“All right. Did you ever hear back from the business that was leasing the gas station?”
“Nah, but I left a couple messages. Will start calling them again in the morning.”
“Okay,” Disick said. “Um, as far as the bar, do you want us to watch this place?”
“Ah…” I mulled it over.
“I have a pair of field agents chomping at the bit to do something over here,” Disick added. “We can probably just park them right on the side of I-35. Keep eyes on the bar from there. To anyone passing or looking, they’d just be another disabled car along the side of the interstate.”
With the bar being our only real lead, watching it was the diligent thing to do. Yet it sounded like a much better job for the local PD working in shifts than it did for a pair of Disick’s guys. There was always a chance that we’d need them the next day, and I didn’t want them to have been up all night if that came into play. “Let’s get it watched until Agent Harper and I get up there and figure out what the hell we’re doing. Maybe I’ll reach out to Maddox after we assess the situation.”
“Well, I’m pretty much already here,” Disick said. “I’ll just hang around. Get one of my agents to meet me out here.”
“Are you sure? It’s going to be four hours or so until we get back up there.”
“Not a problem. I’ll grab a coffee and some junk food from the gas station on the corner and go park. I’ve got a pair of binoculars in the trunk.”
“If you’re up for it,” I said.
“Yeah, I got it.”
“All right. We’ll get up there as quick as we can. Give me a buzz if you see anything.”
“Yup,” Disick said.
Chapter 18
We made it to the hotel in Houston, packed up, and checked out. Disick had called just as we were getting back on the road to let us know he was in position on the side of the interstate and would call if he saw anything. Except for one quick coffee stop, I drove for three hours straight. It was around ten o’clock when we pulled up to the hotel that Tammy had booked for us—the place was just a mile from the bar. Beth took her things to her room, and I did the same with mine. She said she would meet me in the lobby in fifteen minutes.
I’d touched base with Disick and told him that we were about to head his way. As I changed into street clothes, I called Karen.
“Hey,” she answered.
“What’s up, babe.”
“Hanging with the pigs. We’re all piled on the couch. What’s going on now? Your text said that you guys left Houston and were going to Waco?”
“We just got back up here. We were here working most of today, and it looks like this is where the investigation is heading, so we shot back to Houston, packed up, and made the trip back.”
“That’s a couple hours each way, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Like three, yeah.”
“What happened in Waco?”
I ran through my day with Karen in the shortest way possible.
“So where are you starting in the morning?” she asked.
“Don’t know. But we’re not done for tonight. The agent from up here is watching the bar I mentioned. We’re going to head over there and see what he got. Maybe go inside the place and get a drink.”
“Just be careful, Hank,” she said.
“I always am.”
“No, you’re not. And watch what you’re drinking.”
“I’ll be working, babe. I don’t think we need to worry about that.”
“That’s not what I mean. And I’m not trying to be a carb cop, but you know that one tonic water will put you over your carb allowance for the day. No gin and tonics unless they have diet.”
I grumbled under my breath.
“I’m proud of you for giving this diet a shot and sticking with it,” she said.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Seriously, Hank. Look how much weight you lost already. Losing ten pounds is hard. Don’t you feel better? Cutting out all that bread and sugar and everything?”
While I did feel a little better after losing a year or two of extra weight, the bread-and-sugar comment made me think of the triple French toast sandwich from Danny’s that I’d missed out on that morning. Eating the sandwich probably would have far surpassed the pounds lost on the happiness scale.
“Not even a little,” I said. “I saw this breakfast sandwich that I damn near threw in the towel for. I can’t get the damn thing out of my head—all fluffy and greasy.”
Karen chuckled. “We’ll figure out some kind of cheat day or something for you.”
“A day isn’t going to cut it. I’ve been making a mental list of the stuff I want to eat and drink. That breakfast sandwich, pizza, nachos, tacos, the sourdough from the bakery by our house—need some of that for sure. Doughnuts. Cookies. Ice cream. A giant soda. Beer—not the light crap either. The list is getting long.”
