= Rendezvous in Swift Rapids
  by Art Montague


Introducing ... PI Wannabe George Broonzer


By August 1999, government downsizing had left the Swift Rapids FBI office in straitened circumstances. The staff was still housed in the Federal Building, but the DEA and the ATF had the prime digs -- top floors, corner offices, windows, even carpets and air conditioning, since they were still riding budget highs for the war on drug kingpins and survivalist wackos. What the Swift Rapids FBI office desperately needed was a high profile bust -- a kidnap victim to rescue or a serial killer to profile.

Right now their office was in the basement. Two cubicles; a reception area; and a state of the art holding cell with electronic locks. The cell had a surveillance videocam, but it was never turned on because the request for a monitor had been denied.

When a suspect was in the holding cell, the three local agents had to do their case conferencing in the hallway outside the office door lest the suspect discover their evidence inventory and interrogation strategy. That's where they were now.

Agent-in-Charge Jonathan Rigby was pacing. Agents Moore and Crawford were hunkered against the walls, out of his way. Agent Moore was worried about his suit; it was hard to hunker and keep a crease. Agent Crawford was worried that he'd be assigned to Swift Rapids forever. Agent-in-Charge Rigby was worried that a mobster in the Witness Protection Program had just been whacked on his turf and he'd be hard pressed to cover his ass. True, he had a suspect in custody, but the suspect wasn't looking as suspicious as Rigby would have liked. The man's confiscated notebook might be another story.

Suddenly, Rigby stopped pacing. Maybe, just maybe, this case could be turned from adversity to advantage. Maybe it could be a career saver for all three of them, something Rigby had wanted for a long time. He decided to explain the facts of their exile to his team and outline how they could come out of it awash in glory, lionized in D.C., and the stuff of legend and hope in other remote FBI outposts.

* * *

George Broonzer was the suspect, a situation he enjoyed even less than being in Swift Rapids. The Greyhound bus back to Fergus City left at 8:30 that night. Broonzer had about an hour and a half to figure out how to be on it.

Broonzer had been Grade A Ready for the day's assignment. For more than a year he'd been practicing in Fergus City, his stomping ground. Tailing people, learning disguise, crowd blending, conversation eavesdropping, detail noting, and record keeping; all these were facets of his private investigator correspondence course. They were at least as important as the lesson on Fee Setting and Billing, and they were definitely essential if he wanted his diploma.

The Swift Rapids trip was to be his surveillance practicum, the last piece of the surveillance lesson. Complete this, and all that stood between Broonzer and his PI diploma was the lesson on Lock Picking and Unobtrusive Entry, plus working one full case. The Fergus City welfare office was paying the freight for his course in the name of job readiness training. So far, they'd been paying fees for nearly six years, including a city PI license -- not much good without a diploma.

His correspondence instructor had designated Swift Rapids as the surveillance site, judging Swift Rapids more metropolitan than Fergus City because its airport had a paved runway and because trains made scheduled stops, albeit only twice a week. Broonzer knew this would be a real challenge, but he was up for it.

Broonzer's practicum was simple. Go to the airport and spend the day shadowing the first passenger he saw step off a plane for the duration of the day. Marks would be accorded on the basis of learning the subject's name, home address, occupation, purpose of visit, and names and addresses of all contacts with whom the subject interacted. Additional marks were awarded for outcome of subject's visit, meal selections, method of payment, and tipping habits. Detailed description of the subject was, of course, de rigeur. To be spotted was to fail, a guaranteed "E" and it wasn't for Effort, or an "F" if spotted before lunch. No second chances; very real life, which, of course, Broonzer knew and accepted, and what Broonzer also knew he was personally all about. Period.

Tailing was Broonzer's particular forte. This he knew as surely as he knew Tuesday afternoons were the best pickings at the Fergus City Chapel of Hope and Happiness Food Bank, provided you got there before two.

He'd cut his teeth tailing random passengers alighting from Fergus City's public transit. In his first days, when he was green, he'd been hassled a few times as a suspected mugger or unspecified pervert. He still carried a scar from an old lady's umbrella, but to him these were just learning experiences; they came with the territory. He was so good now at tailing that in Fergus City he could guess with astounding accuracy, by dress and demeanor, which bar and which drinks a subject preferred. To be sure, Broonzer had an edge; he knew most of the bars.

