The Homecoming

by Carsten Stroud

  “Good morning. The name is Harvill Endicott. I believe I have a reservation.”

  Hopewell tapped a few keys, looked up with a cheerful smile, and agreed that this was so, welcoming Mr. Harvill Endicott to the Marriott. He slid a form across the granite surface of the desk and watched as Mr. Endicott filled it out and signed his name in an elegant flourish, setting the pen down gently beside the form.

  When he looked up again, Hopewell was slightly disconcerted by the impression that Mr. Endicott’s eyes were almost completely colorless. This, combined with his blue-white skin and his thin purple lips, gave him a cadaverous air that sent a vague tremor of unease through Mark Hopewell’s young and impressionable mind. If Mr. Endicott was aware of this effect, he gave no sign.

  Hopewell glanced down at the registration card, noting that under “BUSINESS” Mr. Endicott had written “Private Collector and Facilitator.”

  “Is it business or pleasure, sir?”

  Endicott smiled again, a much more open and friendly smile.

  “I suppose it’s a bit of both, Mr. Hopewell. I requested a suite with a view of the town, one not on the ground floor, if possible. With windows that open to the air? And a terrace? I’m a smoker, as you may have been warned. And high-speed Ethernet in the room?”

  “Yes sir. All taken care of. We have you in the Temple Hill Suite, one of our finest. It is a smoking suite, as you requested, and it has a large terrace, one of only three in the hotel. It’s on the top floor, quite secure. It’s named after the estate of Alastair Cotton—”

  “The Sulfur King,” finished Endicott.

  “You’ve heard of him?” Hopewell said, obviously surprised. Endicott inclined his head.

  “I have made something of a study of the area,” he said, gathering up his card and the papers and slipping them into an inside pocket.

  “I requested cars as well?”

  Hopewell nodded, pleased to be pleasing.

  “Yes sir. You asked for a black Cadillac DeVille and a beige Toyota Corolla. We have them in valet parking. The Cadillac has a GPS screen, as you requested. Just ring for the valet and whichever vehicle you request will be brought around whenever you wish.”

  “Thank you, but if you would just send the keys to my room, and let me know where to find the cars, I’d greatly prefer that. I come and go at irregular hours and I don’t wish to be a burden to the staff.”

  “Not at all, Mr. Endicott. I’ll have the keys and the garage map sent up right away. Is there anything else I can do, sir?”

  “Not that I can think of right now.”

  “Then enjoy your stay. We have a concierge desk, as you can see,” he said, inclining his head in the direction of a French escritoire behind which sat, primly erect, a tiny Oriental man in a black suit.

  Hopewell watched him cross the oak floor, thinking that Mr. Harvill Endicott did not seem the sort of man who would do anything at all for pleasure, or, more accurately, what Mr. Endicott would consider pleasurable might be something quite unpleasant to know about.

  “Yes, thank you, the suite is perfectly fine,” said Endicott, tipping the bellman, whose name tag identified him as EDGAR. This Edgar creature was fidgeting about the suite, poking at this and fussing with that, seemingly unwilling to leave, although Endicott had tipped him twice, once at the lobby door and again four minutes ago, for a total of nine dollars, which ought to be enough for any damn bellhop.

  “May I help you?” Endicott said, with an edge. Edgar Luckinbaugh stopped twitching at the curtains and stiffened, and, mumbling something about the thermostat, shuffled across an acre of beige carpet to the door.

  Endicott closed it with emphasis, turned away with a sigh, and considered the suite.

  It was large and full of light, and, as promised, it offered a splendid view down a long grassy incline to the town of Niceville, about five miles to the south and east.

  He opened the French doors and walked onto a large stone-tiled terrace with a gallery railing. The air was sweet and scented with harvest smells, with cut grass and turned earth, and the sun was warm on his cheek.

  Niceville was a snug-looking town situated in the looming shadow of a long limestone barrier wall that, according to his researches, was a thousand feet high.

  He smiled, patting his suit pocket and pulling out a heavy gold cigarette case and a battered Zippo lighter, in gleaming brass, with the crest of the First Air Cavalry on the side, a black-rimmed yellow oval bisected with a black bar, a black horse head in the upper angle.

