A Long Walk Up the Water Slide

by Don Winslow

  “Now, what are we looking at here, Jack?” Candy asked.

  “These are the time-share condos, Candy,” Jack said. “And believe it or not, we still have a few to sell, but you have to act now. Just dial one-eight hundred-CAN-DICE for a color brochure. You know, Candy, folks can buy seasonal, month-long, week-long, or even a weekend package. We have something for every size wallet, fat or thin.”

  “Yes,” Candy picked it up, “and for those of you who aren’t interested in a time-share but would still like to contribute to this wonderful family fun center, we have special discount Honored Guest coupons for when you come to visit Candyland.”

  “How about The Break Your Stupid Neck and Drown Ride?” Polly suggested.

  “Neal,” Karen said, “if she’s pregnant, she’s pregnant, whether you want her to be or not. Believe it or not, you can’t control it.”

  “Do you want to ask her?” Neal asked.

  “Ask her what?”

  Neal stared at her.

  “Ask her if she thinks that photography is an art or not,” Neal said. “Ask her who the father is.”

  The phone rang.

  “That’s none of your business,” Karen said.

  “Oh, you don’t think so?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  The phone rang.

  “It’s Jack,” said Polly.

  “On the phone?” Neal asked.

  “The father,” Polly answered.

  The phone rang again.

  Neal picked it up and said, “What?”

  “There’s a guy sniffing around,” Brogan said. “I was worried he’s looking for … your houseguest.”

  “How do you know …” Neal began. He turned his back away from the living room and asked, “All right, what does he look like?”

  “Like he’s from the East.”

  The East, meaning New York or Moscow, which were pretty much the same to Brogan.

  “Okay, I’ll check it out,” Neal said, then added, “Thanks.”

  “Let me know if you need me,” Brogan said. “The shotgun is loaded and the dog’s awake.”

  “Thanks.”

  Karen and Polly were hugging when Neal turned around.

  “Oh, please,” he said.

  Karen looked over Polly’s shoulder and said, “This is an important moment to a woman, Neal.”

  Her eyes were teary and her nose was getting red. Neal was afraid she was going to cry. The last time he’d seen Karen cry was when a mechanic told her that her jeep was going to need transmission work.

  “We don’t even know if she’s actually pregnant yet,” Neal said.

  “I just feel it,” Polly said.

  The women hugged again.

  Neal took Karen by the elbow and guided her away, saying, “Could I talk to you for a second?”

  In the kitchen, he said, “That was Brogan on the phone. He’s hinky because there’s a stranger in the bar. And he knows about Polly.”

  “Neal,” Karen said, “Brogan’s is the only bar on a state highway for a hundred miles in either direction. Strangers go in there.”

  Neal smiled and said, “Paranoia is not only a character flaw; it’s my business. I’m going to go check it out.”

  Karen sniffled before she asked, “Why don’t you pick up one of those home-pregnancy tests until we can get to the doctor?”

  A doctor, Neal thought. Great. That means a receptionist, too, and maybe a nurse. Throw in a few lab technicians, some hospital orderlies. Maybe we can just save time and go on the nightly news.

  He heard Jack Landis’s mellifluous voice say, “Folks, we’ve been under attack lately. You know, there are people out there who are so afraid of our family values, they’d resort to just about anything to destroy us. And I don’t know about you, but I just can’t think of a better way to show them that they just ain’t going to get it done than to dial one-eight hundred-CAN-DICE.…”

  I’ll give you a time-share, Neal thought. You can share some time in a little cell with a lonely guy named Bubba—yearly, monthly, even on weekends.

  “Make her do her Shakespeare,” he said to Karen.

  “Aww, Neal …” Karen whined.

  “Make her do her Shakespeare.”

  Neal took about three minutes to walk down the hill to Austin’s Main Street, which also happened to be Route 50. A car came through at least once every four hours or so.

  A rumpled-looking guy in an old suit was coming in his direction up the sidewalk. Brogan’s right, Neal thought, he looks like the chairman of the English department at a New England prep school circa 1956.