Instinct, expertise, and an unwavering eye to detail: those factors, Broonzer knew, would make even the complexity of a surveillance in big city Swift Rapids a walk on the prairie for the budding PI.

Broonzer was at the Swift Rapids airport by 8:40 a.m., a time he jotted into his spiral steno pad, the first entry in this new case file. He didn't have long to wait for a subject. The first plane in was a six-seater Cessna 210, a single engine job probably manufactured around 1975. Had it been a car, it would already have been compacted. Broonzer knew his airplanes -- part of his consummate tradecraft. The pilot, plus one passenger.

Broonzer could have taken the easy way out and followed the pilot, but he decided that the passenger's activities might give him more meat for his practicum report.

Before the passenger was across the tarmac to the quonset terminal building, Broonzer had noted the plane's registration number and distinguishing characteristics -- white, wings, engine, flaps, propeller, wheels; just the facts.

Quick as he could, invisible as a silken shadow on an overcast night, he slid unobtrusively into the quonset. His subject was bent at a counter filling out a form. The clerk, a young snot wearing a backward baseball cap, glanced up at Broonzer and scowled.

"You wanna kill yourself, do it outside. We don' allow smoking in here," he barked at Broonzer. The subject swung around, sunlight glinting from wire spectacles that must have been designed in the 1800's.

Broonzer cringed, marked already. He looked at the Marlboro in his hand, a prop because he didn't smoke. Coolly he opened the door and flicked away the offending butt. The subject turned back to his form; the clerk returned to watching the subject fill out the form.

"Jeez," thought Broonzer, "the guy looks as old as his glasses. He'd better stay out of the sun; any more shrivelling and he'll be jerky."

The subject handed the form to the clerk who officiously began reading it, squinting almost painfully, slowly moving his finger line to line and mouthing every word. Broonzer was no slouch at lip reading. Lesson Five: Lip Reading and Body Language Deciphering Made Easy.

"Botticelli Gourmet Pet Food And Meal Fertilizer, Chicago." The clerk looked up at the subject, truimphant as hell, and said, " Good you've got a four o'clock departure, Mister Georgee-O, `cuz your pilot's only VFR rated."

In an unmodulated, patient, but not the least bit friendly voice, the subject replied, "Chicago's lights are hard to miss at night. In any case, Botticelli has a private well-lit air strip in Cicero beside our main rendering plant. Not that we'd ever violate federal regulations anyway. Can I rent a car here for the day?"

"Nope. You can take a cab into the city or take the bus. The bus comes by every hour on the hour or so. I own the cab, so we can go anytime. Twenty bucks to the city limits, on the meter inside the limits."

"Very well. The cab to a good downtown restaurant. I'll find my way from there."

"That'd be the City Centre Holiday Inn. No problem." The clerk deigned to look over at Broonzer who was hovering. "You need somethin', Mister?"

Priding himself on quick thinking, Broonzer glibly requested a bus schedule and the local paper. The clerk sold him the paper and pointed him out the door to the bus stop.

"The bus schedule starts as soon as the bus gets here. Thanks for your business. The airport's temporarily closed now."

Broonzer knew his subject hadn't made him. He knew the subject's name, place of business and departure time. Plus he knew where the guy was going and why, and so far he'd done it for the price of a newspaper and a forthcoming bus fare. He was good!

The subject and clerk emerged from the quonset and walked over to a dusty Ford Explorer. The subject had a small tote bag slung over his shoulder like women use to carry their going-to-the-fitness-centre crap. The subject's was turquoise with a yellow strap, very distinctive. So much so, Broonzer realized, he should watch for the classic gypsy switch, possibly in a restaurant.

Maybe the old fart was a drug runner. Definitely not on the up and up. Nobody Broonzer tailed ever had been, probably never would be. And this guy, he was just one more.

If something went down, Broonzer would know it, no mistake on that. His training had peaked perfectly for this assignment. He sensed he was at the top of his game. Observe and report; pursue; bear witness and damn the blisters!

As soon as the Explorer cleared the parking lot, Broonzer dipped into his bag of tricks. First his thermos for a few swallows of cool refreshing Tang and vodka. Heat of the day was already radiating off the asphalt. He'd need lots of liquids to counteract dehydration.

