The Ambassador, page 25
I turned my head and saw movement. Baz was kneeling against a tree, scanning with the rifle fifty or sixty yards away. I wriggled back some more and then quietly rolled over on to my stomach, sticking the barrel of the Browning under the downed tree. He had been obscured by the mist in the short time I was moving. I fired a spoiler round into the tree above where I thought he was. He started firing at me as fast as he could pull the trigger, rounds slapping into the three-foot-thick tree above me.
I lined the sights up on the muzzle flashes in the mist and fired the remaining four shots in rapid succession, the stock punching into my shoulder, hand working the lever, the smell of burnt powder hanging in the air. I rolled over and dropped the rifle in the mud. I sprang up and ran to a thick hemlock tree, drawing my Hi-Power. Then, safety off, pistol in hand, I slowly worked from tree to tree, trying to get behind Baz.
It didn’t take long, a minute or two that seemed like a short lifetime. He was sitting up against a tree. There was blood on his chest and the Mini-14 was across his lap. I could see a partially ejected shell casing stove-piped in the chamber. He coughed; pinkish mist came out of his mouth. He was alive and he had a sucking chest wound. One of my rounds had punched through a lung. There was also blood coming from his abdomen.
‘Fuck, that hurts,’ he spoke, more pink foam.
‘Yeah, probably does.’
‘Hard fucking way to make your fortune, mate.’
‘You mean steal someone else’s.’
‘Well, it’s a living for a gentleman of fortune.’ I was amused that he used an arcane term to describe pirates, instead of ‘soldier of fortune’.
‘How long have you been gaslighting Stevenson for?’
‘Ha, since the beginning.’
‘And Kovach?’
‘Never heard of him till you turned up with his name.’
‘It was you who shot up the house. What, did you get the Mini-14 after finding out Kovach had one?’
‘Hahaha,’ he laughed weakly.
‘Why did you do it? Why Stevenson?’
‘Me? I’m a mercenary, mate.’ Like that explained it all.
I had more questions but there was no point. The life had gone out of him. He was as dead as any I’d seen.
The duffle bag was at his side. He had opened it and a couple of banded bundles of money had spilled out. I sat down on a nearby stump and lit a cigarette. I sat smoking, contemplating the man who I had just killed while I waited for Watts and the FBI to arrive. I heard myself telling Baz, ‘Do not describe your duffle bag, as all duffle bags look the same.’ He didn’t have a witty retort. I couldn’t blame him.
EIGHTEEN
I was on my second cigarette when the state trooper who had been parked out in front of the house found me. He pointed his giant stainless steel .357 Magnum revolver at me and yelled commands that I couldn’t really hear. Gunfire tends to do that to me. I put my hands up and did my best to comply while he handcuffed me. He wasn’t gentle when he slapped the handcuffs on my wrists. He frisked me, taking my pistol, which he stuffed into his belt. It annoyed me – like watching another man dance with your girl.
Watts and the FBI/Vermont State Police task force descended on the scene before my hands started to throb too badly from the too-tight handcuffs. When the trooper uncuffed them, there were hints of pins and needles. He handed my Hi-Power back to me butt first, and I awkwardly reholstered it.
‘Jesus, you’re a sight.’ That was about as much sympathy as I could expect from Watts.
‘Good to see you too. What was in the duffle bag on the dam?’
‘Well, you know what wasn’t,’ she said, gesturing to the one on the ground. ‘Old Newsweek magazines. I guess Stevenson hung on to his subscription, tied them up with string and stored them in the garage for posterity.’
‘Of course, he would.’
‘Sure, he’s a man of greatness. What happened?’ I told her the story pretty much as it happened. I didn’t feel the need to mention that Maureen had woken me up, or why she was in my bed to begin with.
‘You just woke up?’
‘Sure.’
‘You still smell like bourbon and sex,’ she said, with only a little vinegar in her voice.
‘A gentleman never tells.’
‘Since when are you a gentleman?’
‘Ha. Flattery will get you nowhere. Anything linking Baz to Kovach?’
