Deadly Detail

by Don Porter

  He was watching for us, waved his bottle and indicated the empty stools. I waved at the bartender. He produced two Budweisers, popped the tops and traded them for a ten-dollar bill. One does not run a tab on Second Avenue. No one was speaking because the music was overpowering, seeming to vibrate the walls.

  I recognized the woman with Clyde, but didn’t know her name and had never made the connection. I’d seen her around Holy Cross, and once you’ve seen her, you don’t forget. We bachelors aren’t really knowledgeable about C cups and D cups. I don’t even know if there is such a thing as an E cup, but it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t wear bras, just counts on the stretching sweater and a remarkably provident nature to hold her up.

  Angie…I couldn’t quite think of her as my Angie, so I dubbed her number one, went around and hugged Angie number two. She made introducing gestures, but a speaker right behind her had a ruptured cone and the buzz was so loud there was no point in her trying to talk. Angie Two reached behind Clyde to shake my hand, and we all settled down at the bar to suck beer bottles.

  We finished that round and the bartender brought four more beers, trading for a twenty. Clyde reached for his pocket, I slapped his hand, and he capitulated gracefully. There’s a lot of symbolism there, but it’s a guy thing, and maybe Alaskan. His allowing me to pay without an argument meant that he was perfectly secure in his manhood, didn’t have to prove anything, and he was correct about that.

  The front half of the room was bar and dance floor, tables and more dancing toward the back. Most of those Second Avenue bars reach halfway through the block and connect with another bar on First Avenue. The Silver Dollar did that, but the First Avenue bars are quiet, at least comparatively, usually peopled by hard drinking working stiffs. There are seldom any women and definitely no dancing. Angie One, seated beside Clyde, did some pointing and beckoning, and the two of them got up to dance. I noticed that his nose came right to Angie’s cleavage, so being height-challenged isn’t all bad. That left two vacant stools between me and Angie Two, so I made the gestures and we met on the dance floor.

  The way she snuggled against me would have been salacious in Seattle, unthinkable in Boston, but she was just being honest. In her view, men and women dance together to cop a feel, and there’s no point in being coy about it. She led off, so I followed, and we did the Texas Two-Step. That’s two gliding steps to the man’s right, then one to the left, back to the right again. The woman is backing up and you slowly progress around the floor. It’s not a very exciting dance, but it certainly makes for togetherness.

  After two more beers and two more dances, four people got up and left a table. Clyde and Angie One grabbed the table, Angie Two and I shagged our beers, and we were finally established. At that point a waitress came around with more beers and collected more dollars. We took turns dancing, because one couple had to stay and guard the table, but it was so hot in our corner behind the bar that a little respite felt good.

  Most tables were occupied by natives, both Indians and Eskimos, and all of them intent on having fun. The atmosphere was cordial. When you caught someone’s eye they nodded and smiled. The few Caucasians scattered around, including me, were accepted and welcome. It was altogether a pleasant, if deafening, scene.

  I found myself relaxing in a way that I hadn’t since Stan’s death, and was starting to think I was having fun when four big Caucasians came swaggering in. These guys were not assassins; they were from one of the military bases, I guessed military police, and they were radiating attitude. They were head and shoulders taller than most of the crowd, and if they had come to have fun, it was a different sort from the rest of us. They strode down the length of the bar, forcing dancers to dodge out of their way, and actually bumped a couple of guys.

  It was like they didn’t notice anyone else was there, or didn’t concede anyone else the right to be there. They arrived at the end of the bar and grabbed an unguarded table. The table had been occupied by one couple, but they were dancing. The waitress came, moved the couple’s drinks to the end of the bar, and served the newcomers. One of them patted the back of her skirt, she slapped his hand, and they all laughed, including the waitress. I didn’t think she liked it; I thought she wasn’t making waves, and that probably was smart.

  The newcomers attacked their beers and the party continued, but the mood had changed. The new guys were lounging back in their chairs, taking up way too much room, so people around them had to adjust chairs and scoot tables. They were looking around the room, making remarks and gestures to each other, and it wasn’t long before they focused on our table.

