Deadly Detail

by Don Porter

  I settled down with my book and was instantly transported to Vietnam. Pierce has a different perspective, not gung-ho or bloodthirsty, not concerned with the politics. He describes his life there with the same candor and word pictures he might have used to write about his former life on the Idaho farm. I cringed when the bullets flew, laughed when the sappers came, shook my head at the idiocy of military intelligence, and forgot about time until Dave’s Cadillac turned off the airport road and parked at Interior. He didn’t have any gunmen with him. My watch said four-thirty. I popped the second Coke, but it was warm and seemed to be all fizz.

  At six-ten Reginald and Marino came out together, got into their respective cars and headed for town. Celeste’s Miata was still in the lot, so I let them go. She came out ten minutes later, slipped into the Miata, and I followed her toward town. The exodus from the airport area was on, Fairbanks’ version of rush hour, so there were a dozen cars on the road. She pulled into the strip mall, and when she came out with an armload of groceries, I was leaning against her car.

  “Hi, Celeste, remember me?”

  “Alex, gee, I’m sorry about the other night. You had my hormones in such an uproar I couldn’t think straight.”

  “No problem, I can relate to that. Just call me Peg Leg. Any luck with the fingerprint detail?”

  “Yeah, worked like a charm. Reginald and Marino left together early and when I took some papers into Reginald’s office, there were two brandy snifters on his desk. I don’t know which was which, so I brought both of them. Only problem is I have to replace them before morning because he’ll miss them, and I’d be the prime suspect.”

  I opened the car door for her. She leaned into the car to set her groceries on the seat and came out with a brown paper bag.

  I took the sack. “Good girl, well done. This might be interesting.”

  “Do you play cloak-and-dagger games all the time?”

  “More cloak than dagger, but some of my charter customers are cops so I can sometimes wrangle a favor. How do I get the glasses back to you?”

  “Could you just put them in my car sometime tonight? I wish I could invite you up to the house, but Mother wouldn’t like that.”

  “She’s a smart lady, but how did she learn so much about me?”

  “It’s not you, personally. She hates men with such a passion that I’d think she was a lesbian if I weren’t evidence to the contrary. I think the main purpose of this trip was to warn me about men for the umpteen-jillionth time. She’s still trying to raise me, you know?”

  “Yep, I understand. My mother didn’t make it this far, but she was still calling me her precious sonny and hinting that I should go into the ministry after I was a thirty-year-old disaster. Thanks for the glasses. I’ll stick them under your car seat and call you in the next couple of days with a full report.”

  She stepped against me, so I wrapped arms around her and we kissed. It wasn’t much like our date, but it definitely was not sisterly. She slipped into her car and drove away. I went to the pay phone and called Lieutenant Stella.

  “Hi, Jim? Alex. Any chance you could run some fingerprints for me?”

  “You have an idea who’s hiring your executioners?”

  “Maybe, bare possibility. Anyhow, there’s a guy I’m wondering about and he doesn’t seem to have a background. I have a couple of brandy snifters and one has his prints on it. Might answer some questions.”

  “Okay, drop them by the station. I can probably get you an answer by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Ouch, that’s a problem. I’ve got to return these glasses before morning and I do believe they’re crystal. Might be hard to find substitutes tonight.”

  “Not a problem. We can lift the prints and give the glasses back in an hour or so. Alex, I won’t be at the station when you get here, but I’ll leave instructions. Just give them to the desk sergeant and wait.”

  “Can do. Thanks a lot, Jim.”

  “Happy to oblige, anything that will get you off our streets before you start shooting again.” He hung up. I drove out to the state office building and presented the paper sack to the desk sergeant, who was surreptitiously watching Seinfeld on a small portable TV. I was sorry to interrupt him, but he didn’t offer to let me watch, so it served him right. I plunked down in a hard wooden chair designed to torture prisoners, and finished the book. Pierce volunteered for three extra months of duty in Dak To in exchange for R&R in Hong Kong. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as I first thought.

