GUNNER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 5) (18 page)
Read GUNNER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 5) Online
Authors: Lawrence De Maria
“A Byelorussian Ovcharka fears nothing,” Kalugin intoned. “There will not be a problem.”
I looked at Arman.
“My father would consider it a favor,” he said.
With the Rahms I was losing track of who owed what to whom, but then I remembered the bullet that went in Yorke’s ear. I nodded.
Arman smiled.
“Now that that is settled, might I have a word, Alton?”
Alice took the hint.
“I can make some coffee. Will you have some?”
“That would be wonderful,” Arman said. “And I don’t mean to cut you out, Alice. But I also don’t want you to hear things that might compromise you legally. If Alton wants to tell you, that’s different.”
“I understand. And thank you.”
“I will help you with the coffee,” Kalugin said.
They went upstairs.
“He’s very fond of her,” Arman said. “I believe it’s one of the reasons he puts up with you.”
“Any reason will do.”
Rahm laughed.
“So, my friend, what happened? I’ve heard a few things, but they are hard to believe.”
I told him everything. When I finished, he shook his head.
“Tragedy or farce? I don’t know what to make of it, Alton. A story started by an assassin and ended by another assassin. Yes, it was Veronica, as you suspect. And in between, more dead bodies than an Agatha Christie novel. Maks will be disappointed. He was hoping it was the Germans. What did Freud say? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. You do lead an interesting life. That dog will feel right at home here.”
***
After Arman and Kalugin left, Alice and I called it a day in the basement. We were sitting on the deck drinking Bloody Marys.
“To Veronica,” Alice said, raising her glass.
I’d told her what Arman said.
“Are you going to thank her?”
“That’s not how it’s done. But maybe I’ll send her some gift-wrapped bullets.”
My new puppy was clumping around the deck, sniffing everything and slowly closing in on Scar, who was still sleeping after his bacon-fest.
“Look at those paws,” Alice said. “Maks said he will look mostly like a German Shepherd but be slightly bigger.”
“Great.”
“What will you call him? He needs a good name.”
We watched the puppy nose up to Scar, who lazily raised his head and looked at him. The pup barked — it was more of a squeak — and Scar gave it a half-hearted swat with his paw. The pup backed off a second but then resumed “barking,” moving even closer to the cat. Scar looked at him and then went back to sleep. The pup lay down beside the big cat, which was probably three times his size, and also fell asleep.
“He’s not afraid,” Alice said. “I think they’ll get along fine. So, do you want me to pick a name? Or are we looking at the new Scruffy?”
“No, there will never be another Scruffy. That name is retired. Besides, I just decided on a name.”
“What?”
“Gunner.”
THE END
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***
Alton Rhode returns in THE ELSON LEGACY. Here is an excerpt:
CHAPTER 1 - DOUBLE VISION
Atlas, Virginia
April
With almost 700 cable shows to choose from, Elson couldn’t believe he was having so much trouble finding something to watch on his brand-new, 55-inch, wall-mounted plasma TV set. The cop shows were bad enough, but for the $100 a month extra he was paying for “premium service” he’d be damned if he’d watch retards wrestle alligators, idiots chasing tornadoes or disgusting obese people compete to see who lost hundreds of pounds the fastest!
Finally, he found something he liked on The Blitzkrieg Channel, which was devoted to German operations during World War II. It was 10 PM. The show,
Wehrmacht: In Living Color
, was just starting.
Elson reached over to make himself another mint julep. A frequent visitor to the Kentucky Derby, he considered his juleps superior to any he’d ever had at Churchill Downs. It was now his standard drink and he was very particular about its makeup. Cracked ice was a necessity. And not the shaved ice that came out of the ice maker on the refrigerator door. It wasn’t the right consistency and smelled of freezer food to boot. No sir. He bought spring water chunk ice from the supermarket, chopped it up and double bagged it separately, and then put what he needed each night in an ice bucket on a sturdy table next to his chair in the den. He rendered that ice down to chips, using an antique jade-handled ice pick that had been in the family since the War of Secession. Next to the bucket was a half-full bottle of Evan Williams Single Barrel bourbon that he’d opened when he sat down. Close by was a small bowl with fresh mint and a glass mesh soda siphon.
Elson was still a good-looking man, six-foot-two with a full head of white hair, piercing blue-gray eyes and the ruddy complexion of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors, either on a golf course or in the saddle. Of course, he wasn’t a spring chicken any more, and some of the ruddiness of his 69-year-old visage could be attributed to all the bourbon he drank. He still cut a swath with the ladies of a certain age, although he now often needed a boost from the little blue pills his doctor prescribed. And for a small town, Atlas, Virginia, provided a surprising number of willing bedmates, mainly widows and divorcees who felt sorry for such a vital man whose wife had passed on and who suffered the tragedy of a mentally disturbed daughter. Colver Elson felt absolutely no compunction playing the sympathy card. “Pity fucks”, as he called them, were still fucks, and he knew that some of his paramours were hoping to become the next Mrs. Colver Elson. His dance card was so full now he no longer needed to lure female lawyers and court-appointed “experts” to his bed with promises of fees from his nursing home connections. Elson had a jaundiced view of the legal profession in Atlas. My God, he often thought, if he was bisexual he would never have gotten any sleep!
