Noir

by Christopher Moore

  Oh Ho, you have been unjustly maligned, you have been an outcast from your family over a falsehood, but I will give you absolution, cat fucker. I will give you a seat by your ancestors.

  Where to bite? Where to bite? That straw hat will catch my fangs before they make purchase.

  Out of his barrel Ho brings something round, points it at me—a mouth as wide as a blunderbuss. Not a gun, a fire extinguisher. Time to bolt. But it’s cold. Colder than I’ve ever been. Colder than I knew it could be. Something’s slipped over my head, holding me, choking me. BITE! BITE! BITE! I hit nothing. So cold. Can barely move. Ho, you dirty son of a bitch, you got me.

  I shoulda seen it coming. The CO2 fire extinguisher slowing me down. So cold! I should have known. Because I know things. My people know things.

  * * *

  Hatch drove, while Bailey, in the passenger seat, transcribed his notes by dome light from his pocket notebook onto a legal pad in disappearing ink. After each sheet of his pocket notebook was transcribed, he tore it out, lit it with a Zippo, and held it at the edges as long as he could without burning his fingers, then dropped it in the ashtray. (Sometimes he let it burn the tips of his fingers.) The ink on the legal pad would remain visible for only five minutes, so there was no second draft. The completed report would be put in a waterproof envelope and left in a dead drop specified by the voice on the phone. Later it would be retrieved and couriered to Washington, where an agent with clearance would develop the invisible ink, and read every other word to a blindfolded typist. Later another typist typed every other, other word, after which the original would be burned and the ashes flushed down the can, then the entire assembled typescript would be marked top secret, every word redacted except for conjunctions, and the whole thing filed in a locked cabinet in a locked room to which someone, presumably, had a key.

  Bailey was most nervous when writing the actual report, because it was then that Hatch might see something that he hadn’t previously known about and start asking questions.

  Bailey wrote: Body was packed in ice, in a crate, but upon examination showed signs of having been injected with some kind of poison. Agent determined that examination of the body by a coroner might present a security risk to the project—

  “Why did we need to send the Italian up in the plane with the general?” asked Hatch. “Clearly someone else killed him and was going to dispose of the body.”

  Bailey snapped off the dome light, annoyed. He hadn’t mentioned the marks on Sal Gabelli’s neck and Hatch hadn’t noticed them. “Containment,” Bailey said. “Gabelli was one of the general’s connections here. We don’t know how much he knew. Orders were to tie up the connection by putting them together. A murder would be investigated. A plane crash is just an accident.”

  It was the longest speech Bailey had ever shared with Hatch, and he felt something. Was it shame? Still, he wasn’t clear, himself, why they had transported the body, and he knew more about this operation than Hatch.

  “But why the woman? Clarence and Potter said she didn’t know anything. Why put her on the plane?”

  “Orders,” Bailey said. He didn’t know why. The general, well, had opened a ridiculous hole in security that had to be closed, but some good-time girl? Now Hatch had him questioning orders, which you don’t do.

  A minute passed. Hatch said, “Won’t whoever really killed Sal Gabelli know he didn’t die in a plane crash?”

  Bailey thought. “That is a hole that will need to be filled.” He checked his watch. “We call in for orders in three hours. Best not to ask questions.”

  Two minutes passed. Bailey flipped the dome light back on, resumed work on his report. The previous text had disappeared. He couldn’t remember where he had left off. What had he written? He flipped the dome light off.

  Hatch said, “Done with the report?”

  “Yes,” Bailey said.

  Hatch had noticed that Bailey had written less than half a page. A lot more than half a page had happened.

  “I’m having trouble seeing the road for some reason,” Hatch said.

  “You’re wearing your sunglasses,” said Bailey. “It’s night. Take them off.”

  “What about radiation?”

  “It’s only a theory.”

  Hatch removed his sunglasses, sighed in relief.

  Five minutes ticked away. Cars passed, just moving lights and a whoosh as they went by. Fingerlings of fog were leaking into the valleys from the bay, still forty minutes away. They washed over the car like flights of ghosts.

