by Dave Balcom
I turned back to Sammy, but he was finding it impossible to get up without any use of his right leg. I turned to head for the long black car, but I saw I was too late.
The dandy from the back seat was scrambling into the front behind the wheel. As I watched, he tore off with tires screaming, but not before I memorized the license plate.
I took another look at the two bodyguards and headed back to the hotel entrance. Finding my coffees had turned cold, I tossed them into a trash can as I walked to the desk.
“May I help you, sir?” The young woman asked as I walked up.
“Not really, but I think you should call for help for two guys who had some kind of accident out by the street.”
“What happened?”
“I really don’t know, miss. But they look to need medical attention.” She was reaching for the phone as I headed for the elevator.
Chapter 23
We were finishing breakfast when Richards called me back. I had called him right after I got to the room, reported my encounter, and told him the license number on the long black car.
“Richards here. Can you talk?”
“I’m just paying the check at breakfast and going back to our room to get ready for our meeting with Peter. I can listen.”
“Well, you’re going to have a visit from the San Diego police. The guys you roughed up are filing charges of battery against you. I’ve spoken with the investigating officer, and he seems to have his head screwed on all right but he will need to hear your version.
“The dandy you spoke to in the car is more than likely Alvin Cartwright. The car, a Lincoln – I can’t believe how lacking in auto recognition you must be – is registered to Twilight Beach Modeling Co., which is Alvin’s day job. He’s a known hood, mostly gambling issues; he’s never been convicted of anything.”
I was stepping into the elevator. “I may lose you in the elevator; is the Twilight Beach outfit a front or an escort service?”
“You’re coming in loud and clear, but no, Twilight is a legit modeling agency, according to the locals. We think Alvin’s somewhere between ‘connected’ and ‘wannabe.’”
“So, when are the local police coming to see me?”
“Our folks spoke to the lead investigator, a guy named...” I could hear him shuffling notes, “...here it is, Sawyer. Detective Lieutenant Aaron Sawyer. From all reports an old hand, but a smooth old hand. Anyway, they left it that you’d call him when you were ready.”
He gave me the number.
I called and was connected to Detective Sawyer after nearly a minute on hold. “Sawyer here.”
I introduced myself and told him I had to be at a meeting at one and I was catching a flight at seven.
“What are you doing between now and one?”
“I’m available.”
“I’m downstairs, why don’t you come down and we’ll get this out of the way. I’m sitting in the lounge... I’m the only suit in this place.”
Jan and I took the elevator. “Are you going to be charged with something?” She asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t feel guilty of anything. I didn’t use excessive force. I thought about it for a second with Sammy, but I just didn’t have that old killer instinct working.”
We made our way to the lounge and found Sawyer sitting with his back to the door, looking through the glass at the ocean. We walked around the table, and he seemed to come out of a reverie.
“Lieutenant Sawyer?” I said.
Sawyer looked from me to Jan and back again, then stood up and put his hand out, “Jim Stanton!” A smile spread across his face; “I saw the name, and wondered. The age was about right...”
I felt the world tilt and put my hand out on the back of a chair, instantly focusing on my center even as I started smiling myself, “I never knew your first name was Aaron!” I recovered quickly, “Jan, please meet Aaron Sawyer; he was a Master Chief in the Navy the last time I saw him. Chief, this is my wife, Jan.”
He bowed slightly and took her hand, “It’s my pleasure to meet you. I remember...”
I came to his rescue, “That was Sandy; she died eight years ago. Jan and I have been married for a little more than a year now.”
“Well, I’m still glad to meet you, Jan,” he said as he led her to the chair on the other side of his while he motioned me into the chair at his right. “I haven’t seen or heard of Jim since our last meeting in Quonset Point, Rhode Island when he decided to leave the service.” He looked at me, “Does she know what you did in the Navy?”
“Not much,” I said, “I haven’t had any inclination to relive most of that myself, much less bore her with it.”
“Well, from what I heard this morning, you haven’t forgotten everything we taught you, and from the look of you, you’ve kept yourself in pretty good shape.”
“I know you have a job to do, and we have an appointment to keep, do you want to get to it here, or do we need to go somewhere else?”
He looked around, “This seems okay; not too crowded. I kinda wanted to reminisce a bit, but...” He pulled a recorder out of his jacket pocket along with a notebook. He punched the Record button and laid the little machine on the table between us. He recited a spiel that introduced me, the date and time of a “voluntary” statement in the matter of a reported assault and battery on two known felons that morning. “Now, please, state your name and tell me what happened this morning.”
I told the story without any hint that I’d spoken to Richards or that I knew the name of the people or even the make of the black car. It took me more than ten minutes, and then he started asking questions:
“How did you disarm the man with the gun?”
“I didn’t at first. I was busy with the guy who called himself Sammy because I didn’t think the other guy was even behind me until I bumped into him backing away from the other guy. After I stomped on his foot and elbowed him in the belly, I turned around and found him trying to take the gun out of his jacket pocket... so I disabled his arms and then took the gun away from him.”
