Lovelace and Button (International Investigators) Inc.

by James Hawkins

  “So were the patients,” Dawson reminds him, still on his own track.

  “The one I liked best was the old bird who wanted to send an extra fifty bucks,” laughs Bumface, without a thought to the carnage he has caused. “‘Buy your kiddies a little prezzy from me, dear,’ she told me, and she was bawling her eyes out, she was so freakin’ happy.”

  “It kind’a gave you a good feeling, didn’t it?” admits Dawson, recalling the times that he’d been whooping in the background, becoming so wrapped up in the joy of someone’s apparent good fortune that he had overlooked the fact he was sending them down a black tunnel from which many might never escape. “That’s why I reckon we should just cut and run,” he continues. “We can set up anywhere and do it again.”

  “Not until I’ve had words, John,” says the driver, his face set on the muddy lane winding through the woods to Bliss’s cabin. “He screwed up the entire operation and I wann’a leave him with a little reminder.”

  “Hot and sour soup, sweet and sour prawns, and honey-garlic ribs,” announces Bliss, as he lays the dishes on the rustic picnic table, while above him the crescent moon rises over the mountains and adds a warm glow to the cold starlight. But the chilly evening air is already sapping some of the heat out of the occasion, and Bliss’s buoyant mood is sinking with the memories of the three anxious days and nights he had spent searching for the women.

  “I thought I was going mad,” he confesses as they start to eat. “I was beginning to wonder if it was just some crazy dream.”

  “It is over now,” Daisy gently reminds him. “Everyone is all right.”

  But while Bliss is certainly grateful for the safe return of the women, he has a growing resentment over their treatment. “It’s Daphne I’m thinking about. She can’t afford to lose three days. It’s not as though she’s got that many left.”

  “Oh, I zhink zhat maybe it was a little exciting for her.”

  “Actually, I think you’re right,” admits Bliss with a laugh. “And Trina seemed to think it was just a lark. Although she thinks everything is a lark. Did you hear what she wanted me to do for her fundraising stunt?” he asks disbelievingly.

  “Zhere is a car,” Daisy says in surprise, hearing the sound of an engine closing in on them, though Bliss is still preoccupied with dark thoughts of Trina.

  “I can’t believe that woman at times.”

  “It is going to one of zhe other cabins, I expect,” says Daisy, and her suspicion is apparently confirmed a few seconds later when the engine dies.

  Beneath them, where the muddy lane from the cabin meets the road, two figures emerge from the parked car and meld into the cover of the trackside trees.

  “I bet that Captain Prudenski was in on it from the beginning,” Bliss is complaining, unfazed by the car’s arrival. “All the time he and his men were so-called searching — I bet they knew exactly what was going on.”

  “Never mind, Daavid. You were right.”

  “I know, but it’s very frustrating when everything you do fails. Sometimes I wonder why everyone else seems to slip so easily through life when I keep hitting the rough edges.”

  “But it is exciting?” suggests Daisy. “Zhat is what policemen do, is it not?”

  “Maybe… although I think I’ve had my fill of adventures,” he says with a tone of finality. “That’s why I was happy when they gave me a cushy number at Interpol. And look where that led me.”

  The dense forest absorbs the sound of movement as Dawson and his partner climb the hillside towards the cabin, but their progress is slow as they sneak carefully through the undergrowth and hide in the shadows. Then the five-gallon gas can in Bumface’s hand clunks heavily against the stump of a felled tree as he stumbles in the twilight.

  “Shush,” warns Dawson, reaching out to stop his partner, and he uses his machine gun to point to an easier route.

  “What gets me…” Bliss continues, intending to whine about the blasé attitude of Montague as he pulls the CIA station chief’s cheque from his pocket. Then he freezes in disbelief.

  “Fifty-five thousand dollars,” he breathes, and he quickly shoves the piece of paper under the candle for confirmation. “Oh my God! He’s added fifty grand.”

  “What is zhat, David?”

  “Hush money, Daisy. That’s what it is,” he fumes. “The bastard thinks he’s bought me off.”

