Dead Bang (16 page)

It's not that I didn't have a plan. I did. I formulated one on the spot. The plan centered around squeezing Mark Behler's neck until his tongue popped out and then shaking him back and forth until it slapped him silly.

Lily turned to me, anger twitching her face, and asked, “Did you kill my father?”

Chet Harkness marched onto the set carrying a telephone and announced, “Breaking news, Mark.”

I said, “Miss Vincenti, I am sorry for your loss. I gave the local authorities all the information I had thirty-two years ago. That's what I told the state police this afternoon. That's the reason they refused to participate in this tabloid sideshow.”

Mark, careening off his stool to see around Chet, shook his pointed finger at me and said, “Isn't it true—”

Chet moved to block Mark's face and held the telephone handset out to him. He said, “Breaking! News!”

Mark took the telephone, staring at it like he'd been handed a snake. Chet held his fist to his cheek, arched his eyebrows, and nodded. Mark put the handset to his face and read from the teleprompter. “Commander K?”

“Hello, cowboy infidels.” I recognized the voice. “I am Commander K, your friendly neighborhood terrorist.”

“Is this some kind of joke?” asked Mark.

“Too late to circle the wagons. We're here-errr!”

I definitely recognized the voice.

“You told my producer there was a bomb.”

“We know who you are! We know what you did! Cast aside your six-shooters and lever rifles. Submit to the will of Allah!”

An explosion shook the building. The lights fluttered but stayed on. Mark gasped, “Oh, my God!”

Commander K said, “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet, peace be upon him.”

“What have you done?” asked Mark.

“Not to worry,” said Commander K. “Just a small device in a mailbox. Not like American bombs dropped from airplanes, which are, after all, just a good lesson for us.”

“We're national!” said a voice from behind the cameras.

Mark straightened his back and squared his shoulders. “I am Mark Behler. We're on the telephone with Commander K, a self-proclaimed terrorist.” Mark's voice went stern and picked up timbre. “An explosion outside our building has rocked this studio. Commander K, why have you called
The Mark Behler Show
in Grand Rapids, Michigan?”

“I have a message for the cowboy crusader president of the United States,” he said, mocking Mark's tone and delivery.

“Please tell us that message,” said Mark.

“Tariq Aziz must have his ZZ Top CDs replaced.”

“You're not serious,” said Mark.

“I am most serious,” said Commander K. “An American bomb flew in through the window of Tariq's office. His ZZ Top collection was destroyed.”

“And that's it?”

“Well, there was also a very nice John Tesh CD, but Tariq only had that because he forgot to send the card back.”

“You just set off a bomb on the street!”

“I am a terrorist!”

“You set off a bomb over rock ‘n' roll CDs?”

“Okay, okay! You have me there,” said Commander K. “They were Kenny G CDs, but I promised not to tell.”

“This entire nation, the American people, are listening to you. Right now! Don't you have anything to add?”

“Yes! Being a martyr means never having to say you're sorry.” An explosion shuddered through the building and snuffed out the lights.

• • •

Dark doesn't cover it. We had no light. Eyes open, eyes closed—same shade of velvet black. I felt dust settle on my head and hands while I took a quick inventory of body parts. No one spoke. I found my pocket lighter and fired it up.

The flickering light revealed a roomful of folks, motionless in their chairs like scattered chess pieces and sharing a veil of fine gray dust. I spoke. “Anyone hurt?”

People started to move. I heard Chet Harkness's voice. “Stay in your seats until the emergency lights come on.”

Mark Behler blinked his eyes and shook his head. Lily wiped her face with her hands, smearing gray dust with her makeup. When she took her hands away, her face looked like a lava lamp with blinking eyes. I snapped off my lighter and waited.

Prayers here and profanity there began in scattered murmurs that grew louder until the clang of the building's fire alarm drowned them all out. I stood up and thumbed my pocket lighter. Lily sat rubbing her face with the sleeve of her jacket.

