*Original fiction: Copyright 2023 Luciano Marano
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“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The voice was unfortunately familiar. Not bothering to turn, I pulled the window cord and raised the blind, flooding the dingy little room with light. “Thought maybe I’d move out to Hawaii, settle down with one of those grass-skirt girls and hula for the tourists.”
His chuckle was exactly as phony as I recalled. “I remember your love of island girls well enough, but I didn’t know you could dance.”
“I can’t—yet. But a man needs a hobby in retirement, Bill.”
I lit a cigarette and turned at last to eye my unexpected visitor through the curling smoke. William “Wild Bill” Maddux had gained weight and lost hair since the days we’d spent flying P-51s over Europe, raining hell on the Nazis, but those cool blue eyes moving over my empty office were still sharp as samurai swords.
The lack of furniture in my office complemented the holes in the carpet nicely. The stick of sweat, cheap paper, and countless cigarettes mixed with something else — failure, maybe. On the door’s frosted glass pane, like a tombstone inscription, black letters proclaimed it the office of Johnny Taggart, Confidential Investigations.
“Business not so good these days?” Maddux smiled in a very punchable way.
“It never was great. This town isn’t L.A. or even New York. This is Tallahassee, my friend. Every other guy’s wife is cheating on him, but he doesn’t care because he’s putting it to her sister. There isn’t much else to do in the evening.”
“Funny as ever, Flipper.”
I finished my smoke, smashing the butt on the windowsill. The landlord had already returned my deposit — and fifty bucks short at that — so I wasn’t too worried about leaving a mess. Nobody had called me Flipper since I hung up my flight suit and it echoed unpleasantly in my head.
“If I was clever I’d still be in business. Just came today to say bye-bye to the fleas.”
Maddux’s smile didn’t touch his eyes. “Guess it’s lucky I caught you.”
I didn’t buy that any more than I did my landlord shortchanged me on accident. Maddux didn’t believe in luck and he’d never made an unconsidered move in his life. His callsign, Wild Bill, was the most ironic in the history of the squadron. Probably, that’s why he was some powerhouse figure in the intelligence world now and I was an unemployed private dick with holes in his socks to match the ones in the carpet.
“Better to be lucky than good,” I said.
“You were always both as I recall.” Maddux strolled to the door, rapped his knuckles on the glass bearing my name. “I need your help, Flipper. That is, if you don’t mind putting off your dancing career a little longer.”
I spread my hands. “As you see, I’m somewhat buried with prior commitments.”
Maddux pulled from inside his jacket an envelope and tossed it over. At least a baseball team’s worth of Bennie Franklins smiled up at me from within.
“Just hear me out. For old time’s sake and all that. Can I buy you a drink?”
I folded the envelop and tucked it away. Sparing a final glance around, I took a deep breath of sad dusty air. In my head, hundreds of fleas performed farewell salutes.
“I guess Hawaii will be there a while longer.”
Downstairs and across the street, Maddux fixed me with one of those down-to-business looks I recalled from bygone mission briefings.
“The krauts were getting creepy toward the end,” he said between gulps of beer. “And I’m not just talking about the camps. Ol’ Adolf had a lot of … well, let’s call them enthusiasms. Obviously, this is all seriously secret, Flipper. It goes without saying.”
“And yet,” I tipped my empty glass, clinking the ice, “you felt the need.”
He waved at the waitress, a curvy blonde chomping a mouthful of gum. The place was nearly empty and downright dark compared to the day blazing outside the shuttered windows. We sat in a corner booth, an already full ashtray situated between us.
“Some of the man’s best scientists were tasked with getting Nazis into space,” Maddux said. “Can you believe that? We knew the guy was obsessed with astrology and magic, but this went far beyond that. We’ve been working along those lines ourselves, but Hitler’s boys were actually building prototypes before the war ended.”
The blonde brought Maddux another beer and placed a double whiskey in front of me with a sneer she probably imagined was a smile. Gulping the last of his first, Maddux handed back the mug. As the girl plodded away, he watched, grinning. “Boy, didn’t we burn our way through plenty of her type back in the day?”
I recalled “Wild Bill” paying more attention to the backsides of superior officers than dames, but feeling his money in my pocket said only, “Time marches on. How about them Nazis?”
