by Ken Douglas
Again he rolled down the window and listened. Then he opened the door and gingerly stepped out of the car, onto his bruised, hurting feet. It was like walking on shards of glass or through hot coals. And as swiftly as he could, he made his way to the front of the car, leaning on it for support. He reached under the bumper, pulled out the magnetic box and painfully returned back to the safety of the car.
Once the door was closed again, and locked, he put the key into the ignition and turned it to the accessory position. Now that the radio had juice he picked up the mike, holding the push to talk button down with his thumb as he’d seen Jesse do.
“ Is anyone listening out there?” he said, lips inches from the mike.
Ten minutes later, J.P. sat secure behind locked doors and watched as Deputy Lincoln Hewett’s police car drove up the dirt road and parked alongside. Not until the Deputy was out of the car, did he unlock the door.
“ Well, J.P., I’m sure you have quite a story,” Lincoln said.
J.P. had always like Lincoln, but he wished the sheriff had come instead.
“ Come on, J.P., what’s going on?”
J.P. told him about how his father and Sylvia were murdered. How he was kidnapped and held in the trunk. How he got away. How he saw the saber-toothed Ghost Dog. How it chased him. How he saw Jesse and Stacy, naked, making love. And how he got safely into the police car.
“ Stacy and Jesse were up at Lover’s Hideaway?” the deputy asked, pointing up the dirt path.
“ Yes, sir.”
“ Show me!”
“ I can’t walk too good and besides, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go up there.”
“ Nonsense. I’ll carry you.” Lincoln pulled J.P. out of the car, hefting him up to his shoulders the way his dad used to when he was younger.
“ I don’t wanna go there.”
“ It’ll be fine.”
J.P. kicked against Lincoln’s chest.
“ Stop that.” Lincoln squeezed his leg, hard.
“ You’re gonna be sorry.”
“ Just calm down.”
“ This is a bad idea.” But it was no use, because now they were in the clearing and Lincoln set J.P. down.
The dead leaves, pine needles and the dirt throughout the center of the small clearing were covered in wet blood. The couple’s clothes lay in a heap, near the clearing’s center, undisturbed.
The deputy bent to pick up Stacy’s frilly blouse.
“ The Ghost Dog did it,” J.P. said. “It killed ’em, then it ate ’em.”
“ There is no Ghost Dog,” Lincoln said.
“ Yes there is. I saw it. It chased me.”
“ He fired his weapon,” Lincoln said, talking to himself. He bent over and picked up a shell casing. He found the forty-five near a pool of blood, picked it up. “My God,” he said, “he emptied it. Whatever did this is one bad son of a bitch.”
When they reached the end of the clearing, J.P. heard a low growl and wailed, “Oh, no, not again,” as the black beast slammed into Lincoln Hewett.
He had a front row view as the Ragged Man stepped from the bushes and slit Lincoln’s throat with his Jim Bowie knife.
J.P. wanted to run, but he was frozen in place as the Ragged Man stepped away from the dead deputy and the Ghost Dog moved back in, clamping its powerful jaws around Lincoln’s neck and closing them with a sharp snap, severing his head and sending it rolling toward J.P. like a soccer ball kicked out of play.
J.P. passed out.
Chapter Twenty-One
He was too low and too close to the cliffs. The plane slid out of his control, reminding him of the time when a rogue wave grabbed his board and ripped it from him, leaving him to be tossed about at the ocean’s mercy, his board a deadly weapon lashed to his feet. He kept his head and toughed it out then, he’d keep his head and tough it out now.
“ We’re gonna crash!” Harpine shouted
Rick grabbed a quick look at the man. His florid face had darkened from its usual drinker’s pink and he was drenched in sweat.
“ Can you get us out of this?”
“ Hope so.” Rick shoved in the left rudder as he pulled back on the throttle, and like that time when he had to slip loose from the board and claw his way from the sea, the plane clawed its way away from the cliffs. He nosed down toward the ocean, to try and free the plane from the turbulence. He couldn’t abandon the plane like he had the surfboard.
