A Far Gone Night (25 page)

When I approached my house, I was surprised to see several lights on, upstairs and down. I parked my truck, eased out the door, leaving my bag on the seat, but with Elsie in hand. I paused at the front door, knowing I had not left the lights on, yet puzzled because I had seen no vehicles along the drive and there were no vehicles parked out front.
What the hell?
I worried about Gotcha.

Bringing the shotgun up, holding it close to my body, I opened the front door and stepped quickly inside, holding Elsie with both hands and playing the business end across the foyer, left and right, sweeping into sight every possible place where someone might be standing, waiting to kill me. I pushed the door shut with my left elbow.

“Is that you, dear?” someone said, a false high, feminine voice coming from the living room.

I lowered Elsie and strode into the living room and beheld Clancy Dominguez reclining in a recliner. Gotcha was flopped out on his lap.

“What took you so long?” I asked.

Gotcha jumped down and danced over to me and I went down on one knee, roughed her up,
then
got her a biscuit which she sucked in immediately. Clancy watched with amusement.

“Quite a watchdog you got there, Irish.”

“She only bites bad people. Candy-asses are secure. So how the hell did you get in here?”

Clancy shifted the chair to an upright position and stood. He said, “Can you say ‘doggy door’? I didn’t want to screw up your locks, or break a window, so I decided to take the obvious opening. Your attack dog nearly licked my face completely to the bone before I could squiggle inside. She really does like those Milk Bones, doesn’t she?”

“Jerk,” I said.

“Failure.”

And then we shook hands vigorously. We did not hug.

“Let’s talk,” Clancy said.

“It’s in the cabinet over the sink.”

I hung up my coat, stored my knife, pulled off my hoodie and draped it over a chair. I locked the front door and took my shotgun into the bedroom and set it by the bed,
then
I joined Clancy at the kitchen table. He’d found the Myer’s Rum, untouched for over a year, since the day of Horace Norris’s funeral. To be taken only on special occasions. Clancy had poured each of us four fingers of rum.

“You look older,” he said.

“It’s been over twenty years,
pissant
. What did you expect?”

“Sorry about your family.
Bad shit.”

“Yes.”

“Despite that bit of gray at the temples, you look pretty good.
Bigger.
Not fatter.”

“I do the best I can with what I have. You look pretty good, too.”

“I know. It’s the work, but we can talk about that later,” Clancy said. “Despite the added muscle mass, you look like you’ve been
livin
’ on the left side of Empty. Let’s catch up later this morning.”

I looked at the clock. It was 2:15.

“I guess you’ve moved in,” I said.

“Damn straight. You have a nice place here. I’m upstairs.
Brought along a few things that might be helpful in bailing out your sorry ass.
Right now, I need some rack time. See you in the morning, Irish.”

With that, Clancy Dominguez drained off his rum, made a face, got up, and headed upstairs.

Ten minutes later I was in bed, Gotcha the Attack Dog snoring on her
tuffet
on the floor at the foot of the bed. I fell asleep with thoughts of old missions with Clancy, dreams of Olivia Olson sleeping in her bed, and an eagerness for tomorrow.

T
he next day began with a feast at my kitchen table. Clancy came downstairs shortly after I took care of Gotcha’s needs and had started a full pot of coffee. I was scrambling twelve eggs with some shredded sharp cheddar cheese and a few minced onions. The remaining stack of whole wheat pancakes from Jan Timmons was in the microwave. A handful of linked sausages
was
beginning to cook in a second Teflon frying pan and I was just reaching for the last few slabs of hash browns in the freezer when I heard him on the steps.

“Great God Almighty, but I slept like a war horse last night,” he roared, striding into the kitchen.
“Great mattress!
And I woke up with the smell of coffee and other delights. You know how to start the day, Irish, and that’s a fact,” he said, slapping me on the back on his way to the cupboard. He pulled out a big, black mug with yellow IOWA on the side and poured coffee.

“Baileys in the cupboard,” I said.

“I’ll save that for the morning after we get your situation straightened out,” he said, and immediately began to tend to the sausages, taking a wooden spatula out of a big mug with other cooking tools and easing the chunks of hash browns gently alongside the cooking meat.

