Frag Box

by Richard A. Thompson

  “I suppose you would have, yes. What would be wrong with that? I’d have waited for you.”

  “I’m not actually supposed to be here, is the thing.”

  “You said your editor told you to back off the story, knowing that you wouldn’t.”

  “That was before. What he told me later, when I was filing my column, was to pursue it if I thought I just had to, but strictly on my own time. So if I admit I’m here, I have to take a vacation day.”

  “Do you have one to take?”

  “I never seem to have any to take. I use them up as fast as they accumulate, nursing hangovers and working on the Great American Novel.”

  I looked over to see if she was putting me on. She gave me an open face and a palms-up gesture.

  “A hard-drinking novelist? That’s actually respectable, in some quarters. Do you shoot elephants and write about bullfights and wars?”

  “No, I shoot pictures and write about bail bondsmen with mysterious pasts.”

  I shot her another look and was met by twinkling eyes and a mouth on the verge of a huge smile.

  “Made you look,” she said.

  “Twit.”

  “Now tell me about Iowa.”

  “Never happen.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s too boring.”

  “You’re a bad liar, Herman.”

  Maybe so, but I can stonewall with the best of them.

  Tower-Soudan turned out to be two places. You come to Tower first, and if you blow right on past it because it’s so small, you come to Soudan less than a quarter of a mile later. And to your amazement, you find that Soudan is even smaller. Somebody once told me that you can estimate the population of a small town by counting the number of blocks on Main Street and multiplying by one hundred. If that’s true, then Tower had about three hundred people and Soudan didn’t have any. But it had a big monument telling us we were in the right area.

  The mine that Sheriff Lindstrom had talked about was on the north side of Soudan, and it wasn’t nearly as closed-looking as he had implied. In fact, it had been turned into a state park. The skeletal framework of the pit-shaft hoist tower, unsheltered from the weather, poked maybe sixty feet up in the air, looming over an assortment of buildings and platforms and trails that meandered down a steep embankment.

  The whole park complex looked bigger than the town on the other side of the road. A sign said that the underground mine tours were closed for the season just then, but there were lights on in the buildings, and the complex was obviously still staffed and open. As far as I could tell, the underground mine and a couple of open-pit ones beyond it were still in operation, even. I pulled into the outer parking lot, which was neatly plowed, and stopped but did not get out.

  “I’m afraid I’ve dragged you off on a wild goose chase,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “What were you expecting, Herman?”

  “Something abandoned and boarded up. Charlie was an old tunnel rat. If he was going to hide a box of money around here, I figured he would pick a place that was underground. And I was hoping the new pickaxe was what he had used to break in, and we could follow the scratch marks or some such.”

  “I see,” she said. “And where did his father fit in with all that?”

  “Well, there was a gap or two in my theory yet.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I really am sorry.”

  “Well, it’s not as though you’re the first person who ever wasted my time. And I got the story of the second murder, anyway, for a tie-in. Tell you what: find a place to buy me a dinner that doesn’t include lutefisk, and we’ll call it even.”

  As she spoke, the windshield began to get spotted with the first flakes of another snowfall. It wasn’t exactly a blizzard yet, but it was enough to make the visibility rotten for the trip back to St. Paul. I sighed.

  “Swell,” I said.

  “Looks nasty, doesn’t it?”

  “It looks like we’re cursed, is what it looks like.” I flipped on the wipers and switched the duct control to full defrost.

  “Let’s wait it out, then. We’re far enough into the Range to get blizzards that can stop a sled dog. The world will not end if I don’t get back until sometime tomorrow. I’ll say I was covering the cranberry harvest in Brainerd, or something. You can use my phone to call your office in the morning, if you want.”

  “Does Brainerd have a cranberry harvest?”

  “It does now. Look for a motel that doesn’t predate the Second World War.”

  I sternly pushed aside the thoughts that were gleefully crowding into my consciousness.

  “We’re not going to find any four-star resort hotels, you know,” I said.

