Hail Storme

by W L Ripley

  My stomach knotted and I felt heat up the back of my neck. “You do that, Baxter?” I asked.

  “Had to,” he answered, unconcerned. He picked at his back molars with a toothpick. “He was drunk and got outta hand. A shame.”

  “He was handcuffed and cooperative when you brought him in.”

  “Got violent,” said Baxter, looking at the toothpick. “Ain’t that right, Deputy Simmons?”

  Simmons looked at me, then down at the floor. “Yeah,” he said, not looking up. “That’s what happened.” He didn’t seem eager to agree. The heat in my neck welled into a boiling knot.

  “Two minutes with the badge off, Baxter,” I said. “All I want. All I’ll need.”

  “Sounds like a threat to me, Storme. Better watch that. End up in jail yourself.”

  Fairchild put a hand on my chest. “Let me handle this, Wyatt. I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be. But right now that won’t help anything.” I swallowed my anger, but it burned in my gut like bad whiskey. Fairchild turned to Baxter.

  “You have abused the powers of your office, Baxter. In all the years I have been practicing law I have never witnessed anything so clumsily brutal and actionable. Your Gestapo tactics will not be tolerated. I will advise Mr. Easton to file charges and to litigate for damages. Unbelievable! Where have you been during the past century?”

  “Look here,” Baxter said. “Your client, as you call ’im, resisted arrest, and I had to restrain him. So I don’t have to listen to this shit.”

  “You do have to listen and, by God, you will listen.” George’s Wasp chin was thrust forward and a vein stood out on his temple. “I am unimpressed by your pathetic backwoods lawman act. This episode will cause you more legal trouble than you will ever have time with which to deal.” Fairchild turned to Chick. “Mr. Easton, you should file charges.”

  “Naw,” Chick said, eyeing the sheriff. “Me and the sheriff, we understand each other. Isn’t that right, Lester? Just doing your job, weren’t you?”

  “Just doing what I had to do,” Baxter said.

  “See? You do what you gotta do, and I do what I gotta do. Y’know?”

  “You’re free to go,” Baxter said. “So hurry up and move on. I’ve got more important things to do.”

  There was no reason to stay, so we left. As we pushed the door open to leave, Chick hollered back to Baxter, “See you around campus.”

  Outside, Chick thanked Fairchild. “Appreciate you coming down. What do I owe you?”

  “There will be no charge,” said Fairchild. “Glad to do it. But you should follow my advice and litigate. I’d be more than happy to represent you. He should not be allowed to get away with this.”

  “You’re probably right,” Chick said, smiling. “Maybe he won’t. But thanks for the offer. I’m hungry, Storme. Let’s go throw down.”

  “Got something in the truck,” I said.

  “You’re my boy, Stormey.”

  I thanked George, and he drove off in a red Lincoln. “Who was that masked man?” asked Chick. I told him. “You had the Chiefs’ legal rep shake me loose? For free? How’d you manage that?”

  I told him about George’s daughter and the guy who’d been annoying her.

  “And you asked him to stop,” said Chick.

  “Politely, though.”

  “Occurs to me I don’t know what it is you do besides hunt.”

  “Lot of that going around,” I said.

  He smiled.

  Back in the Bronco, Chick wolfed down the sandwiches. “You should see the crap they serve for breakfast. I think they scrape it off the floor of the drunk tank.”

  “Got something else for you,” I said. “In the cooler. Much as I hate to contribute to your vices.”

  He reached into the backseat and opened the blue-and-white cooler. He pulled one of the bottles from the ice and opened it with the seat belt clasp. “Storme, you are a beautiful person.”

  “You get violent last night?”

  He tilted the dark brown bottle and swallowed, then said, “The day I can’t take the Baxters of the world with both hands tied, or cuffed, behind my back, I’ll turn in my Hulk Hogan tear-jersey. Besides, it’s bad business to tag a lawman in his own lockup. Even if the cop’s dirty like Baxter. It’s okay, though. Every dog has his day.”

  “What happened, then?”

