Cold Frame [retail]

by P. T. Deutermann

  “No, Sergeant, that would be a mistake. Look: he’s willing to help, and he has some extraordinary assets that he can make available. I spent some time with him this weekend and you have to see this to believe it.”

  “He a Mafia don or something?” Av asked. “What kind of assets?”

  “Plants that can kill people?” she said softly. “He calls them his smart weeds.”

  “Now that’s some creepy shit,” Av said, trying to imagine what a smart weed looked like.

  She looked at her watch. “Let’s you and me have some breakfast, then I’ll call him and we’ll go out there to Great Falls. If after that you still think I’m out to get you, then, by all means, go climb the mountain. But I think it’s very important that you meet Hiram Walker before Mandeville acts on the fact that you’re out of his clutches.”

  “Breakfast sounds fine,” Av said. “Coffee in particular. But first, take that fanny pack off and toss it over here, if you don’t mind.”

  She smiled, reached for the snaps, and pitched the pack onto a pillow. It landed with a thump that told Av there was indeed a weapon in the pack. Then she stood up and stretched.

  “Anything else you want me to take off, Detective?” she inquired, innocently. “It’s still early. I do need some exercise, but it doesn’t have to be outside.”

  “Oh, c’mon,” he said. “We’re supposed to, what: fall in l-u-u-v now?”

  “You still seem to think I’m dangerous,” she said, smoothing the flimsy fabric of her running shorts across her thighs. “Hell, I might have a stiletto strapped to my thigh for all you know.”

  “Not in those shorts,” he said, then realized he’d just admitted to checking her out. She smiled again, then folded her arms across her stomach. In one smooth and obviously practiced move, she removed her T-shirt, halter bra, shorts, and then her underpants. She put her hands on her hips in a clear, what-do-you-think-about-this posture.

  Av swallowed and then nodded in wide-eyed appreciation. “That’s unfair,” he said, trying to keep his voice from squeaking. “But I’m glad to see there’s no stiletto down there.”

  “According to your rules, there is something infinitely more dangerous than a stiletto, though,” she said, glancing down. “Right, Detective?”

  This time he did squeak. Dammit.

  The next moment she was right next to him on top of the covers, like a fast-moving snake. He felt a moment of panic—her fanny pack was now back in reach. Then he heard it hit the floor on the opposite side of the bed. “That’s not the gun I want right now, Detective,” she whispered. “It’s this one.”

  He was doomed. No other word for it.

  She giggled like a girl. “Why don’t you let me take charge for a little while,” she said. “What is it they say in the U.K.? Lie back, think of England, and do your damn duty.”

  Then she pulled the covers down, pushed his gun out of the bed, and draped herself on top of him, pressing her lips to the hollow of his neck while the rest of her body melted into every square inch of his. For some reason he recalled Mau-Mau’s worried refrain: we’re all going down. Apparently he muttered those exact words, because she broke contact for just a second, looked deep into his eyes, and said in a thickening voice: “Well, I sure as hell hope so. Got some serious horns to deal with here.”

  * * *

  Sometime later she pushed the hair out of her eyes, looked down at him, and said: “Gotcha, scaredy-cat.”

  He opened his eyes, saw that there was real sunlight outside now. He tried to remember his name. Damn. Yup, that was it. Damn! He thought he could feel every blood vessel tingling in his body. “Amen to that,” he said. “I have been well and truly got. Get enough exercise?”

  She leaned forward, pulled his face into her breasts so he could listen to her heartbeat. Definitely cardio range, he thought. Had to admit, he thought—that beat the hell out of jogging. Then she slid out of the bed and headed for the bathroom. “You said something about coffee,” she said over her shoulder. “And breakfast?”

  “Um,” he said. “Coffee for sure. Breakfast, we may have to go out.”

  “Typical bachelor,” she said. “Beer, charcoal, coffee, ammo, but food? Never.”

  “What’s in your pad?”

  “Same,” she said, turning on the shower now. “Assuming you can walk, get in here. I’m going to need my back done.”

  “Never assume,” he mumbled as he got out of bed.

