Next Last Chance

by Jon A. Hunt

“What?” The voice behind the peephole was arguably feminine.

  “Nolman home?” I asked.

  “He ain’t.”

  “Can you say when he’ll be back? I owe him money.”

  Something like laughter came from inside, though plainly the person making the noise didn’t think I was funny. “Bullshit, you’re cops. Scram, ‘less y’all got a warrant.”

  “Ma’am, I’d rather not kick in the door.” Then again, what did I care if management denied my application?

  “You’re bluffing!” hissed Honeywell.

  “You’re not helping,” I said through my teeth.

  A chain rattled. The cheap deadbolt let go with a grinding pop. The door eased back from its gnawed frame nine inches. A sour perfume of sweat, cigarettes and beer made me glad I couldn’t see inside. The woman glaring up at me was an underfed pit bull in a filthy tank top.

  “I fucking told you he ain’t here. Got no idea where he is or when’s he’s comin’ back. Never wouldn’t’ surprise me.”

  Never wouldn’t have surprised me, either.

  “Mrs. Endicott?”

  She spat past me onto the step. Honeywell stepped back involuntarily. “Sure. Till that motherfucker turns up dead or I scrape up two-hundred for a divorce. If y’all owe him for real, give it to me.” She flashed an unbrushed smile and drew back her bony shoulders. I wished she had more on under the threadbare tank top.

  Something went bump in the dark and swore. Honeywell’s gun hand went behind her.

  “You might let your guest know my friend will shoot him if he moves again.”

  Mrs. Endicott tensed and tipped her sharp chin to yell into the gloom. “Randall! Can it!”

  When she leveled a red-rimmed gaze at me again, anxiety showed through the bravado.

  “Look, the landlord ain’t gonna wait for Nolman to pay rent. Gone two months. No call, no ‘Sorry, Belinda’ letter, no check, nothin’. I don’t got skills for a job, but if Randy likes what I got and doesn’t mind payin’, I gotta do what I gotta do. Guess that means doin’ Randy.”

  She said it softly. Randall probably didn’t hear. I bobbed my head to let her know I understood. But understanding her plight wasn’t as good as getting useful information.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a recent picture of him around, would you?”

  “Yeah. Like I’d keep that asshole’s picture around. You gonna show me a warrant, or you gonna bust in without one?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “I think we’re done here.”

  “Then fuck off!”

  The door banged shut, the deadbolt squeaked home and the chain lock clattered.

  Twenty-one

  I drove Honeywell back to the condo so she could finish her shift trying to follow me in a company car like her boss expected. Then I lost her in the promised six blocks and continued to Green Hills. The last thing I needed at Hillbriar was a female sidekick.

  The gates parted as I turned off the road. Honeysuckle still crowded the guardhouse; the most Southern of perfumes greeted me through the window I’d opened needlessly for the intercom. I followed the stone-edged drive through the paddock. Every section of fencing had been made new. Every injured tree had been manicured or removed without so much as an errant twig out of place. You’d never have guessed the wind blew there without permission.

  Horses browsed in tranquil groups of two or three, plus one loner who commanded a larger swath of grass than he could consume by himself in a week. Whiskey raised his head and regarded me with a lordly eye.

  An electric cart with knobby tires met me at the second set of gates. Waldron drove it. We stopped alongside one another facing opposite directions.

  “‘Afternoon, Mr. Bedlam.”

  “How’ve you been, Waldron?”

  “No good cause for complaint in forty years,” he said. “Missus Sandra’s up at the house.”

  “Sober?”

  “Yessir, like Sunday mornin’ since I moved the Macallan.” Mischief glittered under those caterpillar brows. “I’ll put it back ‘fore the weekend. Mr. JD’s to be home then.”

  “He finished his out of town business.”

  The caretaker moved his silver head side to side. Those arthritic shoulders probably hadn’t tried a shrug in years. “You’ll have to ask Missus Sandra.”

  We let off our brakes simultaneously. I went up. He continued down. The mansion and stable house grew large with nearness. Somehow the watchful guest house remained the same size. The bronze foal’s under the fountain were too busy cavorting to notice me. The old gardener in khakis did, however, and vanished by the time I got out of my car under the canopy.