  “He was taking me back to the lockup and I asked to see the honeymoon suite. He didn’t laugh. Didn’t even smile. I said I thought fat guys were supposed to be jolly and he sapped me. Turned my knees to Jell-O and I couldn’t focus. Grabbed me by the hair and smacked me around. Wasn’t expecting it. My fault. I know better. The deputy, Simmons, stopped it. Good thing, too, because I was just getting ready to snap my handcuffs and show him the red S on my T-shirt.”

  “You okay?”

  “Been hit harder.”

  “What did he ask you?”

  “The usual crap. What was I doing in Paradise? How long did I know the sheriff? How long have I known you? What did you tell me about the marijuana field?”

  “I thought they were satisfied about the marijuana. That they had suspects. One of them dead.” I told him about my conversation with Browne.

  “Interesting that Baxter was asking, then.”

  “You think he’s involved in any of this?”

  “Maybe,” Chick said, fishing in his pocket for a cigarette. “Son of a gun. Baxter copped some of my Camels. Can’t trust anybody.” He pushed in the car lighter. “If I was running a pet shop I wouldn’t let Baxter clean the pens. Sooner or later he’d have shit on everything and everybody. He’s a biological stain with arms and legs. Smart operator like Roberts wouldn’t let him inside. But he might use him. Which is what may be going on. He’s mean and stupid, but I don’t think he’s in on anything big. They may slip him a few bucks now and then.”

  I related all the things that had transpired in the last eighteen hours—waltzing with the Sultan, the calls to Browne, and the visit from the feds. I left out the part about Tempestt. I also mentioned the call from the mystery man and my two o’clock appointment.

  “Boy,” he said. “Leave you alone for a few minutes…I’ll go with you. Watch your back.”

  “He said alone.”

  “Never know I’m there. It’s a sucker move to go in without backup. You’re not exactly a favorite son around Paradise.”

  “Hasn’t been for lack of trying,” I said. “Okay. Be good to have you watching me. But try to arrive in the nick of time if I need you.”

  “Always. So, they think the guy you wounded did the sheriff, then his partner dusted him and hit the road?”

  “That’s the way they read it.”

  “You believe that?”

  “I will if you will.”

  “Neither do I. So, who do you like for it?”

  “There are three people with different reasons to want the sheriff dead. Roberts is poised for a big move. Be nice to have an honest sheriff out of the way and a buffoon in his place. Winston hated Kennedy for burning him in public, and he’s not the type to take it lightly. We haven’t really considered the third man. Baxter. Sheriff’s dead, and he runs unopposed for county sheriff.”

  “What a prize.”

  “Does seem pretty weak,” I agreed.

  “Then there’s the fourth possibility,” said Chick. “Maybe the druggie really did smoke the sheriff.”

  “No. I saw the guy. No way he takes the sheriff.”

  “You think the other three are connected to each other?”

  “Paradise is small enough. But I don’t know. You’re right about Roberts. He’s too smart to let Baxter in on anything big. But your arrest was arranged for some reason.”

  I fumbled with the radio dial. Couldn’t find anything. Switched it off. “The government guys told me some interesting things about Roberts.” I explained the convoluted events by which Beauchamps became Roberts. “They also told me what the rocks I had may be.” I told him about dreamsicle
and its implications.

  “Which explains why Dr. Drugenstein is here.”

  “Who?”

  “The skip I’m looking for. Prescott. The feds know he’s here?”

  “No. They just know there’s a chemist involved. Somebody to cook the junk.”

  “Anything else?”

  A traffic light suspended by cable turned red and swayed in the autumn breeze. I stopped the truck. “Told them we could deliver the chemist to them.”

  “Why’d you do—” He stopped, looked at me, took a drag on his cigarette. “Had to, didn’t you?”

  I looked straight ahead. “Yeah.”

  He chugged the beer and got another one from the cooler. He opened it and took a long pull. The light turned green and I pulled into the midday traffic, cars going different places with different people inside them. Regular people. Going to the supermarket, to the weight-loss center, to lunch with old friends, to doctor appointments, to pick up the kids. People with normal lives. Married. Home by five for a cup of coffee and the evening news with Peter Jennings. Real life. Domestic life gets a bad rap. I wished I was with Sandy going somewhere, anywhere. Or nowhere. I wanted a peaceful life. Wanted to be anywhere but Paradise chasing shadows and murderers. I searched the console and found a Jimmy Buffett tape. I put it in and Buffett sang about a cowboy in the jungle.

