Memphis Legend

by Brian Crawford

  “Whatever, Doc. I don’t sleep there” I looked at him with mock amazement. “Most nights anyway. And I do date once in awhile.”

  “Alright, you can help, but if you turn to ash or something worse when you leave the Memphis city limits, I’m not stopping to clean up the mess; I’m on a timetable.”

  LeClair waved me off and called me a jive turkey. I finished loading the three 13 round .45 caliber magazines and both of the 17 round 9mm magazines and tossed them into a small bag. I holstered my Glock and headed down the stairs carrying the other pistol in the bag. I motioned for LeClair to wait while I swapped the Mercedes for my Jeep. The first stop I made before heading out of town was to a local gun store to buy an extra magazine for each pistol. During the drive, LeClair questioned me about my plan once we got to Emmettsville.

  “Find Boyd. Get him out safe and sound. Hope we don’t have to shoot someone, but pray we don’t miss if we do.”

  LeClair shook his head in disbelief at my plan. I guessed he was looking for more details. Details I would not have until we performed some reconnaissance. Then I would make it up as I went along. My thoughts drifted back to Cambodia. Eleven days hiking through Cambodia trying to evade hostile Vietnamese soldiers. My plan had been simple then as well. Travel west into Thailand. Don’t get killed. KISS: keep it simple stupid.

  I was going to rescue my friend. Again.

  ***

  LeClair was getting antsy. Or maybe he was just hot. It was 95 degrees out, and for nearly two hours, we had been watching E’s Salvage Yard, but still had no idea if Boyd was inside the facility. We had parked in the woods about a half mile past the salvage yard and hiked through the timber until we had a good view. Unfortunately, I had not brought any binoculars. One of the disadvantages of making it up as you go along is poor planning. I doubted that Boyd would have made that mistake. Of course, he probably would have been watching the whole thing through a high powered scope and listening with a directional microphone.

  From what I could tell, the place looked like business as usual. One thing I observed was that customers were not allowed in the salvage yard. In some junkyards, the customers are allowed to walk through the automobiles and pull their own parts. For a premium, they can pay the salvage yard to pull the parts they need for them. At E’s Salvage Yard, apparently, all parts were pulled by employees.

  The junkyard was split up into two main sections. Directly behind the office building was a small section that was surrounded by an eight-foot high chain link fence topped with barb wired. A good looking security fence. The second, larger section of the junkyard was behind the smaller section. It looked like it was easily five times the size of the front section. It was also surrounded by an older looking chain link fence, minus the barbed wire. Inside sat hundreds of older vehicles. Many of the cars had been sitting there so long that grass could be seen growing up through the cars in places. A few employees could be seen pulling parts in that section. I could hear tools being used within the smaller, newer section of the yard, but I could not tell the exact amount of activity since the entire perimeter of the fence surrounding the smaller section was fitted with a green privacy shield.

  I looked over at LeClair who was studying me wondering what I was going to do next. Two hours of watching at a safe distance had yielded us nothing. That is the problem with safe distances; they are often worthless distances as well. LeClair was advised to stay put while I geared up. My Glock was securely holstered on my right hip under my loose shirt. An extra magazine was in my left back pocket. From my earlier visit to the salvage yard, I had noticed security cameras at various locations along the front. It seemed reasonable that surveillance might be utilized along the sides, so I decided to approach from the back. The back side of the older lot had tree cover to within 15 feet of the fence. I used that cover to scout out the lot before climbing the chain link fence.

  Once inside, everything got a little easier. The old cars provided plenty of cover and within a couple of minutes I had traversed the entire older section of the junkyard. But the older section was separated from the smaller, newer section by the same fence outfitted with a privacy shield. The Estes brothers definitely valued their privacy. I found myself referring to the private area as their inner sanctum. Even the rolling gate had a privacy shield.

  I heard voices on the other side of the fence, along with tools being used. It sounded like four or five employees were in the process of removing parts for customers. There was one employee in the older section using a cutting torch to remove a part off an old Buick. He had left the rolling gate ajar, but he was also working within twenty feet from the gate.

