by Mark Pepper
‘Touch the gun, you’re dead; I won’t hesitate.’
Sensibly, Larry clasped his gloved hands behind his head, then waggled his jaw to make the undershirt drop from his mouth.
‘You all better, Joey?’ he said.
‘I’m perfectly well and you know it. I was home watching TV when I realized: you’re insane, you’ll do this with or without me.’
‘Shit, and I hate to be predictable.’
‘Face me. Real slow.’
Thinking all the time how to kill the rookie, Larry turned round on the spot. DeCecco was dressed all in black – sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers, beanie hat and gloved hands. Even through the gloom Larry could recognize the gun that was levelled at him. A Heckler and Koch M1 Benelli Super 90. A semi-automatic shotgun capable of emptying all five slugs through the barrel before the first ejected shell even hit the floor.
‘You know your weapons, Joey, I’ll give you that.’
‘Left hand, Larry, thumb and forefinger. Slowly hook out your weapon, set it on the floor and kick it towards me. And I know this is a real challenge for you, but don’t do anything stupid.’
Larry obliged, right hand still planted on the back of his head. DeCecco felt with his foot for the gun and sent it scurrying out of sight along the corridor. Larry replaced his left hand on top of his right.
‘Can I go now?’ he asked sarcastically.
‘You made a big mistake tonight, Larry. If Mallory was still breathing, perhaps you could swing it; come out of this a hero. But a dead cop changes everything.’
‘Changes a lot for Mallory, not for me.’
‘You figure?’
‘Why not? We saw suspicious activity, didn’t have a chance to call it in before the whole thing turned to shit.’
‘So you think you’ll be back in work tomorrow.’
‘Maybe not tomorrow; I may be asked one or two questions first. But I did nothing wrong. I was doing my job. It’s a dangerous job. People get killed.’
‘So explain the contents of that case and that holdall.’
‘Drugs and drug money,’ Larry said facetiously. ‘Didn’t they teach you nothing at the Academy?’
‘Funny. And why are they going with you?’
‘I’m thinking of retiring. Figure I deserve more than a gold watch.’ He slowly lowered his hands from his head, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Joey, this is all so fucking irrelevant. What are you gonna do? Tell Gilchrist the truth? That you withheld vital information because you were too scared to piss me off? Because that’s the real reason Mallory died tonight and you know it. If you’d told Gilchrist what Eddie said, he’d have deployed a SWAT team and this wouldn’t have happened. If you’d been here yourself, with all your kick-ass Marine skills, this wouldn’t have happened. So, don’t preach to me, Joey. And don’t pretend you’re better than me. And please don’t make out you’ll go upstairs with this because that’s career over for the both of us, and what are you gonna do then, huh? Security guard for ten bucks an hour, sitting on your ass in some warehouse watching TV all fucking night? That’s not you any more than it is me. You need this job, Joey. It may not be MARSOC, but it’s a shitload better than the alternatives.’
DeCecco stared at Larry for a moment then nodded.
‘You’re right, Larry. Can’t argue with any of it. But you still ain’t walking out with those. I won’t allow you to profit from the death of a fellow police officer. I draw the line at that. And I will take it to IA if you test me on this, regardless of the consequences.’
‘I can cut you in,’ Larry said hopefully. ‘There must be four hundred large here. Not to mention the sixteen kees which I could turn green by this time tomorrow.’
‘You’re not listening.’
‘Gee. Marines must have given you some fucking pension.’
‘I got everything I need.’
‘Yeah, right, I forgot,’ Larry said with a sneer. ‘The little woman with her arms full of shitty diapers. What more could a man want?’
‘I warned you, Larry: I get real nervous when you mention my wife. You want me to end it here and now? I could use that Tec-Nine on the floor over there. You’d be just another cop killed in the line of duty.’
‘You’d shoot me in cold blood?’ Larry said smiling. ‘Nah. You’re not the type. You’re a good guy, Joey. Sure, Uncle Sam may have trained you to kill, and maybe you’ve ended a few lives in your time, but … you’re not a murderer. You’re too noble, too full of ideals. You shoot me, you destroy yourself – the person you think you are.’
