by Harper Lin
I waited a few seconds, the sounds of firing rising to a crescendo in the house around me. The thud of a shock grenade echoed through the building. It sounded like the police had launched a full scale assault. They had obviously stopped caring about me and Octavian. That meant the gangsters had forced their hand by trying to make a break for it, guns blazing.
And what about Octavian? My heart trembled to think of him in the midst of all that.
I pushed that thought aside. I had work to do.
I sent another burst down the hatch and then peeked over. A metal spiral staircase, now riddled by my bullets, descended into near darkness. I peered down as well as I could and all I could see was a high-ceilinged cellar piled with crates. I did not see the boss but there were a dozen good places where he could hide and get an excellent shot at the exposed staircase as I came down.
I hesitated. Going down those stairs would be suicide.
Then the distant revving of an engine told me that he wasn’t covering the stairs, he was making a run for it.
I hustled down the staircase as fast as I could and saw an open door at the far end of the cellar. Daylight streamed in. Hoping no one else was lurking in the cellar, I hurried over to the door and saw it opened out onto a path leading downhill to a second dock, one around on the other side of the hill from where we had come with the sub. The boss was just pulling out in a small speedboat. A policeman lay by the dock, clutching his side where he had been shot.
The dock was about two hundred yards away, and the boat had already made it a further fifty yards and was picking up speed, turning its side to me as it moved down the tributary towards the main river.
No other police officer was in sight. Obviously the rest were busy storming the house. I heard the sound of the approaching helicopter, but once they got here the boss would be far enough away that they might mistake him for regular river traffic and not a fugitive. The police in these parts were really that dumb.
It was all up to me.
Hitting a quickly moving target at 250 yards with a submachine gun is a pretty tall order. The weapon was made for close fighting. This shot required a rifle which I did not have. And I only had half a magazine left. Enough for two decent bursts.
I aimed, as much as you can with such a short weapon, and let off a burst. The boss ducked as my bullets spat up water all around him, but he did not fall.
I took a deep breath, aimed again, and as I exhaled emptied the magazine.
Sparks flew all along the metal hull of the boat. Then one smacked into the engine. There was a brief flare of light, a cough from the engine, and a trail of smoke.
My submachine gun clicked. I was out of ammunition.
Then the boss’s gas tank exploded.
A lovely ball of flame enveloped the boat, rising into the air. The boss leapt off the boat, his silk dressing gown on fire.
He landed in the water with a splash. The boat’s momentum pushed it several yards away from him before it turned and capsized, still flaming.
The boss splashed frantically in the water.
“I surrender!” he shouted.
“I kind of figured that!” I shouted back.
His head went under, then appeared again like a cork, although not a very buoyant cork. So I suppose he didn’t come back up like a cork at all. More like a drowning man gasping his last breath of air. His arms splashed every which way. He sputtered for a second and then shouted to me, “I can’t swim!”
“If you can’t swim, you should have set up your headquarters in the desert instead of along a river!”
Then I turned and went inside. I needed to find some more ammunition. I was beginning to love this little gun and I wanted to play with it a bit more.
I retraced my steps and ended up back in the living room. There I froze. The Exterminator was gone. I’d only knocked him out for a few minutes. That was bad news.
Peeking through the door, I saw no one in the front hall, just the two bodies I’d left by the door.
Just as I was leaning over to check if the fellow I’d taken the Agram 2000 from had any more ammunition, a panicked gangster ran down the stairs, in such a hurry to get someplace he didn’t notice me until I got a bead on him.
“Drop that pistol!” I shouted.
He looked at me, looked at the submachine gun, and looked at me again.
“Last chance!” I shouted with as much confidence as I could muster. If he called my bluff, I was done for.
His gun dropped to the floor with a clatter and he raised his hands above his head.
“Go out the front door and surrender,” I ordered.
He edged to the front door, opened it, and was rewarded by a bullet whizzing by his head.
“I can’t go out there! The cops are too trigger happy!”
“Well, you can’t stay in here. Move it.”
He waved his hands through the door to show he wasn’t armed, and then peeked out.
“Come out with your hands up!” Grimal shouted through a megaphone.
“That’s what I’m trying to do!” the gangster shouted, then cautiously stepped out the door.
Once he was gone I bent over and searched the bodies, coming up with another 32 round clip.
Perfect. Once I snapped it into place I felt much better. There was still scattered firing around the house. The focus seemed to have shifted to the far wing of the building, so that’s where I headed.
My knees still ached, my back still ached, my wrist still ached from where the Exterminator grabbed it a couple of hours before, and my shoulders were beginning to ache from firing this wonderful burp gun, but I ignored all those things. I could take a hot bath with a glass of wine and a painkiller later. Right now I had a man to save and several others to defeat.
Moving past the grand staircase, I came to a long hallway spattered with bloodstains but no bodies. The house had suddenly gone silent. That worried me. Usually when the police stormed a building they came in with overwhelming force screaming at the top of their lungs. This attack seemed to be a patchwork affair, disorganized and undermanned. Only one officer had been guarding the side entrance to the other pier, Grimal was still outside, no one was in the front hall or stairs or wing that I had just left, and no one was here either. Who was running this show?