  He flicked it and put a light to a Camel, drew the smoke in with real pleasure, considering the view before him.

  Niceville was shrouded in live oaks and pine with, here and there, a brighter green swath of willows. A number of church steeples pierced the canopy of trees, and a golden, hazy light lay upon it, even at this early hour. Sunlight rippled on the broad brown back of the large river that carved a meandering course through the middle of the town.

  The Tulip, he recalled, noting the way it swept in a big, aggressive bend past a large stand of willows that lined the western bank. That would be Patton’s Hard, if his memory served.

  The way the water eddied and swirled there probably meant a whirlpool, he thought, and given the force of that big river, a dangerous one to get caught up in.

  The ascending sun was lighting up the roofs of houses, glinting off window glass and storefronts, and sending a shimmer along the tracery of overhead wires that stitched together the older portions of the downtown area.

  A pretty sight, taken as a whole, and full of gentle light, except for that portion of Niceville still in the shadow of that wall. The way Niceville lay spread out beneath it made the cliff face look like a gigantic tidal wave looming over the town.

  He sighed, finished the cigarette, stubbed it out against the railing until it was dead and cold, and dropped the broken stub into a separate compartment inside his cigarette case, snapping it shut with a metallic click. He would flush the butts down the toilet later. Endicott considered it prudent not to leave his DNA scattered about.

  He turned away to the suite itself, which was nicely done in creams and beiges and oak panels, a thick Berber carpet under his feet. The requisite flat-screen television, an expensive and overly complicated coffee-maker, a minibar and a refrigerator, a bar sink, glasses and cups.

  Along the way was a marble-walled bath, verging on the sybaritic, and down another short hallway lined in mirrors he found a large master bedroom with a king-sized bed and far too many pillows.

  Edgar had set Endicott’s luggage down on a padded bench at the foot of the bed, a matched pair of saddle-leather cases. Endicott picked up the heavier one—easily, although it weighed eighty pounds. Endicott was stronger than he looked.

  He set the case on the bed, thumbed the pressure locks hidden along the sides, and lifted the lid. Inside, laid out neatly, were a Toshiba laptop and various peripheral computer devices, a pair of Zeiss binoculars equipped with a laser range finder, a module that looked like a window-mounted GPS that was actually a laser surveillance mike with a video camera. He also had an electronic key-code analyzer, a compact set of Dremel battery-powered machine tools, a silver box containing a stainless-steel syringe and a large glass vial filled with hydrofluoric acid, a shiny blue device that looked exactly like a Motorola cell phone but was actually a Taser stun gun, a Streamlight high-intensity flashlight, and a shiny gray Sig Sauer pistol, a P226 9-mm Parabellum, along with a cleaning kit, a reasonably efficient sound suppressor—never used—four boxes of Black Talon rounds, fifty to a box, and three spare fifteen-round magazines.

  Unloaded, of course, since keeping the magazines loaded all the time ruined their springs, which would, sooner or later, cause a round to jam in the pistol slide, which would get you killed.

  Although Endicott really had taken a cab in from the airport, he hadn’t flown in. Not with this sort of gear. He had driven up from Miami in a nondescript GMC Suburban. It was now stowed away in long-term parking
at the airfield—under another name—full of gas and spare gear and a steel valise chained to a ringbolt in the cab floor. The valise contained lots of cash and several different IDs and another Sig.

  He lifted the Toshiba out of its slot and carried it over to the desk set up behind the long sofa that faced the television. This meant he could work with his back to the side wall, with a clear view on the left to the wall of windows and the terrace, and on the right to the only other way into the suite, which was through the heavy black-stained doors that led out into the hotel hallway.

  He walked over to the coffee machine, sorted out how to get a cup of espresso, punched the ON button, and walked back to his Toshiba, carrying the extendable Ethernet cord that provided the hotel’s high-speed connection.

  He plugged it in, turned on the machine, and was connected in thirty seconds. He went immediately to the news section, found a tab for LOCAL BREAKING in the Cap City region.