  “But zhat is a lot of money. What will you do?”

  “First thing — I’m not cashing it,” he carries on, angrily standing up and storming around. “They’re not gonna buy my silence.”

  “Daavid — zhis is our last night together,” Daisy reminds him.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, realizing that the worries of the past three days are scratching the gloss off his romantic plans, and he drops to his knees at her feet and peers into her eyes. “Daisy,” he continues, “would you move to England if I asked you?”

  “Oui. I zhink so.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much,” he says before kissing her again, then he leaps to his feet. “I won’t be long. I’ve got something for you,” he says, and he tops up their champagne glasses before bouncing back into the cabin and heading for the bedroom. He has an important question in his mind — a question he would have asked on Monday night, had he not fallen asleep; on Tuesday, had they not been tearing around in search of the Kidneymobile; on Wednesday, had they not been in different countries; and Thursday if he hadn’t been so concerned about the fate of the missing women. But now it’s Friday, and all the clouds have lifted. “So,” he questions as he takes an antique diamond engagement ring from his suitcase and balances it in his palm, “what are you waiting for? Do you think she would prefer a new one?”

  “That’s the phone line,” whispers Bumface, pointing to the terminal box at the base of a telegraph pole just below the cabin, and he quickly wrenches out the wires.

  “Go for it,” Bliss tells himself as he buffs the large diamond, but memories of Sarah, his ex-wife, glue his feet to the bedroom floor.

  “You’re never home — not when it matters,” her voice echoes in his mind as he recalls her griping over his struggle to balance career and family.

  I’ve changed, he tries telling himself, but he can’t escape the way he’s neglected his French friend since Monday. That was different, he protests.

  “Daavid…” calls Daisy, suddenly chilled by a rustling in the undergrowth beneath the balcony.

  “Coming,” he says, but he’s still stalling as the woman in his thoughts accuses him of neglecting her in his quest to solve other people’s problems — frequently slogging into the early hours, and throughout weekends and holidays.

  “Most criminals don’t work nine to five, Monday to Friday,” he had often attempted to explain, but it had rarely mollified her.

  “Daavid. Are you coming?” calls Daisy with a concerned edge to her voice, beginning to fear that it may be a cougar or a bear skulking in the bush.

  Ten feet beneath her, in the dark shadow of the wooden decking, Bumface is carefully emptying the gas can into the brushwood. “Are ya ready?” he whispers to his associate as he ferrets in his pocket for a box of matches.

  Dawson clicks off the safety of his machine gun. “Guess so,” he says, with little enthusiasm.

  “Get up there, then,” Bumface continues in hushed tones as he nods up the wooded slope towards the front of the cabin. “And get ready to zap him.”

  “What have you got to lose?” muses Bliss, pushing himself towards the bedroom door, but Sarah still stands in his way, complaining about the amount of time he’d spent in the company of robbers, murderers and rapists. “It’s my job,” he had objected honestly, but now he is haunted by the recollection as he considers his future with Daisy.

  “Daavid…”

  “I’ll be right there!” he calls with his hand on the door. “No going back,” he warns himself as he takes the next step, then he pauses to worry. What if she turns me down? She said she’d move to England.
But what about her mother and grandmother? She’s an only child — will she leave them?

  “Daavid… I zhink I heard something…” Daisy is saying when the whoosh of an inferno and an explosive burst of gunfire rip through the forest, sending Bliss hurtling out of the bedroom and through the living room towards the balcony.

  “Daisy!” he yells, but the roar of the gasoline-fed firestorm overwhelms his voice, and a second volley of shells zips through the balcony, sending a cascade of splinters into the air.

  “Daavid…” Daisy is pleading as he reaches the balcony door, but a wall of flame shooting up the side of the cabin traps him inside.

  “I’ll have to go ‘round!” he shouts, and he heads back through the cabin towards the front door.

  Outside, as golden flames burn a bright hole in the darkness, Dawson crouches in the shadow of Daisy’s car with the cabin’s front door in his sights.

