The Reluctant Detective

by Finley Martin

  She hurried into the shadows along the side of the building. With her leather jacket zipped up she was almost invisible against the aging brick and stone wall of Cutter’s bar. She climbed onto the loading dock and surveyed the service door. It was large and solid. Anne measured up the side of the door to where the latch would be, about a third of the way up. She took the clear square of plastic from her pocket and positioned it on the outside of the door frame at latch level. A strip of clear packing tape held it firmly in place. An inch and a half of flexible plastic overlapped the door so that when the door opened and closed, the plastic would catch between door and frame and bend inward, preventing the latch from catching but allowing the door to close over it.

  Anne fingered the plastic and tape, making sure it was firmly in place and retreated half a dozen steps back from the door. She retrieved the rock she had picked out, wound up, and slung it as hard as she could against the door. The metal reverberated with a great clang in the dampness of the night and the rock bounced dully onto the concrete loading platform. Anne used the handful of seconds after she hurled the rock to sprint into the shadows of a nearby building. She crouched there and watched the door angrily pushed out. The tall thick silhouette of a man stood backlit in the doorway. His arms stretched out, holding door wide open with one hand and the other braced against the frame.

  Anne prayed that his hand wouldn’t slip down the frame and graze the plastic she had taped there. Another man came behind him. The two silhouettes gawked toward the street, back along the fence, and around the dim perimeter of the loading dock. The first man spotted the rock and kicked it off the platform.

  “Fuckin’ kids again,” muttered the second.

  Then the two silhouettes disappeared. The door closed behind them, and the corner turned dark once again. It wasn’t until then that Anne realized that she had been holding her breath all the while. So she gathered a few lungsful of air and gave herself a few minutes to gather her thoughts and calm her nerves. Then she walked toward the club, eased into the shadows, and mounted the loading platform. Her hand slid along the edge of the door until it felt the smooth touch of plastic and the curve of it vanish – trapped between the door and the frame.

  Thank god it held.

  Then she grasped the cold metal handle and pulled, increasing pressure ever so gradually until the door lifted a fraction of an inch and she felt the latch slip under the plastic shim.

  A sudden wave of doubt overcame her just before the service door cleared the jamb. Her hand stalled. Every thought fled. Her blood pulsed in her throat. And her eyes went half-blind.

  24

  Time hung heavily on Sean’s mind, or maybe it was the pain that made it seem that way. It came upon him in pulsations, like an ocean wave but with the unpredictability of a failing heart, and that made each stab of pain a tortuous surprise, and every moment of that hurt he attributed to… whom….

  Who was she… she knew about the money… said it was hers… but how could she track it down so quick? Less than a day. We were long gone before anybody could ID us. And nobody knew but Carson and me. Maybe she’s a cop, he thought, but dismissed that idea almost as speedily as it occurred to him. No, she didn’t flash a badge… and she would have arrested me… for spite, if nothing else. Besides she’s too small to be a cop… and that big guy didn’t look like a cop either… hired muscle.

  I hafta get outta here and talk to Cutter.

  Sean knew that Cutter would be furious about this. No way around it. But he would be savage if he were blind-sided and lost all that money. Sean wouldn’t want to face him after that. And then there was the embarrassment. Sean wondered if he would ever live down that… the story that some scrawny girl had taken him down. She… whoever she was… had made a fool of him. He wouldn’t forget it. Sometime soon she was going to pay… he’d beat her so ugly that no man would look at her again… no man would even poke her with a stick. That’d teach her a lesson.

  Revenge seemed an efficacious remedy for his pain. The longer Sean mulled over the humiliation he endured, the more rage he kindled. For a while he scarcely noticed his aching head or his burning eyes. He tugged at his bindings in a vicious bid to break free, but it was awkward being tied from behind. He jerked and twisted until he grew weary. Then he jerked and twisted some more until he felt a muscle pull in his shoulder. Only that crisp, new hurt finally convinced him that struggling was futile. The plastic ties still held. The old radiator was unmoved. And for all his effort a trickle of blood oozed from his wrist.

