Pitfall (11 page)

That tore it, and with an explosive curse Blakey brought his right fist whizzing like a demon toward my sternum.

I knew what was about to happen. Blakey’s trick had been taught to me years ago by a friend, Gunnery Sergeant Paul Welling. Done right, the Marine had said, a punch like that can stop a man’s heart. Blakey really wasn’t a very nice person.

Twisting to my right, I nearly slipped the blow. But not quite. Instead of hitting my breastbone, his fist rebounded off my ribcage. Not fatal, but it hurt like a mother.

Blinking back the pain as I kept circling the other man, I dimly heard Chet hollering in the background. “Take him, Blakey! Kill that prick!”

I’d deal with him in a minute. Right then I had a bigger fish to fry. Nastier too.

And I knew just how to do it. One day in Ranger training the martial arts instructor had taught us all a little something outside the normal moves, a trick I planned to use right here, and right now.

“Jarhead.” My aspect was mocking. “That’s bullshit, Blakey.” Slowly windmilling my hands, I closely watched his eyes. They’d tell me when the time was right.

“You’re gonna wish it was bullshit.” My opponent was breathing heavily.

I pushed on. “Maybe you really were in the Crotch. Then again, maybe not. Maybe you’re a liar.” My hands still moved hypnotically. “Because a good fighter knows you should never—”

Blakey’s gaze flickered, and there it was. The moment.

My right fist dropped. As it did my left fist launched out and up, a heat seeking missile of flesh and bone, catching old Blakey right on the point of his chinny-chin-chin. A split-second later my right followed through, crashing like a slamming pile driver into his left ear, John Philip Sousa gone mad.

Blakey’s face went out of round and his glazed eyes rolled back in his head. With a hiss and a sigh he sank to the floor. I figured he’d regain consciousness somewhere around Arbor Day.

“—assume someone will finish speaking before he hits you,” I explained to his still form.

The bar rang with silence, the patrons stunned by Blakey’s defeat.

To my right came another crash. Whipping around I saw it was Chet flinging a chair at me. He wasn’t laughing now. I thrust the chair aside.

Then reaching in his jeans pocket Chet came out bearing a nasty weapon, one I hadn’t seen in years. A switchblade. Opening it with a deadly snick, he feinted and lunged. I twisted away, and he missed. Barely. 

Enough of this crap. Before he could set his feet for another swipe, I quickly snapped the fingers on my left hand, drawing Chet’s attention. Then lancing my right foot up and with everything I had, I kicked him squarely in the throat.

Chet gasped and dropped like a bad stock, the knife skittering free.

This deserves some clarification. Back in 1990, the night of my eighteenth birthday would prove seminal when my buddies and I decided to drive up to Newport, Kentucky, to spend some time cruising the full-nudity strip bars on Monmouth Street. It was great fun, but in the loud and drunken revelry somehow we got separated, and I found myself knocking back overpriced warm Rolling Rock beer in a bucket of blood joint called Moe’s. And it was at Moe’s that I met the man I mentioned a moment ago, Gunnery Sergeant Paul Welling.

Paul was a tall, lean Marine Corp drill instructor, on his first night home of a thirty-day leave, and just aching for trouble. As big as he was, I didn’t plan on giving him any. For some reason he took a shine to me, and we’d ended up sharing a small table at the room’s far end. It may have been that, like me, he was a Southerner (Atlanta born and bred), and liked my up-holler West Virginia accent.

At any rate we began by toasting one another’s hometowns, good health, and revered ancestors, gone but not forgotten. From there we lifted a glass or three to hot lead, cold steel, absent friends, good music, Ernest Tubb, Patsy Cline, Hank and Buddy and Jimi and Janis, all the good ones that had died too young, and the bad ones who maddeningly still hung on.

That prompted Paul into a new line of thinking. He started cursing commanding officers he’d served under, thick-skulled generals who’d commanded them, and horrific mothers-in-law who were worse than either (being single at the time, I had to take his word on that).

I’d lost count of the Seven-and-Sevens we’d downed when we moved into who of us was the more swell fella—“you are, Paul, by God”; “no
you
are, John, by God”—progressively becoming more raucous, and drawing muttered oaths from the other patrons.

That’s when I blearily realized we were the only men in the place who hadn’t been watching the skinny dried-up strippers grinding it out for pocket change up on the tiny stage. Even the three-piece live band (presumably live; with men that old, who could tell?) had stopped torturing
Stormy Monday
long enough to glare daggers at us.

