As Saigon erupts into chaos, General Tran walks with the easy calm of a man with a plan. After years of working with the Americans, he has no intention of being left behind in Vietnam, and so he has arranged for an escape route. He is nearly home free when he hears footsteps behind him in the darkened alley. He knows then that he will never leave Saigon alive.
Tran had planned to escape Vietnam with a cache of smuggled diamonds. Years later, the three Americans who helped him steal the stones want their piece of the haul—and will do anything to get ahold of it. As their search turns violent, they attract the attention of Blue Maguire and Spaceman Kowalski, a pair of LA cops whose oddball exteriors mask a toughness rarely seen outside the LAPD. To stop this trio of killers, they will have to be tougher than ever before.
As Saigon erupts into chaos, General Tran walks with the easy calm of a man with a plan. After years of working with the Americans, he has no intention of being left behind in Vietnam, and so he has arranged for an escape route. He is nearly home free when he hears footsteps behind him in the darkened alley. He knows then that he will never leave Saigon alive.
Tran had planned to escape Vietnam with a cache of smuggled diamonds. Years later, the three Americans who helped him steal the stones want their piece of the haul—and will do anything to get ahold of it. As their search turns violent, they attract the attention of Blue Maguire and Spaceman Kowalski, a pair of LA cops whose oddball exteriors mask a toughness rarely seen outside the LAPD. To stop this trio of killers, they will have to be tougher than ever before.
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Overview
As Saigon erupts into chaos, General Tran walks with the easy calm of a man with a plan. After years of working with the Americans, he has no intention of being left behind in Vietnam, and so he has arranged for an escape route. He is nearly home free when he hears footsteps behind him in the darkened alley. He knows then that he will never leave Saigon alive.
Tran had planned to escape Vietnam with a cache of smuggled diamonds. Years later, the three Americans who helped him steal the stones want their piece of the haul—and will do anything to get ahold of it. As their search turns violent, they attract the attention of Blue Maguire and Spaceman Kowalski, a pair of LA cops whose oddball exteriors mask a toughness rarely seen outside the LAPD. To stop this trio of killers, they will have to be tougher than ever before.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504007252 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | MysteriousPress.com/Open Road |
| Publication date: | 04/07/2015 |
| Series: | The Blue Maguire and Spaceman Kowalski Mysteries , #2 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 230 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Tightrope
A Blue Maguire and Spaceman Kowalski Mystery
By Teri White
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1986 Teri WhiteAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-0725-2
CHAPTER 1
It was the third straight day of rain, not the usual order of things in December, and the squad room had taken on a faint and persistent odor of damp. The effect, wetness mingling uneasily with the ordinary smells of the detective enclave, was not pleasant.
At least, in honor of the season, an attempt had been made to add a little cheer to the surroundings. Someone had kindly installed a small plastic Christmas tree in one corner of the room. It was adorned, although that word seemed misapplied here, with seven purple Styrofoam balls, three clumps of tinsel, and a pair of handcuffs. The weight of the cuffs bent the undersized tree dangerously leeward. On top, the traditional angel had been replaced by an upside-down Dixie cup. There were no gifts around the base of the tree, only a crumpled McDonald's bag.
Blue Maguire scowled at the tree once more. This had been a very long morning, filled almost entirely with overdue reports that had to be written. He didn't mind the typing so much, but the effort involved in trying to decipher the scrawl his partner called handwriting (another instance of a word sadly misapplied) was wearing on both the eyes and the nerves.
It might have eased the chore a little at least if Spaceman Kowalski himself had been present to interpret and also to provide a target for Blue's increasing hostility. Unfortunately, Kowalski had taken the day off to deal with some family business.
Families, Blue thought bitterly, were a pain in the butt. He was probably very lucky not to have one cluttering up his landscape.
"I'm looking for a guy named Maguire."
The slightly nasal female voice broke into his petulant reverie. He looked up from the page of hieroglyphics he was laboring over. "I'm Detective Maguire," he admitted.
His first impression was one of youth—an impression he seemed to receive from others more often with each passing day. Straight hair that fell below her shoulders, faded tight jeans, and a Mötley Crüe teeshirt all combined to make him think that the woman was young.