‘Not much. We found Kovach’s car at the rest stop off the interstate in New Hampshire. You know, the one with the liquor store.’
‘I’ve driven by it.’ I felt no need to add my other deviant behaviors to her list. She was doing fine on her own.
‘A New Hampshire state trooper noticed that the car had been there for a couple of days. When he got out to check, he noticed some blood on the back seat.’
‘Kovach?’
‘We think so. No body yet, but they are checking the area around the rest stop and will bring in the dogs if they need to.’
‘I wonder if that is Kovach’s rifle?’ I gestured to the Mini-14.
‘We’ll have to print it. None of his weapons were registered, so that doesn’t help, but you never know.’
‘Baz said he never heard of Kovach until I showed up.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘I don’t know. He was on death’s door, and I think he had it in him to make up a lie.’
‘OK, the State Police crime-scene boys will be here in a little while. Did you use your pistol?’
‘No, just Stevenson’s rifle.’
‘OK, the State Police will want a statement from you. Once everything is photographed, we’ll count the money and get it back to Stevenson.’
‘OK. Sounds good.’
‘Andy, you did good.’
‘Thanks.’ I wish it felt like I had.
‘Let’s go back to the house. You look like you need a cup of coffee, and you smell like you need a shower.’ She wrinkled her nose, and if she hadn’t had a .38 holstered on her hip, I would’ve told her she looked cute. One gunfight a morning is my limit.
I was able to get a cup of coffee and a quick shower in before I had to give my statement. The Vermont State Police detective was in his forties, with an iron-gray brush cut and K-mart suit. I couldn’t blame him; polyester is affordable and stands up well to wrinkles. He had all the personality of a Styrofoam cup, and his last name was Lyndgarten. He had me write out what happened and then read it into a black, push-button tape recorder.
I shouldn’t complain, he saved me a trip to the nearest barracks to do it. When they woke up, Smith and Jones both said the last thing they remembered was Baz bringing them cups of coffee. He had thoughtfully put in milk and sugar and a few sleeping pills. It had been enough to knock them out but not kill them. He was a considerate SOB.
Watts came back in from the woods around noon. They had taken pictures of every shell casing and bullet hole they could find. They had bagged the rifles, Baz’s pistol, and a bunch of shell casings as evidence.
The troopers had hauled a body bag out to the waiting ambulance that would transport Baz’s body to the morgue in Saint Johnsbury. The now thoroughly photographed duffle bag was brought inside and the money counted and recounted in front of Stevenson, who was beaming. Who could blame him? Tired FBI agents were searching Baz’s room. The whole house was a hive of activity.
‘They found a body in some trees on the far side of the parking lot of the rest stop,’ Watts pulled me aside to tell me.
‘Kovach?’ I asked.
‘His wallet was in the body’s pants, but small animals have been at the face and soft tissue.’
‘Ugh. Any idea how he died?’
‘Shot through the temple. Maybe a .38 or a 9-millimeter. Close range.’
‘Baz had a 9-millimeter.’
‘OK. The boys from the lab will check it out.’
‘Is there anything that connects Stevenson’s aide Bradley to either Baz or Kovach?’
‘Still on the “butler did it” angle?’
‘Well, one butler certainly, but what if there were two? Baz didn’t end up here by accident.’
‘Nothing. I know you don’t like the guy, but don’t let that cloud your judgment.’
‘Hmph.’
‘You got the bad guy. We don’t know all the details yet, his motive, but you got the guy. Stevenson and his family are safe because of you. You can feel good about that.’
‘Watts, maybe Baz was smart enough to put together the scheme. Maybe he was able to work it out so that he could drive down to Fairhaven and plant the typewriter, steal some guns, all of that, but Baz didn’t strike me as the type to come up with this type of thing.’
‘You said it yourself that this was pretty half-assed.’
‘How did he guarantee that he got hired?’
