The Bricklayer

TWENTY-SEVEN

THE CLERK AT THE AQUA DULCE POST OFFICE HAD GIVEN VAIL DIRECTIONS to the old Franklin Movie Ranch. “It’s on Stanfield Road off Hope Creek Road.” The name on the box rental was the same as on the credit card receipt, Andrew Parker, with an address of simply Franklin Movie Ranch, Stanfield Road. The property had been used as a movie set back in the for-r ties when the studios were turning out westerns every couple of weeks. As far as the clerk knew it hadn’t been used in more than half a century.
As Vail drove along Hope Creek Road, he wondered if he was wasting his time looking for anyone else who could be involved. And more important, if he was, why? Wasting time was something he hated. Somebody else could have been involved in the murders, but that didn’t seem likely. Radek needed the power that came with being in charge. It was a big part of why he was a criminal. If there was someone else, it had to be an underling who had gone unnoticed. But there was also a practical reason for his pursuing Radek’s last clue. If a booby trap had been set, it should be located and neutralized.
Vail turned onto Stanfield Road, which then climbed along the barren foothills, through large boulder-sized outcroppings that he recalled were ever present in the old cowboy movies. Finally at the peak of one of the hills, he saw a rutted dirt road off to the right that wound down around some large rock formations. A simple nailed cross of wood crudely lettered said, “Franklin Ranch.” He turned in and drove slowly, trying to keep the car from bottoming out in the ruts. Once he circled below the boulders, he could see three dilapidated buildings in the flats below. He stopped and got out into the scorching sun. Using the monocular, he scanned the area, looking for any indication of recent use. The single-story structures were less than two hundred yards away. He decided to go the rest of the way on foot.
He opened the trunk and slipped off his suit jacket, tie, and shirt, leaving him in his T-shirt. The shotgun case contained a canvas bandolier of shells with a Velcro closure, which he wrapped around his waist and secured. There were scattered shells in the case, and he loaded five of them, alternating the double-aught buck and deer slug. He racked the first one into the chamber and clicked the safety on. His cell phone rang. The caller’s ID was blocked. “Hello.”
“Hi.” It was Kate. She waited for his response.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
“I guess that’s what I’m calling to find out.”
“Other than a long, icy shower I had to take last night, we’re fine.”
“I didn’t sleep much.”
“Only someone who didn’t care would.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Where are you?”
“Sightseeing.”
“That sounds evasive.”
“Apparently not evasive enough. I’m in Aqua Dulce. It’s an hour north of L.A.”
“This is the part where I try to pin you down with a series of escape-proof questions.”
“Fair enough. The credit card used at Sargasso’s came back to an Andrew Parker at the Franklin Ranch in Aqua Dulce. I just got here.”
“Does that mean you think there’s someone else involved?” Her tone had that impatient “here we go again” charge to it.
“It is a very small loose end, and you know how they drive me crazy.”
“Should you be out there alone?”
“All the black hats are gone, remember? I just want to see if there’s something out here Radek might have rigged that’ll hurt someone if they stumble across it.”
“Were you going to tell anybody about it? What happens if you get hurt?”
“There’s no urgency here. Anything suspicious, I’ll call in the locals.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“I’d come out there myself, but I’m buried in paperwork. I’ve been making a list and so far I’m up to almost thirty 302s to dictate. And that isn’t counting the evidence and lab transmittal letters. Let me send somebody out?”
“I’m standing here looking at the place. This is just a walk in the park. By the time they get here I’ll be headed back.”
There was a hesitation and then Kate said, “Have you seen the morning paper?”
“No.”
“Tye’s kind of doing an exit interview in it. You might want to get a copy.”
“I hope that’s not you being mean.”
“So you have seen it.”
“I talked to Tye first thing this morning. She wanted to apologize. She wanted me to pass it on to you because she figures she could never face you again.”
“Interesting. I would never have guessed that a man who could so casually throw bank robbers through windows would be so protective of someone who had embarrassed him.”
