The Deader the Better

by G. M. Ford

  Kurtis said.

  “What item can be found screwed to the ceiling in every public space in the civilized world?”

  Kurtis and I engaged in a spirited round of synchronized shrugging.

  “A smoke detector,” Carl said derisively. “Gotta have ’em. It’s the law.” He held up a chrome tube. “Japanese,” he said.

  “Use ’em to check up on their employees. Transmits up to four miles, variable remote focus.” He pulled two wires from the end. “Low voltage. Same as the smoke detector. Made to fit right into all the standard models.” He jiggled the wires.

  “You just twist white to white and black to black, aim the thing wherever the hell you want it…got holes all around to let the smoke in…snap the cover back on and you’re on your way. Two minutes tops. Thing runs forever.”

  He turned to me. “No way Kurtis goes back in. Whatever we use is probably gone forever. Fortunately for you, this is all shit we got while doing inspections. We find good shit, we keep it and give the client something not so good. If it’s traceable, it’s not to us.”

  “How can I be sure they’re pointing where we want them?”

  Kurtis asked.

  “I’ve got an earpiece radio for you. You hook ’em up, turn’em on and Robby and I will help you with the final adjustments.”

  “I’m looking for in and out twenty minutes tops.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” Carl said. “When you want to go in?”

  “Eight or so,” Kurtis said. “As long as it’s dark. It’s a lot easier to explain what you’re doing around someplace at eight-thirty than it is at four A.M.”

  Robby came out of the RV carrying a handheld radio and a black electronic device about the size of a ghetto blaster. He was talking into the radio. “Keep turning it that way…more…more…stop. Right there.” As he spoke, a series of red lights flickered across the face of the gizmo. “Okay, next one needs to go to the left…yeah, toward the ocean…more…more…”

  “They’re overlapping the fields,” Carl said. “Ya get ’em up high so ya don’ have rabbits setting the damn things off.”

  Twenty minutes later, we had an electronic perimeter set up. For a final test, Floyd started at one end and walked the length of the cut. As he moved through the trees, the red lights began to glow in series. Robby fiddled with a knob. The next light was accompanied by a loud chirp, and then the next. Robby chuckled. “Ya gotta like it,” he said. Robby pushed the button and spoke into the radio. “That’s it. We’re done.”

  Robby and Kurtis disappeared inside the motor home. They came back out wearing white coveralls with Pacific Power logos on the chest. White sky, green trees and blue water. Underneath, WORKING TOGETHER FOR WASHINGTON. Each man carried a yellow hard hat under one arm.

  “Ready when you are,” Robby said to Carl.

  “You got your phone?” I asked Kurtis. He nodded. Carl spoke to Robby. “Careful with the juice, huh? Power company don’t exactly send its stars out to bumfuck like this. Everything may not be where it belongs.”

  “I won’t run with scissors, either,” Robby assured him. Carl and I watched in silence as they walked over to the cherry picker. Robby walked around to the back, opened one of the storage compartments and pulled out a pair of magnetic signs. Pacific Power. Same logo. Same slogan. Stuck them on the doors, stepped back to check the alignment. Made an adjustment. Got in and left.

  “Feels good to be fucking with folks again,” Carl said. I turned to Floyd, who sat on the lawn, leaning back against the barbecue grill, catching some early afternoon sunshine. “You might as well come with me,” I said. “Way things are going, if I leave you here, I’ll be battered and bitten by an old lady and her dog.”

  26

  IF YOU’LL PERMIT ME THE PHRASE, MONTY’S EYES WERE as big as saucers as he looked around the inside of the motor home. A dozen small TV monitors, each with its own audio and video recorder, completely covered one inside wall. The collection of equipment, dials, lights, knobs and handles made an airline cockpit look user-friendly. From the outside it appeared that the lovely flowered curtains were closed, which in the strictest sense was true. What you couldn’t tell from the outside was that the curtains had been stiffened with epoxy resin and were permanently screwed in place and that the interior had been gutted and turned into a mobile electronic surveillance command post. Like every other vehicle Carl owned, the RV was fitted with a hydraulic lift for his chair and had been completely retrofitted so it could be operated from the chair using hand controls.

