No Way to Die

by M. D. Grayson

  “When I have confirmation that the wire’s arrived, you get the key.”

  “How will we know it’s the real key?” he asked.

  “Bring a computer,” I said. “Plug it in. Watch it work.”

  The line was quiet again. Jennifer studied her fingernails, looking remarkably composed. Toni looked at me.

  “Okay,” Marlowe said. “When and where do you suggest we make the exchange?”

  “Somewhere public,” I said. “Forgive me if I don’t trust you or your crew.”

  “Now who’s being insulting, Mr. Logan?” he asked.

  “Who’s the one who got hit on the head with a baseball bat?” I asked. “Speaking of which, if I even so much as see that bald-headed motherfucker, first I’ll kick his ass, and then this deal’s off the table.”

  He laughed. “Mr. Logan,” he said, “you should know it’s when you don’t see him that you need to worry about him.”

  “That’s supposed to make me more comfortable?”

  “I don’t really care if it does,” he said. “Where do you propose we meet?”

  “Starbucks, University Square, 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. Just you and me. Nobody else.”

  “Really?” he asked. “Just the two of us? And here I was, hoping you’d propose bringing along that delightful Ms. Blair with you.”

  “Just you and me,” I repeated. “No tricks. I’ll bring the hardware and the papers. You be ready to wire the money.”

  “No tricks—right you are. See you tomorrow, then,” he said. Then he hung up.

  * * * *

  “Perfect,” Jennifer said, after I hung up. “That couldn’t have gone any better.”

  “You think?” I asked, my nerves returning to normal. Having to be “on” with a bad guy is a surefire way to get your blood pumping. Now, I started to relax.

  “Absolutely,” she said.

  “Marlowe’s a particularly pretentious prick, isn’t he?” Toni said. “I mean, the guy’s a complete douchebag—doesn’t give a damn about whom he hurts—but he sits there with his polished accent and his fancy vocabulary and acts like he’s a knight of the realm or something.”

  “Particularly pretentious prick?” I said, emphasizing the P’s. “I can barely get that out. Besides, what are you complaining about? He complimented you, didn’t he?”

  “Great,” she said disgustedly. “I’ve been waiting for my knight in shining armor. Maybe it’s him.”

  Jennifer laughed. “Maybe not. I happen to agree with you—he gives me the creeps. I’d like nothing better than to arrest him and see him sitting in prison.”

  “That’d change his demeanor, wouldn’t it?” I asked. I switched to my best British accent, which, admittedly, is none too good. “It’d knock the old boy down a peg or two, wouldn’t it?”

  The ladies turned and looked at me. “Eight hours a day you have to work with this?” Jennifer said.

  Toni nodded. “I think it’s penance. I must have been mean to someone when I was a kid.”

  * * * *

  We agreed to use the parking lot at the tennis courts at U-Dub as a staging point the next afternoon at three. Toni and I said our good-byes and left for our fivethirty meeting at the office.

  “I’m worried about you meeting Marlowe alone,” she said as I headed north on Aurora. Traffic was heavy, and we weren’t moving very fast.

  “I won’t be alone,” I said. “The place will be swarming with FBI agents. They’ll probably have one behind the counter acting like a barista, wearing one of those green aprons. With a Tommygun hidden underneath.”

  “You think Marlowe doesn’t expect that?” she said. “I think we’d be really silly to underestimate this guy.”

  “You’re right. But he’s greedy. I think he’ll come to the meeting like a shark sniffing out a blood trail. He’ll make the swap. And that’s when I think we really have to be careful. After he’s got the key, I think he’ll circle around and try to rip us off later to get his money back. Something like that, anyway.”

  “I think he’s going to see right through this. My prediction? You heard it here first: he’s not going to show—at least not the way everyone’s planning for. We have to be careful. This guy will manage to do what we least expect,” she said.