“ Oh, sweet Mother of God, we’re going down! Hail Mary full of grace, forgive us at the hour of our deaths.”
“ That’s not how it goes,” Rick said.
“ Who the fuck cares how it goes! Oh, Lord we’re going in the ocean. I’ll be good, God. I’ll be good!”
Rick tried to tune Harpine out and gradually added power as they closed in on the water.
“ Oh, sweet Jesus, forgive me. We’re gonna die!”
Rick stared to get the plane back at three hundred feet and regained full control at a hundred and fifty. He leveled off at a hundred feet and flew over the rough sea. He spotted a lone surfer below.
“ Thank you, Lord. Oh, thank you,” Harpine said. Then to Rick. “What the fuck was that all about?”
“ Turbulence off the cliffs. Much more than I expected. Took me by surprise.”
“ You gonna have any more surprises like that?”
“ Hope not,” Rick lied, because he knew he’d have one grand surprise for him. No way could he put it down at the airport. There was a good chance that Mitchel had seen a news broadcast. If so, Sheriff Sturgees might be waiting for him.
He brought the plane back up to five hundred feet, then leveled off.
“ Higher, we should be higher.”
“ It’s okay now, Chief. Trust me.”
“ That’s what you said before and look what happened.”
“ You’re still breathing.”
“ Barely. It’s a miracle my heart’s still beating.”
“ All right, I’ll take it up to a thousand.” Rick pulled back slightly on the yoke, starting a slow climb. Fifteen minutes later he leveled off and they flew in silence for about twenty minutes. Then he eased in the throttle and they started a gradual descent.
“ What now?” Harpine said.
“ Palma dead ahead,” Rick said, “about ten miles.” He turned in, toward the coast and was at five hundred feet when he flew over the beach, headed inland.
“ What are you doing?”
“ We have to go inland, then make a wide left, to make a straight in landing on runway two-seven,” Rick lied. He’d never flown out of Palma-Tampico, never been to the airport, didn’t have a clue what the runway numbers were, and he had no intention of getting anywhere near the airport today. Two miles inland he saw a place were he might be able to land, a straight stretch of dirt road that ran from the twisted highway through the pines to a log cabin-like house.
If he was able to make it through the trees without clipping the wings, if there were no large potholes in the road to throw them into the trees once they touched down and, if there was a headwind and not a tailwind, they had a chance. But if his timing wasn’t right on, they could wind up in somebody’s living room.
He was preparing to fly over the dirt track and check it out when the plane sputtered. Shit, he thought, out of gas, he wasn’t even going to have to fake it with Harpine. He’d only get one chance. He wasn’t lined up. He was too high. He was going too fast.
“ What’s wrong?” Harpine asked, agitated.
“ Out of gas,” Rick said.
Harpine spun his head around, fixing Rick with a cold stare. “You’re shitting me!”
“ No.”
“ What are you going to do about it?” Harpine looked out the window, scanning the land below.
“ First we’re going to slow her down.” Rick pulled back on the yoke, but not enough to stall out, then added full flaps. The plane slowed, like a reined in horse, from just over a hundred to eighty.
“ Shit,” Harpine sai
d.
“ You can say that again.” Rick shoved in left the rudder, turned the ailerons to the right and put the Cessna into a side slip.
“ Mother fuck!” Harpine said as the plane, losing lift, lost altitude.
“ It’ll be okay.” Rick kept the nose pointed to the place where the dirt track intersected the road, with one eye on the spot where he planned on touching down, the other on the altimeter.
“ You gonna land it on the dirt road?”
“ Yeah.” They were still in the slip, dropping fast.
“ You can do it. I got faith,” Harpine said, voice gone quiet.
“ Where’d that come from?”
“ What, my faith in your flying? I admit I mighta been doubting you before, but I believe in you now.”
“ That’s good to know,” Rick said.
“ Well, I don’t have much choice, consider the alternative.”
“ Very reassuring, Chief.” Rick edged the plane a little to the right, keeping it lined up with where he wanted to put it down.
