Dying Embers

by Robert E. Bailey

  The man unzipped his jacket. I drew my pistol and stepped around the desk. I found Lorna standing with her back to my door with her hand in her purse. I looked back up at the monitor in time to see him take a ballpoint pen out of his inside jacket pocket. Under the jacket he was wearing a white shirt and a mostly red print designer tie at half mast on a loose collar.

  “If you could give me his home address, Luv, we could deliver the package to him there.” He clicked the pen and looked down at his clipboard.

  “Just give me your number,” said Marg, “and I’ll have him call you.”

  “City Delivery,” he said. “In the book. If you tell me what time you clock off, I might catch him on the flop.”

  “We close when I get done,” said Marg. “Sometimes I don’t come back from lunch.”

  “I could just wait, Luv. That his bindle? Suppose he might be back most ricky-tick.”

  “The bags are mine,” said Lorna. “I won a trip to Las Vegas.” She shook a cigarette loose and clamped her lips on it.

  “Lucky you,” he said.

  “You can wait if you like,” said Marg. “What’s your name?”

  He smiled. “Andy,” he said. He was good—didn’t blink or hesitate. He looked at Lorna and asked, “Need a light for that, do ya, Miss?”

  “Nah,” she said, and pushed the pack in her purse to close her hand around her Walther. “I think I got a light in the purse here.”

  Marg picked up the telephone. “Why don’t you give me your supervisor’s name and number? I’ll give him a call and tell him you’re here so you don’t get in trouble.”

  “No worry there.”

  Marg hit a number on the auto-dialer. After a moment she said, “Grand Rapids … City Delivery.”

  Andy pulled a hanky out of his pocket and coughed into it. “Just ring us up, Luv. Pleasure chattin’. G’day.” He turned on his heel, was at the door in two long steps, and let himself out using the hanky to pull on the door handle.

  Lorna was moving. I got a hand on her shoulder just before she got to the door. She had her teeth clamped on the filter of an unlit cigarette and still had her hand in her purse. Through the window I could see good old Andy on the stairwell headed up to the front door, taking the stairs three at a time.

  “Let him go,” I said. “Go watch through the window in my office.”

  Lorna went.

  “Thank you,” Marg said into the telephone. She banged the handset back in the cradle and looked up at me. “No listing for City Delivery,” she said. “Who’s suing you now?”

  “I haven’t got a clue,” I said, “but process servers usually don’t wipe the door handle on the way out.”

  “White Lincoln Mark Seven with a blue carriage roof,” Lorna announced as she came out through my office door. “I couldn’t get the plate because you wouldn’t let me go out there.”

  “I don’t think he was a process server.”

  “You think it was the guy you had to shake last night?”

  “Last night they didn’t want to get this close. Maybe he didn’t think I was in the office. My car isn’t in the lot.”

  “If he’s not a process server,” asked Marg, “what was he doing here?”

  “Smelling us over,” I said. “He wanted to know where I lived.”

  “He could just run your plate,” said Lorna.

  “All my plates come back to a box number and leasing company in Detroit.”

  “I wish mine did,” said Lorna.

  I nodded at Marg.

  “I’ll take care of it,” said Marg. “Is there a lien on your car?”

  “Not really, I bought it from my dad.”

  “You’ll have to sell us your car for a dollar,” Marg said with a feline smile.

  “What?”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “We lease it back to you for a buck, and that’s the buy-out price when you leave my employ. You still have to buy your own insurance.”

  The telephone rang and Marg picked it up. “No,” she said. “Mr. Hardin is not here. May I take a message?” She picked up a pen and started writing on a pink call slip. Lorna and I studied her in silence as if she were the lion tamer in the center ring at the circus.

  “Flight two-oh-six … first class,” she spoke as she wrote, “gate eleven … two-fifty P.M.”

  Lorna walked over to the end table next to the settee, parked her purse, and picked up her soup. I holstered my pistol and fished a cigar out of my inside jacket pocket. As I peeled off the cellophane I kept the stairwell in the corner of my eye. Andy was familiar; not the face, the style—he was a shade from my past, had to be a fellow graduate from the house of mirrors.