  “So, don’t you want to know what it’s all about?” he asked.

  “You’ll tell me when you’re ready. Or you won’t. Up to you. I know what I need to know.”

  He looked tired and drained, as if the air were slowly leaking from him. “I used to work for the CIA,” he said, talking to the windshield. “Which stands for Collectively Ignorant Assholes. In Vietnam. I was an infiltrator.” He laughed. “Infiltrate, terminate, then evaporate. Gotta learn the words, man, or you can’t dance the dance. Shit, I was a fucking assassin. No better, I guess, than Roberts or Beauchamps, or whatever.”

  “Phoenix program?”

  “No. Something like it, though. I was even good at it.” He looked out his window, the back of his head to me. “Hell of a thing to be good at. Some people are good at math, or skiing, or golf. Or football. Me, I’m good at killing people. The Duke of Death. The Prince of Perish. Killing is our business,” he said. His jaw tensed. “And business is good.”

  “You’re not like Roberts,” I said. “Roberts would have killed the buck, then put his head on the wall for everybody to see. You’ll never be like him.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “What’s their interest? Langley’s boys, I mean.”

  “There’s a manuscript. A journal of my time in Nam,” he said. “Even if there weren’t, it makes no difference. They think there is, and that’s all that matters. As long as they think it exists they won’t let me rest. But if they thought there wasn’t a record, then I become a target. It’s an insurance policy as well as a burden. A ridiculous way to live, man.”

  “What’s in it? What are they afraid of?”

  “What are they afraid of?” He grunted. It was an exhalation of disgust. “Everything. They’re afraid of their own twisted imaginations. They’re afraid they don’t know everything. But mostly, they’re afraid somebody might know what the truth was and tell it to someone else. Remember the CIA report regarding Iraq before they invaded Kuwait? CIA reported there wasn’t anything brewing in Iraq. Everything was A-J squared away. No problem. But whether they didn’t know, or knew and wanted Saddam to invade Kuwait, is irrelevant. It happened and they were criticized. Heads rolled on that one, because even if they did know, they wouldn’t want to look bad in the press, and somebody leaked and has to take a fall. Whoever did leak it is probably shadowing penguins in Antarctica.”

  “What do they think you know?”

  “Too much. What my mission was. Who I was assigned to make, in their choice of semantics, ‘inoperative.’ ”

  “People die in wars,” I said.

  “Wish it was that simple. Living with it is the hard part.” He explained that the agency had tried to buy the journal even though they weren’t sure it existed. Even when he denied its existence.

  “But that’s the way it works. You don’t tell them anything directly. You disavow it, they think that confirms its existence. To lie to the spooks, you just tell them the truth. A completely unnatural way to live. They can’t dust me or frame me because they’re afraid the manuscript will become public knowledge if anything happens to me.”

  “Will it become public knowledge?”

  “Sure. I look stupid to you? These guys don’t fuck around, and I ain’t no cherry. They gonna get me, they’re going to have to work at it. Day and night.”

  NINETEEN

  “Okay, we give them Prescott, even though you got a lot more faith in those guys than I do,” said Chick.

  “I trust Morrison,” I said. “He’ll do what he says.”

  “How do you know?”

  “What have you lost if he doesn’t?”

  The city blocks clicked by under the wheels of the Bronco. I headed east, then turned south. I crossed Ninth Street. Then Tenth. Eleventh.

  “You’ve got a lot to learn about the feds. First, they’re like cockroaches. You see one when you turn on the light, you know there’s a hundred more in the woodwork. Roberts knows that, too. Where there’s drug traffic, there’s gonna be feds sniffing around.” He paused to light another cigarette. “He’ll have bought off the right people. Put the arm on the others. The girl reporter said people were afraid of him, but wasn’t sure why. Roberts will also know it’s a matter of time before the heavy hitters move in to soak the take when he starts moving dreamsicle. He’s probably got a contingency plan already. Dreamsicle will be too big for Paradise. It’ll explode outta here like a Roman candle, then the Sicilians and the Colombians will be on this place like wolves. They’ll bust this town’s cherry. Willie Boy knows that. The feds know it, too. Guys like Baxter and Winston don’t.”