  “A little of their own medicine,” Monty enthused. The sight of Carl in his wheelchair rolling around inside the RV seemed to confirm his worst fears. “Almost got you, huh? Like they did Leo,” he said.

  “They’ll stop at nothing,” Carl told him. He turned to me. A flick of his eyes told me he wanted me to get rid of Monty, who for the past half hour had shown no inclination to leave. Floyd was down at the far end of the bank of monitors, wearing a set of headphones, tuned into regular TV, watching a cooking show.

  I put my hand on Monty’s bony shoulder. “Come on,” I said. “Time to let these guys do what they’ve been trained to do.”

  He didn’t like it. He’d waited a long time for the counterattack and wanted to be among the first rank. “Deniability is crucial,” I insisted. “What you don’t know, you can’t give up under the truth drugs.”

  “Oh yeah,” he said tentatively.

  I began to steer him toward the door. “They’ll pump you so full of truth drugs you’ll think you’re Roseanne Arnold. You won’t be able to help yourself.” I kept talking and steering until I had him back inside, behind the motel desk. I slapped the counter. Gave it the voice-of-doom narration.

  “This is the front line,” I said. “Right here. We’re counting on you.”

  When I got back to the RV, Carl was talking to Robby on the radio. The monitor in front of Carl flickered with blue static. “Anything yet?” Robby’s voice.

  “Nada,” Carl said. “Check the ground.”

  A moment later, the screen lit into a street scene and then, just as suddenly, reverted to static. “You had it for a second there,” Carl said.

  “Hang on,” Robby replied.

  I tapped Carl. “I’m going to do a drive-by,” I said. He nodded and adjusted two green dials. I hopped down from the RV and walked across the thick carpet of leaves toward the Malibu. Suddenly it was Indian summer in the middle of January. One of those Pacific Northwest days when the complex weather systems collide and momentarily seem to forget the season. Bright blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. Must be fifty-five, pushing sixty degrees. No breeze to speak of. I drove with the window down. The minute I turned left off the highway and headed for the City Building, I could see Robby, way the hell up in the air. Damn near as high as the hydraulic arm would lift the bucket. Maybe forty feet in the air.

  I followed the arrows around the parking lot. The cherry picker was braced against the street, its four hydraulic legs spread for balance, inside a perimeter of orange traffic cones. Robby was working at the very top of the pole. He wore a headset. I could see his lips moving as he talked to Carl back in the RV. Kurtis waved a bright yellow flag with a flair seldom seen in roadwork. I rolled down the passenger window and pulled to a stop next to Kurtis. “So far, so good,” he said.

  “You guys go right back to the ranch,” I said. “Soon as we see you go by, we’ll pack it up and follow.”

  “You got it,” he said.

  The lower section of the hydraulic arm whined and began to fold itself back into the bed. I jammed the car in park and got out. Robby manipulated the three colored handles in the bucket as he lowered himself back into the truck. “One down. One to go,” he said.

  Kurtis pointed to a mercury vapor light along the curb. The light nearest the back door of the City Building. “As long as we’ve got this erection set, we’re going to fix that light so it doesn’t work. Robby says it will just take a minute. Discretion, valor and all that.
”

  “Good idea.”

  I got back in and headed to the Black Bear. Monty was sweeping up out front when I rolled back into the lot. He came limping over to the window.

  “Next half hour or so a white cherry picker with Pacific Power signs on the side is going to come down the road heading west,” I told him. “I need you to keep an eye out for it and come and report when it passes. Can you do that?”

  “Damn right I can.”

  “Also, we’re going to need room nine for the next few nights.”

  “When?”

  “Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.”

  He held out his hand. “Hundred twenty bucks,” he said. I dug in my pocket, came up with six twenties and handed them over. I guess, as far as Monty was concerned, service to the cause was one thing, but commerce was another. Floyd had turned one of the picnic tables right side up and was lying on it basking in the afternoon sun. “Hell of a day,”

  he said. “First camera works like a charm,” he said. He sat up. “I can’t believe the shit this guy’s got. It’s fuckin’ scary, man. You got somebody like Carl on your ass, you can’t fart without him knowing it from across town. Personal privacy is a thing of the past, man, a thing of the past.” He shook his head.

