Romeo's Hammer

by James Scott Bell

  “Maybe it’s a curse. I—”

  I stopped when I spotted someone running along the beach. Running like someone trying to get in shape.

  It was Carter “C Dog” Weeks.

  “You were saying?” Artra said.

  “Maybe I should believe in miracles,” I said.

  “I do,” she said. “Keep believing.”

  AFTER SHE LEFT I started looking at Claude’s PC. I knew I’d have to take another shower after this. The desktop wallpaper was a black and white photograph that history buffs would immediately recognize—the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, with the three huge Nazi banners in the background and the tens of thousands of people on the sides. And a tiny Adolf giving his salute in the foreground.

  How sweet.

  I tried a search for the word “Brooklyn.” Three matches, but each one turned out to be a reference to the city.

  “Lindsay DeSalvo” turned up nothing.

  Then I tried “Donahue.” One hit, a reference to Phil Donahue in an email sent to Claude back in April. Was Phil Donahue still alive? I shoved that irrelevant question out of my mind.

  I took a quick look at his emails and knew it would be a Herculean challenge to go through them. I decided I’d ask Ira to help me figure out a systematic approach.

  A little after eleven, Ray Christie called me.

  “Haven’t heard from you in a few days,” he said.

  I had to withhold the whole truth from him. At least for now.

  “I’ve questioned several people,” I said. “I plan to question several more.”

  “Why is it taking so long?”

  “There are pieces missing,” I said. “I’m trying to fill them in.”

  “Are you?” A sharp-edged tone.

  “I am, Ray.”

  “How do I know that? How do I know how you’re spending your time?”

  “I’ve been keeping a log. I can—”

  “So? How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  “Let’s meet in a couple of days,” I said. “I’ll give you a full report.”

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” he said.

  “We don’t know that,” I said.

  “You’re not telling me something. What is it?”

  “There’s nothing that confirms Brooklyn is dead, Mr. Christie.”

  “Confirms? Then she might be?”

  “We both know that’s possible. But we don’t give up.”

  “I want to know what you are doing to find my daughter!”

  When I didn’t speak right away, Ray Christie said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lose it. I mean, I did, but I can’t … I haven’t slept …”

  “It’s okay. Give me two more days and let’s meet.”

  “Two days?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  There was always that miracle.

  ONCE, WHEN I was fourteen and a freshman at Yale, I was assigned to do a paper analyzing the thought of Plotinus as it related to the advance of medieval philosophy. Eager to impress, I spent a sleepless two days poring over the Enneads and, at the same time, jumping into major secondary sources like John N. Deck’s Nature, Contemplation and the One and Ralph Adams Cram’s introduction to the Historia Calamitatum of Peter Abélard. I got so much information crammed into my head during that forty-eight hours, I could not think straight or sideways. I fainted from exhaustion and was taken to the Yale-New Haven hospital.

  When I came out of what seemed like a deep, dark, visionless sleep, there was a pattern in my head, a complete picture. It was as if I had been spreading around jigsaw puzzle pieces with oven-mitted hands for two days, then went to sleep, only to wake up and discover that the puzzle was completed.

  I got a ninety-eight on the paper, and realized for the first time the power of the cells in the cellar, the subconscious mind, when given a hard job to do.

  Which is why, at a little after noon, I went on my own run. Just to clear the cobwebs and the muck, to let the cells do some work.

  I didn’t go the way of the Morrow house and the Malibu millionaires. I’d had enough of those fumes. I ran up the bluff to where the air was cleaner.

  After about five miles I was back at my place. My plan was to lie on the floor and wait for the pictures.

  I had not planned on a man in a suit with bow tie, waiting on my porch.

  HE WAS SHORT, with wire-rim glasses and the smile of a movie studio accountant. The yellow bow tie and light-brown suit were out of place here at an L.A. beach in November. They would have been more fitting at a summer regatta in Nantucket.

  He was sitting on my porch and stood when I got there.

  “Mr. Romeo?” he said.

  “That’s me.”

  “My name is Markham.” He extended his hand and I shook it. “I work for Mr. Zane Donahue.”

  “Oh really? I’d love to have a word with Mr. Donahue.”

  “And he with you. May I discuss the particulars with you?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m his personal assistant. Can we discuss this inside?”

  “What’s wrong with right here?”

  “This is more in the nature of a business meeting, Mr. Romeo.”

  I shrugged. “If you don’t mind a sweaty runner at your business meeting.”

  He smiled. “You’d be surprised at the appearance of some people at our meetings.”

  I unlocked the door and in we went.

  Then I took a moment to slide the screen closed so the good morning sea air would waft in.

  When I turned around, Markham was about ten feet away pointing a very large gun at me.

  “Whoa,” I said. “Is that a Magnum?”

  “It is exactly,” Markham said. “A .357.”

  “You fire that thing and a lot of people will come running.”

  “Get on your knees if you will, please.”

  “Come on, Markham.”

  “Please. Then I can make the call.”

  “What call?”