Broonzer was already wearing a sport coat, two shirts, a sweater, and a tie dyed T-shirt under those. He also wore three pairs of pants, the last pair being Bermudas, and two pairs of socks. His bag of tricks contained assorted hats, eyeglasses, jackets, a reversible raincoat, a hard hat, a small hand mirror for over-the-shoulder observation, and a quart-size empty plastic jug in case he got caught short and had to pee.

He promptly switched his trademark fedora for a Heston ball cap -- this was farm country. Off came the sport coat and the reflector aviator shades. No time for more; the bus arrived and Broonzer was back to the hunt, using the first part of the bus ride to update his notebook and finish off the Tang and vodka.

Moving only his eyes, he inspected the other bus passengers from his seat at the back. They were all ostensibly self-absorbed. Some read newspapers, some looked out the windows, some stared at bus billboards, others at empty space. The younger ones wiggled about in time to whatever was pumped out of their head phones.

In his forty-six years he figured he'd seen it all; it came with knowing the seamy side of human nature and the harsh, unforgiving reality of cold pavements, simmering lusts, and hot tempers. Broonzer was a perpetual detecting machine; he never stopped. In his judgment, most of the bus passengers were too nonchalant. Each was hiding something, but on this day he'd let it go. He had to stay focused. Let them wallow in their own mud. Their anger, their anguish, their fears would stay outside his purview, for now. He had his subject.

He debated hanging out in the Holiday Inn lobby to save the price of breakfast, but his casual reconnoiter of the restaurant, a long, nose-against-the-glass peer through the door, revealed two other possible exits. He had to go in.

As soon as he did go in, Broonzer spotted his subject in the breakfast buffet line. While the man loaded his plate and selected a table, Broonzer lingered deliberately, using tradecraft to admire the carpet pattern and smooth his hair reflected in a counter top. Only when the subject was seated did he select his own table, tucked behind some large plastic fronds, presumably meant to give the place some leisurely South Seas ambience. He was positioned so unobtrusively he had to move aside the fronds to observe the subject, but that was all right because he had a clear view of all three exits.

Broonzer ordered coffee, pleading a diet for his lack of interest in solid food, then laced it from the flask of bourbon in his bag of tricks. He needed four coffees with supplements to patiently wait out the subject's ingestion of breakfast, a sign he took to mean the subject either had stomach problems or ill-fitting dentures. Both possibilities were noted in the steno pad. As an afterthought, he also noted that the bacon could have been rubbery. Broonzer had learned from experience that it was these little details which would eventually reveal all.

The old man finally finished his meal and lit up a cigar. Broonzer figured, "What the hell?" and did likewise, putting his Bic to an old RoiTan he'd had in his bag of tricks for nearly a year. The stale RoiTan flared, burning fast, too fast; a cloud of acrid smoke rose from behind the fronds and began spreading across the restaurant, first enveloping the buffet table, then seeping toward the subject. Appalled, Broonzer tried to snuff the cigar in the frond pot. That got the fronds to melting. Thick black smoke now mingled with the grey.

"Probably toxic," muttered Broonzer. "Shit, shit, shit." He slapped down a ten-dollar bill, grabbed up his bag of tricks, and decorously departed to the john to restore his aplomb. He ditched his ash-smudged shirt and fed a quarter into a vending machine which sprayed him with a shot of Eau d'Ecstasy toilet water. That rid him of the smoke smell big-time. Better to smell like a pimp than a firebug, even in Swift Rapids.

On his way to taking up a post outside the hotel where he hoped he could observe all of the exits, Broonzer glanced back into the restaurant. The Burning Bush, so to speak, had kicked in the sprinkler system. Lucky for the hotel the breakfast rush was over.

The subject was already on the street, sauntering along as if he hadn't a care in the world. Definitely, Broonzer realized, this was a cool customer, using the confusion in the restaurant to slip away unnoticed. Probably he'd also skipped out on his breakfast tab. Well, this PI was too sharp, too professional to be given the slip by such a bush league ploy. The subject would need to come up with better than that to get one by Broonzer.

From half a block back, Broonzer watched him enter a sporting goods store. Quickly he ducked into an alley, and, behind a dumpster, pulled off his first layer of pants to reveal denims beneath, and switched his Heston hat for a Tilley. Looking, thus, sporty, he followed the subject into the store, the Tilley pulled down in front to obscure his face.

