by Harper Lin
It’s funny, but I always feared getting old. I feared people would start underestimating me. And they do. A sweet little old lady like me, with her practical shoes and her mild manners. People drop their guard, even other senior citizens. Growing old may very well be the best thing that can happen in a CIA agent’s career.
“And it’s not like Archibald and I were the only ones he was rude to. I’m so glad you thumped him,” I said, putting a hand on his chest. I may have been a few years older than Ivan, but at his age, any man wants female attention, especially after trying to prove their prowess in a fight.
Ivan blushed. “Thank you.”
“I’m surprised George didn’t do it first. He must have been livid.”
“He almost did right then and there.”
“What a fink,” Tim said, raising his left hand to take a sip of his glass. “And now we’ve lost the best topiary expert in the state.”
And then it all fell into place.
George had mentioned he couldn’t get a loan. What he meant was he couldn’t get a loan from Gary to make his payment to the loan sharks. Getting into debt with an individual to pay off a casino wasn’t the smartest move unless the casino was run by obvious predators. The “then and there” Ivan referred to was that Archibald and George had asked for loans at the same time. He’d given money to Archibald but not George. George had said as much when he complained about how “some people get preferential treatment with that guy.”
So George had gone over to Archibald’s house to see if he could borrow some of that borrowed money for himself. When Archibald said no, George got desperate. At first he probably only wanted to threaten Archibald with the hedge clippers, but Archibald kept refusing out of desperation over his own financial straits, and then George’s temper got the better of him. The hedge clippers swung down and killed the best topiary expert in the state…
On the night of the meeting of the Topiary Society. George wasn’t in the Topiary Society—“I have better things to do than fiddle around with plants,” he’d said—and didn’t know this. He also didn’t know Tim, being secretary of that society, went over to see Archibald just before the meeting to make plans for that evening’s schedule.
George had already killed him. Tim found the body and didn’t report it because he panicked. What if the police suspected murder and the casino was discovered?
But surely he knew the county coroner was a member of the casino. An important businessman such as Tim would know all the major officials. He was involved in local politics. So he tidied up the crime scene a little. Not well enough, being an amateur in everything but topiary and real estate.
But why clean up the blood on the wall at all? Even cleaning it off left a clue that it had been there in the first place, because anyone would reasonably assume that with the gore all around the body, at least some would get on the wall. Tim didn’t clean up the blood because it was blood. He cleaned it up because of something else.
I saw George standing alone, sipping his wine not far away. I waved him over.
A glance at Tim’s reaction told me I was right. He went ghastly pale. Poor fellow. Perhaps he needed some more of this lovely wine. I glanced at Tim’s feet. He had big feet to hold up that tall, lanky body. A size thirteen at least. George’s feet, on the other hand, were about normal for a six-foot-tall man—size ten or eleven, I’d say.
George walked up. “Hello, Barbara. Planning on going to the club later?”
“Yes. Did you know that even if you cut someone’s throat, it takes a couple of minutes for them to die?”
George blanched. “What?”
“They choke on their own blood, desperately trying to get air into their lungs. They stay conscious for at least a minute, longer than you stuck around. You wiped your prints off the hedge clippers and took off in a panic. He was dying, of that you were sure, but what you didn’t realize was that he had enough life left in him to write your name in his own blood on the wall.”
George sputtered. Tim looked about to faint. Ivan stared at me like I was some crazy lady pushing a shopping cart down the middle of the highway, muttering to herself.
“Don’t worry,” I continued. “Tim showed up just afterward to plan a meeting of the Topiary Society. They have one every Wednesday night, you see. He saw the name and hosed it off so he could protect his little business. Just how much do you charge those bookies in rent, Tim?”
Tim sat down hard on one of the chairs, some of the red wine sloshing out of the glass and onto his hand. George took a step forward.
“You better watch what you say to people, you b—”
Ivan stepped between us, his chest puffed out in an attempt to make it bigger than his belly. So sweet.
