by Guy Adams
‘Real kind,’ Rex replied, moving the car from side to side a little, hoping to present a more difficult target should Ellroy choose to throw something else.
‘Tin of tomatoes,’ Shaeffer said, holding up the tin. It was almost bent double, a thick strand of tomato juice leaking from where the metal had split.
‘Whole or chopped?’ Rex asked.
‘Puréed now.’
‘Unconventional.’
‘And normally so good for you.’ Shaeffer opened the window and dumped the tin out.
‘Litterbug.’
‘I was thinking of your rental insurance. Didn’t want the juice staining the upholstery.’
‘Nice.’
Another object came flying towards them, glass this time. The aim wasn’t quite so lucky and it exploded off the hood, spraying thin gouts of liquid through the open windshield.
‘There goes that upholstery,’ said Rex.
‘Yep.’
‘Barbecue sauce,’ Rex added, licking his lips. ‘Cheap barbecue sauce.’
‘My ex-colleagues had no class. You see now why I had to leave their company?’
‘You absolutely did the right thing. He starts throwing Cheez Whiz at us and I swear to God I’ll shoot him dead, whatever you say.’
Rex finally brought his car right up behind Ellroy and nudged it with his front bumper. ‘Pull over, you tasteless son of a bitch,’ he shouted.
‘That told him,’ said Shaeffer.
‘You want to talk him down, be my guest,’ Rex said, slamming into Ellroy’s car again. ‘Right now, he’s got me in a tetchy mood – I’m not feeling diplomatic.’
He bumped the car once more, then dropped back just short enough to start pulling out to overtake. Ellroy immediately swung the SUV to one side to block him.
‘And this isn’t helping,’ said Rex.
The SUV slowed down a little, forcing Rex to do the same. Bit by bit both cars dropped back within the speed limit.
‘What’s he planning?’ asked Rex.
‘I don’t know,’ Shaeffer admitted, tensing the hold on his gun. ‘Nothing good.’
The SUV burst forward again before swinging sideways on. Rex’s car crashed into it, both he and Shaeffer flung violently forward against their safety belts. The air-cushions exploded, forcing them back against their seats.
As the two vehicles, now mashed together, slid along the road, Ellroy raised his gun to try and get a couple of shots in. But the momentum was too great and the SUV top-heavy. Ellroy tumbled backwards as the SUV tipped onto its side, metal sparking on the asphalt, as it slowly dragged the whole mess to a halt.
For a moment all three sat there, Rex and Shaeffer trying to breathe past the restrictive air-cushions, Ellroy twisted in his seat, shoulders pressed down against the door.
‘What sort of dumb move was that?’ Rex groaned, blindly grasping for the door handle so that he could climb out.
‘Not so dumb if he’d managed to keep it upright,’ said Shaeffer. ‘If he’d done that, we’d have a bullet in our heads by now.’
‘Maybe,’ agreed Rex, then grinned. ‘But he didn’t manage to keep it upright, did he?’
They both climbed out, legs cramping, heads reeling.
Rex unholstered his gun and cautiously made his way towards the upturned SUV.
‘You going to try shooting at me?’ he shouted, ‘or can we finally be reasonable about this?’
There was no reply, and Rex kept his gun firmly trained on where he now guessed Ellroy to be. Keeping the chassis between them for as long as possible, he came around the front, crouching low so he could peer around the vehicle and hopefully not get a bullet in his head if Ellroy was so inclined.
Ellroy wasn’t. Rex could see him curled up, piled in on himself with one foot poking out of the shattered windshield and the other thrust up against the passenger seat. Rex kept his gun trained on him all the same, shouting for Shaeffer to come over and give him a hand.
‘You sure we should move him?’ Shaeffer asked, looking at the bent-over body. ‘He might have broken something.’
‘He’s broken my car,’ Rex replied, ‘that’s what he’s broken. I don’t much care if the bastard’s head falls off when we drag him out. In fact I’m thinking of dragging him out by the hair, backwards, through all that broken glass, just because it will hurt more.’
‘OK,’ said Shaeffer, holding up his hands, ‘I guess as long as his tongue still works, we can get what we want from him. Maybe a little piece of brain.’
‘From what I saw, he didn’t have much of that to begin with.’