“Their spacecraft designs were based on some artifact they dug up in deepest, darkest Africa. The natives told them it fell out of the sky a long time ago. Supposedly, it was some kind of vessel.”
“Wait a minute.” I nodded at the ceiling. “Are we talking about something from…”
“Damn right,” Maddux jabbed a thumb skyward. “Out there.”
“And you know this how?”
“They told us.”
“The Africans?”
Maddux shook his head, breaking out that punchable smile again.
“You got the Krauts to cooperate?” I was, despite myself, impressed.
“It was either help us or be handed over to the Ivans,” Maddux shrugged. “No sense wasting talent, no matter what language it speaks. You can’t overstate how much the Nazis feared the Russians. By the time we crossed the Rhine, most of them would have rather showered at Auschwitz than be captured by those savages.”
I smiled, lit a cigarette. “I seem to remember those savages being on our side.”
“Well, things change.”
“Never mind politics, Bill. What happened? You got yourself a genuine German space plane or what?”
Maddux sipped his beer. “From our newfound friends we learned of a facility where the artifact was being studied. The exact location I cannot disclose, but it was an old castle so far out in the hinterlands of the Fatherland the fellas stationed there didn’t even know the war was over. So we sent a team to collect our spoils.”
“And?”
Maddux put down the mug. “Just one of our guys made it out. There was an explosion, the whole place was destroyed. The artifact was either blown to bits or buried under half a mountain of rubble. The big brains in Washington are saying maybe it should stay there.”
“What does your man say happened?”
Maddux sighed and in that moment I saw how he’d aged. A little humanity came leaking in through the cracks.
“That’s where you come in. He’s AWOL, Johnny, and I don’t know what to do. It was my say-so that sent those guys over in the first place. That’s more blood on my hands — and they were already sticky, you know? He’s a young guy and he has a pretty wife here in Florida, so I think he’ll probably seek her out. My men have been tailing her, but so far we’ve seen neither hide nor hair. I heard you set up shop down here, so I figured maybe…”
“For old time’s sake and all that?”
He took a large swallow of beer, nodding.
“No dice. Sounds like a potential jackpot, and frankly we were never that close, you and me. You have the whole spook squad at your disposal these days. Why should I be the one cleaning up your mess?”
He took out his billfold, removed a blank check. “I have to consider the potential for exposure. That spook squad you mentioned isn’t half as stealthy as you seem to think. I want this guy picked up quietly, and I’d rather use money than manpower.”
“Meaning you’d rather not file a report and admit you lost him.”
Maddux uncapped his pen. “I can write a whole chorus line of zeroes on this check.”
I drained the glass and reached for my hat. “When I shucked my uniform for the last time I promised myself I’d never take another order. If I’m going to get killed on some fool’s say, I want the fool to be me. Keep your zeroes. Good luck, Bill.”
As I stood, he said, “There is another reason I thought you’d be interested.”
“What’s that?”
“The missing man, he’s Spooky’s kid brother.”
I froze, feeling her inky-black hair slide between my fingers like cool water. The bar disappeared, and Maddux and the blonde, and I saw her eyes, green as the ocean at sunrise. The taste of whiskey gave way to chocolate and lipstick. I felt hot breath in my ear. She whispered my name, said that she’d love me forever.
And just like that, I was flying again.
#
The war took a lot from a lot of people. From me, it took two loves. First, a beautiful WAAC switchboard operator from Florida. Her name was Jean Shrader. With her shiny black hair, and the way she’d sit absolutely still except for those bright green eyes that followed you around, she made me think of witch’s cat. So I called her Spooky.
We met in Europe, when victory was looking more assured every day. She was part of a team that ran the phones in an outpost near the air field my squad was launching from. I brought her chocolates and she’d loan me books. She loved books, and I did my best to read all the ones she picked for me. But it was listening to Spooky talk about the stories that I enjoyed most. When the war was finished she wanted to work in a library. All I’d ever wanted to be was a pilot. Up there, alone, screaming through the clouds and moving faster than bad memories. Then, I met Spooky and thought maybe the ground wasn’t such a bad place to be.
We had fun together in a time and place where fun was in short supply. I was prouder of the way I could make her laugh, even after a long day of bad news, than all the missions I flew. The boys called me Flipper because I was always being flip. They said there was no dire situation, no morose moment that I couldn’t quip my way out of. No pompous officer I could not imitate. No morale I could not raise. I used to think they were right, too.
