A Small Town

by Thomas Perry

  A door opened, and then another one. The others seemed to be as sickened as he was, but they came into the hallway. He saw that the first one was Ortega. He was carrying a rifle, probably one of the rifles that Duquesne had brought here. The next two had pistols. Duquesne said, “We’ve got to get air in here.” Then he looked around. “Where’s—” He couldn’t remember the name of the man who was missing. “Bysantski!” he shouted. “Matt! Get up!”

  He had noticed that after a time standing, he felt better, and the others seemed to be reviving a little too. The gas, whatever it was, must be heavier than air, lingering thickest near the floor. “Come on. We’ve got to get outside.”

  He staggered toward the front door.

  “Wait!” shouted Ortega. He pushed Duquesne aside and stepped to one of the narrow windows that looked like gun ports, lifted the latch, and pulled the window inward.

  “What are you doing?” It was Bysantski’s voice. Had he been up all along?

  Ortega had his eye to the window.

  “That’s not enough air. We’ve got to go out,” said Bysantski.

  Ortega ignored him. He stepped back a pace so the rifle muzzle wouldn’t protrude out the window. “I’m going to fire off a few rounds. If they’re out there, they’ll fire back. If they don’t, we’ll know it’s safe.”

  In the very dim light Paul Duquesne saw Ortega’s finger move into the trigger guard and begin to pull back. “Don’t!”

  The round fired and the muzzle flash ignited the propane gas that had filled the concrete house.

  From beside the water tank, Leah saw all the narrow glass windows blown outward at once. Cracks appeared in the concrete walls, but they were so heavily built that most of the force of the blast burst upward through the roof. Wooden beams jutted up over the walls, and terra-cotta roof tiles shattered and flew everywhere. The plywood sheets beneath the tile layer were blown apart, and flames from the inside billowed upward into the night sky.

  After about ten seconds, the rounds of ammunition hoarded in the house began to cook off and fire in all directions, most of them pounding against the concrete walls and caroming everywhere until their energy was expended.

  Leah dropped to her stomach and aimed her rifle at the back door. The door was shut. She waited for it to open. She waited a full minute, then another, then got up and backed away.

  When Leah was a distance from the house and there was still no sign of anyone leaving the house, she turned and ran up onto the plateau. As she ran along the crest of the hill, the frequency of the rifle and pistol rounds going off in the house increased. A few times, what were probably thirty-round rifle magazines went off in bursts, so the sound was like a pitched battle being fought with automatic weapons. Leah kept running hard for nearly ten minutes without slowing, trying not to fall or turn an ankle in the dark.

  Just after she had gone between the strands of barbed wire onto the next ranch, she heard the first of the helicopters. There was the deep growl of the engines and the chop-chop-chop of the rotors from far off, but then the sounds grew louder.

  She felt tempted to hide among the oak trees, but she knew from a career of police pursuits that hiding from a helicopter among the trees was a foolish idea. She kept running. The only way to beat the choppers was to be where they weren’t looking. For a time, the attention of the helicopter pilot would be fully engaged by the burning house and the explosions, and this period was her only opportunity. Once the helicopter started moving over the larger area that included her, she was lost.

  She turned right and dashed downhill between the rows of vegetables. As she descended, she built up to a speed that she knew was dangerous, but she had to take the chance. She was determined that she was not going to defend herself by firing her rifle at a police officer.

  Her steps came down on the soft-tilled and irrigated soil, so she was able to control the shocks. If she kept herself between the rows, she could probably avoid getting tangled in the plants and tripping. Her long legs were an advantage, because she could take giant steps on the downgrade and not let her torso get ahead of her feet, causing her to tumble. She didn’t waste time looking over her shoulder for the helicopter, because nothing she was going to learn would be worth the cost of slowing down.

  In another minute she was on level ground, and the big garage-like storage building was just ahead. She resisted the temptation to let her pace diminish because she was near the end. Instead she concentrated on sprinting, landing on her toes, and digging in on each step.

  She reached the car, slung her backpack off her shoulder into the passenger seat, and shoved her rifle in beside it. She started the car and drove ahead with the headlights off. In a moment she reached Highway 36, turned onto it, and drove to the east, away from Ortega’s ranch with her lights still off. No other cars were on this stretch of the highway at this hour, so she straddled the centerline and concentrated on keeping the SUV on the pavement. She had gone along for about ten minutes before she switched on the headlights.

  She turned onto Interstate 385, and when she reached Honey Lake, she pulled up to the cabin she had rented and changed her clothes in the car. She had selected a summer dress and some comfortable flat shoes, which was the least warlike costume she had with her. She bundled up her incriminating camouflage clothes and stuffed them in another trash bag. She unloaded her weapons and placed them with their ammunition behind the back seat under the carpeted layer that covered the spare tire.

  She drove on, staring out to the limit of the high-beam headlights ahead of her and into the darkness beyond. When she reached the realty office in Susanville, she pushed through the mail slot an envelope containing a thank-you note and the key to the cabin. She drove to Reno on Route 395. She made it as far as Elko before she threw away the trash bags from Honey Lake, the camouflage uniform, and the boots. She was still on a nocturnal schedule, so she drove on through the dark hours. She kept going into the dawn and through the day.

