Death Across the Lake

by Lyle Hightower

  I watched Irene as she scanned the scene. Her eyes darted around, but I wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual if I hadn’t known who she was.

  “Stop looking at me,” she said. “You’ll give us away. Keep walking, north, past the guard post, and then we’ll circle back through the town.” I did as she instructed.

  We walked past the guard post, a small shelter with a chair. Three militiamen, none of them older than nineteen, stood nervously watching the crowd. They were alert, but not in a way that communicated control.

  “There were at least seven agents in in the crowd, that I could make out,” she said, once were clear of the crowds, and walking west along a smaller street. “Every one of them was on edge. It isn’t usually this easy to spot a plainclothes.” I hadn’t seen anyone, but I took her word for it.

  “They’re waiting for something to happen,” Irene said.

  “What,” I asked.

  “Maybe they’re expecting us.”

  “Do you think?”

  “Or something like us. I think the attack on the Grand Isle causeway surprised them.” I could see the faintest hint of glee on her face as she said this.

  We walked around a corner to Clinton Street, a two block stretch just west of the waterfront, an epicentre of unlicensed activity in town. The street was lined with bars, many of which were fronts for brothels and illegal gambling dens. The authorities stayed away, and there were no uniformed militia visible. A wealthy tourist was lying in the street, drunk, his white linen suit smeared with dirt, as his private security tried to get him to stand up.

  “There, by the Saranac House,” Irene said, indicating a bar halfway down the street. “That woman standing there. She’s militia. There are at least three more that I can see.”

  The woman was standing outside the bar, looking as though she were waiting for someone, but now that I looked, her clothes seemed a poor fit, and her evident irritation at being stood up struck me as put on.

  “She’ll snake a tourist, get photos, and blackmail him. For money, or information. They do it all the time. The militia use it as an intelligence gathering tool. All kinds of people end up here. Businessmen, politicians, they all wind up here eventually. When they do the militia is ready to pounce.”

  I’d heard similar stories, but it was something else to witness it up close. We picked a bar, almost at random, and walked in. The place we picked was called the Sandbar, and its interior was a kind of haphazard approximation of a beach, with fake sand on the ground and large plastic starfish glued to the walls.

  Irene ordered a whiskey, neat, and I had a beer, some local brew that smelled like skunk and tasted like it would melt my insides. We paid the bartender, a tall tattooed woman with biceps bigger than my leg, and sat down at a table, kitty corner to each other so we could both watch the room.

  We agreed to wait for a while, and see what happened. I realized, sitting there, that it could take a long time to get the lay of the land, to figure out how to find our target. We couldn’t go up to anyone and ask if they knew a man named Leffert. That would get us killed. We had a description of him but it wouldn’t be enough to go on. We’d need to see him in action. I was confident that Irene would be able to spot him, but we had to find him first, and while he wasn’t quite a needle in a haystack, we didn’t have a lot of time.

  After a while, I approached the bar to talk to the bartender.

  “We’re selling sewing needles. Big lot of them, for machines, and for hand-sewing. You know of anywhere we could unload something like that?” The bartender looked at me kind of funny. I couldn’t blame her. Half the people who came through here probably weren’t who they said they were.

  “You could try the scrap market, north Margaret Street,” she said, finally. “Or the garment district. That might be your best bet, corner of Oak and Cornelia.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and sat down again.

  “You should go to the garment district,” Irene said in a low voice, trying not to be heard. “Take the bag with you. I’ll follow, ten minutes later.”

  I nodded, got up and left the bar. Cornelia and Oak was only a few blocks away, and I walked as slowly as was believable, pretending that my bag was heavy. I had walked the length of Clinton Street, and kneeled over to tie my boot, and keeling down, took a quick look behind me. The thronging humanity was too dense for me to be able to see through, and I got up again and started walking, talking the next turn right. This was a much quieter street, and again, there were militia, a young man and woman in camouflage jackets standing on the edge of the sidewalk, looking simultaneously bored and keyed up. Turning around as I reached the end of the block, I saw a slight figure walking in my direction. Seeing me stop, he slowed almost imperceptibly, and I turned and continued on my way.

  I came to a large street, with clapboard houses on each side, and a lot of ordinary looking townsfolk out during the day. I was still being followed, but he was moving more slowly now, stopping to look into storefronts, a false casualness about his movements now that was so at odds with how he had appeared moments earlier. I sped up and reached Cornelia Street. This was the garment district, really more of a corner than a district, as I could see what looked like four or five textile businesses, that presumably made clothes for the locals. Looking back down the street I caught a glimpse of my quarry, and further away still was Irene, who was tracking him. I almost would have missed her. She was nondescript, but more than that, she had a capacity to deflect attention away from her by the sheer fact that she didn’t look like she was thinking about anything but herself. In this way, her intentions veiled, she was nearly invisible.

  I walked along Cornelia for a little bit, and then turned around and went back the way I came. The man following me came around the corner, and seeing me, did his best not to start. I went up to him, and stopping in front of an alleyway, I called out to him.