Rex kicked away as much of the broken windshield as he could and squatted down to reach inside. ‘He so much as blows me a kiss, you have my permission to shoot him,’ he said, reaching in to unclip the man’s safety belt. Ellroy opened his eyes but didn’t move. It was clear he considered Shaeffer perfectly capable of carrying out Rex’s wishes.
‘Can you move on your own?’ Rex asked. ‘Or do you need me to hold your hand?’
‘I can do it.’
Ellroy pulled himself out of the SUV and onto the road, getting slowly to his feet.
‘Nice driving,’ said Rex. ‘Especially loved the bit where you started throwing condiments.’
‘Gleason close?’ Shaeffer asked.
Ellroy just stared at him.
‘Oh,’ Shaeffer said. ‘Going to be like that, is it? What a surprise.’ He turned to Rex. ‘You got a bright idea for getting us back to town?’
‘As a matter of fact, I have.’ Rex waved towards a small car that was coming up behind them.
The car pulled to a halt, and the elderly owner of the Harker’s Pond General Store stepped out.
‘Well now,’ she shouted at them. ‘Which one of you cocksuckers is going to pay me for those sunglasses?’
Fifteen
‘You really think he’s going to tell us anything?’ asked Shaeffer. ‘We’re trained to withstand torture from the best, I don’t think anything Harker’s Pond Constabulary is capable of will make the difference.’
Rex was staring at the coffee that had just been dribbled into a thin plastic cup for him by the station vending machine. ‘Don’t be so sure,’ he said. ‘This is a cruel and unusual place.’
Sally McHugh, owner of the General Store had mellowed a little – though not much – once she had been convinced that Rex and Shaeffer were on the side of the angels (achieved by paying for the sunglasses as much as by showing ID). She drove them and their prisoner back to town, commenting that they’d left one of their friends ‘smeared all over the highway like roadkill’ and if they wanted her to pick him up too then he was riding in the trunk.
He sat down to stare at his drink for a while.
‘How long do you think we’ve got before Gleason and Mulroney give up on their food delivery?’ he asked Shaeffer. ‘Gleason really love his barbecue sauce or is he hightailing it out of here as we speak?’
Shaeffer shrugged. ‘He’s not going to hang around. Ellroy and Leonard are expendable, and he knows a remote hideout is just an easy target once you know someone’s in it. We may have a couple of hours.’
‘Couple of hours,’ Rex sighed. ‘Not long.’
‘Nope. Nothing on the satellite imagery?’
‘Not yet, Esther’s still working on it. But she had to take some time out in order to clean up after our mess.’
‘What would you do without her?’ said Shaeffer.
‘You’re kidding? It’s her fault I’m here in the first place, she can work until she drops, for all I care.’
Rex had been forced to call Esther, of course. It wasn’t a call that had gone well. Out of his jurisdiction and with no official sanction whatsoever, involving himself in high-speed pursuits and open-air gun battles had panicked her. She had hung up on him only to have Broderick call him back a few minutes later. Broderick seemed to feel that Rex wouldn’t be working for the CIA for much longer. Rex thought Broderick was a sanctimonious asshole who was quick to cov
er himself when things went wrong. He’d explained as much to Broderick and then put the phone down when it became too loud and annoying to hold anywhere near his ears.
Rex stood up and dumped his coffee, untouched, into the trash. ‘I’m going to have a chat with our mutual friend, want to come?’
‘Why not?’
The local police chief had been hoping for another quiet day. This wasn’t usually a problem, Harker’s Pond not being a rowdy neighbourhood. He’d planned on putting in his hours, do a little paperwork, maybe talk to the school principal about plans for their upcoming anti-drug fundraiser ‘School’s Not for Fools!’ then head home for a bowl of his wife’s chilli and a night watching American Idol. He didn’t like the songs so much, but some of those girls wore skirts that let you see their lungs quiver and he liked that just fine.
Then he had the CIA acting like the Dukes of Goddamn Hazard on his doorstep and that relaxing evening of spice for the belly and eyes seemed remarkably far away.
‘I can’t just let you interrogate him on your own, son,’ he explained to Rex. ‘There are laws that govern police officers like myself. I need to make sure all conversations are recorded, documented and witnessed. We are living in the age of criminal rights, yes sir, we are. You may not like it, can’t say I do myself, but it seems the vegetarians, poets and beatniks exercised their right to vote, so now we have to do as we’re told.’
