Chasing Harpo

by Alan Black

“What the…!” Ike exclaimed. “Man’s got his gun out, Sarie. Don’t know what’s going on, but you sit real still, hear me? Keep your hands in your lap. I don’t want no trigger happy yahoo ruining a pretty afternoon.”

  Ike put both of his hands on the steering wheel and stared forward. He tried to calm himself, but even at the mellow age of eighty-six, he did not like people pulling guns on him. He watched the state trooper out of the corner of his eyes. He caught glimpses of the man in the rearview mirror. He caught the flash of another badge in the side mirror and realized there were two of them. He might be able to get one of them with the old .38 revolver he kept under the front seat, but he had slowed down enough in the last few years that he knew he wouldn’t be able to protect Sara from both of them.

  Ike knew he was damn well going to try if it came down to it.

  A tense face under a state trooper hat peeked through Sara’s window. The tension seemed to explode out of the man’s face. He looked at his partner and gave a quick shake of his head. He reached up and touched the brim of his hat in a quick salute to Sara, Turning he headed back to his cruiser.

  A tap at the window brought Ike’s attention back to his side of the car. He slowly rolled his window down and was surprised to see a female state trooper.

  “Sorry to stop you, sir. It was just a quick, routine stop. Thank you for your cooperation,” she said as she turned away.

  “What the…!” Ike said. He felt his blood pressure shoot to Saturn, but he did not care. “What do you mean ‘routine’, young girlie-girl?”

  Ike yanked the handle and shouldered the door open. A quick snap release on his seat belt and he was out of the truck fast enough to put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. His grip was no stronger than a butterfly’s touch. He was long past the age he could have turned the woman to confront her, but he startled her as she turned and faced him.

  “This ain’t routine to me. You come a’pointin’ guns at me and the little woman, then poof, boy-howdy yer a’gone like a hot fart on a cold day. Nuh-uh. I want to know why you’uns stopped us.”

  “Just routine, sir; like I said,” the woman replied trying not to grin. She lost the battle and burst out a short laugh. “You owe me, Redkin.” She shouted at her partner.

  She patted Ike on the shoulder and turned him slightly. “Sorry for the inconvenience, sir. Please get back in your truck and go on your way.”

  Ike saw the other state trooper climb into his cruiser and slam the door. The man picked up the radio mike and started to talk, but broke out in a laugh Ike could hear.

  “I ain’t deef, you know. You all are a laughin’ at me and I don’t like it none.”

  “Please, no,” the state trooper said. “I’m laughing at him.” She pointed at her partner. “But you really don’t need to know about the stop. It’s okay. Honest, just go on.”

  “Honest?! Ha! You tell me why you pulled me over, young woman.”

  The woman gestured for Ike to follow her to the back of the pickup. Once they were out of Sara’s hearing, the woman took a deep breath. She sighed, leaned in and said, “You hear about the problem with the gangsters at the zoo in town, right?”

  “What zoo? Haleyville don’t got no zoo. Well, none to speak of anyway.” Ike said. Now he was feeling angry and confused.

  “No, sir. Not Haleyville. I mean Birmingham.”

  Jake shook his head. “Sara and I don’t much watch the news these days and we don’t have much truck with the big city. What have we got to do with gangsters anyway?”

  The woman suppressed a laugh and said, “Sir, one of the zookeepers there escaped with an orangutan. My partner saw the color of your wife’s hair, which I find stunning by the way, and he thought that it was the same color as the orangutan, so we-”

  Ike interrupted with an angry shout, “You stopped us because you think my Sara looks like some kind of danged monkey! The heck you say! You was a man I’d thrash you, Girl. No! Dang it. Where’s my gun?”

  The woman turned and sprinted to her cruiser. She jumped in and slammed the door. Tears streamed down her face as she guffawed. She yanked the gear select lever into reverse; the tires threw rocks and gravel as she shot backwards down the road.

  Ike finally cleared his old revolver from under the front seat of his truck. He managed to shoot at the escaping state troopers, hitting two trees, a rock, the sky and a patch of grass before the hammer clicked on empty.

  He had not hit a thing, but still he felt better. He decided Sara better watch out tonight when they got home.

