Read Online Accelerated by Vaughn Heppner - Free Book Online

Mexican people. The service was in Spanish, which was fine with me. They were nice people, wearing bright clothes. More than one man nodded to me, smiled and spoke in broken English.
    I listened to the sermon, understanding not one word. But that was okay. Just being here was the thing. I wondered sometimes if God was punishing me for all my killing. That brought to mind the ex-Mossad agent telling me about the guilt that someday in old age would come back to haunt me. I’ve heard people say this Earth was Hell. Yet I’d heard a street preacher say once that people weren’t served beer, vodka or whiskey in Hell. I’d always thought that a telling point.
    The collection plate came by. It’s what I had been waiting for. I put ten percent of the money I’d taken from Chinese Intelligence into the plate. If God was punishing me and possibly itching to do more, I figured this was the best way to cover my bets.
    With Kay reentering my life, I had the feeling this was only the first part of what would prove to be an ugly drama.
    Sometimes I hated being right.

-6-

    A week passed. Then one day around ten in the morning, Blake hammered at my bedroom door on the Alamo . I’d taken him night fishing for the past several days, although we were docked now.
    “Gavin!” he shouted. “Wake up. You have to see this.”
    I wanted to fire a warning shot with my Browning and tell him to go away. What was he doing up so early?
    “Gavin, can you hear me?”
    I rolled out of bed, ran my fingers through my hair and flung open the door. “What in the—”
    Blake shoved a folded newspaper in my face. It was the Los Angeles Times, dated yesterday.
    “Just tell me,” I said.
    He jerked the paper away, muttering, glancing around. Then he flipped on a passageway light. It made me wince and almost slam the door in his face. His fingers tightened so he crinkled the newspaper.
    Blake read, “The City of Long Beach registered its twentieth fatality this year when Ms. Kay Durant was struck and killed 11:45 Thursday night while jaywalking across 1400 Center Street, a block from the Togos restaurant where she had been eating. Dan Chester Lee, driver of the laundry truck that struck and killed the Durant woman, claimed that he did not see her until the moment of impact when she apparently darted out from between two parked cars and into the path of the vehicle. Ms. Durant, who lived alone at 600 Washington Street, was employed by Polarity Magnetics, Wayside Park, Long Beach. Police are investigating the accident and no charges have as yet been filed.”
    Blake lowered the paper.
    I snatched it, reading the story, remembering how Kay had run onto the street near Fisherman’s Wharf. Had she done that again in Long Beach?
    “Polarity Magnetics,” Blake said pointedly.
    I grunted, rereading the story, wondering what had really happened.
    “Did she run out on the street?” he asked. “Or did someone push her?
    I shoved the paper against Blake’s chest so he bumped against a bulkhead. I squeezed past him, hurried up the stairs and into the lounge. There, I poured myself a drink. I let the cubes clink in my glass as I swirled and swirled.
    Kay was dead. I couldn’t believe it. She had been good for Dave. He used to love stroking her legs. She’d survived the terrible accident in Geneva, survived working for the Shop and now some useless laundry truck had run her over. I shook my head. It hadn’t been a useless laundry truck. I doubted it had been an accident at all. Her insurance hadn’t worked: the cube supposedly in my possession. People had hunted her down and killed her. Had she died because those people knew I’d dumped the cube into the ocean? No. That didn’t make sense. Besides, it didn’t matter now. Kay was dead. She was gone.
    I drank the vodka and poured myself more. Kay was dead, and Kay had carried a box here, bringing me a cube to watch. What had been so important about the big cube? I’d never know, and I didn’t care