by Dane Hartman
Davenport was becoming angry. He was about to rise from the table, his fists clenched and ready to pound the wood—or Harry, depending on how violent his emotions were. “You don’t understand the first thing about this,” he was saying.
Harry shook his head. “Sit down, Frank. I think your conscience is bothering you. It’s those murders, isn’t it? Fuck the drugs, it’s those killings. What do you know about Tom Reardon? Father and son?”
Davenport hadn’t been expecting the question.
“I don’t know what you mean. They’re farmers. They get into brawls, they get shitfaced every weekend, the kid hot wires cars. What of it? That’s the sheriff’s department.”
“No, that’s your department. Reardon is busy bringing bales of shit down from the mountains, That would imply that he and some of his family members are responsible for those murders. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the ones who started the battle up there last night. We didn’t fire first. Neither did the growers. But somebody with an interest in seeing a lot of blood spilled and Turk gotten out of the way did. I suspect it was the Reardon clan that did the honors.”
“You have proof? You go to the D.A.’s office. I don’t want to know about it.”
“The bales of grass are on their way, south I would imagine, right now. I saw them myself, being taken from Reardon’s truck and put into a DEA van. You’re looking at an eyewitness, friend.”
Davenport wasn’t anxious to hear any more. “This is all irrelevant to the issue at hand. That issue is you.”
Harry continued, ignoring him. “But it’s a wonderful scheme, the way it’s set up. They have you installed in Turk’s place with your great love of keeping the peace and upsetting no applecarts. They’ve got the Reardons doing the heavy work. Worse comes to worse, anyone nails them, they’ll be no problem setting them up, letting them take the fall for it. Between McPheeters and the Reardons you are blessed with Mike Kilborn, world’s foremost sleaze. A beautiful equation, Frank. Very ingenious. You’ve got to give McPheeters credit. And you being so incorruptible, you aren’t making a dime off of it. All you’ve got is a promise that some day you’ll be given a cushy job far away from Russian River. And maybe, just maybe, they’ve given Elsie here to you as an inducement.”
Harry knew this would provoke her, and it did all right.
She stood up and said in a voice she could barely keep under control, “Nobody controls me. Nobody tells me what to do.”
“Turk did,” Harry reminded her.
“I did what I wanted. Turk asked as a friend.”
“Problem is you’ve been keeping the wrong company.”
“Enough of this!” Davenport was clearly losing patience. “Whether or not what you say is true makes no difference to me at this point. Right now, the only thing that interests me is what your decision is. Are you going to leave Russian River? That’s the only thing we are considering here. Not McPheeters, not the Reardons, not Kilborn. Are you suffering from the illusion that you can change any of it? It’s all firmed up, no one’s going to stop it. If you understand that, then you will be out of here this afternoon.”
He fell silent and waited for an answer. He still seemed confident that Harry would not refuse him.
Harry let him bide his time for several moments while he pretended to reflect seriously on his decision. At last he said, “You know I’ve been thinking, Frank, and I’ve concluded that you really have a quaint little town here. Very picturesque. I wouldn’t want to leave feeling that I’ve left without getting the most out of it. So I suppose I’ll stick around a few more days.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this.” Davenport stood up. “You must be out of your goddamn mind.”
“Some people seem to think so,” Harry replied cheerily.
“That’s it then. You do what you want. But I’ve done all I can. From now on you’re on your own. I am not responsible.”
“I wouldn’t want you to be, Frank. You got enough on your mind already.”
Davenport didn’t say good-bye. He just stormed right out the door.
Elsie had her back to him. Harry wondered whether she was crying, but when he addressed her and she turned, there were no tears in her eyes. But she looked very somber and vulnerable.
“Well now, I think I’ll be on my way too. I want to thank you for the use of your bath.”
“Where will you go?”
“Back to Danton’s Motel Inn, where else?”
“They’ll find you there.”
“They’ll find me anywhere I go. I’m not hiding this time around.”
There was a protracted silence. “Don’t go,” she said.
“Don’t go?”
“What am I going to do with all these empty rooms if you go?”
“Elsie, are you sure of what you’re saying? You put me up, and you’ll be risking your life. There’s no reason for that.”
“I know what I’m doing, Harry Callahan. I know exactly what I’m doing. You were right about me. What you said. I was under their control. Turk, Kilborn, Davenport. I’ve gone far enough. Have I made myself clear?”
“Very,” said Harry.
C H A P T E R
T w e l v e
The dream was muddled, the kind of dream that would never be recollected once consciousness returned in the sober light of day. At the very end of it, glass shattered, loud and abrasive.
Harry woke from the dream at that instant and peered into the darkness. It was then that he realized that the glass shattering was no dream. It was something very real that had just occurred downstairs.
Next to him, Elsie slept on. The disturbance had scarcely registered, for she’d merely rolled over and snuggled farther under the blankets as though this were sufficient protection against the intruders Harry was sure he’d shortly discover.
He had expected something like this, maybe not quite this soon, but it was no big surprise. Failure to heed Davenport’s warning at seven in the evening clearly was intended to result in death by midnight.