  Marg hung up the telephone and looked up at me as she handed me the call slip. “Avatar Air,” she said. “They booked you straight to Brandonport.”

  “I’m going to miss the wind sprint from one end of O’Hare to the other,” I said.

  “A Mr. Dunphy will meet you in the departure lounge,” said Marg.

  “That’s the guy from Light and Energy Applications.”

  “I saw the report in my in-box,” said Marg. “So how come we’re not billing? You found the subject. We have to cover Lorna’s time and mileage.”

  “Light and Energy is Wendy’s client. We did it more or less as a favor,” I said.

  Marg arched her eyebrows like the back of a hissing cat. “If you keep working for nothing you’ll be tapping your retirement fund to buy paper clips.”

  “It worked out,” I said. “We’re billing Light and Energy prime rates now, and Wendy says they pay in ten days.”

  Marg smiled and leaned back in her chair. “Well, it’s best not to do too many unpaid favors. Like Pete always said, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’”

  “I’ll get you my expense report,” I said. I had seen Marg smile before, but twice in one day was an occasion. Back in my office I pushed the window curtain aside and studied the parking lot. No Wendy. No Andy. I screwed the cigar into the side of my face and stoked it up. Half a cigar later, the expense report was ready and it was time to go.

  “If Wendy shows up in time to see me off, give her the gate number,” I said to Marg, handing her the report. Lorna took my briefcase and the small green suitcase. I got the rest. She had so much rummage in her trunk that we had to stow the luggage in the back seat. The “DIE BITCH” salutation was scratched in so that it could be read from the inside, but they got the E backwards.

  It’s a straight shot east down Forty-fourth to the airport. The sun had remembered that it was June, but no driver’s window made for a chilly ride. Lorna cranked up the heat and turned down the radio.

  “How come you never told me about covering my plates?” asked Lorna.

  “Your class at Quantico starts in August,” I said. “Seemed like a lot of agitation for couple of months of insurance drill. Besides, your car is still registered in your father’s name.”

  Lorna snapped her eyes over to me and then back on the road. “So how did they find my apartment?”

  “Could be unrelated.”

  “You ran my plate?”

  “Just a sec,” I said and turned up the radio.

  The news reader said, “… stolen car was recovered last night from a cornfield in northeastern Kent County. Stuart Grover, a local farmer, called the sheriff’s office to complain of drag racing near his home. Sheriff’s officers reported that the vehicle had been stolen from the Grand Rapids Public Library parking lot earlier in the day. The license plate had been altered. The perpetrators set fire to the vehicle after an unsuccessful attempt to drive it out of the recently cultivated field. Sheriff’s detectives state that the area is well known to local teenagers who frequent the area to race cars. They have promised to increase patrols in the area.”

  “Damn,” I said. “Grover has a first name. Who knew?”

  “Not teenagers,” said Lorna.

  “Not amateurs,” I said. “I’m not in the Bresser’s Cross Index for Kent County so they fil
ched a car for plan B.” I turned the radio down.

  “What do you mean, ‘could be unrelated?’ You think I just piss off people at random—and you ran my plate!”

  “I know you don’t just piss people off at random. I talked to your high school counselor and two of your college roommates.”

  “Jesus!”

  “I put you on the street with a gun in your hand. What did you expect?”

  Lorna shook her head.

  “Pull into the short-term lot,” I said.

  “I can’t stay. I’ve got to go in and file a police report for my insurance company. I’ll have to just drop you off.”

  “You don’t have to stay,” I said. “I need to pack my hardware and I don’t want to do it in front of the terminal.”

  She pulled up to the arm and a short white kiosk spat a ticket in her direction. “So how did they find my apartment? No one’s bothered my car before and nothing was taken.” She took the ticket and the arm went up.