“Ya know, soldier boys like you and your big punk make me sick,” a huge mountain of a man by the bar growled, a mug of beer clamped in his meaty fist.

His greasy tight jeans were graced with a heavy chain connecting his belt to his wallet in his back pocket, and stretched tight around his fleshy butt, while a straining-at-the-seams blue flannel shirt barely contained his barrel chest. Close-cropped red hair topped a seamed and surly face, and a dark green John Deere baseball cap perched on his ring-wormed head, completing the ensemble. If this guy wasn’t an over-the-road trucker, there ain’t a dog in Georgia.

Wordlessly Paul stood and made his way over to him, a lot steadier than I would have. Maybe he wasn’t as drunk as I thought.

“No.” His tone was even. “Here’s what’ll make you sick.”

With that, and to my utter amazement, he hawked up a shiny brown loogie and spit it right in the giant’s beer mug.

“What the
hell—?”
he yelped in disbelief, glancing down at the floater.

When he did, Paul sucker-smashed him in the face.

The Marine packed an incredible punch, blasting that man harder than I’d ever seen anyone hit. Like a bright crimson halo, blood from the trucker’s smashed nose sprayed out three feet, his eyes fluttering in their sockets like castanets. Then with a mighty crash he fell backwards to the floor, out, the sound putting me in mind of a barrel of machine tools falling down concrete stairs.

That started the party.

Remember the Westerns you watched as a kid, the ones with the huge fights in the saloon? This was kind of like that, but bigger. And louder. And with a lot more breaking glass.

Somewhere in there the Newport cops arrived in force, swinging their billy clubs like major leaguers before finally managing to break it up and hauling the lot of us to the pokey. Later that night when it came time to appear before the judge, Paul and I were the only ones without enough cash to pay the fine. And that’s how we ended up spending the entirety of his thirty-day leave as guests of the city.

But we spent the time well. While in lockup the sergeant, phlegmatic about his bad turn of luck, started training me in how to exercise for maximum results, far beyond what my high school football coach had shown me. He also agreed to teach me a few of the more arcane tricks he taught others in the Corps, including that little move I’d just used on the toady.

I kicked Chet’s knife away, and bent low. He continued clawing at his throat, gasping like a man with sawdust packed in his gullet. A few Time Out patrons looked our way, but nobody made a move toward us. Wonder why.

Still squatting and using his oily hair as a handle, I picked his head up off the floor, my voice low and very steady. “Chet, if you’re looking to die, I’m your man. And I know it hurts, but nothing permanent has been damaged. Yet. What I suggest is you go home, wrap a warm towel around your neck, and rethink your choice of friends. And one more thing.” I poked him hard with my index finger, punctuating each word with a jab on his chest. “Never. Ever. Hit. Women. Understand?”

Eyes filmed, he nodded.

“Oh yeah,” I added as I stood. “I don’t want to hear of you and Blakey planning some kind of half-assed revenge. Because next time I’ll crush your larynx.”

Chet finally managed to croak a reply. I was expecting him to say anything but what he did. “The hell’s a larynx?”

Shaking my head in wonder at the shallowness of Earth’s gene pool, I walked away.

As I approached the young couple, Danny stared at me, mouth agape and his brown eyes as round as a guppy’s. I nodded at him and his girl. She was coming to.

“Need some help?” My expression had softened. “She should get that eye checked out.”

“No, thanks. I got her.” He helped her sit up. “Blakey’s done this to her before.”

What a prince that man was. “Whatever,” I shrugged.

Red-faced with embarrassment, Danny pulled Diane, who was still groggy from Blakey’s hit, up from the floor. Then without a backward glance or by-your-leave, they fled.

Oh well. Go figure. Sitting back down on my barstool, tunelessly I started whistling
The Wall
between my teeth as I began waiting for the cops.

Chapter Sixteen

P
olice cars always smell the same. It doesn’t matter if they’re city or county, federal or state, big town or small, they all bear the unmistakable odors of fear, disruption, shame, and lies.

Plus every one of them retain, in whatever measure and regardless of the disinfectant used, the paired reeks of urine and vomit.

I know, because I now reposed handcuffed in the back seat of Sheriff Elgin Hardesty’s 2012 black and white Crown Victoria sedan, listening as he read me the riot act. He was almost a stereotype of the small-town lawman, a lanky, sixtyish guy with piercing blue eyes set into a weather-beaten face, and crowned with an old and sweat-stained Stetson.