  I thought about that. Those might have been the smartest words I’d heard all day. “Well said. But for me, anyway, I think the risk is reasonably low. If he suspects that there are FBI agents around, then he might not show up at all. But if he does show, starting a big brouhaha in the middle of a crowded market square only decreases his chances of getting out in one piece. Given that, it seems to me that he’ll try to have his own people in place to protect him, just in case something goes wrong. He’ll rely on them to get him out.”

  “So the whole seating area will be filled with innocent-looking people—only half of them will be FBI agents and the other half Marlowe’s guys.”

  I nodded. “Something like that,” I said.

  “You know, there's a word for that," she said..

  “What?”

  “A clusterfuck, that’s what.”

  I laughed.

  “It’s a technical term,” she said. “But I’m serious—you’ll need to be really careful. No telling what might happen. This guy’s already hurt you once.”

  “This?” I asked, pointing to my bandage. “That’s just a little scratch delivered blindside by a chickenshit.”

  She looked at me for a second. “You really are amazing,” she said.

  I looked over at her and smiled. “Yep.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.“I mean, you are such a macho hot dog. How do you actually fit that fat head of yours through a door?”

  I laughed. “Macho hot dog—that’s me,” I said happily. I love it when she abuses me like that.

  Chapter 17

  “HEY! WHAT ARE you doing here?” I asked, seeing Richard sitting at his desk. We’d just walked into the office at 5:10.“Toni told you we’re on the buddy system, right? Who’re you with?”

  He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “So I heard,” he said. “Allow me to introduce you to my buddies.” He swung his coat back to reveal a huge .44 Magnum revolver in a shoulder-holster rig on his left side. “This is Mr. Smith.” Then he swung the other side of his coat back to show another gun—exact same type—on the right. “And this is Mr. Wesson.”

  “Holy crap, Richard,” I said, laughing. “How can you even move with those cannons on?”

  “Ah,” he said, “there’s the question.”He stood and unbuttoned the top of his shirt, revealing a slim-cut bulletproof vest. “Made all the more perplexing by the unobtrusive presence of the stylish Maverick vest.”

  “Look at that,” I said, laughing again. “I couldn’t even tell you had it on. Is it any good?”

  “Of course. Level Three-A,” he said, referring to the stopping power of the vest. “Very light, very comfortable.” He held his arms up and twisted back and forth to demonstrate how flexible he was, even with the vest. Admittedly, he was pretty spry. I know he worked out every day—worked out hard, as a matter of fact. And it showed. He didn’t seem handicapped by his age at all.

  Still, he was human. “That’s all well and good, but it won’t help you if someone sneaks up on you from behind and bashes you in the head with a baseball bat,” I said, pointing to my bandaged head.

  “This is true,” he said. “This is true. And on that score, you can relax. Bobby’s with me. He’s my wingman today. He’s in the conference room drinking a cup of coffee.” Bobby Rutherford had been Richard’s partner on the Seattle Police Department homicide squad for almost ten years before Richard retired and opened the predecessor of Logan PI.

  “Good,” I said. “That makes me feel better.” I hesitated before leaving, and Richard, being one of the best judges of nonverbal communication I’ve ever seen, immediately picked up on it.

  “Sit down, my boy,” he offered, smiling warmly. “Take a load off.”

  �
�I’ve got a few minutes,” I said. “Don’t mind if I do.” I flopped wearily into one of the chairs across from his desk.

  He pointed to my head. “How’s the head?”

  “Slight headache, but not too bad,” I said. “Good thing Brits don’t know how to swing a baseball bat, right?”

  “Indeed. Nothing like a dangerous bad guy and a good bop in the noggin to set you to thinking, am I right?” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s the truth.”

  “How you holdin’ up?” he asked.

  “You mean aside from the bashed-in head?”

  He laughed. “No offense, Danny, but if he’d really wanted to hurt you, he should have hit you somewhere else, right?”

  I chuckled. “So I’m told.” I thought for a second. “Actually, I seem to recall hearing Toni say something aboutme needing a new bat.”

  “My point exactly!” he said, beaming.

  It was quiet for a second, and then he said,“So do we have this thing under control? Are you about to tell us how the fine folks at the FBI are going to tidy up this little mess for us?” He thought for another second and added, “No offense intended as pertains to your current lady-friend over there.”

