A couple of things could have happened, I reasoned. Either she had received another call from whoever had called her previously, with a change of plans, or someone had gotten cold feet. Based on what Henry Wiggins had told me, I was betting on the change of plans scenario. I decided to go back to Mary’s hotel and see what she was up to there.
~
When I arrived back at Mary’s hotel, I wasn’t surprised to find that she was gone. The desk clerk told me that she had returned around seven, and checked out soon after. I asked him if she seemed upset or in a hurry, and he told me he didn’t know. Since he was just out of adolescence and Mary was a beautiful woman, I felt sure he had noted her mood. But twenty dollars failed to jog his memory.
So, with the sinking feeling that I had wasted most of the afternoon, I left and drove back up Birmingham’s spine to Mountainbrook. I drove past the Wiggins abode, where Henry’s BMW roadster sat, lonely and dejected in the two-car garage, just like Henry himself must look, lying all alone in the king-sized bed which I was certain he had bought and placed upstairs for he and his beautiful bride.
So Mary had failed to keep her appointment at the airport. Clearly, it wasn’t some sudden pang of remorse. She hadn’t fled back to Henry, or called him to come to her. He was at home with the lights out, and her car was not in the driveway or the garage.
There had to have been a change of plans, I thought . . . unless.
I turned around and went back to Bessemer. I drove to the mall where I had killed time earlier and looked around until I found a magazine stand. I walked up to the old fellow behind the counter and nodded. He smiled pleasantly enough, and returned my nod.
“How can I help you?”
“Do you have any maps of the area?” I asked him.
“Map? You mean of Bessemer?” He snorted. “What do you need a map of this town for?”
“Well, I was looking for something, and I come from just up the road, you know, but I think I must have made a mistake.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Someone told me they had a place near the airport. I drove around out there and I couldn’t seem to find it. I was wondering . . .”
“If there was another airport here in Bessemer?”
“Yeah. I know that it’s a funny question.”
“Not at all. You’re probably too young to remember it, but there is another airport. I should say, there was another. It’s been closed since just after the first Gulf War, but I think the military still uses it to train helicopter pilots. I’ve seen Army choppers buzzing around out there. There’s no civilian air traffic, though. Not any that I know about, anyway, though anything’s possible, I guess.”
“Well, perhaps that’s where they were talking about.”
He looked at me again, and this time the look took in the color of my skin, which told me a few things. He seemed to decide that a friend of mine might possibly live out there, because he nodded and said, “Yep. I bet that’s it. That old airport, it’s out in the boonies.” By the boonies I figured he meant a mostly black part of town, somewhere that he might feel uncomfortable going.
“Can you tell me how to get there?”
“I’d be glad to. You might want to wait to go, though, mister. If I was you, I’d go tomorrow morning. It’s after dark now, and that’s a rough side of town, out there.”
He gave me directions and I thanked him. I felt a tingling, like I had happened onto a door in a dark room. Mary hadn’t changed her plans or missed her appointment. She’d been right on time. I was simply in the wrong place. What business she could have in the night, at an abandoned airstrip on the wrong side of town was intriguing, to say the least. Mary Wiggins was shaping up to be one very interesting woman, and I hadn’t even met her yet.
~
I was out on the end of town in no time, where the road flattened out and became nothing but a gray strip, flanked by power lines and neglected shoulders, a textbook example of dying urban sprawl and civic neglect. As I hit the tail end of the streets, the city fell away, and the urban aftermath was a mixed pedigree of buildings and lots of sprawl that was about half-urban, half-rural.
There were small scattered forests of trees and thick, wild gouts of vegetation that had flourished and overshadowed the boarded-up houses and the rusting cars that sat in mute ruin in abandoned lots. People loitered in doorways and on street corners, and many stared openly through the windshield at me. There was a hostile vibe. I was a stranger, which to most of them put me squarely in the “probably a cop” category.