  She waited on quarried steps that connected the prodigious main entrance to the drive under the canopy. JD wasn’t due home till the weekend, so I assumed she waited for me, a wealthy damsel in distress standing around looking beautiful till I showed up to save the day. A burgundy skirt spilled in pleats to the ankles of Italian riding boots that had never met stirrups, up top she wore a sleeveless black silk number; a lot more clothing than the last times I’d seen her. I tried not to let my disappointment show. Her copper hair tumbled over one bare shoulder.

  “Tyler…”

  I let the sound of my name percolate a bit before ruining the spell. “I’m close,” I said. “With luck I’ll wrap your problem up Thursday morning. His name’s—”

  “I don’t want to hear it!”

  The gold-flecked eyes widened with urgency. She was stunning as always but something worse than a hangover had been eating her insides.

  “But it’s nearly over.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. I need you to stop. Now. I can’t….” She faltered.

  “Don’t sweat getting the money this time. All I’ll need is the envelope.”

  She stepped off her stone pedestal, down to my mortal earth. The hands that clutched mine were ice. Her flowery perfume embraced my senses.

  “I want you to drop the case, Tyler. Give me an invoice, stop where you are. Catching this person can only make things worse. Forget about it. Please.”

  “Ignoring him won’t make him go away.”

  Her chilled fingers twined in mine. A crystalline droplet traveled the curve of her cheek; even her tears resembled diamonds. Let the old gardener see. Let the stable hands gossip. I pulled her up against me so she could bawl on my shoulder like she wanted.

  “What’s going on, Sandra?”

  She burrowed into my chest and shuddered, said nothing more till I pressed.

  “Have you talked with JD?”

  The frigidity transferred from her hands to her voice. Now that I thought about it, her husband’s name left me cold, too. “Yes,” she said. “Sunday.”

  Whether the ‘39 Macallan had been cause or effect, that conversation couldn’t have been a good one. I waited. I’d have stayed there and waited a long, long time.

  “Jonathon wants a divorce,” Sandra whispered eventually. “He’s bringing the paperwork with him on Saturday.”

  I don’t handle divorce cases. Other PIs need work more desperately than me, and with Sandra’s quiet proclamation, the more I lingered the closer I came to being part of the problem. I promised to bring an itemized bill when JD returned. If Rico hadn’t killed me by then.

  The upper gates ground aside for me but they weren’t the only obstacle. JD’s infamous prize jumper stood in the center of the drive. His ears were neither all the way back nor pricked forward. The silken tail flicked languidly. Like every horse I’d ever met, Whiskey’s face lacked expression, but his body language exhibited nothing more sinister than curiosity. I could never be sure. I eased the brakes on and rolled down the window.

  “I suppose you heard the news, too,” I said.

  His big hooves thudded solidly in the lawn beside my car. He stopped again, half an arm’s length from the outside mirror. I could have reached out and patted his knee, except that I was fresh out of stupid for the day. I followed his silent gaze via the mirror, bac
k up the hill to the mansion. Sandra had gone back indoors and wasn’t part of the reflection.

  Or was Whiskey’s attention directed elsewhere?

  The guest house darkened the space between the main house’s canopy and the stables.

  “‘Night, fella.”

  I coasted the rest of the way to the front gates.

  My digs hadn’t been broken into today. The dishes hadn’t washed themselves, either. I rinsed a glass from the kitchen sink and filled it from the only bottle I had—not single-malt Scotch—and took it out to the balcony to think. Streets nineteen stories down showed more asphalt than automobile. Nashville hadn’t gotten so big that Tuesday nights bustled. I’d strung out the journey home with a stop at the gun range and a unnecessary side trips to annoy Keith, who’d picked up my scent not far from Hillbriar. He managed to stick with me till I pulled into the parking garage shortly after midnight.

  The manila envelope Nolman addressed and precisely stamped lay on the counter under a half empty liquor bottle. I knew precisely where Mrs. Endicott’s neglectful husband would be, come Thursday morning. Too bad I’d just been fired.