Plenty of people didn’t make it home. Suffering in those days, it didn’t make you special … and I guess it still doesn’t. There’s no marker on the spot where she died. Catastrophic engine failure sent a returning plane into the comm center. The two loves of my life came tragically together that day, killing each other. After that, flying was just a job.
V-J Day was supposed to be the start of good times again, but I quickly realized peace did not agree with me. Having thought for years I might die at least twice a day before breakfast, I was disappointed to realize I’d be sticking around a while. Without Spooky, living down below the clouds, the stakes were too low and nothing was funny anymore.
The movies and pulp mags had made my new profession look like a good time — nothing but booze, dames, and adventure, right? But despite what I told Billy, the problem hadn’t been a scarcity of clients, but a profound lack of interest. I couldn’t bring myself to tail one more cheating spouse. Couldn’t muster the energy to track down more stolen jewelry. Even the best blackmail schemes started putting me to sleep.
Sunnier climes seemed the answer. I hung my shingle in a few cities after walking away from my last landing, always working my way toward Key West. The final book Spooky gave me, one of Hemingway’s, the story was set there. She’d been to the place once, on a trip with her family as a kid. She told me standing on that beach was like standing at the end of the world and I wanted to see it for myself. I’d been thinking a lot about endings, maybe too much.
I fantasized about learning to fish, imagined that I might get a job pouring drinks in a beach bar and marry a waitress. But sometimes, when I was drunk enough, I’d see how much of my revolver I could fit into my mouth and seriously wonder if I had the guts to keep living.
Now, that revolver was inside my jacket and I was driving north to a corner of Florida so far west it was practically Alabama. My Plymouth wasn’t exactly a P-51, and my reflexes were not what they used to be, but I finally had a worthwhile mission again. For the first time in a long time, I thought tomorrow might be better than today.
I put the window down and sped up, imagining I had wings.
#
I saw her through teeth and jaws, the bones of dead predators. Maddux’s information had been thorough, but I didn’t need a picture to know I’d found Lauren Shrader.
Spooky’s brother Devon, the now-AWOL government scientist, had managed to marry what must be the palest redhead in the whole Sunshine State. Kid looked like she’d need a high SPF to open the ice box.
She sold seashells by the seashore. Maritime antiques and nature specimens — taxidermied fish, bottles of sand, coral of every color — in a small shop in Pensacola, not far from the navy base where her husband worked. I was pretending to examine the shark display when she came over and drug her eyes slowly over my suit.
“On your way to court?” she asked.
“Key West, actually.”
“That’s a long ride.”
“People say my stamina is my best feature.”
“Who says that?”
“A gentlemen never tells.”
She nodded at the bones. “I don’t think that’s what you’re really looking for.”
“Maybe not. What else you selling?”
“Well, mister, I don’t give anything away for free.”
“I respect an industrious mindset.”
She smiled. “Your attention seems a little south of my mindset. I’ve been watching you watch me since you walked in.”
“Do yike what you see?” I asked.
“I haven’t decided. Guess it depends if you’re here to buy or just browse. I respect a decisive mindset.”
“And how about your husband? What does he respect?”
She put away her smile. “I knew it as soon as I laid eyes on you. Hit the bricks, G-Man. I don’t know where Devon is.”
I ran a finger over the point of a large shark tooth. “I didn’t know he was missing.”
She was even prettier angry. I reached out and tapped the back of her left hand. “I just wondered if that ring meant anything.”
“Yeah.” Her voice was cool as Anchorage ice at Christmastime. “It means a lot.”
“Then what’s with the sales pitch? I thought you liked a decisive guy. Here I’ve made up my mind, and you’re changing the story. What exactly do you want?”
Her hands formed fists that she seemed more than ready to use. “I want you to leave.”
“Okay, Knuckles, have it your way. Maybe you shouldn’t advertise if you aren’t open for business. No wonder your old man’s missing.”