There were young men in gang colors on most corners, and sometimes young women hanging out with them. Whether they were selling something, looking to buy something, or just marking their turf, they were clearly ready for trouble. They didn’t dress like Don Ganato, or talk like Longshot Lonnie O’Malley, but they represented the same enterprise. Those young men and women were the present and the future of Organized Crime. They were the merger between the old time gangsters and street hoodlums of the American past. The dapper Don and his Irish counterpart were old school. This was the wave of the future.
Now, it was the young minority kids who openly professed themselves ‘gangstas,’ the self-styled drug lords and vice kingpins of the new millennium. For them there was no college but prison and no code but one of macho violence and drug deal protocol. They kill each other on a daily basis and keep the status quo simple, brutal and depressingly obvious. They long to make every city into the projects from which they sprang, bettering nothing. They long to make every person into a user or a seller, because they do not know that man can be bettered. They want to make every block in every city into gang turf, over which they have absolute rule. Their name is legion, and they never tire.
I avoided their malevolent gaze as much as possible, and made my way past that last human outpost on the road to nowhere, and came to a place where the pavement became blacktop. It was the end of the city, all right. I was looking back in the direction of Birmingham now, and its lights made a faint glow in the distance.
I drove slowly over the bumpy road until I finally reached a sign, barely legible but still standing on the shoulder. “Bessemer Municipal Airport” the faded legend informed me, and proclaimed that there were “Regional Flights to all Points.” I continued my creeping progress along the road, and I drove out to the old airfield. Although it was just outside the Bessemer city limits, you might never know it was there. The airfield itself was down an overgrown road, one that had long ago lost its paved surface; it forlornly snaked away into the undergrowth. The recent rains had left shallow streams here and there, small rivers that crossed the road at low points and a couple of times made the rear tires of my car spin in an uncertain manner.
It would be a lonely place to get stuck, I decided. At long last the airfield itself came into view. It was quite dark now, but there were streetlights on out on the empty stretch of parking lot. From a distance, and in the poor illumination, it looked remarkably like one would expect an intact airfield to look. There were hangers and a wide expanse of tarmac stretching into the distance, all dominated by a large central building with an observation tower. The odd thing was, the place could have leaped to life from a brochure printed about 45 years or so before. The architecture was probably cutting edge in 1962; now it was a quaint relic.
The illusion of timelessness fell apart as I drew closer, and I began to see the signs of disuse everywhere. Thick clumps of weed stuck up through the cracked tarmac where nature had patiently worn holes in the thick landing surface. There were gaps in the sides of some of the hangers where the wind had carried away pieces of the tin sheeting. Still there were other tracks through the grass leading up to the place. The ground was littered with empty fast food containers and soda cans—signs that people had been here recently.
I pulled up near what had once been the baggage claim area, and got out of the car. The main building was a smaller version of the all-in-one terminal I had visited earlier at the prese
nt-day Bessemer Airport. Double doors greeted me. They yawned open to the area where people would have, long ago, awaited departures and arrivals. The control tower was built right on top of the structure.
Twin arcs in the thick dust showed that the double doors had been forced open quite recently. The doors had once been locked securely; a chain looped between the double door handles was still shiny at the point where it had been pinched in half with bolt cutters. I wasn’t alone out here, I realized, and in all likelihood, whoever was in the building had observed my approach from the tower. I pulled my .45 and backed away slowly.
I heard a stealthy footstep on some stairs somewhere in the dark interior. I ducked back around the side of the building and waited for them to come out. Then, something I didn’t expect happened. I heard the creak of a door on the other side of the building. Cursing the fluke of biology that gives a man a back and no eyes back there to keep tabs on things, I spun and brought my gun up. I faintly heard quick footfalls receding. Whoever had been inside the building was running away over the tarmac.
Why would they wait until I made it all the way up here to run away, I wondered. And why run across the tarmac, where they would be the most visible? I stepped out to the corner and watched the figure recede. I had known from the footfalls it wasn’t Mary. I saw the back of a man in a running suit, veering towards the woods alongside the landing strip. Then I heard gunfire.
