Stephen Coonts - Combat

“You had me worried for a minute,” he said, now with a frankly approving glance at my office. As fin de siècle as the house was from the foundation up, I’d fixed it all Frank Gehry and Starship Enterprise below. He perched his butt carefully on the stool at my drafting carrel; ran his hand along the flat catatonic stare of my Magnascreen. “But you must be doing all right for yourself. Some of this has got to be expensive stuff, Harve.”

“Pure sweat equity, most of it.” I shrugged. “I do adhesive bonding, some welding, cabinetry, — oh, I was a whiz in shop, back in high school.”

“Don’t try to imply that you missed your real calling. I notice you’re working under your own license since a year ago. Can people with budgets still afford you?”

“I won’t shit you, Quent, but don’t spread this around. Way things are right now, anybody can afford me.”

It had been over a year since we’d watched World Cup soccer matches together, and while we caught each other up on recent events, I brewed tea for him in my six-cup glass rig with its flash boiler.

He didn’t make me ask about the limp. “You know how those old alleyway fire-escape ladders get rickety after sixty years or so,” he told me, shifting his leg. “A few months ago I was closing on a bail-jumper who’d been living on a roof in Alameda, and the ladder came loose on us.” Shy smile, to forestall sympathy. “He hit the bricks. I bounced off a Dumpster.” Shrug.

“Bring him in?”

“The paramedics brought us both in, but I got my fee,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you how an HMO views our work, and I’m not indigent. Fixing this hip cost me a lot more than I made, and legwork will never be my forte again, I’m afraid.”

I folded my arms and attended to the beep of my tea rig. “You’re telling me you were bounty hunting,” I said. It wasn’t exactly an accusation, but most P.I.s won’t work for bail bondsmen. It’s pretty demanding work, though the money can be good when you negotiate a fifteen percent fee and then bring in some scuffler who’s worth fifty large.

While we sipped tea, we swapped sob stories, maintaining a light touch because nobody had forced either of us into the peeper business. You hear a lot about P.I.s being churlish to each other. Mostly a myth, beyond some healthy competition. “I suppose I couldn’t resist the challenge,” said Quent. “You know me, always trying to expand my education. As a bounty hunter you learn a lot, pretty quickly.”

“Like, don’t trust old fire escapes,” I said.

“Like that,” he agreed. “But it also brings you to the attention of a different class of client. It might surprise even you that some Fed agencies will subcontract an investigation, given special circumstances.”

It surprised me less when he said that the present circumstances required someone who spoke Hangul, the Korean language, and knew the dockside world around Oakland. Someone the Federal Bureau of Investigation could trust.

“Those guys,” I said, “frost my cojones. It’s been my experience that they’ll let metro cops take most of the chances and zero percent of the credit.”

“Credit is what you buy groceries with, Harve,” he said. “What do we care, so long as the Feds will hire us again?”

“Whoa. What’s that word again? Us , as in you and me?”

“If you’ll take it. I need an extra set of feet — hips, if you insist — and it doesn’t hurt that you carry the air of plainclothes cop with you. And with your size, you can handle yourself, which is something I might need.”

He mentioned a fee, including a daily rate, and I managed not to whistle. “I need to know more. This gonna be something like a bodyguard detail, Quent? I don’t speak Hangul, beyond a few phrases you taught me.”

“That’s only part of it. Most people we’ll interview speak plain American; record checks, for example. The case involves a marine engineer missing from the tramp motorship Ras Ormara, which is tied up for round-the-clock refitting at a Richmond wharf. He’s Korean. Coast Guard and FBI would both like to find him, without their being identified.”

There’s an old cop saying about Richmond, California: it’s vampire turf. Safe enough in daylight, but watch your neck at night. “I suppose you’ve already tried Missing Persons.”

Quent served me a “give me a break” look. “I don’t have to tell you the metro force budget is petty cash, Harve. They’re overloaded with domestic cases. The Feds know it, which is where we come in — if you want in.”

“Got me over a barrel. You want the truth, I’m practically wearing the goddamn barrel. Any idea how long the case will last?”

Quent knew I was really asking how many days’ pay it might involve. “It evaporates the day the Ras Ormara leaves port; perhaps a week. That doesn’t give us as much time as I’d like, but every case sets its own pace.”

That was another old Quentism, and I’d come to learn it was true. This would be a hot pace, so no wonder gimpy Quentin Kim was offering to share the workload. Instead of doping out his selfish motives, I should be thanking him, so I did. I added, “You don’t know it, but you’re offering me a bundle of chrome-moly racer frame tubing and a few rolls of cyclone fence. An offer I can’t refuse, but I’d like to get a dossier on this Korean engineer right away.”

“I can do better than that,” said Quent, “and it’ll come with a free supper tonight, courtesy of the Feds.”

“They’re buying? Now, that is impressive as hell.”

“I have not begun to impress,” Quent said, again with the shy smile. “Coast Guard Lieutenant Reuben Medler is fairly impressive, but the FBI liaison will strain your belief system.”

“Never happen,” I said. “They still look like IBM salesmen.”

“Not this one. Trust me.” Now Quent was grinning.

“You’re wrong,” I insisted.

“What do you think happened to the third of our classroom musketeers, Harve, and why do you think this case was dropped in my lap? The Feebie is Dana Martin,” he said.

I kept my jaw from sagging with some effort. “You were right,” I said.

Until the fight started, I assumed Quent had chosen Original Joe’s in San Jose because we — Dana included — had downed many an abalone supreme there in earlier times. If some of the clientele were reputedly Connected with a capital C, that only kept folks polite. Quent and I met there and copped a booth, though our old habit had been to take seats at the counter where we could watch chefs with wrists of steel handle forty-centimeter skillets over three-alarm gas burners. I was halfway through a bottle of Anchor Steam when a well-built specimen in a crewneck sweater, trim Dockers, and tasseled loafers ushered his date in. He carried himself as if hiding a small flagpole in the back of his sweater. I looked away, denying my envy. How is it some guys never put on an ounce while guys like me outgrow our belts?

Then I did a double take. The guy had to be Lieutenant Medler because the small, tanned, sharp-eyed confection in mid-heels and severely tailored suit was Dana Martin, no longer an overconfident kid. I think I said “wow” silently as we stood up.

After the introductions Medler let us babble about how long it had been. For me, the measure of elapsed time was that little Miz Martin had developed a sense of reserve. Then while we decided what we wanted to eat, Medler explained why shoreline poachers had taken abalone off the Original Joe menu. Mindful of who was picking up the tab, I ordered the latest fad entrée: Nebraska longhorn T-bone, lean as ostrich and just as spendy. Dana’s lip pursed but she kept it buttoned, cordial, impersonal. I decided she’d bought into her career and its image. Damn, but I hated that …