First Thrills

by Lee Child

  VI

  I’m not troubled by the idea that Dahlia is cooking up a double- cross. I know she won’t move against me until I deliver the finished meth—she can’t help but be jacked about the quality of my crystal and the bullion it’ll command. So the next day the transfer of the pseudo goes off without a hitch. I even pretend not to find her transmitter in the wheel well of the delivery truck. It’s easy enough to drop it down a storm drain as I drive away.

  A few hours later, I get wind of a couple of Dahlia’s trolls prowling the Flats looking for me. Guess they figured out I don’t live in the sewer, so they’re dropping green and asking for a name, a location, anything they can get on me. I take the news in stride. They’re not alone. Frank’s shark is working double-time, and word is already out on the street about the dwarf who picked up his girl at the High Tail. That hurts, to be honest. Five-four is hardly a dwarf. I leave my pre-pay cell turned off on the theory she has enough juice to arrange a track on the phone’s GPS. Even if she doesn’t, I know Frank does.

  I don’t have time to chit-chat on the phone anyway. The delivery Dahlia is expecting is a big one. The arrangements make for a busy couple of days, but that’s good. Before I know it, the truck is packed with the goods and all I have to do is get ready for the meet. It’s supposed to be a three-way exchange: me, Dahlia, and her buyer. I’m to call a number an hour beforehand with the location, enough time for Dahlia and her guy to get there but not enough time to arrange anything untoward. Even with that precaution, it’s a bad set up for me. But what Dahlia doesn’t know is I don’t care about the money. From where I sit, it’s long odds the meet will even occur.

  I stop by the High Tail a little after noon. A risk, but it’s too early for Biff, and no one else would think to look for me there. I’ve got my eye out for a particular guy, a big-eared street gnome I know from around the Flats. Good source of poop, and not too expensive. He’s sitting at the rail, a pint of piss-yellow ale in each paw. Only one listless nymph works the pole.

  “What do you hear?” I say. The I.D. of Dahlia’s buyer would be nice, but I don’t expect that. Mostly I just want a sense of the street.

  “You hear about Frank?” he says without taking his eyes off the g-string three feet from the end of his nose.

  “His conviction was formally vacated yesterday afternoon. They’re supposed to let him out today.”

  “Bet you’re glad it’s a long drive down from Little Liver.”

  “You could say that.”

  He grins and quaffs ale. “He arrived back in Newcastle this morning.” The place is only a quarter full, and even though the mopes around us all seem to be concentrating on the nipples on stage, I still feel like I got Argus eyes staring at my back. I’d hoped for one more day.

  “Thanks. What do I owe you?”

  “You live to see next week, you can buy me a steak.”

  I walk down to my garage. Another risk, but one I’ve calculated. I can see from half a block away that the padlock is on the ground. I lower my head and turn, head back the way I came. In that instant, lead hits into the wall beside me, right about where my head would be if I was of average height. I break into a run without looking to see who’s shooting. I hear more gunfire, pretty damned brazen in broad daylight, but it’s not like Felony Flats sports a neighborhood watch. As I move, I pull out my cell and thumb the power. I’m not worried about GPS now, and in any case once I make my call I won’t need the phone any more.

  I turn at the next corner and run flat out. A bullet tears through my jacket under my arm as I lift the phone and press the only speed dial number I have programmed, a number Dahlia wouldn’t be happy to know I’m calling. I zig left into the street in front of a taxi, horn blaring. I hear footsteps behind me as the phone rings in my ear.

  “I’m hot,” I huff when the call connects.

  “Where?”

  “West pickup, and make it now.”

  I drop the phone as I turn into an alley mid-block. Two hundred feet, straight shot. Dangerous, but necessary. One of my pursuers yells, “Where you think you’re going, munchkin!” The voice echoes against brick. My hands are starting to shake.

  A vehicle appears at the opposite end of the alley, a black van. The side door opens as I break out across the sidewalk, a helmeted man in black Kevlar waves me in. Another bullet cracks past my ear as I tumble inside. The driver hits the accelerator. For a split instant as the van surges off, I can see back into the alley. Two guys, no one I recognize. Their eyes bulge, though with anger or surprise I don’t know.