  The sergeant answered his phone, disappeared into the inner sanctum and came back with the sack and glasses. I thanked him as if it had been his idea and drove over to Wendell Street. Celeste’s Miata was parked in front of her house, doors unlocked. I stuffed the sack under the front seat and sneaked away without being spotted by her mother.

  Angie had been right not to wait for me on Second Avenue, but I did think I was in time for dinner. I was just ready to turn off of Boat Street into the complex when I noticed a car parked across the street a couple of hundred feet past the drive. I could see lights on in our cottage so Angie was home, but that car didn’t seem right. I drove on by.

  Two people were sitting in the car, not Dick and Jane, more like Dick and Richard and they weren’t doing anything obvious, just sitting and watching. I got a very uneasy feeling that they were waiting for me to come home. I drove two more blocks, turned left for one block, back four blocks, and raced to the service station and the pay phone on Cowles Street.

  “Angie, stay put. Stay away from windows and don’t open the door until you’re sure it’s me.”

  “Alex?”

  “No time, explain later. Put on your Cat Woman suit and be ready to run.”

  I called Pizza Hut and ordered one large with everything to be delivered to bungalow number three at the River’s Edge.

  When the minivan with the lighted Pizza Hut sign came down Boat Street, I stepped out and hailed him. If we’d been in a city, he would have suspected a hijacking and driven on by. In Fairbanks, he expected I had a problem and pulled over, so he was surprised when I hijacked him. I didn’t use the pistol though. I used a hundred-dollar bill.

  “Look, buddy, my girlfriend is in that bungalow. Her husband is one mean son-of-a-bitch, will shoot me on sight, and both of us if he sees us together. Our job is to get her out so we can catch the evening jet to Vegas.” The driver was nodding. Truth is, that’s almost as classic an Alaskan story as the moose on the highway.

  “What do I have to do? I ain’t getting shot for no hundred.”

  “No danger. He’s watching for my car. Just stop in front of the bungalow, park as close as you can, and loan me your hat. I’ll make the delivery.”

  “Okay, but if anything moves, I’m gone.”

  “Right. Here’s a retainer to show good faith.” I tore the hundred in half and handed half to him. He took off his hat and passed it over while he turned into the River’s Edge driveway. He stopped the van almost on the step, solidly blocking the view from the car that was still lurking beside the road. I put on the cap, took the “Stay Hot” pizza box and marched up to ring the doorbell.

  “Hey, Angie, it’s me. Open the door, then duck down and run to the van.”

  The door opened and a black streak went under my left elbow. I waited long enough to be plausible, closed the door and got back in the van.

  “Okay, we’re gone.” The driver liked that. He spun us around so fast I was afraid he’d arouse suspicion, but we made it to the road and turned toward town. The mysterious sedan was still parked. There were only two seats in the front of the van, so Angie was crouched down between us, and the driver seemed to approve of my choice. He let us out next to the rented Buick. I gave him the other half of the hundred and the thirty for the pizza, and handed back his hat. I steered Angie into the Buick and handed her the pizza, but popped the trunk and grabbed the shotgun before I got in.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I leaned the shotgun
between the seats. Angie handed me a steaming hot slice of pizza on a napkin. She was halfway through one of her own. “Hey, this is pretty good and I was starving, but isn’t this the hard way to invite a girl out for dinner?”

  She had a point. My stomach growled and I treated it to the tip of the pizza slice. I got anchovies, mushrooms and olives in one bite, and almost forgot the suspiciously parked car.

  “Angie, remember your idea of shooting a few assassins every day before lunch? We missed this morning, so how about a couple during dinner?”

  “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “I wish to heck I was.”

  “You know, Alex, the most desirable and marriageable of all male attributes is being on time for dinner, but if you can’t manage that, a hot combination pizza is a good substitute. After that, a girl does like to be surprised, and you’ve got that one down pat.”

