Trees whipped by the sides of Nautilus’s cruiser, the country lane tight. The meeting spot was one Nautilus was familiar with, an old strip center serving what had once been a rural community, now just a couple miles from the edge of the growing city. Nautilus figured Crandell lived nearby, the site, as he and Carson had figured, out of the city, but still allowing fast access anywhere in Mobile.
The meeting location was a pizzeria in the center, A-Roma Pizza. The closer he came, the more he became convinced he should let the county cops in on his plan. This was Mobile County, and he knew several guys on the force, not a Cade Barlow in the bunch. Nautilus waited to pass a slow-moving trailer on the road ahead. He was about to accelerate when the trailer swerved erratically, slid from the road, ground to a hard stop.
Nautilus had dropped back a hundred yards, thinking the trailer or truck pulling it had blown a tire. He passed the rig slowly, checking. It was an extended-cab truck with a vehicle hauler behind it. The hauler was empty.
The cab of the pickup exploded open and a man dropped halfway to the ground, clawing at his chest, the seat belt trapping his body. Nautilus braked hard and stared in horror, his headlights framing the grisly scene.
Don’t get out of the car, a voice said from the back of his head. Call it in, but don’t get out. His hand reached for the radio, was stopped by the flashing red light in his rear-view: a vehicle with an emergency flasher stuck atop the roof, volunteer fireman. Hopefully the guy had some medical training.
“I’m an EMT,” called a voice from the vehicle behind as the door opened, feet started his way. “What happened?”
“Looks like a heart attack,” Nautilus yelled back. “I’m a cop. I’ll call it in. You got a defibrillator?”
“No,” a voice whispered. “But I have one of these.”
Nautilus felt something hard press his ear. Caught the smell of gun oil. The voice said, “How’s about you keep your hands off that mike and right up there where I can see them.”
The man hanging from the truck suddenly slipped to the ground, somersaulted to standing, brushed himself off. Nautilus saw a patch on the guy’s shoulder: Private Security. He was a tall, raw-boned guy with tight eyes. He grinned at the Crown Vic, then ignited two road flares. He tossed one behind the Crown Vic, another in front. Anyone passing would think car trouble.
“All right, Rafe,” said the voice at Nautilus’s shoulder. “You earned yourself a double bonus tonight. Drop the ramps and let’s get this circus to another town.”
Nautilus said, “Crandell, right?”
“Sssssh,” the voice said. “Stay relaxed and we’ll all go home tonight.”
Like hell, Nautilus thought.
Headlights filled the scene as another vehicle slowed, a couple teen guys in an old Camaro with a bad muffler.
“Sssssh,” Crandell said to Nautilus, leaning to hide the gun. “One word and the kiddies don’t get any older.”
“Y’all need some help?” the passenger in the Camaro said.
Private Security smiled, shook his head at the Crown Vic. “Thanks, man, but we got her. Tranny stripped out in second gear. We’ll get ’er up on the trailer, haul it to the garage. Hey, you guys want a beer?”
The guy in the Camaro waved it off. “Thanks, bud, but we’re set.” He held up a six-pack of Schlitz Malt Liquor, grinned stupidly, and the pair roared away.
Private Security hustled to the back of the hauler, dropped the ramps to the road. That was all the time it took for Crandell to have Harry Nautilus on the rear floor of the cruiser, handcuffed to a steel D-ring.
“And before I forget …” Crandell slipped his hand into Nautilus’s jacket and snatched out his Glock.
“And a shotgun, too? My, we did come prepared, didn’t we? I’ll just take that with me.”
Private Security jumped in the door, backed up the Crown Vic, angled it, then ran the Crown Vic onto the hauler. He slipped a chrome .44 revolver from his belt, set it in his lap.
“What next?” he asked Crandell.
“Stay in there and keep an eye on our company. You’ll have to lay across the seats, stay below the windows.”
“No problem.” Private Security nodded at Nautilus. “What do I do if he acts up?”
Crandell thought a moment, said, “Put one in his knee.”
Lightning flashed on the horizon. Nautilus felt the wind shift direction. It suddenly smelled of rain. Private Security lowered his voice to a whisper.
“I hate cops and I hate niggers. I do believe you’re gonna act up once we get under way.”
Nautilus felt a cold squirming in the pit of his stomach. Crandell leaned in the open passenger window.
“You’re going to behave, right, Detective?”
“I doubt it’ll mean much,” Nautilus said.
“You’ll be good to our guest, Rafe?”
Private Security chuckled. “Unless he acts up, like you said.”
“Detective Nautilus, I want you to turn to Rafe and promise you’ll be a good boy.” The jab with the barrel again.
Nautilus craned his head upward to the leering face of Private Security. Lightning exploded and a small dark dot appeared in Private Security’s forehead. The man frowned, waved at something in front of his face, like troubled by a fly, then slumped sideways in the seat.