  “Then we’ll have to find some other kind of attraction, won’t we? Think like a reporter, Herman; learn to take advantage of what’s around you.”

  Unbelievable, the straight lines people give me.

  ***

  We went to a little strip mall on the outskirts of Virginia, to buy a few things. I went into a drugstore and bought a throwaway shaving kit and a toothbrush, and Anne went I don’t know where and bought I don’t know what. Then we drove back to Eveleth and took adjoining rooms at a motel whose only commendable feature was that it was an easy walk to the place where we had eaten lunch.

  If we were about to become lovers, we weren’t admitting that to ourselves yet. And the more I thought about it, the worse idea I thought it was, anyway. Sooner or later, people who are physically intimate become intimate in other ways, too. And of all the people I could not let that happen with, a newspaperwoman was close to the top of the list. But that was no reason we couldn’t have a nice dinner.

  But then, she said it first. Even to myself, I’m a bad liar.

  The snow was getting thicker by time we hiked back to the main street. The temperature wasn’t really bitter, but the wind made it feel worse than it was. We hunched into our coats and hurried. Fortunately, it was only three blocks.

  The cafe was a lot livelier than when we had last been there. A folding partition had been rolled back to open up a much bigger dining room, with a bandstand, a bar, and a small dance floor. We took a booth in a corner, and a cheery fortyish waitress whose nametag said she was Madge brought us menus.

  “Friday night,” she said, “so I guess you know what that means, then.”

  “Um,” I said.

  “Let me guess,” said Anne. “The special is all-you-can-eat fish fry.”

  “You got it, honey. Beer-battered walleye. And the Paul Bunyan drinks until eight o’clock, of course.”

  We ordered drinks and studied the menus. Over in the opposite corner of the room, a trio with matching black slacks and embroidered vests was pumping out schmaltz. A tallish blonde played a button accordion, accompanied by a bearded guy with an acoustic guitar. The third member of the combo looked like a refugee from a sixties jug band. He played a washboard with an assortment of bells and horns attached to it and sang into a microphone. Out on the dance floor, a few couples were doing something that might have passed for a waltz.

  “The pretzels are zalty, the beer flows like vine,” sang Mr. Washboard, in a faux accent that was probably supposed to be German. “After sixteen shmall bottles, the band she sounds fine. Ve laugh und ve dance und ve haff a good time…”

  To my amazement, they really didn’t sound too bad.

  “Do you dance, Herman?”

  “Only after the aforementioned sixteen small bottles or so. And by then, I would probably just fall down.”

  “I could teach you.”

  “You could get very frustrated trying, anyway. Where did you learn?”

  “Political rallies.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “No, it’s true,” she said, shaking her head. “My father was a state senator from northern Wisconsin. He’d go to fundraisers in roadhouses and dance halls in little towns out-state, and the party faithful would listen to spe
eches and drink beer and dance the polka. I was too young to drink, so I had to learn to dance. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had anything to do at all.”

  “Where was your mother all this while?”

  “Sitting home, mostly, disapproving. She refused to go out on the campaign trail. I’m not sure if she thought it was immoral or just undignified. Sometimes I think she was a closet Methodist. But she loved my father deeply, so she just sulked a little and kept quiet about it.”

  “That’s a nice story,” I said, meaning it. “Does that somehow lead to a career in journalism?”

  “Partly, maybe. I surely saw plenty of reporters doing it badly. But even when they were sloppy with their stories, they seemed about as independent as a person can get and still be drawing a salary. It looked like fun.”

  “How come you never went into TV news? With your looks and poise, it seems like a natural evolution.”

  She shook her head again, though now she was smiling and blushing a bit. “That’s not real journalism,” she said. “I guess when it comes to my profession, I’m a curmudgeon, too. In my world, you’re just not an honest-to-god reporter unless you write for a paper.”