  THIRTEEN

  JACK double checked the directions to the Marks place. A county sheriff’s deputy at the shootout location had drawn him a small map. The shootout was in the Marks backyard. He and his small staff had stopped and checked in with Williams.

  The man was positively busting with good news.

  It had been thirty minutes since the shootout and the site was still buzzing with law enforcement of every kind. Even Carbon Hill’s Chief of Police was on the scene, using the excuse of escorting the county coroner to the shootout to verify and certify the deaths. Williams’ tactical squad had taken out five of the ASS without any police injuries.

  Jack grinned when he thought about ASS. The acronym had spread like wildfire until almost every law enforcement agent in the place was using it. Williams stubbornly refused to call the gangsters anything other than Rwandan Crime Syndicate.

  Williams became almost giddy when a state trooper radioed they had found Mbotu’s body in the woods. They knew Mbotu was the man in charge and had escaped during the shootout by running into the woods near the road. A four-man team easily trailed him through the broken underbrush.

  All four officers agreed; it appeared the man had slipped as he climbed up a ridge, fell and broke his neck. The coroner rushed to the scene and confirmed police action had not killed the man. He died by accident. There was no other conclusion since there was no evidence of anyone else in the woods, nor any evidence of assault on the dead man.

  Jack drove the state police cruiser slowly up the Marks farm driveway. He shook his head. There were half a dozen cars and trucks rusting in the yard. There was even a pile of toilets stacked up next to a barely standing chicken coop. The house and barn looked only marginally better.

  He glanced at Natalia, “If you have more toilets in the front yard than you do in the house, you might be a redneck.”

  “Foxworthy?”

  “Well, if he didn’t say it, he should have,” Jack replied.

  A pack of dogs raced around the corner of the house. They howled and yapped, as they leapt at the car. A big dog that must have been part mastodon stood braced in the driveway. It did not move. It forced the cruiser to come to a halt farther away from the porch than Jack had wanted to be. He put the car in park and just sat for a moment watching dogs roar around them.

  Natalia said, “You need to call for back up, city boy?” She shouldered her door open and stepped into the pack of dogs.

  She made no move toward the house. She grabbed a mongrel as it jumped at her. She rubbed it hard behind the ears and scratched its back near the wagging tail. She petted a few other dogs, rolling a couple in the dirt in a friendly tussle. One mid-sized yellow dog shouldered its way past the other dogs to lean up against Natalia. She grabbed it by the ears and kissed it on the top of its head. It sat quietly at her feet, not letting any other dog near her.

  The big dog did not make any move towards her and she did not make any move toward the house.

  “Hello the house,” she shouted. She leaned down and spoke to Jack through the open window. “You should get out. These dogs are mostly just happy to see us, but don’t even take a step toward the house.”

  Jack stepped out of the car and stretched. He reached down to pet a fairly calm dog of dubious lineage. He looked at Natalia as she stood in the pack of dogs whirling around her feet. “So, you are a country girl?”

  Natalia shook her head. “I was born and raised in Wickenburg, Arizona.
It is not really city, but it is not country either. We didn’t move to Alabama until I was a teenager.”

  He caught sight of a man stepping onto the porch through the open door. He noticed the screen door lying in the front yard, the man obviously too lazy to put it back on. This must be Marks’ cousin.

  Marks leaned up against a post and puffed on an unlit pipe. He had a huge handlebar mustache, was barefoot and dressed in just a pair of jeans without a shirt. Without having looked, the man shot a hand out and snagged the back of a pair of bib overalls wrapped around a bundle of squirming child as it raced out of the door.

  An attractive woman stepped to the doorway. Jack assumed this was Mrs. Marks. Marks held the child out at arm’s length. He did not waver at the weight of the wiggling child. He handed the tot to his wife, not taking his eyes off Jack and Natalia.

  Jack glanced behind him. Steve was sitting calmly in the back seat of the cruiser. He had put his tranquilizer rifle on the floor of the car, well out of sight.

  Marks said something over his shoulder and a young man in his late teens stepped onto the porch and down into the yard. The young man picked up a rock and tossed it easily at the big dog blocking the driveway. It slapped audibly against the dog’s ribs.

