Memphis Legend

by Brian Crawford

  It felt good to be the puppet master.

  ***

  For the third time in the last twelve hours, I was driving back to Emmettsville. It was the second time in a piece of crap panel van that could not hit 60 mph going downhill with a tail wind. Boyd was following me in my Jeep, so I had plenty of time to think. I was wondering if my ruse was going to work, at least for a couple of days. Hopefully, by that time I would have a confession from Jackson or Junior concerning Paul.

  Why did they kill him?

  I had no actual evidence at the moment that they did kill him, just a hunch. I did not like coincidences, and it was the only thing that made sense. Strasser would not have done it. Why hire them to collect the money in the first place if he planned on killing Paul? And why would he still be trying to collect the money from the Estes brothers if he had killed him? But why would they kill Paul? Dead men don’t pay bills. My guess is they were going to get 20 percent, maybe 25. Should have been an easy three to four thousand.

  I needed to get them to confess somehow. Preferably on tape, or in front of someone in law enforcement. The problem was that I had no idea how to trick them into hanging themselves out to dry. Nothing came to mind. I thought of a few ideas, but I quickly dismissed them. Each idea seemed a little more farfetched than the previous one. I think the lack of sleep was affecting my judgment. I had been awake for over 24 hours. Not a record by any means, but apparently enough to affect my focus.

  Finding the murder weapon made more sense. But even if I found it, how would I get it into police hands in a legal manner. Breaking and entering to steal the gun would not work. No, if I were going to go that route I would need to come up with a reason for the police to get a search warrant. Maybe I could bait Junior into coming after me. If he had an attempted murder charge against him, then it seems the cops would likely get a search warrant for his property. Maybe they would find the gun he used on Paul. Maybe he would use the same gun when he came after me. Maybe. Too many maybes.

  Maybe I needed some sleep.

  Chief Parker’s directions to his cabin were a little hard to follow, but we eventually found it. I parked the van where it would get shade during the hottest part of the day. The van was going to be Brent and Daryl’s home for the next couple of days; I did not want them to die of heat exhaustion. I grabbed my supplies from the front seat and had Boyd cover me while I opened the sliding door on the back of the van. The two men were sitting pretty much where I left them, wrists and ankles still bound. We had removed the duct tape from around their eyes but left the tape on their mouths. Their eyes were wide with fright as they realized the van had stopped in the middle of nowhere. Their fear changed to confusion as I threw the five-gallon bucket into the back, followed by the energy bars and water.

  “Good news, boys, you are going to live through this after all. Bad news, you are going to have to live in this van for the next couple of days. There’s your food, there’s your water, and the bucket is for you to, well, you know, what it’s for, don’t you. I will take the tape off your mouths. You can talk all you want once we leave. Scream if you like. Won’t do you any good, but, hey, if it makes you feel better, then be my guest. If, after two days, this is not all over, then I will come back, break the fingers on your gun hands into little pieces, and let you go. There is potential for a plan B. Anyone want to hear it?”

  Both nodded. I motioned for Boyd to cover me while I removed the tape from their mouths. I still did not know which one was Daryl or Brent, but the one I hit earlier started yelling as soon as I removed the tape. “Do you know who the fuck you are mess—.”

  I knew what he was getting ready to say. I did not care, and I had warned him before about talking out of turn, so I punched him in the mouth. His lip started bleeding. “You Daryl or Brent?” He did not answer, which made sense. He probably thought I was going to hit him again.

  The other guy spoke up, “I’m Brent.”

  “Thanks.” I turned back to address Daryl. “I know exactly who I’m messing with. You belong to Strasser. Supposedly a real big wig in the Dixie Mafia. But he hired you, and you, my boy, are about as dumb as a box of rocks, so my opinion of him is slipping just a bit. The real problem is that you idiots don’t know who you are messing with. I’m Captain Frigging Kirk.” I couldn’t resist the Star Trek reference.

  “You mentioned a plan B,” said Brent.