  The waitress brought us our drinks then, a gin and tonic in a huge old-fashioned soda-fountain glass for Anne and a Scotch with a short beer for me. She asked if we were ready to order, and Anne told her to bring us some munchies for now, onion rings and spiced bull bites.

  “Is that okay?” she said to me.

  “Sure. Just what us health-food nuts always order.”

  “I figured as much. So. Pay me back for my nice story. Tell me about your father.”

  I sighed. “You just never give up, do you?”

  “Not me. Bulldog Packard of the Mounties.”

  I took a sip of scotch and tried to think what I could tell her that would be consistent with rural Iowa.

  “I don’t remember my father,” I said, which was the truth. “My mother claimed he died in the Korean War, but I don’t recall her ever getting a government pension check. I think he just split.”

  “I’m sorry for you. Did you blame yourself for that?”

  “Not really. I didn’t come to that conclusion until I was fairly old. When I was a little kid, I thought it was cool to have a father who was a war hero.”

  “Even though he was dead?”

  I shrugged. “I had plenty of friends who wished their fathers were dead. They probably envied me.”

  “And your mother?”

  “My mother.” I took another sip of scotch. “What can I tell you about my mother? She waited tables at a blue-collar bar, where she was probably also one of the best customers. She put…”

  I had been about to say she put me in an orphanage when I was eleven, but then I realized that small towns probably don’t have orphanages.

  “She put?”

  “She didn’t want me around. I spent a lot of time with my uncle, out on a farm.”

  “Was that nice?”

  I thought about running the phones for Uncle Fred and finding that I had a lot of money.

  “It was okay,” I said. “It was interesting.” And I was amazed to realize how much of what I had just told her was true.

  “And you never married?”

  “Well, I hadn’t ever seen a marriage up close that worked, you know? I couldn’t figure out why people wanted it. What about you? Your ring finger doesn’t look like it’s ever worn anything.”

  “I guess I never saw one that worked, either.” But her eyes wandered when she said it, and she toyed with a phantom ring on her left hand, telling me the real story. I touched her glass with mine and gave her what I hoped was an understanding smile.

  Our food came, and we laid into it. We liked it so well, we ordered more of the same, plus some stuffed potato skins, rather than what she called “an honest meal.” And we had more drinks, of course. And after fewer than sixteen but more than I could easily count, she really did get me out on the dance floor. I don’t know if the dance I wound up doing had a real name or not. But just as the singer over in the corner had promised, we danced and we laughed and we had a good time. She was an easy person to be with.

  It was past midnight when we walked back to the motel, leaning on each other. The wind had died down and the snow had changed to puffy, floating flakes that actually managed to make the dirty old town look postcard-pretty. We indulged in a very chaste goodnight kiss and let ourselves into our respective rooms.

  Chapter 19

  Running in the Dark

  Our rooms had a connecting door, in case we wanted to call them a suite. I had no idea if the doors, one on each side, were locked, but I assumed so. The walls were paper thin, and through them, I could hear water running in Anne’s room, presumably the shower. A cold one? I should be so irresistible.

  Still fully dressed, I lay on the bed for a while and listened to the rushing sound, wondering if there was something I might have said to make my sexy journalist fall into my arms in an erotic swoon. Probably not. This was a very in-charge kind of woman, even back when she was busy trying to drink me under the table. If she had an incurable fever for me, I figured she would have come right out and said so.

  It had been a long day and a surprisingly energetic and alcoholic evening, and I should have been ready to crash into oblivion, but I didn’t feel even slightly like it. I got up and looked at the connecting door. The sound of the shower stopped, but no matter how long I looked at the door, it didn’t open.

  I sighed just a little, shrugged, and paced over to the windows. I pulled back a drape and looked idly out at the parking lot with its strange-colored sodium lights illuminating the falling snow. And froze.

  A black Hummer had just pulled into the parking lot next to my 328i, and some large and dangerous-looking types were piling out of it.

  They were dressed in black topcoats and dark slacks, like the big gatekeeper at Railroad Island, two nights ago, except that they also wore ski masks and carried some very heavy-looking firearms.

