Jane's Baby

by Chris Bauer

  “She didn’t, and I’m guessing you’re not. Best behavior tonight, Owen. She traded on her B&B network reputation to make these rooms happen on short notice. That means no whores in your room. We have a deal?”

  “What’s the alternative?”

  “You find another hotel. Or you’re on the street.”

  “Well, not really, there’s your van.”

  “You’re funny. That’s not gonna happen.”

  A trendy address for the donut shop, on the first floor of a multi-story brick and stamped concrete university low-rise, not too far from Georgetown. The sunlight was gone and the campus lighting had claimed the tree-lined street, with Maeby and J.D. chilling in the van, the windows open far enough for Maeby to sniff at the foot traffic. J.D. sacked himself out in his crate. Basic Dunkin’ Donuts décor inside, with plastic tables and a tiled floor. Holding down a table in the corner of the shop was Judge’s girlfriend. Judge made the introduction.

  “Owen Wingert, meet Geenie Pinto.”

  Owen took off his hat. They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries, him devouring her and her dark, porcelain-smooth face and neck, her healthy pecs and toned arms, and her short, espresso hair. Judge surrounded her with a tight hug. After they all sat, Owen couldn’t contain himself.

  “Damn, Judge,” he said, admiring her. “Just…damn.”

  “Chill, Owen.”

  Sandwiches and drinks for the three of them. They ate, talked, and Owen stayed cordial, although it was clear he was impressed. His reaction said his bounty-hunting mentor didn’t deserve this exquisite creature, and in Judge’s estimation he was right. If Judge told Owen she was Judge’s senior by a few years, he would have choked on his food.

  “I’m not sure what my next move will be,” Judge offered.

  “Simple,” Geenie said. “Be near the person your bounty is after.”

  “That’s what I told him,” Owen said then sipped his coffee. His laptop was open and he returned to pounding away at it. “That’s why I’m going to Court tomorrow, to get in as a visitor. Did it once before, years ago. It’s cool, even when someone isn’t trying to kill a justice. Now it’s way cray-cray.”

  “It’ll be easier, Geenie, if you act like he isn’t here.”

  “First stop tomorrow,” Owen said, ignoring Judge, “will be the Supreme Court building. Early wake up. Seating for oral arguments opens at nine-thirty. If I get in line by seven, seven-thirty at the latest, that should do it.”

  “Sounds doable,” Geenie said. “What do you think, Judge?”

  “That’s early. What about breakfast?”

  Owen keyed while he talked. “Not a problem, Judge. You sleep in, have your crepes and quiche and fresh passion fruit while Geenie and I check out the oral arguments. She’ll be fine with me.”

  Judge would sooner have a lit firecracker up his ass. “Fine. I’ll miss breakfast then.”

  “Tell me about this bounty,” Geenie asked.

  She heard all of it. Background on Larinda Jordan, the murdered pastor, the murdered mother-and-son parishioners, the stolen Bibles. The storage locker and the description of the damage to the two clinics. One blown-up teen, four torched Planned Parenthood women, and a security guard executed at point blank range.

  “I’m not getting the connection,” she said. “The clinic attacks, I get. The pastor…what’s his name again?”

  “Darlington Beckner,” Owen said.

  “Why him?”

  Owen googled him on his laptop. He retrieved an obituary first, read some of it out loud. “Seventy-four years old. Adoption agency director earlier on, until 1989. His wife predeceased him but, hell, it wasn’t by much, only three weeks. He’s survived by four adult kids and a slew of grandkids.”

  No new insights from the obit. “Other Internet crap on him. Personal interest stories and kudos from the press, things like that, for his past adoption agency work with orphaned kids, then with underprivileged Texas families as a preacher.”

  “Larinda Jordan’s either a serial killer,” Judge said, “or a militant pro-lifer gone off the deep end.”

  “Or a hitwoman.” Geenie’s chiding look said not to struggle with the concept. “They’re out there, Judge, in real life, not only in the movies.”

  “Okay. Maybe. But the clinic damages tell me she’s an unhinged pro-lifer.”