  “Say, friend. I’m looking for the garment district, can you tell me where it is?” I said, calling out in as hale and wholesome a voice as I could. He looked baffled.

  “Can’t you see the signs?” he said. “Russel’s Clothiers. Hobie’s Textiles and Apparel. Bergeron Apparel. You’re in it,” he said.

  Then, before he knew what was happening, almost before I knew what was happening, there was a glint of metal in front of his face, as Irene drew a blade and held it to his neck.

  “This one followed us from the Sandbar,” she said, as she dragged him into the alley. I looked around, and seeing no one in the street, I followed.

  He was breathing heavily.

  “Who do you work for?” Irene asked him.

  “No one, I was going to rob him, that’s all.”

  “Why would you rob a clearly destitute merchant of a worthless pile of sewing needles?”

  “I thought I could sell them,” he said. He was panicking. She dug the knife tighter into his neck, drawing blood. He started moaning, and she kneed him in the back of the leg, causing him to collapse onto the ground, where she grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back, causing him to yelp.

  “He’s militia intelligence, or rather one of their hired goons. Not a professional. He wouldn’t have been so easy to spot if he was,” she said.

  “That’s very astute of you,” a voice said behind me. I turned. It was a man with grey hair, a scar on his forehead, and a missing finger: Leffert.

  “You must be a professional yourself,” he said. “Green Mountain Rangers? No, you’re too tough. You must be a State Trooper.” He was smiling. “You’re out of your jurisdiction.” Behind him a platoon of militia regulars stood, holding the entrance to the alleyway.

  “And this must be Benny Bailey. One can never mistake a police detective. You too are out of your jurisdiction. It would have been better for everyone if you’d stayed home.”

  I heard a noise behind me, and turning, saw Irene fall to the ground unconscious, as black shapes moved past her, towards me. I went for my revolver, but all was darkness before I even made i
t to my coat pocket.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I awoke in a small windowless room lit by a single bulb, a table in front of me. I’d read enough old-time detective novels (two, to be exact, I don’t like reading) to know that I was going to be stuck here until they were done interrogating me. I was sitting in a chair, my hands tied behind my back, and my head smarting like you wouldn’t believe. I wanted to throw up, but seeing as the puke only had one place to go, which was all over my shirt, I restrained myself.

  The pain went on like this for a while, my head feeling like it had been stuck in a vice. After a long time, how long, I don’t know, the door opened, and a young woman, maybe eighteen or nineteen, came in, followed by our man, Leffert, in the flesh.

  “Sorry if we were a bit rough with you, Bailey. We needed you to come without a struggle, and there’s only a handful of ways to do that.”

  He looked pleased with himself, which was fair enough. I didn’t get surprised often, so he could count himself part of a special club.

  “Untie him, please.” The young soldier came around to the back of my chair and untied my hands. Another soldier came in, this one carrying a glass of water, which he placed on the table, before leaving. The first soldier saluted Leffert, and then she too left. We were alone.

  “I have a feeling it’s the two of you who are behind the quite daring demolition of the Grand Isle causeway. At least, that’s what my intelligence would suggest. But then, you’re not surprised that I know this. I presume that’s why you’re here, and that’s why you’ve come looking for me. You see me, not entirely without reason, as the prime mover of everything that’s happened in your home country of late.”

  I said nothing, but took the glass of water and drank it. It could have been spiked, but I didn’t have anything he wanted, and clearly didn’t know much he didn’t already know.

  “You’re trusting. Or you’ve simply given up, you know that I know everything.”

  “I was thirsty. Could things really get worse for me than they are now? You’re going to kill me anyways.”

  He looked offended. “You assume too much about me. You don’t even know my real name.”

  “You’re right, I don’t know anything, but I can see it written plain as day on your face that you’re arrogant and vain. I can see it a mile away.”

  He stood up and slapped me. I’d hurt his pride, that much I could see.

  “Answer me this one question,” I said. “Why Harry Smith? Why use him as your ringleader, your point of contact. He’s never concerned himself with affairs in town. Why use him?”

  “You mistake discretion for indolence. Mr. Smith has been an active member of your community for a long time. You just never noticed.”

  His tone was starting to irritate me. Whereas when we had started the conversation his basso voice had some gravitas to it, he was now whinging in an increasingly high-pitched way that undercut some of the seriousness of the situation. I had to hold my tongue, in case I should have accidentally said something to further goad him.

  “We haven’t yet decided what to do with you, or the librarian. Presumably there would be some intelligence we could extract from her, but you? Not so much. I might keep you alive just to help with her interrogation, as a bargaining chip, but you’re not useful to me, intrinsically.”

  “I have the same warm feelings about you,” I said.

  He smiled, but it was a cold smile that papered over a deep irritation. “We’ll keep you here for a while, until we can figure out where to put you, so you can expect to spend the night in that chair, most likely. Unless something more comfortable opens up.”

  He called for the guard, and told her to re-tie my hands.

