by Dean Ing
YOUTH'S REMAINS FOUND
The skeletal remains of a Briant youth, missing since 1987, have been positively identified, says a spokesman of the Fresno County Sheriffs department. The body of Steele Lowery of Briant, aged 17 at his disappearance in April of 1987, has been found in a disused mine shaft northeast of Briant. Authorities say the youth died of accidental causes at the time of his original disappearance.
Everybody will buy that, thought Gary, except the bastards who put me down there with the kid.
And with any luck they won't see this piece.
The telephone rang while he was running off copies of the article; Ashland, Oregon, calling.
They had a bingo, said the chemist. "Of sorts, anyway. The state lab supervisor in Sacramento tells our Fairbanks guy that, according to their computer, their Fresno lab recently had a few darts charged up with Thomas Concoction for those big pinnipeds - ah, seals. Apparently they don't load the darts the way we do, they keep ampoules. It wouldn't make any difference except that the Fresno supervisor - name's Erwin Lockhart, by the way - reported they lost a load."
"Lost it?"
"Well, spillage, actually. Those ampoules are pretty sturdy; new ones are polycarbonate, just about unbreakable, but the old ones are glass. Lockhart verified to Sacto that he saw the debris, the load soaking into the concrete floor, one of the lab guys cleaning up with aqua regia - that's a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids that plays hell with any organic matter, including Dr. Thomas's favorite brew. It's a clear liquid, partly organic. The acids would've handled it right away."
"So it was really accounted for, after all," Gary said.
"No doubt about it, according to the records. Their tech - Andrews, I think his name is - spilled a few ceecees of it, but Lockhart witnessed it bubbling away as that aqua regia etched its way down into the cement."
"What was that name again?"
"Lockhart, or Andrews? I think it was Andrews," the chemist replied. "They're pretty understaffed there, but you've probably seen their facility."
The moment Gary admitted he hadn't, he realized he should remedy that little oversight as soon as possible. He thanked the Oregon Fed for his help, rang off, and glanced at the wall-clock. Not quite 4:00.
Twenty minutes or so to the state lab; the opposite end of town from his apartment at the day's end, but whatthehell -
25
JUNE 1994
Erwin Lockhart liked doors to be kept open unless there was a good reason for them to be closed, so a closed door in the Fresno lab was a signal, of sorts. Andy Soriano preferred, at half-past four in the afternoon, not to signal that he was stealing a very small piece of advanced technology.
Andy hunched over his desk in the lab, a can of lighter fluid plainly in view as a decoy for anyone who might walk by his office. A stride in the concrete corridor made enough noise in the quiet of the lab to give a few seconds' warning. Instead of squirting fluid onto the spongy felt material of his old Zippo lighter, he was shoving his plastic-wrapped, handmade copy of the latest tracker subamplifier into the bottom of his lighter, between its felt pad and what remained of the cotton wicking. The little metal chamber, robbed of most of its cotton, retained enough fluid to light a few times and would pass any but the most careful inspection. Andy's only reasons for lighting an occasional cigarette were to justify that lighter in his pocket and, more rarely, as a mannerism for one of his characters. Though he did not flinch outwardly when the phone rang, his heart bounced against his ribs and, while answering, he smiled at his own inner reaction.
The smile died when Lockhart summoned him. Would Andrew mind showing a federal agent some of their special equipment?
"Oh, swell! He picked a great time for it," Andy grumbled.
Evidently, Lockhart was speaking for the benefit of the agent. "Good. Nothing like a full tour, Andrew.
Just a rundown on some hardware. He's here with me," Lockhart added unnecessarily.
Andy pocketed his contraband, cleared his desktop, and shrugged into his Bright Young Andrew character for the visiting Fed as he walked toward Lockhart's office. Maybe this little command performance wouldn't take long. He had scheduled a couple of hours at the playhouse that evening, and after that a quick run to The Place to deliver his goods to Mom. She would probably complain about his lateness; well, let her. He turned the corner to Lockhart's office and almost bumped into a man standing in the doorway. For an instant, their heads were only inches apart.