  I shrugged. “None taken. After spending a couple of hours with them this afternoon, I’ve got to say I’m not sure I’d trust those guys to find a lost puppy. They have a pretty odd way of looking at bad guys.”

  “Really?” he said. “Do tell.”

  “It’s just that they seem to have a good deal of respect for Madoc and his troops when it comes to firepower. They probably recognize that Madoc—I mean Marlowe . . . oh, I forgot, you don’t know yet. Madoc’s real name is Gordon Marlowe. He’s wanted on about nine continents for theft of sensitive technology, murder, extortion, and probably a bunch of other shit, too. Anyway, his boys are almost certainly going to show up to the party betterarmed than the FBI. I mean, the FBI will be there, and they’ll have their little official issue Glock 23s. Not a bad little gun—fine for busting your average solo bank robber. But, unfortunately, Marlowe’s guys aren’t bank robbers. They’re likely to have AKs, Mac-10s, and sawed-off Benellis. The Feds are going to be seriously overmatched by the heavier stuff—and they know it. They know they’re likely to be outgunned. They factor this into their plan, and their idea is to compensate for it by trying to overwhelm the bad guys with numbers and, especially, with surprise.” I shrugged. “And basically, I’ve got no problem with this.”

  “But. . .”he said, probing.

  “But I think they underestimate the bad guys’ brainpower—particularly Marlowe’s. Toni said something interesting on the way over. She said,‘We can count on Marlowe doing something absolutely unexpected.’ The more I think about this, the more I worry that she’s right.” I paused for a moment, and then added, “Actually, I don’t think the FBI underestimates Marlowe’s brainpower. I think they don’t consider it at all.”

  “Really?” Richard said. “You’re saying the FBI is arrogant? Say it ain’t so.”

  “What I mean is, I know for a fact that the FBI’s worked out a by-the-book plan that they’ve all been trained on. They do that because they've analyzed a dozen guys similar to Marlowe and they've formed a composite character—just ask their profilers. Based on the composite, they think they can tell you every last detail about Marlowe. And the hell of it is, they've never even met the guy. Their ivory-tower model has Marlowe reacting in a predictable manner. They do this, Marlowe does that; then they do this, and then he does that, and then they nail him—right on schedule. Bing, bang, boom. Then, just to be safe, they work up a few contingency plans based on what they feel are other potential ways that Marlowe might act. Potential, but less probable. The trouble is, all of these courses of action are based on the way they think he might act. And that comes from some model of theirs that they have stashed away somewhere. And, of course, it's all bullshit."

  Richard looked at me, puzzled. I continued. "The reality is, doesn't matter what their composite man might do, they have no friggin’ idea how an individual like Marlowe’s really going to act. He might be on a completely different page. No one gave him the script—not that he'd follow it anyway.”

  Richard digested this. “Hmm,” he said. “As is usual around here, Toni is right on, and you’re correct in recognizing this as an issue. You see, Toni understands intuitively what it takes most of us years and years of accumulated failures and nasty surprises to grasp. I think there’s a universal rule—let’s call it Taylor’s Universal Rule Number Two. It applies to all criminals, and it goes like this: a bad guy is going to do what a bad guy thinks is best for said bad guy at that particular moment, pure and simple. Nothing else matters to him.”

  I nodded. “Makes sense. What’s Rule Number One?” I asked.

  “I’ll get to that,” he said. “But first, the corollary to Taylor’s Universal Rule Number Two goes: bad guys are by definition a little twisted and sometimes illogical—that's why they're bad guys. This means it can be damn difficult for a sane, rational, logical person to tell exactly what it is that an illogical bad guy thinks is best at any particular moment—how he views his alternatives, that is.”

  “In this case,” I said, “I don’t know if they’re considering his viewpoint at all. Their model assumes that he’ll do anything to get the key. He might. But then again, he might not.”

