Ham blushed deeply at the replaying of this long ago crap from his relative youth, a youth wasted on too much drink and unthinking philosophical sophistry. “I was drunk. You can’t hold that against me.”
“You hold it against yourself, don’t you, dear? But you don’t have to. It’s in your power to decide whether you pass or fail the test.”
“Yeah?” He drained the last of the Moosehead and focused bleary eyes on his uninvited guest. “What the hell are you talking about? What test?”
“Oh, Ham, for heaven’s sake, don’t be so naïve. For a wish-to-be tough guy, an irascible wanna-be cynic, you can be remarkably child-like, which is a reflection of the nature you struggle so mightily to deny, which is that, in truth, you’re at best a pessimistic optimist, at worst a Walter Mitty cynic. So put that aside. It’s the test that counts and the test is simple: will you believe, or will you let Blake die?”
Confused, no longer quite so sure, he sputtered, “I don’t need to believe in you, your ghostliness, or your psychic claims to protect Blake.” Looking up into Martina’s eyes, he pleaded, “Or do I? Is that what you mean? Is that the test?” Ham’s eyes clouded with anger as he snapped, “If so, I damn sure resent this. Why the hell should I be tested? Why is this about me?”
“Oh, Ham,” Martina soothed, “everybody is tested, everyday. Some are fated to be tested more than others and you’ve been chosen. But whether any particular test is great or if it’s small, it amounts to the same thing. When faced with it, when you’re up against it, when you have to chose, when it’s evil versus good, temptation versus truth, wish versus want, how does one react? Are you up to it, will you take the bad and make it good, or will you do it the other way around. That’s what life is about, Ham, it’s why you’re here. Why I was here. Why history is the future. Because it never changes, it’s the only eternal. You see?”
“So none of this is real. It’s a test for me? A test of me?”
“Oh, no, don’t confuse this. A test it may be, and is, but it’s very, very real. And Blake’s life hangs very much in the balance.”
Ham thought for a minute, nodded his head vigorously, if somewhat drunkenly, and announced, “Okay, fine. Let’s do it. If Blake’s life depends on my suspending disbelief, if it means accepting you and your status, both here and in the here-after, then so be it.” He drained the last of the Moosehead and nodded once again. “So yeah, sure, in answer to our question, I believe. I believe every freaking thing you say. So what now?”
Instead of answering, Martina leaned over, placed a soft hand on his shoulder and started shaking him, first gently, then harder and—as she disappeared—rougher still. “What the hell are you doing?” Ham demanded. “And where the hell are you going?” he asked in alarm.
“Ham. Hey, Ham! Wake up,” Blake insisted. To the steward, he ordered, “Coffee, please, for both of us. Black.”
Ham’s bleary and sleep deprived eyes narrowed into focus. “What’s up, Blake? Is there a problem?”
“You might say so,” Blake affirmed as he handed over a hand written note. “Take a look at this.”
He skimmed the transcript, short and to the point. “Where did you get this? Where did it come from?”
“It was radioed to the pilot,” Blake responded. “It’s a bit indirect, meaning the pilot was a little bemused but not alarmed at what he guessed was—and I use his words, not mine—rock and roll reality.” Blake grinned. “I’m sure that means something to him. It doesn’t to me.”
“Where’s Russ?” Ham looked up and back to the front to confirm Russ’ presence. “Has he seen this?”
“Russ has read it, yeah. He’s not worried, or so he claims. His exact words were that his gun collection was bigger than this guy’s dick.”
Ham couldn’t choke off the laugh that built in his throat, though he tried in vain to make it appear to be a cough. “Well, yeah, whatever. But guns and dicks aside, the threat is explicit and very real. To both of you.”
Ham accepted the coffee the steward placed before him and took a grateful sip. He shouldn’t have been surprised, he told himself, but shocked he was. The brew, shrouded in its aroma of heavenly caffeinated uniqueness, was as superior and unique as anything and everything else he’d sampled on the plane. His lame toss-away joke to Drew that he wanted to live on this plane suddenly burned with such intensity as to become his life’s aspiration.