  Fortunately he had a Keurig and a basketful of fully aged K-Cups. He’d been right about the food problem, but she’d fired up her phone, found a Georgetown bakery that would deliver from seven to ten in the morning, smart businessmen that they were. They ended up on the roof with warm croissants and high-test coffee. Below them the morning traffic was already up and running. It was almost eight o’clock, and Av wondered if he was going in to work today, or if he should wait for Precious to call. The Petersburg interlude now seemed to be some kind of bad dream. The sun felt good, though, and there was a tentative fall breeze hunting loose leaves through the big oaks out back.

  “Who’s this someone you want me to meet, again?” he asked.

  “Older dude, named Hiram Walker,” she said, attacking her third croissant. She’d borrowed one of his football shirts, put her panties back on, brushed her hair, and declared victory. The croissant collapsed and she ended up with a chin full of crumbs. That made her giggle, and, suddenly, Av felt a dangerous emotional twinge, upon which he instantly stomped.

  “That’s a whiskey,” he said. “Canadian whiskey?”

  “His father named him that for a reason, apparently,” she said, pinching and then flopping the T-shirt to get all those crumbs off her bobbling breasts. “The original Hiram Walker was apparently some kind of genius,” she said. “Famous for never giving up until he’d succeeded at whatever he was trying to do.”

  “That can be a dangerous philosophy,” Av said. “Turns people into fanatics. Sometimes it’s better to step back, look at what you’re doing, and maybe regroup.”

  She eyed him across her coffee mug. “Fanatics,” she said. “That’s a loaded word. Like crusaders.” The sound of a jet descending the Potomac gorge into Reagan airport floated across the breeze, its engines whining lazily at low power.

  “I was face-to-face with one in Petersburg,” he said. “Scary dude, Ellen, as you must know. I think you’ve been right all along—Mandeville’s removing obstacles, all in the name of the new God called national security. Besides that, I failed to show appropriate respect.”

  She blew out a long breath and finished her coffee. Then she frowned.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Listen,” she said.

  Then he heard it: the faint but unmistakable sound of a helicopter, the sound of its rotors thumping almost subliminally over the traffic sounds below.

  “Channel nine traffic copter,” he said. “Down by the Lincoln.”

  “No,” she said. “Closer. Much closer. And suppressed. That’s a SpecOps Black Hawk, I’m sure of it.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about, but then he thought he heard the door down in his apartment bang open. He jumped out of his chair and looked down the rooftop’s stairway, only to see Rue Waltham, dressed in a bathrobe and holding a cell phone in one hand, standing at the bottom.

  “Run!” she said urgently. “NOW!” Then she turned and ran, herself.

  A moment later Ellen was pushing past him and scrambling down the stairs. “That helo’s coming here,” she shouted over her shoulder. “Get dressed, get your cop stuff, and then get out of here. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Ellen, wait—what the—”

  But by then both Ellen and Rue had disappeared, so he followed her down. She was already streaking down the stairs to the loft. He followed her inside. She was in the bedroom, pulling on her clothes; Rue was nowhere to be seen. Still grappling with the sudden appearance of his tenant, he went to the dresser, grabbed underwear, clean jeans, and his Redskins fo
otball T-shirt. By the time he was dressed Ellen was already headed out the front door, snapping her fanny pack back onto her waist and then checking the weapon inside. He retrieved his smartphone, wallet, badge, and .45 and followed her down the main stairs. At the side vestibule he told her to hold up.

  “I’ve got a garage,” he said. “How did you—”

  “I took a cab from my apartment to the Watergate,” she said, cocking an ear for that helicopter. “Then I jogged over.”

  “C’mon, then,” he said. He led her through the service door into the garage area and locked it behind him. When she saw the Harley, she asked if it still ran.

  “Should,” he said. “I had it out three weeks ago. But my truck—”

  “No,” she said. “Not the truck. They’ll have you in two minutes. You take that mountain bike over there, and I’ll take the Harley. Got riding gear?”