“You’re describing actions that sound like you’ve had formal martial arts training, is that so?”
“I received some fundamental training in t’ai chi chuan while in the Navy some forty years ago,” I said in a flat tone of voice. “I’ve been practicing my forms as part of my personal exercise routine for nearly thirty years.”
“Did you feel it necessary to injure these men as seriously as you did?”
“I actually considered inflicting another blow on the man who called himself Sammy, but decided it wasn’t necessary. As for the other man; I was fearful that he would shoot me if he got the chance...”
“Anything else you’d like to say?”
I shook my head, and he gave me a pointed look, “This is radio, Mr. Stanton, not TV.”
I smiled at his familiar turn of a phrase. “No sir, not at this time.”
“This concludes this interview,” he glanced at his watch, “at eleven-forty-seven a.m.”
“What now?” Jan asked.
“Now?” He smiled at each of us in turn, “Now nothing. I know you folks had a late breakfast, and I’m dying for lunch...” He pulled a card out of his shirt pocket, “If anything else comes up, or if you’d just like to reconnect for old time’s sake, give me a call.” He stood up, bowed at Jan and winked at me. “See ya!” and he walked away.
“That’s a handsome man,” Jan said. “He’s what, maybe five years older than you?”
“I’m not sure, but when I was eighteen, he’d been in the navy for more than eight years, so I’m guessing he’s maybe ten years older... he has to be at or beyond the mandatory retirement age in any event.”
“I’m guessing he’s well past that if he’s ten years older than you.”
Then I realized that he could have been wearing any kind of disguise whenever I saw him... “Hell, he was a spook of sorts... I won’t be surprised if his chief’s uniform was nothing but a disguise... he’s maybe a year or so
older than me. You rose in rank pretty fast doing what we were doing back then.”
She gave me a thoughtful look for maybe a minute, and then dazzled me with a bright smile and a breathless, “I can’t wait to hear your war stories, sailor.”
I shook my head, “Not much in the way of stories. I did what they asked, proved I could do it even as I realized I didn’t want to ever do it again. I quit and they let me go; it’s as simple as that.”
Chapter 24
We met Peter Sweet and his wife Janine at their apartment just outside the San Diego Submarine Base.
Peter was wearing cutoffs and a muscle shirt; Janine was just as casual, and was holding their daughter, Sylvia, as we all sat down around the table in their cramped kitchen.
Jan started the conversation, “We’re so appreciative that you could carve some time out of your Saturday for this,” she said. As we had done in our other meetings, one of us started the questioning as the other took some casual photos.
“I never even thought you’d be taking our pictures,” Janine said self-consciously. “Will those end up in the magazine too?”
“Perhaps,” Jan said confidently, “but it’s more likely that the magazine will send out its own photographer when they know what they’re going to do with the story.”
“All the same, I could kill Cindy for not giving me a heads up,” she said with a giggle in her voice.
Peter was all business. “I’m not sure we can really help you with your story, though. I mean, we’re not right close by for the prize to mean much to us at this time. Dad told me about the college fund he was starting for each of the grandkids, and that’s cool, but, you know, we have never been dependent on our parents for anything...”
And the conversation went on the same track as each of those before them, and as hard as I tried I couldn’t find any sign that the answers had been rehearsed or programmed in any fashion.
I learned that Peter was a “mustang” Lt. Commander who was the executive officer on an attack submarine stationed out of San Diego, and was thirty-four. He planned on leaving the Navy at the conclusion of his current tour at the age of thirty-eight.
“I have agreed to join the United States Nuclear Regulatory Agency as an engineer upon my retirement,” he said with a smile. “I love the work, and we’re going to have the wherewithal to live very nicely... we won’t be all that interested in my folks’ windfall.”
Janine smiled, “But it couldn’t happen to better people. I admire them so much. It’s like God took my mom and then gave me Rita. She and Ed are as much my parents as they are Pete’s.”
“When did you lose your mom?” Jan asked.
“About three years after I met Peter... He was in grad school at the University of Kansas; I was getting ready to graduate. We were married right after Pete got his doctorate. It was an exciting time, and then, bang, my mom announced she had cancer in June and died in August.”
“Aggressive,” Jan said with pity in her voice.
“It was that, but it also went undiagnosed; she hated taking the time for doctors. She had no inkling, so she just never had checkups.”
“Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“One brother; his name is Jim, too. He lives in Kansas City; works for a Pepsi distributor to pay the bills.”
“He’s a musician,” Pete chimed in. “Plays in a southern rock band all around K.C.”
“Is he married?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” she said with that giggle again. “He’s a serious case of arrested development in all areas except the libido. He’s a happy, happy bachelor.”
“Good guy, though,” Pete said. “None of that sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll behavior. Beer and girls is all; he just hasn’t met the right one.”
That earned a roll of the eyes from Janine. “How can you find out in one night?”
Pete couldn’t suppress a wicked smile, “Some guys can.”
That earned a blush from Janine who busied herself with the baby to keep us from looking at her face.
