Florida Firefight Read online

  She laughed girlishly and shoved a stoneware mug of coffee in his hands. “Not a-tall, not a-tall.” Her face was red, and she gave him a conspirator’s wink. “But I did win a wee bit yesterday betting on the kickball games.”

  “Kickball?”

  She thought for a moment; then her face brightened. “Football. Aye, it was football I won me money on.”

  “Hah!” Hawker wrapped his arm around her and gave her a quick squeeze. “Then you’ll be having every Irish bachelor on Archer Street over for a fine big turkey—myself included, I hope.”

  She slapped at him, redder yet. “But that’s why I knocked you up so early, Lieutenant. You have another invitation. A messenger boy just brought this to the front door.” She pulled a note from her apron and handed it to Hawker.

  Mr. Hawker:

  It seems we will both be without family for the holiday, so I wonder if you would like to join me at Hayes Hill for dinner? Also I would like to discuss with you matters that may be of great mutual interest. RSVP the enclosed number.

  Jacob Montgomery Hayes

  It didn’t take Hawker long to make the connection. Jake Hayes was the blond kid who had been murdered by the Guatemalan. Jacob Montgomery Hayes was his multimillionaire father.

  Hawker thanked the widow Hudson, then went for his run. He jogged through the bleak Chicago morning, his breath fogging and disappearing in the soft storm of snowflakes. He passed St. Barbara High School and disappeared into the winter trees of McGuane Park. For the thousandth time he went over the events that had caused him, a second-generation Chicago cop, to resign.

  The police superintendent, committed to Hawker’s suspension if he fired without orders, had followed through—but only after the big-wheel politician involved had whined to the press that it wasn’t his fault the two kids had died. Maybe it was because that trigger-happy cop had opened fire too soon. That was bullshit, of course, but the news people had bought it long enough to make Hawker’s suspension imperative. The headlines had hurt the worst: HERO COP MAY HAVE CAUSED KILLINGS.

  The superintendent had laid it on the line. “Hawker, Captain Chezick says I should be giving you another medal instead of suspending you. But I don’t have much choice. You didn’t play by our rules, so you left all of us wide open to criticism from every bleeding-heart politician and liberal who wants to be quoted in the press. You’re off the force for two weeks, Hawker. And when you come back, you’ll be going on Vice. And you’ll follow orders, and you’ll keep your nose clean, damn it! That’s all.”

  When Hawker hadn’t obediently about-faced and disappeared, the superintendent had looked up from his work. “Anything else?”

  Slowly, deliberately, Hawker had pulled out his billfold and removed his badge. “Yeah,” he had said, “there is something else.” He tossed the spinning badge onto the superintendent’s desk. “This.”

  three

  So now what would he do? Hawker jogged on, thinking. He had spent the last two weeks holed up, trying to sort it all out. In one way or another he had lived his whole life preparing to be a cop. He had grown up tough in Bridgeport, the Irish section of Chicago, and he and his father, Ed, had watched with disgust as that section changed from a close-knit community to an area ravaged by interlopers who made their living through violent crime.

  When the crime got so bad that the understaffed police force couldn’t handle it, Ed organized the community into a Neighborhood Watch force—and James Hawker, just a kid, helped. Old Ed had been a master of strategy and was born with the gift of gab. The community rallied behind him. And then a funny thing happened: People who had felt alone in the face of hoods and strong-arm crooks suddenly found strength in their friends and neighbors. People who were terrified of walking the streets at night suddenly found courage in the knowledge of their union.

  Old Ed’s methods were rough—and not always legal. But they worked.

  Crime in the neighborhood was cut to half, and the Neighborhood Watch program spread.

  So Hawker had grown up hating the scum who made the lives of the common workaday citizens miserable. People who lived in fear were not happy people. And Hawker had spent his life fighting the bastards and the bullies, the killers and the crooks who preyed on the innocent. He had become a cop, and a damn good cop. And he had planned to carry on the fight.

  But how can you fight when you’re no longer part of the fighting structure?

