Fast Friends

by Susan Dunlap

  “You got my suspect, Silvestri, up there?”

  “Not yet, sir. I interviewed the waitress at the Max Café. She liked those girls and I had a hard time getting anything out of her, even though I’ve known her for years, maybe because I’ve known—”

  “But you did get her to talk, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did she say what road they were taking.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Damn.”

  “But she admitted she made a call for them. Called a pilot in Eureka.”

  “What’d she set up with him?”

  “We’re running him down now. In the meantime, sir, I’ve put a couple of cars in concealment either side of the airport. We’ll snatch her up like a fly in a Venus flytrap.”

  “Good work, Hanks.” Bentec pulled the patrol car into a red zone by the arrivals curb and raced for the gate. He’d been cutting it close before Hanks’s call—now it was sprint time. Tomorrow or the next day L.A.P.D. would wonder about his car. By that time he’d be on another plane, flying east from Vancouver, a rich man with a new name and a new life.

  He made it to the gate as the door was closing, flashed the stewardess a sheepish grin, the kind women loved, and then his shield. He was carrying and he couldn’t afford a hassle. But, as he’d expected there was no hassle, not for the Assistant to the Commissioner. His seat was in First Class, the only way he’d travel from now on.

  When the plane was airborne, he made a point of huddling with the stewardess in the kitchen, confiding that he was on a high-profile case. Of course he could use the staff telephone, she assured him.

  He got Potelli on the first try. “I’m on an airplane, Joe, heading to Eureka. The suspect was spotted less than an hour out of there,” he said in officialese. This was an open line. “I’ve been in contact with Pete Hanks up there, but an update wouldn’t hurt.”

  “I’ll get on it, Frank.”

  “You have any contact at the airport? In security?”

  “I’ll check around. Give me ten minutes.”

  Bentec hung up and leaned back against the bulkhead. He could see those little bottles of gin and bourbon and Scotch in the kitchenette. It was way too early for a responsible public servant to be drinking and he wasn’t about to blow his good image with the stewardesses. But a bottle or two of something, straight, would have improved the whole morning.

  He waited exactly ten minutes and called Potelli back.

  “Frank?”

  “Right.”

  “Good news. Listen, the head of security up there is a guy named Dale Evans, of all things. Let me give you his number.”

  Silently Bentec repeated the phone number, hung up and dialed.

  “Evans.”

  “This is Francis Bentec, Assistant to the Commissioner, L.A.P.D.”

  “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “Listen, Evans, you read about our murder Friday night?”

  “The loft love nest? Oh yeah, we’ve been hashing it over here.”

  Bentec had been considering which way to go with Evans but now he saw the right play. “Listen, Evans, I’m taking you into my confidence here.” Evans would be dining off that alone for a month. “Here’s the scoop. The wife is headed for your facility. Driving in a new black Camaro with a lady friend. I’m flying up. I’ll be making the collar there. But I’m going to need the help of someone who knows the layout.”

  “I’m your man, sir.”

  “Good man, Evans. We’ll need back-up—”

  “I’ll call in guys on overtime. There’ll be so many uniforms you’ll think there’s valet parking. But look, it’s a manageable airport here. Trust me, sir, no one slips in here, no one slips out. And two women in a black Camaro, it’s a chip shot.”

  “Good man.”

  “Anything else I can do for you, sir?”

  With another man Bentec would have hesitated to add a layer of icing to the saccharine sweet cake. “Just make sure I’ve got your card, Evans, so after I’ve got her in custody I can thank you.”

  Bentec made his way back to his seat, leaned his head back and let his eyes shut. Everything was back under control.

  Thirty-Four

  LIZA CONCENTRATED ON DRIVING, making up the time lost with the car switch.

  Ellen would be safe. She would get her on that plane. And afterwards? She kept a smile on her face. It was the least she could do for Ellen, and for herself. She was working at capacity, driving the rickety Honda, smiling, trying to make Ellen’s last half hour here pleasant, safe. Trying to hide how panicked she was about what the hell she was going to do when Ellen was gone and she was headed north to the Richland grade alone.