“Watch how you speak to the lady, George, or I’ll teach you some manners. Now what’s going on here?”
“Nothing. She’s crazy!” George’s voice didn’t sound so tough now. It sounded on the verge of hysteria. Tim leapt up and started walking away, his long legs eating up the ground. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket.
I walked away too. I had enough circumstantial evidence to call the state police and get them both pulled in for questioning. Tim would at least be charged as an accessory for the casino. It would be hard for him to feign ignorance of what went on at his own property. With the photos I had from the ledger, I could get George investigated for murder and Tim as an accessory to that crime too. And I’d seen enough tough guys break under questioning that I knew those two idiots wouldn’t last an hour.
But their arrest could wait. If they ran, they wouldn’t get far, and any alibis they tried to make up at this point would fall flat.
I needed to stop those casino people from getting away. I had a feeling that was who Tim had called.
Poor Octavian, getting stood up like that. I decided to make some excuse that I felt emotionally overwhelmed and had to leave. He’d probably still feel somewhat jilted, but it was his fault for asking a girl out on a date to a memorial service.
Ten
The parking lot of the strip mall was about half full when I arrived. I noticed a couple of cars leaving as I drove into the lot. A quick glance showed none of the criminals were inside the vehicles. As I parked, half a dozen people came out of the Cheerville Social Club, heading for their cars and looking disappointed. I spotted someone I vaguely recognized.
“What’s the matter? Lose big?”
The man gave me a suspicious look then recognized me and shrugged.
“No, they’re closing for the day. Something about an exterminator coming.”
Oh dear. I didn’t like the wording of that excuse. I put on my reading glasses so I could see the sights on my pistol and unzipped my purse so I could draw it quickly.
Just as I got to the door, another group of gamblers came out.
“Want to come to my house and play some poker?” one asked the others.
I slipped through the crowd and through the front door before Lance, the bouncer, could shut it.
“We’re closed today, ma’am,” Lance said. Then a spark of recognition lit up his eyes. Tim had warned him about me. He reached for the inside pocket of his sports coat.
I was quicker. I drew my pistol from my purse, flicked off the safety, and leveled it at him.
“Easy there. Let’s have a little chat, shall we?” I said in my nicest little-old-lady voice while treating him to a smile. That, combined with the gun, always knocks them off-kilter.
The man stood a foot above me and must have weighed more than twice as much, all of it muscle, but my gun made a great equalizer. What was the saying in the Old West? “God made man, but Sam Colt made them equal.” Something like that.
The man stiffened and raised his hands above his head. I had already stepped a bit inside to keep out of sight of the people in the parking lot. Since I didn’t hear any gasps or shouts, I figured I was still not making a scene. Good. I liked my anonymity in this town.
I dropped my purse and reached
into the guard’s coat to retrieve his weapon, a slim little 9mm automatic. I turned off the safety and, covering him with both guns, ordered him to open the inner door and enter the casino. I came in right behind him, the outer door slamming shut behind us.
And that was when everything went wrong.
I saw the guy hidden behind the door in time not to get my head shot off. Just as he was raising his pistol, I brought up my left arm and smacked him in the wrist with my captured pistol. If I was younger, the blow would have been harder, and the man’s gun would have flown out of his grip. Instead, his arm jerked up and the bullet that was about to go in my brain planted itself in the ceiling. On instinct, I fired with my other pistol just as Lance, the bouncer, ducked away. He cried out, clutching his side and falling to the floor.
I spun, meaning to pump a bullet in the gut of the man who had tried to shoot me, but I was too slow. I was only able to turn half the way before he grabbed my wrist with his free hand and, with his gun hand, hit my other arm. Pain lanced up my arm, and that gun clattered to the floor.
I still held my own gun in my right hand. I hissed with pain as he tightened his grip. In another second, I’d drop it for sure.
