Free Body of Truth by David L Lindsey Page B

fingers. Haydon swallowed. Blood was everywhere, splashed, dribbled, spattered, smeared, cast off, and flung, but—Haydon grasped at a thin reason to hope—none pooled. All of this had been shed in some kind of wild frenzy, but whoever had lost it had not stayed here long enough to make a puddle.
    Suddenly Haydon heard the doorknob behind him click, and he spun around to watch the wooden door drift gracefully open just as slowly as it had drifted open for him. But the doorway was empty, and then a cat shot out of the passageway and into the plantains, and Taylor Cage stepped into the yellow haze, stuffing a huge handgun into the waistband of his trousers.

CHAPTER 9
    “H ello, Haydon,” Cage said. He hesitated a moment, almost as if he were giving Haydon the time to look him over, size him up, gather his nerves. He was about Haydon’s height, but much more bulky, his familiar barrel chest now accompanied by some additional poundage, though he still carried himself in a solid, surefooted manner that indicated he was action-ready. His fair-to-pinkish skin was weather cured with a recent sunburn that was almost finished peeling on the humped bridge of his straight nose, his glaucous eyes were unchanged. He was wearing his kinky gray hair a little shorter now, but it was just as thick as it had been a decade earlier.
    Keeping his eyes on Haydon, he came through the door and stopped just inside and pulled a pack of cigarettes from the chest pocket of his guayabera, which he wore with the tail out as was the fashion, and lighted one without offering any to Haydon.
    “You knew I was here, didn’t you?” he said, blowing the smoke away from them. He was perspiring, his forehead loaded with beads and a rivulet at his right temple.
    “‘Here’ outside, or ‘here’ in Guatemala?”
    Cage looked at Haydon. “Christ, you haven’t changed any, have you. Okay, let’s see, let’s try ‘here’ in Guatemala first.”
    “Yes.”
    “The street?”
    “Of course not.”
    Cage turned slightly so that his back wasn’t to the doorway but against the wall. He looked outside into the courtyard and then turned back. The handgun stuck in his waistband was clearly visible through the thin material of the guayabera.
    “I don’t know where your friend is,” he said.
    “Do you know what happened?” Haydon was having a hard time controlling the adrenaline. He didn’t even want to think about what might have gone on here.
    “No.”
    “You were here earlier?”
    Cage pulled on his cigarette and nodded. Haydon had noticed that he was smoking a Guatemalan brand. Cage was a firm believer of when-in-Rome, even when Rome had pretty nasty cigarettes.
    “I was here about half an hour ago.” He looked around. “Shocked the shit out of me.” He wiped a thick hand across his forehead, smeared the sweat, and wiped his hand on the tail of the guayabera.
    “How did you know I was here?”
    “When I got here, saw all this, I backed out, went down the street and made some telephone calls. On my way back, I heard a car coming down the street and ducked into a doorway.” He nodded toward the other side of the street. “Saw you get out of the cab and go in the passageway here. When I saw the light come on I walked across.”
    “Why didn’t you make your calls from here?”
    “I wanted them to be private.”
    “His telephone was tapped, even here?”
    Cage sighed. “This is a long story, Haydon. We need to get out of here. Come on. I’ve got a car around the corner.”
    Haydon was reluctant to leave. “You went through the place?”
    “Sure. There’s nothing. Cleaned out.” If he wasn’t lying, if he really had gone through the place, then Haydon could believe there was nothing to turn up. Cage knew how to go over a scene.
    Cage turned and Haydon picked up his bag and followed him. At the door he stopped, turned around for one last look at the room, snapped off the light, and closed the door behind him. They returned down the dim