Tranquility Denied

by A. C. Frieden

  “Whiskey’s fine.”

  Savage returned with a tumbler of Scotch and a beer for himself.” I didn’t figure you for a beer drinker,” he said, dropping into another stuffed chair next to Charles. The moonlight spilled in the window and snow flurries began to cling to the glass, forming tiny patterns of crystal before sliding wetly down. The fire made the room glow and Charles suddenly wished he were there for some other reason.

  “Built it myself,” Savage said, sensing Charles’ silent approval. “Good place to get away from things.” He took a gulp of his beer. “Look, I’m sorry about the greeting, but there are a couple of people I don’t really want to see again. The town is alright once you’re accepted, but they can be a bit tight-lipped.”

  “I noticed.” Charles smiled. Savage seemed suddenly more relaxed, as if he were happy to have a visitor, unannounced or not. Charles guessed few people had seen the inside of the cabin.

  “You eaten? I got some chili on if you don’t have a squeamish stomach.”

  “No, thanks. I had one of Maggie’s steaks before I came up. She told me the way. Well, almost the way. She made a slight mistake about the turn at the fork.”

  Savage laughed. “No mistake, but Maggie figured if you could find the way, you must be okay. She’s alright, kind of adopted me when I moved here. Her son bought it in Nam.”

  Savage stood and went to the kitchen. He brought Charles another drink and a steaming bowl of chili in a stone bowl for himself. He ate in silence, occasionally glancing at Charles who sat contentedly, warmed by the fire and Scotch, letting his gaze roam over the cabin. On one wall, some rough shelves held an impressive collection of paperback books.

  Savage followed his gaze. “Passes the time,” he said. He finished eating and lit a cigarette. “What do you want to know about Owens?” he asked as he popped open another beer.

  Charles shifted in his chair. “I’d like to hear about you first.” He regarded Savage with real interest. Remembering the file, he wondered how a boy from the streets of Chicago survives Vietnam and ends up on the side of a mountain. “How did this all come about?” He waved a hand around the room.

  Savage smiled understandingly. “That’s what my dad wants to know. He doesn’t like this either,” he said, fingering the pony tail. “I haven’t cut it since Nam.” Shrugging he went on. “After I was discharged, I went back to Chicago. Got married, got a nothing job—probably exactly what I would have done if I hadn’t gone to Nam, but it didn’t work. Nam changed a lot of guys. Me for one. I got into some heavy dope dealing. I guess you know about that. Anyway, I made some money, got lucky on some investments and split for the open skies. Just got in my truck and drove till I saw this place. It’s about as different from Nam as you can imagine. Parked the truck, built this place and well, here I am.” He flipped his cigarette into the fire.

  Charles sat back. How many were there like Mike Savage? Scarred invisibly by a war they didn’t believe in but fought nevertheless. Returned to scorn, confusion, hopelessness and broken lives. Scattered about the country, their fears locked away, dreams unfulfilled.

  Charles took out a briar pipe and a pouch of tobacco. “Owens was only with your unit a few months, right?”

  “I got something better to pack that with if you feel like it.”

  “No, thanks. I tried it once with my daughter. Didn’t do anything for me,” Charles said.

  Savage shrugged and took a stubby pipe from over the fireplace. He filled it from a stone jar. Lit, the pipe produced the pungent aroma of marijuana. On the floor, Pappy raised his head, sniffed the air and moved to the corner.

  “Pappy doesn’t approve?”

  “Naw, doesn’t like the smell, I guess. Found him when he was a puppy. Just a stray, like me.” Savage settled back in his chair and stared into the flames. “Yeah, Owens wasn’t with us long, a few months was enough. Guess you’ve done your homework,” he said, looking at Charles.

  “How is it you remember him so easily?” Charles sat forward and sipped his drink.

  Savage’s laugh was hollow again, like a rattle. “Remember him? Hell, I almost killed the bastard. Had him right in the sights of my M16, then just as I pulled the trigger, one of the guys jerked it away and I missed.” He laughed again. “Just think, I might have saved you a trip up here and you’d have one less defector to worry about.”

  “How did it happen?”