Actually, it was beyond midnight, though Harry did not consult his digital watch, which was resting on the table beside the bed. All his concentration was directed at the Magnum, which lay there too. Elsie had told him she wanted it out of her sight, but Harry wouldn’t hear of it. It was vitally necessary, he’d said, and he’d won his point.
The difficulty was that he was so dead tired from the events of the last forty-eight hours that he could hardly get himself mobilized. His mind was adrift in a thick haze, his body was a clumsy instrument with wobbly limbs. His weariness was so pervasive that if he wasn’t careful, he could fall back asleep. Even now, sitting up in bed, all he had to do was close his eyes and consciousness would be annihilated. He was getting too old for this.
Taking hold of his gun, he rose from the bed. Elsie stirred and her eyes opened. “What?” she asked.
“Trouble, I think.”
He hadn’t heard anything since the glass had come apart, but far from taking solace in the subsequent silence, he was edgier than before.
She immediately jerked up, clutching the sheet to her neck. It had been one thing to offer Harry the hospitality of her home, her bed, and her body. It had been an act of courage, to be sure, but she hadn’t any idea as to what she was getting into. The danger was something hypothetical, something that would never actually happen. And now it seemed that it was happening, and she was afraid, as she had every right to be.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to stay put. But if something should happen . . .” Harry reached into the top drawer of the night table. There he’d placed a .22 handgun that he often wore strapped to his ankle as an additional precaution. “Have you ever fired a gun?”
“Hunting rifles.”
“Do you think you can use this?”
She looked from him to the weapon. “If I have to, yes.”
“Good.” He took her hand and knitted her fingers around the grips of the gun.
/> He then got into his trousers and, barefoot, padded to the door.
There was no way he could keep it from creaking when he drew it open. He only hoped that the intruders were too far away to hear. It was a big house, after all. It would go better for him if they suspected that the occupants hadn’t caught onto the break-in.
The staircase wasn’t much more cooperative than the door had been. Being as old and in need of renovation as it was, the house creaked and whistled and knocked a great deal, sometimes with human intervention, sometimes not.
Conservation-minded as Elsie was, no lights had been left burning anywhere in the house, and it was very dark throughout the rooms and hallways. Once Harry stubbed his toe against a wall he hadn’t known was there. He resisted the impulse to cry aloud, confining his oath to a whisper.
When he got down to the second landing he stopped, listening carefully for any sound that would indicate the presence of his antagonists. The silence mocked him. Well now, he thought, maybe they’re trying to be as stealthy as I am. It was likely that they did not know in which room their victims might be found. It must be frustrating for them, undertaking this exploration in the dark.
Then, just as he was about to descend farther to the first floor, he heard a voice. And though he couldn’t quite make out what was said, he heard the response it elicited clearly enough: “Shut the fuck up, they’ll hear us.”
That was the truth all right, Harry said to himself.
Yet while the intruders had now signaled their whereabouts on the ground floor, Harry still needed to know where on the ground floor they were. Moreover, he would have liked to find out how many men he faced.
At the bottom of this staircase was a switch that would ignite the overhead light in the hallway. It was possible to turn it on without exposing himself unnecessarily, Harry reasoned. At the same time, how could it fail to provoke a reaction from the intruders? It would force them to initiate some action, and that in turn would give Harry the guidance he hoped to have before he formulated his strategy.
Slowly, with a concentration that was remarkable for the tedium it entailed, Harry descended the stairs: one foot, then the next, testing the weight of each individual stair so as not to cause any more noise than was unavoidable.
He worked his way to the bottom of the staircase. Then, flattening himself against the wall, he brought his hand up to the switch and depressed it.
The intruders weren’t nearby, but they could not help noticing the sudden diffusion of light from the hallway.
“Hey, what’s that?” a man asked, violating the silence they’d ordained for themselves.
“Shhhhhhh!” came the rejoinder.
Too late, Harry thought.
There were no more voices, no sound of movement for a time. The intruders were undoubtedly attempting to figure out what the light meant.
Perhaps a minute passed before one of them spoke. “We have to do something, damn it.”
“I’m thinking,” his companion answered him. He didn’t sound particularly pleased to have to be doing this.
At last the man seemed to have reached a decision.
“Tom, you go out and see what it is.”
“Wait a minute, why me?” This protest was delivered with great vehemence and volume.
“Get out there, asshole. Keep low and get out and see what’s happening. You’re a kid. Nobody’s going to shoot you.”
Ah-hah, Harry thought, what we seem to have here is the disreputable Reardon clan.
Tom Sr., was right about one thing. Harry was not about to shoot the kid if he could help it.
Tom Jr. appeared within moments and poked his head into the hallway. He didn’t linger longer than he had to, just gave the premises a cursory glance and quickly retired. Unless he had ventured out into the middle of the hallway, there was no way he could have spotted Harry.
“You didn’t look hard enough,” was what Harry heard now.
“I told you, Pa, it’s clear.”