  Hawker toyed with the idea of applying to the New York or L.A. police departments for a job—but it would just mean more of the same. More restraint; more innocent people dying because the police department, bowing to political pressure, wouldn’t allow him to Hawk it. Also, more bureaucratic bullshit; more arrests to be thrown out of court on legal technicalities; more scum set free by lawyers who cared nothing for truth or justice, only the big fees and the proliferation of a legal system that favored the criminal and made them rich in the process.

  Hawker, who collected trivia the way some people collected stamps, remembered something he had read: Nearly 60 percent of the people who flunked out of medical school or doctorate programs went into law.

  The legal system, it seemed—like too many public school systems—was being run by people without the talent to do anything else. And the politicians were worse.

  Even though it was cold, Hawker was working up a good sweat. Instead of running his usual three miles, he decided to stretch it to five and build up a good appetite for the mysterious dinner with Jacob Montgomery Hayes. Hayes, oddly enough, was the only one who had come to his defense after the shootings. When he was interviewed, Hayes had called the politician involved a naive idiot for trying to bargain with the Guatemalan, and he had praised Hawker for acting without orders. “People in this city ought to get down on their knees and thank God for tough cops like Lieutenant Hawker, who know how to judge the risks and will put their careers on the line to save lives. If Hawker hadn’t acted, we would be mourning twelve dead kids instead of two.”

  Hawker had dropped Hayes a simple note thanking him and telling him his son Jake had died trying to save the life of the girl.

  He had heard nothing more. Until now.

  As Hawker jogged down Halsted Court, planning to swing southwest on Archer and back home, he suddenly decided to cut through Peoria Green, a large park with woods and grass too often inhabited by drug addicts and muggers. He had seen three rough-looking guys in their late teens or early twenties enter the park, and his cop instincts told him to follow.

  He was glad he did.

  The three punks had seen something in the park Hawker hadn’t: an older, prosperous-looking couple on a morning walk. They must have been in their late sixties, but they were holding hands like high school sweethearts.

  The punks brushed passed them, knocking the woman down on the slippery grass. The old man sputtered and raised his fists as if to fight them. But then he seemed to remember he was closer to seventy than twenty-seven, and he went meekly to his wife’s aid.

  It was pathetic to watch.

  One of the punks kicked him as he bent over, and the man fell on his face. Another harassed the woman, kicking her legs out every time she tried to get to her feet. The woman was shocked and in tears, and the kid was laughing. “What’sa matter, you old whore; you clumsy or something, bitch?”

  Hawker got there just as they slid the old man’s wallet from his pants. When the punks saw him coming, they stood shoulder to shoulder in a show of strength.

  “What’cha think you doing, motherfucker? You best get your sorry ass out of here before we slap that fucking smile off your face.”

  Still running, still smiling, Hawker charged the biggest one. It froze the three of them for an instant, and Hawker veered at the last moment and hit one of the other punks with a straight right that split his face and sent him unconscious to the ground.

  He turned to the biggest of them. “I’m still smiling, asshole,” he hissed.

  The two punks began to back away, holding their hands out. “Hey, man, we was just shitting around. Didn’t mean no harm …”

  Hawker grabbed the mouthy one by the shirt collar and slammed him into a tree. When the kid tried to fight back, Hawker buried his fist in his solar plexus.

  His partner disappeared into the trees like a frightened dog.

  “You like to kick old folks in the butt, hey, asshole?” Hawker whispered, nose to nose with him. “Well, let’s just see how much you like it.”

  “What’cha mean, mister—”

  The old man had helped his wife to her feet, and the two stood in the light snow watching. They looked broken and embarrassed and defeated.

  “Sir?” Hawker called. “Would you mind stepping over here for a second?”

  The old man released his wife’s hand and came reluctantly. Hawker smiled at him. “Sir, I have a feeling you could have taught these creeps a lesson or two a few years ago, and I’m just wondering if you wouldn’t mind helping me out now.”

  The self-esteem flushed back into the man’s face, and his shoulders squared slightly. “If I can help … if you think I’m able—”

  Hawker laughed. “Oh, I’m sure you’re able. I recognize an ex-lineman when I see one. No matter how old. And you’ve got that look—a tackle?”

