by Trevor Scott
When he turned toward the house, a figure appeared in the window. Just as quickly, the man was gone.
The house was built of logs, resembling a mountain cabin that could have been made to look like a settler’s home, but was actually quite new, Tony could tell. The construction was too perfect.
The logs too precisely cut, they looked like Lincoln Logs.
As Tony made his way toward the front porch, he wondered if he was doing the right thing. What if Peroni had killed Dan and Barb and was hiding out before skipping the country? He could have been dangerous, not thinking twice about killing Tony as well. He felt the flashlight in his pocket and thought about carrying a gun next time. But first he’d have to buy one.
He stepped lightly up the wooden stairs, trying not to make any noise. When he reached the door, which was wooden half way up and then glass panes the rest of the way, he could see more lights inside. A T.V. shone in the large open space, and a fire flashed its flames in a huge stone fireplace. Sitting in a leather chair, flipping through channels much like his wife had done in Portland, was a man in sweats and a sweater; one foot housed in a Nike BOOM TOWN 161
basketball shoe hung over the chair’s arm dangling back and forth. The man took a swig of beer from a long neck bottle before flipping the channel again.
Tony checked the door knob. It was locked. Then he noticed that there was an electronic lock as well as a mechanical dead bolt. Both said Cascade Lock on them. Figured.
Looking back along the driveway at Peroni’s car, Tony realized there wasn’t anyplace the guy could go. Just knock and talk. So he did just that.
He thought that Frank Peroni would piss his pants when he heard the first knock. He nearly jumped out of the chair. Then, gathering courage, he rose to his feet and strut across the wooden floor. He stopped and flicked the light on Tony to get a closer look.
Then he said, “Who the fuck are you?”
And he thought Peroni’s wife had given him the cold shoulder.
“I’m Tony Caruso.”
The man’s brows rose unexpectedly. “What do you want with me?” he yelled through the glass.
“Are you Frank Peroni?” he asked, even though he recognized him from the picture at his house in Portland.
“What’s it to you?”
This was going great. “Could I come in and talk with you for a minute? It’s kind of nasty out here.” Tony shivered for effect.
He looked Tony over, probably figured he was harmless, much like the two rent-a-cops had, and then opened the door for him.
Tony stomped and wiped the snow from his boots and pants and then followed Peroni into the living room. Stopping next to the fire, Tony turned toward Peroni, who was back in his chair.
Peroni put on a music station and then set the remote on the end table.
“Let me guess,” he said. “My wife hired you to find me?”
He couldn’t have been serious. “What?”
He stared at Tony with a stupid expression, like he just stepped on a pile of dog crap and he was wondering how to get it off his 162
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shoe. “My wife didn’t hire you?”
Tony assured him she had not. Then he said, “What have you been doing the last two weeks?”
“What are you, my mother?” He killed off the last of his beer and then got up and went to the refrigerator for another. He took a seat again and downed a third of the bottle.
Tony had to get right to the point. See how he reacted. “You went home with Dan and Barb Humphrey the night they were killed.”
He narrowed his eyebrows at Tony. He was a worse actor than his boss, James Burton. “I don’t know these people.”
“I’ve got your finger prints at the scene, along with your DNA from pubic hair.” Tony let that sink in for a few seconds. Hey, what the hell, he was a better actor than Peroni. A better liar, too.
He shook his head side to side. “No frickin’ way. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“You are one pathetic liar. I’ve got witnesses saying you left the Riverfront with Dan and Barb. The next day you drop off the face of the earth. Either you killed them or you know who did. Which is it?”
He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a heavy sigh.
“Motherfucker. I just try to get a little pussy...” He trailed off, taking another swig of beer.
“What happened, Frank?”
Peroni thought about it for a second or two. Tony had a feeling the guy wasn’t involved with their death, but he knew who was.
He also knew that he probably hadn’t talked with anyone about what had happened in the past two weeks, and that was driving him crazy. He was scared, Tony could tell.
“I was at the Riverfront that night,” he started. “Minding my own business, I’ll have you know. Then this beautiful woman comes up and sits next to me, offers to buy me a drink. I’m gonna refuse that? Hell no! In no time she’s all over me like a politician on a girl scout. She’s got her hand on my crotch. You name it.”
Peroni thought for a moment, drank his beer, but kept his eyes BOOM TOWN 163
on Tony. He continued. “So after a while she asks if I want to go back to her place to party. I don’t refuse.”
“What about her husband?” Tony asked.
“Hold onto your dick. I’m getting to that. Just before we get up to go, this guy shows up. I figure it’s just someone she knows.
But she comes right out and says it’s her husband. I’m ready to bolt, until the guy asks if I’d like to fuck his wife. Let me tell you something, she was something to look at. It was kinda kinky, but under the circumstances, I wasn’t about to refuse. He assured me he didn’t want to suck my dick or anything like that. Just wanted to watch. Got off on that shit, I guess. I never had an audience before, but I’m an open kinda guy. So we left.”