She closed the shop early that night and went straight home. I watched, tailing her in my car. Lauren had given up nothing when Billy’s spooks questioned her, but she had to know she was being watched. Personally, I figured she would stay away from her husband forever to keep him safe. But nothing brings lovers together like a little guilt. A man with a pretty new secretary never forgets an anniversary. Cheating wives are the best cooks. Despite my boredom, I’d learned a thing or two in the P.I. trenches. I guessed she’d be up all night replaying our little tête-à-tête, reassuring herself she’d just been flirting with a potential customer. Probably, it happened every day. But because she was already worried about Devon, and because I’d been sure to sprinkle on just enough accusation, she’d have to see him.
Sure enough, she left early the next day and I followed.
First, she went to a market and bought two large cans of coffee. Then, she took a meandering route to the Tideline Inn, a shabby four-floor box of a roach trap abutting the highway, no doubt hoping to lose anyone following.
All twenty rooms boasted tiny balconies with views of the filthy half-filled swimming pool out back. Lauren parked at the laundromat next door, carried the coffee upstairs and down the outdoor walkway to Room 9, on the second floor.
She had a key and let herself in, but came out quickly, without the coffee, looking even more upset then when she’d gone inside.
It wasn’t exactly the reunion I expected.
After she departed, I went into the office and became a guest. The ancient manager shrugged when I asked for Room 14 on the third floor.
“My lucky number,” I explained.
“Taken,” he croaked. “Got any luckier numbers?”
I settled for Room 19, on the fourth floor. That meant one balcony between me and Devon, which was going to make my plan more difficult. I had to know for sure he was there before I called Maddux—and there were some questions I wanted to ask the guy before I did.
The room was awful in all the expected ways. I’d spent many hours in places just like it, a standard occupational hazard, and was glad to leave. I got a bite, then stocked up for a long day of waiting: smokes, a handful of detective mags, a length of rope, crowbar.
Now came the part stories and movies leave out: the waiting.
I used to live in the clouds at 400 miles an hour. Now, I watched an eternity of seconds tick by, hearing long-gone 50-cal fire and droning plane engines, thinking about a pretty young redhead framed by teeth. I pictured my name on frosted glass. I tried not to think about Spooky, and I failed.
The afternoon went on forever.
#
The fourth floor of a cheap Florida motel might as well be the peak of Everest when you’re dangling from a balcony. I hadn’t done any rappelling since my days in the service, but it came back to me as I chanced a look past my shoes and imagined my crumpled body floating in that miserable pool.
It was late and dark when I paused on the balcony below mine to rest my hands. The racket coming from within was such a mix of amorous aggression that I knew the couple inside were either making love or murdering each other. Either way, the noise might serve me well—if I hurried.
The tempo of a headboard striking the wall sped up, and I had a dizzying sense of déjà vu crouching on that balcony. It was a relief, at least, that I wasn’t holding a camera and hoping to sneak a peek to confirm the suspicions of an angry spouse. Grabbing the rope I went over the rail, easing myself down to the balcony outside Devon’s room. Three times already I’d walked by the front door, listening. The radio was still on inside and I saw the diffused glow of a lamp through curtains drawn closed on the other side of the glass door. I was nervous, strangely anxious about seeing Spooky’s brother. Two very different eras of my life were about to collide again. The weight of the pistol in my shoulder holster was reassuring.
I drew the crowbar from my belt. Oftentimes, especially in places like this, the locks on balcony doors were perpetually broken.
Just my luck, this one wasn’t.
The mating ritual upstairs reached its peak. Now was the time to move fast — liftoff.
I moved through the curtains quickly, eyes adjusting. The room was bigger than mine: two small beds with a nightstand between them. On it sat a lamp and radio. A table and chairs lurked in the corner. A figure was seated there, hunched over and covered in blankets.
It was dim, but I could see well enough to know that if this guy was Devon Shrader, recent events had been unkind. Gone was the handsome young man in Maddux’s photo. His hair, dark as his sister’s in that picture, was now shot through with gray and falling out in patches. His face was drawn. Eyes, so thoroughly patterned with bloody lines as to look black in the dark, were set far back in cave-like hollows. Beneath the blanket his body seemed to squirm and pulse in a dozen places at once.
“Stay where you are.” His voice was raspy, like he’d been screaming.
I tossed the crowbar onto the nearest bed and drew my gun. “That’s my line, kid. We need to talk.”