  In a few minutes of clicking around, he had established a number of interesting facts, the most spectacular of which—amateur video was included—showed the dramatic end of a high-speed chase that had happened the previous afternoon. A black sports car—possibly a Viper—was being pursued by a state trooper driving one of those new Ford Interceptors. The pursuit was taking place along a stretch of interstate to the north and west of Belfair County.

  The video—shaky but serviceable enough—showed the two cars, less than a yard apart, streaking through a section of highway walled in with tall pines.

  As the cars came abreast of a large truck stop called the Super Gee, it looked as if someone in the passenger seat of the Viper was shooting at the following pursuit car with a pistol—Endicott could not make out what sort of weapon.

  The cars were flying past a number of people who were standing along the side of the highway near the truck stop perimeter—as if they were at a NASCAR track, the idiots—and then, in a blurry and confusing sequence, the black Viper jammed its brakes on, forcing the pursuit car to rear-end it.

  The Viper, rebounding, went into a long, slow spin that took it—like a scythe—straight through the crowd lining the roadside.

  Bodies flew everywhere—not all of them in one piece—and smoke and dust obscured the scene.

  The pursuit car, still on its wheels, emerged from the dust cloud, the driver clearly fighting for control. He managed to steer the car away from the crowd now being mauled by the Viper. You could see the brake lights on the pursuit car flashing, see the blue and red flare of its light bar, brilliant against the smoke and wreckage behind it.

  The car weaved and rocked and finally came to stop in the gully-like median that separated the east- and westbound lanes of the interstate.

  The camera did a crazy erratic zoom to the face of the young cop behind the wheel as he popped the door and stepped out onto the grass, his face flushed and angry.

  At the bottom of the screen ran a crawl—

  EIGHT KILLED AND THIRTEEN INJURED AS POLICE CHASE GOES WRONG ON 150

  The driver of the pursuit car was named, a Sergeant Reed Walker, of the State Patrol.

  The men in the Viper, described only as Wanted Felons, had both been declared DOA at Lady Grace Hospital a few hours later.

  According to the summary, Sergeant Walker, who was uninjured but described as “shaken up,” had been assigned to desk duty pending an independent inquiry. Under a subheading titled OTHER REGIONAL NEWS, there was a short piece describing a rollover on the Cap City Thruway fifty miles to the south of Niceville that had killed two federal officers and injured a local detective. A prisoner had escaped after the crash.

  The prisoner was described as “Byron Deitz, 44, white male six three two hundred and fourteen pounds brown eyes black goatee shaved head. An overnight search of the area failed to discover him. He is now considered at large. Last seen wearing a red prison jumpsuit and lime green sandals—”

  “Dear God,” said Endicott, half aloud. “Shouldn’t be too tough to spot him.”

  “—prisoner may have taken the sidearms of the two dead deputy marshals as well as a police radio and a cell phone belonging to the injured detective. If seen alert the police but do not approach as Deitz is considered Armed and Dangerous.”

  “I would be too if I were being dragged around the county in an outfit like that.”

  Endicott leaned back in the chair, staring at the computer screen with half-closed eyes, sipping at his espresso—it was nearly scalding. Maybe he could sue, like that old bat at McDonald’s.

  So Deitz is out.

  That complicates things.

  Or maybe it simplifies them.

  He leaned forward, tapped a few keys, and brought up a Google Earth image of the countryside that lay between Niceville and the northern limits of Cap City.

  It was mostly tilled earth and farmland, with the occasional horse ranch scattered here and there, and what looked like a large sandpit or stone quarry about a mile off the main road, connected to it by a narrow track. The Cap City Thruway was a four-lane affair that meandered in a lazy, looping way north and west from Cap City to Niceville, with a few country roads branching off. It looked like ugly country for a fugitive, and Endicott had a healthy respect for the men and women of the Deep South when it came to the question of firearms and a certain freewheeling vigilante streak in the culture down here.

  If I were Byron Deitz, and I was tricked out like a circus clown, would I wander about the hinterland, an open invitation to getting my torso ventilated by any passing farmhand with a Remington 700 right there to hand?

  I would not.

