Long Range

by Box, C. J.

  “Sort of,” Joe replied. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He was very aware of being taped. Joe didn’t object, though. He had nothing to hide and he’d triggered his own digital audio recorder in his breast pocket before climbing into Sun’s SUV with Renaldo Bloom.

  Becky moved to an overstuffed chair next to the fireplace. Above her was a movie poster featuring a very familiar raven-haired bombshell actress named Vera Dayton. Joe recognized her from several movies he’d seen in his twenties.

  “Is that . . . ?” he asked.

  “My mother,” Becky said. “Emma’s grandmother. Dennis and I met on the set of Savage Beauties, where my mom was the star. Mom doesn’t like to be referred to as a grandmother.”

  “I have a mother-in-law like that,” Joe said. He’d never heard of Savage Beauties and he hoped she wouldn’t ask him if he’d seen it.

  Unfortunately, the exchange reminded him of who awaited him at his house when he went home.

  Sun observed the exchange with barely disguised boredom.

  Joe looked up at him and said, “I guess you know why I’m here.”

  It was a line he’d used countless times to open up conversations with suspects, potential witnesses, and perpetrators he had dead to rights. The opening had led to a litany of results including confessions, lies, and sometimes an open door to crimes Joe knew nothing about and hadn’t associated with the person he’d asked.

  Dennis Sun stifled a smile, and said, “Yes, in fact I do. You have no idea what you’re looking for and you’re asking me an open-ended question to see if I’m gullible enough to confess to something about which you have no idea.”

  “Dennis, that’s rude,” Becky said to him.

  Joe knew that his face had flushed and he’d looked away from Sun.

  “Exactly,” Sun said to him. “Your response is a tell. It’s proof that I hit the target.”

  “You did,” Joe admitted.

  Sun said, “You need to understand that you’re dealing with a man who has spent his entire life observing and manipulating the feelings and reactions of other people, primarily actors, to obtain a certain end. Every look, every facial tic, every emotion can be seen on the face and from the eyes.

  “I’ve spent the best years of my life dealing with sharks and deviants in the business—people who love you one minute and then sever your femoral artery with a bowie knife the next. So forgive my caution. If you thought you could come here and bait me into admitting something, you’ve come to the wrong place and you’re dealing with the wrong man.”

  “I’m here for a reason,” Joe said. But he felt humiliated.

  “Are you here to arrest me for doing something on my own land again?” Sun asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you here to ask me if I know anything about the shooting of Judge Hewitt’s wife by mistake?” Sun said.

  Before Joe could confirm it, Sun said, “Ah. I thought someone might wonder about that. As soon as I heard about it, I suspected I might get a visit from local law enforcement, although to be honest I expected a cop or the local sheriff. After all, it’s well known the judge and I have an adversarial relationship.”

  Joe said, “You were overheard saying you’d like to kill him.”

  “Heat of the moment,” Sun said with a dismissive wave. “But do you want to know why it wasn’t me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I wouldn’t have missed,” Sun said with a triumphant smile.

  “Dennis!” Becky said again. “I’m taking Emma out of the room. She can’t hear you talking like this.”

  “She’s four months old, for God’s sake,” Sun said to Becky with an upward roll of his eyes. “She understands nothing and will remember nothing of this.”

  “You don’t give her enough credit,” Becky Barber huffed as she gathered up Emma and stormed out of the room.

  “Tell her,” Sun said to Joe. His voice rose and he shouted, “A four-month-old baby comprehends nothing.”

  Joe nodded reluctantly that he agreed with the producer.

  “You’ve had children who are now grown,” Sun said. “You know. As have I—five of them scattered around the world. Children are both resilient and oblivious to any stimuli up to a certain age. They certainly don’t understand actual words—just tones. Becky doesn’t know this yet. Emma’s her first, and of course being her first means Emma is an exceptionally bright and perceptive child who is wise beyond her months on earth and cognizant of everything going on around her. According to Becky, Emma is the smartest baby on God’s green earth, you know. And Becky is the only woman to have ever given birth.”