‘Well, that’s all very deep, Larry, but you still ain’t taking that shit. Now call it in.’
‘No.’
The Benelli’s barrel came up level with Larry’s face as DeCecco screeched like a madman, his instant loss of calm making Larry take a step back.
‘Put the call through or I swear to God I’ll blow your fucking head off!’
Larry immediately got on the radio and didn’t need to act to sound distraught.
‘This is Six Adam Nine! Shots fired! Shots fired! Officer needs help!’
‘What is your location, Six Adam Nine?’
Larry gave the address and listened to the operator announce a Code Three to all units. Afterwards he experienced an explosion of despair deep within him that made him physically gasp, and displaced any buzz he thought he might have had from the floating coke. DeCecco had lowered his weapon and appeared fully in control once again, and Larry wondered whether he hadn’t been tricked by some fake, maniacal outburst designed purely to secure his obedience.
‘Good boy,’ DeCecco said.
‘And you’re good, too, Joey. Shit, you know, for a moment there, you really had me believing you’d pull the trigger.’
DeCecco smiled. ‘Your trouble is, you don’t know what to believe about me.’
Larry fumed at the truth of it. ‘Fucking rookie.’
‘Okay, Larry, you told me four hundred grand in cash so that tells me how much coke there is, so don’t let me find out tomorrow that the evidence is short because you know what I’ll do if it is.’
‘Yeah, you’ll tell on me like the pussy you are. But maybe I won’t care, because maybe this time tomorrow, soy en Mehico, con mi plata y cocaína.’
‘What?’
‘You need to leave before they get here, Joey. And maybe fifteen seconds after you’re gone, I pick these up and disappear into the night.’
‘You’d just run?’
Larry craned his neck towards the hallway, listening. DeCecco obviously heard it, too, because he began shifting nervously on his feet.
‘Sirens,’ Larry said, picking up the holdall. ‘And close. You better go. I can explain being here. You can’t.’
‘What about your wife, Larry? You’d just leave her?’
Larry grabbed the suitcase. ‘She won’t miss me. Jesus, probably be glad to see the back of me.’
‘I can’t let you take it,’ DeCecco said.
The sirens were growing louder, which made Larry smirk.
‘I’m pretty good at gauging these things, Joey, and by the sound of those sirens I figure you got about sixty seconds to clear this building. Me? I’m leaving right now. So shoot me or step aside.’
Finally opting to test DeCecco’s grit, Larry started towards the door and DeCecco made his decision.
Unfortunately for Larry, once again it wasn’t one of the two on offer.
DeCecco deftly swung the Benelli’s stock to catch Larry square under the chin with a knockout uppercut.
John and Virginia made it to Baker City by nightfall and checked into the Geiser Grand Hotel in the historic downtown district, an area dominated by the Victorian architecture of the city’s heyday as the hub of the eastern Oregon gold rush.
John could not recall which hotel he had stayed in as a child, but he knew he would have remembered a place like this, resplendently restored to its original 1880s grandeur. But the town itself brought back a flood of memories, many of which were une
xpectedly fond, centering on the rare display of parental emotion that followed his fateful meeting with Chuck.
Despite their late arrival, they were up early the next morning. They had to buy provisions for the trip, some cold-weather gear, and snow chains for the tires; although the sky was now spotless, they had traveled into true winter the previous evening, a thing unknown in southern California.
Once correctly attired, they drove out of town to explore. John was behind the wheel with no map reference as a destination, simply following his nose. There were quite a number of ghost towns marked in the area, but John discounted them all as the one he’d stumbled upon back in ‘78. Virginia was quietly amused by his grim fascination.
‘You’re frowning, stop it,’ she said.
‘Am I? Right.’
‘Are we just gonna drive around till we run out of gas?’
‘Might happen,’ John admitted with a half-smile.
‘Why don’t we try the places marked?’ She peered at the map open on her lap. ‘I’ve circled a few likely candidates … Bourne, Sumpter, Galena, Granite, Cornucopia, Tollgate to the north. And there are others.’
