by Jack Du Brul
“The shot put has to be an ore sample,” Cali said as soon as Fess was out of earshot.
“No other way to explain it,” Mercer agreed. “Remember the old woman said Chester Bowie sent crates of dirt away by river, but he must have kept some ore with him. He refined it and must have put it in the safe to block the radiation.”
“But enough has leaked to affect Erasmus and Lizzie.” Cali thought for a moment. “I’m going to have to report this site to my bosses at the Department of Energy. We need to get a NEST team down here right away. We need containment.” She looked around the shelves. “God knows how hot all this junk is.”
“Might have a turf battle with the EPA,” Mercer quipped, “considering all the oil that’s leached into the ground.”
A moment later Fess returned to the shed with a gardener’s cart. The tires were flat, but it would be easier using the rusted handcart than to try and carry the safe. Mercer manhandled the safe into the cart, pausing as he heard the distant beat of a helicopter. His senses were hyperacute from the adrenaline overdose, and he became suspicious.
“Any flight paths around here?” he asked Fess.
“That chopper’s nothing. Hear ’em all the time. It’s big shots from New York going down to Atlantic City.”
The explanation seemed reasonable but Mercer remained on edge. The quicker they were on their way to Washington, the happier he’d be. He settled the safe toward the back of the cart and swung around to take the handles. It took considerable effort to get the flattened tires rolling, but once he had a little momentum it became easier. Fess didn’t seem to be in any great hurry, so Mercer ignored him and made his own way out of the salvage yard, relying on the map he’d unconsciously drawn of the facility.
“Sure you know where you’re going?” Cali asked as she paced him with her long legs.
“God, you talk too much, woman,” Mercer said with a dead-on impression of Fess’s redneck accent. Cali pantomimed smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke in his face.
They reached the gates and Mercer set down the cart’s handles. He didn’t know which vehicle Fess would give him, so he waited for the irritable scrap man. “Why don’t you go check on Harry?” he asked Cali. “I’ll load the safe once our pal Erasmus ambles along.”
She stepped onto the sagging porch and knocked on the door. A second later she was inside. Fess finally emerged from the salvage yard. He locked the gates and motioned Mercer over to a late-model Ford sedan. The tires looked bald and the right front fender was dented but otherwise the car would be fine. Fess opened the rear door and grabbed the keys from under the back bench seat.
“Thieves always look in the sun visor or under the driver’s seat. Never in the back.” He used the key to pop the trunk and stood far enough back to let Mercer know he wasn’t going to help him lift the safe into the car. Mercer braced his legs and lifted what had to be a hundred pounds of dead weight. He balanced the safe on the rear bumper then rolled it inside. He clearly heard a heavy metal ball rattle inside the safe as it crashed into the trunk.
“There,” Fess said, holding out his calloused hands. “You got your safe and car. I want my money.”
Mercer handed him the two bundles of hundred-dollar bills. “Twenty grand.”
But Fess didn’t hand over the keys. He turned and started back for his house, mumbling, “I gotta count it.”
Without realizing it Mercer balled his hands into fists as he felt his blood pressure spike. It was a struggle to keep the anger from his voice. “Mr. Fess, we’re in a bit of a hurry.”
The old man whirled. “Listen, sonny buck. I don’t know who you are or what you’re really after but I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you. So you’re just gonna have to cool your heels until Lizzie and I count the money.”
If Mercer wasn’t sure he’d give the codger a heart attack, he would have pulled the pistol still tucked behind his coat. “Fine,” he said and seethed. He was about to follow Fess into his house when he became aware of the helicopter again. It sounded much closer. Too close.
Someone flying from New York to Atlantic City would surely stick to the coast or run along the barrier islands. They wouldn’t be five miles inland. Then Mercer willed himself to relax. He’d left Poli stranded on the AC Expressway, and the rest of his team was still back at the Deco Palace. There was no way they could have tracked the three of them to Fess’s house or known about the call to Carl Dion that led them here.