  Joe wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “Can I tell you something?” Sun asked.

  “Sure.”

  “My unsolicited advice to you is to never marry someone younger than your oldest daughter.”

  “That’s not likely to happen,” Joe said.

  “Good. Because it isn’t as fun as it looks,” Sun said. “Now, if we’re done here, I’ve got a motion picture to edit and I’m sure you have many important things to do.”

  Joe said, “I saw your range outside.”

  “Yes, and?” Sun asked, arching his eyebrows comically.

  “You’re a long-distance shooter?”

  “You know I am,” Sun said. “You and Judge Hewitt confiscated several of my best rifles, if you’ll recall.”

  “I do,” Joe said.

  “Since then I’ve managed to acquire two new ones,” Sun said. “I’ve a wonderful Gunwerks Verdict in .338 Lapua and a Cobalt Kinetics BAMF XL Overwatch PRS in 6.5 Creedmoor. The Gunwerks rifle was accurate at fourteen hundred yards straight out of the box.”

  “So a sixteen-hundred-yard shot is within your range,” Joe said.

  “Obviously. And farther than that if wind conditions and atmospheric pressure are favorable.”

  Which echoed what Nate had said that morning, Joe thought.

  “Look,” Sun said, “there’s no law against having an interest in premium precision rifles or acquiring them. I got interested in them shooting Assassin’s Castle in Bulgaria several years ago and I’ve kept up with the technology. Becky absolutely hates my interest in weapons. Hates it. She’d rather I take up painting landscapes. By the way, did you see Assassin’s—”

  “No,” Joe answered quickly.

  Sun grunted. “Not many people did, I’m afraid. It was about a dozen international hit men and women invited to a mysterious castle by a supposed employer. None of them knew the others would be there. Only, instead of hiring them for a job, the overseer created a scenario in which the assassins were set up to take each other out one by one until only one was left standing. I won’t give away the ending in case you’d like to rent it. But it involved a lot of high-velocity long-range headshots.

  “Anyway,” Sun said, “I ended up with several of the rifles we used after the filming. Those are the ones you stole from me. So in order to keep up with the sport, I needed to buy new ones.”

  “Who is your spotter?” Joe asked. “Not Renaldo?”

  “God, no,” Sun said with a laugh. “The only thing Renaldo can spot are emerging fashion trends. No, when I shoot on my range, I invite David Gilbert out to the house.”

  “I know him,” Joe said. Gilbert was a local insurance broker in Winchester and Joe had interviewed him several years before. Gilbert’s reputation as an honest businessman and/or ethical sportsman was spotty at best. There was no doubt, though, that Gilbert lived for the outdoors and considered his small business solely as a means of financing his adventures.

  “I didn’t realize Gilbert was a long-distance guy as well,” Joe said.

  “He is. We trade roles spotting for each other.”

  “There are a lot more of you people around here than I realized,” Joe confessed.

  “Alas,” Sun said, “every man can be a sniper these days.”

  Joe recalled that Nate had used the exact same words.

  “There’s something e
soteric and darkly fascinating involved with it,” Sun said. “Hitting a target so far away that it can’t even see you fills a man with a sense of lethality and power that’s hard to describe. And once you do the math and unleash that bullet, you actually have time to think about taking it back—but you can’t. It’s either on target or it isn’t. The target is dead before the sound of the shot even gets there.”

  “Where were you two nights ago?” Joe asked.

  Sun paused and considered the question. “Just like that, huh?” he asked. “No building up to it or slipping it in there?”

  “No.”

  Sun sighed. “I was flying back from a production in Tunisia. Commercial.”

  “Tunisia?” Joe said.

  “Yes. Unfortunately, most of my motion pictures are now filmed overseas where I can get financing. The Hollywood elites shun me these days because they consider me too right-wing for their tastes, which is ridiculous and unfounded. My newfound interest in special firearms and choosing to live here in a flyover state only bolsters their view of me, I’m afraid. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t true. The fact is they don’t want me in their club anymore.”

  “When did you get back here?” Joe asked.