  The Richland grade, it had been a beacon, warm and bright drawing her toward it, drawing her out of this maelstrom. Everything would be all right once she got to the Richland grade. Happily ever after.

  But now fairy tale time was over. The Richland grade was a real place. At least she knew where that place was from the picnic. But remembering a car picnic was one thing, finding and selling a railroad container of contraband—contraband that might be anything—that was another issue altogether. A big, scary issue. Just thinking of it made her feel four years old.

  She took a breath and ran through her “hard-times” litany. She’d been terrified going to face Pope, the jeweler. That hadn’t turned out well, but she survived. Terrified about court, but she got off with six months. Terrified about Juvie, about St. Enid’s, about living in Malibu as Mrs. Silvestri. Each time she’d managed.

  But this? How was she ever going to find the right train and even if she did, how could she get a huge container car off it? And there was the more immediate problem of money. She only had Trent’s twenty-eight dollars plus what was in her purse.

  After a mile or so she said, “Ellen, you’re the logical one. Help me with this. Whatever Bentec’s connection is, he’s sure more concerned about his shipment than about Jay’s death. He didn’t kill Harry—”

  “He didn’t? What makes you think that?”

  “Because—” Liza took a moment to let her thoughts congeal—“Bentec didn’t know about Harry. If he did, he wouldn’t be hassling me about the shipment. He’d just pick up the phone and call Harry.”

  “Harry wouldn’t tell him.”

  “Why not? If Bentec’s a partner in this—No, of course, he’s a silent partner. If you’re shipping contraband and you’re a cop, you’ve got to be the silent partner. But Ellen, that doesn’t matter, because if Bentec knew about Harry he would have called Harry and said, ‘This is Francis Bentec, Assistant to the Commissioner of the Los Angeles Police Department. If you have any questions about my identity, you can call me back at my office in the police department.’ And Harry would have cooperated, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Which means that there’s someone else involved.”

  “The receiver.”

  “You mean the person the contraband is going to?”

  “That’s the term Harry used.”

  “Then that’s the person who killed him.”

  “What?” Suddenly Ellen was perched on the edge of the seat facing her. “Liza, how do you make that leap?”

  “Well, who else? Here’s the thing: there are two people, one at either end of the contraband route. They’ve killed Jay, they’ve killed Harry. And they are going to walk into the sunset with a fortune. And no one is going to give a shit.” She was tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. “Because, Ellen, nobody’s going to report the contraband missing, because—ta da—it’s contraband.”

  Ellen braced her arm on the dash. “It won’t be contraband if we report it.”

  “Report what? A container of something, somewhere on some train going to Richland? Sent—stolen—by my dead husband.”

  “Richland? Where is that?”

  “Over the Washington line, above Portland. Jay and I went there for a picnic after the gun show.”

  “Jesus, Liza, it’s
guns, isn’t it? The shipment. What else would be shipped by a cop to a buyer who your husband met at a gun show? Liza, a container is a railway car. A railway car full of guns. That’s like a battalion of guns, bombs, weapons we can’t even imagine…No wonder—” her voice was barely audible—“no wonder the buyer killed Harry like it was…everyday business.”

  Just like he’d kill them. The corollary hung in the air between them. Liza stared straight ahead and drove rotely. There was nothing she could say to Ellen to make the situation any less awful than it was. Weapons!

  “Ellen, the railroad must have some record of that container.”

  “There’s a web page.”

  “It lists the container’s contents?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the arrival time?”

  “It’s got everything.”

  “How do I get on it?”

  “You can’t. Not unless you have the password.”

  Liza sank back. She didn’t know how she’d get access to a computer anyway. She’d have to take the human route: just go to the station and get the stationmaster to tell her. Were there pitfalls in that? This planning business was virgin territory to her. But once she dropped Ellen she’d have the length of Oregon to think about pitfalls.