Tony was feeling the warmth from the fireplace and thinking about his last encounter with Melanie Chadwick. “Then you went back to their house at Cascade Peaks Estates?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure if I could perform under those conditions.”
He smiled broadly, obviously remembering his moment of glory.
“So you and Barb do it while Dan watches? Then what?”
“She was beautiful. I never had a woman like her. Tremendous body. We did it a few times while her old man tries to beat the meat in the corner. Then she tells me to go outside to the hot tub.
I figured she was gonna give her husband a shot at that pussy. So I go.”
Suddenly, Tony saw a flash of light coming from outside. At least he thought that’s what it was.
“What you looking at?” Peroni said, gazing off toward the front door.
“I thought I saw something out there. A light.”
Frank Peroni got up quickly. “Someone followed you here.”
The next couple of flashes weren’t from flashlights. They were from guns going off. In their direction.
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CHAPTER 27
They didn’t have time for anything. Bullets had crashed through the glass on the front door, sending shards onto the wooden floor. Tony grabbed Frank Peroni by the arm and then the two of them raced through the kitchen, snatching his winter coat on the way out the back door.
As the door flung shut behind them, Tony could hear the front door smash in, and knew it would be only seconds before the shooters were right behind them.
They jumped from the wooden deck in the back into a growing snow bank. Tony was disoriented and unsure where to go, but moved through the deep snow with purpose downhill. Frank was right at his side.
The back door swung open and Tony waited for shots. Nothing.
Then he heard a voice yelling, like one giving another orders.
They slipped and slid down the hill, branches from pines whipping them in the face. Frank fell and his body careened down the embankment for ten feet before he caught himself, digging his feet into the thick snow,
and then raised himself to his feet again.
Tony thought of pulling his flashlight from his pocket, but realized they’d be perfect targets for the shooters.
Crashing down the hill behind them, Tony could hear at least two men.
Water roared ahead of them. They had to slow down or they’d go flying into the Metolius River.
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The river was getting closer, the noise of frigid water sloshing over rocks just below them. Tony was afraid they’d come to a cliff, which was so common in the area, and crash over the edge to their death.
But his eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness, and he could see something shimmering ahead through the falling snow.
Suddenly the hill leveled down and they hit bottom, their legs collapsing beneath them. Frank yelled in pain. Tony rolled as if he had just hit the ground while parachuting.
Tony got to his feet and pulled the flashlight from his pocket, narrowing the beam toward Frank through cupped hands. He was holding his left ankle.
“You all right?” Tony whispered, out of breath.
“I think so.” Peroni was panting as if he’d just run a mile. “Bad sprain.”
Tony listened carefully. The men were still coming, perhaps slower than the two of them had descended the hill, though.
Tony pulled Frank to his feet. “Let’s go.”
He struggled against him. “Where? We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”
“You wanna stay here and get shot?”
Tony flashed the light down the edge of the river toward what looked like a deer trail, trampled down even more by fly fisher-men. Shutting off the light, they ran off down stream.
Leading the way at a jogger’s pace, Tony tried to keep his footing in the deep, heavy snow. It was like tromping through wet oatmeal.
After a short while, Tony could hear one man talking to the other. They had reached the bottom. Tony turned to see that they had a light and could simply follow their tracks. Damn!
As they ran, Tony asked Frank, “How deep is the river?”
“No fuckin’ way,” Frank said. “You’re not gettin’ me in there.
We’d be dead in a minute.”
“How deep is it?”
“I don’t know.”
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They kept going. Maybe they could outrun them. Problem was, Tony wasn’t even sure who they were or why they were after them. Nor did he have much time to speculate on the subject. He was acting on instincts now. And he knew that if they didn’t do something, the shooters could catch them, or at least get close enough to start shooting again.
Without warning, Tony grabbed Frank and shoved him to the right. Then he followed Peroni into the river.
Crashing into the water, the icy waves enveloped Tony, taking his breath away. He recalled going under, hitting something hard on the bottom, and then rising to the surface. But he still had Frank by his collar, who then took in water and started choking.
They rode the rapids for a while, their bodies going numb, and then in a moment the noise from the river seemed to fade in the distance behind them as the river widened.
Tony shoved his leg down and felt rocks, so he planted his hiking boots and hoisted his body upward, bringing Frank Peroni with him. Frank had stopped coughing now, but he was shivering uncontrollably. So was Tony.
“What the hell’d you do that for?” Frank chattered through his teeth.
They waded toward shore. Tony’s face and neck ached as the cold wind hit his exposed skin. He didn’t know how far they had floated. But, just as they got to shore, there was a set of headlights that seemed to float across the river downstream. The bridge. The one he had crossed on the way to the cabin. That meant the road would be up the embankment. They had to get there and backtrack to his truck.
Tony tried to explain to Frank his plan as they ran up the steep hill toward the road, but he wasn’t sure the guy understood everything he said. He wasn’t sure he would have either, considering how the words came chopping from his shivering mouth.
