“That’s right!” he cried out to him through his tears. The ciccadas went silent as his voice rose up into the trees. “Kathleen and Kennedy. He’s a private detective.”
“And he’s fucking your wife?”
“He was fucking Kathleen and she was spying on me and Mr. Hirschorn and telling him everything. I saw an e-mail. In his computer. To the Weiss Agency in San Francisco. He said he was in, he was in and I was out, and he was going to find out all about the operation.”
Flake took a moment to digest this. Then, with a hard shove, the little man sent Chris sprawling into the dirt. Chris covered his head with his hands. “Please don’t. Don’t,” he said. “I can help, I swear. I can save the day. Please, please.”
Flake stared down at him, panting with irritation, considering. Finally, in an outburst of rage, he kicked Chris in the thigh.
Chris shouted in pain. Writhed in the dirt, clutching his leg.
“Fuck!” Flake shouted.
Goldmunsen let his long arms hang down in despair, the gun barrel tapping his thigh. “What?” he said. “You’re gonna believe this shit now?”
With his hands on his hips, Flake scowled at the earth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Mr. Hirschorn checked Kennedy out,” Goldmunsen insisted. “He made sure. He’s clean.”
“Did you hear this guy? He says Kennedy was fucking his wife,” Flake shot back.
“So? So what? Who gives a shit what he says? He’d say anything.”
“Not that. He’s not gonna say that. Someone’s fucking his wife? A guy’s not gonna just say that. Would you say that?”
“Oh, come on!” Goldmunsen gestured at the cowering, crying Chris. “Look at him.”
Flake glanced at him, disgusted. But he shook his head. “He’s not just gonna say that. That another guy’s fucking his wife. It’s not human nature. He’s not just gonna make that up.”
Goldmunsen threw his hands in the air. “Oh, Christ. So what’s that? What the fuck does that mean?”
Flake jabbed at the dirt with the point of his shoe. “Well, for one thing,” he said. “It means you can forget about going to Lucky’s.”
Forty-Nine
“Man oh man oh man,” said Bishop again.
He came forward slowly into the big shed. His eyes traveled inch by inch over the machine where it squatted stark and vicious under the fluorescent lights.
“Is she beautiful or is she beautiful?” said Hirschorn behind him, smiling.
Bishop didn’t answer. But beautiful was not the word. Out here in the middle of this forest wilderness, what it looked like more than anything was some sort of enormous locust, some sort of cosmic monster insect bristling with malice to suit its size. The crew station windshield, dead-eyed with the reflection of the night, seemed to watch him warily as he approached. The great drooping main rotors and the short, stiff wings seemed, even in repose, as if they could lift the thing at any second into a ferocious attack.
It had been a long time since Bishop had stood up close to one of these: an Apache Longbow AH-64D—an army attack chopper. Complete, he noticed, with missiles. Fucking missiles. Four of a possible eight Hellfire fire-and-forget air-to-ground missiles under each wing. Not to mention the 30 mm automatic chain gun sticking out like a Stinger from under the fuselage.
Bishop stood up by the nose. Still gripping his traveling bag in his left hand, he lifted his right and laid it gently on the cool armor. He shook his head a little. It must’ve cost Hirschorn millions to get this, taken him weeks to smuggle it in here. He glanced back—with some admiration—at the silver-haired gangster in the shadows beyond the shed lights.
“What are you, Hirschorn, some kind of terrorist?” he asked quietly.
The smaller man’s body stiffened. “Hey, hey, hey. Careful who you’re talking to. I’m a hundred-percent American, all the way.”
“Well, then, if you don’t mind my asking, what the fuck do you want with one of these?”
Hirschorn relaxed, laughed again. “Patience, my friend. It’ll all be made clear to you. A simple mission, out and back. And I’ll be right there with you all the way.”
“Simple,” Bishop echoed. He looked at the helo again, that tongue-in-cheek expression on his face. “Mind if I check out the cockpit?”
“Not at all,” said Hirschorn expansively. “Go ahead. I want you to be comfortable with it.”
