Stuart Woods - Choke

He was hungry; the time change was playing havoc with his appetite, so he found a sidewalk cafe and had lunch in the shade of a large sycamore tree. California could be a very pleasant place, he thought. After lunch he strolled up Melrose, window-shopping, until he came to what he would describe as a very fancy hardware store. He went in.

“May I help you, sir?” a young woman asked.

“Yes, thank you, I’d like to buy an umbrella-a large one, like for golf-one with a curved handle, not a straight one.”

She looked vaguely puzzled.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“Oh, no, sir, it’s just that in my three years here, no one has ever asked for an umbrella, and I’m afraid we don’t stock them. The California weather, I guess.”

“I see. Can you tell me where I might find such a strange object?”

She furrowed her brow. “I’m afraid not; I don’t know where you’d begin to look for one.”

Tommy nodded. “Thanks; I guess I’ll just have a look around.”

“Of course; let me know if I can help you with anything.”

Tommy wandered up and down the aisles, finding everyday objects for sale at amazing prices-twenty-five dollars for a flashlight; seventy dollars for a small luggage cart; thirty dollars for a set of cheap screwdrivers. Then he saw something interesting. He reached up and took it down from a shelf. “How much for this?”

“Oh, that’s the most convenient thing to have,” she said. “I gave my mother one for Christmas last year; she has arthritis and can’t reach up very easily anymore.”

“How much did you say?” Tommy asked.

“That’s sixty-five dollars.”

“I’ll take it,” he said, wondering how he would justify the thing on his expense account.

He tossed his package into the car and relocked it, then spent the afternoon walking up one side of Melrose and down the other. He bought Rosie a small piece of silver jewelry and picked up some books and magazines. Back at his hotel he ordered dinner from room service and set his alarm clock for 2:00 A.M.

He was momentarily disoriented when the alarm went off, reaching for Rosie to ask what was wrong. Then he remembered. He showered to get himself fully awake, then slipped into his shoulder holster with the nine-millimeter automatic in its sling and his badge and an extra clip fixed to the strap. He got into a dark blue windbreaker and checked himself in the mirror. He looked respectable enough not to get rumbled by some passing cop, but he’d be hard to see in the dark, too. He wasn’t sure why he was packing the gun, except that he had worn one for so many years that he felt oddly lopsided when he wasn’t wearing it.

He drove up and down Melrose twice, checking out the area, looking for parked police cars, especially unmarked ones. He passed one black-and-white on the move but saw nothing else. He parked around the corner from the office building, retrieved his recent purchase from the back seat, then locked the car and looked around. He had the street to himself.

He walked down Melrose for half a block, then turned and walked back, on alert for anyone who might give him a hard time, then darted into the alley alongside Carman’s building. He put on a pair of driving gloves, then ripped the wrapper from the device and tossed the paper into a nearby garbage can.

It worked as advertised: He took hold of both handles and squeezed them together. The grappler extended a good eight feet. He reached up and grabbed the ladder on the fire escape, then contracted the gadget. A moment later, he had the ladder in his hand. He tossed the grappler across the alley into the garbage can, looked around for a moment, then started up the ladder.

At the top he took out his key ring and switched on the tiny flashlight attached; it worked remarkably well. The window was a double-hung sash with true divided lights. Good; that made for less noise. He looked down the alley to the street, made sure there were no lighted windows nearby, then peered through the window and down the hallway, which was lit by a single bulb.

He turned sideways, drew back, and struck the top pane of the bottom sash sharply with his elbow. The glass shattered and fell into the hallway. He looked around again to be sure that he had not attracted any attention. All was quiet.

Quickly, he reached through the broken pane, unlocked the window, raised it, stepped inside, then brushed together the broken glass with his gloved hands, tossed it into the alley, and lowered the window. He pulled the remaining fragments from the window and pushed them through the now empty pane. He stopped and listened for a full minute. If there was a security guard and he had heard the glass break, he didn’t want to be surprised.

When he heard no other sound, Tommy went to Carman’s office door and switched on his tiny flashlight again, holding it between his teeth. From his wallet he produced a set of small lock picks and selected two. The lock was a garden-variety dead bolt, and he had it open inside a minute. He put away the lock picks, opened the door, and stepped into the offices of Carman Investigations.

There was a small room with a receptionist’s desk, a love seat, and some old magazines, and an inner door led to Carman’s private office. Tommy lowered the shade on the only window and pulled the cheap curtains shut, then switched on the desk lamp and looked around.

It was very neat. That encouraged him, because it meant Carman’s files would likely also be neat. There was an answering machine on the desk, and Tommy pushed the playback button. A mechanical voice read out four messages, two of them from Carman himself, one saying he would be out of town for a few days, another saying to call the shop where his car was being repaired and find out when it would be ready, so he would know whether to rent a car on his return to L.A. The third and fourth messages were from the same man and the message was the same: “Your new client would like to hear from you as soon as possible.” The voice was pure, accentless Californian, and the mechanical announcer placed both of the messages after Carman had died. Tommy wondered who the new client was. Time to go through the desk and the filing cabinets.

Suddenly the overhead light went on, and Tommy spun around to find a small woman pointing a large revolver in his direction. Her hand was trembling, but the pistol was pointing more or less at his middle.

“This is a.357 Magnum,” the little woman said, “and if you mess with me it will make some very big holes in your chest.”

“I believe you, lady,” Tommy said.

Tommy waited for the woman to say something else, but she didn’t. During the uncomfortable silence he checked to see if the hammer was back on the pistol. It was. He had been hoping that if she fired, it would be double-action, making accuracy problematic for an inexperienced shooter. No such luck.

“I’m a police officer,” Tommy said. “Can I show you my badge?”

“You’re a goddamned burglar,” she said.

“I promise you, I’m a cop.” He held up his left hand and touched the thumb and forefinger together. “Just these two fingers,” he said. “I’ll pull back my jacket very slowly so you can see my badge, okay?”

“Very slowly,” she replied.

Tommy pulled back his jacket and waited for a response.

“That’s not an LAPD shield,” she said.

“It’s from Key West.”

“Horseshit. What would a Key West cop be doing burglarizing an office in L.A.? Anyway, you’ve got a New York accent.”

“I put in twenty years on the NYPD,” Tommy said, “then I moved south and signed on in Key West.”

“Pull back your jacket again,” she said.

Tommy did as she asked, revealing his badge.