“That’s what I want to hear,” I told him. “I’ll call you Thursday around noon. I want to go in just after the employees leave. While I can still see without having to put lights on.”
“Come on over,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”
I changed clothes in my bedroom, putting my good pants and jacket back on their hangers. Then I paced, feeling more than a little panicked. Events were galloping away from me, and there seemed to be nothing I could do to rein them in. Dammit. I paced a little more, then decided to go get some therapy.
As I pushed open the heavy front door of The Shootist, the smell of cordite rushed to greet me. I’d forgotten just how pungent it was, and I rubbed my nose frantically, trying to ward off a sneeze.
I didn’t recognize the man at the front counter, so I just showed him my gun club card and bought a silhouette target and my ammunition—a bag of one hundred .357 reloads. Through the bulletproof glass window across from the counter, I had already seen that there were only three other people practicing. I put on my ear protection and went on into the range. Muffled craaks attested to a .22 target pistol being fired; the steady, measured booms were undoubtedly from a .357, and the occasional cannon-like blaam was the distinctive sound of a .44 Magnum. I personally feel that not only is my Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum sufficient firepower, but it’s just about all I can handle. The kick from a .357 loaded with factory ammunition is about like the kick of a horse. But it’s something you can learn to control. I’d fired friends’ .45 automatics and .44 Magnum revolvers and decided that I’d have to lift weights to increase my arm strength if I wanted to shoot either of them. And lifting weights bores me.
I set my .357 in its carrying case down on the folding counter in front of me, hung my target on the clip over my head, and pressed a switch to send in downrange to the twenty-five foot mark. I always practice at this distance because I figure if I’m going to have to shoot anyone it will only be because he’s coming at me with a deadly weapon and mayhem on his mind. And you sure can’t tell that at any distance beyond twenty-five feet.
I hadn’t done this for a while, so I recited the litany to myself. Load revolver, close chamber, take gun in two-handed grip, assume Weaver stance, align front and back sights with center of target, hold breath, and squeeeze. Boom. The gun kicked in my hand, but my tensed arm muscles controlled it. The sights were still steady on the bad guy’s midsection. I squeezed again. Boom. For my third shot, I raised the muzzle so it pointed at the exact center of the head. Smoothly, I squeezed. Boom. Then I fired off two more shots to the body, and one to the head, put my gun down on the counter, and brought the target back in for inspection. Not too bad. My body shots were clustered in a grouping no bigger than a silver dollar, two inches to the left of the target’s middle. I was up to my old tricks, letting my gun drift to the left. I’d have to hold it steadier. The two head shots were likewise off center, but I was pleased to note that the two shots had made only one hole. Nice. I took my packet of black target pasters out of my pocket, stuck them over the holes, and sent the target back downrange for a new sextet of shots.
As my ammunition dwindled, I improved. My shots were now grouped in the center. Of the body, and of the head.
“Two to the body to stop the bad guy, and one to the head if he’s still coming for you,” Brendan had taught us. “And what about the three shots you have left over? Do you pump them into him, too, just for good measure? Of course not! The three shots you have left over are for his buddy if he has one, or for him if he still won’t go down. And don’t worry about this nonsense of shooting to maim or shooting to kill. You shoot to stop. Period. You shoot because you believe you’re in mortal danger. That’s the only justification there is.”
I emptied the last spent shells onto the floor of the range and packed my gun away in its carrying case. I’d have to clean it before I reloaded it, but that would have to wait until I was at home. Although I enjoyed coming to the range to practice, sitting around afterward amid people with guns made me nervous. As I had hoped, the feeling of competence that shooting always brings, of mastery over this terrible, deadly force had had a salutary influence upon me. I felt confident and in control.
