Hard Return

by J. Carson Black

  “What kind of shoe is that?” The FBI agent pointed to his orthopedic boot.

  Landry put on his clueless look. “It’s orthopedic. I have a tear in my Achilles tendon and it hurt like hell ’til I got this.”

  “Yeah, I know. My wife just had surgery, and hers doesn’t fit too well. How does it feel?”

  “Good. No complaints. Only thing I worry about is the buckles are plastic, but so far so good.”

  “What brand is it?”

  Landry rummaged through his brain. Aware that another FBI agent had detached from a group and was walking their way. What started out friendly could go south in an instant, but Landry knew the kind of boot he wore. “It’s an Össur Air Equalizer.”

  The agent gave him a curt nod. “Thanks.”

  Landry limped on down the hallway.

  The FBI agent called out, “Leave your name at the desk if you haven’t already. Everyone has to check in.”

  “Will do.”

  He turned the corner and walked through the crowd, finally working his way outside. Half-expecting the van to be gone, or for a dozen cops and agents to be crawling all over it.

  But the van was untouched, one in a crowd of vehicles. Sweet relief.

  The cars in the lot all had green stickers in their windshields—parking permits for the employees. He looked around and saw no one on his side of the lot. Used his lock picks to open one of the cars and took the permit and hung it on the rearview mirror of his van.

  He threw his gear inside. Cracked the windows on both sides, but not enough so they were noticeable. Propped the sunshade up, making sure the permit showed in the windshield. Crawled back into the body of the van and stretched out. He inserted the memory sticks into his laptop and ran through them, replaying his exit from the auto shop parking lot. The feed was fuzzy and indistinct. A portion of his van turned onto the main drag—all he could see of the driver was a shadow overlaid by a reflection of street.

  He replayed it several times. The car behind had come up on him quickly, blocking his muddy license plate. Nothing to see here. It was a moot point, since he had possession of the memory sticks.

  He went backward from there, replaying the shooting scene. But it was fuzzy and indistinct, just shapes fleeing and no sign of the shooter himself.

  He shut down the laptop, pulled the cap low over his eyes, and lay down. He’d wait until the end of the day when everyone drove out at once.

  Someone with the police or FBI might figure it out. They might stop each car as they drove out, but he doubted it. Even if they did, they would probably just ask his name and he would give them one of the names he’d seen on the nameplates in the office. Jim Overton. Or Larry Schweikert.

  He doubted it would come to that.

  Most likely the police—if they were in the parking lot at all—would wave them all through, his van along with all the other cars and trucks.

  This was known in the profession as protective coloration.

  It was all over cable and the Internet. Barbara had the TV on in the tack room and when she heard about the shooting, her first thought was Joe Till.

  Crazy.

  But she had a feeling. There had always been a streak of voodoo in her family—mostly in the form of a well-developed sixth sense. She had friends in Lake View Terrace, which was right next to Torrent Valley. She stayed with them when she went to Santa Anita. Barbara did the math in her head: he could make it to Lake View Terrace and back in that time.

  She didn’t know why she thought that this was where Joe had gone.

  No idea why.

  But the feeling solidified as the hours went by and he didn’t return by the usual time.

  They didn’t show his likeness on television, so there was no way she could tell it was him. But by then, she knew he would not be coming back.

  CHAPTER 5

  Landry left the van—wiped down and stripped of everything important—in the long-term parking lot at LAX, and caught an evening flight to Vegas. Before that, he had disassembled the H&K .308 sniper rifle he’d named Betsy and shipped her to a PO box in Vegas he kept under another name.

  Betsy was the third in a line of Betsys. His father waged war in Korea with his Betsy, and his grandfather waged war in World War II with his. Landry didn’t see any reason to change names. He had many years with her. He knew her as well as he knew himself, and he refused to spend time and energy zeroing a new rifle that might not be anywhere near as good. This was nonnegotiable: Betsy went where he went. And right now, he was going to find sanctuary.

