Flashpoint

by Ed Gorman

  ‘You have a permit to carry?’

  ‘Yes. You have my billfold. Look in where the folding money goes.’

  He brought his small but intense light on the wallet and lifted the permit out. He studied it as if he was going to be quizzed on it in the morning. ‘Why would you need to carry?’

  ‘My business.’

  ‘What kind of business?’

  ‘I’m a political consultant. Things happen these days. I might have to protect my client.’

  ‘You call them “clients”?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what they are. I do work for hire.’

  ‘Who’s your client around here?’

  Here we go, I thought. He’d have a little fun at my expense. ‘Senator Logan.’ But instead of following up he said, ‘Why do you keep looking at the highway?’

  ‘To see if the woman I’m supposed to meet got here yet.’

  ‘There is no woman. Not the kind you’re talking about anyway.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He sighed deeply, then put everything back in the wallet and returned it to me. ‘You’re meeting somebody. That I buy. And maybe it’s a woman. But what I don’t buy is that this is about getting laid or anything. As soon as you said Senator Logan I knew this had something to do with politics. And if it’s a woman that’s why she’s coming here. Now I’m ordering you out of this park. You’re breaking the law. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do, yes.’

  ‘You pull out. I’ll follow you.’

  This was one highway patrolman who really didn’t like Senator Logan.

  ‘Next time read the sign before you come in here.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘I’d say the same thing if you were working for the guy I’m voting for.’

  ‘I’m sure you would.’ I tried to keep sarcasm from my voice. It wasn’t easy.

  Behind the wheel of my Jeep I waved to him. He was already in his car, waiting for me. His emergency lights were still on.

  I swung the Jeep around and headed back up the road. When you have a law enforcement officer following you it’s impossible to relax. Or to act natural. They can pull you over any time using any excuse they choose. They can even force you to get in the car and take you to the nearest police station. I was happy to see the highway no more than twenty yards ahead. I wasn’t even thinking of Ruskin now. I just wanted to be away from the patrolman and his flashing lights.

  But the game wasn’t over. I supposed he would turn right. He was highway patrol, after all, and the greatest stretch of highway was to his right. Left would take him back to the city. But he turned left and for the first couple of hundred yards he kept his emergency lights on.

  Irritation, agitation, fantasies of just tearing ass down the road ahead of him – I had to calm myself by force. And now I was back to thinking about Ruskin. What if the car that had pulled into the park entrance had been him? What if it had spooked him so much he’d no longer deal with me?

  The highway patrolman took a right when we were about five minutes from town.

  I needed coffee so I pulled into a Wendy’s and went through the drive-up. I had a headache. I pulled into a slot on the lot and drank my coffee. I watched the teenage couples with great envy. In memory, lying memory, everything had been so passionate back then. And not just the sex. The feelings, too. It was all like driving a car that went six hundred miles an hour and you had no way to control it. New and startling and dangerous. There were in fact fates worse than death. The girl you loved could fall in love with somebody else. I knew men who never got over their first love; still talked about it even in their forties and fifties and sixties, partly in loss and partly in confusion. Why did they cling to those memories? Why couldn’t they let go of them?

  When my cell phone toned and I put it to my ear a male voice said, ‘What the hell was with the highway patrol?’

  ‘There’s a sign that says you can’t enter the park after ten o’clock. I guess he checks it every night. Or somebody does anyway.’

  ‘This is Ruskin.’

  ‘Yeah. I figured.’

  ‘We still need to talk.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You know where the college is?’

  ‘I can find it.’

  ‘There’s a small park on the west side of it. Twenty minutes.’ He clicked off. It was a good thing I didn’t have any objections.

  I found the college and the heavily wooded park. An asphalt road twisted through it. Lights from the dorms pierced the tree tops. They were even stronger than the ornate lights used to illuminate the road here.

