Misisipi

by Michael Reilly

  Stencek noticed the waitress behind the counter keeping a tense curious eye of her own on the antics. “Enough already,” he hissed at Larry and slid to the window. “Siddown before you cause weather.”

  Larry looked down deadpan at this invitation. Stencek snapped his head at the vacant spot. Larry sat and proceeded to merely glower at Scott instead. Stencek rolled his eyes Scott’s way. No point. Scott still had his mind on his plate. He hadn’t glanced up once the whole exchange. Scott’ demeanor reminded Stencek of an innocent man on Death Row who’d just been handed the wrong last meal, one final slight to endure. Scott did appear guilty of something. But that was no matter to Stencek. He had come to gamble.

  “Mister Jameson?” Stencek asked.

  No reaction. “Mister Jameson, are you ok?”

  Nothing. “Scott?”

  Scott stopped chewing at least.

  “Look at me.”

  Scott looked up at Mike Stencek. His interrogator was maybe 40 or thereabouts, a solid slim in a well-cut suit. His dusty blonde hair, neatly cut, semi-short, was swept back off his forehead, showed sparse strands of grey. The compact face, drawn in strong Germanic lines, betrayed the first fill of age. Permanent creases in the forehead hinted at a long-held cynicism of the world. Wear-and-tear at the corners of the mouth suggested the fatigue of one used to hard-speaking between too-long bouts of holding his tongue. Only the ice-flint points of the sharp blue eyes held defiant against the wearying of their frame. They bored through Scott with an unflinching alertness. They would not grow old without a fight so they kept watch, from experience knowing that, with Mike Stencek, a fight was never far off.

  The stare-off was over in seconds. “There. Happy?” Scott asked and went back to his fries.

  Stencek was anything but. This wouldn’t work if Scott showed fuzzy reception. Deciding to adjust Scott’s antenna, he reached across and pulled the plate from under Scott’s nose.

  “I was eating that,” Scott griped with his mouth full.

  Stencek circled his arms around the plate and linked his fingers. He sent a So what? stare across the table.

  Scott glanced from Stencek to the plate and back again. “I don’t want any more trouble. I just want to eat my lunch in peace,” he mumbled.

  Stencek indicated Scott’s split lip and red cheek. “Doesn’t look like you had a peaceable morning thusfar.”

  “I tripped on the street.”

  “You could make money out of that.” Stencek handed Scott a business card. Scott read the name Irving, Clifford & Hughes: Investigators and set it down.

  “I don’t need to make money out of anything. Are you some kind of ambulance chasers?”

  “Not that kind of chaser. I’m special investigator Irving. This is my partner, Mister Clifford.”

  “What makes you special?”

  “Eh?”

  “You said you’re a special investigator. Why are you special?

  “Good question. Can’t say anyone ever asked me that before.”

  “I’m asking you now then.”

  “You make me special, Mister Jameson.”

  “Come again?”

  “I found you.”

  “You’re not a cop?”

  “No, private investigations and detection, mostly in the corporate realm.”

  “I thought you were more cops. Did that guy send you?”

  “What guy?”

  “The… never mind. Why are you here? Why were you looking for me?”

  “I’m actually looking out for you. Just having a conversation, no need to get testy.”

  “I think I’d like you to leave, the both of you.”

  “You can call the cops if you feel threatened. I won’t take offence. Got nothing to feel threatened about, right?”

  “I’m leaving then.” Scott shifted to the edge of the booth. “If you try and stop me, I will call the cops.”

  “Not a problem. The people at Sandstorm will be glad to know you’re headed home. I’m sure they got a lot of questions they want answered.”

  With one foot in the aisle, Scott stopped.

  “And Mister Putnam, your father-in-law,” Stencek added. “I know he’s eager to dispel the rumors about his daughter.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you know? His daughter is missing. Julianna.”

  Scott slapped the table. “Jesus. I know who Julianna is! She’s my wife.”

  Stencek flipped a notepad open. “What’s the C-A-T?”

  Scott shook his head. “The C-A-T?”

  “Yeah. In Boston.”