  Takes me a minute to get my breath, then I say, “Who got the truck?”

  “Your girlfriend did, but those were Frank’s boys on you back there.”

  I know Dahlia will stay on me. She can’t take a chance Frank’s goons won’t make me talk before they plant me, so she’s gotta plant me first. And I’d hate to disappoint so enchanting a lady.

  VII

  I decide on an upscale noodle joint on Breadcrumb Boulevard, the nice end of the strip. I’m eating a mixed stir fry as she sits down across from me. The satisfied smirk on her face tells the tale.

  “What’s doing, Dahl? You here to bring me my money?”

  “I don’t think so, Stilt,” Her expression makes me think of a rat with a chicken egg. “That’s right. I know who you are.”

  What can I say? The convicts and lowlifes I deal with are hardly an imaginative lot when it comes to street monikers.

  Her indigo eyes have gone black, but when she grins, her teeth are so white I can read the menu by them. “I have a car outside. We’re going for a ride.”

  I spear a shrimp with my fork and wave it at her. “Can I finish my dinner first?”

  “Don’t be a smart ass. And don’t try anything funny either. I got guys at the front and back. All I gotta do is . . .”

  Her voice trails off because I’m shaking my head, sad little smile on my face. Apparently Dahlia believed me when I told her I work alone.

  “Your old man’s soldiers are going to have a hard time doing your bidding from the back of a patrol car.” I reach up to my ear and pull out the ear piece receiver, show it to her. “Weapons charge at the least, since we both know they got no permits for those ice cold gats they’re packing.” I inhale a noodle. “Other charges too, once we get to digging.”

  Dahlia is looking at me like I’m a dingleberry hanging off her tampon. I guess I can’t blame her. “Who the hell are you?” she says.

  “You said you know who I am. Stilt, remember? Though I’d rather you call me Sheriff Popper.”

  She sags back in her chair. “You’re law.”

  “Royal Witness Protectorate, temporarily seconded undercover to the Crabs to help clean up the Dale Dingus fiasco. But after tonight, with your help, that’ll be done.” And not a minute too soon. Crabs were born with a rod up their ass. But considering the way Dingus burned them I guess I can understand why they’re tetchy.

  She’s quiet for a moment, then says, “So what’s in the back of my truck?”

  It’s sinking in. “A little meth, actually. Same as the first batch, cooked up in the Crab lab. I didn’t want to confuse your alchemist.” I smirk, head canted to the side. “But mostly what you got is powdered laxative cut with kosher salt. You know, for body.”

  She’s not amused.

  “Now that I got your attention, Dahl, what say you and me have us a little chat?”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  They never do. Not at first. Not until I play my hole card, which I don’t waste time doing with Dahlia. I’m tired and I want this finished.

  “You’re not pregnant.”

  That throws her. I can see the confusion in her big blues. “But the doctor said—”

  “What we told him to say, after he spilled Frank’s juice down the lab sink. Ciconi has been ours ever since he got busted trading his script pad for blow jobs. When you go in each week for those vitamin shots he’s pumping you fulla hormones and other crap
to make you bloat up. It wouldn’t fool you for too much longer, but it was enough to keep you puking in the morning and regretting your lax enforcement of no glove, no love.”

  The news has the effect I expect. The air goes out of her. Hell, it almost looks like her silicone boobs deflate along with her imperious demeanor.

  After a long moment, she says, “You never actually shivved Frank, did you?”

  “Not me. We got the Bandito that did on ice out in the forest. He’ll be available when the time comes, same as I expect you to be.”

  “You’re a bastard.”

  I can’t argue with that. It’s part of my job description. “Here are your options, Dahl. You help us, we’ll take care of you. Relocation, protection, the works. All you hafta do is roll on Frank, your dad, and your crystal buyer, help us tie them all to the Sufa-Dream boost and the meth traffic round about Newcastle. And not just them. I expect you to name names up and down the organization.” We had the shattered remains of a banditry case to clean up, after all. Plus my own broken meth sting, the one I pretended I went to Little Liver for.

