Whistler's Angel

by John R. Maxim

  Her face had seemed vaguely familiar as well. Or not familiar, perhaps. She was more of a type. She impressed him as having that easy self-assurance that comes from good schools and good breeding. She had put him in mind of his mother. The man had more of a blue-collar look, but one that had picked up some polish over time. Gray haired, he wore it combed forward, uneven. It was sort of a Julius Caesar cut. A waitress was taking their order for drinks.

  A woman who was seated at a table in between appeared to know the man, or at least who he was. She leaned in toward the people who were with her at her table. She was whispering to them. They turned their heads to look. The man noticed and he answered with a shy little wave, but he did not encourage a further exchange. Someone famous, apparently. An actor, perhaps. That would have explained why they saved a table for him.

  Claudia nudged him. “Those two outside are back.”

  Whistler hadn’t realized that she’d noticed the two men. He looked up at them without raising his head. They were in the same spot, scanning faces again. And again they were standing well away from the entrance, just out of the reach of its lights. The bareheaded one had reached into his pocket and pulled out a stack of what looked like brochures. The other one took them, put them in his own pocket. They huddled together for a few seconds more. The hatless one seemed to be giving instructions.

  “You don’t know them?” she asked.

  “No, and they don’t know us. Claudia, it’s nothing. Eat your dinner.”

  She said, “They’re behaving pretty oddly, don’t you think?”

  Whistler thought of the diver whom she’d almost clubbed and the man on

  Grand Cayman who needed a rest room. “Claudia, they’re tourists. They just look a bit lost.”

  “No. It’s not that. They’re looking for someone.”

  He tossed a hand. “I’m sure that they are. They were probably supposed to meet up with some friends and they got their signals crossed as to where. It happens all the time. No more to it than that.”

  She squinted. “I suppose. Look, one of them’s leaving.”

  Whistler saw that the bareheaded one was walking toward the parked cars. He watched him climb into the only car there that had been backed into its space. That alone made Whistler pay more attention. The car was a Buick, older model, dark in color. Whistler noticed that the dome light never went on. In his own cars, Whistler always kept the dome light switched off. It was one of those things that he’d learned from his father. Don’t illuminate yourself unnecessarily. It was possible, he supposed, that the bulb had burned out, but it made him increasingly wary. He saw a puff of exhaust; the man had started the engine, but he still hadn’t turned on his headlights. He was obviously waiting, but his friend had disappeared.

  “Where’d the other one go?” he asked Claudia.

  “In those trees.”

  Whistler searched. He found him. The man’s back was to the restaurant. “What’s he doing now? Can you tell?”

  “He’s pretending that he’s taking a whiz.”

  From his posture and from the hunching of his shoulders, he did appear to be relieving himself. Why there, however? There were rest rooms all over. “You say he’s pretending. Why makes you think that?”

  “He’s...using his hands for something else.”

  Whistler watched him more closely. She seemed to be right. When the man finally straightened, there was no little hitch that is seen when men fix themselves. His shoulder never dipped to reach the bottom of his fly. Instead, both his hands came up to his face. They were busy there for a few seconds. When he turned, Whistler saw that he had altered his appearance.

  He had put on dark glasses but that wasn’t all. He had placed a strip of bandage over his nose and another across his right eyebrow. His face was effectively disguised. He paused for a moment and looked down toward his companion. His companion revved his motor. Whistler saw the exhaust. This one nodded in response. He unzipped his jacket. He took a deep breath and walked toward the restaurant. His right hand had reached inside the jacket.

  “He’s here to hurt someone,” Claudia whispered. “I think he has his hand on a gun.”

  “More likely a practical joke. Just be cool.”

  “Then stop him and ask him. What if you’re wrong?”

  “If I’m wrong, it’s still none of our business.”

  “I’ll ask him.”

  The man pushed through the door without breaking stride. Claudia had already slid off her stool. He grabbed her arm and hissed. “We need to stay out of this.”