  A wise E-7 in Iraq once told him: “If you want to get lost, get lost in a crowd.” And plain sight was the last place anybody looked.

  There was no more anonymous place than Vegas. Just try to stand out.

  On the way to LAX he’d stopped at a CVS and bought a zippered toiletry case, a Los Angeles T-shirt with an image of a sun sporting dark glasses, a ball cap, a nylon carry-on duffle, spray-on tan, black hair color, some dark shades, a bestselling thriller novel he planned to read on the plane, and a small bag of cotton balls. Next door was a filling station. In the men’s room he dyed his hair, sprayed on the tan, and changed into the loose-hanging shirt. He stuffed his gums with cotton balls on each side to make his cheeks look fatter. It wasn’t much of a difference, physically, but it would change the way people saw him—if they saw him at all. And the way people watching the cameras would see him. He looked like just another dull tourist heading for Vegas. He carried his laptop on the plane but didn’t crack it.

  The flight was uneventful.

  At McCarran International Airport, Landry rented a midsized sedan under the name Jake Sylvan. The car was silver and nondescript—a typical tourist rental. Not too flashy, not too plain. Comfortable, but not too expensive. He stopped at Costco and bought more tourist clothes: another couple of cheap T-shirts, a ball cap, basketball shorts, two packs of underwear, and a soft-sided suitcase. One garment actually appealed to him: a Hawaiian shirt with a tarpon print, ultramarine and pale gray.

  From there he went to Java Wars, an Internet café he liked on Sahara Avenue. From his laptop computer he accessed the Wells Fargo bank account already set up under Jake Sylvan’s name and transferred more money to the account. He drove to the Strip and picked out one of the big hotel-casinos, Xanadu, for his stay.

  It was going on nine thirty at night. Las Vegas was just getting started. He didn’t get a room right away. The cotton balls tucked into his mouth would help fool the facial recognition cameras. (They weren’t as good as advertised, but why take a chance?) Landry melted into the crowd and played the slots, watching the check-in counter and hoping for a rush. He sat on a stool and pulled the one-armed bandit, the clanging bells filling his ears. Cigarette smoke made his eyes smart. He didn’t approve of places that let people smoke, but this was Las Vegas and smoking was ubiquitous. It went with the buckets of quarters and the buses full of elderly women in pantsuits and old men with cigarette packs in the breast pockets of their knit shirts, with the constant harmonic ringing in his ears and the clank and spill of quarters into the coin trays when someone hit the jackpot. He’d have to spend a lot more time here to succumb to secondhand smoke, so it was just an annoyance. Once he got a nonsmoking room he would change clothes, and that would take care of the problem. A former Navy SEAL, he knew there were several levels of bad beyond annoyance. Unbearable, for instance. His comfort meter had made it to the red line many times when he was in Iraq. So breathing secondhand smoke and the constant din of the slots was really nothing, when you looked at it as part of a continuum.

  He played the slots for a while, melting into the crowd. Xanadu wasn’t that old, but already it was showing what age it had. The smell of cigarette smoke had embedded into the carpet and the walls, and there was a dankness underneath that he’d noticed in casinos—a night-worn smell. He had been raised Catholic but it didn’t take
. He’d had enough inculcation to remember those formative years, and he thought the casino smelled like sin—if sin had a smell. Venial sin, for sure. It was a minor, sad stink.

  Landry had chosen Xanadu because it appealed to an older crowd. In the last few years, Las Vegas had been turned into a playground for twentysomethings. Landry wanted a place where he could fit in. College kids seemed to give Xanadu a wide berth, leaving it to the jaded gamblers and senior citizens.

  Still, Xanadu went big. It had been built during the days Las Vegas tried to attract families instead of reprobates. One wall was all waterfall, with fake rock, colored lights, what looked like real moss, and lifelike caged tigers and real actors—natives with spears. It smelled fishy, though, and the men in the loincloths looked like they didn’t know what to do with their spears. The woman on the trapeze was a marvel of female construction, but all she did was swing back and forth in her leopard swimsuit.