‘Andy, I don’t know. We may never know. We have the guy. We have the gun. We have the money. No one other than that asshole got hurt. That’s what we in the Bureau call a win.’ She left me to go back to the investigation.
I only caught fleeting glimpses of Watts the rest of the day. Maureen was even more scarce. Stevenson was tied up with the FBI, going over their questions about Baz. Bradley hovered close by Stevenson but didn’t say much to me. Gordon Junior was almost as scarce as Maureen. Amid all the investigative dog-and-pony show, Honey came in and sat down next to me on the couch.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi.’
‘I wanted to thank you.’
‘No need. I was just doing my job.’
‘You might act like it isn’t a big deal, all “Aw shucks ma’am, tweren’t nothing”,’ she mocked gently, ‘but to Gordon and me, it is everything.’
‘I am glad to help,’ I said lamely.
‘Mr Roark, he was terrorizing us. It was never about the money. Gordon and I have plenty between us and we would have paid ten times that to be free from the constant worry of this thing. Now we have a chance to have our baby and raise it in safety. Gordon looks better than I have seen him in weeks.’ It was true; it seemed as though a weight had been lifted from Stevenson’s shoulders.
‘I am glad to have helped.’
‘You did. Thank you.’ Then she leaned over and kissed me quite chastely on the cheek. She stood up and walked over to her husband. Well, how about that?
I watched the FBI agents carry box after cardboard box of stuff up from Baz’s room. I saw another agent walk out with a brown leather duffle bag, more the L.L. Bean style than Army issue. It had an evidence tag tied to one of the leather handles. When the parade of boxes and luggage stopped, I went downstairs. Watts was in Baz’s room, holding a notebook and a pen in hand.
‘Find anything interesting?’
‘Not much. Clothes, passport, a small vial of coke, a bottle of uppers and ten one-hundred-dollar bills in his shaving kit.’
‘That’s a lot more than I keep in my shaving kit. I usually just keep it to shaving stuff.’
‘There is a bunch of stuff to go through. We found a receipt from an Army Navy surplus store in Providence, Rhode Island. He bought a survival knife and two army duffle bags back at the end of September.’
‘So, he was planning this for a while.’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Funny, last night he showed me the money in the duffle bag. He opened it up and made a point of showing me and then made a joke about running away with it.’
‘He must have had the other bag in the back and made the switch.’
‘Yeah, the bag was under a blanket. I thought he was being cautious pulling the blanket over it. Then he joked about me running away with the money, and I made a joke about you hunting me down.’ Slowly, through the lack of sleep and the sheer exhaustion that comes after shooting someone, some memory, some itch was working its way to the surface of my consciousness. ‘Then he said … something about me not wanting you on my spoor.’
‘What is your spore?’
‘Spoor. It’s a Cape Dutch term, derived from Old English. It means animal tracks or footprints, something that can be followed. Like a trail.’ Maureen had appeared, and was leaning one hip against the door frame. ‘It’s not spore with an “e”, but spoor with two “o”s. You hear it a lot in South Africa, Rhodesia, places like that. You might hear it in England, but when you guys left the Empire, it fell out of favor.’
‘Ah, yes. Thank you, Ms Kemp.’ Watts was all FBI professional.
‘I’m a lot more than just a pretty face.’ As if I needed to be reminded. She smiled at me, and then headed off upstairs again.
‘She has a high opinion of herself.’ I was beginning to think that Watts wasn’t a fan.
‘Anyway, that’s what Baz said. He said I wouldn’t want you on my spoor.’
‘No, you wouldn’t. So what?’
‘It’s in one of the early notes. I thought it was spore and he was threatening Stevenson’s family.’
‘That’s good. It ties him into this that much more.’
‘Kovach was Hungarian and probably learned his English from Americans somewhere along the way. He probably wouldn’t use a word like spoor.’
‘OK, well, he might still be an accomplice, even if he didn’t write the letters.’
‘Sure, or he was some poor schmuck who had nothing to do with any of this until I found him. Maybe I handed Baz a ready-made patsy for this job.’
