by Rex Burns
“Hello, Mr. Kirk. Devlin here—your ever-loving nephew. He tried to beat up a couple of muggers last night.”
“Yeah? You all right? You hurt?”
“A couple of bumps and bruises, that’s all, Uncle.”
“So what happened?”
“Nothing much—a little scuffle.”
“I hope you got your licks in. Two of them, you say?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Bunch. “But they got away, so our hero here doesn’t get any medals.”
“Not too much sympathy, either, it sounds like. That’s a pretty bad bump. Have you seen a doctor?”
“No need to, Uncle. It’s not a concussion.”
“Now you’re talking like the man who catches bean-balls.”
“That was the safest place, Mr. Kirk. He’ll be all right.”
“I hope you boys know what you’re up to. I don’t want anything to happen to you, Dev.”
“That makes two of us, Uncle. I’m being careful.”
Uncle Wyn didn’t seem convinced, but he wouldn’t push it. He’d done his best to talk me out of this kind of work when Bunch and I first went to him for backing, and he hadn’t been successful then. “Well, I didn’t stop by to nag you about your health, though that might not be such a bad idea. It’s that Loomis guy. He gave me a call yesterday.”
“He wanted to invest a little? Get rich in the market?”
“Not likely. He asked if I knew anything about you working for a Mrs. Margaret Haas. I don’t. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell that bastard.”
“Why didn’t he ask you, Dev?” Bunch wanted to know.
“He already did. I told him as much as I wanted to.”
“I guess he thought I’d be glad to hear from him,” said Uncle Wyn. “I just thought you should know.”
For all that the man worried about my line of work, he got a vicarious thrill out of it, perhaps a faint echo of the competition and teamwork and excitement of his baseball days. Now he had brought information that might bear on a real case, and his voice held a note of pleased excitement.
“Thanks for telling us, Uncle Wyn. You want some coffee?”
“I’ll get it, son. You don’t look too full of piss and vinegar.”
“I’m okay.” And I really did feel better. Well enough, anyway, to be interested in the whys of Loomis’s roundabout way of finding out what I was up to. But I waited until Uncle Wyn had left before talking it over with Bunch.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me, either, Dev. And I don’t see why McAllister’s so worried about the widow Haas. And why he doesn’t ask you himself instead of getting Loomis to do it.”
“McAllister feels guilty about Haas. And he’s probably out of town; he spends half his life on airplanes. Besides, she was one of the professor’s graduate students a few years ago, so he’s interested too. What I really can’t understand is the urgency that would make him go to my uncle. I don’t think they’ve spoken since my father’s funeral. Uncle Wyn doesn’t like the man and hasn’t kept it a secret. For Loomis to ask a favor of him …”
“Maybe he didn’t have a choice. Maybe McAllister told him to do it. Loomis is always sucking up to the guy.” Bunch began unrolling the blueprints for the AeroLabs layout and anchored the corners of the stiff paper. “How about Mrs. Ottoboni? She settled down yet?”
“She brought me tea this morning. At six-thirty. She woke me up to tell me she was still too excited to sleep.”
“Oh, yeah? What is this thing you’ve got for widows, Dev?”