  “The Big Dig, the traffic tunnel project?”

  “That’s the one. Sorry, I didn’t get fully briefed before I got here.”

  “Briefed on what?”

  “Well,” Stencek scratched behind his ear and sucked air, “something about a completion bond your bosses—my clients—paid the city. Four mill. Do I have that right?”

  Scott blowharded. “How would I know? I wasn’t even on that project.”

  “Anyways, seems an amount bearing more than a passing resemblance to that never made it back into the company accounts.”

  Scott guffawed. “What the”—he lowered his voice—“fuck does that have to do with me? I don’t work on the civic side. And I sure as hell don’t handle money. Where’s all this coming from?”

  “Sorry. I’m not an expert.” Stencek held his palms up. “Ain’t impugning anything.”

  “What are you impugning”—Scott snatched the card up—“Irving… right?”

  Stencek removed the patty half of Scott’s open hamburger from the plate and set it before himself. “K, listen up a sec,” he said. “On the one side, we have the good folk at Sandstorm Engineering who’ve been conducting a hush-hush audit on account of four million dollars falls into a black hole one day. The Big Dig, huh? That’s kinda funny, when you get it.”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  “You shouldn’t be.” Stencek held the pickle spear up. “The week they’re about to wrap the whole investigation up, a key employee ups and disappears down the same black hole.”

  Scott swallowed. “You mean me? Jesus, you actually mean me.”

  “I thought the potholes in New York were big, but Beantown seems to be in a whole different league.” Stencek lay the pickle on the burger and squeezed a circle of mustard across it.

  “You’re not suggesting…”

  Stencek took the salad-dressed bun from the plate. “Which brings us to the other side. The day after said key employee goes down the rabbit hole, Mister Putnam goes round to check on his daughter. He lets himself into her seemingly ordinary house in Peabody. He searches high and low. You know what he finds in the low part?”

  Scott’s heart rate started pulling double-duty. “No,” he whispered.

  Stencek slapped the bun on the burger and took a shark-size bite. He wiped the corners of his mouth as he chewed thoroughly and swallowed.

  “He found an actual”—Stencek let out an ironic snort—“as-God-is-his-witness hole-in-the-ground.”

  Stencek’s grinning face seemed to float out across the table as the whole scene warped in Scott’s vision.

  “I… ah… eh… don’t… I don’t understand. What was in it?”

  Stencek took another bite. “Nothing. Nada. Nix. Null. Nicht. Nic,” he full-mouthed.

  “Nyet,” Larry grunted.

  “Nechevo,” Stencek corrected.

  Scott tried to catch his breath. “Where exactly was this hole?”

  “Hold up,” Stencek warned, lifting one finger at Scott. “This is a pretty good burger.” He helped himself to another bite. “In the floor of the basement, Mister Jameson. Your basement. And no sign of Missus Jameson, not even in the hole.”

  “Nothing else? Nothing suspicious?”

  “Define suspicious.”

  “I dunno. I’m just asking.”

  “In my line, a hole full of nothing is far more suspicious than a hole full of something
. If I had four million dollars, I’d bet it all there mighta been four million dollars in that hole til a week ago.”

  “I don’t know anything about any money, I don’t know anything about a hole. This is bullshit!”

  “Here’s the facts. Four million dollars—missing. Julianna Jameson—missing. Scott Jameson—missing, until here you are, playing hookie 500 miles away.”

  “I’m on a personal leave of absence. It’s my business. Since when is that a crime?”

  “It ain’t. But there are a lot of circumstantials about your circumstances, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Do you know where your wife is?”

  “Back off.”

  “You meeting up with her?”

  “I said back off!”

  “Or maybe you don’t know.”

  “What are you doing here anyway, in Winchester?”

  “Like you said, I’m special.”

  “I’m not telling you a goddamn thing.”

  “Then I’m not telling you another goddamn thing either.”

  “You think I stole money from my firm? That’s a crock of shit. You think I have something to do with Julianna being missing? Crap!”

