Called by a Panther Read online

  “Do you see our messages?”

  “No. But I have a friend who follows you guys closely and when we go out to lunch he tells me what you've been up to.

  “Public awareness,” the Frog said, scoring her point.”

  No point in mentioning that my friend is a cop.

  “When we call Cab-Co,” the Frog said, “we give a code word, so that they know for sure it's us. So Saturday morning we made our call. Cab-Co contacted the police. The police went to the building and they looked where we told them to. Everything as usual.”

  “And?”

  “The bomb was not there, Mr. Samson.”

  “What do you mean, not there?”

  “I mean that between the time we left it and the time the police got there somebody took it.”

  “Still, if it can't go off . . .”

  But as I spoke I realized what the problem was. “Oh,” I said. “The instructions.”

  The Frog nodded.

  The point of a Scum Front bomb was to say, “Look! We could have blown this place up if we'd wanted to.” To imply that next time they might, if they didn't get what they demanded.

  But just leaving a bag with a few sticks of dynamite didn't prove that they could have set the bomb off. An explosion needed a detonator and a timing device. And the knowledge of how to put them together. So Scum Front “bombs” included a wiring diagram.

  I said, “That means someone is walking around with a bomb kit.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “HOW EASY WAS THIS BOMB to find?”

  “Not easy at all,” the Frog said.

  “And do you have any idea who's got it?”

  “No.”

  “How did you find out that the police didn't recover it?”

  “When there was no news report, we called Cab-Co again and the man we talk to there said the police hadn't found anything.”

  “Who do you talk to there?”

  “The front man for the environmental channel.”

  “How come he hasn't told the cops you're women?”

  She sighed with impatience. “Is that important?” Then, “We use a computer voice distorter, tape what we have to say and then play it into the phone.”

  “Oh.”

  “We have planned this campaign very carefully, Mr. Samson.”

  “But you never considered the possibility that one day somebody might pick up one of your bomb kits?”

  “No,” the Frog said. “We just didn't think of it.”

  Well, at least no excuses.

  I looked at the bench again. Kate King and the Animals continued to watch impassively. Considering the tone of dispute I'd heard through the door before they came in, the discipline of the group was impressive. But that was what clandestine organizations were supposed to be like, wasn't it? Charismatic leadership and an emotional cause. Flawed individuals subjugating their individuality to external goals.

  I looked at the Frog. She was articulate. But charismatic?

  At least she wasn't an uncontrolled loony. Once we got past preliminaries, she had responded to what I asked.

  “And you want me to try to find your bomb?”

  “We want to hire you. We intend to pay.”

  “But how the hell am I supposed to find it?”

  “If you agree to try you will have information that the police could never get. We've reconstructed what happened from the time we chose the Merchants Bank till our phone call. We can provide you with details that might give you a lead.”

  “Such as?”

  “I can't begin to talk about that without an absolute assurance from you that you will not involve the police. That you will not tell them anything that you learn about us.”

  “How can you ask that of me? An `absolute' assurance?”

  The Frog said, “If we get the slightest indication that you have told the police what you know, we will stop helping.”

  I rested my chin on my hands and considered. “You put me,” I said, “in a very difficult position. You are asking me to risk the license that my entire livelihood is based on.”

  “We're asking you to try to prevent loss of life.”

  “And all the malarkey about the package to be delivered to the swing in the park?”

  “Improvising a way to see whether you would follow instructions.”

  “Why me?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why have you come to me?”

  “Because,” the Frog said, “you work by yourself. We decided to risk telling one person. Only one.”

  “You people have already given me more information about yourselves than the police have. How can I avoid telling them that you have contacted me?”

  “We understand that pressure. But the community is not at risk from us. The community is at risk from whoever has our missing bomb. That has to be the priority now.”

  “The police might well feel that the priority is to let them deal with that risk.”

  “No. That's out.”

  “But you see my dilemma.”

  “Yes.”

  “What chance do I have of finding your bomb kit?”

  “People's lives are at stake, Mr. Samson. We decided to make one attempt to forestall the possible consequences of our mistake. You are it. If you won't try to find the missing material, we'll all just read about it in the papers.”

  I didn't say anything.

  The Frog said, “I do also need to make clear that there will be unpleasant consequences if you agree to honor our security and then break that trust.”

  “You're threatening me now?” And sounding a lot more like “real” terrorists.

  “We have each gambled a great deal in the way of `conventional' lives to work for the greater good. We will protect ourselves. Your mother lives here with her lover. We also know you have a girlfriend. We know where she lives and that she has a son and daughter. All I am saying is that you should not doubt the strength of our resolve.”

  “I think,” I said, “that this interview is finished.”

  “Mr. Samson, if we find we can trust you, you'll find you can trust us. We have no wish to get you into difficulties about your license or . . . whatever. We just want the bomb found and made harmless. Please think seriously about the implications if you don't take the job on.”

  “I will think seriously about it,” I said.