Loomis may have been worried about Margaret, but as far as I was concerned, the Haas case was dropped, and a good thing for a couple of reasons. The AeroLabs job had moved into the bidding phase and took up most of our time now, and there were inquiries from prospective clients that were serious enough to call for detailed cost estimates. I also had to rough out a contract for one prospect who wanted us to look into employee pilfering. But I did manage to see Margaret and each time was better; it was nice to discover the nuances to her beauty, moments when she thought she was unobserved and the light angled across the planes of her face to emphasize its symmetry and repose. And we always found more to talk about, the pleasure of discovering the world from each other’s perspective and of bringing our pasts together to enrich a present moment. I couldn’t list the topics we touched on—though they usually had something to do with people—and afterward I would find myself gazing into space and remembering a witty, precise observation she had made about someone. And being grateful that Bunch hadn’t seen that half-assed grin on my face. By now, both Austin and Shauna were calling me Dev and I’d taken them all to the Natural History Museum to crane up at the dinosaur bones and to make ugh noises over the mummies, to the opening of the Zephyrs’ season where we huddled under a plastic wrap and tried to pretend we were warm, on blissfully quiet picnics in the foothills where Austin and Shauna chased the bright flicker of spring butterflies or floated sticks down the foaming torrents that drained the melting snows of the high peaks. Once, as Austin and I tossed bread crumbs toward the swirl of small fish in the shallows of Clear Creek, he tried to tell me about the terrible night when he woke to the icy turmoil of his father’s death. It was confused, of course, but he remembered hearing the shot, though he did not know what it was at the time. He dreamed he woke up—something in the dream woke him up—and he heard a muffled thud and then he called for his mother and she came running up the stairs and in his dream his mother—the thing he thought was his mother—stood in the doorway and her shadow peeled the skin off her hands and arms and then reached for him and he really woke up, and he knew something bad had happened and he was afraid and screamed for his mother. It was something he hadn’t been able to tell even her—how afraid he had been and, even now, still was. I let him tell it all, spilling it out like bile from the depths of his body, a lingering illness finally spewed out, and we felt closer for having spoken of it. Maybe for all her theorizing, Susan knew something about release.
Margaret said nothing more about Haas or Aegis, and mentioned nothing about Carrie Busey or Vinny Landrum. Nor did she say anything about love, but then I didn’t ask. Without stating anything, Margaret made it clear that she did not want to commit herself; it was still too soon after her husband’s death, and there were still too many unsettled areas of her own life for her to make any major decisions. And I didn’t press her; my father could have married after my mother’s death, but he didn’t. Not for my sake, but because—as he told me once—he had married for life. His own as well as my mother’s. That was the kind of love I wanted too, and it was worth nurturing, worth approaching slowly, worth the enjoyment of verifying.
Yet our kisses had moved from cheek to lips and on our last date had become long and deep and yearning for both of us.
Susan seemed to think it was a good idea. “You need a family, Dev. You need that kind of love to help take the place of your father.”
“I’m glad you think so, Susan. Do you want to read my palm, too?”
“Come on, guys, cut it out—let’s just enjoy the run.”
Bunch stretched the pace and left us no breath for arguing. We followed the dirt path beside the strip of asphalt road undulating across the prairie and toward the line of snow-glimmered peaks. To our right, the broad sheet of water penned into the reservoir was dotted with the white flicker of sails, and beyond that was etched the level horizon of the dam and then the distant clusters of office towers that marked the several centers of the sprawling, hazy city. Here, where the trail dipped and rose in rhythmic waves across the channels of Cherry Creek, cottonwoods and hackberry bushes closed over the sun-glared earth to offer momentary relief.
“I’m glad it’s not crowded.” It was too pretty a day for bickering, and Susan was willing to change the subject.
So was I. “When it cools off a little—they’ll be out then.”
A pair of laboring bicyclists zipped past, the bright colors of their jerseys bobbing with the thrust of their le
gs as they strained to race each other up the gentle incline. Behind, I heard the whine of a distant automobile engine, and across the rolling green of unmown prairie, the sharp buzz of a model airplane swooping in circles against the cloudless blue.
“A mile to go.” The span of Bunch’s shirt was dark with sweat and he ran with the short steps of a heavy man. Susan’s lean stride lengthened to keep up, and, following her, I felt myself slip into the hypnotic rhythm of pace and breath. Behind, the engine’s sound shifted into a louder snarl and a prickle of warning stirred at the back of my neck, and I glanced over my shoulder. A car swerved across the lanes toward us.
“Look out!” I shoved at Susan with both hands and dove headfirst away from the path of the hooking fender. Rolling across the stony ground, I yelled again at Bunch and from the corner of my eye saw his surprised face look back and then the big man jumped too. The swoop of metal blocked my view and I had a flash of a mustached face glaring down in angry triumph, its teeth showing in a curse, and then the car was past, careening back onto the pavement with a roar of engine and the stinging spray of dirt kicked up behind.
“Susan—Suze—are you all right?” Bunch, rolling up to his knees, peered wide-eyed at the figure lying on the ground.