  “I agree. You don’t look up to the task. The occasional slap-around seems more your style.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “It’s nice to be married. Having someone you can count on in a jam.” Stencek gobbled down the last of the burger and leaned back. “Sometimes anyway. Sometimes not.”

  “Not?”

  “I never said you were the one in the frame for the money. I didn’t say she was the one in any danger.”

  “You think Julianna had something to do with this? That’s preposterous.”

  “I’m just spitballing. Only way to clear this up is if you come back with us. The airport is south of town, and I’m getting back on the jet to Boston. I strongly urge you to tag along.”

  “And what if I don’t?”

  “I’ll give you one hour. Make the right call cause you do not want to make me come get you. I’m special, remember?”

  Stencek made to slide out but Larry stayed seated, blocking him.

  “Mister Clifford?” Stencek prompted him.

  Instead, Larry reached across and wrapped his hand around Scott’s steaming coffee cup. He lifted it and drained the scalding contents in one gulp. Scott half-expected him to keep the cup to his mouth and crunch down until he had pushed every last chink of it down his throat. Instead, Larry set the cup down and looked at Scott with bland satisfaction.

  All through the conversation with Stencek, Scott had been itching to take a long hard look at the odd man seated directly across. His upbringing leaned toward politeness, to avoid insolent stares at the different and the damaged. Now Scott allowed himself to scratch the itch.

  Larry, somewhere in his twenties though it was impossible to be sure, had thick curly black hair, an unruly moptop falling almost over his eyes; eyes unnaturally high in his head, a long way up a long face from his grim mouth, itself an almost lipless gash in his broad jaw. Between these distant points, Larry’s nose was an almost flat ridge down an almost cheek-less, remarkably featureless face. Scott briefly thought of the stone heads on Easter Island. Larry looked—well, distorted—like a man who’d been mugged by a hall of mirrors, his thug reflection then picking up Larry’s wallet and stealing Larry’s place in the world. And almost fitting in.

  “What you staring at, bonehead?” Larry hissed.

  “Larry. Get up,” Stencek barked.

  “Wondering what you got to be upset about,” Scott said.

  “Huh?”

  “Why the long face?”

  Oh Jesus, Stencek thought.

  An indignant red heat erupted across Larry’s face. Stencek tried to butt him into the aisle but it was like shoving against a statue.

  “Motherfucker!” Larry bellowed.

  Several heads turned to locate the profanity, in time to see Larry swing his arm in a scything arc across the table at Scott. Scott pulled back just beyond its reach. Larry lifted from his seat to have at Scott across the table instead but his tank-turret thighs caught the table edge, stopping him half ways. He would have kept coming, taking the table with him, but Stencek was already up, grabbing Larry’s shoulder, wrestling him from the booth.

  “Outside, now! That’s an order, soldier,” Stencek snapped.

  Larry pulled himself into the aisle and loomed over Scott. Stencek knew if Larry wanted to finish this here, there was nothing he could do short of shooting the man. He grabbed the shape of his gun beneath the folds of his jacket and bore his gaze into the giant’s eyes.

  “I won’t ask you twice,” he warned Larry. Everyone in the diner sat rooted to their spots.

  Larry took the empty cup and upturned it on the table with an angry Thunk! He spread his entire hand over it, pressing against it with the force of his palm, and drilled his arm down on it, all the while locking eyes with Scott. The cup imploded under Larry’s hand. Within his all-enveloping grip, it surrendered with a pathetic crunching pop and collapsed.

  Larry kept his smug gaze on the disbelief in Scott’s eyes. “You and me got destiny coming,” he whispered.

  Stencek shoved Larry toward the exit. “Enough shit already. Let’s go,” he hissed.

  He manhandled Larry through the door and steered him quickly in the direction of the parking lot. Inwardly, he congratulated himself for insisting that Larry stow his piece in the Navigator before they went to the diner. If you let it, the shit that actually went down could put years on you but it wasn’t fatal. The gut you busted to keep all the other potential shit from ever happening would always kill you though, with slow certainty. ‘Death from a thousand Coulds’, Stencek called it.

  This was why he hated being the brains.

  Stencek spent most of the walk back to the Navigator on the cell. When he got done, Larry had stopped stewing, for the most part.