  “There are guards posted outside your door, which will be locked, as well as more guards down the hall. I shouldn’t try to escape. They have orders to kill if you cause trouble.”

  With that he left, and I was locked in the room, alone, in the dark.

  I figured out the knot pretty quickly, but Leffert must have known that I’d be able to undo it with time, and was counting on the fact that I was in a locked room under armed guard, in the dark, and that each of these factors alone would make escape difficult. Together they meant impossibility.

  With my hands free, I now had to figure out how to get the guards to open the door. They were, like all militia soldiers, young and inexperienced. I had the advantage, at least as far as that went. I needed to get one of them into the room, get their gun, and then take them out one by one. Alternately, I could try to find an escape route from the room itself, such as a heating duct, but I hadn’t seen any when the light was on, and it was possible that what ducting there was was too small for me to climb through.

  If I managed to get one of their sidearms, I’d have to hope that using it didn’t alert the entire building to my in-progress escape. From what I could hear from out in the hallway, I was in some sort of converted office building, which meant the walls were probably pretty flimsy, and sound would travel. Thinking about it for a moment, I decided to put my ear to the door, and see what I could hear.

  “I’ve been on duty for twelve ours Mel, twelve. I need to get some RnR. Why get posted here if you never have any time to take in the attractions,” I heard a voice say.

  “Jeez Tanner. Take it easy. Soon enough Leffert will realize we don’t have anywhere to put him, and we’ll just lock him and the girl in the supply closet overnight.”

  “Hehe, seven hours in heaven,” Tanner said.

  “Shut up Tanner. God. Any minute now, they’ll send someone to tell us to take them downstairs. I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  Mel was right. Within a few minutes another voice could be heard barking orders at the first two.

  “Take him to the supply closet. The girl is already in there. Bind his hands and feet once you get him there, and blindfold him.”

  With that the door opened, and Mel walked in.

  She clearly hadn’t given much thought to wether or not I’d be able to put up a fight, and I surprised her by suddenly standing up, pushing the desk over and throwing the chair at her. She fell back against the door, and I jumped for her, grabbing her sidearm, cocking it, as a look of horror spread across her face. I jabbed it into her stomach and fired twice, the gun silenced by her body. She would have fallen but I grabbed her by the lapels, and fired twice again through her, hitting Tanner, who was just now pulling out his weapon. He fell. I let go of Mel and she slumped to the floor.

  I had to move quickly. It would be a matter of minutes, if not seconds, before the bodies were discovered. I had to find Irene, and it had to be fast.

  Outside the door was a long hallway. In one direction was an exit. It either led outside, or to a staircase that led outside. My whole life could have gotten a whole lot easier if I just went that way. I went the other way, realizing as soon as I turned a corner, I would probably run into a whole platoon of them. Poor Mel’s gun at the ready, I walked as quietly as possible down the hallway to where it made a sharp turn to the right. I waited, holding my breath, and then jumped around the corner, gun drawn.

  But there was no one. A ways down the hall was a door, with one of those old translucent glass windows in it. It said “Supply Closet”. I looked through the glass, but it was dark inside, and the mottled surface of the glass made it impossible to see anything but big dark shapes. The door was locked. I threw my shoulder against it, and after a few attempts the door fell open.

  It wasn’t a supply closet, or at least it hadn’t been for a long time. It was a long, narrow room, with black bars riveted into the floor and ceiling to make up cells, four of them. They were all empty, except for the last one, where Irene was sitting up, alert, a worried look on her face. When she recognized me she smiled.

  “The keys are over in that filing cabinet,” she said, pointing. I found the keys easily; there wasn’t anything else in the ancient filing cabinet. I unlocked her cell door.

  “Let’s get out of her,�
� I said. “They’ll figure out what’s happened soon enough.”

  “No, we can’t leave, not yet. I think this is Leffert’s headquarters. The troops here are all on special detail. I heard two of them complaining about the food.”

  “That’s very interesting, Irene, but we really do need to get going.”

  “Let’s find his office. He’s got to have files on his network. If we can get our hands on that, on anything, it’ll be a coup.”

  I had to acknowledge that she was right. We might not have another chance to get in the building.

  “I’m betting it’s upstairs, we just need to find a staircase.”

  I knew where we could find one. Walking back to where I had been held, there was still no sign that anyone had been alerted to our escape. Mel and Tanner were still lying there, eyes glazed over and blank. Irene winced.

  “Is this your work?”

  “I guess so,” I said, not knowing what else to say. They almost looked innocent, lying there on the ground. I had a terrible sinking feeling in my gut.

  Irene leaned over and picked up Tanner’s pistol.

  We walked past the bodies, with were spilling out of the room in an ever expanding pool of blood, to the exit. I kicked open the door with my foot and Irene ran in, gun drawn, but again there was no one. It was a faintly illuminated stairwell, lit by a single bulb on the ceiling. We climbed up the stairs as quietly as possible, until we came to the floor above, the top floor. The door opened inwards, so we couldn’t kick our way through, so instead we opened it gently, and seeing that there was no one in the hallway on the other side, we walked in.