The effect for Andy was dreamlike, hallucinatory, and then they both moved apart with the self-conscious laughs of men occupying a no-man's-land of personal space. To cover his confusion, Andy looked in Lockhart's direction, thinking, I know this man beside me, unable to place him but equating him somehow with danger. Meanwhile he put his gestures on automatic pilot while Lockhart introduced them, shaking hands, exchanging smiles with this DEA man, Gary Landis. He did not recall hearing the name before; could not place the short blond crew cut with the tanned, smooth-shaven face. As the moment passed, Andy realized it was entirely possible that this Landis fellow, with his alert regular features and easy grin, simply looked very much like several other men.
"If you're DEA, I suppose you'll be interested in our accountability procedures," Andy said, with a wave toward the hall.
"Good idea," said Landis. "But hey, this isn't a bust." He laughed to cement his denial. "We've heard you Fish and Game guys have some interesting delivery systems for tranquilizers," he went on with that infectious smile. "That's something we only hear about in the agency; high time we learned more."
"Carte blanche, Andrew," said Lockhart, and picked up a memo from his in basket to signify that Andy could take it from there, holding nothing back.
Andy led the way down the corridor, explaining that the lab's modest staffing did not allow a chief chemist. He showed Landis their pharmaceutical stocks, remarking that another lab technician, momentarily in another part of the building, doubled as chemist and microbiologist. "As you see, two levels of security,"
Andy said, "the receptionist where you got that green visitor badge is level one, the double-locked stockroom here for the more arcane materials is level two."
"I noticed the passes are different colors," Landis remarked.
"You betcha; red is for the press," Andy chuckled. "We're a little more careful with some dude looking for a good story." Picking up on his tour spiel again: "We still use the old key locks instead of electronic entry, it's cheap." And they yield to a lockpick if your mom teaches you well enough. "Chemist and director have keys, with a third set in the director's office safe. Want to see inside?" Landis nodded, evidently not all that interested, and Andy's level of arousal subsided one small notch. "Nobody else has access?"
"Only those," Andy said. "We account for requisitions on a clipboard inside, backed with computer records and reports. Lockhart's a fiend for long-winded reports. Just a minute - Doug will have to do the honors." And with that, Andy walked a few steps down the corridor, tapped on the closed door, then entered. He found Doug Isaacs installing an insect specimen in the gold-plating fixture needed for the electron microscope. "Visiting DEA, needs to look at the secure stores," he said. "Lockhart okayed him."
Isaacs said nothing intelligible. He managed to be civil to a few of the staff, but for some reason he had never warmed to Andy. Grumbling, the chemist shuffled out, fondling his ring of keys like a priest with a censer. After brief introductions, Doug Isaacs opened the secure room and mumbled apologies about its untidiness. Landis glanced around idly, eyeing shelves, studying the contents of an ordinary Amana refrigerator. "Telazol? Triggers a memory," he said.
Isaacs: "I'm not surprised; it's one of the tranquilizers controlled by you folks. Some of the others like ketamine and Xylazine aren't."
"It was mostly the tranquilizer hardware that's of interest," Landis said at last, shutting the refrigerator.
"Can you really put a mountain lion out with this stuff in here?"
"Dow
n and out, with some of it," said Doug. "Or a sea lion. That was something we had to do recently."
"Yeah?" Landis squinted with interest.
"Yeah - a big California sea lion can go six hundred pounds, and they're getting so aggressive, they challenge tourists at Fisherman's Wharf. In a few cases, the worst offenders were darted and towed away."
"Seems like they'd just come back again, when they woke up," Landis ventured.
The topic was not to Andy's liking. "I can show you some hardware," he began.
Isaacs, damn him, was not to be denied. "They didn't wake up. That was the point, but the tourists don't know that. We, uh, managed to kill a few square feet of cement floor while we were at it;" said Doug, with a flicker of dour amusement toward Andy.
Landis cocked his head, glancing from one to the other. "Inside joke?"
Andy said, "What he means is, he overreacted to a little spillage - "
"My ass!" Isaacs scoffed. "That was the kind of stuff you don't fool around with, Andy." To Landis:
"He did it; let him tell you about it."