  Clyde and Angie One got up to dance, and I didn’t need to hear to catch the threat. The biggest guy stood up, crossed the floor in four strides, and picked Clyde up by the shoulders. He tossed Clyde aside like a rag doll, but when he turned back to reach for Angie, he found me instead.

  I buried my left fist up to the wrist in his solar plexus, and it felt wonderful. He lunged forward with a satisfying oof, eyes and mouth wide open and leading with his chin. That requires finesse. As tempting as it is, you must never hit a chin with a closed fist, unless you’re making a movie. In real life, you’ll break your fingers and probably sprain your wrist. Use the heel of your hand, wrist stiff, roll your shoulder to get every muscle in your body behind the blow and raise up on your toes for the follow-through.

  The point of the chin is the proper target; the skull snaps back, traumatizes the vagus nerve, and guarantees a half hour’s nap. You do have to be careful because if you miss the chin and hit the nose at that upward angle, you’ll drive bone fragments into his brain and kill him. Then again, sometimes it isn’t necessary to be too careful. I hit the chin with predictable results. He staggered backward several steps before he hit the floor, but he was already unconscious.

  A hand the size of a dinner plate clamped down on my shoulder and was pulling me around. I grabbed the thumb in my right, the little finger in my left, turned around, ducked under the arm. That turned him around and I jerked the hand up between his shoulderblades.

  When your shoulder is being dislocated, your urge is to relieve the pressure and he did that by bending and lunging forward. I helped him right along. He stumbled past two chairs and we were traveling at a good clip when his head rammed into the wall beside the jukebox. Not that I was pushing so hard, but this guy must have weighed two hundred fifty pounds and he was trying to propel that out of the hammerlock. With all that weight on the move, the sudden stop cracked the plaster. He slid down the wall; I turned around. His two buddies were standing up, but they were facing a ring of Indians that would have looked familiar to General George Armstrong Custer.

  They had their hands half raised, palms out and were backing toward the door. The path cleared, half a dozen guys followed them to the door, several others grabbed the sleepers and sledded them out through the swinging doors onto the sidewalk. The swinging doors flapped a few times, and the party reassembled. Clyde and Angie One resumed their dance. Angie Two took the chance of leaving the table unguarded and met me on the dance floor. If possible, the mood in the room was friendlier and more festive than before.

  We weren’t watching time or counting beers, but I did notice that an alcoholic fog was setting in. The first indication was when Angie One came back to the table and had to use both hands to hold the chair still while she sat. Angie Two and I got tangled up, would have fallen, but we slammed into a table. The occupants had seen us coming, were holding onto their beers, and cheerfully helped us back onto the dance floor. It was getting close to pumpkin time.

  When we got back to the table, I made a head jerk toward the door. Clyde and Angie One nodded and stood, not swaying too much, and the four of us held each other up while we negotiated the party and made it through the swinging doors to the sidewalk.

  Angie Two grabbed a parking meter and leaned on it. “Wow, that was fun.” Those were the first words any of us had spoken since we met.

  Angie O
ne helped hold up the meter. “I’m so glad you guys came in. Too bad you can’t stay a few days. Your plane is early in the morning?”

  “Not too early.” Clyde pulled tickets out of his jacket pocket and double-checked. “We need to be at the airport at ten.”

  Angie One beamed at him and caressed his cheek. “Wonderful, let’s meet for breakfast.”

  Angie Two piped up. “Stay with us tonight. We have lots of room, right down the block at the Nordale.”

  That made a problem. I could imagine what she meant by lots of room, and they probably did have, by village standards. They were doing the Eskimo-Indian thing, sharing whatever they had. Any hint that what they offered wasn’t good enough for us would have been the social gaff of the century. Then, too, I was in no condition to drive. If assassins were waiting, let them figure that one out. The two Angies linked arms and wove toward the Nordale, Clyde and I following.

  We were dong fine until we got to the stairway. The Angies stalled, each clinging to a banister. Clyde and I got shoulders under derrieres, grabbed banisters ourselves, and we arrived at the top in a mass. The room was at the front, old-fashioned sash windows overlooking Second Avenue. Furniture consisted of one double bed, one chair, one dresser. The Angies disappeared into the bathroom. Clyde and I stood at the window.

  “Headed for Virginia Mason?” I asked.

