Don't Lose Her

by Jonathon King

  I stepped around broken wooden pallets, rusted barrels, and a puddle of some kind of reddish ooze in the rear of the building. There was a back door that was heavily chained and padlocked. Halfway down the wall was a metal fire escape ladder that ran from the rooftop to about six feet from the ground. An intact pallet leaned against the brick wall—an obvious stair step. I stared up for several seconds—not exactly a safe approach. I’d be completely vulnerable. But what was the choice? To hell with it.

  I secured my gun in my waistband and began climbing. The iron was rusted, and brownish-orange flakes came off the side rails onto my hands; but on each foot rung close to my face, I could see slightly worn signs of traffic. As I climbed, I tried to look into the second-story windows, but the dirt and grime and inside darkness made it impossible. When I reached the top edge where the rails looped over the precipice, I stopped, thinking of Dez’s warning and how best to present myself to whomever was on the roof. The sound of a sharp squawking voice made my decision for me.

  “Best stop right there, Copper, lest you lose that first hand and take a tumble!”

  I kept my hand below the roofline.

  “I’m not bringing trouble,” I said, trying to keep my tone level and void of any kind of authority. “Dez sent me. And I’m not a cop.”

  There was silence from above. Dez had called the informant “spooky” but not deranged. I recalled his suggestion and reached into my cargo pocket for a two-thousand-dollar brick of twenties. Slowly, I raised it, flapping it a little.

  “I’m just looking to buy some information—nothing more.”

  “Show the other hand,” the voice commanded.

  I pinched the brick of money against one rail with my left hand to secure myself and raised my right. Then slowly, very slowly, I raised my face above the roofline. A wizened figure of a man was in my sightline, armed with a long machete. But he backed away and gestured with the blade for me to come ahead.

  I pulled myself over, money in hand, and surveyed my new situation. The man before me was small, five foot five at the most, bent over slightly not from deformity but in a fight-or-flight stance. His face was pinched and deeply wrinkled, like a dried apricot left too long in the sun. It was the color of a browned walnut. His age was indeterminate. His hair was a flurry of sun-bleached blond going gray, and his eyes were narrowed and attentive, going perhaps involuntarily from my face to the bundle of cash. He was dressed in a long, dark leather overcoat that fell to his ankles and was completely incongruous with the Florida heat. On his feet, he sported what appeared to be brand-new high-top sneakers, bright orange in color.

  “Dez, you say?”

  The voice was less threatening, but retained the same squawky quality.

  “Yes. He gave me the VIN plate from a van I’m looking for and said you might know more about it.”

  The eyes, washed-out brown, maybe hazel, peered at me.

  “Dez, huh? That Hispanic kid with the scruffy beard and big hands?”

  “No,” I said. “Dez the white kid with the smooth face and a nose for a deal.”

  “Humph. Yeah, that’s him, always lookin’ for car parts and whatnot. Come,” the guy said, easing up on the battle stance and motioning to me with the now limply hanging machete.

  I followed the diminutive man to the front corner of the roof where he had apparently set up shop next to a shoulder-high steel cubicle with a caged fan on top that may have been a venting shed or possibly a utility entrance into the building below. He’d propped up a makeshift awning using a bright blue tarp, the kind that Florida homeowners use to cover leaky roofs after hurricane damage. It was stretched low, I presumed so that it couldn’t be spotted from the street. I had to bend deeply to duck under it.

  With surprising agility, the little fellow leaped up onto a bed frame that was sitting on cinder blocks and tucked his legs into a lotus position, with the machete laid across his knees. He looked at me as if he was giving me an audience.

  I was still bent under the plastic sheeting. There was no place to sit other than on the roof surface, so I followed his example and sat cross-legged before him. I could feel my shirt pull up against the butt of my gun in the small of my back.

  The man just stared at me with squinting eyes, waiting.

