It took Ward a moment to process that. He leaned back, chuckling, and nearly fell off the stool.
“Why is that funny?” she asked.
“That’s not funny,” he said. “I am.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m from New York,” he replied, half apologizing. “My baseline is somewhere between the gutter and the top of the curb.”
Now she thought for a moment; when she got it her cheeks reddened. They both laughed and she leaned forward to give him a playful smack on the head. She smelled of bacon and woman. It was a near-irresistible combination.
“Good God, I could never do that!” she said. “I know girls who do. They’ve told me some of the things they have to say. I’d just sit there laughing.”
“You take this other work seriously?”
“Very!” she said. “I read cards and all. I don’t just sit there and make noises while I do the ironing.”
A couple entered the shop. The waitress regarded them. “Tourists.”
Ward turned. “How can you tell?”
“Apart from the fact that I know all the regulars, they have that ‘isn’t this charming’ look.” She stood, smoothed her apron, and winked at Ward. “I’ve got to work. Anyway, no pressure.” She tapped her address. “If you’ve got the time and energy after looking out for your daughter and the homeland, I’ll be there with my Tarot deck.”
“Not sure you’ll see a whole lot in my future.”
“You never know. Maybe you should do what I sometimes tell my clients: don’t worry about it. The future’s got its own plan.”
As Debbie grabbed a couple of menus and headed around the counter, she said, “And to answer your question about the people we were talking about earlier?”
“Yes?”
“Those men are the girls’ biggest clients. They spend money like movie stars. I think they’re all a bunch of phonies.”
That may have been the wisest statement Ward had heard in the past few days. Maybe longer.
Ward finished his sandwich, drank his Coke, and left a twenty on the counter. After the beating he had taken in New York, and then from Joanne, he found himself thinking very, very fondly of the two women here who had made him feel like himself again. Ward was not a religious man, but as he left the diner to go back to his room, he offered up a silent prayer of thanks.
His eyes scanned the sky as he stepped into the setting sun. He stood for a while and watched the sharp, orange orb descend behind the mountains. It wasn’t the same as watching the sun from Manhattan as it dropped behind New Jersey, planes into Newark cutting across it, smoke from industry smearing the view.
Here, it was powerful and pure. It suggested something bigger than him, bigger than jets and smokestacks.
Maybe he had never been as alone as he thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ward went to the lobby to wait for Angie. He walked around the small, cozy room which had a den in back and a small commercial corridor to the left. It must have been a helluva mansion in the region’s heyday.
He still felt bad for the kid and the pressure he’d put on her. But the alternative was to let the Muslims and possibly her father continue to use her, and that was not an option. Taking cash to look the other way while something crooked went on was one thing. Allowing this girl to be involved was very different.
At least you rolled the taste of payola over your tongue to help Megan, he thought. It wasn’t much of a consolation but it was some.
The van pulled up at ten to five. Ward went out to meet it and saw at once that something was wrong. Her expression was dull and she was not moving like someone who was near the end of the work day and eager to get home. She was going through the motions slowly, looking at the van, the asphalt, the inn, but never at him. When she pulled his bundle from the passenger’s seat instead of from the back, that sealed it. He stopped just outside the doorway and let her come to him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing, Mr.—”
“The van’s riding a little lower than before, and I don’t think it’s my shirts,” he said. “Who’s in the back?”
That caught her entirely off-guard. “Two men,” she answered before she thought about whether she should.
“Are they watching you or waiting for me?”
“You,” she said.
“Angie, I want you to go to the lobby and wait.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Talk to them,” he told her.
“Please don’t,” she implored. Her hands tightened around the bundle.
“It’s going to be fine,” he assured her. “I’m used to this. Did you happen to notice if they were armed?”
“I didn’t. They were already there when I got in.”
“Thanks. Now go,” he said, shooing her away as he walked around to the back of the van.
She left reluctantly, as though she were a plug holding all hell back. Maybe she was. Her eyes clung to him in the crawling darkness and she finally snapped them away. Ward waited until he saw her go inside then rapped on the van door with a knuckle. He didn’t want to yank it open and startle them. Getting shot was the wrong way to find out if they had guns.
“It’s John Ward,” he said. “I’d like to talk.”
The door opened slightly and he heard footsteps move away. Ward pulled the door wider and climbed in. The exterior lights of the inn had been turned on and illuminated about a foot-and-a-half of the interior of the van. Ward crouched just inside the door, saw two men sitting among the laundry bags, parcels, and clothes hanging along the left side. One was on the right, the other in the center, facing him. They were young men, no older than twenty-two or -three. The one in the center wore a hot, unforgiving look. Ward wondered if that was the kid who had played Chicken with him.
“Shut the door,” said the angry man.
“I’d like to have some light in here if you don’t—”
“Shut it or I’ll kick you out,” the man said. “You need to listen, not to see.”
At least he didn’t say he’d shoot me, the detective thought. Kid’s got an attitude and Gahrah probably didn’t want him armed. Ward scuttled forward and let the door swing closed. He sat with his back against it, legs steepled. He had marked where the handle was if he needed to reach it.
