A Hard Death (25 page)

H
old still just a sec, Amanda. I'm going to tape the mic inside the shirt; when he's talking, don't move or you'll drown him out with fabric noise.”

Amanda stood in front of the mirror, hands on hips, while Gene, her soundman, busied himself with her shirt. Sitting on her bed, George, the segment producer, was still on the phone, arguing with Travel about their flight home the next morning.

Gene leaned back. “Yep, you can't see it. Turn to your left?”

She turned, and the two of them looked at her ass in the mirror.

“You think it looks bulky? Maybe I shouldn't wear a pencil skirt.”

He shook his head. “Nuh-uh! It's flat! That's one flat, beautiful ass you've got there, Amanda. Besides, I don't believe you even
own
anything that isn't a pencil skirt.”

Watching her reflection, Amanda bent, straightened, then pushed her butt out. Then she jiggled from side to side a little.

The transmitter was the size of a pack of cigarettes: even if Gene couldn't see it, she could.

Still, her ass
was
looking pretty good. And her jacket would cover the bulge.

“Okay. Thanks, Gene.”

“‘Okay'? I'm a fucking miracle worker! I just used a micro shotgun mic to convert a wireless assembly into a bug! I'm a fuckin' genius! This is FBI shit!”

“Okay, Special Agent Hoover. Let's test it.”

Gene slipped his headphones on and plugged them into his digital MiniDisc recorder. He plugged the mic receiver into the recorder, checked the levels, nodded at Amanda, and stepped out into the hall.

There was some scraping of cloth, then Amanda's voice saying, “Hi, Doctor Jenner, you handsome ratings star, you…”

Then George's voice, surprisingly clear: “Amanda, I'm on the phone—keep interrupting me and you'll be flying coach.”

Gene walked back into the room. “Perfect. Stick close to him, and keep your chest pointed in his direction; this ought to work perfectly. Turn on the recorder before you go into his room—check that the red light is lit up. There's a couple hours of recording time at this speed. You got brand-new batteries, a new blank MiniDisc. Just stay within twenty feet of your handbag, or the signal won't reach the recorder. Turn for me?”

Amanda turned. She yelped as he slipped two fingers down the back of her waistband and fiddled with the transmitter box.

“George! Gene is molesting me!”

The producer, still on his cell, rolled his eyes and moved into the bathroom.

Gene stepped back, nodded with satisfaction.

“Yep. I really am just that good…”

“Well, thanks, MacGyver. We'll share credit when I get my Emmy.”

He looked at her. “Hey, has the Current Event Network ever won an Emmy?”

There was a second's pause, then they both roared with laughter.

J
enner didn't see Maggie's text at first. It wasn't until he pulled out his iPhone to call Rudge back that he saw the notification.

He read it twice, then deleted it.

He would call Rudge in the morning.

R
udge checked the clock on his kitchen wall: he'd made it home with minutes to spare.

He was exhausted. He hung his jacket on the hook, slipped off his shoulder holster and laid it on the countertop.

He rolled the foot-long Chicken & Bacon Ranch sandwich out of the Subway wrapper and put it on a plate, then opened the bag of Lay's potato chips and spilled them out alongside it. He took the pickle jar and a can of Bud from the fridge, and then set his dinner on the table next to his chair.

Tonight, he would limit himself. He'd started the day hungover, and it had been rough.

So tonight: beer only.

But the thought of just beer by itself was a sorry thought indeed; he'd had a rough day, and he deserved something with a little more heat.

Rudge's sink was filled with plates and glasses; he selected three Dolly Parton shot glasses (a campy gift from his brother Mikey after a Dollywood trip) and lined them up on the side table. He splashed an ounce or so of Jack Daniels into each, then screwed the top tight and shut the bottle back in the cabinet.

He lined up the remotes on the table next to the plates, then kicked off his shoes, unbuttoned and dropped his pants. The Velcro fasteners on his ankle holster opened with a satisfying rip; he let the holster and the little silver .32 revolver slide onto the carpet. He checked that the chair was pointing directly at the TV, then pulled the lever, easing the recliner back into position. Finally, he calibrated the height of the footrest.

Rudge sat down, sighing heavily, and hoisted his sock-clad feet up onto the rest.

He lifted six inches worth of cold cuts and feathery bread to his face, tore off a giant bite, and chewed contentedly. He swallowed, took a sip of cold beer, then picked up the first shot and downed it, chasing it with a huge gulp of beer. He put the can back down, sighed again, and chomped into his sandwich.