‘We don’t know enough yet. Baz chose this. No one made him do any of this. Certainly not you.’
‘I know, I know.’ I felt tired and suddenly I was feeling very sick of being in the hunting lodge. Intellectually I knew she was right. I was tired and worn down. I had probably been right not to want to take this case.
‘When can I head back to Boston?’ I had a cat to feed.
‘I will check with the State Police, but you should be good to go.’
‘Good.’ I went over to where my bag was and packed the few things in it that I had brought with me. I still had the Hi-Power on my hip. Watts went upstairs, and when I heard footsteps coming down a few minutes later, I was surprised to see Maureen.
‘You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye, were ya, cowboy?’
‘No ma’am. I was most definitely going to say goodbye.’ I put my bag down and stepped closer to her as she stepped into my arms. We kissed for a long minute and then I leaned back. ‘The offer of a place to stay in Boston is a standing one.’
‘Emmnn, I’d be a fool not to take you up on that offer.’
‘I can cook, too.’
‘I could certainly get used to a man who can cook, too.’ We kissed again and then she slipped away upstairs.
I walked around, looking at the purpose-built sanctuary that Stevenson had created for himself. The books, his awards, the Masai spear, Honey’s rather good artwork. All trophies. A small monument to a career, an ego. There were steps on the stairs, and this time it was Watts.
‘The State Police are OK with your heading back to Boston. They said you will probably have to come back for an inquest.’
‘That makes sense.’
I didn’t mind. The case was over, and I just wanted some fresh air. I went upstairs to let Stevenson and Honey know I was leaving. The State cops were interviewing Smith and Jones, who couldn’t tell them much more, other than that Baz had brought them coffee and they fell asleep.
I found Stevenson and Honey in the kitchen with Frieda, who was peeling vegetables with a paring knife. Her hands were strong but showing the signs of arthritis. Stevenson looked up at me, taking in the smock and the postal bag slung on my shoulder.
‘Going somewhere?’
‘I have things I need to see to in Boston.’
‘Roark, you did a fine job out there. Thank you.’
‘All part of the service. I’ll send you a report in a week or so.’
‘Sure, sure. Whatever you need. Bradley will take care of it.’
‘Mr Roark, thank you. You were very brave, and we appreciate what you have done for us.’ Honey smiled warmly and I gave her a lopsided grin in return. I gave a mock salute, touching my hand to my eyebrow, and said, ‘Goodbye.’
Outside the air was crisp and cool, and I realized it was the first of November. Somehow, in all the noise and machinations, I had missed Halloween. It wouldn’t be long before Stevenson and company would be dealing with snow. I got in the Maverick and started it up. I got on the highway, pointed the car toward Boston and pushed down on the gas pedal.
The drive had been uneventful but tiring. Sir Leominster was waiting for me at the door when I let myself in. He ran back and forth, tail sticking straight up while he meowed at me, airing his many grievances. He did rub up against my shins and consented to have his ears scratched. I shut the door, dropped my bag, and went to open him a can of cat food.
After that was done, I poured myself a whiskey on the rocks and went to unpack my bag. I put the holstered Hi-Power down on the bedside table, the two loaded magazines next to it. I could switch back to my normal .38 snub-nose in the morning. I went back to the kitchen.
I put a pot of salted water on to boil and took out a box of elbow macaroni. I also found a can of Dinty Moore stew. I was glad that Maureen wasn’t here to see what dinner was going to be, because she would have reason to doubt my claims that I could cook. When the macaroni had been drained, I used the same pot to heat up the canned stew. When it was heated, I poured it over the macaroni, which I had put in a large bowl.
I added more whiskey and ice to my glass and took it all to the couch. I turned on the TV and Dana Hersey started to talk to me about The Conversation, Gene Hackman’s tightly acted masterpiece of paranoia and wiretapping. It was slowly paced but perfectly acted and executed. In a lot of ways, I felt like Hackman’s lonely character. With my belly full and whiskey working its way into my body, my eyelids grew heavy, and I went to bed.