“Well,” Blake queried, sounding more tired than depressed, “what do you suggest we do now?”
Ham read the note more closely, searching for a meaning he might have missed. But there was nothing. Except for one reference, it all seemed clear, even to his recently addled brain.
Welcome to Tahoe, said the spider to the fly. Here’s good news: you’ll outlive Russ.
“Presumably, the perp thinks he’s set a trap,” Ham snapped. “Well, we’ll just see about that shit.”
Ham jerked his gun from behind his back and checked the ammo clip. With a snap, he jammed the clip back in place. “Blake, don’t get me wrong, but you and me, the two of us, we’re going to have an old fashioned sleep-over, cheek to cheek, butt to butt. For the foreseeable future, my friend, you’re not going to wander your place alone, you’re not going to enjoy your muse alone or with the girl of your choice, and you’re not going to go off and go to bed without me.” One more time he checked the clip, satisfied but not convinced. “Nor to the bathroom, for that matter.” He looked up, jaw tight, set and emphasized, “Not even to the freakin’ can, you understand me?”
Before an obviously irritated and confused Blake had the chance to reply, the steward bounded from the cockpit and apologetically and deferentially proffered Blake a newly received follow-up to the recently received memorandum of shock.
“I hate to bother you with all this,” he apologized, “but the pilot insisted I deliver it pronto and he’s the boss, so here you go.”
Blake accepted the note with a nod of appreciation and perused its terse content. He read it yet again, shrugged and, obviously bewildered, handed it over to Ham. It read, “History is the only eternal…and the only test.”
Ham blanched, stunned beyond his wildest dreams…which he had foolishly assumed his recent “visit” with Martina must have been.
Martina, wherever the hell you are…
…I believe.
DAY FOUR
14
RIDERS ON THE STORM
The tires kissed the runway with an audible and jarring smack. Ham’s watch insisted that the jet set down at precisely 12:47 a.m. local time, arriving at Reno-Tahoe International Airport with little fanfare, and in little more than five hours after takeoff from Honolulu’s tarmac.
While the rest shrugged into parkas, gloves and different designs of boots, Ham and Drew grabbed blankets that they fully intended to steal, and utilize, in their mad dash to warmth. Ham’s relief was washed with regret when the steward handed them each an oversized parka and wool hats. He’d almost rather steal the mementos then to accept any proffered souvenir.
“Which probably says something about me as a law abiding former cop” he muttered to an uncomprehending Drew, “but screw that anyway. Whatever it says, whatever kind of wanna-be criminal that makes me, I don’t wanna freaking hear it.” Boring his eyes into the steward’s uncomprehending innocence, he growled, “So bite me, you corporate, suit-wearing, weenie twerp of a lackey. I’m stealing this stuff.”
The steward favored him with an icy smile. “Nice to have you aboard, sir. I hope we’ll see you again as a guest of Mr. Garrett.” The icy smile thinned to slush as he added, “Assuming nothing happens to him, of course.”
The burst of confusion and cacophony of voices conspired to diffuse the direction of declaration. It took Ham more than a moment to realize it was Drew who repeatedly demanded, “Let him go, Ham, let him go, let him go!”
Ham barely heard her as he dangled the offending steward from the top of the cabin, one hand wrapped around his scrawny neck, holding him at bay with
little more effort than an elephant pinning a mouse. No match, that. And no fear.
“This guy’s coming with me,” Ham spat. “If I have to drag his sorry ass through the snow and into the dumpster, he’s either coming with me or he’s taking a permanent and unpleasant vacation to hell.” Eyeing the comically terrified steward, Ham feigned a face slap, knowing, expecting, and letting Drew force his arm back from the attack.
“She won’t be here all night, you little prick,” Ham grinned, his face showing off his evil intent. “And when she’s gone…well…when she’s finally gone, you and me, good buddy, we’re gonna have ourselves a long, long enjoyable talk.”
