by Clyde Witt
“Forget the music. I want to hear all about the puzzle making business.”
“Ah, right.”
Pat checked the clock over the kitchen sink and tried to determine what the time might be in Montana. She got Mike’s answering service. “Hey, Jimmy Olson, or whatever your name is,” she said as she filled her wine glass for the fourth time that evening, “Puzzle Guy just left here. He dropped a few hints. Gimmie a call.” She hung up the phone and stared out the window at shadows cast by a full moon. She took another swallow and said to the wine glass, “Ya know, when I’m rich next year, I think I’ll start doing research on werewolves. Gotta be some solutions to immune deficiency connection there.”
Chapter Nineteen
Aston paused and rubbed her back against the door jamb of Eric’s office and watched as he studied a massive document that flowed across two computer screens. “Looks important, Boss.”
Eric jumped. “Christ! Would you stop sneaking up on me, and imitating a grizzly bear?”
“I think this might be the first time I did it, Boss. Besides, I like to watch people work.”
“Speaking of watching, let’s take a look at what you two bird watchers discovered,” he said as he swung around. “When did you get back? Why didn’t you call me? Gabby is going nuts trying to figure out what the message in the box is all about. Any thoughts?”
“Whoa. Talking with you is like trying to get a drink of water out of a fire hose. My first thought is that we should get you off the caffeine train. My second thought is, I wasn’t aware I was supposed to check in. And my third thought is, Gabby is deeper into this mystery than we are, or we knew we were. I’ll explain it, later.”
“Yeah, I think I know where that conversation is headed. Whatcha got?”
Aston handed him the envelope. Eric turned it over to look at both sides. He held the envelope to his nose, looked at Aston and smiled.
“What? You think Phyllis and I perfumed the letter?”
“Nope. I smell cigarettes on this, though.” He tapped the envelope against his forehead. “I know you don’t smoke which makes me think whoever put this in the box was a smoker and probably only a few steps ahead of you two.”
“Fred, that’s the handsome Border Patrol dude I know out there, told me there was a birder, an older guy, in the area last week, just after I left. They rousted him, was about all Fred said. The area around the clothes dryer was all torn up. Cigarette butts. I took a few pictures I’ll show you if you think they’re important.”
Eric looked at the envelope and the drawing, then proposed a dinner meeting with Gabby and Phyllis to plan the next move.
“Gosh, what’ll I wear? Should we invite Mike?” She said as she dropped into the chair along side his desk.
“No. I gave Pat enough information to keep him busy. In fact, I think he went back out there to snoop around some more. We do need to alert Gabby that Mike might be trying to get more details from him.”
“When’s the dinner, and where? I’m hungry.”
“How about tonight, at my house?”
“Whoa. I was not aware you knew how to cook.”
“I can’t, but Farinacci’s delivers. I’ll order a couple salads so you can tell Phyllis we’ll have more than pizza.”
Aston shook her head and smiled. “You’re going to have to trade in the Boxter for a Panamera with four doors, or I’ll have to make a couple trips.” She stopped at the door. “I’m glad to be back.”
“Glad you’re back, Aston. Things were beginning to return to almost normal without you around.”
Most of the dinner conversation centered on the birds, snakes and spiders Aston and Phyllis encountered while in Arizona. Eric thought Gabby’s usual sarcasm seemed to be held in check.
“Okay, Gabby, what’s on your mind?” Eric asked.
“Oh, he’s just being his grumpy old self today,” Phyllis said. “We’ll have a talking to when I get him back to the looney bin.”
“Ha. You’ve known me, not in the Biblical sense, for three years now and still can’t tell when I’m about to make an important decision,” Gabby said.
“I think we need a fact or two before we can make any decisions,” Aston said. “Have you figured out what that note was all about or who might have left it?”
“Well, part of that’s easy enough,” Gabby said, and leaned forward on the table. “Had to be left by whoever put the palladium in the box in the first place. Only one guy on Earth knows that—Starke. He’s gotta still be alive. As for what the note means, I’m not sure.”