She gestured vaguely toward the stairs. "They told me down there that I should talk to you."
"Pull up a chair." He had a headache and was feeling distinctly unsociable, but after all, he was a civil servant. And at the moment, even dealing with a member of the great unwashed public beat ruining his baby blues over Kowalski's damned chicken scratches any longer.
As she sat, he had the chance to take a better look and to realize that his initial impression had been wrong. The woman was older than he'd thought and than she wanted to be. In her late twenties, probably, with makeup applied sloppily and too thickly in a vain attempt to hide the lines beginning to show.
His gaze seemed to make her nervous. She reached for and lit a cigarette, exhaling a cloud of smoke across the space between them.
Perfect, Blue thought, wearily waving it away. Just what the room needed. One of these days he really was going to hang a "No Smoking" sign over his desk, instead of just threatening to do so. He wasn't entirely convinced that Spaceman would then follow up on his threat to move his adjoining desk out into the hall.
"What can I do for you, Miss—?"
"Wexler. Marybeth."
"What's the problem, Miss Wexler?"
"This guy I'm living with is up to something."
Terrific. Being up to something was a second class felony in the state. Blue was really getting ticked off at his partner for choosing this day to disappear. "Like what?"
She looked mildly annoyed at his stupidity. "How am I supposed to know what? I'm not a cop. But he acts real suspicious."
Well, that was only a misdemeanor.
His headache was getting worse. Blue leaned both elbows on the edge of the desk and massaged his temples. What the devil had he said or done lately that would make the desk sergeant mad enough to send this particular fruitcake up here? "Could you be just a little more specific?"
The brow furrowed. "What?"
"Let's start off with something easy. What's the man's name?"
"Wolf."
"Wolf? That's it?"
"Yeah." She removed the cigarette from her mouth long enough to gnaw a bit of nail from one finger. "At least, that's what he calls himself." She brightened as an idea struck. "Maybe it's like a nickname or something."
"Maybe. How long have you known him?"
"A week. A week yesterday."
His thought about the great unwashed public had been more or less a joke, but now Blue noticed a faint ring of grime around Wexler's neck. Maybe she had just showered too quickly this morning. And every other morning for the past six months or so. "A week? And you're living with him?"
She stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. "You never heard of love at first sight?"
He realized with some surprise that she was making a joke.
"Besides, it's not really like we're living together. We're just both staying in the same place. Cheaper that way."
"Uh-huh. Has Wolf actually done anything illegal?"
"Maybe. Probably. How do I know? He keeps going out at weird times. And he's all the time making phone calls."
"To whom?"
"I don't know to whom, because he makes me leave the room, even if I'm right in the middle of a television show. Why would he do that, unless he's up to something?"
"Maybe he has a wife."
Scratching idly at some point just below her left breast, she considered that briefly. Then she shook her head. "Nope. Not this guy. He's too damned wild to have a wife."
"Wild?"
Marybeth Wexler shifted in the chair, wriggling thoughtfully. "I don't mean he like boozes a lot or does drugs. Not that kind of wild. Wolf is just different than any guy I knew before." She looked for an ashtray on his desk, didn't see one, and crushed out the butt under the four-inch spike heel of her shoe. "Wolf is real quiet. He don't say much at all, and even when he does, his voice is soft. You get what I mean?" She waved a hand helplessly. "He's like an animal. Quiet and real sneaky."
"Okay. But you still haven't told me about any crime this man might have committed."
"No, but—"
Blue shrugged. "Then I'm afraid there's nothing I can do. Nothing the police department can do."
She was silent, staring past him at the Christmas tree. "I think he might kill me," she whispered finally, the words almost swallowed up by the noise of the squad room.
"Kill you?" Blue didn't want this. They already had enough dead bodies littering up their caseload. "Why do you think that? Has he threatened you? Or hurt you?"
Across the room, someone laughed loudly and suddenly. She was startled by the noise. When her attention returned to Blue, she chewed on her lower lip for a moment. "No, nothing like that. But sometimes when he looks at me, I get scared. His eyes are a funny color. Like cold steel." She was spitting the words out machine-gun style. "He can give you a chill just by looking at you. Like when somebody walks over your grave."
