Smith's Monthly #23

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  I turned and smiled at him.

  Then Ricky Nelson stopped singing.

  And I was back on my bar stool at the Garden Lounge.

  Stout, Sandy, Carl, and Billy stood around the jukebox, touching it.

  Dave stood in front of the jukebox staring at them.

  “Wow,” was all I could say.

  All four cheered and Stout held up my empty glass as if in a toast.

  It felt really good to be back.

  EIGHT

  I had another drink as I told them about my adventure with Marcy, getting caught parking, and who she was to me and my life now. I explained that my two years with Marcy had mostly been trying to forget about being in love with Alice. It was a fun time, but nothing really important, or life altering.

  After I got done telling my story, and Dave told his about how great it was to watch his daughter being born, Sandy went back through the jukebox to visit her senior prom. She came back smiling and laughing and told us all about it, right down to where she and her girlfriends spiked the punch to get the guys drunk.

  I remembered in my time that the guys were the ones who put booze in the punch. Things do change.

  Carl went back to visit his mother and when he came back he didn’t say much and no one really pushed him.

  It shocked me both times when they just sort of popped out of existence and then back again when the song ended. And before each song Stout asked me if I had any memories associated with the song.

  Stout and Billy both declined to play a song, so when Carl returned and dropped back onto his bar stool, Stout moved down the bar and stood in front of me.

  “Usually,” he said, “we only go back once, but since your first trip was an accident, are you interested in giving it another try this year?”

  His question surprised me, for some reason. “Give me just a second to think about it.” I slid my glass toward him. “How about a refill?”

  He nodded and moved down the bar with my glass as I thought about Alice. She had turned out to be the one woman, over all the years, that I truly loved. Now Stout was giving me a chance to go see her again. And maybe tell her how I really felt. Maybe keep her from leaving me.

  He was offering me another gift. And this was a very special gift.

  I turned on my stool and looked out over the empty Garden Lounge. This evening had been one of the nicest, and wildest, I had spent in more years than I cared to remember. I enjoyed the people and I enjoyed the place.

  Why leave it at the moment?

  Besides, if Stout was right, Alice and I ended up in a really ugly divorce that I hated enough to change once. Maybe I was just cut out in this life to live alone, as I had done. Maybe on this gift, this year, it was better to look the old horse in the mouth.

  Stout set the glass on the napkin and I turned around to face him again. “Thanks for the offer,” I said. “But I think I will pass this year. One was enough. Maybe next year if you want me back.”

  Stout broke into a huge smile. “Every year. You are always welcome.”

  He moved down the bar and unplugged the jukebox. “That’s it for another year,” he said.

  We all toasted the jukebox and then we spent the next hour laughing and talking about anything and everything, including what Stout could remember of my previous life, including how really unhappy I had been with Alice.

  At a little after midnight on Christmas morning, Sandy dropped me off in front of the Golden Dream Hotel for Men.

  I almost bounded up the front stairs, feeling younger and more alive than I had in years. I’m not sure why a few drinks and a trip into my own past would make me feel that way. But it did.

  And for the moment that was all that mattered.

  I unlocked the front door and went into the front foyer.

  The place was dark, the only light the one over the old front desk cage. Hank and Mitchell were long asleep. In fact this was the latest I had stayed up in years.

  I looked around at the deep shadows and the worn furniture. It was as if I was seeing it for the first time. Seeing the age and the stagnation. Nothing had changed in this room for as long as I had lived here.

  I patted the back of Hank’s chair and a small cloud of dust rose in the dim light. Maybe it was time to bring some life back here.

  I wandered over to the open area beside the cage and looked up at the high ceiling. Twenty feet, maybe. More than enough room for a Christmas tree.

  Tomorrow the three of us would stop down at the Garden to have a Christmas drink with Stout. He had promised he would fix us his special eggnog. And then we would go buy a Christmas tree for the hotel. It was time we started a few traditions of our own. The guys would piss and moan, but they would enjoy it.

  And then maybe the following week I might find an old jukebox. A real one that only gave you memories instead of trips through time.

  You didn’t always have to go into the past to change the present. As I discovered tonight, with a very special gift from the strangest gift horse I had ever met, sometimes you can do it right now.

  In the first installments, Seattle Police Detectives Bonnie and Craig, while taking a late night walk on a Scottsdale Arizona golf course, happen to overhear a conversation between two men plotting to kill a United States Senator.

  At the same time, a young golf professional’s wife is kidnapped. Scheduled to play with the Senator, he must do what they ask or his wife will die.

  Bonnie and Craig get the FBI and local police involved. Everything is set and they play with the Senator to help protect him.

  Nothing goes wrong, but that night, they see the two men again who they had overheard.

  Now, the next morning, starting the second round of golf, everyone waits and watches.

  A horrific accident on the golf course almost kills the Senator, but he is fine and sent on to Washington while they set a trap for the man coming to kill Danny, the young golf professional.

  The man is killed in the hotel room by Craig and an FBI agent.