“What makes you think I’m embarrassed?”
“I guess that was me being mean. I’m sorry. How about I buy you dinner tonight?”
“Do you know who Sisyphus was, from Greek mythology?”
“With great apprehension I’ll have to say no.”
“For offending the gods, Sisyphus, a man of many indulgences, was sentenced to Hades, where he was to roll a boulder up a steep mountain, with one small catch. Just as he was about to reach the top, it would always roll back down, forcing him to start over. He was to do this throughout eternity.”
“And you think that’s us.”
“It did seem like the gods were conspiring against us last night.”
“I say we try shoving it up the mountain one more time to make sure we are actually in hell,” she said.
“Sometimes understanding the futility of our fate is the only form of happiness we’re allowed.”
“Funny, I’ve always found the struggle to be the real reward.”
“That confirms something I’ve long suspected—you’re a better person than I am. If you want to again risk the wrath of the gods, I’ll be back this afternoon.”
He hung up and let his eyes trace the twisting road leading down to the ranch. There was little shade; in fact, there were only a few scrawny trees scattered across the property. Vail glanced at the sun for position, its unrelenting glare warning that it was going to be another hot day.
Vail took his time getting down to the three ancient, colorless structures. They were nothing more than shades of gray, as if permanently in an old black-and-white movie. They had been built side by side without any space between them, and the way the outside walls leaned made them appear to be holding one another up. There was a wooden walkway in front of all of them, with a corrugated metal sheet overhead. The outer ones were smaller and had flat roofs, but the middle structure had a peaked roof and looked like it was the only one used in the last fifty years. A hand-painted wooden sign over the door said “Last Chance Saloon.” Whether it was a movie set or someone had tried to make a business of it after the western movie business dried up, he couldn’t tell.
Kicking up dust as he walked down the road, he cautiously approached the first structure. The door was half open, and he could tell by the debris on the floor that no one had been in there in years. Instead of going in the middle building next, he went to the third one and found it in a similar condition.
That left the “saloon.” It was much cleaner inside and along one wall was a homemade bar. It looked only a few years old. The rest of the long room was relatively empty except for some fast-food containers scattered on the floor.
He examined it again, this time searching for anything that might have the attraction of a trap, but couldn’t find anything. He walked back onto the front walkway and looked beyond the building. Then he thought he heard something up on the ridgeline where he had parked. Stepping back into the shadow of the saloon, he watched and listened for a few minutes but heard nothing else.
Fifty yards farther into the property he could see a foot trail disappearing into a stand of low trees. He started to follow it, and when he was halfway to the tree line, he saw a white paper bag, a twig driven through it holding it to the ground. He bent over and picked it up. It was from Sargasso’s restaurant and it smelled of garlic. Next to it was a 30-06 casing, untarnished by the weather.
As Vail bent over to retrieve it, a shot rang out from behind him on the hill. He dove to the left and rolled, holding on to the shotgun. From the sound of the shot, he could tell it was a heavy-caliber hunting rifle, probably a 30-06.
He half crawled, half ran back to the dilapidated buildings. That’s when he felt the wetness against his shoulder. He reached up and brought back his hand with blood on it. He felt the wound again; his trapezius had been nicked. Three inches to the left, it would have severed his spine.
As he worked his way behind the buildings, he tried to remember if he had loaded the deer slug first or the buckshot. The slug could reach two hundred yards, but with the shotgun having only a bead on the end of the barrel, it would take lottery luck to hit anything that far uphill. The buckshot would be useless at that distance.
When he got to the edge of the structure, he pumped all the rounds out of the gun, then picked up the three slugs off the ground and reloaded them along with five more from the cartridge belt.
Peeking around the corner, he tried to find a route to the top of the ridge with at least some cover. There were a few boulders, but they were thirty to forty yards apart. The advantage Vail had was that if the rifle did have a scope—which the difficulty of the first shot indicated—it would be hard for the shooter to get a bead on him if he kept moving and changing direction. And it probably was a bolt action, meaning it took a second or two to chamber each round, something, with a little bit of nerve, Vail could use to his advantage.