Blue occasionally got fed up with how stupid people could be. It made him tired just trying to deal with them. "Why don't you just leave?" he said.
"Leave?"
"Miss Wexler, you've known this man for only a week. You claim he's up to something illegal, and most of all, you're afraid of him. So why the hell don't you just split?"
The expression on her face gave him the impression that she had never even considered that option. "Well," she said slowly, "maybe I could do that. But I think it might be a good idea to wait until after Christmas. It's the pits to be by yourself over the holidays. Especially since I've got no place else to go. And sometimes Wolf is okay. He gives me a little money. And he's good in the sack. At least, he was the first couple days. Now, he don't seem to care about that no more. He's stopped screwing me. So it's almost like a little vacation." She took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. "Hell's bells, I guess a broad would have to be crazy to walk out on a deal like that, right?"
Blue shook his head slightly. "Whatever you say."
She stood, smoothing the front of the garish teeshirt. The prissy gesture seemed almost comically incongruous when contrasted with the rest of the picture she presented. "So, I guess it's thanks anyway."
Blue stared at her. "You be careful," he said.
She grinned suddenly, a surprisingly good-humored and attractive smile. "I've been careful for a long time," she said. "It's a way of life for some of us."
Blue smiled too, though not really at her. "For all of us, Miss Wexler."
She nodded and turned to leave, her heels making sharp little clicks on the floor. Blue watched until she was out of sight, then picked up the report he'd been working on before the interruption. By the time the sound of her footsteps faded, he'd forgotten Marybeth Wexler.
CHAPTER 2The Little Saigon Café was on Third Street, tucked precariously between a synthetic wig shop patronized primarily by hookers and transvestites, and a storefront Buddhist temple. The temple belonged to an obscure sect, mostly Americans, leftover weirdos from the 1960s.
Lars Morgan parked the rent-a-heap brown Ford, perfect in its blandness, across the street from the café. There were no pedestrians on the sidewalks, except one young and very drunk Hispanic man who had paused to urinate against the side of the temple. Whether his action was a religious statement or merely the result of a full bladder wasn't clear.
The rain had stopped, for the moment at least. Instead of getting out of the car immediately, though, Lars lit a Gitane and sat where he was, staring through the dirty windshield at the small stucco building.
It wasn't exactly nerves that kept him sitting there. More like anticipation. Over the years, Lars had created, not without pain, a philosophy to live by: Life was much like a chess game. It was a trite way to think and he knew that, but it was also useful because it kept him careful. He had learned his chess in a jail cell in some emerging African nation that he could no longer remember the name of. If it even had the same name now, which he doubted.
Essentially, the game appealed to him because of its sense of order. He liked that. Planning and strategy were paramount to him, so he never liked to rush his next move, even when he knew exactly what that move was going to be. Part of the pleasure in life was to savor these quiet moments. It was like foreplay, kind of. The comparison made him smile.
When the cigarette was gone, he flicked the butt out into the gutter almost jauntily. Time for the White Knight to make his opening move.
The drunk had finished peeing and was now making his erratic way toward Alameda. He'd forgotten to close his fly. More important, as far as Lars was concerned, he didn't seem to take any notice at all of a man getting out of his car and carefully locking the door. With crime the way it was these days, it made no sense to take chances.
As Lars crossed Third and headed toward the café, he ran one hand through his dark blond hair. Getting shaggy, he realized, time to visit the frigging stylist again. And whatever had happened to plain old barbers?
Closeup, the Little Saigon was clearly a dump. This was not where the beautiful people of Los Angeles came to satisfy their faddish taste for Vietnamese cuisine. A hand-lettered sign in the front window apologized for the fact that the place was closed and invited the prospective customer to return at another time. Lars couldn't imagine anyone bothering to come here once, never mind twice.
Despite the sign, when Lars turned the knob, the door swung open. A tinny bell sounded a warning as he stepped inside. He closed the door again, reaching back with one hand to slide the lock into place. The small click it made gave him a feeling of security. This deal was getting to the point where he needed somebody around to cover his ass. Soon.
