Terminal Island

by John Shannon

  “Now, sir.”

  “Okay. In that time he could have wriggled out the slit.”

  “We’d’a seen.”

  “Or gone down the other tunnel.” He frowned at the dark orifice. It was pitch dark because it zigged and zagged as per military protocol, protection against blast and gunfire. He’d only been an MP in ’Nam, but he knew this was where they’d call in the tunnel rats who liked this sort of thing, feeling ahead of themselves for tripwires and booby traps.

  He was pretty sure from his own explorations as a boy that the tunnel connected to another bunker about thirty yards west, but he was tall enough that his hair teased the ceiling and he didn’t like the sense of narrow enclosure one bit. “Stay there. Did you call in the sheriff’s on a cell?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “If I don’t make it out, call nine-one-one and ask for Harbor Division detectives. My name’s Steelyard.”

  “Break a leg.”

  “Huh?”

  “It means good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  His flashlight showed about twenty feet ahead, to the first zig. There was a little less graffiti here, more smell of damp. After the bend, the floor was chock-full of used rubbers, as if there were always kids sneaking out of sight of the main party for their fun.

  After the third turning, he came to a halt with a chill. A perfect little B&O boxcar rested in a cleared spot on the floor ahead of him where his oval of light wobbled. It was HO scale, lovingly detailed, identical to three of his own. He came closer and saw that another one of the pink kitty cards jutted out of the open boxcar door. He knelt and looked it over carefully. There were no wires visible, no extraneous objects. He knew he shouldn’t touch things, but he had a surgical glove in his pocket and he tugged it on resignedly. Gingerly he took a pinch grip on one corner of the card. That was his mistake.

  The flash-bang went off in his face and knocked him flat on his ass. Blinded, at least temporarily, his ears howling with pain, he lay back and cursed himself. You big dumb shit!

  ***

  Jack Liffey parked the old VW in his allotted space in his condo’s lot and sat in it for a while after the noisy engine died, trying to recover some good cheer. The condo workers had just installed the usual Christmas lights over the entrance, but that hadn’t helped his mood much. Dicky Auslander managed without fail to annoy him to the edge of mutiny with a kind of sanctimonious goodwill that played off the therapist’s own obscure needs and theories and seemed to have little to do with him.

  Becky’s Range Rover was gone, of course, off at school. She was headmistress of a private academy for girls called Taunton and even on Saturday had to show her face. In theory he disapproved of private schools, but he did not make a big deal about it, since the relationship was so delightful and everything else in his life—barring the love of his daughter Maeve—was so fragile or so plain gone.

  “Yes, Dicky, I have my gloomy stretches. You know, in many eras of history philosophers used to cherish their dark moods.”

  “No, I’ve never wanted to think of you as my father confessor figure, whatever cute name you give it.”

  “My father’s death is none of your fucking business.”

  “If your potted fern brushes my ear one more time, I’m going to incinerate it.”

  He wasn’t sure the therapy was even necessary. If only he could get a good, deep breath, he felt he’d be on the way back to 100 percent, but some other doctors he was stuck with had their own ideas about letting it refill on its own time. It took a great deal of strength to keep illness like this from seeping into the soul. But his spirit lifted all at once when he saw his daughter’s little top-heavy car in a visitor space. Her mom had given her an ugly, but probably quite safe, brand-new Toyota Echo. The sight of the car got him moving, and he collected the mail—only bills—and went in.

  “Hon?”

  She came running and hugged him. He tried not to be aware of the pressure of her breasts. “Daddy, you’re looking much better!”

  “That’s because I am much better. Rebecca takes good care of me, in all the ways it’s prudent to talk about.”

  “To talk about with me, you mean.”

  She held him back at arm’s length, a sixteen-year-old solicitous great-aunt, almost his own height now. He wondered if boys her age had the sense to desire and cherish this precious bright being, and then part of him decided he was quite happy if they were stupid as dirt and left her alone and went for the blond cheerleaders.

  “I’m surprised you two get along so well,” Maeve said. “She’s not really your type.”