  A container full of weapons…Jay and Harry murdered. How the hell did she think she was going to survive? “Radio okay?” She needed to blare it.

  “Sure.” Ellen sounded disconnected, like she was already half back in Kansas City.

  She found a Country-Western station. The twang of guitars pricked her skin and one song after another bemoaned heartbreak, abandonment and death.

  After a while Ellen asked, “Want me to drive?”

  “No. I’m fine. How far to Eureka?”

  “Quarter of an hour.”

  Liza was watching for road signs. The airport lay between Eureka and Areata on the freeway. She was hoping there was a way of looping around to avoid Eureka altogether and coming down through Areata. It was the cautious move. If she’d been alone in the car she would have trusted to wits and the camouflage of the Honda. But for Ellen, a little extra caution couldn’t hurt.

  The trees were enormous; she always found them inspiring, calming. She and Jay had done a wonderful game once where he faxed “cathedral” and she met him at L.A.X. with tickets to Eureka and reservations at a B and B in the redwoods near the ocean and they’d spent the long days and evenings with the mystical light of the sun piercing the deep dark of the fronds and the air so still the soft touch of their feet on the mossy ground seemed an intrusion. Then, she’d wondered whether if she could just stay long enough breathing in the pure scent of the redwoods, she would molt out of her facade and become real.

  But now even acres of redwoods and gallons of breaking waves were helpless to quell the sharp buzz in her head. “I need a local map. Check the glove compartment.”

  “A miracle.” Ellen pulled out a map and began to unfold it. “A limited miracle. It must have been in here when Trent bought the car. Which sector do you want?” She held up a piece of map so old the folds had torn through. “The fringe of direction.”

  “Find a way to Areata that loops around north of Eureka.”

  Ellen could be making paper dolls as happily distracted as she seemed with the shreds of map. Mentally she was already back in Kansas City, and Liza knew, she was little more than a memory to Ellen. The road curved sharply to the right, the map flew onto the floor and all Ellen said was “Whoops,” before she traced the line off the edge of one rectangle and hunted for its former neighbor.

  “I’m going to have to turn soon,” Liza insisted.

  “Not so soon. Stay on this for another mile till you come to an unbroken gray line—what’s that, a two-lane paved road?—and take a left. That will lead west to Areata.”

  The road rose leading them out of the woods momentarily. Electric guitars screamed, and then they dipped back into pines, redwood, and static. She turned the radio off. In a few minutes she’d be on the airport connector and Ellen would be gathering up her things, poised to leap out and race for her flight.

  “Ellen…” She started to say how bad she felt. But sorry was so inadequate. If she could leave Ellen with something of value…“Ellen, listen, I’ve had a lot of experience with men. More than you. Guys do stupid things. They back themselves into corners. They hide behind their pride because they don’t know how to do anything else.”

  Ellen was reaching in the back seat for something. “Yes?”

  “Well, my point is, Wes, your guy in Portland. You loved him. Why not give him one more shot? What do you have to lose?”

  “Pay attention to the road. We’re already in Areata. There’s the connector road up there. Slow down.”

  Ellen’s tone wasn’t tart, just practical. Still Liza felt the sting.

  Clouds clumped in the sky and then floated on. Felton gave a little snort and settled himself in the center of the backseat. “You’re a good travellin’ pig,” she said to him and he grunted in what she classified as agreement.

  They veered onto the four-lane connector south to Eureka. Liza slowed for the airport exit.

  On the other side of the freeway just beyond the exit, a highway patrol car perched on the shoulder. She could see the driver, hands on the wheel, eyes doubtless on the rearview mirror, ready to pounce. Like she was a terrorist hauling a load of anthrax. How many cars had the highway patrol assigned to catch a woman who’s husband had been shot?

  Maybe it was just a speed trap?

  Right! In Areata on Sunday morning.

  This was worse than she’d thought.

  Did Bentec know about the plane waiting for her? He’d told her he had connections throughout the state.