We took a long time to eat a fine breakfast and start in on a second pot of coffee. Exercising restraint from Clancy’s example, I dropped a mere dollop of Baileys into my cup as I filled Clancy in on what happened to my family, the troubles with the
Soderstroms
after I came back to Iowa, and everything I knew about Cindy Stalking Wolf’s murder. I briefed him on what I had learned about the opposition from
Jurgen
Clontz
and Martin Rodman from Mike’s Asylum. I told him it all took place under the auspices of
Mulehoff’s
Initiative. I explained that I learned it from Mike, and that calling it “
Mulehoff’s
Initiative” sounded
better
than just saying I did something because I wanted to.
More intellectual.

“I like the concept. Now, I must say,” he said, sliding his chair back from the table, coffee mug in hand, patting his stomach with the other, “you’ve been busy, but it’s now time to get busier, now that I’m here. We’ve got some serious work to do. I’m glad you rang me up. I need to meet this Lunatic Mooning dude.”

“First, you need to answer my question you didn’t answer last night.”

“Which was?”

“What the hell took you so long? It’s been
eight days
, Clancy.”

He smiled a quick smile, got up and topped of his mug of coffee, sat back down. He said, “I was on a fifty-five
metre
sailing yacht, not mine, a client’s, mine’s not quite that big, about eighty miles off the coast of East Africa when I got the word. I own a private security service company. Here’s my card,” he said, twisting in his chair, pulling his wallet out from his hip pocket, and extracting a business card. It read:

Clancy Dominguez, ex-Navy SEAL

Private Protection Specialists

We SEAL the Deal!

There was a SEAL trident, an 800 number, and a FAX number. The printing on the card was Navy blue on a cream background. I groaned.

“What?”

“‘We SEAL the Deal!’?”

Clancy shrugged his shoulders. “People say they remember it.
Pays to have a slogan.”

“So, congratulations. You’ve gone public. No more black ops like the old days?”

“Done with that.
Not enough pay. You need to memorize those numbers,
then
destroy the card.”

I raised my eyebrows and gave him a look of skepticism.

“Or put it where a search warrant won’t find it. I’m not bullshitting about that.”

“Aye
aye
,” I said.
“Will do.”

“Good man,” he said.
“Now, to answer your question.
You know, I tried to retire, but I got itchy. I did a little local work there in Costa Rica, but it wasn’t enough to make me happy, and there wasn’t any woman to hold me. So I branched out. I have five guys working for me now, all former Special Forces dudes, tough and smart and a lot of fun. In fact, we’d just had some fun when I got your message.”

“And what sort of fun was that? I’m afraid to ask, really, but go ahead.”

“See, we were out there off the coast, south of Djibouti, eight or nine hours from Navy support, when these pirates came rushing up in their speedboat, making a pass before starting their attack. Hell, I’d seen them coming a mile away, so I had Jonny and Eric get our clients out of sight below, make sure they stayed there, and then get ready. The skinnies came right at us, then, firing away with AK47s and a couple of RPGs that weren’t very accurate. They shot up the yacht a bit on their first pass, speeding by about twenty, thirty yards away. Then they turned and started to come at us again. I had seen grappling hooks and a ladder in the back of their speedboat on their first turn, so it was obvious they were going to try to board us to kill us and sell the boat, or take the boat and hostages for ransom.”

“I’ve heard that happens quite a bit out there.”

“Not so much as a couple years ago, but still it’s not all that unusual. Lots of pirates in the Caribbean, too, and I’m not talking about some stupid movie.”
Then Clancy’s eyes got bright, both the blue one and the brown one as he continued.

“When they came by on their second pass, they looked serious. I knew the first pass was to intimidate—no one’s that bad a shot, not even you, Irish—but the second pass was meant to kill or kidnap. Anyway, I stood up with my SAW, fully loaded, and hosed them down, just holding that trigger back and laying 775 rounds per minute on ’
em
. Blew ’
em
to pieces, chopped their speedboat all to hell, killed them all, with Jonny and Eric backing me up with their M16s.

“We decided to leave the boat like that so the mother ship, probably a dhow a couple of miles away, would eventually find them and decide maybe they didn’t want to mess with our yacht anymore,” he said, a smile crossing his face.

“What was their nationality?”

“My guess is Somali. Grim little country locked into poverty and war lords and all kinds of bad shit,” Clancy said. “If I lived there, I’d be a pirate, too. Still, there are risks. They probably think it’s worth it. The ransom business is paying off for some of them. And several of those governments look the other way, too.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said, pouring more Baileys into my half-empty cup. “Give me an example.”

