Jeffery Deaver - Bloody River Blues

Stevie Flom was cold and he was not interested in what was in the paper. He hadn't slept well the night before, turning over and over, listening to the wirttl rock the single tree outside his bedroom window. He'd stared at the tree for a long time.

When he had gone to bed there were seventeen leaves on it. When he had wakened there were eight. His wife had slept with a smile on her face and that pissed him off.

Then she woke up cheerful and happy and that pissed him off too.

What it was he was supposed to know about was this airplane that took off vertically, then the wings twisted forward and it flew like a normal plane. "That is a great idea." Ralph Bales pointed at an abandoned dock beside the river. "See, it could land there. You wouldn't have to go out to Lambert. That's the biggest pain in traveling, getting to the airports, you ask me."

Stevie Flom didn't travel much. Reno, of course. Then he and some of the guys had gone to a casino in Puerto Rico once.

He'd taken the wife to Aruba, which was nothing but sand and wind and as hot as an engine block. He wondered why Ralph Bales traveled so much he had to worry about getting to the airport.

"I wish I had a piece of that."

"Yeah," Stevie Flom said, and he looked at the picture of the airplane, which, after a moment of reflection, he decided was a pretty good idea. He thought that with the money he was going to make from Lombro, he would take the wife on another vacation. Or maybe one of the girlfriends. He'd have to decide which one.

"I've got the go-ahead," Ralph Bales said. He turned the paper to the front page, where there were no airplanes or other clever ideas at all.

"You got… Oh, to take care of the guy in the camper. The beer guy! Why'd it take so long?"

"Lombro was nervous. I don't know, he's a -"

"Weird dude is what he is."

"Yeah. Weird. He's upped your share to ten."

Ten thousand?"

"Of course, thousand. What do you think?"

"Well, why?' Stevie grinned deep creases into his baby-skin cheeks.

"Why? Excuse me, you want me to call him up and give it back?"

"I'm just curious."

"Curious. He's curious," Ralph Bales whispered. "You've got to make it look like an accident."

"Accident? Why?"

"Because it's got to. That's why the extra money. I was thinking, maybe something with that motorcycle of his."

"He's got a cycle?"

"That yellow Yamaha. He keeps it on the back of his camper."

"Sure," Stevie said. "A cycle accident. That's easy."

Lake he did it every day.

Stevie Flom thought: Maddox is an easy place to steal a car but a tough place to drive one around once you'd boosted it.

The cops didn't have much else to do but check out hot cars and the place was hardly big enough to get lost in the camouflage of heavy traffic. He was eyeballed by two cops as he made his law-abiding way out of town. Stevie was also unhappy that this particular Dodge's former owner was a rent-a-car company, which meant that the forty-eight thousand miles on it were hard miles, careless, heavy-foot miles. The damn thing rattled and clanked and there was a hiss coming from the AC even though it was off.

But it moved pretty fast and he was able to keep up with the cycle though the beer guy drove like a son of a bitch. Stevie worried that if the Yamaha started lane-hopping he could kiss the man's ass good-bye. He goosed the accelerator and closed on the cycle.

He may have had a lemon car but Stevie was lucky in one respect. He had arrived at the Bide-A-Wee trailer park just as the guy walked out of the camper and jumped on the Yamaha. He'd even glanced at Stevie's car but just briefly, not even looking in the driver's seat Stevie drove past. In the rearview mirror he watched the man kick-start the Yamaha. Stevie made a slow U-turn and followed.

Now, on the expressway, the beer man changed lanes, shot forward, braked hard, then settled into the express lane, about twenty miles over the limit. Stevie, hands sweating, managed to keep with him and soon they were cruising smoothly toward St. Louis.

As he tapped his gold pinkie ring on the steering wheel, Stevie was thinking about his father. He had a limited, but severe, repertoire of images of the old man and he realized now that some of them matched this fellow on the bike. Lean, mid-thirties, leather jacket, cycle. This thought put him in another bad mood, and, agitated, Stevie leaned forward to turn on the radio. It was a digital model and he couldn't figure out how to set the station for the boss sound, We Rock St. Louis all the hits all the time. The old radios, you just twisted the dial to where you wanted it, then pulled the button out and shoved it back in. All this electronic stuff. Crap!

He kicked it hard with his boot heel and cracked the housing. It kept playing something classical. He kicked it again and plastic snapped and the speaker went silent except for a hiss.

Stevie Flom stopped worrying about music and concentrated on the motorcycle.

Donnie Buffett did not see her right away. He opened his eyes and was afraid to move his head. He thought it might make him vomit, the motion. He had been on pills for a flare-up of pain in his shoulder-the gunshot wound-and they made him nauseated.

"I'm so sorry," she said.

"Penny, honey…" He lifted his hand out toward her, and-this was the weird thing-she grabbed it in both hands and kissed his fingers, then rubbed them against her cheek.

He looked at her as though he had not seen her for months, as though he had never before seen her. Dark, thick hair, a narrow face, pretty. Good figure, bad posture, shoulders forward, to conceal large breasts of which she was self-conscious. She wore clothes he knew she owned and had worn before but which weren't familiar to him: a gray suit, an orange blouse, light-colored nylons.

Buffett wished they had a child, someone for Penny to be with. Someone whom Penny would have to be strong for. She had strength somewhere in her, he believed, but she needed someone, or something, to bring it out.

She handed him a shopping bag. She had baked him some cookies (what he had told Pellam was true; she was a hell of a cook) and brought another bag of Ruffles potato chips and a container of Sour King French onion dip. A Reader's Digest, some crossword puzzle books.

Donnie Buffett had never done a crossword puzzle in his life.

She bent down and kissed him, brother-sister, on the cheek. He smelled her perfume. Buffett wondered, If you got shot in the neck do you lose your sense of smell?

But, of course, he hadn't been shot in the neck. He had just been shot in the back. Luckily. He could still smell like a sonofabitch.

He looked at the crossword book. 'Thanks, hon."

"I've marked these for you." She opened the Reader's Digest for him. "My Battle with Leukemia." There was another.

"Live Your Life 365 Days a Year."

Another article was from Higher Self magazine, entitled "Joy: Go for It."

Buffett looked at the food, and Penny said, "I don't know if you can eat those things."

"Sure. It's not like I had my appendix out or anything."

She nodded earnestly.

Buffett's hair was a mess. It fell across his forehead. He was always pushing the dark strands off his face. He did this now and his arm went out of control. It crashed into the metal headboard of the bed.

"Shit," he whispered.

Penny's pretty face was shocked. "The nurse," she said, alarmed, standing up abruptly, looking for the call button.

"I'm okay. It's nothing. The pills I'm taking."

"The nurse!"

"Penny."

Neither moved for a moment. "I'm so sorry."

"Stop saying that. Why are you saying that?"

He opened the potato chips and ate a couple, to show her that he liked them. He could not bring himself to eat the dip. Then he ate a cookie. They were good. He ate another one. The sweetness reminded him of his Last Supper, the doughnut and coffee Pellam had brought him. He picked up the bag she had brought, intending to set it on the floor beside the bed. He felt the candle inside the bag. He took it out. "Penny…"