  Sandra’s emotions had always been veiled, even when she’d tempted me. Her anger and tears flowed over deeper currents I couldn’t fathom. Except for tonight. The fear had been no mere dread of loss or the unknown. Sandra’s had been the terror of certainty. Something terrible was going to happen and that manila envelope had something to do with it.

  Had JD discovered enough to be dangerously enraged? He wasn’t as high-principled as the rest of Nashville made him out to be. I didn’t think so. I still hadn’t seen some important parts of the picture. And JD’s character was too deliberate for hot-blooded violence.

  Cheap whiskey seemed harsher than it used to.

  Why did the horse with the same name hate booze so much? He’d been thoroughly incensed at the intoxicated Sandra; any other time he was a big pussy cat around her.

  Answers were near enough to make my skin tingle. Forget about it, Sandra had said. But you don’t just walk away from a job that close to done. Unfinished business screws with a guy’s brain worse than alcohol or lack of sleep. I dumped the glass’s contents over the rail, watched the liquid disperse to a drunkard’s perfume as it fell, then went inside to get some shuteye.

  The horse bore down at a ferocious gallop and I couldn’t remember how to run. The earth boomed, a sodden drum, amplifying each murderous hoof beat deep beneath the grass that clung to my bare toes. It was a dumb place to be in pajamas. I wouldn’t know better, I’d been drinking. The air reeked of ‘39 Macallan. Whiskey hated that smell. He’d trample me for sure.

  I might shoot him. Only my gun wasn’t with me. Someone else had it.

  A massive, sinewy form lunged toward me, defined by glowing outlines. The resonant sod flared with every impact, blazing green under the mighty hooves.

  Not sparks.

  Numbers.

  The alarm stared mutely back at me till I regained my bearings and a reasonable heartrate. Then it added a minute to let me know at 3:23 AM I wasn’t a smashed mess on JD’s lawn. And I sure as hell was sober.

  I sat up. The room wasn’t dark. I’d never owned drapes, preferring to sleep with street lights showing through plate glass. In a past life I must’ve been a pet goldfish in a casino. Downtown’s aura wasn’t green. The emerald flicker from my nightmare winked beyond the open bedroom door, from the living room where I’d left my phone. I hauled myself from the sweaty sheets and padded out to investigate.

  The remote camera app had seen something.

  Keith shouldn’t have napped. By the time he got his car out of the lot, I was gone. Dover’s tough guys hadn’t been on the ball, either. I sped unchaperoned along empty streets with a.45 under my arm and industrial bolt cutters on the passenger seat. Clearly I was up to no good.

  My phone rode in the center cup holder. The blinking stopped. Whatever activated the micro-camera had never resulted in anything except black-and-white infrared images of the shed behind Hillbriar. The device’s fourteen-hour service life had expired; it could be malfunctioning. But if it still functioned as intended, that dovetailed perfectly with my nightmare.

  The determination to zip across town instead of dropping back into my pillow wasn’t fueled by visions of charging horses or glowing lawns. Smells had nothing to do with it. Sounds did. The ground had boomed drum-like, hollow, when Whiskey and I had our Mexican standoff outside Hillbriar’s guest house last Thursday. I thought I knew why.

  Headlights sparked behind me. I eased off the gas. Getting pulled over meant trying to explain the gun and bolt cutters. Keith and whoever else might be interested would catch up, at best; I’d be hauled off in a squad car, at worst. The other car turned onto a new street.

  Amber lights winked at each intersection, arrhythmic as fireflies. A northbound Metro car passed. The turnoff for Hillbriar came and went. The police car dipped out of sight beyond a crest. I heaved the Charger onto the gravel track to the shed without touching the brake pedal, so my brake lights wouldn’t give me away. Farther from the street, I doused the headlamps and crept forward by running lights alone. The moon hung too low to help. I parked by feel, shut the car off and had a clever moment. Two of Danny’s micro-cameras were still in the glove compartment. I affixed them to the sun visors, one facing forward, one aft. Then I crouched outside on the forest side of the vehicle till my eyes acclimated. A cricket symphony whirred, frogs on bass. I listened and detected only faint whooshes from Franklin Pike, nothing as loud as someone coughing during a scherzo. Maybe bugs considered human sounds their background noise. I hefted the bolt cutters and went up the road.