  I would get myself into one of these ranch houses or farm buildings I see here on Google Earth and I would use my boyish charm—and one of those borrowed pistols—to improve my wardrobe and, if possible, to call upon a friend—if I had any—to come to my assistance.

  Endicott knew enough about the wiles of local law enforcement to realize that the people hunting for Byron Deitz would have reasoned along the same lines, and would no doubt have spent the last several hours making damn sure that Deitz wasn’t hiding out in any local residence or in any of the outbuildings attached. Yet, hours later, Deitz was still being described as “at large.”

  Ergo … someone was helping Byron Deitz.

  Based on what Endicott knew of Byron Deitz’s character, and he had made a rather exhausting study of the man, it seemed unlikely that anyone would come to his aid out of brotherly love. Take that away and what remained was either fear or self-interest.

  Or both.

  Probably both.

  So who might the leading candidates be? Endicott had a file full of the most salient details surrounding the Gracie robbery, but one fact that had formerly not been known had just been conveyed to him by a local source. The fact was in an e-mail. Endicott opened it. It concerned an internal stock transfer at Deitz’s security company.

  Local sources also confirm that a transfer of voting shares controlled by Enterprise Syndicate, Byron Deitz’s personal corporate shell, had been prepared and was ready to go into effect as soon as Byron Deitz signed it, which had not yet happened.

  This transfer would give an entity known as Golden Ocean Ltd. a 50 percent share of the voting stock. The sole proprietor of Golden Ocean Ltd. was Andy Chu, formerly Deitz’s in-house IT expert.

  “Fascinating,” said Endicott, leaning back and almost but not quite lighting up a cigarette. “The inscrutable Chinaman is still with us. What handle did Andy Chu have on Byron Deitz that would make him hand over half his company to a pencil-neck rice burner? And how did Andy Chu find it in the first place? And where does this leave Phil Holliman? In the rear with the gear?”

  About the blackmail?

  Simple.

  Andy Chu was an IT geek.

  They know how to find out stuff.

  And finding something rotten in Byron Deitz’s background wouldn’t be much of a challenge for a computer geek with a serious grudge. From his own readings in the Book of Byron, Endicott was p
ersuaded that Deitz hadn’t so much moved through life as slithered, leaving a slimy residue.

  The most probable scenario right here was that Chu had found out about Deitz’s deal with the Chinese and had threatened to go to the cops unless there was something in it for Andy Chu.

  Endicott had more espresso, sipping it carefully—it was still too hot—while he gave the state of affairs some consideration.

  He had information that a compromise was about to be reached between the U.S. State Department and the Chinese government regarding the disposition of the Byron Deitz affair. Although the information was oblique, it seemed to Endicott to be distinctly possible that Byron Deitz was about to be handed over to the rough justice of the Chinese in exchange for a loosening of some troublesome Chinese trade barriers.

  In terms of Mr. Endicott’s assignment, this would have been an unacceptable outcome.

  The original idea had been to pry Byron Deitz loose from the authorities while he was still being held in what was probably an amateurish local lockdown here in Niceville, take him to a private and soundproof location, and, with the help of the Dremel tools and a syringe of hydrofluoric acid—that stuff was nasty enough to make a ceramic cat howl—allow Deitz to unburden himself of the crushing moral weight of two and a half million dollars of stolen cash.

  This part was to be videotaped, full HDMI with surround sound and, when they finally got sprung from Leavenworth, provided to La Motta, Spahn, and Munoz for their viewing enjoyment. Deitz was not expected to be around for his film debut.

  But if Deitz was shipped off to the Chinese before Endicott could reach him, Endicott’s mission would be deemed a failure by his bosses in Leavenworth, who did not look lightly upon failure. Life, however, as Muhammar Qadaffi had once observed, was what happened to you while you were picking out a new feather boa.

  Deitz was not on the way to China.

  Deitz was out and on the run.

  So, assuming that Deitz had gone safely to ground, the trick was to get a tail on Deitz before the good guys did. He was going to need that cash to disappear, and when he pulled it out of whatever hole he had hidden it in, Endicott was going to be right there to help.