English Lessons

by J. M. Hayes

  “You should sue for whiplash,” Brad said. “I know a good lawyer.”

  He turned in his seat and called toward the SUV. “Could you back up and let us by, please? We’ll be out of your way in a minute.”

  He was surprised when the vehicle didn’t move. The door opened and a figure came striding toward him out of the dazzling light.

  “Sorry, Brad,” a familiar voice said. “I’ve got some important news for your father. You should hear it, too.”

  It was one of the last people on earth Brad would have expected to drop by the senator’s home on Christmas. Any other day, for that matter. Brad opened his door and got out, extending his hand to Frank Crayne, chairman of Pima County’s board of supervisors. The man took it in one of those quick but firm shakes people in politics master—a gesture devoid of human warmth.

  Crayne had a young girl with him. Led her by the hand, though she seemed reluctant to follow. What was that about? Crayne didn’t have any children.

  The senator admired Crayne. He ran the county like his own private kingdom. But the senator was a Republican and Crayne, though hardly less conservative, represented the Democratic machine that ruled the second most populated county in the state of Arizona.

  “It must be important for you to come here personally,” Brad said.

  “Sorry to delay you,” another voice said. This one came from the other side of the car. The speaker had opened Niki’s door for her. “We’ll try to make this quick.”

  He was a small guy, handsome, and he moved with a kind of supple grace. Niki noticed it, too, if the gleam in her eye and the hand she extended for him to help her from the car were indications.

  The girl with Crayne nodded at the guy on the other side of the car. Raised her eyebrows a few times, as if she were trying to tell Brad something.

  The senator walked briskly from where he’d stood by the open garage door. If you didn’t know he’d been drinking all afternoon, you couldn’t tell it from his gait. Or his breath, unless you were attuned to the near absence of odor left by very good vodka.

  “Frank,” the senator said as he and the chairman exchanged one of those handshakes and the chairman continued to hold onto the girl. “What brings you here?”

  “You know about what’s been going on today?” Crayne said. The senator nodded. “Well, there’s more. You need to be briefed.”

  “Yes. I do.” The senator glanced at the small man who stood with Niki. “Is this the man who’s going to brief me? And who’s that adorable child with you?” The senator could turn on the charm when he thought it might benefit him.

  Crayne took the lapel of his western-cut-corduroy sports coat in his free hand. Two-handed, it would have been his trademark gesture when he wanted people to know the gravity of what he was about to say. His green-flannel shirt matched the green of his eyes. “Senator Cole,” he said, “let me introduce you to Mr. Smith. He’s about to change your life forever.”

  “I beg your pardon,” the senator said, confused. Brad didn’t get it either. And Niki’s look had gone from appraising to concerned. That was when Brad realized the Smith guy continued to hold his sister’s arm with a firm grip. And that his sister had decided she didn’t want to be held. Neither did the girl with Crayne, Brad realized. And she looked faintly familiar.

  “What’s going on here?” Brad said.

  Smith looked at him and smiled. “You’re Brad Cole and you’re involved with Heather English. Does she love you?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Business?” the little man said. “No, not business. Pleasure. For your sake, and your family’s—especially for your sister’s and this child’s—you’d better hope she loves you more than life itself.”

  ***

  “You have daughters,” Don Crabtree said from the back seat of Mrs. Kraus’ car. His hands and ankles were securely duct taped. “How did you survive two teenage girls?”

  The sheriff didn’t bother trying to explain. For him, half the battle had been remembering how he’d felt as a teenager. Empathizing instead of criticizing.

  Instead, the sheriff concentrated on what he still had to do. “Don, who did you tell about me having your guns?”

  “Not that many, really. You got to realize, you left me defenseless. I was trying to borrow a weapon off of someone. The Conrad boys coulda come across the street…. Well, I guess, being innocent, they weren’t likely to do that, were they? But I still felt threatened.”

  “I need to know precisely who you spoke with and exactly what you told them. And why you told people I had federal agents helping me and that we were rounding up every gun in the county.”

  The sheriff glanced at the rear-view mirror and watched Crabtree squirm.

  “Well, on account of being humiliated to admit how I lost my guns so easy, I may have exaggerated how you did it to a couple of people.”

  “Did you mention federal agents?”

  “I might have. But by then, the word was already out.”

  Crabtree looked out the window and realized they were going south toward the old downtown. “Say, where are you taking me?”

  “What do you mean the word was out?”

  “Well, I got the idea about you having help from federal agents on account of Aunt Lottie.”

  “Your Aunt Lottie, that would be Mrs. Walker, my neighbor on Cherry Street?”

  “Yeah. She called right after you left with my guns. Said you shot up her car and wanted to take her guns, too. That you and a bunch of federal agents had chosen today—Christmas—to begin the Obama gun seizure we’ve been hearing was coming ever since that Muslim socialist was elected.”

  “Mrs. Walker told you that?”

  “She did. She was real mad at you. I think she may have called some other folks, too, because everybody I talked to asking for the loan of a gun had already heard about it. And several people called me, wondering if it was true about you and the feds seizing my guns.”

