by Chris Bauer
“From Rancor,” Iota Jean said. “Interesting. She have a name?”
“Regina Briscoe. Also went by Juicy Luster. Twenty, twenty-one? A sugar daddy kept her from making additional bad decisions, and the truth was, she finally got it. Figured out soon enough that life was a marathon, not a coked-up sprint. Except she bit the hand that fed her and bolted, leaving behind some heavy damage. Funny thing was, it was just before she was about to cash in and become the sugar daddy’s queen and the mother of his child. The love-struck older guy wanted to leave her his money, all of it. Wanted to do right by her even though he’d scared her away. A fool thing on his part, right?”
“Explain what you mean by ‘bit the hand that fed her.’”
“A real tragedy. A shotgun, to the neck and face, at a range close enough that he should have died, but he didn’t. So where the hell is that drink you ordered?”
Randall rose, searched the south end of the bar, was about to get rude with the female bartender at the north end if he could get her attention. Iota Jean’s hand firmly gripped his chin, redirecting his attention away from that end of the bar—“Howard; Howard. Over here…”—to where she greeted his surprised look with another demure pout. “Relax, honey, please. Let me handle this. Floyd? Doll face? A little help here please with my drink order—Floyd!—yes, over here—Excellent. Thank you, Floyd.”
Her drink arrived tout-suite, and they clinked glasses, Iota Jean staying intensely interested in their face-to-face discussion. The bowling crowd buzz increased. Randall’s interest was momentarily sidetracked, moving away from this hot black woman to the alley’s center lanes, the end of the bowling match’s second game in best out of three. Lining up her shot was the team’s anchor, the tiny old redhead who dead Stella had pointed out as her mother. She was about to strike her way through the final frame of the current game.
Her ball hooked extra wide, was a heavy hit in the one-three pocket. A late slider bounded across the lane to take out the ten pin and complete the strike. Fist bumps accompanied low fives from her teammates, with a crescendo of applause from an appreciative crowd.
Randall scanned the faces of the two bowling teams. Six additional women to choose from, if Iota Jean didn’t work out. He’d set them up with drinks after the third and last game, treat them extra nice, and talk about how much he liked this town, and how he might decide to move here permanently. He’d foster their feeling of safety in numbers and close down the bar with them if necessary, try to work in more info about Regina, about a child, to see if anyone bit.
More small talk with Iota Jean, until a put-together woman in leather—the one he’d seen leave the building a few minutes earlier—reentered the bowling alley, this time with a brindle-colored dog on a tight leash. A service dog of some kind with a harness, or maybe it was a black sweater.
Wrong. It was the dog from the van, and it was wearing a Kevlar vest. Ditto for his handler.
Randall suddenly needed to be somewhere where the dog owner and her K9 partner weren’t. The side exit was farther, a rest room respite would have to do. “Excuse me, Iota Jean, I need a bio break.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Howard?”
“What’s that?”
“Swapping phone numbers?”
43
Two side rooms. I should have checked them first before I ran outside. Slot machines in one, video games and kewpie dolls and other sideshow gaming apparatus in the other.
“Tess—in here.”
I pulled hard on her leash for the right turn I wanted her to make. She was intent on going forward, toward the bar. “Yeah, sweetie, I know, he was over there before, but we’re going here first.”
I was bigger than her so I won. We needed to do a room-by-room search for my bounty and the drunk blonde, starting right here, in the room with the slots.
Twenty or so one-armed bandits lined ninety percent of the four walls of the room’s perimeter. Video poker machines took up the floor space in the center. Every machine was occupied. No one was giving me any crap for bringing a dog into the bowling alley. To the contrary; we got a wide berth. I scanned the large room. No bounty, no drunk blonde.
Wait. The right corner, too dark to see it; I needed a closer look. And there she was, her back to me, straddling an armless chair, her one hand outstretched trying not to spill her drink. In progress was a spirited lip lock and what might have passed for a lap dance. Tess pulled up quickly alongside her, or rather, them. Underneath the blonde was my white-haired, bearded person of interest.
