A Far Gone Night (27 page)

“God knows our hearts, Clancy.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever. Guess that’s why I could never be a Christian. No freaking fun.”

“It’s more fun than ever. Hard to explain, but I’ll try sometime.”

“You’re welcome to it,” he said, “but for now, I think a nice little nap will put me in a good mood for my visit with Suzanne tonight. She is a writer, isn’t she?”

“Yes, and a good one, too, though she sometimes tends to exaggerate.”

“Like all fiction writers. I understand. Maybe I’ll pick up her book at that book store she mentioned.”

“
Bednarik’s
Books,” I said. “And I think I’ll take a nap, too. I don’t seem to bounce back from clandestine activities like I used to.”

“What clandestine activities? I thought you just went up to
Chalaka
to ask questions.”

I told him about my interview with Ivan. Clancy broke into a grin. “I hate to admit it, Irish, but you might even be better than I am. Good work. Anyway, I’m off to a nap. See you in a while.”

And I took my nap. We both woke up around four that afternoon, refreshed. Clancy declined dinner, figuring he would have dinner with Suzanne. I wasn’t particularly hungry, either, more in the mood to read and think for a while until I had more information, and that was Clancy’s department.

He watched television and I read, and so the afternoon slipped into darkness and early night. I could see that he was getting ready to leave, so I fished out an extra set of truck and house keys from the junk drawer in the kitchen and tossed them his way. He caught them and started for the door.

“Thanks, Irish. Much appreciated. And I wouldn’t wait up for me if I were you.”

“You have a ten PM curfew unless you want to be grounded.”

“But Suzanne doesn’t have a curfew, I don’t think.”

“Go away, and please give my regards to Ms.
Highsmith
,” I said.

Clancy grinned, popped a quick salute, and was out the door. I settled back and read a little Bonhoeffer, then picked up a Warren Moore III noir novel and read, the vivid imagery disturbing in an existential way. I turned on the TV and stumbled onto an Iowa-Indiana State game I had completely forgotten about, surprising myself. I watched the Hawkeyes pull it out with perfect free throw shooting in overtime.

I buttoned off the set, poured myself a tall glass of white merlot, drank it too quickly, and went to bed after locking the doors and sliding the steel sleeve into the doggy door after taking Gotcha out to perform her nightly duties. As soon as she came in she headed for the big pillow on the floor at the foot of the bed and plopped down, arranged her thick body, and flung out her tongue for better breathing. The dog knows how to chill.

I undressed, slipping into my black boxers, and fell asleep thinking about Olivia Olson, even with a major mission on the near horizon. Sometimes I surprise myself.

Clancy showed up a little after eight the next morning with a self-satisfied smile on his face that reminded me of our big golden retriever when I was a kid. His name was Barney and he was a good dog, but on occasion he would dig under the fence in our back yard in Clinton and slink off to visit a lady friend somewhere who had “come into season,” as my mother had delicately put it. He would show up the next morning, exhausted and with a sheepish look on his face, eat a big breakfast, and take a lengthy nap.

A few weeks later there would be puppies in the neighborhood with at least one that looked like Barney. I wondered if there would be little Clancy-like baby boys in nine months wherever Suzanne
Highsmith
was living. I hoped not. The visual was not appealing at the moment.

“Did you have a good time, Clancy?” I asked as he joined me at the breakfast table. “I waited up for you, worried sick. At least you could have called,” I said in a high voice, trying to sound like a worried mother.

He looked at me over his coffee and eggs I had fixed for us both and just dished up. “Suzanne
Highsmith
is a classy broad,” he said, slowly nodding his head.

“Indeed.”

“I think I’m in love.”

“That’s spelled l-u-s-t.”

“You might be right, but I’d be a fool not to pursue the woman. She is flat out delicious.”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Clancy recovered from his reverie long enough to come back to the moment and say, “Of course, she will have to wait, my friend. We have
work
to do.”

“We’re waiting on you, Clancy,” I said, getting up and dishing fried Spam slices onto a platter and placing the food on the table. I sat down.

“Fried Spam?”

“I like to touch base with my boyhood every now and then,” I said, forking three slices onto my plate.

“Any more bacon and eggs?”

“Help yourself.” Clancy got up and moved over to the stove and did just that.

“I’m heading for
Chalaka
as soon as I can shower and shave and change clothes. I’ve reserved a rental for the drive. That monster truck of yours might look familiar to people up on the reservation. Drop me off?”

He was back downstairs in twenty minutes.

I dropped him off at the Shell station that also rented cars on the side. Not a chain. The three years old, gray Ford Taurus was ready to go. And so was Clancy, without another reference to his night with Suzanne. I saw in his eyes and overall affect the old focus coming into play, and smiled inside.

And then he was climbing into the Taurus and driving away, heading north out of town, his recon mission about to unfold.

W
e were headed north out of
Rockbluff
, Clancy Dominguez, Lunatic Mooning, and me, riding in silence in Moon’s perfect Packard in a dark Iowa winter mid-morning. A snowstorm was coming, but Clancy said that was good. It added to our advantage of surprise.

