The point of the chin is the proper target; the skull snaps back, traumatizes the vagus nerve, and guarantees a half hour’s nap. You do have to be careful because if you miss the chin and hit the nose at that upward angle, you’ll drive bone fragments into his brain and kill him. Then again, sometimes it isn’t necessary to be too careful. I hit the chin with predictable results. He staggered backward several steps before he hit the floor, but he was already unconscious.
A hand the size of a dinner plate clamped down on my shoulder and was pulling me around. I grabbed the thumb in my right, the little finger in my left, turned around, ducked under the arm. That turned him around and I jerked the hand up between his shoulderblades.
When your shoulder is being dislocated, your urge is to relieve the pressure and he did that by bending and lunging forward. I helped him right along. He stumbled past two chairs and we were traveling at a good clip when his head rammed into the wall beside the jukebox. Not that I was pushing so hard, but this guy must have weighed two hundred fifty pounds and he was trying to propel that out of the hammerlock. With all that weight on the move, the sudden stop cracked the plaster. He slid down the wall; I turned around. His two buddies were standing up, but they were facing a ring of Indians that would have looked familiar to General George Armstrong Custer.
They had their hands half raised, palms out and were backing toward the door. The path cleared, half a dozen guys followed them to the door, several others grabbed the sleepers and sledded them out through the swinging doors onto the sidewalk. The swinging doors flapped a few times, and the party reassembled. Clyde and Angie One resumed their dance. Angie Two took the chance of leaving the table unguarded and met me on the dance floor. If possible, the mood in the room was friendlier and more festive than before.
We weren’t watching time or counting beers, but I did notice that an alcoholic fog was setting in. The first indication was when Angie One came back to the table and had to use both hands to hold the chair still while she sat. Angie Two and I got tangled up, would have fallen, but we slammed into a table. The occupants had seen us coming, were holding onto their beers, and cheerfully helped us back onto the dance floor. It was getting close to pumpkin time.
When we got back to the table, I made a head jerk toward the door. Clyde and Angie One nodded and stood, not swaying too much, and the four of us held each other up while we negotiated the party and made it through the swinging doors to the sidewalk.
Angie Two grabbed a parking meter and leaned on it. “Wow, that was fun.” Those were the first words any of us had spoken since we met.
Angie One helped hold up the meter. “I’m so glad you guys came in. Too bad you can’t stay a few days. Your plane is early in the morning?”
“Not too early.” Clyde pulled tickets out of his jacket pocket and double-checked. “We need to be at the airport at ten.”
Angie One beamed at him and caressed his cheek. “Wonderful, let’s meet for breakfast.”
Angie Two piped up. “Stay with us tonight. We have lots of room, right down the block at the Nordale.”
That made a problem. I could imagine what she meant by
lots of room
, and they probably did have, by village standards. They were doing the Eskimo-Indian thing, sharing whatever they had. Any hint that what they offered wasn’t good enough for us would have been the social gaff of the century. Then, too, I was in no condition to drive. If assassins were waiting, let them figure that one out. The two Angies linked arms and wove toward the Nordale, Clyde and I following.
We were dong fine until we got to the stairway. The Angies stalled, each clinging to a banister. Clyde and I got shoulders under derrieres, grabbed banisters ourselves, and we arrived at the top in a mass. The room was at the front, old-fashioned sash windows overlooking Second Avenue. Furniture consisted of one double bed, one chair, one dresser. The Angies disappeared into the bathroom. Clyde and I stood at the window.
“Headed for Virginia Mason?” I asked.
He was silhouetted in the light from the street; we hadn’t bothered to turn on the room light. He nodded. “Angie and I decided it’s time for babies. She had some female problems in her teens, we want to be sure everything is in place.”
I put a hand on his shoulder, it didn’t seem quite right to give him a hug, but I was conveying respect and understanding. The Angies came out of the bathroom and sprawled, crosswise, in the middle of the bed. Clyde took his turn, I watched the street below the window.
When Clyde came out, I ducked in. Both Angies were apparently already asleep. I did my thing, left the bathroom door open, light out. Clyde had stretched out beside Angie Two, and the three-foot space left for me at the foot of the bed was beside Angie One. I kicked off my oxfords and lay down. Any other time I might have noticed that my feet were off the bed from the ankles down, but just then it didn’t matter. Angie One stirred, and her hand found my shoulder, but there wasn’t any sexual tension. We were there to sleep, and that’s what we did.