  Savage took a pull on his pipe, sucked in some air and coughed slightly. “Owens was a replacement. Nam wasn’t like your war. We didn’t train together, ship over together, fight together or come home together. Everybody shipped in one at a time. Our second in command got wasted when he stepped on a mine and what was left of him was sent home in a bag.” Savage paused, shaking his head.

  “No real experience. Owens, I mean. Green as they come. A twink with bars on his shoulders. There were some nineteen year olds that were scary, man.”

  Charles nodded. Child men, transformed overnight into hardened combat veterans with blank gazes, storing up memories they’d never be able to shake.

  “Anyway, on this one patrol, Owens panicked under fire. He called for support mortar shelling, but he fucked up the coordinates. Our own guys were shelling us. Everyone begged him to hold off, but he wouldn’t listen. He hadn’t paid any attention in the briefings. Always had his face in some computer book. He’d been to college, he was always telling us.

  “We were caught in some pretty heavy action about then, which if we got out of it was okay because that meant we could up the body count. That was the big thing in Nam, man. Body count. If it was really good we’d get a shipment of ice cream and cold cokes dropped by chopper.” His shoulders slumped and he looked at Charles with a pleading expression. “I mean what was that war about anyway?”

  Charles wished there was something he could say that would penetrate what Mike Savage was feeling, even after all these years.

  “Like I said,” Savage continued, “Owens thought he knew better than anyone else. A few of our guys bought it. One took a direct hit. He’d been in Nam three days. He was seventeen. Hello and goodbye war.”

  Savage seemed to sink even deeper in the chair. His pipe had gone out. “We survived, the rest of us, though, I don’t know how. The mortar fire was finally straightened out and I guess Owens got his ass reamed good when we got back. Big fucking deal. We got into a light skirmish on the way. Owens was just up ahead and when I saw him there in my sights, I thought, fuck it, I just...” His voice trailed off and he stared into the fire.

  Charles remained silent. The wind rustled the snow against the windows. The dying fire crackled and hissed. After a bit he said, “And Owens left after that?”

  Savage sighed, returned from wherever his memories had taken him. “Yeah, not long after. They disappeared him somewhere behind the lines where he couldn’t do any harm. Lucky for him, too. Someone would have wasted him sooner or later if the VC didn’t.” He shook his head again. “And while that was going on, those assholes in Paris were arguing over the shape of the goddamn table.”

  Charles had no answers. He could feel for Mike Savage, but this was not his man. The ten years of pent up emotions seething inside him threatened to spill over at any moment. Savage would not fail to kill Owens a second time if he were given the opportunity.

  “What are your plans now if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I just kind of cruise along up here.” His smile returned and Charles could almost see the tension visibly drain from his face. “I’ve been trying to get my brother out here, help me clear some more land, maybe build some kind of lodge. You know, catch the Canadian tourists who want to get away from it all.”

  Charles smiled. Savage would be an expert at that. He put down his glass and stood to go. “Well, it’s getting late. I’d better be getting back to town. Thanks for the drinks and talk.”

  “No problem, man. I hope you got what you came for. I’ll walk you back down.”

  Pappy led t
he way as they retraced their steps down the trail to Charles’ car. He gripped the young man’s hand firmly. “I hope everything works out for you,” Charles said.

  Savage nodded. “Watch it going back. Might be some ice on the road.” He started to go then turned back. “You know Owens isn’t worth the effort.”

  Who knows? Charles thought as he drove away. Maybe Savage was right. He headed back to town somehow relieved that he could leave Mike Savage on his mountaintop.

  Back to TOC

  Here’s a sample from J.L. Abramo’s Chasing Charlie Chan.

  LENNY ARCHER

  When Lenny Archer managed to open his eyes, the first thing he saw was a small black circle with a white spot at its center. As he began to focus the circle became deep red and he recognized the white object. A tooth. Lenny probed the inside of his mouth with his tongue and found the space where the molar and a few of its neighbors had once been. And he could taste blood. Lenny realized he was face down on the floor and made an effort to move. The pain in his lower abdomen was unbearable. He shifted his gaze to the significantly larger red pool that spread from the floor up into his shirt below his waist. Archer let out a ghastly sound, part animal moan and part angry prayer.

