The Daisy Ducks (14 page)

We returned to the gunroom, where Walter opened a
beer, lighted a Jamaican cigar, and switched on the television. Fred
and I walked out into the garden and sat near the fountain again. My
body was now so sore that I'd had difficulty rising from the dinner
table. I told this to Fred and he laughed, saying it was natural and
that I was obviously in far better shape than most of his guests. I
decided then and there to come right out with the
question
I most wanted answered.

"Fred, who shot Roantis?"

"Not me, if that's what you're asking. You still
think it was one of the Ducks?"

"I don't know."

He shook his head slowly and drank from his can of
Lone Star, then grunted a soft beer belch, the kind that stings the
inside of your nose. He shook his head again.

"I don't think it was any of the guys on the
Daisy Ducks patrol. Period. Why do I think that? Because the kind of
person who is a double volunteer in an elite armed services branch is
not a thief. A thief by nature looks for a short cut, an easy way
out. Just like that chicken-shit bastard who shot at us tonight. A
bum. Nothing but a fucking bum. And if I catch him, I'll kill him.
Now, the kind of guy who does what we did—tromping through the
jungles and mountains for weeks at a time, with no outside help and
in constant danger, isn't the kind to take short cuts. Sure, maybe
some of us have fallen on hard times since then. I guess Roantis
especially. But still, I just don't see how it could be any of the
Ducks. You know Roantis's recent lifestyle better than any of us. You
know the kinds of people he's been hanging around with. I think
they're far better bets as suspects in the shooting than any of his
army buddies. What do you think?"

"Well, there's no doubt he's been known to
associate with some pretty rough customers."

"Then I'd look there, not in the Ducks."

He said this last statement with finality and force,
and I realized that I had perhaps insulted him and his comrades in
arms by suggesting that one of them might be responsible. But I knew
that nobody outside the Ducks knew about the statue. I said nothing,
and when we finished our beers we each retired to our sleeping
quarters.

My room, done in adobe and oak, had a small balcony
attached to the outside wall. When you walked out, you saw you were
one story up on that side, since the ranch house was built on a
slope. The windows and door on the courtyard side were at ground
level. I opened the Spanish-style door, walked out onto the balcony,
and listened to the night sounds. There was the chirping and buzzing
of insects and the distant hoot of an owl on the wing. A breeze
cooled my face and washed over my tired body. It smelled of grass,
cattle, blossoms, mesquite and cedar trees. I went back inside and
tried to do my daily fifty pushups with my feet up on the bed and my
hands on the floor. No go. I tried the standard version. No go. I
managed twenty sit-ups before my butt and stomach hollered in pain. I
hauled my sore body into the sack and dropped into sleep's deep, dark
well slightly faster them the speed of` sound.

But l woke up twice during
the night. The first time I simply sat up in bed wondering where the
hell I was. Strange sounds. Strange room. The second time was more
interesting, because what had awakened me was the sound of my
doorknob turning. I sat up again and leaned forward, toward the door.
I could hear the latch turning slowly, back and forth. Very slowly,
so as to keep silence. Just before I could spring out of bed and
fling open the door to catch the nighttime visitor by surprise, the
noise stopped and I heard very soft footsteps outside. Then a tall
human figure appeared at the window on the courtyard side,
silhouetted against the thin curtains. It leaned close, then was
gone. Who was it? The dry-gulcher, perhaps, returning to try again?
Was it one of the household staff, checking to see if I was safe? Did
someone think the room was vacant and wish to use it for a tryst? Was
somebody trying to rob me? Kill me? Who was it? I got out of bed,
double-checked the lock, and went back to sleep.

* * *

Next morning I awoke at six and couldn't return to
sleep. The nighttime visitor had me going. But I decided not to say
anything about it, not to anyone. Whatever his intentions, they
obviously weren't aboveboard or he wouldn't have come calling in the
dead of night. But I was unharmed, and Fred was upset enough over
recent events on his ranch. So I was going to keep mum.

I staggered out of the sack and into the shower,
letting the hot water work on my sore, stiff body. My head felt
better, but the bruise from the kicking steer still ached. I got
dressed and eased out onto my little balcony to watch the sun come up
over the hills.