  Hatch said, “Hey, you ever feel like you might just be the construct of an unyielding, all-seeing bureaucracy beyond our perception that is molding humanity to its own will and pleasure?”

  All the time, Bailey thought. Sometimes when you’re sleeping, Hatch, I sneak away and call my wife, look at a picture of us together while she says my real name, over and over, just to confirm that I really exist.

  “No,” Bailey said.

  Hatch nodded, drove in silence for a while, then said, “Ever think we might be just pieces in a self-building, evolving machine, forming itself to crush the human spirit?”

  Every goddamn day, Bailey thought. “Pie,” he said. “When you start to thinking that way, think about pie. Your favorite kind. Pie is real; everything else is your mind trying to trick you.”

  “What’s your favorite kind of pie?” Hatch asked.

  “I can’t tell you that,” said Bailey.

  They drove in silence for ten minutes. A sign said “City of Novato” but there was no town there, just a road.

  Hatch said, “I’ve never met a lesbian before.”

  “Shut up, Hatch,” Bailey said. “Just shut the fuck up.”

  Hatch drove.

  Blueberry, Bailey thought.

  * * *

  The entire town of Monte Rio consisted of a gas station and a tire-flattened raccoon. At a quarter to six in the morning, the raccoon was the liveliest thing about it. First thing I saw was a sign carved in wood, school bus yellow against outhouse brown, with an arrow: bohemian grove. So my top-notch detective work of getting directions from Jimmy Vasco was paying off. From the River Road, so called because it runs along the Russian River, I could see the little gatehouse with a guy dozing behind the glass, so just driving in was not an option. Even if I could bluff my way past the guard, explaining the unconscious cop in the rumble seat might get sticky.

  I parked the Ford by a bin of old tires behind the two-pump gas station, unwrapped the blanket around Pookie, then gave him a couple of slaps to make sure he wasn’t waking up. I still had an hour or so, I figured, based on Uncle Ho’s instructions, before I had to jab him with the rest of the heroin, so I pushed him as far down in the rumble seat as I could manage and covered his head with the blanket so he didn’t attract attention and also so the blanket would soak up most of his drool so there wouldn’t be a stream running down the side of the car.

  A quick check of the map. Looked like this Dragon camp was maybe three or four hundred yards up the road into the Grove. If the Cheese was there, I figured, I should be able to get in, get her, and get out—a half hour, tops. If she wasn’t there, well, I didn’t know. Maybe I’d start blasting guys until someone told me where she was and save one for myself in case I found out the worst about the plane crash I read about in the Examiner. It couldn’t be her. (Yeah, I read the story by the dome light on my way up. That guy I ran off the road outside Petaluma had no business driving at that hour of the morning and needed a roadside rest. Probably.)

  I crossed the River Road in a crouch, sneaky-like, and made my way into the woods about fifty yards parallel to the camp road. Myrtle was right, these were some heavyweight trees indeed. The bonus of which was, unlike the woods in Idaho where I grew up, there was almost no undergrowth, so even in street shoes and a suit, and with a bum foot, making my way through this forest was a piece of cake. All due respect to Mr. Powers, the doorman at Mabel’s, though, you can’t tramp through the woods with a gun in your wai
stband, unless you got a boiler like Pookie’s and a seat cushion to match to hold it up, but on a lean guy like me, it slid down my leg, so I put it in my jacket pocket until further notice. In the city, on smooth ground, yeah, he had a point.

  I skated along the camps, most of them fenced off with split rails, to mark territory only, as split-rail fences are less than useless in keeping out skunks, bears, weasels, and even the random guy sneaking in from the city. There were big army wall tents in some camps, others had permanent cabins, but none of these nobs was sleeping outside on the ground like real campers. Real campsites, I am told, seldom come with waiters, bartenders, and a staff of private park rangers, but then, I do not hob among the nobs. What campfires might have raged the night before were only smoldering now. The only stirring was the occasional fat guy stumbling out of a tent to have a sleepy whiz against a giant redwood.