  The wait was agonizing. Several times I thought the man was done, only to hear him cuss up a blue streak and resume cutting. After what seemed a small eternity, the man got up and walked through the gate yelling for someone to help him lift “the damn quarter panel.” Someone responded that he would help him in a minute. The man with the cutting torch got tired of waiting and walked off mumbling something under his breath. The gate was still partially open. It probably always was during the day. I was not planning on waiting for the man to return with help, so I quietly moved over to the gate and peeked inside.

  No sign of Boyd. Not a surprise. I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. But the trip had not been a waste of time. Near the door of a metal shed about the size of a two car garage sat Boyd’s Mustang.

  CHAPTER 27

  They had used a lot of duct tape. With time, if he had been unsupervised, he could have escaped, but Boyd got the opinion that they were more interested in scaring him than doing any actual damage, so he let them have their way with him. That did not mean he was completely idle. Junior and Jackson left the room to call L.T. while Tyler was left to guard him. He was not a good guard. Boyd could not help think there was something wrong with Tyler. He seemed to have the attention span of a goldfish.

  During stretches of time when Tyler was not watching him, Boyd had stressed the tape holding his wrists until the wrists were loose. It had been painful, but he wanted to be able to achieve his own success if needed. Junior returned a few times. Each time he only stayed for a few minutes, and he never rechecked the tape. After nearly an hour, Junior returned again. “Looks like your boss wants you back. He also wants you back undamaged, so I won’t be hittin’ you anymore. Course I wouldn’t of hit you at all if you had been more cooperative in the beginning.”

  Boyd figured it was not a good time to remind Junior that he had hit him in the face before the questioning actually began. “Sorry to have inconvenienced you so much. I hope your fists have recovered.”

  Junior said, “You’re a smart ass. I like you, Graham. I hope you realize it was nothing personal, just business.”

  “It felt a little personal.”

  “Yeah, I guess a punch in the face always feels that way, no matter how you try to spin it. Why didn’t you just tell us how to reach your boss in the beginning? Some kind of macho thing, trying to see if you could get out of this on your own?”

  “Well, I am a former Marine. Oorah, and all that.”

  Junior smiled. “Like I said, Graham, I like you. I’ll tell you what, if you still have anything left after we take your cash and your car, you might try the county west of us. We don’t venture over that way. Too close to Memphis for our tastes, and closer to home for you since I noticed that was a Memphis number we called to reach your boss.”

  Boyd had tried to hold out against giving them L.T.’s home number. He knew L.T.’s number was unlisted, but he kept thinking that Jackson might be able to figure out the man on the other line was L.T. And that would not have been good. The blow torch had been the tipping point. Besides, how was L.T. going to save him if he didn’t know he needed saving. He only hoped L.T. had a plan. What was he thinking; L.T. always had a plan.

  “You’re planning on keeping the Mustang?”

  “Yeah, my brother has taken a likin’ to it. Says he always wanted one. Do you object?”

/>   “No, go ahead. It’s not my car,” he said with a big smile. “I’ve never been a big Mustang fan. Too slow.”

  “See, that’s what I was tellin’ Jackson. What the hell do you want with a stupid Mustang, I said. Get a real car. Somethin’ with a Hemi in it. A Superbee, maybe a ‘Cuda.”

  “A Chevelle SS with a 454,” said Boyd.

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Did I tell you I like you, Graham?”

  “You did.”

  “Just for you, I’ll try to get my brother to leave you the car.”

  Boyd said, “You’d do that for me? Be careful, people are going to think we are going steady.”

  Tyler laughed so hard that he snorted. Junior watched Boyd trying to appraise if he should be offended or not. In the end, he joined in the laughter. “Na, I like my girls with tits, and your face is kind of smushed in. No offense.”

  “None taken. Besides, I like men that can hit a little harder. You hit like a girl.”