“ Just trying to be honest. I don’t wanna cause you to fuck up here.”
“ We’re gonna be fine,” Rick said with a confidence he didn’t feel.
“ Getting low,” Harpine said.
“ Yeah, were at a hundred feet. I’m leveling off,” Rick said, for his benefit as well as Harpine’s. He looked at the airspeed indicator. “Seventy-five miles an hour, too fast.”
“ Don’t seem that fast.” Harpine seemed calm now.
“ We must be headed into the wind, that’s good.” Rick took the plane out of the slip, then pulled back slightly on the yoke. “Forty-feet, thirty-five, Thirty, Twenty.” He pulled back some more, pulling it into the landing flare.
“ Fifteen feet, Ten, Five,” this time it was Harrison Harpine calling out the numbers.
“ Grab your socks!” Rick yelled out.
“ And kiss your ass goodbye!” Harpine shouted.
They touched down with a teeth chattering thump. Rick stiffened his legs, fighting to keep the plane headed in a straight line. He stood on the brakes, then released the pressure, then stood on them again. The cabin was closing fast. He wasn’t going to make it.
He looked up in time to see an excited couple coming out of the house. He pulled his left foot off the peddles and pushed hard with his right. The plane spun right, into the trees, with a tearing sound and a sudden stop. Somehow he’d managed to stick the nose between two of the tall pines. The trees grabbed at the wings, ripping them off and stopping the plane. He didn’t have to shut down the engine, he had landed on vapor. They were alive but the plane was finished.
“ Holy Mother of God, we made it!” Harpine whooped.
“ Are you okay?” the throaty voice belonged to an old man who had pulled Rick’s door open.
“ I think so.”
“ You two better get out of there.”
“ What time is it?” Rick asked.
“ Seven in the AM,” the man said.
“ My door’s stuck,” Harpine said, surprisingly calm.
Rick unbuckled and jumped to the ground.
“ I need some help getting out of here!” Harpine wailed, the calm gone.
“ You hurt in there mister?” the old man said.
“ I just want out!” Harpine said.
Rick moved around to Harpine’s side of the plane. The old man followed.
“ I’ll push and you pull,” Harpine said, voice gaining an octave.
Rick grabbed onto the handle, turned it and pulled. The door popped. Rick and the old man jumped back as Harrison Harpine came tumbling out, landing on his side on the wet, early morning earth. Rick offered him a hand up. Harpine grabbed it in a Viking grip and Rick pulled him from the dew damp ground.
“ We are a pair of lucky, sons-of-bitches!” Harpine said, relief flooding through his voice.
“ Okay, Chief, you’re alive, now I gotta go,” Rick said. Then to the old man. “I have thirty minutes to get to the pier.”
“ Mister, why didn’t you put down at the airport?”
“ I’ll give you five hundred dollars if you get me to the Seawolf before it sails.”
“ I’ll get the car.”
“ Nate, don’t you want to know why he put down here and why he’s in such a hurry?” the woman asked. She’d been standing behind the man when he’d opened Rick’s door. She was thin and frail, with gray flecked auburn hair and crystal green eyes. It was easy to see that she’d been a looker in her time.
“ Nope. Five hundred dollars is all I need to know.” Nate was thin, too, but wiry, with muscles that hadn’t gone to seed. His eyes were as green as hers and just as penetrating.
“ I wanna know,” Harpine said.
“ You got a gun, Chief?” Rick asked.
“ No, I don’t carry when I fly, too much of a hassle.”
“ What about your plane?” the woman asked, ignoring Harpine.
“ I’ll give you another five hundred for the inconvenience and I’ll come back in a couple of days and take care of getting it removed.”
“ Get the car, Nate!” the woman said and the man limped around the house to the garage in back.
“ No one’s going anywhere,” Harpine said.
Nate ignored him, continuing on toward the garage.
“ You have to understand,” she told Rick after her husband was out of earshot, “we live off of Nate’s Social Security. We don’t get any other money. If his brother didn’t let us live in this cabin, I don’t know what we’d do. A thousand dollars is a lot of money to us.”