  “It’s probably safe to figure that whoever followed me wouldn’t have had time to get to your place and rummage through your car. They most likely followed you from the office, same as me. That means there’s at least two guys working us, and somebody is spending a hell of a lot of money. Go to the back of the lot. Look in the mirror and see who comes in behind us.”

  “Gray Dodge Shadow,” she said. “I don’t want anybody making trouble for my dad and mom.” She pulled into an empty spot.

  “Skip Sunday dinner,” I said. “Running a plate leaves a paper trail, and if they burned the car, they’re determined not to give the cops any easy ones. If you don’t lead them out to your parents house they won’t know how to find them.”

  I opened the door, stepped out, and opened the tan hard-sided suitcase on the front seat. Buried in the socks, shirts, and underwear were two metal boxes with combination locks. I unloaded my pistol and put it in one; the ammo and spare magazines went into the other. I stripped my high-ride hip holster and magazine holders from my belt and dropped them in the suitcase as well.

  “You can still get out of the business, if you do it now,” I said. I locked the suitcase and put it in the back seat. “Drive me up to the terminal.”

  I got back in and pulled the door shut. Lorna didn’t have anything to say. She stuck her hand out for the buck it cost to get out of the lot without looking at me. I watched the gate as we pulled out to circle back to the terminal. Nobody came out after us.

  “You should have told me about covering my plates.” said Lorna. She nailed the gas pedal until her tires squeaked.

  “We’ve had this conversation before.”

  “Not about the plates.”

  “I tried to talk you out of taking this job,” I reminded her. “Rotten hours, boredom, pandemonium, and the question of your safety and the safety of the people around you. I’m sure you remember the conversation.”

  “I thought you were being sexist.”

  “You wanted to go to work for a sexist?”

  “I wanted to show you that you were wrong,” she said. She pulled up to the curb in front of the terminal. “I mean, the Feds hired me, so who the hell were you?”

  “The man you wanted to work for until you got to be a real detective. So what do you think happens when you go to work for the man?”

  “The man?” She wrinkled up her face like she had a sour taste in her mouth.

  “Uncle Sam—Prince Charming. You think his playmates are nicer than mine?”

  “I guess not.”

  “So, what’re you going to do?”

  “Fenton, Friday,” she said and looked at me. She arched her eyebrows and added, “Monday I start a couple of comp cases.”

  I got out of the car and set my luggage on the curb. A skycap, starched, polished, and impeccable, pushed up a cart. I bent over, stuck my head in the car, and waited for Lorna to look at me again.

  “Marry a detective,” I told her.

  “Maybe I’ll just buy a cat,” she said. “Don’t you worry about Wendy?”

  “Sure,” I said, “but I married a detective and it’s still hard. I can’t imagine being married to a civilian.”

  The ticket agent asked for my driver’s license. I had to assure him that I had packed my own bags and that they had not been out of my sight.

  “No, I wasn’t carrying a bag for anyone else,” I told him, but he stopped sleepwalking when I said, “Yes, I’m transporting a firearm.” The low buzz of conversation around me stopped and the ticket agents on either side of mine stopped and stared at us both.

  “It’s unloaded and locked in a steel case inside a locked hard sided bag,” I said. “That’s what they told me to do on the telephone. Do you want me to get it out and show it to you?”

  “No,” he said, his eyes wide. “Which bag is it in?”

  “The green one,” I said.

  “Do you have any ammunition?”

  “Magazine and a couple of spares,” I said. “Locked in a steel case separate from the firearm, but in the same suitcase.”

  He tagged my luggage. The green suitcase got an extra tag; a long red and white paper loop that repeated the word “FIREARM.”

  “Gate eleven,” he said. He assembled my ticket and handed it over. “Your flight is already loading.”

  I departed, and the low buzz of conversation returned to the counter. I could feel the heavy weight of eyes on my back.

  A man stood at the side of the check-in counter, watching the crowd instead of the attendant at the desk. He looked to be in his early forties, decked out in a white cable-knit sweater over a blue broadcloth shirt, gray slacks, and a pair of those black loafers with little tassels like attorneys wear.

