“So what are we going for?” I asked.
“Two fireproof safes. One in Giles’s trailer, one in his daughter’s. See, he don’t like to put his eggs all in one basket.”
“How much?” Weller asked.
“Eula says it’s never been less than two million. This year she thinks three or more.”
“What does he do with all that cash?” Arps asked.
“Well, after she finishes with his books and comes up with some figures that look plausible for the IRS, he launders it through the Caribbean just like respectable crooks in New York or Boston would. She thinks he’s probably worth a hundred million or more, all told. But most of it’s out of the country. Switzerland, Buenos Aires, places like that.”
“All that money and he lives in a crappy Airstream trailer?” Arps asked.
“Actually, it’s a very nice Airstream trailer. But I understand what you’re saying.” He shrugged and shook his head. “That’s the way these ol’ carny people are. They come up in it, they’re in it all their lives, and they can’t imagine any other way to live.”
“How many men do we need?” Arps asked.
“Ten. I figure two to take down each trailer and two for backup.”
“Why two for the trailers?” Weller asked.
“Because three of them have two occupants each. If one guy goes in alone and somebody’s in the bedroom or the bathroom, he’d have two separated people on his hands to deal with. Not good.”
“How about the backup men, Jasper?” I asked. “What are they for?”
“There’s an electronic gate, but a couple of the honchos who live over by the equipment also have the little radio gadgets that open it. The old man doesn’t like to be bothered to come down to the gate, so he lets two of his most trusted people have access in case they need to see him. I’m going to trick out the gate where it won’t open for anybody else after we go in, but somebody might decide to walk up the lane to see what’s wrong if they come to the gate and can’t get in. That’s where the backups come in. They keep the area secure.”
“The safes?” Arps asked.
“Old. I’ll have the brand names and models in about a week. Nothing you can’t handle, Freddie. But hopefully they’ll give up the combinations pretty quick and your talents won’t be needed.”
“Let’s get another good safe man, just in case,” Arps said. “Some of those old boxes can take a long time to peel, and we don’t want to be there all night.”
“Will do. Any more questions?”
“Who are the other six people going to be?” Weller asked.
“Me and Hog are working on that right now. That’s where his cop experience comes in handy. See, he has access to information on people that we don’t have. I can say, though, that at this point I’m thinking about Bobby Dwayne Culpepper.”
“I’ve always heard that he’s solid,” Arps said.
“Cars?” I asked.
“Four. Two to go in and two to leave in, all stolen. Late-model medium-priced sedans, no dings, nothing to make them stand out in any way. I’m getting them from Lardass Collins.”
“How about plates?” I asked. “If they’re stolen they’re going to be on the hot sheets. That’s not good.”
“I’ve got a guy in Motor Vehicles up in Jackson who’s getting me plates. Each set will show registration for a car of the same make, model, and color as the car it goes on. You’d have to check the vehicle numbers to know they’re bogus. That’s costing two grand, but it’s worth it. Now is there anything else?”
Everybody shook their heads.
He rolled up the plat and put it under his arm. “Like I said, boys…They’ll still be writing about this one ten years from now. It’s gonna be as big as the Brinks job!”
Fifteen
About nine the next morning I called Eula Dent’s office to see about having my income taxes done. Not that I intended to give her the real figures, but I wanted to have a look at the famous hooker/accountant. Much to my surprise, I was able to get an appointment for four days hence with no trouble at all. I’d no sooner than hung up when the phone rang. It was Weller and his pickup wouldn’t crank.
The old man was waiting for me in the driveway when I pulled up in front of the little hole-in-the-wall apartment he’d been renting by the week. “It’s the battery, I know,” he said.
We had the battery off and in the trunk of my car in a matter of minutes. “I guess I could have called a garage,” he said as we pulled out into the street. “But I’ve always been close with my money.”
“Me too,” I said. “No need to pay a mechanic to do something this simple. Where do you want to go?”
