While departing Loch Lomond, we
made a show of gaiety for the benefit of the observer in the sedan. I couldn’t
make out much more than an outline of his form from where we were but it was
too large to be Yuri. He must have wanted us to know we were being watched and
my thinking was that he could be with Ryan. That he could be another one of
Smerdyakov’s thugs was an alternative I didn’t wish to entertain but had to
accept.
Casey insisted we cruise slow
enough to arrive under the cover of darkness. At least then, once we split up
at the Benicia Marina, we had a chance at not being seen. It wasn’t such a bad
idea, though the docks would most likely be lit up.
He was happier than I ever saw him
over the years. “We trained here…” he shouted loud enough for everyone to hear,
“Brown Water Navy, Crash, I know these sloughs as well you do, ya know. Some
places here are more like the Mekong than the Mekong… ‘cept no one’s shootin’
at-cha.”
“Careful what you’re saying,
Casey, thoughts have density.”
It was more than the river, the
delta and the sloughs, that made him so damned blissed out. It had to be Anna
too. I hoped she wasn’t playing him. That’s a typical survival reflex for girls
in the sex-trade. She could be doing that without knowing it herself. A
lonesome man doesn’t care that he’s nothing more than a mark to her either. If
she’s too good at it, she might feel great affection. It isn’t an occupational
hazard to believe her own cover but it is one to believe she also cares and
forgets her purpose. My problem was to figure out what that purpose must be.
All four of us lounged aft among
the lobster traps and enjoyed the sunset’s crimson sky past Vallejo. A storm
was on its way. No one with any experience at sea believes the rhyme, “A red
sky at night is a sailors’ delight.” I trust old seafarer’s axioms to some
degree but not generalizations when it comes to weather, they are rarely is as
accurate as the NOAA marine weather forecast or more concrete assessments like
wind and wave direction. Once upriver, and away from the lights of the
ever-growing Bay Area’s suburban sprawl, I could see it coming, we would be
shrouded in curtains of rain and the dim shades of night. That’s good for cover
but not so hot for amateurs navigating the river’s twists and eddies of currents.
We had the luxury, however, of
three experienced river pilots. Casey knew the delta as well as I did but,
because our knowledge was based on distant memory, it was decided, Gabe knew it
best and would take charge of the boat after Benicia. He was best suited to
throw off anyone trying to tail us. It could help the mission too that Larry
and I would jump off at the marina and ride the Harley up the other side of the
river to join up with them later. Though the question about what the mission
was still hadn’t been answered to my satisfaction yet.
I throttled down as we entered the
harbor. It was quiet after dusk among the forest of masts and no one was moving
around. The ambient light from a hundred sources on land and sea bounced off
the bottom bellies of a thickening cloud-cover.
Gabe asked, “You remember the
shed?” He handed me a set of keys before we tied-up to the fueling dock.
“Still there? I would’ve thought
the termites took over the lease by now.”
Distracted by the sedan waiting
for us at the top of the boat launch, he ignored my dig. saying, “That’s the
same car.”
That our watcher would be waiting
for us when we arrived at Benicia hadn’t been one of my calculations. It was
about a forty-five-minute drive for him, depending on the traffic, and a short
cruise of sixteen miles for us from Loch Lomond… about the same amount of time.
“Maybe it’s him, Gabe. Too dark to
tell for sure,” I tried not to show any sign of panic.
Gabe had the stature, and
authority, of a wise Grandpa, but now he wanted me to take charge. He pled, “We
should get out of here now. Forget the Harley. What do you think?”
All those years of avoiding
responsibility had been dropping away since Santa Cruz Island. It was
best for all of us to stay calm. I assured him and the rest, “I don’t know. But
I have a feeling, we’re okay.”
Gabe wasn’t buying my optimism.
Shaken, he asked, “What if it’s not okay?”
I tried a stoic retort, “The
handmaiden of fear is doubt, old man. Look at Anna in there.”
Anna was inside the cabin
indifferent, but not oblivious, to our danger. She’d been cleaning her Mac-10
and then busied herself with makeup as though we were on our way to the yacht
club soiree. Gabe was staring at her when she came out on deck to join us.
"Damn, girl, you're lookin'
good."
Casey passed the nozzle and hose
from the pump over to Anna shouting, “Self-serve… No one’s here!”
Gabe yelled back, “No, Casey, we
have enough. Get back on board, we’re out of Dodge.”
I took comfort feeling the
Browning in its holster under arm, “Go ahead, Casey, and top her off. We have
to take our chances, Gabe. Sometimes, for the mouse, running isn’t the right
choice. It just get the cat’s attention.”
It didn’t take long for them to top
off the tank. Larry still tagged along with me like he’d found a new master as
I stepped out onto the dock. We were half-way up the launch-ramp by the time
Anna threw the lines from the cleats and leapt, agile as an antelope, back on
deck. Gabe shouted for the benefit of anyone within earshot, “See you guys in
Sausalito. Have us a crawdad fest!”
Doc was puzzled, “Crawdads?