  When I heard voices I angled around in the seat. Another young couple much like the ones I’d seen in the Wendy’s parking lot. Could anybody possibly be as happy as these laughing people were? I hoped my daughter was, and my ex-wife, for that matter. I couldn’t quite bring myself to extend that much happiness yet to my ex-wife’s new husband. I wanted him to be happy, but exultant happy I reserved for my loved ones. Maybe in a year I would outgrow my pissiness. I’d been promising myself that in general ever since ninth grade.

  Headlights filled my rearview mirror. A plain blue Ford pulled into the slot furthest from me. Then a motor died. A car door opened. A man mostly in silhouette emerged from the car and started walking toward me. He was round, walked like a duck and apparently tripped over his own feet because he stumbled as if he was going to go splat on the ground.

  That was when the gunshots started.

  PART THREE

  SEVENTEEN

  There is always that millisecond between the sound of the shots and your brain responding. Most people would take cover any way they could. Throwing yourself to the ground was always an option. But for a millisecond Ruskin froze. And that was why, when he was hit, he threw his arms up and danced like a puppet until he slammed into the asphalt about ten feet from my Jeep.

  By now I had my Glock out and was working my way around the edge of the Jeep. Charged with adrenaline, crazed with both fear and anger, I hoped to be able to locate the shooter. Sarah Potter had mentioned somebody was after Howard ‘Howie’ Ruskin. I was now a believer. Capturing the shooter could lead to a lot of places few people knew about.

  But then another millisecond decision came to me. Ruskin started calling out for help. Shit, I thought. I had to at least see him before I went after the person who’d tried to kill him. I had to move around the back of the Jeep now and put myself in a position to be shot at whatever I did. I might as well check on Ruskin first.

  From what I could judge the shots had come directly from the area behind Ruskin’s car. I had to worry about myself first. All I could do now was wait to see if there would be any more shooting before I pushed out into the open. I used my cell to call emergency and was told that somebody had reported the gunfire. I said we also needed an ambulance right away.

  The shooter was gone. That was the bet I made with myself. No shooter would stay in place now that sirens could be heard.

  Keeping my eyes and my Glock fixed on the point in the hardwoods where the shooter had stood, I moved carefully to Ruskin. He was impossible to miss and not only because he was rolling around on the ground. He made loud mewling sounds: fear. I couldn’t blame him.

  It’s always disappointing to find that a major villain resembles a stereotypical Star Trek nerd, but that was Ruskin’s curse. Writhing on the asphalt now, clutching the arm of his tan sport coat, his three-hundred-dollar jeans properly stressed, his glasses crooked on his pudgy face, his balding head shiny with sweat, the thick two-inch heels on his black boots jutting out, he might have been suffering the shame of having been shunned by other Trekkies. At least that was the noise he made – a sort of yelping. Not the sound of someone mortally wounded.

  ‘You just gonna stand there, Conrad? I’m fucking dying here!’

  I doubted he was fucking dying here, though there was blood on the pavement and his fingers were splotched with red from where they’d touched his arm. I hunched do
wn and examined the wound as best I could. ‘Were you hit anywhere else?’

  ‘Isn’t this enough? I could die here.’

  ‘Not if this is your only wound.’

  ‘Oh, is that right, Mr Macho? What the hell do you know about it?’

  I stood up. ‘They’ll take you to the ER and fix you up.’

  ‘I knew they were after me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Oh, no. I don’t tell you anything until we make a pact.’ He grimaced and rolled some more. I didn’t mean to minimize his wound. Most people would have been in shock. He was certainly in pain and he certainly had a right to be afraid. Somebody was after him and somebody was trying to kill him. ‘I’m in agony here, man.’

  ‘You saved your own life when you stumbled.’

  ‘What the hell’re you talking about?’

  ‘You stumbled just when the shots started.’

  Apparently he wasn’t listening. ‘Where is the goddamned ambulance?’ I was sure they could hear him in the distant dorms.

  A police car with siren ripping the night jerked to a stop ten feet from my Jeep and two uniformed officers, a man and woman, lurched from the car and ran toward us.