Bishop did not let go of his traveling bag but swung it up onto one wing. Then he hoisted himself after it. Popped the hatch. He tossed the bag ahead of him onto the floor by the cyclic. Lowered himself into the raised backseat—the pilot’s seat. He closed the hatch after him. And sat there a moment, looking out through the windshield at the gunmen’s flashlight beams, at the silhouette of Hirschorn with the black forest hunkering behind him.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he said aloud. “Jesus H. Christ.”
Another man’s heart might have misgiven him now. Another man might’ve asked himself: What the hell had he gotten himself into—and in the middle of nowhere too? But Bishop was calm, even confident. Whatever “out and back mission” they were planning to pull off with this flying war machine of theirs, he figured he’d already scuttled it—for tonight anyway. He was the only pilot they had on hand and, say what you will about the man, they could shoot him dead before he’d take this thing up into his home skies. Trouble was, if he refused, or if he flew it off in the wrong direction, they actually would shoot him dead. So what he really needed to do right now was get the fiddling fuck out of here and let someone know where this monster was hiding.
Of course that wasn’t going to be so easy with these two machine gunners watching him—plus whoever else was stationed around the camp. So, cool as he was, just in case, Bishop lowered his hand—already beneath the eyeline of the thugs outside—down to his traveling bag. He began to work the zipper open. As he did, he scanned the helo’s systems. He noticed they were incomplete. Wherever they’d bought or stolen this from, they hadn’t managed to get the full warfare suite, the radar warning, jammer, the infrared countermeasures and so on. But the GPS seemed to be intact, plus the TADS and FLIR for easy targeting. It looked like they were really planning to go after something with those Hellfires.
“Jesus H. Christ.”
The bag was open. Bishop’s hand slipped into it. He found his handheld, drew it out. He nestled it in his crotch, turned it on. But he also kept moving his head back and forth, stretching his free hand out over the systems. Making a show, in other words, of examining the controls and whatnot. He figured Hirschorn was proud enough of his baby here to have a little patience while he checked it out.
As soon as his handheld came on, he worked it to the e-mail with one fingertip. It was the first time he saw that he’d forgotten to send his last e-mail to Weiss. The realization jolted him a little. He cursed Kathleen in his heart for distracting him from his business. Now even Weiss didn’t know he was out here.
But on the other hand, having the letter there sped things up a little. He opened the e-mail on the screen.
Weiss. It worked. Wannamaker’s out. I’m in. Six tonight, I fly to some secret location out in the forest somewhere. Once I arrive, they’ll give me the details of the job. Soon as I know what’s what, I’ll make contact. With luck, we should be able to break it up without compromising…
With the smallest movements he could make, he tapped the keys with his fingernail and added:
a150kmnwah-64d
That was all he had time for. He saw Hirschorn wave him out with a grand gesture.
“Come on, Kennedy! You’ll have all the time to play with her you want. We have work to do.”
Bishop closed the e-mail and pressed send. There was a pause—a long pause it seemed like—as Hirschorn stood outside waiting for him to come down. Then a message began blinking up from the handheld: waiting for signal…waiting for signal…That was that. Bishop knew it would wait forever out here in this wilderness. It would keep trying to send the e-mail unt
il its batteries died.
He set the handheld on the floor. Shoved it under the seat out of sight, well hidden. Still trying to send.
A moment later, he stepped down from the aircraft with the traveling bag in his hand again. He walked back to Hirschorn while the two gunmen looked on.
“Just wanted to get a feel for her,” he said.
“Oh you will,” said Hirschorn. He slapped him on the shoulder. Smiling with his bright teeth. Feeling good. “Believe me. You will. Chase, show Mr. Kennedy to his quarters.”
Chase was one of the gunmen. He stepped up to Bishop and made a gesture with his Stinger, holding his HK lightly with his left hand.
“After you,” he said in a deep rasp.
Bishop started walking. Hirschorn and the other gunman stayed behind to shut off the lights in the chopper shed and close the doors.