  In the second and a fraction that it took him to say it, the man had crossed half the width of the restaurant and was headed toward the table by the fireplace. Too late, Whistler saw that he did have a pistol. He was pulling it from his waistband. It looked like an old Army issue automatic. As he cocked it, he shouted “God is not mocked.” In another half second, he fired.

  The sound was a thunderclap. The pistol spat flame. The man at that table had seen what was coming. He had shoved the table forward, tried to tip it toward the gunman. The shot, aimed at his heart, struck the table’s edge first and then caught him high in the chest. It spun him, knocked him down, but he hit the floor crawling. He gasped, “Not my wife. Don’t hurt my wife.”

  There was instant pandemonium. Many screams, many shouts. Men were dragging women and children to the floor and some women were dragging their men. The man with the gun shoved the table aside, knocking the man’s wife down with it. He was trying for a second killing shot.

  Whistler was already on his feet. He had picked up his barstool and was ready to throw it. He felt Claudia’s hand on his shoulder. He snapped, “Get down. Stay behind me.” But her hand had now gripped the back of his collar. She said, “No, you. You stay behind me.” She pulled him aside and then backward, off balance. He felt her free hand whip past his ear. He saw something silvery spin through the air and he realized at once what she had done.

  The man with the gun went stiff, then lurched drunkenly. He tried to bring his left hand to his head, to feel for the thing that had struck him. But his fingers were flaccid; they would not obey his brain because his brain had lost much of its function. The handle of a table knife jutted out from his temple at a spot just behind his left eye.

  That was Claudia’s knife. Whistler couldn’t believe it. It was simply not possible that Claudia could do that. And not only Claudia. No one could do that. No one makes a killing throw with that kind of a knife.

  The searching hand quivered. It was going into spasm. It knocked the shooter’s cap and dark glasses askew. His other hand, the gun hand, began clenching on its own. It jerked off several shots that went into the floor and into a neighboring table. The recoil was forcing his hand to rise up and the man was still stumbling about drunkenly. Now the bullets were spraying the restaurant at random. One struck a woman who had gotten up to run. She fell on her face without a sound. Another smashed the back window that faced a garden path. A man outside, watching, clutched his stomach as if punched. Others near him by were hit by flying glass. The whole pane collapsed, raining shards.

  Again, all this happened in not more than three seconds, in the time it took Whistler to take several long strides. He had let the barstool fall and had focused on the gun. The man who held it was no was no longer the issue. He seized the man’s wrist and jerked the arm downward, taking care to jam his thumb inside the cocked hammer so that the gun could not be fired again. The man was still flailing; he was clawing at nothing. Whistler looked into his eyes as he pried the gun loose. His eyes had no life. He’d been blinded.

  Whistler grabbed him by the hair and twisted his head until the man fell heavily at his feet. The impact altered the angle of the knife, causing the blade to slice more of his brain. The man reacted as if he had touched a third rail. He stiffened, bucked wildly, then stiffened again. Whistler dropped to one knee; he pinned the man with it. He felt for the knife sticking out of his skull and ran his fingers over its handle. He gl
anced back toward the bar where he had last seen Claudia. He still could scarcely believe she had done this. She was no longer there but he heard her voice behind him. She called, “I’ve got your back. Watch the front.”

  The place was still bedlam. Patrons scrambled toward exits; some climbed through the smashed window; others tried to crowd into the restrooms. Whistler saw that one man in a loudly striped jacket had stayed at the bar with a beer in his hand. Straw hat, tinted glasses, mid-forties. Whistler had seen him in this restaurant several times. The man’s expression was one of detached fascination as if this were a play he was watching. Whistler glared at him. “You! Get off there. Get down,” and the man quickly slid out of sight.