Jan started making moves towards departure, and Pete stopped me with a comment, “Maybe Dad and Mom will provide me with the extra money it takes to keep Janine in chips.”
“You gamble a bit?” I asked her.
“He’s being an idiot,” she said playfully. “It’s not me that runs out of chips; I don’t gamble on things I can’t control, like horses, cards or dice.
“I’m not opposed to a bet on the golf course or the pool table, so I’m not a prude, but I have no taste for casinos or gambling like that.”
Peter was all smiles, “I do admit that I have a penchant for all kinds of bets – my favorite game of chance is craps and as long as you pay attention to the odds, you can have fun without losing your house. I also love horses, football and Hold ‘em poker.
“I can take it or leave it, but when we’ve had extra cash to play with I’ve been known to plunge from time to time.”
Janine turned a pouty face at him, “You’re on a first-name basis with bookies here, in New Haven, Norfolk, and who knows where else.”
“I know them; I don’t support them very often.”
“Super Bowl?”
“Jeeesh, I wasn’t the only guy in America who thought Payton Manning could handle Seattle.”
“But I don’t want those kinds of phone calls any more,” she said as she picked the baby out of her seat. “I’m gong to change her.”
Peter watched her leave before saying, “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression about the calls.”
“Have some trouble paying?”
He shook his head, “No, the check was good; but I started getting calls,” and he changed his voice, ‘“guaranteeeed to turn your luck around.’ They were really persistent, and I finally had to complain to a guy I know who’s pretty connected. He had a word with someone, and the phone stopped ringing.”
“Out of curiosity, what did that shellacking cost you?”
“It was the prop bets. I took the Broncos and the points, but I took the under, and all the quarter and halftime scores were losers for me...all in all, if I got slapped around like that even once a year I’d be out of the betting game, believe me.”
We had taken a cab to Pete’s house, and he offered to deliver us back to the hotel. Our luggage was being held there, and we took their shuttle back to the airport. We got comfortably through security and found a lounge to sit in and await our flight.
“So?” Jan said as we relaxed.
“Other than the fact that Peter likes gambling action and knows some players, I can’t see any possible connection between any of these families and the bastard who’s threatening their kids.”
Jan had opened her computer and was typing up her notes from the interview. I was amazed at her ability to carry on a conversation and type during the lulls. I said so.
“I guess it’s just part of the game I’ve been playing for the past twenty years. You write with one part of your mind and interact with staff with the other part. Didn’t you do that in the newsrooms where you worked?”
I shook my head. “No, ma’am. I didn’t talk with anyone while writing, and I had the ability to completely shut out the conversations and background noise around me. I didn’t even know what I missed.”
She typed in silence then for about twenty minutes before turning the computer around so I was facing the screen. “Please add what you feel is missing, and check my work to make sure I’m on target.” She started to get up.
“And you?”
“I’m going to the ladies room. I’ll be right back.”
I watched her walk all the way to the restrooms, and disappear. As soon as she was gone, a well-dressed man of indeterminate age slid into the booth across from me. He had his badge case open for me to see as he came to a stop.
“Agent... Davis?”
“I have been tailing you since you left the hotel for the Sweets this noon. Richards told me to tell you that you’re clean. I’m going home. Ha
ve a nice flight.”
He slid back out of the booth and seemed to disappear into a planeload of people with leis around their necks all headed for baggage claim.
I had no idea what to make of that, and decided to take it at face value for the time being.
We sent the summary of our interview to Richards just before our flight was called.
Chapter 25
The alarm in the motel went off at seven Sunday morning just as the wake-up call jangled my nerves like an echo. Jan groaned in protest as I clawed my way out from under the covers and her warmth to turn off the radio and pick up and drop the receiver on the phone.
There was a glow of daylight seeping around the blinds and the light in the bathroom dragged me like a beacon, scratching and shuffling, trying to shake the cobwebs of exhaustion that seemed to be trailing behind me like a cartoon version of body odor.
The shower helped a lot, and the smell of the hotel coffee helped some more, but Jan was still dead to the world as I started the wake-up process with her.
“Jan, dear,” I cooed as I held the Styrofoam coffee cup near her nose, letting the steam work its way up and under the hair that covered her face. “Oh Jaaaannnnie,” I crooned softly. She snuffled in response, and then her hand came out of the covers to shoo me away, and nearly knocked the hot coffee all over her.
I beat a hasty retreat and changed strategies. I turned on the bedside lamp to its brightest setting, and shook her shoulder, “Jan! Daylight in the swamp, darlin’; time to get movin’.”
Her eyes fluttered and she whispered in a gravelly, sleep-filled voice, “I liked the coffee aroma, soft voice crooning better than the drill sergeant routine.”
“Yeah, and it almost got you a scalding wake-up, so this is all together better. Now move; we’re due at the FBI in less than an hour.”
“Oh,” she moaned again, “Who set this god-awful schedule?”
“Come on, we’re burning daylight,” I shook her shoulder again. “The shower is passable, and the coffee will hold you until we get better downstairs.”