I saw a lone figure in the distance, a man running
among the scrub oaks that dotted the horizon. I kept watching the
figure, and soon it was obvious that the strides weren't regular;
there was a lopsided loping to them. It was Fred Kaunitz, running on
his bum leg. The man kept himself in A-1 shape, that was for sure.

We had breakfast at seven-thirty and then went to the
rifle range. My score surprised Fred, and he said so. At pistol
silhouettes I surprised him even more. Then we shot skeet, using
autoloading shotguns in twenty-gauge. I got about three quarters of
the clay targets, which is as good as I ever do. Fred got all of`
them. We returned to the pistol range and shot nine-millimeter and
forty-fives. In slow fire I equaled him in the nine-millimeter and
finished slightly behind with the forty-five. Then we did a few
targets in rapid fire, in which each shooter must empty his magazine
in twenty seconds. I fell slightly behind in this event, but not
much.

"You do a lot of` pistol shooting," he
said.

"Yes. But mostly slow fire. Fifty-yard paper
targets and some steel silhouettes."

"Ever do any combat events?"

"Never. just some rapid fire."

"Well, let's walk over to the combat course
we've got laid out here. I'll put you through your paces. We don't
have time for more than a couple of walk-throughs, but you'll get the
idea."

Near the skeet range, and connected to its power
source, was an automated combat simulation course. It was a series of
moving and pop-up targets that you walked through, pistol holstered.
When the target popped, you were to draw and fire from a crouch.
Sometimes two targets came up at the same time and you were to make
the best decision as to which to go for first. At the end of the
course there was the plate event, in which each contestant was to see
how many rounds of a full clip he could put into a circular steel
plate at twenty yards. We walked through the course. Fred was
phenomenal in his speed and accuracy. The big forty-five was up and
in his paw instantly. The shots came so fast they sounded like a
single long explosion. He hit the center mark on all the pop-up
targets and filled the plate with all seven rounds each time. I stunk
at it.

Fred kept himself razor-sharp in those combat skills.
Why? Was it pride in his past military service? Was it necessity,
brought about by the labor agitators or whoever they were in the
bush? Was it, like my target shooting, pure pleasure? Or was it . . .
What was it? We spent the remainder of the morning on a long tour of
the ranch. Fred never mentioned anything about the finances, but it
was obvious that he loved every square inch of the huge family estate
and that something was bothering him. We returned to the house and I
packed my gear, then we drove out to the airstrip.

The flight back to San Antonio seemed very short.
Almost before I knew it, I was stepping out on the wing of the little
Mooney and waving good-bye to the handsome pilot who'd been such a
fine host and straight shooter. And the man who, of course, couldn't
have had anything to do with the shooting of Liatis Roantis up in
Concord.

But there were a few things bothering me.

I considered the events at Flying K Ranch as I
watched the little aircraft taxi back down the blacktop. The first
thing was my near miss at the loading chute. It looked ninety percent
like an accident. But ninety isn't a hundred. Then the two bullets
that came within inches of my chest as I got into the jeep after Fred
had nailed the coyote. Certainly Kaunitz had nothing to do with
firing the shots. But was it just coincidence that we stopped within
range of the hidden gunman? Then there was the midnight visitor to my
room. It's a Southern tradition not to lock doors. I'm not a
Southerner, and I had locked mine with a throw-bolt. The figure who
peered into the room was tall. None of the Mexican ranch hands were
tall. There were only three tall people I'd seen at Flying K: Fred,
and his mom and dad. Now the nighttime stalker could have been the
dry-gulcher or another outsider, but I doubted it. I doubted it
because Lothar, the big watchdog, slept in the courtyard, and there
hadn't been a peep from him. So the odds were overwhelming that Fred
Kaunitz was the person at the window. Why was he there, in the dead
of night, softly turning my doorknob?