  “Right, plan B. It’s simple. Tell me how to get a hold of Strasser. If he calls off any attempts to harm me or any of my friends, then I can let you guys go, and we’re good. If not, you guys get broken fingers and then I have to sic Graham on Strasser. He has been begging me for an opportunity to shoot someone since I hired him. You see, I was Navy Intelligence in a former life. Graham was the Marine Sniper we used to send in to take out high-value targets behind enemy lines. He never failed. Over 70 confirmed kills. Now he’s a mercenary. Expensive, unless he owes you a favor. Lucky for me, he owes me a favor.”

  It was a lie, but it seemed like a good lie. I know it would have scared me if the tables had been turned. Brent must have thought it was pretty scary as well. He gave us Strasser’s location down in Mississippi. A small bar just south of Tupelo. I congratulated Brent on his wise decision to cooperate while telling him I would do everything in my power to ensure a positive outcome for him. Apparently, I had a trip to Tupelo coming up soon. I had never been to the birthplace of Elvis. I thought if I ever did, it would be under different circumstances.

  ***

  Nearly 26 hours without sleep, and still no sleep in sight. I knew it would have to come before I made the trip to Tupelo. Boyd and I had a brief conversation. He wanted to go with me to Tupelo, apparently to watch my back. Personally, I thought he wanted to make sure I didn’t do something bad to Strasser. We only had one car for the two of us, so I agreed he could go. After securing the lift door of the van with the log chains, I had Boyd drop me off at the Carmichael house. Everyone was awake. The smell of breakfast still lingered in the air as Ellie let me in.

  She greeted me with a big hug. “Whatever are you doing here so early? Didn’t you get off at seven?”

  “They let me out early.”

  More lies. The lies were getting easier and easier. That had to be a bad sign. And how much longer could I claim plausible deniability? Could I even claim it now? The poor girl had been attacked because of me. Shouldn’t I just tell her the truth? I realized I was no longer protecting her from me; I was protecting me from her. I was kidnapping people, threatening them with bodily harm, and getting ready to visit an organized crime boss. Not to mention the breaking and entering and theft of thousands of dollars of liquor. Of course, it was illegal alcohol. What would she think of me if she knew all that? It probably would not have been positive.

  She asked me if I had eaten. I readily accepted her offer to cook me some breakfast. It seemed remarkable to me, but her family still welcomed me into their home. No one seemed to be blaming me for last night. Jessica even tousled my hair again while I was eating breakfast. None of them suspected that I was the type of man that could chain men inside a van and make them relieve themselves into a five-gallon bucket. I was able to hide that part of myself from them. I could not hide the fact that I was tired. Ellie offered a chance to get some sleep in the guest room, which I readily accepted. Not before I had a chance to talk to Mark, though.

  We excused ourselves outside after I finished eating. I got right to the point. “Mark, I found the guys that ran Ellie off the road. They were also planning on shooting at the house last night, but that attempt was foiled.”

  “One of your spies again?”

  “Yes.

  “You must have some great friends.”

  I smiled. Mark was right. I did have some great friends. Two of them had gone above and beyond the call of duty of being a normal friend. One more was on his way here to watch over Ellie for me. It felt good to have friends like that. “I do. I also have the tag number of the car that ran Ellie off the road a
nd the names of the men inside. And I have made things much easier for you to get that protection for Ellie.”

  “Oh, do tell.”

  I explained what I had ordered Chief Parker to do earlier this morning. How he was to call in the missing men, the abandoned car, and the fact that they were last seen arguing with Junior Estes. Next, I wanted Mark to visit Chief Parker to tell the Chief what happened with Ellie last night. I told him to leave out the part about the men being outside the Carmichael house.

  Special Agent Sande said, “I think I understand what you’re doing here. You’re paving the way for me to ask for protection for Ellie since the tag number you are giving me also matches the tag number on the abandoned car, which belongs to two men involved in illegal activity. You want the Chief to make the initial contact with CIU. Then, when I talk to the Chief, because of my knowledge of Ellie’s boyfriend having problems with the Dixie Mafia, I realize she is in danger from the same people. Thus I can ask for protection.”

