T. Parker - Iron River

Holdstock lay partially upright, head back against the pillows, sleeping. His lips twitched lightly and his eyebrows were raised as if he were surprised and his eyeballs quivered beneath their lids. He was cleanly shaven and there were comb lines through his hair and Hood could smell aftershave and shampoo. Hood shut the door behind him and felt for the lock, but the door could not be locked from inside except with a key. He used his cell to call Ozburn and Bly and told them that he was alone with Jimmy and there were a couple of deputies coming on shift who didn’t look right. From the room phone, he called security and described them. He went to the window and looked down at a portion of a side parking lot. He swung one of the visitors’ chairs to the door and worked the back of it up under the knob. At this, Jimmy opened his eyes and lifted his head and found Hood here on the outskirts of his dream. He looked frightened. Hood touched his face with one hand and slipped his gun into his holster with the other.

“It’s okay, Jimmy.”

“Are the guards still outside?”

“It’s okay.”

“I was in Baja again. In the dream.”

“You don’t ever have to go to Baja again,” said Hood.

“What’s the chair against the door for?”

“I’m not sure of some men.”

“Oh, shit, it’s happening.”

“It’s probably nothing, Jimmy.”

“Nothing is probably nothing.”

“Be calm, Jimmy. I’m going to be here for a while and when I like the way things are, I’ll leave.”

“Don’t hurry. Don’t hurry, Charlie. Sorry I cussed you out, man.”

“It’s okay.”

“I can’t describe helplessness. It’s the worst feeling in the world.”

“You’re not. You’re needed. Here, Jimmy.”

Using his penknife scissors, Hood cut away part of the bandage on Holdstock’s right hand. In a minute the index finger was exposed, pale, then darkly stained with Betadine from mid-knuckle to tip, which was gnarled purple and deeply slotted by the violent extraction of the nail. It looked alive and discrete, an appendage to no thing. Hood was surprised by its ugliness and seeming incurability. In Holdstock’s gaze was a short history of pain. Hood raised one knee and withdrew the eight-shot.22 AirLite from his ankle holster and fitted it snugly into the gauzed palm of Jimmy’s hand. Jimmy concentrated wholly as he passed his trigger finger through the guard without touching the nerves to the steel, then curled his finger very gently to the trigger. He nodded and withdrew the finger and let it rest safely alongside the guard and the lower frame of the small revolver. He smiled slightly. He exhaled and lowered the gun to lay against his leg and covered it with the corner of the sheet. They waited. With the door shut, the antic noises of the hospital were dulled. Hood heard the padded volume of someone walking past the door outside, then it was gone.

Then a louder shuffle outside and a sudden rapping on the door.

“Security. I’m coming in.”

“This is Deputy Charlie Hood. Enter with your hands up where I can see them.”

“I’m Lucas. I’m not armed. You in there, Jimmy?”

“I’m in here, Frank.”

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” said Hood.

“Nobody get excited and shoot, now.”

Hood hooked the chair away from the door with his boot and the door slowly opened. Two empty hands appeared to their forearms, and the security guard elbowed in. He was tall and stately and wore rimless spectacles. His eyes went to the gun on Hood’s thigh pointed up at him, then to Jimmy.

“I got a call from a doctor to come to this room, and another call about two men of interest somewhere on these ten floors. I’m half the Sunday shift, but the other half called in sick. I can’t be in two places at once, so I came here.”

“You’re agent in charge here, Jimmy,” said Hood.

“I can handle it.”

“I know you can.”

Hood holstered his gun and went to the window again and looked down. There was a young couple walking toward the building and a taxi in motion. He walked out and shut the door behind him.

At the elevator banks, he pushed the DOWN buttons on both sides and waited. Over the next minute, two cars opened empty and one stopped, and the flower woman looked at him. He waited another minute and heard cars pass down and up, the sounds of their hoisting machineries muted within the shafts. Then out came the two replacement deputies for Jimmy’s room. Each held a large white beverage container with a black top, and Hood intercepted and badged them and explained what was happening. They argued briefly. Then the deputies set their drinks on the floor, and one broke off toward Jimmy’s room and the other followed Hood to a waiting area. There Hood looked down to a different part of the lot, the front lot, and he could see the great concrete overhang that shaded the main entrance and the curving entryway and the palms towering up on either side. Up close to the building, the lot was filled with cars, but farther back were empty places. A black-and-white police cruiser was parked midway, and the two deputies walked briskly toward it. From these six floors up, the bleached hair shone like a small brass coin. Then Hood saw a yellow Charger sweep into the lot and he knew it was Janet Bly’s.

He was on the speed-dial in an instant, but her recording came on just as the Charger parked at the red curb near the entrance and Janet got out and disappeared beneath the overhang, running.

Leveraged by the handrail, Hood flew down the stairs, the deputy clambering loudly after him. It seemed to Hood that he hit the ground floor in seconds, but as he sprinted across the lobby, he saw that Janet had apparently already made the elevators, and when he ran outside into the concussive heat and rounded the concrete planters into the parking lot, he saw that the prowl car was gone.

He ordered his new partner to call it in, then ran to his Camaro in the rear lot and gunned it for the exit. He had to guess which way they had turned on B Street. So he guessed and turned, but he saw nothing of them or their car.

He was cursing when he saw Ozburn’s raised black Land Cruiser roaring toward him down Third for the hospital. Hood circled back.

They all sat in the cafeteria. No one was sure who the two stairwell deputies were: The door team never saw them, and the off-shift stairwell team had either known them to be legitimate or not laid eyes on them. One of the first stairwell team deputies confirmed by phone that he and his partner had departed their posts a few minutes early because of the sweltering heat. They had not seen their replacements and didn’t know who they would be. Neither of the door team said they knew a fellow deputy with a head of upswept bleached hair. The terrible question of what had happened to the authentic replacements, should this fleeing pair prove to be the impostors they seemed, went loudly unsaid. Hood felt the hostility in the deputies and he didn’t blame them for it.

Later, Blowdown huddled in the first-floor prayer chapel for privacy. There were holy books in several languages on a shelf, and on the wall were framed photographs of religious sites around the world. Hood said the bleached deputy could be a genuine deputy working both sides of the iron trade. He had worked with profoundly corrupt deputies in L.A. and he knew that L.A. was not unique. Not all men were immune to money and power, and far fewer immune to the survival of their family or themselves.

Four hours later, Hood and Beth Petty emerged from the Imperial Sheriff’s Department station in El Centro. He held open the heavy door of his Camaro and Beth got in. The night was cool and the sky was flat and heavy with stars. Hood felt only a small ripple of contentment as the V-8 and the glasspacks rumbled beneath him.