  I passed a big log building that the map said was the dining hall—trash cans out back and a couple of surplus ice machines chugging away under an awning. I crouched behind a tree that was as big around as a small house and checked my map again. The camps had names like Claimjumpers, and Rough Riders, and other unlikely monikers as were probably bestowed by a banker from Nob Hill imagining he was on an adventure. Dragons was only four camps up. Through the trees I could see a couple of little log cabins, a light on in one of the windows, which was small enough to be considered a gunport. There was also a mug in a ranger-type shirt standing by the front door of that cabin. Why would the Bohemians have a guy guarding a cabin unless there was something in there of value? I hoped that thing was the Cheese.

  I dodged from tree to tree until I was just outside the camp. With the cabin between me and the guard, I slid between the rails and got up against the wall by the window. A quick peek and my heart went drum solo—the Cheese—sitting in the corner, party dress, surprise hair—looking like she was about to doze off. I didn’t see the Pearl dame. In fact, I couldn’t see anyone else in there, so I assumed the Bohemians were just using this as their dame stockade and they were doing their sleeping in the other cabins. I just had to take care of the guy by the door.

  I could pull the Walther on him, but if he yelled, I’d have to shoot a lot of guys, which I did not wish to do, so I figured I would sap him into nap-land. He was not a big guy—about my size, which is to say average—so I figured I could maybe knock him out, but for all the trees and campfires, there was not one piece of firewood suitable for bludgeoning anywhere in sight. Now, during my boxing training, Lone Jones admonished me on many occasions to never hit a guy in the head with my fists if I could help it, as fingers break easier than a guy’s coconut, but in this case I had nothing but the Walther, and while it would do fine to ventilate a mug most dead, I was not sure about its sap potential. It is not a large pistol and given how many times I had to hit Pookie with the .45, which was much more substantial, I figured I would have to put this guy’s lights out with my own dukes.

  “But I have seen you hit a guy with your fists, Lone,” I told him back then.

  “Sho’, me, but you can’t hit nobody with them little ol’ bunny hands,” Lone said. “You need to find you a brick or somethin’.”

  To appease my teacher, I slipped my belt out of the loops and wrapped it around my knuckles to protect and serve.

  I slid under the window and along the wall, and I got a good bead on the guard, as I could just see the tip of his nose around the corner. I took a deep breath and came around the corner in a full haymaker swing, my whole body in it, and the poor ranger guy must have heard my breath, because he turned into the punch. I caught him right between the eyes and he completely changed direction, his head snapping back and hitting the doorjamb. He went down like his bones had liquefied.

  Before I even got a chance to try the door, it opened, and there stood another medium-sized guy in a ranger shirt, freckled face with a red brush cut. “What did you do to Jeff?” he said, looking at his downed buddy.

  Where this guy came from, I did not know, because he was not visible from the window. I didn’t know whether to clock him or go for the gun in my jacket pocket. I started to go for the gun, since I was sort of bunched up with the knocked-out Jeff at my feet. But I forgot I still had my belt around my right hand, so I couldn’t get my hand in my pocket. I started to panic, thinking the new guy was going to knock my block off, when the Cheese pulled him back.

  “I’ll handle this, Rusty,” said the Cheese. “I know this bum.” Then, to me, she said, “Sammy, what are you doing to Jeff?”

  “I’m not doing anything,” I said, and only then did I realize that without my belt, my pants had fallen down to my knees, and I was standing there in my boxers and a suit coat, with my belt uncoiling from my right hand. So, yes, I was doing something. I was panicking.

  “What do you mean, nothing? It looks like if we didn’t open the door you’d be giving Jeff here the razzmatazz.” She looked over her shoulder at the ranger guy called Rusty. “And believe me, tomorrow poor Jeff would be crying in his coffee and this bum would be down the road.”

  “I would not. I did not. I don’t even know Jeff.”

  “That’s just like you, Sammy. Have your way with poor Jeff and don’t even get his name.”

  I finally threw my belt over my shoulder and pulled up my trousers. “I’m here to rescue you.” I pulled the gun. Pointed it at Rusty.

  “Why do you have a gun?” asked the Cheese.

