P Deutermann - The Moonpool

“Why don’t you clowns just leave?” I said. “And now’d be nice. You’re rent-a-cops, and you have zero authority outside of your contract area. The fact that you’re even here means you probably do have a hole in your so-called perimeter, so why don’t you go work on that instead of bothering Mr. Hilton’s paying guests?”

The older guy sniffed and then got up, zipping up his windbreaker. “Okay, Mr. Richter. We’ll leave. But trust me, you will, too. C’mon, people.”

He walked past me without a second glance, as did the SS officer look-alike. Billy sat in his chair for one second longer than necessary, and then pocketed the. 45 as he got up.

“That must be a relief,” I said. “My arm was getting tired just watching you.”

Billy sauntered by, never taking his eyes off my face. “Later,” he muttered.

“Earlier is better than later,” I said to his back. “That is, if you’re man enough without your ace buddies there. Nighty-night. Kid.”

I closed the door and slid the bolt and chain. I went into the bathroom and checked for my weapon. It was there, but the magazine was gone. So they had found it. I picked up my cell phone, and yes, it felt lighter than before. I picked up each of the two house phones, but neither of them worked, either. Thorough contractors, I’d give them that. If I wanted to squawk, I’d have to leave the room, and I really didn’t want to venture too far from my room just now. The best I could hope for was that Billy would come back to prove he was a man. I decided to prepare for that possibility.

Fifteen minutes later, there was a quiet knock on the door. I knew better than to peek through the little plastic optic. Our homicide crew had once found a drug dealer pinned to his hotel door by an ice pick that had been hammered into his eye through that little piece of plastic.

“Who is it?” I said in a singsong voice.

“It’s later,” a voice replied, and I recognized young Billy. Oh, good.

“Well, Billy,” I said, “you surprise me again. Why don’t you come on in and get your ass kicked.”

I stepped across the alcove, staying underneath the eyehole, removing the chain as I went. Then I crouched in the closet on the other side of the room door and wedged my shoulder against the wall. I unsnapped the dead bolt, and then, putting one foot about in the middle of the door, I reached over and pushed the door handle down.

He did exactly what I expected him to do, which was to kick the door as hard as he could the moment he heard that handle unlatch. If I’d been standing where someone normally stands when he opens a hotel room door, I’d have been hit in the face with the edge of said door and probably knocked unconscious. As it was, I was able to let the door swing halfway in against my cocked leg, and then I sent it back in his direction with the full force of my right leg. The edge caught him in the forehead and knocked him all the way across the hall, blood spurting from his nose and forehead as he slumped, cross-eyed and barely conscious, into a sitting position against the opposite wall, his scrawny ass on the room service tray. I reached up to the closet shelf, picked up the hallway fire extinguisher I’d lifted ten minutes earlier, and flooded his face with dry powder. He hadn’t let go of his . 45, but dropped it now to protect his eyes.

It was a peppy little fire extinguisher. He was still sufficiently stunned that he failed to tuck and roll, and I flat covered his eyes, nose, mouth, and chest with that noxious powder until the spray petered out. Then I threw the empty extinguisher as hard as I could at his right knee, achieving an entirely satisfactory crack and a loud grunt from young Billy. A small cloud of white powder puffed out from his lips when he cried out.

I stepped out into the hallway and retrieved his. 45. It looked a lot like mine, a SIG-Sauer model 220. Better than mine, it had a full magazine. I stepped back into my open doorway and then checked the hall. At the far end, to my left, near the elevator bank, stood the older man, leaning against the wall with his hands in his jacket pockets. He was looking at Billy and shaking his head. If ghosts could get nosebleeds, that’s what Billy looked like.

“Good help is hard to find,” I called down to him.

“Ain’t that the truth,” he said. I closed the door so he could retrieve his semi-wrecked, extremely white bad boy. I kept Billy’s gun.

I sighed as I washed some white powder off my own hands. I was pretty sure I’d get to see Billy again one day, and next time he probably would bring his friends. Then again, so would I.

Right now, however, I thought it best to leave town. Billy had been all noise and testosterone, but those other two guys looked like the real deal. Until I knew more about what the hell was really going on here in Wilmington, I’d probably be safer back home. I decided to take a shower, hit the sack, and go back to Triboro in the morning. Or I could call Mary Ellen Goode. I did that and got an answering machine. I told the machine I’d be back in a week and hoped to get together again.

A week later I surveyed my new digs in the village of Southport, a small but pleasant tourist town situated southeast of Wilmington on the estuary where the Cape Fear River pushes a gazillion gallons of fresh water a day into the Atlantic Ocean. The house itself was a two-story, multi-bedroom affair that rented for obscene sums of money for the five months or so of the summer tourist season and then usually sat empty for the rest of the year. It had spacious wraparound screened porches on both levels and overlooked the river beach and the barrier islands across the Cape Fear estuary. I could see the ferryboat that went over to Fort Fisher ploughing dutifully through a light chop as it approached the landing north of the town. The air smelled of seashore and there was a fine layer of white sand on everything.

I was no longer flying solo, having brought two of my original MCAT team members, Tony Martinelli and Pardee Bell, down from Triboro. Pardee had been one of two black detectives in the MCAT. He was a big guy, two inches taller than I was, who had really enjoyed getting in criminals’ faces, especially black criminals, so he could punk ’em out, as he was fond of saying. Everyone thought Pardee had been brought onto the team to provide some in-house muscle, but he happened to have a degree in computer science from NC State and could do some real damage with a desktop. He was married to a whip-smart trial attorney in Triboro, and he’d lasted for about one week in “retirement” from the sheriff’s office before said lady lawyer told him to go find something useful to do besides cleaning the house twice a day and generally driving her nuts. He’d been a level-headed, highly focused, and very professional deputy sheriff, and we were delighted when he’d called in to join the old crew at H amp;S.

Tony Martinelli, on the other hand, was half-crazy, in the southern sense of that term, which connotes wary respect for the truly eccentric. He was a little guy, maybe five-seven or -eight with the right boots on, but an effective cop because no one, bad guys or good guys, knew quite what he would do next. His specialty on the MCAT had been finding and then following persons of interest. We’d learned early on to intervene if Tony had been on someone’s tail for more than, say, a day or so, because he would get bored with it and then things were likely to go sideways. With jet-black hair, emotive brown eyes, and a puckish grin on his face, he looked like an altar boy who’d been caught trying out the sacramental wine. Women usually fell all over themselves to take him under their wings when he went out to party.

And, of course, now that I was in a house instead of a hotel, my trusty German shepherds were along for the ride. Frick was an American-bred sable bitch who would happily amputate the extremities of any intruder. I was her human, and she declined to share. Frack, the larger and older of the two, was an all-black East German border-guard model. He had a disconcerting habit of sitting down and staring at strangers instead of running around and barking like too many shepherds did. He had amber, lupine eyes, and lots of people were more than willing to believe me when I told them that Frack was really a wolf. As any dog owner knows, deterrence is ninety percent of the battle.