Elson was having a hard time focusing on the TV screen. As usual when he drank too much, which was whenever he drank, Colver Elson was afflicted with double vision. His ophthalmologist said it was caused by a weakness in one of his optic nerves. Nothing could be done and it was only a minor irritation, except when he played golf or drove one of his cars. Putts were a bitch when aiming at two holes. And driving on a two-lane road that became a four-lane road was a challenge. But Elson was a lousy golfer even when sober, anyway. And as for driving a car while impaired, well, he was not concerned about being arrested. All the cops knew his car. None would have the temerity to stop him, or in the case of an accident, suggest a Breathalyzer or blood test.
Three more mint juleps later, the Nazis invaded France. Elson struggled to keep his eyes open. He enjoyed watching the Frogs getting their clock cleaned by Hitler’s Wehrmacht. There was a flash of lightning outside, almost immediately followed by a sharp crack of thunder that drowned out the artillery barrage on his TV screen. Elson looked out the large bay window of his study. The small grove of Eastern White Pine trees in his front yard began swaying in the wind and rain began to splatter against the window. Elson hoped the early spring thunderstorm would dissipate by morning. Sunday was the opening-day tournament at his golf club.
Well, the rain would be good for the Highbush Blueberry, Sweetfern, Partridgeberry, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, and Wild Sarsaparilla shrubs and plants he’d carefully planted in his yard around the pines. They were hardy enough to flourish in shade. Elson was proud of his gardens. He was always bragging about his green thumb.
***
Elson awoke with a snort. He’d fallen asleep. He glanced out the window. The rain had slackened off to a steady drizzle. He was not crazy about playing golf in the rain, but knew it would take a monsoon to cancel opening day.
Elson frowned. On wet grass, he would probably be allowed to “lift, clean and place” his ball on the fairway. That would negate his main advantage and strategy. Which was to cheat. He always improved his lie when no one was looking. Now everybody could do it!
He turned back to the TV screen. The images were now very blurry but he could still see that the Germans were still on the move. They seemed to have a hell of a lot more tanks. Elson laughed. Probably my double vision. The Krauts would have won the war with that much armor. But they were raising a lot of dust and the huts the Wehrmacht soldiers were torching seemed too dilapidated for France. The Nazis were apparently invading Russia. Elson looked at his watch. He had to bring it almost to his nose to read it. It was after midnight. He’d been out for almost an hour. I should go to bed, he thought. We tee off at 8 AM. Clyde is picking me up at 7:30.
But he wanted a nightcap julep. He lifted the lid off the ice bucket. There was just enough ice for another drink. His hand swept the tray for the ice pick. Where the hell was it? Must have dropped it.
Elson began pulling himself up so he could lean down to see where it had fallen when he noticed that he couldn’t see the TV screen anymore. He looked up and was startled to see two figures, dressed all in white, standing between him and the screen. He almost screamed in fright at the ghostly apparition. For a moment he believed he might be dreaming, or hallucinating. But the sounds of gunfire and martial music emanating from the TV behind the two spectral figures convinced him he wasn’t.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
He closed his right eye and squinted. It was a trick he used on the highway. What he lost in depth perception he made up in missed trees.
The two specters merged into one and moved toward him. He sat up and leaned forward and emitted a harsh laugh.
“What the hell are you doing here? Jesus, you scared the hell out of me.”
He was no longer afraid, and despite his inebriation Colver Elson felt an erotic stirring. The feeling was more intense for the forbidden memories it recalled. He stretched out his arms.
“Come here,” he said huskily.
The eight-inch ice pick entered his open eye and only stopped traveling when its hilt jammed into the bone that surrounded the socket. The solid steel shaft pierced his eyeball and then plunged five more inches into his brain. The first inch blinded the eye and caused excruciating pain. Now he did scream, and then was silent, as the damage caused by the next two inches of steel paralyzed him, although his other eyelid reflexively popped open. He slumped back in the chair as the ice pick severed more billions of neurons and insured that he would never leave the chair alive. Blood shot out of the ravaged eye and sprayed over the ice pick handle, as well as the hand that wielded it. The hand let go of the hilt, almost reluctantly.
The gruesome wound was not necessarily fatal. The human brain needs more oxygen to function than any other organ and is thus well supplied with blood, much of which now traveled down the shaft and ran off the end in a steady, crimson stream. Elson might have survived had quick and expert medical attention been available. In 1940 an assassin sent by Stalin to Mexico plunged an ice pick into Leon Trotsky’s head. Trotsky was lucid enough to tell his bodyguards to keep the assassin alive for questioning, but died the next day in the hospital from brain injuries and blood loss. Modern medicine might have saved Trotsky, although he probably no longer would have been a rival that Stalin feared.
But nothing would save Colver Elson. With its nerve pathways to his damaged brain severed, his diaphragm was now only working spasmodically. He would suffocate or bleed out, whichever came first.
Ironically, the ice pick had cured his double vision. With his one operative eye he could see quite clearly now.
Unable to move, speak or even blink, Elson watched his life drip off the end of the ice pick in living, or, rather, dying color.
***
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www.lawrencedemaria.com
. He can be contacted at
[email protected]
, and welcomes your comments.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lawrence De Maria began his career as a general interest reporter (winning an Associated Press award for his crime reporting) and eventually became a Pulitzer-nominated senior editor and financial writer
The New York Times
, where he wrote hundreds of stories and features, often on Page 1. After he left the
Times
, De Maria became an Executive Director at
Forbes.
Following a stint in corporate America – during which he helped uncover the $7 billion Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme and was widely quoted in the national media – he returned to journalism as Managing Editor of the
Naples Sun Times
, a Florida weekly, until its sale to the Scripps chain in 2007. Since then, he has been a full-time fiction writer. De Maria is on the board of directors of the Washington Independent Review of Books, where, when he’s not killing people in his novels, he writes features, reviews and a column.