  And he’s headed right for our place, too.

  Neal stopped in front of the man.

  The man looked at him curiously.

  “Mr. Withers?” Neal asked.

  Withers blinked a few times, then said, “I know you, don’t I?”

  “You’re Walter Withers, right?” Neal asked.

  Withers studied Neal, then his eyes brightened.

  “And you are … at least you were … Joe Graham’s puppy,” Withers said. “I remember you.”

  They shook hands awkwardly, then Walter Withers’s face fell.

  “Oh, Lord,” he said. “Is Graham working this thing? Is he looking for her, too? You’re the competition, aren’t you? Well, of course you wouldn’t tell me, would you? Joe Graham trained you. You were trained by the best, my boy, the best.”

  Neal remembered a time when Walter Withers had been pretty damn good himself, back when Withers had been with one of the big agencies and they couldn’t help bumping into each other on some of the larger jobs. Joe Graham had pointed Withers out to Neal as an example. Rumor was in those days that Walt Withers, Loomis-Chaffee old boy and Yale alum, had learned his craft in the CIA, then gone to the private side for the money and the New York nightlife. Back in the fifties, New York had style and so did Walt Withers. Walt had dressed exclusively from Brooks Brothers and Abercrombie, and one of Neal’s enduring adolescent memories was when Mr. Withers had flipped open a Dunhill cigarette case and offered him a smoke. Neal had politely declined, admitting he needed to cut back himself. Walter Withers was a gentleman.

  But the nightlife had stretched into the mornings and then became an all-day affair and the big agency dropped Walt, who started the sadly predictable descent down the ladder. His fifties style went out of style, he was woefully unsuited for undercover stuff, and the jobs that Graham threw him when he needed an extra man were mostly backup stuff. But even backup guys needed to be sober to back you up, and after a couple of no-shows, Levine put the kabosh on any freelance hiring of Walt Withers. Neal hadn’t seen him for many years, and by the look of him, Walt hadn’t spent many of the intervening nights drinking coffee in a church basement.

  But here he was in Austin, so was Neal, and so was Polly Paget, and neither man believed in that kind of coincidence.

  “Maybe we can work something out, Mr. Withers,” Neal said.

  “Call me Walter, please, my boy. It’s Neal, isn’t it?”

  Neal nodded.

  “Work something out.… Share the kill sort of a thing, I see.… Interesting …” Walter said. “Sporting of you.”

  I’m a sport, Mr. Withers. And you’re standing here trying to figure out a way to beat me. Share the kill … right.

  “It depends on who your client is,” Withers said.

  I’m not proud of this, Walt, but here we go.

  “Mr. Withers … Walter … I’m just a little thirsty,” Neal said. “Why don’t we go in and discuss this over a drink?”

  The smile returned to Walt’s face.

  “Joe Graham did train you well,” he said.

  Uh-huh. And I hope he forgives me, Neal thought as he led Withers into Brogan’s.

  ‘ “The shotgun is loaded and the dog’s awake,’ ” Charles Whiting repeated. “What does that mean?”

  John Culver shrugged. “I don’t interpret them, Chief. I just record them.”

  “Some sort
of code,” Whiting said.

  Probably not, Culver thought. He’d learned from tedious hours listening to drug deals go south that what it probably meant was that the shotgun was loaded and the dog was awake.

  It had been a frustrating four days since Whiting and Culver had met in Reno and driven across desert and mountain to the remote town of Austin. They’d taken a room in the better one of Austin’s two small motels, told the owner they were geologists, and spent their days dutifully driving around the hills and their nights dutifully planting microphones and driving around with a directional sound finder.

  The good news was that Austin was very small, so if Polly was in town, they had a good chance of picking something up. The bad news was that Austin was very small, and it couldn’t be long before people started asking questions.

  But now they had something, thanks to Culver’s hunch that in a town this small, the saloon was a good place to pick up scuttlebutt.

  “Apparently,” Whiting continued, “they have a warning system set up. Did you pick up the number he dialed?”