The sheriff’s words barely registered as he rambled on because I already knew the script. I ought to; I’d inflicted it myself on scofflaws in the past. What was drawing my attention was the auto deodorant in the squad. Was it oil of citrus? Or more bleach-based? Whatever, it was failing miserably to do its job. The seat still stunk like billy hell.

“Mr. Fields.” Hardesty’s words were chiding, his cop eyes fixed on me in the rearview mirror, taking my measure. “Why is it I get the feeling I don’t have your full attention?”

“But you do,” I answered. That is, John Fields answered. That was the name on the EPA badge I’d showed the sheriff when he’d demanded some ID back in the bar. To be safe, I’d made a fake driver’s license also. All I had to do now was to remember who I was as long as I was in Hardesty’s jurisdiction. “Sheriff, I’m hanging on your every word.”

“Hmm.” He squinted back at me through the steel mesh that divided the front seat from the back, eyes hard. “So you’re sticking with your story, are you? That you were just trying to come to the aid of Daniel Demaris and Diane Brooks, and that Blakey Sinclair threw the first punch?”

“That’s right. If you don’t believe me, ask the people there that saw it.”

“I did. Most of them are drunk, though, so their witness won’t carry a lot of weight with Judge Sanders. Not to mention most of them work where Blakey and Chet do, at GeneSys Technologies.”

I filed that away for later, under ‘important.’

The sheriff went on, “And since GeneSys is the biggest thing to hit this town since cable TV, obviously nobody wants to get on their bad side.”

“Obviously. So ask Jerry. Or Pop, or that young bartender.”

“Mark Fontana.”

“Yeah, him.”

“All three were serving customers,” Hardesty said, and then added, “So they claim. They told me they missed the whole thing. The only thing Pop Welles can recall is phoning dispatch.”

“That’s convenient. But I know one guy who can corroborate my story.”

The sheriff frowned. “Who?”

“Blakey Sinclair.”

He grunted a laugh. “Him. That joker’s still out. The doc’s saying he might be out for quite a while, too. What did you hit him with, a five-iron?”

“Nope. Just little old me.” I moved my butt around on the vinyl seat, trying to get some blood moving again. “So how about Chet? Or is he still out too?”

“No, he’s awake.” Hardesty’s reply was gruff. “And with what you did to his throat, he’s writing it down, blaming you. Not that he carries much weight with the judge either.” At that moment the car’s radio squawked. “Just a second, Mr. Fields,” the sheriff said off-hand, and he picked up the mike. “Yeah, Barry, what?”

The voice coming back through the radio’s speaker was tinny. “Sheriff, this is Deputy Barry Hart.”

“Yes, Barry, I know who you are.” Taking his thumb off the mike’s key, he said to me over his shoulder, “The mayor’s nephew. Twenty years old, and as dumb as a poodle. Sometimes I wonder why I took this job.” Hitting the button again he said, “Go ahead.”

“Mrs. Yates called. She says her husband locked his keys in the car again, and it’s running.”

Hardesty frowned. “Yeah, so?”

“So she said Leighton’s in the car. They’re both worried sick.”

Hardesty shook his head, and then said, “Barry, tell me how old Leighton is.”

“Uhh … six, Sheriff?”

“Six. You win the prize.”

“Cool. Really?”

“Do this. Can you do this? I want you to call Mrs. Yates back, and I want you to tell her to tell Ralph to tell Leighton to unlock the car door.”

“Hey … that’s a good idea, Sheriff. So I should just tell her that, huh?”

Looking back over the seat at me, the lawman rolled his eyes as he keyed the mike again. “Yes, Barry. You should do that.” Hanging the mike back on its hook, he rubbed his eyes.

Regardless of my situation, I had to fight to keep from laughing. “Anyway, back to me. I guess all that’s left are those two kids I helped.”

“Yeah, and they’re your saving grace. After I chewed them out for being underage and in a bar, Danny and the girl pretty much told it the way you did. Blakey started it, and you finished it. I didn’t find that knife you said Chet pulled on you, though.”

“I guess somebody must have snagged it, to keep him from getting in trouble for armed assault.” I rotated my neck, trying to get the kinks out. “Like you said, the people in this town seem to stick together.”