“They have Keto versions of a lot of that stuff.”
“Nah, no way. I tried that Keto ice cream, remember? It was terrible. Tasted like chalk. I want the real stuff—chocolate devastation cookie dough.”
“You don’t need chocolate devastation cookie dough ice cream.”
“You bet your ass I do.”
“We’ll talk about it when you get home. Maybe you can cheat on, like, the last day of the month or something and then jump back into the diet.”
“How about the thirteenth of the month?” I asked. “Or just Sundays.”
“Those are both tomorrow.”
“You don’t say,” I said.
“Hank, just hang tough until you get home. Geez, would you two scoot over a bit.” I could hear Karen shuffling around. “These two are hogging the whole couch.”
I thought about what I’d seen the dogs doing on the couch the afternoon before. “Yeah, that whole couch and everything on it needs to be washed and disinfected or maybe just burned. I walked in the other day and Porkchop was drooling all over the pillows on the one side and Bacon had his naked butt all over the ones on the other.”
“I don’t even want to know which was Bacon’s side,” she said. “I’ll toss everything in the wash in the morning.”
“His was the right side,” I said.
“Ew. Of course, that’s the side I’m on. My face was on the pillow and everything.”
“Gross,” I said.
“Yuck. You two get down. Go on, get.”
“How did that work?” I asked.
“They didn’t budge.”
I laughed. “All right, let me finish changing and go see if Beth is ready and get over to this bar.”
“All right. I love you. Be safe.”
“Love you too. And I will.”
“Text me when you get back to your room later,” she said.
It was a common request from her.
“I will.”
“Later, babe.”
“Bye.” I ended the call.
I tossed my phone onto the hotel bed, finished getting dressed, and stood in front of the full-length hotel room mirror. While I didn’t have anything to make me fit in with a crowd of bikers, I did have a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. I looked at myself in the mirror.
“Totally not a Fed,” I said.
I grabbed my things, left my room and knocked on Beth’s door, directly across the hall from mine.
She pulled the door open a second later. “Ready?”
“Yeah.” I motioned to my outfit. “Do I look normal enough?”
Beth stepped from the room, and we started for the elevator. “You look like a fed in street clothes.”
“That’s great.”
“I’m kidding. You just look like a guy.” She hit the button for the elevator. “You got your service weapon?”
“Nah. I’m going in for a drink or two and that’s it. I’ll casually look around. Not going to ask any questions that could get me in trouble. I’ll be fine.”
On our three-hour drive back toward Waco, Beth and I had talked
about how we wanted to go inside the place. We’d come to the conclusion that I’d go in solo. Between the two of us, we figured a guy going in alone, bellying up to the bar with a drink or two, and being on his way stood out less than a couple who most certainly weren’t a couple.
Beth brought up the last time that we’d gone into a bar and snooped around. We were at some college bar outside of Madison, Wisconsin, keeping tabs on a possible person of interest. The guy we were there watching was a cousin of a man we were after, Larry Drummer. Drummer had killed six college girls in the area and was in the wind. We had proof of communication between Drummer and a cousin, so the cousin, a Dean Steinhart, became our best lead. As we were in the bar, playing a little pool and trying to lie low, some drunk college kid said something to Beth about her being the hottest cougar he’d ever seen. Still in her thirties, Beth wasn’t exactly cougar age, but apparently she was to a drunk college kid. She’d brushed off the guy’s comment with a laugh. When he took the talks up a notch, I stepped in and told him to beat it. He did, only to come by again a few minutes later and grab her butt as he passed. Beth put a forearm into the kid’s jaw and sent him flat on his back. Soon the kid was lying on the ground and covered in his Long Island or whatever he was drinking. That was exactly what he deserved, but it wasn’t exactly low-key for us. The guy we were watching recognized us from an interview a few days earlier and made a quick exit. We did end up catching the guy through the cousin, but that had been beside the point.