Oh wait, Grimal. Silly question.
“It’s just you and me, my darling little Agram 2000,” I whispered. “I’m going to name you Burpette.”
A chorus of shouts up ahead told me where the party was. I headed through a door and came upon the backs of several police officers. None of them saw me. If I had been a gangster, I could have gunned them all down. Between all those broad, stupid shoulders I could just make out what they were all training their guns at.
And my heart went cold.
The Exterminator held Octavian in a headlock and had a pistol pressed against his head. He edged away towards a door.
“Let him go!” one of the cops demanded.
“If you make a move, the old fart gets it!” the Exterminator shouted back.
The Exterminator passed through the door, dragging Octavian with him.
“If I see any one of you on the way to the pier, I kill him!” he shouted, then kicked the door closed.
Fourteen
I had to work fast. The police might do something stupid and get Octavian killed. Plus, to get to the pier, the Exterminator would have to go around the front of the house, where Grimal was still lurking. I laid even higher odds on that fool doing something stupid.
I slipped out of the room the way I had come as the police got ready to storm the door through which the Exterminator had just disappeared. They never knew I was there.
Moving as fast as I could, I hurried back through the main front hall and out the front door …
… only to have a bullet crack the doorframe inches from my feet.
I did a little dance and shouted, “It’s me, you idiot!”
Grimal was lying prone on the front lawn, huddled behind a bu
lletproof riot shield. When he saw me, his eyes went wide.
“Oh, sorry!”
“Good thing you’re a bad shot!” I shouted.
“Yeah, good thing!” agreed the gangster I had forced to surrender. He sat with his hands cuffed behind his back a few yards away from my least favorite police chief.
“One of the gangsters has Octavian,” I told Grimal as I came down the steps. “He’s headed for the pier. Call off your goon squad before they get him killed.”
Grimal hesitated.
“Now!” I shouted.
I think I actually pointed my submachine gun at him, but I can’t vouch for that. If I did, it was entirely subconscious. I had no intention of actually using it. Fantasies, perhaps, but no intention. Really.
Whether it was the tone of my voice or the prospect of getting burped on by a burpgun fired by a woman with a hairy mole, Grimal grabbed his radio and shouted, “Do not intercept the suspect with the hostage!”
Why do police always use the term “suspect”? Hadn’t we gone beyond the suspect stage at this point? I suppose they were told in the police academy that they couldn’t label someone a criminal until after they’d been convicted in a court of law.
Just then the ruthless killer rounded the corner of the house. My mistake, the “suspect” rounded the corner of the house, allegedly trying to make an escape from his alleged crimes while allegedly holding a gun to Octavian’s head. Pierre, another “suspect”, came just behind them.
They spotted us and paused. The Exterminator’s trigger finger tensed.
“Wait!” I shouted, dropped my beloved Agram 2000. “I surrender. Take me instead. Just let him go.”
The Exterminator cocked his head.
“All right, you got a deal. Move over here and do it slow.”
I did as I was told.
“Slowly,” Octavian said.
“Huh?” the Exterminator replied.
“‘Move over here and do it slowly,’” Octavian said. “If you knew how to speak proper English maybe you could have gotten an honest job.”
“Shut up or I’ll shoot you.”
“I was kind of hoping you’d do that so that the police officer over there could shoot you,” Octavian admitted.
“Very gallant,” the Exterminator said, shoving him away. “Now beat it, I got a better hostage now.”
Octavian tried to get between us but the Exterminator aimed at his head and Octavian slowly stepped aside. I continued to walk forward.
I had almost made it to him, my hands raised in the air. The Exterminator gave me a nasty grin.
Just then his head exploded.
The rogue CIA agent fell onto the grass with a thud, stone dead. Pierre stood behind him, a gun in his hand and his eyes bugging.
For a moment nobody moved, then slowly Pierre bent down and placed the gun on the ground, raising his hands over his head as he straightened up.
I blinked and gaped at him, utterly confused. “Pierre … why?”
He gazed back at me with love and devotion in his eyes. “Why? Do you really have to ask why? He was going to hurt you. I’d rather go to jail for life than let anything happen to you.”
Oh. Oh dear. Um, I didn’t really have a response to that.
Grimal saved me from having to think of one by hustling up and handcuffing him. As the cuffs went on, Pierre looked at Octavian.
“Take good care of her.”
“I will, young man,” Octavian replied.
Luckily Octavian was a gambler and able to maintain a poker face.
As Grimal led him away to the other prisoner, Pierre called over his shoulder, “I’ll never forget you, Celeste!”
Octavian looked at me. “Celeste?”
“An alias. Necessary for undercover work.”
The old sweetie looked baffled. “But didn’t he hear your real name?”
I struck a pose, tweaked my hairy mole, and said in the slurred voice of a habitual drunk, “Well, I guess he just prefers me this way. Can you be a darling and pour me a drink?”
Octavian shook his head. “I think I could use one myself.”
The police came out with the last few gangsters, laying them out on the grass and frisking them. The helicopter circled low overhead, late to the party.