  When she stopped the next evening in Salt Lake City, she sat on the bed in her hotel room and used her laptop to read an email sent by Sergeant Art Sprague in Weldonville, Colorado.

  “One hour ago, the Weldonville Police Department got an FBI notification that the bodies of five men were identified in a fire outside Susanville, California. They were Jesus Castillo, Manuel Soto, Martin Ortega, Matthew Bysantski, and Paul Duquesne.”

  Leah turned off the computer, lay back on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling. She had gotten Weiss in Florida, Panko in Buffalo, Becker in New York, and now Ortega, Bysantski, and Duquesne all at once in Susanville. She had gotten six of the twelve, plus a few of their friends and relatives. She had no more leads to follow.

  Three days later, Leah Hawkins drove the rented SUV up to the parking lot door of the Weldonville Public Safety Building and parked. She went inside and found Sergeant Art Sprague in the front office of the Police Department behind the counter. “Leah!” he said. “Welcome home.”

  She said, “Thanks, Art. Can you unlock the safe room so I can unload some stuff into it? I’ve got a car out there in back.”

  “I’d be happy to,” he said. He followed her out to the SUV and helped her carry her rifle, the smaller hard-sided case containing pistols, and the packs of loaded magazines in the back door and into the safe room. She had disassembled the drone so it would fit into its carrying case with its controls, so it was just another box with a handle. There was another carrying case full of surveillance cameras and transmitters.

  When everything was inside the room, they set each firearm on the work table in the center of the room.

  Art picked up a pistol and sniffed it. “I’ll get Danny to start cleaning these, and the rifle too. What do you want me to do with the electronics and stuff?”

  “Better leave them alone,” said Leah. “They’re all boxed, and that padding keeps them safer.”

  “You home for good?”

  “Probably just for a while. I need to do some homework.”

&nbs
p; “Just let me know if you need help.”

  “I will,” she said. “Thanks.” She looked at the weapons on the table. “Oh, yeah. Tell Danny or anybody else you have cleaning guns to wear surgical gloves and not to forget to wipe all the surfaces with a cloth after they’re oiled. Make sure he checks the chambers before he gets started.”

  “Of course. I’ll check them myself.”

  “Thanks, Art. I drove all night last night, so I’m going home for some sleep. I’ll be in officially tomorrow morning.”

  * * *

  Charles Duquesne’s cab driver took him from Los Angeles International Airport to the 467 LLC office on Wilshire Boulevard. A young man in a suit, clearly one of the 467 LLC employees, was already in the doorway when the vehicle pulled up at the curb. The man opened the rear door of the car to let Charlie out, and then shut it and hurried to open the door of the building.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” the man said. “I’m Dale Winters.”

  Charlie smiled. “Hi, Dale,” he said. “Nice to meet you.” Charlie was comfortable with who he was and how he fit into the universe. He was exactly like all the friends he’d known growing up, the boys from old, wealthy families who went to the same few prep schools in New England and then met each other again in the same few colleges. Now they were older, and had assumed adult roles in their families, but they were not much changed from the hearty, smiling boys they had been at school. Charlie had been taught that he was a superior being, as a thoroughbred horse was superior. His superiority didn’t convey any more responsibility than a horse’s did. His smile was not at all the sign of an emotion or a mood. It was a reward to be bestowed on people who were of use.

  He followed Dale Winters past a guard at a desk, who waved them on without resorting to the sign-in sheet, and into the elevator. The door opened on the fourth floor, and he followed Winters into the 467 suite. He had memorized his guide’s name as effortlessly as he memorized the names of other inferiors he met. It would still be present in the front of his brain until he left Los Angeles, and then it would dissolve.

  They moved into the reception area, but there was no receptionist. Everyone here, male or female, was a lawyer or an accountant, or both. There were no clients or customers to visit the office, so there was no one to greet them and no waiting room for them, only a high gray counter like a bulwark facing the doorway.

  The two men walked past the barrier and into the office of Brian Summers. There was nobody behind the desk, and nobody was surprised, because the death of Summers was the reason for this occasion.

  A moment later an older man stepped in and held out his hand. “Mr. Duquesne? I’m Tyler Walsh. We’ve got the papers prepared for you. Would you like to look at them here in Mr. Summers’s office or in the conference room?”

  Charlie said, “Out of respect for old ‘Brian,’ I think I prefer the conference room.”

  “And what can I bring you while you’re at it—coffee, a soft drink, water, sparkling or flat?”

  “Coffee, cream no sugar, Tyler,” Charlie said. “Are you the attorney who worked on the papers?”

  “I’m one of them, sir.”

  “Then maybe Dale can get the coffee. Would you mind, Dale?”

  “I’m happy to, sir,” said Dale. He moved toward the door with alacrity. Charlie could tell that, as he had expected, he had made a convert of Dale, who was gratified that a member of the Duquesne family had remembered his name for three or four minutes.

