Bury the Lead

44



MY PLAN IS NOT EXACTLY brilliant, but after twenty-four hours of intensive thinking, it’s the best I can do. I’ve gathered our group together again this evening to present it, first asking if anyone else has come up with anything.

Vince volunteers to “kill the son of a bitch,” but other than that, everyone seems to want to hear what I have to say. So I say it.

“I’ll call Eliot, tell him I want to see him about something related to the case, but I won’t let on that there is anything wrong. When we meet, I’ll tell him what I know, make him believe I have evidence to go to the police, and try and blackmail him.”

“Blackmail him?” asks Kevin, making no effort to hide his incredulousness at my plan. “Why would you possibly blackmail him?”

“So I can get him to incriminate himself,” I say. “I’ll be wearing a wire.”

Laurie seems less impressed than Kevin. “Andy, this isn’t a TV movie. You try wearing a wire, you’ll electrocute yourself.”

Next, it’s Vince’s turn. “Andy, this guy is responsible for at least six murders. He killed Tommy Lassiter himself. What if he decides to make you number seven?”

We kick it back and forth for a couple of hours. Nobody is crazy about my plan, not even me, but the advantage it has is that it’s the only plan we’ve got. We decide to try it, with the understanding that if it doesn’t work quickly and smoothly, we turn everything over to Captain Millen.

“And the press,” Vince hastens to add.

Laurie is going to go to Cleveland with Marcus, where they will await my arrival. Their job will be to listen in on the wire, but more important, to protect me if things go wrong. Which they very well could.

I don’t sleep much, trying to decide how I should approach Eliot. It has to be a matter significant enough to make me travel to Cleveland, but not ominous enough to alert him to any danger.

In the morning I walk Tara and then go to the office. It would seem more natural for the call to be coming from there. Eliot isn’t there when I call, but he gets back to me within ten minutes.

“Andy,” he says, his voice open and friendly, “I didn’t expect to hear from you. What’s up?”

“I didn’t see you at Daniel’s funeral, and I—”

His tone goes somber on me, the grieving friend. “I took it pretty hard . . . I just couldn’t stay around anymore. I mean, after all that he went through, after all you did, after he got off, for him to die like that . . .”

“It was terrible,” I agree.

“Any news about who might be responsible?” he asks, trying to sound conversational.

“Could be. That’s actually why I’m calling.”

“Oh?”

“I have reason to believe Walter Castle may have been behind it after all. I know you had your investigators checking into him, so I wondered—”

He interrupts. “They really didn’t come up with anything important.”

“Maybe so, but maybe it would look different in the light of the information I have. I’d like to fly out and sit down with you about it.”

“It must be important to you,” he says.

“I hate to see a killer go unpunished.”

We make a plan to meet tomorrow evening, and he agrees to my request to maintain “discretion” by meeting at my hotel. I’ve already made a reservation, and Laurie and Marcus will be in the adjoining room. I chose the hotel Marcus had stayed in before; he knows the layout, it’s near a Taco Bell, has no spa, but does have an ice machine.

Laurie and I go out to Charlie’s for dinner, and we talk about everything but the trip to Cleveland. We’ve already worked out the arrangements, purchased the recording equipment, and made our plans, so there doesn’t seem to be anything more to say. In any event, if there is, neither of us wants to say it.

It isn’t until we get into bed that Laurie says, “I’m concerned about this.”

“Don’t be. If I’m too virile for you, I’ll stop and give you time to rest.”

“Let me see if I understand this,” she says. “You’re making a bad sex joke? Now?”

“I didn’t think it was so bad, but it was definitely a sex joke. I thought it was pretty funny.”

“Andy, I’m worried about you. This guy is dangerous.”

“I can take care of myself,” I say.

“Since when?”

That didn’t go too well, so I try another approach. “You and Marcus will be there.”

“I guess . . . ,” she says uncertainly. “But there will be a wall between us. If anything goes wrong, if you suspect anything, you holler as loud as you can.”

“I will. I promise.”

She leans over and kisses me. “Good night, Andy.”

She then rolls over to go to sleep, clearly playing hard to get. “You know,” I say, “men can relax themselves by making love the night before they go into battle.”

“Good for them. Good night, Andy.”

“Good night.”

Within seconds, I can tell by her breathing that she’s already asleep. I guess women deal with impending battle differently.

Laurie and Marcus are on an eight A.M. flight the next morning, and I spend the hours before my three P.M. flight hanging out with Tara. I’m a little nervous, not too bad, and being with Tara calms me even more.

I get to the airport with plenty of time to spare, but I find myself sitting in coach next to a fat woman with a baby. The daily double of annoying. I had always said that if I ever became rich I still wouldn’t fly first-class, that the much higher fare is a total rip-off. Now that I am rich, I think it’s time to reassess my position.

I’ve checked a bag, since it seemed much easier than dragging it through security as a carry-on. When we land, I go to baggage claim, where the limo driver I had arranged for is waiting for me with a sign bearing my name. Wealth does have its privileges.

We get the bag and are in the car within fifteen minutes. I tell the limo driver the name of the hotel, and we’re off.

“Have a good flight, Mr. Carpenter?”

I nod, since he’s looking at me through the mirror. “Not bad, if you don’t count the fat woman and the baby.”

He laughs. “One of those, huh?”

“One of those.”

I’ve never been to Cleveland before, but the little I’ve seen so far is unimpressive, so I turn to my notes, trying to anticipate the conversation with Eliot. My chances of leading him into an admission are small, and I’m only going to have the one chance. I’ve got to take my best shot.