  I went quickly over to the connecting door again, clicked open the deadbolt, and opened it. Almost instantly, I heard the bolt on the matching door in Anne’s room click as well, as if she had been waiting there. She pulled it open a bit and I immediately shoved it the rest of the way and pushed her back into the room.

  “Oh, that’s romantic,” she said. “Really charming. I think I may have made a big mistake here.”

  She was wearing some lacy, low-cut panties and the soft green sweater and quite possibly nothing else, and she nearly made me forget why I had opened the door. Nearly.

  “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Why on earth?”

  “And I really do mean now.”

  I shut the door and threw the deadbolt, then took her hand and pulled her into the bathroom, where I unlocked the small window above the toilet and began to push it up.

  “Herman, have you gone completely insane?’

  The window had been painted shut for a long time, and opening it was doable but slow.

  “I mean, if this is your idea of how to—”

  From next door, we heard the sound of breaking glass and a few seconds later, the eardrum-splitting bang of an explosion.

  Anne immediately joined me in pushing on the window, and it slid the rest of the way up suddenly, with a crash and some clunking of jiggled sash weights. A few white flakes and a lot of frigid air blew in from the black rectangle. While I shut the bathroom door and wedged a soggy, folded-over bath mat under it, she climbed up and put her upper body through the window. And as much of a panic as I was in, I still had to admire the sight of her taut, shapely legs and round buttocks. I hoped I would live long enough to see them in better circumstances.

  “I’m not sure I can do this, Herman.”

  “We don’t have a choice. Hurry.”

  “But how do I land?”

  “Any way you can.” I gave her behind a very unkind
push and she disappeared through the opening.

  “Get clear!” I said. I grabbed a pair of thin foam slippers from the floor and threw them out the window, then dove after them. In the bedroom behind us, there was another explosion.

  It wasn’t much of a drop to the ground, but I remembered how fragile things like wrists and necks are, and I did a tuck-under on the way down and landed on my shoulder blades with only minor agony. Anne had used her hands to break her fall and was getting up slowly, nursing her left wrist. I put an arm around her waist and helped her up, then tossed the slippers in front of her.

  “Step into those,” I said, “and then let’s move.”

  “Where?” She picked up the slippers, rather than putting them on, folded her arms in a protective gesture, and started to run where I pointed.

  “Out to the alley first. It’s been plowed clean, and we won’t leave tracks.”

  We ran down the alley for fifty yards or so, past a jumble of garages and small outbuildings behind a block of houses. At a yard that had a cleared sidewalk in the back, we turned into a tiny fenced garden, ducked behind a corrugated potting shed, and chanced a look back.

  Nothing. Nobody behind us. I was wishing I had taken a moment to grab my coat, and I could only imagine how cold Anne must be feeling. She put her slippers on, finally, but they can’t have helped much.

  Then we heard the snarl of an over-revved engine, and the Hummer came tearing around the end of the motel. It went to the far end of the alley and stopped, and two men with flashlights got out. Then the big vehicle sped down the alley, past where we were hiding, and let another man out at the opposite end of the block.

  We were bracketed.

  We ran through the back yard and around the house, just in time to see the big SUV cruise around the corner of the street, moving slowly now, checking out front yards with a spotlight. There was no way we had enough room to cross the street in front of it and not be seen.

  “Back,” I said, and Anne needed no further coaching. We ran back the way we had come and tried the side door on a garage.

  Locked.

  But the second garage we came to, larger than the first one, was unlocked, and I pushed it open, pulled her inside, and shut it as quietly as I could. The lock on the door had no turn button on the inside, so I looked around for something to block it shut with. By the light of my trusty Zippo, I found a big double-headed axe hanging on the wall. I rested the end of the handle on the floor and wedged the head into the crack between the jamb and the door. I stayed there and held it, just in case I hadn’t wedged it tight enough, and gave Anne my lighter.