  Whistler turned his attention to where he’d last seen that Buick. The driver, thought Whistler, might still try to help the shooter. He could not have seen the knife. He could have only seen the struggle. Whistler spotted the Buick, its high beams now on. It was coming, not quickly, but deliberately. Whistler could make out the driver’s head and shoulders. He was stretching and craning, looking for his confederate. As he neared, the passenger window slid down, perhaps to give the driver a better view, but perhaps for him to fire a weapon. Whistler raised the automatic. He tracked the opened window in its sights.

  He heard a scuffling of feet and glanced back just in time. A young man, a big one, had risen to a crouch and was about to try to jump him, try to grapple for the gun. Whistler had no time to explain who was who. He swung the gun around, froze the young man in his tracks, then chopped it against his right ear. He wheeled again and sighted in on the Buick. He saw that the driver had indeed raised a weapon. It looked like a shotgun. Whistler squeezed off two rounds.

  The glass entrance door deflected his shots, but they shattered the windshield of the getaway car. The driver ducked down and the Buick leaped forward. Whistler heard frightened shouts and the squeal of cold tires as the driver took the shortest way out. He drove over flowerbeds and took shrubbery with him. He hit one passing car and forced others off the road as he steered toward the island’s main parkway.

  Whistler turned to check on Claudia. She was on her knees. She was giving aid to the first man who’d been shot. The man’s wife was frantic, but trying to help. She was pulling wood splinters out of his flesh. Claudia told her to leave them alone and instead put pressure on the hole in his chest while Claudia felt beneath him for the exit wound. With all that, she kept watching the back and side windows for any further threat from those directions. Whistler saw that the bartender was coming around to try to be of assistance. He waved her back and pointed to the bar phone.

  He told her, “Leslie...call 911 now. Shots fired, four down, maybe more hurt out front. And stay on the phone; don’t hang up.”

  He stepped over toward Claudia, the pistol pointed skyward. He used his free hand to make calming gestures toward those who were watching him fearfully. He reached down to the floor and picked up a red napkin. He placed the napkin over a stray table knife and tucked them both under his arm.

  He whispered to Claudia. “Come with me for a minute.”

  “No, wait. I found the bullet. It’s almost out.”

  Whistler saw what she meant. Her fingers had located an oozing lump between the man’s armpit and shoulder blade. He would have thought that it should have passed through. The ricochet off the table must have slowed it.

  “What you’re doing isn’t helping. Come with me. I’ll tell you how.”

  She looked up him, confused, but she did as he asked. She told the man’s wife to keep pressure on the wound. Whistler led her to the bar where her dinner still sat.

  She asked, “I’m not helping? What should I be doing?”

  Whistler waved that aside. He said, “Listen to me. We don’t have much time. You never threw the knife and you don’t know who did. There’s a new knife in the napkin that’s under my arm. I want your fingerprints on it and I want your food on it. Leave the knife up here on your plate.”

  “But what for?”

  “Please, this once, don’t argue with me.”

  “Adam...people saw me. They saw where it came from.”

  “They won’t agree on what they saw, or what they heard either. You never called out, ‘Watch your front. I’ve got your back.’ You wouldn’t because all you are is my bimbo, not someone who would interest the police.”

  “I understand.”

  “Wait to do the knife until I’m talking to Leslie. Wipe it first. It should only have your prints.”

  “Then can I go back and help? Even bimbos know first aid.”

  “Yes, but try to seem a little less competent.”

  From out front, he could hear the first distant sirens and he saw the faint strobing of Mars lights. He asked Leslie if she still had 911 on the line.

  She nodded, blinking. Her chest was heaving. “The dispatcher…she wants to know who here is armed.”

  He removed the clip and saw that it was empty. He ejected the one remaining cartridge from the chamber. He tossed the pistol and clip onto a shelf behind the bar.

  “Say the shooting is over. You have the only weapon. Make sure she tells the deputies not to get nervous. If they see people running it will only be your patrons. They may not have paid their bills but don’t shoot them.”

  She passed on his message. “Now she’s asking who you are.”

