The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel Read online

  There was a slight hesitation in his voice when he answered, but he couldn’t say no. It had been three days since he had talked to Ted, and that conversation hadn’t been too reassuring to start with. After he’d had a chance to go over the data Ted had sent him, he’d almost gone crazy with worry, and still no phone call.

  “Alright then, I’ll see you at six thirty. How will I recognize you?”

  “No problem Mr. Dawson, I’ll make a reservation in my name. The hostess can show you to the table when you get there. See you then.” He cut the connection and walked back to the bar. The Daily Planet was across the street. That didn’t give Dawson time to go home through the rush hour traffic and get back in time for the appointment. He would most likely stay in his office until it was time to meet.

  John sat and thought for a minute or two, then picked up the phone. “Beth, can you get Theresa on the line for me please? I think she’s at home now, her dance class finished over an hour ago. I’ll wait.” He sat staring out of the window at the fabulous view of the lake off in the distance, with the receiver in his hand. He thought about the people in the little white dots floating across the water. All he could see from here was the white of the sails, but up close, it would be rushing wind, the tilt of the boat, whitecaps splashing the water onto your face. All quite exhilarating, if you were a sailor at heart. He preferred a cottage in the woods, miles from anyone. And they didn’t cost half as much as a good sailboat did. The line came alive.

  She had just stepped out of the shower, and was wrapped in multiple towels, the way women do after a shower, when the telephone started ringing. Her bare feet padded softly across the burgundy shag of the bedroom floor. The lines of her body and limbs flowed with liquidity and grace as she walked, betraying her for what she was. The most perfect of all professional dancers, a ballerina. A joy to behold when she was working, a pleasure to the eye even standing still.

  Adjusting the towel on her head so she could put the receiver to her ear, she answered the call. “Allô, c’est moi.” There was laughter in her voice as she talked. She couldn’t help herself, she was happy with life, and smiled about it quite often. She made those around her feel it too, it was that strong.

  “Therese, it’s me. How did your rehearsal go?”

  “Well, my love, it was dance, you know I enjoy it.” She had the habit of raising the pitch of her voice towards the end of a sentence, making a statement into a question. She got away with it because of her French accent. John thought it was beautiful. In reality it was just a regular Montreal accent. Cloaked in a voice that bubbled over with exuberance for everything it spoke of.

  “I miss you baby, it’s been a long day. Something’s come up though, and I’m going to be late, so I want you to go ahead and drive out to the cottage as soon as you’re ready. Don’t wait for me. I’ll come straight there when I’m finished. Pack a few things for me for the weekend, OK?”

  “Mais évidemment, mon chéri. What is it that you must to do?”

  “Just a last-minute meeting, I should be through by eight o’clock or so, and I’ll be at the cottage by nine at the latest. You’ll do as I ask?”

  “My darling, I obey you explicitly, yes?”

  “Yes, as always.” She could see in her mind’s eye his smile at the joke she made.

  “I will have some nice hot soup for you when you come, n’est pas?”

  “That sounds good baby, ok I’ve got to go now, I’ll see you at nine. Bye-bye.”

  “Au revoir, chéri.” She hung up the phone and started getting ready for the weekend. It would be nice to get the chance to drive the Jaguar for a change. Whenever John was with her, he drove, and he never asked her if she would like to. He just never thought of it. She hummed to herself as she prepared the few things she would take with her.

  At exactly 3:50 PM, Enrico walked out of the pub and down the block to the Citecorp Bank Tower, and entered the main doors. The rain had cut back to a mild mist, and didn't seem to be inhibiting the traditional four o'clock exodus.

  The lobby was in full flow, with people coming and people going. Mostly going. He walked swiftly to the elevators, entered a car and punched the button for the twenty sixth floor. There would be no-one to say he had been there, because no-one could pick an anonymous face from a crowd that size. The trick was to never look anyone in the eye. Always fit in, and always travel in a crowd.