Breakfast at the Model Café was a solemn affair, close, friendly, but preoccupied. Clyde and Angie Two were probably thinking about Seattle, and Angie One and I had our own worries. We flooded impending hangovers with orange juice and coffee. When the check came, Clyde and I both reached for money. He slapped my hand. It was my turn to accept his hospitality graciously and be secure in my own manhood. I’m probably not as good at that as Clyde is, but he has better reasons to feel secure.
We drove them to the airport and waited while they retrieved their suitcase from the storage locker and dragged it to the Alaska Airlines counter. There was a spontaneous four-way hug. They turned toward the check-in line; we headed for the Buick.
We checked on Turk because Angie wanted to go to work before noon.
Turk was glad to see Angie, planting his paws on her window and licking the glass so she couldn’t open the car door. I went around to help and together we overpowered Turk and got her extricated. She and Turk went inside, but Angie’s trying to walk with Turk threading her legs reminded me of a fly fisherman walking in a swift current on a rocky bottom.
Trees were now yellow to the tops while the lower branches were starting to brown. The sun was out, but not much warmth to it. I strolled around back to check on the river. Turk had dug a hole in the backyard next to Angie’s pottery firing pit, big enough for a foxhole if mortars were flying. Tiny tunnels away from his hole were the escape routes the voles had used.
The river was changing seasons. Thin skims of ice clung on the downstream side wherever the current was blocked. A few patches of clear ice floated by, so thin they bent when the water ruffled. Eskimos call that stage
new young ice
. I picked up the canoe, balanced it like an oversized hat and shoved it under the house. I judged the boating season was over.
Profound silence lay over the woods and the driveway. The world was getting drowsy, preparing for its winter hibernation. I caught a flash of movement in the woods and had the pistol on it, but it was a rabbit already turned white for the winter. He took a couple of tentative hops and another appeared behind him, so they must have had a burrow.
When the snow comes, they’ll be as invisible as they were wearing their summer brown, but until then, they showed up through the woods like spotlights. I was glad to see them because they meant no assassins were lurking in the woods. Wolves will take advantage of the blown camouflage to fatten themselves up for winter, but probably not in Turk’s territory.
Angie came out of the house dressed for work in skirt and blouse, heels and hose. Hard to believe she was the same person who had gone in wearing wrinkles from sleeping in her clothes. She told Turk to stay. He sat down, brushing gravel with his wagging tail, tongue lolling happily. I glanced toward the woods, but the rabbits had disappeared. We climbed into the car and I backed down the lane.
“What is that strange aroma? Did you fall into a spice cabinet or get dumped on by a truckload of flowers?”
“I’m wearing Shalimar, bush man. It’s a selective repellent. Sophisticated city men appreciate it, but it keeps the bums away like Deep Woods Off repels mosquitoes. How are you going to amuse yourself while I toil in the salt mine? I assume your blonde bimbo has a daytime job?”
“Correct, and today she’s going to risk her life stealing fingerprints for us. You could mask the jealousy a little by calling her Celeste.”
A dark blur came out of the woods on the left. I clamped on the binders, started to skid, released the brakes, and snapped us out of it. A mama moose strolled casually across the road, apparently unaware of my throwing gravel and lying on the horn. I had time for one more brake, one more slide, then took the ditch on the left-hand side behind the moose and jerked us back up onto the road. The moose continued unperturbed, jumped the ditch, and pulled down an eight-foot-high branch to munch leaves.
Angie was no more perturbed than the moose. You get used to sudden evasive actions when you live in the Alaskan woods. We survived the slalom course and turned toward town on the Steese. In broad daylight, with no music blaring out, the Rendezvous looked sadly shabby and dusty. I used the Wendell Street Bridge, passed Celeste’s house with barely a glance, and dropped Angie at the Lathrop Building on Second Avenue.
“What time shall I pick you up?”
“Forget it. I’m off after the six-o’clock news, but I’ll grab a taxi. If you decide to fly off to Point Barrow, leave me a note, but I don’t want to stand on Second Avenue waiting for you to get back.”