  “This mope is still breathing,” said Tully.

  “Put him out of his fucking misery.”

  “Maybe he’ll tell us where he stashed it.”

  “If he was going to spill, he would have talked before you knocked his fucking teeth out,” said Raft. “The guy is a fucking mess. Kill him. You’d be doing him a favor.”

  Lenny Archer tried to remember where he was, remember what he’d been doing before taking a bullet in the stomach and a kick in the face. He wondered if it really mattered.

  Archer remembered sitting at his desk looking over the notes Ed Richards had handed him and hearing the noise in the hallway outside his office door. Midnight, too late for a social call and long past business hours. Archer had instinctively placed the notes in the fold of the newspaper on his desktop and quietly slid open the top drawer. Lenny pressed the remote switch to start the office tape recorder and he pulled out his handgun. And he listened.

  Silence.

  Archer rose from his chair and moved to the door, his gun in hand, intending to check the hall. He slowly turned the knob, the door knocked him to the floor and his weapon discharged. Then another shot and the terrible pain in his abdomen and the crushing blow to his head.

  Archer thought he heard voices, in his mind or in the room, debating his fate. He seemed to remember questions. What did Ed Richards tell you? What did Richards give to you? Who else did Richards talk to? Who did you talk to? And each time he had failed to respond he could remember another blow to the face. And then blackness.

  Lenny looked in horror at the pool of blood growing larger at his waist. The voices were louder now.

  “You’d be doing him a favor,” Raft said.

  Tully pressed the gun barrel against Lenny’s head.

  “Bingo, Richards’ notes,” said Raft.

  Tully looked over to the desk. Raft held the notes in one hand and he tossed the newspaper at Lenny with the other.

  “Shoot the motherfucker already,” said Raft.

  “We’re still not sure who else knows about this.”

  “The sooner you kill this fuck, the sooner we can get to Richards. And trust me; Richards is going to spill his guts.”

  An hour earlier, Tully and Raft had followed Richards to the parking lot of a donut shop on Fifth. The shop was closed for the night. Richards pulled up next to the only other car in the lot. They watched from a distance as he climbed out of his car and moved to the driver’s window of the other vehicle. Ed Richards passed some papers through the window, quickly returned to his own car and drove off.

  “Follow the other car,” Raft had said.

  “What about Richards?”

  “We know where Richards lives, he can wait. Let’s see where this guy goes, who the fuck he is and what he knows.”

  They followed the second car to a building on Fourth Street and waited for the driver to enter. When they saw the light go on in a second story window, they left their vehicle and moved to the front entrance of the building.

  “Fucking private dick,” said Raft, checking the names on the mailboxes.

  “There are two of them,” said Tully.

  “Not tonight. Whoever this one is, he’s alone up there. Let’s go and check his ID.”

  Tully and Raft stood in the hallway outside the office for a minute, unsure about how to play it. They had pulled out their weapons.

  “Sounds like he’s coming this way,” Tully said.

  They heard the footsteps and watched the door. When the knob began to turn, Raft slammed his shoulder into the door. A shot went off. They stepped into the doorway and saw the man on the floor, a gun in his hand. Tully fired a round into the man’s stomach and then quickly moved to kick the man square in the mouth.

  Raft found the wallet in Lenny’s jacket pocket.

  Lenny Archer knew he was a dead man. Tully held the barrel of the gun against Lenny’s temple.

  “It’s not too late, Leonard,” Tully said. “We call for an ambulance and you survive this mess. All you need to do is help us out a little.”

  Lenny Archer could feel the life spilling out of the center of his body.

  “Is your partner in on this?” Tully asked.

  “No.”

  “You wouldn’t lie to us at a time like this, would you, Leonard?”

  “No.”

  “Any last words?”

  Archer closed his eyes, felt the lightness in his head and saw the bright light behind his eyelids.

  “Life is a carnival,” Lenny Archer said.

  Tully pulled the trigger.

