Shoot the Dog

by Brad Smith

  Maybe he wouldn’t fast at all. Getting over Kari was something that only time would provide and fasting wasn’t going to make any difference one way or the other. He could remain there until Monday when Billy came for him, and then go back to the business of running the casino and all its complements. He reminded himself he had a golf course to complete. He could always provide details of his fast, and accompanying visions, to anybody who wanted to hear.

  What he wouldn’t do was involve himself any further with the filming of the movie. He would stay on as producer, and continue to funnel cash to the project, as he’d agreed. It was a good way to hide income. Not only that, but he wanted to stay in the mix in case the movie turned out to be a winner. Ronnie would love to go to the Oscars. If he won, he assumed he would be allowed to make a speech. It occurred to him that it wasn’t too early to begin working on it. Oscars or not, he was now officially a player in the film world. He would choose his next project more carefully, of course, and he wouldn’t be taking on partners. If he found a script he liked, he might even direct the thing himself. After all, he’d been calling the shots at Running Dog since its conception, and what was it if not a high-concept fantasy film?

  After descending for twenty minutes or so, he began to hear the occasional sounds of vehicles passing on the road below. The property was remote and the nearest neighbors were miles away; as such, there was very little traffic on that stretch of road.

  When he was five hundred yards from the highway, Ronnie grew winded and stopped to rest, leaning against a dead birch tree that was tilted at a forty-five-degree angle to the ground, its fall interrupted by a massive oak beside it. It took him several minutes to catch his breath. It wasn’t a good sign, he knew, getting tired walking down a slope. He might have to start working out. Maybe some time in the gym would help him forget Kari Karson.

  Now he heard another car approaching but this one seemed to be slowing down. He thought he heard tires pulling onto the gravel road. His road. Ronnie pushed himself away from the birch and began to angle through the brush to the entrance. From a couple hundred yards away, he could see a blue sedan parked on the lane, just off the main road. After a moment the door opened and Claire Marchand got out, a paper coffee cup in her hand. She stood there looking at the gravel road before her, winding its way upward through the trees.

  Ronnie pulled the revolver from his belt and opened it to check the cylinder. He’d brought it along in case he encountered a snake, and in that his instincts had, as always, been on the money. But the snake that had just gotten out of the unmarked cruiser was bigger game than he’d expected. It was obvious to Ronnie now that the woman was going to keep poking around until she found something. The snub-nosed .38 was efficient enough for a copperhead up close, but not for a nosy cop, not at any distance anyway. He needed more firepower, so he turned around and headed back to the cabin for his rifle.

  • • •

  Virgil called Claire before he went to bed and then again when he got up in the morning. By this point, he was past expecting her to answer. Something was up, and he hoped that whatever it was turned out to be simply the fault of failed technology. She should have been back by now, with or without Ronnie. After he did the chores he got into his truck and drove to Kingston again to check once more on her house. Seeing that her car still wasn’t there, he finally gave in and drove to the state police station outside of town.

  Claire’s CR-V was there in the parking lot, as it would be when she was working. Occasionally she used the Honda when on duty but she usually took one of the unmarked cruisers. Virgil parked alongside and had a look in the passenger window. Claire’s jacket was on the front seat and peeking out the side pocket was her cell phone. One mystery solved.

  Virgil turned and looked at the front door of the station. The last time he was there, he’d just been arrested for murder, fingerprinted, photographed, and interrogated. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in handcuffs but he’d been hoping it would be the last. He didn’t feel like walking in today, but he really had no choice. He needed to talk to Claire. More than that, he needed to know she was all right.

  His luck was running okay at first. A young woman in a tan skirt and crisp blue blouse saw him approaching the front desk and walked over to ask if she could help him. But before Virgil could open his mouth, a door at the rear of the station opened and Joe Brady entered. He was talking over his shoulder to a man in a suit who trailed along behind him.

  “I could’ve told them exactly what was going to happen,” Joe was saying. “I knew it from the moment—” He stopped in midsentence when he saw Virgil. The man in the suit took the opportunity to escape down a corridor; presumably he’d heard enough of Joe holding forth about how right he’d been about something. Joe, his focus squarely on Virgil, made no note of the man’s leaving. Instead he headed for the front desk.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  Virgil didn’t look at him. “I want to leave a message for Claire Marchand,” he told the young woman.

  “I’ll take care of this, Marina,” Joe said. When the woman looked as if she might protest, he turned to her. “You can go.”

  The woman named Marina arched her eyebrows as if in apology toward Virgil before walking back to a desk across the room to sit down. Joe regarded Virgil as if he were a possum caught sneaking into a henhouse.

  “What are you up to, pal?”

  “I’m not up to anything,” Virgil said. “I want to leave a message for Claire Marchand.”

  “Is it a matter for the police?” Joe asked.

  Virgil hesitated. If he said yes, then Joe was going to insist that he be given the information. Which, in Virgil’s opinion, was pretty much the same as writing it down on a piece of paper and tossing it out the window. Or it could be even worse; Joe might want to act on it. And the only thing worse than Joe Brady ignoring a situation was Joe Brady taking charge of a situation.