  “That’s true,” Richard said. “Despite the Taylor Universal Rules, some criminals can be very complex thinkers. Mind you, this is not always the case—many, if not most, are simpletons and easily deciphered. But some are not. Some of them are completely baffling—never ending up where a rational, logical person would expect them to be. But in their own mind, they’re always acting completely logically and rationally. These people can be very dangerous.” He looked at me. “In the case of Marlowe, I think you’re right to be concerned, Danny. The man hasn’t successfully avoided capture all these years by being predictable.”

  I nodded.

  “Which means, in practical application, anyway, that you can never forget about Taylor Universal Rule Number One, which is: never forget about your defense while you’re busy planning your offense. Make sure at all times that your people, your property, and your witnesses are protected.”

  * * * *

  Our office has a wraparound balcony that’s situated off my office and off the conference room. It’s a great place to sit outside on a warm, sunny summer afternoon and watch the sailboats and the seaplanes on Lake Union. I like to haul my laptop out there and enjoy the fresh air.

  It’s a little less enjoyable on a March evening. It was cold, dark, and raining, and we were all huddled outside under umbrellas. (We keep umbrellas for out-of-town guests; being true Seattleites, we shun them ourselves except in the case of cold, dark, rainy nights. Like tonight.) Toni was giving me the evil eye, as if to say,“WTF?”

  “Listen up,” I said. “You’re probably wondering why I called you all out here on this beautiful evening. Well, an important thought just occurred to me.”

  “Lucky us,” Toni muttered.

  I ignored her. “This has just occurred to me: What if Marlowe’s guys weren’t here only to find something? What if they weren’t here only to take something away? What if they were here to leave something, instead?” I paused for a second. “Toni said something a little earlier this afternoon that got me thinking. She said that we can count on Marlowe to do the unexpected. Anybody doubt this?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “Me, neither. Then I just finished talking to Richard, and he said something pretty profound, as well. He said that with Marlowe, we have to focus on our defense as well as our offense. I can vouch for that, right?” I pointed to my bandaged head.

  “We’re doing that,” Kenny said. “I have to spend the night with this ape.” He elbowed Doc. Doc didn’t respond.

  “That’s a start,” I said. “But it’s got me thinking, if Marlowe were playing offense, what would he do?”

>   “First thing: gather intel,” Doc said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Spoken like a true army warrior. Gather intelligence. And how would he do it?”

  “Surveillance,” he said. “Monitoring.”

  “Again, my thoughts exactly, my large Apache friend. Surveillance and monitoring. That being the case, before we do anything else, particularly before we have a strategy meeting in the conference room where we spill out everything we know, I think we should sweep the room for bugs. Actually, I think we should sweep the whole office for bugs. Maybe, in addition to looking for the key, Marlowe’s goons were bugging our office when I walked in on them. Anyway, it’d be nice to know that our conversation’s secure.”

  I looked at them. Everyone was serious now. “Kenny, you’ve got the electronic sweepers, right?”

  He nodded. “Two of them.”

  “Good. One for you; one for Doc. You guys get started. Everyone else, visual search. We’ll start in the lobby and work our way back. Try to keep the conversation normal, but reveal nothing until we know we’re clean. Got it?”

  Everyone nodded again.

  “Good. Let’s do it.”

  * * * *

  Our office isn’t that big. An hour later, the search was done, and we were confident that the office was clean. Doc and Kenny’d swept every ceiling, wall, desk, and shelf with their electronic sniffers. They’d found nothing. The rest of us—me, Toni, Richard, and Bobby—had visually checked under desks, under tables, in the lamps, behind the pictures—everywhere. We also found nothing.

  “I think we’re secure,” I said as we settled in the conference room. “We’ve done a pretty thorough electronic sweep and a reasonably thorough visual search. They could still be tapping our phones, but they can do that remotely—we’d never even see it in here. So be careful what you say on the office landlines. Kenny, can they tap our cell phones? They’re digital, right?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “They can be tapped. We should use the prepaid cell phones.”

  I nodded. “Good idea. I was just in the safe last week.” I said. “I think we have a few prepaid phones left in there, right?”