The Dead Slam: A Tale of Benevolent Assasination

by Bright,R. F.

  Thomka was drunk, not stupid. “Fucking with his friends may be the one thing that makes Tuke mad enough to strike back.”

  “He’s a Quaker, my friend. Quakers don’t strike back. They don’t react. They act. Directly. They are never reactionary.”

  “Ya never know,” said Thomka.

  “Well, he’s the one hiding from us.”

  “And you want to add some chaos to the mix with those goddamned Leprechauns. They’re barking-ass mad and proud of it.”

  “Well, the only thing we have to go on is one of Tuke’s disgruntled team members. Wants a twelve-bar to tell us where Tuke’s hiding out.”

  “Fantastic,” said Thomka. “Do you think he actually knows?”

  “I doubt it. Tuke’s too smart to get cornered by an underling. The Leprechauns are gonna pay this guy a visit.”

  “I knew you were going to blow this. You moron. Look! If we contact this disgruntled guy before the Leprechauns do, we might be able to settle everything and skip the crazy.”

  Murthy raised his glass. “It’s too late. I called Efryn Boyne, the Leprechaun, this morning. They’re out looking for our missing New Jersey sleuth right now. Don’t worry about it. I got this.”

  Thomka drained his glass, set it down, and became strangely quiet. “God help us.”

  Murthy found Thomka’s sincerity discomfiting. “What?”

  “Tuke’s offering real-world solutions to real-world problems. He’s holding a pretty strong hand, considering what we’ve got.”

  “Yeah, but we’re holding the trump ace.”

  “What trumps real solutions?”

  Murthy poured the rest of the wine into his glass and raised it to heaven. “Fake salvation.”

  9

  MacIan heard the door creak down Camille Gager’s hallway and tip-toed back to the red leather couch. Camille came in and sat across from him on a matching armchair. She’d combed her hair and changed her outfit, but said nothing. He was as patient as a clam, but out of his depth. Breathe — slower, slower. Be here. Be here. He wiggled his tongue and stretched his jaw.

  She tried to say something, but couldn’t.

  He could see her retreating into memory and wanted to yell, stay away from there. He’d sat with men in deep despair, but this was different. He searched for signs he might hook onto. There were none. Women were a sublime mystery to him.

  Camille dabbed the raw edges of her nose with a ball of tissue. She stopped to gaze at him with vacant eyes and trembling lips.

  He felt himself plummeting toward his own horrific memories. Every muscle in his body clenched. He opened his eyes and drank her in with all the senses he could bring to bear — right now, right here. He had to focus on something outside himself. Right now. Right here. And there she was, guts out, but right here right now.

  He studied her closely. She was soft. He wanted to touch her. Medium build, tiny relative to him. Maybe a little too slim. Hands milky-white. Each fingertip dotted with pearl nail polish, so girly — nothing more intriguing than girly. Shoulder length raven-black hair. If he could only touch it. But under these circumstances? Ridiculous. He was embarrassing himself.

  She stared straight through him with glassy eyes that slowly tilted to the floor.

  He felt profoundly helpless and sad. Fighting the demons in his head had kept him alive, but taken a severe toll. Climb out of that spiral. Be here now. Say something. She wasn’t going to. Everything was swirling. Say what? Something comforting? He imagined wrapping his arms around her — inappropriate! He shook that thought from his head, but for a brief moment allowed himself to imagine the two of them together. That really scared him.

  Stop. Stop. Please no. No self-analysis. He couldn’t stop, unless he got her to say something. He recalled the pasty-faced psychologist at Quantico who had a very good handle on his problem and a bag full of exercises to blot out the memories. That psychologist had said, “Your relationships are fucked up because the other person is waiting for you to fix it. Get on that, soldier. Fix that shit now!”

  Suddenly he understood what that meant, but he had to get away before his demons exposed themselves to her. No, please, not to her.

  “Ah, Miss Gager,” he said, wishing he’d cleared his throat.

  She looked up and smiled, a reflex.

