Wolf's Gambit

by W. D. Gagliani

  “No one here should be talking to the media quite yet,” Arnow slipped in. “We have to coordinate our efforts. Then I’ll make a further statement.”

  “On camera?”

  “On camera.” Arnow sighed.

  “Well, that will have to be good enough for me right now, then,” she said, smiling coyly at the two men. Was she smiling longer at Nick?

  Her eyes did seem to hold his a moment longer than necessary, as once again her hand definitely held his longer when they shook. Her violet lips curled seductively.

  Or was that just my imagination? Jessie thought.

  Nah, the woman’s all about manipulation.

  Wilson reached into a pocket. “I have some local background work to do for my broadcast, but here’s my card. Please call me when you’re ready to make a statement. Or call me for anything at all.”

  She almost seemed to be winking.

  After handing out two cards and nodding to Jessie—I don’t rate a handshake, she mused—Heather Wilson walked back to her SUV with the studied gait of someone completely aware that every man’s eye was locked on her shapely rear.

  Jessie elbowed Lupo none too gently to bring him back from wherever he had wandered. “Well, Nick, what do you think?”

  Lupo shook his head. “I hate reporters.”

  Arnow nodded. His features had hardened into a grimace.

  “I meant about the case,” she said, trying to get them back on track. She still blanched at the thought of the Wilson woman butting into police matters. What a vulture!

  Typical man, she thought, disappointed in Nick’s response. Had he fallen under the chick’s spell?

  Arnow and Lupo were moving away now, finally back to scanning the crime scene. She sensed Nick was uncomfortable with the sheriff’s ambivalence. Nick’s presence was both helpful and annoying, from a cop’s point of view. She hoped she hadn’t complicated life by pushing Nick’s help.

  She hurried to catch up to the two cops, who seemed to be getting along well enough.

  Was she the connecting link in that equation? And would it cause trouble later?

  Arnow

  “The vengeance of the Lord will strike down any who choose to propagate sin,” the voice on the radio blared, “and gambling, my friends, is a sin of the worst stripe!”

  Arnow frowned as he turned onto the eastern leg of Highway 70. The radio voice droned on, the speaker gathering steam even though the background hiss grew louder. It was the Reverend Bobby Lydell, some transplant from down south—well south of Illinois, by the sound of his accent—who played country music between his hate-mongering speeches on the local low-wattage AM station that unfortunately seemed to be all he could get in his squad car.

  Lydell had been on a tear about the casino bringing ruin and damnation to the whole county, and now he was moving into what a wonderful retaliation the Lord was visiting on the Indians’ tribal council.

  “Yes, indeed, gentle listeners, you know and I know that the Lord won’t allow such evil to fester among His people if they be righteous, and I am certain—certain, I tell you!—that these animal attacks are an instrument of an angry Lord. Angry at those who would rob and cheat innocents who are too weak to fight the temptation. And I tell you, we must all be strong enough to fight off the temptation, or else they will drag us down into the depth of the worst hell we can imagine!”

  Lydell stopped for a breath for what seemed like the first time in minutes. When he’d stocked up on oxygen, he returned to his rant, adding a new wrinkle Arnow dreaded.

  “My dear friends, as you all know, our neighbors on the reservation have plundered our natural resources for ages, using some shady interpretations of old paperwork to make their case in courts that are way too liberal for your tastes and mine!”

  Arnow watched a boat-towing SUV make an illegal turn and let him go unticketed, knowing the tourist would end up beating the rap.

  Too many locals sided with the moneyed visitors, as long as they spent their money indiscriminately. Hell, since he’d been here, he had watched several high-brow restaurants open their doors just to cater to those higher-class tastes that preferred wine and champagne over beer, lobster and shellfish over menu mainstays like perch and walleye, and expensive cigars over cheap populist cigarettes. These restaurants attracted those who built the multimillion-dollar homes that now dotted the lakeshores, buying up the cottages and cabins of the olden days and replacing them with elaborate pier and deck complexes to house the multiple motorboats, Jet Skis, and floating toys apparently necessary for true relaxation. Meanwhile, they flouted the no-wake laws whenever they could, eating away at the very frontage for which they lusted. He shook his head, tuning back into Brother Lydell and the middle of his new rant.