  “Damn man, you’re a funny son of a bitch. I could go on like this for hours.”

  “Let me loose, and I’ll buy you a Corona over at Falco’s. Wait. Apparently, you’re taking all my money, so you might have to buy.” Junior and Tyler were both laughing at Boyd. He was thinking about something L.T. had said a few days ago about information. Something about all information being helpful. Earlier Jackson mentioned someone named Dunham. He wondered if that was important, or was it just another dead end. “So who’s this Dunham guy you mentioned?”

  Jackson said, “He’s some big deal over in Memphis. Seems like he is always trying to branch out. We’ve run into his boys a few times around here, but we’ve both agreed not to step on the other’s toes.”

  “Different products?”

  “No, he bootlegs too, but just not on our turf. Over here, he’s more interested in hillbilly heroin, and we don’t want anywhere near that shit. How about you, Graham, you mess with that crap?”

  Boyd had no idea what hillbilly heroin was, but it was obviously a drug. “No, ATF is bad enough; I never want to give the DEA a reason to come looking for me.”

  Junior said, “No shit, those boys are relentless, but ATF is stupid. We’ve been running liquor for years and have never heard of them pokin’ around here. Not ever.”

  “Under the radar.” It was a statement, not a question, but Junior nodded in agreement nonetheless. “Hey, I noticed you were trying to send me west. Since Dunham is out of Memphis, am I going to run into him over there?”

  “Probably.”

  “So you weren’t doing me any favors sending me over there.”

  Jackson said, “Sure I am. If you stay over here, we’re gonna have to hit you some more and Jackson might want another car.” That time Tyler laughed at Junior’s remark.

  Boyd was able to get a little more information on Dunham before Junior left the shed again. Apparently, he had been in the game for over 30 years and initially made his money with alcohol and marijuana. In the last few years, he realized the enormous earning potential of OxyContin, a synthetic form of morphine, often referred to as hillbilly heroin, that is twice as strong and equally addictive. Dunham also sounded like the type of man who did his own enforcing, and not the type that would be interested in contracting his services for some extra cash.

  Once Junior left the room, Boyd tried his luck with Tyler, asking him some general questions. Tyler was initially reluctant to talk, but Boyd’s gentle persistence eventually caused Tyler to soften and start answering back. After several minutes of give and take, Boyd decided to pry a little deeper.

  “So, Tyler, I’ve noticed no one up here seems to be doing any type of gambling.”

  “Not in this county. Jackson says you have to have dirty cops to pull off gambling on any kind of decent level to make it worthwhile.”

  “And you got no dirty cops?”

  “Na, the Chief in this county is clean as a whistle. You want to gamble, get down near Tupelo.”

  Boyd tried to get some more information, but Tyler seemed to lose interest in carrying on the conversation. Yet Boyd felt good about what he had learned. For starters, it appeared that the Chief was an honest man. L.T. would be happy to hear that. He also learned that even though the Estes brothers were simple bootleggers they were still in the know when it came to organized crime in the region. And Tyler mentioned Tupelo. That was in Mississippi. It might be a place to start.

  ***

  Sneaking out of the junk yard was easy, and within a few minutes, I was standing next to LeClair explaining that I had found the Mustang. We both decided that the presence of the car near the metal shed was probably not a coincidence. It was possible that he was not inside the shed, but it seemed the most likely place to start looking. We decided to start looking after the junkyard closed for business.

  The wait was hot. With the high humidity, the heat index was easily over a hundred. Even in the shade of the trees around me, my clothes were sticking to me uncomfortably. And we had another three hours before the junkyard closed. I gave LeClair the keys to my Jeep and sent him out to get water and lunch. While he was gone, I climbed the fence for another scouting mission. Through the open sliding gate, I could see Junior going into the shed a couple of times, although I did not notice anything suspicious about his behavior. When I saw my Jeep return from town, I exited the junk yard and joined LeClair for a late lunch.