The elevator dropped us in the lobby, and we hopped into the car in the hotel’s parking lot. Still in possession of the keys from the trip back to Waco, I opted to drive.
“You told Disick we were coming?” Beth pulled her seat belt over her shoulder.
“I called him when I got into my room. He and another agent are sitting in a car on the interstate, parallel to the bar.” I backed from the parking space, and we left the hotel in the direction of the bar.
“Okay. How are we meeting up with him, or how do we want to do this?” Beth asked.
“I thought I’d drop you with him. Let me call him quick to tell him we’re on the way. See if that’s what he wants to do.” I dialed him, and he answered in two rings.
“On your way?” Disick answered.
“We just left our hotel.”
“Okay.”
“How’s it looking there?”
“Same as it has been. People in and out. Nothing really of interest.”
“All right. I’m probably just going to go in, have a look while I have a drink, and be on my way. I’m going to drive myself to the bar, so I figured I’d drop Agent Harper with you. Did you just want me to roll up behind you on the side of 35 there?”
“Um, actually, why don’t you meet us at the gas station about a block down from the bar? We’re just really out in the open here. I think it’s probably time we move.”
“All right,” I said.
“She can hop in with us, and we’ll park down the block at the burger place. From their back lot, we should still have a line of sight on the bar.”
“Okay. You said the gas station is just down the block? Same street? North, south?”
“I’ll text you the address,” Disick said. “You may beat us there. We have to go down to the next exit and loop back around. Just watch for a couple-year-old Dodge Ram, lifted. That’ll be us.”
“Lifted Ram. Got it. See you in a couple minutes.”
“Sounds good.” I hung up and watched my phone for the text. The second it came through, I clicked the address to navigate to it. The screen showed just three minutes to arrival.
Chapter 19
Chuck had been sitting on the couch in the back office of the bar for a few hours. The bar had opened at five o’clock, and Jerry had figured it would be best for him to stay out of sight. The room had all the creature comforts he needed—a couch, a television, a bathroom—and whatever he needed from the bar was just an internal phone call away. Chuck had drunk half the bottle of whiskey Jerry had given him and slept off his stupor on the couch. Shortly after ten, he dialed the bar and asked for some food. Twenty minutes later, the cook brought him a burger and fries, and while it was just bar food, it was the best damn burger he’d had in years.
He stretched out on the office’s old green couch. His belly was full, and a drink sat a few inches from his hand. The television played a classic movie he’d seen a hundred times. He felt good. He was free. There was no one immediately on his tail. Jerry had said that they were going to take him over to the clubhouse when the place closed at two. He had some time.
Closing his eyes, Chuck leaned back—he would get some rest until it was time to go, and while the couch was nothing special, it sure as hell beat the concrete floor he’d been on the night before. It also sure as hell beat a jail cell in Louisiana.
Chapter 20
Beth and I pulled up to the gas station, and I parked along the side. Not more than ten seconds after I shifted the rental car into Park, a big black Dodge pickup truck pulled into the spot beside us. The truck was huge, and with Disick being as large as he was, it fit, I guess. Beth lowered her window.
I dipped my head so I could see Disick in the driver’s seat of the truck.
“This here is Agent Carroll.” Disick jerked his head at the guy sitting shotgun.
“Harper,” Beth said, pointing at herself. “This is Rawlings.” She pointed a thumb at me.
I dipped my head lower to get a look at the guy but didn’t see much more than a brim of a hat belonging to someone in the passenger seat.
“Pleasure,” I heard him say.
“Looks like it’s about the same over there,” Disick said. “Not much of a crowd for a Saturday night. Only a few cars and bikes in the lot.”
“When do they close?” I asked.
“The hours posted online say they’re open til two a.m.,” he said.
“Okay. So, I’ve got plenty of time. I’m guessing I’ll be in and out of there in a half hour. I’ll message you guys when I leave.”
