A Slightly More Civilized Game

ly More Civilized Game

  By J T Pearson

  copyright 2013 Joseph Pearson

  It was two AM, a Wednesday in January, and Duluth Minnesota had been suffering through what was already their worst blizzard on record. Sixty mile an hour winds coupled with seventy inches of snowfall created a landscape shaped by mountainous snow drifts, some that were as high as thirty feet. And the forecast was for the storm to increase in ferocity. Storms that year all over the nation had been getting increasingly worse, more violent, more destructive. Most of the inhabitants of Duluth and the surrounding cities had been evacuated, something that had been unprecedented during a snowstorm in years past. With everyone gone, a prisoner made his way to the outside gate and used a ramp of snow to climb the perimeter. He dropped down to the other side, completing his escape. A killer was loose. That was the simple description that Agent Paul Hunter was about to receive.

  The phone rang for the eleventh time before Paul reached over and picked it from his bedside stand. He remained on his stomach with his face buried into his pillow while he held the phone to the border where pillow met bed.

  “Mmm foe,waf a wnnnt?”

  “Paul. Paul Hunter,” came a familiar voice that he wished he hadn’t been hearing at that hour. “Paul Hunter, wake up. We have a matter to attend to.”

  “I said hello, what do you want?”

  “Please correct your tone, Mr. Hunter.”

  “You’re a bad dream, Nelson. You’re always a bad dream. And tomorrow morning when I realize it, I’ll be grateful that you were just a bad dream.”

  “I never find your antics amusing, Mr. Hunter, yet you persist. I think I’ve made that clear enough in the past, don’t you? Let’s not waste any time with frivolities tonight. We really can’t afford it. When I called, you had three hours to get your task completed. Now you have two hours and fifty six minutes. I advise you do whatever is necessary to clear your head and get yourself ready before I give you this information.”

  Paul cleared his throat and sat up.

  “I’m up, Nelson.”

  Paul Hunter worked for a company called Greyson Incorporated. Greyson Incorporated specialized in protecting the assets and interests of society’s high rollers, generally business men and politicians. Paul was a low level grunt, one of many stationed throughout the world that did nothing but await instructions whenever a Greyson client was in jeopardy of suffering a setback or a scandal. Within the past month Paul had inconspicuously removed a sitting senator’s son from a brothel where he had passed out, met with and calmed a family that had ordered a pizza from a famous pizza chain - only to receive a dinner that included a severed thumb, and squashed any history of a medical examination that provided evidence that a powerful mayor was exhibiting symptoms of early onset Alzheimer’s. He threatened witnesses at the brothel, bought the family off with a briefcase full of cash, and called upon a favor from a doctor that had owed him. And he did all of this while avoiding detection by the media. Paul was a very special kind of handyman. Occasionally he was included in bigger operations, operations where he performed a small role, ignorant of what the more important players were up to, national matters that required him to travel, but for the most part he stayed home in Duluth and took care of local problems. Paul couldn’t leave the city when everyone else was being evacuated. This was his domain and he was responsible for it.

  “Mr. Hunter,” said Nelson, “you are aware that one of our clients, Karl Michelson, bought the Duluth Zoo from the city of Duluth and is in the process of making it a profitable venture.”

  “I wasn’t but I am now.”

  “That sale came with legal provisions that were required to make the Zoo more safe for the public. For the most part, they amounted to nothing, but there was direction that included improving the fence that surrounded the cages. There was an incident last summer during which an intoxicated hooligan scaled the fence and dropped down into a cage with several brown bears. That incident prompted a request by the city for a higher fence. That request had never been met, and Mr. Michelson, as of last May, had already opened the zoo to the public again. This may all sound like small potatoes but the zoo is one of many investments that are bundled together and problems with it may cause an expensive domino effect for our client.”