  LeClair was not impressed with my plan, but he was not able to come up with an alternative, so we were stuck with mine. As usual, it was simple. I would break into the inner sanctum while LeClair waited outside with the Jeep. I hated the idea of heading into the shed blind, but I had no other choice. I did not have any cool spy gadgets like Boyd.

  Fifteen minutes before five o’clock I climbed the fence to enter the junkyard covertly for the third time. The back sliding gate was still open. Like before, I had a good view of the smaller section of the junkyard. A few employees could be seen carrying tools, obviously putting them away for the evening. However, none of them were carrying those tools into the shed near the Mustang. Instead, they were carrying them into the back of the main building that contained the front offices and customer service area.

  The wire atop the fence was not razor wire, it was simple barb wire, but I still did not relish the idea of climbing it. I decided to slip through the sliding gate and find a place to hide before someone shut the gate for the evening. Keeping low, I approached the gate. My heart nearly stopped when I saw the gate start to move. Quickly, I flattened myself up against the privacy fence hoping I had not been spotted. Someone had closed the gate and padlocked it in place; however, there were no cries of alarm. No evidence that anyone had seen me. How, I didn’t know; I was only a couple of yards from the gate when it started to close. I could not see the person that closed the fence, but I did hear his footsteps. My breathing returned to normal as he walked away.

  A few minutes later the employees started driving away from the salvage yard. Nine vehicles in all. I realized I had not counted how many vehicles were stationed outside. Poor reconnaissance on my part once again. Even with my view completely blocked by the privacy fence and the office building, I knew there was at least one vehicle that did not leave: the two-toned Ford pickup that Junior drove. I knew the sound of that vehicle too well. So unless he left with someone else, Junior was still in the salvage yard somewhere.

  A small crack existed in the privacy shield where the sliding gate joined the rest of the fence. I was able to see through the crack into the smaller junk yard. Boyd’s Mustang was still exactly where I had last seen it. Maybe he was not in the shed at all. Maybe the car was the only thing in the yard, and they were keeping Boyd somewhere else. Maybe. But I would never know just peeking through a crack.

  I knew what I needed to do. The closed gate and barbed wire were not going to be a deterrence; it was simply a complication. I spent a few minutes rummaging through some junk cars before I found what I needed. Two old floor mats. I peered through the crac
k to look for anyone that might spot me. The yard was empty. With the old floor mats draped over one shoulder, I started to climb where the fence met the gate. The latch on the gate provided an excellent foothold while climbing. Once halfway up the fence, I draped the floor mats over the top of the barb wire and then waited to make sure no one had noticed. The coast was still clear. The rubber floor mats allowed me to climb over the top strand of barb wire safely. The wire barely supported my weight, which made the climb over slow and tedious. I managed to get over the fence unseen with only one small scratch on my left forearm.

  Once over the fence, I walked to the shed and looked for a window. I found one on the back side of the building, but it was completely black like someone had painted over it. There was a garage door and a regular door on the front of the building, neither of which had a built-in window. No matter how hard I tried, it appeared I was still going to have to walk into that building blind.

  With my ear placed against the door, I listened for any sounds emanating from inside. It was quiet. Maybe nothing was in there. I turned the door knob slowly, pushing the door open just as slowly. Instinctively, my right hand drifted down to my hip, finding reassurance in the form of my .45 caliber handgun. The door was cracked a little, yet I could not see anything inside. I could not hear anything either. The door let out a small squeak. I stopped, wondering if anyone inside had heard it too.

  A voice yelled from inside, “Damn man, you back with my dinner already?”

  It sounded like whoever was inside was alone. I could hear him walking toward the door. My hand was perched on the butt of my Glock. Tyler opened the door. His eyes bugged out in absolute surprise. Without hesitation, I pulled my right hand off my gun and hit him in the face with everything I had. His body flew backward through the air, landing on his butt. If he was not unconscious before he hit the floor, then his head bouncing off the concrete floor finished him off. The meaty thud sounded painful, but Tyler did not feel it; he was out cold.