by Chris Bauer
“Certainly is, Charlie.”
Andy put his game face on, eyed the floor arrows, and started his approach. Step, step, release and slide. The ball left his right hand with a small pop! as his thumb liberated itself. A silent, rolling silver bomb spun into its wide hook, picking up speed on its way to the one-three pocket. The pins scattered. A black X registered on the overhead scoreboard. The strike tied the pin count between the teams, earning him two more balls. He needed only one pin in two tosses to win the match.
The second ball exploded into the pins for a crushing second strike. Hoots and hollers from his teammates and clapping by an appreciative audience. He awaited the return of his ball, entitled to one additional toss, but it wouldn’t matter. The Cadavers were league champs.
At the front entrance, two men in FBI-emblazoned Kevlar vests pushed through the doors and entered the noisy crowd, one of the men a giant.
“Christ,” Dody said, keen to the new patrons. “Must’ve been a fucking sale on body armor today.”
The agents scanned the crowd then approached the bar first, to talk with the bartenders. After that, a trip to the rear exit door for them to take a peek outside at the brightly lit rear of the building. Back inside, they stepped down onto the hardwoods at lane level. They worked their way toward the two bowling teams from the building’s far end, crossing each lane, issuing no apologies while forcing a few bowlers to stop in their tracks; an effective attention-getter, with a flair for the dramatic. Andy rechecked the location of his mother’s purse. Still a safe distance from her, which would hopefully avoid any misunderstanding.
Dody stepped in front of the other bowlers and stood her ground on the lanes as the agents approached them.
“FBI,” the smaller agent of the two announced.
“Yeah,” Dody said, her tone serious, “we pretty much got that. I’m Dody Heck, retired police chief. You see the sign? No street shoes on the hardwood.”
“Agent Van Impe, ma’am,” the agent said by way of introduction, ignoring the shoes comment. “Busy night like this, we decided to drop in here again.” He extended a hand with paper fliers in it. “Seen him before?”
Dody bristled, leaving him hanging, was less than impressed. Andy had seen this inflated posture on his friend before.
“I need some ID,” Dody said. Then, for good measure, “And like I said, take your shoes off.”
The agent grinned, his smile big and friendly. His partner closed ranks, took a position on the other side of Dody. Agent Van Impe leaned into her face, spoke quietly.
“You really want to bust my balls, Ms. Heck? Flex a little muscle here to impress your friends? Okay. You get to see one ID. Mine. Here. But I’m not taking off my shoes. And believe me, you don’t want my partner to take his shoes off either.”
Dody relented, examined the agent’s credentials, accepted one of the fliers. “Saw it already, more than once today. Everyone has. We haven’t seen him anywhere.”
The agent pushed. “Fine. Anything else you’d like to volunteer? Seen anything else out of the ordinary?” The agent produced another picture before she answered. “How about this person?”
Dody checked it out, showed the picture to Andy. It was a posed photo of female State Trooper Counsel Fungo in uniform on one knee, a dog sitting on its haunches next to her.
“Yeah, she was here,” Dody said, “she and her dog. Both Kevlar’d up, just like you guys,” she looked up at his super-size partner, “but not as ugly. They left in a hurry. Feel like telling us what’s going on?”
“No.” This came from the large agent. His scowl said he didn’t care jack shit about cops or state troopers, current or former.
“Sorry about my partner. Long day,” Agent Van Impe said. “All you need to know is we’re after the same guy. The ex-trooper’s not in any trouble, just some noise we wished we weren’t stuck dealing with. Thanks for your time, folks, and be careful getting home tonight. It could be dangerous out there.”
Andy spoke to Dody as soon as the feds were out of earshot: “What the hell was that? You trying to piss them off on purpose?”
“Jurisdictional bullies. I don’t like the feds. And I don’t like other outside influences either.”
“Meaning what exactly, Dody?”
“You heard them. Your guest Counsel is ‘noise.’ Noise that I admit is adorable and well intentioned, but noise anyway. We don’t need any more noise around here.”
Dody’s dismissive attitude, some mounting resentment on Andy’s part, plus Andy’s own conflicted heart. An emotional tug-of-war. Andy wanted to call Counsel, to let her know the feds were right behind her.