I feel the car pulling into the right lane, apparently to make a right turn. I look up, and my first impression is that we don’t appear to be heading toward the city. Suddenly, the door next to me is jerked open and another man gets in the seat alongside me.

As the automatic door locks shut, the new passenger says, “Hello, Andy.”

“Hello, Eliot,” I say as fear surges through my body. “What are you doing here?”

“The real question is, what are you doing here? Maybe to trip me up? Or blackmail me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” is the lame line I come up with. I’m finding that the petrified mind does not think too clearly.

“You’re not here to talk about Walter Castle, that’s for sure.”

My mind processes the fact that no matter what he says, it’s not going to help, because I’m not yet wearing the wire. But even if I were, it wouldn’t help me, because Laurie and Marcus would have no way of knowing where I am. I look toward the limo driver, who’s listening but not reacting; obviously, he’s with Eliot.

“How did you find out about Tina, Andy? How did you know she was my sister?”

“Who’s Tina? Come on, Eliot, I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like it.”

He laughs. “It’s only going to get worse, I assure you. You see, here’s your mistake, Andy. I am hot shit in this town; I know everything there is to know. So when you go to my hometown newspaper to get stories about Tina, then I know what you know. Get it? So don’t insult me with any more of your bullshit.”

“The problem for you is that the cops know where I am and why.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think so; this doesn’t feel like a police operation. I think you’re the Lone Ranger here, Andy.” He laughs again. “Except you forgot your silver bullets.”

I look out the window and see that we’re in the countryside, a run-down area of trailer homes and poorly maintained farms. This is where I’m going to die. The fear is so palpable that I am in danger of throwing up.

“There’s a record of where I am. They’ll piece things together.”

He points to the limo driver. “He looks like you, doesn’t he, Andy? He’s going to fly back on your ticket. His fellow passengers won’t look closely enough; they’ll say it was you. So you obviously got killed when you got back home.”

The car pulls to a stop near what look like run-down warehouses, maybe farm storage buildings, I can’t tell. For the life of me, and I mean that literally, I can’t figure out what to do.

“Get out, Andy.”

The door locks pop up, allowing me to open the door. I get out, then notice that the driver is already out and is pointing his gun at me. Eliot gets out after me.

My back is to an open field, and I steal a glance at it to judge whether I’d have any chance making a break for it.

Eliot reads my mind. “Think you can make it, Andy? There’s a lot of open space.”

I can hear the driver chuckling as I consider it. “I don’t think so,” I say. “I’d rather we could talk this out.”

“Be serious,” he says, then points to the field. “Go on, I’ll give you a five-second head start.”

I look at the field again. “No,” I say, and then I take off running. I move in a ridiculous zigzag pattern, hoping to make them miss. Ray Charles couldn’t miss from this distance.

I’m running, cringing, and audibly moaning all at the same time, waiting for the burst of fire that will cut me down. All I hear behind me is Eliot laughing, as he must be slowly raising his gun.

A burst of gunfire crackles in the air, and I tense, bracing for the metal that will tear into my body. I don’t feel anything, and for one bizarre moment I try to figure out which is faster, the speed of sound or the speed of a bullet.

I keep running as fast as I can. If they missed once, they can miss again. But I don’t hear any more firing. I’m not yet confident; there is no reason to think they’ve let me off the hook. But as long as I’m alive, I’m going to do all I can to stay that way.

“Hey, a*shole, get back here!”

The voice isn’t Eliot’s but it sounds familiar. I continue running but turn at an angle where I can quickly look back to where the car is.

There are now two cars there, two men standing, and two lying on the ground. One of the guys on the ground is dressed like Eliot. I can’t tell who the two guys standing are, but they called me “a*shole,” so they must know me. If they wanted to kill me, they could have easily done so already, so I hesitantly walk back toward them.

As I get closer, I can see that the other man on the ground is the limo driver. The two standing are Gorilla and Driver, the men who work for Petrone who took Marcus and me to his house that night.

“You saved my life,” I say.

“No shit,” says Driver.

“Petrone sent you,” I say.

“No shit.”

“How did you know I was here?”

Driver shrugs. “We didn’t. We were after him.” He points to the very dead Eliot.

“How did Petrone know about him?” I ask. Getting information out of Driver is not the easiest thing in the world.

“Your pain-in-the-ass friend.”

I realize immediately whom he is talking about. “Vince.”

“No shit.”

Driver offers me a ride back, and we wait while Gorilla digs an enormous grave to put the two bodies in. He does so with a minimum of effort; Gorilla is one strong guy.

“You might want to avoid mentioning this to anyone,” says Driver. “Or he’ll be digging a hole for you.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“That’s a first.”

They drive me back to the city. Very little is said on the way, though Gorilla remembers, “Your f*cking dog bit my leg.”

“I’ll speak to her about it as soon as I get back. I’m sure she’ll send you a note of apology.”

They drop me off on the outskirts of town, and I take a cab to the hotel. Laurie has been frantic with worry, but Marcus seems to have handled it well.

“Where the hell have you been?” she asks.

I tell them the whole story, though I come off somewhat more heroic in the telling than I did in real life. For instance, in my version I had thrown Eliot to the ground and was about to disarm him when Driver and Gorilla showed up.

She listens patiently, then asks, “You want to tell us the real story?”

“Not particularly.”

Marcus doesn’t seem mesmerized by my account. Midway through it he gazes out the window toward the Taco Bell that he insisted be near the hotel. “You guys hungry?” he asks.