  “Why do these violations have to be dealt with tonight? Are you aware of the conditions here in Duluth right now? Most everyone is gone. Everyone but the real diehards that never give in to a storm. We’re talking about seventy four inches of snow and high winds out there. And it’s still not slowing down.”

  “This situation has to be dealt with right now. I don’t care about the storm. You get paid a lot of money, Mr. Hunter You figure out a way to deal with the conditions. You need to get down to Superior Street as soon as possible. There will be three men waiting to assist you.”

  Paul sat up and slid his legs off of the bed. He ran his hand through his peppered hair and was disappointed when he noticed that the gray was spreading to the hairs on his stomach. He watched the wind outside his window painting the city white. The days preceding the evacuation, Duluth had come to a standstill, while everyone held up in their homes and watched DVDs and drank hot chocolate, or in Paul’s case, scotch, lots and lots of scotch, and he listened to Leon Redbone for company. It had been comfortable, cozy, but now the storm had become dangerous. A man that stayed in Paul’s building had also remained behind. He had run into Paul in the hallway and had told him, while he swayed back and forth with a bottle of vodka dangling from his wrist, that the government was using a special weather weapon called HAARP to create the storm, and that they could turn it off, just like flipping a light switch, whenever they wanted to. Paul had a cousin that believed in conspiracy stories like his poor drunken neighbor. There was just no getting through to people like them. He had felt kind of sad for the man as he had looked at the paranoia in his eyes. Paul knew just what kind of secrets were out there because he was part of them. And they didn’t involve playing God with the weather. He had smiled at the man politely before excusing himself and heading into his apartment.

  “Mr. Hunter, is it a cell phone that you’re using right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to the landline that you were supposed to use when taking our calls?”

  “I had a technical problem with it.”

  “With a landline?”

  “Squirrels got to the wiring, trying to get out of the cold.” Paul hadn’t paid the bill. “There’s a payphone about a block away outside Bobo’s, the convenience store down the street. I know that he’s open even though there’s nobody out. He figures he owes it to the community to ride out the storm, in case somebody’s still here and needs gas so they can leave. Believe it or not there are still folks that will go out in a storm like this just for the hell of it.”

  “There are people that still go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and I don’t care about them either.”

  “One fella, a couple of years ago, he-”

  “Mr. Hunter, we have a matter to attend to. I know that you’re a resourceful man and will arrange transportation in that mess up there. Do what you have to do, even if you have to hotwire someone’s snow mobile, and then call me back as soon as you’re on the road?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have the number.”

  “Yes.”

  “Be quick, Mr. Hunter. Oh, and, Mr. Hunter, bring something capable of transporting, hauling about a thousand pounds of weight. “The phone went to dial tone.

  Paul slapped the clock radio bringing the local DJ’s voice into his bedroom while he quickly dressed.

  “And here at WSUP, I, Bobby the Barnyard Animal Barnes, am going t
o weather the storm they’re calling Megastorm 2013. I’ll stay down here at our Duluth studio for all of you and monitor the storm because WSUP is the radio station that lets you know WASSS-UPPP!!!

  Paul dialed Norma and waited for her to answer. She was one of those crazy diehards that would never leave for a storm. She also had her dogs to think of. Past a dozen rings and still no answer. She had never believed in cell phones or answering machines. She had said that she thought they were just a convenient way not to have to actually talk to someone. She had hated Paul’s answering machine. Paul had learned that while they had been together. They had dated for nearly three years. It had only been a year since they had broken up. Amazingly after surviving a messy breakup they had managed to become friends. They even still had dinner together occasionally. Finally he heard her pick up.

  “What the hell? Who is this?”

  “You’ve still haven’t improved on your phone courtesy.”

  “Paul? What’s wrong? Are you okay? Are you stuck somewhere in this mess? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I’ll know better when I receive further instructions at Bobo’s.”

  “At Bobo’s? Are you drunk? You’re not making any sense.”

  “I know that I’ve called you drunk in the past but not this time.”

  “That’s exactly what you said all of the other