  “To Mr. Donahue.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll just make myself comfortable in a chair.” I placed myself on the futon.

  “We are reasonable people,” Markham said, keeping the gun on me. With his other hand he took out a phone and thumbed it.

  “All set,” Markham said after a moment. Then put the phone away. “He’ll be here in just a sec.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Donahue, of course. Just remain calm.”

  “I’m calm as a napping Buddhist,” I said.

  “I was told to be concerned that you might want to try something. You are apparently a man of action. This show of force was only to make sure the situation didn’t get needlessly out of hand.”

  “Can I offer you anything?” I said. “A Coke? Beer? Valium?”

  “I’m good,” Markham said. “And you will be soon.”

  That’s when Zane Donahue came to the screen door and let himself in.

  “Hello, Mike,” he said.

  My mind started churning up visions of taking both these guys out.

  “What brings you to my humble abode?” I said.

  “I think you know,” he said. “Because if you don’t, you’re not as intelligent as I thought you were.”

  “Sure I know. You set me up. You’re going to finish the job.”

  Zane Donahue shook his head. “I had to make sure you wouldn’t fly off the old handle. Can I have your assurance you’ll listen to me?”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean really,” Donahue said.

  “I mean sure,” I said.

  “Good enough. Put the iron away.”

  Markham put his Magnum in what I presumed was a rear holster under his coat.

  “Now,” Zane Donahue said, “I have a feeling you may not trust me.”

  “Your feeling is correct.”

  “I came here to tell you I wasn’t the one who gave you up,” he said.

  “And why should I believe that?”

  “Because I
’m talking to you, straight up, man to man.”

  “Used car salesmen talk the same way,” I said.

  “I used to sell used cars,” Markham said, frowning.

  “I was not the one who told them at Peniel you were coming,” said Donahue. “It was Robin.”

  “So you say,” I said.

  “Yes, well, what can I say? Robin is no longer with us.”

  The way he spoke made it all sound credible. But I still wasn’t buying the whole thing. Not yet. I would need more proof.

  Then Zane Donahue gave it to me.

  “BEFORE ROBIN LEFT my employ,” Donahue said, “he gave me some information.”

  “Gave you?”

  “Or rather was incentivized to provide it. How I do business is not the issue at hand. What is the issue is that I can give you the answer to your little problem. How you choose to use that information will be your affair.”

  “Why are you being so generous?” I said.

  “It’s a goodwill offer,” he said. “I owe you something for what you went through because of Robin. The principal is responsible for the agent.”

  “Somehow I don’t think goodwill is entirely what this is about.”

  “It’s ninety percent of it,” Donahue said. “You still have five hundred dollars of my money and, in a moment, an astounding piece of information.”

  “About that,” I said. “There’s been a little glitch with the five hundred.”

  “Glitch?”

  “Stolen.”

  Donahue started laughing. “Oh man, you have had a rough time of it. Of course, that’s not my fault, is it?”

  “I guess not.”

  “You still owe me five hundred dollars of service.”

  “Maybe I’ll just pay you back.”

  “No, you won’t,” Donahue said. “I won’t take it. You’re in my debt. I like it that way. And you will be further in my debt when you hear what I have to say. You will recognize the value of this information, and I’m counting on you to do the right thing to recompense me at some point in the future. Are we agreed?”

  “I’ll have to hear this information first,” I said “Then I can decide if it’s valuable or not.”

  “You will be blown away,” Zane Donahue said.

  “Not many things blow me away.”

  “Just listen.”

  I did.

  And was blown away.

  THE ANCIENT ROMANS, when they were strutting their stuff across the Western world, came to believe that chance events were really under the control of some form of deity. So they worshipped Fate, or Fortune, as a god. This god was fickle, and needed sacrifices to be appeased and prompted to bestow favor.

  Machiavelli, on the other hand, didn’t believe in Fate. There was no deity controlling the dice. We live in a world of chaos, and the only thing we can do is exercise our will over events.

  Which is what I was about to do.

  It was night and I was crouching in the brush at the top of Topanga, a spot with a breathtaking view of the west San Fernando Valley. The lights of that burg twinkled in their nighttime way. Christmas was coming. And so was a bomb.

  Fifty feet below me, and slightly to the east, was a pad carved out of the hillside, upon which sat five heavy machines and the foundations of a new housing tract. I could see it all clearly. Ira’s military-grade night-vision goggles, which he last wore in Syria nearly twenty years ago, did their work.

  Zane Donahue had found out who the mad bomber was and when his next strike would come.

  Tonight.

  And also that Kalolo the bartender worked for him.

  Doing what, I’d have to find out for myself.

  The bomber’s name was supposedly Jeffery and he was someone very few people knew that much about.

  I was going to find out as much as I could.

  If Donahue’s intel was accurate.

  And if it was, I would have a whole new respect for Zane Donahue, the way one respects an alligator. He said there would be two of them, Jeffery and a confederate. I was not to harm the confederate, because he was the one who had supplied the information to Donahue.

  I was not to inquire as to how Donahue got the confederate to turn, but I assumed money had changed hands. And maybe a threat.