The overloaded sandwich needed support, so he used the remotes one by one with his free hand. The Warner Bros. shield logo in black-and-white silently filled the screen, then the sound kicked in, a tinny shrill of brass and strings over rolling tom-toms as a map of Africa appeared. Then the star credits—Bogart, Bergman, Henreid—and finally, splashed across the whole continent,
Casablanca…

David Rudge wriggled his butt deeper into the recliner, pressed back, and sighed again.

A
manda Tucker was waiting for Jenner at his cabin, standing on the porch by herself, shielding her eyes from his headlights as he parked.

Jenner got out of his car and looked angrily around the parking lot. There was no camera crew, no network van filled with technicians hunched over broadcasting components and screens.

He stood by the car. She gave him a little wave.

“What do you want?”

“Good evening, Dr. Jenner.” She smiled warmly.

“What do you want?”

Amanda shook her head, still smiling. “A truce, doctor. I want to call a truce.”

“No, thanks. You want to get off my porch now?”

Jenner stepped up onto the deck. She took a polite step back so he could open the door.

She said, “I've decided it's time we buried the hatchet. I think we might be able to help each other here.”

He jiggled the key in the lock, then turned to her. “I'm not interested in helping you, and I don't think for a second you give a rat's ass about helping me. What's the matter, ratings slipping? Your viewers bored with watching you gnaw away at me?”

Amanda threw back her head and laughed. “Dr. Jenner!
Gnaw
—how poetic!” She shook her head merrily. “No, no, they still love hearing all about you. But I've been thinking that we've only presented one side of you. I'm sure you have some…opinions about how we've covered your story; I just thought you might like a chance to set the record straight.”

She was still smiling, but she seemed serious enough.

He opened the screen door. “I don't believe you.”

Amanda shrugged. “Doctor, I can promise you my audience would be fascinated to hear your side.”

“You do know I'm out of the picture now, right? You got me fired.”

“That's unfair, and we both know it. The segment producer put together a bio clip of things that you'd done—that was you in all of it, wasn't it?”

“You've spun me into whatever you wanted—Anders had no choice but to fire me.”

“Well, then, you've nothing to lose, do you? Come on my show and say that!” She pursed her lips, then looked him in the eye. “Also…I think the sheriff finds me very…appealing. If you'd talk with us, I'd be willing to speak with him for you.”

Jenner opened the cabin door; the dog wheezed out of the cabin and began to smell him. When Jenner pushed him back down, he trotted over to Amanda Tucker and poked her with his nose.

She laughed and pushed him away. “Oh my gosh! He's filthy!”

Jenner saw dark streaks across the front of Amanda's skirt. The dog sat at her feet like a happy keg of beer, looking up at her, tail stump thumping the floorboards.

“I'm sorry. He must have got into something.”

He peered in through the door and saw dark paw prints smeared across the linoleum; in the center of the floor lay a chewed plastic squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup.

“Chocolate syrup.”

Amanda seized her opportunity. “Doctor, this is an Eileen Fisher linen suit. I need to get the fabric damp before it stains.”

Jenner nodded reluctantly and held the door open for her. He set the catch on the screen door so it stayed open, turned to the dog, and said, “You! Out!”

The dog trooped placidly back out of the cabin, tail still bobbing.

Amanda was standing by the shallow sink, splashing water on her skirt.

Sweet Jesus,
he thought.
Amanda Tucker, here in my living room…

O
nscreen, Dooley Wilson was at the piano in Rick's bar, singing “Knock on Wood.” Rudge poured out three more shots and popped the tab on a fresh Bud.

The scene made him uncomfortable—the happy Negro and his orchestra, entertaining the well-dressed European sophisticates with jazz, all smiles and natural rhythms. Was it straight-up racist, simple and plain, or a fair representation of life back then? Both, maybe. Black jazz musicians probably played to similar crowds in Europe today—one of Mikey's old boyfriends had moved to Paris, where he played in a Josephine Baker show that ran for more than two years.

Basically, Rudge figured, Europeans liked black music.

He slammed the shot and chased it with the Bud.

Humphrey Bogart was about to slip the letters of transit into Dooley's piano when the screen suddenly froze. The buffer held the frame for about three seconds, and then the screen went black; neon green letters at the top read
SEARCHING FOR SIGNAL
.

Fuck!

Rudge knew exactly what it was—when they'd set up his system, the installer had spliced cables to connect the rooftop satellite dish to the TV; sometimes, a brisk breeze separated the splice near the front door.