“Sears, if you don’t mind to drive over to the north side of town. I’d like to get one of them DieHards.”
“Sure,” I said.
An hour later his truck was running and he shook my hand and thanked me. Just as I was about to get in my car he said, “I’m getting a little uneasy about this deal, Hog.”
“How so?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he said, and pulled off his battered old Allis Chalmers cap to run a gnarled hand through his shortly cropped gray hair. “Did you notice how Jasper was talking about how folks gonna be writing about this thing for years? What difference does that make? Shit, I’d just as soon nobody ever heard about none of my scores, to tell you the truth.”
“Me either.”
“And then there’s the way he was fooling around with that damn cocaine the other night. ...”
“How strong are the other people involved?” I asked.
“Arps is solid, but I can’t say the same for Bobby Culpepper.”
“No?”
“Hell no. He’s a big bag of wind as far as I’m concerned. And then there’s Billy Jack Avalon. I realize that he’s a problem, but I damn sure don’t think we need to go killing nobody right before the score’s gonna go down. Not if we can help it, anyway. Maybe afterward, but shit, he ain’t gonna know enough before-hand to rat us out.”
“I agree. But at this stage we need to just ride along and see how things go.”
He nodded. “But the time may come when we need to kick a few butts to keep this thing on track.”
“I’ll back you up, Hardhead.”
“Good.” He looked up where a pair of gulls were soaring overhead. “Pretty things, aren’t they?” he asked.
“Yes, they sure are.”
He looked at me, his strange yellowish eyes sad and mournful. It was one of the few times I ever saw any emotion in them at all. “One time I spent eighty-six straight days in the hole at Parchman,” he said. “They fed me carrots every day to keep me from going blind. Along toward the end I started having hallucinations. Birds. That was all I could see. But they were entertaining to a man that hadn’t seen anything for better than two months. I’ve liked birds ever since.”
I laughed. “Well, I like to hunt quail,” I said. “That’s about all I know about birds.”
He smiled. “I wouldn’t kill one for nothing, but I don’t hold it against them that do. It’s all a part of nature.” He looked up at the gulls once again and muttered, “Bigger than Brinks, my ass…”
Sixteen
Everything was going smoothly. Or so I thought. But that same night the whole project almost got wrecked, and I got a refresher course on how quickly and pointlessly murderous violence could erupt among the individuals I was dealing with. It happened a little before midnight the next evening. I’d taken Nell home early and come back to the Gold Dust at ten-thirty. Finding the front parking lot full, I pulled around in back where there was room for a half dozen cars in a small area beside a Dumpster that was screened off from the whorehouse trailers by a plank fence. Inside the club Jasper and Lardass and Arps and a couple of other characters were holding forth at the corner booth. I got a Bud at the bar and went over and joined them. Then a few minutes after eleven o’clock, I went to the bar for another beer. Coming back I accidentally stepped on a woman’s foot. Half-
drunk and full of wounded dignity, she decided to make an issue of it. I apologized as profusely as I could, but the fool wouldn’t shut up. Her the-atrics brought a beefy midthirties redneck from the next table into the fray as her gallant knight.
“Maybe you ought to tell the lady that you’re sorry,” he said, rising to his feet.
“Maybe I already did,” I replied softly. “About three times, as I recall.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right. It was an accident.”
“It wasn’t no accident,” the woman said. She was a youngish but used-up-looking brunette with a slurry voice, and she was enjoying the attention. “He did it on purpose.”
“Now, why on earth would I do something like that?” I asked reasonably.
“Because you’re a jerk!” she exclaimed.
“I think you should just get the fuck out of this joint,” the beefy man said. “It looks like maybe that’s the only thing that’s going to satisfy the lady.”