I reached her first, my fingers groping for a pulse in the coolness of her tanned wrist. Her neck had an awkward twist to it, and, gently, I probed a finger into her mouth to be certain her tongue was clear of her throat.
“Jesus, Devlin, is she all right?”
“Her heart’s beating, she’s breathing. Don’t move her neck, Bunch. Can you see where she was hit?”
“Her head—there’s blood in her hair.”
“Hey—you folks need some help?” A helmeted bicyclist squealed to a halt at the road’s edge. “Man, I saw what that asshole did! You need an ambulance?”
“Yeah,” called Bunch. “Quick!”
The cyclist turned and sprinted back toward the park entry and the gatehouse with its attendant.
“She’s out. That’s a bad head wound.”
“What about her neck?” asked Bunch.
“I think it’s just twisted, but we’d better not move her.” Beneath her head, rising out of the hard packed earth like the dome of a mushroom, a pale stone glistened with the wet of fresh blood.
By the time the ambulance arrived, coasting forward among the small crowd of runners and cyclists who had stopped, Susan was half-conscious and moaning. Bunch talked to her steadily, trying to keep her awake, trying to keep her from lifting her head. The crew, carefully bracing her shoulders and neck, slipped a board under her torso and strapped her to it; then, with our help, they lifted her to the stretcher and carried her toward the white-and-orange ambulance.
“It was those two, wasn’t it? The ones who hit on you a few weeks ago?”
I saw again the flicker of the blurred face at the window of the car looming over me. “The one with the mustache was driving.”
Bunch rolled one fist inside the other to crack his knuckles with a muffled crunch. “I should have thought. I should have been watching.”
“We both should have been watching.”
The medical technicians strapped Susan in place and the driver ran to the cab; Bunch clambered in behind the other, the heavy machine lurching under his weight.
“Did you get a license?”
“No. It happened too fast.”
The door swung shut and the ambulance, siren a rising wail, ground away.
A motorist offered me a ride to our car, and a few minutes later I sped up the long incline that led over the dam and toward Swedish Hospital.
As I drove, I went over in memory each instant of the attack and the things that I should have done differently. I should have looked sooner, a split second sooner, when I first heard the car’s motor rev higher as the driver shifted into a lower gear. I should have swung Susan clear instead of lunging with all my frightened weight to sling her stumbling and out of control. I should have moved away from the two running in front so they would have been clear. I should have known from the beginning that they would try again. Looking back, there were a lot of things I could have done that would have left Susan frightened but safe instead of moaning unconscious in the back of an ambulance.
“They knew where to find us,” Bunch had said while he crouched over the twisted form. “They tailed us until they had a chance.”
Margaret. The children. If they had been following me, they knew about them, too. I pressed the gas pedal and weaved through the heavier traffic that began feeding into the highway.
The hospital, surrounded by large trees that sheltered the neighboring streets, sat at the top of a low hill, and the emergency entrance led away from the traffic at the front of the building into its lower levels. I followed the signs for visitors to a reception shelf where I found Bunch filling out personal data and finance sheets. Then we were guided into a room where a cluster of figures hovered around Susan. An x-ray hung damp against the opaque white of a viewing glass and showed the ghostly pale of bones, the fragile blot of a skull, the black of flesh.
“What’s it look like, Doc?”
The man studying the sheet with a magnifying glass turned, slightly startled to see the figure towering at his shoulder. “The neck doesn’t seem to be broken.”
“That’s good. What’s the damage?”
He pointed to a shadowy area near the middle of the skull’s glow. “Here’s the fracture—a pretty severe depression with some bleeding. What happened?”
A nurse began making notes on a clipboard as Bunch and I explained the injury. Why she bothered was unclear, because over the next few hours as Susan was moved from emergency to x-ray and then to intensive care, every new doctor asked the same questions and more nurses copied the same answers onto more clipboards. Finally she rested behind the drawn curtain in one of a row of beds, electrodes monitoring her pulse on a softly pinging screen, and tubes and bottles dangling from hangers at the corners of the bed. She had passed out again in the ambulance and as yet had not made another sound.