  The dog looked over his shoulder at the teen, wagged his tail and walked over to be petted. The young man roughed the dog a little bit and then hiked his thumb over his shoulder. Without a word, the big dog thundered around the side of the house. The remaining pack quit yelping around Jack and Natalia and trailed after the big dog. All except the yellow one at Natalia’s feet.

  Marks and the young man sauntered lazily down to the police cruiser. Marks nodded and gave them a slight smile, but the boy’s expression was completely unreadable.

  Jack said, “I am Jack. This is Natalia. And Steve is still in the car. They are from the Birmingham Zoo. We were hoping that you could help us locate a missing orangutan.”

  The young man said, “You didn’t say you were with the state police. I thought you had to identify yourself.”

  Marks said, “Well Spud, I do think the uniform and the badge kinda gave that away, don’t you? Even the car might be a clue.”

  Spud said, “Yeah, Pa, I guess it kinda do.” At a look from his father, the young man sighed. His hillbilly accent all but disappeared. “I mean, yes, sir, I believe that it most certainly does.”

  Marks nodded. “Better, Spud.” He looked Jack in the eyes without flinching. “Now Lieutenant Keegan, you are here to ask my help in your hunt to arrest my cousin Red and kill Harpo. Is that right?”

  Jack kept his best poker face on. Clearly, the man knew who he was and why he was here. “Mr. Marks, we are trying to locate Dr. Carl Marks to detain him and the ape before someone out there starts taking pot shots at them.”

  Natalia stepped forward. “Mr. Marks-”

  “That’ll be Rooster to you, if you please, Miss Natalia.”

  Natalia smiled. “You betcha, Rooster. But, I am Natalia; not Miss Natalia or even just Miss. It is Natalia, if it would please you.”

  Rooster smiled back. “Seems that yeller dog is pleased with you, so I don’t know how I could be any less.”

  Spud said, “I never figured that yellow dog for enough good sense to cuddle up to a pretty woman like that. Today, I envy his dogginess. I wouldn’t mind a bit of a cuddle if I thought I could get away with it.”

  Rooster slapped his son on the back of his head, more in fondness than anything else. “You better not let your Ma hear you talking like that. You are not too old for her to beat your britches. Still, I do reckon you got a point-”

  The woman on the porch called out, “You are not out of earshot, Marks. You start flirting with that woman, you’re gonna be sleeping in the barn.”

  Natalia grinned. “Is that Mrs. Marks?” She waved at the woman on the porch.

  Rooster nodded and smiled, “That would be the love of my life, Daisy May Marks. The prettiest woman this side of the Mississippi, um, no offense, Natalia.”

  “None taken, Rooster.”

  Rooster said, “Are you really with the zoo, Natalia. Or did they give you that zoo shirt just to confuse us uneducated hillbillies?”

  Natalia tugged at the safari-style shirt with the zoo logo over the pocket. “No, Rooster. Steve and I both work for the zoo. Our job is to get Harpo back home safe and unharmed.”

  “Just you and Steve?” Rooster asked. “Keegan have different plans?”

  Jack said, “Hey! I am right here. I can speak for myself.”

  Natalia shrugged, ignoring Jack. “Honestly Rooster, Lieutenant Keegan has different orders than Steve and I do. I am not sure what his end-game is at this point.”

  Rooster nodded, “Still early in your relationship, is it?”

  Jack all but shouted, “Hey!” blushing a deep red.

  Natalia did not flinch as Rooster probed. “Yes. I have decided that I like Jack. I am going to let him seduce me on our first date and get me into bed. Normally, I wouldn’t sleep with a man until our eighth date, but I think I am going to make an exception for this man. Still, I haven’t figured out if he is going along with his bosses orders, or if he is going to save Harpo.”

  Daisy May came down off the porch. “I like this woman, Marks. But, I don’t know if I like her attitude about saving some ape and letting Red hang out to dry.” She walked up to Natalia and stood eye to eye. “If you work at the zoo, then you know Cousin Red.”