  “Get him,” mutters Bumface maliciously, having scrabbled up the bank to join his colleague, and the fire is reflected in his eyes as he waits for Bliss to emerge.

  “Just his legs,” insists Dawson, aiming low as the door starts to open.

  With his mind reeling with concern for Daisy, Bliss has no thought for his own safety as he rushes out. But the zinging of shells slaps him back inside. Chunks of wood splinter into the air as a trail of bullets zips across the door, and he slams the heavy bolt into place before backing off and rushing to the bathroom.

  “Okay, that’s enough. Let’s go,” says Dawson, standing and preparing to run, but Bumface raises his gun.

  “Just a minute,” he says, and he rakes a line of shells across the hood of Daisy’s car. “Let’s see how far they can walk.”

  A few seconds later, with a wet towel hastily wrapped around his face and a fire extinguisher gushing foam from his hands, Bliss crashes through the wall of fire onto the blazing balcony. “Daisy!” he yells as he stumbles blindly through the smoky darkness, but her chair is empty.

  “Daisy! Daisy…” he continues to yell as he attacks tongues of flame, but the smoke and steam from the rain-soaked wooden decking sting his eyes as he desperately searches for her in the gloom. Then the nearby sound of a vehicle rocketing off through the silent forest stops him in his tracks. “Oh my God,” he gasps, and he is about to make a dash for Daisy’s car when a thin voice breaks through the crackling of the burning timber and starts him breathing again.

  “Daavid,” cries Daisy weakly from somewhere in the bushes beneath the deck, and Bliss feels his way to the edge, yelling, “I can’t see! Where are you?”

  “I’m down here,” she calls, spying him ten feet above her, his hazy figure silhouetted against the moon. “I jumped.”

  “I zhink zhat je me suis foulé la cheville,” says Daisy once Bliss has scrabbled down the smouldering timber supports, but one look at the crazy angle of her foot in the moonlight tells him a gloomier tale. “I think it’s a little more than a sprained ankle,” he says. However, while the fuel may have exhausted itself in the initial explosion, hot spots of burning timber beg his attention. “You’ll be safe here for a minute,” he continues, and he breaks off a verdant cedar branch to flail at the burgeoning fires.

  “Who are zhey, Daavid? Why did zhey do that?” Daisy wants to know, once he has beaten out the last of the flames.

  “I don’t know,” he says darkly, although he has a few faces in the frame, but he pushes them to the back of his mind while worrying about her ankle. “Let’s get you to a hospital,” he starts, as he bends to lift her, but she screams at the pain.

  “Shhh,” he warns, fearing that an attacker might have been left behind to clean up the evidence. “They could still be around.”

  “Sorry…” she whispers in his ear, and she clutches him tightly as he scrambles up the slimy embankment with her cradled in his arms.

  The laneway where the car is parked is more exposed, and Bliss hunkers low as he carries her. “It shouldn’t take long to find a hospital,” he reassures her as he opens the door and places her on the back seat. “I’ll just get the keys,” he adds as he heads for the cabin — then he has a sinking feeling. “Oh, no!” he sighs, realizing that the solid wooden front door, now perforated by a trail of bullets, is firmly bolted on the inside. Then he turns and spies the run of holes across the Toyota’s hood.

  “Bastards,” he swears.

  Bumface is still laughing as they hit the highway and head south. “Whoosh! It went up like a freakin’ rocket!” he roars, using his hands to demonstrate an explosion, but Dawson answers him coolly.

  “It’s over, Steve. Let’s just forget it, okay?”

  “I’d love to see his freakin’ face when he tries to start the engine…” he is continuing, when Dawson interjects nastily.

  “I said, forget it.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll call for an ambulance,” Bliss says as he carries Daisy into the cabin a few minutes later. Then he places her on the settee and stokes the log fire before picking up the phone.

  “Dead,” he says worriedly, but hasn’t time to explore the cause before Daisy shrieks at the sight of blood oozing through his trouser leg. “You’ve been shot!” she cries.

  “Just a scratch,” he claims, then confesses that, in his rush to put out the fire, he’d hardly noticed the flesh wound.

