He continued to scrutinize me as if I were some piss-poor excuse for a game warden. I guessed Woody hadn’t yet bothered to fill Virgil in that he’d gone and bought himself a real, live U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent. If Woody didn’t feel it was important enough to alert his brother, I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to break the good news. As far as Virgil knew, I was still the enemy. I decided to use it to my advantage.
“Listen, Virgil. I could stand here and play games with you, but I can tell you’re not the kind of man to be taken in by that sort of thing. I’d just be wasting both of our time and not giving you the proper respect you deserve.”
The storm clouds began to soften. Whoever said women are the only ones taken in by flattery? Men’s egos are the size of overblown basketballs.
“So, I’m just going to lay it on the line and be honest with you. After all, from what I hear, you’re the main man around these parts.”
I was almost certain that I saw Virgil’s lip begin to quiver. Yep. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
“I’ve been told that Woody is supplying your bar with paddlefish roe. You must be aware that he doesn’t have a license, which makes that illegal. And since your business is profiting from the sale of illicit property, I’m afraid you’re an accessory to the fact. That means, besides paying a large fine, you’ll have to show me a complete accounting of the Sho Nuf’s records.”
It was a good thing I’d tried to soften Virgil up before hitting him with my verbal bat. Otherwise, I’d hate to think of how he would have reacted. The clouds quickly regrouped, bigger and badder than ever. He squinted, causing his peepers to disappear under two folds of fat.
“Who in the hell would tell you a bald-faced lie like that?” Virgil thundered. He began to rock back and forth on feet the size of small boulders.
I wasn’t sure if he was about to explode, or getting ready to lunge for my throat. I was just glad my gun was within easy reach.
“Your brother passed on that little tidbit,” I informed him.
Virgil lifted the butchered hog off his shoulders and raised it high above his head, then threw the bloody carcass at my feet.
“That no good, lying, useless sack of shit!” he erupted. “And you fell for that crap? You can’t actually believe my customers would eat lousy fish eggs, when my place is world-famous for good barbecue!”
If this was the way Virgil treated the food he cooked, I could only imagine the sanitation level in his kitchen.
“In that case, I’ll be sure and call ahead for reservations the next time I’m in the area,” I quipped.
Bad move—Big Boy’s nostrils actually started to flare.
“Goddammit to hell!” Virgil furiously bellowed.
He took out his anger by kicking at the dog, who’d made the mistake of standing between us. Virgil missed by a sliver of an inch, and the pooch let out a terrified yelp as she scampered behind me. She remained there, quaking against my legs, pathetically whimpering. Raping women and abusing little dogs. Ooh, yeah. Virgil was quite the guy.
“All I know is what your brother told me,” I responded, determined to stand my ground. “Unless you can prove otherwise, I don’t see any reason not to believe him.”
“And just how do you expect me to do that?” Virgil sullenly demanded.
Glory hallelujah! I love it when gathering information is this easy. But then, I’d laid a fairly decent trap. I pretended to ponder his question.
“Well, there is one way. If he’s not selling the eggs to you, then maybe you can tell me who he is selling them to. That would help get you off the hook.”
Virgil hesitated, his eyes slowly moving from left to right as he thought it over. He’d almost become a little too quiet for my liking, when he voiced his opinion with a loud, obnoxious snort.
“That is, unless you prefer I go through all your records with a fine-toothed comb,” I added, providing a helpful nudge.
Virgil’s stare moved along my figure, steady as an elevator working its way up from the ground floor. I got the distinct impression that it was quite a while since he’d been with a woman. Call it a wild hunch, but I’d bet that his source for blind dates had pretty well dried up.
When Virgil finished his visual tour, his little piggy eyes locked onto mine. A crude snigger that could have passed as the punctuation mark at the end of a dirty joke followed.
“Okay. Why not? Like you say, it’ll get me off the hook. Besides, I don’t see nobody else watching out for my rear. Woody’s selling paddlefish roe to a woman by the name of Mavis Newcomb.”