  “Because I’m here to rescue you.”

  “I do not need to be rescued,” she said.

  “Yes you do. These guys are holding you prisoner.”

  “No, they aren’t.” She turned to Rusty. “Are you?”

  He looked embarrassed. The ginger’s skin was nearly transparent except for the freckles, so he couldn’t hide that he was blushing. “Sort of,” he said.

  “You said we were just waiting for some guys.”

  “Yeah,” said Rusty, talking to his shoes now, completely forgetting I had a heater trained on him. “But those government guys who went away with the general told us if we found you we were supposed to keep you here until they got back. Mr. Stoddard told us to do whatever they said.”

  The Cheese looked at me, shrugged. “Well, thanks, tiger, I guess I do need to be rescued. Keep the gun on Rusty, he’s shiftier than he looks.” Then she stepped over knocked-out Jeff, threw her arms around my neck, and gave me a very big-league smooch, as one might expect as thanks for having pulled off a rescue. She smelled of gin and cupcakes, and while that was mysterious in itself, I figured I would ask her about it later. I kept one eye on Rusty while trying to return the Cheese’s smooch with similar enthusiasm, despite the distraction.

  “Is Jeff going to be all right?” Rusty asked.

  “Yeah, if I don’t shoot you both. Now get in there. Over against the wall.” He did. I handed the Walther to Stilton. “Here, doll, hold this on Rusty. If he moves, shoot him. The safety is off. Just squeeze the trigger.”

  “I don’t know . . .” The Cheese was reluctant.

  “You don’t have to kill him. Just shoot his dick off or something.”

  With that, I had Rusty’s full attention, and he stood against the wall so hard he started to merge with the logs. I put on my belt, then grabbed Jeff under the armpits and dragged him inside. He groaned a little, which was a good sign, because killing a guy in a ranger shirt would have consequences, even if it was by accident.

  I took the gun from the Cheese and backed away. “Rusty, you got any rope?”

  “Nope,” said Rusty.

  “That’s too bad. I was going to just tie you guys up, but since you don’t have any rope, I’m going to have to shoot you.”

  “There’s a box around the side of the cabin with tent stakes and rope,” said Rusty. “You can use my flashlight.”

  He nodded to the flashlight on a hall tree by the door. (Who brings a hall tree to a campout? In fact, this whole cabin was somewhat nicer than my apartment, which I consider more civilize
d than a campout.)

  “Got it,” said the Cheese. She grabbed the flashlight and was out the door in a blink. I could hear her rummaging around in a box outside, and before I could get any more of the skinny out of Rusty, she was back with a coil of cotton rope such as one might use to secure a tent or tie up a couple of ranger guys.

  “Can I tie them up?” asked the Cheese, bouncing on her toes. She was pretty perky for a dame who had been up all night, but then, so had I, and I was feeling pretty awake myself.

  I was conflicted, but I figured less could go wrong than if I let her hold the gun, and I really didn’t want to touch Jeff now that she had made it weird. “Yeah, tie up Jeff and we’ll see how you do. Then I’ll just shoot Rusty.”

  “Hey,” said Rusty.

  “But see how much better you’re gonna feel about getting tied up, huh?” I said, from the sunny side of the street. “So, Rusty, these guys that went away with the general? Black suits? Black hats?”

  “Yeah. And sunglasses. And it was dark. I don’t think they could see very well.”

  “They say when they’d be back?”

  “Just before morning. They just said that if we found this dame we were to hold on to her until they got back.”

  It was no longer before morning, and I was not feeling good about our timing. “Rusty, they have another dame with them?”

  “I ain’t supposed to say. Mr. Stoddard—”

  “I can ask you again after I shoot your dick off.”

  “Yeah. A skinny blonde,” he said so fast he stumbled over the words. “She had a little camera, but they took it away from her.”

  “That’s Jeff,” said Stilton, pulling the last knot tight on Jeff’s hands behind his back like a calf roper. (I’m from Idaho. It’s the West. We have rodeos. Yes, also spuds.) It was a pretty good tying job.