  “Yep. So now you don’t have to ask your friend for help. He will not have to get involved. No chance of this blowing back on him, or you for that matter.”

  Mark said, “They teach you this stuff in spy school or something?” I gave him a big exaggerated smile. “I’m afraid to ask. Where are the two ‘missing’ men?”

  “Chained inside an old U-Haul parked in the woods.”

  “No, really.”

  “Really.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Don’t worry; they will be fine.” I explained the energy bars, the water, and the bucket. Mark actually laughed at the prospect. He wanted to know how long I planned on keeping them hostage. “If I can’t resolve this in the next couple of days, I will break all the fingers on their gun hands, and let them go.” He did not laugh at that prospect. Because I could tell that deep down, really deep in that area of the brain that none us want to admit we have, he agreed with me.

  CHAPTER 35

  I took Ellie up on her offer to use the guest room. Nearly six hours later, I woke up refreshed and ready for my drive to Tupelo, Mississippi. Ellie informed me that lunch was sitting on the table on a plate with a towel over it. Virgil walked into the kitchen while I was devouring cold country fried steak, green beans, and corn bread.“Chew your food, my mom always said.”

  “I know, I know. But I’m in a major hurry.”

  “So you aren’t planning on staying, I take it?”

  I told him my plan. His wrinkled brow said it all. He started telling me how much I needed to stick around and smooth things over with Ellie. She was scared. Not so much for herself, she felt safe sitting in her family home. If she only knew. No, she was scared for us. Virgil said she was confused about her feelings toward me, mostly because she no longer felt she knew the man she had been dating for the last year. She did not understand my current obsession. She did not understand my reaction, or lack of reaction, to fear. She did not understand how I could risk everything just for the sake of justice. At first, she thought she understood me and my desire for justice, but as everything became more dangerous, riskier, she could no longer see things from my point of view. I seemed foreign to her.

  “Funny thing, Virgil. The night I stopped Tom Harty in the hospital, she admitted to me that she knew I had a dangerous side, and she also admitted that no one ever made her feel safer than me. Now that the stakes are higher, she is questioning things. She does not realize that it is my dangerous side that enabled her to feel so safe with me in the first place.” Virgil was absently nodding in agreement. “Which means she would never understand what I have to do next. I am going to walk into the face of danger because doing so will guarantee her safety. So, you can talk to her if you want. Try to explain it to her if you can, but, for me, I’m going to Tupelo, Mississippi to talk to the man that involved her in the first place. He will agree to leave her alone, or I will make him agree. That’s my damn solution.”

  Immediately after my conversation with Virgil, I started looking for an excuse to leave. I settled on pretending I needed to attend to my Mercedes. A partial lie; I did need to attend to my car, but I had no intention of doing it just then. Within the hour, Boyd and I were on our way to Tupelo to meet Darwin Strasser. We did stop by to check on Brent and Daryl. They were where we had left them.

  An hour and fifteen minutes later, we pulled up in front of Strasser’s bar. According to Brent, Strasser had an office in the back. He did all his Dixie Mafia business out of that office. It was the middle of the day on a Sunday in August. A beautiful, sunny, hot, summer day in the South. The kind of day that my colleagues spent outdoors playing golf, working in the yard, swimming in their pools. I was going to visit a crime boss. I had a Glock 21 holstered on my right side in case I needed it. My colleagues probably had barbecue utensils holstered in an apron while trying to grill the family meal.

  I ordered Boyd to wait by the car and watch the front door. From the outside, the bar looked like a dive. Poor signage, grass growing up through the multitude of cracks in the driveway, faded exterior paint. Inside, my suspicions were confirmed; the place was an absolute dive. It reeked of disinfectant trying to cover up the odor of stale beer that had probably seeped into the wooden floor one too many times. Dimly lit. No attempt at any type of decor. It did have a pool table, a regular pool table, not a coin operated table. The felt was threadbare in places. I was definitely in the right place. No way a bar like that was run by a competent, hard-working business man. It looked exactly like what it was: a money laundering operation for a two-bit crime boss in the Dixie Mafia.

