Dynamite Road

by Andrew Klavan

  Chris was sure of this now and the acid anger bubbled in him and flamed. He had to force the thought away. Concentrate on what he was doing.

  He growled. “God damn it.” The fucking handheld was useless. There was nothing in the files. Names, numbers, e-mail addresses. They didn’t mean shit to him. How the hell was he supposed to know who was who?

  But this was all he had. He kept going, kept reading. Now he moved to the e-mail folder, called it up on the screen.

  There was an unsent e-mail on file, just one. Bishop was usually so careful about these things. He never saved the mail he sent. He always deleted the mail he received. But Kathleen had interrupted him as he was writing his latest to Weiss. Bishop had saved it—and then he’d forgotten it. He hadn’t finished it yet and he hadn’t sent it. Chris opened the file.

  Weiss. It worked. Wannamaker’s out. I’m in. Six tonight, I fly to some secret location out in the forest somewhere. Once I arrive, they’ll give me the details of the job. Soon as I know what’s what, I’ll make contact. With luck, we should be able to break it up without compromising…

  Chris stopped breathing, stopped thinking even. He just stared, dumbstruck. His heart beat hard in his chest. His pulse sounded loud, incredibly loud, in his head.

  Wannamaker’s out. I’m in.

  Jesus. Jesus. This was even worse than he’d thought. This was the worst thing ever. There was only one way to be “out” with Bernie Hirschorn. If he was “out,” then it was only a matter of time before Hirschorn’s men came to get him. They would come and take him away to make sure he didn’t talk. He had to hurry. He had to warn Hirschorn about Kennedy. He had to save the day in the nick of time so Hirschorn wouldn’t kill him.

  His eyes went desperately over the e-mail. His mind tried desperately to take in the words. Weiss, he thought numbly. He had seen the name before. In the phone files.

  His hand was trembling now but he forced it to work the keyboard. He brought up the name. Weiss, that’s all it said. And the number. A San Francisco area code.

  Chris picked up the phone. Picked out the buttons with an unsteady finger.

  A ring. He waited. Breathing again, breathing hard, the sound of his own breath drowning his heartbeat.

  Wannamaker’s out.

  Another ring. Come on, he thought. Then a woman’s voice: “Weiss Investigations.”

  Chris couldn’t speak, couldn’t get his throat to open.

  The woman said, “Hello? Weiss Investigations.”

  “You some kind of detective agency?” he asked in a croak.

  “Yes, this is Weiss Investigations, we’re a private detective agency….”

  Chris’s mind was racing, racing. Kennedy was a detective, a private detective. Spying on him. Using Kathleen. Now going off to fly with Hirschorn. Jesus…

  “How can I help you?” said the woman on the phone.

  But now…Now, as he stood with the phone to his ear…Now, there was a sound outside. Chris glanced up. An engine. Kennedy’s motorcycle, was his first thought. But no. This was a car. He saw it through the window, through the branches of the trees.

  The sweat streaming down his temples turned cold. The back of his neck turned clammy. Slowly, slowly, as if in a trance, he lowered the phone to its cradle.

  “Sir, how can I…?” he heard the receptionist say distantly. And then he’d hung up.

  He’d hung up and he was standing there with his jaw slack. Weak with fear. Helpless and sick with fear. Staring down at the car. A BMW, sleek, dark. One of Hirschorn’s cars, he was sure of it. And it was pulling to a stop. Pulling to a stop by the curb in front of his house.

  Chris watched, stared, not breathing, pouring sweat. His head felt light. The airless room seemed to be smothering him. Two men were getting out of the car, out of the front seats. At the sight of them, Chris groaned aloud.

  They were Hirschorn’s men. The big one with the long arms, Goldmunsen, and the little nervous one, Flake. Chris had heard stories about Flake. Goldmunsen used a gun, people said, but Flake was a knife man. He liked to carve on people. He enjoyed it.

  The two men were walking up the path to Chris’s house. They had come to take him away in their car.

  Chris stood frozen, stared down through the tree branches, helpless, smothering, weak in the legs. Goldmunsen was ringing the doorbell.

