Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Morning
Waverly put a nickle in the payphone every ten minutes but never got anything except ringing until just before her flight was called for boarding-then Su-Moon answered. She had big news. “A woman named Bobbi Litton got killed in Cleveland in May of last year,” she said. “She fell off a building in the middle of the night. Bristol killed her, I can feel it in my gut. Where are you by the way?”
Waverly explained.
She was getting ready to board a plane to follow Bristol and the spanked woman to Denver.
“Why are they going to Denver?”
“I don’t know,” Waverly said.
Silence.
“I know,” Su-Moon said. “He killed the woman there Friday night but now something’s gone wrong. For some reason it’s coming unraveled. He’s going there to clean it up.”
“What do you mean, unraveled?”
“I don’t know,” Su-Moon said. “Maybe there was a witness and he found out about it. Maybe he figured out that a hotel clerk or someone had too much information. I don’t know. Did you call that guy you know at Bristol’s firm, the Marlboro Man-”
“-Sean Waterfield-”
“-right, him. Did you call him to see if Bristol has business in Denver?”
“No.”
“Do it. If he doesn’t have business there, that means he’s going back to clean up a mess.” A beat then, “We’re to blame, no doubt. It’s because of the pressure we’re putting on him that he needs to be extra careful.”
“You think?”
Yes.
She thought.
“I’m going to go to Cleveland and run down Bobbi Litton’s murder,” Su-Moon said.
Waverly wrinkled her forehead.
“Why? This isn’t your fight.”
“It is now. We’re too close. Are you going to be staying at your house in Denver?”
“Apartment, not house.”
“Give me the number there.”
She did.
“I’ll call you,” Su-Moon said. “Be careful.”
“You too.”
Waverly dropped another nickel in the phone and dialed the Marlboro Man. “Where’s Bristol?”
A beat.
“Let’s have lunch,” he said.
“Can’t.”
“Sure you can.”
“Not today, honest. Where’s Bristol?”
“I don’t know. He left the office.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “He just up and left. Supposedly he won’t be back for a day or two.”
“Did he go somewhere on business?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Would you know, if that was the reason?”
“Yes, I’d know.”
Waverly exhaled.
“Thanks,” she said. “I don’t know if it means anything, but I actually do like being with you.”
“Then prove it.”
“Maybe I will but I can’t at the moment.”
Thirty minutes later she was buckled into a window seat of a shaky four-prop plane with the armrests in a death grip, swooping up into a turbulent cloudy sky.
Bristol.
Bristol.
Bristol.
I’m going to nail your ass so hard that they’ll hear your screams in China.