  “I can contact you later and we can ah, ah.” He waited for her to let him off the hook, but she just stared at him. She didn’t care what he was saying, but she cared that he was here. He could feel that.

  He tried to stand, but she reached over and touched him on the arm. “How did he . . . ?”

  “He froze to . . . death. A hiking accident. It was painless.”

  “Hiking?” she said, the word tasting of barnacles. “My father never went hiking. He wouldn’t go for a walk, much less a hike. Where?”

  “In Pennsylvania. Allegheny Mountains.”

  “What?”

  “Found by two hunters. Father and son. We can arrange . . .”

  “I know what this is,” she said, glaring hatefully. “You’re the fixer. You’re the Beard. What happened to my dad? Really, what happened? You can tell me the truth. I don’t care what you have to tell your handlers, just tell me what happened to my dad. It won’t go beyond these walls.”

  This was the most meaningful conversation he’d had with a woman in a decade, and it was going straight to hell. “Ah. Look ma’am,” he stammered. “I’m not part of any . . . I, I, ah . . .”

  She raised a finger to hush him, paused for a good look, then dismissed him as too dumb to be in on what she imagined as a pretty sophisticated plot. “Who are you?” she asked, as though she’d missed his entrance.

  “Trooper MacIan, Bedford Barracks, Pennsylvania.”

  Camille believed she had a special ability to read people, and she certainly needed a quick sounding right here. She had to decide, now! Is he a good guy, or a bad guy? Her gut won. “Come here,” she said, heading toward a door on the other side of the expansive living room. Her voice had thawed. It was far from inviting but appropriate to the circumstances. She put her hand on the chrome doorknob and gave him one last look. A look that hung between them for nearly a minute before she committed. “I have to show you something.”

  Camille led MacIan into a spacious home office decorated in the same streamlined style as the rest of the building. The floor to ceiling windows continued to dominate. She slid into her workstation, a glossy, cherry-wood built-in a few feet from her father’s matching desk. MacIan liked the look, but found the neatness cloying. The Manhattan view was still the loudest thing in the room.

  She relaxed as pangs of normalcy competed with her sadness. From here, from her desk, she’d focus her anger. Yes! This is what I need, she thought, a purpose. A why. She launched into a start-up ritual, explaining over her shoulder, “My father was a defense contractor, and yeah, OK, I’m sure he pulled a couple of fast ones, who didn’t? When the war was over . . .” She choked on that phrase, knowing most veterans took offense at it. “Look. I know. No one talks to a stranger about the war. Everybody’s got an opinion, smart folks keep it to themselves.” She felt her strength rising, but she couldn’t stop thinking of her father. “It’s impossible to find anyone competent. Anyone! Someone who does what they say they’ll do. That’s my father’s forte. Results. And special services. With a particular emphasis on finding important people who don’t want to be found. He liked to work for the kind of people who had those kinds of problems.”

  MacIan was intrigued. “What kind’a people would that be?”

  “The kind’a people who don’t ask how much it’ll cost. Or, more importantly, how you’re going to do it. Those kind’a people. Respectable posers.”

  “Was he looking for one of those people in Pennsylvania?”

  She pulled out a hanging-file drawer, removed a manila folder and tossed it onto her father’s desk. “Yeah, he was looking for someone. This guy.”

  MacIan turned the file to read the name on the tab
, LEVI TUKE.

  “Levi Tu-kay, Toookey, Tuke,” he babbled. “That’s a tongue-stubber.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Tuke.” She rolled her eye. “A real tongue-stubber.” It sounded just as corny when she said it. “You know, you’re almost charming.” She caught his eye for split second. “Tuke. Like puke with a T. It’s Dutch. Heard of him?”

  “I’m not from around here.”

  Camille read his neutral accent as west of here, but not by much. “Really? So, ah . . . You’re one of the good guys?”

  She was putting him on; he liked it. “Scout Master MacIan, at your service, ma’am.” He gave her a snappy salute, a little too silly maybe, considering the circumstances.