So I twisted my wrist and tried to shoot him in the ribs.
He was too good for that trick. He yanked on my arm, and I only managed to hit the wall, fragments of concrete stinging us both.
He leveled his own gun at me.
There was nothing quite like the sight of a gun barrel pointed straight at you. The barrel of a 9mm wasn’t really that big, but when you were staring into its darkness, it seemed like it took up the entire world. It was like a vortex that threatened to suck you in. It was hypnotic. Most people froze when they saw it.
I didn’t.
“Law enforcement,” I said, managing to keep my voice remarkably calm, if I do say so myself.
“You? Police? Come on,” he said. A third thug came running up and bent over Lance.
“She got him through the side. I’ll grab the first aid kit. Get rid of her.”
The man ran off to the back room. I looked back at the one holding the gun on me. The bouncer at our feet groaned and writhed.
“You kill a member of law enforcement, and they will track you down,” I stated.
The man’s eyes narrowed. His gun did not waver.
“You’re too old. You move like you got training, though.”
“So do you. Ex-army?”
“I’m asking the questions. Are you ex-police?” Doubt laced his voice. I didn’t look the part. I’ve never looked the part. I’ve endured decades of superior officers doing a double take as they looked at my CV. Yes, CIA agents have CVs. You’ve never seen one, and you never will.
“I’m ex-CIA.”
The man snorted, but he still looked at me with a mixture of doubt and wariness.
For half a minute, there was silence. I glanced around the room. It looked as sad and lonely as it had the night I’d snuck in. All the TVs were off, and the roulette wheel had been taken off its base and encased in bubble wrap. The door to the back room stood open, and I saw a dolly sitting in the office. As I had suspected, Tim’s warning call had prompted them to skip town.
The third thug came back with the first aid kit.
“You haven’t smoked her yet?”
“Says she’s former CIA.”
“Yeah, right.”
“She’s got training. She’s something.”
The guy with the first aid kit got to work, staunching the wound and binding it with expert hands. I guessed he was ex-army too. He also gave the bouncer a shot of morphine for the pain.
The whole procedure took only a couple of minutes, a proper field dressing done with a skill and speed most civilian EMTs couldn’t match. Just who was I dealing with here? He stood up and studied me.
“What do we do with her?” the man with the gun on me asked. His aim hadn’t wavered. His arm looked like it was made of stone.
“Kill her!” Lance groaned.
“Shut up,” the medic said. He turned to me. “Talk.”
“I’d rather not, thank you.”
“You want to get hurt, grandma?” he said, taking a step forward.
My wrists already throbbed from the impact. I wouldn’t be able to hold a teacup steady for a couple of days at least.
“Torturing a former CIA officer will get you the electric chair, assuming my colleagues don’t decide to take matters into their own hands. Besides, I’ve faced much worse than you.”
The medic drew closer, his soulless eyes boring into mine. He nodded slowly.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think you have. But you haven’t faced the Exterminator.”
Oh dear. That was said with capital letters. I didn’t want to meet this Exterminator fellow.
The guy pointing the gun at me chuckled. “You ever see La Femme Nikita? The original French version, not the crappy American remake?”
“Are we really going to discuss French cinema at a time like this?” I asked.
“Have you?”
“Yes.”
“Remember the character of Victor?”
Oh dear. Oh deary me. That acid bathtub scene was not something easily forgotten.
A loud metallic thud came from the back room. The two thugs looked at each other, eyes wide. I guessed it wasn’t the Exterminator.
There was another thud, and the bang of a door flying open and hitting the wall.
“Police!”
The medic sprinted for the open office door, gun blazing. I dropped to my knees and punched the gunman covering me in a place I’d normally never touch. He yelped, and his pistol went off, the sound jabbing my ears.
I gave the man another punch in the same spot that doubled him over. I scooped up my discarded pistol and shot him in the face.
Yes, I went for a killing shot. He would have never surrendered.