  The sheriff turned right a block north of the railroad tracks.

  “Ah, where are we going? Why aren’t you taking me to jail?”

  “We don’t have a jail at the moment, so I’m afraid you’ll have to tag along with me. I need to have some words with your aunt’s attorney.”

  “Oh,” Crabtree said. “Then I guess you already know about him spreading that same story.”

  ***

  The professional ushered them all into the Coles’ living room. They had been very cooperative, especially after he showed them he now had the county manager’s hand gun. The room contained a large couch, a rocker, and several easy chairs. Everyone sat, when he suggested it. Even Mrs. Cole, though she was a bit wobbly and nearly missed the cushion she aimed for. Still, the scene—all of them gathered about a partially decorated tree with the windows providing a spectacular view of the nearby Santa Catalinas fading into dusk—might have been cheery but for the gun.

  “Frank,” the senator asked the county manager, “why have you brought this man to my home?”

  Frank Crayne, moving with appropriate caution, eased his jacket open. He was wearing a complicated harness holding some sort of apparatus over his prominent abdomen.

  “What is that?” the senator asked, “a concealed-carry holster for another of your hand guns?”

  “No,” the professional said. “It’s an explosive device.”

  “A bomb?” The senator, for all his effort to preserve his dignity and demonstrate his importance, seemed suddenly on the verge of panic.

  “A shaped charge,” the professional explained. “Voice activated and very sophisticated. I only have to speak a certain command to blow a hole through Mr. Crayne’s digestive tract. There’s one on the girl, too. No need to be concerned, though. The charges are quite precise. No one else will be hurt if I’m forced
to use either of them. Though you may find yourselves soiled by blood and whatever they’ve been eating recently.”

  The girl opened her jacket. There was a similar harness and device underneath.

  “What do you want with us?” Brad Cole had worked up enough nerve to demand information. The professional was pleased. Heather English deserved someone with a bit of courage.

  “I thought I already made that clear, Brad. I want your girlfriend. I want Heather English.”

  “Why? And what does she have to do with us?”

  “I’m here because of your father’s choice of friends and support, Brad. If you objected to them, maybe you should have made that clear earlier. Or at least found your own clients instead of living off the ones he refers to you.”

  “That’s not fair,” Niki said.

  Brad sputtered, but remained silent, disappointing the professional. “Then Heather hasn’t told you about me?”

  Brad shook his head.

  “I’m a professional assassin. Heather and I met a few years ago. I accepted money to, shall we say, damage her. She proved to be more skilled and luckier than I expected. She is the only contract I’ve ever accepted and failed to deliver. So, even though the purchaser of that contract betrayed me and had to be eliminated, I want to put things right. A matter of honor, you might say. “

  “That has nothing to do with us,” Brad said.

  “Of course it does. Heather and I have unfinished business. And very little time in which to complete it. You do recognize the young lady who accompanied Mr. Crayne and myself to your home, don’t you? She’s Cassie Hyde, daughter of your late governor-elect.”

  Cassie nodded. She had all but attached herself to Niki after they’d entered the house and Crayne and the professional released their grips on the pair.

  “I had planned,” the professional said, “for Cassie to be safely in the custody of law enforcement by now, but some people made a mistake. One they will not repeat. Now, here she is, an unwanted complication I will turn into an asset. I want Heather to come to me. She won’t want to do that. She may be more likely to agree because I have Cassie. She will be still more likely because of you, Brad.”

  “I won’t help you,” Brad said.

  “Yes, you will. Not for yourself.” The professional turned to Crayne. “Frank, I want you to remove the device you’re wearing and go put it on Brad’s sister.”

  Brad jumped to his feet but the professional had sidled in next to Niki. The muzzle of his pistol brushed her temple. “You see, Brad, you’ll help because you have no choice. And, if Heather English feels anything for you, she’ll come for exactly the same reason.”

  Brad didn’t sit again, but he didn’t move. Not even when the Pima County chairman finally succeeded in removing the device and began strapping it around Niki’s torso.

  “I want you to call Heather now, Brad. I don’t care what you tell her about the situation you’ve found yourself in. It won’t matter. I only want you to tell her to meet us at Hi Corbettt Field in Reid Park. In an hour. Will you do that for me Brad?”

  Brad refused to answer, but he picked up a phone.

  ***

  The sheriff parked Mrs. Kraus’ Chevrolet in front of a two-story brick building in what had once been downtown Buffalo Springs. A weathered sign over the door read, Eldridge Beaumont, Attorney at Law. And, in the window, another—Reduced Rates on Bankruptcies & Foreclosures. Beaumont owned the building—office downstairs, apartment above—which would have been more impressive if the buildings on either side hadn’t been boarded up and vacant for decades. In most downtowns, this would be prime real estate. In Buffalo Springs, it was about as cheap as you could get.

  There were lights on behind the window shades, upstairs and down. And Beaumont’s car occupied a nearby parking space, a good indication he was home and alone, since no other cars were parked on the block. Or practically anywhere in downtown Buffalo Springs, for that matter.

  “You gonna leave me out here in the cold?” Crabtree whined.