Nautilus looked to the window. He smelled burned gunpowder and saw a smile on Crandell’s face. Crandell reached in with the gun.
Lightning exploded inside Harry Nautilus’s head.
Climbing through the hatch in the ceiling of the elevator was easier than expected, relying on arm and shoulder strength rather than my ankle. I was hobbling around atop the box. The ceilings in the house were fourteen feet high, the elevator eight. Combined with the space between floors, it put the second floor a foot above my head, a second set of doors to outwit.
I had no leverage, and even if I did, no way to apply it.
I held on to greasy cables to keep the weight off my foot, trying to make sense of a metallic cocktail of bars and springs, gears and latches. My only light was from below, beaming weakly through the two-foot-square hatch. I studied the assemblage beside the door and above my head. Think. Analyze. Deconstruct. Elevator doors would be inoperable unless the car was safely behind the door, or folks would be dropping down shafts with metronomic frequency.
But would the unlocking mechanism be electronic or mechanical? How did elevator repairmen deal with these situations?
I squatted below the mechanism, pushed upward on one leg, grabbed a steel bar hooked to the door, and pulled myself up until I was staring into greasy metal components. I studied the mechanism holding them shut, saw a servomotor beside the bar holding the door. There was a red button on its side, just the size of my thumb. I pressed it.
Bing. The doors withdrew.
Soft yellow light drifted into the elevator shaft. I pulled myself through the opening. My chest crossed the threshold, then my belly, and finally the whole of me was squirming facedown on the floor. I could hear the pain in my ankle, a high red whine. I forced myself to look down: swollen with fluid.
“Hello?” a wavering voice said.
The old man was sitting at the desk as if he’d never moved from it, a strained look on his face, trying to understand my appearance in his world. I crawled to a leather-upholstered chair, pulled myself to standing, hopped to his desk.
“Phone!” I yelled. “Where’s a phone?”
He stared at me like I was a life form never before encountered, his mouth opening and closing like a boated fish. A floor lamp stood behind the desk. I hobbled over and tore off the shade, used the pole as a crutch to the window. Barred, the glass threaded with wire.
I turned and saw Daddy Kincannon at the open shaft, looking down with a sense of wonder.
“Get back from there, Pops!” I yelled.
He shuffled his feet backward in a decrepit moonwalk. I thumped past chairs and tables and love seats to the chimney; too narrow to slip through. The old man sat on a couch and picked up a copy of Forbes. He held it upside down, occasionally shooting me puzzled glances above the pages.
A small bedroom was off the sprawling main living area. I tore through a closet, not knowing what I was looking for, finding nothing but casual clothes and robes. No, there in a back corner, a cane! An old man’s bentwood cane, leather handle, rubber tip. Maybe the old guy had bouts of gout.
Think. Analyze.
The old man had been there fifteen years, or was it twenty? Surely in all that time someone had planned for an emergency, fire, tornadoes. This was the Prime Buck, numero uno, tucked away but provided exceptional care. Had he ever been prepared for a problem, drilled until the response lodged in his frizzled brain cells?
“There’s an emergency, Mr Kincannon,” I yelled. “Is there a way out?”
He wiped a strand of drool from his mouth. I thumped across the floor, got down on one knee, took his hand in mine, like proposing marriage.
“What do you do for fire, sir? Have you been told?”
He looked at me with expectant eyes, like I was judging his answer and he wanted a passing grade.
“Sir?” I prompted.
“Hot spots and piss pots. Climb inside, hide and ride.”
I thudded to the bathroom. It was the size of my living room: bath tub, Jacuzzi, multi-headed shower. I yanked open a closet. Empty, the size of a phone booth. I smelled rain and warmth, outside air. It seemed to be wafting up from the floor of the closet. I stepped inside, hands patting the walls. My fingers found a wooden latch. I turned it and began falling, a controlled drop. I heard a counterweight rising with my descent.
Not a closet, a converted dumbwaiter.
The booth slammed hard and I crumpled, boxed tight, surrounded by total darkness. I pushed on the sides of the booth. A door popped loose like a hatch and I found myself with a faceful of the azalea bush concealing the small door. Lightning flashed, a bomb burst of white across the vast rolling carpet of lawn. The house loomed above. I pictured Buck Senior returning to his desk, reading an inverted magazine, vaguely recalling a limping visitor from years ago.
I crept from an azalea bank the size of a truck, rain pelting me like stones. Even with the cane, my ankle felt like white-hot thorns had been driven through it from every angle. Lightning shimmered between boiling clouds and I saw Kincannon’s house in the distance, perhaps a third of a mile. It seemed forever far away.
But I’d just been granted a reprieve, and whether it had been through pure luck, or something underlying the realm of language and human capacity to understand, I was going to get there if I had to drag myself every inch. Knock on the door of the goddamn scion of that goddamn family.
Hello, Buckie, remember me?