  “Don’t answer,” Chris whispered, urging Kathleen.

  But he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. His glance shifted. He saw Kathleen crossing the living room, going to answer the door. Distantly, it occurred to him that Kennedy had been able to watch her from here too. He could watch both of them right through their windows. He would’ve seen Hirschorn. He would’ve seen everything. The anger bubbled and flamed in him again. He had a flashing thought of Kathleen and Kennedy in the bed, talking about him….

  Kathleen opened the door. Chris watched through the window. Goldmunsen spoke to her. The jittery Flake bounced on his toes. Goldmunsen seemed to speak politely, calmly. He smiled, a slick, toothy smile. But Flake—Flake could hardly contain himself. He bobbed his head this way, that. Tried to peer in past Kathleen, around her, over her, into the living room. To see if Chris was there.

  The sweat streamed freely down Chris’s face. It stung his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. He was suffocating. If Kathleen turned…If Kathleen turned and pointed at the house…If she told them, “He’s right next door,” then it was over, they would come for him, they would take him away.

  Chris heard himself whimper—a sound he’d never heard himself make before, a terrible sound. He stood paralyzed with fear, tortured by a wild, helpless rage. He hated his wife—hated her. Because she’d fucked Kennedy and because right now she had his life in her hands. All he could do was stand here and watch her, so helpless and so afraid.

  But Kathleen did not betray him. She didn’t turn or point. Chris could just see her, just her arm and her hair and a bit of profile. He could see she was shaking her head. She was telling Goldmunsen no. She was telling him that she didn’t know where Chris was. She understood. She saw what was happening. She knew why they had come. She was lying to protect him, to keep him alive.

  Chris saw Goldmunsen nod. He believed her. Flake bounced on his toes. Kathleen went on telling them…something, some bullshit. That Chris was at the bar, or out at the airpark or that she didn’t know. Something.

  And now—yes!—the two goons were turning away. Walking back down the front path. Back to the car. Chris waited for the car to move. He felt as if he were hanging suspended in the thick air, waiting. Then the car did move. It pulled away from the curb. It was driving off. Chris had the dizzying sensation of falling and falling out of nowhere back into his own body. Suddenly he was breathing again, panting. Suddenly his pulse was loud again and pounding in his ears.

  The car was gone. Kathleen stood another moment in the doorway. Chris saw her come forward a step, away from the house. Then she turned. She looked up—up at the window, up at Chris. Her face was pasty. Her eyes were lost and afraid.

  Chris grimaced down at her. He wished he had his hand on her throat at that moment.

  He came back to himself. He glanced around, started moving. He snapped the handheld shut. For a second, he made as if to pocket the thing. He would show the e-mail to Hirschorn, he thought. He would warn him. He would save the day and the goons wouldn’t take him away in their car. Maybe he would even get his piloting job back. He would be in again instead of out….

  But now he stopped. The plan was no good. If he stole the handheld, Kennedy was sure to notice. He’d know he’d been discovered. He’d call in the cops, the real cops. That would ruin everything.

  No. Things were going too fast here. He had to think. Scared as he was, he had to be smart. He didn’t need the handheld. That’s right. The e-mail didn’t prove anything. He could’ve typed it himself. The handheld didn’t matter. Hirschorn was no fool. When he heard what Chris had to say, he’d check it out himself. He’d see that it was
true. He just had to get to Hirschorn. Fast.

  Sweating hard, breathing hard, Chris carried the handheld back to the traveling bag. He stuffed it back in, down deep, right where he’d found it. He looked at his watch. Five-thirty almost. Kennedy was flying into the woods with Hirschorn at six o’clock. If Chris hurried, he could get there first. Tell Hirschorn everything and save the day. Then Hirschorn’s goons would come for Kennedy. It would be Kennedy who was taken away in the car.

  For a moment, he stood still, sweat draining down his cheeks in rivulets. For a moment, his eyes grew distant and glistening like the eyes of a daydreaming child. Kennedy had taken his wife. He had taken his job. He had taken his dignity when he beat him up in the Clover Leaf Bar in front of his friends. Kennedy had stripped him of everything that made him a man. Now, just as Kennedy thought he had the upper hand, it was payback time. Now Chris would tell Hirschorn the truth and it would all be turned around.