He sat forward and the blankets fell from his shoulders. I saw something pink and shiny at the base of his neck. It slid lower, out of sight, as if sensing my attention. His skin was a patchwork of lesions and angry red boils oozing yellow puss. A strange stench permeated the room: strong coffee and something else, something I couldn’t place. It made my eyes water.
“I know you,” Devon said, pulling up the blankets. “I’ve seen you before. In a picture Jean sent home. The flyboy.” He smiled, stretching and splitting the dry skin of his lips. “Johnny.”
I remembered that picture. Some magazine photographer snapped us sitting beneath my plane in the hangar when I was down for two days for some maintenance work. He’d promised Spooky a copy, but I didn’t know he’d come through. I nodded, keeping the gun on Devon.
“I knew your sister in Europe. I’m a private dick now, hired to find you. But I didn’t tell anyone you’re here yet, Devon. I want to help you if I can. I want to know what’s going on.”
The blanket began to quiver as if something beneath it were trembling all over, and Devon winced.
“It’s usually better when I’m awake.” He looked longingly at the coffee maker on the table beside him. I saw a pile of empty cans on the floor. “I’ve tried so hard to stay awake.”
“Suppose you tell me about it and together we’ll figure out what to do?”
“The chance of a lifetime,” Devon’s tone was bitter. “They told me it had to be studied. So strange, unlike anything we know of. They needed another scientist. I was excited to go.”
The movement beneath the blankets intensified.
“The greatest discovery in the history of mankind,” Devon laughed weakly. “And they wanted to weaponize it for use against Russia. The fools!”
A slim pink tentacle poked out from beneath the blankets and curled gently, almost tenderly, around Devon’s left ear as he looked at me with pleading eyes.
“We didn’t know it was still alive,” he said. “How could it have been? A crash like that, thousands of years buried below ground. How could anything survive?”
He grinned, and I realized whatever else afflicted him, Devon was clearly insane.
“But it did,” he said. “Just imagine what else it’s be capable of. I don’t think it wanted … that is, I don’t believe it meant to hurt us.”
The tentacle slid from his ear, disappearing again beneath the shifting blankets.
“It’s just curious, like we are. An explorer. A scientist.”
“Who set off the explosion?” I asked. “Was it the krauts?”
Devon looked at me, confused. “I did that,” he said at last, as if it were obvious.
“When I saw what happened to the others … They can’t be allowed to use it. I’ve seen what it can do. We won’t stand a chance if it’s not contained. I didn’t know it had gotten inside of me too — I’d been so careful! But when I understood what happened, I ran. I won’t help them anymore. I won’t be their lab rat. Lauren, I sent her away. Now, I can study it. I know we can communicate. It shows me things. Where it’s been, what it has seen. You can’t imagine.”
Just then, the front door opened.
“Devon, I — my god!” Lauren’s eyes widened and locked onto my gun. “I knew it. Can’t you just leave him alone?”
Suddenly the situation was more complicated and I shifted focus. “Easy, Knuckles. Shut the door and come in real slow. I’ll explain everything.”
My voice was steadier than I expected. It was the old training kicking in. Years of conditioning makes you the kind of person who can calmly ride rockets into oblivion, focus during a crisis, and thrive in deadly situations. It turns you into the kind of person who can make hard choices.
Devon glared at his wife. “I told you not to come back. I can’t keep you safe anymore!”
I began to move forward slowly. “I said come in here, honey, and shut the door.”
“Why don’t we all come in?”
The man behind Lauren wore a classic spook suit, gray as their ethics and just as cheap. But his English was so heavily accented, his hair so blonde, eyes so blue, there was no mistaking him for anything other than German.
He held a pistol close to the redhead’s back as he grabbed Lauren by the shoulder with his other hand and pushed her inside. He was followed by another man, nearly identical, whose gun was pointed at me. The one who’d spoke nodded curtly, drew from inside his blazer U.S. government credentials and flashed them.
“Thank you, herr Taggart,” said Special Agent Gunther. “Your services have been most useful, but your presence is no longer required.”
The other guy spat a few angry words in German, but he was quickly silenced by Gunther, who was clearly in charge.
“Now, if you please, we have much to discuss with herr Shrader.”
I could imagine this man’s idea of conversation. I’d seen years of it spread all over Europe. But I was in no position to argue.
“I’ll take the girl with me. You don’t need her anymore.”
