The Fool's Run

Seminary Ridge, across the peach orchard, obscuring the Roundtops, and up the hill. We turned our backs on it, retreated to the car.
    “I was supposed to be in Mexico today,” LuEllen said as we went back to the motel. She stared out the window, and tears trickled down her cheeks. I couldn’t think of anything to say. We rode back to the beat of the windshield wipers and the sound of wet pavement hissing under the wheels.
    Another lengthy file was waiting at the motel. I dumped it to the printer and started working through it. Ten minutes later I found it.
    “That’s funny.” I sat up on the bed.
    “What?”
    I looked at the source of the article I was reading: one of the popular science magazines.
    “I’ve seen a couple of references to a guidance system called Snagger. For the Hellwolf.”
    “So?”
    “So it sounds a hell of a lot like the String system. But I haven’t seen anything about String.”
    WHAT?
     
    Need word search on all files, references: String and Snagger.
    It took about six hours to accumulate, but when we had done it, the facts were clear enough.
    “Anshiser never had the String system. Whitemark developed the Snagger. Same thing, essentially. Anshiser didn’t have a clue. Then, six months ago, when preliminary design studies were due, word got out that Whitemark was onto something big. Anshiser didn’t have anything to compare with it.”
    “So Anshiser stole it from Whitemark, not the other way around?”
    “Looks like it. They desperately needed time to understand Snagger and do a knock-off for their own plane. That’s where we came in. That whole routine they did in Chicago was an act. Jesus! I bought the whole thing!”
    LuEllen sat hunched on the bed, her hair hanging limp down the sides of her face, her face wrinkled in thought. Eventually she shook her head and looked up.
    “So?”
    “So?”
    “Yeah. So what?” she said. “So they conned us into doing a job on Whitemark. What difference does it make? If they’d told you the truth and offered you two million to take down Whitemark, you probably would have said ‘yes’ anyway. They lied, but that’s no reason to start shooting at us. We’re no more likely to go to the cops now than if they were telling the truth.”
    “Maybe not. But it makes what we did a lot more serious, especially for Anshiser. If Whitemark had stolen the String system and Anshiser could prove it, it might have cost Whitemark the contract. Or a lawsuit so big that winning the contract would have been meaningless. But if Anshiser stole Snagger and then wrecked Whitemark to slow them down so they could do a knock-off, and if Whitemark could prove it . . .”
    “Then Anshiser is ruined. Absolutely.”
    “And if Anshiser had hired the job done by a group of outsiders, and one of them was a newspaper guy with a reputation for busting defense industries, and another one was a thief whose name he didn’t even know . . .”
    “It might make sense to get rid of them permanently,” LuEllen concluded.
    We both thought about it for a minute.
    “Where did they get the gunmen?” she asked.
    I shrugged. “Anshiser is a defense industry. They know all kinds of people. They probably found a couple of ex-Special Forces guys looking for a little cash.”
    “And then you’ve got a couple of guys who know the story and have killed people because of it,” LuEllen objected. “I don’t know. It sounds weak.”
    “They wouldn’t have to tell those guys the whole story, just point them at the targets,” I said. “I can’t think of any other rationale.”
     
    THE MOTEL ROOM had two single beds. When we went to sleep that night, LuEllen suddenly said in the dark, “I’d like to come over and sleep with you, but, like, no sex. I just want to sleep with somebody.”
    “Come on.” She snuggled in against me, and we whispered back and forth for a while, and then she drifted away. Her body warmth under the blanket reminded me of Maggie, like a black patch on my mind. I was dozing off when the computer alarm sounded, and I rolled out of bed to look.
    Something weird.
     
    What?
     
    Been in newspaper clip files, gone way back. Anshiser old man was in German mob.
     
    What?
     
    Chicago had German mob. Like Mafia. Anshiser father convicted in 1910 extortion, two years in prison, charged 1914 murder and extortion, not guilty. No more charges but mentioned in stories as accountant for German mob. Don’t know what that is yet, keep digging?
     
    Look for