  “Indian spearfishing depletes our lakes and streams and makes a mockery of our laws and those who follow them religiously. The next time you try fishing in a depleted lake, you can thank your great and wonderful neighbors on the rez, where they’ll be eating and tossing into the trash more fish in a month than you’re allowed to catch in a season. You want to change that? Then sign up and make your presence known! When the season starts—yeah, they call it a season, as if it was even as fair as hunting—then get out there on the docks and the landings and protest! Use your God-given and government-given right to protest and make life miserable for those bastards who want to screw up our industry during the day and suck out our wallets at night in their dens of iniquity. Get yourselves out—”

  Arnow switched off the radio with a growl. As if he didn’t have enough on his plate, here was some fat-cat jerk sitting in a studio inciting violence. Everyone had told Arnow there hadn’t been violence in years, but here they were, stoking the fires for their own self-interest.

  He promised himself a stop at the radio station sometime in the next few days. He couldn’t keep Lydell from broadcasting, but he could sure make it hotter for him if he caused any violence that could be traced back to hate speech over public air waves.

  He pulled off and made a U-turn at Anvil Lake, the outer edge of the county, and headed back toward Eagle River.

  Heather Wilson

  She looked up at Robbie, her cameraman, and took him in her mouth. She worked her lips over the tip of his crooked penis and swallowed him like a circus sword. He groaned and pulled her closer, driving deeper down her throat. She almost gagged, then pulled back and let him slip out.

  “Now!” she commanded, roughly shoving him backward onto the motel bed and climbing over him. She straddled him and rode him like a horse.

  She’d always heard the phrase hung like a horse, but had never been able to prove there was such a thing until long-haired Robbie came along.

  She was coming along nicely, too, her eyes closed and the sensations down below making her toes and nipples tingle.

  Heather Wilson took more than she gave, but that was her way. Her conquests eventually understood and either took what they could get, or she moved on quickly. Robbie had stayed longer than most, and she didn’t mind, given his apparatus. Though she wasn’t exclusive by any means. The eve ning sports anchor down at the station, for instance, had been “working late” recently as far as his wife was concerned.

  She drove her slick body down on Robbie and made him reach deep within her, and when she looked down at him she didn’t see his long hair and round face. She saw Nick Lupo’s angular planes. The image was so vivid that she came with an explosion that seemed to blind her. Moments later Robbie followed suit, and the ride was over. She slipped off his sweaty body and scooted away, looking for an illicit cigarette, letting the image of the city cop shine pleasantly in her mind.

  She was very determined. Everyone said so.

  Later, she reached for Robbie again and set to work with lips and tongue. He wasn’t going to leave until she was satisfied, and she had plenty of time.

  Arnow

  He stood facing his daytime deputies in the conference room. Last night’s fear had faded, but part of him
still felt that eerie sense of being watched, being tracked.

  Stalked.

  He didn’t like it. Not at all.

  The Chicago urban jungle had never elicited such a visceral, primal fear in him. Daytona had seemed like one long party with occasional weirdness thrown in for good measure. But last night he had been piss-your-pants afraid. His hands had trembled and his breath had come faster, almost making him hyperventilate.

  Now by light of day, he felt less of that strange fear, but its residue still sent an occasional chill down his spine.

  Mayor Malko’s visit had pissed him off, because he damn well knew his business. The autopsy results were due soon, but until then he had an unfortunate coincidence of animal attacks. Perhaps the same animal, or animals, driven by starvation or disease. Why this should affect tourism that wouldn’t pick up for over a month yet, he wasn’t sure.