Bishop moved slowly through the trees with Chase behind him tracing the path with his flash. Chase knew what he was doing and stayed too far back for Bishop to turn on him. Bishop was thinking about that, about turning on him, getting his weapon, heading for the trees. If he could get to the Cessna, he could jump her engine, fly her back to town. Warn the cops about the Apache. But Chase was too cautious, too alert. Bishop had to wait.
So he moved on through the trees by the Stinger light, made his way toward the other building, the two-story barracks with the stairs on the side. He was still cool, still more or less easy in his mind. He figured it was all right to wait for a better shot at escape. He figured he still had time.
As long as Chris was dead, as long as they’d shot him before he’d come around and told his story, Bishop figured he still had plenty of time.
Fifty
At this point, Weiss stepped into the Agency offices, and he knew right away that something was wrong. His racing mind went quiet, wary. He paused in the doorway, watched the dark.
The shop was closed up for the night—it was after eight. All the lights were off. All the rooms were silent. Still, Weiss had a sense—that cop sense again—that he wasn’t alone in here.
The big man moved lightly when he wanted to. He trod down the hallway without making a sound. He approached the little nook that was our mailroom. In the city glow coming in through the windows, he could make out the dinosaur shadows of the copying machine and the fax. And there was my desk on one side. And there was me, in fact, collapsed on top of it.
Weiss slowed when he saw me. He found the light switch, flicked it up. Now he could see: I was seated in my chair, unconscious, my head on the desktop buried in my arms. A look of annoyance passed over Weiss’s face. His thoughts—his effort to outguess the Shadowman—had been interrupted. He sighed. Collared the bottle of J&B standing by my elbow. He lifted it, looked it over. Not even half-gone. Well, he figured I probably wasn’t quite dead yet. So he shook me roughly by the shoulder.
“He’s clean!” I shouted, sitting up suddenly, blinking wildly in the light.
He waved the bottle at me. “I taught you better than to drink this blended shit.”
I gaped at him. Weiss? Hey, what do you know, it was Weiss. “Weiss!” I said groggily. I squinted at the bottle. “No, no, no, iz okay. I’m done.”
“Yeah, you’re pretty done all right. I’d say you’re well-done.”
“All finished, I just thought I’d…” I tried to think what it was I just thought I’d do.
“Pass out at your desk?” Weiss suggested. “That’s good, we encourage that. It gives the agency a certain flair.”
I let out an idiotic laugh, waving in my seat like a cornstalk in the wind. What a great guy that Weiss was. Wonderful, wonderful guy. What the fuck was he talking about, I wondered. Must be some kind of thing.
“I checked him out,” I tried to explain to him. I blinked some more. “Wrote my report. He’s good, he’s clean.”
Weiss set the bottle back on my desk with a clunk. “This is the Strawberry case we’re discussing here?”
“Yeah.” I dragged my two hands over my face, trying to polish my brain. “The priest. The governor’s brother.”
Weiss lifted his chin. It was beginning to fall into place for him. “And he’s clean. His testimony checks out. That’s what you’re saying.”
“Oh yeah,” I said, waving my hand so broadly I almost spilled over. “O-o-oh yeah. Way clean. Way checks out.”
“Uh-huh.” Weiss nodded. He picked a sheaf of papers up off my desk. “It’s all in your report, right?”
“Absolutely. All in my report. Right there, smack in that report. Yesiree-bobbo.”
Weiss checked his watch. Blustered. “All right, Bobbo, you’ve got about twenty minutes before you start puking your guts out. What-say you give the cleaning lady a break and just sort of mosey on home.”
I moseyed. No easy task. Just getting up from my desk was no easy task. Weiss stood in the hallway watching me wend my way to the door. I shuffled nice and slow but I still brushed my shoulder against first one wall and then the other, finally tilting over completely so that I had to push off a picture frame to right myself again.