  Disabling the streetlight must have been as easy as Robby had said. By the time I got through discussing privacy in peril with Floyd, he already had the second camera secured on top of the pole and was testing its field of vision under Carl’s direction. I stood and watched as they tested it left and right, up and down, zoom and back.

  “That’s it,” Carl said. “Button it up and get out of there.”

  He turned to me. “That’s it until Kurtis goes in tonight,” he said.

  “Monty’s going to tell us when they go by.”

  “That fucker worries me, Leo.”

  “He’ll be all right,” I said with more confidence than I felt. Carl began shutting the consoles down. Flipping switches, turning dials and toggling toggles. “Might as well leave this beast here until tonight,” he said.

  Floyd stuck his head in the door. “Buck Rogers says the truck just went by.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  27

  “HE’S GOING UP A PIPE…” I COULD HEAR FLOYD breathing into the phone. “Fucker’s like a monkey,” he said. “He’s on the roof and moving. In the shadows now; I can’t see him anymore.”

  It was eight-thirty-five. Perfect night for a burglary. Outright balmy and no moon. Boris, Robby and the Boys were holding down the homestead. The fellas struck out in Port Townsend, but had a hell of a time doing it. Maybe it was like Ralphie said. Maybe the old guy found religion. Carl and I waited in silence. Four minutes until Floyd spoke again.

  “Coming back down from the roof. Okay. Doing the door. Still at the door. He’s inside.”

  “Hang on and keep the line open,” I said. Two minutes later, Kurtis’s voice crackled from the speaker. “Number one,” he said. “City attorney’s office. Got number one?” Carl said he heard him loud and clear. So clear, in fact, that I could make out the sound of Kurtis setting a chair under the smoke detector and then the snap as he pried off the plastic cover. Bingo. The first monitor blinked twice and then stayed on. Looking nearly straight down onto Mark Tressman’s desk. The plastic slats segmented the view as if we were looking through iron bars. “How’s the view?” Kurtis asked. Carl told him it was fine. We watched on the monitor as Kurtis returned the chair somewhere out of camera range and then walked back through the picture on his way to the mayor’s office. The process was repeated two more times without incident. Three monitors were now lit. Tressman, the mayor and Nancy Weston were well on their way to having their fifteen minutes of fame. Kurtis had been inside for eighteen minutes. Kurtis had just entered the engineering and inspections office when Floyd’s voice broke the spell. “Got me a police cruiser,” he said. “No hurry. Looks like routine patrol. Not to worry…not to worry.”

  “Steady,” I said.

  “It’s fat-ass. Getting out. He’s out checking the fucking streetlight. Dumb fuck’s pounding on the pole. Dork.”

  We waited an agonizing minute.

  “Back in the car…driving…stopped again. Fuck,” Floyd said. “He’s getting out again. Heading for the door.”

  “Has he been on the radio?” I asked.

  “No.”

  No backup. After his embarrassing debacle with Floyd and Boris the other day, Harlan Spots was going to handle this one himself. Get back a little face.

  Kurtis was on the speaker. “Audio four,” he said. Carl raised an eyebrow. “Keep going,” I mouthed.

  “Loud and clear,” Carl replied. “Let’s get this last one and get the hell out of there,” Carl said.

  “He’s found the door open. Reaching for his piece. Got it out. Starting inside.”

  “Stop him,” I said into the phone. The sound of the cell phone hitting the car seat resounded from the earpiece.

  “Tell Kurtis to stay where he is,” I whispered to Carl.

  “Hang tight for a minute, Kurtis.”

  “Problem?”

  “Maybe. Stay still and quiet.”

  Carl covered his mike with his hand. I paced up and down the narrow aisle. Seemed like an hour before Floyd’s voice stopped me dead.

  He was out of breath. “Get the kid out of there,” he said. I heard the Blazer start. Floyd breathing hard as he turned the wheel and the squeal of tires.

  “Let’s go, Kurt, move your ass,” Carl growled into the headset.

  Another minute passed. Kurtis over the speaker. “Oh, man…”

  Floyd sounded far away. “Get in. Let’s go.”

  “What are we looking at with the cop?” Kurtis asked. We could now hear them both over the cell phone and from Kurtis’s mike.