My threatening scowl manifested itself. “I’m a fugitive recovery agent. Stephen Linkletter, you’re under citizen’s arrest.”
“What? Who…?” The couple disengaged, the woman unsteady yet keeping her drink level.
“You jumped bail in Allentown. I’m making a citizen’s arrest. Let’s go.”
“But that’s not my name. You’re making a mistake. Here, I have ID…”
Tess was sidetracked, should have been all over this guy, was instead sniffing at the woman, or rather sniffing between her legs for the squirrel at third base. The blonde didn’t seem to mind. “Aw, nice poochie, just look at you, such a sweet face…” She patted Tess’s head. Tess burrowed farther into the woman’s crotch. “Nice poochie-pooch…”
I raised my finger at my dog. Her ears lay down and she pulled out, wounded by my look.
“Mr. Linkletter, stand up—now. No need for me to embarrass you in front of your lady friend.”
“But I am standing up—”
And so he was, damn it. The guy was no bigger than five-five. According to the police flyer, my bounty was six-one.
My apology went to a Mr. David Jarret of Three Bridges, Pennsylvania, per the driver’s license he offered, but the apology was cut short. Tess pulled out from under the blonde’s cupped hand, turned me around and nearly separated my arm from its socket. She strained, nose to the floor, wanted desperately to leave the room. The two of us reentered the bar area. When Tess barked, the crowd separated. My verbal disclaimer startled any and all patrons too slow or too drunk to get out of the way: “Service dog—yes, I have issues. Service dog—yes, I have issues…”
We reached the bar. Tess sniffed the pleather seat of an empty barstool. This amused a gray-headed woman of color in the chair next to it. My attention went to her. “The guy who was sitting in this chair before. Where is he?”
“Been a number of guys in that chair tonight, sugar. I have no idea.”
“Older white guy. Over six feet. White hair. Santa beard.”
She laughed. “And none of them with that description. Sorry. You’re what? A cop? FBI?”
Tess’s doggie butt and tail stub wiggled, telegraphing her disposition. She sniffed some at the woman’s hand lowered to greet her, and some at her crossed legs. Tess got back to business, went low to the floor again, searching for more of the scent.
“Neither,” I answered. “Bounty hunter.”
“Ah. Of course. You’re staying at Andy Prudhomme’s B and B. I’m Iota Jean.”
Right about now this small town shit was getting in the way. “Counsel Fungo. Sorry, ma’am, I gotta run.”
Tess and I left the bar area, cruised the nearest bowling lanes, Tess twisting the two of us through the crowd. “Excuse me, service dog. Excuse me, service dog—”
The sea of people parted when they noticed Tess and I were in flak jackets. She pulled me, hard, to lane twenty, Andy’s lane, stretching her leash taut as a high wire, the two of us skipping down the few vinyl-clad steps that put us on the hardwood floor at lane level, Tess still straining. She reached Andy and his team members, some seated, some standing, all unaware of our approach, with Tess interested in Charlie. Tess sat next to her, put a paw onto Charlie’s lap before pulling herself onto it. She could spot the friendlies a mile away. She was here, paying a social visit. Sometimes this happened.
“Fungo!” Charlie said, her face animated, reaching for my deputy’s wet nose. “You’re here. W
onderful.”
“That’s Tess, Charlie,” I said, correcting her. I went for Tess’s collar and tugged her off Charlie’s lap.
Charlie’s friendly face turned mock stern. “Don’t confuse me now,” she said. “You’re Counsel Fungo, and you’re named after your dog. You know how I can get confused…”
“Sorry, ma’am, you’re right about me, but this is a different dog. Good to see you, ma’am…”
Andy and I exchanged glances. He was subdued, but a smirk gave away that he was happy I showed. It dissipated when he got the full impact. Seeing body armor on a woman and her dog deputy could do this to a person.
“He’s here?” Andy mouthed. I nodded.
