Easy Death (12 page)

“Hunting in a park?” I shivered in the cold and tried to look around us, wondering about whoever was in that tower—and was he up to something else yet. “Why don’t they just shoot birds in a bag?”

“Not to mention the danger presented to hikers and campers.”

“So what happened?”

“I got proof of his misconduct is what happened.” She rubbed her hands, trying to get the cold out of her fingers, I guess. “And I directed it to an office where I knew it would get proper attention. Things were just coming to a head, and I was of the opinion that Captain Scranton would lose his job and face criminal charges in the New Year, but…”

She’d stopped short, like it hurt to say this next part, and I didn’t have time for that. Or anything like it.

“But what?”

“They redirected my charges to Captain Scranton—for him to investigate.”

“How come they didn’t just kill you outright?”

“I suspect that would have been an easier death.” She bit out the words like this had been a hard thing for her to take. Couldn’t blame her, either. If someone did me like that…well they better not let me get too close up near to them, that’s all.

“Since then, he’s been getting even more ill-tempered,” she went on when she could, “and drinking more as well, and sometimes he’d look at me as if—” She shivered, and I didn’t figure it was from the cold. “—well, it wasn’t very pleasant around here lately, and we took to avoiding each other. Today he took the service truck out to the tower, and I thought he just intended to stay up there and drink himself to oblivion, but then I guess your bank robber showed up, and then that policeman—isn’t that a police car?”

“Looks like one,” I said, “but it just doesn’t figure. I followed one set of tracks from that farmhouse to here. And you only saw one car go by, you told me.”

“I didn’t actually see it,” she reminded me, “I merely heard it pass and saw the tracks.”

“I’m just trying to think,” I started.

I felt a little kick in my foot and heard a
crack
!

And all come at once I saw a fresh clean tear in the toe of my boot. I jerked it in close to me fast as I could.

“Oh my god,” Callie said calmly and stared at it. “Are you hit?”

I stared at it myself, not exactly sure. Then I thought to reach out and feel around the toe. “Didn’t miss it by much,” I said finally. “Glad I got big shoes and thick socks.”

She rolled a bit, took a quick look at the tower, then back to me. “Whoever’s up there seems a proficient shot,” she said.

“Seems like,” I said.

“Well,” she went on in a voice like she was starting spring cleaning and meant to get it done, “I suppose we shall have to find some way to get at him.”

December 20, 1951

1:12 PM

Officer Drapp

“It’s not our party,” I said. “It’s his party, whoever’s up there, and he calls the tune.”

A fresh blast of wind went past us, and even in the shelter of the back of that Jeep, I could feel the cold.

“Do you think it’s your robber or my captain?” Callie’s teeth were starting to chatter some, and she clamped them tight.

“Whoever it is, he’s too many for us,” I said. “But maybe I can find out….”

I stood up behind the Jeep, took off my hat and waved my arms at whoever was in the tower.

It got close.

I just had time to see the barrel of a high-powered rifle stick out the bottom of a louvered window at the top of that tower, and I quick hit the ground again, right ahead of a shot that dinged a hole in the roof of the Jeep.

Then I was crouched down behind the Jeep again and Callie was looking at me like she wished she could quit my side and join the other team.

“Grease us twice!” she swore. “I’m sure you had some good reason for that; would you care to share it with me?”

“Whoever’s up there,” I said, “when they shot at us they didn’t know there was a cop inside; they just saw it was the park jeep and shot at it.”

“Go on.” She sounded less mad at me and more interested.

“Well, your average Joe, he thinks twice about shooting at a cop—that’s my experience, anyway—so I thought…”

“You thought that if it was my captain up there and not your bank robber, he might not shoot at you?”

“Maybe he might not. Right now we got to think at getting out of here.”

“Well our shooter, whoever he is, hasn’t disabled the Jeep. But I rather doubt he’ll let us drive it out.”

“Don’t seem likely.” I noticed my nose was starting to sting from the cold, and I wiped snot off it with my sleeve. I looked around at the open space between us and the nearest cover, and it looked awful big and awful open. “And was we to try running off, we’d most likely get shot down or freeze to death. But we sure as Cleveland can’t stay here a whole lot longer.”