  “Assassins get assignments. This church pastor murder sounds more like a hit to me, Judge. Could be both.”

  “But why him?”

  Owen’s phone rang. “Hey, Frannie, how the fu…, ah, how the frig are you, bro?”

  Judge dished for Geenie: “Owen’s Texas police chief buddy.”

  “So how’d you like it, Frannie? Wait, stop. Aw c’mon, Frannie, relax. Stop yelling, asshole. Fine. FINE. I’ll take it down, goddamn it. Look…hello? Hello? Shit.”

  Judge squinted at him like, what now?

  “It seems a few law enforcement types caught up to the blog entry I posted an hour ago.”

  “Who’d you piss off this time, Owen? Dallas Cowboy stadium security?”

  “The FBI.” He went sheepish. “And it’s the court beat column, not the sports column.”

  “You use a pen name for that one,” Judge said.

  “I do local police blotter stuff, too. Frannie knows the alias.”

  “Which is?”

  “Thurgood Cochran. You know, a combination of Thurgood Marshall and Johnny…”

  “I get it, Owen. Let me see the column.”

  “I have to take it down or they’re gonna come after me for obstruction of justice. Might still come after me anyway.”

  “Christ, Owen, just let me see it.”

  He pulled it up. Judge and Geenie read it in silence.

  “Your trusted local court reporter, reporting from the granddaddy of court venues, Washington D.C., on the road with a real-life bounty hunter. Tomorrow I visit the Supreme Court to watch America’s federal justice system at work during the first few days of its fall term, with newly confirmed associate justice Naomi Coolsummer from the great state of Texas on the Bench.”

  No, Judge thought. Fucking no.

  “After that, it’s back on the job, knocking on doors in the District with the bounty hunter, a former enlisted Marine…”

  Goddamn it, no.

  “…who’s chasing a Planned Parenthood terrorist…”

  NO.

  “…with his two dog deputies trained by the military. And here they are, folks. Don’t let the small one fool you.”

  Judge couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “Any comments or info or leads, put ’em in the box below. Wish us luck.”

  Owen might as well have painted a target on their backs. No pictures of any people, but there were phone snapshots of his canine deputies. Add to that, his girlfriend Geenie was with him now.

  “How could you possibly think this was a good idea, you…fucking…idiot.”

  “We need leads, right?” he said. “Publicity gets leads…”

  Judge was about to lose his shit all over the little bastard, Tourette’s-assisted or not. “It also gets people killed. I don’t get you, you self-destructive, alcoholic…”

  “Judge,” Geenie grabbed his hand, “calm down.”

  “…goddamn clueless little…”

  She repositioned his hand to the rabbit’s foot on his belt loop but it wasn’t helping him one bit, no siree, didn’t stop him, wouldn’t stop him from saying it, it was coming out right…the fuck…now.

  “…piece of shit SECOND BASE.”

  The rabbit’s foot, plus Geenie’s hand in his, plus the most hurtful look Judge had seen on a human being in a long time, finally worked together to calm him down. But his mind was made up.

  “That’s it. You’re gone. Tomorrow morning I’m shipping you back to Cowboy country. Get in the van.”

  “Bro, look, I’m sorry, we needed leads…”

  “Shut the fuck up. Take the blog entry down. We’re getting the hell out of here.
”

  The laptop started burping before he touched another key, giving off single ploink and bloink noises that sounded more appropriate for comic strips or cartoons than a computer.

  “Judge…”

  “WHAT?”

  Comments were popping up, the bloinks and ploinks and kerflinkles all passing gas on their way to filling up the bottom section of his blog, and quickly. “Wow,” Owen said.

  They looked over Owen’s shoulder. What Judge saw was horseshit, a page full of crazies come to visit, witnesses to every alien abduction and Kennedy cover-up and gun-grabbing conspiracy ever posited, one after another, misspellings in all of it. “It’s all BS, Owen. More trouble than it’s worth. Like I said, tomorrow, you are gone.”

  “Look at this one,” he said, pointing, “here.”

  One entry stuck out because of the name of the person who had posted it.