The terrified steward pleaded, “I was just messing with you, trying to find out what’s going on. Look, here’s the deal,” he continued. “I saw the messages from the cockpit, I was as curious as the pilots were, and we all wanted to know what was going on.” He blushed with the admission that, “I just thought that maybe I’d have something to brag about to my girlfriend, her and her pretentious circle of jerks, you know? I mean, if I could say that, sure, I know Blake Garrett, I’ve met him, travelled with him, helped him, that he’s being threatened with something and that I know the guy who’s trying to save him and that I’m his ally, his go to guy, well I mean, hell. Wouldn’t that get you laid? Anytime, anywhere you wanted?” The steward’s large brown eyes watered with intensity as he added, “I mean, come one, man, you know what I mean, right? You understand what I’m saying. I’m just trying to…you know,” he begged. “Right? You know, right?”
“Of course I do,” Ham lied with a grin, a grin he knew must be as feigned, cold and false as any grin he’d ever offered, ever, to the worst of the worst of his long list of perverted and about to be popped perps. “But just because I understand it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have a really, really, really bad night.”
“What is this all about?” Russ demanded. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Put the goddamn gun away.”
Ham stared at his own left hand with genuine surprise. When he’d pulled the pistol registered not at all. His shock left him without reply.
Not so, Drew. Sometimes, in Ham’s opinion, much quicker on the uptake than he, and this being one of them, she swung her pistol up and around and planted it flat in the middle of Russ’ forehead. “Back off, Russ.” She pressed harder, using the barrel to leave a ring of warning. “I mean it, Russ, back the fuck off.”
Anger, fury, shock…amazement, humor, laughter, disbelief…all flashed so quickly across Russ’ face that Ham couldn’t swear he’d actually seen any of them in particular. But the impression that he had, that they all swept across his face in the blink of an eye, remained in his mind. “What she means,” he interrupted, “is that you should let us handle this.” Eying Blake, who though looking bemused said nothing, he added, “Like your partner, there.”
To Russ, Drew instructed, “Why don’t you and Blake escort Charlie and Lindsey off the plane. We’ll be there in a moment.”
They waited as the others deplaned and walked the few feet through ice and misery to the waiting limo. Even as someone on the ground began transferring baggage, Ham nodded toward the cockpit. “Ask the pilots to join us.”
Even as Drew moved to accomplish the task, the door opened and the two emerged, one by one down the small aisle. The sight of a terrified coworker and two armed individuals brought them up short.
“Sit down, gentlemen,” Drew invited. “We’d like to have a word with you.”
Without comment, they moved to obey and as they did, Ham used his weapon to indicate a seat for the steward. “Right there. Don’t move.”
“Who sent the messages?” Drew inquired. “Where’d they come from?”
“They both came in from RNO.” At their blank looks, the pilot amended, “From air traffic control, here at Reno-Tahoe International.”
“Are you sure?” Ham asked. Both of them responded with looks that shouted “moron.” Shrugging, he raised his eyebrows in silent request to Drew, implying “You try.”
She stepped in nicely. “He means,” she explained, “is there any way, any way at all, that somebody could have used that channel to pass the message?”
The pilots glanced at each other and, almost as one, shrugged in what looked to be genuine confusion. “I don’t see how.”
“Fine, so here’s the million dollar question,” Ham informed them. “Which one of you mothers told anybody that Blake would be on this plane? Hmm?”
All three looked stricken at Ham’s accusation, an indication to Ham that each and every one of the supposed tight lipped servers of luxury were guilty of that particular sin. “That’s what I thought,” he snapped disgustedly. “What do you think, Drew? Do we turn them in? Or just off them here and let their company worry about it.”
Drew blew out a long sigh of indecision before she decided. “Each of you maggots write down every person you told. Full names, phone numbers, address, how many times you fucked ‘em, the whole freakin’ bit.” Turning to Ham, she nodded. “If they lie, if they leave anything or anybody out, then we off them.” Pointing her gun at the steward, she confirmed, “Starting with this little twerp.”
“I told my girlfriend,” he admitted, eyes swelling with panic. “She may have told others, I don’t know.”
“I told my wife,” one of the pilots acknowledged.
“I did, too,” the other added.