Phyllis reached over and wiped a speck of pizza sauce from the corner of Gabby’s mouth. “We know Starke was a pilot,” she said. “The caller told you the pirates were flying again. Something like that. Could that mean, from that last part, that he’s got another airplane? Or partners?”
The other three looked at Phyllis. Aston glanced down at her own T-shirt and broke the silence. “Why do they call this skull and crossbones thing a Jolly Roger?”
“Oh, everybody knows that,” Phyllis said. “Some old pirate in the 1700s—Black Barti I think he was called—always wore a red coat and had that skull design as his personal flag. The French started calling him, Le Joli Rouge, which, over the years, was corrupted into the words, Jolly Roger.”
Eric laughed. “Oh sure, every body knows that.”
“Like nobody,” Aston said.
“Wait,” Gabby said, and leaned back so fast his chair rolled away from the table. “I remember seeing Starke’s plane a time or two, a DC3/C47, and the nose art was a Jolly Roger.”
“Nose art?” Aston said.
“You know, honey,” Phyllis said, “Pictures of girls with big boobs, flowing blond hair, showing off their long legs—painted on the front of airplanes during the war. Reminded the boys of what they were fighting and dying for—but not getting any of.”
“Yeah,” said Gabby. “That’s why some of the guys opted for shark’s teeth and pirate stuff too—”
“So, maybe Starke is referring to his old plane?” Eric said.
“Don’t think so,” Gabby said. “It went down in flames in that crash. So did he, allegedly.”
Aston typed on her phone’s keypad. “Oh, the crash was real enough. Whole three-paragraph article here about that crash. Short story. Only one picture.” She turned the screen around so the others could see the news photo of the remains of a plane strung out across the desert. The nose of the plane was clearly visible. No art.
Mike spread a map of southern Utah across Pat’s kitchen table. He rested his finger on a spot in the middle of nowhere. “Okay, based on what you say Eric told you, that old guy, Gabby, has to be the key player in all this. I checked him out. Used to be a DEA agent, so he’s probably familiar with the area where that plane went down. I’m thinking he must have drawn up a map for Aston and she’s been checking the accuracy of his memory.”
Pat refilled their wine glasses. “Could be. So, that’s why the girl with the skateboard is running all over the west. Looking for what, if they already know where this stuff is buried?”
“‘Cause the guy’s an old fart and probably doesn’t remember Utah from a bale of hay. All the information I could find says the plane went down about here,” he said, again tapping a spot far from any roads. “I hiked back in there. Nothing much to see unless you like cactus and rocks. Maybe some darker colored sand, and a few pieces of metal I found with the cheapo metal detector I bought at Walmart. I called one of my sources at the NTSB and gave him some hypothetical. First, he said, palladium won’t burn. Well, it does burn when it gets hotter than twenty-eight hundred degrees. And a DC3 crash, spread across a desert like that, in any event wouldn’t generate that kind of heat.”
Pat took another sip of wine. “So, you think there was never any on board?”
“That’s one answer. I asked my friend about the spr
ead of crash debris. It’s quite possible the stuff could have bounced to hell and back, if it was in the right kind of container. Meaning, it’s still out there. From what I read, the searchers didn’t do much of a search. They only looked for body parts. I had another source check the NTSB records of the crash and it was only two pages long, saying virtually nothing about anything.”
“Hmm. So?”
“So, I think, in truth, Eric and his bunch don’t know squat. Maybe they think it’s out there and are just going to create a map of that part of the desert to sell puzzles. We, on the other hand, don’t have to wait for a puzzle to come on the market because we have damned good intel, based on what I’ve uncovered. Another conversation with that drunk in Montana should pin it down. Then, I say, we take a two-week desert vacation and buy us a couple good treasure finders.”
“I don’t like snakes.”