  “What’s my type? A meddler like your mom?”

  “I’ll make you some tea.”

  “Thanks.” He followed her into the kitchen, grinning, to let her fuss over him, a smaller, much more chipper version of her mother.

  “I figure your type is somebody a little less hoity-toity than Ms. Plumkill.”

  “Nice,” he said approvingly. They teased each other with old slang. “Her school’s hoity-toity for sure, but somehow she’s pretty down to earth.”

  “Uh-huh,” Maeve said skeptically. “Caff or de? I’ll bet you were crazy about going to Swan Lake last week.”

  “I’m willing to try new things, hon. E.g., you can make me some of that plum mango pomegranate persimmon watermelon perfume tea you love. Rebecca said she’d get you a scholarship to Taunton for your last two years if you’d like a close look at how the other half lives.”

  “As if. Dad, it’s an all-girls school.”

  “That would be one of the selling points, yes.”

  “Not to me. And it’s only orange mango zinger. I don’t know if I’d like rich girls, but I know I couldn’t keep up with them. Too many yachts and trips to Sun Valley. And they’ve got some attitudes I don’t think I’d like, either. We’ve got some pretty rich kids at Redondo and they can be okay, but there’s always a sticking point.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Maeve screwed up her face and it was a pleasure to watch her think in pantomime. “There’s just a way rich kids have. It comes out when you’re least expecting it. It’s like looking at all those huge ads in the front of Vanity Fair for ten-thousand-dollar watches. There’s a kind of feeling that they deserve every bit of the good stuff in the world. Not just want it and can have it because they have money, but actually deserve it. Like a birthright.”

  “A sense of entitlement, I think it’s called,” he said.

  “It’s not that it makes me think of the poor or anything. Though sometimes I do. It just aghasts me.”

  “I don’t think that’s a transitive verb, hon, but I know what you mean. A world of stuff can end up making you pretty shallow, even the richest stuff. That’s definitely why I’ve always kept us poor.”

  She put the refilled pot on the burner and hugged him again, sensing the irony. “You give me the riches of your accumulating personhood. What could be nicer? I just hope Ms. Plumkill is really good to you and you stick it out a while. You don’t have the world’s best record for lasting, you know?”

  “Ouch. By the way, what’s become of your Persian boyfriend?” Fariborz Bayat was one of the boys Jack Liffey had been hunting down when he’d got caught up in the terrorist bombing that had collapsed his lung. Fariborz had helped him foil the plot and he liked the boy a lot. He had a kind of earnestness to do the right thing.

  “He’s going to visit relatives in Iran. He wants to try living with less of what he calls ‘Hollywood capitalism.’ I understand—it’s that same business about stuff.”

  “And a flight from individualism, I’ll bet. I think I know Fariborz. He’s looking for that peace that comes with … whatever you want to call the opposite of our dog-eat-dog life.”

  Speaking of dogs, Loco wandered in, saving them from sinking further into philosophical piffle. The animal was half coyote but had recently given up his pretensions to the call of the wild and seemed to be settling in as a loving pet, particularly with Ma
eve, whom he now rubbed against. He cranked his neck up to wheedle her with his weird yellow eyes. She stooped to give the animal a big hug.

  “Hi, Loc. Old reliable.”

  “Reliable? What world do you live in?”

  “He’s changed. You just don’t give him any credit.” Maeve reached into her shirt pocket and brought out an index card, as if it were a sudden inspiration, and showed it to him. It said MEDB.

  “That’s interesting,” he said dubiously.

  “You and Mom screwed up.”

  “That’s for sure. Oh, indeed we did. I cop. Guilty.”

  “Stop it. We’ve got an Irish exchange student this year and that’s how my name should really be spelled, or ‘spelt,’ as she says.”

  He chuckled at the downright implausibility of Gaelic spelling. “Would you rather we screwed up, or would you rather spend the rest of your life explaining to surly DMV employees that you are not actually called Meddub?”

  She pocketed the card again. “Maybe the real thing’ll be lucky for me.”