They ran forward as fast as their stiff frames would take them.
Tony’s pants had frozen solid in the frigid air, making it harder to move.
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Shortly they reached the driveway. The truck’s tracks were covered by those with studded radials, and even those were filling in quickly with fresh snowfall.
In a minute the two of them reached a car. A white Pontiac Bonneville with two sets of footprints leading up the driveway.
Damn!
“Just a minute,” Tony said, pulling Frank to a halt. He pulled out his flashlight to check the license plates and then shone the light around to both sides of the car. It might work, he thought.
“You know whose car that is?” Tony asked Frank.
He gave Tony his stupid look again and he knew the answer to that question. Tony pulled out a jackknife and slit a couple of tires, knowing they’d have maybe one spare. It would slow them down.
Without saying anything else, they ran off to Tony’s truck.
Rattling keys to get in, Tony finally got his door open and reached across to open the passenger door for Frank.
Without warning, Panzer growled and lunged toward Frank Peroni as he was getting in.
Jumping backward, Frank yelled, “What the fuck is that?”
“Panzer. Behind the seat.”
The dog turned and jumped behind the front seats.
“Get in! It’s just my dog.”
Reluctantly, Peroni did what Tony said, his head turned to buckle up and his eyes watching the dog.
“Damn thing looks like a bear.”
In the truck now, the engine warming, Tony cranked up the heat. Before getting in, he had seen a place to back around. And since the truck had four-wheel-drive, he had no problem backing into the trees and turning around.
Slowly driving down the lane, Tony came to a stop out front of the Bonneville. Then he turned to the left and plowed through some small pines, angled around, and came back on the road behind the car. A few seconds later they were out on the main road, the heater blowing full blast, and Tony trying to keep the 168
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vehicle on the slippery road with numb fingers.
It took them more than an hour to get back to the condo, park the truck in the garage, strip down to their shorts, and soak their bodies in the hot tub. Tony had pulled out a couple of beers and they were enjoying those.
“What the hell just happened?” Frank asked.
“That’s a good question. I wish I had a good answer.” He hesitated. “You were going to tell me about the guys in the Bonneville.”
Frank shook his head and took a sip of beer. “What do you want from me?”
“Let’s start with the truth,” Tony said. “Just before we were rudely interrupted, you were going to tell me what happened after you and Barb Humphrey got it on the night she died.”
“Oh, yeah. That. Well, we’re right in the place to tell the story.
I was in the Humphrey hot tub suckin’ down some suds, waiting for Barb to join me, when all hell broke loose.” He thought for a moment, trying to remember the night, or maybe trying to forget.
“Go on.”
“I heard a shot. At first I didn’t know what it was. You don’t think a shot is a shot; not coming from a nice place like that.”
“The Humphrey place.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I had left the back sliding glass door ajar, so the shot seemed to echo back out onto the patio toward me. I was ready to get out, but I froze. I’m not a coward, I’ll tell you that right now. But I don’t like guns. A gun is the great equalizer of all time. You could be some scrawny fuck and take out a huge football player with a single shot. Now that’s power in the wrong hands.”
“Back to the story. What happened next? You froze. Then what?”
“Hey, fuck you!”
“I didn’t mean it that way. Go ahead.”
&nb
sp; “I heard a second shot and then someone came running out the BOOM TOWN 169
door. Fairly tall. Fairly gangly. That’s all I could tell in the darkness.”
“You didn’t see who it was?”
“Like I said, it was dark. And I’d had a few beers.”
“But it was a man. You’re sure of that.”
“I think I can tell a man from a woman.” He took a long drink of beer. “This is good shit. You got any more?”
Tony reluctantly got out and went dripping and sloshing to the kitchen for two more beers. When he came back, Frank was leaning back, his arms spread out along the sides, and his eyes closed.
Climbing back into the hot tub, Tony said, “Make yourself at home.”
Frank took a beer from Tony and smiled. “Hey, after getting shot at, racing down a snowy hill like a fuckin’ maniac, and then nearly drowning in the river...not to mention almost freezing to death, this feels pretty damn good.”
Tony had to agree with him. His problem was trying to understand why the two Portland cops would try to shoot them. Frank Peroni wasn’t telling him the whole truth.
“What happened after the guy ran from the house?” Tony asked.
“The scene took a definite turn for the worse. The guy ran off through the woods, so I started to get out of the hot tub. Just then the place blew up. I’d never seen anything like it.”
Frank went on and on explaining how the flames had billowed out of the house. How there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. How he had panicked and run to his car, driving back to his condo naked. How he was lucky he had taken his pants out onto the patio with him, so he’d at least have his keys and wallet.
Tony listened to the guy talk. Watched his facial expressions. And believed what Frank Peroni was saying. One more thing he knew as fact. He had been scared. Scared enough to hole up in the cabin for two weeks. But that still didn’t explain the two cops who were after him. Shabato and Reese. Or why they would try to take him out.