‘I don’t know. It wasn’t on a map; that’s why we got lost. And there weren’t any other tourists about.’
‘Maybe it just wasn’t on the map you had, or maybe it’s only been added recently.’
‘I don’t know,’ John said again.
‘Pull over for a minute, let’s think about this.’
John steered the Grand Cherokee off the road and cut the ignition. For a couple of minutes they didn’t speak as though by psychic agreement. They stared through the windows at a landscape that made the jaw drop. They were traveling the I-84 north, the Old Oregon Trail Highway, through a valley twenty miles wide, flanked by forested mountains, draped in snow, ultra-whitened by the sun.
‘Wow,’ John said.
‘Did you know that the Oregon Trail was known as The Longest Graveyard because of all the people who died along the way?’
‘Thanks. I was having a pleasant little moment ‘til you said that.’
Virginia set the map against the steering wheel in front of him and planted a kiss on his cheek.
‘Okay,’ she said, ‘are we at least heading in the right direction? Can you remember?’
‘I think so. We started the holiday in Portland and did an anticlockwise route round Oregon. So we should have left Baker City that day heading north, up to the Columbia River Gorge and back along the Washington border.’
‘So north seems reasonable,’ Virginia said.
‘Yes, but my father wasn’t. He might have chosen a different route just to spite my mother who had the map.’
‘Typical man. Anyway, what time did you leave town that morning?’
John gave a shrug. ‘Not sure.’
‘You see, if we knew what time you left Baker City and what time you found the ghost town, we could pretty much work out a limit to your radius of travel.’
‘Hey, that’s not bad for a girlie.’
She knuckled him playfully in the ribs. ‘Is there anything at all that sticks in your memory about the journey that day?’
John closed his eyes. Images flashed in his mind. After a minute he still hadn’t spoken. Suddenly, something splattered the windshield and his eyes snapped open. A big rig had rumbled past, loaded with lumber, its multiple tires throwing up sprays of brown slush. They had seen plenty the night before on the drive in, but this one lit a bulb in John’s head. He hit the wipers and cleared the glass.
‘There must have been a logging depot nearby. I remember the stream of trucks. My father got pissed off with them always on his bumper. That’s why he got off the main roads, to avoid them.’
She took the map from the steering wheel and scrutinized it. After a few moments, John gave a laugh.
‘We’re never going to find it, are we?’ he said.
‘As long as you want to keep looking, it’s okay by me.’
‘But this is meant to be a touring holiday. It’s meant to be a break. You’re recently bereaved. I can’t keep you in the same area for a whole week looking for a dead man.’
Virginia did a double-take and John remembered he had kept that part of the story to himself. He made an awkward face. Virginia set the map on the dash.
‘Ah. I can’t be certain,’ he said, ‘but there was a gunshot, so I’m fairly sure he killed himself after I left.’
Virginia studied him for a moment. ‘God, you must have been a really depressing child.’
‘Oh, ha ha. Oh, shit.’
A gold Chevy Tahoe had pulled over in front of them, its roof-bar strobing blue.
The lettering on the driver’s door read: SHERIFF - UNION COUNTY. The officer climbed out, adjusted his campaign hat and strolled towards them. John lowered his window and the cold air rushed in.
‘Sir, ma’am,’ the deputy said, ‘everything okay? You lost?’
‘Not really,’ John replied. ‘We were just deciding where to go today.’
The deputy’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, okay, you’re from England. Let me guess ... honeymoon, am I right?’
Virginia answered in a faultless English accent. ‘That’s right, officer. How very intuitive.’
The deputy smiled modestly. ‘So, you folks need any help?’
John was about to decline when Virginia spoke.
‘Well, actually, we are trying to find somewhere specific. A ghost town. My husband found it as a child on a family vacation and would like to find it again. Unfortunately, it wasn’t on a map, certainly not back in nineteen seventy-eight.’
The deputy was captivated by Virginia’s alien tones, if not her beauty. He almost had to shake himself to respond, and then only with a noise.