  Malko was just throwing his small-town, big-shot weight around, and it was Arnow he could most dump it on, so he had.

  Arnow waited for the men to settle down, then grabbed their attention by raising his hand. They turned in their seats and stared at him, still an outsider, not quite knowing what to expect.

  “As you know, we have some sort of situation here. Part of the problem is that we don’t know what it is, yet. I haven’t heard from the Wausau coroner, so I’m still going by what we first thought, that the first death was due to an animal attack. The second looks like the same, but the victims are connected, which makes things messy.”

  “Boss, if it’s an animal out there, none of us wants to meet up with it.” Jerry Faber looked at his fellow deputies and they nodded.

  “Never seen anything like that,” said Arrales, scraping a finger across his bushy mustache.

  Arnow wiped his brow. “I agree. Not exactly sure what we’re facing yet, but I want every man here to check out a shotgun and extra ammo. I’ve got a case of bear loads, so grab some double-ought and slugs, then alternate them in your magazines. You can lay down some pretty wicked fire if something’s coming at you…”

  Morton spoke up for the first time. Rounded and balding, he looked more like the other deputies’ father. “Boss, what do you think it is?”

  “Well, it ain’t Bigfoot,” Halloran quipped. Playing the comedian was his role in the squad room. He smoothed his long hair back and waited for the laugh, but this time there was only a snicker.

  “Right now I don’t want to speculate. Several people have mentioned wolves to me, but I don’t have enough experience with wild animals to agree or disagree.”

  “That’s the rumors coming from the rez, Boss,” Arrales said. “I hear they’re talking about some monster thing they used to call defender of the tribe.”

  “Can you get me more info on that, please?” Arnow asked.

  “Yeah, I have contacts in the rez PD.”

  “Anyone here have any sane theories?”

  They looked at each other blankly. Whatever it was, they’d just shoot it down when they encountered it.

  End of story.

  Jessie

  She bit her lip as long as she could. But then she couldn’t stop herself.

  “You seem to be taken with the new chick in town,” she blurted. “Miss Wausau looked pretty good.”

  Lupo groaned. “I was just being polite. My folks taught me that. Good manners are important.”

  She could have let it go. “I hate people like that,” she said. “So self-assured. So cocky. She knew you and Tom were drooling over her. It’s part of her MO.”

  “Come on now,” he said as he steered back to Circle Moon Drive. “You can’t know what her MO’s like. You just met her, too.”

  “I know her type, Nick.” God, she hated herself when she got like this. But she couldn’t stop. “She got far on her looks and she’ll stay there on her devious and cynical use of men who just want to look at her. Or maybe touch her.”

  Lupo turned sharply. “Jess, I just met the woman. I haven’t even formed an opinion yet.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Damn, she surprised herself with the uncharacteristic outburst. She wasn’t angry, really, but something was stirring.

  He was surprised, too. “Jess, I don’t have any thoughts of her, believe me.”

  “But you see, she has thoughts of you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know her type.” Did she sound too bitter? Too possessive? She was repeating herself. Geez, this wasn’t going well.

  “Jess, you know how I feel about you.”

  “But she’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”

  A well-laid trap.

  “I’m sure some men find her irresistible, but right now all I see is a media vulture with more ambition than sense.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

  “Nicely played, Nick,” she said with a smile.

  “Can we end on a tie?”

  She laughed aloud. Touched his thigh.

  “I’m sorry, Jess, if I seemed to be too attentive.”

  “No, it’s me. Really, I’m sorry. I’m not the jealous type.”

  As she said the words, she wondered if he would believe them. Because all of a sudden she really did feel jealous.

  He’d deflected her fears a bit too smoothly.

  She was worried now, more than before.

  Tef

  A thin row of ramrod-straight pines screened the rear of the motel, and he was able to get in close to watch the door to 108 without much chance of being seen. None of the other rooms down this wing of the U-shaped building showed any signs of occupancy. Most of the plastic shades were open to dark interiors, and no light shone under any of the others.