  Helpless and frustrated, Sean leaned back against the radiator. His mind returned to his pain, and his idle fingers restlessly traced the contours of the pipe and radiator to which he was attached.

  Then he touched something, and his mind came to life. His fingers had brushed against an imperfection. He had felt a rough edge at the bottom of the casting. It was small, but it was sharp and ragged, and he was sure that it made a tool good enough to wear away at his restraints. He only hoped he could make it work in time.

  After that, Sean focussed all his concentration and strength on chafing the plastic ties up and down against the edge of the cast iron. It was difficult, repetitive work, but Sean dug into it at a feverish pace. Before long, his body began aching. After ten minutes the muscles in his arms and shoulder were burning. After fifteen minutes, the last strand let go. At last he was free.

  Then he picked up the phone.

  25

  Anne’s panic before she broke into the Hole in the Wall was fleeting. The wave passed, her composure returned, and now she felt strangely cold, dispassionate, and clear-headed. She drew her arm back, taking the weight of the door, and opened it enough to reveal a crack of light. She put her eye to the gap.

  To her left, where the light came from, was another door. It was partly open. Through it she could hear the clink of glasses, the murmur of people, the sonorous thunk of beer bottles striking the wooden bar, and big speakers thumping out a Toby Keith song. She could see little, though – the edge of the counter at the bar; someone’s back, probably the bartender’s; nothing more.

  She opened the outside door enough to squeeze inside and took care to remove the plastic shim taped to the jamb, slipping it into her pocket – no point in letting them know how she got in – and let the door close softly behind her. From Sean’s description of the Hole in the Wall, Anne knew she was on a small landing which opened into the bar on one side and led to a flight of stairs on the other. The landing was unlit. So were the stairs. It was unlikely that anyone would see or hear her. Still, she remained cautious, careful not to trip on an uneven riser or step on a loose, noisy tread.

  On the second floor enough ambient city light filtered through two small windows that she could find her way. A hallway lay ahead. It stretched along the outside wall, above the bar, the coolers, and the washrooms. The far end of the hallway turned into another stairwell which descended to the main floor. Another door at the bottom probably opened into the foyer and the main door into Cutter’s saloon.

  Anne stood near the first hall window and examined her sketch of the place. It showed two doors opening off the hallway. The first led to a large storeroom. The second opened into a meeting room and two offices within it. Sean had said that Carson was in the storeroom, and he believed that Cutter had hidden the money there, too.

  Anne put her hand on the knob to the storeroom. No light seeped from beneath the door, and it swung open into a gulf of darkness and the sound of a whimper. Anne’s penlight threw a small beam onto the large frightened eyes of Carson White. Then she zigzagged the beam across the room until it fell upon the suitcase she had been searching for. Carson’s mouth was gagged, and he squirmed helplessly in a chair. Anne grabbed the handle of the valise, killed the light, and backed out of the room. As she left, Carson’s whimper intensified and deepened into a muffled wailing. He sounded like a calf bawling for milk. It was a pit
iful, abject display, but it was not one that Anne could disregard.

  So she came back, stood in front of him, and shone the light in his eyes.

  “Do you recognize me?” she asked.

  His head jerked up and down several times.

  “Do you want to stay here or come with me?”

  He muttered something urgently.

  “I’ll take that as a come-with-me.

  “Let me make things as clear as I can, kid. You’re in so far over your head that you’ve actually defied the laws of teenage stupidity. If you come with me, then you do what I say when I say it. Understand? If you mess with me, then I’ll either turn you over to the cops or, with my dying breath, I’ll convince Cutter that you tried to double-cross him. You can stay here and play with the boys downstairs if you want. No skin off me. Stay or go?”

  Carson grunted and jerked his head toward the door.

  “Okay then.” Anne loosened the gag around his mouth.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” she said as she untied his ropes. “And you may not want to later either,”

  she added.

  Carson stood up and moved about, trying to shake off the stiffness in his limbs. He looked at Anne questioningly.