“Snakes aren’t a problem. It’s those little bastards, the scorpions, that will kill ya.”
“Thanks, Mike. You’re making this trip sound way too inviting.”
Mike parked at the end of Main Street, hidden beyond the hardware store where three pickup trucks rested. He kept his eyes on the Big Moose bar where Bradley Davis held court from the front porch. The old man left his perch several times to refill his beer glass, once to kick a soccer ball back to a couple boys and once to throw an errant baseball to two girls across the street. Mike looked down at his car’s dashboard. “No way is that guy pushing a hundred,” he said to the speedometer.
When the street was clear of pedestrians, Mike eased the rental car from where he hid, down the street into the familiar parking spot next to the bar. He knew Davis had been watching his every move. Before Mike could get out of the car, Davis walked over and leaned against the frame of the open window on the passenger side.
“Howdy, again, Mister Reporter.”
“Afternoon, Bradley. Have time for a beer?”
“Seems you’re wasting a lot of airplane fuel running between here and back east to Ohio, just to have beer with an old man.”
“It’s okay. I’m doing it on someone else’s dime.”
Davis looked over the roof of the car and down the street where one of the pickup trucks was pulling away from the hardware store. He waved to the driver as the truck went past. “Ya know, Mister Reporter, I don’t have a whole lotta time left so maybe we, you and me, should just cut to the chase scene. You tell me what you’re really up to and I’ll tell you why you’re full of shit. That way we can both get about our business.”
Mike turned and looked through the windshield. He exited the car and walked around to where Davis now leaned against the front fender. “Listen, my friend—”
“I ain’t your friend.”
Just then Davis’s cell phone rang and he stepped away to answer. He looked at the caller ID and smiled. “Well, young man, ‘bout time you returned my call and checked in.”
“Hey Pops, you holding up?”
Davis turned his back toward Mike, walked away and lowered his voice. “Junior, I think my friend Randal might be giving you a call pretty soon. I ain’t a travel agent, but things are—”
“He seems to be way ahead of you, Pops. Already called a couple days ago. I’m on my way toward beautiful northeast Ohio, even as we speak. Should be there in a couple days. Looks like we’re going to be heading to Alligator Ally. I told him this is the start of the mosquito season down there this time of year. The old guy said he’s looking for a nice sandy beach where his girlfriend can prance around in her bikini. How old is she, anyway?”
“Take ‘em up to the Panhandle area. Fewer bugs, better sand.”
“You got it. Whatcha up to?”
“Oh, part of what we’ve been working up to for a long time. I’ll explain it when we meet up. How about Colorado in the fall?”
“It’s a deal. Those aspens are gorgeous in mid-September.”
“Drive safe,” he said and walked back to where Mike was drumming his fingers on the hood of the car.
Mike stared at the old man’s faded blue, wrinkled shirt. “Okay, Bradley, or whatever your name really is, somehow you are tangled up in a scheme involving stolen palladium from about forty or so years ago. I’m not sure what your role is now, or how you’re connected to Randal Conrad, but I’ll find out. Guaranteed. Maybe I don’t really care. Now, you can save us both a lot of time, and make yourself some easy money, by telling me one or two things: First, what’s your connection to Conrad? Second, do you know where the palladium is?”
Davis began to turn but fell into a coughing fit. When he caught his breath he said, “Well, actually, I could give you answers to both those questions and a lot more. However, assuming you’re on the right track, I have to know what’s in for me.”
“You want to make a deal?”
“Damn, you are one smart cookie. ‘Course I want a deal.”
“What are you after, fame and fortune?”
“Already got the fortune, it’s a bit of fame I’d like before I make that final swirl around the drain—if ya get my drift.”
Mike extracted a pack of Camel cigarettes from his vest pocket. “Smoke?”
“Thought you didn’t,” Bradley said.
“I don’t. Bought these for you. Kind of a peace gesture. They’re all yours.”
“Well, thanks. You ain’t half as bad as some people here in town have been saying, behind your back of course.”