“Talk,” the young man said from the shadows.
“Sure,” Ward said. “But first, I have to tell you—this beats hitting a man from behind and then trashing his farm.”
The other young man snickered. “Khoshet miad?”
The other replied, “Vagh’an azash khosham miad.”
The tone sounded mocking rather than threatening but Ward remained on his guard.
Suddenly, the first young man moved so that he was on his knees, closer to Ward and facing him. Obviously, his idea of “menacing” was to be higher and closer. That worked both ways: it also put the punk within reach.
“We were just saying that we don’t like you,” the man said through his teeth. His hands were in motion, fingers jabbing. Presumably, rap would survive the jihad. “Now I have something to tell you. Don’t involve your New York nose in our business.”
“What business is that?
“Any of it!” he said with a sweep of his hand. “Stay out of our way or there will be consequences!”
“There will be consequences for everyone, including you, if this goes on,” Ward said. “Talk to me. Maybe we can find a solution.”
“We? Who are you? A Muslim hater looking for another lamb to slaughter?”
“Forget what you think you know,” Ward said. “I’m a guy who’s trying to fix a situation that’s getting worse.”
“Well, guy, I am not interested in discussing this with you,” the young man said. “Keep out of our business or the next meeting will not be so civil.”
“Is that what this is? Civil?”
“It is more than you deserve. Now get out.”
; Ward wasn’t leaving here without moving this in some direction. He had pricked Gahrah this afternoon or these boys wouldn’t be here. He couldn’t stop pushing now.
In the dim light coming from the windshield, the detective noticed the clothes on the rack. They were hanging in dry cleaning bags. “Hey, are those what you used to wrap your feet at the pig farm?”
The backhand slap was quick and vicious, too fast to avoid. It struck Ward’s cheek, hard, and drove him to his side. He reacted as his hand-to-hand combat training sessions had taught him to react. As he was smacked to the left Ward’s right arm came up. He used the force of the blow to execute his own stiff-arm strike against the side of the attacker’s head. He caught the man against the temple, causing him to yelp. But that was his only victory. Ward barely had enough time to raise his hands before the other man was on him. Ward was struck on the head and chest, the blows firing through his upraised arms. The other man, the one he’d struck, pulled at Ward’s shirt to try and tug his face forward, out from behind his forearms so the other man could hit him.
Ward’s only objective was to reach the door handle and get out. He needed to get the fight into the open where passersby or security cameras might see. Otherwise he had nothing on them except his word against their own—a pointless exercise. He thrust his right hand out toward the door in a few tentative stabs, always missing it before having to withdraw the arm to protect himself. Finally, he braved a flurry of blows as he used his arms to push off from the floor and get on his knees. His shirt ripped as the men grabbed at him but he was able to twist the handle and throw himself out.
He managed to swing his hands so they were under him as he hit the asphalt. One of the young men, the one who had not spoken, nearly fell out with him but managed to stop himself on the fender. That wasn’t good enough for Ward. The detective reached up and grabbed the man’s sleeve, yanking him out. Ward rolled out of the way as the young man fell, scrambling to his feet and stepping over him toward the open van. He reached in, tried to grab the instigator, but the guy swatted his arm away.
“Come on, you rat—hiding in the dark!” Ward yelled. “You’ve got the odds and ten years on me! Are you afraid?”
The kid refused to take the bait. He jumped out, helped his friend up, and they walked away.
Ward was losing his cool. He went to slap at the back of the kid’s head but his friend saw the blow coming and pulled him away. Ward smacked air, spun off balance, and the friend snickered.
“Even from behind you cannot take us,” his target sneered.
“Yeah, not as sure a thing as attacking when a man is asleep, you damn coward!” Ward snapped.
The young men still weren’t biting. They were walking toward the street, toward the Al Huda Center.
So much for pushing. The whole thing had just imploded. Or worse.
Ward’s shouts had brought people from the inn and from the car wash next door. There was no way he could afford to be seen going into the van to get the package. Not now. That would put him in jail.
Angie had run outside. “Mr. Ward, are you all right? What happened?”
“You dropped off my laundry.”
“What?”
He looked at her, saw upset in her eyes as she looked at his face and his shirt. He spoke quietly so no one else could hear. “You dropped off my laundry inside and you have no idea what happened here.”
She nodded as what he was saying had sunk in.
“Are you okay?” Ward asked. “Can you drive?”
She nodded again.
“Then just get in the van and continue your rounds now.”
Moving like she was underwater, Angie got behind the wheel. “I left your clothes with the desk,” she said as an afterthought.
He waved her away as he heard a siren growing louder along Midland Avenue. A few moments later he saw a familiar police car. Even if she were already on patrol, it would have taken longer than this for someone to see them fall from the van, call 9-1-1, and for dispatch to reach her.
Someone else had called.
Ward began to realize that he’d been had.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Police Chief Brennan did not arrive at the inn by herself. A familiar Ram followed her patrol car in.