He wasn’t drunk, just mean. And spoiling not so much for a fight as for somebody to abuse and humiliate. His kind are generally pack animals, ready to close in like a school of piranhas when they sense weakness. But usually they don’t fare too well on their own, and although there were a couple of guys at his table, neither of them had risen to lend him support. I looked him right in the eyes, and said softly, “Better back off, farm boy. You’re way out of your league.”
“Is that right?” he asked again, like a broken record.
“Yes, and I think you know it, too,” I replied calmly. He stood sizing me up for a few seconds, then quickly licked his lips, a sure sign of self-doubt. I knew then that he wasn’t going to do anything unless I goaded him into action, something I had no intention of doing. I stepped well back away from him. “Let’s just leave it there,” I said, “and nobody has to get all sweaty.”
He glared at me while I continued to move carefully away and back toward the corner booth.
“What was that all about?” Freddie Arps asked as I sat down.
“Just a drunk idiot and a hard-dick defending her honor. I accidentally stepped on her foot, and she made an issue out of it.”
“We’ll make an issue out of them if you want, Hog,” Jasper said. “Give the word and we’ll drag ‘em outside and teach them some manners.”
I shook my head. “Just let it go. It didn’t amount to much, anyway. Besides, I’m pretty sure I could handle the guy by myself if it came to that.”
“However you want it,” he said. “Just so you know you got friends here, too.”
“Thanks, Jasper. I appreciate it.”
I watched the man closely for the next few minutes. He sat down at the table with the woman for a while, obviously trying to use his heroics to leverage himself into her pants. But she wasn’t going for it. Before long he gave up, and he and one of his buddies soon left. Then I relaxed and put the incident out of my mind. I shouldn’t have.
A half hour later I said good-bye and headed for my car. As I walked around the corner I saw the silhouette of a bulky man vanish around the other end of the building ahead of me. I thought nothing of it at the time, and I’d almost reached my car when the pair hit me hard from either side. They had no weapons, only fists, and they weren’t particularly good with them. But they were big men, and they were strong, able to do plenty of damage. I managed to get in a half-solid kick to one guy’s groin before his partner knocked my legs from under me and toppled me to the ground. Then they were both kicking the hell out of me. I was on my hands and knees trying to protect my face, and they were beginning to work me over good when I heard a loud whomp! A second later there was a muffled yell and the beating ceased. I rolled over on my back and then rose to a sitting position. Freddie Arps had one man up against the club’s Dumpster, pounding him to a pudding. The other attacker was on his hands and knees just as I’d been a moment before, and Jasper Sparks loomed over him like an avenging angel, a thirty-inch wrecking bar in his hands. Then Jasper raised the bar high above his head like someone about to pole-ax a steer. Before I could say a word to stop him, he brought it down on the man’s skull with a crunch that turned my stomach.
“Goddamn!” I exclaimed.
Sparks looked at me and I could see that there was a smile on his face and his eyes were gleaming cocaine-bright even in the dim glow of the single halogen light. “Fuck him,” he said. “White trash piece of shit...”
I lurched to my feet and stared at the prostrate man. The bar had buried itself an inch into the crown of his skull, leaving a ditchlike trough that ran from front to back. I reached down and felt the man’s pulse just as his heart give a few weak, thready beats and then stopped completely. “He’s dead, Jasper,” I said, my voice a near whisper.
“Hell, I’m not surprised,” he replied casually and looked over to where Arps had his man half-unconscious on the ground. “Freddie, gimme your coat.”
Arps nodded in understanding and whipped off the heavy denim jacket he was wearing. Jasper pulled a small automatic out of the waistband of his pants, wrapped the jacket three times around it and then folded it back over the end of the gun barrel. I stood there stupidly, not knowing what was about to happen, while he stepped over to where the second man was crawling toward the Dumpster and put the gun to the back of the poor fool’s head. I finally came to my senses and lunged forward. “Jasper, no!” I croaked.
But I was too late. The pistol was a .380 auto and the coat made an effective silencer for such a small caliber. Two quick shots and the man lay twitching and quivering his life away on the grimy asphalt.