“ It’s a lot of money to me, too.”
“ What’s so important about getting to the fishing boat?” Harpine asked.
“ It’s personal.” Rick turned back to the plane, reached across his seat and took out the caged bird.
“ What do you have there?” the woman asked.
“ A bird that’s going to carry a very important message.” He fished into a side pocket on the pilot’s door and pulled out Christina’s log book. Looked around in the pocket some more and pulled out a couple of charts. He tossed them on the seat, reached in the pocket again, coming out with a short stub of a pencil. He ripped part of a page out of the log, held it against the plane and wrote:
Judy,
J.P. kidnapped. Am coming with the Wolf. Phone may be tapped. Meet me. Bring the GUN.
Rick
“ What’s that all about?” Harpine asked, reading over his shoulder.
“ Not now, Chief,” Rick said and something in his voice held Harpine in check for a few seconds while Rick tore off the top of the page containing the message and rolled it into a tight ball. He took the racing homer out of the cage and opened the capsule that was affixed to the bird’s leg and inserted the message.
“ Go home, Dancer.” He released his grip on the bird.
He looked up with his left hand, shielding his eyes and watched Dancer fly into the sun and start a great circle, but before completing the three-sixty the bird got his bearing and took off in the direction of Tampico. Somehow he knew Judy would be at home. Somehow he knew that she’d cancelled her trip to Hawaii. The thought danced as true through his mind as Dancer’s flight path toward Tampico.
“ Now all I have to do is get to the boat in time.”
“ This sounds like police business to me,” Harpine said.
“ Sorry, Chief, this is private.”
“ I can stop you.”
“ Or you can come along?” Rick said, not wanting Harrison to come, but not wanting him to stay behind, suspicious enough to make any phone calls, either.
“ With you? After what you just put me through? I’d sooner eat dog shit. Besides, I fuck with you too much, you might forget that campaign promise. Tell me about the boy,” Harpine said.
Rick sensed that Harpine was looking for a face saving way of not going with him, of not getting involved. He gave it to him. “It’s a custody battle. J.P.’s father has the boy,” Rick lied. “He pl
ans on threatening Judy with a nasty court battle she can’t afford. The gun’s just to scare the chicken-shit son of a bitch.” Tough words, words Chief Harrison Harpine could understand.
“ The last thing I want is to be a party to murder, two thousand dollar campaign contribution or no.” Rick noticed Harpine had doubled the amount.
“ I thought I’d promised three,” Rick said, winking.
“ Oh, yeah, I forgot.” Harpine winked back.
“ Nate will get you there,” the woman said, interrupting them and then was interrupted herself by the sound of the car as it backed out of the garage. “It might be old,” she said of the battered pickup, “but it runs fine. It’ll get you there.”
“ Hop in,” old Nate said, “time’s a wastin’.”
Rick opened the door, slid into the passenger seat, cranked the window as the man backed the car around, so that it was facing down the dirt track, away from the house. Then he threw it into first and put his foot to the floor. The old man knew how to drive. “We’ll make it in time, son, don’t you worry none.”
The pickup kicked up dust as the tires bit into the dirt and the taste of it on his teeth reminded Rick of the race in Australia. Somehow, in some weird way, all of this, everything that had happened since he had returned-Judy’s encounter on the beach, the Donovan’s murder, the Bootleg murders, J.P.’s kidnapping and perhaps Ann’s death-were all connected with something that happened there.
“ Hold on son,” the man shouted above the engine’s roar.
Rick snapped to attention in time to brace himself as Nate expertly applied brake pressure into the turn off the dirt road and onto the highway. Three quarters of the way into the turn and he had the throttle to the floor. Nate knew how to drive.
“ I’ll have to slow down when we reach the bend. That shithead Malloy sits there with his new toy.”
Rick didn’t know what he was talking about but found out as they approached a bend in the road and Nate hit the brakes, slowing to a respectable fifty-five. When they rounded the curve, they saw a Palma City Trooper sitting on his Harley with a radar gun pointed at them.