  Was he trying to be nice, she wondered? She opened the folder, picked through several sets of papers that were stapled together, and found the one she was looking for. “This is our contract with Harbinger.” Her finger zigzagged up and down it. “We’ve been working on this for three months. Since a little after Levi Tuke disappeared.” She hoped MacIan had miraculously remembered who Tuke was, but he remained shamelessly unaware. “You don’t know about the Nobel Prize thing?”

  MacIan pursed his lips.

  She crossed to her father’s big leather chair. “Levi Tuke won the Nobel for some automated, economic, governmental thing. A decision engine of some kind. I think? Yeah, a decision engine. A major innovation for his game, The Tuke Massive. One of those Massively Multiplayer Online Games. A social game platform that’s morphed into something dangerous — who knows why? We’ll leave that to the big-brains. Oh, and he’s a Quaker.”

  “Social games?”

  She shrugged, and he made a puzzled face.

  “I’m from Pittsburgh. Lots of Quakers, but I don’t know anything about social games. Never heard of them.”

  “Whaddya know, a man who can admit he doesn’t know everything.”

  “I’m a devout idiot — practice every day.”

  Now she, too, felt an awkward pleasure, despite the circumstances. But this was her house, she’d say whatever she wanted. “The Massive? I should’ve paid more attention. But I will figure it out, and when I do I’ll let you in on it.”

  MacIan was listening intently, which caused Camille some discomfort. “Levi Tuke accepted the Nobel Prize, made a crazy speech — no one’s seen him since.”

  “Not a crime to disappear.”

  “It must be terrific to be so big,” said Camille. “Is it fun knowing you can kick every ass in a room?”

  “Yes, but it’s a burden.”

  She could only imagine, but it made her smile. “Harbinger’s Releasing Division is after him. Corporate cops and lawyer thugs. They filed a civil suit, claiming to own the distribution rights to that game, and they want it. What they really want is for him to show himself. That’s all they really want. But if Tuke isn’t around, he can’t negotiate, and he can’t be assassinated. He’s in the wind and the whole shebang is stuck. So they hired us.”

  “Do they?”

  “Do they what?”

  “Own the distribution rights.”

  Camille laughed with a tiny snort. “No. And! Or! What’s the difference? If they sue Tuke, he has to show up in court. Expose himself. He could get hit by a bus. I know several guys who’d take that gig.”

  “Where is he?”

  “That’s the question!” she said, leaning over the papers on the desk. “My father could find a Presbyterian on the Hajj. And you’d think a guy as famous as Tuke, everyone knows who he is, except you of course, ‘you’re not from around here,’ would have a hard time lying low.”

  A dark hush fell over Camille, as she fixed on a photograph above the credenza and wilted. MacIan moved to catch her. She latched onto the desk and steadied herself, without his help. He saw the photo in a simple chrome frame. A snapshot of her in a prom dress standing next to her proud father. Arthur Gager looked fit and the teenaged Camille was cute as can be. The picture had been taken in front of the windows in the living room. On the glass behind the father-daughter duo hung a large hand painted banner, “Class of 2036”.

  MacIan cleared his throat and waited for her to look up. “Me too.”

  A questioning look glazed her face.

  “Class of ’36,” he said. “Go Orioles.”

  The goofy look on his face nearly made her laugh. But that would have been extremely inappropriate — considering the circumstance. She just looked at him.

  MacIan left Camille’s, his head spinning, bound for the NPF barracks in Bedford. He would have preferred to stay, but didn’t know how to extend his visit. Now that he was free of the morbid circumstances of his duty, he could think of nothing but her. As his Peregrine rose above her building, a brilliant light from across the Hudson washed over him. Caesar crossing Rubicon, or moth to flame? Not now, he should get back. He punched up the autopilot and chose Bedford Barracks.

  Approaching the Poconos, his altitude increased and the air smelled cleaner. He’d almost remembered how to enjoy himself, but three quick flashes of red light on the heads-up display put an end to that.

  The wind-dome filled with the ever-smiling face of Fleet Admiral Chris Carson, the Tidal Basin Bombardier. He looked quite strong for a man well past retirement, but a lifetime of commanding attack vessels had drained all the color from his skin and stretched his many orange freckles into long ovals.