  The man brightened. “Center! A passing center, back when a center had to know what he was doing. But that was forty … forty-five years ago.”

  “Great. Just move over there to the walk where it’s not so slippery.” As the old man strode away, Hawker tightened his grip on the punk. “Listen and listen good, asshole,” he said softly. “You’re going to let that old fellow kick your butt around this park—”

  “Like fuck I am—”

  Hawker’s hand slid from the shirt collar to the punk’s throat. He began to squeeze. “Nod your head when you change your mind.”

  The punk nodded immediately. “That’s better,” said Hawker. “And one last thing: I’ve lived in this town most my life, and I know everybody there is to know. If I ever hear of those two folks being hurt by you or anybody else, I’m going to come after you. You and only you. And I’ll hunt you down like a dog. Now walk out there and bend over.”

  The old man’s first kick was tentative, but he soon got the hang of it. Before long the punk was sent sliding on his face with every boot. The old man was grinning like a kid. “Mildred!” he called to his wife. “Why don’t you come over here and give this rascal a swift one!”

  His wife dismissed the offer with a wave. “No, Frankie, you go ahead and have your fun. But we have to be going soon, don’t forget. The grandkids will be here for Thanksgiving.” The woman turned to Hawker then, and her smile was warm and filled with gratitude. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you for giving back to my husband what he treasures most—his dignity.”

  Hawker nodded and winked at her.

  “You’re a police officer, aren’t you,” she said after studying him for a moment. It was a statement, not a question. Somehow people always knew.

  Hawker began to nod but caught himself. He shrugged. “No, ma’am, I’m not. I’m just a private citizen … like you.”

  four

  Hayes Hill was a sprawling estate on Lake Michigan located in Kenilworth, Chicago’s wealthiest suburb. A black wrought-iron fence and an electronic security gate protected the grounds.

  Hawker arrived at the appointed time, and the gate swung open as if it had eyes. He drove through in the vintage midnight-blue Stingray he had bought at police auction and then had tenderly restored by a mechanic friend of his.

  It was late afternoon, and a gray wind blew off the lake. The sky was leaden, with no sign of the sun, and Hawker could see the Hayes house through a forest of bare trees.

  It was a stone fortress, museum-size, built in the Prairie House style of Frank Lloyd Wright. Ivy-covered walls. Greenhouses with fogged windows. Marble fountains clogged with winter leaves. It looked like the whole estate had gone into mourning for summers past. Or for a dead boy.

  As Hawker made the turn into the drive, the gate swung closed behind him.

  After his run Hawker had become increasingly curious about the invitation from Jacob Montgomery Hayes. It was unlikely he would invite a stranger to Thanksgiving dinner out of loneliness. And the statement on the invitation—“It seems we will both be without family for the holiday”—indicated Hayes had done at least some superficial checking into Hawker’s life.

  So Hawker had done some checking of his own.

  Hawker was no big spender—couldn’t afford to be. Also he believed that the more things a man owns, the more he is owned. When he did buy, he bought carefully: clothes, books, car; and buying carefully usually meant buying the very best available. But Hawker’s one big personal indulgence was a 128k RAM computer, complete with two disk drives, telephone modem and printer. He had reasoned it would come in handy for police work, and he was right; it had proved invaluable.

  Timothy Hoffacker, a computer-whiz friend of his, had talked Hawker into buying it. Hawker had a natural dislike and distrust for modern “conveniences,” but Timothy was convincing. He had listed all the advantages a computer would give Hawker and noted all the time it would save. Hawker believed him because he knew Timothy was unsurpassed in his field; only two years before Hawker had had to arrest him on a computer-bank pirating scheme that was so brilliantly conceived that the company had decided to hire him rather than press charges.

  Hawker bought a computer and, red-faced with triumph, Timothy had presented him with an outlaw collection of software that would allow Hawker to steal data from just about any computer on earth that was serviced by a telephone company.