Grimal strutted over to us. He looked inordinately pleased with himself.
“Only two men wounded and the entire gang rounded up. Not a bad day’s work,” he said with a pride that was as overbearing as it was unearned.
“Where’s the Apple Bluff police chief?” I asked. “Shouldn’t he be in charge here?”
Grimal gave me a grin. “He’s up in the state capital for a meeting, so the honor went to me.”
Unbelievable. He was going to get another medal and more headlines out of this. I, of course, would get none of the glory and all the sore joints. I was curious about one thing, however.
“How did you find us?” I asked.
Grimal nodded to Octavian.
“Mr. Perry’s panic button,” the Cheerville police chief said.
“His what?” I asked, turning to Octavian.
He gave me a proud smile and from his pocket he pulled out a little plastic box. With his thumb he flipped open the front to reveal a small red button.
“It’s for emergencies. It calls 911 in case you’ve fallen and can’t get up. Since you might not be able to speak, it has a geolocator on it so the emergency services can come and get you. You’re supposed to wear it around your neck but that looks ridiculous so I keep it in my pocket. Those gangsters never frisked me like they did you, thinking I was just a harmless old man. Young people always underestimate us. Even my own daughter does. She bought this panic button for me. I don’t need the fool thing, I’m as healthy as a man half my age, but I carry it around just to placate her. She’ll never stop laughing when I tell her how useful it turned out to be.”
“Mr. Perry hit that button several times during your captivity,” Grimal said. “It allowed us to trace your path from the abandoned farm all the way to this place.”
I looked at Octavian with renewed admiration. “So that’s why you kept putting your hands in your pockets!”
He flashed me that winning grin. “That’s right. I hit it before we got on the sub, and then each time we surfaced for air. That’s why I got right under the air pipe. I was hoping the signal would make it out.”
“It did,” Grimal said. “It was faint, but it did.”
“Plus I turned the volume as low as it could go and put my hand over the gizmo’s little speaker so no one could hear emergency services trying to speak with me. When I didn’t respond, they tracked me. Plus, I knew they’d notice there was an APB out for me as a missing person. That brought the police right here. Pretty good thinking, eh? I could have been one of those secret operatives too.”
“I suppose you could have,” I admitted, and smiled.
He examined my hairy mole. “All things considered, I’m glad I chose to be a stock broker. I never had to wear any nasty disguises or get shot at. Imagine dying looking like that! It doesn’t bear thinking about. Hopefully we won’t be having any more of these little adventures.”
“I have to warn you; dating a CIA agent, even an ex-CIA agent, isn’t easy.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed, but I like you no matter what,” Octavian said, taking my hand.
I felt a little squishy feeling in my chest. I gave him a kiss on the lips.
He had certainly earned it.
The next day found me back where it all started—in front of my mirror putting on makeup. This time Dandelion was behaving. No bolting away from intruders, no climbing up my leg and ruining my pantyhose, instead she was playing with a toy I’d made for her. It’s amazing how fascinating a tennis ball on the end of a string tied to a doorknob can be for a cat. I could hear the regular thump thump thump as she batted it and it hit the door. It reminded me of my grandson. He was always thumping around too.
They’d be back home later tha
t day, to find their plants watered and everything as it should be. They wouldn’t know a thing about what had happened. Grimal had kept my name out of the newspapers. His name, of course, was in all the headlines.
That annoyed me more than I care to say. At least he didn’t put up a fuss when I stole the Agram 2000. It was more useful in my hands than in some evidence locker. My darling little Burpette now sat next to my 9mm in the drawer of my bedside table, ready to greet the next bloodthirsty assassin who decided to make an appearance.
Standing in front of the mirror, I put on way too much powder and the brightest shade of lipstick I had been able to find. Then I added the mole.
Yes, I was going as Celeste Tammany. I had an appointment to visit Pierre in prison. The poor dear had asked for me. It seemed only fair, after what he did for us, that I give him some sympathy before his long prison term. Hopefully his sentence won’t be too long. I’d heard that his lawyers were trying to convince the prosecutor to be lenient in exchange for his testimony against the others in the gang.
I looked at my creation in the mirror. Truly horrid. Why the young man found this attractive was beyond me, but there’s no accounting for taste.
After watching Pierre pine for me through the glass at the prison visitor center, I had a lunch date with Octavian. I had a few things to explain, to say the least. He was being a good sport about all this. Discovering in your golden years that you’re dating a former CIA agent who solves the occasional murder and has a predilection for getting into gunfights must be a bit hard to absorb.
He had invited me to Bangkok Fire, a Thai restaurant with a reputation for five-alarm five specials that was in, of all places, Apple Bluff. I think Octavian was trying to reassert his manhood after all the gunplay and kidnappings and whatnot.
What a darling. I would have to remember to take off my disguise before meeting him. He’d been through enough already.
Then I remembered what he had said to me after the Exterminator went down: “I like you no matter what.”
Hmmm, perhaps we should test that?
Yes. I’ll take the disguise off but leave the hairy mole on. We’ll see what he thinks of that.