I tried to tell him I would call him later. He insisted and quickly explained that he had run off two gunmen outside the Carmichael house before I got there. I wanted to stay, but I knew I couldn’t. Boyd needed me.
“Give me a few minutes to finish things here. I’m coming by the hotel. No, better yet meet me in the clearing in ten.”
“Sure thing, Lieutenant.”
“And, Sergeant, thank you.”
I walked back into the living room. It was getting late, but everyone was still too keyed up to sleep. I was probably not going to get any sleep tonight at all, but then I was scheduled at the ER until seven the next morning, so nothing much had changed there. Now, I just needed a good excuse to get out of there. Ellie quickly observed the change in my demeanor when I returned. She wanted to know if everything was alright. Lying to her was getting too easy. I told her the hospital was still expecting me to come back. I gestured to the scrubs I was still wearing. Ellie said, “It’s only a little after ten. If you go back now, you could be there by eleven. You could finish your shift. Everything is okay here.”
Good, Ellie was giving me permission to leave. Now, I just needed to talk to Mark. I addressed the whole room, apologized again, and then asked if I could borrow Mark in private. Only Ellie voiced any objection. I asked her to trust me. She reluctantly agreed. A curt “fine.” It was hard to make eye contact with her; the lies were adding up.
Mark followed me to the foyer, but I did not stop there. I made him follow me all the way outside. What I had to say was for his ears only.
“Damn, Doc, how bad is it that we need to take it outside.”
“Bad. Mark, you got to get busy on the police protection thing. Pronto. I have it on good authority that two men with guns were outside this house tonight. I don’t know their intention, just that they were here.”
“Your spies?” I nodded. “I take it that was not the hospital that called?” I shook my head in a dramatic no. “Shit, this is getting out of hand. Strasser’s men?”
“Don’t know yet, most likely, though, don’t you think? Finishing the job of scaring the weather girl. Either way, I aim to find out. Can you do me a favor, Mark?”
“Name it.”
“Stay with them. Make sure everyone stays safe.”
“You don’t even need to ask. I was planning on it anyway.”
“Thanks. You armed?”
“I’m good.” He was pacing around with hands on his head, rubbing them through his hair in nervous thought. He turned to me nervously. “What are you going to do?”
“They shouldn’t have called her a weather girl; she’s a meteorologist. You know that hornet’s nest you mentioned, well, I’m done kicking it. It’s time to pull out the bug spray.”
CHAPTER 33
Mark never even asked what I meant by my comment. He offered no warnings against vigilante justice. He didn’t even tell me to be careful. All I got was a knowing nod of the head and a smile before he turned and started back towards the house. I did not follow him back inside. Instead, I ran to the Cobra. I was pulling the keys from my pocket when Mark said, “By the way, nice damn car.” I wondered why things didn’t work out between Ellie and Mark because I had only known him for one day and I already liked him.
Boyd was reclining in the front seat of my Jeep staring up at the stars as I pulled into the clearing. He didn’t get up. He simply lifted his head and looked my direction before saying, “Nice damn car.”
“Yeah, thanks. The Mercedes was indisposed, and I couldn’t find the key to the Mustang. I made do.”
“Yeah, slumming in a quarter million dollar car. Pardon me if I don’t feel your pain, butthead.”
“You know that car you’ve been driving is identical to the one Steve McQueen drove in the movie Bullitt, right?”
“Never saw it. So, you saying you want to trade?”
I replied, “Not on your life. Shut up about the car, Sergeant. Tell me what happened.”
Boyd wasted no time telling me what he saw. I laughed out loud when he described how he shot out both tires. I laughed even harder when Boyd described how the two men thought I was the one that shot them out.
“Boyd, I knew this doctor while in med school that had built an enormous private practice before retiring and becoming a teacher. Someone once asked him about the secret of his success. He said it was simple: he always tried to exceed his patient’s expectations. Boyd, you have exceeded my expectations. Thank you!”
“Geez, you are going to make me blush,” he said in mock amazement. “So, do I get a raise?”
“Yeah, double what I’m paying you.”
“Bite me. I’m worth at least ten times what you’re paying me.” He was kidding; we both knew ten times zero was still zero. Boyd finally stopped reclining and turned to face me. “Alright, Lieutenant, what’s the plan? Because things are getting heated, and I still haven’t shot at anyone. Tires don’t count.”
“Hey, you had your opportunity twice now, and you passed, chicken dick. Wait a minute, would you recognize the car those idiots were driving if you saw it again?”
“Yeah, it is sitting a little low on the right and it sounds like the tire is out of balance, or maybe it just has a flat spot in it. Why?”
I chuckled at the visual. “You think they might be stupid enough to get a hotel in Emmettsville tonight?”
Boyd cast me a playful, knowing glance. He liked where I was going, but I could tell he was a little worried what I might do to them once I found them. He asked me twice what I was planning to do with them if we found them.
“Same thing they did to Ellie.”
“Run them off the road?”
“No, I plan on scaring the living hell out of them. And since they are criminals, I’m assuming it is going to be a little harder to scare them. We will have to be creative.”
“How creative?”