Of course, Ward thought. Gahrah would not have sent those kids alone. They weren’t muscle. They were messengers with no authority or orders other than the message they were sent to deliver. He would have had Hamza watching and he would know what to do if things got out of hand.
Ward ignored the stares of the staff and the few guests who had come out to see what was going on. Brennan did not look happy as she pulled up beside Ward. Hamza was as implacable as before as he stopped beside the police chief.
“Mr. Ward, would you please wait for me in the lobby,” she said as she got out of the cruiser.
He knew the drill. She was going to question the witnesses then question Ward. The desk clerk gave Ward a wet cloth, told him his cheek and forehead were bleeding. He hadn’t noticed. He thanked the young man, who also handed him his laundry as an afterthought—that was almost funny—then plopped in a chair to wait for the Riot Act.
It didn’t take long. Chief Brennan used a small videocamera to record Hamza’s statement then entered the lobby and motioned Ward to get up.
“Let’s go to the den,” she said.
As they left, Ward happened to notice Debbie Wayne watching him from the parking lot. She wore her street clothes and a look of concern. He shot her an “OK” sign as he disappeared into the back room. The room was carpeted with a Persian rug and there were deer heads on the wall, above the fireplace. There was no door so they went to a corner and sat in a pair of facing arm chairs. Ward sat with the bundle of laundry in his lap. In a flash of hope he wondered if Angie had slipped him the bag bound for her home. She hadn’t.
Too bad, he thought. That would have been interesting, especially with Brennan as a witness.
“I can’t even begin to tell you how fouled up this situation is now,” Brennan said, leaning close.
“Then don’t.”
“Sorry, but I have to. They’ve got you on trespassing and assault—those are a lock—and a possible hate crime.”
“That’s rich. They were in there waiting for me.”
“Sure, but where’s your proof? Our friend out there says they were just seeing how they could make the route more efficient.”
“Right. They wouldn’t know efficiency if it were written in Farsi. And the guy who hit me—I looked into his eyes before I shut the door. That was personal. Definitely the ATV rider I faced down on Randolph’s farm.”
“Also possible. But they say you’re an Islamo-phobe and given what happened in New York they could make that stick.”
“It was bull when I got here and it’s bull now.”
“And at the risk of sounding like a talking doll I say again: I believe you, but none of that matters. Here’s the bottom line. Speaking for the two young men, Mr. Zarif says they are disinclined to press charges on one condition. You have to leave Basalt.”
“If that isn’t a confession of criminal activity, I don’t know what is.”
“You keep scoring bull’s-eyes on a Kevlar target,” the police chief told him. “None of that helps. Not a bit.”
“When do they want me gone?”
“Right now.”
“Not to Aspen, I’m guessing.”
“To New York,” she told him.
Ward was starting to boil. “This is a load of crap and you know it. They won’t press charges. They can’t afford to have this matter under scrutiny.”
“Can you afford to take that chance?”
“I don’t know.” He was thinking back, looking for loopholes. “The way that kid blew up—and for the record, he was the one who struck the first blow—I’m guessing he was also the one who clocked Scott Randolph.”
“Okay, he’s got a short fuse and I’ll surely look into it,” she said. “But right now there
’s only one guy in the hot seat and he doesn’t pray to Allah.”
“Maybe I should,” Ward said. He calmed himself the way he always did, with what he called his hard-times mantra: a year from now this will be behind me and the bad guys will be in jail. Besides, fighting the police chief would accomplish nothing except fighting with the police chief. “What I really want to do is tell the Muscle and his fellow thugs to drop dead. Have I got anything else to lose?”
“Can’t see what, and that’s surely your prerogative,” she said. “In which case you’ll have ... I’d say about ninety seconds between the time I tell him you’re not leaving and me coming back here to arrest you.”
“What’s bail on something like this?”
“You’re looking at low five figures, would be my guess. But you’re a potential flight risk so the judge may up that or make you wear an ankle bracelet or deny it altogether. She takes a pretty hard line on multiple charges. And given the complexion of our community these days, I wouldn’t blame her.”
Ward felt like one of those two-strike losers he used to bust in his early days on the street. He didn’t quite get how he’d screwed the pooch twice in one week. There wasn’t a choice to make. Prison here would sink his chances of getting even a lowly security job from someone who had a soft-spot for ruined cops.
“I’ll leave,” he said, “but you know this is wrong. They’re manipulating us.”
“I know it. And for the record, I don’t look forward to a future of more-of-the-same. They’ve gotten good at this kind of manipulation. Every time you disagree with them, it’s a hate crime.” She smiled slightly. “It felt good before, though, coldcocking the big lug. Thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome. Did they specify where I have to go? How far?”
“Unless the plane to New York makes a pit stop, that’s your destination. I said I’d take you myself.”
The monkeys were running the zoo. Ward couldn’t get his mind around the idea that America had gone from being the land of the free to the home of the frightened. Where were his rights in all of this? When did the mainstream become toxic and those who support the mainstream become unpatriotic?
The Blood of Patriots Page 12