said, “You’re a long way from Drake, West Virginia, Bill.”

Strauss just sat there staring upward at the far bigger man.

Puller grabbed a chair, flipped it around, and sat down facing Strauss. In his right hand was one of his M11s.

“How did you know? The fact that I ran for it, I guess?”

“Actually, I knew before then. You’re not a good liar. I could read you pretty easily the night we came by the house to tell you your son was dead. At Trent Exploration you were the second banana. But you wanted the bigger house. You were the brains and Roger was the front. Why should he get the lion’s share? And you were in the perfect position to rip him off. No one would suspect you, the money guy, because everyone assumed that if the business tanked, you would as well. But that wouldn’t be the case if you’d already taken all the cash. And the plans to the Bunker were in your safe, Bill. Not Roger’s. That was the clincher. You knew all about the place. And you figured out that Treadwell and Bitner had discovered the plans.”

Strauss’s head dipped low.

“Focus, Bill, I need you to focus.” Puller smacked the man on the shoulder and Strauss looked up at him.

“They killed your son, Bill.”

Strauss knuckled his thighs and nodded. “I know that. You know I know that.”

“But what are you going to do about it?”

“What can I do?”

“Your run is over. You’re going to prison for the rest of your life. But you can make amends. You have that opportunity. You can go out on your terms. That’s something.”

“No, I can’t. I can’t do that, Puller.”

Puller edged forward, his hand bringing up the M11 slightly.

Strauss eyed the gun. “Are you going to kill me? Is that why you’re here?”

“I came a long way to see you. And no, I’m not going to kill you. Unless you give me a reason to,” he added.

“I’m sorry about Sam.”

“I’m not here to talk about Sam. I’m here to talk about you.”

“How did you find me all the way down here?”

“I didn’t have to find you.”

Strauss looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t have to find you because I never lost you. We knew where you were at all times. We followed your path all the way down here, in fact.”

“I don’t understand. How did—”

Puller stood. “They killed Dickie, Bill. Shot him right in the head. You never intended that, did you?”

Strauss shook his head. “It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Never that way.”