I don’t understand the antipathy many women feel toward guns. I’ve been told it’s a political thing, whatever that is, but I think that’s a crock. Anyone can learn to use a gun—let’s not kid ourselves about that. And anyone can learn the law—she can educate herself about gun ownership and when the law allows you to shoot. No, women’s reluctance to mess with guns is something else. All the symbolic crap aside, I often wonder if it doesn’t come down to a question of nerve. Women just don’t think they can do it. Beats the hell out of me why not. Maybe twenty years ago when we were all socialized into being passive as pussycats, but surely not today. Woman as victim is a tune that just won’t play any more. But if we think we can sweetly reason the bad guys into leaving us alone, we’re dreaming. For whatever reasons—testosterone, socialization, or just plain cussedness—men prey on women. And if you don’t want to be victim, it seems only reasonable that you take some precautions. If you have something you value, you safeguard it. I have friends—perfectly reasonable people—who lock their houses, keep their gold coins in the safe deposit box, and get their flu shots regularly. But these same people aren’t prepared to go to the wall to safeguard that most important asset of all—their lives. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Of course, my line of work is a little different. I carry my .357 concealed illegally, but Canadian gun laws are among the toughest in the world and PIs get no special treatment. So I reluctantly break the law. I have no desire to meet again some of the bad guys I’ve bested in the past. I have no illusions that I’m more powerful than they are. Or that I ever could be. When faced with a sticky situation, my rule of thumb is to run. Quickly. In the other direction. If that fails—and it often has—I’ll stand and fight. But I won’t use the Marquis of Queensbury’s rules. Are you kidding? I stand five-foot-eight and weigh in at 140. Most men I know could knock me into the middle of next week. No sirree. I need an edge. Something to persuade them to go away and leave me alone. And there’s no more irresistible voice of reason than that of the .357. It’s a wonderful mind-changer.
I let the door of The Shootist slam closed behind me. Gone was the mind-numbing, yammering panic I had felt when Lester and I returned from our aborted tour of Living World. I knew what I had to do—I’d known it all along. Now I just needed to bloody well go out and do it.
Chapter 13
I parked my car about half a mile down the highway from the Living World sign, and set off through the woods. My Reeboks made little sound on the carpet of pine needles, and here among the trees, out of the wind, it was quiet and peaceful. A lot like the lobby of Living World, I thought. Ahead, through the trees, I saw flashes of light—the sun glinting off chrome and windshields. I was directly behind the employees’ parking lot.
As I had suspected, there was a fence. I tossed a pine cone at it, but nothing happened. Good. At least it wasn’t electrified. Hands on my hips, I stood back and looked at it. It seemed to be your standard garden-variety cyclone fence—diamonds of sturdy metal wire just big enough to poke a sneakered toe into. I’d climbed dozens of them in my childhood. The difference with this one was that it was topped by three strands of barbed wire set about six inches apart. Goody. Well, never let it be said that I’m not resourceful.
I climbed the fence until my nose was level with the first strand of barbed wire, then hung by one hand and tossed the heavy six-foot tarpaulin I had brought with me onto the prickly points. I had doubled it, then doubled it again. I hoped that whatever protection it didn’t offer, my battered leather jacket and Malcolm’s heavy leather gardening gloves would provide. Tentatively, I reached up and hung one arm out over the tarp. Then I put my weight on it. So far so good. I put my other arm up onto the tarp; then, mindful of the sharp twists of metal only four layers of canvas away fr
om my belly, I scrambled over the wire, hung from the other side of the fence for a moment, and dropped to the ground.
Okay, I said to myself, okay. Let’s hit that parking lot, kid. Heart hammering, I sprinted across the asphalt and ducked down behind the first row of parked cars. No lemon yellow Buick. Crouching, I moved up one row. Nope. I started to sweat. The closer I got to the building, the greater my chance of discovery. It would be far too easy for someone to glance out a window and spot me. Still, there was nothing to do but go on.
I was halfway down the row just behind the building when I spotted it. Actually it was a lemon yellow Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, license number BRY 801. Bingo. I duck-walked around to the passenger’s side and whistled under my breath. The right front fender and the passenger door was scraped and dented in several places, dark red paint proclaiming the color of the car it had tangled with. Good. Mary evidently hadn’t gone over the cliff without a fight.
I took the Polaroid out of my backpack, took a shot of the car that showed the license plate, one showing total right-side damage, and a closer shot of the fender. I scraped some of the dark red paint off the Cutlass into a plastic baggie, sealed it, and put it and the camera back into my pack, zipping it securely. Maybe Sandy could persuade someone that this was evidence. I certainly hoped so.