  He had to move. Hirschorn wouldn’t answer his phone calls. He had to get to him in person, get to the airpark before Kennedy did. Get to Hirschorn before the plane took off.

  He headed for the door.

  Forty-Two

  The rumble of Chris’s truck was just fading from the neighborhood when Bishop’s motorcyle came down the road from the other direction.

  Bishop turned in beside his house, dismounted. He jogged to the door, in a hurry. He didn’t even spare a glance for the other house, Kathleen’s house. He didn’t even wonder much about why she hadn’t met him at the mall. He had gone because she said it was about Hirschorn, because he couldn’t take the chance of missing something important. But he didn’t really believe it was anything important. He believed it was just some scheme she’d hatched to try and get back together with him. When she hadn’t showed, he shrugged it off. He didn’t have time to worry about it now. He had to get to the airpark. He had to meet Hirschorn, find out what he was doing.

  Inside, he took the stairs quickly, several at a time, just as Chris had done. He went quickly into the bedroom. To the traveling bag sitting open on the bed. He zipped it shut. Took hold of the handles. Paused to let his eyes sweep once around the room.

  But he was in too big a rush. He didn’t notice that anything had been disturbed. He didn’t remember the e-mail he’d forgotten to send to Weiss.

  He hoisted the traveling bag. He snapped off the air conditioner on the way to the door.

  A minute later, his motorcycle roared again and he was gone.

  Forty-Three

  Chris reached the airpark first. His pickup made a screeching swing across the hangar doors and he leapt out of the cab to the tarmac. His boots cracked on the concrete hangar floor as he strode to the twin-engine Aero Commander parked inside.

  Ray Grambling was standing by the plane in his overalls, bent into the open cowling with a wrench. Another mechanic, Wilson Tubbs, was lying down inside the cockpit, his feet sticking out the door.

  Chris was on them fast. Ray was just starting to look up when Chris grabbed him. He grabbed the front of Ray’s overalls, forced him back hard against the tool chest behind him. The chest’s wheels were locked. Ray winced and grunted as the chest’s open drawer hit him in the spine. He stumbled back as the drawer rattled shut. Before he really knew what was happening, Chris snapped the wrench out of his hand and raised it over his head. Then Ray—the bald, craggy older man—was goggling helplessly up at the angry young face, twisted and bruised and terrible, hovering above him.

  “Where’s Hirschorn?” Chris said.

  “Jesus, Chris, Jesus, Jesus…” Ray said quickly.

  “Come on, you piece of shit! You brought him in, didn’t you? Kennedy. You set him on my wife. I oughta kill you where you stand. C’mon!” Chris raised the wrench higher as if to strike.

  “I didn’t…”

  “You brought Kennedy in. Right? You did this whole thing.”

  Tubbs—the mechanic in the plane—had only just now figured out that something was going on. He was trying to wriggle backwards out of the cockpit.

  Ray had his hands up uselessly at his chest. “I swear to God,” he babbled. “I swear to God…”

  “Where the hell is he?” Chris shouted. “Where’s Hirschorn? Which plane are they taking?”

  “Please, Chris, I swear to God…”

  “Hey!” It was Tubbs. A little guy in his thirties, quick and scrappy. Out of the cockpit now, at Chris’s shoulder. He grabbed Chris’s wrist, tried to wrestle down the wrench. “Hey, what the hell are you…?”

  Chris yanked his wrist away, pistoned his elbow into Tubbs’s nose. Tubbs flew back against the plane. He sat down hard on the hangar floor and then tipped over onto his side, clutching his bloody face.

  Chris brandished the wrench over Ray Grambling’s head. “You tell me which plane they’re taking now or I’m gonna split your skull like a fucking walnut, you…”

  “Chris, I…”

  Behind them: another screech of tires. Chris’s head snapped round. He looked back over his shoulder through the hangar doors.

