by David Archer
In the past two months, Sam had been shot and nearly killed on more than one occasion, and on his last case, Indie had been shot. Sam thought she was dead at first, and the thought of anything happening to her scared him to death. Fortunately, the bullet had only grazed her head, but the fact that head wounds bleed a lot made it look much worse than it was. Nevertheless, it had been very terrifying to Sam. As a result, he had seriously been considering leaving the private eye business and going into the music full time. He just hadn't figured out how to bring up the subject to Indie.
It wasn't even that he thought she would object. His hesitation was founded in the fact that he didn't want her to think that he was afraid. The truth, however, was that the thought of anything happening to her, to Kenzie, or to anyone else he loved was more than he could bear. In the short time since he'd gotten his PI license, he’d gone up against terrorists, madmen and a serial killer; now, it looked like he was dealing with a genuine government assassin. How crazy could one man's life actually get?
Sam brought his reverie to an end as he entered the front door. Something smelled good, and he called out for his wife.
"Indie?" Sam called. "Where are you, baby?"
Indie stuck her head through the door from the kitchen, so that he could see her through the dining room. "I'm in here, honey," she said. "I'm making a late lunch, you want some?"
"Boy, do I ever! I swear, nothing makes me hungrier than sitting in the car waiting for something to happen."
Indie laughed. "And? Did anything happen?"
Sam sighed. "It did," he said. "Mr. Long decided that we needed a little face to face, so when I tried to follow him, he pulled a fast one and got behind me. I pulled over and he was good enough to talk with me, but he insists that he does not want to meet with Joellyn. He says the best he can do is a phone call, and gave me a number for her to call later this evening. I'm guessing that if she doesn't call then, she'll never get to talk to him."
Indie's eyebrows went up. "Did you call her yet?"
"No, not yet," Sam said. "I actually wanted to wait until I got back home with you before I did."
Indie shrugged. "Okay," she said, "want me to get her on the phone?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah, go ahead," he said. "Might as well get it over with."
Indie walked out to their office for a moment, and came back with a scribbled note in her hand. She picked up the house phone and dialed the number she had copied from Joellyn's file. "Joellyn? This is Indie Prichard. Sam wanted to talk to you for a moment." She handed Sam, the receiver.
"Joellyn? It's Sam. Listen, I actually got to speak to your father for a few moments today…"
"Oh my God," Joellyn said through the phone. "Oh my God, then it's really him?"
"Yes, it's really him," Sam said. "The thing is, he says there are reasons why he cannot meet with you. The best I could get him to agree to is a phone conversation this evening at 6 PM. I have a number for you to call, and he says to call at exactly 6 if you want to talk to him."
"Why, that arrogant bastard!” she said. "After running out on my mom and me, you'd think he would at least have the decency to be willing to look me in the eye as he explains to me why he did it! Wouldn't you think?"
"Would I think so? Yes, I admit I would. Unfortunately, it's not up to me or you. The ball is in his court, and if this is all he's willing to give you, there's nothing you or I can do about it. I'll be happy to give you the number, if you want it."
"Okay, fine," she said with a loud sigh. "I'll call him, but I'd still like you to find out where he's staying. I want to look him in the eye and ask questions, and he's not getting out of it this easily."
Sam gave her the number, and she repeated it back to be sure she had it right. "Yeah, that's it," Sam said. "Good luck."
"He's the one who's going to need luck," she said, "whenever I get my hands on him!"
She hung up without another word, and Sam set the phone down. He looked at Indie. "Sure would be nice," he said, "to make the client happy once in a while. Have you noticed that most of our clients end up dissatisfied or unhappy for one reason or another?"
"Oh, I don't know," Indie said. "At least a few of them have been happy. I mean, the band was happy when you found out what happened to Barry, and I think Jimmy Smith was fairly happy that he didn't go down for murder, even though his wife turned out to be the killer."