  Culver replayed the tape and listened carefully to the sounds of the dialing. He shook his head.

  Whiting didn’t complain or question. He’d hired Culver away from the DEA because the drug guys were a lot better than the FBI technicians, who were so hung up on court orders and constitutional safeguards that they couldn’t record a football game on the VCR. Your basic drug guy could and would cheerfully bug a confessional booth and get Marcel Marceau’s venial sins on tape.

  Whiting thought it over for a couple of minutes. If he walked over to this bar and asked questions, the bartender might make another call, and then they could train the sound finder on the phone. But this Neal person might already be in the bar and that would give away the game. There was another problem: Whom was the bartender talking about when he said that someone was in there sniffing around? Was somebody else hot on Polly’s trail? And if so, who?

  Whiting had an idea. It wasn’t uncommon for people in backwater towns to harbor fugitives. If there was a conspiracy in Austin to protect Polly Paget …

  Ten minutes later, he was showing Polly’s picture to the clerk at Austin’s one grocery store.

  “Have you seen this woman?”

  The old lady behind the counter took a quick peek and said, “Every day.”

  It wasn’t quite what Chuck had been looking for. It was a whole lot better.

  “Where?” he asked, his heart quickening.

  The old lady pointed behind him.

  Chuck whirled around to see a newspaper rack where pictures of Polly were spread all over the color tabloids.

  Back to plan A, Chuck thought.

  “I have a lot of money for her,” Chuck said.

  The old lady smiled.

  “That’s interesting,” she said.

  “In fact,” Chuck continued, “I have a lot of money for anyone who could tell me where she is.”

  The old woman looked around and quickly leaned over the counter until her lips were an inch from Chuck’s ear, then whispered, “Can you keep this confidential?”

  “You have my word,” said Chuck.

  “Elvis,” she hissed, “is sweeping up the storeroom right now.”

  Chuck’s face flushed as the old woman straightened up and regarded him with disdain.

  “Young man,” she said, “I sell a little produce, a lot of canned beans, some pop, and a few bottles of beer. I do not sell people. Now, I do know where you can rent a person for an hour or so, but it isn’t here.”

  Chuck’s face turned from pink to scarlet.

  The old lady continued: “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “No, ma am.”

  “Then please be on your way.”

  Chuck went on his way.

  Evelyn picked up the phone two seconds later and dialed Karen Hawley’s number.

  “Karen,” she said when her old friend answered, “I thought I should let you know that someone just came in looking for … your houseguest.”

  “Thanks,” Karen said, “Brogan called, too. Neal went down to check it out. But how did you know—never mind.”

  Inside the van, John Culver lowered the shotgun mike and rewound the tape. He listened for a second and gave Whiting the thumbs-up sign. This time the phone number came singing through the headset.

  Within five minutes, they found Karen Hawley’s address in the reverse phone book Whiting had finagled from an old buddy in the Reno field bureau. After they’d parked the van a block away from the house, Chuck Whiting called the boss again and said to get there right away.

  He didn’t want to do that. He hated to do that. But those were his orders, and Chuck Whiting had spent a lifetime obeying orders. It was too late to change now.

  Overtime thought about the circus. Particularly, he thought about that moment when the Volkswagen pulls up next to the house on fire and fifteen clowns get out of the little car, trip all over themselves, spray each other with water, and throw buckets of confetti on the house. Then the house burns down.

  He edged the curtain back into place and stepped away from the window. He sat down on the motel room’s one chair, its ripped mustard yellow upholstery repaired with duct tape, and opened up a package of peanut-butter crackers. He had checked in the night before and packed his own food and drink. He’d gone out once, at about three in the morning, to check the target area. He worked out his approach and his escape and it wasn’t going to be a problem.

  Just in, just out.

  Then he went back to his room to get some sleep and wait for the clowns.

  And now they were here.