“I guess.” The sheriff’s chuckle was dry. “But I don’t think Danny and his girl will be seen in Jerry’s for a while. At least not until they’re legal.”

“So I’m free to go, right? No one is pressing charges?” I hoped not. If I was booked, I’d be fingerprinted, and then I’d have to call in some favors I wasn’t ready to call in yet.

“GeneSys might pursue it,” Hardesty allowed. “As I told you already, they’re the biggest employer in the county, and those two poster boys for contraception are theirs. But I doubt it.”

That sounded good, and I allowed myself to relax just a bit.

“It was only a matter of time until those fools were handled,” the sheriff went on, “If it hadn’t been you, it would have been somebody else.” His smile was thin. “Maybe even me.” The smile left. “Oh well, come on.”

Getting out of the car, Hardesty slammed his door before coming back to where I sat. He opened my door, and I gratefully climbed out, drawing about six cubic yards of hot, humid air into my lungs.

Hardesty unlocked my cuffs. “Listen, Mr. Fields—” he began, but I cut him off.

“Is this where I get the ‘I run a clean town, stranger, so watch your step’ speech?” I grinned amicably, rubbing my wrists. “Don’t worry, sheriff, I will.”

“Oh, but I do worry.” Hardesty hung his cuffs back on his belt as his eyebrows rose. “I worry like the very dickens.”

“That’s too bad. Hard on the digestion I hear.”

“You’re telling me. I have an ulcer in my stomach lining the size of a bing cherry. Meddling strangers tend to exacerbate it.”

“Have you tried warm milk?”

“No. You need to understand how things are run here. GeneSys has made a ton of money for Harrisville, and asked for very little in return, except to be left alone. So unless and until they do something illegal, I intend to do just that.”

“It was never my intention to bother them,” I lied. “Unless, like you said, they were found to be in violation of EPA code.”

“You’re still failing to see the big picture.” The sheriff’s tone was reasonable. “By keeping our townspeople employed, GeneSys has kept a ton of food on a lot of tables. The idea of anything happening to our gravy train is liable to upset certain folks. If you catch my drift.”

“I’ll consider myself warned.”

“Fine. We’re in agreement.”

“It appears so.”

“Just be sure to watch your back, Mr. Fields.” Hardesty nodded, regarding me meaningfully. “And I’ll be watching you.”

*

The Thursday morning sun shone in like glory through the window glass as I sat up in bed with a wince. This room I’d taken at the Harrisville Arms the night before was pleasant enough, but the way I was hurting, my bed back home would have been a lot more comfortable. I’ve yet to see a hotel mattress that was softer than sleeping on the floor.

But that wasn’t the only reason I’d slept like shit. Late last night Marsh had contacted me on my laptop via Skype. He’d finally broken the rest of the code, and emailed me what he’d found. In short, his worst fears had been confirmed.

“Illegal organ harvesting. Selling corpses. Body parts. Hair. Skin for grafts.” He looked awful as he shook his head, his voice folding into a croak as he poured himself a tall Stoly. His hands were shaking so badly the bottleneck battered out a harsh tattoo on the rim of his glass.

Taking a large pull, he stared at his drink. “Unbelievable. I’d heard they’d broken up a huge ring dealing in just these things in Kenya. And of course there’s the victims of that cult in China doing the same with political prisoners. But not
here
.” He ran his hand through his hair. “My God, Johnny, what have you stumbled across?”

“Something God apparently has nothing to do with.”

“What I sent you is just case notes,” Marsh said. “This doctor—Manfred, is it?—evidently felt even an encryption program like Locksmart wasn’t enough security for this, so he purposely kept his writings vague. And because it was illegally obtained, it will do you little good with the police. Even so, there’s enough there to give me nightmares for a year.”

“I know.” I leaned back in my hotel room chair, feeling a hundred years old. Again I glanced at the file he’d sent. “All I can tell for sure from this is Sarah entered what she thought was a program that would help end disease; that’s what she’d meant by changing the world. She had no idea how wrong she was.” I shook my head. “This is insane.”

“A friend of mine lost his uncle to one of these human parts rings when he was captured by the Chinese government after the Tiananmen Square uprising. Six months later when some mercenaries destroyed a warehouse on a tip, his was one of the bodies found. There was barely enough of him left to identify.”

“No wonder this upsets you so badly.”