It'd take him a second to fix. He cursed. It was late enough and dark enough—and he was drunk enough—not to put on pants. He heaved himself out of the chair and went to the door. He flicked the switch to the porch light several times; nothing happened.

Weird. That bulb was pretty new. An electrical fault? But the lights were still on in his living room, and his house was small enough that there weren't many separate electrical zones.

Rudge stepped out onto the porch and looked up, curious. The white wire from the rooftop cable feed dangled freely; the cable tacked along the porch ceiling had been torn out and now lay across the floorboards.

God, he was a fool. For a second, Rudge wondered if he would've made the same mistake had he been sober.

A
manda Tucker stood at the sink, holding up the hem of her soiled skirt.

“Got any club soda?”

Jenner shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Any spot remover?”

“I have some detergent.”

He poured some Tide into a cup, and added water.

As they fussed with the skirt, the dog waddled back in through the door and heaved himself up onto the couch. He rested his paws up on the back of the sofa to watch what was going on at the counter; he was tracking chocolate everywhere again.

Jenner said, “I'm going to shut the dog out. I'll be right back.”

There was a crash of breaking glass, and something compact and heavy skidded across the floor. Amanda gasped.

It was a length of metal pipe about eight inches long. The dog bumped down from the couch and began to amble toward it, sniffing.

Christ.

Jenner threw open the refrigerator, yanked Amanda against him, and pivoted in behind the door. There was a yelp of complaint, then the explosion roared into them, a huge tidal wave of instant and intense pain, the door smashing into him, slamming him on top of her.

When Jenner opened his eyes, there was no sound. The curtains were burning, the orange drapes lapped by listless flames. His arms were on fire, a stinging, pinching burn, like thousands of rubber bands twisting and pulling against the hairs. There was no sound, but there was smoke.

He wasn't on top of Amanda. He turned; she was sitting up against a floor cabinet, shouting at him silently. He turned and looked at the
fridge; the battered door canted off its top hinge, orange juice and milk drizzling to the floor from punctured cartons. The door swung toward him, bristling with nails, the white enameled surface pocked by bolts and screws.

Jenner looked at Amanda again. She was crying now. Her legs were bloody, but he couldn't see any injury.

Jenner pushed himself up against the interior of the fridge, half-slipping on the juice-slick floor, knocking a head of lettuce off the shelf into his lap. He sat up, and looked at himself. He was okay, he thought. His legs were working, arms working.

He looked at his legs; he was bleeding into the juice from somewhere, a faint rim of red diffusing into the orange. He was hit. There were nails sticking out of his left calf, but his thighs and torso were mostly okay. His back hurt; there had to be some shrapnel, but the fridge door had taken the brunt of the bomb.

It will hurt more if I wait until the adrenaline fades,
Jenner thought. He stretched down and plucked the nails out.

Something tugged at his wrist. Amanda was standing over him, mouthing, pulling on his arm. He nodded, struggled to his feet.

The bomb had destroyed half of the cabin. Small hunks of metal had blasted through the outside wall, and the cheap chipboard of the kitchen counter had been blown apart, scattering pots and pans across the living room.

The dog.

Jenner could only see his front half; he wasn't moving, buried under the kitchen table and couch pieces. The table, its thin metal legs torn off, had tipped over on top of him, hiding his hind quarters. His muzzle was covered in blood, the fur of his chest matted.

Amanda was leading Jenner toward the door, but he pulled away and went to the dog. She watched him drop to his knees, slide aside the linoleum table top and its bent frame, and push the debris off the animal.

The dog's eye rolled toward him; it tried to raise its head as its tail twitched.

Jenner stroked the animal's back, feeling for nails. Deep in the fur of
the chest, he could feel small punctures, the size of buckshot. Shrapnel injuries through the fur. His hands came away bloody.

People were coming through the doorway now; he recognized the two stocky college guys who'd been tossing a Frisbee by the pool the day before. They held their jerseys up to cover their noses and mouths, but most of the smoke was venting through the blown-out windows or the holes in the wall.

The taller one took Amanda out, the other grabbed at Jenner's arm.

Jenner shook him off.

Now sound was starting to come back; Jenner could hear a quiet roar, dulled and flat, as if he were standing knee-deep in it. The jock grabbed his arm again. Jenner pushed him away angrily.

Jenner got onto his knees and gently slipped his arms under the dog's body. He struggled to stand; then the guy saw what he was doing and supported Jenner from behind as he got to his feet.