Mavis Newcomb. The name had a familiar ring. It took a mere second before I realized why. Not only did she own one of the largest junkyards in the South, but it was the place where Gena had worked. Regardless of that, it was impossible not to know her name if you lived anywhere around the Memphis area: cheaply made commercials advertising her junkyard flooded the local airways day and night. The Memphis paper had gone so far as to publish an editorial denouncing what it called Newcomb’s “barrage of visual pollution.”
Every spot featured a middle-aged woman buried beneath a beehive of heavily lacquered blond hair. The joke was that she always sat on top of a new pile of junk. It appeared as if the “inventory” couldn’t fly out of her place fast enough.
“If you want junk, we got it,” she gushed in an accent straight out of Petticoat Junction. “And if you got junk to sell, why then, y’all come down and see me about that, too,” Mavis added with a coy wink.
But, paddlefish roe?
“Are you talking about Mavis Newcomb, the junk queen?” I asked in astonishment.
“Sho ’nuf,” Virgil sneered. “Rumor has it, she had her last husband knocked off in some sort of hunting ‘accident.’ She’d taken one hell of a life insurance policy out on him, from what I hear. Something like two hundred grand. I guess that’s how she set herself up in the caviar business. People say she’s even buying those really illegal eggs these days.”
The information dangled like a Hostess Twinkie in front of my nose.
“Really illegal eggs? As opposed to what? The ones that aren’t so illegal?” I countered.
Virgil must have been feeling mighty good about handing over Mavis; he actually seemed to be enjoying the repartee.
“You know what I’m talking about, Porter. Eggs from paddlefish that have been caught in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Not that Woody’s doing any of his fishing there.”
Of course not.
The problem was, the demand for caviar continued to escalate along with the New York Stock Exchange, while the supply of sturgeon and paddlefish proceeded to steadily go down. Paddlefish were just about gone from Tennessee waters, causing poachers to venture further south. Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana had had the foresight to prohibit the taking of all paddlefish in their waters, determining it was the best way to save the species. Naturally, that also made those states the best places to poach.
“Why wouldn’t Woody be involved in something like that?” I asked.
“Hell, you’ve seen how he lives! That brother of mine is so damn useless, he can barely catch enough legal fish to feed his family. There’s no way he makes decent money from poaching. All he’s doing is picking up small change here and there,” Big Boy shot back.
I gazed across Virgil’s own palatial estate and found it interesting that he could so easily pass judgment on his brother. His hogs seemed to grunt in agreement. But then, Virgil didn’t realize that ten grand of Woody’s illicit money was already in my hot little hands. It made me wonder how much loot Big Boy might possibly have stashed away.
“Thanks for the tip about Mavis. But, out of curiosity, why did you decide to pass on so much information about her? Giving me her name would have been enough.”
Virgil spat on the ground, and the repugnant splatter landed on the butchered hog. Mmm. Someone was going to be getting extra special sauce on their ribs tonight.
“Because that bitch is my ex-w
ife. She deserves whatever she gets.”
Now there was a religious, forgiving man for you.
I headed toward my Ford, casting an occasional glimpse back to make sure Big Boy wasn’t sneaking up on me. It was only as I started down the road that I let out a sigh of relief—until I glanced in the rearview mirror. Virgil’s little dog was running after the Excursion with all the determination of a born-again greyhound. My breath caught in my throat and my eyes began to burn. I knew it wouldn’t be wise to further alienate Virgil by stopping and taking the dog with me. Not yet, at least. She slowly gave up, until she stood defeated in the middle of the path.
Damn Virgil! Damn Woody! And damn all the others who would abuse and misuse any living creature.
I continued on until the dog finally disappeared from sight.
Six
Mavis Newcomb had just been catapulted to the top of my To-Do list, but first I needed a little pick-me-up. It was midmorning and my Froot Loops and Cap’n Crunch combo had already worn off. Fortunately, I’d replenished my glove box stash. I pulled out a Nestlé Crunch bar and proceeded to down it. My energy quotient immediately shot through the roof, so I didn’t have to break Terri’s newly imposed health regimen by drinking a fourth cup of coffee.