Dody, on her cell, was already mobilizing. “Al? Hey. Good evening, Sheriff. It’s Dody.”
Andy picked up his bowling ball and rocketed a screamer with bad intentions down the alley. It exploded against the pins for a third consecutive strike, closing out the game and the championship match’s final frame with an exclamation point and a standing O from the spectators.
Al and his sheriff persona—if Dody got him involved, things would get noisier.
And there was this: Andy watched as Iota Jean pushed through the crowd toward them. Like Andy, Iota Jean was a nurse, but unlike Andy she hated bowling and wouldn’t be caught dead on the hardwoods. Her evening visits to Thunder Wonderland were for grins and gambling and, occasionally, younger guys. She arrived, stood diva-like next to the ball return, her trip a special one to get face to face with Andy and Dody.
“We need to talk,” Iota Jean said.
Iota Jean’s input: a guy calling himself Howard hit on her at the bar. Hair shorter than the mug shot in Dody’s hand, and a different color, but the right age. A mustache, no beard. Some facial scars. “I say that’s him,” Iota Jean said. “Told me he likes guns. When I didn’t bite, he went for shock value,” she told them. “He said he’s murdered people. For kicks. Swear to God. Then he backed off, said he was joking.
“And he’s looking for someone we know. I gave him my phone number.”
Dody wasn’t impressed. “Now what, we wait until he calls you tomorrow, or next week?”
“The deal was,” a sly smile from Iota Jean, “my number for his.”
“Sure. A phone number from a guy at a bar. You’ve got shit, Iota. You’ll never hear from him.”
“Spare me the sarcasm, Dody. I already did hear from him. He texted me to say he’ll be back. Midnight or thereabouts.”
Dody checked a clock. “That gives us a coupla hours. All right, I’ll go for it. Someone get some drinks over here for us. A round of shots. I’m buying.”
Andy checked in with a beaming Charlotte. “You okay, Ma?”
“Look at this trophy, Andy.” Height-wise, it reached eye level to the seated Charlotte. “Bert will love it.”
Andy sighed. Bert Carbone would have if he weren’t already dead. “A beauty, Ma. Great.” He patted her on the shoulder, caught Dody’s eyes while Dody spoke into her phone.
“Al? No posse for now. We’ve got this.”
46
We trotted to the corner of the building and gave it a wide berth, instead entered the cover of the trees and held there so we could view the spot where Linkletter went into the woods thirty yards away. The leashes were taut, my troops looking for the signal that would let them go all-out full assault. Our bounty had a ten-minute head start. We needed to determine if he’d used it to leave the perimeter. I flipped down the night goggles.
No Linkletter along the edge of the copse. We moved quietly just inside the evergreen periphery, on alert, the trees tall, majestic, their pointed tops not visible in the night fog. The three of us shuffled through layers of pine needles, thick in some spots, thin in others. I tugged at the leashes, held my charges back, and had them sit a moment while I gave them another sniff of Linkletter’s water bottle. All fired up again, they pulled me along, closer to where we saw him last.
Fungo growled and barked, pawing at the dirt. I grabbed his snoot and shushed him;
no need to broadcast our position. He whined, dropped his nose to the ground again and we were off, winding around trees and negotiating evergreen deadfalls and other forest litter. Hooting owls, crickets, and the flapping of wings from startled birds surrounded us, but so far no ground-level critters close enough to distract my deputies. Fifty or so yards in, we reached a major dip in the forest carpet.
“Whoa.” This was both a command and an exclamation.
More than one major dip. In front of us was what looked like a battlefield pocked with amoeba-shaped craters the size of Pocono cabins, thick moss hanging like stadium banners from their uneven edges. The firs inside the craters at one time were ground level. They’d dropped below the surface, into deep pits. Some trees were dead while others thrived a full story or more down. Small sinkholes, or maybe cave-ins. Good to know.
I held the leashes tight while we walked the edge of each hole, letting my charges sniff for signs of Linkletter. The perimeters were clean, and neither dog had any interest in whatever was in the pits. They pulled me back into the trees.