The subject browsed. Broonzer browsed. He was thirsty, but he put aside his discomfort. The subject took down a fly rod and swished it about. Broonzer began reading labels on trail food. The stuff looked like puppy chow.

Every detective instinct was alert for a drop. Nobody flew into Swift Rapids in a private plane just to check out fly rods. As far as Broonzer knew, Swift Rapids didn't even have a place to go fishing. So, why buy a fly rod? For that matter, why try to sell them? Aha, a detail out of synch! Like selling refrigerators to Eskimos. Broonzer turned his attention to the clerk.

Another old guy. That was food for thought. Maybe these two were Grey Power activists; militants even. That would explain all of the gung ho sports stuff. The store stocked more than fishing rods and trail food. It had sleeping bags, hiking boots, knives, rifles and, Broonzer counted, four shelves of ammunition behind the front counter.

Broonzer lurked at a book stand near the cash register. He needed to spot any brush contact between the two, needed to catch any code secreted in their casual conversation.

Suddenly, the subject checked his watch, re-racked the fly rod and left the store, catching Broonzer by surprise. In his haste to follow, Broonzer bumped over the book stand.

Quick thinking as always, Broonzer glared at the clerk and said, "That thing should be moved. It's a hazard. Lucky for you I didn't hurt myself or I'd sue you." With that he got the hell out, the clerk's shouted epithets notwithstanding.

The subject already had a block on him. Crossing the street, Broonzer hurried to close the distance. Because he was intently watching the subject, he misstepped and tripped on the curb. If not for a lamp post supporting him, he'd have fallen on his face. If not for the lamp post obscuring him, he'd have been spotted because the subject chose just that moment to pause and look around.

"So," thought Broonzer as he reassembled his dignity, "it's going to be a cat and mouse game now, is it?" No problem.

The heat of the August day settled upon Swift Rapids like green smog on Los Angeles, like Mount St. Helens's ash on Eugene, Oregon, like PAC's on Washington politicians. By one o'clock Broonzer was down to his Bermuda shorts, the T-shirt, and a pair of green plastic flip-flops. Plus, the Heston cap again because he figured the subject would have forgotten it from earlier. The sun was merciless, yet the subject kept right on strolling, apparently unaffected. Broonzer began to suspect the man worked nights in a crematorium.

Finally, thankfully, the subject entered a Krispy Kritters & Fritters restaurant. Broonzer was too wilted to worry about what might occur in there. As unethical as it was, he would fudge his notes. Instead of following the subject, he took up an inconspicuous station directly across the street in a bar from which he could watch the door.

The subject undoubtedly had a leisurely lunch. He didn't emerge from the restaurant until two thirty. To Broonzer he looked a little blurry, a factor the PI-to-be attributed to heat haze rising from the pavement. Without the seven beers and bourbons he'd managed for his lunch, that blur would probably have been worse.

Broonzer again took up the trail. By what seemed a ridiculous meander along side streets and lanes, the subject reached the cab stand at the Holiday Inn. Now things were beginning to pop. If the subject was flying out at four, whatever he'd come to Swift Rapids to do was about to get done. As Broonzer followed, hugging sides of some buildings, bouncing off the sides of others, using a slightly drunk tourist persona he'd developed over the years, he wondered why the subject had wanted to rent a car. To a less professional eye than Broonzer's, he'd have appeared to be just killing time. Right up until now.

The subject hopped into the first cab in the line, Broonzer in the second. "I'm going where he's going," said Broonzer, pointing to the lead cab.

As the driver pulled into traffic, he glanced back at Broonzer and said, "If you're both going to the same place, you could have saved a buck by taking the same cab."

"I'm a PI on a divorce case. I think he's rendezvousing with my client's husband."

That pretty much shut up the cabbie. "Some guys beat all," was the best response he could muster.

"Swift Rapids isn't so damn big city sophisticated, after all," thought Broonzer. What he'd just suggested was big city commonplace.

Regardless, the cabbie kept the quarry in sight. Broonzer was getting so excited his mind was sobering. In such circumstances it always had lead time over his body. His body, for example, was screaming to pee.