  “And if I say no?”

  I shrug and signal the waiter for a to go bucket. “Your choice, Dahl.” I’m not worried. Between the kingpin, the old man, and the scheming dwarf, we both know which one offers the shot at happily ever after.

  *

  BILL CAMERON is the critically acclaimed author of the dark, gritty Portland-based mysteries Lost Dog, Chasing Smoke, and Day One. His stories have appeared in Spinetingler, Killer Year, and Portland Noir.

  STEPHEN COONTS

  Adam Solo wedged himself into the chair at the navigator’s table in the small shack behind the bridge and braced himself against the motion of the ship. Rain beat a tattoo on the roof over his head and wind moaned around the portholes. Although the seas weren’t heavy, the ship rolled, pitched, and corkscrewed viciously because she was not under way; she was riding sea anchors, being held in one place, at the mercy of the swells.

  Through the rain-smeared porthole windows Solo could see the flood and spotlights of another ship several hundred feet to port. She was also small, only two hundred forty feet long, roughly the size of the ship Solo was aboard. Carrying massive cranes fore and aft, she was festooned with flood lights that lit the deck and the water between the ships, and was also bobbing like a cork in a maelstrom.

  Through the open door to the bridge Solo occasionally heard the ringing of the telegraph as the captain signaled the engine room for power to help hold the little ship where he wanted her.

  Johnson was the captain, an overweight, overbearing slob with a sneer engraved on his face and a curse on his lips. Solo ignored the burst of mindless obscenities that reached him during lulls in the wind’s song and concentrated on the newspaper before him.

  Possible alien spaceship found in Atlantic Ocean, the headline screamed. Beneath that headline, in slightly smaller type, the subhead read, Famous Evangelist Funds Salvage.

  Solo was a trim man with short black hair, even features, and skin that appeared deeply tanned. He was below average in height, just five-and-a-half feet tall, and weighed about 140 pounds. Tonight he was dressed in jeans, work boots, and a dark green Gortex jacket. Looking at him, one would not have guessed that he was a very successful engineer, and the owner of twenty patents.

  He read the newspaper story carefully, and was relieved to see that his name wasn’t mentioned. The story told how Jim Bob Bryant, the preachin’ pride of Mud Lick, Arkansas, had raised millions to fund the salvage from the sea floor of the flying saucer discovered six months ago by a oil exploration ship taking core samples. Bryant was quoted extensively. His thesis seemed to be that the flying saucer would lead to a new spiritual renewal worldwide.

  On the editorial page Solo saw a column that denounced Bryant as a charlatan promoting a religious hoax. The writer stated that only the ignorant and gullible believed in flying saucers.

  Solo had just finished the pundit’s column when the door opened and a heavyset man wearing a suit and tie came in. He tossed a coat on the desk.

  “Reverend,” Solo said, in greeting.

  The Right Reverend Jim Bob Bryant was so nervous he couldn’t hold still. “This is it, Solo,” he said as he smacked one fist into a palm. “This saucer is the key to wealth and power beyond the wildest dreams of anyone alive.”

  “You think?”

  “Gettin’ into heaven has always been expensive, and the cost is gonna keep risin’. People who get somethin’ for free don’t value it—that’s human nature. Only value what they pay for, and I’m gonna make ’em pay a lot.”

  Bryant braced himself against the roll of the ship and glanced out the porthole at the heaving sea between the ships. “You still think you can make the computers talk to you?”

  Solo nodded. “Yes, but you’ve never told me what you want from them.”

  “Miracles, man—that’s what I want. I want to learn to do miracles.”

  “I don’t know that there are any miracles in the saucer,” Solo said mildly. “We never found any in that saucer we took apart. What we found was extremely advanced technology from another world, another time.” Solo had become Bryant’s right-hand man by convincing him that he had been a lead engineer on the top-secret examination of a saucer the government had secreted in Area 51 in Nevada.