“It would upset any normal person!” Marsh’s vehemence shocked me. “Sarah didn’t run off to New York. Last Monday afternoon she made an appointment at Brighter Day, they picked her up in a van, and now she’s in that facility, she’s
there.”
His voice was ragged, clotted with emotion. “I know there are more victims. Find them, John.” The fact he was using my preferred name said a lot. “Find them and end this. Are we clear?”

We were clear. The very thought of a someone like Sarah Cahill, a person I hadn’t even met yet, ensnared in the clutches of men like Manfred made my skin crawl. No doubt about it she was trapped, and the likelihood of me getting her free was slim. But it didn’t matter. I had to help, even though it might already be too late. The motto of the 2nd of the 502nd had said it all.

To free the oppressed.

It was now seven thirty a.m., and by that time Blakey Sinclair’s killer rib shot had blossomed into a half-dozen shades of swollen yellow and blue, causing my entire right side to throb like I’d been worked over with a ten-ounce, ball-peen hammer.

It was almost funny: if that punch had landed just three inches to the left there was a better than even chance I’d be seeing Megan and Colleen and Ben right now, wherever they were, instead of groaning in pain. I shook that off with a hideous grin. Someday, yes.

But not today.

Slowly climbing out of bed, I ate two Tylenol dry and headed for the bathroom. This morning I planned to enter the lion’s den, and I needed to be convincing.

After brushing my teeth, showering, and shaving, I put on my good dark blue pinstripe navy suit, which I’d hung on the hook behind the door last night. Actually it was my only navy suit. Actually it was my only suit period, navy or otherwise. I hate suits.

I sighed. Fashionable duds, regretfully, sometimes are an unavoidable evil. The last touch I added was my ersatz EPA badge.

Snugging my red, rep tie up against my throat, I checked the travel alarm over on the scarred bedside table. Eight a.m., straight up. Last night as I was checking in I’d noticed a shiny metal art deco place across the street called the Good Enough Diner. Funny name. I hoped the food lived up to the billing because it seemed like a smart idea to grab a bite before I headed over to GeneSys. And the time element should work in my favor as well. Since I was supposed to be an employee of the federal government, I figured it would be bad form to show up out there before nine. Bureaucrats have an image to maintain, after all.

After crossing the street and strolling inside, I found the place nearly full. Either the food here was better than the name, or the citizens of Harrisville had really low standards of dining. A lot of heads turned my way as I came in, but I ignored it. That’s happened to me my whole life; why, I have no idea. Planting myself into an empty booth by the window, I prepared to wait.

But I have to give the place props for service. Less than thirty seconds later a world-weary, forteyishwaitress in a starched, blue skirt and white blouse materialized at my elbow. With practiced efficiency she whipped a small order pad out of her blue-checked apron. Blowing a strand of unnatural-looking red hair away from her face, she licked the point of her pencil. “What’ll it be, hon?”

The woman’s voice was low and smoky, possibly the victim of too many cigarettes, and I checked her name badge. Rae Ann.

“Hi, Rae Ann,” I said, and put the menu down. Experience had taught me that in little places like this, if you want to know what’s good, ask the help. “What’s decent today?”

The waitress peered at my own badge. “Howdy yourself, John.” Recognition dawned. “John Fields, with the EPA. I’ve heard about you.” She went on with a grin, “Man, you sure woke ‘em up at Jerry’s last night. The whole town’s buzzing about it.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. All I wanted was a beer and some pleasant conversation. Things kind of got out of hand.”

“I’ll say.” Her laugh was throaty. “You nailed Blakey and Chet both, nailed ‘em but good. That’s never happened before. It was quite a treat to see, so they tell me.” She stuck the pencil into the tight hennaed curls behind her right ear. “It’s just too bad you didn’t go for the hat trick and punch Jerry out while you were at it.”

“You don’t like him?”

Before she could answer a man in the kitchen behind the counter interrupted, “Yo, Rae Ann. Order up.”

“Comin’, Lou. Keep your boxers on.” The waitress addressed me again, cracking her chewing gum. “Jerry Whitmore? What’s not to like? He’s rude, he’s gross, he stinks like an outhouse, and he’s hit at least once on every woman in this town fifty and under.”

I smiled sympathetically. “Including you?”

“Yeah,” she chuckled. “I qualify. Just barely.” Her green eyes twinkled with self-effacing humor.

I believed I was going to like Rae Ann just fine. Not only did she seem to be the know-it-all, seen-it-all person I’d hoped to find here, she also appeared to be genuinely nice.