I had one last job to do, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. I wiggled my arms through the straps of the pack, settled it securely on my back, and half stood, studying the back of the building. I wanted to find the doors. Directly in front of me was a wide set of four concrete steps. Those led to a set of double green metal doors conveniently marked EMPLOYEES ENTRANCE. Off to my left a ramp sloped down, leading to a roll-up overhead door marked DELIVERIES. The door was up, and a white van was pulled up at the loading dock. There was a small, unmarked door beside the delivery door, and I supposed this was where the truck or van drivers entered and exited while they waited to be loaded and unloaded. That looked promising.
Using the near row of cars for cover, I ran for the door beside the loading dock. I took off my backpack as I went, and tossed it up onto the closed lid of a dumpster that sat beside the door. All of a sudden, the loading bay door came down with a deafening clatter, almost scaring me witless. I hunkered down beside the dumpster, willing myself invisible.
“I thought they fixed this fucking thing!” a man yelled. “It’s gonna take someone’s head off. Pat, put a screwdriver in the gears!”
After a few moments, things calmed down. I raised my head, looked around, stood up, then walked to the door. Turning the doorknob, I pulled and to my surprise, it opened. Too late to turn back now, I told myself. I stepped inside.
Two men in heavy boots and green coveralls with Living World logos on the chest pockets sat in uncomfortable-looking chairs, drinking coffee and watching television. I almost laughed out loud. I’d walked into the blue-collar worker’s lounge. One of the men—thin, young blond with a droopy moustache, looked guiltily at his watch, and got to his feet with such exaggerated nonchalance that I knew right away he had been goofing off. He opened his mouth to ask me a question, and I decided I’d better get the drop on him.
“Hey, have you seen A.J.?” I asked.
“Who?”
“The guy who came with me in the white van.”
“Oh. I think he’s getting his lading ticket signed,” the blond said.
“Say, I haven’t seen you here before.” The other coffee drinker—an older, solid, dark-haired man—looked me up and down.
“The boss asked me to come along to keep an eye on A.J.,” I invented. “We’ve had complaints.”
“Oh yeah?” the dark-haired one said. “Like what?”
“He loses things,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You know—he’ll leave here with a dozen cartons, but when he gets to where he’s going, there are only eleven.”
“Nice racket,” the blond said, looking at me and grinning. “So, are you going to be, you know, taking his place?”
I shrugged. “That’s up to the boss. Say, is there a bathroom I can use?”
“Yeah,” the blond said. “C’mon with me. This way.”
I followed him out a door opposite the entrance and into a wide, well-lighted hall. We walked down it for about ten yards until we came to a T-junction. “Bathrooms are on your right on down the hall,” he told me. “You can’t miss them. I’ve got to go back to the salt mines,” he said, leaning against the wall and grinning. “So what’s your name?”
Ye gods, he was putting the make on me! Well, maybe he could be useful. I fluttered my eyelids. “Katie.”
“Well, now, Katie,” he said, “I hope you’re not wasting your time with old A.J.” Suddenly he wrinkled his forehead. “Funny, I thought his name was Gordon.”
“Oh, it is,” I said quickly. “A.J.’s just a nickname. We use it at the office. I guess I should call him Gordon in public.”
The blond grinned. “Probably has some deep hidden meaning, right? Listen, I gotta go, but I wouldn’t mind seeing you again. Do you ever go to the Dog and Pony?”
Not if I can help it, I thought. “Yeah, sometimes.”
“Well, I’m usually there about nine every night,” he said. “Just ask for Kevin.”
“I might just do that,” I told him. “Maybe even tonight. But right now, I gotta go too. Nature calls.”
“You’re a riot, Katie,” he said. “So, maybe I’ll see you tonight?”
“You never know,” I told him. “Bye, Kevin.”
He slouched off down the hall, whistling, and I fled to the bathroom. How long did I have before all hell broke loose? Only a few minutes, I figured. Good old Gordon aka A.J. would probably be back at his van by now. And once the other coffee-drinker started asking him about his partner, I’d be dead meat. Flinging open the bathroom door, I took a fast look under the cubicle doors and sighed with relief. I was alone.