  He got off on the twenty-sixth floor and walked slowly down the hall to the left. Special Projects Department. The main workforce finished at five, but for now, he had to be careful. No-one was in sight as he stopped in front of the door marked "Maintenance", and slipped a set of lock-picks out of the inside of his wallet. The German made lock held up for about four or five seconds before it emitted an audible click. Stepping inside he shut the door behind him and pulled out a mini-flash, shining it around the ten-foot square room in a once-over. Satisfied, he switched it off and sat down against the back wall, surrounded by the tools of the janitorial trade.

  Immersed in blackness, he settled within himself, and felt the calm descend. He was in his natural state now. So many times he had played this role, so many times he had won accolades from those who employed him. They didn't understand though, not really. This was what he lived for. The Moment. This was what made it all worthwhile, all the waiting, in between assignments. Putting up with the day to day rituals of obeisance to those who commanded his life. He laughed at them at times like these. Inwardly, of course. They paid him with money, and provided him with all the comforts of the modern age, thinking that would buy his loyalty. If they only knew the truth. This was what he really wanted. This was the only thing he really needed, but it would never do to let them know. The truth was something that cut you down, left you in the slums like the other losers he had started his life with. Where were they now? Dead, or wishing they were dead and not having the guts to do the job themselves. His mind drifted back, unbidden, over twenty-two years, and brought up the vision of Paolo. His young face smiled at him with the love they had known, all those years ago. He thought there was a sense of forgiveness about him, like Paolo was finally beginning to understand that it hadn't been his decision. He would have no say in the matter at all. When you stole from a Brazilian street drug lord, you had to pay.

  The maintenance closet was warm, and the sweat rolled down his face. He waited, motionless, with the electric floor polishers, sanitary supplies, brooms and cleansers.

  Every little while he switched on the mini-flash, and checked his wristwatch. The fine Swiss movement of his timepiece checked off the minutes with absolute accuracy.

  At exactly 5:35 PM, he rose up and placed his ear to the door. After a full minute of careful listening, he slowly twisted the handle, and stepped out into the hall. A quick glance in both directions confirmed that the hallway was empty. He walked several doors down and turned the handle on the door to the suite of offices occupied by the Assistant VP's of the Special Projects Group. The door was locked. He blinked twice, rapidly, and reached inside his wallet once again. The door swung open noiselessly, and he slipped in locking it behind him. The receptionists' area was dimly lighted, and there was not a soul in sight. He allowed himself the ghost of a smile as he made his way deeper into the office.

  Around to the right of the receptionists' desk was a doorway with a gold lettered plaque on it. The plaque read 'J. Dawson Asst. V.P.’. There was a bright light filtering through under the door, indicating occupancy. Or someone who was forgetful.

  John Dawson believed that the world truly was his oyster, and he worked hard to prove it. Lately things had been changing from pretty damn good, to goddamn fantastic. All he had to do was maintain this momentum for another two months at most, and he would have everything he ever wanted, and then some. It made him want to cry with happiness when he stopped to think about it. He was only twenty-seven years old, and he had it beat. The only fly in the ointment was Ted. He hadn’t called since the other night, and he had said he would. Joh
n understood now just how important this whole thing had become. Enrico entered.

  He walked quickly over to the desk, and even as John rose to question or protest or whatever it was he had in mind it was over. Enrico had him in his hands. Enrico’s' hands moved faster than any hands John had seen in his lifetime, and they were very strong hands indeed. Enrico’s training in the arts of persuasion had taken place in a little village outside of Osaka, where a Buddhist monastery masked the last remains of a once powerful subsidiary of the Samurai Warrior Brotherhood, dedicated not to conquest in battle, but to the art of silent assassination and the occasional interrogation. His training had nearly killed him, quite literally. The mere fact that he had survived his four years at the monastery made him a very dangerous man indeed.

  The pain from the grip on John’s' neck instantly paralyzed him, along with any sound he had been about to make.