  “Email me at the funeral home address with your phone number. I have additional information. Darlington Beckner Jr.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Larinda, her binoculars up, waited on more limos to exit the Supreme Court’s VIP parking garage. The street lighting for this part of the District was overkill, as good as an urban college campus at midnight. She’d seen seven limos leave. She’d prayed on this, hoped, expected, that one more, or maybe both, hadn’t yet left.

  After she purged the Court of the savage justice who could ruin everything, she’d need a place to go. Mexico, or maybe return to the Philippines. Yes. They loved her in the Philippines. She tossed an occasional look down the alley to keep tabs on a certain trash container. No one had come looking for the missing meter maid. Yet.

  Limo number eight, another Town Car, exited the garage. She twisted on her SUV’s ignition, ready to follow, except…

  A large black pickup chugged out of the underground lot. Oversized tires, four doors, with chrome exhaust pipes that reached upright behind the cab. Distinctive. A workingman’s diesel that a Texas girl would be proud to call her own. Like all the cars before, it needed to pass her parked SUV on the one-way street before it could go in any other direction.

  It lumbered toward her like a tank. The side and rear windows were tinted, making it too dark inside to know if anyone was sitting in the back seat, but there was no tint on the windshield. She’d gotten a good look at the driver on the truck’s approach up the street, a large man with an earring that looked like a…yes, it was a bear claw.

  An Indian? A surprise, but then again, not really.

  Forget the Town Car. This would be the Texas judge’s preferred ride, and the Indian her preferred protection. Larinda eased the SUV away from the curb and entered traffic.

  The Indian driver would be super vigilant. Larinda prayed for protection as soon as she started the tail, but prayer only did so much. The Tec-9 on the seat next to her would handle anything that divine intercession would not.

  Edward caught the end of the yellow light then floored it up T St. NW, to the middle of the block. A sharp right onto cobblestone brought the truck another fifty feet to an abrupt halt in front of the townhouse community gate, the brakes biting. Naomi recoiled from the stop, bouncing back against her seat.

  She caught her breath. “What is it, Edward?”

  “One moment, ma’am.” He spoke a few crisp, final sentences of marshal-speak into a wrist phone, something he’d been doing for the past few minutes. She understood the implication when his eyes focused on the last intersection they passed through, visible outside the right passenger side window about a half-block away. Her gaze followed his, up this street full of parked cars on both sides and some moving traffic, with the cars from the next block cruising casually through the green traffic light to pass one-by-one behind their idling truck at the gate.

  “Burgundy or dark red Chevy Tahoe, copy that,” Edward said into the phone. Then, to Naomi, “Let’s stay here a moment, ma’am.”

  He remained seated with his back to her, but he removed his right hand from the steering wheel to reach inside his jacket. When it reemerged it didn’t return to the steering wheel, instead was left where she couldn’t see it. Two cars from the moving traffic passed behind them at the townhouse entrance. A third car, or rather an SUV, a large one, crept up the street.

  The traffic light at the intersection a half-block away stayed red, traffic queuing up behind it. A dark sedan careened onto the street and accelerated quickly, stopping within inches of the creeping SUV, then a second nondescript sedan arrived from the other direction, jamming its brakes short of a head-on collision. A D.C. police car slipped in behind the first sedan, its lights flashing.

  A gruff bullhorn voice announced “FBI!” and told the Tahoe’s occupants to show their hands out the window. Two seconds passed, three, four…The driver’s window opened and a pair of hands reached out.

  “ANYONE ELSE?” the bullhorn voice said. “SHOW US YOUR HANDS. NOW!”

  The other windows powered down, revealing three more sets of empty hands, all shaking.

  Multiple law enforcement types with guns drawn dragged a woman out of the driver’s side of the SUV and crammed her face against the blacktop.

  The second, third and fourth occupants were pulled from their seats, two Asian women whose unsteadiness gave away their advanced age, the fourth a younger Asian man, all with their hands all up as directed.

  Edward punched in a security code Naomi read to him from her phone. The truck entered the community and the gate closed behind it. They waited.

  Edward spoke into his wrist, answering a call. “Trenton.”