  “If you are willing to go ahead, then call . . .” From inside her pocket she pulled a piece of paper with stuck-on digits cut from newspaper. “The number is for Channel 43 at Cab-Co. Use a public telephone. Say to whoever answers, `Nature green in tooth and claw.' Then hang up. The police have the number tapped. Phone traces are done by computer now so they could have a patrol car wherever you call from within a couple of minutes. If you haven't made the call by midnight tonight then we'll all know what your priorities are.”

  I flattened the paper with the telephone number on the desk. I felt the weight of the situation. “Yes, O.K.,” I said.

  The Frog stood up. Almost instantly the three people on my bench stood up. They all went to the door and left.

  “Have a nice day,” I said as the door closed behind them.

  I listened hard but I could barely hear as the Scum Front went down my stairs.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I GOT A DUSTPAN AND A brush. I swept up the pieces of broken cup.

  Among the shards were six big bits. One at a time I shot them at my wastebasket. I knew they were all going to go in. I was that keyed up.

  Every one a swish.

  What kind of life is this? A simple man, in middle age, finally decides to surrender a piece of himself. He tries to be more like other people. He tries to care about making some bucks. And what happens? He gets bombers on his doorstep.

  But are they nice average kill-everything-that-moves bombers? No, no. That would be too easy. They are “socially responsible” bombers. They are bombers who don't like to blow things up.

  I stood.

  I em
ptied the pan.

  I needed to bang my head with a hammer. To jump out a second-floor window. To get mugged. Anything to command my attention for a while. To clear my head.

  It was all very well for bombers to moralize about people being at risk. But was it my job to get involved? My job?

  I remembered the Frog's hands. Not the hands of a young woman. Hands with a tan.

  I wished I'd looked more closely at the Animals' clothes. Sneakers, yes, but Reeboks or Keds?

  Who the hell were these people?

  Three grown-ups and a kid: “Please, mister, help me find my bomb.”

  Shouldn't I just call the police now? Let the cops find the missing “item.”

  That was what I should do, wasn't it?

  Where does one learn how to make a bomb? Did it mean one of them had been in the army?

  But you still have to get the explosive materials.

  They did use dynamite, and with its use on farms and in quarries maybe getting it was not that much of a problem. But explosive contacts and tanned hands?

  Rings on the fingers?

  And bells up my nose.

  Shut up, jerk.

  I went to my refrigerator for a carton of orange juice. I put a lot of ice cubes in a glass.

  Then I put the orange juice back and just chewed the ice. Cold. Shock. Clarity.

  I had no idea what these people looked like in civilian clothes. I could pass one on the street and not have a clue.

  That was the point of the masks and long jackets, of course. And the high-pitched voice. The Bear and the Gorilla hadn't said anything at all, the perfect disguise.

  Hey, I had them on tape.

  I went back to my office and opened the drawer with the recorder inside. It seemed to be working all right. I stopped it, rewound the tape and pushed Play. “Oh, terrific,” I heard myself say. “A breakout from the zoo?”

  My telephone rang. Real life. Not a recording.

  I stopped the tape.

  I did nothing for several seconds.

  But the whining, persistent, intrusive, ugly bell was too much for me. I finally gave in and answered.

  My caller was Jerry Miller.

  Captain Miller. Of the police.

  Chapter Eighteen

  MY HEART BEAT WILDLY. I struggled for breath. I said, “How you doing, Jer?” and hoped he couldn't read my mind.

  But he was listening to his own drum machine. “I'm doing great,” he said. “Janie just left to visit an aunt in Noblesville and I'm about to step out.”

  “Ah,” I said. Miller has had a . . . “friend” for quite a while now. Wendy's in local television. Miller's a lot happier than he used to be. Since his promotion.

  He said, “So, when does your big TV advertising campaign start?”

  “What?”

  “I thought you were having a commercial made.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Yeah.”

  “Is there going to be a press launch? Beauty queens draped over your magnifying glass?”

  I managed to say, “I've got this guy. He's making the ad. He's working on the footage now.”

  “Good,” Miller said. “Great. But I'll need to know when it's scheduled. I've got some eye trouble that makes me blink a lot.”

  In a good mood, Miller.

  Then he said, “Wondered if you wanted to come down for lunch tomorrow.”

  My heart sprinted again. “Let me check.”

  I put my hand over the phone and closed my eyes.

  “Well?” I heard him say.

  “Yeah,” I said, unable to invent the simplest lie. “Let's do some lunch. I'll call you in the morning.”

  “Good,” he said. “Al, there's some wild stuff going on. You'll be interested.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Our Scummy friends called in their weekly bomb but when the guys got there, nothing.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I figure they never planted it and they're seeing if they can get the publicity anyway.”

  “Yeah?”

  He cleared his throat. “What we got here is minimalist bombers.”

  He waited for me to comment. When I didn't he said, “That's bombers who don't blow things up becoming bombers who don't even leave bombs.”