Sam gave a lopsided smile. "I guess you could be right," he said. "Maybe I should just give it more time, or look at it differently." He put an arm around her and pulled her close, kissing her gently and then looking into her eyes. "So, what was that you said about lunch?"
"I said I was about to make me some, and invited you to join me. Don't get excited, though, we're only talking Ramen noodles, here. Would you rather have beef or chicken?"
"I'll take the chicken," Sam said. "What time does Kenzie get home?"
"School gets out at three fifteen,” she said, "and I have to be there at least 10 minutes before that if I want to get a decent spot in line. Because of safety concerns, they only let a few cars in at a time to pick up kids. I need to be parked in the line so that she doesn't have to stand outside and wait too long before I get there to get her. Wanna go with me to pick her up?"
"Sure, baby," Sam said. "I'd like that."
The microwave oven beeped, and Indie set a bowl of Ramen noodle soup on the table in front of Sam. She handed him a fork and a bottle of root beer from the refrigerator while her own bowl of soup was heating up. Sam waited for her to get hers before he started eating.
"So, how do you think Kenzie's first day of school is going?"
Indie smiled. "By now, she probably has at least one teacher ready to pull her own hair out, and I'm sure she's made at least a dozen new friends. Hopefully some of them will be in the neighborhood, or not too far away, so that she can go and visit them or have them over from time to time. I know she likes the Mitchell twins, but I think she needs more of a social circle than she's got."
Sam grinned. Jim and Anita Mitchell's twins were around Kenzie's age, and they enjoyed having her over. There was supposed to be an arrangement whereby Kenzie would spend a night or two at the Mitchell's house, and then the twins would come to the Prichard home. For some reason, though, it had all been pretty one-sided so far, with Kenzie spending quite a few nights at their house. Sam and Indie had met the twins, and they were pretty well-behaved children, so they were looking forward to actually having them spend the night with Kenzie instead of the other way around.
"Well, she's meeting some kids at church, now," Sam said. They had recently begun attending services at a local church that had been involved in Sam's most recent case. In fact, it was the very church where Indie had been shot. In spite of that horrible fact, all three members of the Prichard family had liked the church, and had decided they wanted to go back. Sam had been impressed by the pastor who had been the target of a serial killer but refused to hide behind police protection. "Frankly, I think she's more likely to make good friends at church than at school, but you just never know."
Indie laughed, but she was nodding. "You may have a good point, there," she said. "At least, at church, we have reason to believe the parents are trying to raise their children properly, and teach them some decent morals. In schools, nowadays, you just don't know what kind of family the kids might be coming from. I don't think there's anything that scares me more than when I hear about all the school shootings, and then I think about Kenzie being in one of those schools. It almost makes you want to move to some small, tiny little town, but that doesn't seem to be the answer. They've had school shootings even in some of those places."
"That's very true," Sam said. "Baby, if I could think of someplace to move this family to where I knew you and Kenzie would always be safe, we'd be packing already. This house wouldn't mean anything to me, the Corvette wouldn't mean anything, and anything else that stood between us and that safe place would get tossed aside without a moment's thought. The troubl
e is, there isn't any such place, or at least I can't imagine where to find it. The best I can do is make every effort I can to keep us safe right here where we are. And that's exactly what I intend to do."
"Sweetheart," Indie said, "I know. Believe me, there is no one on earth I trust more than I trust you. Sam, you proved yourself to me even before I fell in love with you. I know you would do anything it takes to keep us safe, no matter what it cost you. That's just one of the many things I love about you, babe.”
Sam felt his face grew warm, and knew that he was blushing a bit under his wife's praise. "Thank you, baby," he said. "My goodness, but this soup is good! Did you do something special with the recipe?"
Indie burst out laughing. "You dope!" she said. "There is absolutely nothing you can do with the recipe for Ramen noodle soup!"