Sausalito? Thought we were going to go to…”
“Doc, it’s a ruse. Don’t mean
nothin’. There’s clams but ain’t no crawdads in Sausalito.”
We stood silent listening to the
grumble of the Dinky Dao fading beyond the breakwater. The gravel crunching
underfoot on the concrete ramp was a conspicuous herald of our arrival to the
shed in the still of the evening. The sedan, parked at the top next to the
shed, looked empty as we approached. I saw that the hasp had been pried off the
shed’s sliding barn-door. It was left open a crack. I took the Browning out of
its holster and held it two-handed at-ready. Doc and I glanced at each other….
I was curious but his eyes showed fear.
I slid the door open enough with
my free hand and gave him a shove ahead of me with my gun hand’s forearm. He
whispered, “What are you doing Crash, someone’s in there!”
“Larry, it’s too late to whisper.
Go ahead and get in the damned door.” I gave him another nudge. If anyone was
going to get shot, it wouldn’t be me, “Get in!”
He slid the door.
We were greeted by the musty smell
of the old shed and decades of oil permeating the concrete floor. A man’s
familiar voice from a stool at the workbench next a covered bike called out
from the gloom, “Holster your piece, Crash. You won’t need it.” The large dark
figure pulled the cord on the bare bulb above Gabe’s well-ordered work bench.
On the wall above it; every wrench, screwdriver and hammer had its place in
outline on the pegboard.
I had no problem recognizing the
man, though he’d aged… suit and tie replaced the Hawaiian shirt … silver
butch-cut on top of a mask of a face … it was Danang with Ryan… Camp Perry…
Langley… a shadowy legend, Harold Baker. I thought he must be in his 70’s by
then, the six-foot-five, broad shoulders, an imposing figure of a man, a
threatening force to recon with, “Hey, Bird Dog?”
I holstered the piece.
I let the adrenaline rush settle
before I asked, “You made a show of yourself back there. Since we’re all alive,
do you mind telling us what this is all about?”
Larry stood, frozen at the door.
“Shit or get off the pot, Doc.”
Relieving the tension, I laughed, “C’mon in, take a stool at the bench. This
guy’s a friend.”
Harold Baker had always been
matter of fact, “I wasn’t the only one watching you at Loch Lomond.”
“Thought as much. When you didn’t
get out of the car back there you had me wondering.”
“Enough of that. I’ll get to
the point, Ryan called me… he found out you’re all in deeper than you can
handle alone.”
I slipped the cover off the Hog
while he talked and swung a leg over the Harley’s seat, idly twisting the
throttle, “Yeh, Larry here got into some nasty shit. How about that Larry? You
had quite a party for a while, huh?”
Bird Dog put a hand on Doc’s
shoulder like he was calming a frightened dog, “That’s not the half of it. As
evil as the Russian mob is, they wouldn’t normally touch snuff films. This one
is run by a renegade. He’s an ex-KGB named Smerdyakov. Historically, the Bratva
won’t touch anyone having anything to do with any government. Especially not
the KGB.”
Larry whined, “I didn’t like them
either. They made me do them.”
Impatient with his excuses, any
compassion I had for him waned at being reminded what his game was. I checked
his denial, “Say it, Larry, snuff films. You didn’t like snuff films at first?”
Bird Dog wasn’t interested in our
discussion, “Tell him, Doctor Spawnn. It’s worse than snuff films. You haven’t
told him the whole truth, have you Doctor Spawnn? Tell all of it while I step
out. I’ve got something in the car for you, Crash.”
It pissed me off that I
hadn’t gotten the whole truth out of Larry on the boat. That he was a murderer
was one thing but that he enjoyed it, and was still lying about it, blotted out
whatever drug induced empathy I still had for the creep. I jerked him by the
collar off his stool and tossed him against the workbench, “Whatever you say,
Doc… What’s worse than getting your rocks off killing chicks?”
“Let me finish, goddamn it!”
He pled. Backing away he snatched an oversized crescent wrench off the
peg-board, “It was transplants. Organ transplants!”
“Fuck you, Doc!” I lunged,
twisting the wrench from his hand and slamming him against the shed’s fragile
wall, “You made money off it too!”
Larry held his wrist, “Auch! You
broke it!”
Bird Dog came back with a small
plastic gun case, about ten by twenty. “Calm down everyone. I wanted to slap
the shit out of him too but Larry didn’t have anything to do with that part.”
“Sure, he did.”
Larry whimpered, “No, Crash, I
thought they were all just acting.”
“Yes, he’s not lying. Larry just
supplied the product in his fun dungeon. By the time Yuri was done, bodies were
disposed of, the site cleaned up, fresh organs were in a cooler and on a Lear
Jet out of town.”
“You’d have to have a real doctor,
a surgeon, to do that, right? I mean, I wouldn’t want to fuck with the Russian
Mob. Say, if you cut out a wrong gizzard, for one. Who was the surgeon?”
“Larry can tell you. The Russians
can be very persuasive, Crash. Isn’t that right Professor?”