  The phone rang and he decided to take it in the bedroom, away from prying ears. Loco stayed with her.

  “Hello.”

  “Is this Jack Liffey, from San Pedro High, summer ’63?”

  It gave him a jolt. It was a man’s voice, but he didn’t recognize it, and there was a faint honking in the background, as if the call were being relayed by a failing satellite.

  “The Majestics,” Jack Liffey heard himself saying. Why do we remember crap like that from so long ago? He could still see the ugly chartreuse cardigan that had been their senior class sweater, and the loopy little cross-eyed king that had been embroidered on it as their logo. He doubted they did that sort of thing anymore. The last gasp of the fifties.

  “This is Dan Petricich. We were in Mrs. Felder’s English together, but I was in the winter class.”

  Back then there had been two graduating classes every year, the big one in the summer, and a smaller one each winter, probably something to do with the baby boom. He bet they didn’t do that anymore, either, unless year-round schooling had brought it back.

  “I remember you. You used to argue back with that history teacher, the right-wing one.”

  “Mr. Gianelli. What a shithead.”

  “Give him credit, he never took it off your grade if you disagreed with him.”

  “Still a shithead. I hear you’re a detective now, Jack.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I’ve got a business card here that says you find missing children.” There was a real quaver of apprehension in his voice.

  He winced. A former woman-friend had printed up those cards for him and even put a big eyeball on them. He did his best not to spread them around. “I seem to be in a retirement phase at the moment. Some health trouble I’ve had.”

  “Suppose we just talk, Jack. I need something, some help or I don’t know what, maybe just the benefit of your experience. My kid is okay now, but somebody in a ninja suit snatched him yesterday and taped him all up with duct tape and I’m afraid they’re going to come after him again. The cops don’t have a clue.”

  There were other voices in the background, speaking in Spanish, and he could tell Dan was calling from somewhere busy.

  “I really can’t, Dan, I’m sorry. I’m under doctor’s orders. Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m on a fishing boat. Just come and talk to me, please, Jack. You can’t be that gummed up you can’t drive down here for a visit. For old times.” He seemed about to run down and then hurried on. “My kid fancies himself a goth. You know what that means, I’m sure. I’m not crazy about it myself, but it’s really pretty innocent. He’s a good kid, but who knows what some idiots think these days? Maybe they get the idea that because he wears black, he’s got a bunch of sawed-off shotguns and is laying plans to attack the school like Columbine or something so they’ve got to get him first. I just don’t know. He’s a mixed-up kid but he doesn’t deserve somebody dogging him.”

  Jack Liffey stared at the mussed bed where earlier Rebecca had sat to glower suspiciously at him as he’d turned down Art Castro’s job. He could still see the impression of her rump in the sheet, and he wished he could fondle it right now. He figured this was just a way of distracting himself from the decision he knew he was making.

  Two

  The Home Tree

  “Toot-toot there.”

  “I think I can, I think I can.”

  It was vice detectives named Cole and Buchan, sauntering languidly past his desk, and he didn’t even bother to give them the finger. Buchan made a little choo-choo alternate rotation of his arms as the two of them passed out the door toward the lunchroom.

  The wounded B&O boxcar sat in the middle of his green blotter, not just like one of his rolling stock, it was one. He’d found the telltale KS he always engraved on the potmetal undercarriage. Somebody had broken into his home without leaving a sign, and now he didn’t even know whether he was the target of the perp or the Petricich kid.

  The missing boy had been right there in the next bunker, trussed up like a rib roast with silver duct tape and beginning to go panicky at his immobility. All the boy could say about his assailant was that he was a small man but extremely strong. The guy hadn’t said a word, just come down on him out of nowhere in a black jumpsuit. The kid kept insisting it was like some graphic novel, or Japanese anime. What was left of the second pink kitty card, a bit frayed by the flash-bang grenade, revealed it to be the three of spades. It had the same Japanese ink stamp and the words Don’t get in the way. Steelyard didn’t like the way the cards had progressed from a two to a three. It implied there were a lot more in store, and probably a few pretty nasty surprises waiting up around the ace.

