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EXCERPT FROM "THE JUDAS KNOT" BY PASTORDALE FREEMAN
World War Two is over, but Rachel knows little about peace in her own life. While confronting personal relationships that seem to be spinning out of control, she is led down a dark and dangerous path in search of a deadly specter that has seeped from the execution camps of Nazi Germany. The deadly cat and mouse game that ensues will ultimately lead to a discovery so unexpected that it will throw into doubt everything she has ever trusted and loved. Death always comes as a surprise. Even when anticipated, after a long illness or a family’s quiet deathwatch, the final moment when the spirit is expelled from mortal frame still brings a startling clarity to those who remain. Their own mortality is for an instant quite tangible, and the experience allows a fleeting glimpse of their own eminent departure. Adrian Bookman didn’t expect to die. Not at this particular moment. There was no warning, as if there ever is. Nothing but the warm Nevada night, with its fire-red sunset ablaze above the jagged mountains that rose like shark’s teeth above the barren plain. He sat at a corner table in the teeming casino of the Last Frontier Hotel, thumbing through a brochure touting the tiny roadside oasis that a few visionaries still believed would one day sparkle like a jewel in the desert. The first Spanish settlers had called the valley Las Vegas. “The Meadows.” The name didn’t fit the reality. There were no babbling brooks threading through lush green vegetation. No inquisitive deer grazing amidst shaded groves of protective trees. Perhaps it had been a Garden of Eden before man saw it for the first time. Perhaps, but not likely. Frank Detra had built the Pair O’ Dice along the desert road in 1931. Only open at night, it had offered good Italian food, dance bands, and more importantly gambling tables. But even with advertising touting artificially cooled air and drinking fountains made by General Electric, it hadn’t been able to attract enough customers to keep the doors open for any sustained period of time. It had taken a World War to ultimately bring a little more life to the valley with the subsequent opening of the El Rancho and Last Frontier. Several colorful roulette wheels clattered amidst the hushed gasps of the winners and the choked sighs of the more prevalent unfortunates. Outside and inside bets, made by patrons who could afford to lose, intermingled with those who were gambling everything on a transient dream or demonic whim. A young woman shrieked, suddenly realizing that her straight-up bet had yielded her a prize. Her choice of putting all her chips on a particular colored possibility had yielded a return of her investment at 35 to 1. The middle-aged man who served as her companion smiled with mock amusement, much like a dog owner who has finally taught his collie to fetch. Beyond them, a stone-faced dealer continued to slip cards from the wooden shoe atop his Blackjack table, those around him apparently unaware or ignoring the 20 percent drop percentage of the casino. When the evening was over, an average Joe Gambler would lose $20.00 for every $100.00 he had begun the festivities with. Adrian smiled smugly. He was going to leave this money pit a winner. No slip bets or street bets. No pairs or point counts. His career hadn’t been established on chance. The job of a private detective was to know the odds, discover facts for a fee, deliver the evidence, and cash in the chips. He unfolded the scrap of paper in his hand, memorizing the details before tearing it into small pieces. The directions to the appointed rendezvous were precise. At five minutes past nine he was to dutifully deliver his findings to his benefactor and collect his well deserved bounty. Reviewing his drink tab, he dropped ample currency onto the table, stood erect to adjust the broad lapels on his jacket, and navigated through the losers, reminding himself that promptness was always a true mark of a professional in any walk of life. Outside the hall, he paused before a mirror encircled by stone masonry sculpted by Navajo artisans from Gallup and Santa Fe. He leaned forward slightly, tilting his head to examine the dark rings beneath his weary eyes. The journey from Seattle had been arduous, even though he had taken the bus company’s slogan to heart and left the driving to them. He pressed onward, down the stairs of split logs, through the tall lobby crowned with a huge double fireplace framed by Pancho Villa’s saddle and a collection of guns used by the west’s most famous and infamous practitioners of death. He became aware that most of the patrons were elsewhere, alternately eating, drinking and wagering their lives away. An occasional maid curtsied as he passed, but soon they too became as scarce as hen’s teeth. The voices, and music, and whine of gambling equipment was replaced by silence. A silence only broken by the sound of his own gait atop the polished floor. Gingerly prodding open ornate French doors, he slipped into the shadowed interior of The Carillo Room. Named after the actor Leo Carillo, the room was an octagonal tower that had been a part of the now defunct 91 Club that had been erected on the site years before. A large picture of Carillo, dressed in his ornate outfit astride his horse, hung suspended on the broad wall, highlighted by the faint illumination that poured in from the wagon-wheel ringed patio outside. Adrian remembered the first time he had seen the actor in the role of Pancho, the ever-faithful sidekick of The Cisco Kid. He could almost see him again, galloping in hot pursuit astride his cayuse Loco, calling to his handsome leader, “Hey Cisco!”. He glanced at his watch, discovering to his delight that he was punctual as usual. Slipping his hand into the pocket of his trousers, he assured himself that the key needed to unlock his findings was secure. A slight warm breeze flowed through the room, as if permitted access by the opening of another unseen portal. “Hello!” His greeting echoed slightly in the darkened room. “It’s Adrian Bookman. I have the information that was requested.” No reply. The headlights of some weary traveler’s car swept across Leo Carillo’s frozen features. Adrian moved deeper into the room, his trained hand sliding almost habitually to the holster beneath his arm. Always the professional and never a fool. Then the thin wicked instrument wrapped itself around his neck, constricting the muscular encasement of entangled tubes, nerves and blood vessels. Those essential structures connecting his brain from every vital organ were now cut off, leaving him with no breath beyond that which screamed from incarceration in his vacated lungs. He reached backward, his arms flailing, seeking to dislodge the unknown executioner who held him upright like some tangled marionette. Particles of darkness began to gather, swirling around him in an attempt to suck his spirit from his pain-racked frame. He opened his mouth, pathetically offering nothing more than a thick gurgle which shrank into a brittle death rattle. He finally collapsed onto the cold floor, his staring eyes rimmed in blood, his startled face and congested neck as red as the desert sunset he had admired only hours before. Above him Leo Carillo sat atop his horse, his trademark smile spread across his broad face. The painting looked more lifelike than the once living thing sprawled beneath it. You could almost hear his familiar cry... “Hey Cisco!” |
