Death of the Extremophile

  *

  The noise from the raucous revelry was making it hard for Hope to get any kind of sleep, which would have been an escape of a kind from the interrogation chair; still, he could not help being flattered by the extent of the celebration of his capture: the screaming and laughter and wild gunfire could compete with many of the New Year’s Eve parties he had been involved in.

  From what he could gather, the festivities was centred on the farmhouse’s front porch and was spilling out into the garden as the Buster and the Treatment looked for better shots at the bats, squirrels and any other creature that braved the treetops and the night sky in their vicinity.

  There was an enthusiastically yapping dog amongst the party. Most likely Linde’s bullterrier Ping. The animal was running all over the garden and given that its barking coincided with the cracks of rifle fire, it had likely assumed the role of retriever should any creature be dropped. With his stomach continuing to rumble terribly, Hope could have imagined performing a similar role right about now and was in fact salivating with the mere thought of clasping a fallen winged creature in his own jowls. It was not much of a thought, however, and he expunged it from his mind as best he could. He was not going to start fantasising over escape either. It was clear enough Longworry had him good and fast in this chair and for now there was nothing he could do about it. That did not mean those rifles on the porch and in the garden were best aimed skyward: Hope had lived a life of seeking what was out on the very limits and what he had found was that there were always people. Some of them were friends. That was the thought he used to ease his mind still. His body was hurting but not crippled and would respond when the time came. What he could do now was keep himself calm. It did not matter that crime was all about greed, anger, arousal and risk: all those things he could do with sound mind. A memory came to him then. A jazz bar in Harlem he visited a few summers ago. The Mango Tree or perhaps it was the Peach Tree - it didn’t matter. It was the musicians and their silky playing that he remembered; and the sultry waitress attending his table and the Cajun dishes she served; and the beautiful Jamaican painter who was his companion. Being tide to a chair was like being old: all you had were the embers - his neighbour, John Badami, was right about that.

  Hope was not so deep yet in his remembrances that he could not hear the creaking floorboards behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see a flashlight muffled by white cloth.

  ‘I would tell you not to call out,’ came a whisper from behind it, ‘but I can see that’s already been taken care of. Good.’

  The man slid through the darkness like it was an oil slick. There was a flash of silver hair from under his black beret, which belied his youthfully agile movement and haughtily light voice. He set himself beside the chair and unslung a khaki shoulder bag. He removed from it a neatly arranged tool kit.

  ‘I’m going to get you out of these handcuffs,’ he said. ‘It will take a few minutes and when it’s done I don’t want you jumping out of your chair like a jack-in-a-box. I’ve been paid to get you out of here in one piece, so just relax and let me earn my wage.’ He gripped Hope’s shoulder to ensure he had his attention. ‘If you’ve taken offense at being slapped around, save it for another day.’ He knelt down to the rear of the chair and with the chosen tool in hand began his work on the handcuffs. He showed all the care and application to detail as a jeweler. ‘I was going to wait till the dead of night before making my play,’ he murmured, ‘but with all those drunken bullets zipping around I was just as likely to get shot crouching in the woods. And besides, there is enough noise being made that I could have used a stick of dynamite to gain entry to the barn and still not be heard. All the same, I’m going to leave that gag on till last, just in case I don’t agree with the pitch of your singing voice. By the way, my name is Sam Keppel. We haven’t met.’

  Hope got the feeling the man was using his voice to calm and reassure, the way a doctor might for a patient while administering an injection; still, the only sound he needed for that was of the shackles hitting the floor: it would be the ultimate proof this man really was someone to be excited about.

  This didn’t take long, in fact, and Hope lifted his freed arm onto his lap and set about reviving it from its dense numbing pain. Keppel moved to the other wrist. ‘I’m aware nothing scratches an itch like a good answer, so I’ll give it try.’ The whisper was being generated on the very tip of concentration. ‘I’m a private investigator who isn’t too frail in his retirement from the Chicago Police Force for a little muscle work when the price is right. I don’t usually go up against fellow cops that being said. Unless, of course, they are from New York or I have been asked particularly nicely.’ The second handcuff gave way with an easy click. Nice and quick. ‘In this case,’ he continued, ‘both are true. It seems we share a mutual friend from Kentucky. Quite a lady.’