‘Look,’ said Rex glancing down at the man’s desk plate to get his name, ‘Sheriff Willocks…’ He paused and glanced down again. ‘Dubert Willocks… That’s your name?’
‘It sure is. There a problem with that?’
‘Not at all,’ Rex replied, with only the briefest of awkward pauses. ‘Just not a surname I’d heard before.’
‘Or a given name,’ commented Shaeffer. ‘Dubert, it’s unusual.’
‘It’s pronounced “doo-bear”,’ the Sherriff told them. ‘It’s French.’
‘You’re French?’ Shaeffer asked.
‘Nope.’
There was another slight pause.
‘So the thing is,’ Rex continued, ‘this case is extremely time-sensitive, and the lives of many people are at stake unless I talk to our man there as soon as possible.’
‘Oh, you can talk to him,’ said the Sheriff. ‘I’m just saying you get company while you do.’
‘Well, see,’ explained Rex, resisting the urge to beat this obstructive idiot to death with his own stupid nameplate, ‘it’s also extremely classified, so I’m afraid I can’t allow that.’
The Sheriff raised his hands. ‘Well then, I suggest you get one of your superiors to either sign off a B17 that waives the responsibility of Harker’s Pond Constabulary in this matter or have him legally transported to one of your own facilities. As it stands, there’s nothing I can do about it.’
Rex sucked air slowly through his teeth. ‘You are obstructing an ongoing investigation here, Willocks, and your unwillingness to be reasonable—’
‘Not unwillingness, Mr Matheson,’ the Sheriff cut in. ‘No, not that at all. If my hands were free to choose policy in this regard, I’d happily hold the nails while you nailed that boy’s scrotum to the chair. I am not a man opposed to strong-arm tactics when the situation requires. However, I do not choose policy, and my hands are tied by the laws governing this land you are so determined to protect. So might I suggest you call your superiors, as I say, and get the wheels of bureaucracy turning?’
‘And might I suggest, Sheriff Dubert Willocks, that you’re a pompous prick?’
‘Way to go on charming him there,’ said Shaeffer once they were sat back outside. ‘I could see he was close to bending, especially at the end there. He’s in the palm of your hand, for sure, your little pocket policeman.’
Rex ignored him, pacing up and down, with his cellphone in his hand.
‘Esther?’ he said once the call connected. ‘I need you to either tell me you’ve found something or be willing to make the entire Harker’s Pond Police Department go away. I am getting nowhere here and the clock is ticking.’
‘Tell me about it, the system’s alive with this right now. I no longer have access to the satellite imagery, I no longer have access to anything. It looks to me like the whole Company is on this, except you and me.’
‘Broderick talked.’
‘Of course Mr Broderick talked, Rex. This is not just your little mission, this is a potentially global terror threat. Apparently, there’s a whole field unit heading towards you, and they’ll handle things once they arrive.’
‘Jesus, Esther, I’m almost on top of him here!’
In the pause that followed, Rex could hear Esther gathering up all her courage.
‘Mr Broderick says you’ve, um, compromised everything by alerting Gleason that we’re onto him so that he runs for the hills and nobody has a clue how to find him.’
‘Not my fault, Esther!’
‘The intel doesn’t read that way. All people can see is an agent who’s… got too big for his boots and nearly jeopardised everything. You’re going to be the scapegoat on this, Rex.’
‘Shit!’ Rex flung the cellphone across the room where it smashed against the far wall.
There was a moment of shocked silence as everyone at the front of the station looked at him.
‘So,’ said Shaeffer eventually, ‘how is Esther?’
Rex stormed past the reception desk and straight out back to the holding cells.
Sheriff Willocks was on his feet and running after him. ‘Mr Matheson,’ he shouted. ‘I told you that you were not allowed private access to the prisoner until sufficient legal procedures had been adhered to.’
‘Fine,’ said Rex, ‘you can come too. If we don’t get an answer from this man in a matter of minutes, it’s not going to matter anyway.’
The Sheriff thought about it for a moment then nodded to one of his deputies to open the door to the holding area.