  AN EASY SHOT

  Part 6 of 8

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sunday, April 9th

  7:01 p.m.

  BONNIE HAD BEEN a cop long enough to see her share of death. And every time she hoped she would never have to see more.

  This time was no different.

  Just easier.

  The deaths of children and teenagers were the ones that bothered her the most, but every death seemed to carve a small chunk out of her soul, leaving her feeling just a little more empty and a little more jaded toward life and people.

  Having the guy die in the fight in the hotel room was startling, and disturbing, but for some reason she didn’t find herself that upset about it. He had tried to kill Senator Knight, had kidnapped Danny’s wife, and was more than likely going to kill Danny and his wife if they had given him time.

  Having him die wasn’t a great loss to the world, the way she figured it. She knew that was cold, but sometimes being a cop made you cold when it came to scum.

  Craig clearly felt the same way. Craig seemed more upset that he was going to have to do massive paperwork and attend post-shooting hearings after all this was over. Hagar had promised him he would help speed the process. And if he did have to come back for a hearing, just think of the golf he could play. That comment had cheered Craig up some.

  Right now she and Craig and the rest were much more worried about getting Danny’s wife recovered safely. The cell phone they had gotten off the dead guy was stolen, and the number called had been to another stolen cell phone.

  No surprise there.

  Maxwell and his team had managed to get the area the cell call went into narrowed down to a ten-block radius in a Phoenix suburb. But the only way to pinpoint the call exactly to one location was to call the number again.

  And somehow keep the line open long enough to get a fix on the location.

  With the help of the Scottsdale police, the Phoenix police, and other agencies nearby, they had
quietly blocked off the entire ten-block area and were standing ready to swarm in on the location as soon as they had it pinpointed. There was going to be no talking with whoever was holding Danny’s wife. They were going to swarm in and take her back without warning.

  Danny seemed ready as well to help in getting his wife to safety. They had all gone back up to the FBI’s room on the top floor of the hotel, leaving Danny’s room for the crime scene people and FBI to go over. Maxwell had figured if Danny made the phone call, there might be more of a chance of it staying connected long enough to get an exact location pinpointed.

  Bonnie agreed and was standing beside Danny, with Craig on the other side, when Maxwell said, “Ready.”

  Danny nodded and pressed redial on the dead man’s cell phone. Then he carefully put it to his ear as if he was afraid it might explode on him.

  Bonnie forced herself to let out the breath she was holding and put her hand gently on Danny’s shoulder to let him know they were there for him.

  After a short moment Danny said, “The guy said I could talk to my wife again.”

  A slight pause.

  Danny looked panicked.

  “He’s right here,” Danny said. “Just put my wife on.”

  Behind Danny, Maxwell signaled thumbs up.

  They had the location and were closing in. But he wanted Danny to keep talking if he could. It would be better for those moving in to keep the guy on the line and busy somehow.

  “All right, all right,” Danny said. “You can talk to him. Then let me talk to my wife again will ya?”

  Bonnie was impressed at the young pro. He had played it perfectly.

  Danny glanced at Bonnie with the phone held out in front of him. He had the questioning look of what was he supposed to do now? He had gone through all his lines they had worked on and he clearly wasn’t capable of making something up in his state of mind.

  Craig motioned for Danny to talk into the phone again, but Bonnie could tell Danny was clearly about to lose it. This was all far, far beyond his depth.

  Bonnie shook her head at her husband, signaling him to not push the young pro any more.

  Craig glanced at Maxwell, then took the phone. He smiled at her and gave her his nothing-to-lose-shrug.

  She agreed. They had pinpointed the location and at this point they had nothing to lose and everything to gain by keeping whoever was on the other end of the line busy for just a few more seconds.

  “Let him talk to his wife, fer cryin’ out loud,” Craig said.

  Bonnie was impressed. Craig’s voice sounded like a passable imitation of the dead-man’s voice. Sometimes her husband’s hidden skills were just amazing.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Craig said after a short moment, “but the kid wouldn’t budge without another call.”

  Suddenly Craig held the phone away from his ear. Bonnie could hear the sounds of gunfire coming from the phone. One shot, another two quick ones, then nothing.

  Craig carefully put the cell phone back up to his ear and listened for a moment, then shook his head that there was nothing on the other end.

  They all looked at Maxwell.

  “Is Steph all right?” Danny asked Maxwell.

  He said nothing.

  Bonnie could feel her stomach clamping down hard as she waited. Beside her Danny seemed as if he might just faint from the fear and worry and waiting.

  Maxwell was listening to reports from his people on headphones. Suddenly he broke into a big smile at Danny. “They have her.”

  “She’s all right?” Danny asked, his voice weak and shaking.

  “She’s all right,” Maxwell said, smiling the broadest grin Bonnie could have imagined the man smiling. “They’re taking her to the hospital. You can meet her there.”

  At that Danny just slumped into a chair and broke down and started crying.

  For a moment the hardened cops and agents in the room looked at the young golf pro with stunned looks.

