Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay, Gordon Carroll [howl and other poems .txt] 📗

a conversation with an old friend, making plans to get together in Hawaii. The trip would have to wait. He caught sight of me out of the corner of an eye. I was standing next to him.

He said, “I’ll have to call you back, Jim.” He hung up and turned to me, looking me up and down. “So, you’re the cause of all the commotion going on.”

Doors was younger than I expected, maybe thirty six, lean and sort of nerdy looking.

“No,” I said, “I think you are the cause.”

“Me? How’s that?” He smiled and I almost punched him.

“Arnold Verick, he works for you.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. A lot of people work for me.”

“He murdered a teenaged boy who developed a game for you called Whack the Pig. He kidnapped the boy’s sister. I want her back.”

He took in a deep breath through his nose as though pondering, let it out forcefully. “Whack the Pig? Never heard of it.” He looked up at me. “Do you have any idea how many laws you are breaking?”

Good enough for me. “A bunch, so I guess a couple more won’t hurt.” I punched him on the side of the head. It was a good punch, hard and from the hip, throwing all my weight into it. It landed between his jaw and temple and dropped him instantly and without so much as a grunt. I hefted him over my shoulder; he didn’t weigh much, and went back out the way I had come. Hepperman was still cuffed to the desk with the sock in his mouth, and the back hallway was clear. I took Doors down the stairs all the way to an outside exit door. I checked to make sure he was still unconscious, propped the door with his body, and went to get my car. I drove to the far west parking lot, then hopped the curb and drove across the lawn to the door. I loaded him into the back seat next to Max and drove away.

I called Nick Carlino on Doors’ phone.

“Who is this and how did you get my number?”

“It’s Gil Mason, the private detective.”

“Have you saved the girl?” he asked.

“I’m working on it. I need some help.”

“Continue.”

“First, I need the address to Roger Doors’ cabin in Manitou Springs.”

“The Roger Doors, of Micro Corp. fame?”

“That’s the one. His head of security, Arnold Verick, is the guy that set you up.” There was a slight pause.

“I know the man,” he said. “It makes sense.”

“I thought it might.” There was another pause.

“And?” he asked.

I told him the second thing I needed. After that he asked me to wait for a second. When he came back on the line he had the address for me.

46

I was starting to worry that I’d hit him too hard. His face had swollen about half again its usual size and was already diffusing the area with bruised colors. I slapped him a couple of times and that woke him up. I had him zip-tied to a chair and I have to admit it felt good to see the look of fear and absence of arrogance on his face. Beneath the chair was a western rug that probably cost more than my car.

“Are you insane?” He looked at me as if he thought I was. “This is kidnapping.”

“Now you know how it feels.” I smiled, picked up the backpack and set it down in front of him.

“You can’t do this. You used to be a cop.”

“Now how do you know that?” I wagged a finger at him. “Arnold Verick has been telling you things, hasn’t he?”

He looked about, sweat starting on his forehead. “Where are we?” He looked around, again his eyes growing large. “This is… this is my house.”

“Yeah, your quaint log cabin in the mountains.” The term cabin had to be taken loosely; it spanned at least five thousand square feet, with an Olympic sized pool in the back. The living room floor was wide plank oak, with a cast stone fireplace and a giant flat screen television fitted into the wall above it. It had soaring ceilings and art glass throughout. Large windows looked out on a fantastic view of the city far below on one side and on nature’s abundance on the other. It made my place look like a slum. “I don’t expect anyone to look here for you. It’s a bit much for my taste, but not bad all in all. At least we can have some privacy.”

“Privacy?”

“Yeah, the kind of privacy your men had with Shane Franklin.”

“I don’t know what you are taking about.” He seemed to gain a measure of courage and with it, the arrogance seeped back into his voice.

“Oh, you want to play games? I like games. I think I’ll start with the games your men played on Shane.” I reached for the backpack.

“Don’t hurt me,” said Doors, his face going white.

“How did you know Shane was hurt?” He just shook his head and looked down. “Okay, I’m going to make this easy. Your man has Amber and I have you. We trade, just like we did with the thumb dot. Only this time I get the girl. So where is he?”

He shook his head again. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him since this morning.”

A popular rap song sounded from his phone; the geek trying to be cool. I answered it. “Doors.”

There was a pause, then Spock’s voice. “You have Mr. Doors’ phone, which means you must have Mr. Doors as well.”

“That’s logical.”

“I have the girl.”

“That was very bad of you, we had a deal. I gave you the game.”

“You set a trap. It was well executed.”

“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” I said.

“You never had the chance.”

“I know I hit you at least five times.”

“The vest saved me; and you?”

“Yeah. Next time I’ll aim higher.”

“You can’t keep Doors.”

“If I don’t get Amber back safe and sound I’ll kill him.” Mr. Tough guy, but I meant it. Or at least I