"Oh, but my dear, I so beg to differ!" Sam said. "I realize that you have never been a bachelor, but trust me when I say that the addition of some chili powder or just about any other spices can turn plain old Ramen noodle soup into a delicacy fit for a single king! Why, I'm quite sure that if it had been available, Elvis would have happily eaten Ramen noodle soup with hot sauce or Cajun seasoning. I shall have to prove my point to you one of these days, and prepare you a bachelor's feast, just so that you can see how creative a single man can be."
Indie got up and walked around the table to put her arms around her husband. She looked into his eyes, then leaned down and kissed him on the lips. "Mr. Prichard," she said, "have I mentioned today how much I love you?"
"Only once," Sam said. "I actually think that I'm ahead of you today, I think I've said it three times already. That means you owe me a couple more, but I'll take a few extras just so that you can get a head start on me for tomorrow."
"I love you, I love you, I love you," Indie said, punctuating each with a kiss on his cheek. "There," she said, "I think that puts me ahead by one. If you catch up, then I'll just have to add a few more. Can't let you get ahead of me, now can I?"
"Nope, uh-uh, no way," Sam said. "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you! There, that puts me at least four ahead. When you catch up with me, then we’ll work on the next batch."
They were interrupted by the ringing of Sam's phone, and he pulled it out to see that it was Harry calling. Indie sat down in his lap as he answered the phone.
"Hey, Harry," Sam said. "What's up?"
"Sam, boy, I've just received a call from an old pal at Army intelligence in DC. It seems that somebody, a certain person whose name should not be mentioned aloud over a phone, has been checking you out. Have you managed to stumble into that person?"
"Actually, yes, I did," Sam said. "I spotted him at the location he's been visiting, and while I was tailing him away from there, he spotted me. We spoke, and I told him about my client and what she wanted, but he has declined to meet with her. Instead, he gave me a number to have her call him. Said that was the best he could do. Why?"
"Because it turns out that individual has gone rogue. Do you have any idea what that means?"
Sam's eyebrows rose a half inch. "If it means what I think it does, it means he's no longer in the employ of our mutual uncle. Would that be close to correct?"
"Son, he's not only no longer in the employ of, he's listed as number three on the international most-wanted list! There's only a couple above him on that list, and both of them used to hang out with a fellow named bin Laden!"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Sam said. "If he's gone rogue, then how is he checking me out?"
"Well, now, that's a bit of a story. You see, it seems that our rogue had a friend in Army intelligence. He has kept that friendship alive, for what he does not know is that his friend was already under suspicion for other things. As a result, all of his communications are monitored. Your boy called him up a bit ago, wanting information about a certain Sam Prichard, who was parked outside his mama's house. The people doing the monitoring saw the flag that came up when your name was run through the computers and decided that they should report upstairs. The fellow upstairs happen to be an old friend of mine, and when he realized that you are one of my assets, he decided to give me a call."
Sam was shaking his head. "Okay, Harry," Sam said, "now that we've gotten through that, would you care to translate it all to plain English? Remember, you're talking to a gumshoe here. Us private eyes aren't always the brightest bulbs in the pack."
"Translation to English: Long has gone into the private sector, hiring his services out to the highest bidder. He's not only not supposed to be here in Denver, he's not even supposed to be in this whole country. He was dropped off American rosters more than 10 years ago, when it was discovered that he was hiring himself out to people who wanted other people dead for their own personal reasons. In fact, there's a bounty on his head that's higher than my operating budget for a year! Most likely, the only reason he didn't kill you on sight is because he's just a little worried about what would happen when I found out about it. So far, he hasn't managed to get the US of A to expend a lot of resources to bring him down, but taking out one of our fair-haired boys would be a way to get us interested in doing just that. He's a row, but he's not a total idiot."
"Harry, what do you want me to do?"
"Do? Sam, boy, I want you to stay as far away from that son of a bitch as you possibly can! God only knows when I'm going to need you to save my bacon again; I want to make sure you're whole and healthy when I do! Do you understand me, boy?"
"Harry? Is there any effort going on to bring him in?"