They filed outside again, Isaacs relocking the secure room and disappearing down the corridor again with a parting mumble. "Sounds like I'm missing a good yarn," said Landis.
"Nah. It was just a glass vial of tranquilizer I broke," Andy replied. "But the stuff was special stores and Doug wasn't happy 'til he'd followed up with some acids that took off a millimeter of the cement around the spill. End of story."
It was, of course, only the end that Andy chose to explain. The other end of it, known only to him and Romana, was Andy's prior theft of a vial and its replacement with a plain potassium chloride solution. Andy had, in fact, dropped the damned vial once without effect. When he threw it down harder the second time, it had broken. And the pilfered vial had gone into the buttock of Charles Lane.
The thought of Lane, and his disposal, did not disturb Andy in the slightest. Lane had been a client - a thing that walked and talked like a man but, as Mom had taught him, was only prey. Yet Mom had also taught that dangerous topics were best avoided, and his theft of the deadly vial was too close to the present discussion.
To pass from the subject Andy said, "Want to see the dart pistol? That's the delivery system for the tranquilizer."
Landis did, and Andy produced it from a cabinet in another part of the lab. The two men moved into Andy's cubicle, discussing the weapon, lounging in swivel chairs.
Andy felt no reluctance to discuss the device, which had never been part of Mom's arsenal and did not look at all like a pistol. Its camouflage-painted brass barrel was easily four feet long, a half-inch in diameter.
Andy showed how the barrel plugged into a pistol grip which had both a pressure gauge and a steel reservoir fed by a common CO2 cartridge. "You can also fill the reservoir with air from a foot pump," Andy explained. "You can even fit a mouthpiece on the barrel and use it as a blowgun at very close range."
Andy could tell that Landis was intrigued, as though by some expensive toy. As the instructor, Andy was in his glory now, genuinely enjoying the process, warming to Landis himself. He triggered the empty weapon once, producing its characteristic chuffing hiss that brought a smile to the DEA man's face.
"There's a different rig for longer range, but this pistol is good up to twenty yards or so. And here's what it shoots."
He showed off a dart, a special syringe of clear plastic trailing a crimson stabilizer of soft, fluffy stuff.
"You can get a gram and a half of Telazol in here, about six ceecees. That's enough to knock a brown bear out for a while."
"Or that other stuff, I suppose," Landis prompted.
"Xylazine? It's for different animals. There's a dosage chart here somewhere. Coyote or bobcat go down easier than, say, a cougar."
Andy unlocked his handmade cabinet, extracting a text from it, checking a reference on tranquilizer dosages. Andy did this with practiced ease, hiding his most subtle work in plain sight. No one, seeing him take a book from that glass-fronted case, could have dreamed that the case might hide more than it displayed with shelves that were obviously half-vacant.
When Andy displayed the chart, Landis showed more interest, commenting on the fact that species of roughly the same size did not always get the same dosage. Andy explained that dosages had been determined partly by experience. Watching Landis's pupils, he saw them expand slightly at one chart entry.
"Thomas Concoction? Sounds like a cocktail," Landis said, looking up quizzically.
Knowing that vagueness was the province of the guilty, Andy said, "Well, I'm no bartender, but I can tell you one is all you'd order. That's the hard stuff."
Landis, reading from the chart: "Huh; says here, 'lethal in two to three minutes with correct dosage.'
Was that the killing dose you spilled?"
Look him in the eye. You're innocent; nothing to hide, Andy directed himself. "Yeah, and I won't forget it soon. Doug will see to that," this last sally with a laugh. "There's more data on all the dosages there, if you need it."
But Landis was leafing through the book again, finally handing it back. "One of these days, law enforcement will be using this stuff on the scumbags," he said.
"Don't tell me DEA's considering it."
"Couldn't say. I can recall a few assholes who could've used a dose of that concoction stuff," Landis added. "But I can't see anybody pulling a quick draw with a pistol four feet long."
Andy knew there was a simpler way in close quarters but, replacing the text in the cabinet, did not suggest it. "I guess we don't think much in terms of fast draws here. You guys really have to do that'
stuff?"