Pop, pop, pop. The sound of a pistol, back off to the other side of the building. Surely no one was firing at the running man. With a pistol, it would have been an impossible shot. Maybe there’s more than one person, and they’re shooting at each other. As if to confirm my thoughts, there was immediately a more sullen report; The low slap, slap of someone double-tapping a bigger gun, maybe a .45 like my own.
I worked my way around to the other side of the building and was greeted by the stutter of automatic weapons fire. I had heard that sound before, in the military. The grating rip of an MP5 sounded, and this time metal on a building nearby rang when a rapid burst of bullets tore into it. I hit the ground. It was getting hot out there, and it might get a lot hotter.
Down the runway, lights flared on. Someone in the tower had turned the runway lights on. They were dimmer than they should have been, and it looked like only every third one had been switched on. Then, another set of lights blinked on at the end of the runway. There was a plane sitting out there. Now the sound of the engine reached me. I smiled to myself in surprise. Someone was flying a plane out of there, regardless of what the old man at the newsstand had said. It was a private affair, too, apparently, and someone felt strongly about that fact. The gunfire proved that.
The lights from the runway didn’t improve my situation. Nothing was visible beyond the glare. I lay there on the tarmac, which was still shedding heat from the day. Finally, I reasoned that since they weren’t shooting at me, anyway, whoever was shooting had either not seen me, or had taken no interest in me. Either way was fine with me. I got up and decided to slip back into the darkness, go to my car, and get the hell out of there.
I backed away through the breezeway between the hangers, because that was a wide expanse of open asphalt that was mostly hidden in darkness from either side. I looked out to the edge of the pavement to where my car sat. No one appeared to be around. I walked quickly to the car and, while I was fishing my keys out of my pocket, I heard a familiar voice say, “Put your hands up for me, Longville, and turn around. Nice and slow.”
I put my arms over my head, keys in one hand, gun in the other, and turned slowly. A man stood in the darkness, alongside one of the empty hangers. He had been squatting there, waiting. He held an automatic weapon; an MP5, I was willing to bet.
“Hello, Francis,” I said to him.
Francis Lorenzo and I knew each other well, though you wouldn’t call us friends. He was the right hand man—the FBI would say a Capo—of Don Ganato, local mafia boss and racketeering entrepreneur.
“Hiya, Longville,” he said, and I could see his grin from ten feet away, even in the gloom. He was basking in the fact he’d gotten the drop on me. “I had you there,” he said, confirming my thoughts.
I laid my gun down on the hood of my car, and then put the keys down for good measure. I lowered my now-empty hands.
“Mind if I ask what you’re doing out here, Longville?” Francis asked in a polite voice.
“I’m working on a case. Nothing special. I got lost. Took a wrong turn. I guess I just don’t know Bessemer that well.”
“You don’t say,” Francis said, and his grin flared again.
“You boys getting in a little target practice?” I asked.
His face grew serious for a second. “Some of Lonnie’s boys tried to stop us from what we were doing. I don’t think anybody got hit. I think we scared them off, though.”
“Do tell. What was it you were doing?”
Francis shrugged. “Putting a package on a plane, is all. No big deal.” Francis lowered his gun. Then he said in a low, calm voice, “Go on, Longville, get yourself going. I just needed to check out who was up here. Take your gun and get out of here.”
Mildly astonished, I slowly picked my gun up and put it away, then my keys. I walked to my car and opened the door. Francis called out to me. “Hey, Longville. Roland . . . hold up a minute.”
Francis walked up to me. “You going to be around your office tomorrow?” he asked in a whisper.
“I can be.”
Francis looked behind him in the gloom, then looked back at me again. “I told Frederico and Joe to wait down by the river. We gotta go now. But listen. Around noon, I’m comin’ by your office to see you. I want to talk to you about a certain thing.”