Mike laughed. “Okay, Bradley, here’s the deal: I’m a reporter with access to a host of national newspapers and magazines. I’m also, sort of, obliged to come up with some key information for, well, for the people paying the tab on this adventure. So, here’s what I can do: You tell me what I need to know to find the palladium, I turn the info over to, ah, these other people. Then I write a story that will make you the guest on every morning TV talk show in the country.”
Bradley shook a cigarette from the pack and looked off toward the mountains while he struck a match from the small box he carried. He looked at the ground and scraped his boot next to the tire. “Sounds fair enough. Not a whole lot of guarantees on either side of this bargain, are there?”
“All I can give you is my word and a handshake. That ought to still work out here.”
“And all I can offer you is the promise, that if you don’t keep your word, I’ll hunt your ass down and the last story you write will be what it feels like to die a death of a thousand cuts.”
“Ah, you drive a hard bargain,” Mike said as he extended his right hand.
The two men shook hands. Davis lit another cigarette from the first and described to Mike where they should meet. He said he had to gather some papers and maps. The meeting would be at two-thirty in the morning, Sunday.
“Middle of the fucking night?” Mike said.
“Nope, just earlier in the morning than you’re used to getting up. Besides, I don’t like people here in town seeing me with you and thinking I’m some sort of collaborator.”
“I don’t know which is more difficult,” Mike said to Pat when she returned his call, “figuring out what this old fart is up to, or finding a flea-bag motel room in this part of the state. Would you believe this place I’m in doesn’t even have a clock next to the bed?”
“That’s why Al Gore invented cellphones and wrist watches. Sounds like you’re on top of things, Mike. What happens next?”
“I hang around here like a tourist for a couple days until O-dark-30 on Sunday, then meet him, I suppose.”
“Mike, is it safe? Are you safe? Sounds kinda strange, I don’t know, maybe dangerous, to me.”
“I have a permit to carry a gun. Not to worry.”
“Shit. This is getting, I don’t know, complicated.”
“Hey, not to worry. In a couple days I’ll have a lead and in a week or two we’ll have the stuff and be calling our stockbrokers.”
“How we going to sell it?”
“That’s my game plan for tomorrow—quality time with Mister Google at the County Library, he knows everything. Not to worry.”
As Mike left the Aspenalt View Motel, he looked up at a sky ablaze with stars. Now that’s worth getting up for, he thought. He settled into the rental car and checked the temperature, forty-three degrees, two a.m. Plenty of time to make it out to the Custer Mine, twenty miles east of town.
Near the abandoned office building where they arranged to meet, night sounds of insects and birds competed with the sounds of the car’s engine as it cooled. In the glow of the car’s dash, the clock read two twenty-five. He checked his wristwatch, two twenty-seven.
He jerked awake. How long had he been asleep. The clock on the dash read two thirty-five. Sweat felt cold on his forehead, and he licked his lips. He exited the car and looked around. Nothing. No one. Just stars. He walked around the car and shook his head, trying to clear the fuzziness. He got back in the car and started the engine to generate some heat.
The next time Mike looked at his wristwatch it was eight thirty. The sun pushed against the passenger window. He blinked his eyes, and pounded on the dashboard. How could he have missed the connection. He decided to abandon the meeting spot and head back to town.
The parking lot next to the bar was nearly full, but there were no signs of Davis on the street or the porch of the Big Moose. He entered and stepped around a waitress mopping the floor. “‘Morning Mister Reporter,” she said. “One seat left, up there by the bar.”
“Thanks,” He slipped between two men in dusty coveralls and ordered coffee. The bar tender pushed the steaming cup in front of him and Mike said, “Mighty busy in here for this early.”
The bartender glanced up at the clock. “Humph. We been open for an hour. This is the regular breakfast crowd you ain’t seen before.”
Mike looked at his wristwatch. It wasn’t quite nine. “Thought you didn’t open until nine.”