  Straight lines and right angles differentiated the shed from organic surroundings. I ran a hand along the front instead of chancing the penlight. Weathered wood and cool iron passed under my fingertips, followed by the smooth stolen padlock. I could open it again with picks but it wouldn’t be four in the morning forever. The squeak and heavy snap of sheared steel caught the frogs’ attention. For twenty seconds only the crickets sang, then the drawling burps of amphibians resumed. I pitched the ruined lock into the forest and circled to the broken window.

  Poison ivy brushed my sleeves lovingly. Up on my tiptoes, my chin was level with the square black hole. I’d have to risk a little light.

  The new car shone glossy in the penlight beam. Nothing had changed. I turned the light and my attention to the lock mechanism on the inside joint of the carriage doors. Why hadn’t I realized the thing must be wirelessly controlled? I hung the bolt cutters over the damaged window frame and dug my phone out. True to form, I’d turned it off. I had to lean precariously against the shed wall and avoid the ivy’s kiss while the phone rebooted.

  One of the best gimmicks Danny had installed was an application he called a Rolling Code Generator. In a nutshell, the phone broadcasted a frantic stream of signals, sensed reactions from remote controlled locks or garage doors, and eventually stumbled onto the signal to open them. The time required varied—I’d once run the battery dead sitting outside a Bellevue garage in the rain for six hours—but usually something happened in minutes. I activated the program and pocketed the phone. I turned off the penlight, too, and made myself as comfortable as possible with an ear toward the window. The bugs and frogs seemed louder than usual.

  Sixteen minutes is a long time when you’re trying not to fall asleep against a shed wrapped in poison ivy. The phone’s gleeful quiver half startled me. A very slight vibration traveled from the planks into my shoulder. Up came the penlight.

  The deadbolt looked the same. However, an inch wide gap appeared between the carriage doors. I snapped the light off and circled back to the front of the shed. The doors parted soundlessly when I took hold of them. When I pulled them together again from inside the lock reengaged with a smug clunk. Comforting.

  I worked the penlight over every surface. No switches for the door or for any lights were to be found. The rough plank walls were bare exce
pt for the built-in shelves at the rear.

  The car hadn’t moved. A film of dust lay over the sheet metal and tires. When it did move, I’d bet on it being fast. Inside were racing-style seats, drilled aluminum pedals, extra gauges for the turbocharger mounted to the driver’s side windshield pillar. A black transmitter with a rectangular button was clipped to the sun visor: the remote for the door lock. I tried a door handle, gently. The car was as locked as the shed had been, with the added forewarning of a steadily pulsing red alarm light on the dash. No touch, it practically whispered.

  I turned the penlight and my attention elsewhere. Another way in. Another way out. That’s what I’d come to find. It wouldn’t be a regular door.

  Smaller feet than mine had crossed the dirt floor beside the quick-looking car that couldn’t go anywhere. Where had that person come from and where had they gone? The question nibbled at me for a while, till I stopped in front of those ridiculous built-in shelves.

  Planks beside me brightened when my light was pointed the wrong way. I thumbed the penlight off. Green-tinted luminance spilled in through the damaged window and moved deliberately, a patrol car searchlight. The window faced away from my car and the road, but the cop was bound to approach the shed and I’d cleverly locked myself inside.

  I wiped the bolt cutters and hung them from a nail beside the window where they’d be invisible from outside. The frogs had gone silent and the crickets competed with a police radio’s electronic chatter. I traced the built-in shelves with my fingertips and ignored the drumming in my chest. If my hunch wasn’t correct I’d be on my way to jail shortly.

  A car door clicked twice, once to open, once to close. Something with a lot of legs scurried over my knuckles. It had crawled from a gap between the wall and the built-in’s frame. A low male voice interrupted the crickets, words indistinguishable. Probably calling for backup before poking his nose into the dark shed. I would have.

  Two feet down from the top I found metal.

  Gravel rumbled out on the road and another engine’s burble indicated the arrival of a second vehicle. The white and blue flashes started outside.