Forty more yards in, Tess twisted me into an about-face. Two flashlights crept into the periphery from behind, on our left flank. Had to be the feds. I gave them credit. Ask enough people questions about fugitives, you got answers that would bring you to bowling alleys and the woods that surrounded them. A tough call, using flashlights. They telegraphed their position, but they’d be working blind otherwise.
A decision I suddenly realized I needed to make: to announce, or not to announce. My team and I were out here at night like jacklighting poachers, negotiating dangerous terrain in unfamiliar territory. Out here with other law enforcement with guns and badges, one of them with a grudge. Accidents could happen, ones that could be written off as collateral damage while in search of a fugitive. McQuarters would tell Van Impe just that, then spend all of ten minutes crafting an apology to his superiors for the oopsie.
Fuck. I wanted this guy, but I made the decision to pull up. Also decided to not announce our position. No sense giving McQuarters any such idea, close buds that he and I were now. We needed to back off, let them get ahead of us, painful as it was to let that happen. We’d be their backup even though they wouldn’t know. The guy needed to go down; who the hell cared who did it.
We held fast, me in a crouch, Fungo sitting quietly, Tess’s nose pushing into the underbrush like a pig rooting for truffles. The feds’ flashlights swept back and forth as they passed us on the far left. After another few minutes, we were safe to go.
Fungo and I stood. I saw now what kept Tess so interested in the forest floor. Animal poop; she was eating it. And to think I kissed those lips.
A hard pull on her leash, another whiff of the plastic, and the three of us were on the trail again.
47
Randall’s pursuer and her dogs were out in the dead of night for one reason: him. He’d made it through the first leg of the mess he found himself in, a four-hundred-yard trek through a maze of pine trees and boulders that stretched from behind the bowling alley to a road he knew was out there somewhere. He stopped for a breather, one of many his diseased body dictated he needed, leaned heavily against a small fir losing out to overcrowding. The branches buffeted his shoulder while he sucked in the slightly chilly Pocono air. In front of him were two lanes of blacktop he now realized were the less-traveled kind. Only one car in the few minutes’ rest he was allowing himself. On the road’s other side, more forest.
Behind him, the picture was off. He’d drawn additional interest: two flashlights not close enough to each other to be the same person.
He could have called this thing off right here. No confrontation, live for another day. He was out here trailblazing, looking specifically for this road to give him this option. Circle around, forget the bowling alley, look elsewhere in the region for Regina. A friendly town like this, a guy in Dockers and a sport jacket should have been able to flag down a passing car or pickup truck easy. That and some cash would get him into the next town.
That’s if another car came by. Nothing passed him going on five minutes.
Advancing headlights illuminated the wall of trees lining the road a half-mile or so away. He left the tree cover and waved his arms, but the semi didn’t even downshift. An eighteen-wheeled lumber truck rumbled past. The two flashlights in the woods drew nearer.
“Fuck it.” Randall rechecked the ammo in both guns, returned them to his vest pockets and hustled across the road.
On its other side he flashed his short penlight beam at a rough-hewn, double post sign with foot-high recessed letters embossed in silver: Anthracite Acres. In smaller letters underneath, Preserved by the Dickson City Coal Heritage Society.
Dickson City. Too bad. When he killed whoever was following him—and he would, soon as he found a perch where he could rest his tired ass and watch his pursuers’ approach from a safe height—the executions wouldn’t add to the quaint town of Rancor’s murder toll. Bummer.
He stepped into the darkened forest that rose up steeply in front of him, the incline too steep to push into the interior. His only choice for flat terrain was to go right. A different environment on this side. Leaf trees, not evergreens. More animal noises, more owls. Colder. The sweat he worked up dried quickly on his back and shoulders, leaving him with a chill. His small penlight blazed the path but its narrow beam sucked, providing late notice of snapped tree limbs and deadfalls. Inland of the road but not by much, he was paralleling it. He’d follow its slight curve for a few hundred yards until he found a decent spot to make his stand.