“I’m going to stay for awhile, Dev.” Bunch’s voice rumbled in the muffled, constant murmur of the intensive care unit. “They’re talking about doing a CAT scan. Can you handle the AeroLabs people?”
“No problem.” Installation was supposed to start tomorrow and as always there were last-minute preparations to go over with the subcontractors. “I’ll call in a couple of hours.”
“Okay, Dev. Thanks. And look over your shoulder.”
I took Bunch’s advice as I drove the company’s Ford home to change clothes. I approached the house from a different direction; I cruised each street to check out the parked cars before pulling to the curb. In short, I did those things that I ought to have done before I brought harm to Susan. Mrs. Ottoboni peeked over the low fence that guarded the backyards from the street and waved a handful of lilac blossoms at me. “Mr. Kirk—why don’t you take some of these? They have to be trimmed and it’s a shame just to throw them in the trash.”
“Thanks, Mrs. O.” I cradled the fragrant mass in my hands. “You haven’t noticed either of those two men hanging around, have you?”
“No, and it’s a good thing for them I haven’t. How’s your head?”
“It’s fine now, no little thanks to you. I don’t want to alarm you, but it’s possible those people may come back. They’d be after me, but I wouldn’t like you to be taken by surprise.”
“Oh? I thought you told me detectives led pretty quiet lives.”
That’s what I told her when I moved in. “Yes, ma’am. Generally, we do. But these two men seem to have some kind of vendetta against me. I don’t think they’ll try anything here—not with you around. But you might keep an eye out for strangers in the neighborhood.”
“You bet I will! And I’m glad your life is getting a little more exciting. Strapping young man like you needs that. And don’t you worry about me. I got a good sharp pair of eyes, and I’m a little old lady in tenn
is shoes who doesn’t intend to surrender my way of living to any bunch of hoodlums.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I placed the lilac stems in a vase of water and telephoned Margaret.
“Hi—good to hear from you!”
I didn’t merely imagine the warmth in her voice and it honed my worry for her. “Margaret, I won’t be able to make dinner tonight.”
“Oh—I’m disappointed. The children will be too. But thanks for calling. Can you come by later?”
“It might not be a good idea for me to see you too soon.”
The line was silent and then she said quietly, “That’s up to you, Devlin, of course.”
“Hey, whoa—it’s not what you think!”
“Then what is it?”
“Some people are following me. I don’t want to give them a chance to try anything when I’m with you or the kids.”
“What do you mean, ‘try anything’?”
I told her about Susan.
“Oh, Devlin, I’m so sorry! Is there some way I can help?”
“No. She’s in good hands and Bunch is with her. I’ll be checking with him soon. She was hurt because she was near me, Margaret. I don’t want to take any chances with you.”
“I understand, Devlin. And I appreciate it. Are you certain that it’s safe? For Austin and Shauna, I mean. One reads so many horrible things …”
“I’m sure they’ll be all right, and so will you. But if you do notice anyone or if you have any fears at all, call me. You have my numbers.”
“All right.” She asked, “Devlin, will we be able to see each other at all?”
“Sure. We’ll just have to be careful, that’s all. And this won’t last long—I promise you that.”
The meeting with the subs took the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening; at the office in the morning I was on the telephone chasing down the inevitable loose threads that turned up in last night’s meetings. I had a session with Martin, the construction manager, and spent a long time on the series of calls that always had to be made when the pace of a project sped up and the installation dates came due. But all the activity couldn’t keep my thoughts from returning to Susan and to what her injuries meant for Margaret. The fence, the guard at the entrance to the compound, these were slender protection, but it was better than nothing. Still, I’d feel better if I could arrange some kind of surveillance—something that she didn’t have to know about and worry over. There were a couple of p.i.’s who were good enough to trust—people I’d worked with before. But the best protection would be a bodyguard. Though that wasn’t too likely. Before we’d hung up, I mentioned the possibility to Margaret, but she did not want one. Definitely. After all, she said, I’d told her they were after me, not anyone else; she would be careful; she felt safe in her home with its own security devices. It was me she was worried about, and she wanted me to be very careful. “We’ve just discovered each other, Dev. I don’t want to lose that.”