“An hour perhaps,” she said, like she was reading out of a manual, “until hypothermia sets in and we become too weak to move.”

“That quick?”

“Well, sometime before that, we’ll become somewhat disoriented and apathetic as our body functions slow. That’s the first stage of it. But I’d guess that we probably have twenty minutes—fifteen or twenty, let’s say fifteen just to be safe—before any pronounced effect starts to set in. Have you any notion as to what we might do?”

“Well,” I said and rolled over, took a mental measure and rolled right back again, “looks like maybe forty yards to the base of that tower. Through this snow, I might be able to get there in less than a minute, if I don’t get shot first.”

“You propose running to the tower?”

“Once one of us is underneath him—hey, is there heat up there?”

“There’s an electric heater in the cab, yes.”

“Cab?”

“That’s what we call the little cabin at the top.”

“Well, that’s it then. You draw some attention by shooting up at the cab while I run to the tower and disconnect the power at the base. Then he’s got to come out or freeze, and I’m guessing that up there in that wind he’ll get a lot colder than us down here.”

“You may be right.” She seemed kind of surprised to see me do that much clear thinking, but whether it was because I was a policeman or because I was a man, period, I wasn’t sure. “And once we’re under the tower, we could stay warm in the truck he drove out here while he kept getting colder. But it’s not your job to run to the tower; that’s my job, isn’t it?”

“Not like I see it, it ain’t.”

“It’s my park.” She said it like she was doing seating arrangements for a tea party. “I’m responsible for what happens here, and to some extent it may be my fault that we’re in this situation. Had you known about Captain Scranton—had I told you earlier—you might have done something differently.”

“Can’t figure what it’d be.” I sucked snot up my nose again.

“Neither can I, but that’s neither here nor there.” She started squirming around in that big coat of hers, like a cow giving birth, and finally came out with her sidearm. “Take this.” She shoved the butt at me. “You’ll most likely fare better with two guns to shoot.”

“I would,” I said, “but you’re doing the shooting—I’ll do the running.”

“I hardly think so.” While she was talking, she got up to a half-crouch, like a sprinter getting ready to take off. “My boots are far better suited to running in the snow than yours, and if I’m not mistaken, my legs are somewhat longer.”

“But you’re a woman,” I said, “and running into enemy fire… if ever something’s been men’s work…”

She got a look on that big face like I’d slapped her and it hurt her some. But she got it under control quick.

“It is the work of whoever happens to be best suited to it,” she said soft and slow, like every word was important to her, “and it’s my job; I fought to get here.”

Well, I could see there was no point arguing with her, so I started to get up, figuring I could knock her down and get running before she did, or maybe keep her from even getting up in the first place.

That’s when she stuck out her palm and stiff-armed me so hard I smacked down in the snow.

“Besides,” she said down at me, “you’d best do the shooting; I don’t believe I could shoot a man—however great the temptation.”

And then she was off, sprinting through the snow like a jackrabbit.

And me, well there was nothing I could do but hunker around the corner of the Jeep and start shooting up at the cab on that tower.

I got off a round quick, just to get him looking my way, then a second one, trying to aim a little closer. I used Callie’s big Army .45 ’cause I figured the barrel was maybe an inch longer than my Colt .38, and with the added power of the bigger shell I might put a round up a little closer. Not that I had any hope of hitting that cab accurately, not at that range, but I figured to get his attention, like I say, whoever was up there shooting at us and maybe spoil his—

Didn’t work. Not even close to working. I only got about three rounds out and up into the wild blue yonder before there was a
crack!
from the tower and Callie yelped and spun around sudden and slapped down in the snow.

December 20, 1951

3:00 PM

Mort

In the room back of Lola’s, Mort tried to blink the smoke out of his eyes and concentrate on his cards.
Damn
, he thought,
how long I been here?
Looked at his watch.
I gotta get out and—

“You staying in?” Ted, the grey-haired heavyset man on his left, fingered the deck and looked at him without emotion.