  Enrico dropped him back down into the chair he had just vacated, turning his head forcefully to his own face. "I want you to listen very carefully to my words Mr. Dawson, or they will be the last words you will ever hear. Do you understand?" At that point he applied pressure to his grip in a way that left no doubt about who was in control. He didn't wait for a response, knowing that it wasn't possible for his victim to vocalize without his releasing the hold he had on him. "We know about your brother. We know that he gave you the data."

  His mind flashed with pain and fear. Fear for Ted as well as himself. Big, big fear. "I want you to give me the entire list of passwords to all of your accounts on the computer system, at all levels. I want you to tell me the name of the file which contains the geophysical survey data. Then I want the names of the people you have told. The people who know." The pain was like John had never known before. He wanted to scream. In fact, he was screaming. He was screaming so hard he thought his heart would burst out of his chest, but nothing was coming out of his mouth. He also couldn't breathe. He hadn't noticed it at first, but it was beginning to intrude on the pain, as incredible as that seemed. It was all very removed from any physical type of reaction, it appeared that he was totally paralyzed, and that he would die within moments and that was that.

  Enrico changed his grip, and suddenly the pain went away, just as quickly as it had come. Now his chest began to heave as he breathed once more, and his mind began to work, telling him to give this man anything and everything he wanted, just so that he would go away. Enrico applied the pressure again, just so. John Dawson screamed silently once more, his mind began to crack. He was a banker after all, just a banker. Enrico let up on his grip.

  He grabbed a notepad from the corner of the desk and slapped it down in front of John. "Write," he said flatly. John picked up his gold Waterman's pen and started to write. There were beads of sweat all over his face and his shirt was soaked front and back. His fear was palpable. Within ninety seconds Enrico had totally broken him. He didn't care why he was writing, and he didn't care who he was writing for, he was just writing.

  His lips trembled as he sat there at his desk giving away all of his big hopes. It was a short list and as he finished, his mind turned to the people he had told his secret to. There were only two. Weldon Marsh, who didn't know the whole story, and his fiancée Therese, who knew nothing except the fact that there was something going on, and just maybe, what the key was. His trembling hand wrote the name of Weldon Marsh on the notepad. He dropped the pen with a little sob, his eyes turning to Enrico’s', pleadingly, but finding only cold stone.

  John started to cry softly, never doubting this stranger, knowing that he was going to die, but hoping that he wasn't, because hope was all he had.

  Enrico stepped back, releasing his hold, and spoke in a quiet voice. "It's alright, you've been very helpful. Just relax and don't think about it anymore. I'm going to leave now." John Dawson’s face changed like flipping a switch. All of a sudden there was a relief, a hope and a prayer of thanks, all in one. He didn't care how it happened that the stranger was going to leave, just that he would leave. He started to thank the stranger, in a tearful voice, but he never had a chance to finish offering his thanks.

  Enrico pulled a black pen-like tube from his inner pocket and pointed it at John and whuffed quietly. John's eyes went wide, showing the surprised shock of final realization. He seemed frozen, then slowly, he slumped over on his desk with a dart in the side of his neck. His eyes were seeing but his body was beyond any voluntary control. His mind started to drift. He was dancing with his fiancée Therese at the Club En Haut, the lights swirling around them as they party'd into the night…, the night…, Therese… His heart continued to beat, and his lungs continued to breathe. The automatic functions were working for now, but not for too much longer.

  Enrico picked up the notepad and pulled off the top several pages. He then logged onto the terminal on the desk in front of him, smiling fully now, giving the banker an occasional sideways glance. This was what made it all worthwhile. The years of training, the years of discipline. He accessed the appropriate accounts, in the way that Heidi Meir had taught him. He didn't really know or understand computers, but he was one of those rare individuals with an eidetic memory. With Enrico, you only had to show him how to do anything once. He wasn't capable of forgetting. That was his power, and his living torment.

