The Big Law (1998)

by Chuck Logan

  Had to be twelve, thirteen feet, the distance between the dorsal and the tail. Just—right there. Then silently gone into the wide endless Pacific.

  He lobbed the cat overhand, a lazy layup. It splashed just past the first breakers. He waited to see if the shark would strike. If it did, it happened below the surface where he couldn't see.

  Like he would. Silent.

  Some fishermen in hip waders with very long poles were walking up the beach. Short men with black hair. The tonal mystery of an Asian language cartwheeled in the sound of the waves. He watched them take huge lures with ferocious curved hooks from their tackle box and string them to their leader. Calmer, composed, Danny walked back to his car.

  These events disrupted his timetable. He'd have to take risks. It infuriated him that Ida Rain had repaid his compassion with betrayal. The bitch could have had it all.

  The best goddamn face money could buy.

  Then he looked at his watch. Shit. He was supposed to meet the retired cop at that bar in Santa Cruz this afternoon.

  59

  The sky over Monterey Bay sagged in rainy streaks of aqua, orange and lime like a bleeding South American flag. He parked, got out and walked, nibbled the sweet California air. Passed a girl in cutoff jeans with beach bunny legs and safety pins in her face.

  She looked at him funny. He glanced down, saw he had a wad of gooey cat-hair-stickum on his arm. Rubbed it off with spit.

  The bar was wedged between an insurance office and a small strip mall. Across Ocean Street, the county building looked faintly colonial behind a screen of tall palms and pine trees. Sunday. Except for cop cars, the parking lot was almost empty.

  In testimony to the new antismoking ordinance, four patrons stood outside the bar, furtively smoking like high school kids behind the field house. Inside, the Jury Box was black as a cave. A partition faced the door like a blast shield to defeat the light of day. The interior was cramped and made smaller by dark paneling. A pool table was covered with garish red felt.

  Custom street signs adorned the header over the bar. One said BULLSHIT PLACE the other spelled out ASSHOLE ALLEY. In the corner a video game had a large green Creature from the Black Lagoon swimming on its side. The creature

  appeared very much at home in the darkness.

  Danny ordered a Sharps nonalcoholic beer and sat at one of the small tables next to the pool table. He checked his watch. Early, 1:45; 3:45 in St. Paul. He eyed the pay phone on the wall. The urge was palpable, treading in the dark. Like the creature in the corner, silently swimming to and fro.

  He tried to imagine Kemper filling the space of this room. A really big man, six nine. Kemper, according to the literature, hated his mother and finally killed her. Danny did not hate his mother. He was glad she was gone because she was a bother. He'd always dreaded the long haul across the rickety ministrations of some nursing home. But he never hated her. Sometimes he wished she had been someone else. Someone with better genes. Better looks. More goddamn money.

  Danny eyed the phone again. Imagined hearing Ida's unsuspecting voice and jacking off.

  He had to get rid of her, of course. Not effortlessly, like Caren. This time it had to be done with authority. Some fear and pain to mark the arrival of Danny Storey. Trauma. Not unlike birth.

  The sunlight oscillated on the other side of the partition, and a square medium-size man in his late fifties shouldered into the gloom. Danny squinted and held up his loose leaf binder. He rose and extended his hand.

  "Harold?"

  The man nodded curtly. Came forward. His handshake was forceful, casual retro macho. Danny winced a little and did not try to compete.

  "Dan Storey?" he asked.

  "That's right," said Danny. They walked to the bar. Wicks ordered a Scotch and water and asked for an extra glass of water. Danny dropped a five to cover it. When Wicks had his drink, they went back to the table.

  "So Arnie says you're interested in old Santa Cruz, back during the serial killer epidemic," said Harold.

  "I was curious if you had a theory why it happened here."

  Harold shrugged his shoulders. "Why not here? Those guys were like bad weather. You know it exists, but you don't think it'll come ashore where you're having your picnic. But there it is." He was philosophical. A Big Thing, but at the same time, in the long view, no big thing.

  He took a sip of his drink and studied Danny. "It's not like there are rules that govern these things."

  Danny cleared his throat. "Well, the FBI studies them, the killers."

  "Common sense," said Harold.

  "How's that?" asked Danny, polite.

  Harold gestured offhand. "Most of Kemper's victims were coeds. He picked them up hitchhiking. Who keeps hitchhiking in Santa Cruz when somebody's killing female hitchhikers?"

  "I hear you," agreed Danny. He probed his cheek with his tongue. "The thing that got to me was, he used to sit in here with you guys."

  Harold nodded. "I remember one night he was at the bar with a bunch of deputies." Shook his head, grinned. "They were trying to recruit him for their basketball team. He was this big guy. Meanwhile pieces of missing people were showing up in the ravines. Had a foot wash in on a wave with a surfer up toward Monterey." Wicks sighed. "I went out and picked that one up."

  Danny leaned forward and studied the lines in Harold's face. "What I mean is, you were sitting this close to him and you didn't know."