  She looked over at Ellen and a wave of guilt hit her. If she could just get Ellen on a plane out of here, back to safety, then whatever came up she’d handle one way or another.

  The airport turn lane was just ahead. She took a deep breath. “Ellen, pay attention. We can’t chance the private plane. I’m going to drop you here at the airport. Catch the first commercial flight out, to anywhere. Bentec’s too busy to worry about you. Get a puddle jumper to Ashland or Eugene, or Reno, whatever. Go right to the gates and take the first plane. Once you’re out of state you’ll be okay.”

  Ellen gave a laugh she couldn’t interpret. It sounded like Ellen was saying “What is okay?” but she couldn’t be sure and she couldn’t worry about that. She was eyeing the curb, looking for police, checking for the way back to the freeway north.

  “And you, Liza, where are you going?”

  “Richland grade.”

  “But that’s so dangerous.”

  “Nowhere else is any safer.”

  Liza looked in the rearview mirror and went stiff. After a moment she pulled to the curb. She gave Ellen’s arm a squeeze. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” Before Ellen could speak, she said, “Go!”, reached across her and opened the door.

  Next to the main entrance stood a security guard.

  Ahead, at the end of the curb, was a highway patrol car. To her left another CHP car was half hidden. They were all over.

  She wasn’t going to the Richland grade. She wasn’t going anywhere. Without a word, Ellen got out of the car. Liza slumped back and let the engine die.

  Thirty-Five

  ELLEN OPENED THE DRIVER’S door, shoved Liza over, and reached for the steering wheel. “Get in the back seat with the pig, Liza. And stay out of sight.” She was into the driver’s seat and started the car so fast it tossed Liza into the pig. The pig squealed. “Where’s the plane?”

  “In the tie-down area by the hangar, wherever that is. But—”

  “Never mind that. You’ve got two minutes to decide what to grab from this car.”

  “Ellen, don’t get yourself more involved—”

  “I’m up to my ears already. You think Bentec won’t suspect you told me about his shipment? You think the guy who shot Harry won’t worry a
bout what I know? Grab me sweats and my running shoes.”

  “Why?”

  “Do it!”

  The hangar was fifty yards ahead on the right. In the tie-down area by it there were dozens of small planes, single engine jobs, the ones she could make out. And half a dozen highway patrol and security cars.

  “Ellen! Behind you! Oh no, and on the curb. They’ve got cops all over.”

  The highway patrol car filled the rearview mirror, coming up fast.

  “Stay out of sight. You and the pig.”

  The patrol car was in the left lane. Dead next to her it slowed.

  Ellen rolled down the window and called out to the patrolman. “What’s going on up there?” She could read his face: officious. “Never mind. Do you know where the—” Oh, Jeez, what was the right term for double-engine plane? Twin!—“twin-engine tie-down is?”

  Blood was pounding in her ears; she couldn’t hear the patrolman’s reply, only read the No in his face and realized that he was pointing not at her but beyond at the security guard blocking the way. What would Liza do? In an instant Ellen was out of the car, planting herself in front of the security guard. Nodding in the direction of the highway patrol car, she said, “He said you’d know how to get to the twin-engine tie-down.”

  “Straight ahead past the hangar and the single-engine tie-down.”

  “Thanks.” She turned, so relieved she felt lightheaded.

  “Hey, wait up. You’re not from around here, are you?”

  The car was so close, the door still open. Not close enough. She turned slowly, trying to make herself smile. “I am now. Just got myself free of the city.” Couldn’t the man hear her blood slamming against her skull?

  “You got a friend with you?”

  He knew. It was too late. She had to swallow hard to force out words at all. “No. Just me.”

  The security guard pulled a paper from his jacket, read a sentence or so, looked at her, read a bit more, looked again.

  Ellen wasn’t breathing at all. Her heart beat like a Taiko drum. Her legs were numb. She couldn’t run. Portland flashed in her mind; she had taken a chance there and it ended in disaster. What made her think her luck had changed?