  Hope smirked to the small extent the gag allowed. He had made the call to Alice Fontaine almost as an afterthought, having already recruited Alistair Plonker to his plight. Something to pass the time on the long night he had spent alone in Hawkshaw’s ransacked house. It had been nagging at him what kind of sniper would take shots at him without trying to hit and it occurred to him it that it might be a friend posing as an enemy or even vice versa; it was then he began to wonder about the true intentions of the Assistant District Attorney and the Buster and the Treatment and sense that intervention might be required for the predicament he was in. He had wondered at the time if it had just been an excuse to hear Fontaine’s voice. Fontaine had been amused by the situation, teasing him that he had obviously been on his way to Kentucky and had only managed to just get on the road out of New York before getting himself into trouble.

  Keppel had a good feel for the locks now and the leg shackles were perfunctorily dispatched to the floor. ‘That’s it. Ready to go?’

  The notion Hope would spring up with a hunger to extract revenge revealed itself as a mere polite fantasy, his body having all but fused to the chair. As he struggled to even budge an inch, Keppel came to his aid, managing to bring to an unassuming hand under his arm a great surge of strength that peeled him off the chair and delivered him upright.

  ‘No time to get your head right,’ said Keppel. ‘I’m worried that dog will find something new to bark at. Us.’

  To his surprise, however, his supporting hand was firmly shaken loose. Hope grabbed hold of the chair he had been bound to. ‘I’m taking this.’

  ‘Are you mad? What the hell do you want a chair for? Was it that comfortable?’

  ‘Comfortable isn’t the word.’ Hope started dragging it. It was noisy and Keppel hurriedly moved in to lift it. ‘Alright then. Expecting logic from a friend of Fontaine’s is just a recipe for a headache. But stop a minute while I collect my stuff.’

  Keppel scooped up his tools into his shoulder bag and then pointed the torch to the opposite side of the barn to the farmhouse where a side door had been jimmied open. ‘Let’s go.’ As they stepped out into the night Keppel replaced his torch with a gun and Hope worked loose his gag. The chair kept them together, just as a guide rope would two mountaineers. They crossed a dark, chillingly exposed paddock, straddled over a sagging, decrepit barbed wire fence and moved into the cover of a pine grove. At that point Hope halted the retreat by letting go the chair.

  Keppel turned in surprise. ‘What is it? We need to keep moving. My car is just down the way.’

  ‘This is far enough’ replied Hope, his parched voice barely recognisable. ‘When Longworry comes looking, this is what I want him to find.’ He picked up the chair and furiously smashed it over the fence pailings, as though exorcising all of his anger at the cruelty dished out to him. After withstanding a few brutal blows the chair began to crack and then, its resistance exhausted, began to disintegrate. Hope kept at it with a frenzy until he was left panting with a single chair leg in hand.

  ‘Feeling better?’ murmured Keppel.

  ‘Fairly. But this is where we split up
.’

  ‘Remember what I said about revenge,’ stated Keeper. ‘You can’t smash up cops armed with guns the way you can a chair.’

  ‘You’ve done pretty well over them,’ said Hope, still catching his breath. ‘How did you track me here?’

  Keppel did not reply immediately. He put a cigarette in his mouth, ran a finger over the lighter in his pocket and then let it be without drawing a flame. ‘A magician does not like revealing his tricks, but I suppose there was nothing magical about this. There was only one secret in town and Longworry came charging in like he knew it. Following his movements around Sacksville was easy enough. Since the Depression following someone has always been easy. There are always plenty of folks idling away their time on the streets. One more is never going to be noticed. Especially not by someone as preoccupied as Longworry. And once he was on the roads I did not even need to follow his car. With the roads in these parts you can simply follow the dust. Not so easy at night. So if we make our break now you can get away clean. Next stop Kentucky.’