“I’ll be there.”
He walked away into the darkness. Confused now beyond words, I got into the car and backed out carefully. I turned around and made my way back up the muddy road, heading through the darkness for more civilized parts of the world.
Chapter 10
She was waiting when I drove up. As I approached the door, she flung it open and ran into my arms. Her parents were both Italian, and it showed in her flawless olive colored skin, jet black hair and beautiful dark eyes. She is so incredibly beautiful.
Beatrice. Pronounced the Italian way, it has four syllables, and that’s how I think of her privately, She of the Four Syllables. Bee-uh-TREE-chee. My Beatrice. We are in love. She held me close for a long time, and then looked up at me. “I heard Francis speaking with my uncle. I know there was a gun fight. I heard him say that you were there. I have been so worried.”
Beatrice’s uncle was Don Ganato, head of the local Mafia. What can I say, my life is complicated. Her mother, Don Ganato’s sister, had died of cancer several years ago, and Ganato had appointed himself the caretaker of Beatrice and her younger brother, Tony. However, Ganato hadn’t done such a good job protecting Tony, who had been gunned down dealing drugs on an Ensley street just a little over two weeks ago. Now, all that Beatrice had in the world was me, and a few craggy male relations who were all mobbed up.
I shrugged, though I couldn’t lie to her. “There was some shooting. I was on the sidelines, though. I wasn’t one of the interested parties. I was never in any danger.”
“Don’t make fun, Roland. I thought that I would die when I heard Francis say your name. They are wondering what you were doing out there.”
“So your uncle sent them out there?”
“I don’t think so . . . but I don’t really know.” She asked me again, “What were you doing out there?”
I kissed her gently and took her in my arms. “What I’m always doing, when things get rough. My job. But that’s enough for now. Let’s talk inside.”
We went into her apartment and sat down. It felt good to relax. The earlier excitement had left me a little tense. She took my face in both her hands and kissed me.
“I worry about you so. I wish you could stop being a cowboy, sometimes.”
I kissed her back, then I ki
ssed her neck and whispered in her ear through her soft black hair, “I’m not a cowboy. They ride horses. I’m a detective.”
She started unbuttoning my shirt. “Detective. Knight in shining armor. Cowboy. They are all the same, there is a worried woman somewhere. I worry because I love you.”
I pulled her close and looked into those beautiful dark eyes. “I love you, too. Nothing is going to happen to me, to us. I promise.”
She smiled and leaned back away from me, and I pulled my shirt off. I started unbuttoning hers.
“You have work to do here, tonight, I think, mister detective,” she said. Then she pulled her blouse off, revealing a lacy black lingerie bra and dusky Mediterranean skin.
Time to get to work, indeed.
Chapter 11
I went in search of an old friend the next day. I found him just where I thought I would, in the basement, poring over a thick file.
“Tiller.” I called his name, and he looked up, gave a grunt, and tried to suppress a smile.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the long lost Mr. Roland Longville. What brings you down to the bowels of the Cold Case Dungeon on such a fine spring day?”
“Nothing official. I was over at headquarters looking into a case from some years back. They told me that it had fallen off the active ledger. I knew that meant that it was now down here, in your bailiwick.”
Tiller snorted. “Give an old codger a break, here, Roland. Your cases are never ‘official,’ as I recall. But somehow, they always end up that way. A cold case, huh? Well, as you know better than anyone, cold cases are my meat and drink. But in just the metropolitan area alone, there are more cold cases than Simpson and I can handle.”
“Simpson and I?”
“You didn’t know? Yeah, they finally gave me an assistant. Sgt. Simpson just made detective a couple of months ago. I think the Chief is finally getting it through his head I’m really going to retire one of these years, so I think that I am supposed to teach the lad everything a lifetime of experience has taught me. Christ, I was on the U.S.S Saratoga, halfway through my third cruise of the Mediterranean, when young Detective Simpson was born.”
The Burning Day Page 5