"Not the time, not the time," he mumbled, as if his bladder was an independent sentient being that would heed him. It was not and it did not. As the cabbie turned into a TruValu parking lot, Broonzer had to whip his plastic jug from the bag of tricks.

Luckily ambidextrous -- more tradecraft that had come with practice -- Broonzer paid off his cabbie while having his whiz. The cabbie took the money, eyed the performance, and chose to keep his mouth shut. Maybe he'd tell the story to the guys back at the garage; maybe he wouldn't.

Broonzer bounded from the cab and raced into the TruValu, noting the first cab was still sitting in front of the store. "Waiting," was Broonzer's thought. "Robbery," he decided. "But who robs a hardware store?"

Not to be, the subject exited by a side door and walked back onto the street to go two stores further and, lo, enter the sporting goods store, the one with the fishing rods.

Broonzer pelted along behind. He hadn't had time to zip his fly, but, of course, he had tucked in. Just the same, he felt conspicuous. Nevertheless, he didn't slow; he made it to the door. And heard, "Pop, Pop, Pop," not too loud but loud enough to register as gunshots. Broonzer'd seen enough Mike Hammer episodes to know that much.

It didn't matter. As he reached the glass door, the subject, on the other side, gave it a helluva push. The door cracked Broonzer on the forehead, actually corrugating the bill on his Heston hat. Broonzer, stunned, was dumped backward on his ass, his bag of tricks spilling every which way.

He blearily raised his head. The subject paused, looked down at him for a second, stone-eyed him, then swung his turquoise bag from his shoulder and whacked Broonzer a good one upside the head with it. Whatever was in that bag connected, and Broonzer was out cold. The whatever turned out to be a large handgun, and the subject left it, bag and all, sitting on Broonzer's chest.

* * *

Agent-in-Charge Rigby laid out a scenario for his two subordinates. He started with the benefits of a career in Swift Rapids, which didn't take long. He stepped along quickly to Broonzer's notebook, recovered at the scene, which provided enough detail to take the shooter down at the Cicero private airstrip or even at O'Hare if it came to that.

The vast intelligence network of the FBI had already ID'd the shooter as the infamous Lippo Giorgio, an old-timer with the Chicago mob. The FBI had been watching him for forty years. Rumor had it he had more than a hundred hits under his belt, and now they finally had him. The hit was obviously a vengeance killing. Who? The old guy running the sporting goods store. How his cover had been blown was anybody's guess. What was vital was that Rigby's office get credit for the bust.

Rigby would naturally be identified as the take charge man who ordered surveillance from the airport. Agent Crawford would be the tailer, Moore would be the back-up and note-taker. Crawford was more nondescript than Moore; at least he didn't have tassels on his loafers, which to Rigby was a plus. Add to that, Moore had better handwriting.

They'd use Broonzer's notes to write up their own surveillance report, then ship him back to Fergus City on his 8:30 bus after putting fear into him of prosecution for crimes unnamed.

* * *

Broonzer flopped into the Greyhound seat, glad to be gone from Swift Rapids. He placidly watched the dusky prairie roll by as the bus purred down the highway. Another day in the life...Lesson Eight: Upsides, Downsides, had told him PI's hardly ever got credit. Before he sent his completed lesson to his instructor at the National Correspondence School for Private Detecting and Investigatory Acumen (NCSPDIA), he'd have to write up something to cover his period of unconsciousness, borrowing a few phrases from Lesson Eleven: Creative Invoicing. Hell, the Feds had kept his notebook -- he'd have to reconstruct the whole day. He figured he could pull a solid B, maybe a B-plus. He reached into his bag of tricks for the bourbon flask. A good day's work and, yes, he concurred, a PI's life could be a challenge. But worth every second of it.


A writer early on for trade journals and newspapers, ART MONTAGUE became sidetracked in his thirties and spent more than twenty years working throughout Canada as an administrator and/or community development professional. By sheer will, he managed to escape to resume a full-time writing career. As well as technical writing and light essays on grandparenting, Montague writes fiction which leans more often than not toward the dark side of human nature. He has published short stories in HandHeldCrime, Plots With Guns, Nefarious, Mysterical-E and Judas Ezine, has a novel on the go and a novella in the works.

Copyright (c) 2001 Art Montague


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