  “Now listen. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going down the back stairs quiet as mice. How quiet?”

  “Quiet as mice?”

  “You got it. That means no talking, no whispering, no shuffling feet, no sound at all. You’re going to do that because you know who’s at the bottom of the stairs. Right?”

  Carson nodded.

  “I’ll go first. You follow. I’ll open the door and go out. You make sure that the door shuts without banging.” She motioned with her hand that she expected a response from him.

  Carson nodded again.

  “My car is just past the front of the club. That’s where we head once we’re outside. We don’t run. That will attract attention, especially when we cross in front of that video camera. Simple?”

  Carson stared at her numbly.

  “Okay then. Let’s do it.”

  Anne was two steps down the staircase, Carson close on her heels, when she heard a commotion in the lounge. The door below her opened, a light flicked on, and she was face to face with Cutter. Both of them were startled, but Anne moved first. She stepped back hurriedly, blundered into Carson, and fell backwards on the upper landing. Her grip on the valise loosened, and it almost slipped from her hand. Carson had fallen, too. Both scrambled to recover themselves. Cutter leapt up two steps at a time toward them. Anne reached for her .32; Carson’s hand fell back against a fold-up banquet table leaning against the wall. He grabbed the edge and flung it down the stairs. It landed flat, gliding like a toboggan. Cutter only had one foot planted on a tread when the table struck his shin and knocked him off balance. He fell forward on top of the table and crashed with it on the bottom landing.

  “Good job,” said Anne. “Your first step toward redemption.”

  Cutter had seen the glimmer of Anne’s pistol and decided not to go after her unarmed. So he snatched his 9mm from under the counter of the bar and, before he headed after them again, he shouted to the bouncer at the main door, “Nobody leaves! Nobody!”

  There were about thirty customers, mostly men, in the lounge. Nearly a dozen were club members or associates. The rest were wannabes or men who gained bragging rights by drinking elbow to elbow with tough guys. Eight or ten women drank and danced among them. A few were as tough as the men, bikers themselves – branded, tattooed, bold, and brassy – and one step down the criminal social ladder. Most of the other women needed to dance with trouble to feel alive, and sometimes they found more trouble than would keep them that way. When Cutter shouted to the bouncer at the door, they felt the electric thrill of trouble as well as a hint of personal danger and, if their instinct took them a step or two toward the exit, the look in the bouncer’s eyes stopped them cold. Instead, almost everyone cleared the dance floor and edged closer to the tables by the wall.

  Her original route of escape cut off, Anne retreated up the hallway hauling the valise with her. The bag was cumbersome. A million-and-a-half had some weight to it, and that slowed her down. Before she reached the end of the hall, she heard Cutter’s boots clambering up the steps and, by the time she reached the far stairwell, Cutter had mounted the upstairs landing.

  Cutter fired a shot just as Anne slid around the corner. She took cover there, squatted, and returned fire. The report of her pistol sounded like a toy cap gun next to Cutter’s 9mm noisemaker. But her shot was wide. The bullet splintered against the stone wall. Particles grazed Cutter’s leather vest; one fragment nicked his ear. She fired a second shot blindly, but that convinced Cutter that his position in the long hallway was too exposed. Even a bad shot could get lucky in those circumstances. So he fell back and clattered down the stairs again, hoping to catch her on the lower level.

  Anne used the sound of Cutter’s footsteps to guess that he was heading back the way he came. So, before Cutter could retreat to the end of the hallway, Anne and Carson rushed to the door at the bottom of the stairs. No time could be lost, but she knew that the bouncer would be somewhere in the foyer just past this side of the door. He had heard gunshots, knew that there was trouble, and was probably prepared for it.

  Anne hit the door hard. It burst open. She led with the valise in front of her as a shield and the .32 propped on top of it in her right hand. The bouncer was facing her when she entered the foyer. He wore dungarees and cowboy boots. He had long, dry-looking hair, thinning on top, and an untrimmed beard and moustache. A tank top covered a body full of tattoos and a belly spilling over a massive silver belt buckle. He was ready. He had no gun, but he had big hands like a boxer’s. Already he had taken a wrestler’s stance, legs slightly bent, arms and hands out and forward as if ready to catch a rain barrel.