“C'mon, Lily,” I said. “Time to go.” I grabbed the sleeve of her jacket to urge her to her feet, but she jerked away.

“Something in my eyes,” she said, panic in her voice.

“Stand up and hold on to my jacket.”

“I don't trust you,” said Lily.

“Great,” I said. “Tell me about it when we get outside.”

Lily grabbed my jacket, and we started toward the door. In the room, the pale light of my pocket lighter revealed dust-shrouded zombies shuffling about with their hands thrust out. Metal folding chairs tripped them up here and there. My pocket lighter felt like it was reaching critical mass.

I snatched open the studio door, and light flooded the room from the battery lights in the hallway. Leonard, the security guard, marched up the hall carrying an electric torch on a large square battery. I held the door until Leonard took charge.

“There's no smoke or fire on this floor!” he yelled into the room.

“Walk slowly toward the light and then follow the exit signs out of the building.”

In the lobby, pungent smoke hung in the air. The front doors and windows lay in glittering shards on the tile floor. Pulsing tan fire hoses slithered over the glass and out of sight up stairwells and down hallways. I picked up Lily and trundled her toward a firefighter.

“What are you doing?” asked Lily.

“Almost there,” I told her.

She started to struggle.

“Stop!” I said. “There's glass all over the floor.”

The firefighter waved me toward the door and pulled down his air mask. “How many people in there?”

“A dozen or so in the studio,” I said. “Leonard, the security guard, is back there with a light leading them out.”

The firefighter repeated the information into his radio, and I asked him, “Why's everything so dim?”

He gave me a wry smile. “You need to wipe the dust off your glasses.”

At the door, I walked into a flurry of flashbulbs. Newsies yelled, “What's your name?”

“How bad is she hurt?”

“Was the bomb inside?” Red and blue strobe lights decorated as much of the world as I could see. A firefighter took Lily off my hands.

“She has something in her eyes,” I said. I took my glasses off. The lenses had a coat of gray ash, like a velvet Christmas ornament. My sports coat and jeans had become a dust-gray suit.

I batted dust clouds loose with my hands until I felt a hand on my shoulder. Someone said, “Across the street and through the parking lot—give your name to the officer with the clipboard.”

Mist hung in the air. The street glistened and reflected a dancing yellow light show. I could feel heat on my back and turned to look at the building. Flames from the roof licked the dark sky, dodging the steady streams of water shot by firefighters perched atop ladders. I hustled across the street and dodged through the cars in the parking lot toward a voice that commanded, “Over here! Over here!”

“Art Hardin,” I told a female police officer. I didn't recognize her—name tag read “Sullivan.” She wanted my address and phone number.

“Are you injured?”

“I don't think so,” I said. “I need to clean up.”

“You leave any property in the building?” asked Officer Sullivan.

“No.”

“Why are you armed?”

“I'm a detective.”

“City?” she asked, tilting her head and squinting her eyes.

“Private.” I reached for my wallet. “You want to see?”

She shook her head. “Name's familiar. You were in the TV studio for Mark Behler's show. I saw the ads before I came to work. You should clear the area. Someone will call.” She looked past me and said, “Name?”

I'd parked underground in the city lot. That seemed like a plus. The gridlocked traffic around the city lot constituted a definite minus. I heard Chet Harkness announce himself to Officer Sullivan and stopped in my tracks.

“Chet,” I growled, and turned to shake a finger at him.

He finished with the officer, turned, and showed me his open palms, the only part of him not covered with dust. “Mark didn't say a word about Peggy Shatner.”

“He didn't say anything about the Second Amendment, either.”

“Mark's show, man,” said Chet. “I'm just the usher.”

“When Mark wants to do a show about the Second Amendment, let me know. We can talk about the ‘six-shooters and lever rifles' the terrorists would like us to ‘cast aside.'”

“You'd do that?” asked Chet.

“I don't want to do him any favors,” I said. “But then, neither do you. Call me.”

“That's not fair. Why do you say that?”