  “OK, look,” I said, knowing that time was running out. If the feds were on the way, this meeting would end soon. “Dez said you got the VIN plate from the warehouse across the street. Did you see the white van? Did you see who was in it?”

  The man closed his eyes for a full ten seconds. I surveyed his nest. On a small wooden table just to his right was one of those five-gallon plastic water containers with the spigot on the bottom. There were a couple of crumpled paper bags and a paper plate with food crumbs. From my seat on the roof, I could see under the raised mattress where stacks of paperback books and a spare blanket or two were stored.

  Finally, the little man’s eyes fluttered open as if he’d just awakened­. He looked down at my hand, still holding the bundle of twenties. All right, I thought, and slipped ten bills from the strapped pack and handed them to him.

  “Came in three days ago, they did,” he said quietly, with the craggy little voice, as if someone might hear. “Like I tol’ Dez—pulled up just past midday. White van, probably a ’92 or ’93, no markings. One of those Shuttle Columbia memorial license plates number RG3 44X.”

  The be-on-the-lookout with the plate number had been all over the media since the abduction, though it didn’t look like this guy had a flatscreen on hand. Dez had been good at scamming the guy in the first place, knowing about my reward offer from CQ. The guy was squirrelly with his Yoda-like appearance, the syntax, and the saber, but he had an eye for detail.

  “Big Indian got out of the passenger side and unlocked the side door of the warehouse,” he continued. “Ain’t seen that door unlocked for years.”

  “Big Indian, as in American or Eastern?” I said. “And how big?”

  Yoda blinked again.

  “Tonto kind of Indian, and tall, taller ’n you, but heavy—two hundred fifty or more. Had a long black ponytail with some kinda color-beaded knot holder. Reminded me of Chief.”

  “Chief?”

  Yoda crinkled his brow and scowled, as if to indicate that I was an unschooled idiot.

  “You know, Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?”

  My own brow crinkled.

  “Chief as in ‘jump in the air and put it in the basket, Chief!’”

  “Right,” I said, ignoring the irony of a mental case quoting a film about mental cases.

  “The Indian unlocked the door and went inside the warehouse, opened the rolling door and the van pulled in.”

  “OK,” I said, counting another hundred dollars from the pack and handing it to him. The skin of his small hands was dry and cracked, fingernails almost clawlike in length, and yellowing. But he took the money carefully, as if not to bend the new bills.

  “Who else did you see? The driver? Passengers?”

  “Not much of the driver when they came in. Only one else I seen was the kid.”

  “The kid?”

  “Kid about twenty, maybe twenty-two. White kid, he’s the gofer. Comes out in the night dumping metal into the trash bin, pieces big as he can carry. Humps it up in there and goes back inside.”

  “That’s where you got the VIN plate? From the Dumpster?”

  “Mighta been somethin’ valuable,” he said. “I know every can and bin in five square blocks. Go through ’em all. Waste not, want not, you know. I went into that one early the day after they got here. I knew they was cuttin’ up that van ’cause I could smell the acetylene torch a-goin’. Waste of a good car, if you ask me. Hell, Dez coulda changed the VIN on that van and drove away.”

  Yeah, Dez had made more off the VIN number than he’d get from selling the whole thing.

&nbs
p; “This kid, you get a good look at him?”

  My oracle set his lips again. I opened them with another sheaf of bills.

  “Yankee,” he said. “’Bout a six-footer. Blondish hair, pale arms and face. A snowbird. Like I said, he was the gofer. Went out to Gilda’s for hamburgers and such.”

  “Gilda’s is the little stop-and-shop I saw out on the boulevard?” I said, guessing that the joint I saw driving in was the closest retail place around. He nodded.

  “Gilda makes a damn fine cheeseburger. Fact I might go down there tonight,” he said, feeling the bills in his hand, salivating on what the newly found riches might afford him.

  “What else?” I said, raising what was left in my hand.

  “What else you want?”

  “Do you know the layout inside that building? Back entrances? First-floor windows?”