“Boyd, are you worried I might hurt them?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? I’ll be, you’re going soft on me. I would think after yesterday you would realize what we’re dealing with here. You’re investigating organized crime.”
“I’m not going soft. Just wondering how far you want to take this?”
“You okay with some broken bones as long as they are still breathing?”
Boyd said, “And you are accusing me of going soft.” Although he was smiling, Boyd did a poor job of hiding his relief that I was not going to take matters further with Daryl and Brent.
***
Boyd informed me there were only a handful of motels in the town, along with The Travelers’ Inn and one nationally recognized full-service hotel near the edge of town. Boyd had been smart to avoid it when he decided to become Graham, my undercover bootlegger. There would be too much red tape and too many people. We assumed Strasser’s lackeys would feel the same.
Boyd directed me to the closest two motels first. No evidence of a three-wheeled four door sedan. The Travelers’ Inn was next on the list. Boyd wanted to know if he was still supposed to be undercover. He was riding shotgun in a classic roadster that would stick out like a sore thumb in Miami, let alone Podunk, Tennessee. I realized we probably should have taken the Jeep. I threw him my ball cap. Told him to pull it down and hide his features. Boyd’s services as Graham were no longer necessary; regardless, I wanted him to remain unidentified.
He wanted to know what my next step was now that the undercover portion was over. I told him his tape changed everything. When he overheard Junior with Strasser’s men, I knew we were on the right path. Deep down, my gut told me that one of the Estes brothers either killed Paul or had him killed. However, it made no sense for them to kill Paul. They were being paid to collect money, not kill him. Killing Paul meant no money for Strasser, which in turn, would create problems with the more powerful crime boss. Even so, my inner voice still insisted that one, or both, of the brothers were murderers.
Boyd agreed with my logic. He said, “So the Estes boys hired someone to run
you out of town for good by scaring Ellie, someone she would not recognize, while they probably drove into Memphis and trashed your car.”
“Boyd, I told you I had bad news. Those men you chased off, they weren’t friends of the Estes boys. Those men belonged to Strasser. He ordered them to scare Ellie to get to me.”
“That’s was a dickhead thing to do.”
“Stupid too. I didn’t give two cents about Strasser before tonight. He hired Junior and company to collect some money. Big deal; he didn’t kill Paul. It was just business. But there is no way I’m going to forgive them for what they did today.”
Boyd said, “Since he didn’t kill Paul, why the hell would Strasser go after Ellie? Makes no sense.”
“You told me about your day, sweetheart, now let me tell you about mine. It all starts with my remarkable visit to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and an asshole called Captain Morgan.” I spent the next five minutes detailing my visits at the Bureau and another five minutes after that describing my time inside the Carmichael house. Boyd mumbled a few expletives but otherwise seemed unfazed.
“He orders his men to go after Ellie because of a misunderstanding. Wow, that’s priceless.”
“It looks that way. And now they went and pissed me off. Question for you. Were the men outside Ellie’s the same that visited Junior earlier?”
“No, two different groups. I didn’t get a good look at either group of guys, but I heard their voices, and they were not the same guys. Plus, they had different cars. I think the guys tonight were driving a beat up Mercury. The guys this morning were definitely in a nice looking Lincoln.”
That meant Strasser sent one group of guys up here to deal with the Estes brothers and then sent another up here to scare Ellie. Which meant he had a crew. Agent Sande had told me he had over a dozen men. At least four of them were in Felton County. How many more would he send? What would I do if he sent more?
Boyd said, “Well, Lieutenant, you got a plan?”
“No, I’m making this up as I go. I do have a plan name, though, Operation Stromboli.”
“Stromboli? What the hell is a Stromboli?”
“Not what, but who.”
“Who then?”
“Pinocchio’s puppet master. The angry one that locked Pinocchio in a cage.”
“I saw that cartoon as a kid. Stromboli was a bad guy.”
I smiled, a devilish smile, one so big Boyd had no trouble seeing it in the dark. “Exactly,” I said.
We finished checking the third motel parking lot. Still no luck finding the crippled car. The fourth motel on Boyd’s list was near Falco’s. My eye spotted a car with a strange lean in Falco’s parking lot. It was a Mercury. I tapped Boyd on the shoulder and pointed.
“Fitting,” I said, “Seems like I can never get away from this cockamamie restaurant.”
“Cockamamie. Really? You must be the only person under 90 that says cockamamie.”
“Bite me. My mother raised me not to curse. Get moving, toe jam.”
I doubted if either of us could set foot in Falco’s without causing a ruckus, but we had to know if Brent and Daryl were in there. Either way, I did not know what they looked like, so it was up to Boyd. After five minutes inside, Boyd returned, climbing in the Cobra with a satisfied smile. The men who most likely ran my girlfriend off the road, the same ones that planned on shooting up her family’s house, were eating a burger in the same restaurant where the trouble began. I slid my right hand down my side. Felt the reassuring weight of the gun holstered on my hip. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Boyd staring at my hand.
“You know,” I said, “I got an idea.” I started up the car and headed out of the parking lot. “Don’t worry, Boyd, I’m not going to shoot anybody…just yet. I’m taking you back to your car. You are going to come back and watch Butch and Sundance like a hawk. Wherever they go, you go. Let me know where they bed down for the night.”