  The two older men entered the conference room. Charlie said, “I hope that wasn’t out of line, and Dale is still young enough to fetch coffee.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “I envy him that,” said Charlie. “I can remember the day came when I had been working for a year or two at Duquesne Frères in New York, when I came in and there was a message waiting for me from Nancy Hemphill. She was my uncle Mark’s chief assistant, an ageless woman made of stainless steel. She was almost supernaturally perceptive and rightly feared. The note said she wanted to see me first thing. ‘First thing’ was underlined. I went in and found her at her desk. The surface held no papers and not a mote of dust, as usual. She said, ‘Good. You’re here.’ I waited. She said, ‘It’s time to tell you that you are too old to fuck the women at the office. That ends when you’re no longer the one to bring them coffee. When you get to be one of the coffee recipients, you’re a boss and it’s harassment.’

  “I said, ‘Does that mean I’m getting promoted?’ She said, ‘Yes. I’m sure you’ll be miserable for a time, but it’s for the best.’ As always, she was right.”

  Tyler Walsh laughed with exactly the right brief, knowing chuckle. Reacting to what the great and powerful said required a finely calibrated sense of proportion.

  Charlie sat down at the head of the conference table and waited while Mr. Walsh laid sets of printed papers in front of him.

  “This one says your company, Aegil, agrees to purchase the 467 LLC for seven thousand shares of Aegil stock. These shares would become assets of the 467 LLC, which, as soon as the transaction is complete, will be wholly owned by Aegil.”

  Charlie signed the paper and waited for the next.

  “This is to register the transfer, which makes Aegil the owner of this building.”

  The next one appeared from the file. “This one clears the bank accounts of 467 LLC and deposits them in a new account owned by Aegil.”

  Charlie signed them both.

  “As you know, there’s a house here in Los Angeles.”

  “Yes,” said Charlie.

  “Here you have two options. Since we didn’t know your preference, we produced papers for both. This one puts the house up for sale, with the proceeds going back to the 467 LLC. That would, of course, make them an asset of Aegil.”

  “And the other?”

  “This contract simply transfers ownership of the home to Aegil and leaves it as a physical asset.”

  “What’s your advice?”

  “We’re mixed, sir. The house last sold for a bargain price of three million two hundred thousand two years ago. Houses in this area have appreciated at seven percent a year for over twenty-five years, and lately the process is accelerating. But there would be the continuing expenses for insurance, maintenance, cleaning, gardening, pool service, water and power, and security, all amounting to a substantial cost. Property taxes are limited to about one and a half percent in California, but at three million, that’s still forty-five thousand a year. And of course, the intangibles and unknowables might make keeping the property unwise.”

  “Examples?”

  “Mr. Summers was in contact with some people who were worrisome. Before he passed away, he made and received phone calls from some of them, including two of the men who were with him at his death. Before that, he was a regular client of female escorts, who were driven to his house. This raises the possibility that other people, from drug suppliers to friends of these women, might—”

  “I get the idea,” Charlie said. “I’m going to take both papers with me. I’ll go and look at the house, and then I’ll send you the order we want executed.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll get some pre-addressed envelopes to go with them.”

  “And these are the last papers?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know that I represent all the heirs of Brian Summers, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “And there are no other assets?”

  “No, sir. Actually, you’re just claiming the assets of a company that never had an independent existence. You just took possession as though in an uncontested repossession.”

  “Right. Good work, Tyler. And please give my compliments to the other attorneys. You worked quickly. Can you have somebody drive me to the house and show me around? I’d like to catch a plane out early tomorrow morning. You know how it is. If you’re not out of Los Angeles early, then by the time you reach New York, the whole day is gone.”

  As Charlie walked back out to the office, D
ale arrived with his coffee, so Charlie sipped it as he went to inspect his cousin’s space. He made sure he went through his cousin Paul’s desk and his cabinets thoroughly enough. There was no problem, because he found no papers at all, let alone anything with the Duquesne family name on it. He knew that searching the house would take a bit longer. As soon as he was sure there was nothing that would further embarrass the family in that house, he would authorize its immediate sale. He should easily make the 7:00 a.m. flight.

  25

  The odd deaths of Martin Ortega, Matthew Bysantski, and Paul Duquesne were a big news story for a day and a half, until stranger and fresher stories replaced that one. The extra half-day was entirely due to the inclusion of Paul Duquesne, the outlaw son of a family that was well established before the colonies of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or Georgia were founded.

  The police in Northern California knew that whatever they revealed about the case might be sensitive to a powerful family, and so they couldn’t release enough to stimulate the appetite of the public for grim details. The story also had built into it an aspect that contributed to its short life span. Criminals tended to band together, and they tended to have enemies who were also criminals, and it was not uncommon for one set of criminals to kill another. What killed stories was ordinariness.

  But this time there were segments of the population who shared a professional interest in the story. As soon as the first day, many emails, text messages, and telephone calls were exchanged, reaching parts of the country far from California.

  The most and earliest were from law enforcement officials to other law enforcement officials. Many were forwarded copies of official reports. “FYI” or “Seen this?” were ways the senders conveyed their satisfaction. It seemed to be the fulfillment of a law of nature, and a restoration of balance. Crimes weren’t always punished, but criminals always ended.