  The FBI agent laid it out for him. “It’s an Uber car service, marshal. Tourists looking for their Airbnb lodging. False alarm, buddy.”

  “Thanks. Thought it was a tail. You guys did a nice job. My bad. Sorry.”

  The truck rumbled down the gated community street in less of a hurry and stopped at the end of the block, the engine still running. “My apologies, Edward, for causing you this much excitement on my first day. Would you like a bottle of water or a soft drink for your ride back? Some hot chocolate?”

  “No, Your Honor, I’m fine. My apologies to you, too, ma’am, for the false positive. I’ll get something to eat shortly.”

  After a quick visual canvass of the street, Edward opened the truck door for her. She stuffed some papers into her bag and stepped onto the truck’s running board. Edward helped her onto the sidewalk.

  “Once we get past the inconvenience of these public circumstances,” she spoke as they climbed steps, “and we know the last day I’ll have you to myself as a marshal, I’d like to cook you a meal before you leave. Does that work?”

  They arrived at the top step of her home. “I’d need to clear it with my supervisor, ma’am.”

  She rested her hand on his arm, squeezed it to show she was serious. “The answer needs to be yes, Edward. You’ve been most kind to me through all this. Make your supervisor understand. Please.”

  “I’d be honored, ma’am,” he said. “I’ll do my best.” His thick, serious face and his eyes softened, their blinking a bit more rapid.

  He regained his composure. “I need to escort you inside, ma’am.”

  The truck Larinda tailed caught some of the green lights she hadn’t, which opened up the distance separating them by almost a city block. She goosed the gas, needing to keep her target in her headlights. They were deep inside Georgetown now.

  A vehicle slipped in front of her, another large SUV entering from a side street. The traffic light at the corner turned red, stopping the interloper and Larinda both. Larinda fumed, had to calm herself with an oxy while waiting for the sidewalk LED indicator to count down the time pedestrians had left to enter and leave the crosswalk, the seconds ticking away, seventeen, sixteen, fifteen…she was going to lose her target…

  Tick, tick, tick…

  The vehicle in front of her looked familiar. Another Chevy Tahoe, in a dark red…no, a burgundy, just like hers.

  The light changed, the traffic advanc
ed up the busy twoway street, all vehicles including Larinda’s moving slowly, slower than the speed limit, another intersection coming up.

  Hustle it up, people, move, move, move…!

  The yellow traffic light turned red, the burgundy Tahoe in front of her drifting through the intersection. It crept away from her, moved up the next block, its brake lights tapping on and off. Larinda’s jaw tightened, she craned her neck…

  Her target, where was it?

  She eyed the traffic in both directions.

  Run the red light. Do it.

  She didn’t get the chance. A car careened into her path, roared up the street. A second car followed, this one the D.C. police, the two vehicles screeching to a halt followed by a door-slamming interception and assault halfway up the block. She heard a third speeding vehicle arrive. Three vehicles from two directions, all with law enforcement personnel exiting their doors, all with weapons drawn. They rousted the occupants of the SUV, four bewildered civilians with their hands up, two of them elderly. All were made to lie down on the blacktop.

  There…the truck…it was on the right a little farther up and perpendicular, sitting on a side street, hanging there, waiting…no, not on a side street, it was stopped in a driveway…

  Her target truck moved a few lengths forward. An iron gate closed tightly behind it, the truck gone from Larinda’s view.

  Paralyzed, she witnessed the federal agent takedown in progress. Same make, model and color Tahoe as hers, on the same street at the same time, stopped by federal agents, and now in their possession. It could have been her, might well have been her, was maybe supposed to be her…

  “Almighty Father,” she prayed, teary-eyed, “Your benevolence, it is…overwhelming. Thank you. Thank you, Heavenly Father…”

  The traffic light changed. She turned, found curbside parking, breathed deeply, and cleared her head. A brush with capture, and yet her reconnaissance wasn’t finished, couldn’t be finished, because she needed more info. She grabbed a ball cap from the backseat. Time for a touristy walk. With her SUV locked up she hustled around the corner, onto the block with the police activity.