John Sandford - Escape Clause

“I can’t stand that sound, you know? That popping, cracking sound.”

–

King let them beat him and never admitted a thing, except to moan and proclaim his innocence. He knew, from television news, that Hamlet Simonian had been murdered, and he suspected that Peck had done it. If he admitted any knowledge of it, he believed the Simonians would throw him off a bridge or some even more colorful Armenian equivalent, like off a bridge in front of a train.

He took the pounding and eventually the Simonians got tired of doing it, gave him a paper towel to wash off his face, and dropped him off on St. Paul’s East Seventh Street with a wad of toilet paper to block up his bloody nose.

As they let him go, the young, violent Simonian asked, “Why you got a fly tattoo on your neck?”

King said, around the toilet paper, “I thought it looked cool.”

The Simonian said, “You ever go to Amsterdam?”

“What? No, I never go any farther than Wisconsin. Amsterdam?”

“The Amsterdam airport, all the urinals in the men’s rooms got flies like that, right down in the bottom. You’re supposed to aim at them. You got a piss-pot fly on your neck, man.”

“Goes with the daisy tattoo I got around my asshole,” King said.

The Simonians all laughed and slapped him on the back and said he wasn’t a bad guy, but if they found out he’d had anything to do with Hamlet, of course, they’d find him again and kill him.

“Got that,” King said. “If I hear anything, I’ll call you first.”

–

Once free, King walked to a convenience store, told the clerk that he’d been mugged, and the clerk reluctantly allowed him to use the house phone. He called home, and Ortiz told him that the state cops had been looking for him. He told her to collect his clothes, shoes, phone, wallet, and car keys, and bring them to him at the convenience store.

“You’re gonna get me in trouble, aren’t you?” she asked. “Did you steal those tigers?”

“Of course not. I was home with you when they were stolen,” he said.

Ortiz agreed to come get him. She did, in his car.

“Tell me what happened,” she said.

He told her: “A total mistake. I had nothing to do with those tigers. They must be going around picking up zoo employees and beating them up.”

Ortiz figured he was lying. He was in the backseat, as they drove across town, and she watched him in the rearview mirror as he got dressed and stuffed little twists of toilet paper in each nostril.

He had her pull over six blocks from the house, took the driver’s seat, and told her to walk the rest of the way. “I’ll call you when I’ve got this straightened out,” he said.

In the six-block walk back to the house, Ortiz gave the situation serious consideration. Somehow, she thought, King was involved with the tiger theft, and at least one man involved with the tiger theft had been murdered.

Ortiz was a hairdresser with a wide breadth of knowledge involving men, lying, and criminal justice that beauty shops generated through their daily panel discussions. If the cops busted King for any aspect of the crime, they might get him for the murder as well. They would take a long look at her, too, to see if she was an accomplice. She was sitting out there like a clay pigeon, she thought, totally ignorant of the crime, but also totally exposed.

She got Virgil’s business card out of her bureau drawer and called him.

“I found out what happened to Barry,” she said. “Some guys in a big RV picked him up off the street and beat him up.”

“Big RV? He’s there now, with you?”

“No, he took off.”

“What kind of car is he driving…?”

–

Virgil got off the phone with Ortiz, called the duty officer, and told him to call the local emergency rooms in case King went to one of them. Then he got the registration for King’s car from the DMV and put the make, color, and license plate out to Twin Cities police agencies and the highway patrol. He cursed himself for not getting the make and license plate of the Simonians’ RV.

But the Simonians had landed on King, which meant they knew something. They’d had at least one name, so they might have more.

He called his Simonian contact. When Levon Simonian answered the phone, Virgil could hear traffic sounds in the background: they were in the RV.

“We need to get together and chat,” Virgil said.

“We’re going fishing in Wisconsin,” Simonian said. “We will call when we get back.”

“We need to talk now,” Virgil said. He lied a little: “I’ve got a description and make on your RV, and your license plate number. If we can’t get together and talk, I’ll have the highway patrol track you down.”

Simonian said, “Good luck with that. And don’t call us any more today; we’re busy.”

“Wait! What are you fishing for?” Virgil asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

“Marlin,” Simonian said. He hung up.

When Virgil tried to call back, he didn’t even get a ring. Something bad, he thought, may have happened to the Simonians’ cell phone.

–

King, in the meantime, had called Peck.

Peck was working at the barn, drying tiger meat. The smell was awful, nothing at all like barbeque, and now mixing with the funky stink of tiger poop. Katya was sitting in her cage, staring at him. Hayk Simonian’s femurs, tibias, fibulas, patellas, and a number of foot bones were scattered around the cage. The femurs had been cracked open, and Katya had scratched out all the marrow.

When King called, Peck listened to his complaints, then said, “I’ll meet you. Uh, I’m not at home right now, but I can meet you at the Cub supermarket parking lot off Radio Drive. You know where that is?”

King could find it, he said.

They met an hour later. When King got out of his car, Peck looked at him and said, “I don’t believe you didn’t tell them my name. Did you tell them my name?” He looked wildly around the parking lot, saw nobody approaching. “Is this a trap?”

King said, “If I’d told them the truth, they would have killed me. They’re here to kill whoever killed Hamlet, and there’s only one way they could have gotten my name-Hamlet must have given it to them. If he gave them my name, he must have given them yours. Anyway, I’m going to Chicago. Right now.”

“What’s in Chicago?”

“Not the Simonians,” King said.

–

Peck had been considering the situation since the moment that King called him. The conclusion was straightforward: King had to go.

The cops would believe, correctly, that the tiger thieves had to be the killer of Hamlet Simonian. King could tell the cops that there were only four people involved in the theft: the two Simonians, Peck, and himself. Hayk’s body would be found sooner or later, which meant the killer had to be either Peck or King. If King talked to the cops, he might convince them that he neither participated in the murders nor knew that they were coming. He might, in other words, roll over on Peck, make a deal for his testimony in return for a lighter prison sentence.

He might not even wait to be caught-he might talk himself into approaching the cops preemptively.

He had to go.

But at the moment, Peck asked, “You didn’t tell your girlfriend about this, did you? Gloria what’s-her-name?”

King had been thinking about that himself. “No, of course not. We need to hold this tight.”

“Okay. Thank God for little favors.”

“I gotta tell you, I’m a little nervous about this. I figured you’d killed him. Hamlet.”

“No! No! I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill Hamlet! I’m not a fruitcake,” Peck shouted. He turned away, ran both hands through his hair. He was sweating like a steam pipe. He turned back to King. “I paid him off, I gave him ten thousand dollars and when the cops found his body, I asked Hayk what the fuck had happened. Hayk and I were processing the tiger that whole time; he knew I didn’t have anything to do with Hamlet’s death. Hayk said Hamlet had made a deal to buy a couple pounds of meth and run it back to Glendale. He could make five hundred percent on his money. He could turn ten thousand into fifty thousand. That’s how he got killed: he tried to hook up with some meth dealers and he wasn’t smart enough to pull it off. I didn’t kill him, Barry. I’m actually a goddamn doctor, you know. Do no harm and all that shit.”