  He found the big black motorcycle helmet on a shelf while she checked out the motorcycle. He gave her his leather riding jacket and a set of chaps to cover her bare legs. She put everything on and then wheeled the bike out toward the door, the clothes billowing around her slim frame. He got the Harley’s keys out of a bottle and then fired up the opener to raise the metal warehouse door. As daylight streamed in from the bottom, the sound of the approaching helicopter was unmistakable, not overhead, but definitely coming, the clatter of its rotor blades echoing against all the brickwork in the neighborhood. He handed her the keys.

  “Listen carefully,” she said. “I’ll take off into traffic and head east, toward the center of town. You wait three minutes, then walk the bike around to the towpath and start riding west. When you get to Chain Bridge, get up on the bridge and walk it across. Then ditch the bike, call a cab, and ask him to take you to Tysons Corner mall. Once you’re in the cab, tell the driver you’ve changed your mind, and that you really want to go to 6500 Deepstep Creek Road. That’s out in Great Falls. Tell him you want him to take the Georgetown Pike. This is important: leave your phone in the cab when you get there, and leave it switched on. Get out and approach the gates and tell them I sent you.”

  “This that Hiram Walker guy?”

  “Yes, it is,” she said. Then before he could ask any more questions, she dropped the helmet visor and kicked the Harley into life. Then she accelerated out of the garage right into all the traffic on Thirty-third Street, to the accompaniment of many horns and screeching brakes. Almost immediately, a siren started up about a block away, then a second. He watched for a moment from the shadow of the garage entrance, then punched the door control to lower it. He heard the motorcycle’s engine throttle down for a moment and then accelerate, probably turning onto M Street.

  He went to the mountain bike and unchained it from its rack, checked the tires, and then looked at his watch. The towpath was pretty narrow right here in the Georgetown precincts, but it widened out upriver of Georgetown U. The traffic crossing the river on Chain Bridge would be heavy at this time of day, so walking the bike across would make sense. He found his bicycle helmet and put it on, which obscured his shaved head. The big football shirt would hide his holster and badge rig, and his phone and wallet could go in the bag behind the seat. He’d forgotten to bring sunglasses, but his helmet had an abbreviated sun visor, which would conceal at least the top of his face.

  He rolled the bike toward the service door. Even through the three courses of old brick between him and the outside world, he thought he could still hear that helicopter, which sounded as if it was hovering right over the building now. Suppressed or not, its rotors punched a menacing staccato of pure military power down into the canal. Then the pitch changed and the noise began to diminish. The sirens became louder, and there was a lot of horn blaring out on the street, as if maybe the cop cars were trying to push through traffic and traffic was pushing back.

  He waited a few more minutes for the sirens to go away, then rolled the bike through the service door, making sure it locked behind him, and, with a final deep breath, rolled it out of the building. He almost expected gunfire once out in the morning light, but there was only the usual traffic in the street. No helicopters or cop cars or Expeditions loitering in the shadows. They’d gone after the decoy, apparently. When he thought about it, he realized those vehicles had to have been there before the helo showed up. Had they seen her go into his building, and then made a move to get them both?

  Them, again. They. Them. He shivered in the morning sunlight as he realized just how many of “them” were in this town these days.

  As he pedaled up the towpath, being passed by the occasional runner and then having to stop, get off, and portage the bike up and over a street crossing and back down to the path again, he thought about the mysterious but damned exciting Ellen Whiting. Their bedroom encounter had been swift and urgent, at least the first time. Round two had been gentler but no less demanding on her part. Only afterward, when she’d rolled off into a warm ball alongside him, had he begun to wonder what the hell he’d gotten himself into. Was it as simple as what she’d said? Got some serious horns here? She probably thought he’d been gaming her a little—playing hard to get and thus arousing her interest. It had been months since he’d taken a woman to bed, and, in a way, he still hadn’t—she had clearly taken him to bed, and she had been in control just about every time they’d met up.