  He deleted the files in question, ran a file name check on the remaining accounts accessible to J. Dawson, and finding nothing, switched over from remote to local mode, giving him control over the PC's internal hard drive, which was isolated from the banks' network. He invoked a format routine which would wipe the entire disk clean. While the format was working, he stood in front of the PC, as if at attention. When it finished, he checked his watch, and nodding to himself, he reached out and pushed the power switch to the off position and walked out of the office without a backward glance. The whole thing had taken exactly twenty minutes.

  The time was five fifty-five, and four minutes later at five fifty-nine, he was walking out of the street level stairwell exit, onto Richmond Avenue. Feeling fresh and ready for whatever life had in store for him. As it happened, he knew exactly what that was. At least for the next hour or two. Then it was Flight CA8980 for Paris, scheduled to depart at 11:50 PM. Plenty of time. Enrico walked down the street away, despite the continuing drizzle of rain, and then flagged a cab. As he got into the back seat, he checked the driver’s license, and seeming to be satisfied, gave the driver an intersection about half a block from John Dawson’s apartment. It was about a fifteen-minute drive. As his cab pulled away from the curb, Therese Sauvé was locking the door of the apartment, picking up the carry-all she had packed for the weekend, and heading down to the garage, to the Jaguar, and her weekend getaway with her fiancé.

  ~

  Chapter One

  Toronto, June 18, ‘96

  I

  t was a day like any other day. In other words, it hurt to wake up, but there's never much choice with that in my line of work. Either you wake up—the lucky part—and it hurts, or you never wake up again, in which case the hurting part becomes irrelevant.

  I ran that Mickey Spillane thing through my head, just to see if it helped. It seemed that things hadn’t changed much from the day before. I was still having a hard time with the tough guy routine.

  I had finished a job for a corporate client the previous afternoon, and had spent the rest of the day wrapping up. For this particular case, that meant a quick trip to the E.R. over at my neighbourhoods local back-street M.D.’s office. The benefits of using Doc Verley instead of a real hospital, with real doctors, were actually quite numerous. The lack of wait-time, 4-5 hrs. at Lakeview General, was a biggie. The lack of reporting and records, which has enabled me to keep my clients on more than one occasion, was, in my mind, politically correct.

  The clients I worked for tended to view any form of violence as a major complication, even when it happened to someone else. At that point things would typically get handed over to the police, who were so much better prepared for it.
Supposedly. I think it was because they carried guns and I didn’t. The police, I mean.

  The most important benefit of all though, was Doc’s ability to consider the needs of a friend. To Doc Verley this was more than enough justification to ignore the laws of the land and administer whatever medical help was needed, based on the moment at hand.

  The laws of the land said that currently, Doc had no right to practice medicine in any form, as he had been removed from the roles of practicing physicians for several years now. He had a good disposition, and was, generally speaking, a fine fellow. For a doctor. His one bad habit was that he drank too much. Some people tend to view this as alcoholism, which has very negative connotations for a medical practitioner. I felt that it gave him an interesting edge in his overall outlook on life. He always seemed to be in an exceedingly cheerful, if somewhat detached mood. This fact allowed him to accept the occasional bottle of Beefeaters' London Dry as an ongoing retainer for the services which intermittently required rendering.

  The truth was, he had plenty of money of his own, having been a very successful Internal Specialist of some sort for many years before losing his license.

  I guess it was the loyalty to friend’s aspect that kept me coming back. That and the fact that the cost of a medical insurance plan would have sent me running for cover. My current business overhead was limited, but it still strained my wallet paying the bills every month.

  Despite his actual financial health, Doc insisted on renting instead of owning, and he rented in an area that most of his old contemporaries would not consider driving through, never mind living in. My neighbourhood, of course, which naturally endeared me to him.

  This particular trip resulted in a confirmation of what I had already known. My current line of work was hazardous to my health, and the older I got the more hazardous it became. Apparently, I had an extremely lucky right shoulder. It had been dislocated instead of broken. I suppose luck is a relative concept, and you have to accept it as it comes.