  Three men lounged at the bar. Lazy looking guys in jeans and cheap tee shirts. One wore a ball cap advertising Peterbilt trucks. None of the men were drinking. No one was working behind the bar. If the bar did any actual business, I had arrived before the evening crowd. All three turned lazily to look my direction as I entered the front door. One informed me the bar was closed.

  I replied, “Fine with me, I don’t drink.” The man replied back, informing me that solicitors were not welcome. “Not here to sell anything, either,” I said. “I have something for Strasser, something I hear he is looking for.” The man glanced quickly towards a door in the back before informing that there was no one there by that name. A poor liar. I could teach him a thing or two.

  I pulled out a small cassette tape Boyd had given before entering the bar, cleared my throat and started again once I saw all three men look at me. “I can see you are all busy testing the integrity of Mr. Strasser’s bar stools, but I need one of you to relay a message to him. Tell him a doctor from Memphis is standing in his bar holding a tape that he has gone to great trouble to find.”

  That got their attention. All three of them instantly got to their feet and faced me in an aggressive stance. One started to reach behind his back. I quickly unholstered the Glock and pointed it at him, an average looking man in his thirties that looked twice his age in the eyes. Life had been hard for the man; it was easy to see that. “Whoa there, cowboy. I’m here to give Strasser something he wants. I’m not here to give you something you don’t.” The man brought his hands slowly forward. I thanked him and asked them again if Strasser was in the building. Two of them nodded yes. “Now yell back there and tell him he has a visitor.”

  The man who had reached behind his back said, “We usually just use the intercom on the phone behind the bar.”

  “Okay, but not you.” I examined the other two men and tried to pick the one who looked scared. They both looked scared, so I picked the one that seemed twitchy. I figured it would be best if I gave him something to do before his ADHD took over and made him do something he regretted later. I told him to summon Strasser, and to keep his hands in clear view while doing it. He nodded his acknowledgment.

  “Before you make that call, I need you,” I was looking at the man who reached behind his back, “To keep your hands up high where I can see them and turn around. Slowly.”

  He glared at me, yet readily complied. I moved forward and patte
d him down finding a small handgun in his right back pocket. A Raven Arms HP25. I almost laughed out loud. I was probably safer with the gun pointed at me than he was with it in his back pocket. Raven Arms was a notorious gun manufacturer that started producing guns in the early Seventies. It was considered the original “Ring of Fire” company. The Ring of Fire companies were a list of gun manufacturers that specialized in cheap, poor quality semi-automatic pistols commonly known as Saturday Night Specials. The gun probably sold for less than $30.00. It was worth less than that.

  “Were you seriously thinking about trying to shoot me with this piece of crap? I should probably hand it back to you and let you take your chances firing it at me. FYI though, the last time a gun was pointed at me it was an AK-47. The owner of that gun shot me in the thigh. He isn’t around anymore to tell his side of the story if you catch my drift.”

  I motioned for the twitchy man to call Strasser over the intercom while advising the other two to sit with their hands where I could see them. They complied without an argument. Strasser readily answered the intercom indicating he would be up in a moment. Nothing in his voice over the loudspeaker indicated any sense of alarm. He was true to his word; Strasser strolled into the bar nearly a minute later, oblivious to the danger waiting for him. He was a very cool customer. No sense of alarm on his part when he spotted me holding my Glock. He just stood where he was in the hallway leading into the bar and waited for me to motion him in. He puts his hands out in front before I had to ask and smiled as he took a seat on one of the bar stools.

  “Dr. McCain, I presume.”

  I had not known what to expect from a Dixie Mafia crime boss. Some toothless, tobacco chewing redneck. A good ole boy with a winsome smile. A charming Southern gentleman dressed like Colonel Sanders. Those were a couple of images I had formed on the drive to Tupelo. I had not expected to see a well-tailored man in a black suit, white shirt, no tie, who looked as if he was George C. Scott’s forty-five-year-old twin brother. Intelligence gleamed in his eyes. This man was not stupid. Not like the three men he had sitting out front. Not like Brent or Daryl. He was crafty; it was easy to see it about him, especially if you knew what to look for. And I did.