  “Are you Mr. Dunphy?” I asked as I approached. I switched my briefcase to my left hand and offered him my right.

  “Yes,” he said as he took my hand and gave it a limp shake. “You must be Mr. Hardin. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

  I took my hand back and gave my ticket to the check-in clerk. “Had to wrap up a few things at the office,” I said.

  “I was expecting someone in western attire,” he said. A smirk washed over his face.

  “They wouldn’t let me bring my hoss,” I said.

  “I need to see some identification,” he said as he reached through the neck of his sweater to the pocket of his shirt. I showed him my detective license, and he handed me a “Platinum” credit card with my name embossed across the bottom. “Whatever this is must be very important,” he said. “That’s our corporate account.” His face flushed.

  “I don’t have to worry about some sales clerk cutting this in half?”

  “Buy the store and fire them.”

  “A dream come true.”

  “What exactly is it that you are doing for us?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry if this is awkward,” I said, “but I’m to report to Mr. Lambert.”

  The attendant tore a page out of my ticket, put the rest back in the folder and walked over to the jetway door. “Mr. Hardin, you have to board now,” he said and held out my papers.

  “Thank you for coming down,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Dunphy, grim-faced. He added, “Good luck,” and strolled off with his hands in his pants pockets.

  The door shut behind me as soon as I was in the jetway. I had an aisle seat in the first class cabin. Since no one had the window, the stewardess let me switch. I watched Kent County disappear below the clouds without seeing Wendy’s car.

  I opened my briefcase and started through photocopies of the missing operative’s daily reports. Jacob Anderson, a.k.a. Jack Anders, filed his dailies via e-mail. All were written in the third person. The first report— falsely labeled day fifty-one—began, “A new employee by the name of Jack Anders was observed working as a janitor and company messenger,” so that if some absent-minded executive left a report lying about, the operative wouldn’t be toasted.

  “Jack” had been under for five and a half weeks when his repo
rts stopped. He began roping, gathering information, in the traditional fashion, bowling and drinking after hours with employees. His beginning reports detailed matters of time clock violations, petty thefts, and questions of employee morale. His assigned target was the research and development department and the leak of proprietary information to BuzzBee Batteries, which was challenging Lambert’s patents.

  Anders had gravitated to an engineer he identified with a cryptonym, A4PR, by volunteering to help with a roofing job on the engineer’s cottage. While doing the weekend chore he learned of the engineer’s hobby, collecting old movie posters. Jack hit the library for a little background study and he and the engineer were soon spending off hours scrounging old movie houses in small-town Wisconsin.

  Jack’s last report revealed that the engineer had been asking if security searched the trash that he carried out at night. Jack characterized the conversation as “cheap talk” over beer and reported that Jack Anders was among the persons observed at a wedding rehearsal party for the engineer’s daughter.

  I locked the reports back in my briefcase and walked through the curtain to get to the restroom. Seated halfway down the aisle, on the right, his seat reclined and his eyes closed, sat the Fidel Castro-looking dude who’d followed Scott Lambert out of the Yesterdog restaurant.

  8

  “OOPS! SORRY. EXCUSE ME! Pardon me. You, too, pal!”

  I was the first one off the airplane—the first passenger thanked for flying Avatar Air and ordered to have a nice day.

  Just past the metal detector I found a shop in a glass cubicle that sold snacks, magazines, and souvenirs. I grabbed a mint green T-shirt off a rack near the door. Looked big enough, no time to check the tag. I flopped it on the counter and handed the clerk my client’s Platinum Card.

  The name tag on her powder-blue smock read, “Betty.” No last name. Just plain Betty was a pear-shaped matron with rouge circles on her cheekbones, hair bleached white around her mouth and chin, and a red wig so frizzy I was afraid to look at her shoes. I pulled off my suit coat, my tie, and my shirt, and dropped them on the floor at my feet. Betty stood with the credit card in her hand and watched me with an open mouth. I pulled the T-shirt over my head.