But soon his attention was peeled from the wet cat and its dreadful eyes. Again the same insistent knock came from the front door. “Oh shit, my friend, here come the fuzz,” Purdue told Bruich. “He must have seen me switch on the light in here. Back in a minute.”
Mulling over all manner of responses to the predictable questions the officer was going to ask, Purdue formulated something believable and innocent as he walked toward the lobby. The caller waited patiently for him to get to the door, unlike the inconsiderate oafs he was used to who could not estimate the distance a man had to walk to the front after the first knock; those idiots who kept knocking as if they presumed the occupants of the home were usually standing right next to the front porch.
Purdue opened the door and saw the same policeman he had seen leaving a few minutes before.
“Good evening, sir,” the man said.
“Good evening, Sergeant,” Purdue smiled, hoping that the cop hated watching the news. “How can I help you?” he asked, having ascertained the man's rank by his epaulets.
“May I have your name, sir?” the officer asked.
“Only if I may have yours,” Purdue smiled coldly. “What is this about that has you coming to my door at this hour? Sir?”
“But this is not your door, is it?” the sergeant answered. “This house belongs to a woman, Dr. Nina Gould, and unless you have a very good medical team for this remarkable transformation, I suggest you tell me your name or I shall have to arrest you for questioning as to her whereabouts.”
Touché, Purdue thought, and he responded with something he never resorted to — the truth.
“I am a close friend of Dr. Gould's. I saw the newspaper tag lines while I was on a business trip in California,” Purdue explained casually. “So I cut my trip short and came back to see if I could find her. As you can see, I am a friend of hers, because I had the key to her house. I clearly did not break in.”
“Neither did the kidnapper, sir,” the tenacious officer persisted.
Purdue sighed. “Have you heard anything from the kidnappers yet? I find it ridiculous to abduct someone without some contact with their immediate family or friends.”
“I am going to need some identification from you, sir,” the sergeant asked again.
“Just a minute,” Purdue said, but the officer followed him into the lobby to make sure he was not a criminal that would bolt as soon as the door was closed. Purdue got his jacket and produced his fake passport. Whilst the officer examined Purdue's credentials, Purdue peered past him to the exterior of the house and the front lawn. The officer looked up at him with a snide expression. “Expecting friends?”
“No, just peculiar that there is no squad car parked in the street. Did you walk here?” Purdue asked.
“My partner is waiting in the car around the corner, Mr. Hoffa,” the officer sneered. “You know, you look very nervous about something.”
“Only nervous because there is a stranger in my friend's house passing himself off to be an officer of the law,” Purdue said calmly. Flicking at the man's chest, he revealed another peeve. “I also do not see any identification card on this charlatan, who's long sideburns would never pass the dress code inspection and, you have no baton or stab vest on…Sergeant.”
The police officer showed no reaction as he pulled his gun. “Get down on the floor. Put your hands behind your back!”
“No.”
“I will not say it again! Get down on the floor! I am placing you under arrest for suspicion of a crime!” he shouted and pointed the gun at Purdue.
“What are you? MI6? You look the type! Did Patrick Smith send you?” the billionaire growled, biding his time to lunge at the gun aimed at him.
“It is of no consequence to you who sent me, David Purdue!” the officer roared furiously. “Now get on the floor and put your hands behind your back or I swear to God I will cripple you right here! Do not test me, mate!”
“No way,” Purdue repudiated the threat.
“This is your last chance, Purdue!” the man warned. It was indeed his last chance, this was evident to Purdue, so he propelled his body onto the impostor as swiftly as he could to catch him off-guard. He was not going to be arrested now, he thought, not when he was finally back where he could find Nina's trail.
Their bodies clashed with a mighty thrash, wiping all the porcelain off the sideboard in the lobby and sending the plates and tea cups crashing to the floor. Jonathan Beck's gun was between then, a hot steel threat that could end the life of either, or both, at any moment as they matched strength to seize the upper hand. Groaning and rolling on the wooden floor the two opponents fought until the gun came loose from their fumbling hands and slid across the floor into the darkness where neither man could see it.
From oblivion a hard set of knuckles slashed the skin on Purdue's cheek, ringing his ears on impact. He did not see it coming quick enough to block the blow, but it was the power behind it that rendered him unconscious. Still thinking that he was being apprehended by a crooked police officer working for Special Agent Patrick Smith's organization, Purdue passed out imagining in how much trouble he would be for resisting arrest when he woke again.
Vaguely he could hear himself slur, “I'm sorry, Nina.”
Chapter 15 — Lead the Way, Leslie!
Through page after page of PDF documents and online archive material Nina paged, reading every sentence in great detail, just in case she could come across anything significant happening in the criminal history of Newfoundland and Labrador. The term was laughable to both her and Joanne — criminal history of Canada — because of the country's reputation for, well, not crime.
“I get nothing,” Nina huffed heavily, sliding her empty coffee cup across the smooth surface of the nook to hint at a hot beverage — again.
“I’m not surprised,” Joanne replied, her voice yielding absolutely no wonder for the research and its long tedious hours of nothing. “Nothing ever happens here. You know, I heard a myth at school that a certain, undisclosed area in Labrador is known as the 'place of nothing.' It is reportedly a patch of earth where nothing significant has ever happened throughout history. Nothing. No events worth even mentioning had ever transpired in this particular piece of land.”
She could see the disbelief, disregard, and imminent ridicule in Nina's face, so she added quickly, “Apparently.”
“You heard this from high school kids?” Nina asked in more of a statement, keeping herself from laughing.
“I heard it from… yes, a teenager of Inuit heritage a few years ago,” Joanne confessed. “But think about it. This part of the continent is so godforsaken that even in ancient times the tribes here were meager, if any, at any given time. It’s really not that absurd that there could be a part of this coastline where nothing throughout history had ever taken place.”
Nina afforded her friend the courtesy of giving it some thought. Joanne was making another pot of fresh black coffee, but she secretly waited for a response from her colleague.
At last Nina said, “Nope. No, I can’t say that I can endorse that theory, honey. Think about how old this planet really is. Not what the Bible tells you, not what scientists tell you, not what National Geographic or the agents of god-one, — two or — three tell you. Just what your instinct tells you when you really think about the things that have been here and things still to come when our tiny race of nothing is forgotten under layers of universes and millennia of chaos.”