“Okay, so I’m no longer on sentry duty, now I’m a spy. Where are you going to be?”
“Memphis. I need a vehicle with some storage space, and I want out of these scrubs. I might not be back until after two or three. This is going to be a long night.”
***
The drive back to Memphis was considerably slower than the drive from Memphis earlier. A classic high-performance roadster, a full moon, no clouds, a winding blacktop with little traffic. If Ellie had been sitting next to me, if I was able to catch the even the faintest smell of her perfume or the hint of her smile, then it could have been a great date night.
Instead, she was bunkered in her parent’s house with her ex-boyfriend standing guard duty. Boyd asked me earlier if it bothered me. I had said no, but I was lying to myself. The roles should have been reversed. He was the criminal investigator. He should be out here catching the bad guys while I stood guard duty.
I was so mad I could spit. What was that quote by Mark Twain? I remembered it, “When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.”
Out loud, I counted, “One. Two. Three. Four.” Not working.
“Fuck it all to hell.” I followed that up with a few more profane sentences. The curse words literally exploded from my mouth. The string of profanity is probably still circling in the ether above Southern Tennessee to this day. Now that felt good. Sure, no one was there to hear it, but it had felt good just the same. Mark Twain was a genius.
Looming over me was the realization that I was now being forced to fight a war on multiple fronts. Strasser had come after me. He shouldn’t have, but he did. Junior was probably the one that trashed my car; it seemed like his style. He also promised he was still trying to collect money from Paul’s father, something that might include another brick through another window, but would more likely involve threats of violence. There was no way a two-man operation could defend the Carmichael family and the Deland family while still launching an investigation. More people would be needed.
Too bad I could not count on help from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation; that relationship seemed totally FUBAR. I could ask Chief Parker for help watching Ellie, although I doubted his level of competence. No, I doubted his resolve more than his competence. I needed someone I could trust unwaveringly. Shit, I had no choice but to clone Boyd.
Or call Virgil. He was the only other person I could trust. This would be completely outside his comfort zone, but he would do it without question. No doubt. If Operation Stromboli worked as planned, his presence would only be required for a couple of days.
Operation Stromboli. Just thinking about it made me smile.
My father told me that as an offensive lineman, he loved running plays where he got to be a lead blocker. It was one of the few times offensive lineman felt like they were truly part of the offense, helping the team move the ball, instead of just defending the quarterback. They got to hit someone for a change, to bowl someone over, and it felt good. I played tight end in high school, a truly hybrid position that sometimes requires the blocking skills of an offensive lineman, at other times requiring that the player line up as a wide receiver. I was good, making All-State my freshman, sophomore, and junior years before quitting football when my father died. One of the things I loved most about playing tight end was sometimes the best way to take pressure off your quarterback was to give him good targets quickly down field. In other words, sometimes the best way to defend your quarterback was to be even more aggressive on offense.
That is how I thought of Operation Stromboli. To hell with focusing solely on defense, it was time to launch my own version of a counteroffensive on the damn Dixie Mafia. It was time to make them play defense. It was time to call Virgil in to guard Ellie. It was time to arm John if he was not armed already. It was time to get a car with a bigger trunk. And it was time to borrow a truck.
***
LeClair called me a devious SOB. We were sitting in his office off the kitchen. It was small. A desk, couple of filing cabinets, a small fireproof safe, some old chairs, and a couch that looked
like it had been slept on a few hundred times. When I asked him if he had a truck I could borrow, he had invited me back to hear the whole story. That is when he called a devious SOB.
He agreed to loan me a vehicle on one condition: he got to help. I thought about arguing with him and then realized that after yesterday he was already involved. And another set of hands would come in handy for my plan. Earlier, I had dropped off the Cobra and changed clothes before calling John and warning him to take special care over the next few days. I also let him know that I might not be able to attend the funeral tomorrow. I was trying Virgil again; he did not answer earlier.
This time he answered with his trademark exuberance, “Hey, L.T., what’s up?”
“How did you know it was me?”
“Only two people would call at this hour, and the other one is sitting next to me sipping a nice Cabernet.”
“I don’t have time to explain much, but I need your help.”
“What can I do?”
“Drive to Emmettsville and watch over Ellie and her parents.”
“This is related to you investigating Paul’s death, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I would only need you for the weekend, maybe only tomorrow. Boyd can’t do it. I’ll have him busy with part of my plan. LeClair and I are doing another part. I’m short one person. Ellie’s ex-boyfriend, who happens to belong to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, is there now, but he will have to leave tomorrow at some time.”
“I’ll do it. What do I need to bring?”
“A bag big enough to hide an SMG.”
Virgil asked, “Boyd’s H&K?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I can sneak that in, no problem.”
“I’m sorry to ask, Virgil. I know this is not your kind of thing, but I need someone I can trust. Unfortunately, for you, you were on the top of the list. I’ll call you later to tell you where and when to meet Boyd, but be ready to be in Emmettsville by ten, okay?”
Memphis Legend Page 37