I flew past the kudzu and turned south on Highway 51 without having the slightest idea where I was going. Though I’d seen Mavis Newcomb’s commercials hundreds of times, I’d never paid the least bit of attention to where her place was located. The other nugget of information I needed was whether Miss Mavis might actually be a registered caviar dealer. If so, she’d be on record with the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency as having purchased the required license for two hundred and fifty dollars. Not that it would make any difference, should she be buying illegal eggs, but it would give her a better cover.
The problem was that calling state agents would raise a red flag of suspicion. There’d be all those annoying questions: Why did I want to know? Was there a problem? The fewer people who knew what I was up to, the better. Besides, it wasn’t only Fish and Wildlife that considered me a loose cannon; for the first time in recorded history, the feds and the local authorities had actually begun to agree on something. Who would have figured I’d be the one to bring them together? That left me with no other choice than to call the Boss Man. A list of registered caviar dealers might possibly be buried beneath all that crap on his desk.
“Well, well. It’s nice of you to call and pay your respects,” Hickok growled into the receiver. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d taken the day off and gone to get yourself a pedicure.”
Hickok had seen my feet once, and never let me forget it. I had an impressive collection of bunions and corns from my days of wearing high heels as an actress. He’d made a comment; I’d snapped back that at least I wasn’t a human homing device for chiggers. Then we’d buried the hatchet over a couple of candy bars and beer.
“Listen, Bronx. You ain’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of pulling this thing off unless we work together as a team. Going undercover isn’t a one-man operation—it calls for logistics and strategy. And as far as I know, you ain’t got no training in either. Two brains have to be working together on this thing. Otherwise, you’re gonna find something coming back to bite you in the ass just when you least expect it. Which means, I want to know where your rear end is at all times!”
“Gee, Charlie. Does this mean you really, really like me?” I teased.
“What it means is that I don’t intend to have my retirement plans flushed down the toilet. Now, where in the hell have you been this morning?”
I figured he was bound to find out sooner or later. Besides, he’d want to know why I’d decided to focus on Mavis Newcomb as a suspect.
“I paid a visit to Virgil Hardy.”
“That el cuco cuco? And you walked out alive?”
Hickok actually sounded impressed. I smiled and gave myself a mental pat on the back.
“Congratulations, Bronx. You’re both lucky and stupid,” he jabbed, promptly deflating my ego.
“I called for something other than your undivided moral support, Charlie.”
“Oh, yeah? And what might that be?” he inquired.
It didn’t require mental telepathy to click in to the fact that he reveled in holding all the cards.
“I need a list of licensed dealers for paddlefish eggs.” I paused, before nonchalantly delivering the second part of my request. “And by the way, I could also use the name and address of Mavis Newcomb’s junkyard if you happen to have it handy.”
My inquiry was met by a moment of silence. Well, not really. I was sure I could hear Charlie quietly chuckling to himself.
“Now, ain’t that interesting. What are you planning to do? Redecorate that warehouse you live in? Or could this somehow be connected to that list of caviar dealers you want?”
Maybe my problem was that I’d been working alone for too long. Obviously, I was going to have to learn how to play well with others, whether I liked it or not.
“Virgil claims his brother Woody has been catching and selling paddlefish eggs to Mavis for extra bucks on the side. Evidently she’s grown tired of being queen of the junk trade and has decided to branch out.”
“You got that tidbit from Virgil?”
“I swear on the Dixie Rebel House of the Lord.”
Hickok clicked his tongue, and I knew he was shaking his head.
“Just goes to show that even a blind hog can find an acorn every now and then.”
“How about just giving me the information I want?” I asked testily.
Charlie must have felt a flicker of remorse; he came up with both her home and her work addresses. Then he told me to hold on and laid the phone down. I could hear him rooting through papers as he cursed under his breath. I passed the time by scrutinizing my collection of candy bars and deciding which one to eat next.
