Steven Havill - Bitter Recoil

“Maybe he figured he was cornered,” Tate said. “Maybe he didn’t know the chopper had to call it off.”

Sterns shoved his hands in his pockets. “He asked for you, Gastner. My guess is that he thinks you’re his ticket. And while he waits, he’s sure as hell safe here. Nobody’s going to sneak up behind him.”

I turned away from the hole. I kept my grip on Parris’s arm, pulling him with me like a wayward child. “How the hell deep is that thing?”

Sterns stepped right to the edge and looked down through the wire mesh. “I’d guess five, six hundred feet. Maybe more. We’re lookin’ to find Stubby Begay. He’s a Navajo who lives in these parts. He used to work for Simon-Yates, and one of the deputies said he thinks Begay was on the crew that used to work this hole.”

Chances were nil anyone would have a blueprint of the mine… and if they did, it’d take a week to get it. “Let’s check the truck,” I said. “See what the son of a bitch took. Maybe he took the hand-held radio down into the shaft with him.” I turned to one of the deputies. “Stay with this man,” I told him and hauled Parris around within reach of the deputy.

The Blazer wasn’t locked and the keys were in the ignition. I glanced in the back. “The bastard went camping,” I said. “He took my sleeping bag.” I peered under the driver’s seat. “And the radio.” I rummaged some more. “And a.45 automatic I kept stowed here.”

I straightened up and rested my forearms on the seat cushion. Lying on the passenger seat was the wad of newspaper that had been under the seat, serving as a cushion for the radio. I frowned. I was not an overly neat individual when it came to housekeeping-but now the newspapers had been folded with care. The two-week-old Albuquerque paper was on top, with a quarter of the front page torn off. The tear went through the middle of some notes I’d scribbled in the margin.

I remained motionless, lost in thought. What the son of a bitch was up to was a mystery to me. Hell, I had no idea whether a hand-held radio even worked underground…or for that matter if the batteries in mine were charged.

I reached over and snapped open the glove compartment. I couldn’t tell if my mess in there had been rearranged, but nothing appeared to be missing. I shook my head.

The Blazer’s two-way radio was an old-fashioned Motorola, and when I turned on the ignition I saw it still worked. So did the gas gauge. The needle rested below “E.”

The Motorola was set on channel one, car-to-car. I hefted the mike. “Finn, do you hear me?” Pat Tate had walked around to the other side of the Blazer, and he leaned against the door. I repeated the call. A short burst of static crackled over the speaker, sounding faint. A try on the other channels produced nothing.

“He either don’t have the radio on or it don’t work underground,” Tate said.

“I’ve never been down in a mine. I don’t know.” I hung up the microphone and switched off the ignition. “Finn doesn’t know me from a hole in the head,” I said. “He met me that first time Estelle and I walked up to the camp.” That seemed years before. “If he drove your deputy’s car to the Guzman’s house and took my truck, then he was planning ahead. How the hell did he know about the Blazer?”

A deputy started to walk toward us and Tate waved him off. “Maybe he didn’t. He knew who Estelle was and without a doubt knew who Francis was…especially if the Burgess girl had occasion to visit the clinic. Hell, if you live in a dinky town like San Estevan, you know everybody sooner or later. Maybe he knew about Dr. Guzman’s Isuzu four by four and was after that. Guzman wasn’t home so he settles for yours. And you got to figure, the way things went down, yours was about the only one he’d be able to take without worrying about the owner showing up.”

“Maybe.”

“Another possibility is that the night Osuna was shot Arajanian followed him to the Guzmans’, hoping for another try. He sees you and spooks.” He shrugged. “So he tells Finn about it when he gets back. He had the time. If Arajanian watched you load Osuna into the Blazer, it makes sense he’d tell Finn about that, too.”

I didn’t much like the notion that while Estelle and I had been helping the wounded Osuna the creep with the silenced Beretta had been lounging around outside the adobe house, watching our every move-with his finger itching on the trigger.

If that had been the case, he could have taken us all out, then and there. Whatever he’d been, maybe he hadn’t been a creative little bastard. He’d needed instructions from his boss.

As we walked back toward the shaft, I saw that the crowd was growing. I gestured at Sterns, and he broke away from a powwow he was having with a couple of men in business suits.

“You have a bullhorn? A hailer?” I asked.

“Sure. I mean, I’m sure somebody does.” Sterns turned and shouted at one of his deputies. The kid produced one of those little battery-powered amplifiers that track coaches love. I took it and walked to the shaft. Another helicopter roared overhead, and I glanced up. It was one of the television stations.

“Sheriff, you need to rope this place off before the crowd gets so thick someone knocks me into the mine shaft,” I told Sterns, and the sheriff assigned that project to three of the deputies who were underfoot.

They charged off, one of them with his M-16 at high port like he’d been ordered to take a hill.

I took my time. I dug the bell of the bullhorn into the sand and lowered myself to my knees. I could smell the stale air of the mine as I leaned over the mesh. I knew my head and shoulders were silhouetted against the sky if Finn should be down in the shaft looking up.

I switched on the horn and pressed the trigger.

“Finn…are you listening?”

“I have to talk with Daisy,” Parris said, again at my elbow. I ignored him, trying to hear some response from down under.

“Finn!” I yelled. My words bounced around the guts of the mine shaft. He was going to have to shout to be heard over the cars, helicopters, and yakking that was going on behind me, but I was sure there’d been no response.

I was lifting the bullhorn for a third try when I heard his voice, distant but clear as crystal.

“Send Gastner.”

I glanced at Tate then triggered the hailer. “This is Gastner. I’m listening.”

“I want to talk to you.”

“So talk.”

I didn’t understand what he said next and I turned to Sterns and snapped, “If those sons a bitches can’t keep quiet, arrest ’em, goddamn it. We’re trying to conduct some business here.”

“Finn, I didn’t understand you.”

He exaggerated each word with a pause between each. “Face…to…face.”

“Come on up and we’ll do that.”

“Down…here.”

“Oh, sure,” I said without turning on the bullhorn. I triggered it and added, “That’s not possible.”

“Make…it…possible.”

Parris was fidgeting and I said, “Do you have the little girl with you?”

“And…she…will…remain…with…me.”

“He can’t do that,” Parris said and his voice shook.

“Be quiet,” I said and then keyed the hailer. “Is she safe?”

“Yes.”

“Then let us bring her up. You won’t be harmed.”

A sound that could have been a laugh floated up. “There… is…only…one…choice. You…meet…me…face…to…face… down…here.”

“Don’t be a fool. I can’t climb down the ladder.”

Tate leaned over a little, looking down. He said quietly, “If he gets on that ladder with the kid, there’s no way he can defend himself.”

I had visions of Daisy pinwheeling like a broken doll down into the depths of the old mine. “He’ll use the girl as a shield.”