Tess needed to refocus. I retrieved the chewed piece of water bottle from my pocket and shoved it under her nose. After a few nasal constrictions her nose lowered to floor level again, sweeping the hardwoods. She moved over to the vinyl steps, climbed them, padded onto the street-level carpeting.
Before Tess’s nose discovered him, I did, on the periphery of the crowd, him exiting the men’s room.
I remembered him. Making time with the waitress at the diner. Him getting into his car, a silver Cadillac, next to my van then like it was now. Him acknowledging Tess, his hair white and shorter than in the mug shot, but not the strawberry blond it was now. His Santa beard was gone, a tidy gray-white mustache left behind. Easy adjustments. And he was tall enough. But no beard meant an exposed face with visible scars above the jawline and below it, onto the neck. Trauma of some sort, maybe with reconstructive surgery the outcome.
He was dressed casually in a sport coat, the pockets heavy; could be hardware. We’d need to convince him that it was in his best interest not to resist.
Our eye contact was distant but pronounced. Dog on a leash, parting crowd, body armor; he couldn’t misunderstand my intentions. He pushed through an out-of-the-way emergency exit near the men’s room, a shaft of exterior floodlighting illuminating the carpet for the short time it took for the thick metal door to seal shut.
Tess now had his full scent. No clear path to the exit, but I had no shame.
“Move, rabid dog, move, rabid dog…”
We arrived, Tess jumping at the closed door. I cracked it open a sliver. An exterior floodlight shined in my face, looked like it bathed the entire rear of the building. I wouldn’t see him, but he’d see us. Walking out this exit would be suicide.
Just a little wider…
The opening gave him up. He was entering the wooded perimeter twenty-plus yards away. Still, if he decided to stop now, stay hidden in the evergreens, and pull out some firepower, Tess and I wouldn’t make it more than a few feet from the exit.
Plan B: go out the front door, hustle around back, enter the woods from the side.
Plan B on steroids: add my shepherd Fungo to the lineup.
“Fungo. Looking good, boy. Ready to rumble?”
Fungo sat on his haunches at the rear of the van, had stilled himself except for his butt-wiggle thing, grunting once then growling when I tightened up his harness, waiting for my command to deploy. I reached inside the van, grabbed my Smith and Wesson mini flashlight that fit under some vest Velcro, plus a warm headband. The diamond studs in my ears needed to come out. The studs gone, I pulled the headband on. My flip-down night vision goggles slid over the ear cover. Now to get a look inside Mr. Linkletter’s vehicle, next to my van.
Locked; a temporary condition.
Tess assumed the position behind me. I hammered the butt end of my handgun against the driver’s window once, twice, with the third time—crash, tinkle-tinkle—a charm. The driver’s side window rained mini glass prisms onto the blacktop.
Empty front and rear seats. A luxury car, but nothing else was special about it except for the drugs in the glove box. I popped the trunk. Clothes, shaving kit, shoes, a handgun, ammo for the handgun. I could either wait for him to return to the car or take the dogs around back after him, into the woods.
No real choice. He’d made me in the bowling alley, knew the van, knew he was parked next to me. He just hadn’t known I was after him. Now he did. But just in case I was wrong—
Pfutt.
Pfutt, pfutt, and pfutt. A pocketknife to all four of the Caddy’s sidewalls. I grabbed his handgun and ammo from the Caddy and threw it in my van.
Back to a squirming Fungo, waiting for the command.
“Fungo. Fetch.”
He jumped down next to Tess. The three of us entered a controlled full trot, heading toward the side of the building. Before we turned the corner a black sedan careened into the parking lot, didn’t notice us on foot as it slowed and passed my van, a flashlight shining from the sedan’s passenger seat, scoping the van out. It accelerated to the bowling alley’s entrance and parked in an empty handicapped spot.
Agent McQuarters exited the driver’s door, FBI in stamped white block letters showing front and back against the black of his protective vest. He marched into the building. Agent Van Impe, dressed likewise, trailed him. My two deputies and I trotted around to the rear of the bowling alley.