  ‘What happened here?’ the female officer said.

  ‘I’ve been shot!’ Ruskin cried. ‘What does it look like?’

  The look she gave me said that they were inclined to give him another shot or two. The male officer walked over to Ruskin and said, with epic contempt, ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘If you read a goddamned newspaper once in a while you’d know who I was. Now get me the hell to a hospital before I die.’

  Howie Ruskin made friends wherever he went.

  To me, the officer said, ‘Are you famous, too?’

  I smiled at him. ‘No. But believe it or not, in certain circles he’s very famous.’

  I don’t know what Ruskin had said to the female officer who was hunched down next to him but she said with great scorn, ‘What are you, five years old? You need to calm down. You’re going to be all right.’

  ‘You got some ID?’ the male cop asked me. ‘And while you’re at it, tell me what the hell happened here.’

  Now it was the white ambulance that arrived, blazing lights and blaring siren. We had already started to accumulate an audience. You could hear their feet slap-slap-slapping up the drive here toward all the fun. Students. In my college days an event like this would be as good as a movie; even better because it was real. There were already twenty or so of them, boys and girls mixed. None of them knew yet what had happened and from their vantage point they couldn’t see past my Jeep so they couldn’t know that Ruskin lay on the asphalt. But some of them had heard the gunshots. Who could resist gunshots? The ones who’d stayed away would be those who remembered all the campus killings that had shocked the country over the past decade.

  The three men from the ambulance worked so hard and so fast I wondered if they were trying to set a Guinness record. These were the guys I’d want if I was the one needing emergency help.

  ‘How about being careful, all right?’ Ruskin shouted at one of the ER crew as they prepared to put him on the gurney.

  I had no idea what he was talking about and was sure they didn’t either. He was so used to bellering at people he probably couldn’t control himself any longer. He was Howard ‘Howie’ Ruskin the Great, the Magnificent, the Most Wonderful of All. Neither the ER people nor the police found him wonderful tonight.

  The first few drops of rain tamped my forehead.

  ‘Just who the hell is this asshole?’ the male cop asked me.

  ‘He’s in politics.’

  ‘Big deal. Are you with him?’

  ‘I know him. He was walking toward my Jeep when somebody started shooting from the trees right behind him.’

  ‘You wait right here. There’ll be a detective along any minute.’

  Meanwhile, they were guiding Ruskin into the ambulance. He was still yelling at them but not as loudly. Somewhere in the muddle of accusations he was hurling at them I heard my name. After they had him inside and closed the door, one of the ambulance men came over to me and said, ‘Are you Conrad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He wants you to come to the ER.’

  ‘I’ll need directions and I can’t leave until a detective talks to me.’

  ‘He’s quite a little fella.’

  ‘You noticed that, huh?’

  He snorted then grinned. ‘Yeah, I noticed that.’

  It was ten minutes before Detective Farnsworth arrived but only five minutes before the downpour began. I sat in my Jeep during my wait, listening to the rain on the roof.

  Farnsworth opened the door of the Jeep and made himself comfortable. He wore a well-cut light brown overcoat that made him look even more like a stockbroker instead of a cop. Relentless, handsome young black man – TV series maybe? ‘Too bad Hammell needed to pull me off following you. Something finally happens and I’m not there for it.’

  ‘Why’d he pull you off?’

  ‘Convenience store robbery. The robber beat the store clerk pretty badly. Sixty-three-year-old woman. Unarmed, of course.’

  ‘They seem to get worse.’

  ‘Meth, probably. Anyway, Hammell wants the bastard and so do I. But then I got pulled away out here. So who shot this Ruskin character?’

  ‘I have no idea. And since you called him a character I take it you’ve met him?’

  ‘Only what I could find about him online. So what happened?’

  I told him everything I thought he should know. He was enough of a pro to understand that what I said I’d edited heavily. And I was enough of a pro to know he wanted to take a hammer and put a few dents in my skull.