A massive felled tree lay flat across his path, the circumference the size of tires on an earthmover. No climbing over it, it was too big; he walked its length to get by. A rush of heated air from the tree’s underside suddenly dusted his legs like a hot afternoon breeze skimming a steamy blacktop in August. Chilly as it was in these woods, the tepid air blast drew him closer to the tree. The wood was warm to the touch, like it was generating heat. Strange. A gift horse that felt great after toughing out nighttime exposure in the Poconos’ naturally refrigerated mountains.
Right here, Randall decided. This would be it, as long as he could figure out how to climb atop the monstrous deadfall in his path. He followed it until he reached its trunk, found the help he needed. Another felled tree leaned against a few low-lying boulders that in turn led to the side of the large tree he intended to make his perch. The boulders were stepping stones, lined up against each other like a child’s backyard play set. He walked the incline, hopped from rock to rock, stepped up onto the massive felled hardwood.
Ten feet up, he sat and crossed his ankles. He relaxed here in his oasis, the warmth of the deadfall fending off the night chill. His guns were out, loaded and ready, the smaller handgun beside him sitting on the tree, the larger, definitely nifty Rhino magnum resting in his lap. He was a hovering Cheshire Cat with firepower, waiting for his Alices to materialize so he could blow their fucking heads off. His pursuers, when they crossed the road, would make the right turn and come this way. Too steep a hill to go any other way. When they got close enough he’d use both guns. Point and shoot. Pop, pop. More pops as required. It would be noisy, yes, and this concerned him. Randall saw or heard no indications that the bounty hunter and her two dogs were still out there, yet he was sure they were.
Two flashlights reached the road’s shoulder. The lights turned off. No additional movement. They were waiting. For the fog to lift or for Randall to walk up and surrender or maybe for a valet to bring their car around, who the fuck knew, but most likely it was for reinforcements. Minutes passed.
The flashlights clicked on again. They crossed the road, turned right, were coming his way. So much for waiting for back up. Two impatient FBI cowboys. Advantage, Randall.
When they got within fifty yards Randall decided he was too visible from his perch. Plus taking off a person’s head with a .357 magnum from a distance… Hell, it’ll be more fun if it’s face to face. He retraced his steps along the
length of the tree and dropped back down onto the forest floor, moving behind a thick trunk. This tree felt the way it should have felt against his shoulder, cold, jagged and harsh, and noticeably chillier than his warmer perch a few minutes earlier.
The darkness was black and impenetrable with the backdrop of a mountain close in, no light showing from any horizon, like midnight inside the coal seams that ran beneath this and other Pocono Mountains, before the mining had hollowed many of them out.
Randall produced the second handgun. He raised both guns against his shoulders, ready to lower them for headshots at the closest range he could manage, at whichever one of the two he could cozy up nearest to first.
48
Headlights moved right to left on a road ahead of us. I heard the rumble of a diesel engine from a road-weary tractor-trailer that downshifted to handle the rising grade. It passed, my deputies and me still deep within the cover of the trees. The truck upshifted after it conquered the hill. When it got far enough into a long curve, the two FBI agents appeared on the road’s shoulder, their flashlights a-blazing, then they turned them off. My charges and I sat and waited, weren’t going to move until they did.
This short a distance reminded me of the difference in the size between these two men. McQuarters was a freak, a giant compared to his partner. The giant lit up a cigarette, blew some smoke, paced, chewed on it, blew more smoke. The cacophony from cicadas, owls, mountain lions, tigers, bears, Bigfoot, whatever, swelled the air then leveled off to become the ebb and flow of forest din at midnight. Agent Van Impe ended a phone call.
What I made out, Van Impe to McQuarters: “… Escobar… her posse from Philly… here in under an hour.”
McQuarters: “She’s a grandstander… fuck procedure… fuck her, we’re gonna lose him…”
McQuarters made a grand gesture of tossing his cigarette and checking his weapon. He and Van Impe flipped on their flashlights again and crossed the road. My team and I stayed quiet and watched. The huge mountain that rose up quickly just beyond the other shoulder forced them to go right. They paralleled the road inside the forest cover until the woods flattened out and opened up a bit. But there was no missing the two of them with their flashlights.