Weiss stood and watched me go. Holding my report in one hand, tapping its pages against the other. He smiled with one corner of his mouth. He snorted. He felt a little disappointed in me. He had thought I was sharp, showed promise. He had figured for sure I would catch that bit about Strawberry’s bald spot, find out where the priest had really been standing when he witnessed our client shooting Mars. Probably the good father was in some girl’s apartment, that was his guess. Or some guy’s, if it came to that, this being San Fran. Anyway, he’d have to tell Sissy in the morning I’d screwed up my first investigation. She’d have to check the witness statement herself, find out what the real story was.
I managed to open the door. Managed to weave my way through it. Managed to stumble down the hall, tumble into the elevator. I rode down with my head resting against the elevator wall. My eyes slipped shut, jerked open as the darkness started spinning. The elevator landed. I spilled out into the lobby. Staggered headlong to the door like a man pushing against a strong wind. I shouldered my way out onto the misty streets of the city.
Head down, hands in my pockets, I shuffled across Market. Headlights pierced the thin rain. The spark and rattle of a streetcar jarred against the steady whisper of traffic. I left the busy avenue behind, headed up the darker side street. There was darkness in my gut as well. The whiskey dulled my feelings, but not enough, not half-enough. I don’t think I actually sensed Weiss’s disappointment, but I didn’t need to. I was plenty disappointed on my own. More than that. I was disgusted with myself. With my weakness and my nice morality. Letting Father O’Mara off the hook like that, lying for him, clearing him like that. I had failed miserably as a hard-nosed private eye. I had hoped, when I started drinking that night, that it would dull my shame in that. But it hadn’t. I thought I would never forgive myself.
With bitter, sentimental self-pity, I turned and cast what I imagined was a final farewell glance up at the Agency, the eighth floor of the concrete tower with the red mansard roof. I still remember what I saw there. I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget. It was Weiss. Framed massive in the massive arched window. Standing with his hands in his pockets, looking down on the city, on the traffic, on the pedestrians passing beneath him, the people hurrying off into the night and their mysterious lives. The computer must’ve been on at his desk because most of the room was dark but there was a white glow and it cast him into partial silhouette. In my hazy state, I even thought I could make out some of his features, some of his ugly, sagging, sorrowful and compassionate face. I thought I could see the glint of his eyes as they peered down intently through the churning mist.
I paused there, looking up at him, at his looming, brooding stillness. Even in the toils of my self-loathing, I felt a fierce thrill of admiration for him, and felt with it a dim glimmer of inspiration rekindle in me, a dimly remembered idea I mean of the kind of man I wanted one day to be.
After a long m
oment, I turned away and headed off into the darkness.
And with that I pass from this story and good riddance to me. But as I staggered home to puke massively and collapse on the bathroom floor, that fierce feeling of admiration remained and made my heart warm with excitement. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but looking back, I think I must’ve somehow intuitively understood that Weiss as I had just seen him, right then, right there, so perfectly motionless in the big arched window, was actually operating at his very highest level, at his most ferociously just and unstoppable. That was the man at his best: right then, right there, so perfectly motionless—and yet in fact, as I found out later, hot on the trail of the Shadowman.
Fifty-One
They came for Kathleen not too long after that, almost nine o’clock. She was in the den at the back of the house. She was slumped on the sofa, staring at the TV. She’d been doing that, staring at the TV, for the last two hours. Eating Cheez Doodles out of a plastic bowl, drinking Budweiser out of the bottle. Lighting Marlboros and snuffing them halfway through in the ashtray she held loosely at her waist. She barely knew what show she was watching.
Too much garbage in her head, that’s why. Too much crud and blackness in her heart. Kennedy and how he’d tricked her, how he’d dumped her. Chris and the thugs who were looking for him. Hirschorn. She was disgusted with the lot of them. How the hell had her life come down to this shit? She was disgusted with the whole fucking thing.
She was disgusted, but she wasn’t afraid, not yet. Kennedy had warned her but that was crap, she didn’t take that seriously at all. The thugs had come and gone already. They were looking for Chris, not her. She figured they would work Chris over a little for drinking too much, talking too much. Served him right. And Kennedy—he was the one who ought to be scared. When Hirschorn found out Kennedy was a cop…well, it served him right too, whatever happened. The hell with him. With all of them. She didn’t care.
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