  When he saw the size of Anne, he grinned. In fact, Anne thought he was about to laugh. Except for a blink of his eye, her gun didn’t seem to deter him. He studied it and said: “A Saturday Night Special? That little thing won’t stop me, babe.”

  The bouncer heard two small clicks as Anne pulled back the hammer on her pistol and fired between his legs. Anne could feel the adrenaline, and she didn’t care whether she hit him or not. The bouncer looked down, unsure if he had been hit. He had felt the wind of the bullet ruffle the baggy, denim covering his crotch. One hand dropped down to inspect for damage.

  “Look at that. It works on Thursdays, too,” said Anne. “Firing a bit low though. Lemme try that again.”

  The bouncer’s mouth gaped, his hands went up, and he stepped a few paces toward the lounge, but still close enough to jump her if she glanced away.

  “You’re still in my way, pork chop. Move it,” she said angrily. He backed farther out of the foyer and into the lounge.

  As he stepped back, Anne and Carson stepped forward. Another gunshot splintered wood on the edge of a short wall which divided the foyer from the main lounge. It came from the far side of the bar. As she stepped back, she glimpsed Cutter’s gun sighting for a clear shot. Warbling cries of panicky customers had followed the shot. A table tipped and drinks shattered on the floor. Someone was crying; someone else shouted, “Shut the hell up, dammit!”

  “Drop the bag and you can go,” shouted Cutter from his cover behind the end of the bar. He had a perfect view of the foyer. Two short walls framed it in and separated it from the lounge. The open area in between was about twelve feet. It might take two or three seconds to cross, but that was an eternity to anyone on the hot end of a shooting range. Should Anne and Carson make a break for it, Cutter had a perfect opportunity to stop them.

  Anne and Carson huddled near the foot of the stairs. She didn’t need to peek around the corner to see what Cutter was doing. One of the mirrors on the opposite wall reflected enough of what she w
anted to see. Hole in the Wall customers had crouched down or hugged the floor. The lounge had an empty look to it. At least, if she shot again, she wouldn’t hit an innocent customer, she thought. Then she spotted Cutter. The top of his head popped up near the end of the bar. Then another head appeared and dipped out of sight. The door behind him moved. Cutter’s blond hair bobbed up again. His gun jerked and fired, chipping another splinter of wood from the door frame above their head.

  “You can’t get out of here. You’re trapped. Make it easy on yourself. Drop that bag and you’re free to go.”

  Anne took Carson by his collar and pulled him so close that his ear was nearly against her mouth. She whispered, “Cutter’s got somebody circling around us. He’ll be coming down the steps behind us in a minute. I’m going to make a move. When I give you the word, we’re heading for the exit. Don’t stop, keep low, and stay close on my right side… not behind me… Understand?”

  “I’m not waiting all night! What’s your answer?”

  Anne heard a shuffling sound above her. Time was short. She watched Cutter’s reflection in the mirror across the lounge and waited for his concentration to waver. A girl under one of the tables was weeping uncontrollably and then convulsed into repeated screams of “I want to go home! Get me outta here!” to her boyfriend and “Somebody call the police!” to anyone else who was listening.

  “Shut ’er the fuck up!” said Cutter. He spat out the words in a rage and swung the muzzle of his automatic toward the hysterical woman’s boyfriend.

  “Now!” cried Anne as she jumped up.

  Anne held the valise shoulder-high with her left hand. Using it as a shield, she broke into the open. Her right hand reached across the valise and fired two shots on the run into the mirror behind the bar. The glass exploded. Hundreds of gleaming shards rained down upon the countertop. Cutter, who was nearest the mirror, ducked his head and covered his eyes to protect himself from the falling fragments, and managed to fire two quick wild shots toward Anne.