John Sandford - Escape Clause

“I’ll be here.”

Virgil checked through his list of contacts, found the name of the people who owned the house where the tigers had been taken: the Schmidts. He poked in the number he had, and Don Schmidt answered.

Virgil: “You know anybody named Hamlet Simonian?”

Schmidt: “Never heard of him.”

“He wouldn’t have installed a lightbulb in your garage door opener?”

“I don’t think so. Let me ask Marge.” A minute later, a woman came on the line: “No. I do that. I haven’t done it for a couple years, at least. It was still working the last time we were there.”

Virgil: “Thank you.”

He called Sawyer back and said, “We got one of them. Good job. You gotta get down to the office and start cranking out mug shots for the newspapers and TV stations. I want to get this on the ten o’clock news.”

“I’m there now, I’ll get it started.”

–

Virgil walked back to the living room and said, “Something’s come up, I’ve got to go. I’d like to talk to you some more, though.”

“Well, I’m working,” Peck said. “I’m usually most available after my morning writing session, after lunch.”

“I’ll stay in touch,” Virgil said.

–

Out in his truck, Virgil called Duncan: “Jon, we got a name on the tiger theft. A Hamlet Simonian. I’m going back to the BCA to look at his file. We’ve got mug shots. If you could… I’d like you to get in touch with the TV stations and get this guy’s face on the air.”

“Yes! Virgie, goddamn it, you’re rolling,” Duncan said.

“Bea Sawyer’s putting the mug shots together; she’ll tell you about finding them. You need to get the TV people to put up the pictures and our phone number, in case somebody knows where this guy is living.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got that. See you at the office.”

–

Winston Peck VI had handled the interview with Virgil with the aid of a double dose of Xanax, which was now leaving him feeling tired. He was stressed, scared, freaked out, but chemically calm.

He sat staring at the television for two hours, some baseball game, he was never sure which one, when Hayk Simonian called and said, “You better turn on the TV.”

“It’s on.”

“Did you see it?”

“What? I’m watching a ball game.” Maybe too much Xanax: he was having a hard time focusing.

“A teaser ad for Channel Three news. They have Hamlet’s picture; they say he stole the tigers.”

“What?”

“I don’t know how they got it, but he’s gonna have to run for it. If he can make it out to Dad’s place in Glendale, they can fix him up with a fake ID. He’s gonna need some cash. You got cash?”

“I could give him a couple of thousand, maybe,” Peck said. “How did this happen? How did they find him?”

“I don’t know. Shit happens. Anyway, I’ll tell him to come over to your place,” Simonian said. “He’s at the Olive Garden in Coon Rapids; he could be there in a half hour.”

“What about his license plates? If a cop spots his car…”

“Like I said, man, shit happens. Not real likely, though.”

–

Peck hung up and looked at his watch: two minutes to ten o’clock. He sat through a bunch of ads, then the news came up, Three at Ten , and the first thing on the news was a mug shot of Hamlet Simonian, taken by the Phoenix police, followed by another one, taken by the Brooklyn cops. The Brooklyn shot wasn’t so good, having been taken when Simonian was younger and fatter with short hair, and shiny with what appeared to be sweat.

The Phoenix photo nailed him, might have been taken by National Geographic : “Our Survey of Cheap Hoods.”

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

The problem with the Simonians was that they got caught. He’d known that, from his talks with old man Zhang. Zhang had said that they could lift heavy weights, they could butcher a tiger, but they had the IQs of small rocks. They were that kind of guy, but their job in the tiger theft was so simple that Peck hadn’t worried too much. He should have.

Hamlet had always seemed to be the bigger liability, because he didn’t think. About anything. Peck didn’t know exactly how the police had identified him, but it would turn out to be something thoughtless and stupid.

Hayk, on the other hand, was a sixty-watt bulb, compared to Hamlet’s backup light, but Hayk had an honor problem. Almost any little thing could turn out to be a stain on his honor and would require revenge. He’d get his revenge and then the cops would come, and they’d take him away and fingerprint him, and everything he was wanted for would then come up on their computer screens.

Peck still needed Hayk for processing the tigers, at least for a while, but he didn’t need Hamlet anymore. He thought about it and started to sweat himself, but eventually went out to the garage, pulled a junk box out of the way, and dug the nylon bag out from behind it.

Inside the bag was the dart gun they’d used on the tigers. Still had two darts… didn’t make much noise.

He thought about it some more, exactly how this would work. He put the gun back in the nylon bag twice, and twice took it back out. Eventually, he left it sitting on the hood of the Tahoe, ready to go.

–

Hamlet Simonian didn’t make it in a half hour, leaving Peck in a constant and prolonged state of agitation that even another Xanax couldn’t help. Finally, an hour after his brother called, Hamlet Simonian pulled into Peck’s driveway. Peck had been waiting impatiently behind the access door to the garage and popped it open when Simonian got out of the car.

“Where in hell have you been?” Peck hissed. He checked the street: almost all the houses were dark. “You were supposed to be here half an hour ago.”

Peck backed into the garage as Simonian walked up to the door. “Shut the goddamn door,” Peck said.

Simonian stepped inside the dimly lit garage, pushed the door shut, and said, “Dark in here. Where are you?”

Thut!

The dart hurt . Simonian looked down at his chest, could make out the syringe sticking out of his shirt, right through the left nipple. “You motherfucker!” he screamed.

The garage was dark, but there was enough ambient light coming in through the back access door that he could see Peck, in his white shirt, crouched behind the hood of the Tahoe. Simonian yanked the syringe out of his chest and threw it on the floor, then lurched down the side of the truck and around the nose. Peck had run down the opposite side, and now stood at the back of the truck, waiting for Simonian to fall down: there was enough sedative in the syringe to knock out an eight-hundred-pound tiger.

Simonian pursued him. They did two laps around the truck before Simonian failed to make a turn and crashed into the outside wall, where Peck had hung some garden tools. He bounced off the wall, fell on the floor. A shovel fell on his head. Peck, afraid that he might be faking, waited for a minute or two, peering over the hood of the car, then reached out, grabbed a rake off the wall, and used the handle to prod Simonian. Simonian didn’t even moan.

Peck moved closer: he could hear the other man breathing. The thought flashed through his mind that maybe he ought to strangle him or hit him with the shovel, but his more rational mind told him that the sedative should be enough.

So he waited: and it was. Six or seven minutes after he shot Simonian, the breathing slowed, slowed, and finally stopped.

–

While he was waiting for Simonian to show up, Peck had worked out a plan to dispose of the body. Not a great plan, but it would have to do. At the back of his garage, he had a half-sized refrigerator that he’d bought for his office, when he had an office. Stripped of the shelves, he thought he could squeeze Simonian into it.