  And now it was his—Chris’s—eyes that went wide with terror. Out in the parking lot, the sleek, dark BMW had just pulled in. It had followed him. Waited near the house for his truck and then followed him here. Goldmundsen and Flake—Hirschorn’s goons—were already pouring out the doors. In an instant, Chris’s face changed from scowling threat to fearful quiver. His bark became a squeak down in his throat.

  “Oh God,” he said.

  Ray Grambling fell back against the tool chest as Chris released him. The wrench Chris had been holding clanged as it dropped to the floor. And just like that, Chris was gone. He’d bolted. He was running for his pickup.

  Out in the parking lot, the big goon, Goldmunsen, spotted him, shouted. Flake, the little electric goon, froze like a pointer dog, then darted for the pickup too.

  Chris reached the truck, the passenger side. He grabbed hold of the door. He looked up through the window. He saw Flake running at him, Goldmunsen running behind Flake. They were five steps away. They were going into their jackets, going for their guns.

  Chris had no time. No time to get into the truck. He stopped on his heels. He pushed off the pickup door. Spun full around. Darted back into the hangar.

  Ray Grambling in the hangar was frozen where he stood. He saw Chris coming right at him, coming at him like a speeding bus. He rolled away from the tool chest, pinned himself against the Commander’s cowling.

  Chris sped past him, looking back over his shoulder, back at the goons racing around the pickup to come after him.

  Chris faced forward just in time to see the tool chest. Then he plowed into it. He hit it hard. The top of it went into his gut. The breath coughed up out of his diaphragm. Even with its wheels locked the chest gave way, tipped up, went over. It smashed into the hangar floor with a hellacious, rattling bang. Chris, winded, tumbled in the other direction. Staggered and fell, his shoulder bouncing off the concrete.

  From down there, Chris twisted around to see the wired Flake charging at him. Chris screamed, a high-pitched scream like a woman’s. He scrabbled for purchase like a bug on its back. In another second, he was on his feet. He was running, frantic, for the small door on the hangar’s opposite wall.

  The door was shut. There was a window in the top of it. Chris could see through the window out to the airpark apron. He could see the blue sky and the heat rising off the black tarmac, waves of heat rising past the wings of the parked planes.

  Chris knew the door would be unlocked and flung himself against it. For one second, his face was pressed to the window. He saw the sky, the apron, the planes, the heat, all wild and tumbling to his panicked mind. And then, in that one second, there was one thing, one image he saw that mattered, that counted for everything.

  Hirschorn. He saw Hirschorn through the waves of heat. The silver-haired man was standing by five-zero-four, the twin-engine Cessna. Standing casual, with his hands in his pockets. Just looking off absently toward the mansions
gleaming in the far-off hills.

  Even in his fear, Chris’s heart rose up. He’d made it. He would get to Hirschorn. He would tell Hirschorn about Kennedy, that Kennedy was a PI. He would save the day—and Hirschorn would keep him alive and kill Kennedy instead.

  Chris did not look back—there was no time. But he knew that Flake was several steps behind him. He would not catch him now. He had made it. He shoved against the hangar door. It started to swing out.

  And then the window went black as Goldmunsen stepped up to the other side and slammed the door shut in Chris’s face.

  Chris gaped through the glass at the hatchet-faced thug who had come round the outside of the hangar to block his way. The hatchet-faced thug grinned.

  Then Flake had him, had Chris, had the cold muzzle of a Glock pressed hard against Chris’s neck. Chris could hear Flake panting in his ear, could feel his hot, wet breath against his neck.

  “Tag you’re it, motherfucker,” said Flake. He dragged Chris back away from the door.

  Ray Grambling watched in fear as Goldmunsen pulled the door open and stepped into the hangar.

  “Wait,” said Chris, his voice high and breathless. “I gotta talk to Mr. Hirschorn, I gotta tell him…”

  Goldmunsen drove that wrecking ball fist of his into Chris’s stomach. All the way across the hangar, Ray Grambling heard Chris grunt. Then, groaning, Chris sank down on buckled knees.

  Goldmunsen grinned at the crumpled man. Then he looked up. He grinned at Ray Grambling. Ray looked away quickly.

  Chris knelt there, swaying. He was trying to talk. He was trying to tell them what he had found out. But all he could do was gasp and drool.