  Landry knew he fit in. The trick was in the eyes. He always focused on the slot machine—never wavering. He wore the wire-rimmed glasses. In addition, he’d attached a fake ponytail he liked to carry with him, which along with the Hawaiian shirt and the wire-rims made him look like a hippie professor on a junket.

  There were cameras everywhere. But the best protective coloring here was the sheer number of people packed like sardines into the hotel-casino.

  He saw a crowd of tourists coming in. It looked like they had been on a bus all day. He fell into line with them.

  That was when he spotted the call girl.

  She was good looking for a prostitute. She was also older than a lot of the prostitutes around here, possibly late twenties. Leggy. Sure of herself.

  He liked that. Everyone had something they could do well, and she gave off the vibe that she was quite likely a spectacular prostitute.

  Yes, she dressed like a hooker, but she was a stylish hooker. To be fair, his daughter Kristal didn’t dress all that differently.

  For a moment, the slide show came up: Kristal frantically trying to squeeze under her cute little car, Luke shielding her with his body.

  That kid, Luke—he was a warrior. The one and only time in his life, probably, but he’d died brave.

  The prostitute smiled at him. The image of Kristal spattered with her boyfriend’s blood dissolved. He had things to do.

  He smiled. “You busy?” he asked.

  “Honey, I’m always busy.”

  “Does that mean you’re too busy for me?”

  “No way, hon. I love big strong men.”

  Her delivery was perfect. Believable. He almost found himself believing it, she was that good.

  It was important to him that she was a pro. He motioned her over to stand by him. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  She came up to the line and stood with him. He asked her if she had kids and she said two. He told her he had a daughter. He asked her if she liked the life and she said it paid the bills. That was pretty much the extent of the conversation. She shifted from one high-heeled foot to another and her eyes roved the crowd, already picking out the next john. When he checked in, he made sure to look embarrassed. Tried for the family dog who pissed on the carpet and didn’t think it was such a big infraction, but felt he should at least look chastened. He had a dog like that once when he was a kid. Frodo wasn’t supposed to be on the furniture, but many times, when Landry got up in the night, he heard a thump and a jingle. The dog jumping off the couch, even though no one could see him in the dark.

  Frodo always gave away the farm.

  So in this story, Landry was the dog. He felt guilty, but he was going to do it anyway.

  No embarrassment on her part, though. He could hear her snap her gum. He thought she was putting on a show, but why call her on it?

  The young man at the desk was trying not to be harried. It was very busy. This suited Landry, and the prostitute, who went by the name Laurella (had to be a made-up name), who hung on his arm and kept brushing his chest with her long hair.

  It was funny. Both of them had hair extensions.

  The room was over-the-top—Landry counted three phones, two fountains, a writing table, a suite of high-backed brocade chairs, and tapestries fit for the queen of England—everything done in burgundy and gold. The king-sized bed had the crispest, whitest sheets he’d ever seen, with rich-looking coverlets and bolsters as big around as punching bags. One of the fountains was an element of feng shui in the room—a waterfall over polished stones spilling over a narrow lip into another pool filled with lily pads. The bathroom fixtures were all gold plated—at least they looked that way. A rich mahogany cabinet held a wide-screen TV. The carpet was the color of tree bark with a repeating crown design. If he looked at it for too long, his vision blurred. The air-conditioning was turned up high but the room still smelled a bit stale, despite the grandeur.

  The hooker was standing there, like a stork, trying to pull the strap on one of her shoes.

  “That’s okay,” he said.

  “Oh, you want me to wear them. I getcha.”

  “Go ahead and leave your clothes on.”

  She looked confused.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “Two hundred.”

  He reached into his wallet and pulled out two hundreds and a fifty.