“What turned on the fucking light then?”
“Tom, don’t badger the kid. He didn’t see anything, he didn’t see anything. What’re you going to do?”
Another voice. Who could that be? Harry wondered.
“Fuck all, I’ll go check it out.”
This, Harry decided, should be a happy surprise.
But Tom Sr. wasn’t going this alone, not at all. He wanted his son and the man Harry couldn’t identify to accompany him.
As soon as they showed themselves, Harry swiveled about, thrusting out his .44. “Freeze right there,” he ordered.
The way in which he’d positioned himself all they could glimpse of him was the gun and the hand that held the gun.
This did not deter the elder Reardon who fired his .45 Enforcer unhesitatingly, and never mind that he knew he couldn’t hit anything.
Harry, not able to see much of anything, got a round off to drive them back. But he was luckier than he’d anticipated.
The third member of the Reardon family, with whom Harry had yet to make acquaintance, sustained a minor but bloody leg wound that sent him howling into the hallway. He sprawled in the middle of the floor clutching his right leg below the knee.
“Lou!” Tom Jr. called. “Lou!”
It took the man several moments before he looked up and saw Harry looming over him. In his pain he seemed to have forgotten about Harry altogether. Instinctively, he reached for the Remington revolver he’d dropped.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Harry advised him, keeping the .44 targeted on him.
Lou apparently agreed with him, for he made no further move toward his gun.
In the meantime, Tom Sr. and his son had fled into the recesses of the house. Obviously, they felt that there was no sense in battling Harry where he had the advantage.
Cautiously, Harry proceeded down the hallway. Recovering the Remington Colt, he left the injured Lou where he was and stepped into the adjoining room. It was cold and empty and dark.
They were there somewhere, if not in this room, then in the next. A vague light was visible in the far window which looked out onto the street but that, and what light there was from the hall, was all Harry had to navigate himself by.
He reached up, switched on yet another light.
Nothing. No one.
He could see into the kitchen. Father and son must have managed to locate some cranny to hunker down in, Harry suspected, because there was no evidence of them. And they were being very quiet. From time to time, Lou would mutter and rant in his pain, but that was it. There were no other sounds.
This could go on all night, Harry realized, this waiting game. He had exposed himself now and had sacrificed some of his advantage. But, on the other hand, he was aware of just how impatient these Reardons happened to be. And from everything he’d seen, it appeared that none of them was too bright. Given the right circumstances, they were apt to do something crazy. Harry wouldn’t have wanted to stake his life on it, but it wasn’t an impossible thing to hope for.
Then he heard a movement—not much, a rat scuttling from one side of the room to the other would have made more noise—but it was enough to alert him as to where at least one of the uninjured Reardons might be: to the extreme left of the kitchen, behind the antiquated coal stove.
Harry decided to fire directly at the side of the stove, see what kind of response this brought.
The shot caused an enormous amount of noise, a shriek of metal, and a vast eruption of coal dust that rose into a black cloud and nearly filled the whole of the kitchen. Harry heard more movement and considerable coughing.
He thought he saw someone. Or was it a shadow? He had no idea. He fired again in any case, trying to keep them off balance and draw them out at the same time.
In both these objectives, he appeared to have succeeded.
Someone—Tom Sr.? Tom Jr.?—responded with two shots, discharged in rapid succession. They were badly aimed, impacting against the wall beyond him, causing plaster to rain down
on the handwoven rugs that were among Elsie’s most valuable possessions.
This display of inaccuracy emboldened Harry to advance farther. He bobbed and weaved in doing so. The blood pounded in his temples, he was alive again. He had gotten a second wind, and he intended to use it to the maximum. He doubted that there’d be a third.
At the threshold of the kitchen Harry dropped down, just in time to avoid another barrage that streaked across the room and into the windows. More glass ruptured with enough noise to arouse the neighbors. Maybe they’d summon the police, maybe not. Harry hoped they would resist the temptation. Russian River’s police force would not look upon Harry with great favor.
When Harry raised his eyes, all he saw was a room full of coal dust and smoke, a mingling of poisonous gases. Once more the Reardons had managed to elude him. Wherever they were, they weren’t in the kitchen any longer.
Harry raced into the pantry, where two old white refrigerators hummed in unison. Two means of exit were available from there: the cellar on his left and the back door. It made more sense for them to retreat into the yard than risk the cellar, where they might be trapped.
Nonetheless, Harry kicked the door open to be sure, and threw on the light at the top of the stairs. He found himself peering into a cavernous stone space, part of which had been converted for the storage of crates and trunks, while another part had been given over to what looked like hundreds of jars of jams and preserves.
Having no opportunity to invesigate more fully, Harry turned around and made his way into the yard that stretched all the way back to a grove of alders and pines. There was no sign of them in the yard. They’d probably concealed themselves among the trees and the dark.
Reasonably convinced that he had at least succeeded in expelling the two armed Reardons from the house, Harry went back in. It was important that he see to Elsie, get her to more secure surroundings if possible.