  “He was breathing when I threw him in the back of the car,” Floyd said.

  “They’re gonna find their alarm monkeyed.”

  “Can’t be helped,” Floyd said.

  “He see you?”

  “If he’d seen me, he’d be dead,” said Floyd.

  28

  ROBBY WAS TRYING TO BREAK THE TENSION. READING from yesterday’s newspaper, while we waited for our friends in city government to show up for work on Monday morning. Hoping like hell that Deputy Spots was okay and that we hadn’t left anything behind that pointed our way. “Says here the Gillette razor company offered ZZ Top six million bucks to get a shave on television.”

  “No sheet,” said Boris.

  “Says they turned it down.”

  “It’s their look,” Kurtis said. “They couldn’t.”

  “For six million bucks, I’d let Katharine Hepburn shave my ass with a bolo knife,” Carl declared. I was still working on that image when Robby dropped the paper and sat forward. “Number one,” he said. MONDAY 8: A.M.

  CAMERA 1—TRESSMANThe lower half of Nathan Hand paced in and out of camera range. “I don’t like it,” he said. Mark Tressman sat at his desk and began rolling a paper clip around in his fingers. “It’s just a burglary,” Tressman said.

  “You haven’t been up on the roof.”

  “Don’t start any conspiracy theory with me,” Tressman said.

  “No conspiracy. It’s that Waterman and those hardcases he’s got out there with him. I think they’re trying to queer the deal.”

  “He admits as much. So what? He’s got nothing. And there’s nothing in this building that would advance his cause in any way. If I was going to worry about anybody, I’d be more inclined to worry about Loomis.”

  Hand leaned down and put both hands on the desk. “I don’t get it. Loomis wants the deal to go through as bad as we do.”

  “Maybe they’re getting nervous. Maybe they’re checking up on us. We blew it once before. Maybe they don’t trust us to get it done.”

  Eight-fifty-four A.M. Another voice. June the secretary. “Is Sheriff Hand back there?”

  “Be right out,” Hand called.

>   “Ten days,” Tressman intoned. “Just ten days.”

  I wrote the word Loomis in my notebook, followed by three question marks. I knew I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t remember where.

  MONDAY 9: A.M.

  CAMERA 3—WESTONNancy Weston drummed her fingers on the desk as she spoke. “I assure you, Mr. Wade,” she said, “this is all some terrible mistake.” Her face was twisted into a knot. “You have no right to speak to me that way. I want to talk to your supervisor.” She listened briefly. “A criminal…a criminal…why…what? Attorney. I don’t need an attorney. I keep telling you…what date?” She pulled a pencil from the desk drawer and wrote directly on the blotter. “Friday the twentythird. One P.M. Now, just a moment,” she began indignantly.

  “I will not be…hello…hello…” She returned the phone to its cradle and began to massage the bridge of her nose.

  I turned to Carl. “George’s doing good with his IRS agent routine,” I said.

  “Sure got her panties in a wad.”

  All the chickens were in the coop. Polster was in his office going through his mail. Her honor the mayor was dictating letters. Time for the vehicle transmitters. I tore a page from my notebook and handed it to Kurtis.

  “Those are the makes, models and license numbers. The parking slots are labeled. Take Robby with you. Nobody’s seen either of you guys.”

  “Make sure you get the numbers right,” Carl growled.

  “I’ll use my fingers,” Robby assured him. MONDAY :06 A.M.

  CAMERA 4—POLSTERPolster had been dialing and redialing the phone for ten minutes before he finally got through. “Yes…hello. Yes. I’ve been having trouble getting through.” He listened for a moment. “What do you mean, I don’t know what trouble is? What kind of attitude is that? I’m calling to report a mistake.”

  Listening again. “Of course it’s a mistake, we don’t…what did you call me? Why, I don’t believe…what kind of language is that for a public servant to…” He groped for a pen and a small white notepad. “I want your name. Do you…January twenty-fifth, eleven-thirty A.M.,” he recited. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’ve been drinking. I can hear it in your voice. I’m going to report…Oh…a stroke, you say. No. No…I didn’t mean. Of course I wouldn’t…not a person with a disability…hello…hello.” He hung up the phone. I dialed the Zoo and got Terry.