  A bell rang behind him and he pulled to the right just in time to let a speed bike whiz past on his left, about one foot away. He wondered what Ellen Whiting was doing right about now as she led an enraged federal posse into the red zone around the Mall, the White House, Ellipse, and all those tourist buses massing at the reflecting pool. Probably having the time of her life, he thought with a grin. He remembered what his father had called women like that: sport models. Then his grin faded as he remembered the old traffic cop refrain: you can outrun me, but you can not outrun my radio …

  TWENTY-ONE

  Hiram Walker looked up as Thomas came into the library to report that there was a man in a cab at the front gates asking to be admitted.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Detective Sergeant Kenneth Smith, Washington Metro Police Department,” Thomas announced.

  “Yes, let him in and bring him to me. See if he wants a coffee.”

  Five minutes later Thomas ushered Av into the library and then went to get a coffee tray. Hiram stood up and offered an oversized hand. “Sergeant Smith,” he said, “welcome to Whitestone Hall. I’ll bet you’re wondering why she sent you here.”

  “That’s putting it mildly, Mister Walker. It’s already been a pretty interesting morning.”

  Hiram pointed to a chair and then sat back down on his “throne.” He was relieved to see that the policeman’s feet actually did touch the ground. Av told him most of what had happened earlier, omitting the more personal activities.

  “I received a brief text from Ellen,” Hiram said. “Saying you were coming and that she was going. Where, I don’t know.”

  “She’s leading some federal LE on a wild-goose chase, I expect,” Av said, trying not to gawk at the giant sitting across from him. “They’ll eventually catch her—it’s a small town, after all—and then we’ll see how good a bullshitter she really is.”

  Hiram laughed. “A pretty good one, Sergeant,” he said. “But I believe her heart’s in the right place and that there is a serious problem to deal with downtown.”

  “That being the DMX?”

  Hiram hesitated. Ellen had said that this policeman knew about the problem, but that he was absolutely not read into the DMX. The policeman smiled when he saw Hiram hesitate. “I know, Mister Walker, I know,” he said, as Thomas came in with the coffee tray. “And now you can guess what my problem is.”

  Hiram nodded, waiting for Thomas to back out of the library. They fixed their coffees and then resumed their conversation. Hiram told Av about his having let some covert agencies use some of his more exotic plants, and that he now thought that Mandeville had really gained access to them in o
rder to kill off his opposition on the DMX.

  “Ellen told me that she was involved in the first one,” Av said. “We got a lot of smoke blown our way when we looked into the McGavin death. Even the ME drew a blank, or else somebody got to them. The Bureau said it wasn’t their problem, and then it was their problem, and then—frankly, I’m completely confused at this juncture.”

  Hiram said he understood. “The sheer size of the counterterrorism world down there is enough to make confusion the order of the day, I’m sure. I’d like to think that that is part of some grand strategy to confuse the enemy, but unfortunately, it’s just Parkinson’s Law. Ellen said you met Mister Mandeville under rather strange circumstances—do you think they were coming for you this morning?”

  It was Av’s turn to hesitate. He really didn’t want to expose the fact that he and Ellen had gone to bed together, but if he said that they might have been after her instead of him, it would be pretty obvious. “I think they were coming for me,” he said. “I think Ellen had come to warn me—she’s aware of Mandeville’s crusade to do some ethnic cleansing—and then she decided to provide a decoy so I could get away. Before the helicopter showed up, she’d been telling me about you and that you might be able to explain what had happened to those people.”

  Hiram put down his coffee cup and stood up. Ellen had told Av that Hiram was tall, but he’d had no idea. “I have to move around from time to time, Sergeant,” Hiram said. “With my condition there will come a time when I will be unable to move much at all. Care for a tour of my gardens?”

  “Is it safe to tour your gardens?” Av asked, remembering Ellen’s words.

  Hiram smiled. “As long as you stay on the sidewalks near the house, Sergeant,” he said. “It can be a bit of a jungle out there, you know.”

  * * *

  They’d been outside for half an hour when Ellen finally showed up at the gates. She joined them outside, dressed now in her business clothes and driving a government sedan. Hiram had been explaining how plants process sunlight, water, and CO2 to make food, and Av was glad for the distraction. She greeted Hiram with a warm smile and a quick handshake; with Av she was more reserved, which he thought was a little amusing, considering. But then, the previous few hours of her morning may have been a wee bit stressful.