  Hope shook his head. ‘Longworry has been using me to build up his position. He was going to bury me in jail as gratitude and most likely campaign to have the whole wing named after him.’

  ‘I guessed something like that.’ Keppel frowned. ‘So what will you do then? The honest cop in me would not like to see you going around shooting people. Not even double crossing New York cops.’

  ‘Relax. As tempting as a bloodbath is, I’ve got something else in mind.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Hope shrugged. ‘He tries to ruin the name of a professional gentleman, it is only fitting he wakes up in the middle of the night screaming it.’

  ‘Well, anything I can help you with?’

  Hope shook his head.

  Keppel offered up his Smith and Wesson police special revolver. ‘Not even this?’

  Hope patted the chair leg club-like in his hand and nodded. ‘You’re right, this is not going to be enough. So, sure.’

  Keppel handed over the gun and tilted his head away. ‘Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better go and do it. You can bet they’ll be checking on the barn before long.’ He pointed a thumb back in the direction of the now distant laughter and shooting. ‘As happy as they are now, you can magnify it by a hundred the fury they will feel once they know their prize has got away.’

  ‘And for that we really need to discuss reimbursement. I’m sure you have been offered a generous sum by our mutual Kentuckian friend, but I’d prefer to keep this between ourselves. I’m sure you’ll find me a softer touch. She doesn’t value my hide that much.’

  ‘It’s fine by me. How are we going to do it?’

  ‘Bank opens tomorrow,’ replied Hope darkly. ‘Is Sam Keppel the name on the office door?’

  Keppel nodded. ‘Not that I want you going anywhere near it.’

  ‘I’m sure, but I’ll be in touch.’ Hope swung back over the fence. He crouched low as he was once again in open paddock and said back as an afterthought, ‘Assuming you’re a local in these part, I’d venture to guess you’re an associate of Livingstone Fitch.’

  ‘I know him. What of it?’

  Hope started to move away. ‘Just that we have another mutual friend. Well thanks, and so long.’

  Keppel frowned, for the departing voice did not have the note of finality he would have liked.

  33. ‘It’s guns that do murders. And we’ve got plenty of them.’

  Beyond the murderous rage was the murderous stillness and it was far more ominous. The last occasion had earned him the name Buster - boxing out the lights of the Watch Commander, Henry Mieszko after a whole week of stillness. He had refused to explain the incident and it was only by some kind of miracle that his career had heeled faster than the busted jaw. And as far as Linde could tell only another miracle could prolong it again. The words at such a time needed to be chosen with the same amount of care as a bomb disposal unit choosing which wire to cut.

  ‘Detective Longworry,’ he began warily, ‘the boys found the rest of the chair. It was smashed to pieces over by the paddock fence.’ He swallowed a lump. ‘There will be other chairs. A throne if you want it. And with a cup of black coffee in the system, the boys will be ready to go after Hope - if you think there’s a chance of catching up with him.’

  Longworry was sitting on the farmhouse’s porch steps, taking drafts on a cigarette with that stillness cast over him. He was clutching onto the piece of chair leg that had smashed through the car window. He kept eyeing off the proximity of the car to the porch and contemplating the kind of nerve it would have required to assault it while a squad of heavily armed cops was letting off steam just feet away. Cloth could have been used to muffle the sound of breaking glass, especially against the backdrop of wild gunfire - Longworry could certainly imagine Hope using the black bandana handkerchief he had been gagged with: nerve enough to rob banks with, why not turn it against a policeman’s car?

  ‘Criminality is like any other tumor,’ Longworry finally gnarled, ‘the longer it is left untreated the bigger it grows. Now I can see that during those wasted years at the desk this particular tumor became nothing short of a monstrosity. Indeed, I believe Hope was so emboldened that he let himself be taken by us. Presented with the illusion of victory we were all too happy to tell him how brilliant our schemes were. And that is why we now face ruin. He was the one being tortured but we were the ones doing the talking. Death by gloating.’ He spat disdainfully at the ground. ‘Wouldn’t make for a pretty headstone.’