He and Rex marched inside, working their way down the narrow hallway of cells.
‘Where is he?’ Rex asked.
‘Last cell on the right,’ Willocks replied.
Rex walked to the end of the corridor, stared through the narrow bars and then gave them an almighty kick.
Willocks followed Rex’s eyes and his jaw dropped. The cell was empty.
Sixteen
David Ellroy opened gummy eyelids and looked at the old man standing in the narrow beam of the desk lamp.
‘Who are you?’ he tried to ask, but his mouth was dry beyond his ability to speak and all that came out was a meaningless tumble of sounds.
‘Side effect of the drugs,’ said Mr Wynter, proffering a plastic cup of water. Ellroy made to take the cup and became aware that his hands were handcuffed to the arms of his chair. The old man tipped the cup towards Ellroy’s mouth and let him drink a few sips. ‘Not too much,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you sick.’
‘Sick?’ What the hell was so wrong with him that water would make him sick? And drugs? What drugs…? Ellroy was finding it hard to focus. Just as he thought he had gotten himself together, fixed on a thought and ready to act on it, his vision blurred, his head swayed and his whole body had the slipping, vertigo sensation that you got tipping over the peak on a roller-coaster. Except he wasn’t on a roller-coaster, was he? No. He was handcuffed to a chair and an old man was talking to him.
‘Where’s Gleason?’ the old man asked, a gentle smile on his face.
‘Gleason?’ For a moment Ellroy had to think hard. Who was Gleason? Then he remembered, and fear gave him a brief few seconds of clarity. ‘I’m not talking,’ he said. ‘Do what you like.’
‘Oh, I will,’ Mr Wynter replied. ‘And you will talk. Because you’re not dealing with amateurs in the desert now, soldier, little Arabs with their splinters and their cigarette lighters. No. You’re dealing with a professional.’
Mr Wynter pulled up a chair and sat down in front of Ellroy, his hands in his lap, small knees touching Ellroy’s. He was close enough that Ellr
oy, even through the haze of drugs, could smell the sharp, clean scent of peppermint on Mr Wynter’s breath.
‘You’ll talk, Mr Ellroy,’ Wynter continued, ‘because I am a very dedicated gentleman and one with a reputation that is fast becoming tarnished in this current business. They will say it is because I am too old, Mr Ellroy. And perhaps they are right. After all, I am old. Very old. But I am still the only man in my particular line of business. I am a department of one. And I work for the best, Mr Ellroy, not just the changeable faces you see on your TV screen or smiling at you from the cover of Newsweek. I work for power. I work for the men who buy and sell this world we’re on time and time again for their own pleasure. The people who carve it up piece by tender piece and lay it out to be fought over. They watch the ants scuttle on that land, Mr Ellroy, then they sell the ants guns and watch them pull the triggers in the name of their gods and flags. And when the ants are all dead, we simply train more. Because that, Mr Ellroy, is how you run a business. War is good.
‘And when those men want something – those terrible, terrible men who own your life so completely there are pieces of your soul stuck to the sides of their toilet bowls – when they want something done, something smoothed away, they come to me. They do this because I am good and because I know the real secret of the world…’ He leaned in to Ellroy as if planning to kiss his neck. ‘Nothing matters,’ he whispered.
Mr Wynter leaned back and smiled. Again, that sweet smell of peppermint.
He stood up and walked out of Ellroy’s line of sight, stepping into the darkness behind him.
Then he returned, holding a small metal tray. His hands were encased in rubber gloves and he wore a thick butcher’s apron to cover his light grey suit. He sat back on the chair, the tray on his lap. On the tray was a shining clean knife and fork either side of a metal specimen dish.
‘You are blessed to know me, Mr Ellroy,’ Wynter said in quiet, holy tones. ‘I’m the man who held Oswald’s hand when he was full of doubts. I’m the man that signed off on the Phoenix Program with a glad heart. I’m the man who agreed the price per kilo with the Contras, then bumped a rail up my nose while they machine-gunned their enemies. Machine-gunned them with the weapons our money bought.’ Wynter leaned in close. ‘I’m the secret policeman, Mr Ellroy. I’m what all the clever spooks have nightmares about.’ He picked up his knife and fork and leaned in close. ‘And I’m very hungry.’