Jay Lake - Rocket Science

I wondered what I should do next. Obviously, Floyd’s plan was to sit tight and let the bad guys come to us. The problem with that plan was that I was unclear on exactly who the bad guys were. The computational rocket was nervous, or at least what passed for nervous in a machine. As for me, at this point, I suspected everyone from Mrs. Sigurdsen the librarian to Sheriff Hauptmann, not to mention Mr. Bellamy and his ‘gang.’ The only person I was sure of was Floyd, and one of the things I was most sure of about him was that he was unreliable at his best.

“Hey, fellas!” It was Random Garrett, yelling from upstairs. “There’s a police car driving on to the property.”

Mr. Bellamy and Mr. Neville ran in from the kitchen. Mr. Bellamy had his pump-action shotgun, while Mr. Neville had drawn his pistol, an enormous hog leg.

“Who is it?” called Mr. Bellamy.

“Looks like Augusta police.”

Augusta police wouldn’t have any business out here. Closest town was Haverhill, and they relied on the Butler County Sheriff’s Department. On the other hand, I was a lot more worried about Sheriff Hauptmann than I was about any of the Augusta cops.

Mr. Bellamy set his shotgun on the table, but not out of sight. That was interesting, too. “It’s all right,” he told Mr. Neville. “That’d be Ollie Wannamaker, or maybe Chief Davis. Put the pistol away, Marvin, nobody’s going to draw down on you.”

“What if it was a Sheriff’s car?” I asked.

“Then we’d be concerned. Hauptmann is no friend of yours, Vereen.”

Well, he had that right. I walked into the cluttered living room and looked out the front window. At least I felt better on my feet. It was almost dark now. I wondered how, or if, I was going to get to work tomorrow. I could always call in sick, if the Bellamys had a telephone.

Which they didn’t.

I watched the black-and-white Augusta police car park next to the old Ford with the blown-out window, courtesy of my little adventure today. The cruiser was a 1941 Chevrolet Deluxe that had been stretched through the war years like everything else.

Ollie Wannamaker got out slowly and looked up at the roof of Mr. Bellamy’s house, somewhere above my head. I guessed he was looking at Mr. Garrett.

“I don’t got no weapons!” Ollie yelled, holding out both hands to show they were empty. He didn’t have his holster on.

Mr. Bellamy walked past me, out on to the porch. “Why don’t you come in and have some coffee, Ollie?”

Ollie walked slowly up to the porch and climbed the stairs. He followed Mr. Bellamy back into the house, then stopped to look me over. “I kind of thought you’d be here, Vernon.” Ollie seemed sad.

We walked into the dining room. The shotgun was still on the table, Mr. Neville sitting near it with his mouth set in a narrow line. Mr. Bellamy picked up the weapon and laid it in his lap as he sat down.

I didn’t understand the power here. Ollie didn’t have any jurisdiction out of town, but a cop was a cop. Mr. Bellamy was threatening him in a way that Ollie didn’t have to notice, officially speaking — something it never would have occurred to me to do. Mr. Bellamy waved Ollie and me to sit down before turning to his son. “Why don’t you go get us some coffee, Floyd?”

All the guns were making me nervous, and I wasn’t the one on the receiving end of their attention. I had to give Ollie credit for what he said next. “Don’t think you need to be armed here inside your own home, Mr. Bellamy.”

“Been a lot of shooting in Butler County lately, Officer Wannamaker.”

“I see,” said Ollie.

There was an uncomfortable silence. After a long minute, I spoke up. “What brings you out here?”

“I was thinking you might be here, Vernon. We need to talk.”

Once again, it was about me. I glanced around the table. None of the men with guns were going to let me talk to Ollie alone, I could see that.

“What’s up?” I asked, wishing that Ollie could whisper secretly in my ear just like the computational rocket did.

Floyd came in from the kitchen with a tray of coffee in mismatched cups from two different sets of china, plus an odd one. He’d forgotten the cream and sugar. Mrs. Bellamy would be fluttering if she were here right now.

Ollie took a sip, then stared around the table. He showed a little more backbone than I would have expected from the kid I knew back in high school, locking eyes with Mr. Neville and Mr. Bellamy in turn before returning his gaze to me. He ignored Floyd.

“The Army’s got Military Police all over Augusta right now. They flew in about an hour ago on a C-47 from Fort Leavenworth. Landed behind the fence at the refinery and set up a perimeter. There’s a Colonel Pinkhoffer putting Chief Davis on the hot seat, asking questions about who would have been driving a blue Cadillac convertible out east of town this afternoon. Everybody’s either hopping mad or scared spitless, and Bertha’s making a huge nuisance of herself down at City Hall trying to break this open for the papers. Not just ours. Chicago, Kansas City. It’s big news. Word is the Army’s raising the same kind of Cain in El Dorado, too.”

Mr. Bellamy glared like a stone toad. “Yeah?”

I didn’t say anything, just stared down at the tablecloth to avoid Ollie’s hard look. I don’t lie well, even when I have nothing to say. And this was not the dumpy, goofy kid I’d known in high school. Nobody was who they used to be any more, except maybe Floyd. Was that the war, or just growing up? I couldn’t tell.

“Well,” said Ollie to fill the silence. He scratched his head and looked unhappy. “Here’s the thing. Just a few minutes before Colonel Pinkhoffer showed up with a couple of squads of M.P.s, one of Reverend Miller’s farmhands came by the station. The Reverend sent me a message asking if Vernon here was okay.”

“I guess I am,” I said. That was the biggest whopper I’d ever told. Adding up the last few days, with Pinkhoffer on top for garnish, I’d never been in this much trouble in my life. I’d never heard of this much trouble in my life. I felt a terrible sinking feeling, like going deep into quicksand with no rope.

“That’s not the way I heard it.” Ollie put his cup down, spread his hands on the tablecloth. Mrs. Bellamy’s second-best linen, I noticed, which already had gun oil and coffee stains on it. I wouldn’t want to be Floyd or Mr. Bellamy when she got home. “Reverend Miller didn’t say much in his note, but Junius, the farm hand, was happy to share a little bit of gossip. He says Reverend Miller found you out here near the Bellamy place sitting on the front of Doc Milliken’s blue Cadillac convertible. The Reverend was concerned that you looked really scared, and you’d maybe been roughed up some.”

He glanced at Mr. Bellamy and Mr. Neville for a moment before continuing. “The car looked worse, Junius said. That’s why Reverend Miller wondered what happened to you, and if there was anything he could do to help. His note said he left you with Alonzo and Floyd Bellamy, so I came out here.” Ollie drummed his fingers on the table, obviously considering if he wanted to tell me anything else. “I haven’t talked to Chief Davis about nothing yet, Vernon.”

“You might say I’ve had a bad time of it,” I said, smiling weakly.

Ollie looked even more unhappy. “That’s all you have to say to me? That ain’t good enough, Vernon.” He shook his head, ticking off on his fingers as he continued to talk. “A blue Cadillac convertible was used in an attack on an Army CID officer somewhere out this side of town. The officer’s orderly fired his weapon at the car. Reverend Miller says the windshield of Doc Milliken’s car looked shot out. And Doc Milliken says he doesn’t know where his car is — that you took it without permission.”