She had to admit, though, she’d been scared. The kind of people Chapel worked for could do things to you. They could make you disappear, if you didn’t do what they said.
“Did Rupert Hollingshead send you?” she demanded now.
The little man’s smile just grew. “That’s kind of funny, actually. That you would think that. No, I’m with a different agency. I’m a civilian.”
“CIA?”
The little man just smiled. She wasn’t going to get an answer there.
“Listen, I just came by to show you something.” The little man took a piece of paper out of his pocket. It was folded untidily into a little, thick square. He unwrapped it fold by fold and then handed it to her. She saw it was a printout of a photograph. It was black and white and the resolution wasn’t very good, but she could make out what it showed all right.
It showed two people standing on what looked like a hotel balcony. One of them was Chapel, definitely. She didn’t know the other one — a woman with black hair, wearing a very skimpy nightgown.
In the picture Chapel was… touching her.
He had his hand in her panties.
Julia put a hand over her mouth, because she didn’t want the little man to see her reaction to the image.
“That was right after you dumped him,” the little man said. “Can you imagine? He couldn’t even wait for a decent interval.”
She threw the piece of paper back at him. “What the hell is your problem? Why would you show me this?”
“I just wanted you to know you made the right decision,” the little man said. Her anger seemed to surprise him. “I wanted you to see what kind of man Jim Chapel is.”
“Get out,” she said. “Get out! And never come back!”
The little man ducked his head — it wasn’t quite a nod — and headed for the door. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again,” he told her.
She just stared at him, her emotions so large they threatened to turn her inside out.
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” he said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAVID WELLINGTON was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the city where George Romero shot his classic zombie films. The acclaimed author is most famous for his online zombie serial, the Monster Island trilogy, which was later published by Three Rivers Press. In 2006 he began serializing 13 Bullets, a vampire novel, at www.thirteenbullets.com. He lives in New York City.