“Okay. Try this on for size. If a yacht is moored in harbor and it gets boarded, the people are beaten and robbed, it’s not considered piracy. Or if it’s anchored in the harbor of some of these countries, and it gets boarded and the people beaten or killed, robbed, boat stolen, it’s not piracy.”

“What do they call it, ‘Workplace Violence’?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a domestic squabble to them.
Might be some money changing hands somewhere.”

I laughed. “You think?”

“I don’t know. But our clients were sure happy they’d hired us.
Offered nice bonuses, which we accepted with gratitude.
Told them we would appreciate recommendations for our services when they had cocktails with their friends down the road in Newport or West Palm. So when I got your message my guys dropped me off at Mombasa and went on their way. So I chartered a single-prop to get me to Nairobi, then flew to London, London to Chicago to Cedar Rapids, then got some guy off the street to drop me off down the road a piece so I wouldn’t reveal that I was in this village before you wanted me to. And here I am. That’s what took me so long. But I’m here now and at your service. When do we start?”

“Did you make your bed?”

Clancy smiled and said, “Of course, and you can bounce a dime off it, too, loser.”

“Let me clean up and then let’s go. I need to bring Moon up to date.”

“I suppose he’ll want to be in on the mission since it was his niece that got greased,” Clancy said.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Is he trained?”

“As far as I know, and he’s a bit secretive, no, but once you meet him you won’t worry about it.”

I tidied up the kitchen while Clancy stormed back upstairs, taking the steps two or three at a time. Twenty minutes later we were in the truck and speeding into
Rockbluff
. The late morning was clear and achingly cold. I wondered about Ivan for a couple of minutes,
then
moved on in my mind.

I pointed out several sights to Clancy:
Arvid’s
house and his penchant for playing dead, the Whitetail River and the double-arched limestone bridge where I had seen Cindy’s body, Mike
Mulehoff’s
Earthen Vessel Barbell Club and Video Store.

“Doesn’t he know videos are out and DVDs are in?” he asked.

“Of course.
He’s just not interested in changing his sign with every technological breakthrough. We’re now approaching The Grain o’ Truth Bar and Grill, home of the famous Loony Burger and its creator, Lunatic Mooning.”

I pulled into the parking lot next to his ’51 Packard, now rehabilitated back into mint condition. Clancy commented favorably on the vehicle as we got out and walked across the lot, across the slate entryway, and through the heavy oak front doors. Inside, he looked around and smiled appreciatively. It was 10:30 now, half an hour after The Grain opens for business, which explained the sparse crowd on a Tuesday morning.

I caught Moon’s eye as we headed his way. I noticed that his blue sling was gone. He nodded,
then
jerked his head towards a booth across the room and to our right where Harmon Payne was seated with two men in suits. Harmon looked miserable.

We came up to the bar and I introduced Moon and Clancy. They shook hands. I said to Moon, “Clancy’s here to help us. He has certain talents we can use to get to the bottom of Cindy’s murder, so you can skip the laconic Indian routine you usually save for newbies. I have some information we need to share with you, Moon. Can we talk somewhere private?”

Moon called Rachel Bergman over and asked her to take over. I noticed a display of fresh, home-made doughnuts from Holy Grounds Coffee Shop and mentioned it to Moon.

“Geez,” I said, “you start selling doughnuts and the place gets filthy with cops.” I nodded in toward the booth with Harmon and the suits. “When did this happen?”

“Last week. In business,” Moon said, “one must be constantly improving. Doughnuts go well with coffee in the morning before the lunch crowd picks up. I’ve started attracting fresh clientele.
Mostly retired people; farmers and schoolteachers.
Besides, I was lacking stimulation waiting around for my arm to heal.
Which it has.
I’m ready to go back to the
rez
.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Let’s talk about what I learned yesterday.
On the
rez
.”

“Follow me,” he said, and we went around the bar and headed down to his office. We followed him inside. Moon pulled out a couple of stacked, beige metal folding chairs and handed them over to us. We opened them up and sat down as he settled into his desk chair. There was a computer on his desk, a few photos of the establishment, a calendar. A gray metal file cabinet and a coat tree with a leather jacket hanging from a hook.

“Who’re the suits?” I asked.

“State boys.
They’ll want to talk to you,” Moon said.

“Harmon doesn’t look too happy,” I said.