He had come back with a plan after two days in
Chalaka
, and we were going to carry it out. There was some risk, but that’s what fueled our collective adrenalin, slowly surging and maintaining our edge. Clancy had learned that
Hornung
had regular meetings with his security staff on Friday nights after hours, and that they would all be there, including the two shooters he’d brought in from Chicago. Marty Rodman’s
intel
had held up. I was beginning to have a soft spot in my heart for the pimp.

We would enter the Pony Club after it closed down and the customers left. We would kill everyone there in
Hornung’s
office, making sure they knew why we were there. We would set fire to the place and leave. No fingerprints. We would drive back to
Rockbluff
, Clancy would disappear, and Moon and I would go about our normal business.

I had attended to Gotcha’s needs that morning and made the doggy door available by placing the flexible, fringed plastic slide in the sleeve. Clancy and I both skipped breakfast, but split a pot of coffee, then placed our gear in the truck. For the first time, I got a good look at the duffle bag he had brought. I didn’t ask what was inside. I guessed explosives and an array of firearms useful to our purpose. Maybe an inflatable armored personnel carrier.

We were riding in silence, Moon because he is a silent person most of the time anyway, me because I was focusing and praying for the task ahead, and Clancy because Moon and I were silent. Usually exuberant and charged before a mission, at least as I knew him from the past, he was oddly subdued but restless nevertheless, jumpy as a caffeinated squirrel at the side of the road. He kept looking out both side windows, then out the back, then back to the side windows again, taking in information, his brain like a small computer. Observation had been one of his many strong points when we worked together, and he was clearly at it again. One never knows when a pineapple tree might show up—an opportunity for fresh fruit if we were cut off from supplies.

It was growing darker and darker, and I could sense the storm on the way. The weather woman on the Dubuque TV station last night was predicting eight or nine inches. That did not worry me because I knew Moon would have no trouble driving in the storm. His Packard weighed about ten tons and had snow tires. Also, I knew there would be little traffic on that road. Sparsely travelled in ordinary circumstances, it would be nearly deserted with that storm approaching, even though it was a Friday.

Nearly
deserted, because just as the first flurries came fluttering our way, a big SUV met us on the road and passed, heading south, toward
Rockbluff
.

“Shit!” Clancy said, squirming around in the back seat and staring out the back window.

“What?” I asked.

“They’re hitting the brakes and slowing down. They’ve made us!”

“
Who
made us?” I asked.

“I’m guessing it’s the bad guys from
Chalaka
. They looked like a rough bunch,” Clancy answered, muttering

“How could they make us?” I asked.

“Did you guys take this car when you went up to
Chalaka
to pound on those jerks?” Clancy
asked,
a touch of sarcasm in his tone.

“Oh,” I said. “They identified the car. Not many of these around.”

Moon said, “And I recognized them, too.
The driver.
Man who broke my windshield. We made eye contact just now. He seemed to recognize me.”

“They’re turning around and coming back this way,” Clancy said. “Now they have the advantage, being behind us. Better step on it, Moon.”

The big car surged forward and I unzipped the backpack at my feet and withdrew Elsie. She was loaded. I took off the safety.

“That’s an Escalade, boys. I don’t think we can outrun her. She’s already gaining.”

“How many?”
Moon asked, glancing in his rearview mirror. I looked at him. He did not look concerned. He did look focused, however.

“I think six,” Clancy said. “You know what that means.”

“What?” Moon asked.

“We win. Follow my instructions now. There’s a deserted farm about half a mile ahead on your left. Pull in and we’ll take them on there. You’ll have to bust through a gate. No time to get out and swing it open. They’re closer and closer, really roaring along now. Come on, come on! Let’s roll!” he said, staring out the back window.

Clancy was right. Powers of observation on his trip to
Chalaka
had paid off. The deserted farm was on a small hill, and as we came up the drive, Moon hauled left, hard, skidding a bit on the blacktop, tires chirping. The gate loomed up about 20 yards in and we blasted through it as if it were aluminum foil and drove over a livestock grate. Moon said nothing about the damage to his Packard.

“Head for that barn,” Clancy said, now speaking softly and with authority. I had heard that tone before, and it was a comfort. The man was unflappable when it came to the business at hand. I had never seen him otherwise in any other situation. I smiled inside, glad he was with us.

Moon drove up next to the barn and turned the big car around, facing to the left and downhill. The barn, one of those with a passage right down the middle and out the other side, and stalls on each side and a hayloft above, was in serious disrepair, with timbers and a sagging gate preventing us from taking the car inside. The two-story farmhouse stood alone and decaying a good fifty yards beyond. Moon cut the engine and we all clambered out.

“If they’re any good, they’ll disable the car so we can’t get away,” Clancy said. “If we’re any good, we’ll kill them anyway. They don’t know we’re
not
going to try to get away. But they’ll wish
they
had before this day is over. I’m hoping they’re overconfident but I doubt it if it’s true
Hornung
hired two pros from Chicago. Guess we’ll see just how professional they are soon enough.”