  She watched as the money crossed her palm. “Hey . . .” She drifted off. She didn’t want to spoil anything.

  “Do you know how the term ‘tip’ originated?”

  She just stared at him. He believed her expression would be described as “bemused.”

  “It means, ‘to insure promptness.’”

  “Oh. That’s nice.” She sat down on the bed and started picking at the strap of her shoe again. He noticed that she made herself look as sexy as possible. Shoving her butt backward and her chest forward, reaching down languorously to work the buckle, flipping her hair a little as she did so.

  She sensed him staring at her.

  “Prompt is the way we’re going to go,” he said.

  She must have realized it was a different stare than she was used to. She stiffened, like a deer suddenly smelling something dangerous. “What?”

  “You can go.”

  She stared at him. Her mouth slightly open. “What? Look, I can do all sorts of stuff that’ll make you go insane, I guarantee you’ll love—”

  “That’s okay. I’m not feeling amorous right now. Since I got you up here and took you out of commission, it’s only fair I pay you.”

  She stared at the money still grasped in one hand. “Two hundred and fifty dollars,” she said. “Don’t you at least want a blowjob?”

  He shrugged. Smiled. “Not in the mood, sorry.”

  “Look, why don’t you just lay down on the bed and we’ll see what happens.”

  “Lie down on the bed.”

  “Okay, now we’re cookin’.”

  “No, I mean it’s lie down on the bed, not lay down on the bed.”

  “Huh?”

  He didn’t feel like explaining it to her. He wanted to be alone. “Is there a back way out of here?”

  “Sure. There are stairs that way.” She motioned to the wall opposite the way they had come.

  “Tell you what. You take the money and go out the back way, okay?”

  She just stared at him. Finally, she said, “You don’t want to? Really?”

  “My wife just died. I’m not in the mood.”

  “But—”

  “I thought I was, but I can’t do it yet. You understand?”

  “Oh, you poor thing.” She shuttled the money to her purse, but her expression, at least, was sad. She hesitated. “You sure?”

  “I’m here with some friends. Friends of my dead wife. I wouldn’t want them to see you. So if you could go down the other way and not mention this . . .”

  “I gotcha.”
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br />   “Thanks.”

  She practically ran to the door and slipped out.

  If anyone bothered to look, the cameras would show a tourist soliciting a hooker. The cameras would show the hooker going up to his room.

  He’d kept her here long enough for a quickie.

  He sat down on the bed for a moment, feeling every bit of his forty-eight years.

  Then he turned on the television.

  Landry switched among the “news” channels. All of them had a different slant, but they all vamped like vaudeville performers, because even now, eight hours after the shooting, they had nothing real to go on.

  He decided to switch between MSNBC and Fox News, because CNN was beginning to sound like Henny Penny covering the falling sky.

  The remaining two cable channels’ nonstop coverage featured repetitive footage of the high school grounds and people milling in the auditorium where the lucky parents met with their kids, and an interview with a school security guard who had “engaged” the shooter.

  Landry thought he saw Cindi and Kristal in the background, but he couldn’t be sure. Every time that segment came on he strained his eyes, and every time it was too fast and too dark and too hard to tell if it really was them.

  A reporter interviewed the new hero, a security guard named Brendan Hillhouse. He told the reporters he heard shots and ran outside. His eyes were bright with excitement, and he spoke in little bursts. The reporter shoved a mic in his face and asked him if he had “taken down” the shooter.

  “I think so,” he said between huffing breaths. “You don’t really know what you’re capable of until something like this happens.”

  Maybe he believed it. Even though he had come from the auditorium exit, the shooter facing him, and he was out of range. He must be the best shot on the planet if he could get a bullet to ring around the shooter and hit the back of his head. But the cable channels were getting no new information, so for a while Brendan Hillhouse was a hero.

  No name on the shooter.

  No mention of the single subsonic round that killed him.