There it was again, same lack of confidence in my scheduling that was keeping Connie turned off. There must be something fundamentally wrong with my genes.
“Okay, suit yourself, but do be careful. Don’t come out the door until the cab is waiting, and pay attention to traffic. If a car follows you onto Boat Street tell the cabby you’ve changed your mind and have him take you straight to the cop shop.”
“You think more assassins are lined up waiting to take a shot at us?”
“Angie, I’m almost sure of it. Someone at Interior bought two more tickets, this time from Seattle. I don’t think they’re for cousins coming to visit. You do have security at work?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty good. We get stalkers and kooks harassing talent, and reporters get death threats now and then. Our receptionist has a button on her desk that sets off a buzzer in the shop. That brings the entire technical crew storming out waving wrenches and screwdrivers. I do get the message, and I will be careful. You just concentrate on staying alive to meet me for dinner.” She swept the area with her eyes, hunkered down just a little, and scooted into the building.
When she’d asked about my plans, I hadn’t answered because I didn’t have any. Still, habit pulled me toward the airport. Maybe I should stake out the passenger terminal and see if Marino was meeting an army packing cannons. I stopped at the strip mall, found a copy of
An Infantry Lieutenant’s Vietnam
by Ivan Pierce at Borders, a couple of Cokes at Safeway, and steeled myself for a long hard vigil.
The wisdom of the ages is to keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. I figured that meant keeping an eye on Interior and maybe following Marino if he came out. I parked between hangars to see what was going to happen next. The Otter was in its spot, and next to it a Skyvan had its rear ramp down.
An F-27 with Interior’s blue-and-gold logo pulled off the runway and lumbered between rows of planes to stop in front of the freight shed. The building’s overhead door opened and two forklifts emerged. They took turns, transferring the first six pallets into the Skyvan, then moving freight into the shed. A dozen pallets went in, different pallets came out and were hoisted into the F-27.
The forklifts retreated and the warehouse door closed. The left prop started to spin, wound up to a blur and billowed smoke when the turbine caught. The pilot used only one engine to turn the bird and started down the line before he cranked the right. Nice guy, he didn’t want to sandblast the office, but his boss was inside so it made sense. The F-27 streaked down the runway, lifted off, and continued south toward Anchorage.
Reginald’s Mercedes was in the lot. Dave’s Cadillac was not. Several other cars were scattered around and one of them was a cute little teal blue Miata that I’d noticed parked on the street when I picked up Celeste, so I guessed it was hers.
Freddy came out of the office wearing coveralls, and trudged toward the Skyvan. I was too far away to see features, but his walk was familiar. Someone should do a study of that. I think walks may be as individual as fingerprints. He climbed into the Skyvan and a moment later the rear ramp swung up and closed. Turbines spun and smoked, the Skyvan lurched out of the line and waddled toward the taxiway. The Skyvan is a one-purpose airplane, fairly common in bush work but unusual elsewhere. It’s a boxy-looking bird, short square wings, a turbine on each, and the body ends at the rear of the ramp with tail feathers mounted above it. The gear is short, but wide, so it looks as if it were dragging its belly. The only reason it flies is that the entire body is the shape of an oversized wing. It was carrying six large pallets. The Otter would have been strained with four, and boxy or not, the Skyvan is faster. He broke ground halfway down the strip, so he was heavy, climbed to five hundred feet, and turned north toward Alaska’s newest bonanza.
I settled down with my book and was instantly transported to Vietnam. Pierce has a different perspective, not gung-ho or bloodthirsty, not concerned with the politics. He describes his life there with the same candor and word pictures he might have used to write about his former life on the Idaho farm. I cringed when the bullets flew, laughed when the sappers came, shook my head at the idiocy of military intelligence, and forgot about time until Dave’s Cadillac turned off the airport road and parked at Interior. He didn’t have any gunmen with him. My watch said four-thirty. I popped the second Coke, but it was warm and seemed to be all fizz.