Mort looked around the table. Howard had dropped out. Across from him, Boxer, the guy who never let his feelings show, seemed tense, irritated.

He don’t get my luck
, Mort thought,
he don’t understand me being so lucky today. Hell, I don’t get it myself…
He looked down at the pot.
I been riding the cards all day. Look at that: more than three hundred dollars! All the money in the world. And I can take it…

“The man wants to know are you staying in?” Boxer’s voice was different somehow. Not patient and mocking as usual, more like—Mort couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Play ’em or fold ’em, dammit!” Yeah, Boxer was upset. Across the table, Howard looked at the big black man, startled.

“Hospitality’s getting thin here,” he tried to joke. It went nowhere.

As much good luck as I’ve had today, he’s had bad
, Mort told himself,
and I can take this pot if I want it. I can feel it already…
.

He looked down at the table in front of him. He still had the fifty in his pocket, and there was a wrinkled ten still left from his betting money. He tossed the ten into the pot. “See you and raise five.”

Boxer smiled. But it wasn’t his usual laugh-at-whitey smile; there was something mean inside it he didn’t usually let out. “See that,” he tossed two bills into the pot. “And raise you fifty.”

“You trying to buy the pot, Boxer?” Ted folded his cards.

“I just want to see what kind of bone ol’ Lucky Mort’s really got.” He was keeping his voice even, but he couldn’t make it sound friendly anymore. Whatever was inside him was straining at the leash now and snarling across the table at Mort.

“How ’bout it?” Ted looked over at Mort.

He’s bluffing me
, Mort told himself,
trying to scare me off the pot. But I can take this. I
know
it! All I need is…

“Well, Mort?” Boxer wasn’t smiling anymore. Wasn’t even trying to pretend.

He’s out for blood
, Mort thought.
Well he can drink this…
He pulled the fifty from his pocket. Threw it on the table. “I call.”

Boxer laid down his cards, showing two pair. “Kings and jacks.” They seemed to smile up at Mort with that mocking superiority Boxer usually showed.

Everybody looks at me like that
, Mort thought,
Sweeney, Magruder, even Helen sometimes. They all look at me like they know I’m never going to make anything out of myself. Like they
know
it, and like I’m the only one that’s not in on the joke. Hell, sometimes I catch little Morty looking at me, and it’s like he knows it, too; knows his Daddy’s never going to amount to a hill of beans.

He looked across the table at Boxer’s smiling face, then down at the two pairs of face cards again. He laid down his cards.

Three fives, a joker and the ace of hearts. “I think I’ve got this pot, gentlemen.” He said it politely, like a big shot tips the doorman for hauling him a taxi.
That’s me, a big shot now, with four hundred dollars and—

“It stinks,” Boxer said.

“I guess them’s the breaks,” Howard said it lightly, to break the obvious tension. It didn’t work.

“It stinks out loud.” Boxer said it slow and low, but his voice sounded different from any way they ever heard it before. Howard swallowed.

“Guess I better get back to work,” he said. He got up. Slowly.

“Me, too,” Ted, the grey-haired man, said, and got up carefully, keeping his hands out and one eye on Boxer. “Time to catch some air.”

“I better get going myself.” Mort hadn’t missed a thing. He rose casually, very casually, and reached out a hand for the money on the table. “Jeez, Helen’s gonna kill me for staying out all day like this. We’re supposed to be at her folks’ for din—”

“Get your damn hands off my money.” Boxer’s voice hadn’t changed. “And get the hell out my place.”

Mort felt dizzy. Like something had slipped away underneath him and he was falling. “Boxer,” his voice sounding high and nervous in his own ears, “this is my pot. I won—”

“You cheated.” Boxer was on his feet. Howard was gone and Ted was putting on his coat, his back turned deliberately, not seeing anything, not hearing. “You cheated for it. Only way a nobody like you could win off me: cheated.”

“But Boxer—” Mort’s voice jumped a notch higher. Like a man pleading. “Ted was dealing! You saw him! Weren’t you, Ted?”

Ted still pretended not to hear. Didn’t turn, made no sign. Just walked out, being extra careful not to look back.