The medic stood behind the partially dismantled roulette table taking shots at someone in the back room. The return fire was sporadic, as if the cop was cowed and unsure what to do.
I adjusted my glasses, which had slipped off my nose in the rush, and took aim at the medic.
At the last moment, he glanced over his shoulder, saw me, and ducked. My bullet couldn’t have missed him by more than an inch, but it missed him. He snapped an unaimed shot back at me that sent me diving behind a table, which I quickly upturned to make a shield.
Actually, I didn’t dive behind the table. I made a sad little trot and knelt down on creaking knees, and my back twinged terribly as I upturned the table, which was of cheap material I seriously doubted would stop anything with a greater caliber than a BB gun.
I heard the telltale snap of a magazine being changed. I popped up—okay, eased up—and took another shot, but he’d wedged himself behind the solid oak roulette table in such a way that he was hidden from me and the cop in the back room. My bullet thumped into the wood but didn’t pass through.
“Come out with your hands up!” the policeman ordered. “You’re surrounded.”
I recognized Police Chief Grimal’s voice. That did not make me feel much better. The way he had blundered into this situation didn’t give me any more confidence in his fighting ability than I had before, and I seriously doubted he had brought along any backup after who knows how long trying to cover this place up.
“Let us walk out of here, and the old lady won’t get hurt!” the medic shouted.
“Don’t listen to him,” I called. “I’m safe and armed. He’s stalling. He has backup coming.”
A bullet chewed off the edge of my table. I cringed and dared a peek just in time to see the medic pop out from behind his own to take another shot. I fired and missed. At least it made him keep his head down.
Ten years ago, I would have taken the opportunity to leap up, send another couple of shots his way to keep him down, and shift to a better position, one that would offer me more protection and a better line of sight. That wasn’t going to happen in this gunfight. A
lready, my knees were screaming with agony at having to kneel on the thin carpeting, and my leaping up and running days were over.
Then Grimal did something stupid. Maybe it was all those years of knowing he was inadequate, all those years of seeing big-city cops getting medals for bravery. Or maybe it was the pent-up guilt of having covered up this whole sordid affair for reasons I still didn’t fully understand. Or maybe he was just stupid. For whatever reason, he came bursting out of the doorway like he was the sheriff in some Western movie, gun blazing.
Except you can’t blaze when you only have a six-shot revolver you’ve already been firing. He fired once, twice, not even aiming, and then his gun made that awful click you never want to hear from someone on your own side in battle.
The medic and I popped up simultaneously.
I fired a fraction of a second before he did.
The shot hit the medic in the side, sending him flying and landing him hard on the floor, but not before he squeezed off a round that lodged in Grimal’s shoulder.
The cop staggered. To his credit, he stayed on his feet, took a few stumbling steps over to the man I had just shot, and stepped on the medic’s gun arm to immobilize it. His caution was unnecessary. The man was obviously dying.
Grimal picked up the medic’s gun. A motion near the front of the room made us both turn.
Lance, the bouncer, rose up, eyes bleary with the morphine he’d been given, trying to aim down the sights of the gun he’d picked up.
Grimal and I shot him at the same time.
As the man slumped to the floor, the corrupt police chief and I both half turned toward each other, guns still drawn.
We paused. Neither offered to put their gun away first.
“Explain yourself,” I demanded.
“I was investigating—”
“You were covering up for your brother-in-law. You turned the other way and covered up a murder so these loan sharks would forgive his debt.”
“No! I didn’t know a thing about it until he came to me for help. He’d been trying to hide his debts, applying for more and more credit cards to cover it up so my sister wouldn’t know a thing. And then Archibald Heaney got murdered, and they leaned on him to declare it a suicide. That’s when he came to me. I told him to do what he was told, let them wipe off the debt, and act like everything was okay so I could investigate. That’s why he hasn’t been coming to the casino, so he wouldn’t be in the line of fire when everything went down.”