  “You probably blew the op by showing up back there,” Larry bitched.

  Stencek spun and blocked Larry in his tracks. “Listen, I call the shots. Never forget that. That one’s on me. I needed to rattle his cage a little. And I’m sick of seeing his fender the last three days. I wanted some eyeball time.”

  “Well, you’ve probably got him looking over his shoulder from now on.”

  “Maybe I want him edgy and running scared.”

  “What was all that about a plane?” Larry asked. “We’re going home? I ain’t done with him.”

  “Pipe down. There is no plane. I guarantee we’ll be back on the road inside the hour. You ever serve in Gitmo?”

  “Naw, not that lucky.”

  “Figures. We woulda had Osama’s head on a stick by now if they’d had your skillset.”

  “Fuckin A!”

  “Well, the thing about stress positions. It ain’t the discomfort of being in one. It’s the relief of having a way out handed to you. That’s the carrot that keeps the ass moving if you dangle it right.”

  “Hey, were you in Gitmo?”

  “I was never much lucky either.”

  Back in the daycare parking lot, they discovered a long squat water-cooler delivery truck parked across the front of the Navigator and the vehicles either side of it. One metal side of the truck was pulled up, revealing a honeycomb storage frame loaded with full water bottles resting on their sides. The cab was locked when Stencek tried it.

  “Motherfuckin Perrier Pricks,” Larry snapped.

  They climbed into the Navigator. Stencek activated the data console, a military-tech ten-inch flatscreen mounted to the dash on an adjustable arm. He called up the Sat-Nav interface and scouted the highway south of Winchester on the touchscreen. He selected a quiet stretch of road and locked it into memory.

  “He moving yet?” Larry asked.

  “Nope. But we better.” Stencek manipulated the onscreen map with flicks of his fingertips and pointed to another spot on the outskirts of town. “W
e’ll stage here and give him a head start. Then you can have a little road fun. Happy?”

  “Would be, if I didn’t have that thing front and center.”

  Stencek glanced around the lot. The daycare building was on the other side of an ivy-choked high link fence behind them but there was no one else on their side.

  “So? Move it then,” Stencek ordered, getting out and shutting his door.

  Larry started the Navigator. It growled to life and the engine dropped to a deep panther purr. He inched out to Stencek’s guidance until the Navigator’s crash bar kissed the delivery truck’s side.

  Stencek made a Stop gesture and checked the lot again. He took a sensible step backward and swept his arm forward.

  The Navigator reared up into the side of the truck. As the truck lurched sideways, its tires yelped a short porcine squeal. It rocked once on its shocks and then it surrendered to the charge of the four-ton armored SUV as the Navigator effortlessly rolled out of its parking space. Two seconds later, the truck was on the other side of the lot and any number of cooler bottles, juddered from their places, lay on the tarmac around it.

  Larry backed up. Stencek checked the Navigator’s license plate—K-901-123—and climbed in.

  “Man, those guys at Streit really pimped this bitch something else,” Larry whooped. “Ain’t no Humvee but she’s a hot broad for a civvy ride.” He slapped the steering wheel with abusive affection.

  “Left on Braddock,” Stencek directed, reading off the Sat-Nav. “Stay south on Eleven for about five miles.” The transmitter hidden in Scott’s BMW, still on Boscawen, was a white dot dropping slowly to the bottom of the screen as they left town.

  20 minutes later, the Navigator pulled into the deserted lot of the Mountainview Church of Christ and parked up.

  “Hey Mike,” Larry asked, “Why’d you give me such a dumbass cover name? ‘Small’? You trying to be funny?”

  Mike Stencek leaned back in the passenger seat and rubbed his temples. There was once a home, a family, a brilliant future. He had been the-one-to-watch, a detective lauded by the New York Post as an exemplary part of Bratton’s new wave of the city’s Finest. Now there was the Navigator, the company it carried, and the crappy assignment they served.

  “Larry. Be original and read a book someday, would ya? Til then, just watch the screen and wake me when he passes. 30 minutes shuteye, please?”