Mercer looked into the darkened sky but could see nothing but a few stars. The sound of the helicopter continued to rise. It was coming fast. Despite what logic was telling him, a sense of urgency swept through him. He started sprinting after Fess when the dark chopper cleared a copse of pine trees fifty yards from the farmhouse. Mercer caught a glimpse of the open side door an instant before autofire rained down from above. The gunman first concentrated on the Rolls-Royce. The right side tires were shredded and a steady stream of rounds shot through the grille until radiator fluid poured from the car like its lifeblood.
Mercer reached Fess just as he was about to mount the steps onto his porch. He tackled the old man and together they tumbled through the front door an instant before the porch caught the second volley from the chopper. The money had come loose from its paper strapping and littered the floor.
“Sweet Jesus Christ,” Fess roared over the deafening fusillade.
Mercer ignored him and peered around a grimy window, not recalling that he’d drawn his weapon, but it was in his hand nevertheless. How? he thought. How in hell did Poli find them? It was impossible. Poli hadn’t had time to put a tap on the phone back in Mercer’s room at the Deco Palace and Mercer was certain no one had followed them from Atlantic City.
The chopper came lower, its blades mere feet from the trees. Four figures jumped from the open door and the pilot pulled up. A fifth person remained in the helo with an assault rifle in his hands.
Mercer pulled his cell phone from his jacket and flicked it to Cali. “Dial 911,” he ordered. “Tell them the men who shot up the Deco Palace are here.” He then grabbed Fess by the collar of his overalls. Lizzie was holding her hands over her ears and screaming in the living room. “Do you have any weapons?”
Mercer had to give Fess credit. He quickly gathered his wits, his eyes losing their manic glint. “Goddamn right I do. I’m an American, ain’t I?”
“And there I was thinking you were barely sentient,” Harry remarked and took a swig of whatever liquor he’d coaxed out of Lizzie.
The entire house rattled as the chopper hovered overhead. The precarious pile of dishes mounded in the kitchen sink crashed to the floor, and pictures danced and blurred on the walls. Erasmus Fess went to the back of the house and returned a moment later with a semiautomatic rifle, two shotguns, and an enormous revolver tucked between the buttons of his overalls. He handed Mercer one of the pump-action shotguns. Cali took the other.
“They’re both loaded.” He placed the box of shells he’d tucked under his arm on the coffee table and checked the extended magazine of his Ruger Mini-14, a civilian version of the weapon the army had used during the early years of the Vietnam War. “Lizzie,” he shouted. “Cut your wailing and get the ammo from the dining room.”
Mercer was back at the window. He recognized Poli leading his team as they slowly advanced on the house. They moved like seasoned professionals, never exposing themselves for more than a few seconds as they crossed the yard. When Poli reached cover behind the big flatbed tow truck, he motioned for his men to take flanking positions. He spoke into a walkie-talkie and the chopper banked away.
“Can you hear me?” the mercenary then shouted.
Mercer said nothing, watching as two of Poli’s men took positions to the left and right of the house. He could take out one of them, but the other had gone far enough around the building that Mercer could no longer see him.
“I know you can hear me, Mercer,” Poli yelled. “Tell me why you came out here and I might let you live.”
“He’s here for a safe that fell off the Hindenburg. It’s in the trunk of that Ford Taurus out there,” Fess shouted back before Mercer could stop him. “You just take it and leave us be.”
“Shut your mouth,” Mercer hissed at the junk man. Fess remained defiant.
One of Poli’s men broke cover and ran to the brown sedan. He peered into the open trunk without slowing, then found cover behind another wrecked car. “It’s in there,” he yelled across to his team leader.
A shadow flitted across the window where Mercer stood. One of Poli’s men was on the porch. The front door wouldn’t last a second under the onslaught of their automatic weapons. Mercer craned his head to see the gunman, but he must have flattened himself against the wall. Mercer looked out toward the flatbed, knowing Poli would give the signal at any second.
Mercer wasn’t going to wait. He had only one chance to catch the man on the porch by surprise. He aimed carefully and fired. The twelve-gauge bucked in his hand and he had another round chambered before he knew if he’d hit the target. The fully choked barrel prevented the steel shot from spreading more than a couple of inches at close range, so the full load ripped through the two-by-four propping up one end of the porch roof. The piece of lumber disintegrated and its partner on the other end of the porch quivered, then snapped with a sound heard over the nearby chopper. As if hinged, the entire porch roof pivoted downward. The gunman wasn’t quick enough. He’d tried to lunge off the deck but the roof smashed into him, tossing him back against the house until the section of plywood and shingles crushed his body against the stout wall.