  I was dressed ninja style, in black sweats. The top was a windbreaker. A good thing, as the chill winds from the ocean blew by me and down into the valley.

  It was right about two in the morning, just when Zane Donahue said it would happen, that the two men scurried onto the pad. The one who was not Jeffery was as Donahue described. Short and stocky. He held the flashlight.

  Jeffery looked athletic. The way he ran, the way he was carrying something like a football. The device, I presumed. To blow up the heavy machinery and send another of his messages.

  I started making my way down the hill.

  THIRTY SECONDS LATER I was on the pad myself, hidden in shadow.

  The two men were in the middle of a foundational pour, with the construction equipment surrounding it. Jeffery squatted over something, while the other stood and watched. Like they were about to start a campfire.

  Or set a bomb.

  I pounced.

  With one hand I pushed the squatting bomber to his back and gave him a kick in the ribs, administering enough pain to incapacitate him for a moment.

  Then I turned to the confederate, who looked scared, even though he knew I wasn’t going to hurt him. I made a fake lunge at him and he dropped the flashlight and ran off.

  Leaving me with the groaning Jeffery.

  I took off my goggles and picked up the flashlight. Then I knelt and pulled Jeffery to a sitting position. Put him in my favorite hammerlock, a variation I’d learned from my first teacher. By crooking his arm and placing the side of my hand on his elbow, I had complete control over him with just the slightest pressure of my left hand. I could dole out the pain as I saw fit.

  With my free hand I shined the flashlight in his face. He closed his eyes at the light. I got this odd sense that I knew this guy, but the equal sense that I didn’t.

  “Hello, Jeffery.”

  “Who the—”

  “We’re going to talk,” I said. “But you’re going to disarm your device first.”

  He winced into the light. “Who are you?”

  “The archangel Michael. I command you to defuse the bomb.”

  Jeffery had a momentary face freeze. He didn’t like being hosed. These types never do. The good ones recover in a few seconds. Jeffery was a good one. “Not going to,” he said.

  “Then we’ll go up together,” I said.

  “Yeah, we will.”

  Keeping the hammerlock on him, I shifted to a sitting position.

  “I’m not joking, man,” Jeffery said. “I’m ready to die.”

  “For the great cause?” I said.

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re going spread your guts on this hill because of carbon emissions?”

  “You don’t know anything,” he said.

  “Well, at least blood and intestines are biodegradable.”

  He blinked a couple of times.

  I said, “You don’t really believe that archangel Michael jive, do you?”

  Silence.

  “Ready to die?” I said.

  He tried to look defiant.

  I said, “Death is the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.”

  He looked away from the light.

  “Hamlet,” I said. “He asks, who would grunt and sweat under a weary life if it weren’t for fear of what happens after death? You said you’re ready to die, so you must not be worried about it.”

  “Yeah, I said it.”

  “I’m good with that. I’m the same way. What are the options? We could simply lose consciousness. Cease to exist. Or we could come back in some kind of karmic way. If that’s true, I’m pretty sure you’re going to be a cockroach. You’ve killed people.”

  “Some people deserve to
die,” he said.

  “And you get to make that call? Let’s see how that works out in the afterlife. There could be a hell. Pretty strong tradition for that. Eternal punishment. I’m pretty sure, according to that plan, you’re going to be turning on a spit.”

  “Shut up.”

  I pressurized his arm. He howled.

  “I’m kind of interested to see what happens,” I said. “Maybe I can communicate through a Ouija board to some high school freshman.”

  “You’re really going to die, man.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  “This thing is going to go off,” he said.

  “Let’s talk about the existence of the cosmos itself. Do you think it came from nothing? Or—”

  “I’m telling you! It is going to go!”

  “Like the big bang,” I said. “Do you think there was a cause for the big bang?”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Let’s talk about that,” I said. “There are those who believe crazy is only a term placed upon what is behaviorally inevitable. What’s your view of determinists?”

  I could feel his body starting to shake.

  “You know,” I said. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to die yet.”

  “Yeah, see?”

  “So I’ll render you unconscious and leave you with your little device. I’ll go and do some research on biological necessity and the nature of existence.”

  He opened his mouth.

  “Good night, Jeffery.” I wrapped my right arm around his neck and began to squeeze.

  HE TAPPED OUT a few seconds later.

  I let go the pressure and let him cough in some air.

  “You wanted to say something?” I said.

  “Okay,” he said. “Just don’t kill me.”

  “I don’t want to kill you, Jeffery. Far from it.”

  “Then what’s all this?”

  “Defuse the device,” I said.

  I let him go so he could crawl over to his bomb. I shined the flashlight on it to make things easier. The only sure way to deactivate an explosive device is to have the guy who made it do it. You don’t get many chances like that in life. I did, and it worked.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Take it apart,” I said.

  “It’s off.”

  “Jeffery, take it apart or we go back to limiting your air.”

  When he cursed, I knew he hadn’t disarmed the thing. So I watched patiently as he broke it down into its components.