Drew’s eyes couldn’t contain her shock. “You told his wife? Really? Are you doing her, too?” Her eyes suddenly bright and shining, she nearly shouted with the delight of a thought well and truly brilliant beyond measure. “Say! I have an idea. Why don’t we pants the little shit after we’re done? Throw him out there in the snow…”
“Enough,” Ham snapped, “just write it all down. Every one, all details, including supervisor’s name and number.” He spat with disgust, “You’re all flaming busted. Good luck with your next jobs.”
Within a few minutes, Ham and Drew, their tasks accomplished, rushed their way into the welcoming warmth of the limo. As they settled in, Blake’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You two want to explain to me why the cabin steward is out there in the snow without pants?”
Drew looked too innocent for butter to ever melt in her mouth. “I’m guessing he was hot,” she grinned.
“That’s true,” Ham confirmed. “He said something about needing air. He’s a little weird, I’m thinking.” Rubbing his frozen hands together, he pleaded, “I don’t suppose there’s any coffee in this under-blown bus, is there?”
Blake nodded toward a console built in to the front left side of the sleek black interior. “You’ll find a carafe in there. Help yourself.”
“By the way, Drew,” Russ half coughed, half laughed, “next time you get it into your head to draw a gun on me you might consider that I have quite a collection of armaments myself. I’m kind of a Ted Nugent that way.”
“Russ has no idea how to use any of them,” Blake teased, “so don’t worry about it. He’s all bluster.”
“Bluster, a rack full of guns, and a whole lot of ammo,” Russ grinned. “Let us remember that, shall we?”
“Bullets he has, aim he has not. He once tried to shoot the hell out of my boat,” Blake explained, “wanted to fill it full of holes, sink the damn thing out in the middle and deepest part of the lake, and with me aboard. Fortunately, he couldn’t hit the broad side of a boat.”
“You must be kidding,” Ham laughed. “I never read or heard anything about that, or even anything like it.”
“That’s because it’s bullshit,” Russ snorted. “He’s a lying sack of shit. I was drunk and messing around, that’s all. Those were blanks and he knows it—knew it at the time, too. But would he let it rest, let it go at that? Hell no, not with his perverted sense of humor. This mean-assed, jerk-water son-of-a-bitch here, he went so far as to send that so-called story to one of those freaking rags—you know the type I mean, one of those that print those stories ab
out Elvis’ alien love child and stuff like that—and even those clowns didn’t believe him. He was damned pissed that they wouldn’t fork over money for the rights to print that nonstory.”
Blake’s shrug was elaborately casual. “I needed the money.”
“Yeah, right,” Russ huffed. “You and Midas.” To Ham, he added, “It’s just his mean streak. Something you should watch out for, especially at the lake. He’s meanest and at his worst in his home territory, what with Gordo to protect him from retribution and all that rot.”
“Speaking of the lake,” Drew complained, “how much further?”
“Getting tired, Drew?” Russ asked as he checked his watch. “Hell, it’s only eleven p.m. in Hawaii.”
“We’re not in Hawaii,” Drew replied, her voice thick with fatigue.
Russ elbowed Blake in the ribs. “And you wondered why I hired her. I told you she was sharp.”
Though Drew flipped him a friendly finger, the attempt at nonchalance was totally belied by her girlish giggle and transparent delight at being teased by the great Russ Porter.
“Maybe he’ll take you to the prom, Drew.”
“Bite me, McCalister…is anybody going to answer my question?”
Charlie stirred for the first time since she’d slid down into the comfort of the side sofa, sharing the large leather softened bench only with Lindsey. “About twenty-five more minutes, assuming the roads are clear. Which,” she added looking out the darkened windows, “it looks like they are. It must not have snowed today.”
Ham sank back into his own reverie, letting the warmth and comfort of the luxurious interior lull him into his own version of lassitude. Not until Drew shook him to awareness did he realize that he’d napped his way through most of the mountainous pass, over and across to the other side of “The Lake,” as the locals referred to Tahoe.
The Ghost of Truckee River (A Ham McCalister Mystery Book 1) Page 20