  We drove back toward the River’s Edge but turned inland a block before we got there, drove a block past, and parked on the side street. I had finished my slice, and Angie was halfway through a second. She ripped hers in two, handed half to me. We got out of the car and closed the doors silently. I carried the shotgun at my side between us as inconspicuously as a twelve gauge with a thirty-inch barrel can be carried, and we strolled up Boat Street toward the back of the parked car. It was dark, no streetlights, so the car was a silhouette against the resort. No buzzing insects, just the occasional hum from a passing car two blocks away on Airport Road.

  We walked quietly on the pavement, and I hoped that if we were noticed we’d be taken for a pair of young lovers out for a stroll. I leaned close to Angie and whispered.

  “Angie, here’s the drill. The two guys in that sedan have been parked watching our bungalow for at least an hour. I’ll take the driver’s side, you take the other and you get the shotgun. We jerk their doors open at the same time and cover them, then see what happens next. If the door on your side is locked, blow the handle off with the shotgun, but I drove by earlier and they seemed to have their windows open. That’s good enough.”

  Angie nodded, took the shotgun, and we split to walk up beside the car. The windows were open, engine running, heater blasting, and fifties music on the radio. I nodded over the car roof and we each jerked a door open. I had the pistol solidly in the driver’s face. “Hands on the wheel and do not move.” Angie had whacked the passenger in the temple with the shotgun barrel and he was shaking his head, trying not to black out, not sure at whom to look. “You, passenger, hands on the dash and stop breathing.” He obeyed instantly. Who wouldn’t? Angie was still pressing the gun barrel against his temple.

  I spoke to the driver. “I’m the nervous type and my trigger finger itches. You move one eyebrow and this .357 will go through both of you.” I reached into his jacket, pulled a .45 automatic out of his shoulder holster and tossed it into the back seat.

  “Okay, Angie, your turn. Yours is a lefty so the pistol is on his right side.”

  “Say ahh,” Angie said.

  The passenger did. She shoved the gun barrel into his mouth until it hit the back of his throat, kept her right hand on the trigger and used her left to open his jacket and extract his pistol. She followed my example and tossed the automatic into the back seat.

  “Okay, Angie, I’ve got them covered. You get in back.” She pulled the barrel out of the poor guy’s mouth and left him gasping like a guppy. She climbed in but rested the barrel against the back of his neck. I slammed the front door but kept my pistol on the driver while I climbed in beside Angie and nudged the back of his skull with the barrel.

  “Okay, very slowly, right hand only, put the car in gear. Now both hands on the wheel, drive straight ahead, and any bumps will probably cause an accidental shooting.”

  I had the impression that these guys were pros, not terribly frightened or very surprised, and that was a good thing. They knew this was our turn and since we hadn’t shot them yet, they had a chance to survive if they did what they were told. Amateurs might have panicked and done something stupid, but our driver followed instructions, straight to the cop shop. Angie got out first, still pointing that ugly shotgun at the front seat. I made the suggestion and both men got out with hands on their heads.

  Each with a gun barrel against his spine, they marched up the steps and into the vestibule. The desk sergeant recognized me, sighed at yet another interruption to his TV.

  “We came to see Lieutenant Stella.”

  “Right, he just came in.” The sergeant punched buttons on his phone and whispered to it. Jim Stella came out of the back room.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “You wanted me to stop shooting assassins, so we brought these two in for you.”

  “Preferring charges?”

  “Well, we didn’t wait for them to shoot us, but they were carrying concealed weapons. Both are wearing shoulder holsters and their automatics are in the car outside. Is that enough to hold them?”

  “Yeah, that’ll do it.” The driver still had his hands on top of his head. Stella clapped a cuff on his right wrist, jerked it down behind his back, then cuffed the left over the guy’s shoulder. “Pensguard?” Stella said. The desk sergeant jumped up, scooted around the desk, and cuffed Angie’s prisoner.