And then there was something I'd inadvertently seen
after breakfast, when we were shooting at the range. I'd gone into
the range shack to retrieve another box of cartridges. But instead of
looking in the left storage locker, I'd absent-mindedly swung open
the one on the right. There were no cartridges, just targets and
hunting jackets. Still unaware that I had opened the wrong locker, I
searched through the dark closet, even reaching around the corner
past two hunting jackets that were hanging on hooks. It was behind
the jackets, leaning upright against the locker wall. Black plastic
fore end, three vent holes, folding carrying handle over the
receiver. Exactly as Roantis had described it. The FN-FAL assault
rifle. I closed the locker door and, after a second's delay, found
the cartridges in the opposite locker. I took them to Kaunitz without
a word.

Finally, Fred's bum right leg, injured in the same
location that my lucky bullet struck just after Roantis was hit. Like
Fred, that gunman could shoot like crazy. And Fred needed the money.
And he had the means of transportation too . . .

Wait a minute, sport. No hasty conclusions. It's all
circumstantial, held together with half-baked theories and bubble
gum. But, as I headed back to the Del Rio Hilton in the taxi, I
looked down at the scrap of paper in my hands. It was the
registration number of Freddie Kaunitz's Mooney airplane. Call it a
hunch, but some inner voice had told me to make a note of it.
 
 

10

"AND You never l
isten
!”
Mary said.

Actually, 'said' isn't the right word; 'shouted' is
better.

"That's the pisser, Charlie. I thought we agreed
that you wouldn't see this guy Kaunitz. So what do you do? You go to
his goddamn ranch and get shot at and trampled! Sweet Jesus!" I
held the receiver a few inches away from my ear to cut down on the
decibels, and also to let some of the steam escape. I guess I
shouldn't have mentioned the little incidents. But if I couldn't talk
freely to her, how could I level with her? And if I couldn't level
with her, who could I level with?

"Now Mare, you're making too much of —"

"No I'm not. I've about had it with your little
adventures, pal. You keep it up and you'll have all the freedom you
want . . . and more!"

After she hung up, I eased back into the tweedy chair
of the private airline club. Just outside the rosewood door,
thousands of frantic travelers rushed to and fro along the miles of
O'Hare International Airport's corridors. What a madhouse. I had just
arrived from San Antonio and had a two-hour layover until the Boston
flight departed. I looked at my watch. One-thirty. Would Michael
Summers, former member of the 101st Airborne Brigade and the Daisy
Ducks, show? I thought not. He hadn't sounded that together when we'd
talked earlier. But I was wrong. At quarter to two, I was just
beginning to doze in my easy chair when the receptionist tapped me on
the shoulder.

"Dr. Adams? The man you've been waiting for has
arrived. This way, Mr. Summers."

The man who sat down opposite me looked big and mean.
His thick, dark face wore a scowl; his huge body seemed to dwarf the
big easy chair he'd lowered himself into. He resembled the late Sonny
Liston, the heavyweight slugger Muhammad Ali called "The Bear."
I rose, leaned over, and shook his hand. It was a beefy paw that
encircled my hand, hiding it. The handshake was firm but not brutal.
Mike Summers was confident enough in his own strength and toughness
not to have to parade it. I sat back again and looked at him closely.
In an instant, my medical training told me that underneath the great
size and strength, Mike Summers was in trouble. The whites of his
eyes had a yellowish hue, and there were rust-colored patches there,
too. The face and hands were puffy. Too much booze and a bad diet.

"How you doing?" I asked.

"Been better. I want a drink. Okay?"

"Sure. What'll it be?"

"Double Scotch on the rocks and a bottle of
Miller's."

That was three drinks, not one. But I didn't feel
like pushing the point. I went up to the bar and got his order and a
bottle of  Heineken's for myself. On the way I stopped by the
front desk and asked the receptionist if she could get me a blood
pressure cuff. She balked at first, but I assured her the airlines or
the airport clinic had one somewhere on the premises. I returned to
our chairs and placed the drinks on the table between us. Soon the
barkeeper brought us a plate of cheese and pretzels. Summers picked
up the whiskey and tossed it off as if it were a shot glass. Then he
sipped his beer, let out a slow, deep growl of relief, and lighted a
Lucky Strike.