  “How you feeling, Ken? ¿Qué tal?”

  He felt a strong hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Gloria Ramirez, a little pale but looking fine in a navy blue business suit. She was a fairly new detective, a D-1, and he was her training officer.

  “How you doing yourself, kid? You were the one under the knife.”

  “You know how it is these days with the HMOs. If you can walk, you’re outta here.”

  “Don’t fuck around. Tell me.”

  She sat at her desk, which back-to-backed his. “They don’t know for sure, but they think it’s okay. There’s always more tests.”

  “Let’s hope. You shouldn’t be back at work yet.”

  “I’m going to do half days. You had a bit of an ER trip yourself.”

  “It was just one of those stun grenades, like SWAT uses, but I was sitting right on top of it like a moron rookie. I got all my senses back eventually.”

  She pressed her palms in front of her chin, like a Hindu set to pray, and made a face. “Ken, I know you like to be this pinche loner and head off on your own private tangent, but I’d like to learn something on this case. Even at half speed.”

  He tossed her the two cards, out of their Baggies now as the perp had wiped them down so carefully they hadn’t yielded even a partial print.

  “Nutcase,” he said. “He’s leaving them in order.”

  “Could be warnings,” Ramirez said. “Could be somebody trying to set up a treasure hunt, I suppose. Stay down. You were in a tunnel complex, and the boy was tied up down there, too, in the next room. Could have been a clue to finding him.”

  “You have been keeping up. The trey isn’t much of a clue, though. Don’t get in the way.”

  “How did he get in your house to get that train car?”

  Steelyard sighed. “You don’t think I haven’t been banging my head on that? I’ve got an alarm system. I’ve got a big, bad dog. I’ve got real Mannlicher deadbolts. How did he even know I had a train layout in the basement? How did he know it’d be me scrambled on the kidnap?”

  “How do we know it’s a he?”

  “The boy thought it was. Short and strong as an ox.”

  “That’s something.”

  “Uh-huh, we’ve eliminated half the
human race. More if you eliminate tall quadriplegics, infants, Nepalese.”

  “Why Nepalese?”

  “They don’t live around here much.”

  “I think the key is you,” she said. “It didn’t matter whether you were going to show up there or not. The boxcar would trace to you eventually.”

  For some reason he didn’t like her stating that. “How is your boyfriend taking the operation? I remember he was a bit squeamish.”

  Her face darkened. “Let’s just let that go, okay?”

  “Sure. Sorry. If you know any Japs you might ask them to translate that ink stamp.”

  “It’s called a hanko, and the preferred term is Japanese Americans.”

  “Fine, whatever.”

  “Tell me about goths, hon.”

  Maeve was inserting a Pop-Tart into his old toaster. It was not a food item he kept around much, and then he saw the fresh box she must have brought with her.

  “Those things are made out of petrochemicals and steer manure,” he admonished.

  “They’re my one lapse into junk food. I can’t help it. Brad and Mom have built a whole cuisine out of Pop-Tarts. Pop-Tart au gratin, Pop-Tart mousse, Sauerkraut and Pop-Tarts. Anyway, you eat Big Macs.”

  “Only when I’m traveling. You know why I go into McDonald’s on the road, don’t you?”

  “It’s quick and predictable?”

  “I suppose that’s part of it, but here I am, in Lodi, sweaty and road-weary because the car hasn’t got an air conditioner. I’m disappointed because some runaway kid has eluded me or cursed me out or waved a gun in my face, yet my spirit lifts because I know with absolute certainty that I can stroll into this McDonald’s and for a few bucks I can purchase thirty seconds, maybe a full minute, of politeness from a teenager.”

  She wrinkled her forehead a moment, as if she’d lost her sense of humor somewhere, and then laughed softly. “It’s true, isn’t it. But if it’s politeness you want from us, you’d better avoid goths. The whole getup’s supposed to be a thumb in your eye.”

  “They take it all seriously?”