  Then Bonnie sat down beside him and put her arm on his shoulder for comfort. He deserved a good cry.

  Around her a lot of men were smiling, including her husband. It looked like this was over for the moment.

  And for a change, real life had a happy ending, even if the guy was crying.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Sunday, April 9th

  8:37 p.m.

  THE MAN CHARLES Robins called Bill signaled for the limo driver to stop in a parking lot as he checked the account balance on his laptop computer screen one more time just to make sure.

  It came up the same.

  Charles Robins had shorted him exactly a half million dollars on the final payment.

  “Stupid idiot,” the man said.

  He snapped the computer closed and put it back in his case.

  Then as he was looking out the window of the limo, he started to laugh. “Stupid men always make stupid mistakes.”

  He had always known that Charles Robins was a stupid man, so this final act of greed was no surprise. It was mostly luck and underhanded dealings that had allowed Robins to build his house-of-cards fortune. The man had known that before he went to work for Robins. For years he had waited for this exact moment, the exact right opportunity to strike at Robins, take as much of Robins’s money as he could, and move on.

  He had gotten a half million out of the idiot. And now Robins had made the fatal mistake of not paying the rest. It was time to show Robins that there were some things not even an idiot could buy his way out of.

  The man signaled for the driver to start up again, then reached into a briefcase and pulled out a cell phone. It was one of ten stolen for this operation that he hadn’t used yet.

  He punched in the number for the man he called Benny. The guy was all New York and proud of it. Benny didn’t know the man’s real name and he didn’t know Benny’s. They simply helped each other out when help was needed.

  The phone rang three times too many without being picked up.

  The man instantly clicked off his phone and punched the button for the window beside him to roll down. He used a handkerchief to carefully wipe off his fingerprints from the phone and the keypad. There was a stretch of empty desert and litter a few hundred feet ahead. As the limo went past he tossed the phone into the litter beside the road.

  He put the window up and then keyed in the intercom to the driver of the limo. “Turn right at the next corner and then right again at the next and head back into town.”

  “Understood, sir,” the driver said.

  He sat back and thought. Was it possible that Benny had just put the phone down? By this time of night he should have already been at the house with Danny the golf pro. And both Danny and his young wife should be dead, if Benny followed orders. He was hoping to make use of the two bodies.

  Was it possible that Benny was busy with that chore?

  The man nodded and pulled out another cell phone. He punched in another number, this one for the phone of Benny’s assistant who had been guarding the young wife.

  The phone rang two too many rings before a voice answered. “Yeah.”

  The voice sounded like Benny’s voice, but it wasn’t Benny.

  He clicked the cell phone closed, quickly wiped it clean of his fingerprints, and tossed it out the window. It bounced under a parked car.

  “Driver, take a left at the next corner and go until you reach the freeway. Then head for Tucson.”

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said.

  It was clear that Benny and one of his men were either dead or captured by the FBI. It made sense that they would get the young pro to break the moment the Senator had his accident. And from there the trail was easy to Benny and his helper. He was going to miss Benny, that was for sure. A good worker.

  But he wasn’t going to miss the money he now didn’t have to pay Benny. That was an extra bonus.

  But what to do about Charles Robins?

  The man sat back in the comfort of the limo and sipped a brandy, thinking. He wasn’t halfway to Tucso
n before he came up with a great plan.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sunday, April 9th

  11:21 p.m.

  CRAIG PUSHED AWAY his mostly empty plate and sipped on the Diet Coke. They had been lucky to find a place with food this good so late on a Sunday night. It looked more like a diner stuffed inside an old freight warehouse, but Hagar had sworn by the place and he had been right. Great service, great food, and background music low enough to talk over.

  What more could they have asked for?

  At the moment Hagar was finishing a large plate of some sort of Mexican food Craig didn’t recognize.

  Maxwell had already pushed away the last of his barbecue chicken.

  Bonnie was trying to polish off the last few pieces of her steak.

  Around them there were still people coming in and being seated. Clearly the locals knew this place well. Craig couldn’t imagine how busy it was during peak hours if there were this many people here on a late Sunday night.

  For all of them it had been one very long day, topped with the scene in the hospital with Danny and Steph getting back together. Just the memory of that made Craig smile. The quiet, sullen young golf pro that they had played golf with all weekend suddenly had become happy, full of life, with a light in his eyes as he and his wife hugged and cried together.

  Craig couldn’t even imagine playing golf while Bonnie was being held hostage. But Danny had done what he thought he had to do. And somehow had managed. He was one strong kid.

  From what Maxwell had said, because of Danny’s help getting to some of the men behind the attempt on the Senator’s life, and the situation of his wife being kidnapped, no charges against Danny would be brought. He and Steph were just victims of the larger plan.

  At the hospital Craig had apologized to Danny for treating him so roughly on the cart path after the accident.

  Danny said it was all right. For not calling the police at once he deserved much more than that. Then he had added that he never wanted to ever be on the receiving end of being arrested again by an angry cop. Once was enough.