Poli and his men opened fire, spraying the front and sides of the house with a continuous barrage. Windows vaporized and Lizzie’s cheap curtains were torn to shreds. Mercer tried to return fire, the shotgun roaring over the staccato cracks of the assault rifles, but the fire was pouring in too heavily. The high-powered bullets bored through the farmhouse’s aluminum siding, through the rotted insulation and the lath and plaster, with barely a check in their speed. Plaster dust and bullets filled the air in the living room. Everyone dropped flat as the air seemed to come alive.
Many of the lights were blown out, plunging the living room into near darkness. The couch took a long fusillade, stuffing and fabric spilling like cotton waste. A bullet found an electrical outlet in the kitchen and started a fire that quickly grew.
The sound was hellish, unworldly, a continuous din that pounded at eardrums and threatened sanity. And there was no letup. As soon as one of the gunmen drained his magazine he inserted a fresh one, seemingly without pause. Chunks of plaster were falling off the walls and the fire in the kitchen grew so Mercer could feel its heat through his clothes. A round found the television and it blew with a searing pop.
Smoke was growing thick. Pressed flat to the floor by her husband, Lizzie Fess began to cough.
Mercer caught Cali’s eye. Her face was ashen with fear, her beautiful lips parted as she tried to draw precious oxygen from the reeking air. He peered over his shoulder toward the kitchen. The entire room was engulfed in flame. He didn’t know if the Fesses cooked with natural gas, but if they did it was only a matter of time before the heat or a bullet ruptured the gas line and blew the house off its foundation.
And just as quickly as the barrage had started, the firing ceased. Mercer’s ears rang so loudly and the fire roared so powerfully that he only knew Poli had stopped firing because there were no new holes appearing in the walls. As his senses returned, he heard Poli’s chopper once again. The heavy beat of the rotors told him that the Jet Ranger was taking off.
Poli had used the cover fire so he could grab the safe and radio the helicopter for a quick evacuation. What Mercer couldn’t understand was why Poli and his men were leaving before making sure everyone in the house was dead. It was the first mistake he could see that Poli had made.
Fearing a trap, that Poli had left behind a sniper, but pushed by the urgency to get out of the burning building, Mercer crawled across the broken glass and debris littering the floor and approached one of the ruined windows. He tossed Erasmus Fess’s singed copy of TV Guide outside, and when there was no gunfire he chanced a momentary peek. He saw nothing out of the ordinary and gave the yard a longer look, peering as deeply into the shadows as he could.
Light caught his eye and he understood why Poli had retreated. He glimpsed the flashing red and blue lights of a string of police cars through the pine trees. They were racing for the salvage yard, and the lead vehicle was only seconds away.
Unable to use the front door because of the ruined porch roof, and with the back engulfed in flame, Mercer led everyone out the window, making sure that Erasmus and Lizzie went first. Harry demurred to going next, so Cali could throw a long leg over the sash and duck outside. She helped Harry onto the ground and Mercer slithered through after him. He herded them to the far side of Fess’s tow truck, and there he and Cali fell into fits of coughing as they gulped at the fresh air.
For some reason Harry and the Fesses weren’t as affected. Harry took out his pack of cigarettes, lit three, and handed one to Erasmus and one to Lizzie.
Through a wreath of tobacco smoke, Harry said, “Years of building up my immunity finally paid off.”
The New Jersey State Police cruiser slid to a stop, kicking gravel across the yard. The officer threw open the door and emerged with his pistol drawn, making sure he was protected by the bulk of his car. “Hands up where I can see them, assholes!” he shouted, hopped up on adrenaline and the thought of a promotion in his near future. “Anyone move and you’re dead.”
The five of them did as ordered, while more cars careened into the driveway.
Before the next officer could cover them, the back of the house collapsed in a shower of sparks and the flames danced ever higher. Lizzie turned to her husband and said matter-of-factly, “Ras, we’re movin’ to Florida.”