  JAKE DIAMOND

  I met Jimmy Pigeon on the set of a film shoot on a Los Angeles sound stage. All I knew about private investigators was what I had found in the Hollywood movies I was desperately trying to break into.

  Nick Charles, Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade.

  After arriving in LA in pursuit of fame and fortune, I had managed to land several small film roles. Very small. Always a low budget crime melodrama. Always a second-string petty criminal or thug. If it was a prison movie—a man framed and incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit—I would be the slow-witted convict at the far end of the mess hall table eyeballing the hero’s mashed potatoes as he laid out plans for escape. If it was a heist film—an FBI agent negotiating the release of hostages following a failed bank robbery attempt—I was the gang member lurking in the background listening stupidly while the boss and his right hand man argued the destination of the getaway jet. On the film shoot where I met Pigeon, it was kidnapping. A private eye was employed by a prominent politician to locate his young daughter being held for ransom. The abductors had strongly advised the girl’s father against involving the police. I played the role of the kidnapper with the fewest lines.

  Jimmy was a genuine private investigator engaged as a consultant for the production. Pigeon’s job was to help the actor playing the PI in the film look more like a real private eye than an actor playing one, which was nearly an impossible task. I watched Jimmy closely while we were on the set together, his character, concentration, style and charisma. I talked with him about his work as often as he would allow between takes, studying his every move as if I would one day be competing for the lead role in The Jimmy Pigeon Story. And then something entirely unexpected and unexplained occurred. I found myself much more fascinated with the notion of being a private eye than with the idea of portraying one. On the final day of shooting I found the nerve to ask Jimmy what he thought of my wild impulse. Pigeon invited me to visit his Santa Monica office to mull it over.

  A week later, Jimmy was sitting at his desk looking at me as if he wasn’t sure where to begin or whether or not to begin at all. I sat opposite Pigeon in what he informed me was the client chair. I was learning already.

  �
��Well, if nothing else,” Pigeon finally said, “Jake Diamond is a perfect name for a PI. Did you come up with it yourself?”

  “Gift from my parents,” I said. “How about yours?”

  “James C. Pigeon,” he said. “Since day one.”

  “C?”

  “Not important,” Jimmy said. “Why do you want to give up acting? Believe me, it’s a lot more glamorous than what I do. And certainly more lucrative.”

  “There’s not enough glamour to go around,” I answered, “and I’m weary of waiting for some to get around to me. I wondered if you ever considered taking on a partner.”

  “Had a few.”

  “And?”

  “How about this, Jake,” Jimmy said. “I’ll tell you the story of my last partner and then you tell me if you want to leave the bright lights of Hollywood for the dark alleys of Southland.”

  As he was making his offer, Pigeon had pulled a bottle of bourbon and two small glasses from a drawer in his desk and began pouring.

  “Sounds fair,” I said as he passed me a glass.

  “There’s not too much about fair in this particular story, Jake.”

  Jimmy took a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket, lit one and dropped the package onto the desk between us.

  “Light up if you like,” Jimmy Pigeon said.

  And he began.

  JIMMY PIGEON

  Jimmy Pigeon sat up in his bed. His eyes were leaking like a faucet. He grabbed a roll of toilet paper from the bedside table. It had replaced the empty tissue box sometime during the night. Pigeon sopped up the tears running down his cheeks. His right nostril was packed as solid as a car full of clowns. Jimmy considered trying to blow his nose but he was afraid of what might spill out of his ears. He had hardly slept all night, the plop plop fizz fizz cold and sinus cocktail he had guzzled before crawling into bed had him up to urinate every thirty minutes. He had arrived home late the previous night from a rare vacation, visiting his sister and her family in South Carolina. Six dreadful days. Everything down there, from the family station wagon to the family kitten, was covered in layers of fine yellow dust. By day two the pollen had settled on his shoes, had found refuge in his nose, mouth and eyes. By day three he could barely breathe. His sister, her husband and the kids seemed unaffected, immune, adapted, empirical validation of some Darwinian theory. Pigeon dried his face again and made his way to the bathroom. He adjusted the water to a few degrees below scalding and he stepped into the shower, making a plaintive wish for an unobstructed nasal passage.