  When I walked into the ER reception area I saw a woman at the check-in desk sobbing so hard the woman behind the desk rushed around and took her in her arms. A nurse came rushing from somewhere in the back and took over, leading the woman to a seat then sitting down next to her. The nurse put an arm around the woman and started talking to her in a voice so low I couldn’t pick up on what they were saying.

  The ER reception area contained two couches and maybe twenty straight-backed chairs with cushioned backs and seats. End tables between some of the chairs held magazines and small toys for kids. We’d arrived during a lull. This time of night ERs are often crowded. This was when the victims of car accidents, domestic abuse, brawls and gunshots started showing up. But now, except for the sobbing woman, I was the only other visitor.

  ‘I’m waiting to see Howie Ruskin.’

  She typed in the name. ‘Yes. Doctor Olsen is with him now.’

  ‘Mr Ruskin asked me to be here.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to let you know when you can see him.’

  ‘Thanks. Is there any coffee available anywhere?’

  ‘Of course. There’s a vending machine down the hall but I just got a pot going. Let me get you a fresh cup.’ She was middle-aged and competent-looking. My demographic mind was fitting her into a pattern. She probably had kids and this was probably the only job she could get – the graveyard shift. She might have a husband but then she might not. This sketch would seem to make her a potential voter for us but I couldn’t be sure. Though our side doesn’t like to admit it, welfare has inspired some people who tend to rush to the ER for ills as minor as sore throats. They could wait and see their docs in the morning for eighty percent less but they don’t. And when you talk to the workers who serve them you sometimes hear a great deal of resentment.

  In the next twenty minutes I looked at three recent copies of news magazines, had a second cup of not-bad coffee and waited to be called to visit Ruskin. I also had time to think through everything that had happened. I’d assumed it was Ruskin who’d been followed, but if that was the case how had the shooter been able to get into position to shoot him so quickly? Ruskin had parked, cut his engine, stepped out of his car and started walking toward me. Then came the shots. That made no sense.

  But what
if someone had been following me, believing I would lead them to Ruskin? That made more sense, and was why I got up and walked down the hall where I was alone. I punched in the number for the hotel and asked for Earl the bellman. It took a few minutes to locate him.

  ‘This is Earl.’

  ‘Earl, it’s Dev Conrad.’

  ‘Hey, there, Mr Conrad.’

  ‘Have you seen Michael Hawkins around tonight?’

  ‘Hawkins?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I saw him come out of the restaurant about nine thirty and then go into the bar.’

  ‘How long was he in the bar?’

  ‘He’s still in there. Something going on?’

  ‘No. I was just curious, is all. There’s a twenty in this for you if you don’t mention this call to him.’

  ‘No need to pay me, Mr Conrad. I keep secrets pretty good. It’s part of my job.’

  ‘Thanks, Earl.’

  I hadn’t given Hawkins any of the details about my meeting with Ruskin, but given his alleged competitiveness maybe that had been enough for him to follow me. Hard to imagine him being the shooter, but since Ruskin was certain ‘they’ were after him, ‘they’ could be anybody, including an investigator for a US Attorney’s office. But maybe if Hawkins had been following me he’d gotten a look at the actual shooter.

  At this time of night all the doctor/nurse calls over the hospital system were muted. As I walked back to my seat in the ER area the noise my phone made was ominous in its loud pitch.

  ‘I told my friend in the police department about Howie Ruskin,’ Jane said, ‘and she recognized the name so she called me. Somebody shot him?’

  ‘Yeah. In the arm. I’m at the ER. I’ll get in to see him pretty soon here.’

  ‘This is getting scary.’

  ‘I just wish there was some angle in it that would help Robert.’

  ‘Yes. But it must have something to do with Tracy Cabot, don’t you think?’

  ‘Absolutely. But right now that’s all I know.’

  ‘I’m still at the office working on a case. I’ve got an important court date tomorrow morning. I’m going to stop in about an hour. If you’re up for a drink let me know.’