In a flash, I was up on the counter, fiddling with the window catch. The window was hinged on the top and swung open easily. Thirty more seconds, I prayed, ripping a piece of duct tape off the roll I had stuffed inside my jacket. I taped the window catch open, made certain it would still fall closed, then levered myself up and threw a leg over the sill. Dropping to the ground outside, I looked back at the window. It certainly looked locked. Congratulating myself, I loped to the dumpster, collected my pack, and took off at a gallop for the rows of parked cars.
I had navigated my way to the row of cars nearest the fence when I heard it. The rhythmic whock, whock of feet running on asphalt. But these feet had toenails on them—I heard them clicking. There was no time to look, think, or even yell. I levitated onto the trunk, then onto the roof of the car directly in front of me. And not a moment too soon. I heard the scrabbling of nails on the trunk below and behind me. Crouched on hands and knees, I turned.
“Jesus!” I said. It was a Doberman, one of the red ones, fangs bared, front feet on the trunk, looking up at me and slavering. Great. Just great.
I have a healthy aversion to most dogs. My paranoia probably dates from the time I was attacked by our neighbor’s German Shepherd at age five. But whatever its cause, my antipathy to dogs is powerful. I absolutely, positively don’t trust them, and never put myself in a position where I have to depend on their good will. The only exception to this rule is Gray’s Great Danes, but then, I consider them to be extensions of her. This Doberman, however, was not of that ilk. It was undoubtedly of the genus Guard Dog. And where there was a Guard Dog, there was probably a guard.
Why didn’t it bark? I looked it in the eye and wondered how good my chances would be at administering a swift kick to its chops. It seemed to read my mind, gave a healthy “Rorf!” as if tuning its voice, then commenced to have canine hysterics. It rarfed and rorfed until I couldn’t stand it any longer. In a minute it would have all of Living World out here, never mind the guard who was, I devoutly hoped, snoozing in front of his space heater, dreaming steamy dreams of the latest Playboy centerfold. But he wouldn’t
be snoozing for long. Not if Fang here kept up that awful racket.
“So shut up already,” I told it, unzipping my backpack. I hadn’t checked my Dog Dazer’s batteries in ages, but I had confidence in the heavy-duty copper-tops I had put in last August. I hefted it, and aimed it straight at Fang’s head. To my gratification, he acted as though a wasp had stung him. Shaking his head, he whuffed, sagged down from the trunk of the car, and still shaking, ran off in the other direction. I didn’t wait to see any more.
I leaped off the trunk of the car. Plain old abject fear gave wings to my heels as I put my head down, pumped with my arms, and ran like hell. Evelyn Ashford couldn’t have done any better. I knew there was no hope of hitting the fence at the spot where I had left the tarp—I’d already decided I’d be happy to hit it at all.
I looked up. The fence was fifteen yards way. Ten. Five. To hell with the last ten feet or so—I wanted to be airborne! I jumped—a leap Jackie Joyner Kersee would have been proud of—and swarmed up the mesh like an ape. I had one hand on the barbed wire when I felt something hit me just behind the knee. Something that bit.
“Aargh!” I yelled, kicking. One hand lost its grip on the wire as this heavy something pulled me down. I heard my jeans ripping, and suddenly I was free. Terror put my brain into neutral, freeing me from the necessity of thinking and the handicap of feeling pain. Instincts honed in the primordial ooze took over, sending me back up the fence like a gecko up a wall. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I gibbered as the Dobie jumped for me again, chomping down on my foot.
Fear gave me the strength of three ordinary women and I held onto the mesh this time. Then with one twisting lurch, I pulled my foot out of the shoe and left it to Fang. Boy, did I have leverage now! I bent my leg, stuck my shoeless toes into the mesh, threw my arms up and over the barbed wire, and pushed off. I went over the top like a diver off the low board, like a pole vaulter clearing sixteen feet, like a penitent seeking heaven. There was only one thing wrong. I had to come back down. Off balance. Wrong end up, from a height of ten feet. Relax, I told myself, as I fell to earth. Think limp arms and legs. Think cat.
Ninth Life Page 13