  8

  Neal had to admit to himself that he was glad when Walter Withers switched to coffee after one shot and a beer. Neal had planned to get Withers soused, leave him unconscious at Brogan’s, then spirit Polly out of town. But Withers drank just enough to take the edge off and now he seemed brighter and more alert than he had when Neal met him on the street.

  Bad for the plan, Neal thought, but good for Walter. The problem now is how to get rid of him.

  “You were about to tell me who your client is,” Withers prompted.

  No I wasn’t, Walt.

  “That might depend on who your client is,” Neal said.

  Wither’s eyes twinkled. He’s actually enjoying this, Neal thought.

  “Ah, yes,” Walt said, “which one of us is going to get undressed first? We mustn’t dawdle with the seduction here, my boy. I don’t think we’re going to have the room to ourselves for very long.”

  “Are you expecting company, Walt?”

  Brogan coughed rhetorically and made a show of ramming the cleaning rod down his shotgun. He nudged Brezhnev awake and the dog growled.

  Withers chuckled. “We’re smart, young Neal, but we’re not the only smart people in the world. If we could track Miss Paget to this barren and lonely hideaway, so can other people.”

  “How did you find her, Walt?”

  “With brilliant detective work, Neal,” Withers answered.

  “A snitch.”

  “Of course.”

  Walt finished his coffee and said, “I’d love to stay and catch up on the good old days, Neal, but I have to go and make an offer to Miss Polly Paget. You will excuse me, I’m sure.”

  He pushed his chair out and stood up.

  Brogan stood up and snapped shut the shotgun chamber.

  “You’re not going to have him shoot me, are you, Neal?” Withers asked.

  “If I did, it would be with only the deepest regrets, Mr. Withers,” Neal answered.

  Withers picked up his briefcase. He looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully and then dropped his head back down and laughed. Looking straight at Neal, he said, “I’ve misapprehended you. You’re not looking for Miss Paget; you’re hiding her, aren’t you?”

  And doing a lousy job of it, too, Walt.

  “And you brought me in here to get me drunk,” Walt continued. “That betrays low character
, Neal. Yours and mine, I’m afraid.”

  True enough, Mr. Withers.

  “I haven’t met very many saints in this business, Mr. Withers,” Neal said.

  “Joe Graham is a saint.”

  “Joe Graham is a saint,” Neal agreed. And what would he do in this situation? I wonder. I’d love to know, seeing as how he put me in this situation.

  “And I suppose while we were having friendly drinks, you’ve had her moved?” Withers asked.

  Well, no, Walt. That’s what I should have done when I first heard you were here, but I was too busy sulking about her possibly being in a family way.

  Neal nodded.

  Walt sat back down. The jauntiness suddenly deflated in that way chronic alcoholics have of looking either eighteen or eighty within seconds. Now he looked eighty. His skin resembled old yellow paper that could crumble at the touch, and his eyes looked tired. His next drink wouldn’t be coffee.

  Withers sighed and leaned across the table.

  “Here’s the problem, my boy,” he said. “I took a chunk of the advance money to pay off a gambling debt. I’m afraid I drank some of the rest. All forgivable, really, if one comes up with the goods, but … you’ve done me in.”

  He spread his hands, palms up.

  “Who are you working for?” Neal asked.

  “I have the great honor to be in the service of Top Drawer magazine, which has commissioned me to persuade Miss Polly Paget to serve as onanistic inspiration to millions of adolescent boys and adolescent men. These are the depths to which I have sunk, young Neal. Even in these substrata of our often-sad profession, I fail. I fail.”

  He dropped his chin to the table and stared at the greasy surface of the tabletop as if it represented an eternity in purgatory.

  A brilliant performance, Neal thought. Top-drawer, indeed. And if this outrageous play for sympathy doesn’t work, he’ll try a threat: Play ball, or I’ll go to the press just out of spite. Well, one good act deserves another.

  “Two bourbons, Brogan?” Neal asked.

  Brogan was so taken with the scene, he poured the drinks himself and brought them over. He even forgot to demand cash up front.

  “You want to take naked pictures of her?” Neal asked.