‘Hmmm ...’
He circled round on the spot, surveying the surrounding landscape as though he might point it out to them. When he turned back, John noticed his eye contact was solely with Virginia.
‘There are some,’ the deputy said, then spotted the marked map on the dash. ‘Oh, there you go, you got them. Wouldn’t recommend you go looking, though, not this time of year. Roads ain’t so good further up, and they can get worse. Looks nice now, but weather fronts can roll in real quick.’
‘Better forget it, then, darling,’ Virginia said to John, then smiled back at the deputy. ‘Just out of interest, if we came back in the summer, where might we look? My husband thinks there could have been a logging operation nearby.’
Not wanting to disappoint, the deputy lowered his brow and thought hard.
‘Well, there’s been logging all over this area for years, but, uh … hmmm, a ghost town not on a map, you say.’ He tipped the brim of his hat back on his head. ‘Only place I can think of would be, uh ... the locals call it Fortuna. It’s kept off of the guide maps as it’s pretty inaccessible. We don’t want the tourons getting into any trouble.’
‘Tourons?’ John asked.
‘Cross a tourist with a moron, sir.’
John and Virginia both cackled.
‘Sorry, I probably shouldn’t call them that, but … some of them are.’
‘And where exactly would Fortuna be?’ Virginia asked.
The deputy pointed across the valley to their right. ‘Those peaks in the distance are the Wallowa Mountains, and beyond you got the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. Fortuna’s over in that direction.’
‘And you think that could be the place?’ she asked, half-lapsing into her own accent.
The deputy smiled queerly. ‘You been here long, ma’am? You’re starting to sound like one of us.’
Virginia laughed and corrected her voice. ‘We’ll take your advice: just stick to the main roads. Out of interest, what would be the best route?’
‘Ma’am, are you gonna head up there against my advice?’
Virginia answered with a long, flirting smile, which seemed to work.
‘Well, if you were a touron, you’d carry on up to La Grande, then take the eighty-two north. Bey
ond that, you’d have to ask. That’s Wallowa County – out of my jurisdiction.’
‘No problem,’ Virginia said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Thanks for stopping,’ John said, starting the engine.
‘Sure. Real nice meeting you, ma’am, sir. Take care now. Enjoy the rest of your honeymoon. And don’t get lost.’ He touched the brim of his hat, swaggered back to his vehicle, killed the roof lights and drove off.
‘Creep,’ John said.
‘Who? Him or me?’
‘Both. And where did you learn to do an accent like that?’
‘I’m in the business, remember?’
‘Then you’re on the wrong side of the camera. Most Hollywood actors can’t do an English accent that well. Mind you, we do tend to say holiday rather than vacation. Bit of a give-away, that.’
‘Oh, aren’t I a silly arse,’ she said, reverting to perfectly clipped tones.
He laid a hand on her thigh. ‘No, you’re wonderful, and I’m completely in love.’
Virginia smiled but didn’t reply and John hoped he hadn’t spoken prematurely. But he didn’t regret saying it. His emotions had been under wraps for too long and releasing them felt too good.
Waking up without Larry beside her was a relief. Hayley moaned as she stretched out in bed, her head still muzzy from last night’s sleeping pills. She didn’t like relying on chemicals to relax, but it seemed better policy than burning incense and risking her husband’s displeasure.
After a moment she began to wonder where he might be. It was ten after nine; his shift had ended more than eleven hours ago. She nodded to herself. Of course: he was slammed at a colleague’s house. She would have received a phone call if there’d been an incident. Or maybe he was having an affair, but she found it difficult to worry on that score. He wasn’t the same man she’d married. Losing him to another woman would be a blessing.
When the bedside phone rang she prayed it would be her agent at the other end. She picked up, dreading the pathetic, hung-over tones of her husband, making excuses.
‘Hello?’
‘Way to go, Hayley!’ yelled the woman down the line. ‘You got it!’
She knew the voice, and although she had imagined hearing those joyful words a thousand times, they sounded somehow incongruous. Other actresses might receive such news, but not Hayley Roth.