The Escalade slowed down and crept up the lane, then veered off to the left, edging closer and closer and finally stopping about forty yards away, blocking the road down to the highway. The snowstorm had grown serious, giving up on flurries and heading fully into serious snowfall, pounding away at an angle and reducing visibility.

The three of us huddled behind a concrete water trough as Clancy zipped open his duffel bag, reached in, and pulled out a small pair of binoculars while Moon and I checked our shotguns and peered over the top of the barrier. We could see people scrambling out from the Escalade as Clancy brought the
binocs
up to his eyes and studied the gang down the hill from us.

“Five, no six targets.
And one of those suckers is a giant,” he said. He dropped the glasses down and turned to me. “Didn’t you say your contact was a big Indian? With a bald head and tats on his skull?”

I muttered and said, “That lying son of a bitch. Said he was going to take off and flee the state.”

Clancy shook his head and grinned. “He did. He’s in
Iowa
now. You’ve lost your edge, Irish. You know you should’ve killed him when you had the chance. He’s a loose end, and now he just might end up putting a round in your butt. Never fails.”

I didn’t say anything, but just took the
binocs
when Clancy handed them to me. I looked as the men in the Escalade began to spread out. It wasn’t hard to pick up Ivan.

“He’s the one with Cindy when she was murdered?” Moon asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good to know,” he replied.

I handed the field glasses back to Clancy, who took another look, then whistled, grabbed his bag, and said, “Let’s get to the barn right
now
.”

We were barely inside the relative safety of the sagging, faded-red barn before our pursuers cut loose with every kind of firearm in their arsenal, and from the sounds of it, both handguns and automatic weapons had come into play. The sound was steady and furious and then it was not. None of us were touched, but that was because we weren’t the targets, yet.

We peeked out from behind one of the barn’s sagging doors and saw that the target was Lunatic Mooning’s Packard, and it was a ruin. The tires were shredded, the windows blown out, liquid dripping from under the engine, sending up steam. I imagined the opposite side was pockmarked from the hundreds of rounds fired. I could not look at Moon.

“They’ll come for us now,” Clancy said, “probably from both ends of the barn, so let’s set up.
The old three-point position.
You remember the drill, Irish?”

I nodded and we deployed after Clancy gave each of us a handgun to supplement the shotguns. Mine was a.44 Magnum Colt Anaconda (“for old times’ sake”) he said, and Moon took a
Glock
9mm, which he reluctantly accepted, then stuffed inside his belt behind his back. Clancy had an M-16 in one hand and another Anaconda in the other. And then we spread out in the barn, each of us with a different angle that would generate an efficient and deadly crossfire with little chance of friendly fire.

I plopped down behind a few rotting bales of hay that had fallen through from the hayloft when the floor boards collapsed. My position placed me about ten yards from the closest barn opening. Clancy was down at the other end, blending into some old, rusted machinery, and Moon took up position in the hayloft, treading carefully over creaking boards until he found solid footing, where he crouched.

It was quiet in the barn for a few minutes; time enough for me to pray for strength and direction, and to assess our situation. I felt good about it. The boys from
Chalaka
were obviously heavily-armed. But we had me.
And Clancy.
Two guys who had been in worse situations and come through okay.

When it comes to a firefight, the person who is willing to think clearly and fire calmly is the one who will most likely survive while the other guys, inexperienced or untrained or both, panicked or came damn near to it, influencing their aim and their thinking. I was actually looking forward to cleaning up the mess generated by the murders of Cindy Stalking Wolf and Preston and Julia
Jarlsson
.

I heard voices, laughter, and people running, the heavy snow muting the sounds. I made sure the safety was off and the Anaconda was within easy reach. I had used the big revolver with the 8-inch barrel long ago, pleasantly surprised that the aftershock was so well absorbed into the gun’s design. Heavy but accurate, it could create mayhem with just one slug. Too bad it went out of production in ’99.

They came into the barn cautiously, from two directions, as expected.
Two distinct groupings, too.
At my end, there were two of the black security guards from the Pony Club; the leader, along with the man whose finger I had broken. At the other end, I saw one Indian, he who had smashed in the Packard’s windshield in the club’s parking lot. That would be Ray Old Turtle, who helped Ivan take Cindy’s body and who killed the
Jarlssons
. Another Indian emerged behind Ray Old Turtle. It was Ivan, lingering cautiously near the barn door’s frame, looking nervous.

I immediately gave credit to the shooters from Chicago. Relying on the old technique of miners taking canaries into the mines to let the workers know if there were poisonous gasses inside, they were using the local help for the same purpose. The Indians and blacks, ignorant of the dynamics of battle, might as well have been wearing Big Bird outfits with “Shoot Me” signs on their chests. I ignored those down at Clancy’s end of the barn and directed my attention to the two at my end.