Walk a Black Wind by Michael Collins

see it her way.”
    She looked up at me again. “Then, the very next day after she said she was going to finish with Dresden, and was so low, she suddenly was all excited again. It was strange, Mr. Fortune. Almost manic, you know? That day she vanished.”
    I waited, but that was it. “You have no idea what had happened, Felicia?”
    â€œNo,” she said. “Fran talked to Grandfather Van Hoek that day, but he was very sick, you know, and she was going away. I wanted to ask him if he’d said anything special to Fran, but he got sicker when she left, and died a few days later. Mother and Dad were with him when he died, but they said he hadn’t told them anything about Fran.”
    â€œYou asked all her other friends if they said anything? Or knew anything?”
    She nodded. “Fran didn’t have many friends in Dresden. We’d been away in college, and the last two years Fran didn’t even come home in the summer. She worked out there in California with field workers. That’s when she started to, dress so wild and strange, too.”
    She finished her cigarette, and looked for somewhere to put her coffee mug down. My coffee table was beside her, but she hesitated, as if she’d never seen a table where you could put down a mug without finding a coaster first.
    â€œAfter she left,” I said, “did you hear from her?”
    She nodded. “Twice. She wrote to a friend Mother and Dad don’t know, Muriel Roark, and enclosed notes for me. She told me not to tell anyone, and didn’t give any return address, anyway. All she wrote was that she was fine, was finding out what was real, things like that.”
    â€œYou don’t know where she wrote from?”
    â€œThe second letter was from New York.”
    â€œAny names? What she was doing? Why she was in New York? Where she’d been that first month away from home?”
    â€œNo,” she said, “nothing like that.”
    â€œNo, damn it!” I swore, stood up. “You came down here because you know something. Enough to make you think I might have some answers you want. Tell me what you know.”
    She stood too. “I don’t know anything.”
    â€œYou said someone followed you. Don’t try to chase down a killer alone. You’ll only get hurt.”
    Her face was pale. “Just … tell me who hired you.”
    â€œI told you no one hired me.”
    â€œI … I don’t believe you.”
    â€œAll right,” I said. “I can’t let you risk your own life. You’ll have to convince the police you don’t know anything about Francesca.”
    I went to the telephone. Her hand went into her small handbag. The little, silver, .22-caliber automatic in her hand was like a toy. I have as much courage as most men, and the odds were 99-1 she wouldn’t shoot, and better that she wouldn’t even hit me. At least, those were the odds if she knew much about guns. I didn’t think she knew much, and that scared me.
    â€œPut it away,” I said. “The police will help—”
    â€œNo!” she cried. “How do I know who you’re really going to call? I don’t know who you’re working for or why!”
    I reached for the receiver. “You call the police, then—”
    The little pistol exploded with a toy bang. The bullet wasn’t a toy. I don’t know where it went. I froze.
    â€œStand … still,” she said.
    She picked up her coat, backed to my door, and went out. I didn’t chase her for five minutes. Then I went down to the street. Up at the corner I saw a taxi pull away. I went back upstairs.. It was just after 7 P.M. If I drove fast, I could be up in Dresden before nine-thirty.
    I called John Andera at his office to get his home number. He was still in his office. I told him about Abram Zaremba and the land deal, and that I was going up to Dresden. I’d get my expenses later.
    I