Эд Горман - Riders on the Storm

“But even though he was a jerk sometimes he was sort of a Boy Scout at the same time. John Wayne and all that stuff.”

“I never told him how stupid I thought the war was. But he was an Eagle Scout when he was in high school. And at the top of his ROTC class in college. So this war — he was all my country right or wrong. What Cullen did infuriated him.” Then, “Where are you going to hide me?”

“I have some friends I was thinking about. They’d be happy to make you comfortable and keep you safe.”

“That sounds perfect.”

But as we rolled closer to town...

“Do you mind if I ask where your friends live?”

“Over on Fourteenth Street and B Avenue.”

“On the southwest side, then?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm” being her last word for at least two minutes....

“I really hate imposing on people.”

“Of course you do.”

“And on that side of town the houses are pretty small.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“Why thank you. I was thinking maybe it would be easier to take a suite at the Royale.”

“Register under a false name.”

“I didn’t even think of that. Perfect.” Then, “Could I hire you to stand guard?”

“I’m not sure what that means.”

“You know, like a bodyguard.”

“I don’t think you need a bodyguard.”

“He could always bring in Teddy Byrnes.”

She was quite a female. So lost in herself she could insult you without even knowing it. But I admired her for mourning her husband. There I’d been wrong about her. And so I might be wrong about her fear of Anders. He really had looked insane back there at the bottom of his driveway.

“I know a couple of cops who’d sit in your room and keep you safe when they’re off-duty. You’d have to pay them of course.”

“But they’re police officers. Why would I have to pay them?”

“Off-duty, I said.”

“Well how much would it be?”

“Say five bucks an hour.”

“That could turn into a lot of money.”

“That’s what supermarkets pay them to direct traffic on weekends.”

“When you have money people are always trying to take advantage of you.”

“Those bastards,” I said. “Those dirty bastards.”

I guess my humor wasn’t to her taste. She didn’t laugh.

They wouldn’t let me talk to Will, so since Gordon Niven was in the same hospital I visited him.

He looked like most of the cartoons I’ve seen depicting some badly injured person in the hospital. Bandaged enough to make a passing reference to Boris Karloff as “The Mummy.”

“Remember now,” the nurse said as she left, “he can’t talk. The doctor put him in a coma.”

I pulled up a chair and sat next to him. I had a brief fantasy of taking a machete and dividing Byrnes into five slices.

The room was a single and even for a single a small one. Someone had placed a black rosary on his bandaged white hand. He was so gauze-wrapped it was hard to see any breaks or bruises. He slept. He was a mummy.

“I’m going to get that bastard for doing this to you.”

I looked around the room. Painting of Jesus on the west wall. For once he wasn’t pretty. Niven’s travel bag sat under the elevated TV set. He mumbled something and I instantly snapped my head around. Was he waking up?

I sat very still and listened. More mumbling but I had no idea if he was trying to say something or these were just noises inspired by things going on in his mind. I sat there for maybe ten minutes, then I decided to check out his travel bag.

Socks, underwear, shaving supplies, two folded golf shirts yellow and green, two small photo albums of Niven and a woman who was presumably his wife and their kids and grandkids, a paperback edition of The High Window by Chandler (I smiled when I remembered the discussion we’d had about Chandler), and then — the surprise — the same kind of back-pocket notebooks I used. Four of them lay on top of a tape recorder not much larger than the paperback.

I lifted the notebooks out and started reading them.

Like most of us in the business he datelined everything. 8/11/71. And then writing that was largely in code. Since the words were meant only for him, he didn’t care if anybody else could read them. Hell, he didn’t want anybody else to read them.

One day he had trailed Anders for nine hours. There was one sentence that made me wonder if Anders was cheating on Valerie. He’d gone into a new “Singles Only” apartment house and stayed for three hours.

That same night he followed Anders back to his business. Anders was inside about forty-five minutes and then he appeared in the parking lot with Donovan. “Anders shoved him; Donovan swung on him.” But he couldn’t pick up what the two men were arguing about.

Then I found a page that was a backgrounder on Anders.

Interview at local airport: Anders flies his plane frequently. Colgan Air Services.

Keeps a woman in Cedar Rapids condo.

In default on child support wives one and two.

Has resisted all attempts to buy into his operation or to buy him out.

“I hope you find those notebooks more useful than I did. He’s never let me look through them.”

I turned to find a woman of about sixty who was svelte and knowing but with charitable blue eyes and a hint of a smile. The gray chignon, the elegant cut of the gray dress were a perfect match for the slight air of superiority that celebrated the fact that she was still a stunner at her age.

I set the notebooks down. “I apologize. I’m nosy by profession. I’m a private investigator, too. My name’s Sam McCain.”

“I should have introduced myself.” She stepped smartly to me and took my hand. “I’m Gordon’s wife. Are you a friend of his?”

“I just met him. But I’ve been hearing about him for years.”

“Well, take some advice from me. Don’t ever try to figure him out. I’ve been married to him for thirty-three years and I never could find out what he’s all about. Our children say the same thing. You can never tell what he’s going to do next. I don’t think he even knows what he’s going to do next.” Another glance at him. The voice wan now. “There’s a good chance he won’t make it.” Then, “I drove down as soon as the hospital called me. I could barely concentrate on my driving. I didn’t want him to die before I could at least kiss him one more time.” Then, “He should’ve quit six or seven years ago. I begged him.” Then, “Do you know who did this to him?”

“I think I do.”

“Can you prove it?”

“No, not yet.”

“Is that person still in town?”

“Yes. He’s a psychopath. But I just promised Gordon that I was going to get the man who did this to him. One way or another.”

“You sound sure of yourself.”

“I am.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Do I look afraid?”

“Well,” she said, “since you brought up the subject, you actually do.”

I laughed. “You’re a very perceptive woman.”

Colgan Air Services was set right on the edge of the city limits. It was standard for the kind of business you usually saw attached to larger airports. Here you could rent aircraft, take flight instruction, fuel up, use a hangar, tie down your craft, or even take a nap in a small room Billy Colgan made available.

Billy was a short and short-fused Irisher who had enough hair on his arms to make an ape envious. I’d never seen him in long-sleeved shirts. Maybe all that hair needed to be aired out.

You walked past a row of tied-down small craft to reach a round yellow metal building that housed the office as well as one of two hangars. Billy’s wife Mara was one of the fastest typists I’ve ever seen. She was plain until she smiled. Then she was striking. She paused in her assault on her typewriter keys to see me and smile. Like Billy and all his employees she wore a tan short-sleeved shirt with Colgan Air above the breast pocket.