At six-ten Reginald and Marino came out together, got into their respective cars and headed for town. Celeste’s Miata was still in the lot, so I let them go. She came out ten minutes later, slipped into the Miata, and I followed her toward town. The exodus from the airport area was on, Fairbanks’ version of rush hour, so there were a dozen cars on the road. She pulled into the strip mall, and when she came out with an armload of groceries, I was leaning against her car.
“Hi, Celeste, remember me?”
“Alex, gee, I’m sorry about the other night. You had my hormones in such an uproar I couldn’t think straight.”
“No problem, I can relate to that. Just call me Peg Leg. Any luck with the fingerprint detail?”
“Yeah, worked like a charm. Reginald and Marino left together early and when I took some papers into Reginald’s office, there were two brandy snifters on his desk. I don’t know which was which, so I brought both of them. Only problem is I have to replace them before morning because he’ll miss them, and I’d be the prime suspect.”
I opened the car door for her. She leaned into the car to set her groceries on the seat and came out with a brown paper bag.
I took the sack. “Good girl, well done. This might be interesting.”
“Do you play cloak-and-dagger games all the time?”
“More cloak than dagger, but some of my charter customers are cops so I can sometimes wrangle a favor. How do I get the glasses back to you?”
“Could you just put them in my car sometime tonight? I wish I could invite you up to the house, but Mother wouldn’t like that.”
“She’s a smart lady, but how did she learn so much about me?”
“It’s not you, personally. She hates men with such a passion that I’d think she was a lesbian if I weren’t evidence to the contrary. I think the main purpose of this trip was to warn me about men for the umpteen-jillionth time. She’s still trying to raise me, you know?”
“Yep, I understand. My mother didn’t make it this far, but she was still calling me her precious sonny and hinting that I should go into the ministry after I was a thirty-year-old disaster. Thanks for the glasses. I’ll stick them under your car seat and call you in the next couple of days with a full report.”
She stepped against me, so I wrapped arms around her and we kissed. It wasn’t much like our date, but it definitely was not sisterly. She slipped into her car and drove away. I went to the pay phone and called Lieutenant Stella.
“Hi, Jim? Alex. Any chance you could run some fingerprints for me?”
“You have an idea who’s hiring your executioners?”
“Maybe, bare possibility. Anyhow, there’s a guy I’m wondering about and he doesn’t seem to have a background. I have a couple of brandy snifters and one has his prints on it. Might answer some questions.”
“Okay, drop them by the station. I can probably get you an answer by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Ouch, that’s a problem. I’ve got to return these glasses before morning and I do believe they’re crystal. Might be hard to find substitutes tonight.”
“Not a problem. We can lift the prints and give the glasses back in an hour or so. Alex, I won’t be at the station when you get here, but I’ll leave instructions. Just give them to the desk sergeant and wait.”
“Can do. Thanks a lot, Jim.”
“Happy to oblige, anything that will get you off our streets before you start shooting again.” He hung up. I drove out to the state office building and presented the paper sack to the desk sergeant, who was surreptitiously watching Seinfeld on a small portable TV. I was sorry to interrupt him, but he didn’t offer to let me watch, so it served him right. I plunked down in a hard wooden chair designed to torture prisoners, and finished the book. Pierce volunteered for three extra months of duty in Dak To in exchange for R&R in Hong Kong. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as I first thought.
The sergeant answered his phone, disappeared into the inner sanctum and came back with the sack and glasses. I thanked him as if it had been his idea and drove over to Wendell Street. Celeste’s Miata was parked in front of her house, doors unlocked. I stuffed the sack under the front seat and sneaked away without being spotted by her mother.
Angie had been right not to wait for me on Second Avenue, but I did think I was in time for dinner. I was just ready to turn off of Boat Street into the complex when I noticed a car parked across the street a couple of hundred feet past the drive. I could see lights on in our cottage so Angie was home, but that car didn’t seem right. I drove on by.
Two people were sitting in the car, not Dick and Jane, more like Dick and Richard and they weren’t doing anything obvious, just sitting and watching. I got a very uneasy feeling that they were waiting for me to come home. I drove two more blocks, turned left for one block, back four blocks, and raced to the service station and the pay phone on Cowles Street.
“Angie, stay put. Stay away from windows and don’t open the door until you’re sure it’s me.”
“Alex?”
“No time, explain later. Put on your Cat Woman suit and be ready to run.”