“Mark thought the state police were going to be in the studio until about fifteen seconds before the segment,” I said.

“Shit happens. It's a live show.”

“So, what was the original plan? You hoped I'd be arrested on air?”

Chet shrugged. “How would I know that?”

“That's the best ‘Aw shucks, who me?' take I've ever seen, Chet.”

• • •

The marshals on the door of the federal building were decked out in flak vests and shotguns. I wrote, “Agent Svenson: Commander K is Manny—Art,” on the back of my business card and left it on the windshield of Matty's white Oldsmobile.

Back at my car, I slid in, pulled the door shut, and hit the power locks. With closed eyes, I savored a moment of stillness in familiar surroundings. The sounds of people and vehicles filtered in, and I scrounged napkins from a fast-food bag I found under the seat.

I worked on my glasses again and wiped my face. The smell of cement
dust lingered in my moustache. My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I flipped it open and said, “Hardin.”

Wendy said, “Thank God. Are you all right?”

“I'm fine, doll,” I told her. “I'm on my way.”

“What happened? The only thing on TV is downtown Grand Rapids.”

“Then you probably know more than I do.”

“Daniel just walked in,” said Wendy. “Sure you're okay?”

“Really, I'm fine. See ya in a bit. I have to stop for soda.” I slipped the phone back in my pocket.

A police officer posted at the parking attendant's booth scrutinized exiting vehicles. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and kept his hand on his holstered pistol. I peeled my ID out of my wallet and tucked it over the visor so I didn't have to reach for my body if he wanted to chat.

It took twenty minutes, but I finally rolled up to him. Maybe he didn't like my moustache. In any case, he rapped a knuckle on my window, and I let it down. He asked, “You have any explosives or firearms in the car?”

“Just the pistol on my hip,” I said. “I'm a private detective.” I took my ID off the visor and held it out to him.

He took the card with his left hand and watched me for a long moment before he glanced at the licenses. “This your current address?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

He took his right hand off his pistol and produced a notepad from his breast pocket. As he wrote on the pad, he asked, “What happened to you?”

“I was in the building when the bastard set off the bomb.”

“You all right?”

“Nothing clean shorts and a shower won't cure.”

He looked up from his pad, his eyes vaguely amused, and said, “Mind if I look in the trunk?”

I had an electric trunk release, but I switched off the ignition—to put the officer at ease—and handed him the key ring by the trunk key. “Help yourself.”

He opened the trunk. After a moment he called out, “You own a cat, Mr. Hardin?”

“Wife does,” I said, “but the kitty litter is for traction.”

He banged the trunk shut and walked back up to my window. I took the keys back and fired up the engine.

“What kind of mill is that?” he asked as he handed me my ID.

“Big Cadillac with a street-performance cam.”

“Drive careful, Mr. Hardin,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” I said. I left.

At Meijer's Thrifty Acres on the Beltline, my first port of call was the restroom. I washed my face and neck. For lack of a better word I would have to say that my dark brown hair looked “frosted.” The gray at the temples was an inside job.

Coke and Pepsi seem to take turns. This week Coke was on sale—sixty-nine cents for a two-liter jug. Add a dollar for the Pepsi, unless you had a “Preferred Customer” card, in which case you saved a dime. I picked up a couple of each. At the checkout stand the only issue was “paper or plastic?”

“Plastic's fine,” I said. “Just double bag it.” I left with a double bag in each hand to save wrangling a cart.

I found a fortyish man with folded arms standing guard at the front of my car. He had a dark complexion, a walrus moustache, and a round face with angular features. “Something I can help you with, sir?”

He showed me the snub-nosed revolver in his right hand, then tucked it back into his left armpit. “I have a gun,” he said, making it sound like “gawn” in singsong East Indian English.

“So do half the people in this parking lot.”

“You have something that does not belong to you.”

“I have soda,” I said.

“You know what I have come for,” he said. “I will tolerate no silliness.”

I didn't have a clue. “Right you are,” I said, “It's, ah, in the trunk.”