“Holy shit,” I said, utterly dumfounded. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes I did,” he said firmly. “With my record none of this self-defense bullshit is going to fly in court, and I wasn’t about to leave that asshole around as a witness. Besides, you’re one of the people now, and these fuckers need to learn they can’t mess with the people.”
“I don’t think these two are in any position to profit from the lesson,” I replied bitterly.
“Man, you’re sure right about that. But you know how it is. Word gets around that some asshole who was seen fucking with Tush Hog Webern up and vanished, and the next asshole won’t fuck with you. Now let’s get these two around behind that Dumpster.”
The three of us quickly dragged the two bodies out of sight. “Freddie, I think we need Lardass out here,” he said.
Arps nodded and disappeared back into the building.
“You’re a lucky man, Hog,” Jasper said, clasping me on the shoulder. “If Mr. Sam hadn’t asked me and Freddie to come out back here to do our tooting, those pricks might have beaten you to death.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. Real live humans can’t take nearly as much punishment as they do in the movies, and this pair had meant business. Still, he’d grossly overreacted, and now two men were needlessly dead. But the case on Jasper Sparks was made right then and there. I considered trying to make the arrest myself, but I decided it would mean killing him, and probably Arps as well. There was a better way.
“Where in the world did you get that thing?” I asked, pointing at the wrecking bar.
“I noticed it right inside the door of the storeroom as we came through,” he said. “I better get rid of it, too.”
He gave the bar a quick wipe-down with his handkerchief, than heaved it over the fence far out into the acre or so of knee-high weeds that lay behind the club. Freddie Arps soon returned. “Is he coming?” Jasper asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Arps replied. “And he just happened to be in a stolen car tonight. Clean plates and the works. We won’t even have to snatch a vehicle here.”
“Great,” Jasper said. “But does Lardass ever drive anything but a stolen car? I mean, does he even own a car of his own?”
“Beats me,” Arps replied with a shrug.
A moment later Lardass Collins came wheeling around the corner in a white Buick Electra and pulled up right beside the Du
mpster. It was only a matter of a few seconds’ work for the four of us to have the bodies loaded in the trunk.
“Piece of cake,” Arps said. “Now what?”
“Same old shit, I guess,” Jasper said. “We go about an hour out north of town and leave the car in the woods somewhere.” He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and handed them to Arps. “I’ll ride with Lardass. You follow in my Lincoln. How about you, Hog? You okay?”
“I think so, but I probably ought to get home and check the damage. One of those guys caught me pretty good in the kidney.”
“Good idea. Got any pain pills?” he asked.
I shook my head. He pulled a small bottle out of his pocket and tossed it over to me. “Percodan,” he said. “I use it sometimes to take the edge off the coke, you know?”
I nodded in amazement and thought, Jasper Sparks: Freelance apothecary and impromptu hitman. Call Jasper. He solves your problems. A man for all occasions. What a mess.
He opened the passenger side door and climbed in the Electra beside Collins. “Hope you’re okay, Hog,” he said. “I’ve got a friendly doctor here in town if you need anything stronger. And don’t worry about this shit. It’s really no big deal.”
He closed the door and the Buick sped away into the night, leaving me thoroughly shaken. Once again it had been brought home to me how impulsive Jasper and his ilk were. Not only had he killed two men but he’d done so in front of an ex-cop he had little reason to trust beyond a few rumors and my participation in a minor dope deal. He believed I was solid because he wanted to believe it, because such a belief reinforced his view of human nature. Just as I believed because I wanted to that the job was over, and that Sparks was on his way to Parchman Penitentiary, that all I had to do was call Curtis Blanchard as soon as I got back to my apartment and then half the cops in south Mississippi would be looking for that white Buick. How little I really knew. A year in combat and seventeen years on the Dallas County Sheriff ‘s Department, and I was still a babe in the woods.
Seventeen
The Sweet and the Dead Page 10