"Not at this moment, no. I've been told to leave it be, at least for now. As long as nobody gets hurt while he's in town, we're prepared to look the other way and let him slip out just as unnoticed as he came in."
Sam thought for a long moment about what he had just heard, while one eye watched Indie's face. "Harry?"
There was a sigh on the other end of the phone line. "Yes, Sam?"
"Just how much is your operating budget, anyway?"
"In this dinky little office? Just a little over a million. Tell me you're not going to try to collect that reward, Sam. Please tell me that."
"Oh, my goodness, Harry," Sam said. "What kind of an idiot do you think I am? You surely don't think I'd try to take down a professional like this all on my own, do you?"
"Now, Sam, you listen to me and you listen good! Long is not the kind of man you've ever dealt with before. Yes, I'll grant you’ve been up against some good ones, but you've never dealt with anything like this guy. He's not even one that I'd want to mess with, and that's usually a line that gets said about me, not by me! I want you to give me your word you're going to stay as far away from him as you possibly can, Sam, and I want that word right now!"
Indie's eyes were wide and frightened, and boring into Sam's own. If anything helped him make the decision, that was it. "Fine, Harry," Sam said. "I'll stay away from him, you have my word."
Both Harry and Indie breathed a sigh of relief at the same time. Harry said, "Don't go back on that, Sam. I need you, boy; I need you alive and well. Don't you forget that."
Sam caressed his wife's back and gave her a wink and a smile. "I won't forget, Harry," he said. He grinned as the line went dead, just as it always did when Harry was done saying whatever he wanted to say.
"So what was that really all about?" Indie asked.
Sam sighed. "Seems that Mr. Long is no longer the government agent he used to be. He's been fired, and is now considered a rogue assassin."
Indie's eyes went wide. "Oh dear God, Sam," she said. "How do we get mixed up with these people all the time? How on earth can so many crazy things happen to one private eye?"
"Well," Sam said, "if this was a detective novel, I'd say that the author has an incredibly cruel and sadistic imagination. Unfortunately, since this is our lives, I'd have to say that I just have really, really bad luck when it comes to clients." He patted Indie on the bottom, and she got up off of his lap.
Sam glanced at the clock on
the wall, and saw that it was almost three. Kenzie would be getting out of school soon, and he was looking forward to hearing about her first day. He nudged Indie and nodded toward the clock, and she grinned. "Yeah," she said, "we better get going."
They headed out the door and got into the Ridgeline, with Indie behind the wheel. She started up and backed out of the driveway, then turned in the direction of the school. It was about ten minutes away, but as she had explained to Sam earlier, it was best to get there early to get a good parking spot in the pickup line.
They pulled up in the line of parents, and Indie complained that they should've come a few minutes earlier. "Look," she said. "There's probably fifty cars ahead of us, which means that Kenzie will be standing outside for a good ten minutes before we get there to pick her up."
Sam looked out the windows and then turned to look at his wife again. "Well, it's a nice day," he said. “I can remember standing outside a lot longer than ten minutes, waiting for a ride after school. Good grief, sometimes it seemed like it took my mom an hour to get there to pick me up.”
"That was a different world, Sam," Indie said. "Today, some areas consider it child abuse if the parent isn't there waiting as soon as the kid comes out of the school."
"Oh, good grief," Sam said, "how stupid can they get? What if the parents have to work? What if they have jobs, and live in the real world?"
Indie shrugged her shoulders. "Hey, I'm just telling you the way things are. It's just best if I'm here waiting before she ever comes outside."
Sam shook his head in disbelief. "Okay, okay, I get it. Hey, why don't we just go out for dinner tonight? After all, it's Kenzie's first day at school and I think that calls for a celebration, don't you?"
Indie smiled over at him. "I do indeed," she said. "You know, Kenzie has been wanting to go to that new pizza place, the one with all the games."
"Pizza, it is!" Sam said. "I think I can stand a little pepperoni and some arcade time, myself."