  Bryant, a con man himself, had taken a lot of convincing. Solo had drawn diagram after diagram, explained the functioning of every system and the location of every valve, wire, nut, and bolt.

  Tonight, Bryant said, “You dig out the technology and I’ll do the miracles. Gonna turn prayer and song into money, Solo, and believe me, that’s the biggest miracle of them all.”

  Solo waggled the newspaper. “I thought you were trying to keep the recovery of the saucer a secret.”

  “The newshounds sniffed it out,” Bryant said with a shrug. “You gotta admit, after the news of this discovery, it was just a matter of time before someone sailed out here to raise the saucer. We’re here first, which is the important thing. Life is all about timing, Solo.” Bryant turned to the porthole and rubbed the moisture from the glass with his sleeve. “This alien ship may be torn all to hell, smashed into bits, but there’s a sliver of a chance that one or more of the computers is intact, or at least their memory core. If that’s the case, we’re in this with a chance.”

  Jim Bob Bryant jammed his hands in his pockets and stared out of the porthole into the night with unseeing eyes. The possibilities were awe-inspiring. Space travel experts all agreed that if man were to attempt a voyage between the stars, aging was going to have to be retarded or prevented altogether for the travelers to arrive alive. The distances were vast beyond any scale that could be grasped by the twentieth-first-century mind.

  Bryant smacked a fist into the palm of his other hand. “Yes, the people of the saucers must have possessed an anti-aging drug, and the formula might be in this saucer’s computer.” The possibility of using such a drug in religious services gave him the sweats. He could found his own church. He could . . .

  If the saucer crew were people.

  Solo had assured him they must have been, based on the design and operation of the government’s secret saucer, the one no government official had ever admitted existed.

  He glanced over his shoulder at Solo, who was flipping through the rest of the newspaper. He knew so much . . . or pretended to.

  Bryant sighed. If Solo had been lying all along, he wouldn’t really have lost anything but some credibility, and in truth, he didn’t have much of that beyond the circle of the faithful. This whole expedition was financed with donated money. All Bryant had contributed was his time and lots of hot air.

  From his pocket he pulled the photo of the saucer taken by a camera lowered over the side of the salvage ship. In the glow of the camera’s spotlight, he could make out a circular, round disk, thicker toward the middle.

  Yes.

  Bryant was staring at the photo when he heard Johnson, th
e captain, give a shout.

  Out of the porthole, Bryant saw a shape even darker than the night sea break the surface for a moment, then ease back under.

  “It’s up!” he said excitedly. With that he dashed through the door onto the bridge and charged down the ladder to the main deck.

  Adam Solo slowly pulled on a cap and stepped onto the bridge. Ignoring the captain, who was still at the helm, Solo walked to the unprotected wing of the bridge and gazed down into the heaving dark sea as the wind and rain tore at him. The wind threatened to tear his cap from his head, so he removed it. Jim Bob Bryant was at the rail on the main deck, holding on with both hands.

  Floodlights from both ships lit the area between the ships and the heavy cables that disappeared into water. From the angle of the cables, it was obvious that what they held was just beneath the surface. Snatches of the commands of the chief on deck shouted to the winch operators reached Solo. Gazing intently at the scene before him, he ignored them.

  As Solo watched, swells separated the ships slightly, tightening the cables, and something broke the surface. It was a mound, dark as the black water; swells broke over it.

  As quickly as it came into view, the shape disappeared again as the ships rolled toward each other.

  It’s real and it’s there. We are so close, he thought, then remembered the other times when he had gotten his hopes up, only to see them dashed to splinters, leaving him bitter and forlorn. Yet perhaps this time . . .

  Over the next five minutes the deck crews aboard both ships tightened their cables, inch by inch, lifting the black shape to the surface again, then higher and higher until finally it was free of the water and hung suspended between the ships. The spotlights played upon it, a black, saucer-shaped object, perfectly round and thickest in the middle, tapering gently to the edges, which were rounded, not sharp. It was huge—the diameter was about ninety feet—and it was heavy—the cables that held it were as taut as violin strings, and the ships listed toward it a noticeable amount.