Larry nodded, “It doesn’t
matter now, we buried him a year ago.”
“So, he must have known
they’d kill him. Why would he go along unless he was a sick fuck too?” I asked
while opening the case, as though the whole goddamned universe cared.
“Larry isn’t telling you the whole
story now either. Doctor Sochenski wasn’t one of Larry’s pervs but they held
his daughter hostage as insurance. They both disappeared into a lime pit… their
bodies have never been found.”
Doc moaned, like he’d just
realized how far his little game had gone, “I didn’t know…. Really. I thought
they’d let him go. She was only six-years-old!”
My contempt at this performance
set in, “You could have found out if you cared, Larry… like the others. They
were all someone’s six-year-old daughters, once.”
I was familiar with the weapon
tucked in the cutout foam… French used them… a Bullpup they call ‘em; because
they’re a short, but fully automatic and accurate rifle, complete with a
fold-out stock, night vision scope, and silencer. All of that. I must admit…
damned near had an erection looking at it, “Shit, these are hard to come by.”
I unfolded the stock, took
aim at an imaginary target, swung the muzzle to Larry’s face… he shrunk back
knowing I would kill him. But my finger wouldn’t… couldn’t… squeeze that
fraction of the trigger’s pull between murder and his humanity. I lowered the
muzzle, folded up the stock and set it on the table between us.
Larry exhaled.
By this time, I knew exactly what
I was doing with him. The effects of LSD are pretty much out of one’s system within
twenty-four hours but the psychological effects are long term… especially after
a first trip and an overload of paranoia and self-realization exposed all at
once. It could drive him to suicide, and, now that my work was done with him,
it didn’t matter to me if I sped up the process. Except for a trace of empathy,
I might be able to lead myself out of the moral malaise we’d been swimming in
but I didn’t know how to do that for both of us. I wasn’t doing so well with it
myself, really. The whole affair, since leaving the sanctuary of Anna’s place…
the blood… the killing… the low value on life… disgust for us both arose from a
deep place beyond Saigon and stuck in my throat.
Bird Dog closed the case, took off
the bench, and put it in the saddlebag of the Harley, “There’s extra clips in
there too. I don’t give a damn one way of another if this Yuppie lives. We’re
done with him. But you, Kraszhinski, have got to get your ass out to Prospect
Slough. You remember where Gabe always keeps his trailer?”
“I know. We already discussed it.”
Bird Dog had his pitch, “Good,
stay there. Under the seat at the table’s a CB. Don’t call out. Wait and
listen. Ryan, or I, will contact you. Otherwise, save it for a real emergency.”
“I know the drill. So,
Ryan’s within range. Where?”
He handed me a card. It read, The
Island Mansion. “You’re back in the game. You know that much, don’t you?”
“I know I’m dealing with a legion
of demons besides all this,” I nodded towards Larry, smiling.
“See, Crash. You know what I
mean?” The Bird Dog’s mask saddened. It was as though he was remembering a
dream… a vivid one. I never heard him talk like this, or, this much, “Ryan
called me because of you and Anna and Smerdyakov. I knew him from Madrid… he
must be in his eighties by now. I trained Anna and now you’re almost ready.
Ryan’s on the job too.” Face set like stone, his heavyweight boxer’s fist shook
the table. He hammered home a deliberate affirmation, “I’m almost done but
Smerdyakov doesn’t deserve to die of old-age.”
“And I don’t think you’re ready
for shuffleboards in Florida either, old man.”
The Bird Dog wasn’t done
recruiting me, “It’s never over for you and me, Kraszhinski. With Glasnost, the
USSR is falling apart. Smerdyakov has no rules. A devil far worse than the KGB
has been unleashed from Moscow. In a few years, we’d better hope a monster like
him won’t be the president of Russia.”
I must have predicted from the bar
stool the same kind of things a thousand times. Glasnost, Perestroika, a power
vacuum filled by the Russian mob… “You don’t have to recruit me. Like it or
not, Anna has me in this up to my ass.”
Larry had been quiet but he must
have thought we needed to be comforted and, falling back onto the melodious
intonation of a funeral director, he reassured us, “You know, from Saint
Francis, to Mohammed, they were all warriors. They turned to God… to a higher
calling.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, “Sweet
Jesus, Larry, is that you? I thought you were just a con artist.”
Larry was proud, like he was
finally sitting at the adult’s table. “A good con does his research for a role
to administer to the flock, I’ve read about all the saints. It was my job.”
I chaffed, “So, now you think Bird
Dog’s a saint? If there wasn’t a war somewhere, he’d go start one.”
Harry Baker, the man, not the
legendary Bird Dog, cracked a smile and nudged me, “Larry’s right. We’re the
damned and wouldn’t trust a saint that hasn’t had blood on his hands.”
I stood on the starter peddle, the
old pan-head coughed and grumbled from the pipes first kick. I patted the sissy
seat behind, revving, and shouting over the rumble, “Climb on Larry, we’re
goin’ for a ride.”
The tension remains tight...
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