  So when Hawker decided to check out Jacob Montgomery Hayes, he did it from the comfort of his own small study. Booting his unit with one of Hoffacker’s outlaw disks, he dialed a special number in City Hall, then fixed the phone in the telephone modem. Back in the late sixties, a Chicago PD unit called the Red Squad, a CIA-type organization, had put together in-depth files on just about every person of note in the city. Public outrage had rendered the Red Squad all but impotent, but the files remained.

  Hawker had punched in the proper control commands, and soon his computer was probing the city’s computers, seeking to unlock their entry codes through a program method Timothy called Random Ultraspeed Taps on Locked Entry Data.

  The name was a mouthful, but it worked. And it had an appropriate acronym: RUSTLED.

  His computer had beeped and flashed, scanning. When the proper path name was discovered, the life of Jacob Montgomery Hayes began to roll across his video screen in luminescent green letters. The Red Squad had done its research. The report was in excess of five thousand words, filled with dates, facts, rumors and gossip.

  In Hawker’s mind it boiled down to this: Hayes was a Texan, born dirt poor. He had gone to work in the oil fields after dropping out of high school. He had worked the rigs by day, and in his own little machine lab at night. Tinkering and inventing were passions. In 1946, at the age of twenty-two, he patented an internal flush-sleeve coupling device that became indispensable to deep oil well drilling. By the age of twenty-five he was a millionaire. He continued tinkering, but his interests expanded into business and investing. His fortune grew proportionately. His portfolio included operations in America, Canada, Europe and Central America. He lived the life rich bachelors are expected to live.

  But in 1967, at the age of forty-three, Hayes suddenly dropped from sight. Apparently he traveled, studied—treating himself to the education he had missed as a youth. He began financing—and joining—research teams on biological and zoological expeditions. He studied Zazen in Japan. Then he dropped totally from sight, and there were rumors of him in deep seclusion at a monastery on Crystal Mountain in Nepal. And then, just as suddenly, he reappeared in Chicago, where his corporate headquarters were based. He resumed control of his dynasty as if nothing had ever happened. He seemed to care little for politics or society. He married a local woman who was known to be a fortune hunter. In 1970 a son was born to them, Jacob, Jr.—Jake. In 1974 his wife died of a cerebral aneurism. He was a member of the Fly Fishing Federation of America and owned some of the top field and retrieving trial dogs in the country.

  And that was it.

  Hawker had never spoken with the man or met him. Even so, he had an idea it was going to be a very interesting dinner.

  five

  The butler who let Hawker in looked like a character out of a 1940s English mystery movie. He was saber thin, with a face of marble. His sense of humor was as dry as the tuxedo he wore was expensive.

  “James Hawker to see Mr. Hayes.”

  “How nice.”

  “He was expecting me at five.”

  “What a wonderful invention, the Timex.”

  From the foyer where they stood, Hawker could see a balconied front room and a massive sweeping staircase.

  “If he’s busy, I wouldn’t mind just wandering around the grounds a bit. Looks like your gardener has a passion for exotics.”

  “Our gardener is a drunk, and his passions are too loathsome to contemplate. If you will, sir, this way.”

  Hawker followed the butler down a cavernous hallway. Their footsteps echoed. He stopped at a double set of french walnut doors and swung them wide.

  “Mr. Hayes sends his compliments of the season and requests you make yourself comfortable here.”

  The room was done in fine woods and leather. The ceiling was sixteen feet high, and the stone fireplace alone was as big as Hawker’s study back in Bridgeport. Bookshelves were stacked clear to the ceiling, and there were glass-enclosed displays of mounted butterflies, spiders and strange-looking insects. At one end of the room, near the fireplace, was a desk with a fly-tying vise. Behind the desk was a huge gun case filled with fine side-by-sides and over-and-unders. On the wall were original oil paintings of braces of Brittany spaniels, yellow labs and a rough and solitary-looking Chesapeake. The only other painting in the room was of a young blond-haired boy: Jake. In the opposite corner of the room was an elevated area covered with Japanese matting. Against the wall was a low shrine on which sat a brass Buddha, a small brass bell and an incense holder. The center of the room was dominated by an ancient chunk of Americana: a huge, hand-hewn oak table. It had been restored and polished to glass.