Arlington, Virginia
Mercer swirled the last of his vodka gimlet and downed the remainder in one gulp. He was on his third, contemplating his fourth. Harry slouched next to him on his favorite stool at Mercer’s home bar. Both of them were raw-eyed and exhausted, but neither was ready to call it a night.
It had taken more than eight hours, and the direct intervention of Ira Lasko as well as a shadowy figure from Homeland Security who vouched for Cali Stowe, before the New Jersey police and FBI realized they hadn’t captured public enemies numbers one through three. Lizzie and Erasmus had spent no more than an hour making their statement before being released. Ira assured Mercer that the junk man would be fully compensated for his losses.
Cali had left before Mercer and Harry, whisked away by the Homeland Security agent in a government car, while Mercer was allowed to return to the Deco Palace to retrieve his Jaguar. It was a long drive home.
Harry had shown up at his place a couple hours after Mercer had dropped him at his own apartment, Drag in reluctant tow. They’d ordered Chinese food but neither was in the mood to eat. Each was preoccupied with his separate thoughts.
“Well at least one mystery’s been cleared up,” Harry said after a healthy slug of his Jack Daniel’s.
“What?”
“The car.”
The police who’d searched the Rolls-Royce they’d stolen from the Deco Palace found that the car had been fitted with a LoJack tracking device. The man Mercer had seen Poli leave behind at the entrance of the hotel had grabbed the driver and made him reveal his personal identity number. The tracking service led Poli and his men straight to the Fesses’ salvage yard. Fortunately the car’s owner hadn’t been killed, but three people inside the hotel were dead and another eight wounded.
While Mercer knew their murders weren’t his fault, they still lay heavy on his conscience. He especially felt Serena Ballard’s death. There was no way around the fact that had he not contacted her she’d still be alive. All of those people would.
“I do have something to cheer you up,” Harry said after a long silence. He shuffled
over to his windbreaker and tossed some papers onto the bar.
“What’s this?”
“The copy of the notes from the safe Lizzie Fess gave me.”
Mercer looked at him incredulously. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier, you bastard? You’ve let me sit here thinking we’re at a dead end while you’ve had this the whole time.”
“Hey, sorry,” Harry replied. “I wanted to translate all of it first, but seeing your face hanging lower than Drag’s made me reconsider.”
Mercer read the first couple of paragraphs.
Deer and the antelope play. That damned infernal song will not leave me. Were there ever any antelopes in America? I ask you, Albert, what games did they play? What merriment the rams and ewes all enjoy? I remember once being sane and I think I should go back there. But then again how does anyone really know what is madness. And are there many who really care? I no longer do. Burned out, I fear this trip has changed me in sick and disturbing ways. I no longer recognize the reflection in the mirror. And within this safe is the key for more madness to follow. Nick of time I thought when I boarded this massive airship. I escaped all those who pursued me—the Carmines, and their minions. But I have paid a price. My eyes appear kohl darkened, like a pharaoh’s. My hair, what little I started with, has fallen out in stiff tufts and my body aches in unholy ways. Other passengers turned away when we boarded. I indeed am a wreck. To recall what I’ve endured in the past weeks and months makes me think that even before I left I was more than a little mad. But I had to find out. I was obsessed, I suppose, unable to forgo my ego’s needs to always be correct. I barely had the strength to rise each morning on the zeppelin and now I sit here trying—forcing myself to write this story.
Second tea into cup in six.
But I did it. I had to show the world that at least one of my theories was worth pursuing. And I have learned that they all were. By ships, automobiles, trains and donkeys I’ve allowed my obsession to drive me deeper into hell. I’ve been so wracked with fever I chipped a tooth shivering. At one point my fight with malaria was so bad my urine turned the color of wine. I think what my brother Nick endured in the Great War and I know I have surpassed his suffering. My journey had all the elements of a great quest, Odysseus’s odyssey. Only mine will not end in the dew-covered fields of my Ithaca in the arms of my beloved Penelope. I could not vanquish the suitors. And while I didn’t want to believe they exist I know even now they are plotting against me. I have become paranoid, but I fear I am not, in fact, paranoid enough. I lack the Hero’s cunning and I lack his strength. Guile is not in my nature.