  “Shouldn’t be long.”

  “What if he shoots you?”

  The sheriff turned and looked over his shoulder at the spot Crabtree occupied on the back seat. “Something make you think he might do that?”

  “Well, he’s involved with that bunch down at the courthouse. Wrote up our charter. I’ve seen him at meetings….”

  “You attend their meetings?”

  “We’re just a bunch of nice folks who believe in our right to bear arms, sheriff. Nothing wrong with that. We have occasional ‘Locked and Loaded’ picnics and burn up a little ammunition. Nobody gets hurt.”

  “Three dead today,” the sheriff corrected him. “Don, maybe you better tell me who else is involved in your little social club.”

  “The Free State Militia is not a social club,” Crabtree said.

  “I already know most of your members. They’re either dead or under arrest. I just want to know who else might constitute a threat, Don. And thanks for the warning about Beaumont.”

  “I’ve never actually seen Beaumont carry,” Crabtree said. “Or shoot, for that matter.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” the sheriff said. “But who else?”

  “I’ve said too much already. We’re not supposed to tell.”

  “Sort of a secret society,” the sheriff said. “You don’t happen to wear sheets, do you?”

  Crabtree wouldn’t meet the sheriff’s gaze as English got out of the car.

  The sheriff gimped his way to the attorney’s door, still using the shotgun as a cane, mainly because he thought it would be foolish to leave the weapon behind with Crabtree. Even a duct-taped Crabtree.

  The front door was unlocked, so the sheriff simply walked in. This was an office and open to the public, or so the sign on the front door said. Beaumont probably never bothered turning it around. That could prove handy in case the sheriff spied his missing files within—no search warrants being required when an officer entered public spaces.

  There was a little bell on the door and it rang with a tone more cowbell like than evocative of the holiday. Beaumont came trotting down the stair. “Yes?” he said. And then he saw the sheriff and the color left his face.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the sheriff said. “Is that what you expected me to be by now?”

  “I thought…,” the attorney stuttered, “…that is, I heard…. Well, everyone knows about the shoot-out, Sheriff. I’m delighted to see you survived it.”

  “Yes. It was kind of you to drop by the courthouse in the middle of everything to take my file on your client’s case into safe keeping.”

  “File, Sheriff? I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. I did drop by to see if my cousin needed any legal advice for himself and his men. But I assure you….”

  “Destroyed it, already, huh?”

  Beaumont spread his hands in aggrieved innocence. “Sheriff, really.”

  “And if Koestel’s your cousin, does that mean Mrs. Walker’s your aunt, too?”

  “You really shouldn’t have shot Aunt Lottie’s car, you know. We shall almost certainly have to sue. The vehicle was an irreplaceable classic.”

  The sheriff leaned against the wall and raised the shotgun a little. He felt like using it to blow a few holes through this twerp’s collection of framed diplomas.

  “Have at with the lawsuits,” the sheriff said. “You know what a collection of witnesses I had, and will have again, to the chaos your aunt created.”

  “I’ve been speaking with many of those good people, Sheriff. I think you’ll find they’ve reconsidered. That they’re convinced my aunt’s vehicle was defective. A stuck accelerator pedal, perhaps. And that she bravely managed to keep her car from causing greater damage. That she was, in fact, in the process of bring
ing it back under control when you lost your temper and opened fire.”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  “Don’t threaten me with that gun, sheriff.”

  The sheriff was not having a good Christmas. He felt like beating the attorney over the head a few times with the Remington. “Have you been bribing witnesses, Mr. Beaumont?”

  “You should be cautious of slanderous accusations, Sheriff. Every last person you interviewed will deny your wild charges.”

  “And how do you know who those people are, unless you stole my file?”

  “Uh, well, I was there, of course. I saw who you spoke to.”

  “Yes,” the sheriff said. “But you didn’t see the ones I spoke to after I sent her home in your custody.”

  “There weren’t any others,” Beaumont began. But then he saw the triumphant look on the sheriff’s face and realized the only way he could know that. “Or so I’ve been told,” he said, trying to salvage the moment.

  The sheriff pulled out his roll of duct tape and recited Miranda again. It was becoming a traditional favorite this Christmas. “Come along, Mr. Beaumont. Your cousin, Mr. Crabtree, is waiting for us outside and needs legal advice. You can supply that of course, but not representation. I’m afraid you’re going to have to find another profession, following your jail term and disbarment.”

  ***

  Heather was glad Mad Dog was more interested in spiritual clues than physical ones. The smile she forced when she asked to borrow his Mini Cooper felt more like a grimace. Mad Dog didn’t notice. He accepted her story about needing to give Brad a ride and handed her his key. Pam would have noticed, but she’d put the chimichangas in the oven while she got out of her little black dress—her work clothes—showered, and changed to denims.

  “I won’t be long,” Heather said, slipping out the door.

  “Not a problem,” Mad Dog said. “We’re not going anywhere tonight.”

  Heather popped the electronic lock on the Mini’s doors and pulled the driver’s one open. Hailey jumped in ahead of her. Heather would have sworn the wolf was still at Mad Dog’s side when she left the house.