  “Personal,” Virgil said.

  “Personal,” Joe repeated, nodding his head. “Are you under the impression that we’re here to provide some sort of messaging service for the general public, Cain?”

  “No, I’m not,” Virgil said. “I’m here to ask if you would forward her a phone number and ask that she call me at her convenience.” As he finished talking he noticed a notepad on the counter, with a pen alongside. He reached for it and jotted down Buddy’s cell number.

  “Maybe Marchand has no interest in calling you,” Joe said. “Maybe you’re bothering her.”

  “That’s for her to decide,” Virgil said. “You can tell her it’s . . . um . . . urgent.” He was hesitant to use the word, fearing it might encourage more idiotic questions from Brady. He slid the number across the counter.

  Joe took a while to think it over before finally reaching for the slip of paper, taking it between his thumb and forefinger as if it were tainted. “I’m a senior investigator with the New York State Police,” he said. “My duties don’t include being a messenger boy for you. There’s a Western Union in town, pal. Give them a try.” He crumpled the paper, tossed it into a wastebasket at the end of the counter, and walked away.

  “Nice talking to you, Joe,” Virgil said.

  Joe gave him the finger without turning. Virgil walked back outside to the parking lot. He wrote down the number and a short message on a scrap of paper he tore from a hardware flyer in his truck and slid it under the windshield wiper on Claire’s Honda. Then he headed for the hills.

  The Indians were there when he arrived on set. There had to be forty or fifty of them, dressed in buckskin and breechcloths, their faces painted and oiled, feathers dangling from lances, bows and arrows at the ready. When Virgil pulled onto the property, they were gathered around the food tent, smoking cigarettes and talking on cell phones.

  Virgil parked and shut the engine off, then sat in the truck for a few moments, looking around. Will, the firearms guy, stood in the entranceway to the barn. There were maybe two dozen muskets lined up
there, leaning against the open door. A wooden table with folding legs was set up alongside; on top of the table were boxes of musket balls and percussion caps, as well as a number of brass powder flasks.

  The cinematographer and the rest of the crew were setting up in the clearing between the cabin and the forest to the south. The director was standing on the front porch of the cabin, talking to Tommy Alamosa.

  Virgil got out of the truck, slipping Buddy’s phone in his pocket. Leaning against his front fender, he watched the proceedings in the clearing. It appeared that Tommy was explaining to the director what they were doing. It seemed to Virgil that Tommy did that a lot.

  At one point, the director shook his head in apparent frustration at whatever he was hearing and then turned to notice Virgil’s presence.

  “What the fuck is he doing here?” the director demanded.

  “We could always ask him,” Tommy said. “Hello, Virgil.”

  “Why are you here?” the director asked.

  “Just came to watch,” Virgil said, shrugging.

  “You’re not getting paid to be here. You weren’t on the call sheet.”

  “I just want to watch,” Virgil said again. “I wouldn’t pass up a chance to see an artist at work.”

  The director paused, as if trying to decide whether Virgil was being sarcastic. In the end, he evidently decided to let it pass. “Just keep out of the way,” he advised.

  “Ten four.”

  The director turned to Tommy. “I’m still not getting this. I need to look at the storyboards.”

  After they walked away Virgil climbed onto the porch and sat down on the wooden chair there, propping his boots on the railing as he’d done before, Henry Fonda style. The crew was laying dolly tracks now across the clearing, securing the rails with sand bags before shimming them to level.

  After a time, the black Audi pulled onto the set and rolled to a stop next to the trailers. Levi Brown and the producer named Sam got out, both carrying Starbucks cups, and went into the trailer where Tommy and the director had disappeared. A few minutes later a production van arrived and Kari Karson and Georgia emerged and headed for their respective trailers.

  Virgil sat on the porch and watched the comings and goings for another fifteen minutes or so, and then he pulled Buddy’s phone from his pocket and flipped it open and closed a couple of times. Looking from the phone to the trailers, where all the unusual suspects were gathered, he went into his pocket again and produced the phone number Buddy had given him.

  He was about to dial the number when the phone rang in his hand.

  • • •

  Claire stood leaning against the hood of the cruiser, sipping the bad coffee she’d bought at a place that quaintly called itself a trading post, about five miles back along the winding country road. If the place actually were in the business of trading goods, she’d go back there this minute and swap the coffee for damn near anything, as long as it contained a little caffeine and didn’t taste like turpentine.

  She was debating whether to walk in to Ronnie Red Hawk’s retreat, or to drive up. If she drove, he would in all likelihood hear her coming. Walking, she might surprise him, at his fasting or his convening with nature, or whatever the hell he did there. Catching him off guard might be the preferable route.

  She knew now that Ronnie’s retreat was in reality a luxury vacation home. Chief Heisman had told her that. Ronnie wasn’t fooling any of the locals. It was a remote part of the state, but it wasn’t that remote. It was pretty much impossible to build a million-dollar log home on a parcel of land bigger than a small town and expect nobody to notice. Apparently Ronnie thought he’d pulled it off. Like Claire had told Heisman—delusional.