  “Why not just kill us instead of all this crap?” I asked.

  “Not enough reason, maybe. Roberts is a pro. He’d have to get a good return on your death. An edge. There’s already plenty of humidity with the sheriff getting killed; he doesn’t want to turn it up some more with another killing. We’re just annoying right now. Ordinarily, he might try to buy you off, but like I said, he’s smart. Smart enough to figure you aren’t for sale and won’t go to the cops with anything since you don’t like Baxter. He’s got somebody inside the sheriff’s office, maybe even Baxter. Besides, it’s one thing to pop a local sheriff in the middle of nowhere or even a drug dealer that everybody, including his friends, won’t miss. It’s another thing to whack out a former pro football star. That’d bring in the national media.”

  “Which may explain why they roughed me up,” I said. “And maybe why they had you locked up.”

  “They want us out of the way because something’s going down. And soon. I can smell it.”

  “Or already has. They probably figured me for a couple of days R and R in the hospital and about the same time for you in the tank.”

  He nodded. “Which means we have to move quickly.”

  “Then let’s grab the chemist,” I said. He made a face. “You know where he is, don’t you?”

  “If I didn’t lose him when they put me in jail. If they thought enough of me to set me up, they know I’m here to get Prescott. They might have moved him. But I’ll find him. It’s all rock ‘n’ roll to me.”

  1405 East Twelfth Street was a run-down frame house in a matching neighborhood several blocks from the town square. The house had rusty screens on paint-curled doors and weeds growing up around the turn-of-the-century siding. Termites lunched on the wooden spindles of the front porch. A narrow alley ran behind the house. There was a weedy vacant lot next door with a realty sign peeking out of the weeds. I drove by to get a feel for the layout.

  “He’ll come in through the alley,” said Chick, on our second pass. “Might bring somebody in behind you, or t
hey got somebody inside, waiting. But it’s not a hit. There’s easier ways and better places. They could have pulled it off already if they were going to. Good idea to get in ahead of them and wait.” It was nearly an hour before the agreed-upon time. “Let me out a couple of blocks away, and I’ll work my way back. Park the truck in front and go inside. Nobody followed us.”

  I let Chick out in front of an old church that had been converted into apartments. It had a forlorn look, as if it mourned its fall from grace. Before opening the door, Chick took a .380 Colt from the glove box and put it under his jacket. He changed guns like other people changed ties. One for every occasion. I drove back to the house, parked the Bronco on the street, and walked up to the house as if I were an interested buyer. I opened the ancient screen door and it screeched in protest. There was no doorknob on the inner door. I pushed it and it scraped against the floor. I walked inside.

  I was met by the musty smell of old dirt, older plaster, and poor waterproofing. Damp. Cold. Lonely. The windows were so smudged it was difficult to see out and impossible to see in. There was a three-legged couch covered with a dirty bedspread and a wooden chair with a broken back. I walked through the house, boards creaking under my feet. I checked the other rooms, expecting Peter Lorre or Bela Lugosi to pop out. Instead, I found mice and spiders. I returned to the living room, satisfied I was alone. For now. I pulled out a Macanudo Portofino cigar and lit it. I held the Browning 9-millimeter in my lap and waited. I had a round chambered. No sense going for subtle. If they came in shooting, I didn’t want to be fumbling with the slide when they do.

  I thought about Sandy. Couldn’t wait to see her. Maybe this time it would work out. The city and her career had come between us before. Or maybe the mountains and my selfishness. Hard to be objective. I couldn’t live in the city. Not very long, anyway. I became claustrophobic in its constricted streets, choked with cars, its air stale with concrete dust and unleaded smog. It just sat there gobbling meadows and hills, belching fumes. An ugly, neon monster.