He snapped off the shotgun’s safety. He stepped out from behind the building and counted, “One idiot, two idiot, three idiot,” then jumped back behind the building as another rifle shot rang out.
He ran, zigzagging. He dove behind a rock just as another round hit somewhere behind him. Although he still hadn’t seen the shooter, Vail knew that he was in the outcroppings near where Vail had left his car.
Taking a deep breath, Vail raised the shotgun over the rock he was hiding behind, took a quick sight along the barrel, and fired. As he started running to the next spot, he heard the oversize slug he had fired ricochet off the rocks somewhere in the vicinity of the sniper.
Another rifle shot came from above, again exploding into the ground ten yards to his left. It meant that the shooter was firing wildly, more concerned with pinning Vail down than with hitting him.
The reason Vail had chosen this route was that he figured once he had reached the spot where he was now, the sniper could no longer see him moving. The shooter, realizing that, may have taken that last shot out of desperation. Either way, Vail could work his way up the hill without being exposed to the sniper’s line of sight. He ejected the rest of the slugs and reloaded with double-aught buck from the bandolier. If the single-shot rifle was the only weapon that the sniper had, the closer Vail got, the more effective the spray of .32-caliber pellets would become. But first he had to get up there.
Snaking through the outcroppings, Vail maneuvered his way up toward the ridge, being careful not to expose himself. Of course, the shooter could move and possibly surprise Vail, something he had to remain aware of.
Vail heard another shot, somewhat muffled. And then another.
It took him another ten minutes to reach the top. The sniper was gone, but behind Vail’s car, he could see another set of tire tracks in the loose dirt. The last two shots had taken out Vail’s rear tires.
While he waited for the rental company to send someone to tow him to a gas station, he checked his wound. It had almost stopped bleeding. Draping a handkerchief over it, he slipped his shirt and jacket over it. A tow truck arrived and took him to a gas station, where both tires were repaired.
An hour later he was on the 101 heading south toward L.A. Apparently there were more than five people in the Pentad. Today’s shooter was number six. Although Radek had set up Vail with the Italian dinners, someone else was trying to kill him now. Which didn’t make any sense. All the money was gone and the accomplices were dead. Why call attention to yourself by doing this? And why Vail? Did he know something that would reveal the identity of the last person? It was the only reasonable possibility. Was there actually someone from the Los Angeles FBI involved? It wasn’t Pendaran, because he was in custody. Obviously it was someone comfortable with firearms, because the heavy-caliber rifle had a punishing kick to it. Plus, it took a certain confidence to hunt a man in the open.


VAIL PULLED INTO the hospital’s emergency room parking lot and walked in. The doctor who had stitched up his back after the tunnel drop was again on duty. “You do understand we don’t give frequent-flier miles.”
Vail laughed. “This one wouldn’t even get me to the airport.” He took off his shirt.
“Gunshot?”
“Walked into a door.”
“Thank goodness,” the doctor said sardonically. “Otherwise I’d have to report it. You make me wish it was possible to short-sell life insurance on certain individuals.”
The doctor cleaned the wound and started putting a thick bandage on it. “Do you have anything a little less noticeable?” Vail asked. “I’ve got a date for dinner.”
The doctor put a thinner square of gauze over the laceration and taped it tightly into place. “Hold on a minute and I’ll take those stitches out of your back, or do you think you’ll be back in a day or two?”
“I know every waiter in L.A. is actually an actor, but I didn’t realize the doctors were comedians.”
“What’s frustrating is all the sick people that keep coming in here. Talk about no sense of humor. And comedy, after all, is all about feedback. Around here I get almost no reaction.” When he had taken the last suture out, Vail started putting on his shirt. “Do you want anything for pain?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
The doctor gave him a spool of tape, some extra gauze bandages, and a tube of ointment. “You can use these to dress the wound yourself. Or just save them for the next time you get shot.”