  Tef had watched the long-haired camera dude knock, look around nervous ly, then get ushered in by a shapely female arm.

  He could smell that arm, pulsing with blood.

  He’d waited a half hour, then wandered closer, slipped into the lengthening shadows of the early spring twilight, and pasted his eye to the narrow crack between the stiff curtain and the paint-flecked windowsill.

  She was doing him every which way far as he could see, and skillfully, too. This was one fine chick, came with all the options and a gas-guzzling engine. Needed a certain level of hard-edged TLC and apparently didn’t care who provided it. The camera dude was more of a living dildo than a partner, a machine she could pose with. Tef swore she’d probably agree with him.

  He grinned.

  The boredom had nearly gotten him, after the sweaty intensity of the Iraqi desert, but now he was in his element again, living on the edge and feeding his many interests.

  He watched for a while, enjoying his own response below as one enjoys the appetizers before a gourmet meal.

  The chick was gourmet, that was for damn sure. He couldn’t wait to taste her.

  An hour passed. He had retreated to the undergrowth beneath the line of sentinel pines when the camera dude stumbled out of 108.

  Staggered as if she had wrung him out like a rag.

  This chick was a lot of work. Too much for the poor hairy dude.

  Camera dude was shambling down the cracked walk that paralleled the parking lot, heading for his TV-station van. Tef had followed the colorful van without too much trouble. Camera dude reached it, fumbled for his keys, and dropped them. He bent over and when he straightened Tef was there.

  “Man, good thing I found you!”

  “Huh?”

  Camera dude must have been stoned.

  Tef revved it up. “I’m workin’ the office, man, and I hear this scream comin’ out of the woods there. I think some-thing’s happened, man. You’re with the televi sion folks, right? Get your camera and let’s check it out, man! I called the cops already—should be here any minute.”

  Camera dude must have been ambitious. He turned back to look at the door to 108 for a second, then shrugged. It’d be fun to scoop the boss. He popped the van’s side door and reached in for a Steadycam.

  “Okay, man, lead the way.”

&nbs
p; Tef was wearing his working-man’s uniform: brown shirt, blue pants, work boots. He was like the maintenance guy on duty anywhere, everywhere. It was a cinch getting people to listen when you belonged. He’d learned that lesson early in life.

  Tef led the long-hair to the row of pines that had sheltered him just a short while before. “It’s right near here, man, just a little farther.”

  They crashed through the underbrush and when they reached a small clearing, the camera dude almost ran into Tef, who had stopped and whipped around.

  “Here it is,” he said.

  Dude looked around. “Where?”

  “Right here.”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “It’ll just take a minute.” Tef dropped his pants, grinning. He always enjoyed this part.

  “What—whoa, dude…” The camera started whirring. Apparently, this guy was so conditioned to record weirdness as news that he couldn’t help himself even now.

  “No, you’re the dude,” Tef said as he stripped off his shirt. He hated to ruin perfectly good disguises.

  “Look, you said you heard screams. You said something happened here.”

  “So I did. Something has.”

  Tef’s transformation was almost instantaneous. He’d been working on it for decades, after all.

  One second he was a muscular white male lowering his briefs, but after an unnatural blur he stood before the stunned cameraman as a wiry gray wolf, eyes blazing and drooling jaws snapping.

  His face contorted with terror, the camera dude dropped his Sony and started backpedaling out of the clearing.

  But not quickly enough.

  The wolf lunged and caught the cameraman with front paws, nearly caving in his chest. His snarling jaws had already closed on his prey’s neck, sawing through skin and tendon, tearing it out in a shower of blood and flecks of skin and bone.

  The camera dude’s scream was strangled and cut off in a gurgle.

  Tef stared into the wild eyes as the dude died, his feet scrabbling the forest floor in useless effort. Tef’s erection raged as he feasted on the still-hot body below him, savoring the satisfaction in both stomach and genitals.