  “Same as this one. Big floor-to-ceiling workshop in front, little corner office on the first floor. Storage rooms on the second floor in the back with a staircase going up. Ain’t much use for windows.”

  I stood halfway and duck-walked over to the edge of the roof to peek over to the building. Diane could be there now, thirty yards away.

  “You hear them talking? Anything?”

  “Ain’t made a sound ’cept the cuttin’ and bangin’ when they tore that van apart.”

  “Does the kid go for food at any particular time?”

  The guy was smart enough to know the import of the question and looked at my hand again. I gave him the rest of the bills.

  “Used to come out about six or seven at night, just gettin’ dark.”

  “Used to?” I said, the past participle igniting a spark in my head.

  “Gone they are,” the little gnome said, his voice even quieter than before. I spun on him and he cowered a bit, but did not raise the machete.

  “The kid went out at daybreak and came back in a big ol’ Chrysler­ 300, silver color, and a temporary plate number ACI 886. One of them you can make yourself on the computer and print out on eighteen-inch copy paper and stick inside the holder, you know.”

  I was just staring at him, blood rising into my face. His explanation quickened and he dropped the Star Wars slang.

  “He pulled into the shop and they closed the door. Then a couple of minutes later, out they come in the Chrysler. Looked like five of ’em, including the Indian in front. That’s when I seen the girl.”

  He must have sensed the sudden tension that flexed in the tendons of my shoulders and arms because he slid farther back on the mattress and tucked the new money into the armpit of his leather jacket.

  “Didn’t see much—just the flash of hair through the side window.”

  “How do you know it was a woman?” I barked.

  “Pretty hair. Strawberry blonde is what they call it—too pretty for a man.”

  Diane’s hair was a deep brunette, impossible to mistake unless they’d somehow dyed it. But even so, the suggestion that she was still alive was something. I was still trying to digest the little man’s revelation when I sensed him shudder again. But his focus had changed, looking past my face to a spot behind me, his nostrils flaring. I didn’t make the mistake of turning my back on him when he was still armed with the long knife.

  “What?” I barked again, taking a step back out of his lunging range.

  “I smell Velcro and gun oil,” he said quietly, still looking past me.

  Chapter 22

  When I turned to follow my Yoda friend’s sightline, a long evening shadow appeared on the roof next door as if he had sensed it beforehand.

  The dark outline was soon followed by a man dressed in black, carrying a long rifle at his side. For a federal sniper, he’d been somewhat cavalier in reporting to his post on the rooftop across from the suspect building.

  When he saw me, he swung the weapon up and pointed it from hip level but did not bring it to firing position. It was not in his pre-operations briefing to be wary of dangerous persons in the surrounding buildings, only possible civilians. I moved slowly, standing and raising my palms to him. Behind me, I heard the scrambling of little Yoda as he scurried off the makeshift bed. Then I heard the clunk of a heavy handle being turned and the slam of the metallic door of the utility shed. Without looking, I knew that my informant had fled.

  Back across the rooftop, the sniper motioned me with the barrel of his rifle to move back to the rear of the building, and I did, slowly. When I looked down over the edge of the ladder I’d climbed, there were two other SWAT types waiting on the ground below. I hated tossing my P226 Navy all that way down into the dirt, but it was the best thing to do. Climbing down with my scrotum completely exposed gave me a dreadful feeling because I knew that I was going to get squeezed when I made it down.

  By the time my feet touched the ground, Agent Howard, minus the tie and with the addition of a flak jacket, had joined the other two.

  “Mr. Freeman,” he said quietly, through gritted teeth. “I’m disappointed.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  He stared at me without blinking, a skill I’ve never mastered.

  “They’re already gone,” I said, slightly nodding in the direction of the warehouse across the street.

  “We’ll make that determination,” he whispered. And if a whisper could be a snarl, he had it down. He nodded to one of the agents. “Take him to the command post—in cuffs.”