Hickok finally picked the phone back up. “Okay. I found it.”
A moment later he exploded into a second round of colorful expletives.
“Goddammit to hell,” he grumbled. “They print the type on these damn things so small you need a damn magnifying glass to read ’em.”
In other words, Charlie was now going to have to embark on a hunting expedition for his glasses. The ones that no one was supposed to know he wore. I heard a drawer open and then slam shut.
“Let’s see here. Huh! This is interesting. Seems there are only six licensed dealers for paddlefish eggs in the entire state. And guess what? Mavis Newcomb ain’t one of ’em.”
He cleared his throat and began to rattle something against his teeth. Probably the dreaded glasses.
“You know what Bronx? This dog just may run.”
That was Charlie’s way of telling me that we might have one hell of a good case.
“I think you oughta get the lead out and pay Our Lady of the Junkyard a visit.”
I gritted my teeth to stop myself from saying, No kidding!
Hickok began to munch on something that sounded distinctly like peanut brittle.
“And what are you doing to keep yourself busy this morning?” I needled.
“The usual. Just fighting crime and stamping out lawlessness. By the way, I want your rear end in the office after you’ve finished your chat with the junk queen. I’ll even sweeten the prospect by buying you lunch.”
That would be a first. Maybe Charlie really was beginning to appreciate me. I hung up my cell phone, polished off a Mars bar, and took off.
Seven
Mavis Newcomb’s home address was in the upscale Central Gardens District, but her shop was an entirely different matter. If you take Highway 51 far enough south, it turns into Elvis Presley Boulevard. I followed that now, as the charm of downtown Memphis disintegrated into a ticky-tacky strip of run-down storefronts. Elvis would have been appalled to see what had become of the boulevard anointed in his memory.
It wasn’t until I approached Graceland that the boulevard resumed its former glory
, fueled by the moneymaking power of its namesake. I flew past Graceland Plaza with its souvenir shops selling Elvis tee-shirts, coffee mugs, and key chains. Nearby sat the Heartbreak Hotel, along with his two private jets, the Hound Dog II and the Lisa Marie. If that wasn’t enough, one could always pop into the Elvis Presley Automobile Museum. Finally, there was Graceland, itself. Should you choose to visit his home, an eighteen-dollar ticket provides a recorded tour narrated by ex-wife Priscilla, who lovingly relates Elvis’s fondness for guns, karate, and gospel music.
I continued until I caught sight of the red light in the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts window. It signaled that a batch of one of the world’s most perfectly realized creations was fresh and piping hot. I’d already passed up numerous convenience stores tempting me with their array of Little Debbie Snack Cakes and Moon Pies, but this was asking way too much. I slammed on my brakes, ran in, grabbed a sack full of the glazed wonders along with two cups of coffee, and continued on.
Soon after, I turned onto the side street where the Best Little Junk Shop in Memphis was located. There was no need for the sign out front; all it took was one look to know I’d arrived at the desired location. An explosion of garbage littered four of God’s little Tennessee acres.
Old refrigerators, screen doors, and window frames stood next to battered bicycles and ancient pick-up trucks. Cable jumpers, boxes of screws, hammers, and pliers declared that it was possible to fix up anything. Lava lamps, empty cigar boxes, and crutches “found at Lourdes” defied gravity by tottering dangerously on top of a you-can’t-buy-this-for-less Scandinavian coffee table. Luck was certainly on your side if you happened to want a broken-down freezer. Handy at fixing washing machines? Then this was your spot.
I spied a sofa that looked suspiciously like the one in my own living room. Both were upholstered in a dark burgundy fabric splattered with little white flowers. As for the odd pieces that made up my eclectic set of dinnerware, I think I had just found the rest of their matching ends. There were mirrors, cookie jars, and ceramic figurines. I’d landed in tchotchke heaven. A junk archeologist could have written a thesis on this place.
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