  “Show me,” she insists, and tears well in her eyes at the sight of the ragged gash.

  “Don’t worry,” says Bliss, as he grabs a handful of tissues, slaps them over the injury, and applies pressure. “I’m a first-aider.” And to prove his point, ten minutes and one ripped-up bed sheet later, Daisy’s ankle is professionally splinted to a wooden cheeseboard, and his leg wound is neatly bandaged.

  “Look at us. One good left leg and one right,” he says lightly, hopping to the couch and slumping beside her. “We’d make a good pair…”

  A very good pair, he thinks to himself, then steps back twenty minutes and rummages through his pockets, knowing that he has some unfinished business.

  “What is zhe matter?” asks Daisy, noticing him blanch.

  “I’m worried they might come back,” he stalls, but his mind is whirling with the sounds of gunfire and conflagration as he retraces his movements at the start of the attack. Did I put it somewhere safe? Back in the suitcase, perhaps… No, it was in my pocket.

  “I’m just going to make sure they’ve gone,” he says and struggles to the window. One glance into the darkness tells him that if the ring, bequeathed by his great-grandmother through his mother, has fallen in the scorched undergrowth or in the mud of the embankment, he’ll probably never find it.

  Is this just another sign? he wonders as he slumps back onto the settee, realizing that fate has been against him all week, from the very moment he’d first been delayed at the border and had shown up late to meet Daisy in Seattle. But if fate is taking a hand — whose side is it on?

  “I’m sure they won’t come back,” he says, taking her into his arms and comforting her in the warmth of the log fire. “We’ll be safe enough, and the maid will be here in the morning.”

  chapter eighteen

  “I’ve a good mind to go back and get my bloomin’ hat,” muses Daphne at Trina’s breakfast table early Saturday morning.

  “Great idea!” exclaims Trina excitedly. “But I’d better not tell Rick. He worries about me. Though I don’t know why.”

  “Don’t be silly. I was only joking,” laughs Daphne, but Trina has got her teeth into the scheme.

  “No, I mean it,” she enthuses. “It’s not like they’re going to do anything to us now.”

  “I don’t think so…” Daphne is continuing, but Trina isn’t listening. “We’ll just drive up to the gate and tell them we want it,” she explains confidently. “The worst they can do is to say no.”

  “I suppose we could…” says Daphne hesitantly.

  “I’ll make sure my cell phone is working, and we’ll just ask nicely. We needn’t even get out of the car.”

  “But
what about your children? You’ve hardly seen them since Tuesday.”

  “I think Rob’s still disappointed that Daisy didn’t come back,” laughs Trina, sounding unconcerned. “And Kylie’s been telling her friends that she was adopted at birth since that picture of us in the paper in the Kidneymobile. Anyway, they’re teenagers.”

  “So?”

  “It’s Saturday!” she explodes, as if Daphne should have figured it out. “They won’t be up before lunch.”

  “And Rick?”

  “Oh, he was happy enough to see me last night, but I expect he’ll sleep for a week.”

  “Well… maybe,” says Daphne, still equivocating.

  “You could always check with David,” suggests Trina, offering Daphne a phone.

  “It’s no good asking him,” she chortles. “He’s a policeman — he was born saying no. Anyway,” she adds meaningfully, “I don’t expect he’d be thrilled if I got him out of bed too early this morning.”

  “Oh, Daphne!” shrieks Trina.

  However, bed has not been an option for Bliss. The heavy wooden bedstead that should have given him and Daisy a pleasurable night now barricades the splintered front door, while its king-size mattress blocks the light from the glazed balcony slider. Bliss wouldn’t have bothered for himself — “They won’t come back,” he assured Daisy — but as the night wore on she became increasingly alarmed at the possibility. And now, despite the sun rising high over the mountains, they cuddle under a duvet in front of the log fire, dead to the world, pooped by a sleepless night of pain and discomfort.

  The Saturday-morning officers at the U.S. border show little interest in Trina’s Jetta as the two women join the throngs of families streaming to Washington for the weekend.