  I already had my hands extended in front of me.

  I kept my chin up: a lanky figure in boat shoes and canvas trousers, handcuffed, being led on either side by uniformed SWAT cops who gripped under my arms as though I couldn’t stand. I maintained a look of certitude on my face as we made our way through the warehouse section and on to the main street entrance to the neighborhood. I said nothing in my defense or in explanation to my “captors,” and they stayed silent as well.

  From the length of their strides and swiftness of their cadence, I figured out that they wanted to follow their orders and dump me as soon as possible and get back to the action at the takedown scene. Guys who train for years to use their weapons don’t want to miss the chance to squeeze the trigger in a real live-fire situation.

  I recognized Gilda’s Stop & Shop Café, the place where Yoda said one of the abductors bought cheeseburgers. It was now surrounded by dark vehicles of different makes and models that all screamed “government car pool.” A phalanx of equally dark-suited men stood around talking in twos and threes. Some of them were questioning the men I’d seen working in a warehouse when I’d canvassed the block. When I caught one guy’s eye, he immediately turned to the agent in front of him. Whatever he said turned the agent’s eyes on me—suspect again.

  Beyond the makeshift command center, I could see a line of Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office patrol cars and a couple of local black-and-whites. And then even farther down the road, I could make out the raised dish antenna of the news vans in a pool where the media had been ordered to encamp until further instruction. As we approached the nearest group, three agents, all whom I recognized from the tracing unit set up in Diane’s office, moved out to greet us.

  The middle one stepped up first.

  “Agent Duncan,” I said, nodding, unable to reach out a hand.

  “Yes, and you would be the former law enforcement member who understands jurisdictional boundaries,” he said dryly. “Mr., uh, Freeman? Correct?”

  Just guessing at my name? They would have had a complete dossier on me within an hour of my leaving Diane’s chambers after our first meeting.

  “Max,” I said.

  “Yes, well, Mr. Freeman, I understand that you are the primary reason that we are here and that you have information that could be important in the investigation of Judge Manchester’s abduction.”

  Not a question. I kept my mouth shut.

  “Please, Agents,” Duncan motioned to the SWA
T boys. “Uncuff Mr. Freeman. He is not a physical danger or a flight risk.”

  The team retrieved their handcuffs and immediately broke for the hot zone down the street.

  Duncan did not miss a beat. “And instead of giving us this information forthwith, Mr. Freeman, you obviously decided to take matters into your own hands and thus jeopardize a possible rescue of the judge.”

  I massaged my wrists, taking my time, still waiting for a question.

  “You’re correct about one thing, Agent,” I finally said. “I am the primary reason you’re here, the first break in your case so far. Unfortunately, even I was too late.”

  The words caught his attention, but his focus was broken by a glance at something behind me. I turned to see Billy approaching, already within hearing range.

  “T-too l-late, M-max? Wh-what d-does th-that m-mean, exactly?”

  His face, drawn and rumpled from sleeplessness, was still a mask of stoicism. Despite the circumstances, Billy was not one to panic or jump to conclusions.

  “I’m pretty sure she was here, Billy. But the informant I found said they left this morning. And he’s damned convincing, even if he is a bit of a whack job.”

  Again, Billy’s face did not react, absorbing the information. “Alive, M-max? D-did your informant s-see her alive?”

  “Yeah,” I said, speculating about the woman, but still stating the truth as I knew it. “Alive, Billy.”

  I felt a touch on my forearm from behind me and turned.

  “I believe, Mr. Freeman, that we’re going to have to debrief you before you go any further,” Duncan said.

  “Agent, I suggest you get into that warehouse and scour for as many clues as you can, and also put out a new all-points on a silver Chrysler 300 with a temporary Florida plate number ACI 886,” I said, now moving back down the street with Billy toward the warehouse. “Your boys must have figured out by now that the place is empty. As for the debriefing, you can listen as we go.”