  Natalia shook her head, “Not really. The zoo isn’t that big a place, but Steve and I are security. Dr. Marks is one of the important people; he is the director of all of the apes, not just the orangutans. I mean he is a nice guy and we all know who he is, but he isn’t…well…it isn’t like he thinks he is better than us, but he just…well, he is just a hard guy to get to know.”

  Daisy May said, “Then you know Cousin Red better than you think you do. The poor boy is shy, especially around women. Near as I can figure, other than being a bit too skinny, you are just about his type-”

  Jack did shout this time, “Hey!”

  Natalia and Daisy May replied in unison, “Shut up, Keegan.”

  Daisy May said, “You are so pretty you are likely to have him so tongue tied he wouldn’t know what to say to you.”

  Natalia said, “I hadn’t thought of that. I just figured he wanted to keep work all professional.”

  Rooster said, “Okay, so you know Red. How come y’all are only figuring on saving the ape and not my cousin?”

  Natalia said, “Dr Marks and Harpo come as a set. If we can save Harpo, then we can save Dr. Marks.”

  Daisy May nodded at Rooster, “That sounds about right.”

  Jack said, “Great. Then we are all agreed. You will help us locate Dr. Marks and the ape.”

  Rooster said, “What makes you think we agreed to that? I agreed to stand in my own driveway and hear you out. Beyond that, well, I ain’t agreed to diddly-squat. Besides, from what I hear there are gangsters after them both. TV says that if the state attorney general don’t kill them, these Rwandan criminals will.”

  Jack said, “Did you hear the gunfire to the east about an hour ago?”

  Rooster said. “It sounded like the Jorgenson boys were popping away at a mess of beer cans again, empties of course. They let loose every now and again. Taint much to worry about as they are smart enough to shoot against a firm backdrop, even after emptying all those beers.”

  Jack said, “Those Rwandan gangsters trailed Dr. Marks out this way. The state police trapped them on the road about a mile east of here. Five of them were killed in the gun battle. We found a sixth man with a broken neck. He broke it in an accident trying to get away up a wooded ridge. He most likely tripped and fell down a hill. He was the head of the whole gang. It won’t take us long to round up the rest of the gang, so your cousin is safe from them.”

  Rooster looked shocked. He said, “You found one up on the ridge? You mean that ridge that runs along the west side of the road? Dang it.
You was on my property. Did you cut my fences? You got no rights to be traipsing around-”

  “Exigent circumstances,” Daisy May interrupted. “You’ve watched enough Law and Order reruns to know about exigent circumstances. It was a search based on an ongoing criminal activity. Isn’t that right, Lieutenant Keegan?”

  Jack nodded, “Absolutely correct, Mrs. Marks.”

  “You discovered the dead body on our property…accident you say? Tripped and broke his neck?” Daisy May asked. She looked at Rooster.

  Rooster just shrugged.

  Jack wondered at the by-play between the Marks, but he answered her question. “County medical examiner was already there. He said it was an accident and not the result of police action.”

  Daisy May said, “Well, the exigent circumstances does allow law enforcement to violate our fourth amendment rights; and the fourteenth, too if I read my constitution right. And yes Marks, it gives them the right to cut your fences if they have to while in pursuit of criminals or criminal activity. However, if they stumble across your hidden nuclear power plant or your moonshine still, they can’t do anything about it, because that is not a part of the original criminal activity. That is correct, isn’t it, Lieutenant Keegan.”

  “Yes ma’am, I think so. I would have to consult with-”

  “Doesn’t matter much,” Daisy May interrupted. “You didn’t find a nuclear power plant, did you?”

  Lieutenant Keegan shook his head. He said, “Not that I heard of. I don’t think they found his moonshine still either.”

  Daisy May smiled, “It is the end of the criminal activity when you found the one man you were after. And, that is the end of your exigent circumstances. Unless you think that we are hiding African gangsters in our hay barn.”

  Jack said, “No ma’am. That wasn’t our job anyway.” Jack was not sure the woman had learned that much law from a television program. “May I ask where you graduated from law school? I have heard other lawyers with less understanding than you just exhibited.”

  Daisy Mae said, “Well, I went to high school in Red Bay, but I kind of got bored with it and got my G.E.D. instead of waiting around to graduate. I did read a few law books here and there since then.”