Part 27 (1/2)
She lifted the mallet over her head and the smell of her sweat washed down over him. Peter felt his ears begin to burn and all at once, he came to a decision. He would go to Carl Biehn's barn tonight.
He toyed with the idea of telling his Uncle Stuart and then discarded it. One of two things would happen, either he'd dismiss the information about the gra.s.seater out of hand and want to know what this human was up to, or he'd believe the information and want to receive the proof himself. Either way, he, Peter, would be out of the action.That wasn't going to happen.
He'd tell Uncle Stuart when he had the proof. Present it to him as a fait accompli. That would show the older wer he was someone to be reckoned with. Not a child any longer. Peter's head filled with visions of challenging the alpha male and winning. Of running the pack. Of winning the right to mate.
His nostrils flared. If he came back with the information that saved the family, it couldn't help but impress Rose.
”You the young woman who's waiting to see me?”
Vicki came awake with a start and glanced down at her watch. It was 6:10. ”d.a.m.n!” she muttered, shoving her gla.s.ses back up her nose. Her mouth tasted like the inside of a sewer.
”Here, maybe this'll help.”
Vicki stared down at the cup of tea that had suddenly appeared in her hand and thought,Why not?
A moment later she had her answer.
Because I hate tea. Why did I do that?
She very carefully set the cup down and forced her scattered wits to regroup.This is the clubroom at the Grove Road Sportman 's Club. So this little old lady in blue jeans must be ....
”Bertie Reid?”
”In the flesh. Such as remains of it.” The older woman smiled, showing a mouthful of teeth too regular to be real. ”And you must be Vicki Nelson, Private Investigator.” The smile broadened, the face around it compressing into an even tighter network of fine lines. ”I hear you need my help.”
”Yeah.” Vicki stretched, apologized, and watched as Bertie settled carefully into one of the gold velour chairs, teacup balanced precisely on one knee. ”Barry Wu tells me that if anyone in this city can help, it's you.”
She looked pleased. ”He said that? What a sweetie. Nice boy, Barry, bound to be in the medals at the next Olympics.”
”So everyone says.”
”No, everyone says he'll take the gold. I don't. I don't want to jinx the boy before he gets there, neither do I want him to feel badly if he comes home with the silver. Second best in the entire world is nothing to feel badly about and all those armchair athletes who sneer at second deserve a good swift kick in the b.u.t.t.” She took a deep breath and a long draught of tea. ”Now then, what did you want to know?”
”Is there anyone around London, not just at this club, who can shoot with anything approaching Barry Wu's accuracy?”
”No. Was there anything else?”
Vicki blinked. ”No?” she repeated.
”Not that I know of. Oh, there're a couple of kids who might be decent if they practiced and one or two old-timers who occasionally show a flash of what they once had but people with Barry's ability and the discipline necessary to develop it are rare.” She grinned and saluted with the cup. ”That's why they only give out one gold.”
”s.h.i.+t!”
The old woman studied Vicki's face for a moment, then put down the teacup and settled back in the chair, crossing one denim clad leg over the other, the lime green laces in her hightops the brightest spot of color in the room. ”How much do you know about compet.i.tion shooting?”
”Not much,” Vicki admitted.
”Then tell me why you're asking that question, and I'll tell you if you're asking the right one.”
Vicki took off her gla.s.ses and scrubbed at her face with her hands. It didn't make things any clearer. In fact, she realized as the movement pulled at the bruise on her temple, it was a pretty stupid thing to do.
She shoved her gla.s.ses back on and scrambled with her bag for the bottle of pills they'd given her at the hospital.There was a time I could make love to a vampire, walk away from major car accident, rush a client to the hospital, stay up until dawn, and spend the day arguing ethics with Celluci, no problem. I must be getting old. She took the pill dry. The only alternative was another mouthful of tea and she didn't think she was up to that.
”Cracked my head,” she explained as she tossed the small plastic bottle back in her bag.
”In the line of duty?” Bertie asked, looking intrigued.
”Sort of.” Vicki sighed. Somehow in the last couple of minutes, she'd come to the conclusion that Bertie was right. Without knowing more about compet.i.tion shooting, shecouldn't know if she was asking the right questions. Her voice low to prevent the only other occupant of the clubroom from overhearing, she presented an edited version of the events that had brought her to London.Bertie whistled softly at the description of the shots that killed ”two of the family dogs,” then she said, ”Let me be sure I've got this straight, five hundred yards on a moving target at night from twenty feet up in a pine tree?”
”As much as five, maybe as little as three.”
”As little as three?” Bertie snorted. ”And both dogs were killed with a single, identical head shot? Come on.” Setting the teacup aside, she heaved herself out of the chair, pale blue eyes gleaming behind the split gla.s.s of her bifocals.
”Where are we going?”
”My place. One shot like that might have been a fluke, luck, nothing more. But two, two means a trained talent and you don't acquire skill like that overnight. Like I said before, there's d.a.m.ned few people in the world who can do that kind of shooting and this marksman of yours didn't spring full grown from the head of Zeus. I think I can help you find him, but we've got to go to my place to do it. That's where all my reference material is. This lot wouldn't know a book if it bit them on the b.u.t.t.” She waved a hand around the clubroom. The fortyish man sitting at one of the tables stroking the cat looked startled and waved back. ”Gun magazines, that's all they ever read. I keep telling them they need a library. Probably leave them mine when I die and it'll spend ten or twenty years sitting around getting outdated then they'll throw it out. Did you drive?”
”No ...”
”No? I thought every PI owned a s.e.xy red convertible. Never mind. We'll take my car. I live pretty close.” A sudden flurry of shots caught her attention and she strode over to the window. ”Ha! I told him not to buy a Winchester if he wants to compete this fall. He'll be months getting used to that offset scope.
Fool should've listened. Robert!”
The man at the table looked even more startled at being directly addressed. ”Yes?”
”If Gary comes up tell him I said, I told you so.””Uh, sure, Bertie.”
”His wife's down in the pistol range,” Bertie confided to Vicki as they headed out the door. ”They come by most evenings after work. He hates guns but he loves her so they compromised; she only shoots targets, he doesn't watch.”
Bertie's car was a huge old Country Squire station wagon, white, with wood-colored panels. The eight cylinders roared as they headed out onto the highway and then settled down into a steady seventy-five kilometers an hour purr.
Vicki tried not to fidget at the speed - or lack of it - but the pa.s.sing time gnawed at her. Hopefully Donald's wound would remind the wer of why they had to stay close to the house after dark, but she wasn't counting on it. As long as the wer insisted on their right to move around their land, every sunset, every extra day she spent solving this case, put another one of them in danger. If she couldn't convince them to stay safe, and so far she'd had remarkably little luck at that, she had to find this guy as fast as possible.
A car surged past, horn honking.
”I wanted to get a b.u.mper sticker that read, 'Honk at me and I'll shoot your tires out' but a friend talked me out of it.” Bertie sighed. ”Waste of diminis.h.i.+ng natural resources driving that speed.” She dropped another five kilometers as she spoke, just to prove her point.
Vicki sighed as well, but her reasons were a little different.
Fourteen.
Bertie Reid lived in a small bungalow about a ten-minute drive from the range.
Ten minutes had anyone else been driving,Vicki sighed silently as she got out of the car and followed the older woman into the house. ”May I use your phone, I'd better call -Oh, h.e.l.l, what do I call Celluci? - my driver and let him know where I am.””Phone's right there.” She pointed into the living room. ”I'll just go put the kettle on for tea. Unless you'd rather have coffee.”
”I would actually.”