  He ignored the question. “Say the shooter’s accomplice drives an older blue Buick. His windshield is shot out, left front fender is smashed and the driver is armed with a shotgun. I suggest they put a roadblock on the bridge to the mainland.”

  Leslie told the dispatcher what he’d said, then listened. “She says I should tell you not to leave.”

  Whistler sighed within himself. There was no question of leaving. Leslie and the owners knew where he lived. Two cars full of deputies would be down at the marina before he could even start his engine. He reached for his Scotch but thought better of drinking it.

  Right now he and Claudia would be taking their swim if he’d said he didn’t like either blouse.

  FIFTEEN

  Four Sheriff’s Department cruisers had arrived on the scene and the ambulances came close behind them. The deputies, tan uniforms, approached with guns drawn telling people outside to stand back. Whistler heard people answer that the danger was past but too many were talking at once. One of the owners, Phil Henry, went out and tried to calm everyone down. He managed to explain what he thought had transpired. The deputies knew him. They holstered their weapons. Whistler kept his hands flat on the bar.

  A fire truck and two emergency vehicles added to the light show outside. Soon the deputies were augmented by security guards from one of the gated communities nearby. A sergeant asked the guards, who were dressed in blue uniforms, to assist in both crowd and traffic control and in gathering all those who had witnessed the shootings.

  Traffic control was made even more difficult as a television news truck tried to get through and the ambulances tried to get out. A car that the getaway driver had hit was also blocking part of the road. A few local doctors had been called from their homes to give aid to those who were less seriously injured. Most had suffered cuts scrambling out through broken windows. Others had been trampled in the general panic after the shooting had started.

  The woman who’d got up and had tried to run was dead. So was the old man who’d been walking out back and had stopped to see what was happening. The shooter with the knife in his skull was still twitching but dead for all practical purposes. His victim had already been taken away. He’d gone into shock but had been more or less conscious by the time the first ambulance rushed him to the hospital. He was able to talk to his wife, who’d gone with him. The casualties included several people out front. At least three needed treatment for injuries they’d suffered when the Buick, escaping, knocked them aside. And the young man, the big one whom Whistler had clubbed, had a probable fracture of the cheekbone.

  According to the squawks of the deputies’ ra
dios, the getaway driver had not yet been found, but a roadblock was in place on the island’s sole bridge.

  The ranking deputy was a sergeant, about Whistler’s age. A black man, light skinned; he wore wire-rimmed glasses. He already knew Leslie; he addressed her by name and asked her if she was all right. She was trembling a little, but seemed in control. He asked her several questions as he bagged and tagged the gun that she’d kept on the shelf behind the bar. She pointed out Whistler who was sitting with Claudia, their plates still in front of them, their dinners gone cold.

  The sergeant approached them, asked to see some ID. Whistler told him that he’d come out without his wallet. All he had was some cash and his rental car key. He offered to drive down to his boat and retrieve it, knowing that the offer was sure to be declined.

  “Eddie, I know them,” said Leslie. “They’re regulars.”

  “And they live on a boat?”

  She nodded. “I’ve seen it. They’re on the same dock where Phil keeps his Grady-White.”

  He said, “Give us a minute to talk.”

  As Leslie moved away to help clear the bar, the sergeant asked their names and wrote them down in his notebook. He asked the name of the boat and for their telephone number. Whistler answered all questions. Claudia remained silent. Whistler summarized what had happened that evening, or at least what he said he had seen of it. The sergeant tried to question Claudia. She seemed too dazed to answer. She sat cleaning the wounded man’s blood from her hands with a wet towel Leslie had given her. Her new blouse had his blood on it as well.

  The sergeant left to interview five or six other patrons, all of whom were still stunned by what they’d witnessed. That one man who had stayed at the bar was not among them. He had had the best view. He’d seen everything that happened. Whistler hoped that he’d chosen to melt away and not become involved the event. The sergeant finished with the others, then took Leslie aside and spoke to her again at some length. Finally, he came back to where Whistler was sitting. Claudia had still not made a sound.