Jenner had the dog. He moved toward the door, behind the jock.

The burning drapes had set the breakfast nook paneling on fire, and the pale wood finish now burned indolently, darkening and peeling like some effect slowly being applied from a spray can.

Walking was hard—Jenner's injured leg threatened to buckle with each step.

The kid went out the front door, and a fireman with an ax came in, followed by another fireman.

The second went to help Jenner, but Jenner shrugged him off and kept going. The fireman tried to take the dog, but Jenner held tight, shaking his head fast until the fireman backed off. The fireman put a hand on Jenner's shoulder and pressed him firmly from behind, steering him to the door.

Outside the parking lot was gridlocked, residents scrambling to move their cars away from the burning cabin. An ambulance was in front of the cabin, another at the lot entrance, and two large fire engines jockeyed for position; their lights lit up the Palmetto Court residents like escaped convicts in a prison spotlight as they milled around in sweatpants and bathrobes.

Amanda Tucker was slumped on the step at the back of the ambulance, breathing oxygen while the paramedic felt her pulse; Jenner could see the condensation in her plastic mask. She looked at Jenner coolly. She was completely calm now; she could have been sitting by a fountain in the atrium of a mall, sipping an Orange Julius.

The dog twitched in Jenner's arms. He had to get him to the car.

One of the firemen—maybe the chief, certainly high up—stood in front of him, talking and gesturing; Jenner couldn't hear what he was saying.

Jenner looked over to Amanda. Her jacket was gone, her shirt torn open, her skirt bloodied. She had yanked the mask off and was speaking into a cell phone. She turned to the paramedic, and Jenner saw the black transmitter box tucked into the back of her skirt, and the wires disappearing under her shirt, and he knew.

The chief was still talking at him. Jenner shook his head. He carefully formed the words, “I have to get my dog to the vet.” He knew it came out too loud.

The chief stopped talking and just jabbed his finger toward the EMS truck.

Jenner shook his head. Again. “I have to get my dog to the vet.”

A fireman came and pulled the chief away, and Jenner sagged against the roof of the Accent. The door was unlocked, his keys still in his pocket; he'd been home less than five minutes.

He tugged the door open, slid the dog onto the passenger seat, felt the tail slide wetly over his arm.

The engine started immediately; the right front light had shattered in the blast. It hurt Jenner to turn—he definitely had shrapnel embedded in his back. He pumped his horn twice; there was a flurry of cluttered movement behind him as rubberneckers stepped away. He reversed slowly. A fireman was waving at him to stop. Jenner saw no one behind him, so he kept pulling back.

He made a tight, painful three-point turn in the lot; now there were two firemen waving him down.

Jenner edged forward. A sheriff's department car was at the entrance now that the fire trucks were in the lot.

He had to tell Rudge. Rudge should know. Rudge would help.

The fire trucks. Jenner turned his head and leaned back; the hoses were spraying into his cabin. Now white steam was rising from the windows. It wasn't a big fire, wasn't a big loss.

He felt the dog's tail flick against his arm. He looked down; in the pale green light of the dashboard, the blood glistened dark brown. Jenner reached out to stroke the dog's flank, felt the hurt muscle fibrillating under the short fur; his hand came back sticky and red.

He edged the car forward slowly, but the crowds were too thick.

He turned the wheel, lurched up across the sidewalk. There were angry shouts as the firewatchers scattered, and then he was going down the shallow grass slope toward the honeymoon cottages. The car shook and bumped, and then he was on the dirt ramp. He turned left, and rose up the slope alongside the main parking lot. At the barrier, he got out and took down the chain, then drove through into the back lot.

Jenner nosed the car out onto the road. His hearing was getting better; now there was sound, but it felt distant, a dull, low roar like he was on a plane, like he was over the ocean at 34,000 feet. He passed another sheriff's department car heading toward the motel.

Then the damp road was empty, the world quieter. The light on the streets seemed yellower.

He pulled out his cell, found Maggie's number.

He watched the bright little screen; he couldn't hear the receiver. He worked his jaw and swallowed, trying to pop his ears as if he was on a plane approaching the final descent. The animation showed the call had connected, and he said, “I'm sorry to bother you, Maggie, it's Jenner. I…I need your help. If you're talking, I can't hear you. There's been a bomb. My dog is hurt—I'm on my way to the shelter. Will anyone be there? It'll take me about fifteen minutes.”

Jenner didn't know if he was speaking to her or her voice mail. He gave up.