  "Hell," chuckled Harold. "I was just a copper, a patrol grunt." He shifted forward, and his face creased with a rueful smile and his blue eyes twinkled with elfin mischief. "You know about what he did to his grandparents?"

  Danny nodded.

  "Naturally, the state of California in its infinite wisdom let him out of the nuthouse. He had to go in for regular sessions with a shrink. You know, a college-educated liberal fruit the state of California employs to look after its wayward children. Well, Kemper goes in for his therapy and convinces the shrink that he's a well-adjusted example of rehabilitation. And you know what?"

  Danny cocked forward. An eager audience.

  Harold continued. "During this interview, Kemper's got a victim's severed head in the trunk of his car out in the parking lot."

  "Why?" asked Danny. Fascinated.

  Harold shrugged. "He was taunting us. Part of the thrill, I guess."

  Danny laughed in Harold Wicks's face.

  They studied each other philosophically. Finally Harold pronounced, "You never fuckin' know."

  "Ah," Danny glanced at his wristwatch. "Could you excuse me, I gotta make a quick call." He rose and picked up his empty beer bottle and eyed Harold's almost dry glass. "You want another one?"

  "If you are," said Harold.

  Danny took Harold's glass and his bottle to the bar, ordered another round and got change. Then he walked to the side of the room, picked up the pay phone receiver and dropped in quarters, got long distance and asked for Ida's number in Minnesota.

  He watched smoke shift through the rays of balmy light splayed to the side of the partition while the phone rang on Sergeant Street in St. Paul.

  "Hello?"

  He gripped the receiver and experienced a pleasurable squirm of muscles low in his abdomen.

  "Hello?" her voice was husky, busy, practical. Not concerned. Just inconvenienced.

  Danny waited another beat and then hung the phone up. He went back to the bar, paid for the round of drinks and returned to the table.

  "Do you think he wanted to be caught?" asked Danny.

  Harold sipped his drink. "Guess so. Called up the city cops and confessed. At first the dispatcher didn't take it seriously. Their old drinking buddy Ed."

  "So he had a shred of conscience?"

  Wicks shook his head dubiously. "Him? Nah, I think he was expecting to be famous or something."

  Danny felt no such urge. He just wanted to be left alone.

  Right under their noses. He was cruising right under their fucking noses and they couldn't see. Smooth as that shark off the
beach.

  Old Harold Wicks was on the job, just inches away, and he didn't see anything. None of them did. Except Broker. Still hanging on. Some hick resort owner playing cop.

  Danny tore the wrapper from a Power Bar and wolfed it down. It started to rain again. He slowed down, hit his indicator and turned off on the Freedom Road exit. Waited at the light. Turned and picked up speed.

  He had not planned on going back for a while. He tossed the wrapper out the window in an explosion of nerves, steadied, passed a slow station wagon in the right-hand lane.

  There was the question of how to get it back here. He couldn't just fly in a commercial jet with a big suitcase. Money would show up as a suspicious blob on the X rays. The kind they were trained to look for. Transporting the money was a problem. If he took a jet back to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International, he could rent a car. Drop in on Ida, zip up north, pick up the money and drive the rental back to San Jose and pick up his truck in the airport lot. Have to show ID to rent a car. Not good.

  Be nice to visit Broker. Just up the road from where the stuff was buried, but that would be too many coincidences. He had to silence Ida Rain. Had to. Had to—

  Had to be careful. She had that damn little gun in the dresser drawer right next to her bed, or in her purse. Knew how to shoot it.

  A loopy shriek interrupted his thoughts. Behind him, the red flasher flooded across the wet pavement like a liquid sound wave. One turn of the siren. He checked the rearview.

  Aw shit. The cop car was right on his bumper. Danny pulled over. He pulled out his license certificate and watched the side view mirror. The county deputy came forward from his green and white cruiser. Cautious, hand on his pistol, approaching from the blind side.

  "What's the problem, officer?"

  The cop accepted the license form and placed it on the clipboard he held on one arm. Pen in the other.

  "When you turned off the highway onto Freedom you sailed a candy wrapper out the window."

  "Aw Christ," Danny sagged. It was an expression of guilt. But also relief.

  The cop went back to his cruiser to write the ticket. About five minutes later he returned. "You can mail it in or stop by the courthouse and pay it. Otherwise you've got a court date if you want to go that route." He handed the license back.

  Danny studied the ticket as the cop got back into his car and pulled into traffic.

  Give me a fucking break. He groaned—$240 for littering?

  60

  Like a joke, the next morning, his new California driver's license came in the mail.

  Danny sat at his kitchen table studying a AAA Road Atlas of the United States. Rain sluiced down the windows.

  The most secure way to sneak back into the "danger zone," without leaving a trail, was drive the truck; burn crosscountry, sleep in the cab, no motels, nothing on record. There and back. He turned to the map.