  He wanted me to say, “You never used to use words like `minimalist.'|” I said it.

  “Yeah,” he said happily. “Well, I read now.”

  A policeman in love.

  He said, “At least that conniving bastard at the cable company didn't play this time. It's bad enough he gets in bed with them at all, but if he'd given them airtime when they hadn't actually laid anything down, well, that would have been real bad.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Look, Jer, I've got to go.”

  “Me too. Be lucky.”

  We hung up.

  And I sat.

  And I wondered if, by saying nothing to him, I had made whatever decision there was to make.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I WENT OUT.

  I drove slowly, in no particular direction at first. Then I went to a part of the near south side that I know well and I did the alleys and the one-ways till even my paranoid self was pretty sure no one was following me.

  Unless they had tagged my car electronically.

  But they wouldn't have electronic tags.

  Would they?

  I popped out onto Kentucky Avenue and went southwest till I found a shopping mall. In it was a steak house.

  I could nurse a meal for a while.

  I parked in a cluster of cars. But when I walked toward the restaurant I saw a public phone on the wall between a drugstore and a chiropractic clinic and I realized I wanted the telephone more than any damn food.

  I fumbled for quarters and called my woman.

  She was not at home. Then I remembered she wasn't going to be there but I couldn't remember why.

  I went into the steak house, took a tray and ordered a coffee.

  “Coffee? That's all?” a fat cracker in red and white stripes asked me.

  I said, “Uh, no. Give me a baked potato and a tossed salad.”

  “Hey, fella, y'know you're in the wrong place if you're a fuckin' vegetarian.”

  I stood back. I looked at him as he looked at me with insouciant pleasure from having so easily identified someone “different.”

  “Somethin' up your nose, fella?”

  “You're right,” I said. “I think maybe I am in the wrong place.”

  I left.

  I followed the mall sidewalk back to the drugstore and I tracked around the aisles for a while.

  When I got to the Indy 500 decorations I stopped.

  Suddenly I wanted to talk to my kid.

  But I knew what she would say. She would have me up to my neck in Bomber Animals and masks and funny voices and she would laugh all the way. An action-junkie, my kid. A quiet evening at home was practice for the grave as far as she was concerned.

  I smiled. I laughed for a moment.

  My little girl, little absent girl.

  A woman nearby in a sepia satin jacket didn't know I was smiling for the kid.

  She thought I was working up to making a pass. So she said, “Dream off, sucker.”

  “What?”

  “No way, old-timer,” she said. She picked up a 500 Party Pack and six checkered flags and walked away.

  It seemed appropriate to move in the opposite direction.

  I found myself channeled toward the checkout. I picked up a chocolate bar. I paid cash.

  Outside I walked back to the telephone. I called the number at Cab-Co. I said, “Nature green in tooth and claw.” I hung up.

  I looked around, suddenly aware that my phone conversation would sound one shrimp short of a cocktail if anyone was listening. I was afraid that sepia-satin-jacket-woman was stalking me with a white net.

  But I was alone.

  I stood for several seconds while my heart slowed and then I walked back to my car and got in.

  Looking for my
keys I found the chocolate bar. I unwrapped it without tearing the paper and then took a little bite.

  I turned the radio on for company. A D.J. tried to sell me chain pizza, so I turned the sound down till I couldn't distinguish the words.

  I let the chocolate dissolve.

  Some music began. I turned the sound up and hummed along.

  I bit again.

  I had half the bar left when the cops came.

  The first car squealed in. It was followed by two others as quickly as flies follow shit.

  My windshield was a TV set. I watched the patrolmen congregate by the phone. One of them opened a package and took from it the tape they use to mark a restricted area.

  A fourth car pulled up and didn't bother to park neatly, so I had to go the long way around to the mall exit when I decided to change channels.

  The first cop had arrived four and a half minutes after I made the call.

  Chapter Twenty

  MOM WAS IN HER BATHROBE, alone with the television, when I knocked on her living room door. “Come in, son,” she said. She turned the sound down.

  “Did you have a good Sunday outing?” I asked.

  She looked at me. “Is something wrong, Albert? Does it have something to do with that strange girl you brought down here?”

  I intended to say “No.” But I hesitated.

  “She's too young for you, son.”

  I was picking an amused denial when Norman pushed through behind me.

  We looked at each other.

  He said, “Oh.” He turned around and went out again.

  Mom said, “She might seem exciting at first but you've lived through whole decades she's never heard of, so you'll run out of things to talk about.”

  I said, “It's not like that.”

  “You don't mind some motherly advice, though, do you, son?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Don't let your imagination get the better of you. That's all I've got to say.” With that she returned to the TV.

  I left and closed the door behind me.

  But as I walked toward the foot of the stairs that led to my rooms Norman materialized from some dark fissure. “Well?” he asked.

  “Well what?”

  “For Christ's sake!” he said. He stomped past me toward the living room.

  Back in my office I found I hadn't turned on my answering machine when I went out.