Disick nodded.
Beth pushed open her door and stepped out. “Don’t do anything stupid. Be safe,” she said into the open doorway of the car.
“I will.”
“Do something stupid? Or be safe?”
“Second one.”
“See you in a bit,” she said.
Beth swung the passenger door closed and hopped up into Disick’s Dodge. I threw him a wave then backed from my parking spot.
The bar was just a few doors down. I pulled along the side of the building and parked next to an older pickup. From outside, I could hear classic rock inside. I left the rental car and headed for the entrance at the front of the building.
Two guys smoking cigarettes stood outside the bar’s front door. They locked eyes on me as I walked up—one of them, wearing a leather vest over a white T-shirt, nodded at me and flicked his cigarette toward the street. I nodded back and pulled open the bar’s front door. The smell of stale beer filled my nose. The place was dark, mostly lit by neon bar signs. A big L-shaped bar sat directly before me. To the left, at the end of the bar, was a pool table, a jukebox, and a pair of dartboards. The jukebox played the classic rock that I’d heard from outside. To the right, where the garage doors were, was an empty, unlit stage and what I figured was a makeshift dance floor surrounded by high-top tables—all empty. The only people in the place were at the bar, behind the bar, or off to my left playing pool and darts. With only about a dozen people at a bar that probably sat thirty, I walked over to a free spot a couple away from the last person sitting and had a seat. One of the two bartenders walked up. She looked about forty with a bleached-blond ponytail hanging out of the bandanna on her head. Her blue shirt, which looked like something a mechanic might wear, had a white oval patch on the right pocket that said Hazel.
She tossed a coaster in front of me from a little rack on the bar. “What can I get ya?”
I looked at their gin bottles behind the bar to see wh
at they had and remembered my wife’s words about not getting a gin and tonic, which was normally my go-to drink. Judging by the crowd inside the place, asking for a diet anything would probably get me questioning looks or the door. I opted to keep things simple.
“Makers, neat.” I held my index finger and thumb about an inch and a half apart to show her how much.
“You got it.” She poured my drink and set it on the coaster on the bar. “Six.”
I paid her and took a sip of my drink, scanning the people in the bar. Bikers, mostly, and none were Burr.
The bartender brought my change and set it on the bar. “I don’t know if you were planning on eating or not, but it’s last call on food. The kitchen is fixing to close up soon.”
I rocked my head back and forth. I was kind of hungry. “Menu?”
She grabbed one from beneath the bar and handed it to me. I browsed through it for just a moment—it was typical bar fare. Burgers, sandwiches, appetizers, and deep-fried everything that I wanted. I closed it and tossed it up on the bar. The bartender, just a few feet away, lifted her eyebrows at me as if inquiring whether I’d decided on something.
“I’m good with just the drink,” I said.
She smiled and walked off.
The guys who had been out front smoking came inside, passed by my back, and walked toward the pool table. They grabbed spots at the bar with the other bikers who’d been drinking, talking, and playing pool. I’d caught a good look at the patches on the guys’ vests as they passed. The motorcycle club was the Lost Souls, and the chapter read Waco, Texas. In the center was a skull, smoking, with dice for eyes. It wasn’t a club that I was familiar with, not that I was overly familiar with biker gangs. I counted seven of the patch wearers total, but the three women in the bar were with the guys. I imagined the motorcycle club was the same one that Burr had become friendly with inside.
As I sipped my bourbon, I switched my focus to the staff. Only two bartenders were there, mine and another woman who never strayed too far from the end of the bar, where the bikers were at the pool table. She had jet-black hair and tattoos covering both arms. At the far end of the bar, a swinging door opened, and a guy with a plate of food walked out. He had to be the cook. He set the plate, which looked like it held a burger and fries, on the end of the bar and walked back through the swinging doorway. While it was open, I glimpsed the kitchen area. A back hall seemed to stem off it. I would have liked a better look back there, but I simply wasn’t going to get it.
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