Gary Landis admitted that it wasn't common. He went on to say that, as a Los Angeles cop dealing with gangs, he could have used something like the dart gun, which got them to swapping bits of their backgrounds as law-enforcement people will do. To Landis's mention of his UCLA days, Andy responded with his training at Cal Davis. Whenever Landis turned serious for a moment, his face sent little warning tremors through Andy's mind; but, for the most part, the DEA man's disposition was sunny and those moments far apart. If Andy managed to cultivate a friendship with Landis, he might also gain a better understanding of federal law-enforcement methods. Mom would worry. Jesus, no matter what he did, Mom would worry and bitch. Worry-mom. Bitch-mom. The hell with Mom.
At 5:30 Doug Isaacs strolled past, pulling on his coat as he glanced into Andy's office with that dyspeptic look Andy disliked so much.
With a glance at his wrist, Landis frowned. "Hey, Andy, I'm sorry, I'm on your personal time now."
"No problem. Tell you the truth, I'm enjoying it. Don't get to bullshit that much with, you know - "
"A world-class bullshitter," Landis picked up on it, chuckling. "Well, you drop in on me sometime downtown." He stood up and stretched.
"Maybe I will." Andy stood, too, liking this agent, honestly sorry to have the visit ended. The other lab people saw one another socially, but had long since given up on the diffident Andrew Soriano. Lockhart was decent enough, but always maintained a proper supervisory distance. As uneasy as if asking a woman for a date, Andy said, "Uh, Gary, you wouldn't, ah, have time for a beer?"
Landis raised his brows, then shrugged. "Gee, you caught me without an excuse. But, then, I'm easy."
Landis surrendered his pass and the two parted in the parking lot where Landis, in his Camaro, followed the little Pinto to a local bar frequented by Doug and a couple of others. I hope they're down there now.
Let them notice me buddying up with a federal agent, Andy told himself. Let them see that Andrew Soriano can have friends anytime he wants them.
26
JUNE 1994
It was almost dark, the midsummer sunset remaining only as a faint bloody smear cross-hatched by bats in the foreground of the Sierra skyline, when Andy arrived at The Place. He paused to enjoy the stillness, leaning against the Pinto's warm hood, idly tossing the old Zippo in one hand, certain that its contents would
bring praise from Mom when she returned. The tubular nylon kite that hung from the house TV antenna had been freed so that its tail streamers twisted lazily in a cone of light from a small floodlight at ground level. That told him she was aloft in the Chamois. She used the device as an illuminated wind sock; when she was not flying, the kite was secured downward by a Kevlar cord no thicker than fishing line. It was amusing, he thought, slipping the Zippo back into a pocket, how many ordinary things you could, put to extraordinary uses.
All in all, it had been a fine day, full of little successes. He had spent a full hour with Landis at the bar, feeling the beginnings of a camaraderie that other men took so lightly. When Gary Landis laughed at a joke - laughing not for a group, but for him, alone - Andy had found himself inexplicably misty-eyed with the fullness in his chest. Perhaps, at last, here was a friendship that Mom might cynically endorse as useful.
After that hour in the bar he had boasted modestly to Landis that he must soon put in an appearance with a little-theater group. It had been no exaggeration that they needed him behind the scenes as much as they depended on the actors to hit their marks among the scenery flats. He had spent an hour or so with Aletha and the others, basking in praise for such good work on short notice. He recalled that Aletha had preened her hair unconsciously when she saw him walk in. He had not felt so widely appreciated in a long time.
Years before, and not so far from this very spot, he had tasted moments of comradeship with schoolmates during his high-school years; even responded shyly to the first tendrils of romantic interest, extended by one of Briant High's most popular girls. Though not exactly a beauty, Linda had combined gentle wit with a quiet poise, a confidence in herself, that Andy envied without malice.
In a world just a little different from his own, Andy Soriano might have drawn confidence from Linda, might even have turned his relatively innocent fantasies into fact. But unable to borrow Mom's car for his own purposes, forbidden to date, Andy had let his opportunities wither. The girl had gravitated to an older boy, a basketball jock who even had the same nickname: Andy. In an odd, vicarious way, Andy Soriano had known a wistful enjoyment in their pairing.