  She decided she would walk in. She dumped the toxic brew out onto the ground and took her Glock from its holster to check the clip. She walked back around to lock the car and as she did, she heard Marina trying to raise her on the radio. She slid behind the wheel and replied.

  “Where the hell are you?” Marina asked.

  “Up north. What’s going on?”

  “Sal’s been calling your cell. He’s got something for you on the Olivia Burns thing.”

  “I left my phone in my car,” Claire said. “Is he there? Put him on.”

  “No, but he’s on his way. I can patch him through when he gets here.”

  “I’ll be away from the radio for a bit. I’ll check back.”

  “Wait a minute,” Marina said.

  “What?”

  “Virgil Cain was here,” Marina said.

  Claire was more than surprised. “At the station?”

  “Yeah. He wanted to get in touch with you. He left a cell number for you to call.”

  “A cell number,” Claire said. “Then it wasn’t Virgil Cain. What did the guy look like?”

  “Like that good-looking farmer you’ve been screwing the past two years, Claire. I know Virgil Cain. He and Joe had words and Joe tossed the number in the trash. I dug it out after he left.”

  “I’m gobsmacked,” Claire said.

  “You’re what?”

  “Nothing. What’s the number?” Claire waited and then wrote it down on her pad. “All right. I’ll give him a shout later.”

  “He mentioned it was urgent.”

  “He used that word?”

  “He did.”

  “Okay, Marina. Thanks.”

  Claire sat in the car for a time after signing off. She was inclined to go after Ronnie Red Hawk and then find a phone and call Virgil afterward. But something was definitely out of sync in what Marina had told her. That Virgil had allegedly acquired a cell phone was one thing. That he had used the word “urgent” when requesting that she call him was another. One of those developments was enough to make her think that something was seriously amiss. Both made her decide to go looking for a pay phone.

  If nothing else, she would find out what type of situation Virgil Cain might consider to be urgent. Maybe the Toledo Mud Hens had hauled him out of retirement for the stretch run; that might possibly get him excited. But excited enough to buy a cell phone? Claire doubted it.

  • • •

  Ronnie put the crosshairs on the cop’s face, then dropped them to a spot between her breasts. After a moment, he moved the sights to the coffee cup she held. He smiled to himself. Wouldn’t she shit herself if her take-out coffee suddenly exploded in her hand? Her surprise would be fleeting, of course, because then Ronnie would be obligated to put the next bullet between her beautiful brown eyes.

  She’d been standing there, the lady cop with the insolent mouth, for ten minutes, looking up at the gravel road that led to Ronnie’s retreat. Looking up, not even drinking her coffee, as if coming to a decision of some kind. Ronnie, hidden in the trees, was in the same boat, trying to decide whether or not to blow her fucking head off. She obviously had stumbled across something in her investigation. Maybe that something was Syracuse Sid and maybe it was something else. Ronnie couldn’t imagine that she’d uncovered anything resembling hard evidence, but she might have figured she had enough to make an arrest. Ronnie’s reputation didn’t need that, even if it ended in acquittal. Not only that, he had things to accomplish, goals to meet. The golf course itself was a huge undertaking. He didn’t have time for judges and lawyers and preliminary hearings and all the rest. Ronnie had seen enough courtrooms in his youth.

  The question, as he saw it right this moment, was whether the woman was working alone. She had a bit of a lone wolf quality to her, and if that were the case—if she hadn’t shared whatever she’d found with anyone else—then Ronnie would feel much more comfortable putting a .30–06 slug in her. He’d have no trouble getting rid of the body, and the car, afterward. There were lakes in the area that were a couple hundred feet deep. Ronnie had dumped cars there before, after wild midnight joyrides when he was a kid. However, if the department knew what she was up to, and where she was, it was a different situation. Ronnie didn’t need that either.

  He moved the sights
to her face again. She was a beautiful woman, he had to admit. Maybe he wouldn’t shoot her in the face after all. He could put a round precisely between those nice breasts. Ronnie had never dated a cop before. Maybe he should consider it in the future. It might be exciting, with the guns and the handcuffs and all. Of course, it wouldn’t be this cop, he knew, as he dropped the crosshairs to her chest.

  Too late for that.

  Then she moved, and with purpose, as if she’d arrived at her decision. She walked around to the door of the cruiser and opened it to toss the cup inside. But when she closed the door, she hesitated a moment before opening it again and sliding in behind the wheel. Ronnie put the sights on the windshield but the sun struck it at such an angle that the glare prevented him from seeing inside the car. He should have taken the shot when he had the chance. Now he would have to wait again and Ronnie didn’t like to wait. On top of everything else, he was getting hungry.

  After a few moments, the woman reached out, closed the car door, and put it in reverse. She drove off, heading west.

  Ronnie was left standing in the woods, holding his rifle and trying to figure out what had just happened.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The phone didn’t actually ring. It played the William Tell Overture, although Virgil was pretty sure that Buddy would identify it as the theme from The Lone Ranger. He opened it and pressed the little green button, as Buddy had instructed, and then held it to his ear.

  “Hello.”

  “Wow,” Claire said. “It is you.”