  The United States was shaped like a clumsy dinosaur with a pea head in Maine and Texas and Florida for feet. Road net for arteries. Big cities the vital organs. And it looked like Interstate 80, depending on the weather, was his best route, through Salt Lake, Cheyenne, Omaha, and into Des Moines, then shoot up into Minnesota.

  Okay. He got up, meaning to flip on his new TV and check the Weather Channel when he saw his front gate shimmer in the rain. Swing open. Joe Travis wore sunglasses even in the gloom and rain, also a long brown oilcloth raincoat. He climbed back in the black Ford and pulled it closer to the house.

  Shit. He hadn't expected Travis for five, six more days. He met the inspector at the door.

  "Hey. Travis, how you doing," he said, smiling slowly, apprehensively, looking past Travis at the downpour.

  "Yeah, it's a bitch driving, but I had to come down. Mandatory security call when there's a violation."

  Violation? Danny shifted nervously. "What?"

  "Take it easy. Just a quick visit. Have to get back up to the city. This is strictly pro forma. You had a traffic stop last night by a Santa Cruz deputy sheriff."

  "How'd you know that?" Danny was really getting nervous.

  "Anytime a protected witness has an encounter with law enforcement, he's identified under his new name. You presented the new driver's license, right?"

  "Yes I did."

  "The copper ran it on NCIC. Protected witness names are flagged in the system. Washington notifies the on-site inspector that one of his people has had a run-in with the law. We have to come right over and investigate. Log it."

  "I tossed a candy wrapper," said Danny glumly. "Two hundred forty bucks."

  "Yep. I saw the complaint. I warned you, huh." Travis grinned.

  "Now I know."

  "Good. It's bullshit in this case, no problem; inside the county, could happen to anyone. But if you were a felon-type witness, say—and you got stopped in L.A., in a high-crime neighborhood, could be suspicious. But it's a rule. So…" Travis glanced around. "Hey, you got the computer up and cooking."

  Danny smiled. "Nice box." He snapped his fingers. "Fast."

  "Cool. Hey, I'm going to use your john and be out of here." Travis walked down the hall toward the bathroom, went in and closed the door. The toilet seat clattered on the tiles. Danny prayed a soggy piece of dead cat didn't attach to Travis's boots. The toilet flushed. The door opened. Travis emerged. "You need a new seat for the shitter, man." even white teeth curved in a smile below the sunglasses. "See you in about a week." He walked out and he was gone.

  Danny flopped back on a kitchen chair and wiped sweat from his forehead. Goddamn, if Travis hadn't popped in he'd have packed a bag, tossed it in the truck and headed out to drive day and night cross-country. Scratch that.

  He tried to remember. Stories he'd done about the airlines. He recalled they were stingy with their flight information. He'd have to present a driver's license to board a plane. But his name in a Northwest computer would not be shared with the U.S. government short of a subpoena being issued.

  He pulled the atlas out again. He wasn't sure how far his "danger zone" extended in a radius around the Twin Cities. But then he slammed the manual shut. Screw it. Take risks. Fly right in under their noses. To Minneapolis-St. Paul. Cab to Ida's. Take her car up north. Yeah.

  The Money.

  Traveling on the airlines was out. A constant stream of drug couriers moved through airports. Airports used random luggage checks by dogs trained to sniff out cash. They'd spot it going through the X-ray machine.

  Danny paced the kitchen, ducked under a loop of electrical conduit.

  Mail it.

  Why not. Again. Right under their noses. Another old story came to mind. Postal inspectors reacted to problems; they dealt with too much volume to scrutinize every package. Better yet, send it commercial carrier. As long as it didn't look overtly suspicious, it would go straight through. Overnight express, from Duluth. Bundle it up good enough to disguise it. Take it to a Wrap and Ship. Let them do a professional box job. Tell them it's books.

  These things decided, Danny leafed through the local phone book for airline numbers. He'd have to pay for the ticket in cash, couldn't use the marshals' VISA card. And Travis's procedure probably called for auditing the checking account.

  Time to take some high-stake risks.

  61

  Danny, on approach to Minneapolis-St. Paul International, heard the pilot put the ground temperature at thirty-one degrees, with softly blowing snow. He deplaned, moved through the familiar airport, went to the men's room, used the toilet, then washed his hands, dried them with a paper towel and studied his appearance in the full-length mirror on the wall. Unafraid of winter, he wore a new, reddish leather bomber jacket and a black T-shirt. Hair combed back. Shoulders squared. Could be Colin Firth stalking out of the movie theater in Apartment Zero. New short haircut, contacts, his tan and, modestly, his new muscles—he could probably walk through the St. Paul newsroom and no one would recognize him.

  Not walk. Stalk, baby, stalk.

  He turned sideways and thumped his gut.
r />   Abs still needed work.

  Soon he wouldn't have to suck it in. Soon it would be like a washboard. More crunches.

  "Let's go get paid, Danny," he said, grinning at the mirror.

  His light carry-on bag contained a change of underwear, a sweater, a toothbrush, toothpaste and a pair of latex gloves he'd bought at a sporting goods store in San Jose.