The powerful smells inside hit him like a physical blow. The aromas seemed at once familiar and exotic and the sensation made him a little dizzy.
"You're late." A short, wiry man just past middle age and wrapped in a big white apron appeared in the room.
Lars moved toward the small bar, automatically reaching for another cigarette. "Tough shit," he muttered. "What difference does it make? You got something more important to do with your time?"
"I have got a business to run." Hua's English was still heavily accented.
Lars glanced around the grimy café. "And the place seems to be flourishing," he said.
Hua either did not catch the sarcasm or simply chose to ignore it. "I get along. Now I belong to the Chamber of Commerce."
"Glad to hear it. Things like that sort of prove that this is still the land of golden fucking opportunity." Lars slid onto a stool. "Gimme a beer."
"On the house or will you pay?"
"I'll pay, damnit." People never changed; Hua was still the same bastard he'd been as a government lackey in Saigon.
Hua reached into a large stainless steel cooler, then slid a bottle of beer down the bar toward him. The brand was one Lars had never heard of. "This thing is making me nervous," Hua said.
"You were always nervous." Lars took a long gulp of the beer, letting the overchilled liquid soothe his dry smoker's throat. It had a terrible taste. "You were always a chickenshit coward, in fact."
Hua did not seem to take umbrage at the remark; he was a man who long ago lost the freedom to feel offended by anything that was said to him, at least by certain men. He just reached into the cooler again, this time pulling out a bottle of Ripple. Ignoring Lars's snort of derision, he poured himself a glassful.
Lars set his beer down carefully. "I believe that you have some information to give me?"
"To sell you."
Lars conceded that with a one-shoulder shrug.
Hua was staring into the wine, apparently looking for some secret he thought was contained there. He spoke without raising his eyes. "This is not a wise thing we are doing, Morgan."
"What does that mean?"
"There are dangerous men involved."
Lars raised a brow. "I'm a dangerous man, Hua. You should remember that."
He could not have forgotten the old days, when the two of them worked on the Interrogation Squad. There was always information that some bigshot thought was important, and Lars Morgan was the best there was at getting that information out of the prisoners. He was the best, despite the fact that the job wasn't really to his taste. Combat suited him much more.
Hua smiled faintly. "I have not forgotten. You were tough and efficient. But, Lieutenant Morgan, you are a soldier. That is all you have ever been, whether you wear the famous beret and represent the American government, or whether you simply offer yourself to the highest bidder. You have the heart and soul of a soldier."
Lars was bored. "So fucking what?"
"The rules are different here, old friend. The men who you would challenge now are not soldiers. They are thugs and gangsters."
"Is that supposed to scare me off?"
"Perhaps."
"Well, it doesn't."
"Then you are more of a fool than I thought."
He felt a rush of heat to his face. To hell with this. The little bastard had no right to be calling him names.
But Lars fought down the surge of anger. He never allowed himself the luxury of that emotion. It had no place on the chessboard, because it could lead to mistakes. He couldn't afford any blunders at this point. He swallowed once, then smiled. "What do you have for me, Hua?"
After a moment, the other man shrugged, as if to wash his hands of any further responsibility for what might happen. He reached into the cooler one more time and pulled out a small plastic bag. Inside the bag, Lars could see a key. Without speaking, Hua walked out from behind the bar and disappeared into the kitchen.
Lars drank the rest of the beer, making a face at the horse-piss taste. He took out his cotton handkerchief and wiped all sides of the bottle, then the edge of the bar where his fingers might accidentally have rested. He worked carefully, methodically, and when he was done, he refolded the now damp square of cloth and put it into his pocket again. He could get the door on the way out.
He slid one hand inside his denim jacket to unsnap the top of his shoulder holster quietly. His fingers touched the familiar cold steel reassuringly.
So Hua thought he was stupid? Well, that little prick would find out soon enough who was the fool. Lars smiled at his reflection in the dusty mirror behind the bar. He straightened his collar. Things were going much more smoothly than he had expected. And tomorrow it would get better, when he made contact with his friends.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Tightrope by Teri White. Copyright © 1986 Teri White. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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