  “I didn’t get back until very late last night. I had to take a puddle jumper from Denver to Billings and Renaldo picked me up and drove me home. I didn’t get in bed until four-thirty.”

  Joe nodded.

  Sun walked over to a large closet, opened it, and fished a thick envelope from the inside breast pocket of a rumpled safari coat. He handed the folder to Joe. Inside were boarding passes and used airline tickets from flights from Tunis to Munich to Chicago to Denver to Billings. They were all in Sun’s name and they’d been used the day before.

  “You can check the manifest of the airlines and talk to Renaldo to confirm all of that,” Sun said with a tired wave. Then, flaring and gesturing wildly to Joe, “I got home that late because my private aircraft—that I used to keep on call to fetch me when I landed stateside—got confiscated by fascists because I harvested game animals on my own ranch.”

  “I know that’s a sore spot with you,” Joe said.

  “Do you think?” Sun said with sarcasm.

  “We’ll check it out,” Joe said, “but it sounds like you’re in the clear for this.”

  “While you’re checking, talk to David,” Sun said. “He’ll verify that we haven’t shot together in the last couple of weeks while I was away.”

  As he said it, Becky Barber brought Emma back into the great room.

  She asked, “Is everything okay?”

  Joe said, “Yup.”

  “Of course it is,” Sun said to Joe. “Because if it were me, Sue Hewitt would be fine and her husband would be on a slab in your local morgue.”

  “Dennis!” Becky hissed.

  “I don’t like Judge Hewitt,” Sun said. “He’s a tyrant and a bully. But I didn’t shoot at him. I have enough problems as it is around here.”

  At that, Becky burst into tears and left the room again with Emma.

  “Postpartum depression,” Sun said to Joe while ushering him from his chair toward the door. “Anything seems to trigger it. And she worries that my words will psychologically injure the baby. What about her mother dissolving into an emotional pool of goo at the drop of a hat? What about that?”

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Sun,” Joe said on the porch. He clamped on his hat to go.

  “So when do I get back the stuff you seized from me?” Sun asked.

  “That’s not my call,” Joe said. “Judge Hewitt is the one who decides those things.”

  “And he’s a little distracted right now, isn’t he?” Sun said without empathy. Then: “Renaldo, take Mr. Pickett back to his chariot.”

  TWELVE

  AN HOUR LATER, IN A NARROW ARROYO THAT CUT A SHARP gash from the timbered mountains to the basin below, Orlando Panfile bent over a small white gas Polaris Optifuel stove and lit the flame with a wooden match. It took and hissed and he waved his bare hand over the top of it to verify that it was working. Then he balanced an aluminum pot on the top of the stove’s assembly and poured three inches of water into it from a plastic gallon jug.

  While the water heated, Panfile opened the small Yeti cooler that also served as a makeshift stool and dug out three hard-frozen chiles rellenos that had been prepared by his wife, Luna. They were stuffed with chiles from their garden that had been charred and peeled, queso asedero cheese, and coated with a crisp egg-and-flour breading recipe that had been passed down in Luna’s family for generations. Each was lovingly wrapped in yellow paper and foil. Each wrap was sealed with a red heart valentine sticker, which made him smile.

  When the water finally boiled—he was reminded how long it took at this high altitude—he slid the rellenos one by one beneath the surface and the water instantly stopped rolling. Frozen ziplock bags containing seasoned rice and green chiles were placed into the pot as well. When the water started boiling again, he’d heat his food for five additional minutes and then unfurl the rellenos, dump the rice onto the tin plate next to them, and cover everything with the spicy sauce. It would be as close as he could get to being at his home with his family—his plump wife, Luna; daughters Adriana, Julieta, Ximena; and sons Gabriel and Orlandolito.

  Although Luna had prepared, frozen, and packed enough rellenos and other home-cooked food to last him two weeks, Panfile had stared hard at a cottontail rabbit earlier in the day before he decided to pass it up. Fresh conejo en adobo would be a welcome change of pace.

  Perhaps tomorrow.