“Nein. Frau Schrader will remain with us so as to ensure her husband’s cooperation.”
“Keep your hands of my wife,” Devon hissed. The blankets, I noted, had gone strangely still.
The shorter agent said something in German and Gunther laughed. “König says he will enjoy keeping the lady company while we chat.”
He eyed Devon’s lumpy form beneath the blankets with interest. “Your progress is quite impressive, better than we hoped. You are clearly stronger than the others. We were wrong to begin testing with such inferior specimens as the camps allowed. We should have known those vermin were incapable of evolution.”
“Give me the girl, Gunther.” I stepped forward again, saw König raise his gun.
“Director Maddux requested you not be shot, herr Taggart.” Gunther roughly pushed Lauren onto the closest bed. “However, what is it Americans say? Accidents happen? I suggest that you leave. Right now.”
Devon began to laugh, an eerie giggle that grew into a hysterical fit.
“You want to know all about it, Gunther?” His voice was different now, strangely empty. Not his voice, I thought. There’s nobody home. Something crucial broke inside that man and whatever was left of him has been evacuated someplace safer. The sound of what remained, it was chilling. Inhuman.
“I’ll show you.” Devon stood and both agents took reflexive steps back, directing their pistols at him. “You wanted to see what would happen. You just had to know. Well,” Devon tossed off the blankets and stood revealed, “now you’ll finally understand.”
His torso bloomed. Large petals of flesh ripped free and unfurled to reveal thousands of black fangs ringing a suppurating hole of skin and muscle that dominated his swollen belly. Tiny pink tentacles wriggled on his arms and shoulders, testing the air like a bug’s antenna. From within the sickly crater, three large tendrils burst forth, each topped with thin spines. They weaved almost gracefully toward the horrified agents.
Devon’s face seemed to slip. It went slack for a moment, as if the muscles and connective tissue were severed.
Lauren shrieked and rolled away to kneel between the beds.
Paralyzed, I could only watch dumbly as Gunther and König fired.
The bullets tore new holes in Devon’s twisted flesh, but only yellow slime came trickling out. His mouth yawned open impossibly wide, and three more of the snake-like arms came sliding out. As the first tendrils found König, the spines plunging into his body, coiling around his neck and arms, I darted forward and grabbed Lauren, dragging her away.
The tendrils caught Gunther and his gun went off as he was pierced. I was knocked to the ground by a burning strike to my shoulder. I’d never been shot before; it hurt worse than I expected.
Dazed, I struggled to focus through the pain and saw both agents twitching on the floor, mouths pouring white foam.
Devon advanced on his wife, tentacles flailing madly, knocking over the lamp and sending the radio crashing to the floor, cutting off the music I’d ceased to notice. In the quiet semi-darkness, diminished only by the faint light from the pool that came through the open balcony door, the noises Devon made were even more horrifying.
I only just had time to register the blood soaking my shirt and realize I’d lost my gun when two explosive flashes told me Lauren had scooped it up. She fired twice more into the advancing creature that was no longer her husband.
In the flashes, I saw the Devon-thing stagger back from her and turn to me. In the faint light I thought maybe he smiled. Then, he was sprinting forward.
The collision of our bodies felt to me like the impact of a life-ending meteor — Armageddon itself. My world reeled as we toppled out the doorway, smashing through the balcony railing. I threw out the only arm I could move and reached blindly, desperately, for something to grab onto.
It truly is better to be lucky than good. And Maddux wasn’t wrong when he said I’d been known to be both. One-handed, I clung to the end of the rope I’d used to descend to this same balcony and dangled midair, above the crumpled form of Devon where it lay in the stagnant pool below.
Eventually, hands clawed at me from above. It was Lauren, and together we somehow pulled my half-destroyed carcass up onto the balcony.
My mouth was open to thank her when someone loomed above us. A swift, powerful strike found my face. All was silent blackness. I wasn’t too disappointed.
#
“What the hell you think you’re doing?”
That voice again. I forced my eyes open, wincing as the dull pain in my head exploded all over again.
“Thought maybe I’d lay here a while, see if any kind ladies were in the market for a stray.”
Maddux clapped me on the knee. “Are you house broken at least?”
I sat up, running a hand over my bandaged head and shoulder. One of my arms was in a sling. Everything hurt.