  “Their automatics and luggage are in the back seat, so you probably want to impound their car, but we could use a ride back to our hotel. Maybe if you pound their toes with a hammer, we’ll find out who hired them?”

  “Vee haff our vays,” Stella said, imitating a terrible German accent. “Pensguard, get them a ride.”

  Pensguard ran back around his desk and punched buttons on the phone.

  “We really are in a hurry,” Angie said. “Our pizza is getting cold.”

  ***

  The toaster oven in our bungalow warmed the pizza two slices at a time. It wasn’t entirely successful because it also dried it out a bit, but it was okay in an emergency. Our mini-bar didn’t have Captain Morgan, but it had dark Myers. I wish I could describe the flavor of Myers. It puts me in mind of almonds, but that’s not right. Perfect for pizza in any case, and Angie seemed to agree.

  Angie sampled her pizza, wrinkled her nose, but then dived in. “Lovely dinner, sir. Shall I find some candles?”

  “Nah, candles are an asset for blonde bimbos, but with the stark reality of your flawless beauty, the more light the better. Do you suppose it’s time to move again? Mary Angela seems to have blown her cover.”

  “Is there any point in moving? There are only so many hotels in Fairbanks, you know. Of course we could go back to the Maranatha.”

  “We don’t have to stay in Fairbanks. The 310 can set us at the Circle Hot Springs Lodge in forty minutes and we could commute.”

  “Could, but if we’re going to commute, we could move back to the house. With Turk on guard we won’t be murdered in our beds. I know, there’s only one way in and out, but I could ride shotgun, literally.”

  “Well, there is one advantage to the house. The trick is to do something they won’t expect, and they certainly won’t expect that.”

  Angie finished her slice and drained her glass. “Okay, it’s settled. Tomorrow morning, it’s back to the homestead. Let’s hit the sack, Alex. Something about ambushing gun-toting desperados takes the starch right out of me.”

  “Bathroom after you, madam.”

  “Thanks.” She took her little bundle of pajamas with her and closed the bathroom door. I turned on my reading light and snapped off the overhead. I’d kicked off my shoes and removed my shirt and tee shirt, but I didn’t feel good about getting into bed. The Chena was rushing past our window. It was a black snake with hints of foam and movement, but it was unconcerned. Were we safe for one more night? I felt the need to do something unexpected long before morning.

  I bunched up the pillows in both our beds so there appeared to be bodies in them and snapped off the reading light. When Angie came out of the bathroom I put my finger to her l
ips in a shushing sign and caught her hand. We slipped out, barefoot and wearing nothing much, and padded across the grass to the next cabin. It wasn’t locked. We didn’t turn on lights, but I did lock the door from the inside, and we slipped into the beds.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It happened overnight. Jack Frost had etched the lower half of our window. He’d done a beautiful job with swirls and impressions of tropical jungles. If it had been colored, it would have looked like a New York subway car. Angie was bouncing on tiptoes, staring through the clear spot at the top.

  “Better come have a look, author of my present predicament.”

  I joined her at the window. She hadn’t bought pajamas for me so I’d been sleeping in my shorts, but fortunately this time I had included pants. The lawn was a white carpet of frost, the white Buick looked fuzzy, with no windows showing.

  “Perfect,” I said. “All part of my plan. Notice we can see that there are no footprints leading to our bungalow?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s good, but we’re going to have to make some and we are barefoot.”

  “Never fear, my lady. I, your self-sacrificing protector, shall brave the arctic and retrieve your shoes.”

  “Damn, I hate that macho bullshit. Let’s go.” She opened the door and we tore across the lawn, leapt up the steps, and slammed the door of our bungalow. I stamped my bare feet and scuffed them on the carpet. Angie sat down on the bed and massaged hers. I brought a towel from the bathroom, knelt by the bed, and dried her feet.