T. Bunn - Winner Take All

Darren’s patrol car was parked outside Marcus’ house when he returned from his Saturday morning run. The deputy kept his distance as he completed a walk around Marcus’ house, probably because he knew Marcus would have had something to say about the special treatment. Darren climbed back into his car and drove off without a word, leaving Marcus swamped by a gratitude that shamed him.

He showered and breakfasted and spent a comfortable fifteen minutes by his back porch, surveying the day in his mind. That afternoon he wanted to make a start clearing some of the rubbish and growth that stretched from the first line of trees back to a gravel path bordering his property.

The sound of squealing tires and a honking horn barely managed to dent the pattern of his thoughts. Somebody began shouting out front, but he was not quite ready to give up on the day’s goodness just yet.

Then Deacon Wilbur came flying around the corner, legs churning and hands waving. “You gone completely deaf?” He raced over and made a desperate grab. “Come on, we’ve got to be moving!”

“What’s the matter?”

“No time, no time!” He flung Marcus at the passenger door of his paint-spattered truck, climbed behind the wheel, and laid rubber the entire way back down the drive. The truck was a good thirty years old and took the dip where the drive met the road like an elephant on a ski jump. Marcus barely managed a saving clench on the dash and ceiling. The gears ground angrily before Deacon managed to find first.

“Take it easy!”

“You just hush up and let me concentrate!” Deacon’s nose almost smacked the windshield when they crested the rise at the end of Marcus’ road. Two boys playing kickball were so dumbfounded by the truck’s flying appearance they scarcely made it out of the way. A trio of happy dogs shouted them down the street and through a four-wheel skid around the corner. Marcus kept a grim hold and decided his questions could wait.

The truck’s original color was time-washed to a monochrome gray. When Deacon hit the highway headed east the speedometer needle maxed out at a quivering seventy-five. The engine roared as though it was ready to leap out from under the hood and eat them both whole.

Outside of town they raced over a hilltop and spotted a sheriff’s car flying up from the opposite direction. Marcus felt pure relief over being saved from careening death, until Deacon began honking his horn and blinking his lights. The sheriff’s car whoomed by them, made a controlled skidding turn, and raced up to where Deacon was shouldering the truck onto the verge.

The old preacher only started wheezing as he tottered toward Amos Culpepper. The sheriff called, “You gonna make it, Deacon?”

“Thought for a minute there I was sixteen again.” The pastor huffed his way onto the rear fender and fanned himself with his shirt-tail. “Hateful thing to see a body age.”

“Hop on in.” Amos pointed Marcus into the passenger seat. When they were seated he cut on the siren, whoomed over to the passing lane, and cast Marcus an adrenaline grin. “Didn’t wake up this morning expecting a high-velocity touch-and-go, did you?”

“What’s going on?”

Amos shouted over the alarm and roaring engine, “This is strictly a good old boy kinda deal, you understand what I’m saying?”

“I shouldn’t mention this to anybody,” Marcus interpreted.

“Not unless you want me to lose my job.” He shot a quick thumb back to where Deacon was gradually recovering. “That gentleman there must’ve heard about it from goodness only knows where. He told you. Then you called me and officially requested my help, which is why I’m involved at all.”

“Right.”

Amos shot by a truck going seventy as though the rig was hauled over and parked. “Good buddy of mine down on the Wilmington force called me with a strictly unofficial heads-up. Seems an NYPD boyo called him from the airport, asking could he supply Dale Steadman’s home address. Your client must like his privacy, since he registered his home under a corporate name.”

Having a professional behind the wheel was offset by the fact that their speed now topped a hundred and fifteen miles an hour. Marcus winced as they almost played bumper cars with an SUV whose rear window was completely blocked with children’s toys. “A New York policeman?”

“Manhattan detective. An Italian-sounding name, you know the kind, enough vowels for a whole family.” Amos released his double grip on the wheel long enough to fish in his pocket. “Hang on, I wrote the name down here.”

Marcus read, “Lieutenant Aureolietti.”

“My buddy knew about Dale Steadman running the company up here and all the legal goings-on. Told me the detective’s got himself an arrest warrant.”

“What’s the charge?”

Amos granted him a lightning glance. “Murder one.”

Near the Greenville airport’s turnoff, Amos used the radio for a series of barked messages. As the engine was still bellowing and the tires screeching and siren screaming and the world was whipping by at something near ninety, Amos might as well have spoken in Martian. Which was why, when they pulled through the airport’s emergency-access entrance and wheeled over to where a helicopter was already spinning up, Marcus was caught completely by surprise.

Amos cut off the engine and siren. “I sure hope you got a whole pile of the ready with you. Either that or a heat-resistant credit card.”

Marcus was glad to find he had the strength to stand unaided. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Always a pleasure to do the local community a service.” Amos offered his hand. “Go out there and save the world, Marcus. It’s what you’re good at.”

As they approached the revving chopper, Deacon grinned so broadly he revealed the gold embedded in his back teeth. “Always did want to have me a ride in one of them things!”

Amos hustled them over to the rear door, helped Deacon climb inside, then gave the pilot a thumbs-up.

Deacon’s eyes grew steadily rounder as the blades began thundering overhead. When the pilot reared back on the stick, Marcus felt as though he had left his stomach back on the landing pad.

Deacon whooped as the ground shot away. “Great jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” He plastered his face to the side window. “Now this here is flying!”

Once he was fairly certain the pilot was not going to plow a furrow down someone’s tobacco field, Marcus forced his brain into gear. Only one idea came to mind, and that one held no satisfaction whatsoever. But try as he might, he could come up with nothing better. With the miles sweeping by in great swatches of cloud and pine and summer-green fields, Marcus touched the pilot’s shoulder and motioned that he needed to say something.

The pilot pulled a plasticine map with a red circle drawn over a point along the coastline off the copilot’s seat and gestured Marcus to come forward. The pilot handed him a headset with built-in mike and plugged it into the console. When Marcus had fitted on the padded earpieces, the pilot asked, “What’s up?”

“I need to make a call and my cell phone is back at the house.”

“Number?”

“No idea. Can you connect me to information?”

The pilot switched over the radio controls and said, “HR 438 to Wilmington airfield.”

“Tower here. Go, HR 438.”

“Emergency request for phone patch.”

“Number?”

“Request help with number. Can search?”

“Affirmative. Name?”

Marcus was ready. “Judge Garland Perry, in Wilmington.”

“Office or residence?”

“Private residence. On Fourth Street.”

“Hold one.”

The pilot used the interim to point ahead. Through the sun-drenched bubble Marcus made out the first glint of sea-blue. Not long now.