44
Randall waited out of breath just inside the protection of the evergreens, one handgun drawn. If the tracker and her mutt exited the bowling alley, fuck their Kevlar. A barrage of shots from a semiautomatic aimed at their heads at this close a distance would take them out.
No markings on the woman’s vest. No POLICE or FBI or ATF. Not government-issue body armor, just commercial Kevlar. A private contractor, probably a bounty hunter.
Discounting the dog, and he knew there were two, there was a good chance she was working alone. She and the dogs were here for him, and they looked prepared for a takedown inside the bowling alley or out, regardless of the elements. But where the hell were they now? Aside from his comfy boat shoes, Randall’s head-to-toe Dockers-and-sport-jacket attire wouldn’t help much if he trekked into the woods in the dark and the fog. He re-laced his shoes, never fully taking his eyes off the building’s rear exits. He waited.
Dog-lady wasn’t accommodating him, and he decided why: she was probably out front of the building, waiting for Randall to come back to his car, considering no sane person went into a chilly forest unprepared this time of night. Which was why he had to do it.
They would come after him; he would take them out. He’d play it this way, otherwise there’d be no chance of heading back to the alley to continue his search plus maybe re-engage the locals for the raucous night he’d planned.
His prepaid cell shook once against his side; a text. Who the fuck was this?
You coming back lover? Or are you out there killing more people? ☺
A nice surprise; the hot black chick from the bar. Big tits, big ass. Getting hard just thinking about her. Maybe she changed her mind, could dish about Regina.
A quick text back to her. After he did the deeds, he’d clean himself up and take her up on her offer.
He entered the wall of dark pine trees behind him.
45
Counsel didn’t come back. Her gear, her body language, putting her dog in play had confirmed it: her target had surfaced, either here or somewhere close by. Andy let this sink in. This was real. The bowling match was still in progress, but Andy was now preoccupied. He traded glances with Dody.
“What?” Dody said, puzzled. “Spinach in my teeth?”
“The guy Counsel is after,” Andy said, “there’s been a sighting.”
“I got that much when the dog was down here drooling all over Charlie. Good for Miss Fungo. Bounty hunter gets her man. Happy for her. Now bowl. No excuses for you choking during this last frame.”
Dody. So cavalier. Another day in the life of a retired cop. Right now, what Dody wanted was the championship trophy. Andy’s priorities… He wasn’t so sure what they were, but he thought Counsel Fungo might fit in there somewhere.
Dody, seeing his conflict: “Andy—sport—the guy jumped bail in Allentown. Attempted rape. A horrible thing, but it happens. Let’s finish thi
s thing then we’ll deal with it. Bowl.”
Andy’s blood pressure was elevated, could smell that his deodorant was falling down on the job. Tenth frame, final game of the match. One strike from him would seal it, a come-from-behind victory for the championship. At the ball return carousel, he wiped down his silver ball, the wiping more to still his nerves than to improve the ball’s performance. His mother beamed at him from her seat.
“Thank you, honey,” Charlotte said to him. “Or did I thank you already?”
An unprompted sentiment not lost on Andy. This was about Aunt Kitty’s Colt .45. Andy had made the swap before they came to tonight’s game, per Charlotte’s request: the antique six-shooter Kitty bequeathed to Andy in exchange for him taking her small snub-nose revolver. “Yes, you did thank me already. No worries. Love you, Ma.”
No harm in letting his mother have the sentimental peacekeeper, with no bullets, of course. Except for one unanticipated outcome.
Charlotte, from her seat near the ball return, now had her hand raised in admiration. “What a beautiful gun this is.”
“No. Ma. Wait. Put it away…”
Dody got to her first, relieved her of the pistol, and checked the chambers to confirm it wasn’t loaded. “Better off if it stays in your purse, right, Charlie?” Dody zipped the purse closed with the gun in it, placing it on the floor next to Andy’s bowling bag, ten feet from Charlie.
“Why of course, Dody, dear. But it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”