  He was silhouetted in the light from the street; we hadn’t bothered to turn on the room light. He nodded. “Angie and I decided it’s time for babies. She had some female problems in her teens, we want to be sure everything is in place.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder, it didn’t seem quite right to give him a hug, but I was conveying respect and understanding. The Angies came out of the bathroom and sprawled, crosswise, in the middle of the bed. Clyde took his turn, I watched the street below the window.

  When Clyde came out, I ducked in. Both Angies were apparently already asleep. I did my thing, left the bathroom door open, light out. Clyde had stretched out beside Angie Two, and the three-foot space left for me at the foot of the bed was beside Angie One. I kicked off my oxfords and lay down. Any other time I might have noticed that my feet were off the bed from the ankles down, but just then it didn’t matter. Angie One stirred, and her hand found my shoulder, but there wasn’t any sexual tension. We were there to sleep, and that’s what we did.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Breakfast at the Model Café was a solemn affair, close, friendly, but preoccupied. Clyde and Angie Two were probably thinking about Seattle, and Angie One and I had our own worries. We flooded impending hangovers with orange juice and coffee. When the check came, Clyde and I both reached for money. He slapped my hand. It was my turn to accept his hospitality graciously and be secure in my own manhood. I’m probably not as good at that as Clyde is, but he has better reasons to feel secure.

  We drove them to the airport and waited while they retrieved their suitcase from the storage locker and dragged it to the Alaska Airlines counter. There was a spontaneous four-way hug. They turned toward the check-in line; we headed for the Buick.

  We checked on Turk because Angie wanted to go to work before noon.

  Turk was glad to see Angie, planting his paws on her window and licking the glass so she couldn’t open the car door. I went around to help and together we overpowered Turk and got her extricated. She and Turk went inside, but Angie’s trying to walk with Turk threading her legs reminded me of a fly fisherman walking in a swift current on a rocky bottom.

  Trees were now yellow to the tops while the lower branches were starting to brown. The sun was out, but not much warmth to it. I strolled around back to check on the river. Turk had dug a hole in the backyard next to Angie’s pottery firing pit, big enough for a foxhole if mortars were flying. Tiny tunnels away from his hole were the escape routes the voles had used.

  The river was changing seasons. Thin skims of ice clung on the downstream side wherever the current was blocked. A few patches of clear ice floated by, so thin they bent when the water ruffled. Eskimos call that stage new young ice. I picked up the canoe, balanced it like an oversized hat and shoved it under the house. I judged the boating season was over.

  Profound silence lay over the woods and the driveway. The world was getting drowsy, preparing for its winter hibernation. I caught a flash of movement in the woods and had the pistol on it, but it was a rabbit already turned white for the winter. He took a couple of tentative hops and another appeared behind him, so they must have had a burrow.

  When the snow comes, they’ll be as invisible as they were wearing their summer brown, but until then, they showed up through the woods like spotlights. I was glad to see them because they meant no assassins were lurking in the woods. Wolves will take advantage of the blown camouflage to fatten themselves up for winter, but probably not in Turk’s territory.

  Angie came out of the house dressed for work in skirt and blouse, heels and hose. Hard to believe she was the same person who had gone in wearing wrinkles from sleeping in her clothes. She told Turk to stay. He sat down, brushing gravel with his wagging tail, tongue lolling happily. I glanced toward the woods, but the rabbits had disappeared. We climbed into the car and I backed down the lane.

  “What is that strange aroma? Did you fall into a spice cabinet or get dumped on by a truckload of flowers?”

  “I’m wearing Shalimar, bush man. It’s a selective repellent. Sophisticated city men appreciate it, but it keeps the bums away like Deep Woods Off repels mosquitoes. How are you going to amuse yourself while I toil in the salt mine? I assume your blonde bimbo has a daytime job?”

  “Correct, and today she’s going to risk her life stealing fingerprints for us. You could mask the jealousy a little by calling her Celeste.”

  A dark blur came out of the woods on the left. I clamped on the binders, started to skid, released the brakes, and snapped us out of it. A mama moose strolled casually across the road, apparently unaware of my throwing gravel and lying on the horn. I had time for one more brake, one more slide, then took the ditch on the left-hand side behind the moose and jerked us back up onto the road. The moose continued unperturbed, jumped the ditch, and pulled down an eight-foot-high branch to munch leaves.