  “Did those bastards track you?” Admiral Carson demanded with a wink.

  “Yes, sir, but it was nothing. Routine.”

  “Good. I’d rather you not provoke anything right now. You’re onto something, don’t know what, but it might give you cover to go into Manhattan. Take a look around. A little recon never hurts. I don’t know what those fuckin’ reptiles are thinking with this privatization of the NPF bullshit. That’ll never happen and they know it. I’ll burn that hell-hole to the ground before I let them turn us into The Church Police.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “I like the direction this is taking. I like you, MacIan. You’re a good man. I’m glad it’s you in the big chair.”

  “I won’t let you down, sir.”

  “You couldn’t let me down if you tried, son. We’re past that.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Who’s the casualty?”

  “Arthur Gager. Lives in Guttenburg.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell. I’ll ask around.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “What about this Commander Konopasek? Is he going to be a problem?”

  MacIan looked straight into the camera. “Commander Konopasek is an excellent man, sir. He’s just a little . . . odd.”

  “I’ve heard that. What’s the short and skinny?”

  “Missing gamer genius. Levi Tuke. Suits are after him. He’s gone to ground.”

  “The Nobel Prize, nine-time TED speaker, beware the Corporate State Levi Tuke? I’m told he thinks highly of me. Gave me a five. Whatever that is.” Carson let that hang in a boastful silence. “I hear people quoting his Nobel speech all the time, ‘A society free from the oppression of big government and big business.’ He’s the turd in their swimming pool, my boy.”

  “I’m sure he is, sir.”

  “Well done, MacIan. With your instincts and my wishful thinking, we might really be onto something.”

  Boink . . . Carson was gone.

  MacIan returned to the barracks and slept a little better than he had of late, but was glad to see the sunrise.

  Shit. Shower. Shave.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Commander Konopasek looked up hopefully. “Enter!” MacIan entered and began the same formal shuffle as last time, which seemed to annoy the Commander this time. He cut it short with a spastic gesture at the aluminum chair. “Went to New York, did ya?” he said, eager for a dicey tale.

  “No, sir. Guttenburg, New Jersey.”

  The red in the Commander’s cheeks faded to a veiny pink. “Where’s that?”

  “Up on the Hudson River Pa
lisades. A white sandstone bluff that goes straight out and drops into the river right there. New York’s straight across. It’s incredible.”

  “How big is that river? It’s not like these piss-traps around here, is it?”

  “The Hudson is big and I guess the current there, where it goes into the ocean, is fast and strong. It’s even bigger than the rivers in Pittsburgh. I don’t know how big, but it’s big. A mile wide? Maybe more? Very long bridges.”

  The Commander imagined the scene, delighting in MacIan’s enthusiastic telling. “What about the dead body?”

  MacIan plucked a folder from his armpit and slapped it onto the Commander’s desk. “Notified next of kin. A daughter. She signed off. It’s in the folder.” MacIan remained officious.

  The Commander reached, then stopped just short of the folder. “Is there anything in here I need to deal with?”

  “Not sure. I’m the new guy.”

  “Did anything funny happen?” He took the folder. “They complain about anything?” He slid the folder across his desk back toward MacIan.

  “The daughter didn’t buy the hiking accident cause-of-death.”

  “A conspiracy?” mused the Commander. “I love a good conspiracy.”

  “The daughter says it’s all connected to a job they were working on.”

  “A job?”

  “They run a security business out of their condo in Guttenburg.”

  “You can run a security business out of a condo? I can hardly run one out of this wigwam.”

  “They manage the setup from there. Hire freelancers to do the wet-work.”

  “Catch somebody they shouldn’ta?”

  “Just the opposite. He didn’t find the guy he was looking for. According to the daughter. She’s convinced the people that hired them have got something to do with his death.”

  “What people?”

  “Harbinger International. It’s a civil thing. Something about sales rights to a game.”

  “Good, good, good. I’d hate to see this getting more complicated than it already is. Can put this one out on the margin, until they claim the body? Looks like you had a good time up there?”