  *

  HE WAS PLEASED with the location of his camp. He’d found a deep den beneath an overhang within the arroyo where he could store his goods and equipment and have enough room for his sleeping bag. There was a trickle of fresh spring water in the ditch below that he used for washing his face and cleaning his cooking gear. If it rained hard and a flash flood roared down the cut, he was camped high enough on the side of the draw that his gear wouldn’t be washed away.

  His den couldn’t be spotted from the air, and it wouldn’t be stumbled upon by anyone other than perhaps a hiker or trekker walking directly up the draw. That was unlikely, he’d determined, because there was no public access to the foothills from either above or below. Even then, the camouflage mesh material he’d strung across the opening of his den disguised it so well that he’d walked by it a couple of times himself and not realized where he was.

  The Toyota Land Cruiser he’d driven up from New Mexico was two miles away and above him, deep in the timber and covered by camouflage netting. If it were discovered, the authorities would learn that the license plates had been stolen years before in El Paso, Texas, and the VIN was bogus.

  He’d left no paper trail on his journey north. No hotel room stays, no gasoline purchases except with cash. Orlando varied his look prior to and during every interaction he had with the public on the way north. In a gym bag at the foot of his sleeping pad were an array of wigs and press-on facial hair that he’d alternated three times a day until he got to his destination. He couldn’t be tracked electronically because he didn’t have a GPS device or cell phone.

  The satellite phone they’d given him was turned on for no more than ten minutes at 9:30 p.m. During that period, they could call him with updates or fresh intel. That was the only way and time he could be reached. He’d yet to initiate a call of his own, and his habit was not to do so until his assignment was completed. They trusted him completely and he’d never given them a reason not to.

  It was the same with Luna. She trusted him and she knew he always came back.

  *

  ORLANDO PANFILE WAS short, stocky, and dark with small stubby fingers and an oversized shaved head. One of his friends had nicknamed him El Puño, The Fist, because they said he looked like one walking around on two legs. He didn’t like to be called that, although he knew it was used when his back was turned. He was forty-six years old and he’d grown up fending for himself
and living off the land.

  Camping by himself for weeks on end, even so far away from his home, meant nothing to him. It reminded him of the months he’d spent alone as a teenager high in the Sierra Madre Occidental range after the corrupt local cops and the federales had surrounded his boyhood home in El Pozo, twenty minutes northeast of Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa.

  Orlando’s father was a farmer and his crops were marijuana and poppies for the buyers from the cartel. Both crops would be packaged or refined and sent north where the market for them was. All of the locals had switched to those cash crops. Like their neighbors, the Panfiles didn’t consider themselves to be part of a criminal enterprise. They considered themselves to be what they were: farmers.

  Nevertheless, the authorities had slaughtered his mother, father, and uncle as well as his younger brothers and his only sister in a hail of gunfire.

  It was well known in the state at the time that the police were conducting raids on farmers in the area. The cops were doing it because they were associated with competing cartels, not because they were enforcing existing drug laws. After the local farmers were wiped out, new growers affiliated with the competing cartels were moved in to replace them.

  Somehow during the firefight—and he still thought about it almost daily—Orlando had hurled himself out a back window and had run away, covering his head with his arms as if he were being attacked by swarming bees, not bullets. One brother had followed him, but he went down with a headshot.

  Rounds had snapped through the air all around Orlando but, miracle of miracles, he wasn’t hit. He kept running until he was beyond their fields into the tangled brush and then he climbed, vanishing from the assailants into the mountains that rose six thousand feet. They searched for him for days and he saw them coming, but he hid and continued to go up. He climbed so far that the nights were cold and the pines, oaks, and firs gave way to grasslands on the mountaintops.

  He ate nothing but roots and tubers for the first five days. Although he caught glimpses of mountain lions, badgers, coyotes, gray foxes, and white-tailed deer, he didn’t find meat until he stumbled on a fresh ring-tailed cat that had been killed by an eagle. He skinned the carcass, then roasted and smoked the flesh while the eagle circled through the sky above him.