  Angie was no more perturbed than the moose. You get used to sudden evasive actions when you live in the Alaskan woods. We survived the slalom course and turned toward town on the Steese. In broad daylight, with no music blaring out, the Rendezvous looked sadly shabby and dusty. I used the Wendell Street Bridge, passed Celeste’s house with barely a glance, and dropped Angie at the Lathrop Building on Second Avenue.

  “What time shall I pick you up?”

  “Forget it. I’m off after the six-o’clock news, but I’ll grab a taxi. If you decide to fly off to Point Barrow, leave me a note, but I don’t want to stand on Second Avenue waiting for you to get back.”

  There it was again, same lack of confidence in my scheduling that was keeping Connie turned off. There must be something fundamentally wrong with my genes.

  “Okay, suit yourself, but do be careful. Don’t come out the door until the cab is waiting, and pay attention to traffic. If a car follows you onto Boat Street tell the cabby you’ve changed your mind and have him take you straight to the cop shop.”

  “You think more assassins are lined up waiting to take a shot at us?”

  “Angie, I’m almost sure of it. Someone at Interior bought two more tickets, this time from Seattle. I don’t think they’re for cousins coming to visit. You do have security at work?”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty good. We get stalkers and kooks harassing talent, and reporters get death threats now and then. Our receptionist has a button on her desk that sets off a buzzer in the shop. That brings the entire technical crew storming out waving wrenches and screwdrivers. I do get the message, and I will be careful. You just concentrate on staying alive to meet me for dinner.” She swept the area with her eyes, hunkered down just a little, and scooted into the
building.

  When she’d asked about my plans, I hadn’t answered because I didn’t have any. Still, habit pulled me toward the airport. Maybe I should stake out the passenger terminal and see if Marino was meeting an army packing cannons. I stopped at the strip mall, found a copy of An Infantry Lieutenant’s Vietnam by Ivan Pierce at Borders, a couple of Cokes at Safeway, and steeled myself for a long hard vigil.

  The wisdom of the ages is to keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. I figured that meant keeping an eye on Interior and maybe following Marino if he came out. I parked between hangars to see what was going to happen next. The Otter was in its spot, and next to it a Skyvan had its rear ramp down.

  An F-27 with Interior’s blue-and-gold logo pulled off the runway and lumbered between rows of planes to stop in front of the freight shed. The building’s overhead door opened and two forklifts emerged. They took turns, transferring the first six pallets into the Skyvan, then moving freight into the shed. A dozen pallets went in, different pallets came out and were hoisted into the F-27.

  The forklifts retreated and the warehouse door closed. The left prop started to spin, wound up to a blur and billowed smoke when the turbine caught. The pilot used only one engine to turn the bird and started down the line before he cranked the right. Nice guy, he didn’t want to sandblast the office, but his boss was inside so it made sense. The F-27 streaked down the runway, lifted off, and continued south toward Anchorage.

  Reginald’s Mercedes was in the lot. Dave’s Cadillac was not. Several other cars were scattered around and one of them was a cute little teal blue Miata that I’d noticed parked on the street when I picked up Celeste, so I guessed it was hers.

  Freddy came out of the office wearing coveralls, and trudged toward the Skyvan. I was too far away to see features, but his walk was familiar. Someone should do a study of that. I think walks may be as individual as fingerprints. He climbed into the Skyvan and a moment later the rear ramp swung up and closed. Turbines spun and smoked, the Skyvan lurched out of the line and waddled toward the taxiway. The Skyvan is a one-purpose airplane, fairly common in bush work but unusual elsewhere. It’s a boxy-looking bird, short square wings, a turbine on each, and the body ends at the rear of the ramp with tail feathers mounted above it. The gear is short, but wide, so it looks as if it were dragging its belly. The only reason it flies is that the entire body is the shape of an oversized wing. It was carrying six large pallets. The Otter would have been strained with four, and boxy or not, the Skyvan is faster. He broke ground halfway down the strip, so he was heavy, climbed to five hundred feet, and turned north toward Alaska’s newest bonanza.