“I’m certainly broken, all right.”
I was in the back of an ambulance. Maddox stood between the open doors, looming over me. Behind him I saw men in spook suits talking with hotel guests and a small crowd of gawkers. Lauren was standing a tentative distance away, eyeing us with understandable hostility. Men in white jumpsuits were loading three covered stretchers into a black van. Two of the shrouded figures were twitching, straining against their restraints. The third was still.
“Sorry about your tools, Bill. You should have used some that were made in the U.S.A.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those goons were as American as apple strudel. Since when does Uncle Sam put Nazis on the payroll?”
Maddux leaned against the doorframe. “You think the war’s over just because Adolf ate a bullet? These krauts are experts, and they’re going to help us beat the commies into space. We’re talking about the fate of the future here, Flipper. That’s not the kind of talent you just let the Jews hang so they’ll feel a little better. You understand what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, I understand perfectly. So what happens next?”
“Things are about wrapped up here. No real harm done — nothing we can’t smooth over, I mean. And the powers in D.C. are shifting. Soon enough, we’ll dig up the site in Germany. And next time, we’ll know better. We’ll be more careful.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth in the first place?”
“Would you have helped?”
“Not a chance.”
“There you go. Schrader knew the risks when he signed on. And you,” Maddux slipped a folded piece of paper into my shirt pocket, “needed the money.”
“I didn’t need it that bad.”
Maddux leaned closer, his sharp blue eyes cutting into mine. “Don’t get yourself noticed in the wrong way, Flipper. Cash the check and be as happy as you can. Or toss it and go on being miserable. It’s all the same to me either way.”
I locked eyes with Lauren, but couldn’t hold it long.
“What happens when you do it, Bill? When the Russians are licked and we conquer outer space? Will it be enough? What’s in it for you?”
“I’ve got plans of my own.”
“Hail to the chief, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“And what happens to her?” I nodded at Lauren.
“I was just about to see to that. Take care of yourself, Flipper.”
I watched him amble up to her and do a decent imitation of a sympathetic human being. Then, he handed the girl a check of her own and Lauren coldcocked the son of a bitch, laid him right out. It was a thing of beauty.
“Way to go, Knuckles,” I said quietly, to nobody in particular.
There would be no marker for the place where Devon died, just as it had been for his sister. If the people of this country knew the truth, all we’d ever do is mourn. Feeling lower than a snake’s belly, I succumbed to weariness and gravity and laid down again, letting my eyes close.
“I’m sorry, Spooky.”
Later — moments or years, I couldn’t tell and maybe it didn’t matter — I was roused by a finger poking my chest. I opened one eye to find Lauren seated on the stretcher beside me.
“You all right?”
“I’m afraid I’m going to make it.” Carefully, I sat up and climbed out of the ambulance.
“I think I caught enough of what was said to understand,” she said. “Either way, I know it wasn’t your fault.”
“Nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. What will you do now, Knuckles?”
She leapt down to stand with me and eyed the hotel. “I don’t know. Devon told me when he first came back to think of him as dead already, and I guess part of me did. That thing up there, it wasn’t my husband. But I can’t hang around here anymore, not after all of this.”
I watched the van pull away. The crowd was already dispersing, as if nothing had happened. I swallowed the phantom taste of gun oil, looked up and saw the stars for what felt like the first time. Blackness without end decorated by small shards of light, all of them impossibly far away and our problems very small in comparison. Distance is deceptive. Time is relative.
“You ever been to Hawaii?” I asked.
Lauren said, “I’ve never been further west than right here on this very spot. Why?”
“I’m headed to Hawaii. You want to tag along? I’m going into business out there, and every good private detective needs a secretary.”
She ran her knuckles lightly across my chin. “I saw you work, tough guy. How would you like a partner instead?”
“I’d like it just fine.”
The limits of vision depend on where you’re looking from. With Lauren helping me limp to my car, I understood I’d been standing in the past so long that my perspective got skewed. Tonight, I finally felt like I was back in the clouds, going faster than bad memories. From here, I saw farther horizons than my heart had imagined. Maddux was right: I have plans of my own, too. Endings are overrated.
“Wait,” Lauren said, “I thought you said you were going to Key West?”
“I changed my mind.”
-END-