  ‘Do you think it was the girlfriend who rescued him? That could be a line of inquiry. Or there might be witnesses on the farms around these parts. It’s as my uncle told me - and remember, he was one of the baddest cops to make it as far as his pension - when all else fails, that’s when cops should fall back on conventional police work.’

  ‘There’s nothing conventional about a press conference with champagne and caviar,’ snapped Longworry impatiently. ‘The orders are already in. If I cancel now the press will know something is awry. They might even feel aggrieved enough to find out what. A manhunt of this scale cannot be kept under wraps, not even from one of those permanently drunk reporters with beer bottles for glasses - the ones I usually trust. They’ve been told to hold the front page for us and one way or another a front page is exactly what they’ll get.’

  ‘Then what are you going to do?’ queried Linde.

  ‘As far as I can make out with a hangover and a cigarette, there are three options: cancel the press conference and take the egg on the face, track down Hope in the next four hours and deliver him up as scheduled or the third option is to find someone else to take his place.’

  ‘Do you have a favourite among them?’

  Longworry frowned. ‘We’re not going to cancel the press conference. If we do we lose.’ He mulled over the thought a moment. ‘The dirtiest squad on the force, the Buster and the Treatment, we take pride in the reputation, but if you add water to dirt, you get mud. The press is nothing but cold water.’

  ‘So then?’

  Randi stepped onto the porch brandishing a Tommy gun in hand while a Colt .45 sat at his hip in an open holster.

  Longworry glanced his way and seemed to be encouraged by it. ‘The other two choices will be our target. We can cover both bases. That’s the beauty of being a team.’

  ‘What choices?’ Randi enquired.

  Linde talked over him. ‘Put someone else in front of the press conference, as the biggest collar of our careers? Do you have someone in mind?’

  Longworry flicked away his spent cigarette. ‘Livingston Fitch would be the likeliest candidate. He’s the biggest gangster living in these parts.’

  Linde was worried. ‘You talk about tumors. He’s a blight way bigger than Hope and he hires only the best lawyers to ensure he keeps growing. If we try to pin the bank robberies on him they’ll grind us into mince.’

  ‘Forget robbery. We’re going to pin
him to a murder.’

  ‘Murder?’

  ‘Why not? There are plenty of cold cases out there. We’ll use his name to warm one up.’

  ‘Linde is right,’ warned Randi. ‘Fitch has got a lot of weight behind him.’

  ‘It has to be a big name for this to work,’ said Longworry. ‘If we’re going to drink champagne over the bust, it can’t be the local milkman watering down his deliveries. Hope has us at check and our next move needs to be big, bold and dirty. We have the advantage over Fitch ‘cause he doesn’t know the game that’s being played.’

  ‘To make a frame stick is going to take time,’ said Linde, more and more concerned. ‘We can’t just plant a gun on the likes of him and expect to get away with it.’

  ‘Why not? It’s guns that do murders. And we’ve got plenty of them.’ Longworry smirked cruelly. ‘If your mind doesn’t work in that fashion, mine sure can. You can focus on getting Hope back. Let’s see how far your conventional police work gets you.’

  ‘Alright. I’m happy to show you how it’s done, boss.’

  ‘Will you? Well, I’m fine with that. But your suspect is not particularly conventional himself, and right at this moment there’s one thing gnawing at me more than anything else.’

  ‘What is that?’

  Longworry replied slowly, ‘Disabling our cars made sense. Cutting the brake-lines was clever.’ He shook his head in puzzlement. ‘Smashing into the car, however, made no sense.’

  ‘Did he take anything?’

  ‘Only the cheap suit we were going to dress him up in for the press conference.’ Longworry pulled a disconcerted expression. ‘Only the suit.’